[SPOILERS] Yossarian blames Caledorn

[WilliamLP]

You seem to imply that out of game diplomacy and tech trading are what makes "Grand Strategy" and "Mind Games". That's just wrong. What they do create is a metagame where game knowledge is actually a drawback because players can decide, using totally arbitrary reasoning, to dog pile a player so that they cannot win the game. And the best people to dog pile are those that have better civ skills. Regardless of how you report these games, they are just not interesting if what you want to read are games that involve micromanagement and strategic decision making. If you linked to it from CFC you'd possibly break the RB server though.

We could argue definitions of what "strategy" is. I think if enough full diplo games were played with the same group of people (who could stomach it), there would be a lot of variance, but also quite a bit of consistency in who wins these games. And those players wouldn't necessarily be the ones with the best Civ skills, but they would have to be said to have some skill in the particular game they're playing.

I don't think game knowledge can ever be a drawback, though having other people know you have game knowledge is a huge one (hence Locke / Cervantes), as is being obvious about displaying it.

For interest, I disagree, some of us love personal drama and blow ups, when they're well reported. PB2 was one of the most fun things to follow ever, despite the Civ skill being poor for most of the players, in a way that even I can recognize.

I am quite amazed by the audacity of this statement. If you want me to go and post spoilers from your thread in a public location, then sure I can go and give specific reasons why this game has been played out in a sub-optimal manner, but that is generally frowned upon. On top of that, it doesn't matter that I, or any other posters on this site don't play games with diplomacy or any other settings. We have played games with diplomacy, and with tech trading, and we don't anymore because we learnt that we don't enjoy those settings. It is frankly nonsensical to take the position that because we learnt what we don't enjoy, and why we don't enjoy it, that we never understood it in the first place.

I don't disagree. But since specific Civ knowledge and skills aren't the biggest factor in winning a full diplo game, it's hard to see why they should be focused in on, when people are trying to win the game being played.

All I was really saying though is that it's a very smug dismissive implication that a game isn't worth following (or maybe even hosting here) if play isn't good enough to your standards. Or that the settings you (and a majority) enjoy are the optimal ones for everyone. I'm not sure if that's what you meant but I'm not the only one who interpreted it that way, or who ascribes this attitude to a lot of people on RB.

There is a difference between saying someone is stupid, and what someone said is stupid. Like when I say your post is stupid, but you aren't.

Also I'm not a genius.

Yes you are.

PS: I'd quite enjoy reading your detailed thoughts for what is sub-optimal about this game in the lurker thread.

[Krill]

You seem to imply that out of game diplomacy and tech trading are what makes "Grand Strategy" and "Mind Games". That's just wrong. What they do create is a metagame where game knowledge is actually a drawback because players can decide, using totally arbitrary reasoning, to dog pile a player so that they cannot win the game. And the best people to dog pile are those that have better civ skills. Regardless of how you report these games, they are just not interesting if what you want to read are games that involve micromanagement and strategic decision making. If you linked to it from CFC you'd possibly break the RB server though.

We could argue definitions of what "strategy" is. I think if enough full diplo games were played with the same group of people (who could stomach it), there would be a lot of variance, but also quite a bit of consistency in who wins these games. And those players wouldn't necessarily be the ones with the best Civ skills, but they would have to be said to have some skill in the particular game they're playing.

I don't think game knowledge can ever be a drawback, though having other people know you have game knowledge is a huge one (hence Locke / Cervantes), as is being obvious about displaying it.

For interest, I disagree, some of us love personal drama and blow ups, when they're well reported. PB2 was one of the most fun things to follow ever, despite the Civ skill being poor for most of the players, in a way that even I can recognize.

Note, I'm not saying that there isn't strategy in a diplomacy or tech trading game; there is. It just doesn't involve game knowledge or skills, it generally involves knowledge of people and manipulation.

If the same group of people played multiple games on similar settings, variance would only occur if the player skills were similar (in addition to balanced map, settings and leader/civ picks etc); if Mackoti, Seven, Plako, Serdoa, novice, Noble and myself played a 7 player game with diplo, then it might work. But to do that with a bunch of random players with disparate skills, knowledge and understanding of each other? I agree that it is in fact a players perception of skill that is in fact what affects the actions though. But also playing well and having decent demos (which look good when everyone else playing the game doesn't know what they are doing) will reinforce those perceptions.

