RBE3 - This Space Available For Rent

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Originally posted by Urugharakh
We will never aquire the UN with France 2-3 techs in front of us and this gap still growing.

Feh. You're such the pessimist

Our Deity OCC SG built the UN and got a diplo victory from being at least half an age behind for most of the game.

I'm quite happy going to war if that's what everyone wants, though. It should at least make for a more interesting game

 

[Sullla]

Could we win with just the space we have right now? In all likelihood yes. Would I feel better with a second core of cities sitting where our neighbors are right now? That's a bigtime yes there. Under the rules of honorable warfare, we can't declare war, can't raze cities or abandon them, and so on. We can easily stay eligible for a UN victory so long as we adhere to those guidelines.

 

[Urugharakh]

Originally posted by Jaffa Tamarin


Our Deity OCC SG built the UN and got a diplo victory from being at least half an age behind for most of the game.

I checked your game. It was fine played but doesn't apply to our situation. First it was prior to the 1.29 changes and catching up in the tech department was way easier during that time. Nevertheless all of us had won several deity games from worse positions than we face in this game.

The real difference between our situation and your cited game, all games I won from a similar "hopeless" position and all reports I read so far is, there where at least one other AI able of competing with the tech leader. Remember, 2nd civ prices are 1.5 time as expensive as the basic research cost now. So you basically have to research as second civ and can't buy the techs. This will ensure, that no other AI will ever be able to compete with France unless they waste their production in a war. Consequentely France either has to waste their production on wars, in which case we will eventually be one of their likely targets due to map topology, or we need more territory so we can compete with their production.

 

[Sullla]

I would have to agree that in 1.29f, Deity OCC games are not possible except on a game with very little landmass. You certainly don't see lines like this anymore:

3) 90 Purchased Banking from India for 5 gpt. Switched to bank in Thebes.
7) 10 Invention, Astronomy, and Printing Press purchased from France for WM, 4 gold, and 9 gpt.

 

[Gothmog]

Re Urugharakh: Good point about the 2nd civ prices. But what up with Japan, they have their own big island. Are they that weak now?

Also, if we do get war with England it should be quite easy given our GA and UU and that they don't even have iron! Then after a bit of consolidation we would be powerful enough to demand France leave our territory and fight a good defensive war of attrition against them.... but now even I get weary of hearing myself speak

All I am trying to say is that England is like a good homecooked meal for us right now. It would give us strength to combat France.

 

[Urugharakh]

Originally posted by Gothmog
All I am trying to say is that England is like a good homecooked meal for us right now. It would give us strength to combat France.

Simply read my comments on our war opportunities. This was one of my 3 proposals. We currently don't have the military for a war with Joanie and it is far from sure we'll get it in time, while we can certainly "get attacked by" Liz (if she only attackes us) during your turn or may be even during croalds turn. All I said was:

1) We do need one war.

2) In case we win a war with France, the game is in the bag, while this is not the case in case we fight England.

Hence an England campain is fine for me.

 

[Sirian]

An interesting discussion taking place. I don't see that France is all that threatening, when I look at the red civ's territory. That's a lot of land over there. There's a long, long way to go to the modern age. France is in no way approaching anything in terms of territory to threaten domination. Not with their current territory. They might be, and remain, the tech leader, from that position, but no way they'll run off with an easy win. If any of you have had the tech LEAD recently, you know how difficult it is to stay ahead. The second and third place guys will research different paths and combine their efforts, all at lower prices than your own. And Deity AI's do tend to make a lot of war on one another. War may or may not be in your interests -- your UU is a use it or lose it issue, of benefit only at this stage of the game -- but the minimap does not appear to support the notion that none of these civs could complete with France on tech.

Also, and the main reason I am posting, Sulla's "Red Dot" border suggestion would not be legal for a DSG. That's a cultural push exploit if executed while at peace with England.


- Sirian

 

[croald]

I am tied up in a business trip at the moment, and am really unlikely to have time to play before Friday eve. If Gothmog could jump ahead of me to keep the game going, that'd probably be best.

Sorry, guys.

I haven't had time to read all the thread, but it sounds like things are still going well.

 

[Gothmog]

Re Urugharakh: I was just putting in my support for one of your proposals (and Sullla's). I tend to be a consensus builder, an irony of this is that reaching consensus means talking things out, which can lead to arguments (of course I love to argue).

