News: BOTM 20 - Starts 17 July

[beestar]

Despite being a Monarch level player, I never remember to use a cease fire. It sounds like a really useful tool.

I assume the cease fire is worth less in trade than a peace treaty?

 

[JungleIII]

Despite being a Monarch level player, I never remember to use a cease fire. It sounds like a really useful tool.

I assume the cease fire is worth less in trade than a peace treaty?

It's worth zip... nada... nothing. No trade - just peace for an undetermined amount of time.

Just another thing to add to your tools, like when you are about to go to war, you can request a small donation, i.e. 10 gold from a neighbour, and they cannot attack you for 10 turns, or go to the aid of the nation you are attacking. Only works in BtS though.

In the older games it is a good exploit to demand gold before you attack, and get all their cash (or not), and then attack them while they are penniless.

 

[Ribannah]

Massive working stealing makes the game degenerate. Sure, you will get a big boost and be able to score high in this competition, but you might as well play SimCity, as you basically remove the AI from the game.

 

[Lexad]

Unfortunately, it is not easy to eliminate all AI from the game at Immortal Pangea Still, worker-stealing is part of the game, only the part about not running from forest- and hill-runners is bugged. They have enough advantages you need to compensate with skill and knowledge of game mechanics.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Massive working stealing makes the game degenerate. Sure, you will get a big boost and be able to score high in this competition, but you might as well play SimCity, as you basically remove the AI from the game.

Isn't the definition of fastest conquest to remove the AI from the game as fast as you can? Try it on deity level, plenty of workers for the stealing. See how simple it is...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Just another thing to add to your tools, like when you are about to go to war, you can request a small donation, i.e. 10 gold from a neighbour, and they cannot attack you for 10 turns, or go to the aid of the nation you are attacking. Only works in BtS though.

Ummm, they can't attack you after they've given you gold? That doesn't seem logical (though I guess that's not the same thing as being how the game works).

I've sometimes used the trick of gifting an AI something small to stop them from declaring war for 10 turns (and I've often wondered whether the AI is clever enough to refuse all gifts if it really wants to declare war), but I'd always tacitly assumed without checking that only the receiver of the gift is prevented from declaring war. Seems a bit - umm - unfair the other way round

 

[Niklas]

JungleIII has it right. Any one-sided gift incurs an automatic bilateral unbreakable 10-turn peace treaty between the gifter and the giftee. Not logical indeed.

 

[Obormot]

Massive working stealing makes the game degenerate. Sure, you will get a big boost and be able to score high in this competition, but you might as well play SimCity, as you basically remove the AI from the game.

Worker stealing is a problem. IMO it does make the game less interesting, and it also introduces an extra element of luck. I hope the exploit with woodsman-II units will be fixed in some patch, but it will only help a little, since an AI will never handle all possible tricks adequately.

But i don't see what can be done here. Ban worker stealing in GOTM rules? That would be quite difficult to define. I think the best we can do is just enlighten everybody on how the trick works, so that we at least have a level playing field.

 

[mtt9999]

Worker first is the best strategy 95% of the games. (99%?)

This makes things a little difficult huh? Building a worker first means it takes that many more turns to get a warrior thief unit out, making worker stealing harder IMO because they are more likely to have extra troops to defend the unit? I haven't played a XoTM starting with a scout instead of warrior in ages... changes this a bit.

The question is do you gamble with warrior first in an effort to steal a couple workers, or play it safe worker first, and then try to steal That's why GoTM are so interesting... Civ has so many different strategies...

 

[samthedagger]

But i don't see what can be done here. Ban worker stealing in GOTM rules? That would be quite difficult to define. I think the best we can do is just enlighten everybody on how the trick works, so that we at least have a level playing field.

I really appreciate this attitude. Strategy hogs are such a bummer. The tips I've received here have already helped me move up from a really shaky Noble player to a fairly competent (if not confident) Monarch player.

I've tried worker-stealing using some of the advice in the last few posts on some test games. It's kinda fun...

 

[da_Vinci]

Massive working stealing makes the game degenerate. Sure, you will get a big boost and be able to score high in this competition, but you might as well play SimCity, as you basically remove the AI from the game.

Worker stealing is a problem. IMO it does make the game less interesting, and it also introduces an extra element of luck. I hope the exploit with woodsman-II units will be fixed in some patch, but it will only help a little, since an AI will never handle all possible tricks adequately.

But i don't see what can be done here. Ban worker stealing in GOTM rules? That would be quite difficult to define. I think the best we can do is just enlighten everybody on how the trick works, so that we at least have a level playing field.

An isolated start for the human player would solve this problem ... a lake island start, with settler on island surrounded by 8 tiles of water, scout as the other unit on the land outside the lake. Only 8 tiles to modify on a pangea map ...

Or make the other unit a warrior, and worker steal is almost essential, as that worker first is of no use until you have a galley to "boat him off the island"

One could call that a "moat map"

dV

 

[adrianj]

About the gifting gold to the AI...
Does this mean if I have Monte or Shaka on my continent and I'd rather be peaceful - I can continually gift him/them 10 gold every 10 turns for peace? 1 gold per turn of peace sounds like a bargain!
Does the AI ever reject these 'gifts'?
Would I need to wait until the 10 turns have expired before giving the next gift? Or could I do it after 9 turns so that there is no chance of him declaring on that one turn in between?