I am quite amazed by the audacity of this statement. If you want me to go and post spoilers from your thread in a public location, then sure I can go and give specific reasons why this game has been played out in a sub-optimal manner, but that is generally frowned upon. On top of that, it doesn't matter that I, or any other posters on this site don't play games with diplomacy or any other settings. We have played games with diplomacy, and with tech trading, and we don't anymore because we learnt that we don't enjoy those settings. It is frankly nonsensical to take the position that because we learnt what we don't enjoy, and why we don't enjoy it, that we never understood it in the first place.

I don't disagree. But since specific Civ knowledge and skills aren't the biggest factor in winning a full diplo game, it's hard to see why they should be focused in on, when people are trying to win the game being played.

All I was really saying though is that it's a very smug dismissive implication that a game isn't worth following (or maybe even hosting here) if play isn't good enough to your standards. Or that the settings you (and a majority) enjoy are the optimal ones for everyone. I'm not sure if that's what you meant but I'm not the only one who interpreted it that way, or who ascribes this attitude to a lot of people on RB.

I never said that the game wasn't worth following, but that's circular reasoning. This game doesn't focus on civ knowledge and skills, because it's a diplo game, and people don't want to read a billion diplo messages dumped into a thread. People generally have limited time to read and play games so they prioritize, fairly obvious. So I suppose the point is that the denizens of RB generally don't want to play diplo games, and they aren't that bothered about reading them either.

Interestingly enough, you raise a good point about hosting. Games don't have to be reported, you don't have to post spoiler information publicly. You could post what you wanted to a blog, you could stream the turns, do whatever you want, but there are two things that you have to accept if you do that. Firstly, you trust your opponents to not spoil themselves on your updates, and you trust readers to not go and spoil you or your opponents with spoiler information.

The only reason to host the games on RB is that the community will adhere to the latter, and it's not even worth playing games with people if you don't trust them to not cheat so the former shouldn't be that difficult to accept. I wouldn't dare report a game on CFC, but there are a few other sites where you could do this (such as Apolyton or WPC).

I also said this:

Honestly, so long as you are all having fun then who cares if the game is being played in an (objectively) skillful manner? It's not like playing CIV is anyone's job.

So really, I don't even know how people interpreted it that way. People can play what the hell they want, how they want to.

There is a difference between saying someone is stupid, and what someone said is stupid. Like when I say your post is stupid, but you aren't.

Also I'm not a genius.

Yes you are.

PS: I'd quite enjoy reading your detailed thoughts for what is sub-optimal about this game in the lurker thread.

I actually muted every thread in this forum except the lurker thread, so that isn't going to be happening. I only read this thread because Caledorn wants to learn to figure out what would be useful for him.

[Caledorn]

I am wisely going to stay out of the philosophical debate here, as a total noob to RB. But I would really like to say that I appreciate that you're taking the effort and time to help, Krill, even when you don't like the game setting

I also think you're a genius btw - at least when it comes to Civ. And that's not meant as flattery.

Also, please continue your discussion here if you guys want. It's great to get some thread participation, and there's a LOT of good points being voiced here by both "sides".

[WilliamLP]

Thanks for the reassurance that we're not derailing your thread in a way you don't want. At this point I don't think Krill and I disagree substantially on anything we're discussing though.

I'd lurk the hypothetical Hall of Fame game with diplo for sure! It would be fun to if all players were on anonymous accounts, unknown even to lurkers.

As a thought experiment, I wouldn't be surprised if there is someone or a team who could have the highest chance of winning among that group of seven, and in a reproducible way, while having lesser Civ skills. Scooter's name gets tossed around as someone really good at diplo and I have no reason to doubt it. Being good at diplo isn't mainly about getting other people to like you though, I'd guess. Of course I could just be talking out of my ass on all this. But my suspicion is that because diplo games have been abandoned here there's still a frontier still undiscovered about what would make someone good at these games if enough of them were played.

And I have basically no interest in playing one myself so I'll shut up now!

I also think you're a genius btw - at least when it comes to Civ. And that's not meant as flattery.

Yes, it's true in an objective way regardless of personal opinions.

