LK Planning thread

[gozpel]

When I use worker blocks of coastal tiles in my own games, I always let one square be open. Of my choice of course, because it's my territory after all. That should be alowwed, to create a killing zone, and if the AI has the intent to land, it can.

I'm very happy to see Palace-jumps and ship-shaining addressed. I simply hate those and quit playing GOTM because of the exploit.

Another point I think is "half" an exploit, is to buy techs for huge gpt, when you "know" the AI will attack you next turn. Cheesy.

 

[LKendter]

I revised the wording for ship-chaining. Let me know if it is clearer now.


The following tactics are PROHIBITED:

RoP Abuse Tactics - Denying resources, blocking key tiles, RoP rape, or other ways to screw-up a civ via the RoP. A scout in AI territory has an explicit RoP and is subject to this rule.

Peace Treaty abuse - If you get concessions from the AI you must wait for the 20 turns to end before declaring another war.

Resource abuse - You can't disconnect / reconnect a resource every turn for the sake of building cheap units to upgrade with excess cash.

Ship chaining exploit - you can move a ship, unload troops to another ship in the same square not using any movement, move that ship, etc. This allows you to ship an indefinite distance, and that is why I consider it an exploit.

The negative science exploit - you can run a huge deficit (-250 / turn) of negative cash with a token penalty of one lost worker / cheap building. If cash will go below zero, the research level must be dropped.

Palace Jump - You abandon the capital city to move the palace to a new location. If you want to move the palace, build a new palace.

Mass troop jumping - You can't give away a give a city to transport a large amount of troops to another landmass.


Standard LK house rules:
1) Worker automation of any kind is prohibited.

2) Worker blockades are prohibited. This prevents things such as fortifying workers along the coast to stop invasions, blocking troops from going through your territory with workers, etc. Workers activity doing something along the coast is fine. The workers must be actively doing something.

3) You may not declare war on a civ if you are currently shipping cash and / or goods to the civ.

4) Even if not covered under exploits listed, please try not to use tactics that take advantage of holes in the game design.

5) Our reputation is golden - please respect it.

 

[Grimjack]

I would say that house rule #4 should cover most for those people who have at least read a coupel of the other LK games on the forum.

I do not know if I should congratulate you on your return, or commiserate on the aborted assignment.

Welcome back anyway
Grimjack

 

[LKendter]

I do not know if I should congratulate you on your return, or commiserate on the aborted assignment.

The aborted assignment is the bigger issue. I thought the contract would last at least to March 2005, and more likely June 2005. This one totally blinded me.

I don't know how the job market in Sweden is, but in the USA good paying work is getting very hard to find. The odds are 10-1 that the next assignment will pay lower.

 

[Grimjack]

I had hoepd for your sake, it was a job that went better than expected, and not a job that got the plug. Pity.
Any assignment could do worse than get someone that pays attention to detail as well as being a highly capable planner.
Grimjack

 

[LKendter]

At least one new game will start after Christmas. Some things will change in the way the games start.

I want to finalize the the new house rules. I have one major issue to solve - bombers. Fatal land bombardment for bombers was IMO the worst feature of C3C. I see to methods to fix it. Let me know which you prefer:

1) Change the master game .bic and remove fatal land bombardment from bombers.
2) Enact a houserule that prevent further bomber attacks once a unit dies in the city.

Let me know your feelings on this one.

 

[plarq]

Lee,I suggest point 2,lethal land is not at all bad,at least Flight tech causes some casuality,but Bomber SoD is obviously forbidden because of this overpowered ability.So,stop bombing after 1 enemy unit in stack is knocked dead.

 

[Greebley]

On point 2:
Are you suggesting:
You can only kill one (red-lined) unit per turn per city

or

You can only kill one (red-lined) unit per turn (only counting cities)?

I specified red-lined because you can kill a unit early. If you did kill one then you would be forced to stop bombing when units had 2 (or 3??) hp left. This adds a weird random variable in you bombing.

It gets even stranger if you have to stop the first time you get a death (red-lined or not) in a city. If you got one really early your bombers do nothing. You would want to decide how many bombers you want to use on squares other than the city first, when it is better to do it the other way around (bomb the city then use up the rest of the bombers).

Killing 1 red-lined unit per turn would work. You can then fire on healthy stacks after you killed the first red-lined one if you have bombers left. I think this would be my choice if I was making the decision. i.e.

