Name your city in MP

[Flavor Dave]

Does anyone remember the NCAA bball title game from '82? Late in the game, UNC up a point, Gtown had the ball. James Worthy looked at the Gtown player who had the ball (and who was panicking as time ran down), and clapped his hands in that age old signal "pass it here." The Gtown player did, and UNC won. In that circumstance, a valid tactic.

I once played a pickup game where a guy did the same thing. Since we weren't playing shirts and skins, and it was really hard to remember who was on your team, and who wasn't, I considered this an invalid tactic. It undermined what the game was about. It put this trick above the contesting of bball abilities.

I put changing city names in the same category. I know I've criticized many suggestions for improvements that are made for the sake of realism as being wrong headed. Realism don't matter, gameplay does. But this tactic is *BOTH* unrealistic and bad for gameplay. IMO, whether this should be allowed should come down to whether we believe a trick is available due to a programming bug or oversight, or whether it is intentional. That's why I don't build airfields on mountains to boost food production. It's an obvious mistake by MPS.

I will say, I could see allowing a player to change city names under the following: 1st, he must have different names for each city. Now, this won't prevent him from changing the name of his wonder city, and giving that name to a meaningless city built on a mountain. But both names have to be changed. 2nd, he must change city names during his 2 (or whatever) minutes. If that's what you want to do with your time, have at it.

Ming, how is this clever? I don't get that at all. If everyone does it, then who gains an advantage, and how is it clever? Clever is if you word a treaty with someone in such a way that you can screw him without breaking your word. Clever is getting an enemy to move his strategic reserve to one front with a feint, and then walloping him on the other side. Renaming isn't.

But, someone brought up a good point. If the community at large thinks it's a bogus trick, then neither Ming nor anyone will use it. B/c doing it will bring everyone's wrath upon your head.

I used to play a game called Diplomacy by e-mail. In this game, you send "press" to the other players to try to get them to do what you want. There were a vareity of press options. Some games, you were allowed to send press to just one player, in other games, all press had to be "broadcast." (Open to everyone.) In some games, you could send anonymous press, or fake press, in other games you couldn't.
You knew which kind of game it was before you signed up.

I think CivII will be the same. Some games will be set up with renaming allowed, or not. Bloodlust, or not. Raging, random, or villages only. Prince, deity, or prince with slow advance rate. And the "best" options will be the most popular games.

If that happens, I am quite sure that renaming disallowed will be more popular.

[Colonâ„¢]

Ming you've convinced me and you're right. MP will be about winning and nothing else, that's something I forgot.
If I want what I'm searching, I'll have to wait for civ3.
One more thing, my wife hates civ, could you give arguments like Ming, Xin Yu and Flave (Can I call you Flave ?) instead of just shouting things, you only irritate me with it and it doesn't change my opinion whatsoever. (on the contrary, it only makes me more convinced I'm right)
Appearantly you grab every opportunity to critisize my way of playing. (like in the multiplayer forum)

[My Wife Hates CIV]

how about a peace treaty Colon?!

[Orcus]

Ming, by all means, use every means you see fit to use to win the game. But keep in mind that there is in fact such a thing as civilized warfare. Nukes, biologicals, etc. have been "banned" in reality. Why? For the very simple reason that nobody wants them to get used on themselves. If you use these tactics, then you invite their use on you. I just happen to dislike this renaming of cities thing, that's all, personal opinion. I don't care what a city is called, I care about resorces and strategic location! If my armies are parked outside your city, renaming it is not going to do squat. I suspect that "conventions" are going to become a big part of MP games, like "no blank city names" or "dogpile on the treaty breaker". Feel free to employ any techniques you desire, as long as you realize that making other players annoyed will lead to a war on several fronts. Also, Colon and MyWifeHatesCiv, you guys need a Cease-Fire, not a peace treaty :-)

[Colonâ„¢]

OK, but I can't quarantee anything.
I write faster then I think.

[Flavor Dave]

My Wife Hates
CIV

posted 11-30-98 1:37 PM EDT Flavor Dave:

why would the world attack a CIV that changes city names?? It's more of a defensive *TACTIC* more than anything else.

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Notice that in my post, I wrote, "If the community at large thinks it's a bogus trick, then neither Ming nor anyone will use it. B/c doing it will bring everyone's wrath upon your head."

That's a big if. I wonder about the Manhattan Project in MP--will anyone build it? I mean, folks have been postulating the Crazy Man scenario--a civ that's weak late in the game just building nukes like mad and lobbing them around. Given that, a leading nation would be reluctant to build MP, to allow these weaklings to use nukes to give themselves disproportionate clout. And the weak civs won't be able to build it. Once they start, they'll get attacked.

But, I may be wrong. It might be the opposite--the strongest civ waits till he discovers laser, builds SDIs all over the place, MP, and blackmails all of the other players. We'll have to wait and see.

