Strategy Rant

Wyndstar

Join Date 06/2006

+12

Strategy Rant

Enough already

Hello all, stopping in for my weekly visit. I'm a bit annoyed right now, and I wanted to rant for a bit on strategy choices. If that is not your thing, I suggest you move on to a more friendly topic, there are plenty of great discussions going on here.

The crux of my ire revolves around reactions regarding the strategy I described where you use all factories or all labs on all of your planets to maximize your production per turn. I'm sorry many of you see it as an exploit. If Mr. Wardell decides to change the way focus works, so be it, its not like I need it to win. I'm more than a little tired of any time someone decides to maximize a game mechanic everyone cries "exploit". When stock markets provided a morale bonus in DL, building worlds with all stock markets and no morale buildings was not an exploit, it was just taking full advantage of the game balance as existed at that time.

Yes I play games with a mix of factories and labs, I even often do so. However, even then my approach might not be considered "typical", its still not an upset to game balance. When I build factory worlds and lab worlds within a game, I usually still put 100% in my sliders. Just, when I need tech, I put 100% into research. When I want buildings I put 100% into social. When I want ships I put 100% into mililtary, and make a turn by turn decision as to which of those three I need the most in any turn. And this also works really really well.

It also wasn't my idea. About six months ago I got in a discussion with nullspace, tetleytea and Livonya about strategy, and one of them mentioned that they liked to always keep their sliders at 100% and just choose one of the three (I forget which one of them). I tried it and it worked. Then, I had a few games where for almost all of the endgame I never went back to putting anything into research, and I thought, well, why build research worlds at all, they just sit there sucking up upkeep for 75% of my game doing nothing. And from there, I eventually developed my all labs or all manu strategy.

And I don't care who invented it first and when. Perhaps Purge or Magnumaniac figured it out before I did, I didn't realize I was in a competition with them to see who could develop the strategy first. If they did it earlier, good for them. I wasn't trying to say I was the ultimate player or anything. The strategy may well have been in common use long before I stumbled upon it. I don't know when they started using it, but I like and respect both of those players, and I wasn't trying to one-up anyone when I posted on this strategy.

If you take away focus, you will still do better by putting 100% into one of the sliders. That is a result of a very basic game mechanic, not one that is going to be fixed by a minor tweak. If that fact offends you or your sense of fairness, I'm sorry. The math doesn't lie, this is just how this game works. Can I win by splitting the sliders? Sure, and I've done it plenty of times. I've played entire games never moving them off of 33/33/34 from turn one just to see if I could do it. If you have more fun splitting the sliders, or you feel that somehow it is more "fair", go for it.

Also, I don't see this as cheating even a little bit. For one, the AI is free to use the same strategy. Putting it in the same catagory as scouting a map and then reloading to turn one or using Ctrl-N until you get a precursor whatever on your home world doesn't even make sense to me. Trying to get the most out of your sliders is something every player in a game state can do on any turn. The AI can never reload until it gets a great homeworld, or scout the map before it starts playing, making both of those true "cheats" or "exploits".

And I'm starting to get more than a little offended by people who seem to suggest that I'm a poor player who just has a handful of cheats I use to beat the game. 1. I never claimed to be a great player, 2. I play the way I like, you should do the same, 3. I haven't even ever come close to taking the time to describe every strategy I use on these boards, 4. I'm sorry but I really don't feel like I'm cheating, and 5. there is NO strategy I need or rely on in every game that I play. Why does it matter to anyone the approach I take to the game? This is a SINGLE PLAYER GAME.

I'm sorry in part for my tone. And thank you so much to everyone who gave me positive feedback after I spent time illustrating some of my strategies. I'm tired, cranky, and overworked. Its also my birthday today, so I'm now older and no wiser. The older I get, the more reminders of the passage of time put me in a bad mood. Plus, I haven't gotten my Gal Civ 2 fix in a while, so I'm probably tweaking (ha ha, sigh).