"You can only kill one red-lined unit per turn with bombers"

 

[LKendter]

I am thinking of you must must stop attacking after killing 1 unit in the stack. You are free to move to another stack with the rest of the bombers.

Yellow-lined units are a real problem as a bomber often takes two hp units to zero allowing multiple kills in stack if you have the right to attempt to red-line all units.

I am really not sure how to create good wording against the bomber SoD.


This is why I am debating option #1 as it is simple.

 

[romeothemonk]

You could play the "Friendly American" way. Whenever you have a representative government, and kill a citizen in a city with a bomber the "press" jumps all over you and you can't bomb that city for a while. (1-turn) That would make city bombing relatively a moot point as you invariably kill citizens before units ~95% of the time. Thus use cruise missles to only kill the units in cities. You would have to develop your own rule for units in the open, but I don't think bombers hitting giant SoD's is much of a concern and I haven't seen it in a SG for some months now.
Just a thought, and it's free so you know what it is worth.
P.S. I would like a chance to join an LK series game at some point, so I am glad that you are "unretiring."

 

[meldor]

I would prefer that the fatal part was removed. I like the bombers for there range. While I would hate to lose the fatal sea bombardment, I could live without it.

 

[Matt_G]

While I would hate to lose the fatal sea bombardment, I could live without it.

You can keep the fatal sea bombardment, and only lose the fatal land bombardment.

 

[LKendter]

You can keep the fatal sea bombardment, and only lose the fatal land bombardment.

Matt_G is dead on target. Fatal land and Fatal sea bombard are two different options. Kill ships at see with air (very common) is still a viable option.

 

[Greebley]

I think that would be the best option (turn off land only).

I would keep lethal bombardment for stealth bombers. There seems little reason to go for that tech otherwise and is late game.

Trying to make a house rule seems hard - sometimes it is even difficult to know if you killed the unit or not; do you count killing an airplane or boat (which IIRC they target first, etc).

How about air? Would a bomber be able to kill a fighter in a city?

 

[LKendter]

How about air? Would a bomber be able to kill a fighter in a city?

I have no idea on that one.

 

[microbe]

Yes. Fighters are usually the first to be killed. I am not sure if they are directly killed or killed during unsuccessful interception.

 

[LKendter]

I make to make sure people realize that mapstat is fine to use with LK games.

I use it all the time to make unhappy people management easier.

 

[microbe]

I make to make sure people realize that mapstat is fine to use with LK games.

I use it all the time to make unhappy people management easier.

Do you allow all tabs? Like flip calculator?

I explicitly ban it in my rules.

 

[LKendter]

I have added a new rule in bold listed below. Sacrificing a worker to save a city really abuses the AI stupidity.



The following tactics are PROHIBITED:

RoP Abuse Tactics - Denying resources, blocking key tiles, RoP rape, or other ways to screw-up a civ via the RoP. A scout in AI territory has an explicit RoP and is subject to this rule.

Peace Treaty abuse - If you get concessions from the AI you must wait for the 20 turns to end before declaring another war.

Resource abuse - You can't disconnect / reconnect a resource every turn for the sake of building cheap units to upgrade with excess cash.

Ship chaining exploit - you can move a ship, unload troops to another ship in the same square not using any movement, move that ship, etc. This allows you to ship an indefinite distance, and that is why I consider it an exploit.

The negative science exploit - you can run a huge deficit (-250 / turn) of negative cash with a token penalty of one lost worker / cheap building. If cash will go below zero, the research level must be dropped.

Palace Jump - You abandon the capital city to move the palace to a new location. If you want to move the palace, build a new palace.

Mass troop jumping - You can't give away a give a city to transport a large amount of troops to another landmass.

Worker baiting - You can't spread around and sacrifice workers to an oncoming attack. This is often done to avoid losing real units or cities. This takes advantage of the AI failure to prioritize targets.


Standard LK house rules:
1) Worker automation of any kind is prohibited.

2) Worker blockades are prohibited. This prevents things such as fortifying workers along the coast to stop invasions, blocking troops from going through your territory with workers, etc. Workers activity doing something along the coast is fine. The workers must be actively doing something.

3) You may not declare war on a civ if you are currently shipping cash and / or goods to the civ.

4) Even if not covered under exploits listed, please try not to use tactics that take advantage of holes in the game design.

5) Our reputation is golden - please respect it.

 

[LKendter]

Sneak previews of the LK series future - RaR. I fully expect more games of this mod as it keep the game fresh and interesting without having to make the game to tough.