SGOTM21 Lurker's Thread

[zbgayumn]

Ah, I must have been reading too fast and missed something.

It is amazing to me that Dhoom is writing these long, narrative-like posts right up to last hours. If it were me, I'd be writing one sentence updates, or just say screw the updates and play on through.

 

[kossin]

Wouldn't have worked in THIS scenario.

Sure it would. You just increase the number of resources needed for that condition. The hammer/commerce boost in the end game is insignificant whereas commerce/happiness/hammers early game usually makes a HUGE impact.

 

[Pangaea]

Ah, I must have been reading too fast and missed something.

It is amazing to me that Dhoom is writing these long, narrative-like posts right up to last hours. If it were me, I'd be writing one sentence updates, or just say screw the updates and play on through.

That took me by surprise too. As of right now, it's only five hours left, right? Or did I misunderstand something and they have a fair bit more than that?

In any case, they're in quite a pickle. Looks like they have problems with the AP votes, and there isn't exactly a great amount of time to invest in testing, which they are doing right now. Will be very tight, and it may be better to just wing it from here on in, so they at least can finish the game one way or another. Depends a bit on how many hours they have left obviously.

 

[Pangaea]

Sure it would. You just increase the number of resources needed for that condition. The hammer/commerce boost in the end game is insignificant whereas commerce/happiness/hammers early game usually makes a HUGE impact.

This is due to a silver popping from a mine, right? That can happen anywhere, and the chance in minuscule. Can't really try to "protect" against chances like that across the starting area.

 

[Kaitzilla]

That took me by surprise too. As of right now, it's only five hours left, right? Or did I misunderstand something and they have a fair bit more than that?

In any case, they're in quite a pickle. Looks like they have problems with the AP votes, and there isn't exactly a great amount of time to invest in testing, which they are doing right now. Will be very tight, and it may be better to just wing it from here on in, so they at least can finish the game one way or another. Depends a bit on how many hours they have left obviously.

Going by older posts, there is precisely 11 hours and 41 minutes left in SGOTM21 as of this posting.

This is due to a silver popping from a mine, right? That can happen anywhere, and the chance in minuscule. Can't really try to "protect" against chances like that across the starting area.

Ya, something like 0.1% chance each turn you work a hilltop mine to pop a resource.
SO LUCKY!

Of course, you have to build and work mines to have a chance for such luck.

 

[Pangaea]

Ya, something like 0.1% chance each turn you work a hilltop mine to pop a resource.
SO LUCKY xD

Think it's 1 in 10,000 actually, which equates to 0.01%. Absurd amount of luck. I've played whole games where no resources pop, and at best it happens maybe 2-3 times. To get it that early...

 

[kossin]

This is due to a silver popping from a mine, right? That can happen anywhere, and the chance in minuscule. Can't really try to "protect" against chances like that across the starting area.

The issue is usually with the capital at a time where you're bringing in less than 20C/turn.

It's an easy thing to fix really in the few places where it can be an issue.

 

[Gumbolt]

Perhaps the answer is to have no hills near the start? How much was the silver worth to TSR? 1-3 turns? Certainly would of enhanced science early on. A tie for gold gives at least 4/6 teams a laurel.

Looks like Xteam could win T192. Not checked if they completed all hearts. I assume they have.

Well done to TSR and PD for their likely golds. Great job guys. Wish PR team had had the time to finish this one. Just didn't happen especially with personal life intervening for some of our team. No point playing something out for fun with so much effort made on first 100+ turns.

 

[kossin]

You need a few hills for hammers... not everything can come from the whip when you need Warriors/Archers.

 

[WastinTime]

How much was the silver worth to TSR? 1-3 turns? Certainly would of enhanced science early on.

Just like popping a free tech from a hut...
It's a myth that this has any major impact on the game.
Don't forget, you lose 1 hammer in that silver mine.
And more often than not, an early tech boost (from silver or from a free tech) just means you end up researching something you should have gotten for free. Perfect example was this game. We burned up any commerce advantage that silver gave us by researching Sailing instead of getting it free.

