Your SID level experiences

[Drachen]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Yeah. Lt. Col. jimmytrick

I downloaded your 1285AD save and you're doing great. Looks like the military is in good hands! Could you let me know the settings?

[Drachen]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel



I feel that intentionally excluding certain traits is cooking. Such as selecting civs other than scientific, so there are no free era techs. Such as selecting a large pangea and excluding expansionist civs (and you being an exp civ). And yes this is map dependent in some cases. I wouldn't feel like I was cheating if I chose non exp on an 80% archipelago. I would if it were a pangea. I personally find seafaring to be great on any map, so if I excluded it intentionally it would lessen the victory for me.

Also I feel choosing civs based on their UU can be cooking, such as I don't want to deal with ancient defensive UUs. etc

In both of these situations, the reverse is also true, you can choose civs that would make the game much harder on you. I imagine a game with all ancient UUs would be more difficult than a game where you would see the americans and russians etc where their units on't come into play until much later in the game.

Certain maps and traits go well together and taking those traits for yourself while denying them to your rivals will probably help you. I just don’t think the differences are large enough to make games illegitimate and I’m not convinced a set of limits is needed. That’s certainly open to further debate, but as a practical matter how would you define appropriate limits? If you’d care to develop a set of rules or a flowchart we can see what people think and I can live with a set of accepted options if that’s what most players think is appropriate for getting a legitimate Sid win.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Drachen
I just don’t think the differences are large enough to make games illegitimate and I’m not convinced a set of limits is needed. That’s certainly open to further debate, but as a practical matter how would you define appropriate limits? If you’d care to develop a set of rules or a flowchart we can see what people think and I can live with a set of accepted options if that’s what most players think is appropriate for getting a legitimate Sid win.

For me, the hand picking of opponents sets off alarm bells. I can only see three reasons why you would pick an opponent rather than it be random: you want to make it harder on yourself; you want to fight an opponent you don't see often or just enjoy going up against; or you want to make things easier on yourself. I'm all for the first two. Challenge and variety is what makes the game fun. What I'm not in favor of is the selection of opponents in a way that would greatly aid your game. Such as the human being the only seafaring civ on an 80% archipelago or the only expansionist on a pangaea. Another trick is selecting non-commercial civs to try to improve your odds of getting philosophy. Maybe this is all an illusion, that I'm seeing things, but why else slant the opponent selection one way or another. Of course, I'm speaking on larger maps, where you have 10 or more opponents, smaller maps agianst a few enemies can't be as representative.

What I'm trying to get at, is that you can pick civs in a way so as to make things easier on yourself. Otherwise you would fit into the two other categories I mentioned, which I wouldn't have a problem with. hell I don't care who you are up against or what the majority thinks on these matters, its impressive enough, mighty impressive to win on Sid (and even hold your own as vmxa1 has) no matter what the options are (excluding of course elimination mode ) I just want people to be upfront about why they chose certain opponents.

And before you ask, no I haven't won on Sid, but I have quite losing games many times.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Drachen


I downloaded your 1285AD save and you're doing great. Looks like the military is in good hands! Could you let me know the settings?

I mistakenly posted at Civfanatics that this was a 16 civ game, but that was wrong. It was twelve. That would maket a large map. It was a random game, I played a random civ and all the conditions were random. AI agressiveness was normal. All victory conditions were on except the wonder condition. That is about all I can tell you.

In this game at 1285 AD the Hittites have about 71,000 culture and must get to 130,000 to win. I will have to watch this very closely. The most culture in a city is around 6,600 IIRC.

I do not think anyone will come up with a foolproof way to win on Sid level everytime.

[Drachen]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel


For me, the hand picking of opponents sets off alarm bells. I can only see three reasons why you would pick an opponent rather than it be random: you want to make it harder on yourself; you want to fight an opponent you don't see often or just enjoy going up against; or you want to make things easier on yourself. I'm all for the first two. Challenge and variety is what makes the game fun. What I'm not in favor of is the selection of opponents in a way that would greatly aid your game. Such as the human being the only seafaring civ on an 80% archipelago or the only expansionist on a pangaea. Another trick is selecting non-commercial civs to try to improve your odds of getting philosophy. Maybe this is all an illusion, that I'm seeing things, but why else slant the opponent selection one way or another. Of course, I'm speaking on larger maps, where you have 10 or more opponents, smaller maps agianst a few enemies can't be as representative.

Asleepathewheel;

You make a cogent and powerful defense of your point of view and you seem to have covered the bases when it comes to why a player would pick a group of opponents but I think that a similar argument could be made for just about any of the options that can be selected for such as the tribe you’ll play, climate, barbs…you name it. We’re talking about what constitutes a legitimate, “non-cooked”, Sid win and if your argument prevails then it seems to me that default rules and random everything else would be the only set of settings that would be beyond question as to legitimacy. This is at a level of AI advantage so strong that the main Poly thread discussing it hasn’t seen a posted win in months of play. Do we really want to set the bar that high?

