Realms Beyond Emperor: The DSG's

I gave the Deity level Nationalist concept a try last night as Japan. The Babylonians deposited their second city in my second ring, then immediately proceded to walk their units over my territory.

I was amazed that they backed down twice when I asked them to remove their units from my territory. Third time I was not so lucky - they declared war. At that point I had barracks in my capital and a couple of vet spearmen in my second city. Still I was no match for them with four cities to my three, and their mass of warriors/spearmen, and Osaka fell after a couple of turns of sustained attack.

I have to admit that I wasn't giving this game my fulllest concentration (not helped by g/f in the bath requesting coffee, towels etc. at regular intervals)...
 
I had a bit of a conversation with anarres over in the S&T Forum where he said he tries to win as quickly as possible by whatever means and often goes to war very early on Diety. I was intrigued by this and want to start (or play in) a SG where the object is to win as quickly as possible. My early thoughts are to do a dense build of 6-10 cities (as suggested by anarres), then go for it being at war most of the time. Not quite as restricted in tactics as an always war game but pretty much always being at war anyway. I was thinking to play as the aztecs and do a JW rush, or maybe the Zulu/Impi rush. I don't get too much time to play and am currently involved in K7 and LK38, but when one of these ends I'll be trying a couple of solo testers towards that end.
 
Getting some good feedback from a variety of folks here, which I appreciate. :goodjob:

Arizona, you were CLEARLY facing far tougher odds than normal SG players face (regarding the coffee and towels), so your results are not surprising. My initial thoughts were (wow, good job getting three cities so fast) along with "4 on 3 is about as good as you could want". It sounds like the longer we can delay first contact and build up a few cities and a few rax, the better off we will be. Also, heaven help us if three AI's come trampling across our land at once! Let's hope for an end-of-penninsula start. My Emperor game was middle of pangaea and saw a LOT of guff, at frequent and unexpected times.

Aztecs are definitely of interest for these warmonger game series, due to their relative effectiveness and cheapness. They have the added benefit in a "Defiant" game that you can make so many of them that they can block long stretches of border and forcibly keep out foreign troops. This would not be anti-thematic at all, but would hit us hard in maintenance costs and depending on the map might not be feasible.

(Input on civs for all three - POW, DEFN, and AW would be good, as I hope to pre-set those before starting the first DEFN game.)

Architect, I almost missed your reply as it must have been at the same time I replied to cpp1. My first thought was that if we survive to ever see Communism we'll be doing great! I was fearful of mentioning that as a rule as it adds another rule (and thematic vector) to a game which already has a dual theme. I'll think about that and see if anyone else has thoughts on that.

One last item - looking at the extreme variant nature of this game I think I'll run it under the RBP series rather than RBE. It shouldn't make any difference, but I would feel slightly more comfortable doing it that way, and perhaps others would too.

We can start this weekend or Monday, so if anyone else wants to make comments on civs, rules, or say "I'm busy now but save a spot in the POW game for me" let me know. If there was a definite plan to start a builder game (as Architect or Sulla have mentioned at various points) that may help finalize the roster as well. Also, if you have the interest and martial skill to start the Defiant game, let me know. I noticed too late that I was 'starting' too many of the RBP games and don't mean to monopolize that - it's more of a "variant republic" than anything non-representative :P

I also find myself wondering - someone's test game suggests we're in for deep doo-doo while someone else wants to 'kick it up a notch'! :p Makes ya wonder how it's gonna turn out!

Thanks,
Charis
 
It seemed to be implied from one of Charis' earlier messages, but I'd like to officially request a spot in the builder game. I agree that the naked civ concept with no other variant rules would be an interesting challenge. I presume that would mean triggering a GA is impossible. It should be easy enough to test if you would like me to do that.
 
Well, at the moment with two other people expressing interest in the proposed "Naked Civ" builder's game, we have enough of a preliminary roster to start suggesting some more concrete game settings. Here's the settings I would propose for the game, certainly subject to discussion/change before starting:

Large Map, 80% water, Pangea, 7 random AI opponents
Warm, Temperate, Flat climate settings
No Barbarians

The Large pangea setting is to ensure that there is plenty of land to play with, while the 80% water keeps it from getting too out of hand. 7 AI civs, the same as you would have as default on a standard map, creates a situation where each civ ends up with larger amounts of land. The climate settings are just to ensure that there are a lot of high-food tiles on the map. No barbarians because they don't really fit the theme of a building game.

