The Hall of Players

[Seraiel]

Is it 3x the military power you need to be safe from DOWs? I thought it was 2x, and I have 2.41 of HC right now, visible in the first screenshot.

I also got confused. I thought it was 1.5 times to 2 times, 2.41 sounds way to high to make a DoW even possible. Maybe it's because your Vassal is weak.

 

[Pangaea]

My vassal Frederick is weak with 3 cities and backwards, but I wouldn't think that matters all that much when I'm so powerful myself. Maybe bribes overrule the power rating?


In the madness and confusion I overlooked the other border in the west, where some units are invading too. Thankfully those cities have a unit in them, though I didn't exactly want to pay thousands to upgrade warriors, archers and axemen Trying to look through everything now, and decide on what cities to gift away to Willem. Since I can gift away 3, that gives a little more elbow room.

 

[elitetroops]

I always get confused with this as well - the AI will accept any city if it has 3 or less cities so if he only has 1 then you will be able to give him all 3.

This rule is only for cities far away on the map. If the city is close enough to some other city he has, they might accept even if they have way more than 3 cities. In this case it's no problem, as you said, but even if Willem had already 3 cities, he would accept the first, then the next 2 cities to gift would be close enough to the previous gifted city, so he should accept them as long as he isn't in financial trouble.

Is it 3x the military power you need to be safe from DOWs? I thought it was 2x, and I have 2.41 of HC right now, visible in the first screenshot.

Vassal and master powers are added together, so Freddy's power is added to yours. However, since you were already at war with Asoka, he adds Asoka's power to his own when considering whether you are a valid target or not.

Explained by DanF here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7190899

 

[Noble Zarkon]

This rule is only for cities far away on the map. If the city is close enough to some other city he has, they might accept even if they have way more than 3 cities. In this case it's no problem, as you said, but even if Willem had already 3 cities, he would accept the first, then the next 2 cities to gift would be close enough to the previous gifted city, so he should accept them as long as he isn't in financial trouble.

Yes quite right, didn't mean to imply there was a limit - they will always accept until they have 4 cities then it depends on distance, finance etc.

 

[Seraiel]

TY for that explanation elitetroops. I'll be more careful in my future games because of this, though I usually don't have those problems, because I make sure that aggressive civs are always at war with somebody. This I also wanted to say to Pangaea. It's hindsight, because you thought you were safe because of your power-rating, but HC is a highly aggressive leader, he must not be at peace, chances that he'll declare at onesself are just too great. Same for Peter and all the other ones that are not "real Warmongers" but actually "the way more dangerous AIs because they build units and also can tech" . Even Asoka already DoWed me once (I think even at pleased) and he ruined a good game for me. On Deity, you should never feel safe unless you're in control. I know this is impossible with -7 from having declared on somebody's friends probably. This is also why playing Huge maps is so difficult, it's just very many things that need to be controlled.

 

[Pangaea]

Yeaaah, I'm fed up with this s**t now. Just lost four cannons in a row with 80+% chance too. Just taking the s**t now. FFS.

What's the point. Just a rolling boulder up the hill exercise.

e: the chance of that is 0.12%. Never mind all the other s**t that has happened.

 

[elitetroops]

Yeaaah, I'm fed up with this s**t now. Just lost four cannons in a row with 80+% chance too. Just taking the s**t now. FFS.

What's the point. Just a rolling boulder up the hill exercise.

e: the chance of that is 0.12%. Never mind all the other s**t that has happened.

Sucks when that happens, but it does. Just to set the math straight, if the chance of losing 4 consecutive battles is 0.12%, then the chance of that happening at some point over the course of 100 battles is >10%. While it's rare, it is expected to happen every now and then when playing big games with lots of war.

That said, when playing my JC conquest game, I noticed some strange things with the displayed combat odds. It's possible they are way off in some cases. Will investigate closer when I have time, more on that issue later.

 

[elitetroops]

That said, when playing my JC conquest game, I noticed some strange things with the displayed combat odds. It's possible they are way off in some cases. Will investigate closer when I have time, more on that issue later.

Okay, investigated. Odds are correct, but the game behaves strangely.

