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Pedantic whiners, the entire lot of you!
If you don't like random outcomes you should play on the basis of deterministic results like C-evo. No musketeers beating tanks there!
If you don't like random outcomes you should play on the basis of deterministic results like C-evo. No musketeers beating tanks there!
FAQ Part C: Game Rules Criticism
Comment: I do not believe to know the ultimate truth. Maybe I'm wrong with some of the thoughts and statements on this page, I won't mind if you convince me of something else. Also, I apologize for incomprehensible statements. Some things are hard to explain, even more in a foreign language.
C1. General Doubt
Q/S: I don't agree with the goals of this project. I think most players would prefer a less rigid aproach and a more simulation-oriented game.
A: Yes, of course most players would prefer that. That's why all commercial strategy games go that way. But the sense of this project is to do what commercial games can not do. Yes, this results in several decisions which many players don't like best, but that's only natural.
C2. Request For Explanation 1
Q/S: Why is this detail of the game different from Civilization II?
A: Because this is not Civilization II.
C3. Request For Explanation 2
Q/S: Please explain the motivation for you to change/omit/introduce this particular rule of the game.
A: I will try to explain the most conspicuous decisions here in this FAQ section. I can't explain everything, because this would take far too much time. (Also, for some decisions I don't have an explanation of a kind I could write down in an understandable way.)
C4. Determinism
Q/S: The game should not be deterministic. It's boring if I always know the result of an action before. Also, there should be random events like famine, plague etc.
A: Only determinism allows to think ahead, and this is the basic idea of a strategy game. Yes, the game is boring. But the reason for that is the missing challenge due to the poor artifical intelligence. If AI plays good enough, you will lose your game. If a game you lose is boring for you, you are probably not a strategist. To compensate missing challenge with amusing, unexpected happenings is the idea of a simulation (or of a film).
C5. Game Score
Q/S: Why doesn't the game calculate a civilization score?
A: If you win a game, it doesn't matter how you did it. It's your strategy. If your strategy is not good, you lose.
C6. Unrealistic Details
Q/S: This detail of the game does not come very close to real history.
A: This is not real history, it's a game!
C7. Behavior Influence
Q/S: I suggest a special event/wonder/government form/behavior of a nation to have a well defined effect on other nation's behavior/attitude to this nation.
A: Presumably, you are thinking of computer controlled nations changing their behavior or attitude. But these nations are AI controlled, not rules controlled. Please read the section "Rules vs. AI" on the project homepage. AI has the same rights as human players, it's not under the game's command.
C8. Independent Parties
Q/S: There should be barbarians or other non-player parties suddenly appearing or originating from special, outstanding events in the game.
A: The question is: How should these parties be controlled? If the behavior of an independent party was part of the game rules, it was absolutely predictable, because the rules are always exactly specified. Not very desirable, I think. If the behavior is not part of the rules, it's controlled by some artifical intelligence. But a non-player party can't win the game, so what aim should this intelligence pursue? The only guideline e.g. for barbarian behavior is how real barbarians would behave. But that's nothing to do with AI or with strategy at all, it's pure simulation. It's not what I think a strategy game should be made of.
C9. Distant Attacks
Q/S: The game should allow distant attacks to non-adjacent tiles, for example for artillery or modern ships. Of course, the attacker should not take damage.
A: In Civ II, each battle destroyed one unit. So there was a natural limit: there could never be more attacks than units produced. With distant attacks, this limit must fall. (Otherwise one could destroy any mega-defender with the cheapest unit capable of distant attack.) The likely result: a load of unit combat and movement without real relevance. I played Alpha Centauri. Moving around artillery just do deal some percent of damage and each turn waiting for useless enemy artillery attacks to come to an end. I hated it. Besides: Be aware of the playground dimensions! The tile size is several hundred kilometers. There are few units which attack over this distance -- some archers would be rather ridiculous doing that...
C10. Tech Tree Unrealistic
Q/S: The prerequisites of some technologies should be changed. Would be much more realistic if ... required ... instead of ....
A: The choice in technology dependencies is not free, because there are several formal conditions which are not that easy to meet. For example, one prerequisite of a technology should never have the other one as (direct or indirect) prerequisite itself. These conditions unfortunately cause some parts of the tech tree to be a little incorrect.
C11. Tech Tree Unweighted/Too Parallel/Too Linear
S1: It's not realistic that research cost only depend on the order of research. Polytheism takes more research than Computers if I invent it after that. Research cost should be fixed for each technology: little cost for early techs, high cost for late ones. This would force a realistic order of research, because it would no longer make sense to delay early technologies.
