Rant 962 / The "I Have No Idea What You're Talking About But I'm Going To Pretend That I Do" Laugh

Just tried a 3v3v3v3 in Civ V. Not what I expected at all.

I kept getting into what I'd call "flash wars" because they would start all of a sudden and end like 5 turns later.

This is caused by the mechanics of the game's AI which is designed for free-for-all (FFA) games that I've been playing.

More specifically, it's about the tolerance thresholds of each civilization.

First, when I make friends with each trio, some of them are bound to dislike each other.

It may be just one of a certain trio, but when I make a Declaration of Friendship, all of us would be doing that with all three of them.

This means the hostile feelings this action creates in the AIs that dislike someone in this trio would be triple of what it would get in a normal FFA game.

Warm friendly relationships sour three times as fast in a game like this.

Second, with 6 players fighting against each other, many units tend to die simultaneously each turn.

Therefore the balance can easily tilt either way three times as quickly as normal.

Here's the problem: each side can agree to a ceasefire when one of its civilization agrees to the terms of the treaty.

That's what I learnt when I refused to end my first war and somehow it still ended the next turn when I was preparing to invade my invader.

In summary, the game's flow fluctuates thrice as quickly in that game and surprised me.

There are actually people who mistake the screen protectors' protective plastic covers as the screen protectors themselves, as if they got two for the price of one.

"Ever-evolving Experience - Enhance your game with an expanding array of downloadable content from maps and units to factions, campaigns, and more, the fight against terrorism is deeper than ever."

Downloadable units.

Oh well, the EA-era C&C games were never famous for their balance anyway, other than the lack of it.

This pic says it best.

















Civ V is more enjoyable if I play other games or do something else simultaneously.

For the last few games, I've been watching streams and playing Towns (v0.42) with it.

The key reason is there is way too much downtime in between each turn in a game with 11 other civilizations.

Another less important reason is that there really isn't much to do other than hit the "Next Turn" button until the Medieval era.

















After 3 days of exploring the app store, I can now safely say that the iPad is no fun if you don't spend money on it nor jailbreak it.

But more importantly, there is no free app that allows images to be posted on spreadsheets.

Looks like I'm really going to have to buy one of those apps.