Compare Liberty and Tradition, Head-to-Head

[IronfighterXXX]

OMG I don't believe that people still talk about exploits in this stage of game.

Before I started to play for fast finishes I already had 100% win on deity so to make things harder I played with such rules as:
-no worker stealing from AI or CS
-no pillage-repair-heal
-WLTKD- DOW
-sell luxury-pillage
-bribe player A to war with player B then immediately DOW player A
-trade only item for item with AI (eg lux for lux, embassy for embassy - no gold)

Without this all ,,exploits'' I still was getting easy sub 250t wins, because in end skill >>>> exploits

Anyway since this thread has been poluted with worker stealing posts I link my 199t Shoshone tradition game http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13808738&postcount=57

BTW the biggest exploit is to war with AI, so no Domv for exploits- free players

 

[Olodune]

It just seems very hypocritical to me to (1) want to play at Deity, while (2) understanding that a major play balance mechanism is to give the AI extra early units, but then (3) work hard to take away units and give them to the player.

How is this much different than using the in-game editor to achieve the same effect?

Deity single player is not exactly a zero sum competitive game with the AI. The AI gets a bunch of bonuses and we get to use our human cunning to overcome them. It is more like playing in a sandbox. The competitive part of single player games comes, for me, in two parts:

1) Playing as well as I am able to with the current board state -> making good decisions
2) Getting results that are comparable to top players (which is much, much harder than beating the game at Deity. Just look at the GotM results for any Prince -> Emperor game and try to replicate them ...)

Variant play (and custom rulesets) are an entirely different aspect - they are fantastic ways to change up standard gameplay and help keep the game from getting stale. Additional challenges and all that jazz.

MP is closer to a fair game - but then you need massive blocks of solid time that can be devoted to Civ That and I dislike simultaneous turns.

 

[consentient]

because of being light on defense, I was going to take a beating from Shoshone or Russia one way or the other.

Ok, take this as your starting point. I would suggest this is a major problem for you. Thinking you will take a beating is negative thinking, and in this situation, not really true, I think.

If Poca DoWs you pre-T75 then it CAN be a problem, but he is usually more interested in expanding and building infrastructure during this time. Shaka and Oda are not so patient. Cathy is a bit unpredictable, but she goes Piety 75% of the time now so is a lot more restrained early game.

So as long as you have 2-3 CBs per city, you will be fine, really. Even if they DoW. If you've placed your cities well with defence in mind, and you manoeuvre the CBs and have a meat shield stand in front of them, you will quicky kill 4 or 5 units as they approach the city, and the army will retreat or offer peace. Take it, and they won't come again for a good while. You don't always need to follow them into their land and really let them have it - though recognising when this is a good option is an expert play that I myself could use some practice at.

Zero. I was holding out for the CA that would upgrade to CA, and The Wheel was not on the tech path to Philosophy.

Next time, don't hold out. Build an archer per city before hitting Philosophy. Then build another one per city just before you hit Construction. Upgrade them, and you will be in much better shape. Follow Moriarte's Liberty Domination guide if you think you will want to do any conquest of your own. You can stop after one capital, and you will be in good shape to pursue any victory condition available to you.

I actually DOW'd on him with Katherine to avoid Katherine DOWing me.

NEVER agree to a DoW pact unless a) you want to conquer that civ; or b) they are far away and the size of your army means they will offer you cities or luxes for nothing after they take a pasting from whoever is next to them and asked you to do it. DoW-ing someone you are scared of attacking you when your army < theirs is folly.

It was going to be bad either way. My other games have involved bribing them to DOW each other while I get my infrastructure up. I was not able to work that this time through. I blame that on using caravans for internal food routes to instead of trades routes to their capitals...

If you want to play peaceful, caravans for food is the best ticket. But the problem is you didn't build the units. I play almost wholly without bribes when I'm peaceful. But I build units. I'd rather have 8 CBs, 3 Pikes and a Horse and hit NC T95 than hit is T80 and have no army.

It is turn 11. First scout had just circled round cap, and second scout just spawned. Barb camp in nearby and will cause me grief if I do not clear it (Raging Barbs) I do tend to over emphasis getting scouts +2 vision asap, but this set up is win-win-win.

I was talking about your strategy in general, not the T11 position, but anyway I don't know of any player that is better than me who cares about scout promotions. Messing around with barb camps means turns lost using scouts for what they are for. The maths you mention about hexes does not include the opportunity costs of lost turns. By T60 most of the scouting should be done. You will be lacking in this area if you pestered the poor barbs.

After the Halloween patch, when it became clear that I might never again have Stonehenge as an option, I started experimenting with shrine/monument instead of monument/shrine. This causes a noticeable delay on your first few policies, but in my experience the payoff from an early pantheon is well worth it, founding or not. From the numbers alone, X turns of any pantheon >> the 2X cpt you get from monument first. I would encourage you to try it for a few games in a row, see what you think.

