The main pronlem with Civ 4 is...

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
Or here's an amazing idea, you could just take the luck out of the game and make it so everyone gets 1 of each resource without putting them down on the ****ing ice.

If the strategic grab of ... Strategic Resources ... weren't a part of this game, then it would play as if they weren't included. Personally, I like territory wars and having strategic places to strike.

Then again, apparently I missed the part where luck is supposed to be a huge part of strategy games.

Isn't Monopoly the most popular board game ever, and you play with DICE? What about Risk? What about every single game that does not give you an omniscient view, and you have to use your experience and GUESS what's happening beyond your line of sight?

Maybe that's why other games get thousands of people playing online at any given time compared to Civ4's amazing 300 people total. Guess you guys still haven't quite figured out how to make a good MP game.

I'd assign this more as a problem with LameTry Archaic, and how some people are playing PBEMs so they don't have to rush their turns
That, and the level of intelligence required to play a good game of cIV surely scares away all the l33t d00ds and n00bs, such as is happening to yourself.

All uneven resources does is give lesser players a chance to win by simple luck of the draw.

Then whenever I fight you, I'll be sure to pick a Balanced map.

Age of empires gave everyone the same resources for the most part and the whole idea was to go attack the other guy's resources and mess up his economy. I fail to see the skill or strategy in screwing someone over simply because they have no iron on their map.

Resources are a lot easier to Grab and Hold in cIV. CIV doesn't play the same, or even close, to how AoE plays. If you don't have Iron, start a war to get some with your War Elephants, Axemen, Longbows and Catapults. Or, expand to an unoccupied island with Iron on it - there are usually some around.

The 'Skill' and 'Strategy' revolves around how you cope with not having ideal conditions for victory fed to you on a silver platter. In this case, you could
A: Fight for better conditions
B: Change your strategy
C: Start crying on the apolyton forums
In my experience, I find A and B to be the most effective, while C is a sign of n00b.

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
Who plays balanced map in MP? That is the ****tiest map ever created which ranks up there with ring and wheel, two of Fried's favorite maps.
Mirror is the only map that is even remotely good for MP and it has its troubles too.

Sounds like fun new things to try, develop strategies for and win!
Er, I mean cry about. Sorry.
If you don't like any of the available maps, you could make your own. Make a Well-defended capital with lots of strategic resources, then have the map open out to a wide-open space with lots of good city spots and twice as many ways to take them.

So while my Egyptian opponent is building a city to use horse and thus has access to his UU I have to travel all the way down to the ice and build a useless city to have access to iron for Praetorians. Good thinking!

Give me a save game, and I'll find a way to get you the iron without gimping your civilisation, Probably by building the city 3 tiles over and culture-pushing its borders.
Hell, you'd probably be the only person to declare a game lost before the first UU was produced.

If this game didn't have the name civilization on it it would never have even left the shelves.

"Hey guys, there's this great new game come out."
"What's it called?"
"IV"
"Hook me up!"

The funny thing is it's not even really possible to be top in Civ4.

There are easily 50 different sub-strategies floating around, and half of them contradict with the other half. For this to become a RNG Battle, we'd all have to use the same strat with the same civ in similar starting conditions, and we'd all quit the game as soon as some dude got the Pyramids.
I don't see that happening.

UR STRATEGY NO WORK NO MORE UR JUST MAD U SUXORZ!" or "U JUST MAD U RNT TEH BEST NO MORE LOLZ"

Yeah, pretty much. I'd say your Strategies don't work any more, and you're mad because you're too lazy to adapt - and you're tearing yourself up inside because you're too lazy to be the best, but you still want to be. LOLZ.

[Mergle]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
The funny thing is that there are no "magic keys" to civ4. I'm 46-5 on the ladder and I was in the top clan. Every other top player says the exact same thing, there is no secret to this game. If you aren't playing Mp with the top players then don't bother talking to me about this because you don't know what the **** you are talking about. For your information, no MP game ever went to howitzers so who cares? If you buy a game to sit there and play SP against a moronic AI then you are beyond hope. I can't imagine sitting there playing against something that isn't human. What a complete and total waste of time, as if computer games weren't already a big enough waste of time.

Yes, the lack of magic keys was my point. I took the term from Starfleet Battles testing days - magic keys were something you tried to design out of scenarios.

For good MP, I would argue, you want *over a run of games* for the most adaptable and skilled players to come out on top. Thus, luck in an individual game - provided not determinative in general - will even out. Sure, sometimes you get stuffed, but provided that's a minority of games, it won't matter. (And a true warrior will go down fighting - or overcome the odds). The variety is IMHO what makes Civ fun - rather than a perfectly balanced clickfest a la AoE. (If I wanted perfectly balanced strategy games I'd go play chess. Which I do).

