Epic 6 - Always What?!? - Kylearan's Report

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Always What? War, you say? Are you sure?!? There have been times when this didn't really feel like AW, but read more about it here!

-Kylearan

[Ronald]

It was a fun game. Epic 4 was more always war than this one. Good game

[pindicator]

A tough break on those Crossbows How did the rifle hold up with Drill IV?

I was hoping someone else would post a GNP graph for the game. I notice some of your opponents had continual dips in their GNP, but none of them crashed their economies like my game saw. I agree that it was disappointing.

[darrelljs]

Wow, another one of our top players over estimates the Noble AI (first Sulla, now you)! The other thing you two had in common was a very well developed core of cities, maybe the current SG you are playing in is leaving you Jonesing for some builder action .

I've never bothered enough with the Drill promotion line to notice the last one was so powerful, but next time I play Mao or Qin I will try the same trick.

Darrell

[Sirian]

Always What? War, you say? Are you sure?!?

You can blame the CS Slingshot for much of the strangeness in your game. The AIs are coded to avoid throwing away units in a hopeless strategic struggle, which is what they're at with their Chariots and Spears and Archers vs your Macemen. Now I realize they still end up doing lots of what they are supposed to be avoiding, but that's a matter of only being able to identify some of the traps and hopeless situations. There are others they do a good job of steering clear. They came at you in the early going, but tried to concentrate on teching up and building up (catching up) later on, when they more clearly fell behind.


The Civ3 style of Always War game left the AIs in complete disarray, no cities built up, no borders popped for most civs, nothing built in the cities, zero wonders completed, an all-or-nothing attack gambit that would leave them spent and pathetic if it failed. They would run out of gas early, but continue to survive in to the later eras if left alone. But in Civ4 it just doesn't work that way. So they were running out of gas much earlier, lacking for sources of commerce and ability to advance in tech. Nothing but suicide units of the lowest quality thrown at the player en masse. Survive the rush, get any kind of force to the enemy's base, and decapitate the paper tiger. It was a rush to play, just like in Civ3, but once you crossed the tipping point, you had a long mop up ahead of you.

The Civ4 AI is specifically designed to ignore phony wars, which is what is going on in AW games much of the time. The player isn't threatening most of the civs. Some of them will ignore you back, trying to build up. They were stunted from doing that in this game by the amount of land available, vs the amount set aside for the player, but that was an artificially crafted situation. Then to make matters worse, the player who grabs the CS Slingshot has shaved two more difficulty levels off an already easy game.


The CS Slingshot is to Civ4 what RoP Rape was to Civ3: the game killing balance flaw. I'm not sure what to do about that, but one thing that for sure I will not be doing is redesigning our tournament around it, enshrining it as the must-use One Right Choice for most of our games.

I eschewed the CS Slingshot in my Epic Six and had a great time, even though my spoiler info lent me lots of advantage. I can say for sure that the CSS was worth more than my spoilers, which have never been stronger in any of the 60 or so events I've sponsored. That's how badly broken it is.


Unfortunately, I had some computer problems tonight. Not sure if they are straightened out yet or not. The last segment of my report still needs to be written, because of this. I got none of it done in the last ten hours. *sigh*

I'll try to get my report up as soon as feasible. I've read half a dozen reports, though, and still waiting to read the first one that did NOT beeline straight to the CSS.


- Sirian

[mucco]

I'll try to get my report up as soon as feasible. I've read half a dozen reports, though, and still waiting to read the first one that did NOT beeline straight to the CSS.

CSS slingshot? What the hell is that ? I only reached civil service around 1500 AD... not exactly what you, Kylearan, did. I was quite shocked to see that you could play a builder game here! I have never even thought of doing so, since I did never have those "peace turns" that you enjoyed thanks to the technological edge. The occupation of the southern terrain was also something I didn't do, mainly because of the high maintenance, the relative poorness of the zone, and the drain of military units, which were essential for me.

[darrelljs]

The CS Slingshot is to Civ4 what RoP Rape was to Civ3: the game killing balance flaw. I'm not sure what to do about that, but one thing that for sure I will not be doing is redesigning our tournament around it, enshrining it as the must-use One Right Choice for most of our games.

I have no idea what RoP Rape is, but I disagree that the CS slingshot is unbalanced. No doubt it is a strong move at the lower difficult levels (even at Monarch) but I would not call it game breaking. You have to sacrifice other things to get it, and for many games those other things are more important. I personally believe this scenario was set at too low a level (not to mention no tech trading and no barbarians). This is what made Kylearan's game a "strange" AW Builder's experience. If you read Sulla's report, he also took a very conservative opening strategy (even more so than Kylearan), did NOT pull a CS slingshot, and still beat the crap out of the AI as a Builder!

Then to make matters worse, the player who grabs the CS Slingshot has shaved two more difficulty levels off an already easy game.

Surely that is an exaggeration? Play the same scenario at Chieftan and skip the slingshot, and I am sure it would have been much, much easier.

Darrell

[uberfish]

I don't think the CS slingshot is unbalanced either. Sure, you can do it consistently at lower difficulty levels, but you can also easily build pyramids which are of comparable strength, monopolize all the religions, eliminate civs with warriors, do Conquest with pure swords(!) or generally do anything you like since the AI is not fast or aggressive enough at Noble to stop it.

[mihau]

there's an annoying bug in the game that in the end reduced their long-term life expectancy to almost zero

is this a bug??
I always thought it was made on purpose... a funkiller for sure, but introduced intentionally... I thought...

[Rik Meleet]

Unbelieavable: pop, pop, pop Berlin.

Nice read and a nice game.