RB Pitboss #1 SPOILER - Hatshepsut / India

[regoarrarr]

Other than skill, it looks like this game favours people who logs in more number of times and spends more time in diplomacy.

Well, IMO, all those things correlate to effort towards the game. If you are making a true effort to win, you are going to do the things like log in as much as you need to, spend the effort on diplomacy, etc.

Just like in Civ, where "bigger is better" (generally speaking) I don't think you're going to find a way to legislate against the general correlation between the total amount of time a player spends on the game with success in the game.

Also, I object to the classification of "spending more time in diplomacy" as separate from skill. While there is tactical Civ skill (which you seem to be refering to), conducting effective diplomacy is also a skill. And as I've probably mentioned before, IMO, that is going to be much more useful in a game like this than actual Civ skill. Just like playing the board game Diplomacy is not about who can move their fleets and armies the best, and just like success in the reality TV show Survivor is not all about who wins the most immunity and reward challenges (though obviously in both cases it doesn't HURT!), success in a big MP game like this is less about who can do the most effective city management or who can play the war tactics the best, and more about who can do the best diplomacy. After all, it doesn't matter how good you are at army management if your 3 neighbors all come for you....

As I have said to Exploit before (at least twice), I am happy to agree to some sort of turn-based arrangement, and I still am, but I'm not going to be pushy about it, since the current arrangement favors me just fine.

[regoarrarr]

And one other thought on effort correlating to skill, I know I've joked about the "spoiler thread post count trophy" but I am fairly serious about wanting to stay on top of that. Take a look at who the top 4 folks are in post count. Me, the Incas, Broker and Kodii.

You will also notice that those 4 folks are 4 of the top 5 folks in score.

Now, I am not suggesting that if you were to just post a bunch of gibberish posts over and over again that it would magically cause you to rise to the top of the game, but I do think that correlates with overall effort invested in the game, and THAT does correlate with success in the game.

All in IMO.

[novice]

Doing my best then to improve your chances of success, according to your theory. Although we all know that there's a difference between statistical correlation and cause and effect.

For example, the players who are a priori favourites are likely to attract more lurkers, hence more posts. They are also likely to win. Many lurkers can also contribute to better gameplay, through advice and accidental spoilers.

[regoarrarr]

Okay I wanted to do a brief battle count in my war vs. Inca

Incan losses
5 workers
1 quechua
9 catapults
5 horse archers
14 elephants
2 maces
2 pikes
and 3 cities

Indian losses
1 warrior (that I deleted)
6 catapults
2 elephants
2 knights
2 maces

[regoarrarr]

Doing my best then to improve your chances of success, according to your theory. Although we all know that there's a difference between statistical correlation and cause and effect.

For example, the players who are a priori favourites are likely to attract more lurkers, hence more posts. They are also likely to win. Many lurkers can also contribute to better gameplay, through advice and accidental spoilers.

Agreed on the difference between correlation and cause and effect.

As for the lurker factor, I definitely agree with that one. We call that "The Sullla effect" As an example, look at the thread views of Sullla and Speaker's PB2 thread vs. ours.

They outpost us 496 to 418, but have 3! times the views.

[regoarrarr]

Did a screenshot before and after the most recent turn rolled



Looks like the only folks teching at 100% are myself and dsp, being funded by shadyforce and sunrise.

Though actually shadyforce had an idea that elkad and others are actually getting gpt from some of the others, which is probably more likely

[Sullla]

Okay I wanted to do a brief battle count in my war vs. Inca

Incan losses
5 workers
1 quechua
9 catapults
5 horse archers
14 elephants
2 maces
2 pikes
and 3 cities

Indian losses
1 warrior (that I deleted)
6 catapults
2 elephants
2 knights
2 maces

That's 219k lost for Exploit versus 86k lost for you in Soldier points, and that's not counting the 5 workers/3 cities. I was curious and had to run the numbers, which are indeed very substantially in your favor.

I also concur about the level of involvement and general success in these games. regoarrarr is correct that lots of posts and feedback are the result of active involvement and success, not the cause of it. Even more simply, teams that work hard and put in effort to win are probably going to beat those that are half-assing it. (With no offense intended, Imhotep springs to mind in this game...)

Also, just for the record, we're not trying to spam posts in the RBPB2 spoiler thread. I happen to type a lot.

[regoarrarr]

Email sent out to our un-named group

Okay - time to talk some more about Operation Penguin.

Because the Penguins play hockey in Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh is the Steel City. Get it? Get it? :-)

Okay, so it has just rolled over to T154.

We need funding for Daniel for one more turn of Steel (T154), and three more turns for me for Replaceable Parts (T154-156). My suggestion would be to then have Daniel run 2 turns of 0%, allowing him (as our fastest researcher) to start on Rifling at the beginning of T157.