[YossarianLives]

Thanks for your thoughts guys. I really am interested in how we can do our part to make this a better game / thread to lurk. I also welcome any suggestions to help improve our admittedly suboptimal play

[Caledorn]

I think we're doing pretty well considering we're not Fin, Yossarian. We might have made a mistake by choosing a non-Fin leader, since our benefit from Exp is at a standstill as long as we can't really settle many more cities at this time due to our stagnant economy. Currency should alleviate some of our current problems though.

That said; I'm sure the masterminds around here can help us improve on our play of course. But mainly we need three things for that to happen more often:

1. More tips on how to write interesting posts in this thread. I guess we've been doing it dull so far with just static turn reports (even though I enjoy those since they are informative, I guess they get boring to others).
2. Summarising the diplo better instead of just posting the letters.
3. Getting some actual lurkers to then read our thread regularly and enjoy the reads.

@WilliamLP & Krill: Your comments in the thread is very very welcome, and not derailing at all, as what you are debating is highly interesting. Also, it's activity in our thread from RB regulars, which gives me hope that we can still turn at least our thread into an enjoyable experience that people want to read and comment on. So thank you both for taking the time to comment here.

[YossarianLives]

Turn 100!

Wow, with my only previous personal experiences being the ISDG and RB Demogame, T100 seems to have flown up to us. Here's a big overview of what's going on.




Here's our northern front with Rome. We just planted Runaway Civs this turn, and chopped the terrace to finish next turn. If all goes according to plan and we are able to carve Rome up, EggHeads will take Antium with their main stack. That means they'll also get the marble / silver / deer city just south of their existing borders. We'll try to get a city that grabs the fish up north, and then peacefully settle everything south of Runaway Civs and between the two seas. We also need to figure out if we want to take that fur up in the ice. EggHeads have said they want it, but acknowledge it's closer to us. I asked them to gift us stone for Moai in exchange, but they said they can't because they're building Moai themeselves. So either need to settle it quick or just give it up to them. We want to keep our northern neighbors happy with us as much as possible.




Our southern front with Rome. This is where I want to make our attack. Rome has a warrior and a chariot in Arretium. Dinos estimate they have 16 praets in their capital, which we all assume are poised to attack east at the Dinosaurs. We have 3 axes and a spear just on the edge of our border, with back-up axes streaming in. Hopefully the praets will be out of position when we step into view, but we should be able to raze that city. Then we can resettle it (maybe 1W?), plus take the rest of the unclaimed land there between us.




The land between us and BowAivo, plus a better view of our north. We've promised them everything northwest of that 3-peak mountain range, but I don't plan on renewing our T140 NAP with them That should give us plenty of time to take care of the Romans and settle up all our land.




Our southwest. Again, BowAivo gets everything southwest of the 3-peak range, including that nice barb city. We might try to have a swipe at it for the gold if we get a chance, though.

Here is the known world:




To our east is Rome, with only 6 cities and worse tech than even our team. They just got Maths and are now limping to Construction. Settled right up next to them are the Dinosaurs of England with 8 cities. They say they'll probably lose a border city or two when Rome attacks, but with our help we hope they'll be able to push back and eventually claim most of the former Roman lands. That is, if everything goes to plan...




To our northeast lies EggHeads of Byzantium with 12 cities (as of T101), and Care Bears of India with 13 cities. These are the two teams doing the best. Until recently, Care Bears seemed to be clearly ahead, but they've slowed down in score, stagnated in food, and dipped in GNP. Still, we're backing EggHeads in this fight, in the hopes that they'll leave us alone as we slowly take over the south.




Speaking of the south, here are our southern companions. BowAivo of Zululand have 6 cities, and classical_hero of Sumeria just finally settled their 4th city. These guys are rounding out the bottom of the scoreboard, and will hopefully be our eventual victims




This is the land just north of them. Asterix of Ottomans is in the western fog there with 10 cities like us. Unlike us, they've teched Currency, Calendar and CoL already! Then comes SuttOxy of Native America with 10 cities also. But they also have a tech lead similar to Asterix's and recently landed MoM.




