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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:17
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The Problem:
The jump in difficulty from Emperor to Demigod is too big. I like how Demigod plays out in the later stages of the game, but I absolutely hate starting in a big hole compared with the AIs - and an extra settler on top of all the other AI advantages on Demigod definitely starts players in a big hole, not just militarily but in terms of REXing. As a result, I don't like playing on Demigod unless I make sure I have a really great starting position to offset the AI head start.
If I'm the only one who feels that way, it's not that big a deal. But if there are others who find Emperor too easy but who find Demigod too hard to be fun, the situation is worth doing something about.
Proposed Solution:
Eliminate the Chieftain difficulty level, move all the other difficulty levels below Demigod down a slot, and insert a new difficulty level ("Mythic Hero"?) in between Emperor and Demigod. The new difficulty level would have all of the properties of Demigod except for the extra AI settler. (This change also requires changing the AI difficulty level in the general settings to fit the new location of Regent.) An alternative approach would be to add a new difficulty level, but the new one would appear at the end of the list as if it were the hardest instead of fitting the normal progression from easiest to hardest.
Note that the situation with multiplayer games seems to be a lot more awkward. When I tried firing up hotseat games with modified versions of the AU Mod, the list of difficulty levels available reflected the standard rules, not the modified rules in the scenario. That meant that an added difficulty level was not available at all, while with the difficulty levels moved, the difficulty level choices were one off from where they were supposed to be in the Mod. So from a multiplayer perspective, our choice is either an arrangement where the new difficulty level is unavailable or one where game set-up will be confusing. (By the way, with the difficulty levels rearranged, the name of the difficulty level does reflect the modified rules when loading a saved hotseat game.) If we split off a separate MP version of the Mod, we probably ought to keep the standard difficulty level configuration in it.
One other note is that if we move the difficulty levels, scores will probably be as if players were playing one difficulty level lower than they really are. But do people really care enough about scores for that to matter?
Edit: I just came up with what would probably be a better implementation. Instead of eliminating Chieftain and moving difficulty levels down, we could add a new difficulty level and move the highest three levels up (with Sid moved into the new slot, Deity moved into Sid's slot, and so on). That way we could be essentially positive that Emperor and below would not be affected even if there are factors involved that are tied to which "slot" a difficulty level occupies without being reflected in the editor.
Last edited by nbarclay on 22-12-2004 at 00:50
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punkbass2000
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Waterloo, ON, Canada
Feb 2002
time: 00:17
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I generally agree with your idea, Nathan. I think DG-Emp is clearly the biggest jump in difficulty, and never truly understood the seemingly perennial difficulties people would have going from Mon-Emp. Two settlers instead of one is huge. Give a Deity AI three settlers and it will be nearly as good as a Sid AI in many respects, IMO. I would go so far as to make this inbetween level Deity in all respects except only one settler. More Workers, cheaper everything, etc, but without the initial doubling.
BTW, instead of 'Mythic Hero', why just come out with 'Hercules' or 'Odysseus'? Hell, why not even 'Theseus'? It would be a good name as well as a nice homage to great player/contircutor. RaR has its 'DocT' level. 
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Dominae
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What do the difficulty levels have to do with the AU mod?
Every jump in difficulty involves just one thing: how much/long are you prepared to be outclassed by the AI in the early-game? The longer any game lasts, the more Demigod feels like Emperor, and the more Deity feels like Demigod. The only problem with the Emperor-Demigod jump is that players want to feel powerful somewhere in the early-game, which is purely a matter of preference.
I myself play Demigod regularly, and do not feel my strategic options are all that restricted compared to Emperor; I can still do Archer-rushes when the situation calls for it, I can still push for a tech/branch lead in the Medieval era, and I can incorporate an early Wonder (sometimes two) into my plans. Yes, the are some games where I am behind until the Industrial era, but that just means that, on Demigod, starting location actually means something (on Emperor the game is too easy with self-imposed restrictions). I am not saying these things to brag, just to point out that Demigod is a perfectly fair difficulty level for players of a certain level of experience. I am still working on making Deity feel "fair" to me!
(By the way, the extra Settler on Demigod is the main reason Demigod-level AIs are nice and challenging later on in the game, compared to Emperor. Taking that away and leaving just the production bonuses will not really do all that much, compared to Emperor. Replacing the Settler by two Workers will not do much either, other than give more of them for the human player to buy off!)
The point of AU, other than fun, is to encourage players to improve their game. This means that one of the indicators of success in AU is when players say something like "I've decided to up to Emperor for AUXXX, because Monarch has become too easy for me". Many players have done it (just read the DARs!), and many more players will. So, IMO, creating a new difficulty level is only helping players stand still, not progress. Please, try Demigod: it is not so bad.
Last edited by Dominae on 21-12-2004 at 13:14
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:17
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I'll be taking things a bit out of order:
quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
Please, try Demigod: it is not so bad. |
I've played enough on Demigod to determine that while it can make for interesting games if I have a really good starting position, I don't like the kinds of games it produces otherwise.
quote:
I myself play Demigod regularly, and do not feel my strategic options are all that restricted compared to Emperor; |
I disagree. Starting in a big hole seriously undercuts a player's ability to play a heavily economic-oriented game early - especially without leaving oneself wide open to military attack. And to make matters worse, the AI advantages make it a lot harder to use economic strength as a deterrent against AI aggression.
quote:
Every jump in difficulty involves just one thing: how much/long are you prepared to be outclassed by the AI in the early-game? |
I disagree. Up through Emperor, the question is one of how AI advantages (or, on Chieftain and Warlord, disadvantages) match up against human skill (and willingness to micromanage). If you play on a difficulty level where your skill is not great enough to offset the AI advantages, you start in a hole. But if you're good enough, it is possible to play a competitive game from practically the beginning all the way up through Emperor.
But in an economic contest, there is a limit to how much in the way of AI advantages it is theoretically possible to overcome with superior skill. Past that point, in the absence of some other advantage (such as a dramatically superior starting position), you end up stuck starting in a serious hole no matter how well you play. The only ways out of that hole are through military conquest or by waiting until the game reaches a stage where trading judo can overcome the stronger economies of the AIs. That, in turn, restricts what kinds of games it is possible to play on the highest difficulty levels.
quote:
The longer any game lasts, the more Demigod feels like Emperor, and the more Deity feels like Demigod. The only problem with the Emperor-Demigod jump is that players want to feel powerful somewhere in the early-game, which is purely a matter of preference.[quote]
If you look at things a certain way, just about anything can be dismissed as nothing more than a matter of preference. But the question of whether or not players have something resembling economic parity with their AI rivals has an enormous impact on what strategic options are available. Thus, there is more involved than just a matter of taste.
Further, all else being anywhere near equal, a game that caters to a relatively wide range of preferences is better than one that caters to a narrower range. I don't like pvzh's idea of changing the Demigod difficulty level because that would undercut the fun for players who enjoy playing on that level the way it is. But inserting a new difficulty level in between Empeoror and Demigod would not present that problem.
[quote]I am not saying these things to brag, just to point out that Demigod is a perfectly fair difficulty level for players of a certain level of experience. I am still working on making Deity feel "fair" to me! |
To me, the quesiton is not one of "fairness" but rather one of balance. Genuine fairness is impossible in a game between a human being and an AI when the game is as complex as Civ is, if only because human players can learn from and adapt to how the AIs think but the AIs can't do the same in regard to us. So AIs have to be given advantages to offset the human advantage. The game works best when the balance of human and AI advantages is at a point the player considers fun. For some players, what is fun is having to struggle to win at all, while for others (including myself), what is fun is expecting to win but still having the AI put up a good fight.
