WFYABTA continued

[Sirian]

...have to check your city every turn ... to make sure they didn't make a unwanted specialists...

I know it's a bit obscure, but there -is- a simple answer.

You can prevent the governors from selecting specialists by turning on all three types of emphasis: Food, Production, and Commerce. The governor will favor tiles over specialists except in the most extreme circumstances (such as preferring a Priest or Engineer over a 1-shield plot).

You can also emphasize Food-and-Production or Food-and-Commerce. If you emphasize Food, that's the thing that gets the governor to avoid making specialists.


Also bear in mind that running Representation or possessing Sistine Chapel makes specialists more attractive than usual to the governor's algorithms.

Kylearean said it best.

He may have expressed his views (and yours) clearly, but I disagree that it is an insightful expression. To me, it reads one-sided.

I don't see any bellyaching about the AIs not ever trading away their monopoly techs. That's a net loss for them in the "get freebies for myself" sweepstakes. The human can research a monopoly tech and sell or trade it away to all the AIs on the same turn, reaping huge benefits. The AIs are stuck waiting for a second party to research the tech, and that second party often jumps the gun on them and gets the trade benefits. The human player can sit and count on the AIs not trading away those monopoly techs, and thus set up big n-fer trades that the AIs are nowhere remotely in the ballpark of being capable to manage.

That monopoly tech prohibition is there to protect the player. So is the cap on total tech trading before the AIs shut down the dealmaking.

Players are behaving as if these two factors are independent. They aren't. If the one goes, then so does the other. Humans are advantaged by the one and disadvantaged by the other. I know the options are underdocumented, obscure, and confusing, but they are only a problem to the best of Civ3 tech WHORES who know how to abuse the game's trading weaknesses.

Tech trading in Civ3 was the biggest exploit of all. The only reason I didn't rule it out for RB tournaments was that there wouldn't be any game left if we ripped it out. If the AIs were whoring, the player HAS TO get in on it or it's not fair and not playable.

The corollary to that truth, however, is that if the AIs are held back, then the player must be held back too.


I'm not surprised that even top notch players don't see the big picture here, but I -am- disappointed.

Kylearan's "measure it in beakers, not whole techs" proposal is worse than what we have now. What we have now offers choices: take your goodies up front, or wait on them, space them out by pulling the trigger only on big deals, to get more total beakers for free over time. That may be a small choice, but it's a real choice. The flat-rate beaker concept offers NO CHOICE AT ALL, because if you get X beakers for free, the only right answer is to get them as soon as possible, since the sooner you get them, the more relative impact they have on the outcome. ... BZZT! Wrong answer! :mad:

Arathorn's "time lag between trades" proposal is worse than what we have now. It too has only one answer and no choice, no strategy. It will be a puzzle. The solution is to pull the trigger at every allowed opportunity. Any chances that you miss will mean less total freebies for you. This is the same system as we have now minus the choice to take all your goodies up front if you so choose. The game will FORCE YOU to dole them out instead. Somebody tell me how they think that's better. Are smart players incapable of exercising a bit of self-restraint, that they are so addicted to trading, they can't pass up crappy opportunities, waiting for better ones to come along? ... Wrong answer. 8)

The current option is a real choice. Get everything you can as fast as you can, to leap out in to the lead and try to reach a winning position early, or take the longer view and skip some trades to leave the door open for bigger, later trades. It's not a no-brainer, and there are numerous shades of gray, since if you have some really good friends, you can push harder earlier and NOT pay for it as quickly. ... Brings a whole new light to the value of game-long diplomacy, doesn't it?


I know the system is obscure, insufficiently documented, and a total shock to the system for players with years of Civ3 whoring under their belts. I wish it could be more transparent, but the only players who are even going to run in to the limits in the first place are Civ3 players who already know the right techniques for abusing the trading mechanisms. Doing the right thing for the vast majority of other customers could not be held hostage to the needs of a very tiny minority. The current system STILL favors the human, despite Kylearan's impressions to the contrary.

Adapt. Or go back to Civ3, if it's that much of a dealbreaker for you. Or get the SDK, reprogram the game, and organize a new community around your mod. Whatever floats your boat, EXCEPT FOR crying the blues about it ad nauseum here.

