Which came first, the Sword or the Shield?

[troytheface]

artillary and molotov coctail throwers were around

i think artillary knocked more tanks out than anything (?)

at any rate the game could have made it that u use catapults and utilizes the kill mech promotion (to attach to a a low tech unit) when someone can build tanks.

it is hard to dismiss the op's original statement.

 

[Beeblbrox]

From PieMaster

I play on Prince and find that quite hard. Very occasionally I win...

... and you are content with that. In that respect I believe you are unusual. My comparison of Civ to Chess that some found difficult to comprehend is that while players of Chess are content to be fixed into echelons of difficulty/ranking, most computer gamers are not (they expect comparatively rapid progression). Leaving the majority of players firmly fixed at the level 'below average', will, in my opinion, harm Civ in the long run.

Some comments have been made about the my post being mostly directed at 'difficulty gradient'. Not quite the point I'm trying to make but certainly it underpins much of what I am saying. I do believe that with 8 difficulty levels efforts should be made to try and aim the game such that the divide is 12.5%/12.5%/12.5%/12.5% etc. Rather than 30%/30%/25%/8%/4%..1% etc. I do not believe we are actually at the point where Deity is only acheivable by 1%, but I fear steps being made in that direction.

This, the Anti-Tank, and more generally the point made regarding 'obvious tactics' being discouraged by the current status quo (which nobody has actually answered yet), I feel *do* lead us down the path to Deity being made attainable only by a very small selection of players.

Serious gamers like a challenge, just be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater when trying to create that challenge.

 

[Piemaster]

Exactly, it requires a massive amount of rationalising, in fact some very dubious rationalising, purely to allow what at best can be generously described as a Game Balancing 'Feature'.

When dubious methods such as this are crowbarred into a game, surely we should ask ourselves, 'does this indicate a more fundamental problem'?

There's no way to be sure, of course, but I always assumed that the reason we have units with bonuses against other types of units is so that you would need a balanced attack force to take (and possibly to defend) a city, rather than as many of the one 'best' unit as you could produce.

 

[Edzako]

artillary and molotov coctail throwers were around

i think artillary knocked more tanks out than anything (?)

at any rate the game could have made it that u use catapults and utilizes the kill mech promotion (to attach to a a low tech unit) when someone can build tanks.

it is hard to dismiss the op's original statement.

Technical problems knocked out more tanks than anything.

 

[Beeblbrox]

From AfterShafter:

OP, you consider that you're just playing the wrong game, and that you have read the group that plays this game quite incorrectly? And I say this well aware that you signed up for this forum in 2001.

AfterShafter, you have some valid points that certainly need answering directly (which I will in a subsequent post), but I get from the general gist you are mostly simply offended by my confrontational attitude, and labelling this friendly community as led by cliquey elitists.

There are reasons for my attitude, from my experiences on this forum.

Firstly, I love Civ. I have pubs and resteraunts I can go to, friends to be with family to visit, but I spend disgusting mounts of time obsessing about the game. And, I do love Civfanatics, despite how I may come across from time to time.

The reasons are two major battles I had here, one succesful, one unsuccesful. Both had the trait of having of fight entrenched viewpoints, that 'the status quo' was good, and should be played to, regardless of any other consideration.

My succesful one was an argument in Civ3 against the introduction of fatal bombardment. While I had some support for my viewpoint, it wasn't until I emailed a leading military historian who fortunately for me, shared my viewpoint. Until then, the growing opinion was that lethal bombardment would be a good game mechanic and obviously suited an influential portion of the community. Reasoned argument and common sense were not sufficient in the face of status quo opinion.

The unsuccesful one was an attempt to get OCN (optimal city number) revoked from Civ mechanics. Again, status quo oposition, this time however far greater and more concerted. Despite OCN having absolutely no real world parallels, it remains in the game and I still can see no use for it other than artificially restricting the rapid expansion tactic which is clearly out of favour with the community (due to Civ2 where the Ai was hopeless. That the Ai has since improved to make OCN in my opinion redundant is now a lost case).

In both cases I take the stance that 'if it aint seen in real life it shouldn't be seen in Civ'. Likewise this Anti-Tank argument. Club comes first, then the Shield. If there are some tactics that are blatantly obvious, well I've repeatedly pointed out that this is because in world history there are some blatantly obvious critical points that had to happen because they were obvious. That we should eschew this universal truth for the playing styles of some that find it 'too easy' is disingenuous, and utterly out of keeping with the original spirit of the game.

