BTS and the upcoming slavery nerf

[EyesOfNight]

Also, in some instances I suspect the imbalances can lead to a more balanced game, as better players try to avoid them in order to have a more interesting game...

lol What planet are you living on? My god man. Last I checked there was a "What do you love about Civ4 the most?" thread with your name on it in on-topic.


Sloww, Civ4 catapults don't even remotely resemble Civ 2 catapults. In fact, the combat system isn't even remotely similar. Catapults in Civ4 are the be all and end all.

[SlowwHand]

I didn't know. I'm so pissed off over 3, and then, this ****ing archaic pc wouldn't support 4 if I wanted too, which I don't, now. I don't guess. It doesn't sound like it.

[snoopy369]

Don't assume EoN's opinion of the game is the be all and end all of Civ4 Sloww The fact that most Civ2 players have now moved on to Civ4 should be of some comfort to you.

[SlowwHand]

I have to do something, that's for sure.
I swear, I can't tell you how mad Civ 3 mad me. I'm serious. I got it for a Christmas present and ended up throwing it in the trash. My mother gave it to me even. Now, that's disgusted.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Originally posted by Koyaanisqatsi
Dammit, all this on-topic discussion made me install Warlords and it broke Civ4. Now somebody has to go to the Civ4-Help forum and fix it for me.

Useless bastids.

[SlowwHand]

Ok, yeah. Civ 4 is wonderful. You trying to trick**** me?

[snoopy369]

No.

[SlowwHand]

Ok. Well, I'm starting from new case up, so maybe one of these days...

[snoopy369]

I'd suggest a new CPU and motherboard prior to a new case, unless your current case is that bad

[EyesOfNight]

You'd be amazed what Civ4 can run on. I ran it on my old computer which was 1Ghz, 128MB ram, and a 60$ Nvidia video card. You can have the fastest computer in the world and the game will still run like a piece of **** because of the horribly unresponsive interface. Hell, I don't know what your computer is right now, but there's a good chance it could run it.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I have to do something, that's for sure.
I swear, I can't tell you how mad Civ 3 mad me. I'm serious. I got it for a Christmas present and ended up throwing it in the trash. My mother gave it to me even. Now, that's disgusted.

Did you patch it? It was broken out of the box, but the first version was bascially working by the time PtW came out.

[rah]

Originally posted by EyesOfNight
I don't see any questions in that previous post up there.

Ok, I'll try again.

If you play any game with someone, and you beat the person 80% of the time, then do you agree that there must be some skill involved since an 80% win rate is well past statistically significant for what you would expect if the game was pure luck and the results random?

[EyesOfNight]

1. I never said the game was pure luck and that the results were random.

2. My argument from the beginning has always been that your settings decrease the skill gap between players by adding in random factors out of the player's control. Civ4 is a game that equalizes quite effectively on its own, you don't need to play on settings that make this fact even worse.

3. My settings have the largest skill gap and require the most amount of skill. They allow for the largest leads. Your settings stifle the size of the lead allowed. I can only get so far ahead playing on your settings. It has nothing to do with skill, it is just the way the game is made. The skill ceiling on Civ4 is very low compared to previous Civ games. If we were playing Civ2, taking all 3 of you on would not be a problem at all. In Civ4 however, the game isn't designed to allow the kind of leads needed to take 3 people on at once, especially on normal speed. Your settings make an existing problem worse by tying the hands of the player and bringing everyone down to one level. Deity 1x1x in Civ2 was the exact same way...Civ4 just takes this to a whole new level.

So in conclusion, yes the better player will win most of the time with your settings, or any settings for that matter. My contention is that what separates the good player from the lower player is much less on your settings than on my settings.

[Ming]

EON,
Last night, you attempted to begin to discuss the reason you make the claims that the settings you play actually do broaden the gap, and how games at regular speed narrow the gap.

You were a tad convincing, so why don't you try to explain your theories on the subject here as well to help prove or disprove your point

[EyesOfNight]

For one thing, normal speed nerfs slavery. As I've mentioned over and over again, without slavery, there is very little that is possible to get a lead. To utilize slavery properly you actually have to build your cities properly in the right spots, manage what tiles your city works, and balance your expansion. In other words, the people who utilize slavery the best exhibit the skills previous civ games required. Without slavery, the need to micromanage and the ability to get leads fast is almost non-existent. I predict that if they nerf slavery that MP will die within 2 months. I don't know of anyone that wants to go back to pre-slavery Civ4. By playing on normal speed you are in effect nerfing slavery and not adding anything to the game to add skill to replace it. There's simply no options available to dominate a player. In addition, you then add in things like barbarians and huts which just exacerbate the problem. Me getting a tech on normal speed like bronze working is far more powerful than me getting a tech out of a hut on quick speed. Losing a unit to a barbarian on normal speed is far more damaging than losing a unit to a barbarian on quick speed. Normal magnifies the problems of luck in your settings and slows down players to the point where there's really not much you can do to get ahead. Not to mention I'd rather play a 2-3 hour game than play a game that takes 8 hours simply because of the speed setting. If you played on quick, I'd be willing to play with barbarians turned on and huts.