A Newbie question and more

[johndmuller]

I think that the word "cheat" is getting in the way of a meaningful discussion here. I think most of us would agree that there are some aspects of the game that are at least slightly removed from "perfect". Other things might seem to be if not discordant, at least in a different key from the main melody of the game's plotline.

In Civ, I used to feel that way about using caravans to make wonders. Partly this was due to how much I liked the nice camel icon and the imagery of going on these epic Marco Polo style journeys. Stashing 20 of them someplace out of the way to get ready to rush build a wonder (or maybe just because I didn't have anything else useful to do) seemed out of the game character to me. Not that I didn't think your other cities shouldn't be able to help somehow, but "Rome wasn't built in a day" and you shouldn't be able to build the pyramids in one turn either (don't you think the people back then were trying to build all those wonders as fast as they could and still took tens of years and that would be with unenlightened labor regulations too).

BTW MariOne, I played DOS Civ and while I don't remember the answer to your question, I do remember that my units have never since moved so fast, even despite the embarassingly slow computer I used then.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think its "cheating" to do things like rush building SP's with hyped up crawlers, I do wish that they had designed the game differently in that area. Specifically, they could have restricted us to just crawling mins to the SP base in question either directly or via that interbase transfer mode that crawlers can do (that I, at least, almost never use. Since they didn't, I suspect that there was another reason, either keeping the Civ tradidtion or some game play-balance issue.

Speaking of game play-balance, the article by Brian Reynolds at:
http://www.gamespy.com/devcorner/april01/reynolds/
is, IMhO, interesting and at least tangential to this subject.

[John Paul Jones]

It's worse than that, he's dead Jim...
The other civs didn't give you any warning in civ 1 - 'cause they got their wonders handed to them on a plate instantaneously, somewhat at random (although i seem to remember the Babylonians building the Hanging Gardens more often than not)
The 'AI' has come a long way since then - if only because the authors have painstakingly scripted the sequences - it makes me smile to see them supply crawlers busily running round my opponent's territory.
I don't think I'll blink again though , until i see an AI that actually learns from IT's mistakes and MY discoveries...who know's maybe in Civ 4 or 5 ? =)

JP

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The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.
9/10 knife-wielding maniacs would tend to agree.
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[Ned]

Well, MariOne, I agree that humans can give you a much better game than the AI today. If one gets tired of easily beating the AI, then humans are the choice - either that or a new game you don't know and have to learn.

If and when they create an SMACX or CIV 3, I think they should again make it harder to complete an SP - along the lines of the earlier games. There one learned to structure one's civilization to maximize one's chance of building an SP first in a horse race with the AI. Typically, it took a good portion of the civilization all generating caravans to build an SP ahead of the AI in the highest difficulty setting. In SMACX, all one has to do is upgrade and cash a few crawlers working tiles next to a base. Virtually all SP's can be built in one turn. This takes a lot of the challenge and fun out of the game.

Just my humble opinion.

Ned

[Alinestra Covelia]

Has anybody here tried SNAC? I saw its URL floating around on these forums a while back and thought about trying it, but didn't. I heard it did some good things, like increasing latter day SPs to be astronomically expensive, and other little modifications to increase the challenge.

Anybody know where I can find it or what it's like to play?

[Chowlett]

I've used SNAC, and yes it does add a lot of game balance to the later game, makes it a bit fairer on builders, which since that is what the AI does most of the time anyway is no bad thing. You should be able to find it here on Apolyton. I don't use it much more myself, but I think I have it kicking round somewhere. I also have icons I made for the new techs, since Shining used the defaults. Give us a shout if you want them.

Edit: that's Kicking, not Kinking. Rarely does anything I have kink around, people would talk.
[This message has been edited by Chowlett (edited May 04, 2001).]

[Misotu]

I agree that the Wonders race was pretty good in CivII, though I seem to remember that you could build them pretty quickly with a bunch of caravans.

I only use upgraded crawlers against human beings nowadays - in fact, I didn't know you *could* upgrade crawlers until I came to Apolyton . I'll upgrade them in MP and also in compare challenge games. Against the AI though, and more recently in some compare games, I simply don't build SPs at all. Now that's quite challenging - and it avoids the issue altogether

[Googlie]

Begs another question (that the AI doesn't upgrade crawlers to rush build an SP - btw, how do we know that?):

If the AI never builds a trawler (unless you are playing with an amended alpha.txt with it as a basic unit), do the non-upgrade purists regard building trawlers a "cheat"?

G.

[Misotu]

Good question on the foils.

On the other question, I've never seen the AI with an upgraded crawler. Mind you, I rarely see the AI with crawlers at all. I have, on the other hand, seen the AI build a buster 1 turn earlier than was possible - I mean, if they have 2 turns to go and then they bust you at the end of your turn just as you're poised to take that base ... well. You gotta ask yourself, right?

[bondetamp]

Killing the AI is fun and easy!

I do everything I can to get the victory in SP. I'm completely shameless about different "cheats" and the AI hasn't complained yet.

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-bondetamp
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
-H. L. Mencken