Strategy Thread - for quick strategy questions and answers

[novice]

Vs the AI, accepting a demand enforces a 10-turn peace deal. Does this work in multi-player too?

Yes...but your example isn't included.

I.e. if I gift someone a resource and they accept, does it trigger a peace treaty?

No. It has to be a demand, not an offer. And not a trade, either. So if someone demands your copper and you agree, you've got peace. If you offer the copper first and they accept, you don't.

I don't think this works against human players, if that's what you're asking. One player's demand is the other player's offer.

[yuris125]

Is there a way in a MP game to figure out whether another player has research visibility on me?

[NobleHelium]

Vs the AI, accepting a demand enforces a 10-turn peace deal. Does this work in multi-player too?

Yes...but your example isn't included.

I.e. if I gift someone a resource and they accept, does it trigger a peace treaty?

No. It has to be a demand, not an offer. And not a trade, either. So if someone demands your copper and you agree, you've got peace. If you offer the copper first and they accept, you don't.

I don't think this works against human players, if that's what you're asking. One player's demand is the other player's offer.

It never works.

[SevenSpirits]

Vs the AI, accepting a demand enforces a 10-turn peace deal. Does this work in multi-player too? I.e. if I gift someone a resource and they accept, does it trigger a peace treaty?

There is no option to make a demand from one human to another. You can only propose trades. Just because a trade is one-sided does not make it a demand, and you will not get enforced peace from a trade (except a peace treaty, of course).

[WilliamLP]

Is there a way in a MP game to figure out whether another player has research visibility on me?

I think you can infer it from the formula I posted: they get research visibility if their EP on you is 75% of (100 + your EP on them). So the point where you'd see each other's research would be 300.

I'm still really curious if there's anything out there on city visibility, since it isn't a yes / no flag but seems to have some kind of per city modifier.

Also, I hate how Google keeps turning up spoiler threads I'm not allowed to read on my searches!!

[T-hawk]

I'm still really curious if there's anything out there on city visibility, since it isn't a yes / no flag but seems to have some kind of per city modifier.

City visibility and Investigate City have not just some kind of per city modifier, but all of them. Everything that modifies espionage missions in a city also modifies those thresholds. This includes distance, relative EP spending, religion modifiers, the trade route modifier, counterespionage, and maybe more I'm forgeting. There's no way in-game to see the modifiers someone else is getting on your cities, though.

[WilliamLP]

Elephants. They're always banned. I get that they may create a map balance problem between the haves and have-nots. But is there a game that shows why BTS is clearly a worse game with them than without them? Is a timing attack with them more of a problem than, say, with aggressive Praetorians?

The only display of them I've really seen, if I'm allowed to talk about it, has been in the ISDG where I wasn't overwhelmed. Especially since, even defensively vs Knights, longbows are often still a better build.

[Krill]

PB1? TBH most games have banned their use, so there isn't a large pool to point to.

[Hashoosh]

I have no clue, but it's str 8 with +50% vs mounted, and being mounted itself, has no real counter until pikes. It's as strong as a maceman and available earlier, and since maces can really only use their bonus against obsolete units or pikemen, the elephant outclasses them.

It's a very strong unit, and no solution for it comes until engineering, very far down the road from early construction. Cats/Elephants is a tough combo to deal with, flanking likely won't work (str 6 HA vs str 8 + 4 elephants).

[Dhalphir]

Basically what Hashoosh said. If you don't have elephants and your opponent does, you have to bring overwhelming force to kill them. If you both have elephants, it becomes a boring slugfest with no tactical counters or correct unit composition choices - whoever has more elephants will win.