Next AU course (after AU601)...

[nbarclay]

I came up with a thought for something that might be a workable compromise. The following is written from a perspective of including it in the game description if people find it acceptable.

---

From time beyond memory, your people have been wandering from place to place. But in recent days, the High Apolytonians have sent your people a dream, a dream of settling down and building a culture that will be the envy of the world. You have been charged with the task of leading your people in pursuit of that dream, and of doing so at the earliest possible date.

The High Apolytonians have also set forth a standard by which your efforts will be judged. If you can achieve cultural supremacy before the human race leaves for other worlds, and without ever invading or arranging alliances against the two most culturally advanced overseas civilizations, your performance will be judged superior.

If you have to invade or arrange alliances against either or both of the two most culturally advanced overseas civilizations in order to achieve cultural supremacy, or you have to launch a starship to preempt AI launches but can subsequently achieve what would have qualified as cultural supremacy, your performance will be judged acceptable.

And if another civilization achieves a goal by which it can claim supremacy, or you cannot ever achieve cultural supremacy, your efforts will be judged unsuccessful.

It is thus up to you to make the most that you can of your opportunity.

[Note that some of the issues involved in these conditions are beyond players’ control, or are things players may not want to control as much as they could. For example, a player who faces a culturally powerful killer AI could find a “superior” achievement far more difficult than a player who does not. Similarly, a world with a slower technological pace could make the space race far less of an issue. Thus, the “superior” and “acceptable” ratings are intended as targets for players to shoot for, not necessarily as a basis for comparison between different games.]

[Edit: Added "and of doing so at the earliest possible date" to capture the time aspect.]

[jshelr]

I like the "earliest victory" aspect of this. It's like running in the 60 and over division of 10k races. I can "win" in my lower division

most of the "culture" strats that are really military in nature won't win the timing aspect of this race, IMO. beating the ai will be one thing. winning the race in your difficulty division will be quite another.

[Modo44]

I like the proposed description very much. A good compromise, IMO.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by nbarclay
(Think Feudalism and lots of densely packed, tiny towns in outlying conquered territories with pop-rushed cultural improvements.)

My terse comment: AU is not RealmsBeyond.

And to quote Regis: Let's play.

[Dominae]

While this whole discussion has been perhaps interesting from a veteran player's perspective, it totally goes over the head of newer players who actually might learn something from this course.

Nathan, what I think you're completely missing is that some players do not know the best route to a fastest Culture victory. I doubt I know the "best" route, although I've got tricks up my sleeve. By debating heatedly in this thread most of the strategies that players were supposed to learn for themselves we've completely undermined one of the main goals of AU, i.e. to learn about Civ3.

Nathan, you've reached the point where you know 99% of what you will ever know about Civ3. So playing an AU course for you is definitely more about "having fun" than "learning something". But most other players are in a different boat: they still learn something when challenged in a particular way, and they have fun because of it. While looking out for your interests with respect to this course, I believe you've neglected a majority of our community.

In any case, most people posting in this thread seem to agree that 100k Culture victory with standard victory conditions is the way to go. If anyone agrees with Nathan and wants to play a "looser" course, please speak up. The arguments for and against this have already been made.

In order to satisfy everyone, however, we can do this: post the game saves with standard victory conditions, and also post the scenario file for anyone who wants to deviate from the "official" rules. Sound good?

[nbarclay]

Dominae, you could count the number of 100K cultual victories I've won since Civ 3 first came out on the fingers of one hand, with fingers left over. My normal playing style is very science-oriented, so if I don't achieve domination or conquest first, the space race is over before a cultural victory is all that close. I know enough about the game's mechanics that I think I can figure out some useful tricks (albeit some of which exploiit the game's mechanics pretty heavily), but I really have no idea how well I'll do compared with others in this game - and I definitely expect to learn from it.

In regard to what saves need posted, nothing in my ideas would require alterations in the scenario or save files. Where we disagree is in regard to additional requirements and matters of interpretation that are not a part of the save files.

[Dominae]

The victory conditions for a game a wrapped in the save.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae
The victory conditions for a game a wrapped in the save.

The in-game victory conditions are part of the save. Additional requirements that Apolyton University sets, but that the game engine is unaware of, are not. So if a player had his heart set on playing with the space race victory condition disabled, he would need to work from the scenario. But assuming culture keeps accumulating and F8 keeps keeping track of it after the game is officially over as far as the game engine is concerned, a player can win the space race and then go on to satisfy the conditions for cultural victory without needing a modified scenario.

[Beta]

Now this thread was a good read. Very interesting debate. To be honest - I sort of side with Tall Stranger. I agree that the AU philosophy is not competition, but:

1) we will all still be competitive when we play, regardless of how we set it up, and some will be more 'successful' than others regardless of the criteria.

2) competition leads to education. At least that is the way I see it. And although the AU courses are not intended to be a GOTM type set-up, we still all try our darndest to do well. (Right Rhoth?)

That being said, I cannot get too hung up one way or the other. Dom's the man. Let's pick a civ and go.

I like the idea of Korea. India - OK.

Off to vote.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Beta
2) competition leads to education. At least that is the way I see it. And although the AU courses are not intended to be a GOTM type set-up[...]

I think we learn from both competition and education, but education is a structured, community building process, while competition is a crude lesson about the Least Common Denominator. I haven't followed the discussion completely, but agree with Dom in principle that the course should be more structured to benefit the AU community in general. Having both tournaments and AU courses gives us a broad range of options at Apolyton and the clearer the distinction, the more the community is enriched IMO.

[Modo44]

One thing on the game description. The "don't attack cultural enemies" rule should only apply after entering the medieval era, or after contacting all civilizations, or both. Otherwise you could run into a weird situation, where you cannot attack anybody on your continent (say two of your neighbours finish ancient wonders while you clobber the third one). That would basically disallow heavy early warmongering.

[nbarclay]

I specifically worded it "overseas civilizations." The idea is that the civs on your own continent are fair game no matter what, but a "superior" performance requires leaving the two most culturally advanced civs on the other land mass or masses alone so you win by outperforming them culturally, not by damaging them.

[Modo44]

OK, understood.

If we start on an island, would the closer continent be considered not overseas?

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Modo44

If we start on an island, would the closer continent be considered not overseas?

If we would start with a land mass all to ourselves, the closer continent would be considered fair game. (In theory, it could be possible to have two equally close continents, but that seems a bit esoteric to worry about.)

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Modo44
One thing on the game description. The "don't attack cultural enemies" rule should only apply after entering the medieval era, or after contacting all civilizations, or both. Otherwise you could run into a weird situation, where you cannot attack anybody on your continent (say two of your neighbours finish ancient wonders while you clobber the third one). That would basically disallow heavy early warmongering.

Umm, are we following Nathan's description, or not? Modo44 has been the only one to support it so far. I thought we were sticking with my original description (not because it's mine, but because it's the most popular).