In both cases, and this I have been arguing against the status quo. Hence my entrenched stance. People here are a friendly bunch, I certainly agree, and I have experience of far more elitist groups and games. They tend to die and fade away though, because they don't allow dissent or take people with differing views seriously. Civfanatics does, and I intend to continue to use that wisely placed trust with the respect it deserves.

I just don't happen to agree with the majority here

 

[r_rolo1]

Am I the only one that see that Anti-Tank does not come before Tanks? You don't need the techs to make anti-Tank to make tanks and vice versa. It is the same thing that saying that catapults come after swordsmen.....

P.S And, just for the record, shields are useful for a far broader range than only defending from swords: spears, axes, stones, arrows... and they were invented far before swords, that is for sure

 

[Beeblbrox]

There's no way to be sure, of course, but I always assumed that the reason we have units with bonuses against other types of units is so that you would need a balanced attack force to take (and possibly to defend) a city, rather than as many of the one 'best' unit as you could produce.

I have no doubt that is a great part of the intention. But sometimes (sometimes only mind) a a huge bunch of hairy dudes on horseback is enough to knock over the most sophisticated and comprehensively equipped Empire on the planet

 

[AlphaShard]

It's like how you can get Writing before Alphabet, it really doesn't make much sense.

 

[Beeblbrox]

French SOMUA S35 was far superior than anything Germans could put against them. Germans had superior doctrine, tactics in CIV4 terms. And Dunkirk ultimately was German failure, because Goring promised to deal with encircled troops by his own (he was commander of Luftwaffe) but failed to do so and British got away with mini scale damage.

I bow to your superior historical knowledge. The point remains though, we ended up on the beaches as there was nothing significant to throw against the mechanised forces to start with. I believe the reverse happened in WW1 when we had very early tanks which the Germans didn't. I'm sure you will correct me on those details if necessary however.

 

[r_rolo1]

It's like how you can get Writing before Alphabet, it really doesn't make much sense.

Roughly 1/6 of the world population still writes today without a alphabet and writing in RL was invented some millenia before the invention of alphabet.

 

[AfterShafter]

From PieMaster


Exactly, it requires a massive amount of rationalising, in fact some very dubious rationalising, purely to allow what at best can be generously described as a Game Balancing 'Feature'.

When dubious methods such as this are crowbarred into a game, surely we should ask ourselves, 'does this indicate a more fundamental problem'?

This is what I am trying to drive at overall with my post. Even if my careful original post and comprehensive responses to counterpoints are described by some as 'rambling'.

Ok, let's ask ourselves that question... The answer? Obvious. No - there is no fundamental problem. Not any more than Abe Lincoln and Shaka battling it out on a tundra island in the stone age - which can and does happen.

I still don't see what you're getting at exactly. What I DO see is that you're somehow tying that you can create an anti-tank gun before a tank is created to player elitism and some fundamental flaw in game design that somehow involves difficulty levels that some players may never reach being bad. I don't know if you've noticed, but Civ never even hinted at anything but being a game about the most far-fetched historical fiction imaginable, that will require *tremendous* rationalization from the moment Mao Zedong's first warrior crawls out of a hut to go exploring only to find itself staring down a bear and another warrior with a funny moustache who claims to be something called "French." In a game where Mao and Stalin can and will adopt Democracy as surely as Churchill and Roosevelt will jump onto the State Property bandwagon, I have no idea why you've focused so much on something that several people have pointed out could even make sense in a funny sort of way.

 

[Edzako]

I bow to your superior historical knowledge. The point remains though, we ended up on the beaches as there was nothing significant to throw against the mechanised forces to start with. I believe the reverse happened in WW1 when we had very early tanks which the Germans didn't. I'm sure you will correct me on those details if necessary however.

Well actually Germans had only 2/3 of armored vehicles France/UK had, difference was they used them in several big formations (panzer groups), while French doctrine was to use them in petty groups with ultimate goal to "assist infantry", what effectively eroded their main advantage - speed, oh and British went for strange concept that involved almost no infantry support for tanks. And even after Germans did made their balzy move and break trough Ardennes French could have stopped them provided they knew where main attack angle is. Which they didn't, Germans used their areal superiority very well too and in the end French lost their nerve and capitulated in 40 days, that isn't even 1 turn in CIV4 terms .

