MP strategies.

[Oerdin]

Well, let's hear them. I've noticed that cav units seem to be the end all and be all of the civ game and the first to get them usually wins. Not having horses is the kiss of death since horsemen are effectively immortal. The winning stategy usually seems to be to get as many of the first three early religions as possible followed by b-lining to bronze working to get axemen then rushing to cav units. You want to build up cav units before the others get them since you can then over run 2-3 other civs. Most games follow this format.

Of the wonders the pyramids seem to be the most valuable since those free engineers allow you to snag a few more wonders plus the pyramids never expire. You always get to switch civics without anarchy.

[starchgrain]

If I can't secure horses I build lots of solid defensive units, build few cities and adopt a defensive position if I can't go to war early. I can concentrate on science and culture while the war minded civ lose time on military.

I also find it essential to make friends fast in the beginning.
I've played only Terra map so far.

I contact all players as soon as possible and try to see how they want to play. Depending on the answers, you can often steer your strategy accordingly. Also it's great fun to ask subtle questions trying to get useful info. Especially at the beginning.

I like the diplomatic and psycholigical part of MP.
Say you are on the north of the continent. I try to ally with the civ to my south as fast as possible. Since this civ will be my buffer zone against eventual attacks, I promise to provide military in case of conflict and I DO HELP to keep my buffer in good shape. So early exploring is useful. I also send a couple of scouts during the whole game to keep my map updated.

In the games I have played so far, it seems that someone is always stuck in the middle of the land, with lots of common borders.

If you are in the middle, you have to act quickly or you are gonna get smashed sooner or later. You need to either expand to reach the coast or early war on the weakest player. And early war in MP needs to be diplomaticaly addresed because the other players will get nervous and might gang up on you.

Dealing against very aggressive players has been easy so far. I've always found at least one or two player willing to ally against him.

I have not seen any treasons yet but that would be cool. I always play with that in mind. "Just because you're paranoid does'nt mean they're not after you." ;)

I have also noticed a cheap trick that some players try to do. When they call you to the diplomatic screen, ask them in the chat what they want before going to the diplo screen. Some players just want to see what tech you have, they dont say nothing, just take a look at your techs/ressources, and close the window.

oh and I have never been able to complete a game yet. Not me leaving but the others. So i don't play to win, I just try to make my game as dynamic as possible and enjoy the
much more refined possibilities compared to playing in SP.

[Oerdin]

Yeah lots of people want to look at your techs so I hardly anwser the trade requests and instead just chat. Another bug I have discovered is that if you offer a trade, say a tech for a tech, and the other guy accepts then you can pull your tech back at the last second and still hit the accept trade button. this will result in you getting the other guy's tech but him getting nothing.

That's a bug or at least an exploit but many people seem to use it on MP.

[Martinus]

Actually you can check what techs other civs have that you don't (and vice versa) on the diplomacy screen, without a need to contact another civ. So people who just contact you to see your techs just waste your and their time. :p

[Fried-Psitalon]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Well, let's hear them. I've noticed that cav units seem to be the end all and be all of the civ game and the first to get them usually wins. Not having horses is the kiss of death since horsemen are effectively immortal. The winning stategy usually seems to be to get as many of the first three early religions as possible followed by b-lining to bronze working to get axemen then rushing to cav units. You want to build up cav units before the others get them since you can then over run 2-3 other civs. Most games follow this format.

Of the wonders the pyramids seem to be the most valuable since those free engineers allow you to snag a few more wonders plus the pyramids never expire. You always get to switch civics without anarchy.

Interesting. I'd love to see someone playing this way. Last I checked, spears made horse archers VERY mortal, pikes had a grand old time sticking knights, and the last cavalry that attacked a town with an upgraded rifle in it was splattered into so many pieces they still haven't identified what was horse and what was rider. It's easy to intercept them in your land, since anti-horse units move faster on roads than horses do in enemy territory.

