Warlords One - Impi Zisshun

[sooooo]

After playing warlords more and more, I'm beginning to come round to Sullla's thinking. There are some very good things about warlords and some very annoying things.

The warlords/vanilla/blakeai split is troublesome because there are bad (and good!) points about every version.

Ugh, it's a mess and I sympathise with any scenario designer like Sirian who tries to cater for this community's tastes.

Overall though, I just want to play the version of the game that most other people want to play with. Is there a sheep smiley around here? It's the playing same game as as many other people as possible and reading the reports which is more important than the game's details.

[ThERat]

Maybe people will bash me, but I do think there are more reasons to the drop in participation but xmas/festive season:

It's pretty clear that CIV has also divided the community far more than Civ3 did last time. When I joined CFC 2 years ago (and I lurked there for another 1 year), the community was mainly playing Civ3 and C3C. Surely people would drop due to burn out or lack of time. But generally the level of activity was pretty high in SG's or GOTM etc.

When CIV came out, and after the initial rush for the game, it was clear that this game almost 'alienated' quite a few of the veterans. It also has a tendency to burn you out much faster. Now, 1 year after the release, we can see the influx of a lot of new players has stopped and since veterans aren't there, the activity is low.
For Civ3, C3C was sort of a comeback, because it was really that much better than the vanillla version. It brought enthusiasm back to the community.

As for CIV, warlord is seen by many as a step back. Add to that the fact hat firaxis decided to release a pseudo patch (2.08 ) with strange changes or a 'better-AI' in it's infancy. While I do not comprehend such a decision, it has spilt the community. Blake's excellent work is 'work-in-progress' and it is tough for the community as a whole to follow the ongoing process while trying to organize games as there are too many version floating around.

Add to that the fact that quite a few veterans have gone back to C3C or are still stuck there. I doubt that was the case for Civ3/Civ2 to that extent.

It's a pity really and I personally hope for a Civ5 that is addictive and uniting (for the community as a whole). I doubt any patch or new expansion will do it for CIV.

[Iainuki]

As a datapoint, I abandoned the series between Civ2 and Civ4. I didn't like Civ3 at all. I'm not sure I understand why so many people prefer Civ3.

[Dawn]

Just to throw in some observations from a newbie to the community.

I first played Civ 2 way back when I first started teaching. Middle school kids at the time would spend hours in my computer lab playing (who knows how much history they actually picked up on). I bought Civ III Gold just as Civ IV was being planned for release (of course). My sons (12 and 7) and I play multi-player LAN games at the house now. The youngest can spout out the leader names, world wonders, and since we play on Terra a lot has great geograhic skills. However we play at Warlords level and below (youngest has a dendency to go to war before he's really ready).

I'm certainly not into the combat calculations and micro-micro-management of fractional beakers (100% or 0% research stuff). I have a good game of Noble and test myself on the variants provided by this prestigious site. So I do think I understand the monotony the more experienced players can feel with the "predictable" AI and quirks of the game (be it vanilla or Warlords). Blake, you've done some astounding work ( ). I've tried to follow along and actually downloaded a few of your "works" to test. However, given my lack of depth I haven't done more than try a few comparison starts. Note that I'm scared sh*tless to see what your new programming will do my Noble games! Should be a good challenge and I'm up for it. 8) Let's hope Fraxis listens to and makes the improvements.

I play both vanilla and Warlords, depending on the game I feel like (or if I'm trying out Blake's code). I don't have much time out of my personal life to play a lot of games, so the ones I do are for sheer enjoyment. I guess that's why there is still so much left for me to explore in both versions.

I too have noticed the drop in participation. Along with that a depressing sort of criticism that has crept into a lot of the comments of the regular posters. Take for instance the RB1 Cuban Isolationists and Sullla's Civ 4 Walk-thru. Talk about inspirational reads! I've actually gone back and reread the RB1 SG. Try it sometime (even though it is now 58 pages long!). Were there issues found during that time - oh yeah. The Ironworks bug was made public there (or at least confirmed by two of the best names in the game). Since that time there has been little positive said towards the game. Oh, the AI changes Blake is doing is causing quite the stir and raising of hopes for those more experienced than I.

