[SPOILERS] scooter peruses RB's Greatest Hits

[Tohron]

So, is there any reason to start planning for a potential makoti dogpile along with REM? If makoti manages to grab most of Alhazard & RMoG's land, then he would be a big threat to both of you. Furthermore, if makoti does indeed finish the Kremlin, then it would be excellent to have plans in place for stealing it, since Kremlin + Sacrificial Altars (+Cavs?) would be a formidable combination.

[Epoxy]

Here is my competitive tender for the next military adventure, bopping Byzantium. I'm submitting now so that when the ten turns are up we have the Mackoti option for reference.

Why should we invade Mackoti, instead of Plako or RMoG? Mackoti has been a threat to the Aztecs' security for hundreds of years, and has had the upper hand all this time, we deserve to have the floor after countless humiliations! Now that they are adventuring south there is a chance of permanently improving our parity with them, perhaps decisively, sooner rather than later (after researching military tradition and astronomy, that is). Attacking RMoG would heavily extend our southwise flank bordering REM as we cross the equator, making us vulnerable to the expectant titan of the game. Attacking Plako would not weaken Mackoti, who in the meantime has many turns of attack on their side as they're assimilating territory south of the equator; we will not be on equal ground with Mackoti even with a successful attack on Plako, in fact we may even be more vulnerable by having two fronts adjoining Mackoti east and west. By weakening Mackoti with an offensive soon, we can improve our own strength, deplete our most proximate enemy, lower global uncertainty, and assist our neighbours (Plako and RMoG, to say nothing of Alhazard): if successful this operation can achieve guarantees surpassing the best outcomes of an attack on England.

Operation Trident

Three-pronged, unspeakably deadly, and extremely expensive

Here is a rough idea of what an attack on Mackoti could look like: a northern strike achieving a fork of the capital and Ghost Dragon, and an attack from the southern sea claiming the centre of isthmus (it could raze the city and immediately replant southeast of it with a settler in tow, so we have cultural control over the surroundings and can follow it up with another), which would make it ground for retreat in that direction. This idea requires lots of galleons linked up in trains, so that the new settlements can be immediately garrisoned and reinforced (the disposition of cities is structured such that the army could be shuttled to and fro between them).

Northern strike (aimed at distracting Mackoti's northern districts, and perhaps wounding their production, with the possibility of nabbing another frontier city on the isthmus—the jungle hill northwest of the bananas below).



Southern offensive (predicated on seizing and defending territory).



Follow up cities, which taking advantage of good land could almost immediately start reinforcing the front. Positioned so that any city (the yellow dots) can immediately reinforce any other city, via forts (the black squares).




The crucial ingredients of Operation Trident:

• Two-movers, a bunch of them (depending on the amount of military in the north).
  
• Ten galleons, at least.
  
• At least three settlers right on hand to immediately profit from the spoils.
  
• A lot of other assorted forces (minimum: twenty units) on hand for the southern offensive.
  
• Intelligence of all of the target cities, including the capital, to have an idea of the forces available to defend.
  

The northern operation may be untenable, since it would be very hard to maintain a front there (it still could be potentially useful against Mackoti, since it's utterly remote from the Dutch-Ottoman front). The big investment in galleons and settlers would be paid for by the superior mobility of our response. By placing the lightning strike northwards the mounted units won't be in the supply corridor of Mackoti's southern army.

The benefits of this operation are that we completely reshape the eastern front, earn access to a broad stretch of Mackoti's territory with less exposure in turn, and reap at least three excellent cities—each with double food bonuses and in the most convenient locations possible—at their expense. That is a lot of hammers they would lose which we would gain, I'm talking about a final balance of us having an extra five good cities versus them (Mack losing at least two, us gaining at least three). If Plako could join in, such as by a diplomatic request to declare war in x turns, a message which would in any case signal our goodwill towards them, so much the better.

I can't tell how much of Operation Trident so far is hyperbole. The expense alone requires a lot of preparation and diversion of production. I can figure out some more details if it's interesting—the galleon trains in particular.

[Nekira Sudacne]

So, is there any reason to start planning for a potential makoti dogpile along with REM?  If makoti manages to grab most of Alhazard & RMoG's land, then he would be a big threat to both of you.  Furthermore, if makoti does indeed finish the Kremlin, then it would be excellent to have plans in place for stealing it, since Kremlin + Sacrificial Altars (+Cavs?) would be a formidable combination.