Not switching civics without anarchy is a Spiritual trait bonus, and has nothing to do with the Pyramids.

Please take care to know what you're talking about before making sweeping, derisive pronouncements about a section of the game where you clearly lack definitive knowledge.

[Fried-Psitalon]

If you're interested in discussing proper MP strategies, may I reccomend examining the strategy forums over at C4P in the coming months. Apolyton's MP affiliate is a bit more of a specialist in that realm.

[Golden Bear]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
If you're interested in discussing proper MP strategies, may I reccomend examining the strategy forums over at C4P in the coming months. Apolyton's MP affiliate is a bit more of a specialist in that realm.

C4P ? What/where is that if I may ask?

[Fried-Psitalon]

Civ 4 Players? The multiplayer community...

www.myleague.com/civ4players is the signup for the ladder itself and the ranking system.

civ4players.proboards44.com is the discussion forum area.

I think you'll find there are more than one or two Apolytonites over there nowadays. :)

[Oerdin]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon

Interesting. I'd love to see someone playing this way. Last I checked, spears made horse archers VERY mortal, pikes had a grand old time sticking knights, and the last cavalry that attacked a town with an upgraded rifle in it was splattered into so many pieces they still haven't identified what was horse and what was rider. It's easy to intercept them in your land, since anti-horse units move faster on roads than horses do in enemy territory.

Not switching civics without anarchy is a Spiritual trait bonus, and has nothing to do with the Pyramids.

Please take care to know what you're talking about before making sweeping, derisive pronouncements about a section of the game where you clearly lack definitive knowledge.

First of all the stratey doesn't use horse archers or knights they use cav units. Second, I have found spears and pikes don't fair very well against cav units unless they are upgraded against firearms which isn't all that common. Lastly, if you have cav you have cannons if not arty so you pound the hell out of a city then take it with your cav then you simply plow the enemy over. Most MP games seem to go this way.

If someone plans ahead well enough they might be able to put up a good fight against the cav units but if you build enough of them to fight the enemy off them likely you'll fall further behind in the tech race since you'll need gold to support that large army. In the end you just need to make sure you trade techs or research techs fast enough that someone else doesn't get cav to far ahead of you or else you're toast.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Originally posted by Oerdin


First of all the stratey doesn't use horse archers or knights they use cav units. Second, I have found spears and pikes don't fair very well against cav units unless they are upgraded against firearms which isn't all that common.

Hmm. And here I thought Cavalry was a MOUNTED unit - and therefore a gunpowder promotion wouldn't do anything to them. Try Formation, rather than Pinch, and you'll find a result more concrete than pyschological. (Check for yourself. Mounted. Not Gunpowder. Formation. Not Pinch.)

Originally posted by Oerdin
Lastly, if you have cav you have cannons if not arty so you pound the hell out of a city then take it with your cav then you simply plow the enemy over. Most MP games seem to go this way.

Wow. You sure do know lots about the game. Last I checked, Cavalry required military tradition and gunpowder; since steel (cannons) is two techs more advanced than gunpowder, it's certainly not assumed. Many players beeline for one side or the other without taking a balanced approach, and some skip cavalry altogether for rifles and cannons. If you have artillery when you get to Cavalry, you have a serious error in your research methods. Check the tech chart. Learn the game. If your MP games are going that way, you need to start playing real competition.

Originally posted by Oerdin
If someone plans ahead well enough they might be able to put up a good fight against the cav units but if you build enough of them to fight the enemy off them likely you'll fall further behind in the tech race since you'll need gold to support that large army. In the end you just need to make sure you trade techs or research techs fast enough that someone else doesn't get cav to far ahead of you or else you're toast.

A pike on a forested mountain, a city on a hill, or a city with a significant cultural presence, has a very good chance - even odds - to beat a cavalry. Given the cost of the two units compared to one another, it would seem that cavalry that attack cities or strong positions guarded by pikes are a very bad choice. If you're using cannons to greatly soften the position, fine, but then what you're talking about isn't "immortal cavalry." What you're talking about is cavalry capitalizing on the efforts of a siege unit. That's combined arms, and that's intended.

