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pg
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it is quite hard. the gameplay isn't very balanced - it's almost entirely dependent on how lucky you are. if you find some very good stuff you'll have a shot at winning but if you don't you are practically doomed to lose. the game has a bad power curve where if you start to lose you'll have an even harder time clawing your way out of that hole.
i also suspect the game/ai cheats somehow because i normally have a hard time finding very good resources but at least a few ai's seem to find them right away. related to the power curve it seems like the ai has a very hard time losing, while i don't, if that makes any sense. it's like the ai gets bonuses the worse it does, but the player will have a much harder time the worse he plays.
last time i seriously played imp2 i could regularly beat the normal settings(iirc the one where you don't get bonuses and neither does the ai supposedly). i think i generally used as many explorers as possible for the begining few turns(until turn 20 or so) then disbanded them after i discovered everything. i definately used more than 3 or 4. also a good start is absolutely necessary - iirc you need a few iron along with a good amount of everything else. you should have your mainland up and running in under 5 turns if possible(and maxed within 10?). the start is much more important than the end game since the balance of power is basically decided after the new world is claimed.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:35
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well i won my game = Holland diploannexed on the last turn - one province to spare.
So i played again as England (BTW, ive played with historical Europe map, i dont feel ive exhausted the replayability with that yet, and it adds versimilitude) built 3 explorers this time. With 3 explorers and good luck i had a much better start. quickly found a province with diamonds, and another with gems. began to develop aggressively.
Still screwed up on diplomacy though. Was allied with Sweden and Holland. Sweden ends up at war with France and Spain. I honor the alliance, then Holland breaks our alliance. No problem, we can take on France and Spain - no border with Spain, a relatively narrow colonial border with France. I can fight aggresively or not as I choose. Then Holland attacks Ireland, my pact ally. Greedy for Ireland, I go to war with Holland, enabling me to diploannex Ireland. Well Holland has one colony on a continent that i otherwise completely control. And bordering on several provinces. Im quickly losing (low value) colonial provinces, and to hold on im building a larger army, and running short of food. Sweden is, of course, completely ineffective as an ally. So im basically fighting three powers, and im not ready.
Time to reload - ive got a save from before the wars begin. I think I will avoid the war with France and Spain, and take on Holland, to round out my colonial continent.
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pg
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
Interesting you should say that, as there are few events to put things on rails. The on rails quality seems inherent in the gameplay, which while it may limit player freedom, is at least interesting from the view of game design.
By on rails, im thinking you mean the steady movement from conquering tribes, to minor, to majors.
Cant you alter that to some degree by playing with war against tribes and minors difficulty levels? |
it is interesting gameplay but it seems like there's always an optimal decision to be made and either you make it and move on to the next optimal decision or you screw up and regret it later. it's not like eu2 where i have choices to make(which i much prefer).
not sure if i understand your question entirely - i generally play with the default settings. i suppose i could alter the power settings for natives/minors but that wouldn't inherently change the gameplay. it'd still be on rails you'd just go about things differently. what i'd really want is more dynamics to imp2.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by General Ludd
I know what you mean. I like to call that feeling power-gaming or 'gamey'. I feel the same way about Imperialism 2. Civ 3 aswell, especially on higher difficulties. |
But isnt that to some degree the point of higher levels?
I mean theres always going to be some difference in effectiveness between two choices, whenever a decision is available. And if the weaker of the two choices still makes it possible to win, than the stronger of the two will make it possible to win more easily. And then there will be complaints about how easy it is to win. Such as aflict Civ2, SMAC, etc. Yet when the game is made harder that narrows the possible paths to victory, doesnt it.
At some point the gamer who is interested in a less "gamey" experience has to simply go back to levels less than the hardest. (just dont tell people here )
Of course theres also the issue of outcomes other than victory.
In actual history it WAS very hard to dominate Europe. Of the powers in Imp2, none managed it in the time period under consideration - although I suppose France did hold the majority of provinces, if only briefly. And Spain (seen as representative of all Hapsburg dominions), came close on at least two or three occasions. So it SHOULD be really hard to win Imp2, and there shouldnt be too many alternative ways of doing it. OTOH survival should be easy - there should be a very high probability of an outcome between victory on the one hand, and lossing, or even losing all new world provinces, on the other. Of course Im not sure if that would be satisfying from the game play point of view. It may work in EU, but thats a much less abstract game, IIUC.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by General Ludd
High difficulties should offer more challange, not frustration. I want an AI that does it's best, not cheats to get a wonder built (or a province captured) one turn before you do, and crap like that.
