[NO PLAYERS] Witnessing Democracy Inaction

[timski]

Something still bugs me about Menagerie's war: When the Pirate city was founded Menagerie had about an 80% chance of destroying it (with, from memory, 2 Warriors on 1 Quechua). Now, some 15 turns later, they have lower odds of success. We justified declining the first attack by waiting for grow, to save Settler hammers. But Menagerie has since poured more hammers into military than would have been saved from a Settler.

Is there something uniquely psychological about having a slightly larger army in this period? Specifically that the outcome appears to be influenced by marginally more dice rolls than one? The distinction is not actually large enough to smooth the averages into near-certainty, as tends to happen later in the game. Rather it creates an unsafe safety blanket, where 2 Warriors at overall 80% clearly leaves too much to chance, but 4 Axes at net lower chance somehow feels more certain, even when the whole affair remains extremely random and probably determined by the very first battle.

This distinction perhaps helps understand the over-exuberance we've seen from all 4 warring teams:

Diplomacy aside, some early aggressive gambles can pay dividends - choking, pillaging, exploiting vulnerabilities around new settlements. Critical is that such gambles must only risk a small, and finite, proportion of a team's civilization. And early in the game, small is a couple of units at best. Where our teams have gone wrong is to risk too much too early. Instead of putting, say, 10% of their early game into a chance of slowing their opponent, they've directed the majority into much the same objective. And since they're still in the BC years, they're still gambling, except now they're gambling with the majority of their game, which in games like these means everything.

Based on the first observation, players would seem to be prepared to take these larger gambles because of a human misconception about the point at which uncertainty becomes certainty: Where the game has got sufficiently complex for outcomes to be clouded, but not sufficiently well developed to evade chance. The gap is filled with a form of optimism bias, where players want to think they can win, and hence completely lose track of reality? Intriguing.

[NobleHelium]

Wow. That clockwise thing is so ludicrous that I am at a loss for words. Hey, your other neighbor settled away from you, you better not settle towards us or we go to war!

[Sullla]

I have no idea whether timski's point about unit certainty is true or not. (You could say I'm... uncertain about it.) What I can say is that Menagerie definitely misplayed their attack against the Pirates. They didn't have 80% odds from attacking with 2 warriors, they had 100% odds attacking with 3 warriors. Check it out:



Here we are on T36, right when the war began. The warriors are in yellow; there are clearly three of them in position to hit the Pirate city. Menagerie could also see that there was only a single quechua in the new city; warrior W4 in that picture had full visibility on all approaches to the city after moving to the hill tile. There was one quechua on defense, and as a brand-new city it could not whip anything. Move up the three warriors, attack on Turn 40, odds of winning nearly 100%. Yes, the city gets auto-razed, but so what? You've just crippled your nearest opponent and can dictate peace to them at terms of your choosing. Instead, that city is still sitting there 20 turns later.

This is a classic newcomer Multiplayer mistake, waiting around for extra turns for a larger attacking force. The defender ALWAYS has the advantage in Civ4. Time is normally not on your side. Your wars should be short and decisive. I'll refer once again to India's wars in Pitboss #2 as the shining example of this. Get in, wipe out your enemy in 5-10 turns, get out and go back to infrastructure building ASAP.

[timski]

I also agree that this whole thing right now is very risky. But I think it's worth the risk...plus will be more fun, even if we fail and that causes our demise.

Fun is a useful addition to my earlier conjecture on gambling in the gap between uncertainty and certainty. The distinction becomes casinos vs stock markets. On which basis one might conclude certain bankers had too much fun in the last decade...

And to check the Wheat - I think they've probably run their Workers away but if they haven't then they might grow a turn earlier than anticipated.

Yes, but not for the reason you think... The Trolls have not yet spotted that TEAM have both Workers chopping out an Archer, undefended, but just out of sight to the east. I doubt TEAM will lose the Workers, but the Trolls could certainly force those Workers to lose plenty of turns fleeing to safety.

