Lux Forums

[n00less cluebie]

OK, there was some discussion in my RAW thread about MOTW, player skill etc. which is not what I'm trying to get at in my RAW thread, so here are those comments, if you want to add to this until the mods lock it. If people are CAREFUL, they could make some constructive points here

Remember:

The Rules
1. Posts that personally attack or insult members are not allowed. If you feel that somebody has been a bad host or player then you may so say, but refrain from insulting them personally. Doing so usually causes the thread to go nowhere anyway.

Note: Rule #1 also means that posts such as "Who is the worst Luxer?" are not allowed, since it can only result in insults and attacks.

[SnyperEye]

I just gotta say there is no great skill needed for people that only play Classic and those people who only play Roman Empire 2. At least Bio changes the angles of the maps. If you only play and stick with one map and you become a great player on that map, Does that mean you have an overall skill of the game...My opinion No....If I played the same map everyday for a year or two I'd better be fricking amazing on that map map too. Practice always makes perfect they say. I dont underestimate some of the top players of classic could easily win over me in there "genre", but if you flip the script and took them out of there classic enviroment and bring them into the other maps would that skill level be a great???

Im eager to see how some of the permanent Classic and roman players handle Manimal's tournament against those revolving players.

[n00less cluebie]

So...what are the skill sets that help MOTW achieve greatness? What has the Classic player learned that helps him or her on other maps? Is the experience of a Rome player applicable on any other maps? These are all valid questions. Let's just avoid the "XXXX is a poopypants b/c he doesn't play ZZZZZ"

and before you think about it:

[paranoiarodeo]

Snype's contention doesn't hold up under close scrutiny ... the best classic players ... as measured by their six human winning percentage relative to other players ... are just as dominant on other maps more often than not ... and not to burst any bubbles ... but many of the "good" MOTW players have fairly pedestrian %'s across all maps ... if you guys really wanna start diving into specific numbers ... I'll be happy to begin posting them ... but I'm afraid that'll only lead to more arguments and hurt feelings ...

IMHO ... there's seems to be a lot of self-congratulation amongst the MOTW crowd about their open-mindedness ... and some folks seem to believe that playing "new and strange" maps inherently makes anyone a better player ... and sadly that's not true ...

As for cl00bie's general question ... I'm not gonna wax poetic about why the "classic crucible" best prepares players for all the challenges Lux has to offer ... it's self-evident to me ... and I doubt anyone's mind is gonna be changed by my explanation ...

∞ paranoiarodeo shrugs ∞

[Dominator]

[Shockandawe]

Perfectly put Dom.

[paranoiarodeo]

∞ paranoiarodeo nods in agreement ∞

[beetroot]

word son

[Digital Jihad]

Most of your complaints about income maps seem to be more about people not knowing how to play then any weakness in the map itself. Bio can be a fun and challenging map when you have 6 skillful players, the same as Classic. The difference is its pretty much the same group of people who play in the same Classic room over and over.

[Dominator]

[paranoiarodeo]

[dustin]

Great post Dom. I added it to the strategy wiki:
http://sillysoft.net/wiki/?Dominators%20Advice

[Claudiu]

Maybe this "anti-classic" stuff is not directed towards the map. Maybe it's a defense mechanism against those that try to devalue our map of choice. As for the rest of your post, I agree; but I'd like to add that altough Classic demands an eye for details, other maps that depend more on income requires other qualities that Classic demands less of--such as the perception to think ahead in terms of conflict zones and conquest. Take Rome II as an example: one needs to think ahead of where other players will expand; the areas of conflict; where a player might get strong, where a player might be weakened. This kind of ahead-thinking is less dominant in Classic, because once the territories are established, the game takes its hold on position and killing for cards. In Rome, you have position and killing for cards, but you also have a war on income which gives way to new tactics.

A reason as to why some think of income maps as inferior to Classic is because Classic is more about mathematics, whereas in other maps the psychology factor has a greater presence; but they rarely think of the ahead-planning that it takes to succeed on these maps.

[Nimrod7]

Great post Dom. I think that the Classic map can be a good training ground for the "fundamentals" you mentioned. In my opinion, if you can get a good handle on the Classic map, it gives you an advantage on others.

I also agree with this.

[n00less cluebie]

Excellent post Dominator. So here's the underlying question. What exactly ABOUT the map makes it achieve so much, and is that reproducible on OTHER maps? But, we'll start a different thread for that (Click HERE)

Meanwhile, do any MOTW or Bio or Romers want to give a stab at what about THEIR maps helps develop Luxxer skill?

[soundboy]

I'll go out on a limb here... although it's a very skinny, brittle looking limb.