I took a screenshot at the beginning of the turn and we had in the bank:

Sunrise: 262 gold
Kaptain Kodii with his Kavorting Kataphracts: 718 gold!
Daniel: 124 gold
Me: 4 gold
Shadyforce: 99 gold

In addition, sunrise, shadyforce and kodii should gain about 475 gold next turn. Subtract out 360 gold for funding for Daniel and I this turn, and another 180 for my funding on T155, and at the beginning of T155 we should have about 1130 gold potentially available for upgrades. Shadyforce will also be going into a golden age next turn (T155) which will of course increase his gold.

Shadyforce has 4 treb upgrades, and he and I have determined that only 2 of my prebuilt trebs will make it to the battlefront in time for the battle of Kerkouane on T158. I believe Daniel has 5 trebs to upgrade, so that will be 11 * 80 or 880 gold needed for those upgrades. So it looks like we will have enough. If there is extra gold, I will have 2-3 more trebs that I could use upgrading to cannons to deal with my other 2 fronts. Brian did do some simming of the Battle of Kerkouane, and it looked like he would have enough to raze the city. I assume that Daniel's plans for an attack on Carthage are also coming along on schedule. Maybe both of you could detail out your battle plans so that we can all review them and make sure that we're not missing anything?

As for next research techs, besides Daniel going for Rifling, I think I should go for Astronomy, which will allow us (with the Chemistry we already have) to truly dominate the waters, something that is very important for me in my battles with Yaz and Imhotep. And I think Kodii should go for Military Tradition, which will give us Cavalry (along with Rifling). All of those should be around 8 turn techs, from what I understand of various tech levels. Mil Trad and Astro are 3000 and Rifling is 3600. I am currently at 340bpt, at about -175gpt.

Thoughts / comments / questions?

[regoarrarr]

Okay T155 has rolled over.

In annoying news, with plako logging in and the game being on hold while he logged in, I accidentally removed the trebuchet I had in the queue in Whitewater (that I was planning on triple-whipping and having auto-upgrade to a cannon IBT). And since I had already gotten steel, I couldn't put it back in

Gifted 1 treb to shady, and the 2nd is on its way.

The first University of India (Norwood campus) completed, and a few other ones are in the works. I am trying to balance units with infra.

Speaking of units, Yaz's soldier count is climbing - I think he's 550K to my 570K. And he only has to worry about 1 front instead of the 3 that I have.

My spy saw 5 muskets, 3 elephants, 2 pikes and a cat near his border city of Pirates Pad. Perhaps he has learned the lesson of consolidating ones army before advancing?

I have been founding cities on the peninsula near our border, threatening his island city with my culture. He may be Imp/Exp, which gives him a great advantage in REXing, but you don't want to mess with Spi/Cre in a culture war baby!!!

I also found that Dreylin is funding 50 gpt to both Broker and Elkad. That does show up in F4. Nobody else is doing gpt deals.

[regoarrarr]

Email sent out

Okay - things appear to be moving on schedule. Tragically, when the game was held up while plako was logging in, I accidentally removed a treb that I was planning on triple whipping from the queue and could not re-add it, so that stinks. But the 2 trebs promised to shady are on the way - 1 was gifted this turn and one will make it in 2 turns. So I don't personally need any upgrade gold.

One other thought I had is that even if Elkad (or Broker) gets Rifling, Yaz, Imhotep and Munro will not get it, because they still need to research Guilds (and Banking) before they can get Rep. Parts or Rifling. So while we would still have to deal with rifles from the Lins, Broker and Elkad, that's better than 6 teams with rifles.

I also checked and Dreylin is giving 50gpt to both Broker and Elkad. You can see it on the F4 under the main relations screen.

Replaceable Parts in 2 and then I am moving on to Astronomy.

I did some checking on Privateers / blockading. Any units can blockade, but if you use Privateers to blockade the ports of someone you are not at war with, you actually gain the trade route income that they lose. So say sunrise uses a privateer to blockade the Lins capital city. It has 2 3-coin trade routes. So the Lins lose 6 commerce from their capital (times all boni) and sunrise GAINS 6gpt.

It appeared that in war time, or if blockaded by any other type of ship besides privateers, the blockaded civ loses the trade route income (and can't work the coastal tiles) but the blockading civ does not actually gain gold. So that could be very useful for some of you - not as useful for me since I'm at war with pretty much all of my bordering naval civs :-D

Shady said

]
Cities with Castles get 100% defensive bonus. It takes 25 accuracy cats to bombard defences down to 0 but it only takes 4 accuracy cannon because gunpowder units ignore the effects of castles and walls. And when the defences are bombarded down, the defences are gone no matter if it's gunpowder or medieval units doing the attacking.

So for example, in my test I used 6 non accuracy cannon to bombard the defence down from 40% (cultural defence) to 10%. Then when the non-gunpowder units have to attack, they are only facing 25% (instead of 100%) castle defence.