Sure but early settlers > any religion.

This game, the dirt is so good for Tears of the God that I think shrine-before-monument is not necessary, and that founding is assured. I have been picking up Jesuit Education. Of course, that delays Rationalism, but I think it has worth the trade off.

I think Reformation is only worth it for certain culture games and for Piety Diplo. Otherwise the policies are far better spent elsewhere.

My war with Pocatello quickly imploded. The only city I can get to is in jungle and he has the Great Wall. CA cannot stay of city range. As soon as I get the city into the red, Comanche Riders pop out and kill my CA. I probably will not return to this iteration...

Sorry to hear your conquest floundered. I think it's probably because you started too late, or didn't reach Chivalry in good time, and didn't have your Chariots make enough promotions prior to upgrade. On DCL #8 I had a LOT of CAs when I hit Chivalry. For DCL #24 I regret the horse-light map now, but when I had originally intended to post it, there had been a whole slew of Domination maps and I wanted to give a neutral map.

my plan was to not stop building workers (after expos) until I had eight of them.

You need 1-1.5 per city. 8 is too many.

The two I got from Russia were after I had build four.

This is pointless. Steal them early or not at all, as stealing them after you've built that many defeats the point, enrages the AI, and is VERY risky (although this last point is not true in THIS case)

I will continue to aggressively use them until Firaxis does something about it...if we're giving advice on Deity play, which, apparently this has tangented into, then *most definitely worker steal as early as possible*.

Amen. The Deity AI unit spam is reason enough for me not to have any qualms about worker stealing AT ALL. When they can make 2 units a turn continuously and throw them at you, with buffs, then I'm happy to recruit their serfs.

 

[Olodune]

You need 1-1.5 per city. 8 is too many.

Are you sure? Ironfighter has at least 8 for 4 cities in his 199 SV with Shoshone. The faster you can grow the more workers are ideal. I think the ratio of workers/city should also approach 2 if there is forest/jungle/marsh.

Working unimproved tiles is bad (but less bad then it was in Civ4 and earlier).

 

[Cromagnus]

I agree we are OT.



I read this as you admitting that worker stealing is a cheesy crutch. Yes, there may be other cheesy crutches.



That may indeed be true in most cases. Sorry, but you sound like a felon complaining about everyone jay walking.



Sure you can, and here is one: Does the tactic help the player at the expense the AI? Or does it just buff the human player, and is not something the AI does?

I have made peace with CS worker steals and even pillage repair by applying the above test. Yes, both are cheesy, OP, and not something the AI does. But neither CS worker steals nor pillage-repair cost the AI civs directly.

It just seems very hypocritical to me to (1) want to play at Deity, while (2) understanding that a major play balance mechanism is to give the AI extra early units, but then (3) work hard to take away units and give them to the player.

How is this much different than using the in-game editor to achieve the same effect?

So do you refuse to set up trade routes to AIs or DoW any AI that sets up trade routes to your cities? This typically gives a +25-50% tech boost, depending on whether it's one, two or three trade routes, because the AIs start with 4 free techs and an extra city.

Do you refuse to trade luxuries for lump sums? The AI would not have this much cash to give in the early game if it weren't poorly balanced, nor would they, if properly tuned, gladly give you all their cash for happiness they don't need. These are just a few of the MANY highly unbalanced mechanics on Deity. If you refuse to worker steal you are arbitrarily deciding that certain of those unbalanced mechanics are "cheaty".

What about, as mentioned, the fact that virtually all Deity science victory strategies rely on the AI ignoring your pitiful military instead of attacking, or being so bad at warfare that they can't take your cities despite a massive production/gold/tech advantage... do you keep a large enough military to fend off a *realistic* threat? Sorry, 6 crossbowmen shouldn't cut it when the AI hits the Industrial Era and you beelined Sci Theory instead of taking Gunpowder or Industrialization or whatever.

Feel free to choose which unbalanced mechanics you exploit, but that's all you're doing: Choosing different mechanics to exploit.

 

[Cromagnus]

Are you sure? Ironfighter has at least 8 for 4 cities in his 199 SV with Shoshone. The faster you can grow the more workers are ideal. I think the ratio of workers/city should also approach 2 if there is forest/jungle/marsh.

Working unimproved tiles is bad (but less bad then it was in Civ4 and earlier).

# of workers needed increases linearly with growth rate. The slower you play, the less workers you need. The faster you play (in a HOF record SV for example) the more workers you need. But that's secondary to fast play.

 

[beetle]

Getting results that are comparable to top players (which is much, much harder than beating the game at Deity. Just look at the GotM results for any Prince -> Emperor game and try to replicate them ...)