I learned a piece of my endgame from Rome... mainly a last ditch effort at turning certain death into a victory.
With 3 players remaining, it's very common for Romans to pop the leader all over the place. This used to drive me crazy... as an outsider, I felt when I had the game won, that I was being teamed or ganged up on. In reality, that's exactly what it was.
Today, I am less likely to roll over for a leader who has made a decidedly game winning move. I'll pop his income in hopes that the other player will look to weaken him as well and possibly re-level the playing field a bit.
Unfortunately, due to the RAW system, actually trying to bite into the leader has often led to my demise at the hands of the third player, who thought it would be a better idea if he/she just went ahead and played for second.

Regardless of how effective it's been in terms of results... it's one facet of Roman combat that I brought in to my game play.

[Dominator]

Thats a good point sound.

I find thats a common strategy in bio too (and a good strategy)

If someone has game-over income defended really well .. too well for any one person to break without an all out suicide .. its a good strategy to weaken the border by slamming a lot of men into it and rely on the other person to actually hit the income.

But, thats a whole different beast when talking about strategy. The social interaction aspect of the game is also very important. It is important to learn the interaction between players in both card situations and income situations. But, that comes from playing different maps and seeing how people react to different scenarios .. sometimes just knowing the players and how they personally will react to a situation.

[Dominator]

[Claudiu]

█ Soundboy: but you just go ahead and hand me to someone else
█ Soundboy: and waste armies for a continent that you'll never take
█ Soundboy: go play rome
█ Soundboy: less thinking
█ Soundboy: more clicking
█ paggles: well..you're play wa s to farm instead of groping for af
█ n00less cluebie: that should be a tagline

[Shockandawe]

The arrogance comes from an extended period of observation and interaction with players of other maps. A player who may think he is skilled at bio/rome will come into classic with the attitude that the Classic players are below them. I believe this could come from the fact that Classic is just that. Its not new, its not fast, its not flashy. Then once they ruin a few games and this happens over a long period of time. Its easy to see where the attitude comes from.

[Dominator]

[DoooomFM]

In chess there are two elements to the game, the tactical and the strategic/positional. Tactics is precise calculational thinking. Strategy/positional play is the creative weaving together of the basic principles to produce a long term plan and to have in our minds the patterns that are likely to emerge and the strengths and weaknesses of different structures.
Of course the decisions about what tactics to calculate flows from our strategic thinking, and the older we get and the more brain cells we lose , the more selective we become about what we expend energy on calculating.

Risk also has those two elements i think, (and because it is a multi-player game, it also has a third element- the psycological element). I'll talk about the two maps I play most (I know a bit about these maps, I dont really know anything about the others)

The classic map is very helpful for forcing one to calculate (and I enjoyed very much playing the classic map in the blind luxtober tournament, not being able to see who is who really makes you calculate.) And since executing the kills and avoiding being card-fodder requires good positioning, there is clearly a positional/strategic element too.

The Rome map is more strategic. One has to think more about having control of certain areas of the map and who will hit who and what will be the likely future utcome of a border diepute between two other players etc. There is also the matter of killing for cash. This is the best way to win and I have seen players on Rome kill all 5 opponents in a single turn (I remember seeing Claudiu do it, or it might have been Camaro, and also I seem to remember BDF do it a time or two.) Against new players, one can win many games by making a multiple kill, this works well.
For this you need to be fairly good at calculating and thinking quickly.
Im a bit slow so i sometimes mess up on this. There is also the psychological part, especially in the three-player fiasco situation.

The best way to learn the principles of something is by distilling them from ones experience by thinking about what happens and abstracting to form general principles. This can be helped by other people teaching us or just by thinking, but "practice" in the sense of just playing lots of games, does not seem to help much.
So I can see that classic is especially good for learning tactical play and some strategy and Rome is good for learning strategy and some tactics.
But I think the best place to learn is where your mistakes, and good moves, are explained to you in a reasonable way (not just "u idiot, u asshatted me") and with other players who show a grasp of the basic ideas. The choice of map is secondary.

Also , I would add that a lot of people play just for fun without wanting to invest energy in trying to improve too much at a game. This is perfectly valid in my opinion.

[DoooomFM]

To respond to shockandawe, observing other peoples mistakes and the reason they make them, if combined with the right attitude, does not make one more arrogant, it makes one wiser.

Something that does tend to make one arrogant is being in an ultra-competitive cultural environment where we are expected to put other people down and big ourselves up in order to suvive socially or in a career.

[Dangerous Beans]

[Shockandawe]

[DoooomFM]

This is a slightly different point. Does anyone believe there is a strong link between ability at lux and intelligence. Personally i dont think so. Not with a 30 second timer anyway.

[C-Rex]

[Nimrod7]

[DoooomFM]

I understand that nimrod. But really fast people can do that 3 times over, all in 30 seconds. Just cos they are reeeally fast at doing one, fairly basic, operation, does not necessarily make them geniuses. This is my point.

[Shockandawe]

Speed is from analysis.... not clicking