OMG I'm going to Lose!!

[suzzi]

This is absolutely amazing because I never lose and we all know you shouldn't lose to an AI. I started with a great territory (small islands; prince setting; normal size; 8 civs) and set a town to act as a choke point to what I knew would be an agressive Rome. Sure enough, Ceasar lusted and went after what I got but I kept pushing him back and defeating him; 6 times! I did eventually wipe the map of Ceasar however he now gets the last laugh.

I had to use all my money to stave off the Romans and spent many turns with no cash. Little did I realize that no cash = no research so I fell behind the others in research. Now Greece and the Mongols are both in the modern era and I'm in the middle of the industrial era. Both of their empires are larger than mine and they both declared war on me. Greece has 8 City States in his pocket and is just waiting for that UN building to get built and is most likely making a beeline to Globalization. In desparation I even attacked a neighboring City State (which I never do) to get their oil for my eventual tanks and fighters should I last long enough to get them.

Anyway, things aren't looking good for General Bismark and my empire and I can't say how delighted I am to see the AI step up to the challenge. Since the last patch I've won every game I've played (occassionally coming from behind) however this game is different as Vegas has me at a 5 to 1 underdog. I will hold out to the last frigate and rifleman but I'm all ready seeing bombers overhead and that isn't a good sign.

Good job developers as your game is starting to show promise of greatness.

[eastkitton]

We live in desperate times
These are desperate times, my dear
There's no way out of here
There's no way out, I fear

I just had this song playing while I was reading your post and it seemed so appropriate!

[sectoid]

I think the reason why people hardly ever lose in civ games is the magic of autosaves. On higher levels its very easy to be annihilated by AI players, usually several of them.

[Gewar]

I think the reason why people hardly ever lose in civ games is the magic of autosaves. On higher levels its very easy to be annihilated by AI players, usually several of them.

They should add somethink like hardcore mode option (No matter what difficoulty you are playing), as they are in some cRPG -> there will be "save and quit" option, no ingame "load" and autosave every turn -> no comming back (unles you ctrl+alt+del your game...)

And that should be visible in HoF.

[Davor]

OH God here we go again when a single player game has no bearing on anyone else, people have to put restrictions on other people how they play their single player game.

So who cares if someone reloads? What is the big deal? What is your point? Are you saying the OP is cheating before when he was winning his other games buy reloading all the time?

[Gewar]

I have used a word "option" in my post.

No more explanation should be neaded.

[sectoid]

Boy, this thread turned ugly fast.. ;)

[suzzi]

Silly that I should even post to such nonsense but just to clarify, if I reloaded every time I was disappointed the game would become boring and I would lose interest. In fact, the game was losing interest until the accumulation of all of the patches have created a greater element of risk. The point i was trying to make that was the AI is improving and even at Prince level, there is a risk that even an experienced player will lose which is a big improvement from the games release.

If I knew how to cheat I might consider turning off nukes because there is a big bomber on the horizon approaching Berlin and Vegas just changed their odds to 20-1. Workers stand ready to clean up the mess!

[bronzeager]

Losing once in awhile is definitely fun, to add a sense of risk to the game. As is challenging yourself and playing on a difficulty you're not sure you can handle yet.

[SlickSlicer]

I didn't know you stopped researching when running out of gold. Never has happened to me.

[Mega-Dolphin]

You don't stop, you just get a research penalty when your gold is low.

[mjs0]

I didn't know you stopped researching when running out of gold. Never has happened to me.
You don't stop researching, but when you run a deficit, i.e. negative gold per turn, your science per turn is reduced by the amount of the deficit. So it's a slowdown, not a hard stop.

[Bomberross]

You don't stop researching, but when you run a deficit, i.e. negative gold per turn, your science per turn is reduced by the amount of the deficit. So it's a slowdown, not a hard stop.

Wow...that will teach me to actually read the manual! I never knew this at all. They really do force the player to make their empire as balanced as possible!

[kooljay2]

post patch I lost three games in a row and was getting really upset! me vs 7 AI on Prince level (you "experts" that play on Diety level stop laughing at me). I've won two games since then, war and culture, but I can honestly say I was aided by the map starting me in relative isolation and having a chance to grow. When placed in the middle of 5 or 6 civs it becomes a bit more difficult, in my opinion. Those suckers are cranking out wonders like candy! And they all attack at once!

[Jazzterisk]

OH God here we go again when a single player game has no bearing on anyone else, people have to put restrictions on other people how they play their single player game.

So who cares if someone reloads? What is the big deal? What is your point? Are you saying the OP is cheating before when he was winning his other games buy reloading all the time?

Agreed. There are lots of ways to 'cheat' in order to stack the odds. None of them are cheating in my opinion as long as the Dev's have allowed you to perform this function.

Want to reload after a bad battle? Go ahead. It's allowed. Etc, etc.

I personally don't care.

Sometimes I do wonder about all these claims that the AI is too easy and that they've walked all over the computer Civs in Deity. There are players who do this I know but certainly not as many as the forum postings would have us believe.

[Artifex]

If you never lose, and want a challenge? Limiting yourself to prince difficulty seems curious.

To each their own.

[tfordp]

...
If I knew how to cheat I might consider turning off nukes because there is a big bomber on the horizon approaching Berlin and Vegas just changed their odds to 20-1. Workers stand ready to clean up the mess!

So, how did it go?