We shouldn't loose Tortuga this turn, but yeah it doesn't look good for long-term success.

Menagerie won't accept less than the contended city, and since the city is already size 1 and garrisoned almost entirely by free XP, I'm not sure Menagerie would accept a diplomatic deal, even if the Pirates could broker one in the timescale: If Menagerie's luck holds they'll take the city militarily with at worst one further loss, a move which will simultaneously all but wipe out Pirates' army. Subsequent peace negotiations will clearly not favour the Pirates! Even if Menagerie can't take further cities, they can threaten the Pirate homeland, from which the Pirates have no chance of recovery. So I presume Menagerie will take the city by force, and then push through a draconian peace settlement, essentially forcing the Pirates to settle towards TEAM.

Even so, it is hard to see the Pirates making a come-back, even with a protracted period of peace. An evaluation of Pirates' physical economy is even more distressing than their previously analysed graphs:




As previous documented, Barbados is the worst sited capital on the map, not only giving the Pirates a slow start, but giving them less to fall back on. Worse, their third (soon to be second) city, Port Royal, has Copper and... Crabs. Sure, it was settled in a hurry for Copper, but it won't make a meaningful contribution to the wider economy. So in practice the Pirates are down to a lackluster capital with a remote Copper supply.

And exactly how Financial Inca is still 5 turns off Pottery on turn 52 beggars belief: That tech path should have been up there in big flashing neon lights from the outset. The greater part of their civ/leader bonus rested on securing this one early tech. How hard can it be? Well, I guess this game has answered that question already: Very hard, if you completely ignore the objective and play pointless early aggressive settlement instead.

Overall, the Pirates have effectively lost about 25 turns, roughly half the turns played, including (in a snowball-style game like Civ 4) some of the most important turns.

Finally, consider that Team Pirate are still making decision turn-by-turn, which doesn't bode well: To dig yourself out of a hole like this one you need a really solid, often unconventional, long-term strategy. A strategy of the type that doesn't emerge unless someone stops to think about it. About the only thing that can save the Pirates now is some heavy warfare between Gillette and Menagerie, but I doubt that either of those teams will be keen to war.

[timski]

Yey! Pirates' disorganisation saves the day again... After pausing for a discussion about something that probably didn't warrant discussion, the Pirates forgot to end the turn, and hence their Spear didn't move to intercept the Menagerie's vulnerable Warrior.

That discussion amounted to "shall we upgrade the Spearman first". Intriguing, because up until that point the Spear was de facto a fool-proof defender of the north. While it certainly had very high odds against a Warrior, those odds were, never are, absolutely 100%. Yet Pirates were relying on that unit to defend both their capital and Copper city, up to an including an enemy Warrior outside a city with no backup units and no whip options. (Given that Quechuas are doing almost nothing in Tortuga except delaying the inevitable by a turn, one suspects the Pirates might have been better keeping one as a reserve at their capital.) Only when the odds dropped to 96% did Cornflakes register the attack as possible to lose. Yet critically this second enemy Warrior was still far enough away from the capital to whip a defensive Axe in the event of a poor dice roll. Ergo the fight that caused the discussion was tactically less risky than everything that had gone before. Another strange (to me, but apparently not most players) perspective on probability.

Earlier I noted that Menagerie were running rings round the Pirates, but I haven't enjoyed their recent moves. Menagerie threw away their northern-most Warrior, apparently assuming that the Pirates would be stupid enough to leave a city completely undefended, and hence got lured into a simple trap. Keeping a Warrior in the north, but at a safe distance, would have forced the Pirates to keep one unit in the north, preventing it from coming south. Menagerie then continued to misjudge positioning, and by rights should have lost their second Warrior to the same defender. The important thing to note about Menagerie's earlier moves were that they stopped the Pirates getting both their Workers home. Those Workers are consequently trapped in the fog, building a road to nowhere, when they really should be chopping the four forests around Pirates' capital into much-needed military. For the price of just 2 Warriors, Menagerie had prevented the Pirates using both Workers to spam Axes. Unfortunately with only one Warrior remaining, Menagerie are now going to struggle to keep those Workers trapped.

