| Poll |
| What say ye? |
| I play for fun |
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39% |
[ 126 ] |
| I play to win |
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20% |
[ 65 ] |
| To me, Winning = Fun |
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28% |
[ 92 ] |
| Plorg is on my blacklist |
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7% |
[ 23 ] |
| None of the above (explain) |
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4% |
[ 15 ] |
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| Total Votes : 321 |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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 Posted:
Jul 12, 2008 - 23:22 |
 
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| EvolveToAnarchism wrote: | | P.S. Not to say, that there shouldn't be a place for competitors/scrubs to compete at Blood Bowl. And not to say, that his advice might be useful to said competitors/scrubs. |
And so, in fact, you agree with him!  Those are the only people he's addressing. (For the rest, blame Plorg for not supplying more context.  )
| Quote: | | I just think Christer made a fundamental mistake when he insisted on Coach Ranking to be applied to everyone who plays and/or competes in the sites Open division. |
I agree (it's come up more than once in this thread) that the intermixing of competitive and casual in Ranked presents a problem. It's not going to be an easy one to solve. But let's keep working on it.  |
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EvolveToAnarchism
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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| Posted:
Jul 12, 2008 - 23:47 |
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| pac wrote: | | EvolveToAnarchism wrote: | | P.S. Not to say, that there shouldn't be a place for competitors/scrubs to compete at Blood Bowl. And not to say, that his advice might be useful to said competitors/scrubs. |
And so, in fact, you agree with him! Those are the only people he's addressing. (For the rest, blame Plorg for not supplying more context. ) |
No! I don't agree with him! Yes, it is possible to not agree with him and understand what he wrote. But it's largely irrelevant to me because I don't want to be a scrub/competitor. |
_________________
Ignorance is Strength quis custodiet ipsos custodes As Always, Evolve To Anarchism |
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Walks_in_the_Sun
Joined: Apr 16, 2006
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 00:03 |
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Yes, Pac, the guy wrote (or cribbed) a treatise on winning in high-pressure tournament settings. Good for him. (I actually enjoyed reading the profiles of various chess masters and Street Fighter champs - the Sun Tzu stuff was old hat to me, and I found the rest boring, pandering, or aggravating by turns.)
Unfortunately Plorg posted an exerpt, without setting it up and explaining the context, in a place that is more geared to semi-relaxed community play than high-pressure torunaments. (Though many in this thread may have participated in such tournaments) this makes Plorg a troll, and I would be inclined (even if I agreed more with you or with the author) to give the people arguing in this thread a pass, considering Plorg's lazy or intentional misdirection.
Extremist opinions are often inflammatory, and hard to agree with or even acknowledge as possibly valid. Removing the context for suh an opinion only makes it harder to accept as having any merit. So shame on Plorg for trolling and shame on you for not having more patience with those who haven't read the whole thing. (I think it's an internet rule that you can expect people to have skimmed the thread, but not to have read all the links and <i>their</i> links.)
And so, in the context of OUR discussion, the main problem about these arguments is that he is specifically talking about major tournaments, and we're talking about a daily, unorganized, community-based mish-mash experience.
Unfortunately we also have "major" tournaments that many people take seriously, and that these tournaments directly affect, to a great degree, the play of everyone, even those with no hope or wish of even competing in such tournaments, let alone winning them.
(And all talk of fleeing to another division can stop before it starts - if you just want to play a game - for fun, to explore its permutations, to improve the level of your play - you need to be in [R]. Unfortunately this is also the ONLY place for people who want to do some 'team-pimping')
| pac wrote: | | After the power-gamers are done 'strip-mining' a game and leave, the game is still there and can still be played. |
And what if those power gamers prevent hundreds or thousands of people from becoming interested in the game in the first place? What if they never finish? (Street Fighter and Magic:TG are great examples) What if they do move on, but leave a desolate wasteland of nobody interested in playing anymore?
| Quote: | | No one has found an I-win button. |
But people have decided that enough parts of the game are "I-Lose" buttons to effectively write them out of the playing experience. You may be shrivelling a game more than you are growing it.
Regarding the author's stand that all improvements in gameplay come from people trying to win at all costs:
Good things come of trying to win. But you can't say that all good things come of it, or only good things come of it.
And frankly, just as my opinion, all that "low strong" and "sweet spot" garbage makes me sick.They're not playing the game anymore - they're playing a game - but not the one that was designed and sold.
