The last challenge -- Team game -- Deity trial

[bestsss]

>>Probably we are closer, but isn't worst enemy thing making quite a lot difference?
Not at all.
This is total war, quite sure. Worst enemy is ensured to have been checked as we did when there was no border contact. Being at cautious there is a slight chance it would not be us but that's all. Worst enemy is at annoyed.
However if the random passed both us and them, we are a lot better target. We are ensure to be below the power threshold (if the worst enemy is above, we will go for us); for Ragnar(90)/Monty(80) to declare w/o border they need the target to be below 85% of their power. One of the reasons I wanted to check the power of Willem's team.

Also the target is evaluated, being closer to them doesn't help us. Also I dont know about resources but I think AI cheats and evaluates any resource might be in our land (Willem should have more which would be good).

Annoyed also has 2 times higher 'start war' value than cautious.

----
as for going to the other side of the world for the worst enemy, it's possible if the attitude has shielded the dude from the 1st checks. For instance of 'NoWarRoll' rolls 20 when the value to declare war at cautious is 30. All cautious dudes are safe...

 

[Dirk1302]

^This is all correct. WE is only important for trading. War circle in a nutshell,

1. no_war_roll, you're save if attitude is above the no_warr_roll value
2. Land target, if 1 (you're under war_roll_value) is met LT's are considered first
3. Attitude again, this factor is usual decisive
4. Fuzzy bussiness if LT is met and attitude is same. This might be the case in our game.

In ABCF 's game i think he was saved at cautious by no_war_roll where Izzy was not. No_war_roll as in xml is alot better at cautious then at annoyed. Also possibly none of them were LT's (ABCF shared < 8 tiles) in which case Izzy would be the target again because of attitude.

 

[Duckweed]

Although we have a slight chance of not being the target, it seems the chance of being target is higher, let's start changing our empire to war economy.

Roster:

Pauliskhan -- just played
Dirk1302 -- UP
The Rook -- On deck
Duckweed
Obsolete
Bestsss
Shyuhe

 

[obsolete]

I fail to understand why we just wasted so many beakers and turns researching useless writing, when IIRC the general consensus was we had to go after IW asap.

If we do in fact get DoWed on and lose, I actually welcome it because I don't think we deserve to win this one.

 

[PaulisKhan]

writing first was agreed upon by everyone except you, who had not posted a clear position on it.
When we already have Bronze available, Ironworking has zero value in a defensive war.

zero.

 

[Dirk1302]

So Ideas and some Q for next set,

Whip settler next turn, wait for more overflow or grow capital to 5 first (3 turns)? I think grow city to 5 first and begin roading to the west, the time lost on the settler is partially made up by arriving faster (2 turns). I'd finish the archer to give some extra protection from barbs.The copper is only interesting once that road is finished. I would begin a road from gold city to capital this turn too,it should be on tiles 1n, 2n1e, 3n2e of capital to be able to ship units from capital to gold city in 2 turns. Wish that gold city was on hill now. No need to use 7 turns for 1 extra food in gold city. Connecting cities and improving the west is far more important now.

Switch masonry or finish iw first? I think iw can be finished first, if by that time Monty_team approaches our borders we wouldn't have units anyway to profit from the walls.

Revolt to hindu i guess. Edit, after this revolt capital will grow to 6 in 1-2 turns without being unhappy, maybe put up settler after. We have roads almost finished by then so we can begin improving rice/copper immediately with 2 workers.

What do we build next in capital? After a whip it grows back very fast so it needs to be capped with worker(s) once it reaches happy cap. But we need a barracks soon too, library should wait imo, we can whip it at size 7 or 8 but it doesn't seem prudent right now. Better time some axe whipping at this size. IW comes in handy here as swords are somewhat easier to time correctly.

Settle new city 1e of copper and prioritize rice/copper for 1 worker, build road to it with the other(s). Don't like 1 se, revolting that barb city takes too long and we won't have rice for some time.

We need to send a unit east to see troop build up. This has some priority now.

If we're not attacked the first 15 turns we have a chance to survive i think. Should be able to get walls up and ~4 units in gold city by that time.

 

[bestsss]

I'd prefer start chopping already and delay the settler since we can't road the way.
Delhi will go unhealthy but it will fix when we get the grains. Also if we get declared the wandering units in the west will target the city
We can't afford to "lose" the war. Although even if we sue for peace the units built and slowdown is a very steep price to pay and probably will cost the game.