Now, I'm not saying Civ4 delivers this - but nothing you've said so far points away from it.

(And yes, I know you wouldn't get to howitzers. My point was that Civ 2 was so flawed gameplay wise that you could spot some of the problems without even starting a game - and be proved right in practice).

[Orcrist]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
It's just the same ****ing thing over and over again with you guys. It's like you actually believe that if you say it enough times everyone is going to believe it.

mmmkay. I might be reaching here but....

pot, kettle, black.

Anyway, it's pretty clear you don't like Civ IV. Do you have anything new to say? Because either way, I'm not quite clear on why you bother. I mean, if you don't like it... then don't play it. I'm sure there are still some people who would be willing to play Civ II with you, so go for it. I think most real-time "strategy" games are stupid but I don't feel the need to go troll on their forums, because it would be a waste of time; you seem to have concluded that you're wasting your time here... so don't.

And no, I'm not particularly bothered by you trolling here, since it's actually kind of amusing, but I am curious as to what makes a person want to do that kind of thing. It's kind of like faking an orgasm while masturbating

So, I hope you are at least having some joy out of these posts, though it doesn't sound like it, since your "critiques" don't seem to be having the resonance among readers here that you appear to be hoping for. However, it does sound like you have some ideas about how it should have been, so maybe you could start looking at the modding possibilities to make the game of your dreams, although I'm not sure if that's what you really want...

-chris

[StarLightDeath]

I hate it when people reply by quoting every little sentence in some lame attempt to try to overrun me with so much bull**** that I'll give up and go away. I normally wouldn't take this much effort to reply to someone who replies like you do.

If the strategic grab of ... Strategic Resources ... weren't a part of this game, then it would play as if they weren't included. Personally, I like territory wars and having strategic places to strike.

Where is the "strategic" part of the resource system? Strategy is forcing your opponent off his resources. Strategy is not dicking someone over by putting his resources on ice or better yet not giving him any at all. Another mistake they made was allowing people to build on top of resources. While this does give a second option, it really takes away the ability to force people off.

Isn't Monopoly the most popular board game ever, and you play with DICE? What about Risk? What about every single game that does not give you an omniscient view, and you have to use your experience and GUESS what's happening beyond your line of sight?

Don't think I've ever heard anyone call Monopoly a strategy game. Risk? Lets face it, at one time those kinds of games were considered strategy games when dice decided games, but now that we have computer games with, need I say it, COMPUTERS why are we still relying on dice rolls? Age of empires didn't have to, let alone nearly every single other game out there; why does this one?

I'd assign this more as a problem with LameTry Archaic, and how some people are playing PBEMs so they don't have to rush their turns
That, and the level of intelligence required to play a good game of cIV surely scares away all the l33t d00ds and n00bs, such as is happening to yourself.

I'm sorry, but I'm not fluent in geek talk. I like getting out my aggression online and I hate the turn games are taking of trying to baby the **** out of everything. I won't even get started on the ladder and the administrators who think their little online reputation even means ****. As for intelligence, I started my own business and I'm going to be writing a book. What have you done?

Resources are a lot easier to Grab and Hold in cIV. CIV doesn't play the same, or even close, to how AoE plays. If you don't have Iron, start a war to get some with your War Elephants, Axemen, Longbows and Catapults. Or, expand to an unoccupied island with Iron on it - there are usually some around.

The 'Skill' and 'Strategy' revolves around how you cope with not having ideal conditions for victory fed to you on a silver platter. In this case, you could
A: Fight for better conditions
B: Change your strategy
C: Start crying on the apolyton forums
In my experience, I find A and B to be the most effective, while C is a sign of n00b.

Skill and strategy is based on how you play vs someone else on equal starting ground. If I play without iron and horses and you have both iron and horses did you out play me or did I get ****ed over by an outside force? By the way, calling someone a "noob" has got to be the dumbest ****ing word ever. Seriously, what lameass little loser came up with that word? I'm 46-5 on the ladder and I'm a top 5 player in Civ4 when I was playing it. Who's the ****ing "noob"? Also, don't talk to me about AOE because I was a top US player in that game and that was definitely a game you could dominate and talk **** in. The only joy I get out of a computer game is how many strategies I can create in it. There is simply no strategy in Civ4.

Give me a save game, and I'll find a way to get you the iron without gimping your civilisation, Probably by building the city 3 tiles over and culture-pushing its borders.
Hell, you'd probably be the only person to declare a game lost before the first UU was produced.

I'm sorry, what was your name on the ladder again? Are you completely oblivious to city distance upkeep? Do I really need to point out the ridiculousness of pushing out borders in an MP game to gain resources? Obviously you have never played MP so it is time to shut up.

"Hey guys, there's this great new game come out."
"What's it called?"
"IV"
"Hook me up!"