And I don't want the game to sacrifice gameplay for game mechanics. I want an element of roleplaying in there and not just an overblown calculator game where you have to follow a strict and efficient building plan without wavering.
Civ3 didn't do this. You aren't building an empire, you're just juggling numbers in an attempt to keep up with the computer (who has a dozen hands to juggle with). There has to be some room for error or it stops being a game and starts becoming an equation. |
1. Better AI vs cheats. Yeah, of course the better way to make a game difficult is to make the AI better. Buts as folk have said again and again, making a strong AI for a complex game is VERY DIFFICULT and costly, and the game market doesnt make it worthwhile - lots of casual gamers will never get that far, and the hardcore will go for MP.
2. Gameplay vs game mechanics - yup, but you can always do that (at least in Civ2 and Imp2) by playing on a more foregiving level. I havent played Civ3 yet, and so cant comment. I still dont see a way around the concept that as the game gets harder the paths to victory narrow. This seems almost a mathematical law.
for a given set of rules, at a given difficulty level, assume strategies A, B, C, D and E all work. At a higher difficulty level at least one strategy will no longer work.
If a good chess player is playing against a novice, almost any opening can lead to victory. Against a grandmaster relatively few openings can lead to victory.
Now that example would seem to argue against me - even grandmaster vs grandmaster, there are many openings that will work. But chess has no "eternal china syndrome" problem. IE its not an empire builder - the whole concept of which is that winning, by providing resources leads to more winning.
Now everyone knows that there are limits to this, which is why world historical conquest hasnt been achieved.
Civ3 attempts to model this, but in ways that seem unsatisfactory to many, though by no means all. EU presumably does so in more complex ways. But is unsatisfactory to many in terms of micromanagement, and a complexity that, IIUC, seriously handicaps the AI - Ive heard too many stories of minor nations going on to conquer the world in EU.
The real difficulty, again lays with the AI. In the real world a would be conquerer faces two problems - 1. Balance of Power Diplomacy - Civ2 never quite got that right, Imp2 doesnt get that right, its doesnt seem Civ3 or EU quite gets it - you need an AI smart enough to gang up on a would be hegemon, but not on a status quo number one. 2. He faces opponents, abroad and at home, who are as smart as he is.
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General Ludd
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Minion of the Dominion
Aug 2001
time: 05:35
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
2. Gameplay vs game mechanics - yup, but you can always do that (at least in Civ2 and Imp2) by playing on a more foregiving level. I havent played Civ3 yet, and so cant comment. I still dont see a way around the concept that as the game gets harder the paths to victory narrow. This seems almost a mathematical law.
for a given set of rules, at a given difficulty level, assume strategies A, B, C, D and E all work. At a higher difficulty level at least one strategy will no longer work.
If a good chess player is playing against a novice, almost any opening can lead to victory. Against a grandmaster relatively few openings can lead to victory.
Now that example would seem to argue against me - even grandmaster vs grandmaster, there are many openings that will work. But chess has no "eternal china syndrome" problem. IE its not an empire builder - the whole concept of which is that winning, by providing resources leads to more winning.
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That's sort of what I'm saying, actually. Chess is a pretty 'gamey' game in the first place. It has a simple premise of manouvering your pieces to win. Civ, on the other hand, is an empire builder - meaning that part of the game is building an empire, playing diplomacy, and roleplaying. But civ3 completely loses this aspect and turns it into a giant game of chess where there is no meaningfull (or reasonable) dipomacy and the empire building is simply a competition of building the biggest sprawl the quickest.
There are a few ways this could be prevented in civ3, I think. One is making the computer not so much of a powergamer and get it to behave more like a country instead of a chess player. Or another is to provide more then a single 'path to victory' where every country doesn't have to do the exact same thing (ie. don't make city sprawl neccisary) so that every aproach to the game has some amount of value or potential to it.
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06-05-2004 20:30
just think how exploitive and lucky you'd have to be in civ/imp2 to go from one province to conquering the world. in eu2 it might still be possible to do it without super abusive strategies(i say might because eu2 is a lot harder now, and more power gamey, v 1.05 you didn't have to play like that). the main point here is that in eu2 you can just play for fun and still manage to have a huge empire and with tough ai competition. sure it's not super realistic for one province minors to form empires but it does happen in real life, and even the ai can do it in eu2(i'd love to see something similar happen in imp2/civ with the ai). eu2 is much more dynamic and less math like general ludd mentioned.
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