Masonry->IW for me. We will time for 4-5 archers I think, so walls 1st would be good.
---
If Churchill's team had more power than 85% of Ragnar/Monty's by the time of the decision (quite likely imo) we are the target w/o doubt. Also, if Churchill's team has been preparing for war too. Now it's too late to tell solely by the power ratio since it has changed.


I will post more details later.

 

[Duckweed]

I'd switch the build in capital to barrack and let it grow to size 6 or 7 and do the 3 pop whipping and let the overflow go to barrack, continuing on archers until copper connected. Our worker force is limited to get benefit from an earlier city. when Delhi grow to happy cap again, whip another settler to settle the eastern corner hill site if the war has not occurred yet. I actually prefer to settle next city on that hill if war is assured.

Tech: Masonry->IW (IW needs more than 10 turns, we can start a wall in Bombay if Monty come early) Swords are only good at dealing barbarians.

 

[bestsss]

Well, swords are not so bad for defending vs mounted units on a hill w/ walls when fortified (I mean high bonuses) compared to spears and at least they are still useful for taking barb. cities afterward instead of being dead weight.

 

[shyuhe]

Do we know if Monty/Rags have HBR? Otherwise I'd stock pile mostly archers and some axes.

 

[obsolete]

Revolt to hindu i guess. Edit, after this revolt capital will grow to 6 in 1-2 turns without being unhappy, maybe put up settler after.

We are spiritual, there is no revolting here.

About the wall, we should NOT whip/complete it until the very last second that we are going to be hit. Do not let the AI re-evaluate to a better city-target, and don't waste hammers on it if it turns out he is busy fighting someone else.

 

[PaulisKhan]

Building axes is going to be difficult without metal hooked up.

We have to decide now if we defend solely with archers, or with a mix of archers and axes and spears.
If we want metal units in time then I don't see another option other than 2 pop whipping the settler asap.
Archers on flatland are just going to get slaughtered by aggressive jags.

 

[Dirk1302]

@obs, i know it's not a revolt. Agree with one turn into walls, whipping once it's necessary. That one turn is only necessary if we see the troops are a coming.

@Duckweed, bestsss, Barrack is only 2 pop whip iic. I think delaying settler until size 6 is ok since we don't have a road to the copper before. But then it should be queued and whipped i think. fighting the war without metals and getting seriously behind in city build is not so good i think. So i think finish archer -> turns into barracks grow 6-> whip settler-> grow again whip barracks-> build units. Swords are not our best defenders although they're good universal defenders, build swords and you don't really need spears before ai HBR. They're very convenient for whipping purposes. Archers can't be whipped profitably at all, axes need a lot of micro/taking away hammers to whip profitably. Switching iw/masonry gives slightly better chances in case of a very swift attack so i'm more or less ok with that. Reading Duckweed's post more closely i believe you want to whip the settler at size 6 or 7, 3 pop. I'm ok with that, the city grows fast so we need to whip away as much food as possible to avoid a large unhappy city. Best is to time the whip at 39 H into settler for 29 H overflow.

@PK, agree about need for settler but whipping now is really pointless with no road in place to the copper.

I think btw that we should have had a unit in the east, we have no idea what's happening over there right now. Another reason to finish the archer now.

 

[Dirk1302]

If Churchill's team had more power than 85% of Ragnar/Monty's by the time of the decision (quite likely imo) we are the target w/o doubt. Also, if Churchill's team has been preparing for war too. Now it's too late to tell solely by the power ratio since it has changed.


I will post more details later.

Is this changed in 3.19 patch? I don't remember anything about power except the 1.5 * power of ai deflecting rule modified by nation dependent xml modifier from the 3.17 patch. Btw i don't understand why we can't road to the copper, doesn't take too much turns even, fast workers really help in that respect.

 

[obsolete]

I wonder if it is theoreticaly possible in a team-game to get a free peace-deal from them by just getting a high enough kill-ratio here. I guess they wont be able to throw enough units at us to hit those levels, but I am trying to leave some hope here. Monte's courage is just too high for him to play in any sane way. He's the idiot who will gladly throw 10 charriots into a city on a hill and walls with 10 fortified Formation Pikes defending.

