The Cost of Random Events

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
A TBS is the better, the less randomness is in it.

This is very very false. A TBS without randomness is missing a crucial strategy element.

[Proteus_MST]

All in all I find the events and quests much less unbalancing than the goodie huts. They don´t give you things like the new technologies you find in goodie huts (and which, in marathon or epic, can save you many many turns of research)

[MattDoyle]

Made a note last night of a few events i encounted, note all on marathon speed:

1690 BC - 20 gold - Flash Floods - Can't save a road.

310 AD - 25 gold - Flash Floods - Can't save a road.

390 AD - 76 gold - Wedding - Don't gain +3 rep with another nation, a second option was 19 gold to only gain +1 rep

500 AD - 64 gold - Fire - Can't save the cities forge, +1 unhappiness for a short period, a second option was 12 gold to just lose the forge and no unhappiness

540 AD - 24 gold - Vermin in the warehouse - lose 100% of stored food

660 AD - 13 gold, 100% of a cities stored food - Neighbours lose food - Don't gain +3 relations, a second option with no gold cost and only 50% of a cities stored food gained +1 relations

845 AD - 70 gold - Fire - Lose cities forge, +1 unhappiness for a short period, a second option was 14 gold to only lose the forge.

1270 AD - 31 gold - collapsed mine - mine destroyed, +1 unhappiness in nearest city, a second option was 7 gold to lose the mine without the unhappiness

1285 AD - as 1270.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Yeah, Arrian, you're missing some really cool events.q

I turned it back on. I'll give it a chance.

Last night I got two events, both bad:

Barbarian uprising and a tornado or other natural disaster that destroyed a sheep pasture.

The Barb uprising consisted of 4 barb axemen that materialized out of nowhere on my border. They marched right on into my territory, moving towards two cities (they split 2/2) that were at the time defended by warriors. This paltry defense was due to the fact that I had nearly my entire army of Immortals fighting Japan.

I was able, in the end, to get 3 or 4 immortals back in time to defeat the axes, but it was a close run thing. That had MAJOR suck potential - death by (extremely random) diceroll. But it does at least bring a challenge that the player must meet. Defend yourself against unexpected danger.

The sheep pasture... boy was that fun!

edit: actually, in a aborted game I got a third event, which was positive: I could choose a beaker bonus to current research, or +1 beaker for the library in my city (in perpetuity, I presume). I chose the latter. That game ended up in the dustbin of history, though, due to poor play on my part and good play on the part of the AI.

-Arrian

[Thrak]

The 'Worlds foremost producer of tin' event is quite nice, I mined a hill at my capital (and then only city) and next turn it gave +2 hammers. 6 hammers weeeee

[Saurus]

Some events can turn out to be real good.
Like getting a free scientist in your capital for the duration of the entire game! That almost like a mini-great library wonder., except not getting obsolted.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
This is very very false. A TBS without randomness is missing a crucial strategy element.

What kind of nonsense is that? Are you implying chess would better be played with dice and lacks a crucial strategy element without them?

And stop constructing strawmen. I'm not against randomness where it's inevitable, e.g. in map generation and combat. All above the necessary is, however, evil. "As little as possible" is the key. Even chess has sometimes a random element, and be it only choosing the color you play.

Your mileage may vary, by the way.

[nbarclay]

There's another thread titled something like "Tales of Random Events" that would be a better place for the general discussion of people's experiences with events.

[Arrian]

Sorry, nathan.

-Arrian

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
What kind of nonsense is that? Are you implying chess would better be played with dice and lacks a crucial strategy element without them?

Chess isn't big enough to incorporate randomness. But any strategy game without randomness loses some depth in that it's missing an important element - forcing players to come up with strategies to mitigate the consequences of bad luck, and allowing players to come up with strategies that let them capitalize on good luck. Even if that strategy is just "build a larger stack so even a result 1 sigma out will let me take the city."

And stop constructing strawmen. I'm not against randomness where it's inevitable, e.g. in map generation and combat.

I'm not constructing a strawman, either, you said specifically:

A TBS is the better, the less randomness is in it.

That is, randomness is wholly undesirable because a TBS with less randomness is always preferable to one with more. If you don't want me to attack obviously false statements, try qualifying yours before making them.

Also, there's no reason combat need be random. Nor map generation. You just lose strategy if they aren't, as I said.

[Common Sensei]

Some efforts at balancing seems to be ingrained into events as well. Slavery is mitigated for a chance for your capital to suffer a slave revolt which leaves it in riot for a turn (or more if you do nothing to suppress it).

Hereditary Rule has a possible event to spawn a free super specialist in your capital (merchant, prophet, or general).

And so on.

For the main topic at hand:

New source of spices where found in a city's borders:

22 gold - Automatically clear the forest, build a plantation and roads to the source - do nothing (have to hook it up manually).

[Lord Avalon]

I had the innovative chef/new source of spice one. You can save time by having the plantation/road built (but you don't get the chop ).

Upon his passing, a patron of knowledge from Amsterdam has willed his extensive collection of writings to the library.

• Disperse the writings to our researchers so that we may obtain some immediate benefit. (+245 towards Machinery)
• Fund the expansion of the Library to include a new wing housing all of these precious writings. (-245 from your treasury. Library +1 )

Marathon speed, forgot to write down the year. In another game I had this come earlier and cheaper.

A medicinal tea cultivated by locals has been found to be effective with treating illnesses. This tea grows only in a specific region near Amsterdam.

• We should establish internal trade with the locals for these rare commodities. (+1 in the plot.)
• Fund efforts to increase production without endangering the natural resources that produce them. (-115 from treasury. +1 in the plot. In addition 67% chance for +3 and +1 free scientist in Amsterdam.)

This was later in the same game.

[Wiglaf]

But any strategy game without randomness loses some depth in that it's missing an important element - forcing players to come up with strategies to mitigate the consequences of bad luck,

Civ4's randomness -- eg, how resources are distributed, how combat is resolved, events and quests -- do create strategic situations that wouldn't exist before, sure. These situations usually take this form:

"I need to bring a warrior along with my settler to prevent random barbarians from killing it." This is incomplete information, like in Stratego ("I'd better bring a scout to see if there are mines up ahead..")

But they can also take this form:

"Good thing this AI started on an island and could only make 2 crappy cities!"

"Whew! Now I get +50 gold per turn because of some random national bank."

Those aren't forms of incomplete information. It is as if, when playing chess outside, some kid came by and just stole 2 of your pieces.

Civ4 sacrifices depth for randomness because randomness helps to keep the experience fresh. It is kind of hard to say "Well, Civ just makes you adapt and adds depth in doing so" when it can also quite literally ruin your game in one or two rolls of the dice.

[Kuciwalker]

I never claimed the randomness of BtS events added much depth, I was just disagreeing with SR's assertion that randomness is uniformly bad. I otherwise agree with your analysis.

[Thrak]

the slavery thing is an absolute pain, what annoys me most is that I often switch 'just in case' I have to whip some emergency military units.

Last night I had 2 seperate slave revolts in my capital, despite the fact I hadn't whipped anything anywhere! If you ask me they should make the events kick in only when you've been using slavery, rather than just keeping it as an option. I know it reflects policy but surely there should be some sort of modifier regarding use.