It is evident that the Pirate-Menagerie war is the "greens" game, with both teams making endless minor (and sometimes not-so-minor) tactical mistakes, of the sort that a veteran opponent would exploit ruthlessly. In contrast the TEAM-Troll war is a "veterans" game, full of a lot of neat positions and unexpected tactical manoeuvres, as Commodore commented on earlier. For example, I for one didn't expect TEAM to move their Workers east, first to road bypassing the Horses, then to chop out a defender, all right under the noses of their opponent.

[timski]

I wanted to get a sense for how much more India have done with Fast Workers, and how much the Pirates have wasted with their Worker moves, so I've made a comparison of the amount of Worker improvement turns by each team.

Method

Rather than add up the moves turn-by-turn, I've simply examined each team's map and summed the number of Worker turns required to make each visible improvement. I have only added chops to the visible map: Incomplete improvements or roads under settlements I regard as inefficient Worker moves, even if teams had good tactical reasons for such work. I've recorded the turns on which Workers became available to teams. This gives us a total number of Worker turns for each team, which varies since teams have prioritised Worker builds differently. Analysis is until the end of turn 52.

Cautionary note: I've used the term "unproductive" to describe the calculated difference between the number of Worker and improvement turns, but (at least for regular Workers), some of those moves are necessary - for example, a chop inevitably loses a turn moving onto a forest tile - and those lost turns are included as unproductive. The "unproductive" figure also includes improvements in progress at the end of turn 52. Consequently, the quoted "efficiency" is rather unreliable comparative measure, which needs to kept in the context of the commentary.

TEAM

• Workers available since turn: 13, 37, 45 = 58 Worker turns total.
  
• Improvements by turn 52: 8 Road, 1 Mine, 1 Pasture, 1 Camp, 2 Farm, 3 Chop = 47 turns worth of improvements. (Werewolf's Wheat farm is assumed complete - it doesn't appear in recent screenshots, but was due by now.)
  
• Net "unproductive" Worker turns: 14 = 77% efficiency.

TEAM have a significant number of incomplete improvements - 3 roads and a Pasture - accounting for (I think) 5 turns of partial improvements. So aside from 4 further dead moves for (hill) Mine and chops, TEAM's Workers almost always move and start an improvement - TEAM's micro is highly efficient. Clearly they're not getting as much from that efficient micro as they could because of how they are playing the rest of the game.

Menagerie

• Workers available since turn: 10, 23, 40 = 83 Worker turns total.
  
• Improvements by turn 52: 9 Road, 4 Mine, 1 Pasture, 1 Camp, 7 Chop = 63 turns worth of improvements.
  
• Net "unproductive" Worker turns: 20 = 76% efficiency.

Menagerie's fast start (plains hill and appropriate early techs) is evident here from pace of their Worker production, and consequently the volume of improvements (especially chops) they've managed to complete: Notably a quarter more than TEAM, who are otherwise comparable since both teams have engaged in war. Just over half Menagerie's "unproductive" turns have been strictly necessary to complete other improvements, but we're seeing slightly less efficient Worker micro from Menagerie than TEAM.

Gillette

• Workers available since turn: 13, 28, 43 = 72 Worker turns total.
  
• Improvements by turn 52: 7 Road, 1 Mine, 2 Pasture, 2 Camp, 3 Cottage, 1 FP Cottage, 2 Chop = 58 turns worth of improvements.
  
• Net "unproductive" Worker turns: 14 = 81% efficiency.

Late Bronze Working tended to result in rather more roads, especially forest roads, than were strictly necessary, and relatively few chops inevitably raises the apparent efficiency of their Workers. With 6 "unproductive" turns strictly necessary for other improvements, Gillette's main loses of efficiency are tactical: Roading into the heart of the forest at their second city site, to plant that city a turn or two sooner.