The problem is, the gap between Emperor and Demigod is too big. Players can be caught in an in-between position where they consider Emperor too easy but where Demigod puts them at too much of a disadvantage for them to enjoy it.
quote:
(By the way, the extra Settler on Demigod is the main reason Demigod-level AIs are nice and challenging later on in the game, compared to Emperor. Taking that away and leaving just the production bonuses will not really do all that much, compared to Emperor. Replacing the Settler by two Workers will not do much either, other than give more of them for the human player to buy off!) |
I think you underestimate how much difference the other factors make. A Demigod AI has just over a fourteen percent advantage over an Emperor AI in production capacity, which means more military units and more city improvements. Free support for an extra unit per city (plus four extra units for the empire as a whole) means that unit support costs don't cut into AIs' income as soon, leaving more income available for other uses and allowing backward AIs to support larger militaries. At the same time, the human player has to contend with higher tech costs and a little bit worse corruption. So there would definitely still be a significant impact on how competitive the AIs are as the game goes on.
I might also point out that in terms of empire size, overseas AIs' extra settlers pretty much cancel each other out. The extra settlers provide a little bit of a head start transitioning from REXing to building, but I very seriously doubt that that advantage is anywhere near as great as the advantages from higher production, faster research (compared with the human), and so forth.
Overall, the difference between Emperor and "Mythic Hero" would be very similar to the difference between Monarch and Emperor. That's especially true in the later stages of the game when the loss of a free happy face on Emperor tends to make less of a difference.
quote:
The point of AU, other than fun, is to encourage players to improve their game. This means that one of the indicators of success in AU is when players say something like "I've decided to up to Emperor for AUXXX, because Monarch has become too easy for me". Many players have done it (just read the DARs!), and many more players will. So, IMO, creating a new difficulty level is only helping players stand still, not progress. |
You don't consider it progress for players to go from Emperor to a level in between Emperor and Demigod? To me, that definitely constitutes progress. And players who don't feel like they are ready to make the jump all the way from Emperor to Demigod might very well be interested in moving up from Emperor to an intermediate level.
Also note that some players reach a point where they could probably move up to a higher difficulty level but are uninterested in doing so because they don't consider the higher level fun. I've never liked the "feel" of the game on Deity, and Demigod without a big advantage in starting position isn't much better.
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Modo44
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in western Poland
Jul 2004
time: 06:17
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I'd say banana, but the longer this goes, the more I agree with Dominae.
Some personal experience, to show why:
quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
Starting in a big hole seriously undercuts a player's ability to play a heavily economic-oriented game early - especially without leaving oneself wide open to military attack. And to make matters worse, the AI advantages make it a lot harder to use economic strength as a deterrent against AI aggression.
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Do you mean that you find yourself in a situation, which forces you to attack the AI early on? Otherwise they just seem to be overwhelming you? You can't build early, because they come and kick you? They always seem to out-Rex you with ease? Well, this is exactly how I felt on Emperor for a while. I was overwhelmed, I got clobbered, I could never get out of the initial hole, except with great starting locations. Now I can do better, I can work with what I get, and I'm not so worried by the AI anymore. Basically, I'm better used to this difficulty level, and all changes that it brings.
My point is, this feeling is always present at some point, when moving up a level. Perhaps not between all levels, because that might depend on the player. Personally, I felt only a small difference between Regent, and Monarch, but I know that others think of it as a big one. Same goes for other difficulty jumps, IMO - some people find them extreme, some don't. That's how this game works, and I don't think this can be changed.
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Lord Nuclear
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quote:
Originally posted by Modo44
I'd say banana, but the longer this goes, the more I agree with Dominae.
Some personal experience, to show why:
Do you mean that you find yourself in a situation, which forces you to attack the AI early on? Otherwise they just seem to be overwhelming you? You can't build early, because they come and kick you? They always seem to out-Rex you with ease? Well, this is exactly how I felt on Emperor for a while. I was overwhelmed, I got clobbered, I could never get out of the initial hole, except with great starting locations. Now I can do better, I can work with what I get, and I'm not so worried by the AI anymore. Basically, I'm better used to this difficulty level, and all changes that it brings.
My point is, this feeling is always present at some point, when moving up a level. Perhaps not between all levels, because that might depend on the player. Personally, I felt only a small difference between Regent, and Monarch, but I know that others think of it as a big one. Same goes for other difficulty jumps, IMO - some people find them extreme, some don't. That's how this game works, and I don't think this can be changed. |
 Exactly, it's all about adjusting.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Modo44
I'd say banana, but the longer this goes, the more I agree with Dominae.
Some personal experience, to show why:
Do you mean that you find yourself in a situation, which forces you to attack the AI early on? Otherwise they just seem to be overwhelming you? You can't build early, because they come and kick you? They always seem to out-Rex you with ease? Well, this is exactly how I felt on Emperor for a while. I was overwhelmed, I got clobbered, I could never get out of the initial hole, except with great starting locations. Now I can do better, I can work with what I get, and I'm not so worried by the AI anymore. Basically, I'm better used to this difficulty level, and all changes that it brings.
My point is, this feeling is always present at some point, when moving up a level. Perhaps not between all levels, because that might depend on the player. Personally, I felt only a small difference between Regent, and Monarch, but I know that others think of it as a big one. Same goes for other difficulty jumps, IMO - some people find them extreme, some don't. That's how this game works, and I don't think this can be changed. |
You're doing a good job of reasoning by analogy here, but I'm not convinced that the analogy is valid. As long as there is room for players to play better, players can compensate for higher difficulty levels by improving their own games. But once players reach a point where they play the economic game about as well as is theoretically possible, there is no longer room for them to improve their economic game to compensate for AI advantages on a harder difficulty level. At that point, the "have to dig out of a hole" situation is permanent, not just temporary until the player learns how to play better. To play on a higher level, players have to either use their military to dig out of the economic hole or resign themselves to lagging behind until relatively late in the game.
When I first made the jump from Monarch to Emperor more than two years ago, I went through a period similar to yours where I felt like I was starting in a hole. But since then, I've had more than two years to refine my strategies and learn strategies from others. If there is still significant room left to move my game up a notch to where I could play on Demigod without an advantage in starting position and without starting in a hole economically, I don't have a clue where it might be. And neither, as best I can tell, does anyone else. Look at Dominae's attitude of expecting to be behind for a considerable length of time on Demigod.
So what I have is a choice of playing on Emperor where I routinely massacre AIs (for example, my cavalry, infantry, and artillery against musketmen in the current AU game) or playing on Demigod where I'm likely to start in a big enough hole that it seriously undermines my fun. What I want is a difficulty level in between that gives me a bit more of a challenge without giving the kind of "start in a big hole" feeling that Demigod does.
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
I've played enough on Demigod to determine that while it can make for interesting games if I have a really good starting position, I don't like the kinds of games it produces otherwise.
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By "interesting" you mean the types of games you have grown accustomed to playing: heavily economy-oriented early-game (multiple Granaries, many Workers, low military), followed by a quick military buildup and a victory somewhere around Military Tradition or the early Industrial era. It seems to me that the fact that you are not able to do this as easily on Demigod has nothing to do with the Emperor-Demigod jump (which, for many players, is like the Monarch-Emperor jump - see Arrian's post), but with how you like the game to play out. I am sure Arrian used to love to grab a whole wack of early Wonders on Monarch and this made his transition to Emperor annoying, but he decided to make the switch because he wanted more of a challenge and in Civ3, more of a challenge means coming out of the hole later on.
