Return Of The King To Civ Gaming

[Dulaak]

Oh, btw Krill, I\'d be interested in some more 1v1s with you. If only so I can keep my whinning up to date with the new flaws in the game.

[Krill]

You beat catapult spam by spamming swords. You need a few cats to damage the units on top of stack then the sowrds absolutely slaughter the cats. cats don;t get defensive boni. So the cats get beaten because the swords have a higher strength. It works; I've never died to a player that spammed cats.

With regards to MP, 1v1s are rare in CIV. Disagree with it all you want, it won't make it true. Teamers (2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 5v5) and FFAs/CTONs outnumber the amount of 1v1 games played so much that 1v1s are a real rarity (makes practising 1v1 a ***** from what some people say).

Granaries needed in every city. That's something else you mis understand. Halving growth time is pretty important, wouldn't you say? Barracks are the next most important building, and for 1v1 those are the only 2 buildings you really need, youre right there. But as I just said 1v1 =| CIV MP. Try playing an FFA without libs or markets. Playing a teamer without libs isn't a brilliant idea, You generally do need to tech for points there and seeing how markets get you more gold to field a bigger army, well, I think markets aren't particulary bad for a warmonger are they?

Also, I suggest you have a look at a game called World in Conflict. That game is being designed from large team games (8v8) and it just finished it's open beta. It has a 1v1 mode but the majority of servers are for the large games. At the end of the beta it had more than 60000 people playing.

[Krill]

Sorry, I don't play BTS MP. It sucks ass. I dabble at it in SP occasionally but I can't be bothered to play something so broken for MP.

[Dulaak]

I don\'t know of too many people that don\'t build some axes to go with their catapults. All the games I played, I never saw anyone build swords to go with catapults or to defend vs catapults. It\'s just not a very effective strategy.

The fact that 1v1s are so rare in CIV just proves my point. When all the good players were still playing circa October 2005, it was all 1v1 mirror map games. Gradually people realized how fatally flawed the game was and so people quit in hordes. That\'s when 1v1 mirror disappeared because you were left with mainly beginners. Previous Civ games enjoyed a very competitive 1v1 environment and all other games I have played had very competitive 1v1 environments. Look up the World Computer Games in south korea for example.

Granaries I think are only viable if you\'re an expansionist civ. They\'re really too costly otherwise unless you\'re in a position that allows you to get away without 100% military production non-stop. Don\'t think I\'ve been in too many games though where that was the case if you\'re in a 1v1 or on a flank in a team game. In teamers, I have never seen someone build libraries. I have however seen people ridiculed by many good players for building anything other than slaving units. Tech counts very little in the point equation so that\'s not a good argument either.

I looked at world in conflict, but they kept repeating the same word over and over again and that is \"simplification\" in regard to RTS elements. The game sounds really dumbed down and I\'m not a fan of games that play for me. You won\'t really know how good the game is until people are actually forced to buy the game. I\'ve seen a lot of games that had good betas that turned out to have very small MP communities. I\'m not holding my breath on World in Conflict.

I had a feeling you wouldn\'t want to play BTS. Judging by the size of the lobby right now and the utter lack of names that I recognize, I\'d say a lot of people feel that way. However, if you ask CanuckSoldier BTS is a stunning success and the ladder is just as active as it ever was. You might know CS better as Mohammad Said Sahhaf.

[Krill]

People build some axes to go with a stack, sure. Some axes isn't many, and matching them cat for axe will dent them enough to let the swords attack the cats. The whole point of the cat stack is that it is a massive stack of cats with a few axes on top, anything thing else isn't a cat stack, is it? If the majority of a stack is axes...then they get dented to hell by cats and then they die to pretty much anything anyway.

The problem you have with MP games is that you only play 1v1 games. I'm not saying that is a bad thing or anything, but what I am saying is that 1v1s are not the entire world. As this applies to civ, alot of what you say; not all, but alot, holds true for 1v1. But for the rest of MP it doesn't. Also, the best CIV MP player isn't necassarily the best 1v1 player. Before BtS was released there were quite a few good MP players around; alot of noods as well, but hey inhabit every game. Yes, alot of people quit because of the bad peer problem, and I'll even go so far as to say that Firaxis ****ed up CIV MP big style with that. They;ve been told that a billion times, and I think they;ve learnt from it. I hope so anyway.

As to granaries, and tech, that is way to compicated to desxcirbe in the short time I have before I go to sleep, but surficed to say that if you don't build a granary in every city that city is going to grow twice as slowly, so it takes twice as long to get anything done. It takes twice as long to grow the pop to slave...granaries are important, and you are showing your lack of game knowledge by claiming otherwise. As for tech, there are times when you have to not tech and get a massive army, but if you start to build a massive army and never tech at all you are not going to do very well against a good team (you'll beat newbs, but, well, they're newbs. They aren't hard to beat.) Libs and granaries are alot more situational; obviously making one in every city isn't a good idea. It is generally obvious which cities need markets and libs.

BtS MP I think is a big disappointment. The MP testers weren't listened to for the most part, and they gave up. Why waste your time trying to fix something when no one listens to you and other testers attack you?

