Epic Forty-Five - Reports and Discussion - The X Factor

[Urugharakh]

After the grueling past few epics (Ports Your Goal, Denial of the Nile, The X Factor), I think it would be nice to have a builders epic or two

Actually Denial of the Nile was a builders epic. At least I never had any war possibilities until the end, when war was not neccessary any more. At least I would call a game without even a single war a builder game.

Urugharakh

[LKendter]

There was no iron, for anybody.

Well I am glad I didn't play. Finishing that map would have been rough in 8 weeks to begin with.

Without rails the IA would have been just to time consuming.

[Sirian]

Without rails the IA would have been just to time consuming.

Several folks have made this point, but I see it differently. With automated movement animations turned off, and especially with friendly automated moves not even shown, use of Go To would have allowed easy handling.

The problem as I saw it is not the rails, but the lack of J-stack controls, auto-redirect on production, and other User Interface functions that we picked up in the expansion packs. Lacking these, orders had to be given to each unit, manually.

J-stack movement on roads is orders of magnitude less time consuming than having to move one unit at a time along rails. So in my mind, the rails were a tertiary factor at best. The real question was whether we wanted to play Always War on a version that properly supports it.

Now we can't have it both ways, folks. If you guys don't care to deal with vanilla Civ3, then I won't put up any more games on that version. But let's be real about it. The rails weren't the problem here.

I thought, given an opportunity to go back and play Always War the way it was first conceived would attract interest, that players would accept the loss of quality on User Interface for the gargantuan gains on the game balance. Maybe not everybody, but some of you, especially older hands who were there for the early Epics. We did get a couple, but not as many as I hoped, and almost no finishers. I thought that even for those who believed they might not finish, that going as far as they could on the most intense type of Civving under the most intense pressure would be something they would want to try. I am reminded of the saying, "You can't go home again."

I may have misjudged with the iron deprivation. Was that too much faith in my scenario-balancing talent to ask from you? Urugharakh analyzed the situation correctly, in my mind, but some others seem to think that I dished out a handicap. I'm glad that he played, though. Even though he did not play through the mop-up, he did play through the meat of the scenario and show me that I did not overdo the challenge level. The game -was- winnable.

Thanks to those of you who played and reported. There's one more report to come in. Bugs emailed me in time to be scored. He's having problems with his forum account. He played to a loss before 500AD.


- Sirian

[Urugharakh]

The problem as I saw it is not the rails, but the lack of J-stack controls,

...

I may have misjudged with the iron deprivation. Was that too much faith in my scenario-balancing talent to ask from you? Urugharakh analyzed the situation correctly, in my mind, but some others seem to think that I dished out a handicap. I'm glad that he played, though. Even though he did not play through the mop-up, he did play through the meat of the scenario and show me that I did not overdo the challenge level. The game -was- winnable.

First of all the J-stack control does work in vanilla Civ3. You just need to use the shortcut.

The game was winnable even with the horrible starting position because everybody lacked iron. The complete absence of knights and pikes is a huge advantage for the human player as I already mentioned in my previous post. It is even an advantage for the human player in industrial age, because he will have a much better logistic. I would have probably lost my game with iron available.

My only big point of critic was the estimated time allowance. I don't see a way to finish the game in the given time while simultaneously earn my living and care for my family. Regarding play time the lack of rails is important.

I might still have tried it, but while posting my Denial of the Nile report I discovered a setback to my screenshot posting behaviour and what is an AW game without pictures?

Urugharakh

[Sirian]

First of all the J-stack control does work in vanilla Civ3.

Well, OK, it works, but not quite as well. Maybe the larger problem is lack of auto-relocate orders to send new units to a rally point. That would have made invading the other continent a lot less painful.

Sorry for not giving enough time. A typical Epic runs four weeks. How many would you have needed?

Not sure what I can do to help with the screenshots. I know that's an obstacle that holds back potential participants.


- Sirian

[Sirp_]

IMHO lack of iron is a big disadvantage for the human player before longbowmen become available. We couldn't get any unit that has an attack rating higher than 2 before longbowmen, and that really hurts -- it's just so hard to kill off enough enemies with an acceptable casualty rate in the rough terrain the game was played in; especially when you have enemies throwing cheap 2/2/1 bowmen at you in mountains and hills and cheap 2/1/2 war chariots.