What do you say to the Regent players that get out-REXed by the AI? Learn to REX better! Build fewer Wonders and improvements early on! One can give the same advice for the Emperor-Demigod jump. Consider that, on Demigod, sometimes the AI REXes so fast that you may need to pump out a few Settlers without a Granary! Is this something you are fundamentally against doing, even though it may be the best move strategically?
quote:
I disagree. Starting in a big hole seriously undercuts a player's ability to play a heavily economic-oriented game early - especially without leaving oneself wide open to military attack. And to make matters worse, the AI advantages make it a lot harder to use economic strength as a deterrent against AI aggression.
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Yes, Demigod makes it harder to exploit the AI's reticence to attack early on until you are good and ready. The AI does bolder things when it has "more stuff" - this is what the difficulty levels are all about. If you want the AI to be bolder without the associated stuff, I suggest you increase the AI Aggressiveness values in the Setup screen.
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If you play on a difficulty level where your skill is not great enough to offset the AI advantages, you start in a hole. But if you're good enough, it is possible to play a competitive game from practically the beginning all the way up through Emperor.
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You start out in a hole on Emperor, too, by the way. It's just that it's a hole you have grown accustomed to. Many players find Demigod barely playable (too easy) anymore, and look to be challenged by Deity. They, too, complain about the Demigod-Deity jump. True, Emperor-Demigod may be a bit more difficult, but many players have taken up the challenge, and overcome it.
On Emperor, I can reasonably expect to Archer-rush the nearest civ in almost every game, essentially providing me with a victory right then and there (I wrote a thread about this a while back). Is this the kind of strategic option I enjoy in a difficulty level? Not really. On Demigod, Archer-rushes are not so easy. It's not really important to me that this is because the AI gets an extra Settler, or whatever, as long as I am sufficiently challenged. Like I said above, if you just get used to Demigod, you find that it is not so restrictive.
quote:
But in an economic contest, there is a limit to how much in the way of AI advantages it is theoretically possible to overcome with superior skill. Past that point, in the absence of some other advantage (such as a dramatically superior starting position), you end up stuck starting in a serious hole no matter how well you play.
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The point is to play well to get out of the hole. Just because you are in a hole does not mean your decisions are irrelevant; even on Sid, the first 40 turns are critical, despite the fact that the AI has 5 cities and you have yet to found your second!
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The only ways out of that hole are through military conquest or by waiting until the game reaches a stage where trading judo can overcome the stronger economies of the AIs.
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Ah, that happens to be the way Civ3 works. The alternative to these two is, um, no warfare and no trading, which is a challenging variant indeed. Show me a recent game of yours where you won via purely economic means. Even if you could, like in SMAC, is this a good thing? It just means that you are playing SimCity-like variant where it's you against yourself. There need to be outward forces that challenge you while you do your "economic thing". Else you can just look at your starting location and say "I win" (which, sadly, often happens in Civ3 anyway).
quote:
The problem is, the gap between Emperor and Demigod is too big. Players can be caught in an in-between position where they consider Emperor too easy but where Demigod puts them at too much of a disadvantage for them to enjoy it.
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Like I said above, AU is about getting players to learn about Civ3 strategy while having fun. You, I presume, know more than you need to know about Civ3 strategy to beat Deity level, you just choose not to use to beat the higher difficulty levels. The Emperor-Demigod gap is only "too big" because you only find a certain type of game fun.
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I think you underestimate how much difference the other factors make. A Demigod AI has just over a fourteen percent advantage over an Emperor AI in production capacity, which means more military units and more city improvements.
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Most of these production bonuses are wasted, as you may know. In my experience watching the AI in Debug mode, the production bonuses are most relevant in the Demigod-Deity and Deity-Sid jumps.
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Free support for an extra unit per city (plus four extra units for the empire as a whole) means that unit support costs don't cut into AIs' income as soon, leaving more income available for other uses and allowing backward AIs to support larger militaries. At the same time, the human player has to contend with higher tech costs and a little bit worse corruption. So there would definitely still be a significant impact on how competitive the AIs are as the game goes on.
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The only thing that is really relevant here is the tech costs. But in practice this just means that it takes you longer to get a tech/branch lead. Once you have it, it's smooth sailing, just like Emperor.
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I might also point out that in terms of empire size, overseas AIs' extra settlers pretty much cancel each other out. The extra settlers provide a little bit of a head start transitioning from REXing to building, but I very seriously doubt that that advantage is anywhere near as great as the advantages from higher production, faster research (compared with the human), and so forth.
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The extra Settlers do not "cancel each other out" with respect to the human player, which is what difficulty levels are all about (the AIs are always equal to each other at any given difficulty level). Watch a few games in Debug mode at Emperor and Demigod, I think you will find that the extra Settler is really what makes all the difference. Put another way, which would you rather have: slightly reduced tech costs, or two Settlers at the beginning of the game?
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You don't consider it progress for players to go from Emperor to a level in between Emperor and Demigod? To me, that definitely constitutes progress. And players who don't feel like they are ready to make the jump all the way from Emperor to Demigod might very well be interested in moving up from Emperor to an intermediate level.
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I consider the Emperor-Mythic and Mythic-Demigod jumps way to small to show any significant improvement. Mythic difficulty would be the difficulty level for Demigod-level players who do not want a real challenge. I consider this against the aims of AU. IMO, too many players play the AU games at one difficulty level lower than they normally do/should (for various reasons), and adding a intermediate difficultly would only reinforce this.
quote:
Also note that some players reach a point where they could probably move up to a higher difficulty level but are uninterested in doing so because they don't consider the higher level fun. I've never liked the "feel" of the game on Deity, and Demigod without a big advantage in starting position isn't much better. |
Yes, well, this is the real issue, is it not? Like I said above, once you get the hang of it (three games, tops) you (especially you!) will find that Demigod is not so bad.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
By "interesting" you mean the types of games you have grown accustomed to playing: heavily economy-oriented early-game (multiple Granaries, many Workers, low military), followed by a quick military buildup and a victory somewhere around Military Tradition or the early Industrial era. |
A heavily economy-oriented early game is definitely my preferred style of play. That doesn't mean that I feel like I ought to be able to play every game that way. But I want situations where a heavily economy-oriented early game doesn't make sense to be the exception, not a rule enforced by such massive advantages for the AIs that I can''t keep up in an economic race no matter how well I play.
Given the opportunity, I usually do try for a "quick military buildup and a victory somewhere around Military Tradition or the early Industrial era." But the ability to do that as often as I can these days is something I dislike more than I like.
quote:
What do you say to the Regent players that get out-REXed by the AI? Learn to REX better! Build fewer Wonders and improvements early on! One can give the same advice for the Emperor-Demigod jump. Consider that, on Demigod, sometimes the AI REXes so fast that you may need to pump out a few Settlers without a Granary! Is this something you are fundamentally against doing, even though it may be the best move strategically? |
How often do you have a game where you can't get a competitive REX with building granaries but can if you don't build granaries? It's hard for me even to imagine such a thing. Most if not all of the time, situations where you have to go without granaries on Demigod are situations where the AI is going to out-REX you pretty seriously no matter what you do. "Learn to REX better" works beautifully in a Regent-to-Monarch jump where learning to REX better can enable the player to pretty consistently out-REX AIs in spite of the AI bonuses, but the situation with Demigod is completely different.