Why not just play that japanese thumb game, if all they want to do is get in their opponent's head?
There's something about the way they dissect the game - picking it apart, trying out one part at a time - that's just too robotic. Why can't you discover these things organically? Roam around looking for secrets and shortcuts and such? Maybe that doesn't apply as well to fighting games, but they're not my favorites anyway. |
Last edited by Walks_in_the_Sun on %b %13, %2008 - %00:%Jul; edited 1 time in total |
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Walks_in_the_Sun
Joined: Apr 16, 2006
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 00:10 |
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| pac wrote: | | EvolveToAnarchism wrote: | | I just think Christer made a fundamental mistake when he insisted on Coach Ranking to be applied to everyone who plays and/or competes in the sites Open division. |
I agree (it's come up more than once in this thread) that the intermixing of competitive and casual in Ranked presents a problem. It's not going to be an easy one to solve. But let's keep working on it. |
Naw, that's easy!
[T]ournament division for people who want to play in tournaments. Open play.
[C]asual division for people who want to play regular lrb4 games that count, and have some consequence, but nothing riding on them other than personal acheivement/growth/exploration/etc.
Teams can move freely from [T] to [C]. Teams can move from [C] to [T] by hitting a 'reset' button that retires all players and sells off all assets for 1M gp. Or, that turns all stats and doubles into standard (or random?) skills, and maybe assesses a few ageing injuries around. Y'know, to discourage 'farming' in [C]. Or maybe any [C] team under 150 TR, or 10 games, or some such. Kinda like [A] to [L]. Or, y'know what? Naw. Not switching back and forth.
What won't be easy is getting the stink - erm, influence - of competitive, tournament-style play off of the casual play. |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 00:16 |
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| Walks_in_the_Sun wrote: | | pac wrote: | | After the power-gamers are done 'strip-mining' a game and leave, the game is still there and can still be played. |
And what if those power gamers prevent hundreds or thousands of people from becoming interested in the game in the first place? What if they never finish? (Street Fighter and Magic:TG are great examples) What if they do move on, but leave a desolate wasteland of nobody interested in playing anymore? |
Well, the answer is there in what you quoted: "the game is still there and can still be played".
When someone (a casual player) gets Street Fighter 2 down from the attic for old times' sake, all the things that the best players can do with it have no bearing on them - they're not there.
I've played Magic (a while ago) with friends' even older sets of cards. Never remotely seriously. You can still play the game. What people are off doing in multi-thousand dollar tournaments has no bearing on it.
| Quote: | | But people have decided that enough parts of the game are "I-Lose" buttons to effectively write them out of the playing experience. You may be shrivelling a game more than you are growing it. |
I don't see how learning that - for example - running off into the middle of nowhere unprotected with the ball is not a good idea 'shrivels' the game.
Now, I readily acknowledge that my example is silly. Give me a better one that illustrates what you're talking about, and we might be able to debate.
| Quote: | | And frankly, just as my opinion, all that "low strong" and "sweet spot" garbage makes me sick.They're not playing the game anymore - they're playing a game - but not the one that was designed and sold. |
Well, no, they're playing exactly the game that was designed and sold. If the designers didn't want them doing this stuff, they should have designed better. But the fact that, after all this 'high level' knowledge was discovered, the game was still competitive between lots of players and lots of playable characters shows that the design was actually really good!
| Quote: | | There's something about the way they dissect the game - picking it apart, trying out one part at a time - that's just too robotic. Why can't you discover these things organically? Roam around looking for secrets and shortcuts and such? Maybe that doesn't apply as well to fighting games, but they're not my favorites anyway. |
I think some equivalent of roaming around is exactly what they did have to do. Of course, in a competitive fighting game, once one person finds something, and posts it or uses it in a tournament, everyone else finds about it too (as long as they're in the loop).