Get it out of your systems one way or another and then move on in the manner best suited to your personal needs. I think this is all much ado about nothing, but that's because I've gone all the way down the road of this issue back in Civ3, three years ago, and concluded that the old system could not be fixed. It had to be replaced. The cancer had to be removed to save the patient. I've had three years to come to grips with that inevitability, but some of you are just now confronting the issue for the first time. You think there's a magic pill out there that can bring the miracle cure. *shrug* Maybe you're right, but if the early indications of what you've come up with so far are any indication, you'll just be spinning your wheels.


- Sirian

[Majromax]

I think this thread stumbled upon the right point earlier, but it wasn't made obvious.

A tech trade definitely is a mutual benefit to both parties, but we forget that techs don't give strictly linear advantage.

That is to say, an n-fer tech trade benefits the human more than the combined benefit to the AIs. Exponentially more. Witness the Civ3 game of tech trading, as Sirian points out. We can all pretty much agree that the human gave no overall benefit to the AI in those cases (since, by and large the human did no actual research), yet the human benefited infinitely.

So, from an "independent AI" standpoint -- an AI out not to screw the human but to win itself[1] -- trading tech X with player H, who would then turn around and trade H to players I, J, and K, represents a relative loss of position, both to H and I, J, and K.

That's where Sirian's "no AI trading of monopolies" comes in. That means that, for an important class of techs, the AI itself will never be player H.

To capture this opportunity cost, Soren/Civ4 implemented WFYABTA. Alternately, they could have ramped up the "worst enemies" penalty. An exclusive trading relationship with A is okay (and strictly to A and H's mutual benefit, relative to the other players), but if H trades with B, C, or D, the relationship with A would deteriorate.

Thinking about it, I kind of like this scenario. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work with Civ4's pretty single-dimension diplomatic scores. The "techno-slut" factor should go on a second, trust axis (kinda-sorta like Civ3's reputation); that would be harder to balance in general, though.

Alternatively, tech trading in Civ could have been replaced with a more nebulous "research pact," just like MOO, or Space Empires. Civilizations with a research pact would get bonus beakers, and it would diplomatically operate a bit like mutual defense pacts, with the same sort of relationship/monopoly restrictions. ("-1 You have a research pact with our rival!") On the flip side, a research pact implementation would fundamentally change Civ-style diplomacy; even back in Civ1, tech trading was always in unit-tech increments. Other civ-like games (GalCiv, notably, and I seem to remember MOO did this also?), also did this. Mainline civ has never been quite so experimental with diplomatic options.

I reiterate: in my opinion, WFYABTA is abrupt and breaks the fourth wall, but it's certainly not the worst of all possible implementations. Other limiting factors might be good ideas, but would require a great deal more innovation in the diplomacy model, and possibly AI processing.

[1] -- ignoring, for the moment, Sirian's claim that such an AI directly benefits the player

[Kylearan]

Hi,

first, a note to Sirian: I just wanted to say that I hope you know that my posts about this subject are not aimed specifically at you. I would have posted my thoughts even if I did not know that you have some "connection" to Firaxis. I post them a) to learn about the details of the WFYABTA issue, b) to share my findings about it with others, and c) to hear other people's insights about it. That you replied from a developer's perspective is something I highly appreciate, though.

I imagine no longer being only a player, but being recognized by people also as a developer, might not be a good thing for you. It might also lead to more pressure, and the feeling that people posting criticism about the game always expect an answer from you. Maybe you don't feel that way. But I just wanted to let you know my intention is not to annoy you, but to discuss things with the fine crowd at RB. If you post something on the subject, it's always good food for thought, regardless if it comes from Sirian of Realms Beyond, or Sirian the Firaxis consultant.


That said, back to the topic:

AIs playing to win is a simple equation. Identify the biggest threat on the board and eliminate it. That's always the human. Anything less is being purposefully stupid. Anything less falls short of "playing to win".

The AIs aren't there to win. They're there to compete, provide adversity, measured adversity.

The problem with this is that people expect the AIs to play to win. There had been a lot of complaints over at CFC about that point, that many people don't feel the AIs are really playing to win. It takes away a lot of immersion; as Arathorn said, it encourages meta-gaming, and kills some of the illusion that the AIs could be "allies" or "enemies".

Of course I agree with you that the other extreme would lead to a Civ2-situation, which is not desireable. It's a thin line. In an ideal CIV, the AIs would look like they are playing to win, but would purposefully refrain from doing some things to address the problems you mentioned, disguising it as "flavor" and "personality".

