[SPOILERS] Panzersmackdown with Justinian (Mack/Seven)

[SevenSpirits]

Here are some things we agreed are good.

1) Communism. This tech is so ridiculous with spies on for whoever gets it first; the great spy it comes with almost pays back the whole tech. And then it's also worth it just for the Kremlin. And on top of that there's a really powerful civic (State Property) and some incredible buildings (Intelligence Agencies)?????

Good lord. If there's any way we can reach Communism first you can be sure we'll try for it.

2) Nationhood. Particularly since it looks like we won't have a very good capital for Bureaucracy, this is an obvious civic choice (draft 5 units a turn, no civic upkeep, extra happy? yes please), and hey, it gives +25% EPs! That's kinda fantastic with spies on. Nationalism is also on the way to Constitution which gives Jails (very strong) and Rep (nice since we probably can't get Pyramids with this poor start and 17 other players).

3) The Great Wall. Yes if we can get this wonder without too much sacrifice, we certainly will. I'm pretty sure great spies are the most efficient GPs by quite a bit here; 3000 EPs and a giant discount on spy missions will get lots of tech.

Also: Mack brought up wanting Mausoleum which I can't disagree with, and that we'll get to Communism via Guilds/GP/Chemistry and not Astronomy. Obviously we'd like Pyramids if there's stone nearby, and of course we want to produce lots of great scientists to bulb up towards Communism.

So pretty much we've discussed mostly economy stuff, nothing about warring or how the lack of much double move restriction and lack of balanced resources affects that. I think we'll have to find out our neighbors and the terrain before really making any big plans there.

[SevenSpirits]

I can't decide if I really want you guys to win, really want you guys to lose or really want you guys to get in a fight in the lurker thread.

Regardless, I'm sure it'll be entertaining.

Well to get in a fight in the lurker thread, we'd have to lose first. =)

I think you want us to do well, and be entertaining and surprising, right? After that I'm sure you're fine with us losing or winning. Me too.

[Thoth]

*waves to Mackoti and SevenSpirits*

Don't have anything to add, but since I posted in the setup thread asking Mackoti for an updated spoiler thread, I figured I should at least poke my nose in here and up your post count a bit.

Have fun guys!. :hat:

[SevenSpirits]

[SIZE="5"]Espionage![/SIZE]

Gonna post some EP info here. Mainly I'll talk about tech stealing since it's the most important one for us, but most of the info can be generalized.

The base mission cost to steal a tech is 1.5x the tech cost in beakers. Additionally, remember that you usually get a 1.2x multiplier when researching techs just due to having a prerequisite so we already have a 1.8x deficit to catch up (everything here is multiplicative).

One more factor makes it harder: distance from your spy to your capitol. This distance gets compared to something called the max plot distance, which is the sum of the map width and height (but if it wraps in a direction that direction's number gets halved first). So for a huge cylindrical pangaea we're talking 104/2 + 64 = 116. So say the city we're stealing at is 20 tiles away from our cap, quite generously, then the cost is multiplied by 1.17 (1 + 20/116).

So we are at maybe a 2x deficit now or even more. But now it just gets better.

If we have the spy stand still a turn it's -10% cost, up to 5 turns where we get -50% cost! That cancels out the 2x we had to make up already. So now we can translate EP into beakers 1 for 1. That 3000 EP great spy bomb is looking unbelievably good.

Better yet: there's an award just for having generated more EP during the game than your target, that also could approach a 50% discount. You multiply by
(2x + y) / (2y + x), y = the total EP you've ever generated and x is theirs. So say we've each generated 300 EP, it's even. Now we use a great spy bomb and we've generated 11x as much as them, therefore we multiply the cost by .56! So that 3000 point spy bomb turns into like 5000 beakers or more, that's crazy.

We can get further bonuses if we have cultural presence in the city we're stealing from; and/or if that city has our state religion and either we have the shrine or they are not that same religion or both (in which case the bonuses stack). But forget those for now.

Also our target can run counterespionage missions and double the cost for us. However there is always a small window every ten turns when this lapses, and if we log in before them we can steal the techs then. Forget that for now too.

The most important remaining point is that spy missions don't always succeed. So how does that affect things?


