Adventure 4 - Arathorn's report...

[Zalson]

First off, Bravo! for putting together an awesome game. I very much appreciated it, and really like pulling off my first Monarch win. Thanks.

I've noticed too that the AI will frequently fail to set themselves against each other. However, I normally solve this problem by setting them on Agressive. But sometimes it is extremely aggravating. I know what you mean.

Anyway, a great game. It's nice to see that I can ballpark play with some of the big dogs. Thanks for a great game!

--Xalson

[Threepwood]

Hmm, what am I doing wrong (or what are you doing wrong)? There have been very few games in which the AIs didn't warred against each other. So I don't agree with you as I think the AI behaves quite well according to this aspect.

Btw: But I do agree with thanking Arathorn for a nice game .


Threepwood

[Justus_II]

Arathorn,

I agree with your consternation regarding the Soldiers rating, I am usually last in the rankings also. But I know my military was much smaller than what you were showing, I generally only keep 2-3 units in border cities, 1 in interior cities, and then some mobile units posted about. And from your listing, you had quite a few modern units as well, so it's not just too many obsolete units. I don't know what it uses to gauge that stat, and how much that same calculation plays into AI decisions about declaring.

[Atlas]

Thanks for the Great Variant!! I really enjoyed it. The delayed tech trading was intriguing and frustrating too sometimes. At the begininng of the game I thought I would miss the early tech trading the most, but it turned out that I missed 1)the Culture Slider 2)Theaters and 3)Heroic Epic (the most) 4)No building Research. The culture slider would have helped with happiness and flipping, theater duh... and the Heroic Epic, this was a surprise to me but those cheap military builds are so convient early in the game, it just makes such a difference to have a city that spams axes in 2-3 turns instead of 5-6 is just enormous in the begininng. In the late game that 1 turn shaved off a tank is no big deal, but getting those axes out is huge early. I think this variant taught me to get that Heroic Epic up even earlier than I normally do.

[Bezhukov]

You're probably tired of hearing it from me Arathorn, but I think the innovative mind you've shown from CivIII would be a large loss to the community if you quit CivIV without really even trying it. Judging from the strategies you've employed, you're still playing CivIII.

Your two main beefs, tech trading and AI aggression, are both controllable by the player in CivIV if you cultivate the necessary diplomatic ties. I got Khan up to friendly in my game by adopting his religion and joining him in war against Roosevelt. This allowed me later to trade unlimited techs with him and convince him to eat all Qin's units. Likewise on the other continent, I joined in the Izzy hate which won me friends in Asoka and Fred.

As for overall performance, in all civ games, the early turns are crucial, and its not clear you've mastered the new options there yet either...

[Arathorn]

You're probably tired of hearing it from me Arathorn, but I think the innovative mind you've shown from CivIII would be a large loss to the community if you quit CivIV without really even trying it. Judging from the strategies you've employed, you're still playing CivIII.

I've tried it. Heck, my "sub-optimal" strategy had me 8+ turns ahead of Sirian, despite not getting thousands of free value from popping resources. I've seen the gimmicks of the game. And, frankly, I'm not impressed.

Your two main beefs, tech trading and AI aggression, are both controllable by the player in CivIV if you cultivate the necessary diplomatic ties. I got Khan up to friendly in my game by adopting his religion and joining him in war against Roosevelt. This allowed me later to trade unlimited techs with him and convince him to eat all Qin's units. Likewise on the other continent, I joined in the Izzy hate which won me friends in Asoka and Fred.

I started 3 wars before AIs in Adventure 4. I had Pleased relations with nearly everyone. Thing is, they had nicey-nice relations with each other, too, so options to start wars were limited. And, the wars didn't lead to increased animosity between them.

As for tech trading, the implementation is so stupid as to leave me in awe that it was implemented. Trade to make friends, but then those friends will stop trading, because you've traded to make them your friends. It boggles my mind. And it shadows an already-poor game.

Those are far from the only flaws in Civ4. Frankly, the game is so interested in TUA (Tech Uber Alles) and shutting down potential "exploits" that it forgot to have a good core game, with reasonable options. Fun? It is not. It's a failure. 5 months is plenty of time. The only reason I finished Adventure 4 was because I was its sponsor. It was simply not fun. Other than the first couple games, Civ4 has shown itself to be not fun. All the good writing in the world can't cover the fact that the game has many fundamental flaws.

As for overall performance, in all civ games, the early turns are crucial, and its not clear you've mastered the new options there yet either...

Clear I haven't. Clear it doesn't matter, as any of multiple options leads to very similar results. Clear I don't care to. There's no fun in it. No joy. No purpose. No interest. The game isn't worth it. Too much fluff and too little meat.

Arathorn

[Bezhukov]

"Pleased relations with nearly everyone"

Well, that's one of your problems. Pleased with everyone is friendly with no one. Friendly relations mean no tech limits and are often required to get wars started.

Being ahead of Sirian at the start is not saying much as he's allergic to workers and in love with religions. The fact that he can recover from these openings (unlike the poor souls he has led down this particular primrose path) is a testament to his play skill, not the poor design of the game. Another way of looking at it is he invests heavily in the diplomatic potential inherent in religion control, instead of whining that the AI doesn't magically do what he wants.

I'm beginning to understand why you've chosen the avatar at civfanatics you have. Pity, that.

[Sirian]

I'm beginning to understand why you've chosen the avatar at civfanatics you have. Pity, that.

All right, that's enough. Personal attacks are over the line.

Arathorn was an original member of RBCiv and is entitled to his express his opinions.

We welcome spirited debate and don't shy away from controversy or disagreements, but everybody needs to keep this clean. OK?


- Sirian

[Bezhukov]

Well, sometimes wounded pride is a powerful motivator, and I'm afraid we're about to lose Arathorn for good.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Thing is, they had nicey-nice relations with each other, too, so options to start wars were limited. And, the wars didn't lead to increased animosity between them.

The problem of the AIs being too peaceful seems to be recognized by Firaxis, so hopefully that will somehow be addressed in a future patch. It's strange, but during my first games I hadn't run into the WFYABTA issue much, or in the no-AI-vs-AI-wars issue, and couldn't fully understand what you were so frustrated about. Now I seem to play differently somehow without really knowing how and why, because I no longer see any AI-vs-AI wars in my games as well, and run into the WFYABTA wall at the most frustrating moments.

I still have a lot of fun with the game, but find it a bit alarming that I have to play extreme variants already to enjoy it. "Normal" games are no longer fun for me. I know I played private Civ 3 games for a much longer time before the RB events became the only games I played. Now, I only start CIV outside SGs or RB events to play an extreme variant game like my no-military game, or (right now) a no-research game - but not very often. I'm still looking very much forward to the next RB Epic, but only because these are variant games as well, and I love to read reports. But normal games? There even are some map scripts like the great plains I haven't looked at, and yet I have not much desire to play a non-variant game on them.

I find it hard to put a finger on the reasons for this; maybe it's a carry-over from C3C burnout. *shrug* But the Tech Über Alles issue you mentioned has something to do with it as well - and seeing how they had changed the combat system in the last patch, I have my doubts they will reverse directions.

Anyway, I hope that you still find some fun in the more crazier games like our LotR22 game, or Sirian's upcoming AW game. I know I still have fun playing my no-research game and my artillery SG, and I'm still looking forward to the Eastern Gem Traders. Just no more normal games for me (and unfortunately, while I learned a lot playing Adventure 4, it wasn't much of a variant to really be great - sorry).

-Kylearan