Speaker's super top secret thread for the purposes of world domination; Neener Neener

[darrelljs]

Yeah it was planned from the beginning.

That tipped the scales for me...I disapproved before I found that out. Not that my approval matters .

I want space and culture banned because I'm playing an AW game to, you know, be about . I can't envision how a true stalemate would arise, but even if it did I'd rather just call the game. If its not an AW game, I'd only want to see Diplomatic banned.

Darrell

[Krill]

Since when has AW been about killing people? AW is the most peaceful variant game that CIV has.

[Shoot the Moon]

They'll always be controversy though since T1 was building tons of infrastructure over units. Additionally there would be the unknown quality of leaving enough units to defend the border from T3 and T4. The question would still be do you try and all-in to stop the culture or do you try and commit a minimal amount of units so you can take advantage of the situation?

It's entirely possible to do both. We had to do the same (that is defend against Team 1 and 4) and still managed to put a nice large stack in your lands Especially with Railroads, it's not terribly hard to stay safe while also building up/being in position to attack on the turn you want to attack on.

[luddite]

It's entirely possible to do both. We had to do the same (that is defend against Team 1 and 4) and still managed to put a nice large stack in your lands Especially with Railroads, it's not terribly hard to stay safe while also building up/being in position to attack on the turn you want to attack on.

Not large enough :P

Besides, you only got railroads at the very end. With better micro and planning, I'm pretty sure it would be possible to win a culture victory before anyone can get railroads.

[Cyneheard]

Since when has AW been about killing people? AW is the most peaceful variant game that CIV has.

It's not the AW, it's the CTON.

[Krill]

CTON isn't itself more aggressive or military-orientated.

[scooter]

I want space and culture banned because I'm playing an AW game to, you know, be about . I can't envision how a true stalemate would arise, but even if it did I'd rather just call the game. If its not an AW game, I'd only want to see Diplomatic banned.

I don't understand why space keeps being lumped in with culture here. Culture wins are MUCH faster and they happen in an era where military attacks are much slower. No bombers, no blitz tanks, etc etc. This isn't even accounting for the fact that 1) culture is much easier to win on Quick speed for a variety of reasons and 2) culture is much easier in a teamer for a variety of reason. Plus culture comes well before the tech tree is over - so for example in this game, if T3 had stopped the culture win, T1 probably would have won the game just because T3 invested so heavily in it. It's a prisoner's dilemma, which is entertaining to watch but inherently un-fun to play.

Space is much different. Two reasons why banning space is

1) The game needs to end at some point. It's easier to defend than attack, so a game without space would just turn into both teams stockpiling modern units, with whoever attacks first losing the game. It would be the game that never ends as both teams achieve military parity. The only way to shift the scales would be nukes, and we all know how fun those are.

2) Space represents "end of the tech tree" so the space winner is often whoever can tech there the quickest. Since Civ is largely about balancing tech, expansion, production, military, etc - whoever gets to the end of the tech tree first (in a game that isn't a blowout) is most likely at a military disadvantage of some sort. It becomes a balance game and requires a high degree of strategic planning. How well do you balance a go-for-broke space run with maintaining a respectable military? And what if your next-door neighbor workshops everything and goes full-bore military while you're building parts? Do you pause? Or do you keep going and hope you can hold your capital til the end? Do you have to worry about Commandos?

There's just so many more variables in a world where space is enabled. And the irony is, a game with space race on is FAR more likely to have late-game fighting than a game with it off. With it off, you have a Cold War. With space on, you have the tech leaders racing to win peacefully while the stragglers build up and try to go for the kill, except in this case you don't have to worry about others teching "further" past you because the tech tree is over, so it's vastly different than culture, and it's much easier to attack given the units available to you. I keep hoping that one of these days we get a game that plays out that far to see the showdown, but games usually get called too early for that.

[darrelljs]

I guess we'll just have to disagree scooter .

Darrell

[luddite]

1) The game needs to end at some point. It's easier to defend than attack, so a game without space would just turn into both teams stockpiling modern units, with whoever attacks first losing the game. It would be the game that never ends as both teams achieve military parity. The only way to shift the scales would be nukes, and we all know how fun those are.

I agree with most of your post- culture is totally different than space, and having space victory on allows at least the possibility for an exciting showdown between spaceship builders and tank builders. But I don't agree with the above- I think once you get into modern era attacking actually becomes easier than defending. Air units, transports, and commando tanks are all powerful attacking options that can basically strike anywhere at anytime, without the risk of getting flattened by a mass of defending catapults.

[antisocialmunky]

You also have to take into consideration the map if you're going to theorycraft about victory conditions. The map was much larger than we'd thought and it was highly defensive with many many chokes. It may have been infeasible to win on any other type of map.