Nicosar's Master Challenge - Page 8

Nicosar · December 16, 2002, 00:22

to end this now....

perhaps it is an inherent design that the host is more LIKELY to get techs, but it certainly isnt certain he will, and that's maybe, but even IF I had played many countless games in the past I still wouldn't know about this supposed dishonesty because my crew didn't particularly care whether anyone started with anything or not, until we discovered the superior methods of customized play, especially since we all traded hosting priviliges...
It is strange though, that we would not notice such a thing, after all, even if we were cursed to suck we'd still have eyes and ears.... hmmmm....

And about my custom game, its quite easy to set up no techs at all.... its called: cheat menu>edit technologies

Ming · December 16, 2002, 00:48

Unless you are playing with seriuosly edited game files, only the Host and the AI can get free techs, not other players.

From somebody who calls themself a master, this knowledge should have been obvious to you

Us common folks who don't play your "superior" form of the game are gentleman, and we tell our opponents if we have techs... hmmm, maybe our form of the game is the superior one

War4ever · December 16, 2002, 02:26

i have never had techs in a game that i didn't host at the start, i have been playing this game online for four years plus...

so i ask you what were you doing there

answer carefully, your choice of words will be heavily scrutinized by the vultures circling your dead carcass of a game......what you say may or may not have implications on future games with opponents

Berzerker · December 16, 2002, 02:40

Quote:

And about my custom game, its quite easy to set up no techs at all.... its called: cheat menu>edit technologies

Ah! Since I can't host because of a firewall, I've never had to do that. We just keep restarting until the host is "clean", meaning no added techs. I know it was quite a while before I hooked up with people who did this, for a long time I just played with people who either didn't know or care if the host got extra techs. Frankly, I wasn't very pleased to find out I was at a disadvantage in many of those games when the host just fired the game up without a word about any techs. Hell, I've seen Monarchy offered up as a starting tech in sp games. lol... Now I ask whenever the host is someone I don't know, we've even disbanded the 2nd settler some players can get in sub-deity levels.

Nicosar · December 16, 2002, 02:55

I dont know guys, maybe this is a case for the guy that plays william riker on that show unsolved mysteries....wait, it that the right guy? ahhh...who cares, whatever...

hows that for careful words..... ; )

no matter, though, I think anybody with any good taste will still be after that dead blood....after all, you vultures are rather toothless... you make alot of noise though....

Ming · December 16, 2002, 04:18

I still think that it is strange that a self proclaimed "master" had no clue about this

Your knowledge of the game seems a tad limited oh master

DrSpike · December 16, 2002, 09:51

Tired of regular civ? ... Do you turn on the game and find that it's old and tired look repulses you?

Well, no, actually.

Flatlander Fox · December 16, 2002, 14:16

The problem is that you have to understand the game a bit better to make a GOOD scenario.

Not understanding that late game turns can take an hour, or that 200+ cities will make a MP game unplayable is a BIG fault.

My suggestion to you is to scale it down to a small map, with the same units. Then HOTSEAT play it to see how long your turns will take. Then figure in lag, slow players, and a host of other issues.

People won't play something that proves to be unplayable fast.

You had a good idea, and us troubleshooting it is to be expected. But it needs work, so why not take criticism constructively, instead of coming back at us with wordy rejections?

Nicosar · December 16, 2002, 16:39

The reason is, good fox, because, I have played it through and through on multiplayer already, and anyway, back in the days I played many such custom versions, similar but rougher than mine, and each one usually ended in a gigantic build up of forces.....

.... and yet we kept playing....

hmm.... perhaps there is something in this whole 'ultra-dense' huge sort of game then, now isn't there, for a group of civ-addicts to go back and back again... but I suppose you'll never find out if you sit in your stump in the land of defaultedness and merely throw rocks beyond the hill where the grass is greener...

one cannot expect me to take thrown pebbles so seriously...

Anyway comrade, I think the refinement process works the other way around; you don't make unfounded critiques and then expect me to change the game because it doesn't sound right to you merely, the re-construction of any product consists of play-testing, and I should think that video game testers whom are gifted with ESP are rather rare, so that they need play the game, physically, before stating their proposed changes.