Oh, I meant to add that I completely agree that Plorg was somewhat trollish in posting this here. But that's Plorg: he likes to play games with people. We know this. |
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f_alk
Joined: Sep 30, 2005
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 00:19 |
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I prefer scrubs by a mile. Competitive game-players (that are not doing it for money) should get a life. |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 00:21 |
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| f_alk wrote: | | Competitive game-players (that are not doing it for money) should get a life. |
Another one who's obsessed by money.  What's wrong with being competitive with no money at stake? |
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f_alk
Joined: Sep 30, 2005
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 00:22 |
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As I said: get a life
edit: it seems to be your obsession to be competitive, why do you wonder that others appear(!) to you as if they are obsessed by something else?
enough going OT here, please go on arguing your points to people who feel the need to be competitive in a game that is about nothing but the game. |
Last edited by f_alk on %b %13, %2008 - %00:%Jul; edited 1 time in total |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 00:22 |
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| f_alk wrote: | | As I said: get a life |
That's not an argument. It's a very tired insult.
Is money some magic wand that turns an activity from bad to good?
What other activities is it bad to do if you're unpaid but good to do if you are paid?
| Quote: | | it seems to be your obsession to be competitive ... |
Not most of the time, actually. (Nice try though. ) But, even though I am not one of the ultra-competitive people this guy is writing for, that doesn't stop me from finding much of interest in what he has to say. |
Last edited by pac on %b %13, %2008 - %00:%Jul; edited 1 time in total |
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EvolveToAnarchism
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 00:46 |
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Walks_in_the_Sun
Joined: Apr 16, 2006
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 01:17 |
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I saw these responses coming, so maybe I should have thought mine out better.
| pac wrote: |
Well, the answer is there in what you quoted: "the game is still there and can still be played".
When someone (a casual player) gets Street Fighter 2 down from the attic for old times' sake, all the things that the best players can do with it have no bearing on them - they're not there.
I've played Magic (a while ago) with friends' even older sets of cards. Never remotely seriously. You can still play the game. What people are off doing in multi-thousand dollar tournaments has no bearing on it. |
These examples were good at describing games that have been played competitively, non-stop, for some time, and as such were good examples. Of course, you can say that they can be played non-competitively. And you'd be right. But my concern (or at least my argument) is that you won't be able to find someone to play against without that play being tainted by the tournament crowd.
Assuming you like one of these games, but aren't competitive at that level (not BAD at the game, or disinterested in winning; just not committed to the fanatical level) - and you find that the only opponents you can find are, or at least were taught by, highly competitive people? And that's the only way they can play? Obviously this is a simplification beyond what you would find in the real world, but I think it's valid at least in theory -
Assuming you don't want to play by yourself, or with someone who doesn't care to play seriously, (not the same as competitively) or with outdated or ill-used equipment? If you want the happy medium, and that's no longer there? (Not saying this has happened or definitely will happen - just illustrating the damages of this competitive mindset if it becomes the standard - as is likely on internet-only games. The other bad possibility, of course, is seen on free poker sites - with absolutely no ramifications, people play like idiots).
| Quote: | I don't see how learning that - for example - running off into the middle of nowhere unprotected with the ball is not a good idea 'shrivels' the game.
Now, I readily acknowledge that my example is silly. Give me a better one that illustrates what you're talking about, and we might be able to debate. |
I'm glad. I'm not talking about not playing poorly. I'm not defending playing like an idiot (don't spec my games as proof) and I hope you realize that.
What I'm talking about is this attitude: "Option A provides for 55% increase in winning chances. Option B offers 45%. Only an idiot would choose, B, always choose A." (Forget about C-F).
I'm talking about the "always take Block unless you need kick or DP or can take guard" mentality - yes, you will probably win a few more games this way. But by doing this 99% of the time, you & everyone you play loses out on experimenting with the 6 or 7 other optional skills. And it's not as if you can't win without block or kick or DP - I hope not anyway - especially if your opponent isn't always picking the same skills as well.
I'm not saying give leap to your Big Guys and take dodge instead of guard every time - just mix it up a little. How are new players going to learn to use - or counter - abilities that are never used? What would be the point of learning if they never run across them again? If that's not 'shrinking' the game, we're not speaking the same language.
Of course it doesn't help with teams like amazons and norse and dorfs out there - they're hardly the example of variety and parity I'm looking for - but you at least get what I'm driving at, right? For better or worse, if you choose never to use an aspect of the game, you're losing out on a part of that game, that was (hopefully) playtested and included for a reason. And I can expect 1 or 2 things to be relatively useless except in rare circumstances - but not several-to-dozens, to varying degrees.