Do the math. Learn the game. Mounted units have a place, but they're not godly. Every unit has a foil.

Spears beat Horse Archers beat Axes beat Spears.

Pikes beat Knights beat Macemen beat pikes.

And Rifles BEAT Cavalry, which beat grenadiers, which beat Rifles.

They're not a god unit. Not even close. If your opponents can't figure that out and stop playing Civ3, lucky you - but it's not a game design problem by any means.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
If you're interested in discussing proper MP strategies, may I reccomend examining the strategy forums over at C4P in the coming months. Apolyton's MP affiliate is a bit more of a specialist in that realm.

It's a nice site but unless I'm looking in the wrong place there are hardly any discussions of strategy there.

And don't be such a big meanie to poor Oerdin. :D

[Fried-Psitalon]

Well, most of the strategy discussions are still forming. C3P's strategy area is quite large - C4P's will be as it develops.

[DrSpike]

I had a look at the Civ3 one actually for comparison, and didn't think it was that busy. I was kinda hoping more strategy discussions would develop here.

I also looked at the Civ3 ladder. I notice there are still many more active people on the Civ3 ladder, and the Civ4 ladder isn't growing as fast as I would expect now that it's out almost everywhere. I guess the patch might help in this regard though.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Well, it takes time for people to switch over, become acquainted, etc, etc. A lot of the C3C Ladder folks are still playing a lot of SP.

Compared to the growth of C3P, C4P is actually growing quite swiftly.

The C3P ladder strategy section MAY - not sure, but I think it was - have been pruned. It used to be pretty deep. Bear in mind it's definitely a smaller community than Apolyton's, though. It's still a great deal more MP activity than we see here.

[MasterDave]

I had a lot of trouble joining gamespy games this weekend, but I did manage to host one game that along pretty far before we all crashed and then nobody came back. In this game we disabled tech trading. This prevented people from "spying" out one's techs in the diplo screen, as they do not appear there when you use this option. It also prevented people from getting a huge edge by forming secret alliances with other players and doubling their research.

When I put up "no tech trades" on the game description, the game filled up fairly quickly so I think others liked that option as well.

On a related note, is Civ 4 players a good place to find games that connect via direct IP? I am rapidly becoming disillusioned with Gamespy, namely its lobby crash bug and constantly getting stuck on "connecting to peer". I am hoping that direct IP is the answer, but finding games that way can be a challenge.

[SirSebastian]

MasterDave,

Let me share what I learned over the weekend:

- Direct IP does work pretty well.
- It seems like you might be able to join a gamespy game if using Direct IP if you know the host's IP, thus bypassing gamepsy.
- Interestingly, if the host drops out, and you have the IP address of the others, it will work fine to guess who the host is with their IP. (pretty cool)

For me, personally, playing in a window is superior as I kept crashing in games through Gamespy while in fullscreen. I didn't try fullscreen Direct IP.

What is probably needed is a multiplayer chat room. There probably is one out there already, I just feel like I still have a lot to learn about Civ 4 so I haven't aggressively sought it out.

PS - Did you play MoO 3 multiplayer?

[Master-Mike]

The Aussie group played there first large game via direct IP on the weekend. We had 10 player, would have been 12 except a few had probs.

Generally the game ran well, we had a few disconnect due to connection issues at there end with there modem and another had an ATI issue but kept playing.

Besides this which is nothing to do with civ iv all hardware issues, game was great. We all played reasonably fast with no real issues.

MP experience so far is great if not awesome and it will only get better. I organised the game with aussies only due to time zones and you get better connections and game speed.

No problems here with direct IP games, they rock.

[Fried-Psitalon]

C4P generally meets in the lobby - as I write this, there's undoubtedly people looking for games there; I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes if I was looking for a small game.

