SGOTM 05 - Murky Waters

[LowtherCastle]

Anyone know if posting our scout on a S grass river tile prevents jungle from growing there?

 

[LowtherCastle]

That BW can speed up by 2 civs learning BW is not special to case C. The prerequisite bonus is summed up with the known civ bonus before truncation. 11 * 128% is already 14. But case C could be sped up already by one other civ learning BW. Okay, Thx.

All combat losses of the barbs count as much as our losses. I don't think it's really possible to count all barb suicides. You don't really see every loss. Even if you have show friendly moves on (which is pretty annoying), you don't see them really losing on attack. We gotta do what we gotta do. We can know which barbs exist and can see what units the Ais have, right?

WW points is team vs team.

Right. What I'm getting at is that each AI is a different team, right? So my premise stands, no?

 

[klarius]

Each AI has it's team and each team counts against each other team (except against the barb team, which means they get no WW from us, even if we would have WW inducing actions against them). So yes, you're right.

But I still don't see how to keep track. We only see units if barb units can see them. If a barb unit dies it's not there anymore and we have no visibility there. So keeping track means scrutinizing every AI city every turn and note the barb units there, if a barb unit is wounded it has won a battle, if one is missing it died (but we don't know if on attack or defense).
I don't know really how to do this effectively.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Well, I may take a look at it tonight, but since the interturn proceeds consecutively from Cyrus to Asoka to...to barbs (or whatever), we surely know who's attacking, plus, as you mentioned, we can have friendly and enemy moves turned on so we sould witness every battle.

Best would be if Erkon knows how it's already logged or how to get it logged. The log also has defenders and attackers in their respective typewritten position, I believe.

Without a log, yes, we would need to keep an ongoing tally of any barbs close to AIS.

 

[klarius]

Well, you are pretty optimistic.
The reality is:
We see no battles, even with show moves on.
There is no log for foreign units.
And if you see somebody moving it's pretty difficult to tell where it is.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Recording Barb Battles: Can be done and it's fun!

Fun if you're a bloodthirsty Gnejsite!

I see 2 actions involved in keeping a fairly accurate account of barb battles versus separate AIs.

0. Use a clean, sturdy sheet of paper and a high-quality pen.
1. Write down on the left side the names of each AI (Alex, Asoka...)
2. Use a standard notation, for example W-warrior, B-bowman(archer), X- axeman.
3. Pretty far to the right, write down "Killed:" (we killed them...) for each AI.
4. In the Options menu click on Friendly and Enemy moves and unclick Quick moves. Take your time and enjoy ... (what else do you have to do this turnset?)
5. Don't forget to do your other tasks, such as building a wkr.

Action 1: Anytime a barb comes within visible attack/defend range (even an adjacent road), note that next to the appropriate AI (W, B, or X...). If it vanishes next turn, circle it as killed. If it is damaged, make a note in the Killed space to the right. If it's not near a city, it helps to make a special note of its location.​

Action 2: During the interturn, pay close attention to any AI units that appear next to ours (barbs). If you can remember which AI they are and where, then check if our unit is damaged or disappeared and note appropriately.​

I did this for a while. Never got to WW, but there was a very clear pattern. I lost 9 units to Saladin and killed 2 of his. Lost 8 units is Isa. Lost 4 each to Toku and QIn. But lost only 1 to Asoka, Alex, and Cyrus. The patterns will be different every game, of course, but we should be able to know where the WW is coming from mostly, even if we don't keep perfect records.

Question
Do barb animal deaths and kills count toward WW?

 

[LowtherCastle]

@BP
Judging from the avalanches of barbs that rain down on the AIs, I think you ought to play the turnset the way you tested it that got BW done pretty fast, but still got the wkr and settler done quickly. We need to grow our pop asap right after that.

 

[Big Pig]

When barbs first appear (~2700Bc tho' as Klarius has pointed out, this is variable and could be earlier) there are likely to be many of them - lots of land and little AI spread - so they will be a relatively strong force compared to the AI and as we have seen are likely to capture a few cities

As the AI spreads out more, fewer barbs will appear and the AI will get stronger - the balance of power will shift. Soon the AI will be able to capture/recapture barb cities (assuming we cannot get troops to help)

Getting peace with the AI becomes harder as time goes on - presumably because they feel as if they are winning the war on barbs. The more barb warriors that suicide against AI archers in cities, the harder it will be. Because of this I'm not sure LC's plans for counting battles to see who is giving us the biggest WW matter - our biggest WW will be coming from those AIs that don't make peace with us

Klarius' idea of gifting a crappy city near us to the AI to hamstring them and to be recaptured at a later date may work here to get peace - but only before the AI has 4 cities of their own

(re:discussing peace deals with the team)

This means some of us have to be online during the session since you have to ALT-TAB while in the diplomacy screen. Perhaps we can already now agree on who we want to peace with? I would say yes to Alex, but no to Qin for example.

I don't think this is necessary - we should be able to refuse the deal to close the diplo window, then re-offer peace the same turn. In addition remember that an AI may accept peace even if they don't offer it first.