[Dulaak]

I still don\'t agree with the swordsman idea, I\'ve never seen it used...ever. Until I see someone really good use it I won\'t believe it. Not that it matters anyway since the massive catapult stack won\'t be used the same way anymore.

I don\'t play only 1v1 games, I played TONS of team games with MTG and some others. The only thing I don\'t play are Ctons.

Granaries don\'t give double growth rate. I\'ve played with a lot of good players over the years and while granaries are always nice to have, they can\'t come at the expense of military production vs anyone decent. For you to sit there and pawn off granaries as some grand complicated strategy is a little sad to say the least. I don\'t consider you a top player, and I never have. Barracks are really the only building I can say you really need.

I have never seen anyone good build markets and libraries in team games or 1v1s. It just doesn\'t happen. I can only imagine all the **** I would have to listen to if I started building markets and libraries and **** in a team game with MTG or something. I remember a game with GEFORCED where he got pissed at his teammate for building a stable instead of going nothing but units. If you take the time to build libraries and markets you\'re going to get overrun vs any decent slaver.

[MJW]

When I say Cat spam I did not mean making a pure Stack of Doom with only cats...

Edit: Krill's methond agains a cat + axe topping makes sense. Too bad it does not matter anymore. The player (open field) with slightly more cats will win. But if someone goes very few cats then Krill's idea might work. But it does not matter anymore.

[rah]

Originally posted by Dulaak
Deity dude died in the first 15 turns in the first game to me. The second game I had 3 cities and was choking you rah before you even had a settler out. You\'ll have to forgive me if I lost a city to deity dude to the north and then lost 2 workers to barbarians as I gang raped you with units. Your skill that game was just too much for me and I had to resign. Clearly in a 1v1 situation you are the better player Rah. That\'s why I prefer MP games and diplomacy because then I can say that I have a skill that you lack and can pretend that I am better when in reality I just need others to help me so I don\'t die really fast.

Nice try. I've already admitted i played that game poorly, but guess what, I didn't resign. YOU DID. You can say what you want, besides admitting that you made mistakes, because you never do. You screwed up on the diplomacy side. YOU let DD take a city. You were clearly on the down swing and you QUIT. We call it losing, I'm don't care what you want to call it.


And Krill, i'm not sure if I can say who's best. The best can still lose. I do know who are the better players are. And most of those that play with us will concur on that. That is true respect, we don't have to keep score.
I think EON is a good player, but is nowhere near as effective when you add diplomacy into it (if he actually tried he'd probably excell at it like he tries everything else.) But we have some very competive players, and to told that what we play isn't a game is just silly and so wrong. There are just different parameters to judge by.

But over all the years we've played II and now IV, we've had good competition, friendships, learning, but most important.....NO ONE has ever been accused of cheating. And the personal insults have always been the exception and not the rule. To me and many others that play, that's more important then measuring my dick length officially.

I have disagreed with EON for a long time on this.

I have never accused him of cheating, I respect him as a player, and have realized his style of chest thumping and try not to let it bother me, but everyone craves a little respect every now and then and sometimes I slip. I won't hold my breath.

[Dulaak]

I\'m half tempted to play a game and actually use diplomacy, but I really can\'t justify spending 8 hours of my life on one game. Your games are way too long and they run far too late. Not only that, but there\'s this little issue of MP Civ4 sucking really bad. It\'s just really hard for me at this point to justify my use of time on a game I feel is inferior. If even Krill says it sucks (Considering he was one of the ones back in the day telling me I just didn\'t understand the complexity and genius that is Civ4), then there is really no denying it at this point. I wish there was an alternative to Civ that we could all migrate to that had great gameplay and a good community, 2 aspects that Civ4 lacks.

[StrategicKingVa]

A "FREAKING "MEN TO THAT!


Some of the things I thought that made civ 2 a really good game were interesting quirks like city guiding, ship chaing, settler factories, masive caravaning, diplo-guiding and railroad invasions .
Anything like these exist in civ 4?

Some of the things I hated about Civ 2 was the ridiculas 1 on 1 combat system. Can you imagine Patton at the battle of the bulge sending one platoon at a time to attack a German stronghold? Is this fixed in civ 4?

I also hated having all the techs needed for the next in line and have the computer not give me the option i needed. In a game verse Kuja, I needed fundy to win a game I had no way to win from the get go. 3 freaking times I had what was required and did not get the option for fundy and lost the game on the 4th turn, stupid.... Has this been fixed in civ 2?

[rah]

Yeah, some of the quirks of II gave it charm.
(except things like one catapult being able to destroy an entire stack)

The tech thing, I actually liked since if you understood the rule it actually played into strategy. (like not risking a hut after you got that one off path tech on the way to monarchy, unless you were behind and willing to risk it) But later in the tech path it was harder to calculate off the top of your head.

And yes the combat in all the CIV games has been flawed since the focus of the game was empire building, but in MP it's more of a wargame. There are many tactical war games out there, but they lack the civ flavor.
But I would be tempted to try them with the right community.

