The main pronlem with Civ 4 is...

[Enigma_Nova]

Screw chess, have him play a game of GO / Othello.
I'd challenge him to a game of Scrabble, but he'd make a 5-page thread complaining about the asymmetric distribution of the letter T.

[Krill]

Krill 1, SLD 0

Open this save in MP. I am Bismark, SLD was Qin.

My password was EatMe, you will have to ask SLD for his password.

Here is the Save

[vee4473]

What was the win? How long? sorry , i didn't check out the save yet.

surely you cheated!!

[StarLightDeath]

Well, I lost. After about a half hour of me calling him everything I could possibly think of I finally gave up and agreed to most of his settings.

120 turn game
Barbarians always war
HUB MAP (God why did I agree to this?) on tiny no less for a duel. Which was better than what he wanted at first...small map.

For those of you who aren't familiar with hub, it's basically two islands connected by a strip of land. We started about 30+ spaces apart and the strip of land is only 3 spaces wide. With 120 turns...military wasn't much of an option obviously so there was one option out. I knew the game would come down to wonders so I got stonehenge early. Unfortunately I got map ****ed which is exactly the reason I didn't want to play hub especially on tiny since I can't attack.

First I'll explain our maps. For those of you who aren't aware, water doesn't count for land points. So on this map you are guaranteed to use up all your land...yet another option taken out of the game. That leaves Wonders and population which is where the map comes into play...and it's also why I ended up with half his production and 1/3rd his GNP. First, he had more than double the resources...TWO OF WHICH WERE GEMS REAL NICE. In addition he had a huge river running throughout his entire continent so he had every city irrigated. On top of it those cities on rivers had hills with them too and flood plains...yeah, those cities were huge and they had tons of production. I spent the whole game building libraries at 10 turns, had to chop forests to keep my courthouses from taking 40 turns or more which I needed to get fast to keep expansion up. Basically there was absolutely no way to keep up with his production and growth because I only had a couple cities that could irrigate and I had no hills. This lead to him getting every single wonder which is basically what caused the 400 point gap we had. The rest was just a bigger population as I spent the game trying to get my cities above size 6's...let alone 4's and 3's. I can post the saves for anyone who wants to compare the maps, but everything I thought would happen did. Needless to say it was a pretty ****ing boring game and all I did all game was try to keep up with points. In the end I gave up at 2400-2050 as there were 15 turns left in the game and there was no way I was going to chain together enough farms fast enough and then try to grow on top of it using civil service. Guess you got what you wanted huh Krill? I think this is a good example of why you refused to play on mirror map which would have given us even land and resources.

[Krill]

Meh. Game took little less than 2 hours. Slow turn timer, Hub Map, Tiny, Low sea level, Temperate, Quick game.

120 Turm limit, 0 city raze limit. Something like Pressed neutral ground, but I honestly can't recall. SLD has screenies, supposedly, so he can give the correct details.

[StarLightDeath]

Nah, he didn't cheat because he was behind all beginning of the game. It really wasn't even close. I think my password was asdfasdf. I refuse to play anything but mirror from now on. It's just stupid that maps can be that lopsided. Might have been different if I could at least attack, but he made sure that wasn't going to happen with his settings. Pretty lame if you ask me.

[Strudo]

Why don't you guys play the same game again, but trade sides?

[CanuckSoldier]

Well done Krill. And btw Eyes, I notice in a post several 1000 words ago in this thread you posted that you are in the top clan in the ladder. More mis-information; there is no "top clan" that can be claimed until this weekend, as that is the first Clan Championship Cup....oh and after your failed attempt to coerce other clan leaders to form a new ladder, you were kicked out of NoD anyway. Apparently even the "badboys" of the ladder have standards :-/

CS

[StarLightDeath]

Actually everyone I talked to wants a new ladder. Cruise doesn't like my way of doing it though and he doesn't care enough. I don't know if you've noticed CS but nobody likes Cases, they are just there because they don't have anything better. Cases isn't even really used anymore for the most part because most games have their own rating system...most decent games anyway. NoD will be top...but not with the settings you guys chose for CCC and I said those settings would be used. With those settings anyone can win because games are going to come down to land. The fact is that you guys have a strangle hold on the community and this game is so small time it's why you can get away with it. In AOC we had 70 clans in our WCL and a 50K grand prize...you have what, a grand total of 8? Face it, it's because of people like you that Civ4 will always have a very small community and it is because there is no rating system that you can maintain your control. What it really comes down to is that the civ community isn't a competitive community. It's like this game, competition is discouraged and punished. It's also like you CS.

