AU Mod: Resource Scarcity

[ZargonX]

1. Yes
2. No

[Theseus]

My vote remains YY.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by ducki
The "pure" peaceful player has 4 "peaceful" conditions - 100k culture, 20k culture, Space race, UN.
...
If you want to play peacefully(a single limiter), you have 4 or 5 ways to win.

Erm, not four or five ways - surely just two.

The 100k culture win is not really an option for the pure builder (exept perhaps for the Babs with a monster Rex) - you need a lot of cities for that, and I'd say it's a hybrid win.

In PTW, as in Civ 2, the SS was a builder win - but in C3C it's a hybrid win, (unless you're Catt, to whom I again must take my hat off).

20K Culture is pure builder, but takes a while to reach time-wise, so there's a late-game defensive challenge available (or some early-game wonder-festing to be done).

The Diplo win is the pure-peace builder win, as by abstaining from aggression and trading with everyone you can clean up on the vote without cheesy buy-offs - and I expect EVERYONE to vote for me (except the rival).

Playing variant rules unbalances the game on purpose and is usually done with the express purpose of throwing the player off-balance. Deciding on "Peaceful + Spacerace" is - in my very biased opinion - just a less extreme variant that limits the player to certain courses of action.

I believe that the 'guns or butter' philosophy of the game should allow pure peace play, and in PTW I had 3 viable options for this - Diplo, SS or 20K Culture. In C3C I have 2 options. I don't see how aspiring to build an SS without aggressive war is "extreme" or "unbalancing".

Despite having polemicised against the scarcity a while back, I decided to just play within the limitations and to try and enjoy the challenge. I stepped down from Emp to Monarch, kissed the SS goodbye and enjoy refining the art of peaceful UN victories with whatever resources are available.

IMV Alexman's suggested AU mods are a superb proposal.

For Firaxis, the answer is simple - an option on the map screen like the weather or the barbs.

As far as the fire and passion of the debate goes - look at it like this: If the game is worth getting that passionate about, it must be good

[Cort Haus]

Having read the rest of the thread, I'll answer Catt that from my experiences there are far more killer AI's around. There are certainly more eliminations.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Having read the rest of the thread, I'll answer Catt that from my experiences there are far more killer AI's around. There are certainly more eliminations.

Thanks for the input!

Does your experience alter your view on resource scarcity? Or reinforce it?

Catt

[Cort Haus]

Does your experience alter your view on resource scarcity? Or reinforce it?

My view has been reinforced. I'm not a particular fan of KAI's, though I recognise that many players are. If I was regularly playing to take over my continent or half the world, I too might like another civ to take over their half to provide a worthy opponent for the end game.

There is, IMV, a definite symbiosis between resource scarcity and Killer AIs.The irony is that the emergence of the AI superpower often supplies the only chance of resources in the late game for the player trying to win with only the turf they seize peacefully. Trouble is, there's a killer on the loose

In sporting leagues it is generally considered more interesting to have several contenstants rather than just two, and likewise I prefer having several competitive civs at the end to just one.

My opinion is that the resource scarcity was a bug caused by the extra bonus resources - themselves a mere marketing feature and not a gameplay feature. The bug has proved controversial, being popular with some fans but not with others, and has precipitated a near-ideological debate about what the rules should be.

Some posters have suggested that a no-aggression strategy is as perverse as a strategy of being at war with everyone forever. However, ask almost anyone in the world whether they'd rather be at peace all their life or at war all their life and we'd expect that peace is the default position and war the exception.

War will come to the peaceplayer if the AI decides it, so even the peace-player can expect to perform on the battlefield, in the same way as the warmonger must at some point build improvements to turn their conquests into production. To this extent Civ is a hybrid game.

Where the dispute comes in is that some players want to take down a couple of rivals and still have a challenge to secure resources, while others who want to build their way to glory feel forced into aggression to have a chance of parity at the higher levels.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Cort Haus

Some posters have suggested that a no-aggression strategy is as perverse as a strategy of being at war with everyone forever. However, ask almost anyone in the world whether they'd rather be at peace all their life or at war all their life and we'd expect that peace is the default position and war the exception.

I think a much closer opposite to an "always at war with everyone" game would be a game in which a player never attacks enemy units even when being invaded. Both are rather absurd playing styles (unless a player enjoys the challenge of trying to win using a style that would normally be absurd), styles that no sane nation would adopt in the real world.

