Foreign Policy and General Diplomacy

[2metraninja]

I meant that by just watching, we cannot loose much.

We can. But now we cant do anything anyway, so we just have to watch

1. What are our chances of winning without a dog pile?

It is still early to be told. Maybe not that bad chances. But "dogpile" is not necessary all teams jump at the leader. Sometimes politics dictate that you ally with someone to take third one quick and then everyone is on his own again.

2. What are chance of dogpile succeeding?

Now I dont know. Not good I guess. Teams start to have graphs of each-other and surprise becomes hard, while travel distance gives the attacked great time to prepare. Generally we need the economy to support war. I guess dogpiles will be good when almost all land is gone and borders are really close, roads are being built, etc.

3. Who would emerge as a leader after successful dog pile?

We hope we will be leaders, but at the time we organize the dogpile no one knows we will win the most and we will have long NAPs with all the plotters before even we start. So we have time to capitalize on our gains.

4. Who may be next victim?

There might be next, and there might be not. If we play our cards correct, we will have all we need to be unassailable once we pull off successful rush.

 

[Maga_R]

We can. But now we cant do anything anyway, so we just have to watch

It is still early to be told. Maybe not that bad chances. But "dogpile" is not necessary all teams jump at the leader. Sometimes politics dictate that you ally with someone to take third one quick and then everyone is on his own again.

You are right one can loose as well by being cautious as by being bold. But dogpiling on RB now seems extreme. On the other hand, idea is not original - RB seem clear leader, so other teams are likely considering it, especially more militant once as WPC and Apolypoton.

And by doing it with somebody else hands I did not mean bribering them or anything like that - we still have NAP with RB - just staying neutral as in WPC/German war. But it is very interesting to know if WPC will find anybody else ready to dogpile RB now. But since they have just started war with Germans, I do not think they are very credible as an allies now.

 

[talonschild]

Credible, certainly. My doubts are that they are able. WPC are just not suited to taking on RB in a war - they are already busy, and in terms of UUs they lose the rock-paper-scissors match.

They will be ready, in time. However, we must look for others.

 

[RegentMan]

So what do we do about it? RB's score is probably a bit inflated by land-grabbing through Stonehedge but they do seem to beat us in most important areas. How do we plan to change that?

Continue to build strong cities utilizing the resources around our start. While we do that, find a couple of allies to join us on an invasion of RB, if that is the route we want to take. Once our cities are built, build an army.

I'm not against building the AP per se, but if we build it only for a chance at an early diplomatic victory, then that is not justification for it. I can win a war against a civ using only archers, but why try when you have swordsmen?

 

[vranasm]

I've never saw the AP being razed just like that for the sole reason to get rid of it in any game.

I always refer to strategies/tactics from the SP point of view (which should be obvious) thus you talk about MP or SP? Since in SP it actually is sometimes needed and done.

The danger here comes from instalosing game after capturing city with bad religion which can be found in the Immortal AW game done by BIC in S&T where someone captured his own continent (as latest example but there were more of course), then went and captured city on another losing next turn game...we even discussed ways how to stop AI from winning the game the turn he gains city with wrong religion.

as for AP stopping the war... dunno what happens there but you need a lot of votes and cross fingers to not get defy resolution which is valid option for the attacker if he doesn't have many AP religion cities.

I guess Lord Parkin is known for hunting WW's...I remember reading MP game from sullla where he specifically blamed neighbors of LP for assigning 50 turns NAPs to allow Ind leader to build all the WW's he wanted... it's obvious that if you allow ind leader so much time he will WW... the only counter strategy to WWE is war at the point he invested hammers in them and not units.

it will be similar this game for us if we go WWE...everyone (and mostly RB) will realize that if we built Mids, TAP, UoS, SM we devoted cca 1000 hammers into something else then cities/units and the time for strike is right there... and may I remember you that RB is our direct neighbor totally outplaying us now? Other problem being we will aim our tech path towards some very questionable tech targets since we obviously need those wonders "asap" neglecting construction, feud as the most important techs for our safety.

@maga_r

as per the mishes trades... I guess you mean we will give 1 mish for 1 axe? could work imo...but not sure that WPC will go that way if they are in war now and need all the hammers to fight germans.

mishes for our cities are our investment, we could maybe wait a bit for autospread considering our cities.
Temples are very good builds for us though.
Having shrine would be neat, but it has its price too (most probably blocking GS for long time)

 

[Caledorn]

I'm not sure how many of you are following the general server announcement thread, but things have the potential to turn ugly now with the latest comment made there today which was quite patronizing towards the German team. I'm going to send an email to r_rolo1 to ask him to please come intervene.