My hope is that the AIs could be shifted back a bit towards "trying to win" again. Not too much, only a bit, to bring back immersion. I know the AIs will never actually be able to win, but they should pretend that they are trying to do so.

Kylearan's "measure it in beakers, not whole techs" proposal is worse than what we have now. What we have now offers choices: take your goodies up front, or wait on them, space them out by pulling the trigger only on big deals, to get more total beakers for free over time. That may be a small choice, but it's a real choice. The flat-rate beaker concept offers NO CHOICE AT ALL

I don't feel like I have any choice at all with the current system. With my proposal, I feel like I would have the choice between depth-first and breadth-first research. As it is know, I have learned my lesson and will nearly always emphasize breadth-first research if possible, as it maximizes beakers gained, which is the only thing that counts in most cases.

In a tournament environment, the winner is very often the one who will be able to research the fastest, for example in Adventure 4 (fastest launch). This in turn means who will be able to accumulate a specific amount of beakers the fastest, by research and trades. Now if number of techs are the deciding factor for the WFYABTO limit, it makes sense to do breadth-first research, as you then can do your trades to get fewer, but higher-priced techs. If you do depth-first research, you have to trade for a lot of old techs which are both obsolete in many cases AND cheap, so your trading window will close earlier in terms of accumulated beakers. This means you will have to research more for yourself, which will result in a later victory.

Sure, depth-first research will get you to some key techs faster, but you give up research discounts like missing prerequisite techs and other AIs knowing a tech for it, and you will miss beneficial effects from other techs for a long time, so that in itself looks balanced to me.

So I'm afraid I don't understand how the current system gives you more choices, if you have "getting fastest to SS techs/Mass Media/..." in mind, which is most often the case. Or has my logic a flaw I'm not aware of?


You also sound in your posts like I would complain about the limit itself, so I'd like to stress that this is not the case. Your (previously explained) view on things, that unlimited trading breaks the game, had actually convinced me that some kind of limit is needed. It's just that I'm not happy with the details, a) that there is only one game-wide limit for all AIs, leading to a me-against-the-AIs feeling and a broken situation as I had described earlier, where one AI which had never traded with me would hit that limit, and b) the number of techs vs. beakers issue.

I'm not sure if implementing AI-specific limits would be doable without breaking the balance, although I really hope it's possible. But I don't see why b) shouldn't be doable.


Contrary to Arathorn though, the whole issue is not so bad for me that I would ever think about not playing the game anymore. Going back to Civ 3? Never!

-Kylearan

[theGrimm]

I hereby propose the next RB game have tech trading turned off Actually, the RB community provides a very nice sample ground for investigating various paramaters of civ.

As it is know, I have learned my lesson and will nearly always emphasize breadth-first research if possible, as it maximizes beakers gained, which is the only thing that counts in most cases.

-Kylearan

Surely not! For an average player, maybe so. But not for a player of your callibre. Consider using depth first research to be first to a religion, liberalism, music or tanks (four different examples).

A free great person is potentially worth his weight in tech. Just in terms of beakers, what you lose for depth first research you more than gain back by using that GP to research.

A religion allows faster city growth and potentially faster research overall. And depth first research to liberalism is a whole free tech, which pays for itself in beakers instantly.

And how do you translate being first to tanks by 15 turns into a pure beaker value?

In all of these examples, depth first research more than pays for itself in terms of beakers.

Sadly, we can't compare adventure four yet to see which of depth first vs breadth first research paths was superior But now I REALLY can't wait to read the reports. But ultimately, being the first to launch a spaceship is more about the RATE of beaker accumulation than about the efficiency of it. (Production capacity aside, for the moment). A bigger civ can reasearch more beakers in the same time, and having the right breadth first techs can allow you to have a bigger civ.

I hereby propose the next RB game be the breadth first variant. You can never research a tech without researching all it's prerequisites.

[Sirian]

Consider using depth first research to be first to a religion, liberalism, music or tanks (four different examples).

Thanks. You having made this point spares everybody having to read it from me, and me having to write it. You're the hero of the hour. 8)


One more thing to factor is that on top of the "know all prerequisites" discount, there is also the "tech deflation due to how many others know that tech" discount. Discounts lost in depth research are made up for when going back to clean up bypassed techs for pennies on the dollar. Mopping up obsolete techs AFTER doing some depth-first research is often a matter of spending a handful of turns on maximally discounted research efforts.

