RBC16 - Sleeveless

[microbe]

I guess I totally forgot we are not allowed to form armies.

 

[Sirian]

Nicely done, Grimjack. I'm quite glad my preparations were enough, and that you took care of the immediate launch threat. That really gives me hope that we can win this!

We do have one major problem, though.

I raze the city.

I debated between reminding about this point in the rules or not. I decided not to be a nag. Looks like I made a mistake. I'm sorry about that. I should have emphasized this point, KNOWING you would encounter it.

I would really like us to get to the end of this game winning or losing within the rule set. A minor tweak here or there, such as not doing our own research until industrial age, or my erroneously thinking our curraugh could survive in sea water (and causing it to suicide by mistake), aren't significant enough to make or break anything. However, razing Carthage is a different story.

What shall we do here?

If everyone is willing, I think I would prefer to back up and replay the turn. It is my fault for not giving a warning I seriously considered giving. If the team will forgive me for slacking off on that, and Grimjack is OK with redoing the turn, we can see how the variant is supposed to go.

What do you all think of this?


- Sirian

 

[microbe]

Hm, I'm fine if it's replayed, but IMHO it wouldn't be a problem. We just sell all improvements and give it away to someone else.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I only got two turns into it, so it is ok with me. Since we're addressing the rules, I think when Grimjack disbanded a worker to speed a rush was sort of sewing sleeves on our cape, but it was fairly minor. I don't think the AI would ever disband a worker if it didn't have to.

I think selling improvements and giving it away wouldn't be in the right spirit either. All we have to do is capture it and the spaceship is destroyed. Who cares if it flips back.

 

[Sirian]

We just sell all improvements and give it away to someone else.

Firstly, that's not listed in the variant rules because it doesn't have to be. It's against the RB rules. An explanation of why is included with the rule.

I realize you don't know all of these rules and that you disagree with a few of them. One of the reasons why the CFC GOTM enjoys much higher participation than the RB Epics is because the GOTM rules are much simpler. They take less off the table. It's easier for players to learn the rules. Plus they don't have to leave their comfort zone to play. RB scenarios are tough, varied, and often extremely demanding. That just isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Secondly, if you stop to think about it, isn't this fairly obviously against the spirit of this game? I know the boundaries I set are very tight. I tried to make sure from the outset that everyone understood that to be my intention.


We've come a long way. Too far, in my mind, to give up on the variant at this point. Look at all the adversity we have overcome! We drew an infamously bad location. We had to fight just to control our own lands, icy and unwelcoming as they may be. No great wonders built. Research on a tight line. Had to conquer an entire civ to survive. Now we're up against the clock but still in the game. The finish line is in sight but the outcome is still uncertain. And now you want to give up on the variant? Surely not.

Anyway, I count one team member for and one against a do-over. Waiting to hear from others.


- Sirian

 

[microbe]

Firstly, that's not listed in the variant rules because it doesn't have to be. It's against the RB rules. An explanation of why is included with the rule.

I can understand that. I don't remember "no giving away cities", but if it's in the RBC rules, we shouldn't do it. It might be more clear if you also specify that we play by RBC rules at the beginning.

Secondly, if you stop to think about it, isn't this fairly obviously against the spirit of this game?

I agree, but this is where all the confusion come from. AI does raze cities.

So what's this game about, anyway? I think the "spirit" is to not play tricks that AI doesn't know how to play, but by disallowing razing cities this spirit is no longer so clear.

Don't get me wrong. I'm OK to stick to the rules, but also want to point out a bit inconsistency.

 

[microbe]

Who cares if it flips back.

It will definitely flip back, and we probably had better let them capture it back. There is really not much choice. Are we allowed to leave the city empty?

AI on the other hand will probably just raze it.

 

[Grimjack]

Arggg, I am feeling kind of stupid here, when I doublechecked the rules, and missed the one about razing cities.

The workerrush is not disbanding worker, it is rushing a worker and switching to another project. I felt this was a minor infraction at best.