 

[Calis]

It seems the German team is short in participants and just tries to win time by not ending their turns. To reduce the turn timer right now during the war would be very unfair in my eyes.

 

[Maga_R]

I have no idea either how open other teams would be to missionary trades. I was wondering if the team thinks it is OK we will start to offer them and see?

GP initially looses to GS - GS would give us immediate +13 in Indira, while shrine will initially give us only +4 , moreover, getting a priest will last longer (only one slot in a temple). On the other hand, we will get shrine gold bonus every turn - while science bonus only applies to turns on which we run research. We can look at the past to try to estimate how often we run research, but with planned new cities and unit building in short term we should have higher maintenance costs than now.

One interesting option is to run priest specialist and 2 scientists in same city - then we cannot control which GP we will get, most likely scientist - but we will get that GP soon.

Vranasm, what do ou think about my AP economic calculations above? Seem very tempting, if correct.

 

[Maga_R]

I'm not against building the AP per se, but if we build it only for a chance at an early diplomatic victory, then that is not justification for it. I can win a war against a civ using only archers, but why try when you have swordsmen?

I did calculations above that AP looks very tempting purely for its economic benefits - what do you guys think about it?

 

[Maga_R]

Credible, certainly. My doubts are that they are able. WPC are just not suited to taking on RB in a war - they are already busy, and in terms of UUs they lose the rock-paper-scissors match.

They will be ready, in time. However, we must look for others.

By not credible I meant what you mean by not able - not likely to be a factor if trying to fight RB, German war would be enough and you are right about UU disadvantage

 

[Caledorn]

Maga: Would you please avoid responding in the State of the Empire thread, and use the turn discussion thread? Just to keep things clean

 

[vranasm]

I have no idea either how open other teams would be to missionary trades. I was wondering if the team thinks it is OK we will start to offer them and see?

GP initially looses to GS - GS would give us immediate +13 in Indira, while shrine will initially give us only +4 , moreover, getting a priest will last longer (only one slot in a temple). On the other hand, we will get shrine gold bonus every turn - while science bonus only applies to turns on which we run research. We can look at the past to try to estimate how often we run research, but with planned new cities and unit building in short term we should have higher maintenance costs than now.

One interesting option is to run priest specialist and 2 scientists in same city - then we cannot control which GP we will get, most likely scientist - but we will get that GP soon.

Vranasm, what do ou think about my AP economic calculations above? Seem very tempting, if correct.

sorry that i seem very close minded but i just don't see the 'tempting' part there at all... academy is for sure much better then 4g shrine (crossing fingers we plan to have at least size 9 capital in 30 turns and having currency to run 100% slider) - even running 2 scientists in cap with library and academy will yield better result then 4g shrine on 0% slider which i hope will not be our outlook since it would mean very very bad thrown game.

then there is problem how to actually generate the prophet? does it mean we have to build temple run 1 priest and wait 34 turns to get one prophet?

where as we can have great scientist in 17 turns after first library built with 6 gpp...

and dont forget we even don't have priesthood and odds are we won't have for another ~30 turns...

seems to me like you didn't wage actually our current situation we are in.

I am not totally opposed to the idea of trading religion for some units...but going religious economy is pretty bad way to play the game

 

[Maga_R]

Hi vranasm, thank you for your comprehensive reply. I meant my Ap calculations from post 187:
"I think economically it looks tempting. It will cost us 320 (with OR bonus), vranasm says temples are 40 . That means that if we have 10 cities, for 76 we will get 2 per turn bonus, break-even at 38 turns. With 20 cities, break-even point is at 28 turns. This does not include cost of great prophet, though (necessary to bulb theology). But if we get a shrine, we can get great prophet easier than other gp, it comes with several prophet slots. Since we are in it for a long haul (some talk about space victory), math sounds good. Or am I missing something?"

I agree that getting prophet is tricky - since everybody agrees that GS would be great anyway, we can try to run 2 scientist + priest, and letting chance decide - that is getting GS in 2 cases out of 3. Anyway we will get our GP faster that way, always a bonus. And that would require going priesthood soon. I still think failgold and connecting stone is more tempting at this point that building wealth through currency to run 100% slider (although we get +1 trade route, starting shrine equivalent). Shrines definitely take some time to develop, on the other hand we are playing huge map, with 11 teams. If in the next 50 turns everybody will have ~ 10 cities (looks like we are building 3 settlers atm) there is potential for huge shrine income, if we spread our religion early. Unfortunately, RB also got early religion - and GPP generating Stonehedge, so they can beat us easily to spreading religion - if they would be interested in actively pursuing it.