And yea, leagues like NBL are great fun and counteract this a bit - but a little block is nice, and certainly useful, and sometimes you just want to play an [R] game and see another player with Shadowing and less than MA 9, or Pass block with less than AG 5.
| Quote: | | Well, no, they're playing exactly the game that was designed and sold. If the designers didn't want them doing this stuff, they should have designed better. But the fact that, after all this 'high level' knowledge was discovered, the game was still competitive between lots of players and lots of playable characters shows that the design was actually really good! |
Here we go again, using the same words to mean different things -
It's a rare game that is bug free. Saying that a bug is part of the game - as intentended - and meant to be abused is ridiculous. It's meant to be found and patched, assuming the creator is still solvent and the game is profitable. Otherwise, it's the duty of the players not to take advantage of it. Because, despite the fact that it made it to the shipped copy - it was unintended, not "designed" at all.
And moving past bugs to actual gameplay - you ask a lot of desingers. They can imagine, perhaps, but not really deal with the fact that there will be players who play the game years longer than it took them to make it - and some who actually go looking for 'exploits', not just stumble on them. And that some of these gamers will be far more obsessed with the game than the creators - but without the creators' background of work, ethics, morals, intentions, or whatever else. No designer of any game more complicated than Pong can effectively prepare for this, though bless 'em, they might try if we're lucky.
Even something like the 'sweet spot' might have been intentionally created - <i>might</i> have been - to create some balance, to make it possible for a fighter to survive an otherwise tricky situation - with the intent of making the game seem a little more random, or allowing a player with good 'reflexes' or 'instincts' to take advantage of it occasionally - but never expect the fanatc to make his whole strategy around it.
This is just a theoretical example - I have no insight to the developer's wishes on this point, they might even approve - but the game was developed with such variety, I hesitate to even imagine that they would have wanted matches to become fixated on one such foible - let alone becoming a match of "low strong."
| Quote: | | I think some equivalent of roaming around is exactly what they did have to do. Of course, in a competitive fighting game, once one person finds something, and posts it or uses it in a tournament, everyone else finds about it too (as long as they're in the loop). |
Granted; but I think there's a significant psychological difference in exploration for exploration's sake and seeking out a way to beat your opponent easily and with little effort.
Moreover, the 'arms race' that evolves from these attitudes is the key problem I have with the whole thing: When everybody works their way up to nuclear weapons, you lose the... elegance, the challenge, the 'fun' - whatever - that came in the intervening times.
And you are left with three possibilities.
1) One player has the nukes and the other doesen't.
By design, chance, or choice - it's an uneven fight and thus boring as hell.
2) Both players have the nukes.
They'd be wasting their time (& giving up the win) to use anything else - the result being a tie, random, or (best case scenario) having to do with timing or some other aspect unrelated to the weapons themselves - and in any case, the whole thing is boring as hell.
3) Both players have the nukes, but there is a way to beat the guy with a nuke.
Thank nuffle, by chance or by design, even at this state, there is a way to shake things up - either there's a working STAR WARS system, or some cowboy with a knife just took out their guy with the launch codes.
Two final points -
1) The guy's own anecdotal evidence covered multiple intances in which top-level contests were boring as hell, and terrible for spectators.
Now to be fair, spectators are secondary when you're a player - a perfect game in baseball can be boring as hell until the 8th or 9th inning, and why would a prizefighter lower his guard to make things look better? - but there is something to be said for making things interesting. Did any of us come here to play a boring game? And there often ARE spectators in this game. (I assume so at least - I get them every now and then).
2) My greatest gaming achievement -
My brother always found everything first (he usually got first crack at all the games, and he played them more than I did), and was generally better at them - well, more accurately, I picked them up quicker and was more of a 'natural' - he put in the time to learn the special moves & secrets.
Anyway, he had beaten Shining Force by the time I had really played it, and he had to show me how to find all the secret characters in the game. (There are several - maybe 20% of the characters you can get in the game are optional, and some are out-of-the-way, must be sought out mid-battle, or require backtracking or several steps to recruit). But I was just exploring around one day - searching the nooks and crannies of a town - when I saw a character outside a house that I had seen before - an inconsequential NPC my brother & I had written off. It took me a while, but I figured out how to find my way over to him & talk to him. Long story... er... long, I got him on my team - a super-secret character my brother couldn't find, and had to ask ME how to get.