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You start out in a hole on Emperor, too, by the way. It's just that it's a hole you have grown accustomed to. |
Militarily, you start out in a pretty significant hole on Emperor, especially against AIs that start with Bronze Working or Warrior Code (and that therefore get better starting units). But economically, the hole is only a very small one, consisting of AI production advantages and an extra worker.
If players can't overcome the AI production advantages with superior REXing skills, the hole gets bigger over time until it becomes the kind of significant hole you're trying to paint a picture of. But for players with good enough REXing skills (and sufficient willingness to micromanage), the economic hole can generally be overcome so quickly that it hardly feels like a hole at all.
quote:
Many players find Demigod barely playable (too easy) anymore, and look to be challenged by Deity. They, too, complain about the Demigod-Deity jump. True, Emperor-Demigod may be a bit more difficult, but many players have taken up the challenge, and overcome it. |
Looking in the editor, Demigod is a lot closer to Deity than it is to Emperor. Demigod adds an extra settler and an extra worker over Emperor in addition to military units, while the only extra units added with Deity are military ones. The difference in the AI cost factor is slightly bigger in percentage terms going from Demigod to Deity, but the difference in free unit support is smaller in percentage terms going from Demigod to Deity.
The reality is that the differences between Demigod and Deity are almost identical to those between Emperor and my proposed "Mythic Hero" level: a production advantage, extra unit support, and such. Indeed, Mythic Hero adds a complication that Deity does not: an extra AI worker (or two in pvzh's variant). So if the difference between Demigod and Deity is great enough to draw grumbling about its size, it is hard to see how the difference between Emperor and Mythic Hero could be too small to be significant.
quote:
On Emperor, I can reasonably expect to Archer-rush the nearest civ in almost every game, essentially providing me with a victory right then and there (I wrote a thread about this a while back). Is this the kind of strategic option I enjoy in a difficulty level? Not really. On Demigod, Archer-rushes are not so easy. It's not really important to me that this is because the AI gets an extra Settler, or whatever, as long as I am sufficiently challenged. Like I said above, if you just get used to Demigod, you find that it is not so restrictive.
The point is to play well to get out of the hole. Just because you are in a hole does not mean your decisions are irrelevant; even on Sid, the first 40 turns are critical, despite the fact that the AI has 5 cities and you have yet to found your second! |
To me, the whole "start in a hole and have to dig out" paradigm is not fun, at least when the hole is big enough to be obvious. It's really essentially a kludge to make up for the fact that the AI isn't competitive enough to give the best players a serious challenge otherwise. But while the kludge helps the game from the perspective of players who want the strongest competitive challenge possible, it can seriously undercut flexibility for players who want to build up the kind of civilization that's fun for them.
quote:
Ah, that happens to be the way Civ3 works. The alternative to these two is, um, no warfare and no trading, which is a challenging variant indeed. Show me a recent game of yours where you won via purely economic means. Even if you could, like in SMAC, is this a good thing? It just means that you are playing SimCity-like variant where it's you against yourself. There need to be outward forces that challenge you while you do your "economic thing". Else you can just look at your starting location and say "I win" (which, sadly, often happens in Civ3 anyway). |
I don't play purely economic games because my military policy is an extension of my economic policy. Even when I'm pursuing "fastest space race victory" honors in a CivFanatics GOTM, military conquest plays a significant role because it provides an economic advantage. But the kind of game I generally enjoy most is the kind where the economic game plays the central role, with other aspects of the game supporting it.
Keep in mind that SimCity has sold a lot of copies in spite of its not having any real competition in it at all. People get their fun not out of trying to build a better city than an opponent, but rather from trying to build the best (or most interesting) city they can for themselves.
The beauty of Civ is that it combines simulation and competitive elements, thereby appealing to people who like a wide range of combinaitons of the two. For you, the competitive element is extremely important for its own sake, and so you play on difficulty levels where you feel a serious competitive challenge. In contrast, I get most of my fun out of the simulation aspect, with the "competitive" aspect playing a supporting role in the simulation. Ideally, I want the AIs to give me some serious competition as the "supporting cast" of the simulation, but if they have no realistic chance at all of actually beating me, that's fine. And I'm certainly not interested in shifting the simulation aspect of the game to a paradigm I enjoy significantly less just so the AIs will be more competitive. My real competition is not the AIs, but rather trying to build the "best" empire I can (in whatever way I define "best" in a particular game).
Both ways of playing are perfectly legitimate, and learning at Apolyton University can help people be more successful no matter what mixture of simulation and competition they enjoy in their games. I see no need for Apolyton University to try to push players into a difficulty level and style of play that undercuts their fun.
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Most of these production bonuses are wasted, as you may know. In my experience watching the AI in Debug mode, the production bonuses are most relevant in the Demigod-Deity and Deity-Sid jumps. |
Statistically, one would expect that instances in which the production bonus results in increased waste would be offset by other instances where the production bonus results in reduced waste. (Cases where an AI has plenty of shields for a settler or worker but is waiting for a city to grow would, of course, be an exception, but those shouldn't be an issue except in the REXing phase.) Have you actually conducted a careful analysis to determine how cases of increased and reduced waste balance out? Or is it possible that you're the victim of an illusion where you noticed cases of increased waste but weren't looking for offsetting cases of reduced waste?
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The only thing that is really relevant here is the tech costs. But in practice this just means that it takes you longer to get a tech/branch lead. Once you have it, it's smooth sailing, just like Emperor. |
Even after players reach that point, higher tech costs make it a bit harder for players to stretch a lead out. That's not likely to actually tip the balance in who wins, but it at least makes the really ridiculous mismatches (such as infantry and artillery against musketmen, or tanks against riflemen) less likely.
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The extra Settlers do not "cancel each other out" with respect to the human player, which is what difficulty levels are all about (the AIs are always equal to each other at any given difficulty level). Watch a few games in Debug mode at Emperor and Demigod, I think you will find that the extra Settler is really what makes all the difference. Put another way, which would you rather have: slightly reduced tech costs, or two Settlers at the beginning of the game? |
It's not just tech costs. It's also lower production costs and less food required for cities to grow. And if i were on a land mass by myself and I didn't plan to use granaries any more than AIs do, I think I'd choose the other advantages over the extra settler. (With lots of granaries, the growth difference between Emperor and Demigod is normally irrelevant, so it would be a closer call.) The main thing that makes the second AI settler so nasty on Demigod is how it can cramp the human player's ability to get a competitive REX.
By the way, in a debug game with the human civ not really doing anything, you don't even see the impact of a difference in tech costs. Remember that the costs for AIs is the same on any difficulty level; it's the human's costs that change.
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I consider the Emperor-Mythic and Mythic-Demigod jumps way to small to show any significant improvement. Mythic difficulty would be the difficulty level for Demigod-level players who do not want a real challenge. I consider this against the aims of AU. IMO, too many players play the AU games at one difficulty level lower than they normally do/should (for various reasons), and adding a intermediate difficultly would only reinforce this. |
The jump from Emperor to Mythic Hero would be comparable in magnitude to the jump from Monarch to Emperor or the jump from Demigod to Deity. And I don't see how you can argue on one hand that most of the AI advantages on Demigod come from the extra settler, but on the other hand that the jump from Mythic Hero to Demigod would be too small to show any sginificant improvement.
