Weird things you do...

[Tattila the Hun]

Don't slaves also worsen the attitude of the civ I've taken them from? If so, does this apply to bought workers, also?

[vmxa1]

I doubt it can be done without massive fighting, except as a OCC or something like it. Probably the only thing that even allows any wins (for me) is the flaw in the way armies are treated by the AI.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
Don't slaves also worsen the attitude of the civ I've taken them from? If so, does this apply to bought workers, also?

could be. Several civs went from polite to annoyed shortly after I started these trades.

[joncnunn]

The AI won't mind quite as much their foreign citizens are inside your cities (assuming no Pop-rushing there) as they do their foreign citizens working as slaves.

In fact my usual practice when buying slaves is to join them to a city producing settlers that doesn't have enough of a food surplus to be a settler pump all on its own. [I tend to find more slaves when in early game when I'm still REXing than any other time.]

[Solomwi]

Actually, they don't mind you working their citizens as slaves, either. They mind if you disband captured workers of their nationality, and strangely enough, they mind if they have one of your workers.

[alva]

IIRC there is a very minor hit when you use them as slaves.

[Solomwi]

Nope. Bamspeedy did the research and put an article up on CFC about it. The hit is for them using your workers as slaves. It makes more sense the way you put it, which is probably the source of the misconception. You're right about it being small, though.

[Cvetin]

damn. i just developed some confidence in the ai autoworker abilities, this happens. i start losing my oil very quickly, down to two oil wells, out of four in just 40 turns or something. so i pillage one of the wells, cos it can't be gone if it isn't connected to a road, right? meanwhile preparing to go gulf war on my neighbours. i guess this may make the other oil dissapear even faster, but willing to gamble. anyway, now,the ai crowds all my workies back to the unconnected oil tile and it's not even in a city radius. back to wasting my own inteligence on the workers

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Cvetin
damn. i just developed some confidence in the ai autoworker abilities, this happens. i start losing my oil very quickly, down to two oil wells, out of four in just 40 turns or something. so i pillage one of the wells, cos it can't be gone if it isn't connected to a road, right? meanwhile preparing to go gulf war on my neighbours. i guess this may make the other oil dissapear even faster, but willing to gamble. anyway, now,the ai crowds all my workies back to the unconnected oil tile and it's not even in a city radius. back to wasting my own inteligence on the workers

According to the editor the chance of an oil resource disappearing is totally random and the odds are fixed from the start of the game. There is to the best of my knowledge nothing you can do one way or antoher once the game has started to change the liklihood that your oil will disappear.

You might want to edit all your games so that the odds of resources disappearing are zero.

[joncnunn]

Only resources that are connected to a trade network are subject to disappearing. They can reappear on any tile that allows them.
I once had a resource disappear and reappear on the same tile!

Originally posted by Geronimo

According to the editor the chance of an oil resource disappearing is totally random and the odds are fixed from the start of the game. There is to the best of my knowledge nothing you can do one way or antoher once the game has started to change the liklihood that your oil will disappear.

You might want to edit all your games so that the odds of resources disappearing are zero.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Only resources that are connected to a trade network are subject to disappearing. They can reappear on any tile that allows them.
I once had a resource disappear and reappear on the same tile!

That's the sort of thing that really belonged in the editor help file or the civopedia or both

[Shogun Gunner]

That's the sort of thing that Firaxis has not done a great documenting in the editor help file or the civopedia or both.

Too many patches, too many changes, documentation purposely unspecific to allow freedom for programmers to modify values and other game elements. Reshuffling of Radio science tech is a prime example of this.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Geronimo
That's the sort of thing that really belonged in the editor help file or the civopedia or both

It depends. Many similar informations have been deliberately withheld. You don't need them to win up to a certain level (Regent, Monarch, Emperor - it depends on the player), and I think the game is more fun if you don't know with certainty what will happen. If you want to know absolutely all game rules, play Chess.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Modo44

It depends. Many similar informations have been deliberately withheld. You don't need them to win up to a certain level (Regent, Monarch, Emperor - it depends on the player), and I think the game is more fun if you don't know with certainty what will happen. If you want to know absolutely all game rules, play Chess.

chess only has one opponent and it requires waay too much imagination to view it as an abstraction of a competition of civilizations

In any case the rule was that resources can only vanish if a road is attached to them. Since it is random (and quite rare) for it to disappear even when the road is present I really doubt it is the sort of thing that a player might be expected to work out on their own.

Rules that are invisible to the player add nothing to their playing experience that couldn't be added just by throwing in more random number generator events for those who like arbitrary inexplicable forces influencing their game.

Rather than recommending that those who want to be able to understand the rules of the game switch to playing chess, I would instead recommend that those who wish to remain ignorant of the rules simply not read them.

[Modo44]

What I meant was, I find it less fun to use all the knowledge and do "perfect" calculations. While I could still learn a great deal about the game (and pay more attention, while playing ), I do not want to. Many technical details are not included in the manual. You will not find the flip-risk percentages written down, as you will not find the chance for a resource to disappear. Those are small details, not very important, and not fun to keep detailed track of (too tedious, no?). And, most definately, not needed to win the game on all but the hardest difficulty levels.

Perhaps that is not clear, because those are game mechanics closely under player's control. But what about the AI? It is governed by rules, that are not described in the manual with full detail. To win on Demigod, I must know how to trade well, and how to push them to actions favourable for me. That is no different, than the game mechanics of resources, or flips, or whatever other things were left out of the manual. Still, the manual is very short on that subject.

So, should it all be put in the book? I think not, for it would certainly take much fun out of the game. The very fun of discovering it all by myself. I really prefer to be given the information I need to play the game, and not all the details. Then, I can go and explore.

Having said all thet, I do agree, that the manual is messed up. It had many errors, with more included with the expansions, and that is not acceptable.