[Dulaak]

Some of the things I thought that made civ 2 a really good game were interesting quirks like city guiding, ship chaing, settler factories, masive caravaning, diplo-guiding and railroad invasions .
Anything like these exist in civ 4?

No, not really anyway. There\'s very little you can do beyond slaving units (which is a civic you get in the first 7 turns of the game). Trust me, I have looked for a very long time for secrets in the game, or just things you can do out of the ordinary. They don\'t exist. The game is incredibly basic and the most beginner of players won\'t have much trouble learning how to play like you. Basically your only hope for a super strategy is to slave a little better than the other guy. As far as tricks go...almost non-existent.

Some of the things I hated about Civ 2 was the ridiculas 1 on 1 combat system. Can you imagine Patton at the battle of the bulge sending one platoon at a time to attack a German stronghold? Is this fixed in civ 4?

The combat system in Civ4 I think is worse than Civ2. At least in civ2 it took some thought as to where you were putting your units and you could actually control the map. In civ4 map control is kind of pointless. Not only that, but you get penalized a lot for having units in someone else\'s territory. As I found out in my game vs krill, a lot of times it\'s better to just sit back and tech to catapults. All you need is 3 cities and no resources anyway so there\'s not much to gain unless you can kill someone early or do enough damage early. The game severly favors the defending player to the point of stupidity. The combat system is so basic now that it\'s just moving your stack from point A to point B for the most part. Then you get into catapult wars and it starts coming down to who moves first...which again gives the guy sitting in his city the advantage.

I also hated having all the techs needed for the next in line and have the computer not give me the option i needed. In a game verse Kuja, I needed fundy to win a game I had no way to win from the get go. 3 freaking times I had what was required and did not get the option for fundy and lost the game on the 4th turn, stupid.... Has this been fixed in civ 2?

The tech system in Civ4 is from hell. Seriously, it\'s the worst ****ing idea ever. First, the game makes the techs cheaper for the person behind, and more expensive for the person in the lead. This is a major reason why it\'s incredibly difficult to get a large tech lead. Next, the turns to research a tech aren\'t based solely on beaker amounts so you can have all the libraries and **** in the world and it won\'t make a difference if you tech too far ahead in 1 area...which often isn\'t all that far. Basically you have to research all the techs in an era in order to get decent turn amounts, otherwise your techs will take like 30-40 turns. So everyone pretty much will stay on the same tech path doing the same things researching at the same rate. There is no racing for democracy like in Civ2 or going for a quick Feudalism or really any sort of specialized tech path. I can click the techs in my sleep from doing the same **** over and over again so much. Even worse is the fact that units in the next era aren\'t a whole lot stronger than units in the previous. Unit for unit, units in the next era win, but they\'re very expensive and hard to mass so getting them early on is useless. There is no firepower or hitpoint value in Civ4, so you don\'t have the separation between higher and lower tech units. If you have the production to pump out units and slave them then it can be worth it, but getting them much earlier than someone else without taking 30+ turns for a tech isn\'t really going to happen.

In other words, the game keeps everyone on one level playing field and actively works to prevent leads. Isn\'t that just the most awesome idea ever? I always wanted to play a game that punishes players for being aggressive, controlling the map, expanding, and trying to tech ahead. I really felt it was unfair in civ2 for me to get those kinds of leads and I think Firaxis was right in bringing me down to everyone else\'s level.

I was going to tell you to buy the game and we\'d go find some strategies, but the fact that even Krill says the game sucks means it\'s far worse than even I imagined. I really don\'t think you should waste your money at all on this game and personally, even though I\'ve had BTS on my computer for over a week, I can\'t muster up the desire to play the damn thing. Wait for Civ5 or lets try to find a new game we can go to together. Civ4 has no community and the worst gameplay of all time.

[Beta]

Originally posted by Dulaak
... but I really can\'t justify spending 8 hours of my life on one game.

[StrategicKingVa]

How disapointing, nobody really gave me a really good reason to go out and buy an $80 game and Eyes gave quite concise and well spelled out reason not to buy this game.
I was lookin for a game that would feel like a classic Avalon Hill style war game with the technology that FireAxis obviously has in Civ. What a shame that Civ 4 is aparently worse then Civ 2.
Slaving? what the heck is that. Just the terminology alone makes me want to search elsewhere for a new game. It seems so primitive and out dated.
30-40 turns for a tech????
In Civ 2, if the game lasted long enough with enough super large citys, 3 trade routes libraries and unis, I could do 2 techs a turn! (and still was not happy with the speed at which my capabilities and the board changed)
It sounds as though there is no individualism in Civ 4.
At least in Civ 2, one player could go Sun Tzus + Leos while the other Light house plus Magelleons .
One player could go Fundy and the other Democracy and the differencies were interesting.
In this game it seems that everyone does exactly the same thing...yawn...
Is this true?

Oh and by the way Eyes I cant figure out how to use the new ICQ system...another thing that is so called improved .....My screen name is strategicking if that helps...
What other games are out there that are strategicly based .

[rah]

Having a twin brother growing up was fantastic for Avalon Hill games. *drool*

Some of them were made into good computer games.