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One of the bright stars on this forum made a comment to me this morning, regarding how smoothly my tutorials seem to go, and it got me thinking.
Perhaps this too, needs to be a topic for strategic discussion.
Maybe there are people out there who read about a strategy, and then struggle to make it work for them, and wonder why.
After all, are they not following the play-by-play, blow-by-blow mentioned in the program and playbook? And given that, should things not be working out more smoothly than they are?
Failures at this stage, with a step-by-step guidebook in front of you, can easily lead to mounting, pull-your-hair out frustration that in turn, can prompt you to simply give up.
Before you give into that temptation, I implore you to consider the words in this thread.
Understand that having the cookbook before you is not enough.
Reading the directions on the back of the box and diligently following them will take you a little ways down the road, but it won't take you the full distance.
Why?
The reason for this is that even the most detailed tutorial ever written here is nothing more than a series of moments, frozen in time and put on display. It tells you nothing about the pulse of the game, the ebb and flow of the tides that make it up, nor the complete picture of the mindset of the author OF the tutorial.
These things can be hinted at, but cannot be fully explained by way of a simple tutorial, and it is these things that can, and often do spell victory or defeat. Their influences are quiet, subtle things, but they are more powerful than any plan you could ever lay, and if you do not acknowledge and account for them....if you insist on cutting a straight path even when the river curves, it should come as no great surprise when the rocks beat and cut you for it. The game is like that. If you're outside the current, it'll fight you at every turn.
So how do you find the current?
What I'm about to say might not make a lot of sense, but I hope you'll stick with me and try to see what I am describing.
Understand that the strategies and tutorials here are just the tip of the iceburg. They are the crude blueprints for a much more subtle piece of machinery at work. Beneath the crude blueprint you read about, there is a whole world of thought, and it is abuzz with life and activity.
And in that world of thought, there are multi-fasceted layers of reason behind every line drawn on the crude blueprint.
It's not enough to just read the directions. It's not enough to say "yes, I must build my Library now, so I can generate a Great Scientist, cos that's what the instructions say...."
No.
That's a fine way to begin, but if you want it to be EASY....if you want it to SING, then there's more to it than that. You've got to understand WHY it's important, and when you understand that, don't pat yourself on the back, cos there's more to learn.
After you understand why it's important, then you've got to understand how the terrain impacts your ability to DO that which is important.
And after you understand that, then you've got to understand the mechanical aspects of the game that will enable you to enhance or lessen (depending on if the terrain is well or poorly suited to your specific purpose) the impacts of the terrain, and evaluate whether or not it's "worth it" under the present conditions to pursue THIS particular strategy, or give consideration to some other.
Then you've got to account for and fully appreciate the random element (expressed in AI movements, wildlife, hut contents, and barbarians), and KNOW all the possible outcomes that surround you, and further, KNOW that you have plans in place to deal with them, whatever they are, and further still, to KNOW that those plans are as a suit of armor for you....that they are so tightly meshed together, and so perfectly formed that nothing the game engine throws you will be able to do more than cause a faint ripple against your armor. That whatever happens, your plans are so strong, and so solid, that the game engine has absolutely no hope of throwing you into disarray.
And when you achieve this level of understanding, you will have the confidence to approach the game under most any starting condition, do well, and make it look easy.
I wish I could say I was already there, but I'm not. I'm a long ways from there, actually, and my tutorials have mistakes in them....sometimes glaring ones.
All this is evidence that I am still learning too.
I feel like I'm on the right road, though.
I have reached the point where I can see the "writing on the wall" in-game, and can predict with good reliability what will happen, up to tens of turns before it actually does (this includes reading who will go to war, and why, understanding who my enemies will be, before they are actually my enemies, and formulating plans to deal with it, before they are ever even on the horizon, and other things such as these).
I can cite examples in the tutorials I have done so far, but cannot TELL YOU exactly how you must go about doing it. That's for each person to find for themselves, but perhaps by talking about it here (and yes, I'm specifically talking about the Metagame, perhaps it will open the way for more folks who weren't quite understanding it before).
Examples of understanding (taken from DW1a)
* The Archer Attack, just prior to founding the city of Antium. After the archer demolished our fortified warrior, he was weakened, but he was also in the forest (50% bonus), and still had first strike. Conventional wisdom would have said not to attack said unit with a warrior, and conventional wisdom would have been wrong. I don't know how I knew, but I KNEW we could beat him, so we attacked, won, and founded the second city.
* Spain. Spain founded her own religion. So did we. I KNEW that sooner or later, we would come to blows with Spain, and in fact, that she would be my principal adversary on the continent. This knowledge prompted me to seek out and secure the northern iron, it delayed my embracing of our religion, until after I could trade tech with her, and it was critical to formulating the battle plan for the defense of Rome. Had it taken me "by surprise" when Spain made her declaration of war, the outcome OF that war could have been disasterous, especially in light of the state of the military at that time.