So the commerce was a wash, and the hammer loss set us back. It was all evened out by the extra happy....which was nice
With a little luck meeting the AI, maybe we would not have squandered our extra commerce on Sailing. Somehow, thankfully, the luck always evens out, and the game comes down to skill -- Kinda like poker.

On paper, I'm sure it seems like the silver must have had an effect, but in reality, it probably affected the game by 0 turns.

 

[elitetroops]

Now that the game is finished, I'd like to ask for this rule to be clarified: "no liberating cities to a civ you are at war with (except in peace deal)"

The rule was in place before I played any HoF or SGOTM games, so to me that's a rule that always has been there in that form. I've read it by the literal meaning of the words, meaning no city gifting between getting into a war and signing a peace treaty. By definition, a ceasefire agreement does not end a war.

ceasefire
n
1. (Military) a period of truce, esp one that is temporary and a preliminary step to establishing a more permanent peace on agreed terms
interj, n
2. (Military) the order to stop firing

cease–fire
noun \ˈsēs-ˈfi(-&#601r\

: an agreement to stop fighting a war for a period of time so that a permanent agreement can be made to end the war

The parties involved in a ceasefire temporarily stop fighting, but formally they are still in a state of war.

However, that's the real world dictionary. I now see that the civ 4 dictionary appears to be very different... After choosing cease fire, you have to declare war to resume hostilities, you get more diplo penalties for "you declared war on us/our friend" and perhaps most importantly, you cannot even sign a peace deal anymore. And just now I noticed that the logs even say that you have made peace. So the Civ4 ceasefire is not really a ceasefire, it's more like a peace treaty with fingers crossed behind your back. It seems this is how the rule has been applied, seeing that several teams liberated cities during ceasefires to get diplo points for AP votes or gifting the beach resort.

If city gifting is allowed also after a ceasefire, then I think the wording of the rule should be changed to clearly indicate that it is. Currently there is an ambiguity in the rule, leaving it up to interpretation whether a war ends with a ceasefire or not.

Then one could still ask if gifting after a ceasefire should be allowed. kcd's explanation of the rule, from when it first was introduced, indicates that this was not the intention: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12368724&postcount=53

It seems like quite an exploit that you can get any former war target to friendly status without much effort by repeatedly liberating several cities on consecutive turns. However, if it weren't allowed, then it would cause trouble after taking a ceasefire, because you cannot sign a peace treaty anymore without first declaring war again. Maybe one solution would be to instead require a minimum amount of turns to pass between liberating a city and recapturing it. But maybe this would come with some other problems that I can't think of straight away. Discuss.

 

[kossin]

Now that the game is finished, I'd like to ask for this rule to be clarified: "no liberating cities to a civ you are at war with (except in peace deal)"

The rule was in place before I played any HoF or SGOTM games, so to me that's a rule that always has been there in that form. I've read it by the literal meaning of the words, meaning no city gifting between getting into a war and signing a peace treaty. By definition, a ceasefire agreement does not end a war.

The parties involved in a ceasefire temporarily stop fighting, but formally they are still in a state of war.

However, that's the real world dictionary. I now see that the civ 4 dictionary appears to be very different... After choosing cease fire, you have to declare war to resume hostilities, you get more diplo penalties for "you declared war on us/our friend" and perhaps most importantly, you cannot even sign a peace deal anymore. And just now I noticed that the logs even say that you have made peace. So the Civ4 ceasefire is not really a ceasefire, it's more like a peace treaty with fingers crossed behind your back. It seems this is how the rule has been applied, seeing that several teams liberated cities during ceasefires to get diplo points for AP votes or gifting the beach resort.

If city gifting is allowed also after a ceasefire, then I think the wording of the rule should be changed to clearly indicate that it is. Currently there is an ambiguity in the rule, leaving it up to interpretation whether a war ends with a ceasefire or not.

Then one could still ask if gifting after a ceasefire should be allowed. kcd's explanation of the rule, from when it first was introduced, indicates that this was not the intention: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12368724&postcount=53

It seems like quite an exploit that you can get any former war target to friendly status without much effort by repeatedly liberating several cities on consecutive turns. However, if it weren't allowed, then it would cause trouble after taking a ceasefire, because you cannot sign a peace treaty anymore without first declaring war again. Maybe one solution would be to instead require a minimum amount of turns to pass between liberating a city and recapturing it. But maybe this would come with some other problems that I can't think of straight away. Discuss.