The tradeoff there then becomes a question of whether you want to pause to do that cleanup before you make your trades, or take some of those old skipped techs as part of your trade package. Yet even a few rounds of delay can cost you opportunities to penetrate further along the lines you are already researching, so there are still choices to be made.


The actual choices are meaningful, but the obscurity of the system leads unwary players to make some ineffective choices.

Players need to learn:
* That there are a fixed number of trading opportunities, so EXPECT the door to slam on you, because it always will.
* That the ability to make a trade does not make it a wise trade. Sometimes passing up a trade for a fully discounted, ancient tech, and researching it yourself, will keep the door open on a better trade later.
* That what a tech is really worth has more to do with what you can do with it than what its beaker value may claim. Don't overthink it, don't get caught up in theory and conceptualization.
* It's important to have a sense of the big picture. You can make gains in the moment, but you can choose more wisely about tech trading if you can properly assess your strategic situation and strategic opportunities. Since you can only really acquire techs in trade by trading away your techs, you -can- find yourself in a death spiral if you fall too far behind and can't trade with anybody because you can't obtain anything they want to pay you for.

Kylearan's view of breadth-first vs depth-first is too theoretical, leaving out too many relevant factors. I'm sorry, but it's NOT just down to raw beakers. Failure to research in depth can leave you locked out of all the trading, since you have nothing of value to trade away.


Show me the money. Prove, with game data (and not just theory) that X or Y is unbalanced, and maybe something can be done about it down the road. This kind of proof will take time to accumulate, though, and you can be sure that whatever amount of data you think is enough, you'll have to double that to overcome the store of data in mind that leans the other way.


- Sirian

[theGrimm]

One thing I never quite managed to work out from this whole thread...does the AI have the same wall to contend with?

[Sirian]

That you replied from a developer's perspective is something I highly appreciate, though.

I can't speak to people as a developer. Stuff I learn as part of the development process is private and I'm bound to honor that secrecy.

This issue is something that is out in the open. The mechanics involved are old, and they span many strategy titles, not just Civ. My view on this issue is one I carried in the door with me to my work on Civ4. Frankly, it isn't even much of a controversy, but only a road of exploration that you are either farther along on, or not as far along. The road itself is an independent path that doesn't care who is or isn't traveling it.

As time moves forward, there are likely to be fewer issues of this nature, where no part of my understanding of the issue arises from inside info. (I will not be able to involve myself in the discussion, where my views arise in part or in whole from the development process.)

I imagine no longer being only a player, but being recognized by people also as a developer, might not be a good thing for you.

I don't see how it could be bad for me.

There are two possibilities: 1. Players deal with me in ways that allow me to continue to speak. 2. Players force me to go quiet. I'm OK in either case. If anything is lost, the impact of it will fall on others. Since this is out of my hands, I'm not even going to worry about it. I'll speak where I can, and stay quiet where I must.

It's just that I'm not happy with the details, a) that there is only one game-wide limit for all AIs...

The game-wide limit is a necessity. It's the only way to provide a game balance that works for both larger and smaller map sizes, larger and smaller numbers of AIs on the board. This is not a subtle or obscure point.

People are going to complain no matter where we set the line. That's just the cold harsh truth of the matter. I rather like where Soren has set it. It's growing on me over time, because the dynamics of limited tech trading do add something to the game. Those "traded with worst enemy penalties" can be important, even game-altering. Being too hesitant to trade can leave you out of the Old Boys Trading Network. Overtrading is dangerous, but so is undertrading. It's an interesting challenge that varies from game to game. There's enough tech trading flavor to make it a vital part of the game without ruining the rest of the experience.


- Sirian

[Griselda]

I think the issue may not be one of developer/nondeveloper so much as this is a conversation that for many of us has been ongoing for almost two years (maybe more in Sirian's case). In some cases, we may have playtested some other trading models. So, it's hard to approch the issue in a fresh light at this point.

I realize that's not very helpful to any of you, but hopefully it provides you with some perspective.

[Arathorn]

The AIs aren't there to win. They're there to compete, provide adversity, measured adversity. On this basis, the rest of your argument is moot.

That's a fundamental disagreement that we'll never resolve. If that's the angle you're approaching the game from, we'll never agree on what makes the game fun.

The AIs should be there as competition, IMO. That's their role. Otherwise, it's just a complicated puzzle that holds no interest for people like me after a play or two.