And yes in WW1 Brits did have some good attacks provided they could achieve surprise and was massed in sufficient strength. Surprise was quite hard after first battle at Somme, which was success but using them correctly (en masse) was something generals failed to grasp.Gudearian have some good books about this topic, he was main mastermind behind German armored unit doctrine too, despite fact that British thinkers dominated inter-war period. Though Wikipedia will suffice.

Edit. Actually I just read it trough and it makes a lot of sense in CIV terms too (close air support, infantry support, need to mass tanks etc., maybe reading "Achtung panzer " wasn't waste at all)

 

[AfterShafter]

From AfterShafter:



AfterShafter, you have some valid points that certainly need answering directly (which I will in a subsequent post), but I get from the general gist you are mostly simply offended by my confrontational attitude, and labelling this friendly community as led by cliquey elitists.

There are reasons for my attitude, from my experiences on this forum.

Firstly, I love Civ. I have pubs and resteraunts I can go to, friends to be with family to visit, but I spend disgusting mounts of time obsessing about the game. And, I do love Civfanatics, despite how I may come across from time to time.

The reasons are two major battles I had here, one succesful, one unsuccesful. Both had the trait of having of fight entrenched viewpoints, that 'the status quo' was good, and should be played to, regardless of any other consideration.

My succesful one was an argument in Civ3 against the introduction of fatal bombardment. While I had some support for my viewpoint, it wasn't until I emailed a leading military historian who fortunately for me, shared my viewpoint. Until then, the growing opinion was that lethal bombardment would be a good game mechanic and obviously suited an influential portion of the community. Reasoned argument and common sense were not sufficient in the face of status quo opinion.

The unsuccesful one was an attempt to get OCN (optimal city number) revoked from Civ mechanics. Again, status quo oposition, this time however far greater and more concerted. Despite OCN having absolutely no real world parallels, it remains in the game and I still can see no use for it other than artificially restricting the rapid expansion tactic which is clearly out of favour with the community (due to Civ2 where the Ai was hopeless. That the Ai has since improved to make OCN in my opinion redundant is now a lost case).

In both cases I take the stance that 'if it aint seen in real life it shouldn't be seen in Civ'. Likewise this Anti-Tank argument. Club comes first, then the Shield. If there are some tactics that are blatantly obvious, well I've repeatedly pointed out that this is because in world history there are some blatantly obvious critical points that had to happen because they were obvious. That we should eschew this universal truth for the playing styles of some that find it 'too easy' is disingenuous, and utterly out of keeping with the original spirit of the game.

In both cases, and this I have been arguing against the status quo. Hence my entrenched stance. People here are a friendly bunch, I certainly agree, and I have experience of far more elitist groups and games. They tend to die and fade away though, because they don't allow dissent or take people with differing views seriously. Civfanatics does, and I intend to continue to use that wisely placed trust with the respect it deserves.

I just don't happen to agree with the majority here

Yes, I do find your overall point a bit offensive (I mean, why start in with that lingo in the first place? Your posting has slight hints of being a common forum troll, though I do not believe that is the case) but the more I read your posting and arguing your point, the more I think your point is the one that's fundamentally nonsensical.

The central thrusts of your position seem to be that higher difficulties drive players away, leaving them with some inadequate feeling as if they deserve to be Monarch players when they can only pull Noble, and that certain tech progressions don't make sense. You go on to compare the game to chess on the difficulty front, and on the "tech is bad" front have modified your proposal to "clubs" rather than "swords" since obviously shields came well before swords in history.

Concerning these points individually, and why they just strike me as utter nonsense, let's start with the "bad technology" argument first. Tech... Yes, Civ says it's educational on the front of the box (though looking at my box, it sure doesn't - but, I do believe it could well say that on some of them), which obligates it to some degree of historical accuracy. The thing is, it does have some degree of historical accuracy and is loaded with historical information of varying accuracy. There have been raging debates about the Civilopedia in this forum, but it has to be granted that one could get a general outline of the life and times of some of history's greatest leaders from the Civilopedia. The game itself is unashamed historical fiction that is very far-fetched in nature - and it doesn't even pretend to be otherwise. That being the case, in which wildly unrealistic things happen between real historical figures, you've chosen to pick on something concerning the ordering of techs that is A) only a very small violation of the sort of historical consistency the game openly throws out the window in much more significant ways elsewhere, and B) is something that was pretty obviously done to make building armies that are 99% tanks less viable. The funny thing is, that WOULD be historically inaccurate, and the inclusion of anti-tanks is a serviceable move across many difficulties that makes the late game much less of a "tank wars" and gives a way for players who get stiffed with resources a way to proceed without feeling utterly helpless and unhappy/frustrated fighting an opponent with tanks. Seeing as one of your two major arguments is trying to prevent gamers from becoming unhappy, well, go figure - leaving a guy who doesn't have certain resources utterly hooped in the late game because he can't build tanks would probably upset a lot of players, average and "elite," and anti-tanks are not a bad solution to this.

