Civilization V- Might actually be good now. Stay tuned.

[Lantyssa]

Not sure I agree with that (since I generally play against the AI anyways) but even so, I don't really have a problem with Civ having some  random elements, it's being random to the degree that a caveman can take out the Death Star that I object to.  You can have random elements without putting a player at the mercy of them.

How about a moisture farmer with a single torpedo?

[Malakili]

Then the next game, play it on something other than chieftain and discover you don't have that problem anymore.

Its not that you just want to win the game with one tank, its when you bring an army of tanks to attack a city and his 5 fortified archers murder do insane damage to your army, even if you end up winning in the end.  But, the days of that are going to be gone in Civ 5 anyway.

 The single unit per hex and ranged units having actual...range.. is going to make positioning and composition actually more important than just bringing a huge stack of doom to the fight.  I think its going to make the game far more enjoyable all around.

[Maledict]

Its not that you just want to win the game with one tank, its when you bring an army of tanks to attack a city and his 5 fortified archers murder do insane damage to your army, even if you end up winning in the end.  But, the days of that are going to be gone in Civ 5 anyway.

Not to sound horrible, but if this is happening to you you're not playing the game right. Civ 4 pushes multi-component armies, not just stacks of doom of one troop. Your tanks should be paired with artillery, which will allow you to blow through those cities like they don't even exist. It's only really early one when you are axemen rushing someone that pure "one unit type" armies work.

Fundamentally, in all the time I've played Civ 4, I can't even think of one situation where the loss of a high tech unit to a very low tech unit hasn't either been my own fault for being arrogant, or mattered. It's such a non-issue in civ 4, not sure why it's come up now. They deliberately built the game so that it's incredibly hard for that situation to occur, and assuming you use the armies right it just doesn't happen.

[Malakili]

Not to sound horrible, but if this is happening to you you're not playing the game right.

Yeah, I'm probably not playing the game right, I don't take Civ very seriously, which is probably due to the fact that I was young when I played the original and I've never broken out of the mentality that I approached the game with then, which was just generally "build whatever I feel like whenever I feel like".  I actually prefer to avoid combat all together though when possible because I find the mechanics to be pretty crap (not just the tech thing).  I'd much prefer to turtle up and win some sort of culture victory since if I want engaging combat I have 100 other games I can think of off the top of my head that are better.

[Murgos]

Eh.  Luck is a component in real life.  Modern military doctrine does try minimize the effects of luck via process but shit still happens.  I would not be a fan of any system that didn't have a component of randomness built in.

[Malakili]

Eh.  Luck is a component in real life.  Modern military doctrine does try minimize the effects of luck via process but shit still happens.  I would not be a fan of any system that didn't have a component of randomness built in.

Again, lots not miss the forest for the trees here.  We aren't talking about every unit hard countering another unit. We had the sort of side discussion about competitive games and randomness, but that isn't really the issue as it was brought up initially.  Really were talking about specific instances of higher tech units losing to really outclasses and outdated army units.  Its not the end of the world either, but I'll admit that there are a lot of times in Civ combat where I'm just like "this is stupid" and it definitely is one of the things about the series that I don't particularly like.

[Musashi]

So we're talking about whether luck universally improves the game by increasing accessibility.  I'm saying that introducing luck to a game alone alienates different people relatively and therefore can't be universal since some people don't view it positively in every context and always differently in different contexts.  Like in this thread, everybody has a relatively different level of comfort with tank losing vs archer.  But if this weren't the case, and tank always beat archer - if this had always been the case, and nobody knew otherwise, it wouldn't be an issue.  And the same people arguing for random mechanics here wouldn't be necessarily arguing for this level of luck to be introduced, even if they were arguing for a random mechanic to increase accessibility in the first place and not just taking it for granted, as any sane person would, that your Civ guys with sticks are going to lose to a god damn tank.  They'd just be arguing for some level of luck, not necessarily to the degree of tank beating archer.  And that's okay with me, as long as it isn't being declared as a universal maxim that even the most egregiously unlikely mechanics are still good because they provide accessibility.