I guess what I'm trying to get to is negativity breds negativity. Everyone burns out on a game and hopefully comes back to it after a period of time. I don't have an answer for the quirks/bugs/"features" of v1.61 or v2.08, but I do know there are a lot of new players out there reading through these forums. I can only hope that they pick up the on the inspirational writings and keep the spirit alive. I know I've certainly learned from the Great Ones who write in these forums.

I personally thank Sirian and Gris for the work they do here in sponsoring the games. Thanks to the long time experts I know by heart - Kylearnan, Sullla, Blake, T-Hawk, Atlas, sooo, and the list goes on.

Let's get by the holidays and maybe we'll have a new crop of players who opened their shiny new copy of Civ IV on Christmas morning and come looking for adventure!

Just my two cents.

[LKendter]

Add to that the fact that quite a few veterans have gone back to C3C or are still stuck there. I doubt that was the case for Civ3/Civ2 to that extent.

You said a key part of the problem. I couldn't believe it when Greebley offered me a slot in Civ3 AW with my world map. I took a look at that thread as was surprised how many people I knew from my Civ3 days still at it.

That is part of the problem with Civ4. Anyone really into Civ3 AW won't enjoy it as much with Civ4. The insane unit rush is gone.


The other killer was a horrid start up as 1.00 was total failure IMHO as it failed to run on way to many machines. I was lucky that I could run it.

[Kodii]

I bought Warlords, but I haven't really played it. I'm waiting for a patch. Plus, at the moment, Vanilla is suiting me fine.

I don't blame anyone for the decrease in activity. Of course, conflicts of interest and the inactivity of our sole sponsor are factors, but a great deal has to do with the workload at this time of year, as many have mentioned already. I myself have no time to play, or even attempt at any of the recent events. I have only had time for SGs, but even there (as Compromise knows), I have been very inactive.

Of course, this may apply to a small portion of us, probably including Sirian. I have noticed though, then when numbers begin to decrease, others are discouraged from playing as well... either that, or I'm just rambling on about something that is horribly inaccurate. Its getting late.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

From my own perspective, my lack of RB participation mirrors my lack of solo play. Grand total of games finished since July? Two - the Ironman Challenge at CFC and Weekend OCC #1.

Early on, after I had acquired Warlords, this was deliberate - I spent a lot of time practicing openings, trying to get a feel for why my starts were loose. But since then, I haven't picked up a start and thought "wow, this looks like it will be interesting to play".

The additions for Warlords did nothing to pull me in - I wanted the fixes, and to be able to follow along on some discussions, but thus far, unique buildings, new units, new traits... these things haven't done very much for me.

I can only really see two points of light remaining in the game; to experiment with how the AI prioritizes research, and to define what a "pure" specialist economy is, to see if it can really compete with a cottage driven economy.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I doubt most people realized just how much work Sirian and Gris were doing behind the scenes to keep everything organized, at least not until other priorities diverted some of their time away.

I agree completely, but I think it's more than that. It's not only about organizing, but also a lot about presence (or absence, in this case) of such prominent figures like Sirian, or you. People get more excited about a tournament if there's a lot of talk about it and there's a chance that well-known, famous people play too. We all were a lot more active discussing the game, posting "looking forward to RB game X" at CFC etc. And as Kodii has noted, this can become a vicious circle, less participants resulting in even more players losing interest.

But, as others have noted, the time of year takes its toll too, and I hope we can bring back this tournament to full speed in the new year.

-Kylearan

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I hope no-one resents me.

Of course not. You (and Iustus) have really done amazing things with the AI; even long-term strategy thinking in some places like going for a cultural victory which I wouldn't have thought to be possible without rewriting the AI from scratch.

However, the constant release of new versions makes it difficult to have a baseline version for the community to play with, and that's one of the reasons I said I will wait with buying Warlords until there's a new patch.

If I remember correctly, some weeks ago you've said there will be a feature freeze followed by some bug-fixing followed by an official 1.0 version of your Better AI mod. What happened to this plan?

-Kylearan

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Overall though, I just want to play the version of the game that most other people want to play with. Is there a sheep smiley around here? It's the playing same game as as many other people as possible and reading the reports which is more important than the game's details.

I feel exactly the same!

-Kylearan