Or we could call it Age of Civilization which is what this game tried to be and failed miserably.

There are easily 50 different sub-strategies floating around, and half of them contradict with the other half. For this to become a RNG Battle, we'd all have to use the same strat with the same civ in similar starting conditions, and we'd all quit the game as soon as some dude got the Pyramids.
I don't see that happening.

With the exception of Oracle wonders are completely useless unless you are trying to gain some extra points. How many 1v1 warrior rush's have you done on a tiny duel mirror map? What's that? You don't play MP? Ok.

Yeah, pretty much. I'd say your Strategies don't work any more, and you're mad because you're too lazy to adapt - and you're tearing yourself up inside because you're too lazy to be the best, but you still want to be. LOLZ.

What strategies? I don't even play with strategy in Civ4 really. Warrior rushing is a strategy? Rushing for Oracle is a strategy? Sure I win 90.2% of my games (That's the actual percentage I have right now) but I'm not doing anything special to win. I'm not totally dominating people because it's impossible to dominate. I'm not doing anything that someone else can't easily do and all the top players know it and they know what this game is going to look like 3-6 months from now. If you're going to argue this with me, go play some MP and then we'll talk. Also, if you decide to write 3 full pages worth of replies like Aeson did to just 1 post I will throw you on ignore like I did him.

[Senethro]

Jesus stalightdeath, quit fagging up the forum and go play a game you actually enjoy.

[Senethro]

Ah, now I see what this is about.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142106

[Cordelayne]

StarLightDeath obviously needs to get laid.

[vee4473]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath




Where is the "strategic" part of the resource system? Strategy is forcing your opponent off his resources. Strategy is not dicking someone over by putting his resources on ice or better yet not giving him any at all. Another mistake they made was allowing people to build on top of resources. While this does give a second option, it really takes away the ability to force people off.

Forcing someone off of resources is brute force. Rushing your strongest unit isn't much more strategy than rushing for bronze. I guess the point is that the strategy comes in the form of how you will adapt your actions if you don't get one of those resources. The game provides alt. avenues for you to employ.

While I find the aspect of being left without a certain resource (and therefore needing to adapt in some way to win) interesting, I do also agree that from a pure strategical standpoint, pitting 2 evenly matched opponents against each other and letting the best man win is the classical method of strategy games (chess or checkers anyone?).

I certainly don't think you should consider a win "eeked" out by points as a lesser win.

The problem with civ in general as an mp game is that it wasn't meant to be a "rush" to victory type game, like other tbs's.

And when the gameplay is tweaked to the point where rushing units may only rarely work, the game gets time consuming and frustrating (as a result of needing to adapt and spend more time) in mp.

[Cordelayne]

Senethro, thanks for tracking down and publishing that link to the multiplayer chat. That is truly hilarious. Makes me want to play CHESS with StarLightDeath--for money. He he.

[Sirian]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
Nah, I always behaved this way. It is part of my charm.

If you've always behaved this way, then it's safe to assume that Civ4 is not the cause of your behavior.

So now I'll let you know how I've always behaved. I give my attention to the quiet ones who won't waste their time saying things for love of the sound of their own voice. The quiet ones often have something useful to say, and dealing with them is pleasant. Loud ones have useful things to say, too, but they'll make sure you hear them, so they don't need to be watched. Loud and obnoxious is a bad combination, though. Obnoxious ones covet the attention, while quiet ones do not, so their words are less trustworthy, because they have an agenda. They only look out for themselves, so why would I ever want to develop a relationship with them?

Your bloviating and insults may work for you in some situations, because you are clever manipulator, but I will just tune you out.

Now this is the part where you can feel free to make (erroneous) assumptions about me, and fling a few more insults. Or not. I don't care, either way.


- Sirian

[Mujadaddy]

Originally posted by Senethro
Jesus stalightdeath, quit fagging up the forum and go play a game you actually enjoy.

ha.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by Mergle
For good MP, I would argue, you want *over a run of games* for the most adaptable and skilled players to come out on top. Thus, luck in an individual game - provided not determinative in general - will even out.

You hit it right on the nail. Civ is like baseball. There are hall of famer's whose win/loss ratio is around 60%. If a team wins 100 games (and looses 66) they have had an absolutely incredible season.

If you want a game where every time you play someone of even infinitesimally less skill than yourself you win, you need to find another game. And for a whole lot of people the restrictions necessary to create such a game would make it unfun. Civ is fun. Civ is strategic. And over the course of 100 games, if you really are better than the average player you face, you will have a winning record.

[Aeson]

Sorry to see Eyes is still steaming about not being able to hold up his end of the conversations we had. I was hoping we could talk again sometime. He couldn't resist "ignorance is bliss" I guess.