There must be a catch - it seems to easy...

 

[JungleIII]

The "gifting" adrianj speaks of and DS mentioned is not quite the way I play, so I'm not sure it works. If that works as well... there's another tool!

In BtS what I KNOW works when asking or demanding money from an opponent: If they pay that 10 gold, that locks in a peace treaty for ten turns, and you can not attack them - AND they can't attack you. It is a calculated risk - a Pleased or Friendly nation will pay you, if they haven't paid you any money or gifted techs in the last 10 turns. This will NOT effect they way they feel about you, so no negative occurs.

A "Cautious" or unfriendly nation will weigh up the 10 gold trivial request and your army size and to pay or not, depending on how they feel your strength is. This WILL effect a 1 point loss in relations because of your 'demand', but sometimes can be invaluable to prevent their interference in your war to happen the next turn with their buddy.

Either way, it is a diplomatic calculation, and I think adds a very nice aspect to the game... sometimes it works and they pay, sometimes it doesn't.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Unfortunately, it is not easy to eliminate all AI from the game at Immortal Pangea Still, worker-stealing is part of the game, only the part about not running from forest- and hill-runners is bugged.

Doesn't strike me as that much of an issue. You need to give those promotions to a warrior in the first place - that requires a fair bit of luck with animals since you probably won't have a barracks that early in the game. If you get that luck, then giving him woodsman I + II means you can't give him strength + medic - which I normally find is a far more useful promotion to give one unit early on if you're anticipating a war. You then need an AI worker to go to somewhere that has a chain of woods or hills leading to it - that immediately restricts the possibilities for where the worker can be a fair bit. And while hills aren't so bad, woods are very hard if you've gone the woodsman route because you have to actually be able to see the worker from 2 tiles away, and you can't see over woods! Some geographies will get round that but now you're restricting where the worker can be even more.

With all those problems ISTM that trying to take advantage of that AI failing means you likely lose too much with too little chance of success to be worth seriously using as a tactic.

 

[Lexad]

Yes, it's not easy to get, but once you get it it's imba on wooded/hilled terrain - or are you of different opinion? Do not see how medic helps you in early warfare when all you have is couple of warriors vs archers, while woodsman can effectively suffocate early AI development.

Besides, you do not need to see worker - you can either use scout (workers do not run from scouts) or make each turn a move on forest terrain to fogbust and return to the previous location if you find nothing/is in danger.

 

[Yamps]

... a Pleased or Friendly nation will pay you, if they haven't paid you any money or gifted techs in the last 10 turns.

There's an article regarding this and (iirc) the period is longer than that, 20 or 30 turns. Still, it doesn't mean that they would actually pay when you ask. Most importantly, they remember your request and will automatically decline if you ask too soon, even if they didn't give anything the last time around.

 

[Conquistador 63]

JungleIII has it right. Any one-sided gift incurs an automatic bilateral unbreakable 10-turn peace treaty between the gifter and the giftee. Not logical indeed.

I don't think this applies to voluntary gifts, only for accepting friendly requests or hostile demands.

 

[Monsterzuma]

The obvious solution to the imbalance of stealing workers would be to make workers die like any regular unit after being attacked.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Yes, it's not easy to get, but once you get it it's imba on wooded/hilled terrain - or are you of different opinion? Do not see how medic helps you in early warfare when all you have is couple of warriors vs archers, while woodsman can effectively suffocate early AI development.

Besides, you do not need to see worker - you can either use scout (workers do not run from scouts) or make each turn a move on forest terrain to fogbust and return to the previous location if you find nothing/is in danger.

Maybe the difference is you're definition of 'early war' is earlier than mine. Personally I wouldn't go to war if all I had is a couple of warriors vs archers (well, unless the AI was miles and miles away) since in my experience the risk of losing ones capital to a couple of archers is too great. I'm intrigued - is your experience different?

Once I have archers of my own, it's a different story, as I can use a pair of archers moving together stop the AI getting any improvements for quite a while. In that case I find having a medic I unit is invaluable for quick healing in enemy territory, as those archers will get regularly attacked by AI archers. Ideally I'd rather the medic was a scout but warrior is better than nothing.

But I don't see how a woodsman II unit can be sufficient use to justify using up those promotions. My reasoning is: Sure, you can park him in a wood, but (other than the rare opportunity for worker steals) he's only good for defending. Woodland squares rarely have much you can pillage, he can't usefully attack AI units. He can't even walk home without high risk unless there's a continuous chain of woodland back to your borders.

If the AI is silly enough to attack him with isolated archers then he may be lucky and take out a few of them, but I would have expected (without having tested it) that if the odds are too much in his favour, the AI will ignore him; if they're not then the AI will simply take him out in a simultaneous attack with a couple of archers, no?

Or am I missing something?

 

[Lexad]

You're underestimating worker steals - stealing first worker sets AI back, stealing 2nd and third gives it no chances. Also I never research archers - only if there is no strategic resources and I have to push off barbs. So if you decided to steal workers, you should work on it from the start.