[SIZE="4"]Odds of being intercepted[/SIZE]

.25x / (x + y) (For example: ~ .25 * 300 / (300 + 3300) = .02)

if they have a spy/bureau on the tile, then + .15

if they are running counterespionage against you, then + .2

if your spy hasn't fortified at least a turn and/or you have more than one spy on that tile, then + .15

So best case you get a number like .02; worst case (even EP spending and all exceptions) it's like .62. Now get this: that chance of interception now gets multiplied by another number depending on the mission!


[SIZE="4"]Interception Multipliers:[/SIZE]

Counterespionage: 0 (can't be intercepted)
Poison water, Add Unhappiness: .5 (apparently these missions are extra easy)
Passive missions, Destroy Improvement, Sabotage Production, Spread Culture, Incite Revolt: 1 (no change)
Destroy Building: 1.1
Destroy Project, Steal Treasury, Steal Tech: 1.25
Switch Civic, Switch Religion: 1.5

You can also get intercepted in other cases.

Every turn you're in enemy lands! Without Open Borders, the multiplier for this is a reasonable .5
(With OB it would be .1)
After succeeding in a mission! Also .5

[SIZE="4"]Example 1: [/SIZE]
We have 3300 EP, target has 300 EP. They are clueless (no spies, no counterespionage).
Base intercept chance is therefore 2%.

It takes us three turns to reach their city and five turns to fortify. On each of those turns there is a 1% we are intercepted. Then we steal a tech, and there's a 2.5% chance we're intercepted. Cumulatively we have a 90% chance of success, 10% chance of losing the spy and ~10 spy turns. Then if the mission succeeded there's a further 1% chance of losing the spy.

So here's the cost of stealing a tech other than EP.
10 spy turns to get there and get the discount.
10% chance of 10 more spy turns and 60h, = 1 spy turn and 6h.
1% chance of 60h = 0.6h.

So for the 90% chance of a tech we are paying 6.6h and 11 spy turns. This means 100% of a tech would cost on average 7.3h and 12.2 spy turns. Now personally I consider on quick about 15h = 1hpt so on normal 22h = 1hpt meaning a good hammer investment should return 100% in about 22 turns; therefore 22 spy turns = 60h. Long story short, this would imply 12.2 spy turns is about 33h plus we pay like 14g = 7h worth of unit+supply costs, so total spy part of the stealing cost is 33+7+7 = 47h.

[SIZE="4"]Example 2: [/SIZE]
Same as Example 1: we have 3300 EP, target has 300 EP. They are clueless (no spies, no counterespionage).
Base intercept chance is therefore 2%.

However in this example we will use the strategy of stealing as soon as we've fortified for a turn, getting 10% discount and removing the increased interception chance.

It takes us three turns to reach their city and one turn to fortify. On each of those turns there is a 1% we are intercepted. Then we steal a tech, and there's a 2.5% chance we're intercepted. Cumulatively we have a 93.7% chance of success, 6.3% chance of losing the spy and ~6 spy turns. Then if the mission succeeded there's a further 1% chance of losing the spy.

So here's the cost of stealing a tech other than EP.
6 spy turns to get there and get the 10% discount.
6.3% chance of 6 more spy turns and 60h, = .38 spy turns and 3.8h.
1% chance of 60h = 0.6h.

So for the 93.7% chance of a tech we are paying 4.2h and 6.38 spy turns. This means 100% of a tech would cost on average 4.48h and 6.81 spy turns. Long story short, I value 6.81 spy turns at about 18.6h plus we pay like 8g = 4h worth of unit+supply costs, so total spy part of the stealing cost is 18.6+4.48+4 = 27h.

So compared to example 1 it seems we spend 20 more hammers to save about 40% of the original tech beaker cost. And compared to just researching the tech we're spending 27h to save 10% of the tech cost (plus the privilege of being able to spend EP on it).

[Shoot the Moon]

FYI, I'm thinking I may ded lurk you guys if that's alright. Just too many people to follow the whole game, so might as well ded lurk =)

[SevenSpirits]

[mackoti]

Yes, the situation looks realy desperate here, lets hope lucks rewards the bold ones.

[mackoti]

I think its better to move warior directly north me can see if id there something in the water.

[mackoti]

[SevenSpirits]

We decide on the plains hill.