Re Sirian: Thanks for the warning about the DSG rules. This is my first time playing with these and I am still getting the hang of it. The honorable Chinese will not use the cultural push exploit.

All - I am happy to swap with croald. I will, of course, demand that England leave our territory if She is so bold as to enter it but that does not seem likely. So, I am hoping for a little consensus building about how to handle this situation. I haven't looked at the *.SAV's since my turn. Do I focus on infrastructure - or do I build lots of vet Riders and demand Joanie leave our territory if the time looks ripe? I am leaning towards using our GA and UU for a nice war and I am sure Joanie will oblige. It would also be good to score a few Wonders this early in the game.

I just looked over the previous posts and I am guessing everyone but Jaffa wants to go to war. I doubt it will happen during the next ten turns but you never know.

 

[Urugharakh]

Originally posted by Sirian
Also, and the main reason I am posting, Sulla's "Red Dot" border suggestion would not be legal for a DSG. That's a cultural push exploit if executed while at peace with England.

This was my first impression. Then I looked up the cultural push wording.

"Cultural Push": Building cities within two tiles of existing cities, right on the edge of front lines, for the sole purpose of pushing back borders then repeating, such that you completely take over a rival's territory without having to declare war, is an exploit. This applies only to intentional use of the densest possible settlement patterns, on the front lines, to aggressively take over another civ's lands without a declared war. This kind of encroachment would qualify as an act of war, yet the game does not recognize it as such. This is not the same as settling close to the enemy or getting into a cultural war to control key resources or tiles along the border. This refers specifically to encroachment deep into rival territory by waves of cultural push. Doing this during peacetime is an exploit: you may do it during RBCiv Epics events only if you first declare war, just the same as if you were settling inside their territory.

So the red point is no cultural push is the sense of the rule wording. It simply grabs a key tile on the border, namly one with an english unit on it. I agree, this is a very dangerous application of the wording and I'm definitely not happy with it, because it feels like exlpoiting not the game but the rules. Nevertheless Sullas red point is no violation of the written rules unless we keep on pushing in case we don't get the desired war declaration. It may be and is probably a violation of the spirit of the cultural push rule. But I feel anything urging an AI to declare war on you is a violation of the honorable game spirit. Asking a AI to leave your territory or declare war with the intention of getting a war declaration is certainly against the spirit of the honorable rules (remember you can declare war on them and kill all units inside your borders), while asking them to leave with the intention of "cleaning" your territory is in the spirit of the rules. This difficulty is game intrinsic and can't be avoided. So we have to live with it. We have to follow the rules. But we do have to obey them by the wording and are free to add more meaning to them as we like.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Originally posted by Urugharakh
[BAsking a AI to leave your territory or declare war with the intention of getting a war declaration is certainly against the spirit of the honorable rules[/B]

I don't think so.

The "spirit" of the honorable rules, as I understand them:

1) You can do anything you like within your own borders.

2) You can only do things within the borders of other Civs if they give permission.

3) You shall not commit unprovoked acts of aggression.

There is implied permission to move units in foreign territory (your units in theirs, and theirs in yours) until an objection is raised, since there is a mechanic in the game for raising an objection. By rule 1 you can raise such an objection at any time, for any reason.

Using settlers to push your borders into foreign territory is disallowed by rule 3, even if it doesn't qualify as a cultural push exploit. It's certainly an act of aggression to forcibly take control of tiles that have already been claimed by another Civ (especially if they have important resources). The only way I see that a settlement that claims foreign tiles would be honorable would be in cases where you are filling in your own borders and cannot avoid a culture clash. Which is not the case for the proposed settlement here.

 

[Sirian]

Urug: the red dot is a cultural push. That border is mature. There's no neutral ground remaining, and no ground in the vicinity on your side of the border that is not within two tiles of an existing city. If the English cities in the area were culturally immature, with unexpanded borders, then the area would still be up for grabs. It's not.

Put another way, why was the proposal put forth to settle within the 21 tile radius of your existing city? Because every other tile in the area is under English cultural control already, and you'd have to declare war to settle there.

Please compare this to the two desert cities in RBE1 on the southeast border, with India. One of those was settled within the 21 tiles of an existing city (ours), and that was legal because there was a large swath of neutral ground in there at the time. The reason for the site within range of our city was to establish a safe border, not push back an existing border.