I'll use another example.  I like that David Sirlin game, Kongai, on Kongregate.  So I made a thread about it in web games.  It has a mechanic called 'intercept' that some people feel is cheesy because it's basically a 50/50 shot to totally fuck up your opponent's day on every turn.  When I made the thread, I wasn't expecting other people to view this mechanic differently than me because I thought it was, in this context, one of the more interesting parts of the game.  But people did feel differently, and of course in f13 fashion, they let me know.  So in a game where deck building is important, and those with any deck at all have an advantage over a complete noob, the argument against me says that everyone should be happy about intercept because it's a luck based mechanic that levels the playing field.  But it's not the case.  Experience or better stuff does not encumber a complete noob from concluding that he's not comfortable with that level of luck determining the outcome of his play session.  And I admit I was surprised to figure this out, because it's something I never really thought about.

[Lantyssa]

There is a huge difference between "luck should play a factor" and "luck is the overriding or only factor".  Let's not think so black and white.

[Musashi]

I'm honestly not sure why you even wrote those words.  Nobody said that.  I'm just going to assume you misinterpreted, or are having an off day.

[Lantyssa]

It's what I'm reading a lot of people saying in this thread.

(Though that could be the painkillers, too.)

[Malakili]

I think at this point we should be asking a different question:

Should something be done in general about those "Wow, that was really fucking lame" moments that tend to happen in Civ combat from time to time?

How often they are occur or how much they *actually* effect the outcome of a game isn't the point, but it is one of those things that when it happens just makes me want to say, aw fuck it and quit playing, and I think other people have the same experience. "Learn2Play" isn't really addressing the point.

[dusematic]

Not to sound horrible, but if this is happening to you you're not playing the game right.

 I don't take Civ very seriously, which is probably due to the fact that I was young when I played the original and I've never broken out of the mentality that I approached the game with then, which was just generally "build whatever I feel like whenever I feel like".

Apply that statement to anything else in life and you'll fail just as miserably as you are now in Civ.  At the risk of coming off as an elitist gosu Civ guy, people that aren't familiar with Civ need to realize the fundamental and inescapable fact that the people who complain about the astronomically low odds of losing a modern combat unit to an ancient combat unit in a game of Civ are just botched on a very basic mental and evolutionary level.  The reason is because power projection in a game of Civ is a derivative of technological capacity.  Therefore, if you're attacking (as in every fucking example of this line of criticism) a archer defended city with a pack of tanks, the game is already well in hand.  In fact, it has been for many turns (i.e. you're playing an opponent that is vastly inferior.)


It's sort of like playing a kid with Downs in a game of chess and then bitching about the fact that you weren't able to convert one of your pawns into a queen.  This is really the line between the vast majority of people who start a game on an easy setting to learn the ropes, and then move up accordingly to a level that challenges them, and the weird and pathetic minority who don't wish to be challenged.

[Kail]

This is really the line between the vast majority of people who start a game on an easy setting to learn the ropes, and then move up accordingly to a level that challenges them, and the weird and pathetic minority who don't wish to be challenged.

Going to try to get this across one more time, here goes:

It's not that I'm bitching about realism.  I've played tons of action games where I can take out a tank with a sword or something, it's not a scenario that kills games for me.  It's not that I'm bitching about difficulty.  As people have noted several times in this thread, this doesn't make the game any easier or harder since it screws over your opponents just as often as it screws you over.  Claiming that units randomly dying is "challenging" isn't accurate, since I could just as easily claim that the ability for any unit to win any fight is something that only bad players like, since it lets poor players reload battles they should lose over and over again until they win.  Either way, it's not the point.

It is about control versus randomness.  Spearman vs. Tank is a popular example because it's the most obvious "WTF" moment, but it happens in every fight in the game: you always have a chance to lose, and there's nothing you can do about it.  Barbarians can come in and conquer one of your border cities in a fight with one-in-a hundred odds.  Does that mean you'll lose the game?  No, but it's a pain to shift everything around to retake the city.  Did you screw up?  Not really, the odds against it happening were pretty solid.  But it happened anyways.  If your units die, it should be because of a mistake you made.  Sending up a massively powerful force against a weaker unit should result in the weaker unit dying.  That's the whole point.  Note that I'm not saying that MY units should be invulnerable, if the computer comes at my Spearmen with Tanks and I win, that's just as stupid.  I fucked up, my guys should be dead, but instead I get a win that I didn't earn, that's not something I'm going to cheer about.  It doesn't matter that it probably won't change who ultimately wins the game, it's still an annoying mechanic and I wonder why they continue to include it.