As for the impact on what difficulty level people play AU games at, how many people are playing on Emperor right now, and how many on Demigod? It seems to me that the potential for a "Mythic Hero" difficulty level to encourage players to move up in difficulty is a lot greater than the risk of its holding them back.
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Yes, well, this is the real issue, is it not? Like I said above, once you get the hang of it (three games, tops) you (especially you!) will find that Demigod is not so bad. |
I've played a few games on Demigod, some deliberately seeking out really fantastic starting positions and at least a couple (including one of the AU games) without. Can I win on Demigod? Yes. Do I enjoy the feel of games on Demigod? Only if I have a good enough starting position that the AIs can't use their advantage from their extra settler to crowd me too much.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:17
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I'd like to take a closer look at how the difficulty levels from Regent through Deity compare with each other. Every one of the transitions shares the following properties:
- One extra offensive unit and two extra defensive units.
- Plus four free unit support empire-wide and one per city.
- Cost factor reduced by one and AI-AI trade rate increased by 10.
- A reduction in the bonus against barbarians (200% on Regent, 100% on Monarch, 50% on Emperor, 25% on Demigod, none on Deity).
- A recution in the percentage of obtimal cities (90% Regent, 85% Monarch, 80% Emperor, 70% Demigod, 60% Deity
In addition:
- Tthe maximum government transitiion time for AIs changes from no special limit at Regent to four turns on Monarch, three on Emperor, and two on Demigod and Deity.
- The jump from Monarch to Emperor carries with it the loss of a citizen born content, and also gives the AI an extra worker.
- The jump from Emperor to Demigod gives the AI an extra settler and an extra worker.
Clearly, the change from Emperor to Mythic Hero (Demigod without the extra settler) would be comparable in magnitude to the other changes in difficulty level. From looking at the statistics, it would appear to be smaller than the change from Monarch to Emperor, but larger than the changes from Regent to Monarch or from Demigod to Deity. There is no basis for concern that the transition from Emperor to Mythic Hero would be too small to make a meaningful difference in gameplay or to constitute a worthwhile achievement for players.
That brings us to the question of whether the transition from Mythic Hero to Demigod would end up being too small. Dominae has tried to argue that most of the superiority of AIs on Demigod compared with Emperor is attributable to the extra settler rather than to other AI advantages. I think Dominae is probably overestimating the importance of the extra settler a little bit, but with the way the extra settler can crowd humans, it's definitely a major factor. If Dominae is even close to right about the advantage the AI gets from the extra settler, the jump from Mythic Hero to Demigod would tend to be comparable in magnitude to that of other difficulty level transitions even if it might not be quite as big.
Finally, note that if Dominae is right about the importance of the extra settler, the jump from Emperor to Demigod is comparable to what would normally be expected from two jumps in difficulty level combined, not just what would be expected from a single jump. That fits with my argunent that the jump is currently too big, leaving a gap that it would be worthwhile to fill.
Last edited by nbarclay on 26-12-2004 at 06:54
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:17
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I'd also like to explore how this proposal fits with the goals of the AU Mod. The three basic goals of the Mod are:
1) Present the player with more interesting strategic options and decisions.
2) Help the AI compete more effectively.
3) Avoid changing the feel of the stock game unless the benefits clearly justify the change.
How does this proposal fit?
1) Strategic options are at their most interesting when players are playing on a difficulty level that fits them well. Inserting an additional difficulty level would help players get a better fit.
2) The creation of a Mythic Hero difficulty level would provide players who can generally beat Emperor fairly easily but who don't like playing on Demigod with the opportunity to face a more challenging AI opponent. Demigod players would in no sense be coerced or pressured to move down to Mythic Hero, so the only loss of challenge would be a loss desired by particular players. In my view, it would be perverse for the AU Mod panel to view the ability for players to make that choice as a disadvantage.
3) From a single-player perspective, which is what the AU Mod is primarily oriented toward, the only change from the stock rules would be the insertion of an additional difficulty level that players can use or not as they see fit. I don't see how that can be regarded as a meaningful disadvantage with respect to the goal of preserving the feel of the stock game.
The issue is a bit more complex from a multiplayer perspective since the interface for setting up multiplayer games is not equipped to handle customized difficulty levels properly. If we ever get around to setting up a MP verson of the Mod, we can handle the issue simply by excluding "Mythic Hero" from the MP version. In the meantime, the impacts on MP games would be that (1) levels Demigod through Sid in the interface would really be Mythic Hero through Deity, and (2) Sid would be unavailable for multiplayer games using the AU Mod. If we consider those issues big enough to matter, I would suggest that we go ahead and break off a separate MP version of the Mod that excludes the new difficulty level, and maybe actually having a separate MP version will help spur discussion of how else the MP version ought to differ from the SP version.
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Dominae
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Your analysis above just makes it clear that the goals of the AU mod are not equal to the aims of AU in general (one of the two reasons I quit the panel, by the way).
If you want to throw a bunch of things into the mod because they will increase your own enjoyment of the game then I suppose that is your prerogative as a panelist, but once again let me just state that, IMO, you are do so at the expense of the AU goal of learning/teaching Civ3 strategy.
A more challenging opponent in the late-game, which is what the Mythic difficulty level will supposedly create, will unfortunately not teach us much about Civ3 strategy: if AU505 has taught me anything, it is that if you wait long enough, you eventually win. Aeson posted in AU501 that Deity is just like Demigod once you "crack"/conquer that first AI civ, and in my experience the same is true of Demigod/Emperor. Mythic might force you into the Industrial more often, which I suppose is an interesting challenge for some, but basically the main difference is that you will just need to wait longer to amass more units - the early-game will be the same.
An increase in difficulty level, for me, means a rethinking of the strategies you used at the previous difficulty level. Regent to Monarch? Learn to REX in the early-game before the AI swallows you up. Monarch to Emperor? Forget about those Wonders and concentrate on units. Emperor to Demigod? Learn to balance REX, military and Culture. Demigod to Deity? Learn all the exploits and use them! Mythic will just allow veteran players to play the same old game, and feel good about themselves for beating a level above Emperor. Is that what we want AU to offer?
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:17
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Dominae, your entire premise seems to be that if people don't have the ultimate goal of cracking Deity (if not Sid), they don't belong at Apolyton University. My view of Apolyton University is far more inclusive and far less coercive.
In a real-world university, people can attend for any number of different reasons. They can stidy a variety of different majors. They can take classes that aren't directly applicable to their future professional careers just because they think they would be interesting. And they can take different electives within their major field.
I look at Apolyton University the same way. The purpose of Apolyton University is not to tell players what their goals should be, but rather to help players learn how to play better at however they want to play. If they want to major in winning on Deity or Sid, wonderful. But if they aren't interested in the highest levels, and prefer to major in playing as well as possible on difficulty levels they consider more fun, that's fine too. It is the players, not the "university administrators," that should decide.
Your objection to the Mythic Hero level seems to be that players are "supposed" to move up from Emperor to Demigod and if players can choose a level in between, they might be less likely to play on Demigod. Even if I considered the premise that players are "supposed" to move up to Demigod valid, I would be highly skeptical about your position because making such a big jump all at once is a much more daunting proposition than making it in two steps. But the bigger point is that I don't accept the premise in the first place. If players have more fun on Mythic Hero than on Demigod, they ought to be playing on Mythic Hero. The whole point of games is to have fun, and it would be irrational for people to play on a level that is less fun for them just because someone else wants them to play on the highest level they can possibly cope with.