The difficulty argument. I don't know what to say here. You go on and on about the elite little cliques patting each other on the back for overcoming these obscene challenges, but what's the actual suggestion you're making? I don't know if you've noticed, but these difficulties aren't called "You're an Idiot," "Ok You're Still an Idiot But Better than that Loser," and "You're Finally Competent" - no, they're Noble, Monarch, etc. The whole thrust of your case seems to be that there being higher difficulties which a majority of the players out there can't beat will drive them away and hurt Civ. What would you prefer - them to have only low difficulties so the current people who can barely beat noble feel like they are the best out there? Then the game would clearly be ignoring the crowd of players that have been playing Civ for decades, giving them no challenges to move onto. If someone gets upset because they're stuck on Prince and will never beat Deity and that hurts Civ, well, that person is virtually throwing a tantrum because they can't reach the cookie jar - life is like that. Luckily, most of us are mature enough to simply realize, "Hey, just because I can't play in the NBA because I'm not nor will I ever be good enough isn't any reason for me to be upset or for them to be eliminated just so I can feel like I'm the best basketball player out there." Higher difficulty levels aren't this divisive community-splitting design decision like you're suggesting - they're an industry norm across countless thousands of games, and they are that because they accommodate more gamers than the alternative of making everyone feel good by limiting difficulty. Your position on this makes no sense to me, since you've completely misread the effect of having these incredible heights of difficulty in Civ - it's those heights which keep people playing, and if you REALLY want to hurt Civ, give it nothing but easy difficulties so everyone can reach the top. Watch the allure of the game fade in time as it becomes too easy.

I really just disagree with your positions on a fundamental level. Anti-tanks before tanks is not a fundamental error that we should be upset about - it's quite consistent with a design MO of "Fudge history a bit so the game can be more fun and user friendly." The inclusion of "insurmountable" difficulty levels doesn't hurt Civ, it helps Civ by giving people goals they can constantly aspire to - rock climbers don't hate rock climbing because they will never be able to scale certain peaks, they enjoy the activity and aspire towards heights they may never reach. That's fundamental to the whole process of learning and accomplishment, and your arguments just seem to be against that whole facet of the human condition... The whole calling a really friendly, helpful, and accessible gaming community a bunch of elitists is just icing to what I think is wrong with your whole line of argument.

 

[say1988]

The point of difficulty levels is that people who put in more time and effort retain a challenge while people who don't still have a challenging option. Play on your level, if you don't have the time or ability to play a higher level, then don't.

If civ were realistic you would start with very slow, weak tanks (early tanks were extremely vulnerable to heavy machineguns and artillery) and get AT weapons at the same time (Germans deployed armour piercing rounds almost immediately after the first tanks were used). It isn't like the Tiger was the first tank used in battle. Still, in this game if the enemy doesn't have enough anti-tanks you can easily cut through them with your own tanks, hell anti-tanks can stall an armoured attack but they won't break you, just bring a little support.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Some comments have been made about the my post being mostly directed at 'difficulty gradient'. Not quite the point I'm trying to make but certainly it underpins much of what I am saying. I do believe that with 8 difficulty levels efforts should be made to try and aim the game such that the divide is 12.5%/12.5%/12.5%/12.5% etc. Rather than 30%/30%/25%/8%/4%..1% etc. I do not believe we are actually at the point where Deity is only acheivable by 1%, but I fear steps being made in that direction.

I'm afraid a meteor is going to hit only my house, too. Rational.

You ARE aware that these difficulty gradations have been around for many installments of civ? That BTS made the higher difficulties EASIER, not HARDER?

