(December 3rd, 2013, 22:26)NobleHelium Wrote: You can say that diplo games are an "undiscovered frontier" as much as (actually less than) Starcraft games are an undiscovered frontier. Or Counterstrike games. Or any other game in existence. I'm here to play Civ4, not play something not-Civ4.
I think Starcraft and Counterstrike are about as discovered as a game can be. BTS with AI-diplo is getting close.
The evidence I have for how close Civ 4 with diplo is to being discovered and played out is from the few diplo games played lately. And in one of the major ones, the ISDG, the RB team just failed, and hard. I believe, but can't prove, that this isn't a fluke, but a reproducible set of qualities in the people making the decisions where RB wasn't the best team at that particular game despite being the best at Civ 4.
Yes it's a game that is not-Civ4 more than Civ4, and most people here strongly prefer playing the later (including me). But, I still think such a game could be really interesting to lurk if reported well. I very much enjoyed lurking the ISDG while Sullla was writing turn reports.
I think the educational value of PB2 was the lesser part of what made it interesting, though it was still a very large part. The point that the reporting culture here has gone down a bit since the epics and adventures stopped is a good one. (Though, I can't wait to someday read Pindicooter's massively viewed PB13 thread.)
This is very much a put-up-results or shut-up culture here (not necessarily a bad thing) so the spectrum of opinions that end by saying "We've played games, therefore we know better than you what's optimal because you're a noob" can't be refuted and if the aim is to shut down discussion then those posts do so.