Pirate

• Workers available since turn: 11, 35 = 58 Worker turns total.
  
• Improvements by turn 52: 8 Road, 1 Mine, 1 Pasture, 1 Farm, 1 FP Farm, 3 Chop = 46 turns worth of improvements.
  
• Net "unproductive" Worker turns: 12 = 79% efficiency.

Pirates' Worker efficiency is remarkably average considering the various back-and-forths involved in trying to farm Tortugua's Corn. Pirates only have 2 Workers, which skews the efficiency values upwards, since they lose less for Workers engaged in improvements at the end of turn 52 - indeed they lose nothing, because both Workers just completed a road. The Pirates also only have 4 tiles improved, the lowest value of any team. And at least one of those improvements (especially the capital's riverside grass farm) is distinctly lacklustre.

Trolls

• Workers available since turn: 15, 22, 40, 41 = 90 Worker turns total.
  
• Improvements by turn 52: 14 Road, 2 Mine, 2 Pasture, 1 Farm, 12 Chop = 85 turns worth of improvements.
  
• Net "unproductive" Worker turns: 5 = 94% efficiency.

The Trolls opened with 2 Workers, and are still the only team fielding 4 Workers. Of course Troll's big advantage is that their Workers are Fast Workers, 3-movers. 3 of the "unproductive" turns have gone into an incomplete farm, leaving just 2 turns genuinely "wasted". Can't fault the micro, but the very high proportion of roads and chops is more concerning, as discussed below.

Thoughts

Direct comparison between the Fast and non-Fast Worker is tricky, but in the early game, on what is a fairly typical map, it would appear to be worth about a 25% boost in the volume of improvements possible - in the efficiency of Workers.

The Trolls have unfortunately ended up playing their early Fast Worker advantage into a lot of roads and chopped military. Almost twice as many chops and 50% more roads than Menagerie, their nearest rival on both measures. Critically the Trolls only have 5 fixed production bonuses in play. Only 1 more than the craptastic Pirates, in spite of the Trolls having invested almost twice as many Worker turns. And perhaps more importantly, the same number (and broadly similar quality) of improvements as their opponent, TEAM. So, the Trolls have played the greater part of their opening advantage into today's military, not future economy. Still, TEAM are not in a good position, having effectively wasted many Worker turns on infrastructure around Losing, their southern city. And while the Trolls may have lost a significant part of their Unique Unit advantage, TEAM's Vulture/Ziggarut was hardly likely to be a game-changer, leaving TEAM and Trolls fairly balanced until TEAM's Financial trait kicks in.

Menagerie evidently lost something on their Worker micro: Their strong opening meant they had Workers out earlier than most, yet their calculated Worker efficiency is the lowest of any team. For example, each of Menagerie's Workers was produced at least 3 turns before Gillette's Workers (both teams had similar opening build queues), yet Gillette are only 5 turns worth of improvements behind. Partly that's due to wasteful micro moves, like pre-chopping a forest, partly the change of plan caused by the Pirates, and partly what might be regarded as excessive chopping. But is there such a thing as excessive chopping?

First, keep in mind that it costs (in time) regular Workers a third more to chop than Fast Workers, due to the movement penalty - so what's right for the Indian Trolls may be less right for other teams. There's also considerably inter-play between development approaches: If one plans to whip early settlements to the bone, then there is less trade-off between fixed production improvements and chops, since one has fewer population to work the fixed improvements. The final caveat is that some production snowballs more than others, just as some fixed land improvements snowball more than others.