* Stopping the expansion kick after destroying America. There was no way of knowing for sure what the state of India's army was, but I KNEW that my own boys weren't ready for more warring. They had already seen me through two wars, and had a stunning level of success, but there was not a doubt in my mind that attacking India would have gotten me mired in a slugfest that would have been difficult to win, regardless of my production advantage at that point. By waiting, we rolled over them like they weren't even there.
In an earlier essay, I wrote that the decisions you make early on in the game, how you opt to spend the very earliest of those hammers you generate will resonate through to the rest of your game....THIS is the "rest of the game" I was referring to.
Those early hammers, if well-spent, will bring us to the point where we have an Empire with a gigantic economic potential, and if we but sieze upon that, then we can create a game situation where we have a 500% economic lead over our nearest rival (or, to put another way, we're as big, or bigger than the rest of the world combined).
Those are the kinds of long range goals you want to have in your mind before you even start the game, and those kinds of goals are typically not met accidentally (tho they can be, as mentioned above).
I guess the biggest, bestest thing you could do would simply be to practice. Don't be shy about replaying the same map ten, or even a hundred times, until you have memorized every curve of ever river, and the placement of every tree.
What do you think General Lee would have given if he'd had the opportunity to "replay" the battle of Gettysburg a few hundred times before fighting it for real? Is there anything he wouldn't have given? And this is a thing we can do with rediculous ease in Civ. It's so easy that it doesn't make sense NOT to.
Replay and learn. Experiment. Try crazy stuff that shouldn't work in a million years, just to see what happens.
One of the things that happens is that if you play the game over enough times, you'll begin to hear it. You'll begin to feel it.
The pulse of the game.
When you get to that point, start another one, and listen for the now-familiar sound.
And keep doing that.
Before you know it, it'll be second nature, and then the words above will suddenly come back to you, and make more sense (and I'll paraphrase them here)
Before you can plan effectively, you've got to understand all the ins and outs of how the stuff being talked about WORKS....that's why I used the word "reliably" above. Sure, you can follow the directions and make it work now and then, but how much easier a time will you have when you fully understand and appreciate the nuiances of what you're doing?
Such understanding will increase by at least a thousandfold, your chances of success. Things you once struggled with will simply fall away from you, and they'll be so easy that you will wonder how and why you ever struggled to begin with.
And when that happens....when you FEEL it all start to click together....that's when you know you're making progress.
That's also when you come to realize just how much more there is yet to learn.
That's why we're all here...reading, writing, and participating in these ongoing discussions every day. It's why we keep coming back, and it's why we can't help but talk about it.
We're all striving to reach the same place, whether we know it yet or not.
-=Vel=-
Perhaps this too, needs to be a topic for strategic discussion.
Maybe there are people out there who read about a strategy, and then struggle to make it work for them, and wonder why.
After all, are they not following the play-by-play, blow-by-blow mentioned in the program and playbook? And given that, should things not be working out more smoothly than they are?
Failures at this stage, with a step-by-step guidebook in front of you, can easily lead to mounting, pull-your-hair out frustration that in turn, can prompt you to simply give up.
Before you give into that temptation, I implore you to consider the words in this thread.
Understand that having the cookbook before you is not enough.
Reading the directions on the back of the box and diligently following them will take you a little ways down the road, but it won't take you the full distance.
Why?
The reason for this is that even the most detailed tutorial ever written here is nothing more than a series of moments, frozen in time and put on display. It tells you nothing about the pulse of the game, the ebb and flow of the tides that make it up, nor the complete picture of the mindset of the author OF the tutorial.
These things can be hinted at, but cannot be fully explained by way of a simple tutorial, and it is these things that can, and often do spell victory or defeat. Their influences are quiet, subtle things, but they are more powerful than any plan you could ever lay, and if you do not acknowledge and account for them....if you insist on cutting a straight path even when the river curves, it should come as no great surprise when the rocks beat and cut you for it. The game is like that. If you're outside the current, it'll fight you at every turn.
So how do you find the current?
What I'm about to say might not make a lot of sense, but I hope you'll stick with me and try to see what I am describing.
Understand that the strategies and tutorials here are just the tip of the iceburg. They are the crude blueprints for a much more subtle piece of machinery at work. Beneath the crude blueprint you read about, there is a whole world of thought, and it is abuzz with life and activity.
And in that world of thought, there are multi-fasceted layers of reason behind every line drawn on the crude blueprint.
It's not enough to just read the directions. It's not enough to say "yes, I must build my Library now, so I can generate a Great Scientist, cos that's what the instructions say...."
No.
That's a fine way to begin, but if you want it to be EASY....if you want it to SING, then there's more to it than that. You've got to understand WHY it's important, and when you understand that, don't pat yourself on the back, cos there's more to learn.
After you understand why it's important, then you've got to understand how the terrain impacts your ability to DO that which is important.
And after you understand that, then you've got to understand the mechanical aspects of the game that will enable you to enhance or lessen (depending on if the terrain is well or poorly suited to your specific purpose) the impacts of the terrain, and evaluate whether or not it's "worth it" under the present conditions to pursue THIS particular strategy, or give consideration to some other.