Oh, and one more thing, you sucked in civ3 and you sucked in civ2. You suck in civ4 but you still talk because you play in that little group of people all the time. Your clan couldn't do **** in CCC in Civ3 and it won't do **** here. I've already beaten most your clan and most the people in Fried's clan as well. Hell, I've beaten most of GC for that matter. NoD is the only clan that can truely dominate, once the settings are more geared towards even starts that is. I still love your whole reasoning behind the settings you chose as being the most fair...yet you leave mirror out? I guess uneven land and resources is fair in your mind...can't say I'm surprised. Krill will do well in the MP community, maybe you should make him an admin too?

[vee4473]

Well, this seems to convince me more and more that civ just isn't meant as a "mainstream" MP game.

The game itself is geared towards a long term solution. Not the rushing so evident in other MP games.

Trying to make civ MP games shorter and more suitable for MP doesn't seem to work. I mean, 120 turns? I don't see how that is enough time to overcome such a lopsided resource disadvantage.

For short MP games, more balance does seem neccesary. After all, if someone is given twice the resources and better land, in 120 turns, no one will overcome that.

In AOE/starcraft etc.. games are geared towards shorter timeframes and therefore more equal starting grounds are needed in order to ensure playability.

This is where civ will never be a mainstream MP game.

The "random" nature of such a map generator isn't conducive to fast play. It requires TIME!! It's kinda like playing chess with a random piece generator...Player "A" gets 8 knights, but player "B" gets only 2 and 12 pawns as a result of same generator...

I have little doubt that the game mechanics are there to overcome a bad starting pos., but not in 120 turns.

[Finarfin]

Referencing being part of a "clan" is so ubergeek.

[StarLightDeath]

Exactly vee, and now you will get the beta tester reply of "part of the strategy of this game is adapting to overcome your situation. If you want a more balanced map try lakes or mirror." But lets face it, even mirror can be ****ed up because strategic resources can be put on ice and that can have a real effect depending on what civ you're using. I don't think you have to look far to understand why the game is the way it is. People like CS and Fried are the ones giving the feedback! lol

[CanuckSoldier]

You keep harping on Cases, that's a broken record Eyes, Cases is not Civ4players, Civ4players is about the players and the staff of C4P, and it always will be, that is why we are Thee MP community. Gamespy, a money making professional company, even tried to make a C3C ladder once, with there software and failed, where we succeeded. Your "everyone" didn't help you start a new "better" ladder, if people were really unhappy about C4P using Cases you'd think that you would have a easy task about starting a competing ladder. As I tell my kids, Actions speak louder than words, and as of this post C4P has 1409 members that have played 20, 456 matches, in barely over a month since C4P has existed. Doesn't look like your predictions of CIV's MP doom are coming true.

CS

[vee4473]

Let me clarify my position:

I think that civ is a long term game. That isn't to say that it shouldn't be played in MP. It IS to say that I believe MP civ requires a time investment, and any attempt to shorten it will cause severe disadvantage to at least one player as a result.

That is why I have not played it MP. Because I never had the time to devote to a potentially 6-10 hour or longer proper game.

And to start one and then quit wouldn't be fair to those who are willing to stay that long. So I stay out of it.

That's one reason PBEM is good for civ. People can take their time (not too long) and play...not rush to hydralisks and swarm the enemy because he built farm/farm/barracks/farm/barracks/mine/ etc.. in the right order. (the names are wrong, but you get my drift).

To me, civ just takes too much time for one session. An SP game can last me days or weeks when my back is against the wall and I need to overcome a setback in resources or whatever.


EDIT: I agree that adapting is part of civ. I have said so. I just think that trying to turn civ into an AOE MP game is asking for disaster because they play SO differently.

Civ will always be MP compatible, but only for those willing to devote the time.

[CanuckSoldier]

Oh and your edited post is so mature as well, next you'll resort to "sticks and stones" :P I guess that since I only debate logical arguements that this discussion is over.


CS