September Civ2 Tournament: ZULU to ALPHA

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Zenon
You almost damaged the picture of my hero playing always with the toughest rules!

The problem is that I don't like it when I fight with both arms tied behind my back... and the bad guys slap me in the face

It hurts!

(I don't mean at all you are a bad guy though )

IMO caravan rehoming corresponds very precisely to what happens in real life when goods are manufactured in developping countries...

OK, it's forbidden anyway.

What about the trick with those double unhappy citizens (that all ICSers make use of) ?

That one should be 'strengt verboten' IMO.

[Zenon]

Originally posted by La Fayette
The problem is that I don't like it when I fight with both arms tied behind my back...

Hmm ...

IIRC your last results in the GOTMs were either fastest conquest or medal ranks. I would have thought you used at least one arm to kill the AI so quickly. But may be you have a better tactic!

But what´s wrong with black hats? I would agree they are a bug in the game, but if you want to rule them out you have to restrict the number of cities. May be an idea for another game: never build or capture more than x cities.

Zenon

[solo]

8 cities would have been just fine with me for this game!

[Zenon]

Well, thinking about this again it may indeed be time to consider the changes to ELG playing style in the last 18 months. The robust approach was very successful first on large maps, then on medium maps were it broke all former records. Solo, you finally even succeeded to break your own 615 AD record with an ICS-like approach. Now we had a small map with difficult conditions and again the robust approach turned out to be more effective. I have been one of the advocates of the style for a long time and while it was a very challenging and a lot of fun to explore the ways to make it more effective I never intended to push the classic ELG style aside. Those games are probably even more demanding in terms of strategy and some of the best games ever played belong to this style. Some players like Monk have expressed their feeling that it is a pity that classic style ELG´s are somewhat in the background, now. I agree.



May be we should think of the classic lean style vs. the robust approach as of 2 different categories. We allready have an extra category of ELG, the One City Challenge. One simple rule would allow us to make a difference between lean and robust: don´t build more than 8 cities before 1 AD. We would then have 3 categories and each player could choose what he likes best:



1. OCC (OCC Rules)

2. Classic ELG (not more than 8 cities before 1 AD)

3. Open ELG (no restrictions)



What do you think?


Zenon

[solo]

I was kidding in my post above, since you were able to prove that robust without wonders could achieve 2 tech turns (and succeed again in blowing away my own landing date with one that was much better! Congrats again on your truly marvelous game). My errant pre-game assumption was that happiness problems would prevent this.

In general, I always prefer games where there are the fewest restrictions on the players, allowing the optimal strategy to prevail. However, it has also seemed to be the case that in any type of game (except OCC), whether the game be conquest, EL, or MP; that an intensive ICS-like strategy works best. This doesn't bother me personally, but I do dislike having to micro-manage more than a dozen or so cities.

This was one reason why OCC was (and still is) so popular among players. It takes away ICS, while still presenting a challenge in city management.

My own idea for a fresh approach that would limit ICS is this:

Use the regular EL rules, but add the following:

1) You may only found two cities.

2) The only way to add more cities will be to capture them from the AI or the barbarians.

Now with two cities, you'll want one as your SSC as in OCC or regular EL games, but a second one will help remove some of the problems we encountered with OCC games, such as the lack of trading opportunities. With fewer cities to manage, games will not become tedious ICS affairs.

Now with only two cities, there will be many questions players will have to ask:

1) When and where should that second city be placed? Two cities early will almost double early production, but a remote colony later may be better for trade.

2) Will it be worthwhile bribing or capturing AI cities, and if so, how many would be optimal? Too much conquest may divert resources and slow down tech progress.

I think an approach like this may offer the most variety in player strategies, while theoretically placing no limit on the total number of cities. It will take a game or two to test this out.

[rjmatsleepers]

Hi guys,

Only 1 week to go and so far only 2 entries posted. Are there some finished games out there that haven't been entered yet? Are there some nearly finished games that just need a final push?

The whole Zulu nation is waiting to find it's place in history.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Bloody Monk]

I'm still slogging along and hope to be able to finish in time. Nothing close to Zenon's effort, however.

