Which came first, the Sword or the Shield?

[Beeblbrox]

Regarding the MO argument specifically - to recover ground, I feel Civ originally looked at History and thought 'how can I best reflect this given the tools available' and built some game mechanics around that. The AT unit smacks of 'we have some nice game mechanics, how can we fudge History around it'. This is thankfully an exception I believe, the Civ creators are still very much in the 'reflecting History' camp in their original outlook, but let's just say that when it came to clearing up pollution in Civ3 it never got more than 1 turn on the map in my games.

 

[Beeblbrox]

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.

You may be surprised to find I can almost go along with this completely. My main exception would be that the Anti-Armour bonus not be available until you have the Tank technology, much like you can't get Pinch without Gunpowder.

 

[MonRiverMonarch]

I 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'.

I really don't think this statement applies to the people on this site. I like reading other people's opinions and game strategies. I've never encountered an elite attitude from the many expert players on this site, many will give a new player advice without sounding like know-it-alls. Your opening post probably antagonized 99% of the people reading it, because although you weren't directing it at anyone here in particular, it sounds like you were...and a lot of people missed some of the good points you had to make.

 

[AlphaShard]

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.

How and with what? Note that I count anything Hyroglyph like to BE an Alphabet.

 

[r_rolo1]

I have one word for you, just one word : China ( well, you can add japan and korea and some other non-alphabetic writings )

With alphabet I mean the definition that is widely used and that appears, among others in the good ol'Britannica:

Set of symbols or characters that represent language’s sounds in writing.

Each character usually represents a simple vowel, a diphthong (two vowels), or one or two consonants. A writing system in which one character represents a whole syllable is called a syllabary. The first alphabet is believed to have been the North Semitic, which originated in the eastern Mediterranean region between 1700 and 1500 bc. Alphabets that arose in the next 500 years included the Canaanite and Aramaic, from which the modern Hebrew and Arabic alphabets descended, and the Greek (ancestor of the Latin alphabet), considered the first true alphabet because it includes both consonants and vowels. Scholars have attempted to establish an exact correspondence between each sound and its symbol in new alphabets such as the International Phonetic Alphabet.

A definition that clearly excludes Chinese writing.

What is stupid is that ingame you can't get Printing press without Alphabet, taking in account that it was what happened in RL....

 

[PieceOfMind]

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.

I still have yet to see you mention multiplayer once, unless I missed a single sentence somewhere.

Really, Civ4 was designed with mlultiplayer in mind as well as SP, for the first time of any civ game. I think Civ3 had multiplayer but let's face it, they didn't try as hard as they did for Civ4.

The point is, from what I've read in your posts, most of your argument rests on how we play single player games. You say ATs were introduced as a rock-paper-scissor solution to help the AI rather than help the human player. What of the scenario where a human player has oil and his human opponent does not, do you say? Is it irrelevant? Without the AT there is really no counter to tanks and you are pretty much a goner if you have no oil. (You also won't have an air force by the way).

So the way I see it, sometimes changes are necessary to balance the game for multiplayer reasons first and then you teach the AI how to use the new features/changes to an acceptable level. Changes that are made for the single player games must keep multiplayer situations in mind.

 

[Napalm102]

Well afeter reading the whole thing, here is my take on this point: for a game balance is more important than realism or historical accuracy. Keep in mind that once you have played through the game once, you basically have foreknowledge of what is to come when you play next time. You know what techs lead to what and what will be effective tactic and what not. IRL people never had that luxury, I mean what with all the assidental discoveries that were made.

Just the fact that you can see your tech tree and plan what 'discovery' is going to come next and you can pretty much throw the whole 'real history' argument out of the window.

The difficulty of the game is a fine balance. Make it too hard and nobody plays, make to easy and people get bored. So find your own niche and play there, and leave the higher difficulty levels to those who are prepared to invest time needed to learn the game.

I will probably never play at immortal, but that's because I am not prepared to make a time investment and learn the game to that level. I do not want to sit there counting hammer overflows or timing my improvement and structure builds to research etc. So I feel comfortable at Monarch, where I can get away with some general planning and a basic understanding of the game and win 3 out of 4 times. Feeling inadequate about it is not serious. I mean by the same token you should be ashamed to show your face on the street because you cannot outplay Jordan in b-ball or Tiger Woods in golf.

 

[r_rolo1]

I guess that the OP would be happy to call "Bazooka infantry" or TOW ( like in Civ III conquests ) to the unit called Anti-Tank ( IMHO it is a very insipid unit that could definitely gain some shine with another added feature, like First strikes ). I agree that the naming was a little unfortunate, but the fact that a weapon can be a good counter in RL of a still to be invented weapon is not that odd: the first anti-tank units were in fact recycled artilery, pretty much as the first anti-aerial

 

[AlphaShard]

I have one word for you, just one word : China ( well, you can add japan and korea and some other non-alphabetic writings )

With alphabet I mean the definition that is widely used and that appears, among others in the good ol'Britannica:

A definition that clearly excludes Chinese writing.

What is stupid is that ingame you can't get Printing press without Alphabet, taking in account that it was what happened in RL....

Really? So what about Kanji? Isn't that the NAME of the Chinese Alphabet? The Greeks use symbols as well as the Egyptians and those are still Alphabets.

 

[say1988]

By definition, given above, hieroglyphs are not an alphabet and neither is Chinese.

 

[Robo-Star]

You may be surprised to find I can almost go along with this completely. My main exception would be that the Anti-Armour bonus not be available until you have the Tank technology, much like you can't get Pinch without Gunpowder.

Works for me. Could have an alternative condition of being attacked by a certain number of Armoured Unit(s), at which point new Units would gain the bonus due to being trained for it.

