Originally Posted by Exploit

To argue that some players may not enjoy the modern warfare aspect of Civ therefore the game should not be continued seems a bit biased, since some players may not enjoy the ancient era or the middle ages and yet they played through those to reach the modern era. Personally I enjoy pressing the big red button and raining nuclear destruction on my enemies. Having spent so much time building up hundreds of units, it seems a waste not to actually get to use them.

For good or for ill, I have had the chance to use most of mine up!

If by biased you mean having a preference, then it may be that most of the players in this game have a "bias" (preference) for the early play. I could be wrong about that. But in terms of time investment and satisfaction, the late game for me can become more drudge than fun. Not to say the other view is bad, that is just my view, preference, or "bias". I was not so much criticizing a desire to play a long late game, as expressing the observation (or more likely an educated guess) that this group of players will be less interested in that than in devoting time to a new game.

Originally Posted by Exploit

To argue that fluid alliances give little reward for offensive actions, begs the question why should offensive play be rewarded more than defensive play? Is there something wrong with turtling up and heading for space? Is offensive play somehow superior to defensive play? Domination victories are generally thwarted by little powers ganging up against a superpower and this is simply game balance and good play in my opinion.

I am guessing you need some big powers ganging up on the superpower to be successful ...

Again, I was more making observations rather than judgements ... I spend most of my time in defensive play, so I certainly am not a critic of it. Just pointing out that if the game design is that every advance is to be beaten back by a shift of alliances, it is a different game than the way most I have played seem to go.

The "team" victory to conclude a game, in a non-team game, has occured in a prior game I played in (it was space), and in another game, we did have an alliance shift to stop a runaway superpower, but once that great power was stopped (not defeated), the consensus was to not continue the game (it was looking like a WWI stalemate). In most others, unofficial teams get established pretty early, and tend to hold to the end.

This raises an interesting question about perhaps specifying expectations in regard to alliance behavior at the start, so players have a sense of what they are getting into. Could a game style be specified at the start, perhaps between unofficial but stable teams as they evolve, vs. more strict free-for-all? For taking a game to its first victory opportunity, vs. thwarting all victory opportunities as they arise and essentialy playing a game out in "multiple iterations"?

On this last point, one approach to this game would be to let Rusten have his diplo win, so Rusten (or team Rusten, as you prefer) wins Fog, Part 1. Then take the save before the win, reorganize alliances, in a Stop Carthage game, call it Fog Part 2. That is available for folks who want to play out a more modern game (which might not be the same group we have now). Perhaps that approach gives the best of both worlds? I am guessing Exploit would be interested in Fog Part 2, I'd be willing to hang around for it (curious to see how it goes) ... is Bernout willing to continue to host it if there is interest? Any other current players interested?

dV