I am willing to redo turns, but it might be better if someone else tried to follow, as I have spoiler knowledge about the number and kind of defenders.

I have been reading the variant rules every time I have sat down to play, just not to miss something, and yet still I missed the one about razing cities.

And yes, it does change the situation quite a lot, as we due to that razing, could fit a city of our own on that continent, and the workers were used to build a fortress.

I am willing to replay my turns, but think it might be better if someone without my spoilerknowledge did it.

Grimjack

 

[microbe]

Arggg, I am feeling kind of stupid here, when I doublechecked the rules, and missed the one about razing cities.

I am sure I would have done the same thing (it IS easy to miss as it's not against "spirit of the game"), so don't feel too bad.

I guess Bugsy can replay and swap with you then.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I guess Bugsy can replay and swap with you then.

I know how the Yankees' starting pitcher will feel tonight. "You've got the ball, you'll win because we've always won." Except I'm not Grimjack. I'll play it, but don't expect the same great result.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Pre-flight – 1700 AD – I go back and review Sirian’s passdown. I avoid Grimjack's write up because I don’t want any spoiler information. I also go back and review the variant rules.

Sirian recommended declaring when Carthage fell to pop 12. I’ll give that one turn. With Carthage having 7 parts built and one in progress, I don’t think I can afford to wait too long. I can’t remember if Grimjack waited or not, but I’m going to.

I feel like Professor Liendenbock following Arne Saknussemm down into Sneffels.

Of course our cities are managed very nicely.

IBT – Aztecs and China sign MA against Carthage. An entire fleet sails into Carthage.
We get hammered by pollution.

1. 1705 AD - Carthage did not starve. Dial up Hannibal and declare war. What a motley landing force we have. Swords, LBs and mech infantry. Kill a jet fighter in Carthage through bombardment. Why is the fighter targeted and not the defenders?
IBT – We are attacked by five or six cruise missiles. Watch a stack of Carthaginian TOWs attack the Chinese city of Pyongyang and they all die. A TOW attacks our stack and retreats a mech.
Build a bomber and a fighter

2. 1710 AD - @ Carthage – Kill 6 rifles and a TOW, lose 2 tanks. Destroy the Carthaginian spaceship. Capture Magellan’s. Kill a TOW outside the city.

@ New Orleans – Kill 2 TOW and capture the city. There’s a nice Korean lady who lives there and is very glad our troops have freed her from her oppressors.

I steal Space Flight from Hannibal. I sell it to Mao for Ecology and 690G. We need aluminum from Gandhi, but he doesn’t know he has it. So I sell him rocketry for 926G, 8gpt & WM. I then turn around and trade computers for aluminum. Since London has an empty shield box, I change it to Apollo Program.

Pollution is killing us. I can’t clean up one spill in a turn.

IBT – India and China sign an MA against the Byzantines. Then China pulls France into the Byzantine dogpile.
We shoot down a bomber outside Carthage. About five TOW are landed next to New Orleans.
Build a fighter in Canterbury start on a solar plant.

3. 1715 AD – That’s six TOW outside New Orleans. Move a mech into the city. Move units on the island north towards the threat.

IBT – We lose our coal. Joan doesn’t really have anything of value other than the coal, so I let the deal expire.
India and Carthage sign a treaty.
We lose a mech and a tank at New Orleans and Carthage enslaves that poor Korean lady again. Liverpool riots.
Shoot down a bomber

4. 1720 AD – Successfully disconnect Carthage’s aluminum. So the only nations with aluminum right now are China, India and us.
Kill a TOW with a mech.
A bit of WW, so lux goes up to 20%.
The French have taken Taejon from Hannibal.

IBT – Shoot down two bombers.

5. 1725 AD – I execute a safe steal and get Synth Fibers from the Carthaginians. Wow! We can’t trade Synth Fibers for Fission straight up even. Forget about anything extra. Mao wants a ton of cash. Upgrade one tank to a MA.