I know this rule is a bit obscure. It's purpose, however, is to rule out the exact thing being proposed here: pushing back an established border with a bit of ICS.


- Sirian

 

[Sullla]

OK, the red dot idea is out. It was highly questionable to begin with, and I think the team is in consensus now that that would be a case of stretching the Honorable distinction too far. If any of Lizzie's units cross our border though...

Another thought came to me this morning. We can't build Riders very quickly at a cost of 70 shields... so why not pillage our iron and build horsemen instead? (I can see Sirian's reaction now: )We've got well over 1000g in the bank, and in 10 turns we could build about 20 horses, reconnect the iron, upgrade them all to Riders, and be off and rolling with 30 Riders total ready to attack in only 10 turns' time. France will be buried between an initial attack of 30 Riders and our ability to build many more via golden age production (we may be able to get to 35 shields/turn in some cities for Riders every 2 turns) and get them to the front almost immediately with their 3 movement. Pillaging of your own resources is not part of the honorable rules and has not been deemed an exploit as yet - right? Or am I off on another exploitative track here like with my last suggestion?

 

[Gothmog]

Just to put in my two cents...

I like Jaffa's 3 points of honorable play. I am more into the spirit than the text of the rules.

Re Sullla: Wow, I wouldn't have thought of pillaging my own iron to build horsemen. Do we really save cash that way vs. just paying cash to rush build them?

Also consider this my "I got it" I'll check into the board from home to get any last minute comments from the group before I play tonight.

 

[Zed-F]

Gothmog: Absolutely. See my training day game (probably have to look back a couple pages) for a discussion and example of mass-upgrading horsemen to Riders. Rushbuilding costs double what upgrading does on a per-shield basis.

As for whether this is an exploit, that's another kettle of fish. Ideally, to do this would be part of your strategy from the get-go, especially with China -- you would build a lot of horsemen in the later parts of the Ancient era and early parts of the Middle Ages, before you got access to Chivalry, and then upgrade them all at that time. Alternatively, if you never got access to iron in the first place, or only had it temporarily due to a trade deal, that would be fair game as well. But, purposely disconnecting a resource you have access to in order to build units you otherwise wouldn't be able to is a bit of a gray area. On the one hand, it doesn't make any sense that a civ would arbitrarily stop using a resource it has access to, but on the other hand, there's no realistic reason a civ shouldn't be able to produce units of varying quality (i.e. some well-equipped Knights and some less well-equipped Horsemen.) A slightly less uncomfortable way of acheiving the same result would be to trade away your iron until you have none left, then be forced to build horsemen until those deals expire, but this amounts to the same thing.

My own view is that this is something you could reasonably do once, if you didn't plan well enough for this earlier -- disconnect your iron to get around the game mechanic forcing you to build the best (and most shield-intensive) troops you can, build as many horsemen (trained but not equipped) as you want to, and then reconnect your iron permanently so you can spend your wad of cash on better armour/weapons on the open market. After that, build em from scratch. This gives you a small risk in that you may decide to build more or fewer units than you really need, and that you could get attacked while you are not really ready. More than once, and it becomes abusive on the system.

However, I'm not a contributor to the DSG rules, so others will have to comment with their opinions.

 

[Sirp]

Just jumping in here to make a comment on the cultural-push thing...

While borders may seem too "flexible" - too easy to push back by planting of a city, I don't think it's so bad. Anytime I have done it much in a game, has resulted in the AI attacking me. I notice that Sirian found similiarly in his recent Epic game.

Since the AI seems clearly designed to handle this, I don't see why it's so much of a problem. If you do it, the AIs know about it, and will be much more likely to go to war with you.

I do think that they should consider changing the rules of who owns a tile, so that a city with less culture can only take a tile off a city with more culture if that city has more culture than the city it's competing with; not just by virtue of being closer to the tile; but I doubt that's going to happen.

So....my main point is, what exactly is wrong with doing this?

Oh, and, looks like you're doing pretty well guys; keep up the good work - I'm sorry I couldn't play this one.

 

[Gothmog]

Re Sirp: I think that it does fall under the 'unprovoked acts of aggression' header (Jaffa's point 3 as it were). Playing an honorable game I would not go for it. If Urugharakh has quoted the correct parts of the DSG bible then I also think it is a case of spirit over text of the rules. It is deffinitely a grey area.