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
Dominae, your entire premise seems to be that if people don't have the ultimate goal of cracking Deity (if not Sid), they don't belong at Apolyton University. My view of Apolyton University is far more inclusive and far less coercive.
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No, my entire premise is that this is a school of strategy, within the context of a (fun) game called Civ3, and things that are not conducive to players actually improving I believe do not make sense in the context of AU.
You yourself have a reached a point in your Civ3 career where you are no longer improving, and just want to play the game for fun. Thus, you are much more of a teacher at AU than a student (to continue your analogy). Teachers do not take their own courses, they correct papers; your DARs are more models of what to do right, than requests for suggestions. This is not an attack but a simple fact. Now I know from experience that the Emperor-Demigod jump involves some interesting lessons that are readily applicable to any Civ3 game. One of them is: "What to do when being boxed in by three AI civs during the first 50 turns of the game." Such a situation is something you personally dislike because you think the extra Settler is "unfair", but is nonetheless a common situation for players of any level of experience and the lesson learned is valuable (it is different from the similar situation on Monarch, because on that difficulty a Granary is "lesson learned" enough). To create a new difficulty level where the stuff you dislike does not happen is not particularly educational; as I outlined above, I see nothing interesting about the Mythic difficulty.
For your argument that the Emperor-Demigod jump is too difficult for players to manage to make sense, you must show that it is not too difficult just in terms of what is fun and what is not to you, but how much difficulty people who are actually trying to beat Demigod are experiencing. If interested players lose three AU games in a row on Demigod but always dominate Emperor, we would have a problem, and an intermediate difficulty that makes the transition easier would make more sense to me. In fact, many AU players have "graduated", some quite spectacularly I might add, from Emperor to Demigod, simply because they accepted what it takes to win on that difficulty.
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In a real-world university, people can attend for any number of different reasons. They can stidy a variety of different majors. They can take classes that aren't directly applicable to their future professional careers just because they think they would be interesting. And they can take different electives within their major field.
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Yes, but the methods of testing/verification are the same across individuals and their interests. You cannot (anywhere, to my knowledge) take parts A, C and D of a test but leave B and E alone because you do not like them. The whole point of paying for formal education is putting your confidence in the school/teacher that you will get your money's worth in knowledge, and this in part involves letting them push you to improve/excel. Otherwise you are better off engaging in self-education, an analogous example being making your own Mythic mod and playing it for fun on your own (the great thing about personal mods is that they require no panel!).
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If players have more fun on Mythic Hero than on Demigod, they ought to be playing on Mythic Hero. The whole point of games is to have fun, and it would be irrational for people to play on a level that is less fun for them just because someone else wants them to play on the highest level they can possibly cope with. |
What I think you are saying here is that players should be allowed to play with mods if they want to in order to have fun. I have argued above that I do not believe the Mythic difficulty has any scholastic value, and is therefore just a "fun mod". I personally can beat Deity most of the time, but cannot beat Sid without a lot of help and effort, and this I find unfun. Should we create a Deity/Sid mod for me too?
Notice that all of my arguments rest around the premise that AU is about fun and learning. You are only playing for fun now (and not learning a thing), so I can see why my arguments are not persuasive to you.
Last edited by Dominae on 26-12-2004 at 15:18
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Nuclear
Since this does concern the students of the AU, why don't we set up a poll? |
A grand idea!
Despite these one-on-one debates dominating the airwaves, AU remains an institution of the people. Let's have them speak/vote their minds.
Last edited by Dominae on 26-12-2004 at 15:20
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
You yourself have a reached a point in your Civ3 career where you are no longer improving, and just want to play the game for fun. |
That's not entirely true. There are a lot of things that I can do well enough that there's not much room left for improvement (at least on the difficulty levels I normally play on), but I still pick up useful ideas here and there. That's especially true when games push me to do things I don't normally do. Still, your basic argument that I've reached a point where I'm more a "teacher" than a "student" around here is valid - as long as I keep playing on Emperor.
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Now I know from experience that the Emperor-Demigod jump involves some interesting lessons that are readily applicable to any Civ3 game. One of them is: "What to do when being boxed in by three AI civs during the first 50 turns of the game." |
I think you're seriously overstating the case here. In order for players to get boxed in as badly on Emperor as they would on Demigod, they would have to have a much worse starting position - and some players would restart if they get that bad a starting position, at least anywhere but in a competitive or comparison game. Further, even if players would get boxed in just as badly on Emperor, they would face only two thirds as much of an AI advantage in research and production. So in practice, players would actually have to get boxed in worse on Emperor for the tradeoffs they face to be the same.
In regard to more general applicability, there are things that make great sense when you're boxed in that are both unnecessary and a distraction from other goals when you aren't boxed in. So the lessons learned on Demigod can actually be the wrong lessons for a typical Emperor game.
And note that players can only learn from Demigod if they play on it. If players choose not to play on Demigod because they find it too difficult at their current level of skill and willingness to micromanage, or because it's not fun for them, they won't learn from it at all.
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To create a new difficulty level where the stuff you dislike does not happen is not particularly educational; as I outlined above, I see nothing interesting about the Mythic difficulty. |
Having played through the early stages of a couple games on Mythic Hero (in hotseat mode, with me controlling two civs that were widely separated from each other on huge maps), I can see only two reasons why you might see nothing interesting about it. (1) You underestimte the difference between it and Emperor. (2) You're already playing on such high difficulty levels that Mythic Hero is too low a level to be interesting to you.
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For your argument that the Emperor-Demigod jump is too difficult for players to manage to make sense, you must show that it is not too difficult just in terms of what is fun and what is not to you, but how much difficulty people who are actually trying to beat Demigod are experiencing. If interested players lose three AU games in a row on Demigod but always dominate Emperor, we would have a problem, and an intermediate difficulty that makes the transition easier would make more sense to me. |
When I first made the transition from Monarch to Emperor, I went from a level where I could completely dominate to a level where I could still win consistently (at least with a decent starting position) but had to work significantly harder for my victories. To me, that is how difficulty levels ought to be spaced. Then if a player wants to go from dominating to a serious risk of losing, he can move up two levels instead of one.
Thus, I reject your idea that there is only a problem if players who dominate on Emperor lose a large percentage of their games on Demigod. The real question in my mind is whether or not Demigod provides the right increase in difficulty to pretty consistently be fun for players who dominate on Emperor and would like a bit of extra challenge, or who don't dominate on Emperor but do win consistently and want more risk of losing. I said when I started this thread that if I'm the only one who feels like the jump is too big, it's no big deal, but that if others feel the same way, it's worth doing something about in the Mod. And from what other players have written, I'm not the only one.
Further, I see no advantage at all in not having the intermediate difficulty level available. If the level exists, people who view it as a bad thing can ignore it, and so are not harmed in any way. The only people using the level as anything more than an experiment to see how they like it will be people who view it as beneficial.
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Yes, but the methods of testing/verification are the same across individuals and their interests. You cannot (anywhere, to my knowledge) take parts A, C and D of a test but leave B and E alone because you do not like them. The whole point of paying for formal education is putting your confidence in the school/teacher that you will get your money's worth in knowledge, and this in part involves letting them push you to improve/excel. Otherwise you are better off engaging in self-education, an analogous example being making your own Mythic mod and playing it for fun on your own (the great thing about personal mods is that they require no panel!). |
The concept of "putting your confidence in the school/teacher" is satisfied by putting my proposal before the Apolyton University community for discussion, and before the Mod panel for a vote. If the proposal is approved, I'll have Mythic Hero available in AU games. If not, I'll have to be content with just using it in a personal modification of the AU Mod in my own games.