Then you've got to account for and fully appreciate the random element (expressed in AI movements, wildlife, hut contents, and barbarians), and KNOW all the possible outcomes that surround you, and further, KNOW that you have plans in place to deal with them, whatever they are, and further still, to KNOW that those plans are as a suit of armor for you....that they are so tightly meshed together, and so perfectly formed that nothing the game engine throws you will be able to do more than cause a faint ripple against your armor. That whatever happens, your plans are so strong, and so solid, that the game engine has absolutely no hope of throwing you into disarray.
And when you achieve this level of understanding, you will have the confidence to approach the game under most any starting condition, do well, and make it look easy.
I wish I could say I was already there, but I'm not. I'm a long ways from there, actually, and my tutorials have mistakes in them....sometimes glaring ones.
All this is evidence that I am still learning too.
I feel like I'm on the right road, though.
I have reached the point where I can see the "writing on the wall" in-game, and can predict with good reliability what will happen, up to tens of turns before it actually does (this includes reading who will go to war, and why, understanding who my enemies will be, before they are actually my enemies, and formulating plans to deal with it, before they are ever even on the horizon, and other things such as these).
I can cite examples in the tutorials I have done so far, but cannot TELL YOU exactly how you must go about doing it. That's for each person to find for themselves, but perhaps by talking about it here (and yes, I'm specifically talking about the Metagame, perhaps it will open the way for more folks who weren't quite understanding it before).
Examples of understanding (taken from DW1a)
* The Archer Attack, just prior to founding the city of Antium. After the archer demolished our fortified warrior, he was weakened, but he was also in the forest (50% bonus), and still had first strike. Conventional wisdom would have said not to attack said unit with a warrior, and conventional wisdom would have been wrong. I don't know how I knew, but I KNEW we could beat him, so we attacked, won, and founded the second city.
* Spain. Spain founded her own religion. So did we. I KNEW that sooner or later, we would come to blows with Spain, and in fact, that she would be my principal adversary on the continent. This knowledge prompted me to seek out and secure the northern iron, it delayed my embracing of our religion, until after I could trade tech with her, and it was critical to formulating the battle plan for the defense of Rome. Had it taken me "by surprise" when Spain made her declaration of war, the outcome OF that war could have been disasterous, especially in light of the state of the military at that time.
* Stopping the expansion kick after destroying America. There was no way of knowing for sure what the state of India's army was, but I KNEW that my own boys weren't ready for more warring. They had already seen me through two wars, and had a stunning level of success, but there was not a doubt in my mind that attacking India would have gotten me mired in a slugfest that would have been difficult to win, regardless of my production advantage at that point. By waiting, we rolled over them like they weren't even there.
In an earlier essay, I wrote that the decisions you make early on in the game, how you opt to spend the very earliest of those hammers you generate will resonate through to the rest of your game....THIS is the "rest of the game" I was referring to.
Those early hammers, if well-spent, will bring us to the point where we have an Empire with a gigantic economic potential, and if we but sieze upon that, then we can create a game situation where we have a 500% economic lead over our nearest rival (or, to put another way, we're as big, or bigger than the rest of the world combined).
Those are the kinds of long range goals you want to have in your mind before you even start the game, and those kinds of goals are typically not met accidentally (tho they can be, as mentioned above).
I guess the biggest, bestest thing you could do would simply be to practice. Don't be shy about replaying the same map ten, or even a hundred times, until you have memorized every curve of ever river, and the placement of every tree.
What do you think General Lee would have given if he'd had the opportunity to "replay" the battle of Gettysburg a few hundred times before fighting it for real? Is there anything he wouldn't have given? And this is a thing we can do with rediculous ease in Civ. It's so easy that it doesn't make sense NOT to.
Replay and learn. Experiment. Try crazy stuff that shouldn't work in a million years, just to see what happens.
One of the things that happens is that if you play the game over enough times, you'll begin to hear it. You'll begin to feel it.
The pulse of the game.
When you get to that point, start another one, and listen for the now-familiar sound.
And keep doing that.
Before you know it, it'll be second nature, and then the words above will suddenly come back to you, and make more sense (and I'll paraphrase them here)
Before you can plan effectively, you've got to understand all the ins and outs of how the stuff being talked about WORKS....that's why I used the word "reliably" above. Sure, you can follow the directions and make it work now and then, but how much easier a time will you have when you fully understand and appreciate the nuiances of what you're doing?
Such understanding will increase by at least a thousandfold, your chances of success. Things you once struggled with will simply fall away from you, and they'll be so easy that you will wonder how and why you ever struggled to begin with.
And when that happens....when you FEEL it all start to click together....that's when you know you're making progress.
That's also when you come to realize just how much more there is yet to learn.
That's why we're all here...reading, writing, and participating in these ongoing discussions every day. It's why we keep coming back, and it's why we can't help but talk about it.
We're all striving to reach the same place, whether we know it yet or not.
-=Vel=-
(and maybe actually complete a game)
]
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