[Tebonas]

There is a neat trick to avoid this. Set yourself a limit. Every fight with loss chances under this limit, save the game beforehand, reload if you lose. Over that limit, play as intended.

See, you just circumvented that (for you) silly randomness and can enjoy the game as you like.

[Slyfeind]

I did that once; reloaded a battle 10 times. From what I could figure, their supposed 99% win chance means you will actually win 40% of the time. So I did it again and again and again until I got pissed off and stopped playing for months. I could research it further and find out what they really mean by 99%, but I'd rather be pissed off because it fills me with a false sense of superiority.

I mean really, if it WAS a 99% chance for a tank to beat a spearman, why is everybody on the entire Internet complaining about it?

DAMMIT now I want to play Civ again. >_<

[dusematic]

Reloading a game of Civ to get a different result is folly unless you select the "random seed" on reload option.  Otherwise, the random number generator will, in theory, generate the same result that you would be trying to avoid by reloading the saved state.  

Also, I'm scratching my head trying to think of a PC game  of any depth where randomness doesn't come into play to a significant degree.  I know there must be some examples, but it seems to me that nearly every game I've ever played incorporates some degree of randomness.  I think the "wahhhhh the results of every encounter should be guaranteed!" argument is, while valid hypothetically, not legitimate in any realistic context.  

In fact, the whole thing is practically a logical fallacy.  The idea that "massively stronger units should always win" is neat.  But where do you hardcode the line?  Do crossbowmen always defeat swordsmen?  Or is it Macemen?  The whole argument quickly breaks down into the very ridiculous.  For me (and nearly everyone else on the planet) 99% odds is good enough.  It's also more realistic than all the asswipes who are clamoring for some sort of mythical "guarantee" of victory, no matter the odds.

[Tebonas]

Yes, you need either the "random seed on reload" option, or wait another turn for a retry (which I found to be a balancing factor to not do it all the time, just when you are really pissed to lose a tricked-out hero on <0.1% chance)

[Rendakor]

Do you guys realize that things are generally not completely under your control? Most strategy games, board games, RPGs, etc. all have heavily random elements. Civ's is only particularly frustrating because the combat system is very simple: a single roll that, despite modifiers, can only give a 999/1000 chance of victory. But of course people only remember that 1/1000; this is exacerbated by the fact that most combat in Civ (until you bring Withdraw, First Strikes, etc. into play) is all or nothing. Once Unit X attacks Unit Y, one of the two dies.

However, as Maledict said earlier in the thread, this doesn't happen a lot in Civ4. 1 in 1000 is pretty long odds, to the point where it doesn't bother most people. I'm not sure if those of you who are upset about this are control-freaks or what, but I don't see the big deal. Games involve dice rolls. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

To use another example, take Risk. With the way the system works, one "army" can continue to defeat an infinite number of enemies, so long as the defending player at least ties the attacking player's best roll. Now, the attacker has 3 dice, and the defender only gets 1, so the odds aren't great. But I've seen some major upsets where 1 army takes out 10+ (as I'm sure any other Risk players here have), yet no one suggests they remove the die rolling aspect from the game.

[Mosesandstick]

I'm pretty sure Risk is a terrible example. There are a lot of people (myself included) who find the mechanics annoying.

Randomness if often a key element of fun because the people playing the game (i.e. us) aren't deterministic, and arguably more importantly respond to different situations in different ways. It's why we enjoy sports so much. The issue is that there needs to be justification for that randomness and it needs to fit in with the game. We don't care that weapons in many RPGs have weapon ranges because the whole system is usually a silly approximation for some form of hypothetical combat.