Here's the situation: CR3 Praetorians attack a non-hill city with 40% cultural defenses, defended by a fully fortified C2+Shock swordsman and a CG1 longbow with 10% fortification bonus. The first praet attacking is paired up against the longbow, with 63% combat odds. The next praet (exactly same strength as first attacker) will face the sword, but with only 36% odds. Why is this happening? Why is the longbow picked as top defender if the swordsman has way better odds?

I ran this with stacks of 100 units, and it turns out the displayed odds are correct. I was thinking for a moment there that BUFFY maybe gets the odds wrong, as the game chooses defenders differently, but this is not the case. Somehow the game engine seems to think that the longbow is a better defender, despite worse odds.

There are other situations as well when this can happen. I noticed frequently in my JC game that I would fight longbows before shock swords, despite having better odds vs the lbs.

 

[Seraiel]

Sucks when that happens, but it does. Just to set the math straight, if the chance of losing 4 consecutive battles is 0.12%, then the chance of that happening at some point over the course of 100 battles is >10%. While it's rare, it is expected to happen every now and then when playing big games with lots of war.

That said, when playing my JC conquest game, I noticed some strange things with the displayed combat odds. It's possible they are way off in some cases. Will investigate closer when I have time, more on that issue later.

The problem simply comes through playing those highly optimized Spaceraces, where every unit gets counted on, because if one can do with a certain number less, that means more research on the other hand.

4 Cannons shouldn't be enough to give up a round though. Siege is always planned as suicide, and one should always be able to do with a little less later in the game, if one only bombards cities but doesn't suicide siege, then one simply suicides more normal units and by that gets over the siege-lack. I only say that because I'm your friend, but you seem to be a little hotheaded since you play that Huge game Pangaea. I told you, that Huge means suffering, so I understand, but plz also pay attention to how much gametime you already invested in that round, 4 Cannons and 2 or 3 cities will probably only be a handful of turns in the end, and there is nothing as a perfect round with such much variables, at least not more than once every few years. I lose one city in almost every round, and I'm playing Small and Normal maps atm.
You need to not pay as much attention at the chances lost, but need to manage with what you got. If a round develops really badly, because you lose over and over and over and over, then I understand giving up, but take it more easily, cities are not holy (at least most not ) so if you lose a few, that's only a few lost buildings and a little work you need to invest to build some units to retake them. The hard part is the mental part, about having lost somewhere, but you need to become stronger in that discipline, if you play on high difficulty mate. Try to see things as they are, like described, losing sucks, but what counts is the bigger picture.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

If you'll be in Slavery in 3 turns' time, don't forget to put at least 1 Hammer into 2 to 3 different Military Units per City before that time, so that you can have 2 or 3 successive turns of whipping out of each City that is in major danger.


Sometimes, an AI will Bombard without attacking for a couple of turns when you have at least 1 defender and the AI has a Catapult, as you mentioned.


Sometimes, a Horse Archer or a Chariot would rather Pillage than attack a City with a defender in it, even if that defender is just an Immortal.


Often, after an AI captures a City, its whole stack will stay there for a few turns' time, especially if at least 1 of its units is wounded and needs to heal. Even if the stack moves again, the AI won't leave the City undefended, so there will be less units moving on to your next City.


If you're going to gift Cities to Willem, try to get Willem to Close Borders with Huayna.


I don't rely on Power to keep me safe, due to the point that elitetroops brought up, where it is the total Power of the AI who will declare war on you plus the Power of the AIs with whom you are already at war, which is a bit ridiculous to keep up.

Instead, rely on Diplo... get an AI to Pleased/Friendly so that they cannot declare war on you, bribe an AI into a war with another AI to keep it from attacking you, Request or Demand 1 Gold to keep it from attacking you, or bribe another AI to attack it.

If you can't do one of those things whenever that AI is at peace, then assume that you can be attacked as soon as the very next turn by any such AI who is in peace or finishes off all existing wars and gets into peace. In my game from the last Gauntlet that I may never get around to finishing, Shaka had Cities near several of my core Cities, so it was imperative that I kept him constantly engaged in wars. I even left an AI alive with 1 City on a far away island so that I would have an easy target against which to bribe Shaka... and, since I had played with Vassals off, I wasn't afraid of creating a Capitulation Monster of a Shaka.