I totally respect this. You need a level playing field -- so that means just about any exploit has to be okay. The game is what it is, and people get so good that competing for shortest turns is the only way to keep it interesting. Okay, so that means HoF and GotM is not appealing to me, but that is my problem not yours.

I don&#8217;t really expect that there can be any credible answer to how early-worker-stealing-from-AI is substantially different than using the IGE. It is not your fault that the game is in the state it is in. You are playing it optimally, and I am not. I appreciate the help I am getting, even as I decline certain exploits.

 

[IronfighterXXX]

I don&#8217;t really expect that there can be any credible answer to how early-worker-stealing-from-AI is substantially different than using the IGE.

Well, stealing is not guaranteed on all maps and you can actually loose your unit and worker - have to take some risk (both not case when using IGE), also you have to make some effort with scouting, etc (again not case with IGE). Not mention that with IGE you can have your worker from turn 0, without sometimes you have to be very patient.

Besides, if someone has usually >300t SV and thinks that with worker stealing it would be <250 he is clearly wrong.

 

[consentient]

Are you sure? Ironfighter has at least 8 for 4 cities in his 199 SV with Shoshone. The faster you can grow the more workers are ideal. I think the ratio of workers/city should also approach 2 if there is forest/jungle/marsh.

To clarify, I don't mean that it's bad the whole game. You can add more later, and later still, delete them. But 3 or 4 is enough before T50. As in, you can manage fine, and 8 is not a requirement.

And Beetle is building a load, not stealing 6 of them, so that was what I was saying is pretty bad. That's a hell of a load of lost turns.

I'm not gonna weigh in on the worker stealing debate anymore. It's just old.

Did I miss an Ironfighter LP or did you see it in a SS?

 

[Cromagnus]

In my experience, there's a limit on the number of workers you want early. It's actually bad to have too many. It can start to consume too much precious gpt and potentially put you up against the supply cap. You have to balance it against the value it adds. 7 workers is 7gpt early, more later, and if you're improving tiles you don't have the population to work, that's wasted gpt.

The key is to have just the right amount of workers. With a subjugated CS, you can keep increasing that number without every buying or building one. Eventually you do want 6 workers. And to say that getting all of them for free doesn't affect finish times, when the total value is 1800+ gold... well, I'm fairly certain it has a measurable impact. If you're a good enough player to maximize the value.

 

[IronfighterXXX]

In my experience, there's a limit on the number of workers you want early. It's actually bad to have too many. It can start to consume too much precious gpt and potentially put you up against the supply cap. You have to balance it against the value it adds. 7 workers is 7gpt early, more later, and if you're improving tiles you don't have the population to work, that's wasted gpt.

Well, I never had early game with too many workers and hard to imagine this one - workers don't appear from nothing, even when you steal them . For gpt just improve fast those 4 horse\iron tile and you have gold for eight workers

And to say that getting all of them for free doesn't affect finish times, when the total value is 1800+ gold... well, I'm fairly certain it has a measurable impact. If you're a good enough player to maximize the value.

Well, obviously it affect finish time, but not so much as players who don't do it could think (someone who usually has >300T SV won't beat me or Acken just because he will start to steal workers)

 

[Cromagnus]

Well, I never had early game with too many workers and hard to imagine this one - workers don't appear from nothing, even when you steal them . For gpt just improve fast those 4 horse\iron tile and you have gold for eight workers

This wasn't a Deity game I was thinking of. I'm thinking specifically of a game where I stole 4 workers early due to "luck". (1 from CS, 2 workers + 1 settler from an AI)

My gpt hit the red because I didn't have strategics to sell and the AI didn't have enough gold to buy my luxes. And I was improving tiles about twice as fast as my city was growing... I think anything more than 2 workers/city is a waste *in general*, although obviously there are situations (and perhaps short windows of time) when more would be nice.

Like, if you have a really nice Petra city. Sending multiple caravans doesn't yield max benefit if you outgrow your tiles, so in that case 4 workers for that one city might be just right. But generally speaking, 2 per city is probably the most you'd need to keep up with growth. /shrug

 

[LordBalkoth]

Do you still have the save?....With liberty you could expand so the whole island is yours and you could do either two things with your great person: engineer for petra or if that wonder has been built already (prob)

Unfortunately, no, I went through and looked.

Both Desert Folklore and Petra went very early.

The lack of luxes made expanding across the island rather difficult...and it wasn't that large of an island either. Not like I could have a 10 city empire.

I do know that Russia won on turn 316 and that Russia (along with at least one other AI) went full Rationalism.

The game might very well have been winnable -- I was definitely far, far worse then than I am now. But it mainly stands out because it seemed to be a perfect storm: bad start, lose Desert Folklore/Petra, and AIs go Rationalism.