Though I dont expect to convince anyone, It's a hard thing to have played with super-quick turns, more because of the thinness of the game then some efficiency, and then to switch over and still remain solid throughout long games, that's a kind of discipline I dont realistically hope to see that from the regular civ crowd anytime soon, but I can tell you that I once too had to make the jump, and I haven't stepped back down since.....

DrSpike · December 16, 2002, 16:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Nicosar

there is something in this whole 'ultra-dense' huge sort of game

Ultra-dense sounds about right to me.

rah · December 16, 2002, 17:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Nicosar
Though I dont expect to convince anyone, It's a hard thing to have played with super-quick turns, more because of the thinness of the game then some efficiency, and then to switch over and still remain solid throughout long games, that's a kind of discipline I dont realistically hope to see that from the regular civ crowd anytime soon, but I can tell you that I once too had to make the jump, and I haven't stepped back down since.....

It's not about discipline at all. It's about boredom.
If it take each player an hour + to do their turn and there are more than 4 players. Just give me a gun with one bullet and I'll end the boredom. I'm even willing to accept an hour turn if it's the culmination of hundreds of years preping to backstab an ally.

But if each and every turn is taking that long for every player, the game isn't full and enriching, it's just plain boring and tedious. If I want tedious, I can clean grout in the bathroom.

I laugh at your assesment that reasonably quick turns makes the game thin. More proof (as if we needed it) that you have no real clue about the game. What, can't you enjoy a game without moving 1000 units a turn? Or do the mega games hide your inability to master the basic game?

I can remember capturing 7 of war4's cities in one turn and it only took about 15 minutes. There was nothing thin/boring about it. But if it had taken an hour, nothing I could have done could have maintained the same excitement. Within a few turns, the nukes started flying with all the supporting unit movements. It was a classic turn in the history of CIV. But it only took about 10 minutes.

QUALITY not QUANTITY.

Besides, simple math dictates the unfeasability of your type of game. Let's assume a hardy 7 hour session. (any longer and we're usually to drunk to see),once a week. If you have 6 or 7 players taking an hour each, Man may actually land on alpha centuri before anyone in the game does.

RAH

Flatlander Fox · December 16, 2002, 17:41

Quote:

Originally posted by rah

QUALITY not QUANTITY.

Besides, simple math dictates the unfeasability of your type of game. Let's assume a hardy 7 hour session. (any longer and we're usually to drunk to see),once a week. If you have 6 or 7 players taking an hour each, Man may actually land on alpha centuri before anyone in the game does.

RAH

@Alpha Centauri crack

You have playtested this you say?

Why no events?

Why do the barbs get techs faster than you do.

With that huge map, you can wander around FOREVER and not find ANYTHING, which is the key to the game.

It's not very well balanced, he who finds the cities first will win EVERY time. And the beginning forces are not fast enough or numerous enough to offset the shortcomings.

While you can say that I'm throwing rocks at your perfect civ-experience, I will contend that if your experience is so great, why is no one playing it?

Try adding some flavor, some events, reducing the map size, and making the turns a little less long. (You do realize that all of your techs will be discovered by 0 AD)

War4ever · December 16, 2002, 17:43

its obvious the jedi master has not learned how to use the jedi mind trick or that spock has not master the vulcan mind meld

Flatlander Fox · December 16, 2002, 17:48

A 266x244 map is farging miserable to play on...

But I am still playing it, maybe I'll get Monarchy before 3700 B.C. (The turns move in two year increments from 4000 B.C.

)

It's a neat idea (I said that before, but positive reinforcement is a GOOD thing here), but just too damn big.

DrSpike · December 16, 2002, 18:14

Quote:

Originally posted by rah

If you have 6 or 7 players taking an hour each, Man may actually land on alpha centuri before anyone in the game does.

RAH

For all his claims of experience of such games I don't think the master really appreciates this fact.....and it is a fact.