That is true that I have problem with getting some details of the game - going through all these screenshots is rather inconvenient. Can anybody on the team log in just to look what is going on, or is it only for the turn player?

 

[YossarianLives]

I'm not sure how many of you are following the general server announcement thread, but things have the potential to turn ugly now with the latest comment made there today which was quite patronizing towards the German team. I'm going to send an email to r_rolo1 to ask him to please come intervene.

This definitely should have been something for r_rolo to determine. I don't like having the teams vote on it. Obviously, the two warring factors have different opinions. The Germans want to keep the timer at the full 48 hours, and WPC (and some other teams) want the timer to be shortened. Either way we vote, we will upset some of the teams. Even abstaining can put us on shaky diplomatic ground.

At any rate, I would personally prefer a shorter turn timer. However, at this moment a slower timer works for me because I am not as available to keep up with this game. For this particular situation, I think it's probably in our best interest to keep quiet and see what happens.

 

[RegentMan]

I'm not sure how many of you are following the general server announcement thread, but things have the potential to turn ugly now with the latest comment made there today which was quite patronizing towards the German team. I'm going to send an email to r_rolo1 to ask him to please come intervene.

If we have to take a side, I would personally vote no. I am for shortening the timer, but not in the middle of a war. After peace, then I'll switch to yes.

 

[1889]

If we have to take a side, I would personally vote no. I am for shortening the timer, but not in the middle of a war. After peace, then I'll switch to yes.

I feel the same way. I'm sure WPC is very excited to play their turn and kill some more Krouts, but wars aren't nearly as much fun for the loosing team. The turn timmer is the same as its always been, and the Germans are hardly any slower than before. There is no reason for a bout of impatience now. To make such a sugestion durring a war is poor sportsmanship if you ask me. I would vote against any reduction in the timer right now.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I feel the same way. I'm sure WPC is very excited to play their turn and kill some more Krouts, but wars aren't nearly as much fun for the loosing team. The turn timmer is the same as its always been, and the Germans are hardly any slower than before. There is no reason for a bout of impatience now. To make such a sugestion durring a war is poor sportsmanship if you ask me. I would vote against any reduction in the timer right now.

This.

 

[cav scout]

So I posted a message in the UN about cutting the Germans a little slack on the turn timer. The discussion had turned a bit rough there in my opinion so I figured they could use a kind word and a little moral support from another team.

Now of course we don't want WPC to get annoyed. So someone from our team should reassure them that we are also upset that the Germans are dragging their feet and we wish they would play the turn quicker.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I owe everyone an apology BTW

I just noticed yesterday that like 2 weeks ago WPC contacted me to complain about the Germans and the turn timer. At the time I was on Thanksgiving holiday and only paying attention to the games I am hosting and not much else Civ related.

Anyway in the message Beta announced ahead of time that they were going to attack the Germans. Now to be sure, I would not have revealed this info to the team UNLESS we already knew about it through normal channels since the way he involved me in the issue was in a pseudo-admin-rules-interpretation-y sort-of way, so I think it would have been bad form to use that in a meta-game way, but still, from a diplomatic perspective, if we did know in advance that WPC was going to attack, I could have let the team know in advance of the potential wedge issue with the timer.

Not sure where I'm going with all this... but I just felt an apology was in order for dropping the ball. I have to go back and read our thread now to see if my falling asleep at the wheel did any damage or if we were actually aware of the impending attack/timer tensions etc already

Last thing, whew: havent typed a post that long on this forum in months)...

I think we should base who we PUBLICLY "support" in this timer conflict soleley on who we think is going to win the war AND/OR who we think is a potential long term ally for us... Fairness be damned , reason be damned... This is a PURELY political move IMO. We should only express public support for the team we want to kiss up to. It's a game afterall and something like this affects diplomacy (whether they see us as natural allies or not).

I'm not familiar enough with the situation on the ground to say who we should side with, but I'm sure some of you are... My two (or seven) cents.

 

[Calis]

I think we should base who we PUBLICLY "support" in this timer conflict soleley on who we think is going to win the war AND/OR who we think is a potential long term ally for us... Fairness be damned , reason be damned... This is a PURELY political move IMO. We should only express public support for the team we want to kiss up to. It's a game afterall and something like this affects diplomacy (whether they see us as natural allies or not).

Not sure whether you mean that seriously with all these smileys, but thing regarding the turn timer have nothing to do with ingame topics. So I completely disagree on this. The turn timer can be discussed when the war is over, not now.