This character was Jogurt the Yogurt, a worthless joke character with 1 hp, no offensive ability, and a worthless magic ring that ALWAYS breaks. If you manage to level him up (requiring you to coddle him while getting him 3 kills with his 1 damage attack), nothing happens. He is utterly worthless from a tactical standpoint, a severe liability in that to use him requires you leave behind some other, valuable character. But I still feel good about having found him.
I wanted to use him in the climactic battle to see if he said anything interesting, but it took me several tries with my best collection of troops to win, so I never did. |
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SillySod
Joined: Oct 10, 2006
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 01:32 |
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I've started to read the book. Once I've finished it then I'll happily necromance the thread and give you my precise (and, obviously, correct) opinon on the matter and where I stand, possibly even where Purplegoo should stand.
All I can say for now is that Plorg remains on my blacklist and take dodge, you'll enjoy it.
Edit: btw, this is an interesting read about WoW. |
_________________
Putting the "eh?" back into Sexeh.
"There are those to whom knowledge is a shield. There are those to whom it is a weapon. Neither view is balanced."
Last edited by SillySod on %b %13, %2008 - %05:%Jul; edited 1 time in total |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 01:59 |
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Thanks for your reply.
| Walks_in_the_Sun wrote: | | Assuming you like one of these games, but aren't competitive at that level (not BAD at the game, or disinterested in winning; just not committed to the fanatical level) - and you find that the only opponents you can find are, or at least were taught by, highly competitive people? And that's the only way they can play? Obviously this is a simplification beyond what you would find in the real world, but I think it's valid at least in theory - |
Finding the right group of opponents is always a problem for anyone wanting to play any game. And it's not just a question of people being too competitive. There may be no one else who thinks the game is any good at all! What if all the people on an internet gaming site are not over competitive, but just rude? I see finding the right environment in which to play a game as very much a separate issue.
Again, all I can say is that the game itself is still there. Once you find the right group of people, you can play it.
| Quote: | What I'm talking about is this attitude: "Option A provides for 55% increase in winning chances. Option B offers 45%. Only an idiot would choose, B, always choose A." (Forget about C-F).
I'm talking about the "always take Block unless you need kick or DP or can take guard" mentality - yes, you will probably win a few more games this way. But by doing this 99% of the time, you & everyone you play loses out on experimenting with the 6 or 7 other optional skills. And it's not as if you can't win without block or kick or DP - I hope not anyway - especially if your opponent isn't always picking the same skills as well.
I'm not saying give leap to your Big Guys and take dodge instead of guard every time - just mix it up a little. How are new players going to learn to use - or counter - abilities that are never used? What would be the point of learning if they never run across them again? If that's not 'shrinking' the game, we're not speaking the same language. |
I can see how this could potentially happen, but it's just not what I see when I look around me on FUMBBL.
I see lots of coaches who have different approaches to skilling players. If I pick a developed team at random to look at, I would say that, roughly, half the time I see something I wouldn't expect, something I wouldn't have picked. Sometimes I turn up my nose and think, 'that's not optimal!', but sometimes I'm then surprised by how well it actually does work! This is something I discovered while collating the skill survey. There were lots of things I wasn't expecting to see that the most experienced coaches with that race were regularly picking.
In addition, many (most?) of the good coaches do experiment (not necessarily the top CR coaches, btw - due to the way Ranked works, it's hard to maintain really high CR while experimenting. It's for this reason that the top CR coaches are not by any means always the best ones). They have weird teams, crazy teams, random teams. It's worth it to see what you can find. None of this conflicts with playing to win.
| Quote: | | And I can expect 1 or 2 things to be relatively useless except in rare circumstances - but not several-to-dozens, to varying degrees. |
I don't think there are several dozen. Not even close. I don't think there are even half a dozen skills that can be written off that completely.
| Quote: | | It's a rare game that is bug free. Saying that a bug is part of the game - as intentended - and meant to be abused is ridiculous. It's meant to be found and patched, assuming the creator is still solvent and the game is profitable. Otherwise, it's the duty of the players not to take advantage of it. Because, despite the fact that it made it to the shipped copy - it was unintended, not "designed" at all. |
I disagree fundamentally. It is not the job of the player to attempt to read the mind of the designer. Beliefs like this (that you shouldn't take advantage) cause endless problems within groups of players, because there's generally no way to prove what was intended and what was not. One group of players says that this is 'obviously' unintended and shouldn't be abused. Another group disagrees. (Stalling and fouling anyone? Dauntless+Horns?) The far simpler approach is just to play with what's there. That way there can be no disagreement.