Nicosar · December 16, 2002, 18:23

I already said I made a much smaller map, lets not burden the argument with our bad memories

and the barb nations i took out, that was actually a new idea I hadnt really played through.... the game i said I play-tested on was on a smaller map, an 80x120.... so you see how your rocks do indeed land in the mud when you thought they'd hit something?

and events? you gotta be $#!ttin' me!!... (ill pretend i didnt hear that)

and rah, the fact that you think it takes an hour for each player to move may be an exaggeration, but either way your tone tells you have never played any game of any decent size, otherwise youd know that the trade off of time for depth of the game is not that skewed but actually highly efficient, and highly lucrative a transaction, but even if I couldn't sense your lack of experience through your words I could judge the meat of your words; if you had ever played that type of game you wouldn't have made that crack about my inability to handle war unless I have many units because you'd know that the difficulty in fighting with huge armies increases almost exponentially with the number of units you have.... think about it, is more complexity in a game, more land and more units, going to make war easier or harder? Remember the opposing human would have many forces too, and when your armies are big it is that one unforeseen flank blitzkrieg that can go unnoticed, since things aren't so.... limited and obvious....

Flatlander Fox · December 16, 2002, 18:36

Jesus, I try to give you some tips and you tell me I'm still throwing rocks.

At least I'm trying to help, but that just ended.

I'll let Rah disembowel you on the "Never played in any games of magnitude" comment...

JEEZ...

Nicosar · December 16, 2002, 18:50

well good fox, if you are that frustrated and angered by my mild responses than it seems my words were only a spark to a heap of well-dried kindling ready to burst alight....

Ming · December 16, 2002, 18:59

Quote:

Originally posted by Nicosar
but either way your tone tells you have never played any game of any decent size...

We were playing games like that weeks after MP was released... and with some of the REAL masters like Xin Yu (who probably knows about 1000x more about the game than you as a "self proclaimed" master does)

When you schedule a nite for gaming, and you play for 4 hours, and YOU DON'T EVEN GET TO TAKE YOUR TURN, that's boring, pure and simple.

You can talk all you want on how the experience of your style of gaming is better than normal Civ II, but the only way I can see that it might be would be under the following circumstances...

I turn on my computer... load MP... and while 4 or 5 other people are taking over an hour a turn to make their moves, I'm having sex with my wife... Then maybe you would be right about it being a better experience...
It would be a terrible and boring civ experience, but a far better use of my time and at least fun

It is obvious from all you say that you seem to be the one with limited MP experience. Some of us, who have been playing it on a regular basis since the day it came out can see just how silly your wordy arguments are.

Again... oh master, please tell us just who you have beaten in the last 6 months. Everybody that reports having had played you has seen that your knowledge of the game is miserable at best, and that you always get your head handed to you on silver platter. I guess the only chance you have to claim victory is to set up a game so boring that everybody eventually dies of boredom

You can keep your supposed and self claimed "superior" experience and find some other people to bore...

Nicosar · December 16, 2002, 19:09

ah ming, good pal....always can rely on you for some enlightenment

Ming · December 16, 2002, 19:15

Yeah... truth is a wonderful thing...

You come here and imply that we don't know the game, and that you are "the" master and you know what is best.

But with every post you seem to prove that you don't really have a clue what you are talking about, but continue to look down your nose at how other people play the game... People who have probably logged over 100 times the MP game hours that you have.

And you wonder why people laugh and have a hard time taking you seriously. I don't wonder why at all

rah · December 16, 2002, 19:18

And I will add in. EVEN before Civ. There where many many Avalon Hill games that required moving 100's of units every turn. (most of them in combat). Ming and I used to set them up on a table and a game could go on for months. GUESS WHAT> THAT GOT BORING TOO. But at least those games didn't last that many turns so it was almost bearable. SO don't give me any CRAP about not having played games where turns take long or 100's of units are involved in war because

as ALWAYS, you have no clue what you're talking about.

We were thrilled when computer war games came out to handle a lot of the book keeping.

I've been playing war games for over 40 years, so don't keep harping on my lack of experience. Your posts are showing that YOU are the one that lacks experience.

RAH
And please do let us know when you actually beat someone.