But I see no basis for viewing a "putting your confidence in the school/teacher" argument as a reason for Apolyton University to reject my proposal. If the community and panel support the change, what will happen will be the logical end result of putting my confidence in the "school/teacher," not an act contrary to putting my confidence in the "school/teacher."
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What I think you are saying here is that players should be allowed to play with mods if they want to in order to have fun. I have argued above that I do not believe the Mythic difficulty has any scholastic value, and is therefore just a "fun mod". I personally can beat Deity most of the time, but cannot beat Sid without a lot of help and effort, and this I find unfun. Should we create a Deity/Sid mod for me too? |
Can you really argue with a straight face that playing on Mythic Hero when a person would otherwise play on Emperor has no scholastic value? Or does your entire argument rely on a presumption that people who play in Mythic Hero will be people who would otherwise play on Demigod? If the latter, I am living proof that your presumption is flawed - and, from what Theseus and Sir Ralph have written, probably not the only piece of living proof.
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Notice that all of my arguments rest around the premise that AU is about fun and learning. You are only playing for fun now (and not learning a thing), so I can see why my arguments are not persuasive to you. |
I don't mean to give offense, but your logic is flawed. The fact that AU is about both fun and learning does not mean that in order for something to be consistent with AU's goals, it must be beneficial to both. On the contrary, any change that increases fun without harming learning, or that increases learning without harming fun, increases the sum total of fun and learning and is thus in keeping with Apolyton University's goals.
If you could make a solid case that the Mythic Hero difficulty level would be destructive to learning, it would be necessary to balance the benefit to fun against the harm to learning in order to determine whether the change does more net good or harm with respect to Apolyton University's goals. But if we incorporate the change into the Mod, no player who views the harm to learning as outweighing the benefit to fun would be forced to use it.
Thus, in the eyes of individual players, there are three possibilities. (1) For players who would otherwise play on Emperor, Mythic Hero would be beneficial in terms of both fun and learning. (2) If players who would otherwise play on Demigod view the fun advantage of Mythic Hero as outweighing the learning advantage of Demigod, they will make a choice that balances the two goals against each other in the way they like best. (3) If players view the learning advantages of Demigod as outweighing any advantages Mythic Hero might offer in terms of fun, they can still play on Demigod, and thus would not be adversely affected by the change.
For you to argue that Mythic Hero would be harmful to the goals of Apolyton University, you have to take the position that you know how to balance fun against learning better than those of us who would play on Mythic Hero do. I reject such thinking as tyrannical.
And I'll reiterate that I have not entirely stopped learning. Further, I'll certainly learn more playing on Mythic Hero than I would if I keep playing on Emperor in AU games, which is by far the most likely alternative.
Nathan
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
Still, your basic argument that I've reached a point where I'm more a "teacher" than a "student" around here is valid - as long as I keep playing on Emperor.
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Trust me, if you were to play a Demigod game with the goal of beating it, you could easily do so. You could also probably win a majority of Deity games you play. How much fun you would have in doing so has nothing to do with how much you would learn (assuming you would be open to learning anything in the first place).
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I think you're seriously overstating the case here. In order for players to get boxed in as badly on Emperor as they would on Demigod, they would have to have a much worse starting position - and some players would restart if they get that bad a starting position, at least anywhere but in a competitive or comparison game.
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You know, there are some players that actually find Emperor difficult, so much so that they feel out-REXed (i.e. boxed in) whenever they play. There are even some players that feel the same about Monarch. The Civ3 programmers did not teach the AI to use Granaries well, so to compensate for this omission the AI gets a free Settlers on the higher difficulties. Unless you get a very good start, players of any skill level can expect to be boxed in on Demigod difficulty. This is analogous to the lower difficulty levels, where players are less skilled and do not REX as well. I consider it a fact about Civ3 that the early-game is all about the land grab. It is also a fact that many players do not like this (it was a major complaint when Civ3 first came out). But it is nonetheless true that to improve in Civ3, you need to know what to do during this critical stage. I hardly consider restarting a form of "improvement".
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In regard to more general applicability, there are things that make great sense when you're boxed in that are both unnecessary and a distraction from other goals when you aren't boxed in. So the lessons learned on Demigod can actually be the wrong lessons for a typical Emperor game.
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Yes, but they are the right lessons for Demigod. And, once you are a "Demigod-level" player, you find that the lessons you learned at Demigod are quite applicable at Emperor, so much so that Emperor is way too easy in comparison.
Why should your experience with how the early-game plays out on Emperor be the model for how games should play out in general? Again, you find it annoying when you get boxed in, or get a suboptimal start (or both), but what does this have to do with Civ3 strategy!?
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And note that players can only learn from Demigod if they play on it. If players choose not to play on Demigod because they find it too difficult at their current level of skill and willingness to micromanage, or because it's not fun for them, they won't learn from it at all.
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Yes, and many players find Emperor boring for the same reasons. Should we create a difficulty between Monarch and Emperor too?
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Having played through the early stages of a couple games on Mythic Hero (in hotseat mode, with me controlling two civs that were widely separated from each other on huge maps), I can see only two reasons why you might see nothing interesting about it. (1) You underestimte the difference between it and Emperor. (2) You're already playing on such high difficulty levels that Mythic Hero is too low a level to be interesting to you.
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Mythic difficulty may be very fun for you, and I encourage you to play it if this is the case (just like there are a plethora of other mods out there that are really fun). This is irrelevant to the point that introducing Mythic into AU will not encourage players to get better or learn anything, and this I consider to be central to what is AU is all about.
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When I first made the transition from Monarch to Emperor, I went from a level where I could completely dominate to a level where I could still win consistently (at least with a decent starting position) but had to work significantly harder for my victories. To me, that is how difficulty levels ought to be spaced. Then if a player wants to go from dominating to a serious risk of losing, he can move up two levels instead of one.
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Emperor-level players do not face a serious risk of losing when they play Demigod. They only face a the risk of not winning as much as they want to. I am not kidding when I say that, even if you are in a hole in the early game, if you stick with it you probably prevail. The only barrier is how much effort you are willing to put into it. And, yes, I think that the higher difficulties should require more effort than the lower ones.
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Thus, I reject your idea that there is only a problem if players who dominate on Emperor lose a large percentage of their games on Demigod. The real question in my mind is whether or not Demigod provides the right increase in difficulty to pretty consistently be fun for players who dominate on Emperor and would like a bit of extra challenge, or who don't dominate on Emperor but do win consistently and want more risk of losing.
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Yes, I know that that is the real question in your mind. But I have been arguing that what you find fun is not necessarily what AU should adopt. But if the majority votes in favor, then of course we will go along with it (whether I agree or not).
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Can you really argue with a straight face that playing on Mythic Hero when a person would otherwise play on Emperor has no scholastic value?
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Little scholastic value, yes.
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Or does your entire argument rely on a presumption that people who play in Mythic Hero will be people who would otherwise play on Demigod?
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Yes, I think that the players who would play Mythic should probably be being Demigod instead, my use of "should" meaning that their goal is to learn something in addition to having fun.