The contrasting example is Gillette. Late to Bronze Working, with no chops or whips until the last few turns. They have 9 fixed production improvements, 50% more than their nearest rival, including 4 Cottages, which nobody else has yet. Cottages are particularly noteworthy, because they scale with time. Not to mention 4/5 civs on the map are Financial - all other things being equal, the oldest Cottages win. Gillette have achieved all this by sacrificing early production. Sure, they haven't needed that production, since they haven't needed to spam military. But I would argue, nor did Menagerie:

Menagerie choose to chase Stonehenge. (I'll ignore Menagerie's later army, since large early armies are not a sound long-term investment - Sullla makes that point repeatedly in this thread.) But Stonehenge is more interesting, because on paper it is "useful". How useful? It gets round that annoying problem of expanding ones borders. But that is essentially all it does for Huayna Capal of Khmer. No Char-henge. No particular reason for Fin/Ind to focus on Great People. The border-popping benefit is rather situation. Yes, it does save however long it takes to build a Monument (in addition to the hammers to build that monument), so Stonehenge does potentially speed up the development of cities that need their second ring early. But then a load of turns were lost initially building Stonehenge, that one will never get back.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on Stonehenge. It took me a while to learn that the early Wonders can be very situation, and generally shouldn't form part of standard opening. But I wanted to challenge the idea of early chop-and-slave. Gillette have done perfectly well by instead focusing on early land improvements.

[timski]

Seems they're being rather optimistic with their demands.

Luddite really did request that Menagerie withdraw from Tortuga in exchange for peace, because that's the only way the Pirates will be able to make an economic come-back. Now where's that Hitler bunker meme... Even Luddite's first (unsent) draft was, in thestick's word, "pushing it", and that merely had the audacity to ask for a Settler in exchange for an all-but-lost city.

I don't see the point of making outrageous demands at this stage of the process, since the only thing it ensures is that the war continues past the point at which Tortuga is even a topic for negotiation. That's not adopting a tough negotiating position, that's just appearing clueless about the balance of war. Nor do I understand the appeal to fair play: If one wanted a hundred turns of free group hugs, one shouldn't have upset the apple cart on turn 30. To paraphrase Mortius, "you settled our secret gold spot, and therefore must die!" The Pirates should probably count their blessing that Mortius has gone AWOL and Parkin is active on diplomacy again. Not many games where that has been said .

[NobleHelium]

WTF, why didn't TEAM trade a worker for an archer? Fail.

[timski]

Odd, NobleHelium, because in the only discussion on the topic Krill suggested exchanging a Worker for an Archer, and then played the turn quite differently. I assume TEAM's Worker move is either a degree of complacency (they think they can whip a third Archer and overflow into a fourth before the Trolls can bring up more Axes) or a cunning sidestep (hope that the Trolls group up more on the western side, allowing the Worker to move back with cover of fog and chop the Archer when least expected). We don't yet know where the TEAM Workers went. If one went south for the Wheat, it's complacency.

Seems a lot like TEAM having fun days are over and Lewwyn is half heartidly running the show solo.

That's Lewwyn, one of the best pure-economy players here. So where is TEAM's impetus for war coming from? Putting it all together, it seems like Krill believes that TEAM can hold Losing, and hold it without sacrificing absolutely everything in the process. Contrasting with Darrell, who is of the opinion that the Trolls have a shot at taking the city. Both players are experienced enough to have a good sense of what is possible, so who is right? Are both still leaning too heavily on optimistic dice rolls? Or is Krill simply underestimating the volume of Fast Worker-chopped military the Trolls have managed to produce at short notice?

Do we pull out of Tortuga?

Intriguing question. My gut feeling was to pull out the Quechuas, who are merely delaying Menagerie now, yet can make useful garrison units in peacetime later. But perhaps move the new Pirate axe into the city, since that has a very good chance of slowing Menagerie down, ensuring their entire army can't immediately continue north. Opinions?

[Commodore]

Seems a lot like TEAM having fun days are over and Lewwyn is half heartidly running the show solo.

That's Lewwyn, one of the best pure-economy players here. So where is TEAM's impetus for war coming from?

Um, huh? Lewwyn is easily one of the best pure-economy players here, but the reason his only win is an Always Peace game is that he is prone to wage foolish early war at the drop of a hat. What's happening to Trolls right now is practically the definition of "being Lewwyn'd".