How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

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wieder
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How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

Post by wieder »

I saw some posts about how to win on MP2 ruleset iterations and got curious about what kind of winning strategies there are and what kind of new ways were added to the D iteration of the ruleset.

I was unable to figure out the new ways and how the slalom thing is supposed to work out as a way to win a game. Any ideas, anyone?


"Corbeau

Yesterday at 6:35 PM
... generally, I don't consider myself a top class player, especially considering the time I spent here and the number of games I played. Especially when it comes to Freeciv Web. I have a problem with this ruleset because I feel it's too streamlined. It's like a slalom, you always need to take the same path; flags may be set a bit different, but it's always the same slope: you either go for rapture or you do some meticulously planned city placement magic that makes you a winner in the first 30 turns and after that it's just sending the memo to other players.

Also, maybe an even bigger problem, is the fact that the first month or two the game boils down to watching the grass grow (unless you have the inclination towards the aforementioned meticulous planning) and then, as the pace accelerates, you are either steamrolled or have so many cities and units that you need to ask for a turn extension to 1.5 or even 2 days so that you are able to take care of everything.

This is why I prefer some other rulesets and servers.

Of course, what doesn't work for me may be a perfect game for someone else. There is no good or bad setting. Civ is wide enough to accomodate different balanced configurations.

Although, from time to time something interesting to me happens here, such as Japan map or, right now, Europe. So I'll play for a while and then probably turn into a roadkill. "


"Lexxie

Yesterday at 9:41 PM
My best advice for new players, in order of priority is: 1. definitely master the beginning early-game strategy guide: getting to 30 cities, a good government, and lots of workers to maintain them, in a quick period of time. 2. Ask, ask, ask. Top players will teach and answer questions. A lot of people aren't getting any better because they rarely if ever ask the right questions from top level players."


"qrtv

Yesterday at 10:04 PM
MP2-d offers even more paths to victory."
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Corbeau
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Re: How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

Post by Corbeau »

What I find interesting here is that I start my post with "I'm not an expert player", and then the bozo and the alt-bozo spend the next five screens proving to the general audience that I'm not an expert player. (And when I start replying, they delete posts.) I wouldn't take anything it says seriously. It has acquired mechanical knowledge of the game and obsesive-compulsive experience about how to go through familiar road curves at maximum efficiency, but not much skill of anything else, let alone communicating anything.
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Lexxie
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Re: How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

Post by Lexxie »

First, I protest the incivility of being called bozo, and implore those responsible for this forum to prevent such ugliness.
Corbeau wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:45 am ...I start my post with "I'm not an expert player", and then the bozo and the alt-bozo spend the next five screens proving to the general audience that I'm not an expert player. (And when I start replying, they delete posts.) I wouldn't take anything it says seriously...
Your lack of expertise was never in question. The question is more whether a non-expert is knowledgeable enough to make strong negative claims about aspects of a game he has not yet understood.

The "five screens" appear to be a short paragraph given to undo damage your false statements intended to cause. You make a claim that “the game is over in 30 turns. The rest of the game is just about other players getting the memo who already won.” If false, which it is, this can damage new players trying to learn, and deserves to be corrected by expert players.

Thus, we gave you the example of the game you played where a player joined on turn 27, crushed you, and went on to win the game with the highest score. The purpose of this example is singular. It is a hard refutation of your 30-turn claim. Nothing more. No one is beating you up for your skill level. We don’t do that. FCW is exclusive in hosting beginner-only games and offering coaching and educational resources. We want to help players grow to enjoy the riches of what we believe is the most feature-rich and modernised version of the classic Freeciv experience.

To summarise, being a non-expert doesn’t protect false comments from receiving counter-arguments from experts. You may expect a more experienced player to correct a falsehood and caution people to consider whether the source is a skilled player. A civil and well-balanced gentleman might welcome the insights of better players on the subjects he raises.

As for slaloms and other strangely distorted views, they stray even farther from reality than the already-refuted 30-turn myth.

As a friendly reminder, on our own site, FCW has rules about politeness and cyberbullying, so if you pronoun people as “it”, call them “bozo”, slander them with false allegations, or maybe in your case all of the above over a long history of warnings, bannings, and probations, then you can expect the moderators to delete malicious posts and/or declare a stop to whatever thread you have brought to a level deemed incompatible with our rules of civility. We only ask you respect those and you are welcome to have fun in our private community and Preferred Privacy Protection site.
qrtv10
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Re: How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

Post by qrtv10 »

You seem to think declaring that you're not an expert, makes you immune to counter-arguments. The point isn't to prove you're not an expert, but to refute your claims, which are misleading.