 

[say1988]

Maybe they have weapons designed to either destroy other vehicles or to penetrate other armour (ships, fortifications, armoured cars).

 

[r_rolo1]

Really? So what about Kanji? Isn't that the NAME of the Chinese Alphabet? The Greeks use symbols as well as the Egyptians and those are still Alphabets.

By definition, given above, hieroglyphs are not an alphabet and neither is Chinese.

Say1988 already awnsered this but....

Please.... please, read the definition of Brittannica. Chinese writing symbols DO NOT represent sounds, they represent concepts ( same for the Korean and Japanese counterparts ). So, it is not a alphabet. Same for the 3 systems of writing of Ancient Egypt. Greek writing is a alphabet, because the symbols represent sounds.

 

[The_Big_Con]

I've seen other sources that identify Chinese or Egyptian hieroglyphs as pictographic alphabets and Greek, Arabic, or the Latin alphabet (the one used by English speakers) as phonetic alphabets. Maybe this is using the word "alphabet" overly loosely.

Without getting into a semantic argument, I do think Civ has made a mistake with Writing --> Alphabet --> Printing Press. It does, as somebody pointed out, ignore or marginalize the Chinese experience. I think it would have been wiser to consider writing and alphabet one and the same technology.

 

[hexem3117]

I haven't even gone further than the first page in this topic, but it seems to me that beeblbrox is just trolling

The Civ community is by FAR the best gaming community I've ever had the privilege to be a part of, and overall it's a very welcoming group with a wide array of skill levels.

 

[mushutoku]

Dunkirk was NOT a German failure: they decided on purpose to let the British go away. Hitler thought that sparing their army from destruction would demostrate to British public that Nazis were not so evil and would have signed peace (Remember that many in the late 30s were against a war for Danzig)...

 

[AlphaShard]

Fine by defination the Heiroglyphs and Kanji are Syllabrey's but that doesn't change the INTENT of the symbols and that is to communicate in a non-verbal format.

The thing that doesn't make sense for starters with the Egyptian Hieroglyphs is how does the Rosetta stone give us any information if the symbols are concepts rather then actual letterings?

I do know though the Japanese language uses Katakana and Hiragana which does represent sounds. They even occasionally make use of the Kanjii.

 

[EdCase]

The importance of the Rosetta stone is the fact that more than one written language is used on it.

One passage in three written forms hieroglyphic, Demotic and classical greek.

Enabling cross comparison and translation. Hieroglyphs are not an alphabet the pictograms do not represent individual "letters" but in fact concepts (or whole words if you like).

@OP. Frankly only people who are obsessed with their own "reputation" care about difficulty levels. Providing the fundemental underlying game of Civ remains true to its origins....

 

[TabascoBob]

Boy, this post is a mixed kettle of phish-food. I respectfully disagree with the OP that the game is stacked in a way that only trickery (or "secrets"), rather than talent/experience, allows you to succeed on the higher levels. I am one of many who know that I will never progress to Immortal/Deity in this game: RL simply will not allow the investment of time or attention that is otherwise necessary. I am happy to struggle mightily on Prince, relax for a runaway laugher on Noble, or get stomped on Monarch, at my whim, because it is a diversion from everyday life- entertainment with some challenge.

I can't get hung up on the historical accuracy of anything CIV because the game is based on a suspension of disbelief-- it's got enough trappings of "realistic plausibility" to make it believeable and enjoyable. If you want to argue the linguistic definition of alphabet, or whether a sickle-sword is a better historical representation of the strongest ancient melee unit than the axeman, or the "right" name for a hand-held mechanical bomb-launching military unit (AT or RPG), well, general discussions is the right forum for it.

And if there is a shadow of elitism anywhere on these boards, it remains attached to those particular individuals who harbor it. The community as a whole is fun and helpful, and the boards are entertaining in their own right.

Cheers!

 

[cardgame]

You make a post in the midst of one of the friendliest and most accommodating forum communities I've seen in over a decade of game forum posting talking about some little mob of elitists and describe this game as one that would "pander" to some sort of "clique"... In fact, what you say is this:

"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."

I don't get what you want, and why you have to repeatedly describe a really friendly group of gamers as elitist and cliquey etc etc. Do you want all difficulties to be easily accessible to all gamers? Isn't the entire purpose of difficulties to make some levels of play inaccessible to those who aren't willing to sink a great deal of time and thought into playing a game? And don't you realize that this is one of the least elitist/cliquey gaming communities you're like to find in the more broad internet gaming community?

You're dead right - 99% of gamers "do not want to have to visit sites to 'learn the great and mysterious methods of a handful of Elites" - but what you *completely* ignore is that there are multiple difficulty levels suited for players that fit that description. And what you, I dare say in an insulting and almost condescending manner, fail to notice is that, should someone decide they do want to learn those "great and mysterious methods," there is a forum full of friendly and helpful gamers - HARDLY a clique - that is more than willing to help them through their growing pains in becoming "elitists" themselves.

The game is made in a manner that allows for many levels of play. The fact that some levels are not entirely accessible to some gamers, or that the AI doesn't work in exactly the way we all want it to, doesn't make anyone elitist, doesn't mean that it's pandering only to some little clique that turns its collective nose up to the up and comers. If all you want to do is rant about how the way the difficulty scales (which is what I'm suspecting from your responses) you've gone about it in one of the most arse backward ways you could have done so, slagging the community in the process.

Maybe I've read you wrong, but my response to this rambling post is... Get over yourself - there are nice guys here, and this game has settings for everyone. Saying that the upper echelons of this game's community are elitist and a clique and that the game panders only to those gamers is dead wrong.

I could not have said it better. This is a rant, and quite a stupid one at that.