G-Major 105

[The-Hawk]

Well done! Congrats. I'm not sure I will have a chance to try this again, maybe I'll get in a shot over the weekend. Not sure it will matter, that is a heck of a good finish date

[Tachywaxon]

Guess I have lost...
First attempt.
T50 - 1735 AD conquest.

Last battles RNG screwed me and I should have DoWed one turn earlier to hasten the end of refusal to talk. Damn you Roosevelt!

Congrats.

BTW, this attempt was a response to the great attempt by Bugio.

[Firmlife]

My first good try was 1805, with a few turns of delay because Roosevelt wouldn't capitulate. Then a lot of people scored much lower, and I retooled my strategy to try to keep up.

Had a really good game today, the AI layout wasn't great, but I got my cities up really fast and the first three AI's went down really quickly. I thought I had a shot at 1730, but on the fourth AI I lost five 70% battles in a row and my momentum broke. Anyway, I took the last two enemy capitals in 1730 and 1735, but neither AI capitulated. I was forced to eliminate Roosevelt entirely, and finally the last AI capitulated in 1750 after losing three more cities, including his new capital.

I was wondering if anyone has any information on the capitulation mechanism. I'm not clever enough to look through game files, but I'd rather not try to tease it out through gameplay. Obviously Roosevelt didn't capitulate in both my games, and he gave Tachy problems as well. I played two rather serious games in between the two attempts described above and in one I quit because Elizabeth wouldn't capitulate even after I'd taken all of her cities but one which was three square out of my way, on a hill, with only hills and forests in between. (It would have been a 1770-1780 finish if she caps.) I've also noticed Gandhi folds like a tent.

I can imagine a variety of factors including ratio of original population to current population, war weariness, enemy troops in borders, battle win-to-loss ratio, turns since DoW, and a leader's inherent peaceweight or troop building characteristics. Just wondering if anyone has any concrete information.

[Tachywaxon]

In fact, Roosevelt was willing to capitulate without resistance. The problem was the refusal to talk period. I think I should have DoWed just a couple of turns before the real deal of the war, just to be ensured to get a contact. Indeed, recontacting is an interesting issue as I've seen a leader willing to talk and after capturing a city with flying colors, he refused to talk again within the turn to talk again next turn and accept capitulation. It sure is an aspect I should study more deeply. And quick speed sure is not helping if the refusal to talk prolongs too much...
But an AI DoWing us is far worse in terms of refusal to talk than us against them!

[Tachywaxon]

Hey folks. I forgot to mention a little trick I found out on this special gauntlet, but definitely helps (and I should abused it if my mind was not in such a rush at that time):
with a renaissance start with serfdom on, quick speed offers quite an interesting unbalanced choice:

if you chop and then manually mine a hill, then you get 4 turns of improvement.
If you take the mine option on a forested hill (that means chop+mine at once), you get 3 turns!!

Yes, you may get the hammer chops one turn later, but you space a juicy quick speed turn on the mine improvement. Something not to miss!

[Bugio]

Originally Posted by Firmlife

I was wondering if anyone has any information on the capitulation mechanism.

I can imagine a variety of factors including ratio of original population to current population, war weariness, enemy troops in borders, battle win-to-loss ratio, turns since DoW, and a leader's inherent peaceweight or troop building characteristics. Just wondering if anyone has any concrete information.

The capitulation mechanism is rather obscure indeed. As far as i know there is not a precise alguritm that makes you able to calculate exactly if and when someone capitulate or not, but there are a few known things:

-land and general power level difference (the sum of all of the units str). It's very hard to capitulate someone bigger than you, starting bigger on the other hand helps a lot. Also i believe there is a certain minumum level of power you need to have (see S&T forum where Seraiel was experimenting feudalism slingshot to have an early vassal as research partner). I believe i've read that vassals counts half in this level, so in a fast conquest game it's better to completely destroy the first and maybe the second civ you get to raise your power fast.

-war success. The less troops you loose, the faster the opponent will cap. This is also because loosing troops lowers your power level, so make sure to not loose anyone, and remember that even scouts and workers counts on war success, so take advantage of that

-safe borders. This is not always exploitable, but surrounding a civ with enemies being it your vassals or yourself (bribes count too, but beware of AI vassal to other AI instead) increase the chanches of capitulation

-iVassalPowerModifier. This xml value rank leaders on how hard is to make them surrender. It varies from -20 to 50 and the lower it is the easiest is to capitulate him. The vast majority have 0, the default value. The weaklings have -20 (Gandhi, Mansa and surprisingly Catherine and De Gaulle), Sury also have -10. The most subborn leaders are Sitting Bull and Gengis Khan with 50. Note that their unitprob stat is also important cause the more unit they build the higher will be their base powerlevel (which then will be modified by this value).

[Tachywaxon]

Thanks Bugio! I didn't know about iVassalPowerModifier.

[Ozbenno]

This gauntlet is now over.

Results:
G-Major 105 - Conquest, Immortal, Standard, Quick, Renaissance
1^st Bugio 1730 AD
2^nd tachywaxon 1735 AD
3^rd Firmlife 1755AD

Well done all

[Firmlife]

Ozbenno, can you tell me why my game #25460 wasn't included in this gauntlet? I've double-checked and it satisfies all of the criteria. It was submitted on time and has been accepted and published.

My best guess is I played with Raging Barbs on and the gauntlet was set to Normal Barbs only, though all the gauntlet says is you can't play with No Barbarians. I have no idea how things work on your end, but if its possible to fix, I'd sure like to have this included for Quattromaster points. Besides I got third place!

[Ozbenno]

Originally Posted by Firmlife

Ozbenno, can you tell me why my game #25460 wasn't included in this gauntlet? I've double-checked and it satisfies all of the criteria. It was submitted on time and has been accepted and published.

OK, the gauntlet had been set to close at 8pm on the 10th and you did get in before midnight and the update. Just be aware that sometimes the update can happen at around this time...

[Firmlife]

I've been mulling this one over since I submitted it in the afternoon of the tenth, sometimes between 12 and 3 I think. I don't want to have this happen again, I don't like unnecessarily bothering people who give their time to run things I like to participate in.

What time zone is the official time zone that we mean by 8pm on the 10th and 25th? Somehow I got it into my head that it was Central Time (USA) but now I seem to recall someone saying Australian time?

[Ozbenno]

Originally Posted by Firmlife

What time zone is the official time zone that we mean by 8pm on the 10th and 25th? Somehow I got it into my head that it was Central Time (USA) but now I seem to recall someone saying Australian time?

Times are based upon US Central, ie yesterday in Australian time