I of course love this game, and have a great amount of respect for many of the people on here. My invective is aimed at no one in particular, rather it is a sort of critical mass of criticism I have recieved via email and on these boards about the strategy I described in my Altarian Rebellion AAR.

Play how you like. That strategy is hardly the only way that I play. There are most efficient paths to victory, but this game has many many ways you can play. You can always artifically put more restrictions on yourself to make the game harder (this game I will build no wonders, no starbases, whatever). If you find that after reading a few of my strategies now the game is always "too easy" or "ruined" or "always the same" I have two suggestions. Use your own creativity and the many sandbox option modes to try and add variety, or play a different game.

I miss being able to chat. Hope the rest of you are having a better day. I can't wait to be able to return to a more normal life.

Take care,
Wyndstar

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It doesn't really matter, since the entire concept of research is abstracted. Technically, how comes the same factories can produce both interstellar vessels and sports stadiums? How comes the same lab can research high energy weapons, medicine and recreation?

ALL concepts are abstracted, not just research. Still some of them are unique to the corresponding buildings. As for the factories, that you should ask the devs really

And while at it, ask why the UI says Orbital Construction when factories are ground based

(but you still have to launch ships). The techs, that's all about the techtree, a whole different issue, and nothing that hasn't been brought up in the past.

I'd rather have it abstracted to generic production/research/morale pools than micromanage my buildings to the extent of building a seperate lab for each area of research.

I'm not sure where this comes from, but it's really all about the sliders. If there were no sliders, you'd have to have both labs and factories in each planet, which kinda goes well with a certain dose of realism

There's another thread about all the R&D line of arguments, no need to rehash it again here I think. Even because we're thread-jacking

Depends, are my ships edible?

If you're using pizza for armor

You'd still need the farms to produce the plants and seeds for the module though. No good sending the ships off with empty hydroponic modules.

I don't think you read what I wrote. When building a farm on a planet, do you *need* to have another farm already built? Nope. Same deal here. Where do the seeds come from then? Well, plenty of nature out there. Or from the "built-in" food production ability of the civ capital/initial colony if you will.

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Diagonally? That's the way to move, according to Pythagoras. I don't get the point. What is wrong is precisely NOT moving diagonally. Remember we're talking warp displacement here.
And perhaps you haven't read the threads about distances and the map representation?

Warp displacement. I don't care what the other threads say. That's sounds like technobabble. You explain to me the rational by which movement range is in a square but sensor range is circular and follows the Pythagoream thoerem with regards to distance. The point I was trying to make is that I agree with the original poster. You work with the rules as designed.

Actuarian: If you have an aesthetic or game design problem with a strategy, recommend a change in the rules to the developers.

George Gervin:Hmm, and isn't that what has been done around here in these forums?! That's one of the goals of there being forums for the game.

Again, I was responding to the original poster. You might want to reread that first post to see the context.

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Actuarian:I think there should be some sort of relatively small, but escalating marginal penalty for setting a slider higher than 50%, similar to the relationship between tax rate and morale penalty.

George Gervin:If you really want to add another unintuitive rule.

Actually, I was thinking of the law of diminishing returns. The more resources you pour into something the lower the marginal efficiency. By why ask why when you can just label something unintuitive without asking? That's certainly much easier.

Peace.

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I don't care what the other threads say.

I meant that the 2D map and movement rules issues have been addressed in other threads.
It was in the following of "I don't hear anyone...".

You explain to me the rational by which movement range is in a square but sensor range is circular and follows the Pythagoream thoerem with regards to distance.

Do I have to? Hmm. Because ships can only occupy a parsec, which is a square. Sensors don't have that problem, so they're a circle centered on the ship. It's really obvious.

You work with the rules as designed.

But the issue is, is it working as it *should*? Was it really intended to allow this kind of, exploit or whatever?

I'll let George Gervin reply to the rest, whoever he is.

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From ToS:
Well, I'm not really sure he came up with entirely new lines of government...

You don't think a system of 3 seperate branches that put checks and balances on each other with a constitution that can be added to was a new system of government in 1776?
If the American system was not a new form of government I don't know what was.