At the very least, the illusion of each AI being active in its own self-interest is important. WFYABTA destroys that illusion. No longer is the AI acting in its own best interest. It is acting, explicitly, to hurt the human player. That loss of immersion and direct confrontation is no fun. Sirian claims it is necessary for balance, but I'd rather have a slightly unbalanced fun game, every time. If a game is not fun, it's not worth playing. I don't play just to stretch my brain against a puzzle. I play to relax, to remove stress, and to just have fun. I don't think I'm alone in that.

The other thing WFYABTA does, is emphasize AGAIN how important techs are. Techs uber alles!!!! That defines Civ4 WAY too much. An AI will refuse to trade you a tech, but will trade resources (worth hundreds, or thousands, of hammers/commerce over the course of the game). It will attack another AI (showing how important war is considered -- not very, significantly less than a single tech) for a tech. Just about ANYTHING but give up a tech. Tech uber alles. Takes game complexity and interaction down to one factor. YAWN. Muliple paths? Barely -- just do whatever it takes to tech faster and you win. One path.

As for attacks, I'm attacking the game. If you read those as attacks on you, Sirian, I can't help that. The game implementations are under discussion. Yes, I'll be sarcastic at ridiculous concepts (like getting things for free) with adament defenders, but please separate the game attacks from personal attacks. The former are intended -- the latter not.

In an ideal CIV, the AIs would look like they are playing to win, but would purposefully refrain from doing some things to address the problems you mentioned, disguising it as "flavor" and "personality".

First thing you've said in this thread that I disagree with, Kylearan. I think, in an ideal Civ, the AIs would do everything they could to win. But that the GAME MECHANICS would be set up to make tech trading a little/lot less appealing. Or any kind of "all-AIs vs. the human" approach not right. That's probably expecting an unrealistically good AI, though.

I know the AIs will never actually be able to win, but they should pretend that they are trying to do so.

"Never" is a bit of a stretch, but I absolutely agree with this sentiment. That pretense that the AI is playing to win is critical. Without it, single-player falls flat.

that there is only one game-wide limit for all AIs, leading to a me-against-the-AIs feeling

The crux of the matter, I agree. Playing me-against-the-AIs, occasionally, AS A VARIANT, is fine -- great fun, even. Doing it all the time means playing the same variant every time. And that's not fun for me.

Contrary to Arathorn though, the whole issue is not so bad for me that I would ever think about not playing the game anymore. Going back to Civ 3? Never!

WFYABTA is like C3C's armies to me, in a lot of ways. You know it's coming. And once it does, the fun is essentially gone. At least in C3C, you could choose to not make armies. In Civ4, there's no choice.

Going back to Civ3? Never, agreed. Been there; done that. No, I mean, doing something else entirely. It's becoming VERY appealing. It's just not worth playing a game that isn't fun.

Arathorn

[Sirian]

The crux of the matter, I agree. Playing me-against-the-AIs, occasionally, AS A VARIANT, is fine -- great fun, even. Doing it all the time means playing the same variant every time. And that's not fun for me.

The AIs are forced, by mechanics, to dole out their tech trading over time. The player has the choice to get his up front, on the back end, or any combination of accepting or declining trading opportunities that he so pleases, until he has used up all of his chances. The AI automatically saves some of its chances for the late game because it passes up opportunities that players do not.

The AIs are forced, by mechanics, to avoid trading with other AIs they "dislike" and have no willful mechanisms for improving relations. The player will tend to trade with their own advantage in mind, while the AIs trade according to the rules that bind them. Worse, the player can often break up AI trading blocs by maneuvering them to line up against one another. So not only can the player get more trades, but also can destroy many AI-AI trading relationships.

Three AIs in the lead, researching different paths, cannot trade with one another AT ALL, but a human in the lead along one path can trade two-for-one with a pair of AIs following another path. If you don't think that favors the player, then we're at the end of useful discussion.

Three AIs who are set up to dislike each other cannot trade at all. A player facing an AI who dislikes him can do things to improve relations and open the trading spigot. If you don't think that favors the player, then we're at the end of useful discussion.


There are only AIs who will be pimped or those who refuse to be pimped. Since other AIs do not try to pimp them, it is only against the abusive human player that they must protect themselves.

The thing you seek can only be found in multiplayer, against opponents of comparable skill to your own, so look there for it. The only thing you can get in single player is what we have here or what we had in Civ3. AIs are not, nor can they become, sophisticated enogh to perform to your needs in this area.


- Sirian