... and you are content with that. In that respect I believe you are unusual. My comparison of Civ to Chess that some found difficult to comprehend is that while players of Chess are content to be fixed into echelons of difficulty/ranking, most computer gamers are not (they expect comparatively rapid progression). Leaving the majority of players firmly fixed at the level 'below average', will, in my opinion, harm Civ in the long run.

I don't see any difference between the elite in civ and any other game. The only difference is the difficulty scale. I don't get what the issue is. If you care about it, improve, if not then don't! Why whine about the existence of higher difficulties than you can accomplish? Do you truly believe you can't attain them? If so, THAT is the fundamental flaw, not the game.

As for tech path inconsistencies, IMO it's a flaw, but I truly doubt it's one fireaxis put in intentionally to strengthen the AI. The AI will build those anti-tanks even against infantry, where they are utter garbage. I'm almost certain that elements like this exist for two reasons:

1) The entire fundamental design of civ does not lend itself well to actual history, since we have leaders living 6000 years and armies taking 10 years to march one tile etc and

2) They fell short on beta testers or lack balancing experience. Most of my complaints fall in this category, and include the few situations where the interface actively lies to the player and the capitulation mechanics (which are excessively stupid but don't necessarily favor the AI).

 

[PreLynMax]

I ask this as a rhetorical question, obviously. However in Civ it seems this is not the case.

It is perfectly possible to discover and build Anti-Tank units long before anyone in the world even knows what a tank is. Likewise, Grenadiers may be built, with their advantage against Riflemen, many techs before knowing what a Redcoat looks like.

Again, I rhetorically ask - why?

The simple answer is the 'Civ is too easy' mob. Tanks provide a clear, significant advantage over any nation that does not possess them. The select Elite cry out 'oh my that's far too easy a tactic, just be first to get tanks'.

Let's brush aside common sense for a moment and try to answer this small mob on their own terms. Pointing out that mechanised armies historically (thats the real world history, i.e. in actual real life) have repeatedly triumphed in nation vs. nation conflicts isn't a good enough explanation for these people.

It may be an easy tactic on lower levels, for a large number of people. But please remember that quite a significant proportion on people will never advance beyond Noble difficulty, because, much as I hate to blow sunshine up some peoples backsides, Civ is a hard game such that many people will never even see the likes of Monarch, Emperor difficulties because the time investment to get that 'good' is too large for them.

The vast, vast majority of the playing populace cannot even conceive winning at Immortal or Deity levels. So to leave a couple of tactics in that are 'obvious' to the select Elite - is this really such a bad thing? Is Civ meant to pander to a clique of a couple of thousand (if that)? I would say not.

Civ is already difficult. It always has been, alway will be - the concepts, trains of thought and planning, management and constraints are far beyond what is required of most games (I have gun, I see move, Me shoot Gun), which is why it is so popular and succesful, because despite all that Civ is really quite accessable to anyone that does want to spend a little time learning those concepts. And I mean a little.

I fear Civ, in it's desperation to pander to this Elite are making the advanced levels more and more inaccessable to the vast majority of players. This is *not* a good thing. I would like to be able to use common sense, with some additions of careful management timing and skill to win, with refinements of these techniques win at harder levels.

I, and guarantee 99% of the playing public, do not want to have to visit sites to 'learn the great and mysterious methods of a handful of Elites', picking up such choice ideas such as 'Do Not Expand Your Empire for at least the first 5000 years beyond 6 or 7 cities or you are screwed - in fact, it is much better to only have one city and win for then we will annoint you into our hallowed brethren'.

Why? Because we like the idea of going through history, matching, echoing, re-enacting the trials and tribulations of History. That's real life, actual life History, note the capital H.

And in History if you had a Sword and the enemy didn't have a Shield, well, you were Quids In.

Hallelujah. Preach on, brother.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Elite players are considered elite for a reason. If players DON'T WANT to put the effort or talent application toward being an elite player, they shouldn't. The rational conclusion is that they don't become elite players then, however, and they shouldn't be massively upset that they can't beat the highest difficulties, which were designed for people who play enough that they add replay value.

Deity was designed such that if you play CLOSE to a perfect game, you'll probably win but not always. Replay value. Seeing players complain about replay value simply because they don't want to improve to that extent rubs me the wrong way quite a bit. Nobody on this forum is going to tell you you suck if you can't beat deity. The game doesn't tell you that either (in fact, the game implies that deity is ridiculously difficult directly in the "mwahahaha, good luck, sucker" description for deity after describing how brutal immortal is). My advise is to get over this mental block the OP has, and decide whether or not you care about getting better. You can't have it both ways.