IBT – Nada
6. 1730 AD - @ New Orleans – Lose a mech, but free the Korean lady again.
@ Leptis Magna – Kill a bomber, but our artillery doesn’t do squat. Upgrade another MA.

IBT – Carthage flips. We lost a MA, a destroyer and two mechs.

7. 1735 AD – Kill a jet fighter in Leptis, Kill the two defending TOWs and recapture Carthage. When I retook Carthage, the harbor must have been destroyed. So no upgrades.

8. 1740 AD – Use the MA to kill a TOW in Leptis.

IBT – Renew our spice for incense deal with Mao with us kicking in an extra 15 gpt.
Hannibal wants to talk. Review the rules. I have to accept peace, but I can haggle for a better deal. That seems to be in the spirit of the game since we get to haggle over trades. So I get him to give us 28gpt, 19g & WM for peace.

9. 1745 AD – Start moving our transports back towards home.

IBT – Mao wants us to ally against Hannibal. No thanks.
London completes the Apollo Program. Start in on the SS Engine.
Cadiz starts the Docking bay, due in 18 turns.

10. 1750 AD – Nada.

After Action – I’d start building SS parts as each city completes it’s present build. No one else has any parts completed, so we’re leading in the space race.

We’ll have enough for a safe steal next turn. We have seven techs that we need to get to complete the SS. I would keep renewing the aluminum deal with Gandhi until we don't need it anymore. We also need to get Fission soon to find out where the Uranium is.

Save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Sleeveless_-_1750_AD.zip

 

[microbe]

Good progress.

Pollution: might consider building solar plants to replace coal plants, but maybe we are too busy building stuff. Or just wait for nuclear plants.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I'm building a solar plant in Canterbury right now. Might want to cycle one through each city between SS parts.

 

[romeothemonk]

Just my $.02, but the AI always seems to raze a city if it has an obsolete wonder. That has happened over 20 times to me in single player games, and other sucession games. If a city has the Oracle and Bach's, it get's razed. Sun Tzu's or the Pyramids? no raze. Colossus in the Modern Age. Gone.
Based on this, if a city has an obsolete wonder, you might want to consider razing it along those lines.
Has anyone else noticed this trend?

 

[microbe]

I have not noticed that, but my impression is if the city is too flip-risky, AI would raze it. It might be a coincidence that it has a wonder, as that usually means it's a core city and easy to flip.

 

[Sirian]

I don't remember "no giving away cities", but if it's in the RBC rules, we shouldn't do it.

Well... there are no "RBC" rules, per se. There are the Epics rules. Those have not been changed since Play the World was released, and some tweaks may be in order. Charis, Griselda and I got together in the spring and did most of the work, but we didn't get all the way there and so you haven't seen an update yet. One thing we are waiting on is the shape of the final patch, since this is likely to be the last change in the RB Civ3 rules.

It might be more clear if you also specify that we play by RBC rules at the beginning.

I'm sorry. I thought it went without saying that RB games are played by RB rules. Surely that is the tradition. Has there ever been an exception? If so, I'm sure it was the exceptions, and not the core rules, that needed to be clarified and emphasized.

I haven't done a succession game in a long time. I came to the RB ideas thread to recruit players. ... I'm sorry that this wasn't entirely clear.

I think the "spirit" is to not play tricks that AI doesn't know how to play

The focus is on players. We have accumulated a large bag of tactics and tricks over time. Think of them as "gamey" shortcuts. In a perfect world, Civ would either not have these shortcuts or they would be handled more effectively. They would make better sense.

I'm the last person on earth to embrace the city flip model, believe me, but you must admit, it's awfully convenient to erase it with "raze and replace" tactic. I know that I have personally used and abused this move countless times. Taking it off the table is not all up side, but overall, it forces us to deal with city flips instead of conveniently gaming around them.

Leaving the city empty would be a no-no, but moving most of the army out of the city to protect it from catastrophic bad luck would make sense -- due largely to the fact that city flips themselves don't make a lot of sense.