War4ever · December 16, 2002, 19:24

*SNICKERS*

Ming · December 16, 2002, 19:30

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
And please do let us know when you actually beat someone.

You know... if you think about it... that's probably why he has had to change the game so much... it might be the only way he has a chance at victory... because it sure seems obvious that he can't win a game under the traditional rules/settings...

rah · December 16, 2002, 20:11

NOTE:
If the large game floats your boat, more power to you. There are many different types of way to play civ, and as long as it's fun, do it. For MP, I don't particularly like playing 1x production. I don't particularly like city bribes. But I'm not going to pass judgement on the way someone else plays. I'll even play different setting occasionaly to accomodate others wishes. (and it usually ends up reminding me why I like the settings that I do

)
No style is the best for everyone, and I'll be the last one to say that the games I play are the only TRUE CIV experiences. Everyone thinks differently. The only true CIV is the fact that it provides so much variety.

But I expect the same respect back. The only reason I'm even responding is your insistence that YOUR way is the only true\best way. Every way is true to the people that play it. I think you'd get a much better reception when you posted if you kept that in mind. I'm always willing to discuss the pros and cons of different style games. Even though, I must admit that I will attempt to use fewer words.

RAH
Hmmm, maybe exceeded the word count on this one

Nicosar · December 16, 2002, 22:18

i have a saying about old people, and why that saying about respecting your elders is nothing but a propaganda conspiracy invented by a few old hawks in their basement to try and garner dignity when they had nothing to get for it except their age.... and that saying is:

"If you're old your experience might have taught you wisdom or you might just have had longer being stupid."

... which isn't to imply anything so directly to anyone except to say that it is not uncommon for the young to come along with a great innovation born only of originality and not backed by tradition.

But I dont contend that you all are below my skill, necessarily, no, not at all, in fact I was probably beaten in those couple games of regular civ because of this fact, that maybe i've been playing custom boards for so long that the mastery of that other field falls to someone else, but you cannot logically denouce my skill until you see the results from the game of which i claim mastery in, and if you say, 'oh, well, a master should be good in all fields'..... then I would say that I was rusty with the default at worst and that a few more games would've sharpened my fine blade....

but anyway, id like to take your best player and see how he does in my scenario.... i dont think after that, that he will be able to claim mastery in all fields, despite his profficiency in regular civ.... and im not claiming that same mastery either, but what I am saying is that I am a master of that slower, bigger, customized style of play, and also that this style of play would seem to be better, so I guess that is a slight elitist boast when combined but not as absolute as you make it seem.

Nicosar · December 16, 2002, 22:23

so ive played the default and lost... alright... "i was rusty, bad land"... excuses then, ok, thats fine, even though it doesnt bother me much....

but now you cannot denounce me further lest you should contend with me in my own arena and beat me there...

what do you say?, "you do not wish to play in my dumb scenario"? well, welllll....that is your wish then, but then i should think that you would also have to be silent about things you were too unwilling to prove....

DrSpike · December 16, 2002, 22:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Nicosar

but anyway, id like to take your best player and see how he does in my scenario....

I'll check back in 12 months and see.....my money is on anyone who accepts the challenge.......the basics don't change on any settings.

Berzerker · December 16, 2002, 22:40

Quote:

There where many many Avalon Hill games that required moving 100's of units every turn. (most of them in combat). Ming and I used to set them up on a table and a game could go on for months. GUESS WHAT> THAT GOT BORING TOO.

The good 'ol days of Panzer Blitz, hell, we'd buy several games and combine them, we'd even make our own units to expand the war.

And then there was Jutland, just move the furniture and play all over the floor.

Hell, when I was a kid, we'd buy those mini models and wage wars all over the house and end up in arguments about how fast a tank should be able to move across the floor and if he got hit when the tank's owner simulated explosions all around the tank as it motored around, lol. Yup, the good 'ol days of armchair generals...

Berzerker · December 16, 2002, 23:00

Nicosar, where is the dl for the big map you made? I have a slow connection so dl'ing that 108m scenario??? is unfeasible, but I would like to try your big map.