In contrast, a more typical builder approach allows the use of counterattacks against invading enemy troops and probably allows retaking any cities that an AI might capture from the player. The goal is to parallel nations that follow the real-world ideal of protecting their own territorial integrity without attempting to conquer others. That type of philosophy is workable in the real world as long as the resulting isolationist policies do not lead to the rise of a powerful, aggressive nation that will eventually be able to take over the isolationist nation. And in the real world, nations with pacifist policies don't face anywhere near the resource problems that they tend to in C3C. (Under the C3C resource model, modern-day Japan would be dead meat, not one of the world's greatest economic powers.)

Nathan

[Cort Haus]

and Japan has a space program

[Tall Stranger]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
In sporting leagues it is generally considered more interesting to have several contenstants rather than just two, and likewise I prefer having several competitive civs at the end to just one.

True in sports, not true in Civ. Reasoning: In a competition between, for example, 4 civs with identical populations, production, etc., any marginally competent human is going to win EVERY TIME. Humans understand the concept of victory conditions. The AIs don't. Humans understand rush building, prebuilding and the real value of micromanagement. The AIs don't. The humans know how to manipulate tech trading to weaken the AI. The AIs don't.

The only way to get a "fair fight" between the human and the AI is to give the AIs a meaningful advantage. IMO, KAIs provide the necessary advantage. Since (IMO) resource scarcity contributes to KAIs, I think it tends to be a net plus for the game. Without them, SS victory is simply too easy.

Some posters have suggested that a no-aggression strategy is as perverse as a strategy of being at war with everyone forever. However, ask almost anyone in the world whether they'd rather be at peace all their life or at war all their life and we'd expect that peace is the default position and war the exception.

Two comments:

1. Regardless of what people claim they want, the history of humanity is (regrettable or not) the history of warfare. Peace is, by no stretch of the imagination, the default position of humanity. If you asked those same people, "Do you want to go to war or trust an alien civilization NOT to destroy your country and way of life?" I suspect you'd get a different answer.

2. If the real world were like Civ, there would be (at most) 3 or 4 contenders for "victory." All the other civs remaining in "the game" are the real-world equivalent of 1-city rump civs that are permitted to remain only because the leaders have decided not to eliminate them. Every single one of the "contenders" for global power has, at some point in their history, engaged in conquest. Given that, why should Civ be any different?

Where the dispute comes in is that some players want to take down a couple of rivals and still have a challenge to secure resources, while others who want to build their way to glory feel forced into aggression to have a chance of parity at the higher levels.

All of this makes me wish we could set it up so that a civ lacking a given resource could still build SS components, but at a significantly higher cost. No aluminum? Fine, but the components now cost twice as much. Ditto with uranium, etc. Such a system would (properly) reward players who play the hybrid style that I believe the game intends. At the same time, those who refuse to engage in conquest can still win via SS, but it's (properly) much harder.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Cort Haus

My view has been reinforced. I'm not a particular fan of KAI's, though I recognise that many players are. If I was regularly playing to take over my continent or half the world, I too might like another civ to take over their half to provide a worthy opponent for the end game.

There is, IMV, a definite symbiosis between resource scarcity and Killer AIs.The irony is that the emergence of the AI superpower often supplies the only chance of resources in the late game for the player trying to win with only the turf they seize peacefully. Trouble is, there's a killer on the loose

Our views are different, no doubt about it. But what's curious is that the very conditions that I think make the no-aggression game more interesting, challenging, and exciting seem to be the ones that you find less enjoyable. My views are similar to Tall Stranger's post above -- if I play a no- or very-low-aggression game and there are 5 - 7 remaining AI civs into the Industrial Age, then the game is foregone and interesting only as a SIM-like experience (which I find fun sometimes). It is those no-aggression games where one or two very large and powerful AI empires (and probably a rump state or two) challege that keeps the interest alive. The large KAIs present a more credible military threat, and they also possess economies that offer challenge to the well-managed but smaller human empire. The fact that such emergent KAIs probably control excess strategic resources that are available for trade is a boon to game excitement, IMO, because you can acquire the resources peacefully (trade) but in doing so must strengthen an opponent that already presents a challenge.

. . . while others who want to build their way to glory feel forced into aggression to have a chance of parity at the higher levels.

Have you tried resisting the urge to give in to the forced feeling? For example, it is simply (and demonstrably) not true that you must have a source of coal to compete; and also demonstrably untrue that an absence of local rubber, oil, alminum, or uranium removes one's ability to compete. You may not have the most efficient empire, you may not be able to launch your spaceship as soon as you otherwise would, but the game is not only beatable, it is in the vast majority of circumstances still well within the margin of safety (and, heck, you've got to lose occasionally just to keep you on your toes!)

Catt