Same thing with the name changing. We don't really KNOW the effect. IMO, it's a cheap trick and will be frowned upon. But, it is not unknown for me to be in error;-)

[My Wife Hates CIV]

I still don't see it as dirty play. It's not a threat to anyone, it's not a weapon. It would be used for defense and to keep info secure (like where a wonder is being built).

I might also keep lines of units around my cities to keep out spies. True, a line could be easy to break - but you'd have to be ay war.

There's nothing dirty about protecting information (even from allies).

[Ming]

You are right Mr. Dave... If the strategy of leaving city names blank, or changing them on a regular basis, was considered "outlawed", I won't do it. But, I don't see that kind of support for or against it. So, it will indeed probably have to be agreed to up front how it's going to be played. And frankly, if everybody else doesn't want to do it, fine... it will save me from being confused.
As far as nukes go, a civ that is behind can build it in one turn if they have the needed number of freights just hanging around. That's the problem. We won't even get a turn warning that somebody is building it... it will just be there. Then the little jerk will probably try to ruin the game for everybody else, just because he can't win. NOW THAT'S A DIRTY TRICK in my book. Yes, it's within the rules, but it still stinks.
And as far as the leader building it after his SDI network is in place, I don't think so. His supremecy in military will disappear quick.. because everybody will be gunning for him. Until they produce a unit that can act as a mobile SDI (maybe a patriot missle battery, it only works some of the time, just like in real life) there will really be no advantage to the leader to give everybody else the chance to build them.

[LeMay]

If you're losing and want to ruin the game for everyone else, there's a much cheaper and simpler way, which is harder to counter and much harder to spot. Simply build factories and power plants (not hydro, solar, or nuclear) without recycling or mass transit, and let the pollution build up. I bet you could induce 2 or 3 global warmings before everyone figured out what was happening and decided to remove you from the face of the planet, and in the interim, everyone would be much, much worse off.
Your point about the MP is well-taken. If someone wants it to come into the game and that person has Nuclear Fission, it will come. Nothing to help it. I think Rocketry will be a must-have advance because if MP comes and you don't have it, your opposition is free to toast you and there's little you can do to respond. Once MP is in, it will be either MAD or global thermonuclear war. SDI will calm it down somewhat, but will give the defense a huge advantage because attacking armies and captured cities can both be nuked.
As for using the MP in a positive way, the only way I can think is pairing it with a fast spaceship. I.e. put a ship together in as few turns as possible by buying components, launch, build MP in a single turn, then start chucking nukes around to lower everyone else's productivity to a level where they can't successfully catch your ship. This would work best with SDI, to ensure that your capital can't be easily nuked and captured.

[My Wife Hates CIV]

Players will have to make sure they have a good stockpile of nukes. Hit me and I'll hit you kinda thinking. If you don't have them - better allie with someone who does.

[Colonâ„¢]

It took (takes ?)MPS a long time before they finished MP. There's reason for that, I hope they took that time to think very well about it. Polution or global warming will likely occur much slower than in Civ2. Probably there also will be many changes in the rules.txt and generally. I think they realize that fleets are worth much since they can be nuked easily, probably the added something to prevent that (pollution on sea ?)
Discussions about MP are quite theoretical in general, cos we don't know how much has been changed.
Flave says (can I call you Flave ?) that it's not certain that the project will be build. I believe it will depend on which players there are in the game.
Is it full with agressive warmongers who like nukes, then it will be build. However is it filled with peaceniks...
All games will depend on the whones who play them so in many games agreements will be made before it starts, like changing names.

[Flavor Dave]

Anyone who has posted at least 5 times on the strategy thread may call me Flave. All others must call me Mr. Dave.

I still have doubts about MP, as long as the properties of nukes stay the same. I remember someone writing on the MP thread that he would launch a jihad against the builder of MP, and most posters agreed. If you're in a game with 5 civs left, would you risk building MP, if even 2 of them said they'd throw caution to the wind and attack you recklessly and ruthlessly?

[Chiswell]

In Civ2 you can change the names of the AI's cities. I hope this isn't posible in MP.


I think changing names of cities is ok. I'm not so sure about having cities with no names...

Changing the names of other people's cities would be pretty annoying. I hope people don't start naming my cities "you will lose" or something.

[Orcus]

I don't mind changing city names to something else unique. I just don't want the blank name or all-the-same name to happen, I think that would be more annoying than anything else. But, the way I see it, an enemy renaming one of my cities is OK, it's like a raspberry or something. There's a psychological advantage there, in provoking your enemy to attack before he's ready just to change his town back to Pi-Ramesses from Buttville or whatever.

[Xin Yu]

It seems that a lot of people don't like same name cities. How about different names, but the first 3 characters are the same? This has less confusion but still helps you hiding some information from enemies.