 

[Seraiel]

I think Pangaea might have been on vacation when ZPV explained this fact, but the AI bribing someone against you gets more unlikely with the turns of the war passing, so the chance is i. e. only 1/10 on T10. Therefore always try to get peace-treaties. Demand from AIs if necessary, doesn't matter if Huayna is on -6 of -10 anyhow.

 

[Pangaea]

I think Pangaea might have been on vacation when ZPV explained this fact, but the AI bribing someone against you gets more unlikely with the turns of the war passing, so the chance is i. e. only 1/10 on T10. Therefore always try to get peace-treaties. Demand from AIs if necessary, doesn't matter if Huayna is on -6 of -10 anyhow.

This was after about 10 turns I reckon, if not more, as I've taken many cities already. Yay, shagged by you-know-what again.

Could write a long post about events and measures I've taken over these ~100 hours, but I can't be bothered. Fed up of everything now. Just rest assure that I've done a lot to manage AIs, diplo, wars, and planning ahead.

Was very close to uninstalling the game and deleting all saves earlier, and maybe that would be for the best.

---

Found the post.

I don't remember for sure how the turn progression works, and how the random number generator works. If I've remembered right, the progression is:

Same turn: 1/2
turn + 1:  1/3
turn + 2:  1/4
turn + 3:  1/5
turn + 4:  1/18
turn + 5:  1/22
turn + 6:  1/26
turn + 7:  1/30
turn + 8:  1/34
turn + 9:  1/38
thereafter: 1/41

Spoiler :

My assumptions are: same turn: atWarCounter = 0, and GetSorenRandNum(n) takes values 0 to n.

except for Pacal who has a smaller chance roughly 2/3 everyone else, with some rounding errors in the early turns.
AIs that dogpiled you skip several turns ahead in the schedule, so their chances of bribing someone else are low.

Probably 1/41 chance then, or very close. Gotta love it, right?

e: it was after 11 or 12 turns btw.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

1 / 41 chance of being bribed... but, do we know for sure that it was a war bribe and not just one of the possible ways that an AI chooses to go to war?

Also, does that counter perhaps reset as soon as an AI gets peace with all players? So, if Huayna had recently gotten peace, the counter might have been 1 / 3, for example.


For me, I'd personally build Warrior, Archer, or Chariot City defenders (it's probably harder when playing as Darius, though, as you feel tempted to put those Immortals onto the fields) before I'd build Forges, Theatres, and Spies.

It was a calculated gamble and perhaps most of the time it pays off, but this time it did not pay off. The HOF way seems to be to push on through, learning what you can about the situation (AI warfare when the AI has your pants down), then start another game with the extra lesson in your pocket.

That other game might not even be with the same settings... take a break and play one of the easier and shorter games to get your confidence back up.

 

[Pangaea]

Well, finally some good news. I've learnt to dance.

Thanks to the great advice from Dhoomstriker about gifting away cities, none were technically lost, or at least captured. Gave away two as it was impossible to save them. Thankfully I was producing some cannons in my core, and combined with working hammer tiles, I got some out some, plus filler stuff (Immortals basically). Must have spent 2000 upgrading units too, but it had to be done. Cannons can't kill, but they can certainly damage (when the RNG doesn't have a spiked, rusty mace up my glory hole at least). Sacrificed a worker and missionary too, but eventually got rid of all the feckers. Plus took Delhi, where the market and granary survived.

Spoiler :

Tricky to see on the shrunk screenshot, but that is 86 , a little more now as I have a monastery city building missionaries.

The war elephant and mace were a little confused about where to go.

In the end they assaulted a cannon and died. Good bloody riddance

The situation appears under control now, so I don't need to change into slavery after all, but now the 5 turns have passed, so it's possible asap if another disaster strikes in the GA (soon extended with Taj).

Not sure if I learnt all that much, but I had to think really hard about where to move every single unit, including fork defending cities in case Asoka countered as well. He did, several times.

1 / 41 chance of being bribed... but, do we know for sure that it was a war bribe and not just one of the possible ways that an AI chooses to go to war?

