Worst 3 concepts in the history of gaming

[Qwertqwert]

The only problem I have with vassal states is that you can't ever cancel them. And with certin things, like technologies, you can demand, and they can still refuse, and you still can't declare war. Vassal states would be just fine if they were cancelable, but without it, it does seem to ruin the game in my oppnion.

[Grandpa Troll]

Re: Worst 3 concepts in the history of gaming

Originally posted by kekremsi
In no particular order:

-Ganking
-Grinding
-Vassal States

Causing pain and grief for the player is a popular trend and firaxis can't stay behind the times.

Help me please, I love the Civilization series


What are you speaking about in terms someone such as myself who is not "Down" with the lingo or "Up" on the Lingo can understand?

What does the game do that you reference Ganking or Grinding?

Thanks for the help

Gramps

[Lord Avalon]

Surely camping is worse than vassal states.

[Solver]

Originally posted by Qwertqwert
The only problem I have with vassal states is that you can't ever cancel them. And with certin things, like technologies, you can demand, and they can still refuse, and you still can't declare war. Vassal states would be just fine if they were cancelable, but without it, it does seem to ruin the game in my oppnion.

If you could cancel the arrangement at any time, then vassals would essentially be punching bags that you can extort stuff from while you can, and destroy when they no longer will give it to you. I think vassal states could use a few minor tweaks to make them more profitable for you, though.

[yin26]

Vassal states really made Civ *much* better for me, but this has to do with my gaming style: I wanted civs to form blocks precisely so I couldn't line up my victims in a predictable cycle each and every game. Many players, of course, prefer to know going in that they'll win their game mostly no matter what. I guess I've played this game so long now that I'm not looking for so much predictability.

Now when I win a game of Civ (on Monarch, these days), I feel really challenged and a bit like I've accomplished something.

[Kuciwalker]

Re: Worst 3 concepts in the history of gaming

Originally posted by kekremsi
In no particular order:

-Ganking
-Grinding
-Vassal States

Causing pain and grief for the player is a popular trend and firaxis can't stay behind the times.

You forgot hit points.

[Pinchak]

Ganking is great if you are the ganker!

The terms "gank" and "grind" are MMORPG terms... not just World of Warcraft terms.

Warcraft tried to address these two problems unsucessfully, but to their credit. Safe zones and optional PvP settings to address ganking, and deminishing returns for grinding. Both approches had flaws, and did little to curb the issues.

The dynamics behind both these problems is very interesting actually. There are actually entire "MMORPG sweatshops" over in the far east where sweaty orientals are chained to computer terminals for days at a time to grind gold for sale to western players. When their eyes start to bleed from staring at a monitor for too long, they are allowed to go home for brief period of rest. However, explosives that can be detonated remotely are attached to their necks incase they don't come back within 24 hours (48 in Korea). Keep THAT in mind next time you buy gold online!

Just as a point of interest... doing repeated actions for gold or items is known as "farming", where as repeating actions for XP is known as "grinding". IMO anyone who engauges in either activity has a mental disorder (or is an enslaved oriental).

I used to play WoW and SWG... those games can be VERY fun, however there comes a day when you look at your level 60 character and wonder, "I wasted HOW many hours for this???".

Of course you could turn around and sell the character on Ebay for a couple hundred bucks. Comes out to something like $0.03 an hour.

[Adagio]

While I do hate some of the problems there are with Vassal States, it overall made the game better

The most annoying thing about Vassal States is, when you're at war with someone you manage to take a lot of cities, then a friendly civ declares war too and takes one city and now the enemy is a Vassal to your friend

[patcon]

Originally posted by Adagio
While I do hate some of the problems there are with Vassal States, it overall made the game better

The most annoying thing about Vassal States is, when you're at war with someone you manage to take a lot of cities, then a friendly civ declares war too and takes one city and now the enemy is a Vassal to your friend

Agreed. What would be nice is when your target gets tired of being beaten down by you and runs off to become someone's vassal there should be some diplomatic dialog involved.
The AI decision to accept a vassal should be influenced by your relationship with them. If you're fighting X and are on good terms with Y and X tries to become a vassal of Y, then Y should take into account its realtionship to you before agreeing.
In general, a good (IMO) option for diplomacy would be if a civ offers/demands a deal which changes your relationship with someone else, you should have a chance to speak with that someone else first. Example: X offers to trade a resource to you but is the worst enemy of Y, who is on good terms with you. You should be able to see if Y will offer you anything to not make the trade.

[Harovan]

In a recent game of mine I was on a continent with Gandhi (friendly to me), Stalin (whom I had systematically pissed off) and Montezuma (who was Stalins vassal). Both of them declared war on India, and I immediately prepared to intervene on Gandhi's site, expecting him to ask me for help.

But surprise, he didn't just ask for help, he asked to be my vassal, at free will. Now that was even better.

Vassal states!

[OliverFA]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Vassal States is bad for people who want to have CONTROL of their gaming experience.

For instance: I wage war on a tech competitor, the Ottomans; but I decide to make peace, leaving them with 2-3 cities (hey, it's a Huge map). After the 10 turns of peace are up, I prepare to finish the job. I check my F4 and --ack!!-- the Ottomans are now vassals of the Inca (2nd place civ on another continent, and my friends)! I must have missed the announcement. Now to finish the job is going to involve complications galore; I cancelled the attack but I may decide to do it later regardless.

Vassals add a volatility to the political scene which is a great step in the realism department. It enhances a major concept in Civ4, that being potential downsides to decisions you make.

To me that's a very logical behaviour. What did you expect? That the Ottomans just waited patiently for you to finish them? IMHO it makes a lot of sense that they want to voluntarily choose who they are going to be vassals of instead of waiting for you to finish them. They give something to their master, but they keep a part of themselves and some independence. If they didn't do it they would just dissapear.

I think that anything (besides cheating of course) that the AI does to prevent the player for wining is a good thing.

[Robert]

You should love vassal states!
They save you from having the same civilization strategy for ages!

It's only good if things change so you have to re-adopt!

[Robert]

btw, Ganking and Grinding aren't game concepts, they're morely exploits by players.
It's not as if a developper thought: "Let's invent ganking" like Firaxis decided one day to implement vassal states.

[onodera]

Faction Submission in SMAC was done much better than Vassalage.
The Vassals don't ever listen to your unreasonable demands ("I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune."), and you can't cancel the vassalage and punish them for that.
But surrendered factions in SMAC were much more resonable.

[ZEE]

Regarding Vassal States...

I should be able to use my workers, and especially my work boats, to help connect my vassal's resources so i can aquire that particular resource by diplomacy! i hate waiting for my vassal, who seemingly never sends out that work boat to connect that fish i need (and dont have) so i can take it from him! it would be simpler to be able to work your vassals tiles, but i can see how this could be exploited, i guess...

oh yeah, and while i am ranting, am i the only person that HATES the emancipation civic? i mean it has such a weak benefit for the unhappyness penalties that try to "offset" this bonus as well as try to make it "realistic." By the time i get "emancipation," all my cottages are villages and towns anyways so i dont NEED that stupid growth bonus that it gives me. that is such a weak bonus for such a huge penalty especially at that point in the game. Most of the "Labor Civics" suck anyways IMHO...

rant over
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