Apolyton CIVILIZATION IV PREVIEW (by MarkG)

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Navyman
Will Civ4 still have razing as an option?

Yes, but as far as I can see, you can disable it in the game setup, which is good.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Yes, but as far as I can see, you can disable it in the game setup, which is good.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4053737#post4053737

Indeed it's disableable, assuming this beta feature made it into the real game ...

[Harovan]

Originally posted by sophist
Suppose you are on one continent in Civ3. You see another continent across a body of water, but you can't reach it. Luckily, you're in another civ's territory, and the nearest neutral territory on the same continent is much further away. You wait for them to demand your withdrawal and your unit gets teleported across the water to a new continent. That's an exploit. Anyone can use it. It doesn't take advantage of the opponent's weakness; it takes advantage of a flaw in the design of the game engine, in the rules and behaviors that determine what any player can do.

I see you bear your name for a reason.

Nonetheless you are wrong. Not the usage per se makes it an exploit, but the fact, that you use it (and take advantage), while your opponent (the AI) is not able to do the same. Hence, you're taking advantage (=exploit) the weakness of your opponent, by using a design flaw. Would both use it in the same way, it would be not an exploit, but a design flaw at most.

By the way, it is a bad example. I am pretty sure, the same happens to AI units expelled from your territory or the territory of a third AI, albeit admittedly not willingly.

Imagine the same situation, just in a multiplayer environment. Imagine further, that no limitations have been made about which features of game mechanics can be used, and which not. Imagine further, that all players have the same knowledge about the game. If one ore more players use it, you can't call it an exploit either, it's just clever usage of game mechanics in an environment of equal chances. By the way, and before you blame me, I have left questions of game ethics out for sake of the example.

[korn469]

Originally posted by snoopy369


I don't think allowing sneak attacks with open borders is the right thing to do, regardless of details Your solution would probably not work well, however - as who'd want to have their units frozen for a turn in enemy territory - unless they had overwhelming forces, such as in the case of one ally sending their entire military away and the other ally jumping into their cities, which is the whole thing that i'm suggesting is a problem anyway

Well as it is you can backstab civs with which you signed an open borders treaty. All that happens is your units teleport out of their territory, and onto their borders ready to start the invasion. Who really wants this either? I think that backstabbing is a valid historical thing to do. So how can we keep backstabbing, but it make somewhat balanced? Do you have any suggestions besides teleportation or units losing their movement in enemy territory on the turn a player declares war?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Who cares about realistic Sneak attacks unbalance the game beyond which it should be unbalanced. You need some incentive to behave in a game like this, or to what is the point of diplomacy

Unbalance? Since AI could do it as well, I don't see why that is the case. It's an important component of strategy.

And the incentive not to behave that way is precisely because of diplomacy. You'd certainly screw yourself diplomatically with other nations if that was your modus operandi.

But it's great to be able to make that once-in-a-game, perfect sneak attack. It's delicious.

[korn469]

Solver, what happens when a civ declares war on a another civ, and they have units on the same tile in a neutral location...ie outside of either civ's borders so that teleportation wouldn't occur?

[Solver]

Nice question . Haven't seen the situation yet.

[korn469]

Well could you find out for us please?

[Harovan]

By the way, since you're all so into exploit avoidance... Everytime I hear, that something "teleports" under certain circumstances, my exploit bells ring rather loudly.

[Solver]

The Civ4 teleport stuff isn't as exploitable as it might sound .

[MarkG]

each unit is moved to it's closest tile

i dont see where the exploit is

if they didnt move, that would be an exploit of the open borders agreement

[Sir Og]

Mark what you just said is quite different from moving units outside of the borders as you said previously.

[sophist]

It wouldn't be exploiting open borders because you'd know of the possibility for sneak attacks before entering an open borders agreement. It would change the cost/benefit analysis when you decide to do that.

Sir Ralph, I think your definition of "exploit" is probably much more restrictive than most people's. By your definition, in a game like Half-Life, it's not an exploit to see through walls by downloading a hacked video driver, since anybody can download that driver and thus gain that ability.

I think korn469's suggestion is a good compromise. I don't think it's quite the perfect solution, but it's definitely superior to both teleportation and auto-destruct.

I don't think razing cities should be an option. You should always be able to raze cities. Rather, they should alter the mechanics of the game in such a way that you would rarely want to raze the city.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Sir Og
Mark what you just said is quite different from moving units outside of the borders as you said previously.

eeer how is it different?

a) you have units inside the area of an AI with whome you have an open borders agreement
b) you declare war on the AI
c) your units are each moved outside the AI's borders, on the closest tile in your area of control

i didnt imply that units were moved at random positions or all together in one position or anything at all....

[ajbera]

Mark/Solver - can you adjust movement & battle speed. From the clips I've seen, the unit movement & combat is little too fast for me, and I'd like to slow it down by 50 - 100% (personal taste). I can probably do so via the XML files (I hope), but I was wondering if there was a setting to adjust this, either at startup or in-game.