[Malakili]

After considering this for a bit more, I think that I like the idea of Civ more than the actual game.  If Civ 5 combat mechanics are more to my liking I'll probably get it anyway, but I guess this is just one of those I don't approach with the right kind of mentality to understand how its supposed to be played.  Perhaps its the casual/non time sensitive nature of turn based games that makes it hard for my to treat them with the sense of urgency required to play them well, or maybe its just that I enjoy more reflex oriented games (though I get a fair amount of enjoyment over other kinds of Turn Based war games (Risk, Axis and Allies).

Now that I think about it after writing that last sentence I wonder how much of this can be attributed to the physical act of rolling dice v. the RNG doing it for me.  For some reason when the dice treat me bad during a board game I just laugh it off.  When it happens in a computer game, it makes me rage like few other things.

[Sophismata]

That explains the vast popularity of competitive poker, then.  

In the case of Poker, your skill at playing has nothing to do with the cards you receive. The winner is not the player who is dealt the best hand.

Randomness keeps the players who aren't in the tip top tier interested. For games with real matchmaking systems like SC2 or whatever, sure, you don't need it, since the weaker players end up paired with each other. But for anything where everyone is just in the pool together? A bit of randomness is great from a design perspective, and frankly I think it keeps the better players interested too. Recovering from a bad random event actually gives you another place to make skill show anyway.

Randomness does do what you say it does - it evens the playing field and makes the experience more enjoyable for those who are worse at the game. This is the reason why, for example, TF2 is a great casual game. The crit system allows anyone to level the playing field. SSB is a party game because anyone can grab that hammer and start kicking people around.

However, these qualities are not desirable in a 'competitive' environment and most such environments will strive to limit randomness wherever possible.


Ultimately, in all but purely random games, there will be people who are better than others and will win more often statistically. Even if competative SSBM, or SFIV, or TF2, or CS:S or whatever had large random elements to gameplay, you would still see the same people come out on top most of the time. However, the general feeling is that a game isn't worth playing for money if virtual dice have a large impact in who wins the match.

[Murgos]

That explains the vast popularity of competitive poker, then.  

The winner is not the player who is dealt the best hand.

What always?  That would be nice but, unfortunately, not true.  Skill is important, largely as a matter of knowing when to wait for better cards, but getting good cards really, really helps.

[Pagz]

Am I the only one who is dissapointed that they didn't hire Morgan Freemen as the narrator?

[Ratman_tf]

Am I the only one who is dissapointed that they didn't hire Morgan Freemen as the narrator?

"Like a twinkie, like a twinkie."

[Sky]

Did someone say twinkies?

[Paelos]

Am I the only one who is dissapointed that they didn't hire Morgan Freemen as the narrator?

I liked Nimoy.

Beep....Beep....Beep

[Xanthippe]

At the risk of coming off as an elitist gosu Civ guy, people that aren't familiar with Civ need to realize the fundamental and inescapable fact that the people who complain about the astronomically low odds of losing a modern combat unit to an ancient combat unit in a game of Civ are just botched on a very basic mental and evolutionary level.  The reason is because power projection in a game of Civ is a derivative of technological capacity.  Therefore, if you're attacking (as in every fucking example of this line of criticism) a archer defended city with a pack of tanks, the game is already well in hand.  In fact, it has been for many turns (i.e. you're playing an opponent that is vastly inferior.)


It's sort of like playing a kid with Downs in a game of chess and then bitching about the fact that you weren't able to convert one of your pawns into a queen.  This is really the line between the vast majority of people who start a game on an easy setting to learn the ropes, and then move up accordingly to a level that challenges them, and the weird and pathetic minority who don't wish to be challenged.

It's nothing like that at all.

MY triremes NEVER take down the game's battleships.  EVER.

I played Civ (the original) for 5 years.  Seeing the same shitty mechanic in Civ 2, 3, and 4 that I suffered through in the original this many years after the first game speaks to me that they still have the same shitty AI.  On top of that, I think a lot of the added units crap added no enjoyment to my game; just another annoying layer of bullshit to go through.  I'm not crazy about some of the directions the game has taken since the original. 