When is the last time in history that a major city was completely razed? The incident that comes to mind for me is the razing of Merw by the Mongols. The entire population was slaughtered and the city destroyed. That is many centuries ago. In this century, not even the Nazis razed cities completely. Dresden was razed from the air and that's more like bombers bombing until they wipe out all improvements in a city. Not even the atomic bomb erased cities. Hiroshima exists today, even though a large portion of it was razed in one blast.

Using the AI as a guide is not what I have in mind. That's still "gamey", and it could take some legitimate things off the table. Rather, for the most part, I have used history as a guide. Things that make no contextual sense, but are merely part of the game mechanics -- and largely unintended effects at that! -- are what I targetted.


Can Civ be played in a rational way? Can we choose to ignore all these gamey options and still be successful? Still have a good time? These are the types of questions asked through this variant. We still ended up with some bits of gameyness, but on the whole, I think my concept has proven out.


Bugs: Good job taking the reins. I think we have turned the corner, but there is still a ways to go, so I'm looking forward to seeing what Grimjack will do for us in the place swap.


- Sirian

 

[microbe]

Not that I disagree with your points, but:

The focus is on players. We have accumulated a large bag of tactics and tricks over time. Think of them as "gamey" shortcuts.

This is too vague and subjective, isn't it? I mean 1000 people may have 1000 ideas of what is "gamey" and what is not. I for one don't consider "razing" any "gamey" than setting up a settler factory, or micromanaging those towns on the tundra in the way you demostrated.

While it is all good remarks if you are writing "why I (do not) like civ", it's not good enough for rules used in an SG. We can/do agree on the "spirit", but it means we do not play on the same set of rules as we do not have the same understanding or judgement on whether a particular move violates the "spirit".

My last experience in SGOTM3 was a perfect example why rules have to be very clear instead of just "showing my intention". People do hate to keep pausing the game to ask “is this allowed?".

 

[Grimjack]

Thank you for taking the turn SirBugsy. It is always educational to see another player tackle the same problems.

I especially liked that you also missed to renew the coals deal On the same grounds as I did no less Thus it was probably not all clear that the deal should have been renewd juts to prevent Byzantines from getting any coal.
Great turns, especially the nice surprise of the TOWs landing. They had me worried for a while.


The consensus now would be to gather fleets outside China ?
Or should we see if we can race them fairly ?

Grimjack

 

[Jabah]

When is the last time in history that a major city was completely razed? The incident that comes to mind for me is the razing of Merw by the Mongols. The entire population was slaughtered and the city destroyed. That is many centuries ago. In this century, not even the Nazis razed cities completely. Dresden was razed from the air and that's more like bombers bombing until they wipe out all improvements in a city. Not even the atomic bomb erased cities. Hiroshima exists today, even though a large portion of it was razed in one blast.

- Sirian

Sorry to strongly disagree with that. I think Warsaw was pretty much completely razed by the nazi in WW2 as a punishement after the uprising (well the western part of the city anyway, the russians were already on the eastern side of the river and did not move until the city was burnt to the ground.

Jabah

 

[Sirian]

This is too vague and subjective, isn't it?

Hardly. We have a clear and objective rule set. You objected to an item in the rule set as inconsistent with the "spirit" and I explained why it isn't. Now you are complaining about the spirit itself, as if it existed in a vacuum. Well, it doesn't. I laid out the rules for a reason. The spirit only enters over bits I did not account for, and frankly, that's been VERY few items, all minor. No one has had to check and recheck for clarity, as you describe.

I'm starting to get the impression that you enjoy arguing for its own sake.


Jabah, point taken. I was thinking of offensive and defensive action, and not the uprising. One might call that a failed flip attempt, after which the occupying power decided to punish the insurgency by destroying the city. Civ doesn't quite reach that level of detail. The city flip rules are flawed either way, so for one game, I don't think it hurts to eschew razing.


- Sirian