I like to play on King level and was planning on going up after the last patch, but I'm just getting to the end of my latest game, and thinking I might stay for a while more, it has certainly got a little harder recently. Having fun, too. :)

[suzzi]

I didn't know you stopped researching when running out of gold. Never has happened to me.

Never happened to me either as I make a significant effort to make sure I nerver run out of gold. However, in this particular game it was spend or die so I went broke and it sucked my research points down. As this happened relatively early in the game, a -24 gold was significant against my puny research which had taken a back seat to survival tactics (making archers).

[suzzi]

So, how did it go?

I like to play on King level and was planning on going up after the last patch, but I'm just getting to the end of my latest game, and thinking I might stay for a while more, it has certainly got a little harder recently. Having fun, too. :)

Since I was trounced through most of the game, I couldn't get anything going to stop Greece from having all of the city states in their pocket. Greece cruised to an easy diplomacy victory and the sad thing about it was, I was trying to make a comeback that could have possibly turned the game around.

[jpbar81]

They should add somethink like hardcore mode option (No matter what difficoulty you are playing), as they are in some cRPG -> there will be "save and quit" option, no ingame "load" and autosave every turn -> no comming back (unles you ctrl+alt+del your game...)

And that should be visible in HoF.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this idea. Very nice.

Please create a separate post of this so the devs can see it! :D

I try my best not to reload saves/autosaves (perhaps I'll just disable my autosaves too) but there are still those really painful times when I make a big mistake, take heavy losses, and/or taken by surprise and I can't help myself.

THIS would prevent that. The game would be so much more exciting and every decision would have to be made carefully knowing you don't have that sense of security anymore where you can reload and go back in time.

And having that showup in the HoF and being displayed is also great because it's a very different game when you can't reload and replay turns.

EDIT: Also, there wouldn't be a "save and quit", just a "quit" option because the game should save its current state as soon as you end each turn under this optional playstyle. If there was a "save and quit" you could just exit out of the game in other ways and then play it again since the game was never saved upon exiting.

[suzzi]

Not everyone who plays this game, regardless of difficulty, reloads so I think it would be pointless to ask the developers to take time from other improvements to program something that is all ready built in. I won't even reload when I make a dumb mistake like accidently deleting a unit and I'm sure most people do the same. If you want hardcore, don't reload, just that simple.

[lumpycustard]

Yeah it's improved at the lower levels now that the AI is more aggresive. But it's easier around emperor levels. With so many hammers post-patch you can deal with anything.

[eastkitton]

They should add somethink like hardcore mode option


I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this idea. Very nice.

I'm sure it won't surprise you jpbar81 to know that there is a whole thread about the acceptability of reloading.

A suggestion there that was similar in concept was:

I've always had the belief that the score should suffer a penalty when you reload to a previous turn.

[jpbar81]

Yeah, that's a nice alternative as well, eastkitton. I must've missed that discussion; darn.

I would still prefer this hardcore mode idea. Perhaps a better name though to go with the flavor of Civilization. "Hardcore" feels more like Unreal Tournament or some other kind of rough action game <awaiting naughty jokes>.

[mjs0]

I would still prefer this hardcore mode idea. Perhaps a better name though to go with the flavor of Civilization. "Hardcore" feels more like Unreal Tournament or some other kind of rough action game <awaiting naughty jokes>.
If I recall correctly, SMAC (Alpha Centauri) referred to its version of this mode as Iron-Man and rewarded you with extra victory points when using that option.
It basically saved the game once per session, effectively an autosave on exit to windows.
This would then be the only save of the game available when you wanted to continue play.

[bronzeager]

I don't think it would be that much work for the devs to program in this "hardcore" mode, so it might be a good suggestion. Considering how long it's taken them to implement other "basic" features though...

[IONDragonX]

You don't stop researching, but when you run a deficit, i.e. negative gold per turn, your science per turn is reduced by the amount of the deficit. So it's a slowdown, not a hard stop.

:eek: Like the previous poster: I did NOT know that! :mad:

This isn't the way that any Civ game has functioned in the past. A change like this should be included in the "experienced Civ player" introduction or tutorial. I'm sure that thousands of Civ fans started playing and are probably still playing Civ 5 without knowing this rule.

The other detriment to no cash is no research agreements.

[sectoid]

:eek: Like the previous poster: I did NOT know that! :mad:

This isn't the way that any Civ game has functioned in the past. A change like this should be included in the "experienced Civ player" introduction or tutorial.

So, the hard to miss "We are having a deficit and therefore LOSING 25 science points per turn!" -text popping in front of your tired eyes when you hover your mouse on science points or GPT is not enough?

Its not really hidden, you have just missed that.
Please explore your GUI a little more before getting all :mad: towards devs..

No tutorial needed. :rolleyes:

[Mega-Dolphin]

Also, the science per turn display turns red if the deficit penalty is active, so rather than having a blue +25, you have a red +23.

[rfxmills]

So, the hard to miss "We are having a deficit and therefore LOSING 25 science points per turn!" -text popping in front of your tired eyes when you hover your mouse on science points or GPT is not enough?

Its not really hidden, you have just missed that.
Please explore your GUI a little more before getting all :mad: towards devs..

No tutorial needed. :rolleyes:

Where is it in GUI if aren't running a deficit? I think IONDragonX would prefer to know about the rule before triggering it, maybe in a tutorial perhaps? ;)