As for connecting, they just use what works, and if someone wants direct IP, no one minds. ;)

[MasterDave]

Yes, I did play Moo3 multiplayer for a few months, but eventually a very small community, and bugs that were never fixed made the combat resolution very random and luck driven. I hated building up an empire and a fleet for four hours just to lose it all because my point defense decided not to fire at the 8000 missiles coming in.

If Lamespy does not improve its connectivity problems I would love to try direct IP as long as I can find other willing parties.

[SirSebastian]

I thought that's where I'd seen your name, MasterDave. ;)

C4P generally meets in the lobby - as I write this, there's undoubtedly people looking for games there; I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes if I was looking for a small game.

Fried-Psitalon, you may not be aware but many of us can't stay in the lobby without the game crashing. I can be there about 15-20 seconds and it crashes - every single time. So I have to pick a game -really- fast (and with the silly scrolling that's not so easy...). Definately not enough time to chat. ;)

[StarLightDeath]

I don't see anything to read in the strategy forum. Unless of course you are trying to direct them to that piece of trash you wrote on siege? I really liked the part where you changed simple scouting into this amazingly complex mission called "reconnaissance" as you try to write several paragraphs about something that can be expressed in 1 sentence. Is this what we are to expect from your oh so anticipated strategy guide? According to everyone who knows you on the ladder your "bark is bigger than your bite." Somehow I can't say I'm surprised as I have seen saves of your games and they leave something to be desired. Maybe you're holding back a secret of your immeasurable skills? You're a joke. Also, horses may not be the end all, but they are definitely all powerful in the very early part of the game. Something I said the very first day I played this game and you told me I was wrong. How interesting that now you refuse to play against Egypt and Persia because of this? What am i saying though? How dare I question the golden boy of civ4. In the end you are all smoke and mirrors and your greatness is only in the minds of those ignorant enough to believe everything you say Fried.

[kittenOFchaos]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
C4P generally meets in the lobby - as I write this, there's undoubtedly people looking for games there; I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes if I was looking for a small game.

As for connecting, they just use what works, and if someone wants direct IP, no one minds. ;)

With regards to multiplayer:

1. I see no hosts, ever. Even though there are some up there.

2. When I host, if no one joins the room pretty pronto my computer locks up.

Civ 4 multiplayer is great once up and running, but getting there is a pain in the ass. **** Gameshite and all that include it in their games...


As for configing routers and all that nonsense. I find it a pest and I'm pretty computer savvy, most aren't. This is supposed to be a game and it is a sod when gamers have to learn so much just to run a game the game developers really ought to include software that will:

1. Recognise hardware/software on computer, download appropriate drivers.

2. Provide config for routers and stuff.

Fed up having to learn stuff just to run games, so rubbish.


As for multiplayers strategies, my only one to date is not to team up with a complete random they can be god awful and you're left 2 vs 1 (I still kinda "won" :) ).

[Fried-Psitalon]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
I don't see anything to read in the strategy forum. Unless of course you are trying to direct them to that piece of trash you wrote on siege? I really liked the part where you changed simple scouting into this amazingly complex mission called "reconnaissance" as you try to write several paragraphs about something that can be expressed in 1 sentence. Is this what we are to expect from your oh so anticipated strategy guide? According to everyone who knows you on the ladder your "bark is bigger than your bite." Somehow I can't say I'm surprised as I have seen saves of your games and they leave something to be desired. Maybe you're holding back a secret of your immeasurable skills? You're a joke. Also, horses may not be the end all, but they are definitely all powerful in the very early part of the game. Something I said the very first day I played this game and you told me I was wrong. How interesting that now you refuse to play against Egypt and Persia because of this? What am i saying though? How dare I question the golden boy of civ4. In the end you are all smoke and mirrors and your greatness is only in the minds of those ignorant enough to believe everything you say Fried.