In my game, the AI was taking painfully long to discover techs, and so I never got to invention.

Likewise, IMHO, mopping up without rails wouldn't be a big deal. There's quite a good chance you could get a good way into the mop up phase with cavalry. Thanks are a little frustrating without rails, but it's really not so bad. It also depends on how 'anal' you are about things. Personally when it's in the 'mop up' phase, I stop worrying too much about efficiency, just throwing units toward the front lines. If you can't bare to sustain an avoidable casualty though, it could get very frustrating...

-Sirp.

[Urugharakh]

IMHO lack of iron is a big disadvantage for the human player before longbowmen become available. We couldn't get any unit that has an attack rating higher than 2 before longbowmen, and that really hurts -- it's just so hard to kill off enough enemies with an acceptable casualty rate in the rough terrain the game was played in; especially when you have enemies throwing cheap 2/2/1 bowmen at you in mountains and hills and cheap 2/1/2 war chariots.

The key unit is the catapult. In fact more than every second of my military units was a cat. So on my borders I fought only redlined units with vet or elite archers and a few horses. I never fought on mountains too. Simply park a spear on a every strategical mountain and you never have to. With the exception of my raiding parties I lost less than 5 units. Each of them when facing 4-5 losses in a row while fighting some redlined 2 defense unit.

Urugharakh

[Urugharakh]

Sorry for not giving enough time. A typical Epic runs four weeks. How many would you have needed?

The time fo a typical Epic is fine. This would needed at least 3 times the amount of time and probably more. While 4 times would have been better (might have been even necessary) for play, it would be worse for public presentation. So 12 weeks would at least tried to persuate myself to finish it.

Urugharakh

[Grimjack]

I would possibly have spent more time trying to play had there been a small world instead of the large.


The large world leads to lots more units, and coupled with the lack of ctrl-J ( Nope, I did not think of the buttons to the bottom right. ) and lack of rails, I could not muster up enough stamina to bull through.

Having managed to enter WoW public beta did not help matters either.

Grimjack
Too bad really, it looked to be an outstanding Epic, almost like Epic 36.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I started to play, too, but had to stop playing in 590AD. Some highlights:

* I figured AWE on large map would mean no enemies in my direct neighbourhood, so I built a barracks first even before my first military unit. Then I built one warrior for MP purposes and because no shields would be wasted, but from then on no more warriors, only better units.

* Seeing all the jungle around me, and again hoping for no enemies nearby, I built an early (for AW, that is) granary after I had four units.

* IW was researched in vain, of course, and time was wasted. But I saw the lack of iron as Urugharak did: An advantage for the human player. And, opposed to other people, I welcomed the prospect of no rails. Those who remember Sirian asking for a civ4 wishlist might also remember that I complained about the lack of strategy involved once rails are discovered; here, you would have to spread your units and guard your cities more intelligently. What I question, though, is Sirian's decision to do this on a large map. I'd really like to play a no iron warmonger's game on a standard map sometime!

* I had some bad luck with leaders and "only" got the great library, and only barely.

* I sealed off the choke point in the south first with spears, later with a city, trying to get more leaders there. The amount of mounted warriors nearly overwhelmed me, though, and I had to reinforce the city with more units than I had planned. Unfortunately I never had enough units for a pillage squad to get rid of the Iro horses, and I got no leaders there as well.

* Catapults were key, of course. I built a lot of them, but nevertheless cursed heavily about the terrain.

* Here's a shot some turns before I stopped playing.



No more cities were founded during the next decades, as suddenly the Egypts and Aztecs sent huge amounts of units towards me. I was barely able to hold my position, trying to keep calm while several units leaked through into my core. When the Library expired, I researched gunpowder and was glad to see saltpeter already connected, but from then on research was very slow due to my bad economy.

It had been very helpful that Babylon and Russia had been at war when I found them, but they seemed to have made peace in about 300AD, as then more units were coming towards me then.

Plans were to form an army with the next leader (which *had* to come sometimes soon!), probably to pillage the Iros, and then to advance on them.

I *think* I might have been able to win this, as my catapult force was increasing. I'm not 100% sure about this, though, which in itself is a great and rare feeling with civ3.


Too bad nobody finished! The scenario was truly unique, and really great (apart from the map size, IMHO). Thanks Sirian!

-Kylearan