uberfish Wrote:I am a little concerned that restrictions will end up pushing the game into a 'one right strategy' of a different sort.
That is usually what happens.
The game could stand to allow for truly random start locations, rather than what we have, but this would then tend to push players to look around more for a fertile start location, with those who get lucky and find a Bureaucracy-ready start in the fewest moves going on to win the event.
The AIs would then only be further disadvantaged, or else would have to be given cheats and enabled to beeline directly to a good location via spoiler info. This would add no net benefit and in fact would encourage (and reward, for those who get away with it) a form of scout-then-reload and use the spoiler info to "get lucky" and head directly to the best site.
So what good would it really do to start players in worse locations? None. In fact, it would do a lot of harm, particularly for casual players, which is why my maps do what they do.
In the end, people will have to trust that I can tell the difference (in advance) between Whack-a-Mole™ and effective balancing measures. It's an uphill climb, with no perfect solutions, but the right moves can bring real improvement.
I need to ask, is the CSS as good in Warlords as Vanilla all the time? I know Sulla's example was astronomical, but I play all of my personal games in warlords now, and I have noticed that I get beat to the oracle rather frequently when trying CSS if I'm playing on a standard map or larger (referring to 7 or more civs). Sometimes I see the oracle built by 2700bc. I can guarantee that I don't have CS by that time... although maybe some of you better players do? Granted, I have little to no experience with this tactic, as I have just begun trying it to see what the fuss is about, so please be gentle.
And I apologize for my comments about "popped another one" I assumed that it may have been in reference to an epic I wasn't aware of, but I couldn't keep my big mouth shut I guess. I understand that one better now, but still would hate to see that option taken out...For me, winning is never a downer
At first, my gut reaction to the thought of banning the strategy in some fashion was a big ol' NO! :mad:
As I think about it? It's not as big of a "no", but I think it's edging towards a very scary slippery slope.
Part of the whole point of a Strategy game is to discover the strategies that work for that game. Some of them are found faster than others, some of them will be better than others. But that's part of what makes a strategy game interesting and fun. You develop strategies for the situation you're given, or for the game in general, and you try to apply them.
In this case, we have the "benefit" of having people who worked on the development of the game to give us some small bit of insight as to what was intended to be able to be done and what wasn't. The danger in that is that "working as intended" or "not working as intended" has some very... strong connotations to some gamers. If I read another online game developer state that Annoying Feature X is "working as intended", I may just chuck my 20lb CRT monitor at them.
As for the slingshot? Sure it gives you a great advantage... if you aren't going for an early win. And with the exception of some of the more bizzare variants that have been played here, an early win is most players primary goal.
"Yay! I got Civil Service is 500 BC! What should I do next?" "Learn to build Archers."
Quote:Blake's pithy line about strong food starts "demanding" the CSS is the end of the road on debating whether or not there is a problem here.
His conclusion is mistaken, and I'm unlikely to play oracle-CS at RB again even were it not to be restricted - because I've already concluded that the best result I can hope for is to come in second to a more aggressive strategy.
I am a little concerned that restrictions will end up pushing the game into a 'one right strategy' of a different sort.
I really don't think my conclusion is dismialler to yours. For a start, when I say it "Demands" it, that doesn't mean you have to cede to those demands.
But yeah for the most part I agree that if the capital is good, sooner or later you're going to be heading off to CS, and it's only really a question of when. The CS Slingshot just means you start running CS earlier, in favor of founding another city or whatever.
I often research Guilds before CS because I find Vassalage to be a great civic. The "problem" with RBCiv events is they thus far with only limited exceptions they have not often supported that vassalage era warmongering, the warmongering is usually either ultra early or somewhat later, ie with astronomy or cav, or even stealth bombers (Epic 4). Vassalage is also only useful when there is suffiecent military pressure on the player, in a game like Epic 6 where there was NO military pressure at all (the AI pretty much being a running gag rather than a credible threat) the only thing which makes sense is maximizing the economy, it's not like +2 exp matters when every fight has 95%+ odds.
I would say that on average a continents/pangea/vassalage game at monarch+ is more balanced than the average RBCiv game (which to a degree seem to force either early warmongering or peaceful building more often), altough in fairness I consider that only a minority of RBCiv games have had the CS Slingshot as a nobrainer move. Of the Epics it would only be Epic 6 alone where CS slingshot was a really fine idea. Of the adventures Three, Four, Six and Eight were games where CS Slingshot was at least smart. Thus far, in the average RBCiv game, CS Slingshot has not been the "one right move". That's not to say it wasn't possible in others, just that it wouldn't give a disproportional advantage.
There's something else i'd like to talk about for a moment. Building the Oracle, whether it's for CS Slingshot or not, is dangerously close to a no-brainer move, especially for civs who start with Mysticism or are Ind, Spi or Phi. Whether it's built ultra early to guarantee not losing it, or built somewhat later so it doesn't slow expansion, the research and hammers sunk into it will tend to be dwarfed by the beaker value of the tech popped - even if that tech is a low tier one like Iron Working, CoL, Monarchy, Metal Casting. IW costs 200 beakers, and for Monty to research to Priesthood costs 160 beakers, given that the oracle is a 150h build that is fairly costly, altough the +2GPP and the benefits of Polytheism/Priesthood are enough to make it a move which is at least as smart as just researching IW.