Ah yes, Eyes of Night the bitter and dejected, by another name. At least have the courage to post as yourself in the future, troll? :)

[StarLightDeath]

Everyone already knows who I am on here. Trolling usually implies that I am trying to bait you into something. Since I am simply stating facts, I fail to see how this is trolling. All someone has to do is read your posts to see that your responses are cookie cutter and your posts on strategy are a joke. The only difference is that here you don't have the power to ban me simply because you can't refute the assertions I make about this game and about you. Every single time someone makes a post about the game in a negative way you come on here like you know everything and try to use your hollow reputation to assert your superiority. It's kind of like how I came on the second day the game was released and complained that early horses are too powerful. You then decided to take it upon yourself to correct the "newbie" with your vast amount of knowledge. Lo and behold we are here 2 weeks later and the horse problem is now going to be fixed. Horses will now no longer appear until animal husbandry is discovered. Where is your bullshit response now?

[Fried-Psitalon]

Given the extreme hostility and attacking nature of your posts, I'd say you're trying to bait me into responding in kind. Luckily, I don't feel like I have anything to prove to you. :)

I'm sorry you think my posts on strategy are a joke. Quite a few people find them useful. Since that's the case, I'll continue posting them. Feel free to ignore them if you like.

For what it's worth, I wasn't involved in any way with your suspension (It wasn't a ban) from C4P. I didn't use my reputation (I'm never quite clear what my reputation is, as it appears to vary greatly from person to person) as I don't particularly care what you think that much - no offense. :) I support that administrator's action, however, for the same reasons as your posts here - they are needlessly vulgar and incendiary.

I hope you find my response this time a bit more satisfying. :)

[Fried-Psitalon]

Originally posted by SirSebastian
I thought that's where I'd seen your name, MasterDave. ;)



Fried-Psitalon, you may not be aware but many of us can't stay in the lobby without the game crashing. I can be there about 15-20 seconds and it crashes - every single time. So I have to pick a game -really- fast (and with the silly scrolling that's not so easy...). Definately not enough time to chat. ;)

Sir - most of the C4P community can be found on our forum. Perhaps if you contact them there, you can get their YIM handles and simply host a game for them to join.

(Or hopefully the patch will resolve the problem.)

Hope that helps. :)

[filix]

Which are your first buildings in your capital?
What do you invent ? What do you want? Iron? Markets? Religions?
Do you build buildings for citygrowth? Or just barracks and swordsmen?
Do you build villages very early? And why do you need culture?
It seems to be the best way to get productive and Scientific but when do you build your first settler? Before the capital grows to 2 points? How do you know that your economy will be able to handle a second city without getting inventions slower?
I have a lot of questions, do you have answers and reasons? :hmmm: to much questions :confused:
Im surching a path to play

I like to play with gandi and i alway get hinduism then i go for domestication roads then iron or markets.
If i have stones i build wonders.

[Swissy]

I play at Civ4players and do fairly well. I am able to be top three in most games and rarely die anymore in-game.

My usual build sequence is warrior(scout)/warrior/warrior/Stonehedge/worker. The border expansion and the ability to get 2-3 GPs in a 120-130 turn game makes Stonehedge a must for me. Next builds depends on if I have close neighbors with a barracks being made early with a forest chop.

Tech would go Mysticism/mining/bronze working. After that it would be dependent of what resources are within my immediate grasp. Ultimately I'm looking to be getting to Fued(longbows) or machinery(crossbows). I also try to set my tech up to get Theology with my second GP, the double promotion is very necessary in an online game.

First settler comes around the time my capitol is size 5-6. The road is ready to make it a quick plant and to be able to get defense there quickly. In all I rarely go beyond four cities, unless blessed by many floodplaines and gold producing resources.

For the endgame I shoot for getting a great artist to use the great work of art to secure a ton of vacant land that would be risky to secure by multiple cities. Getting code of law/drama and switching to caste system with a theater in my capitol gives me a good shot at making my last GP a great artist.