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If the latter, I am living proof that your presumption is flawed - and, from what Theseus and Sir Ralph have written, probably not the only piece of living proof.
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Theseus and Sir Ralph both made it clear, like you, that Demigod is not fun for them. I am not presuming that they would not play Mythic, I am stating that if they wanted to learn something more about Civ3 (as if they could!), they would be better off with Demigod than Mythic.
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I don't mean to give offense, but your logic is flawed. The fact that AU is about both fun and learning does not mean that in order for something to be consistent with AU's goals, it must be beneficial to both. On the contrary, any change that increases fun without harming learning, or that increases learning without harming fun, increases the sum total of fun and learning and is thus in keeping with Apolyton University's goals.
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Is it possible to "harm" learning? What I'm arguing is that Mythic would not encourage players to learn, something I consider to be at the core of AU. The core of AU for you is your own personal enjoyment. Again, if it turns out that a majority of players want the new difficulty level because it would be fun for that majority, then of course we should include it. But I have no sympathy for the argument that Mythic should be in the AU mod because you would enjoy it. What we need is a poll...wait, we have one!
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Thus, in the eyes of individual players, there are three possibilities. (1) For players who would otherwise play on Emperor, Mythic Hero would be beneficial in terms of both fun and learning. (2) If players who would otherwise play on Demigod view the fun advantage of Mythic Hero as outweighing the learning advantage of Demigod, they will make a choice that balances the two goals against each other in the way they like best. (3) If players view the learning advantages of Demigod as outweighing any advantages Mythic Hero might offer in terms of fun, they can still play on Demigod, and thus would not be adversely affected by the change.
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So, let us add new intermediate difficulties between all the existing difficulties! Many players find Regent to Monarch hard/unfun. Many players find Monarch to Emperor hard/unfun. And many players find Deity to Sid almost impossible. So we should add at least four difficulty levels (including Mythic). Surely there is no harm in that?
IMO, there is a better way, and AU has been doing it for quite a while now: tailor the AU courses to encourage players to try a harder difficulty (by being easier), or to challenge them at their existing difficulty (by being harder). Admittedly, we have been doing too much of the latter, but that's ok for you because "hard" Emperor games are what you are looking for. This way we can encourage learning in various ways through the courses, while at the same time maintaining a lightweight mod that is recognizable to players at large. If players want a middling difficulty for their own personal games, they can just add Mythic themselves.
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For you to argue that Mythic Hero would be harmful to the goals of Apolyton University, you have to take the position that you know how to balance fun against learning better than those of us who would play on Mythic Hero do. I reject such thinking as tyrannical.
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To argue a point of view is not, to my knowledge, tyranny. I think that Mythic, despite its allure to you and perhaps other players, would not be conducive to learning. That is hardly "tyrannical thinking" (whatever that is). IMO, Mythic would just allow you to play the same old game as you always do (you would just need to rush with 80 Cavalry instead of 60). It is not my position that Mythic would not be fun; I have fun on Monarch sometimes, despite it not being very challenging.
Last edited by Dominae on 27-12-2004 at 03:51
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:17
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I decided to try an experiment to see how much of a difference there is between Emperor and Mythic Hero in the REXing phase. In my first experiment, on a Continents map, I had trouble with AIs fighting each other (which, of course, makes it impossible to get an accurate comparison between games). So I tried another scenario on an Archipelago map, with the most aggressive civs on landmasses by themselves. Note that the same civs are in the same starting locations in all the games. The games are on a standard map with no barbarians (to prevent huts from skewing the results), with eight AIs plus an “observer” human player on what would otherwise be an uninhabited island. Here’s what I ended up with, watching the games through 1500 BC.
Emperor, 1500 BC
Rome: 7 cities, no settlers
Egypt: 6 cities, 1 settler
Greece: 6 cities, 2 settlers
Babylon: 3 cities, 1 settler
Germany: 6 cities, no settlers
Russia: 1 city, no settlers (and a capital that can’t grow past size 2)
China: 5 cities, 1 settler
America: 6 cities, no settlers
Mythic Hero, 1500 BC
Rome: 8 cities, 2 settlers
Egypt: 7 cities, 2 settlers
Greece: 8 cities, 2 settlers
Babylon: 3 cities, 1 settler
Germany: 6 cities, 2 settlers
Russia: 1 city (with its capital that can’t ever build settlers)
China: 6 cities, 2 settlers
America: 7 cities, no settlers
Demigod, 1500 BC
Rome: 9 cities, 1 settler
Egypt: 10 cities, 1 settler
Greece: 9 cities, 3 settlers
Babylon: 4 cities, 1 settler
Germany: 9 cities, 2 settlers
Russia: 5 cities, no settlers
China: 7 cities, 1 settler. (China ran out of room for additional cities.)
America: 7 cities, 1 settler
If we discount Russia and Babylon as not able to REX competitively on any difficulty level, and China on the basis that it ran out of room for REXing on Demigod (and thus might have REXed more if it had more room), what we have is an average of 6.2 cities and 0.6 settlers on Emperor, 7.2 cities and 1.6 settlers on Mythic Hero, and 8.8 cities and 1.6 settlers on Demigod (if I'm counting correctly). For the five competitive AIs, almost forty percent of the additional cities on Demigod compared with Emperor can be attributed to the bonuses that come with Mythic Hero, not to the extra settler that Demigod provides. Looking at the total of cities and settlers combined, factors other than the extra starting settler account for over half the difference.
The fact that there is a large difference in AI REXing capability between Emperor and Mythic Hero should not come as a surprise to those who remember how much harder it is to out-REX AIs on Emperor than on Monarch. But it directly contradicts Dominae’s claims that Mythic Hero would play out almost exactly the same as Emperor in the early game.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:17
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Dominae, the reason why I view your position as tyrannical is that your only basis for opposing the additional difficulty level seems to be that you want players to do things the way you think is best instead of the way they prefer. That, in my book, constitutes tyranny.
As for the idea that a new level between Emperor and Demigod is no different from other potential intermediate difficulty levels, I've already shown that the statistics don't bear that out. Even without the extra settler, Demigod is as big a jump up from Emperor as Monarch is from Regent or as Deity is from Demigod, and almost as big as Emperor is from Monarch. And my experiment indicates that in terms of REXing power, the extra settler on Demigod somewhere in the neighborhood of doubles that advantage. The bigger the gap between difficulty levels, the more room there is for players to have a hard time finding a good fit and the more value there is in adding a level in between.
Looking back to my own experience, by the time I could trounce Monarch as easily and as thoroughly as I currently can Emperor, I could play on Emperor without feeling like I was starting in too much of a hole. It took me a couple games to figure out that I could REX and research with the AIs without having to adopt a radically different paradigm, but once I realized I could, I never really looked back. In contrast, the AI advantages on Demigod are so huge that a player who routinely trounces Emperor still starts out in a huge hole.
The only other place (at least above Regent) where I see a similarly huge jump in difficulty is going from Deity to Sid. That jump is so huge that it makes the jump from Emperor to Demigod look small in comparison, and if there were significant interest, I could easily endorse a difficulty level or maybe even two in between. But I don't buy the idea that if we insert a difficulty level between Emperor and Demigod, we should do it between all the other difficulty levels too. All it takes is a look at the stats in the editor (plus a little understanding of what an extra settler means) to see that the difference from Emperor to Demigod is atypically large.
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20-12-2004 19:01
), why don't we set up a poll?
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