A big part of the outcome of this game will bepend on RNG - will the barbs capture any enemy capitals or even destroy an AI (In 1 test Qin was eliminated - that would be ideal! ) But I think a lot also rests on making the right decisions about getting peace to help protect our barb investments

 

[Erkon]

...
Klarius' idea of gifting a crappy city near us to the AI to hamstring them and to be recaptured at a later date may work here to get peace - but only before the AI has 4 cities of their own - lets keep this in mind when we have the possibility to build a spare city.

(re:discussing peace deals with the team) I don't think this is necessary - we should be able to refuse the deal to close the diplo window, then re-offer peace the same turn. In addition remember that an AI may accept peace even if they don't offer it first.

A big part of the outcome of this game will bepend on RNG - will the barbs capture any enemy capitals or even destroy an AI (In 1 test Qin was eliminated - that would be ideal! ) But I think a lot also rests on making the right decisions about getting peace to help protect our barb investments

I've declined deals and when I offer them back to the AI the same turn, it was refused.

In my ordinary games, the AI doesn't capture barb cities until final BC years.

@BP
Judging from the avalanches of barbs that rain down on the AIs, I think you ought to play the turnset the way you tested it that got BW done pretty fast, but still got the wkr and settler done quickly. We need to grow our pop asap right after that.

Since we're going for mining=>BW, we must be absolutely sure that we get BW before the human barbs show up, else we have missed the opportunity to do real harm. I'd rather see BW sooner than the settler sooner.

Recording Barb Battles: Can be done and it's fun!
...

BP and LC - please use such a chart during your turn sets. We can then review it and see if it's worthwhile. As I see it, any facts we can extract from the game will enable us to take (grab? ) better decisions.

 

[Big Pig]

Since we're going for mining=>BW, we must be absolutely sure that we get BW before the human barbs show up, else we have missed the opportunity to do real harm. I'd rather see BW sooner than the settler sooner.

If we don't want to settle SW, then the best approach is probably:
grow size 2>wkr>grow size 3>settler (or grow size 3>wkr>grow size 4>settler)

 

[klarius]

Animals are barb units and by that count for war weariness. But it's not very likely that there is really anything building up in animal time as there are very few animal-AI battles.
As there is a decay of 1 war weariness point every turn with every team, 1 barb suicide every 3 turns doesn't build up war weariness.
The problem is probably only there if barbs of a big land mass mostly concentrate on 1 AI and especially if they capture cities. We should then think of a temporary peace (BTW why are we so fuzzy about 10 turns of peace).

 

[LowtherCastle]

I've declined deals and when I offer them back to the AI the same turn, it was refused. Me too.

I'd rather see BW sooner than the settler sooner. I agree.

I like BP's balanced approach: BW on time, settler soon after. If we have a non-Calendar Happy on our landmass, we MUST settle it before the barbs.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Animals are barb units and by that count for war weariness.

@BP: Please try to get a feel for whether 1 or 2 AIs are killing large numbers of the animals. On my turnset I'll eyeball the human barbs, but good.

 

[LowtherCastle]

We should then think of a temporary peace (BTW why are we so fuzzy about 10 turns of peace).

In my test games, AIs will DoP with me and after 10 turns immediately cancel the peace treaty, but not re-DoW.

What do you mean by "fuzzy"?

If we DoP, we'll have to re-DoW if we want more barb pillaging.

 

[Erkon]

... We should then think of a temporary peace (BTW why are we so fuzzy about 10 turns of peace).

I have no problem with cease fires or everlasting peace. We'll just adopt to the situation, yes?

 

[LowtherCastle]

As I see it, any facts we can extract from the game will enable us to take (grab? ) make better decisions. Please speak English, not British...

Amen to that. It's one thing to be right, another thing to have the data to prove it...

SirPleb always seemd to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of his games.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I have no problem with cease fires or everlasting peace. We'll just adopt to the situation, yes? Yes.

I don't have a personal problem with it, if that's what you mean. Nor a philosophical one.

I do have a bit of a problem with us focusing our meager research capabilities on an overtly militaristic opening and then getting all peacey weecy.

Don't forget that bee-lining Pottery doubles our research capabilities...AND with our cheap granaries and low food, makes poprushing a workable idea.

 

[klarius]

When I talked about making peace temporarily, I thought about: do we really care about diplomacy in this game and try to get some trades.
If not then there is no reason to not just oscillate peace and war as we see fit. As we are not talking about massive stacks getting lost, but rather the unfocused barbarians, 10 turns of peace are probably enough to reset WW for this civ.

I just tried a game and had good success by making peace whenever the barbs captured a city and redeclared 10 turns later. Barbs finished Qin in two campaigns and captured 3 more cities within the first 80 turns.

 

[LowtherCastle]

That's interesting. What would the barbs clustered near Qin do during the peace time? Wander off or stay near?

 

[klarius]

That's interesting. What would the barbs clustered near Qin do during the peace time? Wander off or stay near?

Mainly wander around aimlessly. I redeclared when there were 3 axes near his last city by accident.