 

[Beeblbrox]

Yes, I do find your overall point a bit offensive (I mean, why start in with that lingo in the first place? Your posting has slight hints of being a common forum troll, though I do not believe that is the case)

But you are obviously aware that stating something you claim not to believe is a very efficient method of planting that idea in a readers mind. I don't believe I have needed to stoop to individual insult myself. I shall however continue to refrain.

The central thrusts of your position seem to be that higher difficulties drive players away

It does. But that is not the central thrust of my post. The central thrust of my post is that adapting the game to suit those who play at the top is unhealthy for the game as a whole. And I view counter-intuitive additions such as Anti-something-we-don't-know-about units is symptomatic of that.

You go on to compare the game to chess on the difficulty front, and on the "tech is bad" front have modified your proposal to "clubs" rather than "swords" since obviously shields came well before swords in history.

Glad to see you're still pushing the pedantry boat out in the hope of scoring points. I would have thought my acknowledgement of the specific error would have been sufficient to allow appreciation of the more general point. Clearly not.

The game itself is unashamed historical fiction that is very far-fetched in nature - and it doesn't even pretend to be otherwise. That being the case, in which wildly unrealistic things happen between real historical figures, you've chosen to pick on something concerning the ordering of techs that is A) only a very small violation of the sort of historical consistency the game openly throws out the window in much more significant ways elsewhere, and B) is something that was pretty obviously done to make building armies that are 99% tanks less viable.

Civ has become more and more closely tied in small details to history as it progresses. I like this about Civ. I believe many others do as well. I would go as far as to say it's probably why Civ is such a succesful franchise. I don't see that pressing for more of this is a bad thing.

The funny thing is, that WOULD be historically inaccurate, and the inclusion of anti-tanks is a serviceable move across many difficulties that makes the late game much less of a "tank wars" and gives a way for players who get stiffed with resources a way to proceed without feeling utterly helpless and unhappy/frustrated fighting an opponent with tanks. Seeing as one of your two major arguments is trying to prevent gamers from becoming unhappy, well, go figure - leaving a guy who doesn't have certain resources utterly hooped in the late game because he can't build tanks would probably upset a lot of players, average and "elite," and anti-tanks are not a bad solution to this.

I feel the inclusion of the anti-tank is, as has been posted earlier by someone else, a rock-paper-scissor solution. I do not feel that 'chances' should be crowbarred in for Civs that are resource or technologically deficient. That at higher levels you are arguing for chances to be given to the human player who is most likely behind in the race and resource poor just gives weight to my argument that since the vast Ai improvements in Civ thought needs to be given to just how hard Civ *really* is. To take the opposite view of someone who finds it too easy to get to Tanks before the Ai is where I originally posted my argument, and I do not find this a problem. Nothing wrong with one or two obvious tactics imo.

This is where we truly differ I believe - the 'AT is for struggling human players' was never the contention and has been presented to me as a straw man which I have yet to really bite at. I do not feel it was included for human players, it is was and always has been a sop to the 'Civ is too easy/simple' lobby. It can be argued that it helps human players but really, when overpowered/teched by an enemy state the solution has always been diplomacy which we all (experienced Civvers) know. If the community were genuinely concerned about the plight of the up and coming gamer in the face of superior AI more relative concerns would be raised such as the capability of the AI to produce and maintain staggeringly huge SoD at higher levels quickly and easily with no apparent economy to back it, which no amount of rock-paper-scissors additions will help the human player with. So on that basis the 'AT is for needy humans' is pretty much a void argument. It is clearly for the Civ is too easy lobby.

The difficulty argument. I don't know what to say here. You go on and on about the elite little cliques patting each other on the back for overcoming these obscene challenges, but what's the actual suggestion you're making? I don't know if you've noticed, but these difficulties aren't called "You're an Idiot," "Ok You're Still an Idiot But Better than that Loser," and "You're Finally Competent" - no, they're Noble, Monarch, etc. The whole thrust of your case seems to be that there being higher difficulties which a majority of the players out there can't beat will drive them away and hurt Civ. What would you prefer - them to have only low difficulties so the current people who can barely beat noble feel like they are the best out there? Then the game would clearly be ignoring the crowd of players that have been playing Civ for decades, giving them no challenges to move onto.