S2: It's not realistic that I can invent Computers before I have Polytheism. The technology dependencies should be rearranged to allow littler choice, forcing a realistic order of research.
S3: The technology dependencies do not allow enough choice in the order of research. For late technologies, I need almost all other techs as prerequisites. Instead, there should be independent branches to allow players to evolve to different directions.
A: How "parallel" should the tree of technologies be? This decision has enormous influence on the game, the difficulty is to find the right balance. Some probably want a very forced, linear tech system, which does not allow an order of advancements that differs much from the history of mankind. But for a strategy game, this is not the right approach. It's much more fascinating to give the player some freedom of choice for his order of advancement, allowing completely different strategies. Why not allow inventing Polytheism after a nation already knows Computers? You don't need one for the other. On the other hand, an invention that should not be possible before 1900 must have 3/4 of all other inventions as (indirect) preriquisites. If there were, say, four distinct branches instead of one, you could reach every technology after a quarter of the game, even the most advanced...
C12. Ocean Transformation
Q/S: Why not allow to transform shore tiles next to the coast into land?
A: Land is the most important basic resource of the game. If a player didn't want to waste his chances, he was forced to make almost all of his shore tiles land as soon as this was possible for him. I think that's too much importance and too much busywork for such a special thing.
C13. Zones Of Control
Q/S: Players do not move at the same time, so what are the movement rules concerning zones of control good for?
A: Zones of control have nothing to do with exclusion for possible movement. ZOCs only exist to improve the gameplay. If units had no ZOC, it would be almost impossible to build something like a frontier line, because enemies could simply pass strong defenders instead of having to defeat them.
C14. Scripted Rules
Q/S: Scripts should define as many of the game rules as possible, e.g. tech tree, wonder effects etc. This would allow players to fit the game to their personal preferences or to make experiments with modified rule sets.
A: I do not generally refuse this idea, maybe a later version of cEvo will allow to change the rules by editing a script. But rules changes are very critical for the AI. Fixed rules allow to build in playing experience, unpredictable rules do not, which potentially makes AI less good.
C15. Parachuters
Q/S: Why doesn't cEvo have parachuter units as Civ II did?
A: Civ II didn't have parachuters, it had jumpers -- simply jumping across half the playground. This had nothing to do with parachuting except for the name. cEvo has real parachuters: you can drop any ground unit from a transport plane.
Comment: I do not believe to know the ultimate truth. Maybe I'm wrong with some of the thoughts and statements on this page, I won't mind if you convince me of something else. Also, I apologize for incomprehensible statements. Some things are hard to explain, even more in a foreign language.
C1. General Doubt
Q/S: I don't agree with the goals of this project. I think most players would prefer a less rigid aproach and a more simulation-oriented game.
A: Yes, of course most players would prefer that. That's why all commercial strategy games go that way. But the sense of this project is to do what commercial games can not do. Yes, this results in several decisions which many players don't like best, but that's only natural.
C2. Request For Explanation 1
Q/S: Why is this detail of the game different from Civilization II?
A: Because this is not Civilization II.
C3. Request For Explanation 2
Q/S: Please explain the motivation for you to change/omit/introduce this particular rule of the game.
A: I will try to explain the most conspicuous decisions here in this FAQ section. I can't explain everything, because this would take far too much time. (Also, for some decisions I don't have an explanation of a kind I could write down in an understandable way.)
C4. Determinism
Q/S: The game should not be deterministic. It's boring if I always know the result of an action before. Also, there should be random events like famine, plague etc.
A: Only determinism allows to think ahead, and this is the basic idea of a strategy game. Yes, the game is boring. But the reason for that is the missing challenge due to the poor artifical intelligence. If AI plays good enough, you will lose your game. If a game you lose is boring for you, you are probably not a strategist. To compensate missing challenge with amusing, unexpected happenings is the idea of a simulation (or of a film).
C5. Game Score
Q/S: Why doesn't the game calculate a civilization score?
A: If you win a game, it doesn't matter how you did it. It's your strategy. If your strategy is not good, you lose.
C6. Unrealistic Details
Q/S: This detail of the game does not come very close to real history.
A: This is not real history, it's a game!
C7. Behavior Influence
Q/S: I suggest a special event/wonder/government form/behavior of a nation to have a well defined effect on other nation's behavior/attitude to this nation.
A: Presumably, you are thinking of computer controlled nations changing their behavior or attitude. But these nations are AI controlled, not rules controlled. Please read the section "Rules vs. AI" on the project homepage. AI has the same rights as human players, it's not under the game's command.