You should know better than to claim that the game is decided at turn 30. I once latejoined at turn 27 and still crushed you.
Corbeau wrote:you always need to take the same path [...] you either go for rapture or you do some meticulously planned city placement magic that makes you a winner
It's true that Freeciv requires strategic thought to city placement. This is a strategy game, not a game that gives you mindless entertainment with an illusion of involvment. I've seen new players learn the game mechanics in action very fast. You call it magic, but the mechanics are fully documented.

You show your lack of seriousness when you say: "Also, maybe an even bigger problem, is the fact that the first month or two the game boils down to watching the grass grow (unless you have the inclination towards the aforementioned meticulous planning)"

The early game requires thinking, calculations and planning. Further into the game it's more about execution of the plan. Thinking, calculation and planning are the main reasons to play strategy games.

MP2-D speeds up the early game even more that MP2-C, but just like before it requires you to understand game mechanics and strategy.

MP2-D opens rapture growth for all governments, at different rates. Rapture is a game mechanic that brings more complexity into the economic aspect of the game. It has many styles to manage it, but you seem more willing to complain than to learn. Your statements about it are always very superficial.
Corbeau wrote:I wouldn't take anything it says seriously. It has acquired mechanical knowledge of the game and obsesive-compulsive experience about how to go through familiar road curves at maximum efficiency, but not much skill of anything else, let alone communicating anything.
Like anything in life, if you want to be good at something you need to study and learn from experience. In FCW we are amateurs and there's no one in our community who has undergone what could be called the "obsessive-compulsiveness" needed to become a successfull professional in for example sports.

All in all: It seems that the MP-branch just isn't for you, as it requires more than you are willing to give it. That's fair, but we are getting tired of you constantly raiding our community and criticising it for not being the mindless entertainment you want.

FCW.org is trying to build the greatest strategy game ever, and that implies willingness to learn. We welcome everyone who appreciates our goals.
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Corbeau
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Re: How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

Post by Corbeau »

So many experts trying to lead me to the light, I am melting from dearness :)
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* LongTurn Blog - information nexus with stuff and stuff and stuff
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wieder
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Re: How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

Post by wieder »

I'm not sure how playing a single game 3 years ago proves anything or even makes a point. If anything this could be a sign of balancing issues with start positions. If a player who joins 27 turns late is able to beat other players it's a sign of start positions mattering too much to the gameplay. Then again if the nation taken in turn 27 was already developed it could have been on the path to victory just like Corbeau mentioned. Yet it was a single game.

Assuming Freecivweb did have such winning mechanics back in the day it would be interesting to know about the new winning mechanics that were the purpose of the original post. Does anyone actually know about if it's possible to play and with with new strategies? Lexxie pointed out how having less land is the path to losing the game. This is of course slightly disappointing to hear since at longturn.net we had lots of effort to make the game more playable and victories possible even if the player starts with less land or is not able to gain more land.

Yeah, MP2-D seems to utilize plenty of familiar ideas like the smaller granary sizes and this is a good thing! What I was trying t figure out was were the paths to victory. Previously MP2 had rapture as a way to win and now it's available to all the governments. Does this mean allowing rapture for all governments is the more paths to victory?
wieder
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Re: How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

Post by wieder »

Ok, let's store this here so that I can reply without edits.

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Re: How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?
Post by Lexxie » Sun Nov 27, 2022 5:02 pm

It's remarkable how wieder has such interest and dedication of time to our site, even though he doesn’t play there. Don’t you run a competing site?

"I'm not sure how playing a single game 3 years ago proves anything…”
Let me explain it nice and simply. There’s a claim made by multiple experts teaching their community the correct concepts, and a claim made by a single person who never played MP2D who has confessed: (1) non-expertise in the game, (2) political bias for a competing site, (3) was shown a counter-example to refute his claim as ridiculous. This isn't some court trial or political debate and no one is proving anything. But if you alone want to make it into that, THEN: any onus of proof falls on the biased non-expert. If you were an unbiased proof-auditor, we'd expect you to point that out to him. Out of curiosity, why didn't you?
"...or even makes a point.”
The point you are trying to miss is that a confessed “road-kill” player made misinformational claims to “dis-educate” our player-base. The claims were politely corrected by 2 top players. (We don’t like to see our new players misinformed.) As an empirical courtesy and perhaps a bit of humour, a hilarious counter-example hammered the biased claim as dead-on-arrival. Yes the game was 3 years ago. That means 3 years of evolutionary improvement to the game has happened since the time that his claim was already shown as absurdly false.

