CIV IV makes me sad

[Harovan]

Civ IV makes baby Jebus cry

Seriously, I hate it. The AI is cheating ridiculously, and spearmen can still defeat Imperial Star Destroyers. And I can't stand all that micromanaging, gimmicking and shoe-horning . I'm much rather horny in another way. So spare me your useless copy-pasted drivel, Blake! I'm unable to outreserch the AI at noble, that means the sky is falling, global warming will take over and Martians invade. And I am sick of Apolyton with all these apologists, paid shills and Firaxis suck ups! I hereby give notice, that I will emigrate to CivFanatics. Civ IV is so horrible and I am so fed up with it, that I will singlehandedly invade America and zidane Sid Meier.

Furthermore, Solver is a hamster and Locutus smells of elderberries! On a second thought, let's not go to CivFanatics. It's a silly place.

Who's with me?

[DrSpike]

Re: Re: CIV IV makes me sad

Originally posted by Bkeela


I hear you. Programmers have come here and stated that the AI doesn't cheat in regard to odds - others explain it away saying that you only notice negative losses but never remember when you achieve an against the odds victory. That is BULL****!

I wouldn't feel like a miracle has taken place if my 70% probablility favours a victory if the odds weren't rigged.

I accept the situation though. I factor it into my gameplay. It is just insulting to common sense to suggest it isn't rigged.

I sir, insult your common sense.

Though actually that's hard, as you clearly don't have any.

[Dis]

I have to make another post. . I never really thought about it much until it was mentioned in this thread. now I can't stop thinking about it.

I get wonder greedy.

think about it. It usually takes about 50 turns to build a wonder. Think of how many military units you can build in that time. Probably enough units to conquer your neighboring civiliization which will send you very high on the power graph and ensure victory on noble level without a doubt.

[Cort Haus]

SR -

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by Dis
....think about it. It usually takes about 50 turns to build a wonder. Think of how many military units you can build in that time. Probably enough units to conquer your neighboring civiliization which will send you very high on the power graph and ensure victory on noble level without a doubt.

You got it!

You really don't NEED wonders - sure, they're nice to have, but not absolutely necessary. Of the early wonders, the only one I regularly try to get is the Oracle.

On noble, the most effective tactic, I've found, is to build up your army early on, scout for a conveniently placed neighbour, and conquer them - then calm things down for a while to get your finances in order. It doesn't matter if your research suffers in the conquest stage, as the commerce from your newly conquered cities will correct that temporary disadvantage soon enough. You'll end up with a sizeable lead that'll allow you to dominate the game. If you're really lucky, by the time you take your neighbour's cities, he/she's allready grabbed a religion, and/or built some early wonder for you!

[Bkeela]

Okay, so I won't blame the programmers - I'll now blame the universe and whatever god controls randomness.

[Blake]

Originally posted by ChITty
After playing again tonight... I suggest whoever ran those tests to confirm the percentages run them again with warlords.

Actually to me it does seem that in Warlords the combat results are more streaky - I played 3 games in a row, and in each there were a number of very unlikely streaks of combat results. Of course it's possible I was just lucky - I say lucky because most of the results were in my favor - like my catapult defending against an attacking AI Horse Archer.

I can say this for sure: The combat system is not fair, you can be somewhat screwed over by it. CIV is not a fair game, you can get somewhat screwed over by your start. When these things happen you need to adapt, I've yet to have bad combat luck put me in an unwinnable position - maybe at worst I have to sue for peace prematurely.
Bad luck has a simple and very effective counter - Overkill (in CIV it's vital to not allow injured enemy to escape to heal and promote - always have local superiority). Sometimes at the highest difficulties prayer becomes nessecary.
The combat system is not fair. I can also say for sure that it is not biased - it's equally unfair on the AI (and in MP, other humans). Once you get used to risking low odd battles you'll start getting lucky combat results as well as the unlucky ones. I can't count how many times I've won multiple 30% odds battles in a row, this is because I often zerg with weak units like Jaguars or Keshiks, so a few cities will get rolled without losses even though the odds of that are quite low.

[Qwertqwert]

Originally posted by Dis
I have to make another post. . I never really thought about it much until it was mentioned in this thread. now I can't stop thinking about it.

I get wonder greedy.

think about it. It usually takes about 50 turns to build a wonder. Think of how many military units you can build in that time. Probably enough units to conquer your neighboring civiliization which will send you very high on the power graph and ensure victory on noble level without a doubt.

Errr... No... Takes way more shields to conquer an enemy. That's true for almost all wonders comparing the time it's aviable except for maybe the Pyramaids.

[phlucas]

Originally posted by Dis
But 70% is 70%. Not 100%. Of course you are going to lose them sometimes.

Actually, I would prefer it if at a certain threshold the chances are set to 0 or 1. Say, a battle with odds 97% will always result in an unscratched victory, and 3% is certain failure. This would make extremely improbable outcomes impossible.

(I realise that then people would complain about losing 96% battles, so it would not be an end to this debate.)

[Fosse]

Originally posted by phlucas


Actually, I would prefer it if at a certain threshold the chances are set to 0 or 1.

That's in the game. The thresholds are 0% and 100%, respectivly.

[Cort Haus]

Surely all random numbers in civ are generated by the same function.

Rather than setting up laborious tests in worldbuilder to manually compile trial combat data, a program could repeatedly call the random function to generate as many numbers as required. The list of numbers can then be handed to the nearest friendly statistician to check for streakiness in whatever stat-o-matic analyser they use.

[padillah]

I can only assume the developers have done this (I can't believe they would simply "hope" the random number generator worked) and it's, apparently, not sufficient for those who have not witnessed the phenomenon with their own eyes.

Psuedo-random numbers are quite a big deal in programming and several libraries have been built to support different methods of generating one (including ones that use video cameras and radioactive decay). It's been done to death but some people have a hard time believing what they can't see.

So, for the average player it's easy enough to setup a combat (or series of combats) in WB and play them out and note the results first-hand.

Anything else can be declared "fanboism" or "apoligism" when it's simply having spent enough time in the industry to understand psuedorandom number generation.

Tom P.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Fosse
That's in the game. The thresholds are 0% and 100%, respectivly.

Actually, no.

If I understand tha math correctly there can never be 0% chance of winning. Since it's based on ratios (of strengths) and since every unit in the game has a strength >0 you won't get a ratio of 0.

I know, units get bonuses, but those are always +/- percentages. So there will always be a strength and therefore a ratio greater than 0.

It may get ridiculously small (I've personally seen 0.1%) but it can't actually reach 0 unless some type of MIN/MAX/CEIL/FLOOR function is used.

Tom P.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by padillah
I can only assume the developers have done this

I'm sure they have, but independent analysis would do no harm while the debate rumbles on.

[rah]

It's war, and there are always unsure outcomes.
Do you really expect to know the outcome of every attack before you attack? IF so, it takes a lot of fun out of it.

The percentages see to be reasonably accurate. The only one i have a problem with is 50%. I always seem to lose those