If you want to get really technical I would say that no system of government is really new. It just a matter of including more or less people in the decision making, but at the same time people have fought and died over these things so I think most would argue that their are new forms of government.

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Some master thread hijackers on these forums... Back to the point reading that AAR was very informative and even fun. It made me think about aspects of the game I never had before and although I don't seem to be able to go straight labs as well as you do I do tend to think harder about what kind of buildings and focus/sliders I am going to use before I even start a game now. I pick heavy production or heavy research to start on gigantic maps and adjust as I go from there.
Anyway back on topic... I don't know the link but somewhere on the intraweb is an article for gamers about playing to win. The main point of it is that those who play to win will use any means neccessary to do just that. They find joy in the winning and they actually like to pick the game apart learn the special moves and find the weak points in their enemies strategies. The player who does not play to win will always fall short of this. They are the button mashers in tekken who complain that you know counters and combos. They are the crappy chess player at the park who calls you a cheater because you happne to actually know some strategies instead of blindly moving pieces and absently looking at the board. They call you a cheater because they just cannot grasp how you start out to win and learn the game until you win consistently.
Cheating in this game is easily defined. Its altering the code of the game (like a mod) or the cheat parameters. Simple as that. Exploiting is conventionally considered using known bugs (programming errors not intended game mechanics) to turn the game in your favor. Moving sliders and building a certain type of building is not a cheat or an exploit unless you manage to move them to 101%.

Anyway happy B-Day being old sucks but at least we lived long enough to say that right?

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Sorry to those who want to read something related to this thread.

ToS: Why not start your own thread about what's illogical or wrong with GC2?
That way you would have plenty of fodder for your intellect (which is obviously very keen), and you'd have less inclination to intrude upon other threads.

Just a suggestion, so please only take it as such

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First, I want to say I am a completely new player and thus no almost nothing about the game mechanics and get my ... handed over to me sometimes even at low AI level (shame!)
Since I am new to the game I dont really have a standard strategy yet and I havent read the original poster described strategy either, but one of the first thing I started doing when playing was "fiddle" with those sliders all the time! I dont build research only or factory only empires but I do set it to 100% almost constantly. Sorry but I wasnt aware it was considered "exploiting" by some ? I mean I never played the game before this week and it seemed logical to me to use the game that way

I just thought I would bring the view of a brand new player on this. Maybe it's just being new and seeing the game with fresh new eyes without any pre-conception of how it should be played or something like that. I saw the slider. I needed to focus on building up social. I slided it to 100%. Now its constantly in 100% in something each turn hehe.

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Now its constantly in 100% in something each turn hehe.

Well, maybe you should read the thread(s) about it to find out what exactly the "exploit" is.

Sorry to those who want to read something related to this thread.

I was going to ignore you, but at the request of many families, I'll give you some attention

First, I wasn't aware that you were the OP, so that you are compelled to ask for forgiveness and comprehension. Odd. Second, what *exactly* is the OT? Strategy Rant - Enough Already. So it's about strategy, a particular strategy, and the people involved in some discussion around it. Not birthdays, not jobs, personal life, whatever. Sure, Wyndstar mentions those in his post, but the topic again is a strategy rant. Whatever is related to that strategy(ies) is more ON topic than any reply to any of those other issues - they're not really related to GC2. Not criticizing Wyndstar, not at all, I'm criticizing YOU. Third, and from the previous point, I was not the only NOR the FIRST to go "off-topic"; that you singled me out is, well, natural I guess (and I couldn't care less) but also an hypocrisy. But then again... Fourth, I see you went off topic to "slap me in the wrist" (or whatever the expression is); how nice.

Just a suggestion, so please only take it as such

Thank you, I will. Now one of mine. Follow your own criteria.

Some master thread hijackers on these forums...

Funny you only said that after *I* sort of admitted some "thread-jacking"... You should be more inventive.

Especially if you're going to post this to multiple threads. Don't want to be spamming all threads with thread-jacking in them, do you? What would that look like?