And here's team Orgy of the Dutch with 7 cities. They had settled another city, but allowed Suttree to raze it because apparently when Arkipeller took over he inadvertently broke a settling deal established by LP. You can kind of see the ruins between Kala and Nivose. In return, Suttree is gifting Arki a happy resource (silk or spices, I don't remember). Arki is notorious for running a priest economy, and has just bulbed Theo. They now have two native religions, and are sending us a missionary. You can just make out EggHeads borders there again in the southeast.

Demos and power:

We lost Care Bears' graphs

[NobleHelium]

Thanks for the reassurance that we're not derailing your thread in a way you don't want. At this point I don't think Krill and I disagree substantially on anything we're discussing though.

I'd lurk the hypothetical Hall of Fame game with diplo for sure! It would be fun to if all players were on anonymous accounts, unknown even to lurkers.

As a thought experiment, I wouldn't be surprised if there is someone or a team who could have the highest chance of winning among that group of seven, and in a reproducible way, while having lesser Civ skills. Scooter's name gets tossed around as someone really good at diplo and I have no reason to doubt it. Being good at diplo isn't mainly about getting other people to like you though, I'd guess. Of course I could just be talking out of my ass on all this. But my suspicion is that because diplo games have been abandoned here there's still a frontier still undiscovered about what would make someone good at these games if enough of them were played.

And I have basically no interest in playing one myself so I'll shut up now!

I also think you're a genius btw - at least when it comes to Civ. And that's not meant as flattery.

Yes, it's true in an objective way regardless of personal opinions.

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'm pretty sure nobody in that group of seven wants to play a diplo game. And anonymous accounts would never work with a diplo game, because it's too easy to tell who someone is by talking to them. Unless you want to play the game of alter-ego instead of course.

[Gaspar]

RE: Diplo

The thing that gets annoying to me when diplo gets talked about by newer-RB'ers to older-RB'ers is there's this tactic implication that we don't know what we're missing and that if we'd just try it, we might like it. Allow me to shout this, if you don't mind:

THE MAJORITY OF THE FIRST 25 PBEMS AND ALL OF THE FIRST 4 PITBOSSES, PLUS THE FIRST 10 OR SO FFH GAMES WERE SOME FLAVOR OF FULL DIPLOMACY.

We have hosted, played and reported roughly 40 full-diplomacy games here on this site. And lo and behold, the players who are really good at civ won most of those games. Us stopping diplo games had nothing to do with being not good at them and little honestly even to do at not having time for them (though that certainly was a factor.) It has everything to do with a realization that diplomacy amongst high-level players becomes one of two things - unfun or unfair. For the shining example of unfun, see PBEM26, where Pindicator and regoarrarr agreed to a game-long alliance on essentially first contact. Of course, that's absolutely optimal play - especially when you know the relative skill levels of the players involved and you can ally the 2 best players in the game. For a classic example of unfair, see PBEM17, the highest across the board skill level game we've played and completed to this point, where one team jumped ahead of the field and got stabbed in a disgusting feat of deal-breaking and selfishness 40 turns in. There's a ton of other examples.

I was pretty decent at diplo - good diplo had me close to a win in PBEM14 - a game where on skill I deserved to finish absolutely dead last. I miss the part of diplo where you get to meet new people and establish friendships. But I don't remotely miss the post-game bad blood and the part where you feel like you spent hours optimizing your play and none of it mattered. That's just my opinion, but I know in slightly less vehement terms, others agree.

NOW, ALL OF THAT SAID, I don't think any reasonable person here has a problem with diplo games going on here OR games with different, let's say, philosophies of Civ than the "RB style." I, for one, welcome all the new players and snark aside, hope you all have fun and play more games here. But you will find that the very experienced RB'ers for the most part won't find this type of game interesting and hence, won't lurk it heavily or join them. That's no big deal, of course, but the question was posed.

Krill is most definitely not a genius, by the way. He's an exceptional civ player, though.

[NobleHelium]

By the way, the quality of the PB2 thread has nothing to do with whether it was a diplo game or not. It is quality because it is educational. And for the same reason, there will never be another PB2 thread because there's no need to re-educate the basics as was done in that thread. My earlier threads had a number of mechanics explanations and intricacies that you won't see in my subsequent threads simply because I've already posted about them. I was the first to figure out the HG mechanics on the turn that it is completed, and Seven later extended that to how the Taj Mahal behaves, but we don't post about it again because it's old ground for us.