Adventure 43 Sponsor report and comments

[T-hawk]

Here it is. Comments from the sponsor precede the game report.

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/adv43/

[pocketbeetle]

<insert obligatory congratulation for a good mod here>

I've been playing Final Frontier a little also, but found it a touch easy.

Anyway, my comments to your comments: ^^

• Regarding choice of Leader:
  Honestly surprised that you reached Isabella from a Spiritual/Fishing viewpoint rather than identifying the need for early workers and prioritising Spiritual/Expansive. The difference between working the unforested fur vs the fish was only 1 bpt, and resulted in identical first worker times. (granted you didn't know what the start would look like).
  But as I've now repeated ad nauseum, you ended up with the right leader without doubt.
  
• Engineers were most definitely broken, giving an effective +3gppt for nothing. Actually making food with appropriate %age bonuses!
  
• Completely agree that the AI choices were perfect.
  Bismarck safe at the back with his industrious trait was a good rival, and Monty performed as always. I was a little disappointed that Elizabeth tripped over herself so badly in my game, I might have kept Monty and Eliz's positions unchanged, but I see your reasoning

(do not ask what our species eating minerals means for the case of a horse tile.)

An amusing detail that I didn't realize in the space game: While a conquered city is in resistance, you can chop forests into its food box to avoid starvation when it comes out.

Nice catch.

City Raider 3 trebuchets are indeed overpowered. They conquer cities with almost no losses. After bombardment, a treb attacks at 4 + 175% = 11 strength.

Just being pedantic here, as I imagine you already know it.
But according to posters over at CFC, that's not how the CR promotions work, they reduce defender strength, not multiply attacker strength.
Apparently the distinction can be important in some cases. Don't ask me to try and explain off the top of my head though *shrugs*

The tile had been partially roaded already. So my knight stack could also reach Frankfurt all still on the SAME TURN, and razed it. There's some multiplayer style conquering for ya.

lol.

It gave me a warm glow to see a lot of similarities between my game and your culture victory. City placements were within 1 square of each other and you even seemed to miss the central incenses like I did?

I'm guessing the early worker steal from Elizabeth is a guaranteed thing, that she always does it then?


All in all, thanks for the good game and read.

[T-hawk]

Honestly surprised that you reached Isabella from a Spiritual/Fishing viewpoint rather than identifying the need for early workers and prioritising Spiritual/Expansive.

Well, Expansive was part of the package. If Spiritual/Fishing had led to somebody with a crap second trait like Protective, I would have looked elsewhere. Industrious also would have been perfectly acceptable too: cheap forges and a bonus to early wonders when commerce-production is low.

Fishing seems to have been kind of a dud though. I wanted to throw it in there to see how players responded to seafood. Most ignored it, which I now think was correct. So I literally made a red herring from seafood. :rolleyes:

Also, the desire for seafood was left over from an early try on the mod when I hadn't changed the Palace yet. Without Palace commerce, research was dreadfully slow; providing a fish tile and Fishing was the quickest way to allow improving a food tile for research. That mental picture carried through after the Palace was changed.

Just being pedantic here, as I imagine you already know it.
But according to posters over at CFC, that's not how the CR promotions work, they reduce defender strength, not multiply attacker strength.

Yeah I know. I haven't tried to understand that mechanic though. I should sometime. But I was speaking in approximate terms anyway: a CR3 trebuchet does indeed attack at higher strength than a defending longbow in a city on flatland.

I'm guessing the early worker steal from Elizabeth is a guaranteed thing, that she always does it then?

Yeah it's pretty likely that the Elizabeth AI will always do worker first and move it to that tile. Note that the Palace goof made it possible - she couldn't have a worker out by turn 11 without the extra food.

It gave me a warm glow to see a lot of similarities between my game and your culture victory. City placements were within 1 square of each other and you even seemed to miss the central incenses like I did?

My culture city got two of the three incenses. Getting the third (westernmost) would have required either settling on an iron or giving up river access. I was more concerned about population (and health) for artist specialists, and the third incense was the least of the competing considerations.

[novice]

Just being pedantic here, as I imagine you already know it. But according to posters over at CFC, that's not how the CR promotions work, they reduce defender strength, not multiply attacker strength.

Yeah I know. I haven't tried to understand that mechanic though. I should sometime. But I was speaking in approximate terms anyway: a CR3 trebuchet does indeed attack at higher strength than a defending longbow in a city on flatland.

Glad to see trebs put to good use for once.

I think pb's point makes the trebs even more awesome, as instead of adding x% to a base 4 strength trebuchet it removes the x% defense bonus from a base 6 strength longbowman. So the strength ratio, which is what gives good battle odds, are skewed even further to the treb's benefit.

[Rowain]

I'm guessing the early worker steal from Elizabeth is a guaranteed thing, that she always does it then?

You can always steal a worker early-on. The AI is intentionaly programmed to not prepare for an early war and that was one main reason why war-declarations before 1000 BC are usually banned in Epics.

You can find several games at CFC where the opening moves are: Steal worker, sign cease fire wait till AI moves a new worker in reach, declare and capture, sign cease fire rinse and repeat while expanding; kill off AI once its usefullness has ended.

[T-hawk]

You can always steal a worker early-on. The AI is intentenionaly programmed to not prepare for an early war and that was one main reason why war-declarations before 1000 BC are usually banned in Epics.

Early war is not usually banned. Sirian did so for a few early Epics but it's never been a usual rule. It's not much of an issue on Emperor and above, where the AI has enough starting units that it can kill your warrior. And in BTS the AI is smart enough to use archers to attack out of a city to kill a warrior. A single worker steal is possible on all difficulties, but it's not always worth the permanent -3 diplo penalty.

I think pocketbeetle's question was "will the England AI on this map always move a worker to that spot so it can be stolen?" and I think the answer is yes.

[Rowain]

It's not much of an issue on Emperor and above, where the AI has enough starting units that it can kill your warrior. And in BTS the AI is smart enough to use archers to attack out of a city to kill a warrior. A single worker steal is possible on all difficulties, but it's not always worth the permanent -3 diplo penalty.

Here is an Immortal BtS-game where the players did the war-cease fire-cycle several times. It also shows how powerfull that tactic is. MAybe I'm just oldfashioned but I still think such a move a bit cheesy.

I think pocketbeetle's question was "will the England AI on this map always move a worker to that spot so it can be stolen?" and I think the answer is yes.

Agreed.