The whole trading mechanic shenanigans just baffle me.

Indeed. One of my favorite parts is how the interest rate reverses if you're the one lending gold to the AI. In other words...it'll give you 25.5 gold in exchange for 1 GPT. But if you want 1 GPT FROM the AI, it'll demand 33 gold.

I am more interested know that you don't plan to worker steal! But really though, I would get more out of a screen shot and few notes every 50 turns.

All right.

The problem with applying your argument to worker stealing is that you can say the exact identical argument and claim any of the following is a cheesy crutch:

My argument against worker stealing definitely wouldn't apply to four out of the five things you mentioned...and the only one it might apply to (baiting AI units with workers) basically only strengthens my position in general. Since if the AI is supposed to value workers THAT highly it doesn't make any sense that they wouldn't guard them and then forgive and forget a theft. Rather contradictory.

That said, this is off-topic for this thread, can make another if you wish and we can discuss it there.

 

[shaglio]

I don’t really expect that there can be any credible answer to how early-worker-stealing-from-AI is substantially different than using the IGE. It is not your fault that the game is in the state it is in. You are playing it optimally, and I am not. I appreciate the help I am getting, even as I decline certain exploits.

This is starting to veer off topic, but it’s not an exploit. Are you allowed within the confines of the game’s rules to attack/capture an enemy unit with it resulting in a DoW? Yes. Are you allowed within the confines of the game’s rules to make peace with a CS that is not currently allied with a civ with whom you’re at war? Yes. It may be considered cheesy by some, and acceptable by others, but it's not an exploit.

It’s not like the old Social Policy exploit where, if you earned enough culture to pick a new SP, you clicked on the “Social Policy” icon to bring up the SP window and selected one. Then when you exited out of the window, if you quickly clicked on the “Social Policy” icon again before it disappeared, you could select another SP. THAT was an exploit because it wasn’t supposed to happen within the confines of the game’s rules.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

My argument against worker stealing definitely wouldn't apply to four out of the five things you mentioned...and the only one it might apply to (baiting AI units with workers) basically only strengthens my position in general. Since if the AI is supposed to value workers THAT highly it doesn't make any sense that they wouldn't guard them and then forgive and forget a theft. Rather contradictory.

Fair enough wrt on-topic. I can break down relative utility vs AI handling of various mechanics and why an exploit distinction is *necessarily* arbitrary elsewhere if you prefer.

The consideration is still relevant to this thread if worker stealing is stronger for one of the paths, because if its usage adds more relative value to one of them then not using it will misrepresent a comparison between the two.

 

[stormtrooper412]

I am definitely going to stop stealing workers and see how it would affect my game. The Shoshone map looks ideal for it.

 

[Sayya]

You should steal all of the workers that you possibly can from the AI, and disband them (within your borders) if they're useless to you. Often times I'll have 7 workers for 3 cities somehow, and after I improve all of the tiles I need, disband it to 4-5. You'll also make a pretty penny for disbanding them.

Since the AI builder and the AI unit manager is uncoupled, they'll keep building more and more.

And any time the AI is building workers, it's not building Impis.

I don't think it's an exploit in the slightest. By stealing the worker, you have to declare war, which has its own set of consequences.

Doing it to a city-state, for example, pretty much ensures you aren't going to get friendly with that city state until turn 70+. Doing it to a neighbor has the risk of losing your warrior (especially if you're not careful), and also ties up your warrior to not be defending vs. barbarians.

It also probably increases the chance of them hating your ing guts.

 

[stormtrooper412]

except most of the time that doesn't happen. If you steal a worker from an AI civ and then leg it back the other end, they will not follow you and there will be peace usually within 5 turns and then a DoF on the next one

 

[Sayya]

except most of the time that doesn't happen. If you steal a worker from an AI civ and then leg it back the other end, they will not follow you and there will be peace usually within 5 turns and then a DoF on the next one

This completely depends on the AI flavor. Remember that warmonger penalties add up over time.

In one of my games, I stole a worker from a city-state and one from the AI.

These were the only two war declarations I had. I didn't capture any cities.

Brazil would only give 6gpt for a luxury, and a few civs had "early concerns of my warmongering"

It has penalties, it isn't a clear cut "free worker!"

 

[consentient]

This completely depends on the AI flavor. Remember that warmonger penalties add up over time.

In one of my games, I stole a worker from a city-state and one from the AI.

These were the only two war declarations I had. I didn't capture any cities.

Brazil would only give 6gpt for a luxury, and a few civs had "early concerns of my warmongering"

It has penalties, it isn't a clear cut "free worker!"

After a short while, everyone will have forgotten it. I've had DoFs with people I stole workers from between 1 and 5 turns after I made peace. It's absurd. Not an exploit in my book, but it is stupid.