Also, does that counter perhaps reset as soon as an AI gets peace with all players? So, if Huayna had recently gotten peace, the counter might have been 1 / 3, for example.


For me, I'd personally build Warrior, Archer, or Chariot City defenders (it's probably harder when playing as Darius, though, as you feel tempted to put those Immortals onto the fields) before I'd build Forges, Theatres, and Spies.

It was a calculated gamble and perhaps most of the time it pays off, but this time it did not pay off. The HOF way seems to be to push on through, learning what you can about the situation (AI warfare when the AI has your pants down), then start another game with the extra lesson in your pocket.

That other game might not even be with the same settings... take a break and play one of the easier and shorter games to get your confidence back up.

It could be another war type I suppose. There was no red fist, though.

I did have a lot of warriors and some archers in cities, but keep in mind this was in the centre of a 70 city empire, so those were undefended. It couldn't possibly have happened at a worse time or location.

Normally I barely bother with spies at all btw, but Asoka has 4500 sitting around, so I figured it was best to steal at least some of it. Shame he has some island cities, big ones too, or I could have stolen the whole lot.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Well, I'm glad that you made it through gracefully!

The nice part about gifting Cities... wait for it... you often get to keep most of the Buildings after recapturing those Cities, since Cultural percentage greatly skews the odds in your favour of keeping the Buildings.

You will lose the Culture-producing, non-Wonder Buildings (I'm pretty certain that those can't be recaptured, but let me know if I am mistaken on this point), but Buildings which normally get destroyed automatically (Barracks, Stable, etc) have a pretty decent chance of surviving recapture, while Buildings which have a high chance of survival (I think 66% chance for a Granary when you have 0 Culture in the City) are likely to survive intact.

 

[Pangaea]

Didn't know barracks could survive at all, so that is good news. Except the cities didn't have any. Nice to know though.

One of the cities probably has decent chance to flip, but stuff like that takes forever in my experience. If that were to happen, everything should survive.

 

[Pangaea]

Am I crazy here or is this not incredibly slow AI teching

Almost at Communism, and nobody else have Education, Nationalism, or even Guilds. Maybe it's best to give away a load of techs? At least Hatty likes me, albeit not Friendly any more, so she'll probably live. Mansa will vassal again, but he is so small and in the wrong religion, so I don't see the point.

Looks like I'm already on my own; sucks to not get the techs towards Corporation for free.

GE chances are sadly tiny everywhere, but looks like Railroads are mighty far off, so maybe I'll have time to get up the Ironworks in the Mids+HG city. 4 engineers should help.

 

[Seraiel]

Better run Engineers over all cities and if you can, start another GA. I'm almost certain, you'll have some luck, after you worked so hard for defending your cities.

And by all means, trade Paper to Roosevelt, PP to Hatty and Music or Optics to Lizzy. Those techs are worth nothing, and you have an immense deficit, take the advantage of Huge maps and sell techs to everybody for huge sums of . 300 is my limit where I sell a tech in 90%+ of the cases, even if it's an expensive one. I'd definitely also take the 390 from Roosevelt and probably even the 370 from Mansa and the 30 from Isabel. WastinTime once wrote to me "why so stingy, let AI have Currency (big tech at that time) for 2000 to keep research at 100%" . Maybe Railroads isn't so far away, if you optimize your cities for maximum Wealth and also get those 900 from HC. If you got Kremlin, you can also 4-pop-whip the Hermitage everywhere, then pushing through shouldn't be any problem.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

A City that you gifted away cannot Culture Flip back to you, no matter how many times that it goes into City Revolt. A different AI or the Barbs must capture it first before it will Culture Flip back to you.

The current AI owner can technically gift it back to you based on a certain pre-set number of turns since the AI gained control of the City (4 turns, then some interval of turns thereafter), but you must own 11+ (I think) of the City's squares for that possibility to even occur.

Basically, plan on declaring war on that AI at some point in order to get your Cities back.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Show plz. I'm very certain, that it's (circumnavigation with workboats) not possible on Huge.

You're wrong

Here are some screenshots, will be a while before the game is finished as it's a Time game but I will upload this save when I submit it the HoF.