Monk

[Zenon]

Thanks for the reminder, RJM. I have submitted my game now. But it looks as if this game brought just the good old ELG crew together. Well, we had one very early conquest

Solo, thanks for the comment. But it´s really the future games I am thinking of. Like you I think that the robust approach brings a lot of micro-management to the game and I am getting a bit tired of this style. On the other hand an ELG is a perfectionist style game and I always try to play as good as I can. Knowing that expanding in the beginning will land me earlier I will always expand. But if I can play a lean game according to the "classic rules" I would love to do so in the next game. Thats not a restriction, just one more way to play. Well, my English shows its limits but I hope I have explained it better, now.

Monk, what do you think as advocate of the good old ELG style?

BTW, I like the idea with only two cities. If this comes up in some future game you can count me in.

Zenon

[La Fayette]

I hope to be able to post my final game tonight.

I chose a strategy very close to the one chosen by solo (and it seems that I was not far from him at 1AD), but with a bit of hard luck and many mistakes added I am going to launch in the early seventies

Fun game though (but I have played so many scenarios and conquest games that it is difficult to get rid my bad habits, ... apparently somewhat like daveV ).

[solo]

RJM,

I also needed your reminder!

Zenon,

Your English is fine, and your play is better!

I agree with what you said, and we'll see what is offered for the next tournament.

Maybe Markos will opt for the 2 city idea or some other restriction limiting the use of ICS.

[Bloody Monk]

Zenon,

I am a great admirer of your accomplishments and refinements to the original style of EL play. From solo's original plan emphasizing early Republic to my suggestion to delay for a longer time in Monarchy (and building MPE and Mike's) to your very robust approaches, I have greatly enjoyed playing these games. I think my taking of pain pills has diminished my ability to follow and replicate your games and for that I feel very sad. Being able to beat the trade-off between more settlers/cities or more camels is something I have yet to master, so I am left with a great feeling of awe about your results.

I say those things because I don't think I am an advocate of any particular style, at this point. As long as it is interesting and fun, I find it to be a worthwile experience. Now as to the attractiveness of the current idea about a two-city game, I wonder if the answer is not found already in your first paragraph. This current game was a very interesting challenge (and I tried to inspire fence-sitters to jump in), but, as you say, it is only the old EL gang who have participated.

So, my contribution to this discussion is to ask that we try not to make the games too restrictive, or so restrictive that other folk decide not to play. I was an advocate of posting the original save in classic 2.42 form so that more folk could be involved, and while I realize that a Civ2 renaissance is unlikely, I would like to rekindle as much interest as possible. I wonder if a two city game will have that kind of broad appeal.

Before we go there, perhaps a conquest game is in order. There seemed to be a lively interest in that kind of game last time. It would also give us a chance for some discussions about theories, strats for early conquest (EC) games like we previously had about EL games.

An idea you expressed a few posts earlier has great appeal to me. By having sub-categories for the game (OCC, etc) folk could have more choices about how to proceed. The problem (if it is a problem) is that there seems to be not enough participants for many partitions to make sense...but if we are having fun that may not matter.

Monk

[$TaLuHgPad]

Hmmm why there is not uploaded solo's save ?

[$TaLuHgPad]

And one more thing I forgot 2 mention.
WHen I posted my game I forgot to view my game score , so there is in fact not 1000 but 436 :shy: ...

[solo]

I submitted the save, and the system says it's there, but for some reason it can not be accessed through the HOF. However, another copy was attached to my game results in the spoiler thread. You may download it from there for now.

I agree very much with Monk about not having tournament games that are too restrictive. It's much better to have wide participation in these, I think. Maybe some separate, but unofficial games with more restrictions are in order for players wanting to specialize. Anyone may post a start, a set of rules, and then others may join in if they are interested.

Personally, I was ready for another conquest game in September, since the first tournament got me interested in conquest strategies. I didn't mind switching to spaceship, but am sure others did mind not having conquest as an alternative.

[Peaster]

Originally posted by solo

Personally, I was ready for another conquest game in September, since the first tournament got me interested in conquest strategies. I didn't mind switching to spaceship, but am sure others did mind not having conquest as an alternative.

YES! YES! I have spent the last month or more learning about ICS and early conquest, and would like a chance to try it in a tournament !