Now, a bug that crashes the game (or other such severe effect) is clearly a different situation. And when a case really is clear-cut, consensus among players is usually relatively easy to achieve. But generally we aren't talking about problems that are anything like so severe.
Also note that (in terms of video games) there's a big problem at tournament level as to how you could detect certain exploits. If you can't detect it, you can't enforce it, and you should not make rulings you can't enforce.
| Quote: | | And moving past bugs to actual gameplay - you ask a lot of desingers. They can imagine, perhaps, but not really deal with the fact that there will be players who play the game years longer than it took them to make it - and some who actually go looking for 'exploits', not just stumble on them. And that some of these gamers will be far more obsessed with the game than the creators - but without the creators' background of work, ethics, morals, intentions, or whatever else. No designer of any game more complicated than Pong can effectively prepare for this, though bless 'em, they might try if we're lucky. |
As I mentioned some pages ago in reference to a game I wrote, I am delighted when someone manages to do something in a game I designed that I had never conceived of! Nor do I believe that anyone should want my opinion on how the game 'should' be played because I'm its author: it's not mine anymore. (I'm not saying it's easy to let go though. )
Once a game, like a novel, goes out into the world, it does not belong to the author/designer anymore. It takes on a life of its own and those who play/read it can interpret it in new ways that the author had never expected. It's flown the nest.
Sure, fix things that are fundamentally broken, but don't keep dabbling! If you really think you didn't get it right, or put across what you really meant, or that those ingrate players just haven't understood or appreciated it fully, try again and design/write a new one. But maybe the audience will prefer that first 'flawed' creation to the one you think is new and improved … and if they do, perhaps they know better than you.
| Quote: | 1) The guy's own anecdotal evidence covered multiple intances in which top-level contests were boring as hell, and terrible for spectators.
Now to be fair, spectators are secondary when you're a player - a perfect game in baseball can be boring as hell until the 8th or 9th inning, and why would a prizefighter lower his guard to make things look better? - but there is something to be said for making things interesting. Did any of us come there to play a boring game? And there often ARE spectators in this game. (I assume so at least - I get them every now and then). |
As you say, this is not something the players can be blamed for. Many sports can be boring. Major football finals (soccer - but I'm sure American too!), which were meant to be showpiece events, have been dreadfully boring.
This is a situation where the tournament designers need to figure out if it's practical for them to do something to change that and if that action is worth taking. Sometimes steps can be taken, but I don't know of any game or sport where they've found a perfect solution. |
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johan
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 03:46 |
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Great original article.
Also, Pac is awesome in this thread. |
_________________
”It's very sad
To see the ancient and distinguished game that used to be
A model of decorum and tranquillity
Become like any other sport, a battleground...”
—Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus, Chess |
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Britnoth
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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| Posted:
Jul 13, 2008 - 05:27 |
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| Quote: | If you are truly the best player at your chosen game, or one of the very best, then you don’t need my advice anymore. In fact, I invite you to give me yours. But I can offer some cautions on issues you will face. You must:
1) Recognize that you have power, even if it is over the small group of people in this world who play your game.
2) Understand that your power is fleeting. There are many forces seeking to revoke your power and you may choose to combat them, or to give in to them.
3) Decide what to do with your power while you have it. What good or evil can you do? Who decides what is good or evil in the first place? What obligations, if any, do you have to other players and community members? |
OMGS the POWER of your 190 CRs! (how old is this guy 12?)
| Landwalker wrote: | | That's a fair point -- Civilization, on a perfectly "fair" map, might come as close to this ideal as any asymmetrical game is going to get, but how is that ideal map possible? If the map is small, it will favor the civilizations with early bonuses (particularly military ones), and since Civilization doesn't really have a "rock-paper-scissors" unit structure, that would ruin the equality of the initial choices. If the map is large, it would favor the civilizations with late or constant bonuses (probably favoring science bonuses in particular). |
Civ4 went down the rock-paper-scissors route for unit combat road. Axes beat spears, spears beat chariots, chariots beat axes... oh and some civs are far, far better than others... Hayuna Capac in particular is the only leader used for high score challenges, due to his overpowered unique unit and extremely strong mutually benefitial leader traits. |
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