-----------------

AOE style maps are definitely possible. Not like they were terribly balanced in the first AOE though. (Can't speak for the others as I didn't play them, but AOE was being used without qualification. ) Shore Fish next to your HC, a Forest, Gold and/or Stone were rather huge until they fixed it. There was plenty of other variation possible too simply in how the resources were oriented in regards to each other and the rest of the map.

CIV allows for even more balanced map scripts than AOE had. Just need the intellectual capacity to work with Python.

-----------------

Anyways... can't wait to read that book you're going to write Eyes! (How is that an achievement by the way? Going to write a book? That's a goal.) Maybe that you don't enjoy CIV is a good thing, now you have more time to enlighten the world with your writing.

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
I hate it when people reply by quoting every little sentence in some lame attempt to try to overrun me with so much bull**** that I'll give up and go away.

I was actually hoping you'd make a fool of yourself so I wouldn't feel so bad about being trolled in the Isabella thread. I pwned j00 with my strategic use of internet forum resources!

Another mistake they made was allowing people to build on top of resources. While this does give a second option, it really takes away the ability to force people off.

For the love of god, stop *****ing and adapt. If they can do it, you can do it.
It's Fine, Learn to Play
Cry More, n00b

Don't think I've ever heard anyone call Monopoly a strategy game.

Yes, it's more of a Diplomacy game - which is why you're immediately going to shun it, because you suck at diplomacy even more than I do.

Age of empires didn't have to, let alone nearly every single other game out there; why does this one?

Age of empires has randomised damage, and it also has map seeds.
Before attacking our game of choice, would you please get a clue about how to play your own?

I won't even get started on the ladder and the administrators who think their little online reputation even means ****. As for intelligence, I started my own business and I'm going to be writing a book. What have you done?

Well, I trolled some n00b into making a hypocrite of himself, and showed the world an important moral:
Even if you own your own business and write your own book, you can still be miserable and hated by everyone by making a **** of yourself.

By the way, calling someone a "noob" has got to be the dumbest ****ing word ever. Seriously, what lameass little loser came up with that word?

The one who was tired of writing paragraphs as above, and decided to further the English language by summing the sentiment up in one word,
ya noob.

I'm 46-5 on the ladder and I'm a top 5 player in Civ4 when I was playing it. Who's the ****ing "noob"?

Let's see. you...
Cry about things on the forum instead of adapting tactics
Don't know how to play your own favourite game
Can't be bothered assimilating the enemy's tactics, and prefer to cry
Have a 46-5 rating, and still think it's a chance-based game
Got Trolled
Aggroed the entire ****ing forum
'Bragged' about writing a book to people that don't care

There is simply no strategy in Civ4.

And now you've chosen to fight a Flame War with someone far more skilled than you.
I hereby pronounce you...
0WN3D N00B.

Also, don't talk to me about AOE because I was a top US player in that game and that was definitely a game you could dominate and talk **** in.

What a bloody liar. You don't even know that AoE had Randomness, and was a game you could NOT Dominate simply because the lack of varied strategy meant everyone followed the same build order, and it became a battle of mind-numbing repetition instead of tactical brilliance.
If your idea of Domination is to perform a repetitious task better than someone, then that isn't Domination. That's Manual Labor, and it's something that the Western World thinks it is better than.

That you get Pleasure from outperforming others in Manual Labor suggests an emotional insecurity. That you brag about it on these forums suggests same insecurity. That you'd enter a flame war to defend it with lies you can't back up suggests that you, sir, are an immature little boy who was never good at anything, and who needs to get a brain, stop lying through his teeth and grow up.

I'm sorry, what was your name on the ladder again? Are you completely oblivious to city distance upkeep? Do I really need to point out the ridiculousness of pushing out borders in an MP game to gain resources? Obviously you have never played MP so it is time to shut up.

I'm not on the ladder since I'm still exploring the game, to make sure I don't rush straight into a group of real people and do something retarded.
City Distance Upkeep: If the Iron's THAT far away then it's not your iron.
Pushing Borders in MP: Religions, Monasteries/Libraries and a bit of Patience will let you push a border. If you can't get a resource in the Fat Cross without making a crappy base, then you should MAKE expanding borders a part of your strategy.
How many times must I repeat myself to you, Lord N00bcakes, that you Adapt and Learn new strategies to the situation?

How many 1v1 warrior rush's have you done on a tiny duel mirror map? What's that? You don't play MP? Ok.

I play as Bismarck and if I'm going to rush, I rush Archers and Swordsmen.
Only Builder-Addicts fall to Warrior Rushes. Your 90% win rate might work on people who are used to AIs on noble, but it won't work on me, or any of the other fine folk at Apolyton.

In conclusion,
Apolyton = L33t
You = N00b
GTFO PLS

[Blake]

edit: nm.