As for civ choice... we can play any civ and it won't make a difference. I was leaning towards the Spanish though, because no one seems to be playing them and we might as well get some use from them in this game. That and I like the colors that they are assigned in Civ3! :p

So far T-Hawk and regan have expressed interest in the game. If we get one more person, we will have enough to generate a map and start playing. Having started off the RBP4 game, I would like to let someone else play the first turn, so hopefully we can formulate a turn order soon as well.

Questions/comments/feedback to some of the ideas that I've thrown out here?
 
Those settings seem fine to me. I'd like to put in a good word for playing as India or the Vikes (dark purple is my fav color). Mostly, I don't like being referred to in the feminine sense during diplomacy. I really hate that they took away the option of choosing whether to have a male or female representative for one's civ.

Because this is a building game, should there be any restrictions on combat? For instance, will we be allowed to declare war if necessary to "acquire" a certain resource that may be unavilable via trade or must we wait until we are declared upon or otherwise drawn into a fight?
 
About ready to go Defiant...

It looks like a builder game is about to go, so we have somethin' for
everyone :P

The Defiant Nationalist is ready to go, I just wanted to float civ choices
and point out the distinction between this one (DEFN), Perpetual Oscillating
War (POW) and Always War (AW).

DEFN - We'll often be at war, often multiple civs, at a time of their choosing
POW - We'll never be fully at peace, but can trade, and choose our single opponent
AW - We'll always be at war, with the whole world, and need to research all by ourselves

In terms of difficulty I would put AW at a 10, DEFN as a 6, POW as a 4.
(That's kind of relative, '1' in this case being a basic deity game)

How rosters look, tentatively:
NEKKID-Sulla, T-Hawk, Reagan, 1 open
DEFN - Arathorn, Architect, Charis, cpp1, Urugharakh
POW - Arizona, Charis, JMG, Reagen, 1 open
AW - Charis, Urugharakh, Arathorn, 1 slot left for a variant deity-lvl player

I thought POW might be a good chance for strong players with not too much military
experience to learn a lot, and it's the easiest of the 3 warmonger series.
With nekkid people not in these, if the DEFN and POW rosters are different we can
start POW now or soon as well. That's one reason I'm glad to see a lot of new folks
responding here! The AW will not start until DEFN and POW are complete.

Narrowed-down civ choices:
- DEFN - Japan (alternate: Rome)
- POW - China (alternate: Aztecs)
- AW - Germany (alternate: Aztecs)

These were based on practicality, choosing different civs, and looking
at the 'votes' from all responders. If the ones actually looking to play on
a given roster have a strong preference for the alternate civ, speak up :P

For the DEFN game I need someone to 'go first' - I would like to make the game,
play a few turns to assure it's not a dud, then go last in the order. For
the POW I'll just see the opening site isn't horrible, and probably start
it up, although if someone else wanted to, that's fine. I'm hoping
Urugharakh can make and start the AW when we get around to it.

Charis

PS in EDIT to Reagan: Yes, I had you listed on both rosters, as you don't run the risk of SG overload like some of us do :P Also you expressed interest in wanting to give a warlike game a shot despite builder tendencies. If you have time for both, there's no problem. :cool:
 
With nekkid people not in these, if the DEFN and POW rosters are different we can start POW now or soon as well.

If I correctly understand your intent, then there may be a problem. You have me on both the NEKKID and POW rosters but your message seems to imply that you want different people on those two teams. I am more than happy to play on both and think I can handle the time commitment. I don't want to do anything that would cause a conflict between the two games, so you may remove me from the POW game if necessary.

By the way, I think China would be a fine choice for the POW civ.
 
Two votes for Vikings? That's fine with me. I didn't plan any other variant restrictions beyond the naked concept - which will be pretty challenging in and of itself. We will probably be building much of the time, but if we see an opportunity to make major gains through warfare, then there's no reason why we can't do that as well. After all, there's no reason why us nekkid folks can't use weapons too. :)
 
Arathorn - I believe that is the case here. I don't know if Charis has any minimum or maximum time limit for being at war with any given civ - however, there is a minimum limit enforced by the game (refusal to see our envoy).

Personally, I feel there should be a maximum limit enforced (say, 10 turns or until they see our envoy, whichever is later) - it would be all too easy to war with a given civ until they are eliminated, then move onto the next - at least with a maximum limit they will get a chance to rebuild and offer more of a challenge.

Oh one more thing (tm) - confirming my intention to play in this POW thingy...
 