I almost always build the Oracle, when I don't it's because it's impractical to do so (ie Epic 2). Most usually I build it late (so as to not slow expansion much) and pick up CoL or Monarchy with it. The most compelling reason to not build the Oracle is often reverse-denial - it gives the AI an extra tech which they can then trade to you (in a fair trade or extortion), along with a great prophet to build a shrine for you.
The Oracle as a wonder is probably too good, and this probably wont be changed by a beaker cap, since the logic of building it just for any old tech will remain.
I have two thoughts about the CSS/uberstrat problem.
1) With a community, we can address the question of whether or not an uberstrat is a clearly "best" option. Run an event with a start that looks like it would call for a CSS on a map that implies that early Representation would be a good move. Have a signup thread, divvy up the participants by strategy (you try CSS, you try Pyramids/SE, etc.) Then see how the groups and the best performers in each group do.
2) In a scored event, you could handicap the different uberstrats. Using the example of an event scored by "fastest finish", the handicap could be set by the game sponsor (e.g. cultural victories will have 500 years deducted from their finish date for comparison purposes), estimated from previous events (e.g. based on median finish date--of maybe just the 5 fastest finishes--in a similar, but similar, event), or computed only from that event (scoring "on the curve").
If you choose to use a known uber-strategy, the challenge will then be to perform it well.
I realize these ideas would place additional demands on an event sponsor, but thought they might be of some interest in the discussion.
Compromise Wrote:1) With a community, we can address the question of whether or not an uberstrat is a clearly "best" option. Run an event with a start that looks like it would call for a CSS on a map that implies that early Representation would be a good move. Have a signup thread, divvy up the participants by strategy (you try CSS, you try Pyramids/SE, etc.) Then see how the groups and the best performers in each group do.
While this comparison might be interesting, it's still not helpful. Just because two wonder-fueled "uber strategies" are equally overpowered does not mean that they are balanced with the rest of the game.
Gogf Wrote:While this comparison might be interesting, it's still not helpful. Just because two wonder-fueled "uber strategies" are equally overpowered does not mean that they are balanced with the rest of the game.
I was actually thinking that a third group might try for rapid military expansion to see how it compared with the wonder strategies. If a "standard" strong military start competes well with two wonder strategies, then there is no single "Right Thing" to do.
Compromise Wrote:2) In a scored event, you could handicap the different uberstrats. Using the example of an event scored by "fastest finish", the handicap could be set by the game sponsor (e.g. cultural victories will have 500 years deducted from their finish date for comparison purposes), estimated from previous events (e.g. based on median finish date--of maybe just the 5 fastest finishes--in a similar, but similar, event), or computed only from that event (scoring "on the curve").
Epic2 has been done this way (+20pts for choosing math with Oracle) and it worked fine
Well, successfully building world wonders in a peaceful strategy should always be superior to not building them. It's just a question of how much, and what the risk vs reward is. I think emperor is more or less perfectly balanced for this in terms of the early development you sacrifice to build wonders. This is down to the AI wonder completion dates which are about 500 years earlier than they seem to be at monarch and the AI/barbarians being more threatening in the early game. I can't tell you how much it irritates me when people get away with building Oracle at 200 AD, that is intrinsically unbalanced no matter what you take from it since you don't have to change your research or early build plans at all to get some random 1000 beaker tech.
Slowing down the player early by whatever method (prefounded mediocre capital, have to build useless junk first, Raging barbs) is the perfect solution as it makes the wonders more difficult to build, without having to increase the difficulty level (and AI late game bonuses) or ban anything. I don't think it hurts casual players; the Stagnation adventure was similar this approach taken to the extreme and most people who took part won the game.
Another technique for eliminating wonders for an event, that does not use mods, and also prevernts the AIs from building the wonders, is to add an additional 'dummy' AI and give them all the wonders:
The event sponsor would have to:
1) add an extra AI when creating the game
2) open the worldbuilder, move the extra AI to an isolated isle (or just a corner in an all land map), surround it by 3-6 rows of peaks, so the culture does not leak out, plant the city manually, and then add all the wonders to the city that you want to eliminate from the game.
This dummy AI would have all the wonders, but no way to do anything. Eventually the culture from it's wonders might go a little distance.
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Low Culture Revision:
2) Open worldbuilder
2a) remove the AI units from their current location
2b) determine the location for the 'dummy' city, adjust the plots so that you have the city plot, surrounded by several layers of peaks
2c) using the player mode, switch to barbarian, click on the buildings tab, and found a barbarian city in that location.
2d) switch to edit city mode, place all the wonders you wish to eliminate in that city.
2e) increase city population to 2, this is very important step
2f) switch to the AI whose units you removed from the map, place 1 warrior from that AI on top of the barbarian city, this will capture the city (in worldbuilder)
Now the dummy AI will own one city in the middle of peaks, which contains all the wonders you eliminated, and yet gains no culture from these wonders.
I just tried this myself and it works. I have enclosed the save game file, 4000 BC, Monarch, Epic Speed, Custom Continents map, if anyone wants to give the save a try.
You can see which wonders were eliminated by looking at the top 5 cities/wonder screen.
Edit: I apologise, time and cultural victories were disabled for the save. I fixed that and uploaded a new save. If anyone wants to try the same save, at a different difficulty level or speed, or in Warlords, I can upload that as well.
If I read another online game developer state that Annoying Feature X is "working as intended", I may just chuck my 20lb CRT monitor at them. 