...this could be a sign of balancing issues with start positions. If a player who joins 27 turns late is able to beat other players it's a sign of start positions mattering too much to the gameplay…
No it’s not. It could be a sign you’re really digging deep into the spin-doctor bag. You know that all Freeciv servers essentially use the same code for starting positions. You also know that occasional small disadvantages in horizontal space are balanced in MP-branch with best-in-class fluidity into compensatory rapid vertical growth strategies. I start to notice a habit you use exclusively when speaking in public about FCW. You use a falsely polite statement that always uses the formula: “it could be <insert untrue negative implication>” + <next statement then uses the “could be” as an assumedtruth>. I see you follow the book on Russian propaganda tricks. And here you go again: your “could be” rushes right to affirming “it's a sign of start positions mattering too much.” Let’s rewind back to the “could be.” Integrity to the spirit of harmonious collaboration asks that your next step be to inquire and analyse before doing PUBLIC negative implications about other servers within a collaborative open source community. It COULD BE someone is being paid by corporate gaming to stir dissent and corrupt the collaboration and harmony within open source gaming. It's a sign of a community that needs to take some strong actions with respect to bad actors, in order to re-establish a fun productive harmony. (Yikes! Let's agree on chemical weapons treaty: no more false and negative could-be-isms as a form of warfare!)
Then again if the nation taken in turn 27 was already developed it could have been on the path to victory just like Corbeau mentioned.
Oh NO....... another "could-be-ism!" If she floats, it could be she's a witch, if she drowns, it's a sign God has taken her to a better place! Ah, the joys of primitive mediaeval logic.

"Assuming Freecivweb did have such winning mechanics back in the day…”
Oh yay, another assumption! What mechanics do you “assume?” I’m only aware of best-in-class mechanics evolving better. FCW starts with the noble DNA of the classic game itself, whose success at launching the entire Civ and Freeciv franchise is well-established. Can that improve decades later? Sure, that’s why we have a single ruleset branch named MP2 Evolution, with singular focus on lifting the Classic game to the highest altitude its destiny deserves. It is NOT based on inconstant always-changing kaleidoscopic variations of the DNA whose ruleset-designer said “not suited for multiplayer, very linear, simple, beginner-oriented, experts can’t rise very high over beginners [and especially not over each other--Lexxie].” If the goal is “the strategy game of a lifetime”, we’re trying to lift the strategic ceiling higher, not lower. It's OK with us those aren't your goals, as we get our niche to ourselves, and you get yours. We agreed with you to live in peace and desist all site raiding tactics and server political propaganda campaigns, did you forget? At FCW it’s about games split into tiers of expertise and enjoying the path of getting better, it's about never getting bored of the game from so easily mastering it in under a year.

it would be interesting to know about the new winning mechanics that were the purpose of the original post.
Original post violated TOS so I couldn’t answer it just as part of policy. This post did not, so I can. You bring up some frequent common beginner mistakes in thinking about skill, performance, and winning, that I constantly face in my private tutorials. I think I can make a very good contribution on the topic by posting a guide to help lift people over that, on the fandom site.

Unfortunately, by making me debunk all your carefully planted seeds of propaganda, you’ve expired my current free time for the topic. If you had wanted an answer straight to that matter, which I'm sure you didn't, then next time just avoid TOS violation, propaganda, falsehood, etc., and we can get right to the topic in a friendly way without the extra nonsense.

IS IT A DEAL?
Last edited by wieder on Sun Nov 27, 2022 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
wieder
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Re: How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

Post by wieder »

Lexxie,

First, I doubt there is competition.

A game from 3 years ago was not based on mp2-d so that makes little sense. To me it seems like joining late didn't matter and the original players were not able to rise above the latecomer even after playing for a considerable time before a new player joins. That's it.

Corbeau made his comments about how to win on mp2 games and this opinion appears to be quite common opinion among people who have played there and have studied the ruleset. It's not something that special. Most games have well known ways for beating the others and it's quite normal. This is why I got interested about new paths to victory.

If there are new paths to victory, it would be interesting to know about those. At the moment it seems impossible to find reliable information about that stuff. Testing with the new stuff or reading the ruleset stuff didn't give that good idea about such stuff. Yes. We checked stuff and stuff.

It's widely known some commercial 4x games are not supposed to be played with a multiplayer setup. I doubt this has anything to do with the Freeciv games.

I have no idea about what kind of agreement you are talking about. I have certainly not agreed not to talk about game features in public. Quite the opposite. I've understood public, decent and civilized talks about freecivilized :) is the best way to go.
qrtv10
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Re: How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

Post by qrtv10 »

Wieder,

MP2-D is just out. There is not a small enough set of paths to victory that they could be listed. If your ruleset had a small enough set, would you publish them before people had time to enjoy figuring out their own winning strategies for themselves?
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Re: How do the paths to victory work on MP2 variants?

Post by Corbeau »

Why not go with MP2-C, then? Should be fun enough :)
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* Freeciv LongTurn, a community of one-turn-per-day players and developers
* LongTurn Blog - information nexus with stuff and stuff and stuff
* Longturn Discord server; real-time chatting, discussing, quarrelling, trolling, gaslighting...
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