Cottages are a must if you want to progress anywhere in tech. As many as I am able to make and still keep my cities growing at a reasonable rate. Without gold you'll find yourself out teched at the end, and tech is points

[Utwig]

I haven't found a way to counter war elephants:
They are strength 8 and if you lack ivory yourself and don't have maybe a strong UU (Praetorian comes to mind) the only thing that can counter them is upgraded spears.

Problem is when elephants are stacked with axemen or swordsmen, which means your spears will fail miserably against melee units. So you have to sacrifice 1 or two axemen to take out a war elephant.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's pretty hard.



Another question: What about 120-130 turn games, how is that enfornced in ladder games, i'm interested in joining.

[Fried-Psitalon]

I don't find elephants all that problematic. They're rather expensive beasts to build, and spears have "even odds" against them - so as long as you're forcing the Elephant to attack you, you're in decent shape. If the elephant is part of a stack and you want to attack it, it's really no different than dealing with any other combined-arms situation: soften it with catapults, then take your highest all-around unit (usually a ranged, often a crossbow) to go do cleanup.

[Rasputin]

is there any fun in a game where you only build 4 cities ???

am i misisng something here. havent moved from SP to MP yet , but i would not play if empire building is gone from the MP game .

[Fried-Psitalon]

Swissy's strategy is a bit different than some. I typically build between 6-9 cities in a MP game, but bear in mind that we play between duel-small maps.

You can definitely do some empire building in MP, you just have to be ready to defend your empire while you build it.

[Rasputin]

so any one played a HUGE MAp in MP..


I wont play anything smaller in SP.

[StarLightDeath]

Huge maps are non-existent in MP and I doubt they would even work. You will never build that many cities because the game is designed to keep you from pulling ahead too far. In a normal MP game on a duel map you'll only build about 6 cities. Who cares though, this game isn't about expansion it's about seeing how big you can make your cities and how far you can extend your borders through culture. Only time city count actually comes into play is when you are on water and water doesn't count for land points. I just love how this game comes down to points almost every game btw...really top notch gameplay in this game. They should have named this game differently because it's really not Civilization anymore, but then again if it had any name other than Civilization it would have never left the shelves.

[Ljube]

I agree that horse units are very powerful early on, particularly special chariot units (immortals are the best early attackers).

[Fried-Psitalon]

Provided you're facing archers and aren't facing warriors, sure - they're no better than a normal chariot if your opponent has the wit to build a warrior garrison, enroute to (hopefully) a spear upgrade.

[DrSpike]

Yeah war chariots are nicer. But for duels, neither of the civs with unique chariot based units are aggressive, which is a black mark right now.

[Ljube]

Doc, are you up for a duel sometime? Couldn't get you to play civ 2, maybe I'll have more luck with civ 4. :)

[DrSpike]

I certainly am. You'll need to get a bit of practice in first though. :D

[Rasputin]

i have never like duels and if i ever get to Noble level i would only ever play with as many players as possible. Diplomacy and alliances are what civ is about , not duels wher eit leads to you know who the enemy is.

[DrSpike]

Well there are 2 ways to enjoy Civ MP - there always have been. There are the games where how many players you are buddies with (or your skill at diplomacy)determines whether you win, or sometimes how lucky you are in being in a good spot not between 2 aggressive players, and there are duels, where there is no diplomacy (I agree removing an element of the SP Civ experience) but you win or lose based on your own merits.

I prefer duels. I play SP for building and the wider Civ experience.

[Ljube]

I play both types of MP games and have no a priori preference to one or the other.

[Deity Dude]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
Huge maps are non-existent in MP and I doubt they would even work. You will never build that many cities because the game is designed to keep you from pulling ahead too far. In a normal MP game on a duel map you'll only build about 6 cities. Who cares though, this game isn't about expansion it's about seeing how big you can make your cities and how far you can extend your borders through culture. Only time city count actually comes into play is when you are on water and water doesn't count for land points. I just love how this game comes down to points almost every game btw...really top notch gameplay in this game. They should have named this game differently because it's really not Civilization anymore, but then again if it had any name other than Civilization it would have never left the shelves.