"All too easy"? You may be right. And you may be surprised.

But, more importantly, I see I agreed to POW, when I was suggested for DEFN. Slap me silly with a fish. I am available for ONE of the three games at any given time, and I'm not particularly choosey about which. So, as Charis suggested DEFN for me, I am available for that game, but not really for POW.

As for "going first", I'm willing to do that. Do you want me to generate a map and just do it all? Or do you want to do that and just pass me the non-dud 4000 BC save? Or would someone else like to do it? I'm fine any which way.

Arathorn
 
I can confirm for the slot in DEFN. I would also like to play the AW if we are going to do that after the DEFN. Can only handle 1 SG at a time these days..
 
I confirm for DEFN. I don't have a preference for Japan or Rome, either is fine with me. I've seen Urugharakh get some great starts so he'd have my vote for leading off unless someone else wants to do it. Thanks Charis for setting this up.
 
Work and family take lots of my time currently. Furthermore I'm still Civ3 tired after my always war game. The damn thing took all available free time for several weeks. I curse your challenges, Charis. :) So I would prefer not to lead a DEFN game and will even give my slot away in case someone else is interested. Japan as civ is fine with me.

Concerning the always war game, I hope I have lost my Civ3 tireness until it starts. But I will only participate as Greeks or maybe Carthago. Hoplites and early access to swords where one key element in my always war game. The other was getting to literature early enough so I could spent a leader on the great libary. Germany is totally useless in a deity always war scenario in my opinion. The game is decided long before panzers arrive and you don't need them. You have to survive early on - hoplites will give you the necessary defense strenght - and you have to keep up in the early game research - here the great libary is the key. So scientific and commercial are the optimal starting techs and you really don't need warrior code and archers. You will loose without iron anyway - trust me. The militaristic trait is not needed in an deity always war game. You will have an sufficient supply of elite units due to the incredible amount of fights anyway. This is not like the monarch ones, where gaps in the assault stream occur often.
 
> I curse your challenges, Charis. :)

Usually I disliked being cursed, but in this case I'll make an exception ;)

In your previous post I just couldn't tell if you were referring to the DEFN or the AW game when you mentioned civ thoughts. The Germans idea was based on best starting techs in the game, mil trait, and for a game where you research all yourself, sci trait. But having seen the RBCiv Greek Epic and your tests with Deity AW, I will trust you on this one, and go with Greeks. (We won't be using Numidians on offense, so 1.5x the shield cost is silly)

For the DEFN game I'm going to list the slot as "Open -- Urugharakh to fill if no one steps up", as I would prefer to not contribute to too much tiredness :P

Speaking of which, I'll be starting that as thread RBP5 now...

Charis
 
BTW, do we have an exact ruleset for POW defined? As simple as "Must end every turn at war with SOMEBODY"?
Click to expand...

The original thought was yes, that's it. As I get closer to going with it, I've thought more on it and got some input from other folks ( ;) ), and now need to toss out a few comments/ideas/questions here...

- The simplest possible rule is "Must end turn at war with somebody - if anybody is known" (Otherwise we break the rule in 4000bc)

The *intent* of the warmonger trio was, in addition to having fun in a challenging game, a test of three hypothesis. Conventional wisdom (from strong players) is:

- In deity when tribute is demanded you always pay it (at least early on)
- Oscillating war as the key point of one's strategy works great at lower diffs, but in deity this is foolish
- Always war is unwinnable on deity unless you go out and mod the map

I want to challenge these assumptions head-on. The thing is, one or more of these nuggets of wisdom might be right. Have we *YET* had a succession game loss??? RBE2 tried it's best, but you guys were just too good :P (Actually, the next patch will address AI of space race as a result of this game!)

Defiant Nationist challenges the first assumption in the strongest way possible, never giving in to tribute. The later AW game planned will challenge the third, where we will require a "decent food" start and perhaps the 'starter' will abort if a non-iron start. That leaves assumption #2 to be tested, hence the POW game, which forces the issue with the 'simplest' rule I've ever suggested for a variant game :P (one line of rules, not three pages)

But... is this rule the best way to go about challenging the hypothesis, and will it be fun, or will we end up trying to skirt the intent by looking for loopholes?

Easy loophole #1 - crush a civ down to 1 city, then stay in a fake-war with them for the next 500 years, never attacking, and playing a normal build-catchup game.

Easy loophole #2 - declare war on someone who can't reach you until Navigation.

So the 'simple rule' isn't "sufficient." Is it "necessary?"