Well you've never really gone too far off the difficulty thrust of my argument. I will repeat, Civ is difficult, very difficult. Especially for someone that has never picked the game up before. It's light years beyond Civ 1. I can't even conceive how bewildered someone who hasn't had the pleasant experience of having gone hand to hand through the evolution of Civ must feel when first opening up a City page - let alone how daunted they must feel when the new complexities of a rival nation declaring war on them is thrust ino their lap. To those who have followed Civ from 1 through 4 it is easy to forget the acquired knowledge you have picked up over that time and use almost as naturally as breathing.

Should you have exhausted the complexities of Civ and it's Ai to the extent that you need a new challenge I would firstly say 1) You play so much Civ it's probably detrimental to your health and 2) If you really want to develop your deep vein thrombosis try making or asking for even harder mods. That's what mods are for (one of the things anyway). I mean, I'd like an option for no OCN - which incidentally would make a great introductory option for newbies - but I'm not throwing my toys out of the pram until I get one. I'm happy to mod.

If someone gets upset because they're stuck on Prince and will never beat Deity and that hurts Civ, well, that person is virtually throwing a tantrum because they can't reach the cookie jar - life is like that. Luckily, most of us are mature enough to simply realize, "Hey, just because I can't play in the NBA because I'm not nor will I ever be good enough isn't any reason for me to be upset or for them to be eliminated just so I can feel like I'm the best basketball player out there." Higher difficulty levels aren't this divisive community-splitting design decision like you're suggesting - they're an industry norm across countless thousands of games, and they are that because they accommodate more gamers than the alternative of making everyone feel good by limiting difficulty. Your position on this makes no sense to me, since you've completely misread the effect of having these incredible heights of difficulty in Civ - it's those heights which keep people playing, and if you REALLY want to hurt Civ, give it nothing but easy difficulties so everyone can reach the top. Watch the allure of the game fade in time as it becomes too easy.

Goodness me is life really like that? Luckily enough I'm mature enough to realise that when a community gets taken over by that sort of attitude they dwindle and wither until they realise they were only ever playing a PC game in the first place and should learn to be a little more inclusive...

Fortunately Civ aint like that. Yet. Not by a long shot. Long may it stay that way. Thanks for the cookies.

I really just disagree with your positions on a fundamental level. Anti-tanks before tanks is not a fundamental error that we should be upset about - it's quite consistent with a design MO of "Fudge history a bit so the game can be more fun and user friendly."

I don't see attempts to Fudge history being deliberately part of the MO. And removing clear advantages a human may gain over the Ai aint fun or user friendly. It just suits you.

The inclusion of "insurmountable" difficulty levels doesn't hurt Civ, it helps Civ by giving people goals they can constantly aspire to - rock climbers don't hate rock climbing because they will never be able to scale certain peaks, they enjoy the activity and aspire towards heights they may never reach. That's fundamental to the whole process of learning and accomplishment, and your arguments just seem to be against that whole facet of the human condition...

Wow so my entire outlook on life itself is fundamentally flawed? That's a pretty arrogant statement. And just a touch patronising (much like a lot of your post). I think you'll find not all of us have superhuman ambitions. Also I'm pretty sure that what is succesful to the process of learning and accomplishment is nothing to do with unattainable ambition (that just speaks of vanity) and more to do with a steady progression of attainable and reasonable goals.

The whole calling a really friendly, helpful, and accessible gaming community a bunch of elitists is just icing to what I think is wrong with your whole line of argument.

I'm not calling the entire community hostile elitists. Just some.

 

[The_Big_Con]

It seems to me that your problem would be solved if you changed the name of "Anti-tank" to "Bazookaman" or "Grenade Launcher" or "RPG". Any of those terms wouldn't imply that it was invented purely to counter tanks.

 

[Xellos-_^]

Personally i never saw much use for AT except i produce to upgrade to MechInf so that it has the "Ambush" promotion. The best counter i found for someone who has tanks and i don't is to research Flight and built a bunch of bombers. Bombers+Inf >>> Tanks+art. Once you research flight, you can also research adv flight and upgrade your mount units to the Gunship is a lot more useful then the AT.

As for the title question:

Org smash Nog with club
Nog blocks with piece of wood, and the Shielf is born.

First came the club then came the shield