I also wonder, assuming it is Monte who has triggered weehorn, if TEAMS are smart enough to trigger the war-buildup for both parties.

 

[The Rook]

IW-Masonry or Masonry-IW. If Monty/Ragnar attack very soon (an awful scenario) then Masonry first is better. It would be good if we could have some intelligence on their stack(s) positions. IW may enable us to build some swords, and they have a dual purpose of being able to effectively take barb cities as well as defence (against mounted particularly). Building swords wouldn't be a bad idea for peaceful expansion anyway, so IF we aren't attacked we won't really be hurting our development. I still remain hopeful that we might not be the target. We have no borders with anyone. Willem is Creative, and could conceivably overlap a significant number of a rival's tiles with culture early. I'm assuming that if Churchill has any adjacent tiles they would be added to the team total rather than averaged. From memory, Monty grossly overestimates his power, so I doubt any team will disqualify themselves from being a target by being too strong at this stage (edit: seems that power required to prevent dow from distant AI is far less, so we can only hope that Monty/Ragnar/Willem/Churchill share borders) . Anyway, I agree that we need to plan on the basis that we are going to be attacked.

I like Dirk's build plan, basically military whilst growing to 6/7, whip settler for metal, regrow/military. As others have mentioned, one turn in walls will reserve the option for whipping on the last minute.

 

[bestsss]

Is this changed in 3.19 patch? I don't remember anything about power except the 1.5 * power of ai deflecting rule modified by nation dependent xml modifier from the 3.17 patch. Btw i don't understand why we can't road to the copper, doesn't take too much turns even, fast workers really help in that respect.

Well, I know only the source of 3.19 since I was quite reluctant (killing pleasure to play) to look earlier. Anyways: by all means that's a total war w/o border contact. There is distant power ratio defined in the xml 0.9-ragnar, 0.8-monty, as team it avg: 0.85. Any team w/ higher than that won't be affected by a distant war.
Limited wars occur if land target (or capital alone) and dagger can happen if it's not spread missionary active... So total war it should be (too bad we don't know when it started, BUG obviously doesn't handle team scenarios)

Why can't road the copper, I advised forest chops, and I am serious about.
--
my main concern is that: 0.85 is likely to be met by Churchill's team. That makes me believe we should defend as much as we could (forest chopping and all)
---
Masonry->IW for me: IW alone will take more than 10 turns that we are likely to be attacked into. Masonry is 4 w/ deficit research and we have the money for.

 

[bestsss]

I wonder if it is theoreticaly possible in a team-game to get a free peace-deal from them by just getting a high enough kill-ratio here. I guess they wont be able to throw enough units at us to hit those levels, but I am trying to leave some hope here. Monte's courage is just too high for him to play in any sane way. He's the idiot who will gladly throw 10 charriots into a city on a hill and walls with 10 fortified Formation Pikes defending.

I also wonder, assuming it is Monte who has triggered weehorn, if TEAMS are smart enough to trigger the war-buildup for both parties.

War decision is a single for the both players in the team, I mean players do not trigger team-wise decisions, it's done on a team level, even when there is a single player in the team. But then it's a bijection and it's the most common case, code-wise there is quite big difference between team and players.

Anyways: if the units are built for city attack they are less suicidal than so-called reserve and Monty is one of the guys to have really a lot of 'reserve' type of units, so he tends to have the suicidal tendency.

It's possible to trigger that but due to base (cities+population) being the base, modified by the power (and ours will be very low) it will take a lot of kills... and probably they will arrive w/ the pults. So, my hope is planting a city when they talk (this can happen actually w/ enough suiciders) and negotiate the peace. Take what's left and throw it at the barb cities.

 

[Dirk1302]

@bestsss, i think after settler another worker for chopping could be fitted somewhere and overflow could go to military subsequently. But Monty is someway of atm, he'll probably have some one one move units in stack so we have some time at least. If i see a stack coming i can always revert the workers to chopping. In a few turns i will know if a stack is coming as i will send a unit east immediately. Not digging a road will hurt us with only archers and only 2 cities.

 

[bestsss]

Well if you can manage, I wont protest. But we will need barracks in both of the cities and enough (put it 7 as lucky number) archers at least.

I have a concern w/ the copper city since the wandering troops will head there.