C8. Independent Parties
Q/S: There should be barbarians or other non-player parties suddenly appearing or originating from special, outstanding events in the game.
A: The question is: How should these parties be controlled? If the behavior of an independent party was part of the game rules, it was absolutely predictable, because the rules are always exactly specified. Not very desirable, I think. If the behavior is not part of the rules, it's controlled by some artifical intelligence. But a non-player party can't win the game, so what aim should this intelligence pursue? The only guideline e.g. for barbarian behavior is how real barbarians would behave. But that's nothing to do with AI or with strategy at all, it's pure simulation. It's not what I think a strategy game should be made of.
C9. Distant Attacks
Q/S: The game should allow distant attacks to non-adjacent tiles, for example for artillery or modern ships. Of course, the attacker should not take damage.
A: In Civ II, each battle destroyed one unit. So there was a natural limit: there could never be more attacks than units produced. With distant attacks, this limit must fall. (Otherwise one could destroy any mega-defender with the cheapest unit capable of distant attack.) The likely result: a load of unit combat and movement without real relevance. I played Alpha Centauri. Moving around artillery just do deal some percent of damage and each turn waiting for useless enemy artillery attacks to come to an end. I hated it. Besides: Be aware of the playground dimensions! The tile size is several hundred kilometers. There are few units which attack over this distance -- some archers would be rather ridiculous doing that...
C10. Tech Tree Unrealistic
Q/S: The prerequisites of some technologies should be changed. Would be much more realistic if ... required ... instead of ....
A: The choice in technology dependencies is not free, because there are several formal conditions which are not that easy to meet. For example, one prerequisite of a technology should never have the other one as (direct or indirect) prerequisite itself. These conditions unfortunately cause some parts of the tech tree to be a little incorrect.
C11. Tech Tree Unweighted/Too Parallel/Too Linear
S1: It's not realistic that research cost only depend on the order of research. Polytheism takes more research than Computers if I invent it after that. Research cost should be fixed for each technology: little cost for early techs, high cost for late ones. This would force a realistic order of research, because it would no longer make sense to delay early technologies.
S2: It's not realistic that I can invent Computers before I have Polytheism. The technology dependencies should be rearranged to allow littler choice, forcing a realistic order of research.
S3: The technology dependencies do not allow enough choice in the order of research. For late technologies, I need almost all other techs as prerequisites. Instead, there should be independent branches to allow players to evolve to different directions.
A: How "parallel" should the tree of technologies be? This decision has enormous influence on the game, the difficulty is to find the right balance. Some probably want a very forced, linear tech system, which does not allow an order of advancements that differs much from the history of mankind. But for a strategy game, this is not the right approach. It's much more fascinating to give the player some freedom of choice for his order of advancement, allowing completely different strategies. Why not allow inventing Polytheism after a nation already knows Computers? You don't need one for the other. On the other hand, an invention that should not be possible before 1900 must have 3/4 of all other inventions as (indirect) preriquisites. If there were, say, four distinct branches instead of one, you could reach every technology after a quarter of the game, even the most advanced...
C12. Ocean Transformation
Q/S: Why not allow to transform shore tiles next to the coast into land?
A: Land is the most important basic resource of the game. If a player didn't want to waste his chances, he was forced to make almost all of his shore tiles land as soon as this was possible for him. I think that's too much importance and too much busywork for such a special thing.
C13. Zones Of Control
Q/S: Players do not move at the same time, so what are the movement rules concerning zones of control good for?
A: Zones of control have nothing to do with exclusion for possible movement. ZOCs only exist to improve the gameplay. If units had no ZOC, it would be almost impossible to build something like a frontier line, because enemies could simply pass strong defenders instead of having to defeat them.
C14. Scripted Rules
Q/S: Scripts should define as many of the game rules as possible, e.g. tech tree, wonder effects etc. This would allow players to fit the game to their personal preferences or to make experiments with modified rule sets.
A: I do not generally refuse this idea, maybe a later version of cEvo will allow to change the rules by editing a script. But rules changes are very critical for the AI. Fixed rules allow to build in playing experience, unpredictable rules do not, which potentially makes AI less good.
C15. Parachuters
Q/S: Why doesn't cEvo have parachuter units as Civ II did?
A: Civ II didn't have parachuters, it had jumpers -- simply jumping across half the playground. This had nothing to do with parachuting except for the name. cEvo has real parachuters: you can drop any ground unit from a transport plane.
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