On a lower diff where you 'oscillate' there are definitely short periods of peace, say where you march the units from one civ you've crippled to the border of the next civ? Or say you're non-religious and are going to revolt - not the best time to declare a new war. The intent is not to FORCE our hands just to add challenge. That would work on Emperor, but could lead to senseless implosion of a good game on deity. For a change I'm not looking to add variant rules just to make it hard, but to encourage a playstyle/strategy that 'seems' like it won't work on the difficulty, and see if we can make it work.

I've only seen two deity games where the player(s) chose, of their own accord, to start a war of aggression in the ancient era on diety. One was my 5CC deity conquest, and the other is the RBP2 Korean warmonger game, where I simultaneously went to war with Russians and Mongols insanely early and survived, with a few concessions even. But the game is quite young and we don't know yet if this was 'effective' or the seeds of our eventual doom. That game has added restrictions on needing to use catapults, and it's a peace-oriented civ, so it's not going to be a poster child for effective oscillation either.

Both games did some multi-civ war, but the POW rule would have led to ancient era loss in both games.

Your recent RBE game with Greece on your continent could have gone there, with a war vs Greeks MUCH earlier, but conventional wisdom said that was foolish, and you built up to the point where you felt like you could take them.

If POW is seen as intentionally very hard on the way towards Always War (they start the same don't they, declaring war vs the first civ you meet on the turn you meet), the rule is perfect. But as far as asking the question 'Can early rushes and oscillating war work WELL on deity, as a viable strat?', it's too restricting.
On top of all that, I set the roster with good players but ones not used to early aggression.

As I try to think of an alternate rule or ruleset that would strongly (force) encourage us to play in the spirit/strategy of Oscillating War that's less restrictive and more fun - the simplest one I can think of is: Never go more than 20 turns "at peace with all direct neighbors".
- When you make first contact with another civ you have 20 turns to finish building a few troops and get them in position before declaring.
- Once you make peace, you have the full 20 years of the peace treaty to build up, and decide to go after someone else or hit them again.
- No fake wars, you have to go against a neighbor.
- If this still leaves open the possibility of only going to war with a cripple, an easy addition is "Declaration of war must be against a civ where there are concessions to be made"

Sorry this post is long, but I wanted to clarify my thinking and my concerns. Comments from all, whether 'signed up' or not are welcome. Answers to these questions in particular would be helpful:
- Is the current one-line POW rule too restrictive, or did those signed up want a "half-way to Always War" style game?
- Does anyone have experience (or a link) to deity games where the player opted for a very early AI war where it worked well?
- Does the alternate rule of no reign of peace more than 20 years sound better?

Thanks :D
Charis
 
- Oscillating war as the key point of one's strategy works great at lower diffs, but in deity this is foolish
Click to expand...

Oh, I've known this is false for a long time. My first two deity wins were based on oscillating war, or at least very early war. The problem is that my first few deity games were failed attempts at oscillating war! :)

This was quite a while ago (1.14?????? patch in vanilla Civ3 -- the one right before the demonic tech-trading pace). I probably have all the save games zipped up somewhere, but the gameplay was not exactly stellar....

I've since determined that luck is a more important factor in the success of such missions than in builder/whatever, but that skill/strategy also plays a very heavy role. My recollections:
- Don't fear using cheapie units -- even one regular warrior is a better unit than a nothing.
- Forget about land grab -- build your initial city and *maybe* a second and just conquer the rest.
- Focus hard on one civ. Human intelligence can usually overcome the superior unit numbers. Try to conquer a city that you can keep (e.g. pop 2 or with some culture) and not just raze. That's about the only way to grow your empire.
- Don't just "go to peace" because you're in an awkward position. Peace on your terms (getting a couple cities, often, or a number of techs) is an extremely critical part of this strat.

But, of course, I also chose war on my time, not on first contact, took a bit of time (5ish turns) to restock between opponents, and such, but I've been at war 4 times (with 3 different civs) before the end of the ancient age -- and that was before they slowed the deity tech pace. It certainly *CAN* be done.

Now, as for the ruleset for the "POW" game, I have very little opinion. To me, perpetual implies being at war with someone whenever possible. Oscillating means it changes. Maybe just OW for a title and your 20-turn ruleset? I dunno and don't care too much. But I wanted to share some experience.

Also, didn't Urug have a successful ancient war campaign or two in the "no prebuild, no upgrade" deity Epic? Can somebody maybe find that link/resurrect that story?

Arathorn
 
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