I've played several games on large or huge maps. Actually I like doing a bit of building before you are smack in somebody else's face. I know this style isnt popular for turn limited ladder duels but there is alot more to MP than just that style of game.

[Snotty]

I agree :b: there is a lot more to civ than limited turn duels.

However when it comes to the crunch, in a many playered MP game and I start next to you and want YOUR land first, you had better hope you know what you are doing in a 1on1 duel.

[Axxaer]

And often the less confident (not neccessarily weaker) players will side with a powerfully militaristic player because they would rather build up to fight them later than be their next target.

[DrSpike]

And when I say this is the reason weaker players prefer big games to duels they shout at me. Anyone know why this is? :)

[Rasputin]

i guess i play civ to build an empire not fight wars..

wars are secondary to the buidling

[Snotty]

And its very possible to out buiild an opponent now the balace seems to have been shifted in favour of the builder/defender. You just have to have a reasonable turn limit and declare the winner by score at the end of that time.

If you dont set a turn limit then the builder and tech leader just pulls away from the pack never to be caught again until he wins the space race (very boring for the losing civ!)

Ive had MP games Ive won by purely bulding and defending, and Ive had MP games Ive tried to win by building but HAD to go to war because someone was outbuilding me

[Fried-Psitalon]

Originally posted by Rasputin
i guess i play civ to build an empire not fight wars..

wars are secondary to the buidling

Opinion. ;)

[DrSpike]

Well given your stated opinions on maps it's clearly one you agree with. :)

[OzzyKP]

Diplogames :b:

[Fried-Psitalon]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Well given your stated opinions on maps it's clearly one you agree with. :)

Not at all; my opinion about warfare and proper play just doesn't happen to agree with yours. :P

[MasterDave]

I have played lots of non-ladder games and a couple ladder games, and I definitely prefer playing without the turn limits and rules of ladder play. Granted, the ladder games are over in 90 minutes or so, which is nice, but the turn limit and using scoring as a victory condition leads to strange gameplay.

For example, the one ladder game I have played to completion had six players. One player killed another early, then my Mongol Hordes killed two more players. The last guy left was turtling/teching while I was fighting, and had built up quite a lead in techs and scoring. I had about forty turns left when I found his cities, and tried some attacks, but my keshiks and elephants were outclassed by his feudal-level units and I could not make headway after 20 turns or so. However, there was a lot of empty land between himself and I with all of the razed cities, and my opponent refused to counterattack since he was far ahead on points, so I initiated a program of good old-fashioned ICS. I set all four of my cities to settler production and spammed undefended cities all over the place to inflate my score. It almost worked, when the game ended he won by less than 100 points, I had closed a gap of nearly 500 points just by making cities.

The point is, there is no way that this strategy would have worked in a longer-term "regular" game, but the ladder's rules create weird situations, and seems to reward turtling as opposed to duelling. I understand why ladder games have these rules, to make it possible for people to finish more of them faster, but I think I prefer the longer games where there is diplomacy and you are not necessarily out to kill thy neighbors, or play in a non-strategic fashion to inflate one's score.

[MotownDennis]

All of that is quite true, Dave, and is the reason I don't generally play regular Ladder games anymore. You can, however, set up games by whatever rules you want, just as long as everyone understands them in advance. I've also played many great epic games on the Ladder, where you meet once a week (or however often everyone wants to get together) and play until the end.

The real purpose of Ladder games is to get games without quitters. ;)

[Rasputin]

does it work , or do you stil lget quitters..
i remeber a lot of old civ2 ladder games where as soon as someone got a lead the others quit...

[DrSpike]

Well people still quit, but they lose when they do so and the admins force non-reports quite efficiently.

[Fried-Psitalon]

It does still happen, yes, but the rate of quitters IN-league as opposed to out-of-league is much, much lower. Quitters typically find themselves struggling to get games very quickly.