You can dress it up any way you like, but you're wrong.  (Frankly, you sound more like a fanboi than an elitist.)

[Typhon]

Randomness does do what you say it does - it evens the playing field and makes the experience more enjoyable for those who are worse at the game.

In the context of a Civ-like strategy game, I disagree.  The randomness isn't there to even the playing field, it's there because the game is trying to simulate being a supreme commander.  The part that the RNG is simulating is the "you can't control everything" part.  A good supreme commander expects losses and has backup and contingency plans in place for when the unthinkable occurs.

I think that the makers of the original board games deliberately choose to include dice for this reason and a move away from the "winner-take-all" nature of conflict in Chess (the queen suffers no loss of capability for attacking a pawn or a knight).

[Typhon]

[...]
It's nothing like that at all.

MY triremes NEVER take down the game's battleships.  EVER. [...]

Then you are very unlucky, because my spearmen (left pitifully un-upgraded in a poorly defended city) have indeed killed off AI tanks.

[Ingmar]

That explains the vast popularity of competitive poker, then.  

In the case of Poker, your skill at playing has nothing to do with the cards you receive. The winner is not the player who is dealt the best hand.

Over time, yes. In any given hand though? Having the better cards helps a lot. The same thing is true in most of the games I've brought up that are played competitively that include a random factor. The best players will still tend to win tournaments, and will win more matches than they lose - but weaker players can steal a match here and there as they're improving, which does not tend to happen in games like chess nearly as often, and getting that early taste of success gets you more motivated to improve, and also tends to keep the players who just don't improve showing up anyway.

As far as your other statement about people 'generally' agreeing that things aren't worth playing for money if there is a die roll involved... no. Gambling is more popular than pretty much every other kind of gaming combined, even the kind of gambling that comes in at that other far end of the spectrum, where it is literally just a die roll with no skill at all.

[Malakili]

That explains the vast popularity of competitive poker, then.  

In the case of Poker, your skill at playing has nothing to do with the cards you receive. The winner is not the player who is dealt the best hand.

Over time, yes. In any given hand though? Having the better cards helps a lot. The same thing is true in most of the games I've brought up that are played competitively that include a random factor. The best players will still tend to win tournaments, and will win more matches than they lose - but weaker players can steal a match here and there as they're improving, which does not tend to happen in games like chess nearly as often, and getting that early taste of success gets you more motivated to improve, and also tends to keep the players who just don't improve showing up anyway.

As far as your other statement about people 'generally' agreeing that things aren't worth playing for money if there is a die roll involved... no. Gambling is more popular than pretty much every other kind of gaming combined, even the kind of gambling that comes in at that other far end of the spectrum, where it is literally just a die roll with no skill at all.

Thats because of this:

http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Intermittent_reinforcement

Then again, I hate gambling too, so maybe its for the same reason I don't like too much random in my games

[Sky]

Gambling just came up last night in a (rare) discussion with my fiancee about dungeons and raiding in mmo and why people put up with so much shit to keep playing the same content over and over. I don't think I've every gotten a decent drop out of a raid, I just have shit luck with the RNG. Lacking the gambling habit, it didn't make me want to try again and again, it made me want to go do something more interesting and/or fun.

But a lot of people...a LOT of people...they fucking love them some gambling.

[Paelos]

So, a .01% chance that something unrealistic could happen would ruin somebody's game? Really?

I mean hell, how do you get out of bed in the morning if that's the way you have fun?

[Musashi]

So, a .01% chance that something unrealistic could happen would ruin somebody's game? Really?

I mean hell, how do you get out of bed in the morning if that's the way you have fun?

When you factor in other mechanics, it's more than that.  You could conceivably siege modern units with catapults and axemen.  And that .01% is only the most extreme example of the best and worst units fighting straight up with no other adjustments from experience or fortification.  There are many more examples in between that are only slightly less retarded.

[Paelos]

Still, if you're dumb enough to be waltzing around with no artillery and a shitload of tanks, I'm guessing 1-2 are probably expendable. As far as bowman taking cities from machine guns? I've yet to see that.