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I'll let George Gervin reply to the rest, whoever he is.

George Gervin was a very famous NBA player. His nickname was the Iceman because he was so calm and deadly in critical game situations.

I can't talk with you anymore. It's too frustrating and not good for my blood pressure. Squares..... sensors.... parsecs.... gravity.... labs ...... rules... unintuitve.... does not listen..... does not understand..... does not have anything to do with thread topic.... does not compute... Aarrgghh..........

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Sorry ToS I didn't realize you had monopolized the concept of thread hijacking is it all right if I call you a troll instead? It is pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain what your game is here. You like to get a rise out of others, hijack threads and see how much you can bash Stardock without getting banned from the forums,its not a new thing there are people doing it all over the internet. You get bored at your desk job and like to see how much drama you can stir up while all the time staying just inside the guidelines of official forum rules and diving as far below the guidelines of polite discussion as you can. You should really move on to political blogs where you can at least get payed for such behavior.

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This thread is truly fascinating!

I'm going to throw one in here, with regards to 'buildings' of course. Why not eliminate sliders altogether and make the build the 'true value'. Let me explain...
Have a few different levels of factories, as we do now of course, but make the production value what it is, period. The more factories, the more production values. Better, more advanced factories would obviously have a higher 'rank' and thus take less of them to get the job done, duh. Do the same for research facilities and make a few 'different' levels of starports for military resources.
Doing it this way would eliminate a need for sliders (I think, be gentle on me)and make the emphasis on developing the tech to build the better factories, labs, etc. This would force you into really considering how you wish to develop said planet, as you only have so many usable tiles at your disposal. Would this be an 'acceptable' option to eliminate sliders and end all of this useless banter?

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Not necessarily, you can still benefit from hitting the specialised production buttons (though to a lesser extent if the slider wasn't there too).
As for the labs & factories issue, AFAIK you need the relevant building on any bonus tile to take advantage of it. If you really want to encourage diversity on a planet, then altering the bonuses and the way they are applied might be a better method.

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and make the emphasis on developing the tech to build the better factories, labs, etc.

After re-reading this I thought I should mention, for those who would say "how can you emphasize tech research if you 'don't' have the lab to do it with", to go this way one would obviously have to start the game with some sort of basic research facility/ies to get the ball rolling. From there it would just depend on 'what' you wish to research vs. how much can be allocated towards research... if this makes sense.

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Off topic:

You don't think a system of 3 seperate branches that put checks and balances on each other with a constitution that can be added to was a new system of government in 1776?

Sorry, forgot to reply to this one. Last time I checked, he had little to do with that really. Care to elaborate?

If the American system was not a new form of government I don't know what was.

It was actually based on a few other "forms of government".

"On topic":

Doing it this way would eliminate a need for sliders (I think, be gentle on me)and make the emphasis on developing the tech to build the better factories, labs, etc. This would force you into really considering how you wish to develop said planet, as you only have so many usable tiles at your disposal.

Actually, I think this is a really basic concept. Simple to understand, makes sense. Implies real strategy in planetary development and in research choices. No exploits, no nonsense. When I was checking the game out, I thought that was how it worked. No other system really crossed my mind. Then I found out I was wrong...

Not necessarily, you can still benefit from hitting the specialised production buttons (though to a lesser extent if the slider wasn't there too).

The focus buttons are part of the whole slider system, and they were included in the packet

As for the labs & factories issue, AFAIK you need the relevant building on any bonus tile to take advantage of it. If you really want to encourage diversity on a planet, then altering the bonuses and the way they are applied might be a better method.

Not really. If you *would* need every type of building in each planet, no special tile is ever wasted.

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This thread is truly fascinating!

I like that idea. Stormbringer, after reading your post I think the sliders are really just a holdover from galciv 1 and don't add all that much to the game. The buildings in essence replaced the sliders, but the sliders were left in. They are two ways of doing essentially the same thing. The sliders are just a more abstract concept.

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Someone mentioned early on in this thread: "I guess he expects players to play how he envisioned the game to be played."