These isn't much to discuss. There's a bug that allows you to liberate cities to a civilization while you are at war (not cease fire).

Hence you could endlessly accumulate liberation bonuses without the -3 DoW penalty.

If memory serves it was DanF in SGOTM15 that found this.

 

[elitetroops]

These isn't much to discuss. There's a bug that allows you to liberate cities to a civilization while you are at war (not cease fire).

Hence you could endlessly accumulate liberation bonuses without the -3 DoW penalty.

If memory serves it was DanF in SGOTM15 that found this.

If it's the common opinion that it should be allowed after a ceasefire, then so be it. But the rule should clearly say so. The rule should not be worded in such a way that only players who have been around long enough to know about that bug understand what it really means. As it is now, a new player will look at the rule, look at the trade screen to see that liberating a city during a war is not possible, then look again after a ceasefire and see that it is possible. Based on that, combined with dictionary knowledge, it's easy to make the conclusion that the rule is intended to prohibit liberation of cities after a ceasefire.

 

[Gumbolt]

Anyone else find it ironic Russia is holding a large military parade in Moscow today when this game finished??

I think ceasefire rule is quite clear. The game also makes it quite clear when you are actually at war. You can't attack an AI unit or have OB with a ceasefire.

 

[kcd_swede]

Gifting cities has always been a legit way to gain diplo. The rule states you cannot gift/liberate a city to a civ you are at war with (unless as condition of peace treaty).

So even if you define 3 states: war, cease fire, and peace... there is only one diplomatic condition at which the gift of a city is banned.

I did not know there was any confusion in BtS between a state of war and a cease fire being the same thing as nobody ever posed the question quite that way - so the rules could be stated more explicitly to ensure newer players are aware of the possibilities available to them. I don't think different understandings had any impact on the outcome in any sgotm so far, though.

Congrats to all teams who made the most of their game!

 

[elitetroops]

So even if you define 3 states: war, cease fire, and peace... there is only one diplomatic condition at which the gift of a city is banned.

But the rule only considers 2 states. War or not war. In the real world, a cease fire still keeps you in a state of war. Apparently this is not the case in civ universe. This is what has confused me.

I did not know there was any confusion in BtS between a state of war and a cease fire being the same thing as nobody ever posed the question quite that way - so the rules could be stated more explicitly to ensure newer players are aware of the possibilities available to them. I don't think different understandings had any impact on the outcome in any sgotm so far, though.

I don't see any reason not to clarify this in the rule, other than not wanting to reveal the dirty tricks available to all the noobs. I agree that this had no impact on the outcome of the game.

Congrats to all teams who made the most of their game!

Agree with this as well!

 

[Deckhand]

The current prohibition is in regard to the exploit. (If we don't forget) We will reword it for future games to be more explicit.

IMO - For future games, prohibiting what was done in this one should be a game designer's choice - depending upon the scenario.

I unwisely(*) brought it up in Xteam's thread and this was in Dhoomstriker's reply:

If, in the future, I wanted to limit the effects of City Liberation, but still allow it to some extent, I would probably, before the game begins, craft a rule to the effect of:
Any City can only be offered once for Liberation credit in the game

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13806670&postcount=1190

(*) unwise as I should have waited until after the game was over instead of distracting them (taking up any of their time) with so little time remaining

 

[Deckhand]

I just updated the database to indicate you have all finished.
I think that will give you access to the other team's files.
If not, then Alan needs to do something.
And yes, you can all look at other team's threads and games now.

Give us a couple days for administration and congrats post creation. I'm sure you are all wondering who won.

==========

I think both the Lurker thread and the game were great successes.
Good Game All.
Too bad RL interrupted many of you.
I hope we have enough interest to do SGOTM22 soon. Need more players.

 

[BSPollux]

Need more players.

You should be playing

 

[zbgayumn]

Well, 22 is my lucky number, and for once in my life I'm actually fairly confident that nothing will happen in the next six months that will significantly disrupt my civ playing. So, I'm as close to definitely in as one can be at this point.