An intellectual's review

[Petrus2]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

I'm sorry, but anytime a person resorts to insults during a debate, they simply marginalize their viewpoint. Reasoned, respectful debate is useful. Mudslinging is useless. Fact is, the mudslinger not only damages their argument in the topic at hand, but their reputation for all future discussions.

Moron.

Thanks for helping me make my point

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by snoopy369
The mistake you're making here Kuci is to assume that "economy" has anything to do wiht money.

Nope, because I've never made that assumption.

Civ4 has an interesting economic aspect beyond money; economics is the study of scarcity, and you can have an economy of anything that is scarce.

You can have an economy. Almost all games have an economy. WoW has an economy. It's not based on the economy of the real world, though.

Other than a true economic simulator - with simulated people and whatnot - Civ is pretty good in this respect.

Civ is horrible. The foundations of the model - food/hammers/commerce - don't really have anything to do with how the world actually works.

[snoopy369]

Perhaps you play a different game from me?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Petrus2
Constructive criticism IS useful. Attacks are not. EVEN if the attacker is correct, the other person simply gets all defensive and no one LISTENS to the other.

Criticize an idea or a thought. Don't criticize the person.

Buddy, this is the internet, not Teletubbies. I don't actually care all that much about whether these comments are going to make the world a happy fuzzy place.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Perhaps you play a different game from me?

Are major production centers all located right next to big mines where you live?

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What's wrong with being critical again?

Criticism

In your case, Kuci, being critical has no useful purpose. It does not add to the conversation, merely filling it with whatever pops into your head at the time. Does it really surprise you that you are not included in the vote of thanks.

Let’s be completely honest. You don’t like the economic model in CivIV because it is nothing like a real economic model. Even an idiot could see that except you seem to be allowed to state the obvious while Locutus cannot describe a title of a blog as being pretentious. I must have missed the bit where Kuci has certain rights that are denied to others.

Can I tell you a few other things that don’t make sense in CIV?

- At 1000 BC time speeds up.
- When I discover Plastics, people are no longer happy with fur
- I can raze a city of 5 million people in it during the modern era and there is little diplomatic damage caused
- It takes me over 100 years to sail round the world.
- My capital’s production from 1000 BC to 1000 AD will do little more than double.
- I get more food with State Property.
- Theocracy makes might newly trained units fight better.

Just because we have these oddities, does not mean that I do not have a macro-economic model. It is still there but it is tailored to make the game playable. And in order to encompass time periods from the Ancient to Modern Eras a lot of corners have to be cut. It is clearly an imperfect model but not so imperfect as to push the game into the realms of fantasy. It’s success is based on it being a “real-world” model.

[Supr49er]

I don't see the point of ad hominem attacks.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Are major production centers all located right next to big mines where you live?

And you yet again make a poor assumption

I am not suggesting that Civ 'realistically simulates the world economy'. I am suggesting that Civ has an economic MODEL that is interesting, and yields interesting results when considered economically.

[Petrus2]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Buddy, this is the internet, not Teletubbies. I don't actually care all that much about whether these comments are going to make the world a happy fuzzy place.

Ahhh. Nothing makes me feel better than another person proving my point.

I didn't say anything about making the world a fuzzy place. And yes, you've gone to great lengths to prove that this IS the internet, and all the shortcomings of the forum.

I'm not your buddy, trust me on that.

But I would hope that anyone here makes comments with a goal in mind. And it would be nice, on a Civ 4 board, if the goal was to improve the game or the playing of it.

So, what exactly IS your goal?

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Buddy, this is the internet, not Teletubbies. I don't actually care all that much about whether these comments are going to make the world a happy fuzzy place.

And yet he's right ... destructive criticism does not accomplish anything, happy fuzzy or not.

Except getting people banned anyways...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by couerdelion
In your case, Kuci, being critical has no useful purpose. It does not add to the conversation, merely filling it with whatever pops into your head at the time. Does it really surprise you that you are not included in the vote of thanks.

Did I look surprised? Keep in mind that my tongue is pretty firmly embedded in my cheek.

Let’s be completely honest. You don’t like the economic model in CivIV because it is nothing like a real economic model.

What? I love the economic model in civ, it's brilliant in its simplicity and it makes a fun game. I just don't like people arguing that it's a good simulation of the real economy.

Even an idiot could see that except you seem to be allowed to state the obvious while Locutus cannot describe a title of a blog as being pretentious. I must have missed the bit where Kuci has certain rights that are denied to others.

Given that people have argued against that, either we have a bunch of idiots in this thread (likely, but beside the point) or your claim isn't true. Since realsnoopy isn't an idiot yet disagrees, your claim must be false.

There's also the fact that I was complaining about Locutus declaring a value judgement as fact about something where the reader is more than qualified to make their own judgement immediately. I wasn't complaining about him stating the obvious (such is often necessary given the abundance of idiots).

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by snoopy369
And you yet again make a poor assumption

I am not suggesting that Civ 'realistically simulates the world economy'. I am suggesting that Civ has an economic MODEL that is interesting, and yields interesting results when considered economically.

You were responding to this, right?

The foundations of the model - food/hammers/commerce - don't really have anything to do with how the world actually works.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Petrus2
So, what exactly IS your goal?

Debunking bad arguments.

(At least in this thread. Other threads I'm in help-the-newbie mode, or argue-with-someone-interesting mode, etc.)

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


You were responding to this, right?

The foundations of the model - food/hammers/commerce - don't really have anything to do with how the world actually works.

Ultimately, yes. I interpreted that to mean "how the Civ world really works", because I'm not an idiot, and only an idiot would consider the Civ model to have anything to do with the real world.

The Civ complex economy is a very interesting economy, just as some animal economies are very interesting, and yield information about our own. WoW economies do the same - albeit much less complex information because they are much less complex. Civ4 does a much better job there than WoW. An economic model does not have to be a perfect model, and does not have to give perfect information, to give some information.

I have to say this argument is a very effective counterargument to the standard Asherism about philosophers and realscientists. Philosophers (and other social scientists) are not as literal and are able to see comparisons of two nonidentical things rather better than realscientists, who tend to be very literal.

[Petrus2]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Debunking bad arguments.

(At least in this thread. Other threads I'm in help-the-newbie mode, or argue-with-someone-interesting mode, etc.)

That's a good goal. Then addressing the ISSUE, and stating WHY it is wrong, would help achieve such a goal. Simply saying something is wrong or bad doesn't debunk it.