[Drachen]

Originally posted by jimmytrick


I mistakenly posted at Civfanatics that this was a 16 civ game, but that was wrong. It was twelve. That would maket a large map. It was a random game, I played a random civ and all the conditions were random. AI agressiveness was normal. All victory conditions were on except the wonder condition. That is about all I can tell you.

In this game at 1285 AD the Hittites have about 71,000 culture and must get to 130,000 to win. I will have to watch this very closely. The most culture in a city is around 6,600 IIRC.

I do not think anyone will come up with a foolproof way to win on Sid level everytime.

If you win this then it seems there won't be much question about the legitamacy. Thanks for letting us know the settings and keep us posted. It's the strongest game I've seen.

[Drachen]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel

What I'm trying to get at, is that you can pick civs in a way so as to make things easier on yourself. Otherwise you would fit into the two other categories I mentioned, which I wouldn't have a problem with. hell I don't care who you are up against or what the majority thinks on these matters, its impressive enough, mighty impressive to win on Sid (and even hold your own as vmxa1 has) no matter what the options are (excluding of course elimination mode ) I just want people to be upfront about why they chose certain opponents.

And before you ask, no I haven't won on Sid, but I have quite losing games many times.

Your point is well taken but the main thrust of my arguments is to develop a general understanding of settings that would need no explanation.

[Capt Dizle]

It is a good discussion. I saw a posted Sid win at Civfanatics, space ship in about 1612 AD. Archipelago large with only 8 civs and no cultural flips or cultural victory. This was a fine win, but clearly the conditions were set up a little easier than might be the norm.

[Drachen]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
It is a good discussion. I saw a posted Sid win at Civfanatics, space ship in about 1612 AD. Archipelago large with only 8 civs and no cultural flips or cultural victory. This was a fine win, but clearly the conditions were set up a little easier than might be the norm.

A link a link my kingdom for a link.

and...would you care to chime in as to legitimate settings?

[DrSpike]

What's the formula for working out steal price if you want to do it safely?

[Aeson]

The problem with selecting civs is less compared to the problem with random civs IMO. The whole point (to the cooking debate) is being able to play a game which is comparable to other player's games. If you start next to Greece and Carthage on Sid, your game is going to be very different than someone else who doesn't.

If you 'allow' picking of civs, then sure the player can pick civs that will be easier to deal with. At least then though, all players will have that opportunity. It won't be based on luck like with random opponents. This is why in the HOF it's allowed. For the purpose of comparison of games, luck needs to be as little a factor as possible. Just state what the settings were, and understand that the view of the game is going to be weighted by them.

To claim to have mastered a difficulty though, I think a player needs to show they can win consistantly from difficult starts. Sid probably won't ever be beat that way, and even Deity never really was IMO. The AI starting advantages are enough to guarantee if things go bad early, you will lose unless extraordinarily lucky.

[Drachen]

Perhaps we should just use the Hall of Fame rules (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...threadid=75976) and see about a victory condition change if Sid can't be beat in a couple of months or so?

[Capt Dizle]

Aeson I have to disagree with you here for maybe the first time ever.

In a game that strove mightily to even the playing field between human and computer AI, Civ3 fails spectacularly in one area...providing consistent starting positions. Mastering a level within a game would be better defined as finding the correct strategic methods and perfecting the execution of those methods. The fact that Diety level + in Civ3 will not consistently beaten reflects design factors that mitigates skill rather than celebrates it.

That being said I am no Aeson, Sir Pleb or Qitai. The fact that few of the great players have posted much about Sid level is puzzling and may mean that the luck factor is overwhelmng. Still, in the end, we will develop strategies for Sid. And in doing so we will have once again defeated Firaxis and their inflated ego.

My limited play on the Sid level tends to point towards a simple extension of the Diety theme. The inability to play sucessfully outside of the one dimensional whomp whomp of the military shows once again how truely linear the gameplay is.

[Capt Dizle]

Drachen >

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77928

[vmxa1]

I would suspect that beating Sid on regular basis is not likely with no special setup. My interest was just to see what to expect. I figured that if I beat it all it would would reguire a fair amount of luck as I was not going to "cook" the map. I would learn nothing from that.

I have been hoping to see some of the better players post a run to see what was possible. So that has not happened, but maybe later. I just want to see what it would take and I suspect it will not be to my liking anyway. I will not be willing to MM all cities at all times, or make special efforts to be on a good footing. I may be willing to do a non stop troops build, but not more than once.

So if it turns out those are the techniques required, then I will pass.