I strongly disagree with this comment. I thought the whole point of the game was that the player chooses the way they play, not how the developers want them to play.

I also personally think that instead of eliminating the possibility of using these "exploitive" strategies as some people claim them to be, maybe the AI could be programmed to use those strategies too at higher levels, making them much more competitive and able to use an even wider range of advanced human strategies. This would even the playing field and would mean that whoever wins will depend on if the AI used the strategy and if they used it better (depending on the difficulty level).

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Alright I have now figured out whatever you say to ToS Iceman he doesn't really read. He just comes up with a reply instantly to dispute it, no matter if it makes sense or not. Don't bother replying to him. It is a waste of your time.

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Dear Wyndstar

Your Altarian AAR was superb. It inspired me to go a little step further and derive a method for optimizing economy, industry, and moral into a unified whole, which - if successful - would allow players the ability to develope economic stategies. If you are a BAD player in some eyes for what you have done than I am a DEVIL for what I want ... which is to develope a conceptual scheme where I can assess the AI capabilities and then calculate reasonable goals for morale, population, industry, and research that are necessary to acheive victory.

I suppose if I succeed Brad will throw a monkey wrench into the game system to make it harder ... which is probably the REAL reason that you got sooo much flak - there are players who probably have been using the all factories/labs strategy (with the flip) forever who now are upset that Brad's gonna nerf it and now gotta roll up their sleeves and actually do some real thinking about how to play now.

MY ADVICE IS MORE POWER SCOTTY ....

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*largely ignores the replies, as they currently seem only tangentially relevant to the OP*

I read your original AAR on that strategy -- it was the first one I really read that went in depth into an advanced strategy (not saying there aren't others here, but that it was the first *I* read).

Now -- was it intended to work the way you've been using it? I dunno. Who cares? It doesn't look like this is in the pipeline to be "fixed" for the moment, so either it's something the devs aren't motivated to fix, yet the future of the game (assuming it *is* the most efficient play method), or it's a close enough evolution of the intended play mechanics that the devs are okay with it. Either way -- your strat seems to work for you, fits the current "rules of the game", and is not clearly a code bug (if it was clearly a bug, I'd argue otherwise, but your strategy appears to simply be a consequence of game mechanics, not a mistake in coding). Who cares otherwise? Seriously -- don't bother paying random pests any mind -- you're clearly a clever player willing to put in the time to understand the mechanics of the game. I daresay that *YOU MAKE THE GAME BETTER FOR EVERYONE*. People like you discover the problems (or optimal strategies, depending on how this goes) with the game and get them fixed (or help make the rest of us better players).

Even if it's not intended strategy, what you're doing is hardly game-breaking. It's *optimal*. The benefits, while concrete, are not something the game can't handle.

Ahem. I guess what I'm saying is -- ignore the pests. Play brutally -- play to win. Punish the AI for not using your strategies. Beyond that -- continue telling us what you're doing! Not only does it help us get better, if Stardock considers what you're doing exploitative, it gives them the chance to fix it! The harder you play, the better game/AI we get.

--Tsed, who makes long posts when inebriated.

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You mean, you were wrong.

If you can't keep up, sure it's a waste of time.

I thought you wanted the flame war to continue... oh well, talk about not being consistent.

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How about random events which only occur if the slider is above or below a certain amount? For example, low investment (slider setting) on research leads to a brain drain throughout your empire as the more scientifically minded citizens look for opportunities elsewhere, leading to a penalty in research (or you could have a leading scientist quit a project to work elsewhere, wiping out all research accumulated towards the current project). Or high investment (slider) in industry leads to corruption and embezzlement in the business sector, inflicting an economic penalty.

Excellent post. Exactly the type of thigns which may be needed if the undelying mechanics are not tweaked a bit.

Also an excellent post, we definitely need people who seek out these things. Otherwise there wouldn't be any testing of the overall mechanics.

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Tsed, who makes long posts when inebriated.

Another excellent post, we definately need people who make long posts while inebriated. Otherwise there would be just boring, short posts made by sober people.

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