Well here is my turn such as it is:

Pre turn: Hire entertainer in Tsingtao to start a WLTKD and gain more production towards our courthouse. The tile wasn't improved anyway. I also pillage our iron and switch over to Horsemen.

270 AD - We get a new lawn for the Palace. Trade around WM, Japan has gunpowder.

280 AD - India and France sign an alliance against Japan.

290 AD - We complete our Harbor in Chengdu and I start up an aquaduct. Lots of French Muskets go south towards Japan. I notice our Galley is asleep and decide to see if we can get any more map info. I ring up Persia and Babylon but we still don't have a sea route with them. They are cautious and annoyed with us respectively.

300 AD - I guess I know why our galley was asleep. I return her to that mode. We lose our supply of Spices. I remember that I need to check regularly on deals and do so. WM and 330 gp to England for Spices.

310 AD - Nanking finishes aqueduct and starts barracks. Shanghai hires entertainer.

320 AD - Hangchow granary to barracks. A couple of French pikers enter our territory heading north? Others continue south.

330 AD - Nanking finishes barracks starts harbor. Gunpowder could be had for 1180+WM from India. I decline.

340 AD - Hangchow finishes barracks starts Horseman.

350 AD - Germany and France start Leonardo's.

360 AD - Tsingtao finishes Courthouse starts barracks. Our furs deal with France just ran out (we don't need them anyway), we have 2475 in the bank, 16 Horsemen and 8 Riders.

No new techs were discovered on my turn. Actually not much happened at all.

The table is set, lets kick the French out of our territory. Well, maybe we want to upgrade our defences to pikers 1st.

 

[Sullla]

16 horses built in 10 turns - not bad. I recommend moving our workers onto the iron immediately however, since it will take a turn to move there and another two to build a road again, by which time we should be ready to go. We may as well upgrade all our spears to pikes while we're at it.

It looks like the next player will probably be going to war, so remember to look over some of the Honorable Rules; we can't raze or abandon captured cities, starve them down unneccesarily, etc. In high-risk flip areas we can lower the population by setting the city to zero growth and then rushing workers. We are going to see more than 1 culture flip, but as long as we don't go crazy and panic we should be fine. Since France has so much more culture than us, the safest thing to do is probably to wipe them out completely to eliminate the chance of flips... If we can get that far, of course.

Military alliances... do we want one? We may want one with England just to ensure that we won't get trapped in a two front war. There are also a number of French units in English territory heading towards the south; they will turn around and come after us if we can't get Liz to attack them. Keep in mind though that a military alliance would force us in 20 turns of warfare, so it's problematic in another way.

Don't forget to pick up some "free techs" from France when we get into a war. Since France has Education and Gunpowder on us, we should trade like 150gpt for those techs, then ask Joanie to leave our territory, which will end the deals when she declares war. This is NOT an exploit, since the AI is breaking the deal, not the player. Granted, we all know that Joan will declare war, but it still represents a broken committment on their end and does not reflect poorly on us. Snatching Gunpowder in this way will also let us see where the saltpeter is on the map; maybe we can cut France's supply (though with my luck they probably have 3 or 4 in their territory).

It looks like the game is about to get more interesting! Either croald is up or Jaffa can go and we can run through another rotation before this weekend when croald would come up again. I'll be satisfied either way. Barring some very bad luck, we should win out.

 

[Gothmog]

I think a MA w/England is a good idea. I saw lots of French units moving south during my turns so there are some fighting with Japan as well as the ones in English territory (also there were a large number that moved into our territory about 340 AD so they will be in English territory by the time we kick the french troops out of ours). I think 20 turns in war is about right to kick France off our continent. It would take longer to completely wipe them out since they have their island off the east coast. I am inclined to let them keep that (is my arrogance showing?). The french war with Japan was good for us, they sent a bunch of stuff down there and didn't get any new techs so no worries about MT. The "free techs" idea is honorable, we have a right to not have French troops in our territory and to trade for techs (like we have been doing all game). Maybe we should give England Gunpowder for a MA, then they could defend themselves a little bit better. Remember that the French musketeers are 3/4/1. We might want a few muskets ourselves along our borders.

I also think Jaffa should go unless croald responds this afternoon. Let's keep the ball rolling.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Croald said he should be able to play Friday, which is tomorrow. I wouldn't be able to play much before then anyway, so I think we should wait.