The problem is 25 turns is a huge amount of time in a Civ 4 game. after the first 50 it's litterally impossible to make solid plans that far out. I mean, you can crank out worker micro plans, but outside events always crop up to change hte game you can't predict.

Right now Scooter is moving to a war footing, whipping out barracks and stables and getting stuck into the military path of the tech tree. that's as much planning for a dogpile in 25 turns as anyone can do, besides picking the most likely vector.

On that note, sea power is key. 2 movers are not enough. to make it work you have to drop a stack of 2 movers deep enough to raze a core city or two--that will require galleons. if you take the land route, he'll mass defences and you'll never break through to deal serious damage.

This is not good, you don't have a ton of great ship production cities. you might want to think about dropping a farmed filler city or two solely to whip out ships of the line.

[Sullla]

Keep in mind too that committing to all-out war with mackoti without allies would simply hand the game over to REM, who is also playing extremely well. Scooter needs to try to coordinate with REM (somehow) if there's going to be a serious effort to intervene with mackoti. How exactly to do that, I don't know. It's the last Industrial Pitboss game all over again. 

One other thing I wanted to mention: these late-era games do not have a lot of turns. Pitboss 33 lasted just over 80 turns before declaring a winner, and I suspect this game will also last in the 80-100 turn range. That's another reason why I argue in favor of rushing the Statue of Liberty immediately with the Great Engineer, since saving a half-dozen turns of build time equates to almost 10% of the entire Pitboss game. It's the same reason why we tried to avoid Anarchy as much as possible, because the wasted turns are so punishing in the compressed timeframe. More food for thought.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Another thought: I don't know why RB's House Rules as it were shook out the way they did, but why does current diplo rules forbid ANY form of co-ordination? You've taken diplomacy down to a pantomime.

"Offer 5 gold per turn for 5 gold per turn. what is this? is this a NAP that lasts for 5 turns? A warning you'll declare war on a neighbor in 5 turns? an invitation to join in 5 turns? And there is absolutely no way to ask someone to send a stack twords the same city"

I get that Full blown diplomacy can lead to total silliness as seen in the first few RB pitboss games (Hi pratorean world tour), but even single line diplomacy can improve things.

Asking someone to help you in a war should not require a game of Charades just to hope they MIGHT know what you are talking about.

If even that is too much, then for the next AI Diplo game, the game should agree on pre-set meanings for certain offers to elimate basic confusion. e.g. resource-for-same-resource and gold-for-same-gold would denote a NAP with a turn timer equal to the gold offer, a gold offer and gold offer on a countdown should be "I'm declaring war in this many turns" and accepting means an alliance, while a flat gold for gold should signal a defensive alliance, ect.

I could be alone in feeling this way, but while AI Only Diplo did fix some real silliness, it incoprorated a fair bit of it's own.

[antisocialmunky]

I think you just want to fight a limited wars against both your neighbors to take the ithmus territories. If you can control both the seas, it improves your strategic position to launch attacks on either mainland.

As far as overall strategy goes, I think you should focus on gaining incremental advantages. You don't need to kill people outright in an all out war. Instead you need to set limited objectives for quantifiable outcomes. For example, I think your best bet short term goal is to take the ithmus and gold island from plako (I think its only like 2/3 cities on the coast) in a short 4/5 turn war and plop down some extra cities while Mackoti can't attack you.

Also don't you still have some marginal empty space? Why not settle those, farm everything for the extra build queue + specialist like what REM did last game?

[Tohron]

Keep in mind too that committing to all-out war with mackoti without allies would simply hand the game over to REM, who is also playing extremely well. Scooter needs to try to coordinate with REM (somehow) if there's going to be a serious effort to intervene with mackoti. How exactly to do that, I don't know. It's the last Industrial Pitboss game all over again. 

Offering to trade each other's horse and iron, and 6 gold for 6 gold, 6 turns before the attack?  After the Dreylin dogpile last game REM might be familiar with the arrangement.  Also using a spy to verify that REM is actually preparing to attack and not just leaving you to hang.

[Mardoc]

Another thought: I don't know why RB's House Rules as it were shook out the way they did, but why does current diplo rules forbid ANY form of co-ordination? You've taken diplomacy down to a pantomime.

"Offer 5 gold per turn for 5 gold per turn. what is this? is this a NAP that lasts for 5 turns? A warning you'll declare war on a neighbor in 5 turns? an invitation to join in 5 turns? And there is absolutely no way to ask someone to send a stack twords the same city"

I get that Full blown diplomacy can lead to total silliness as seen in the first few RB pitboss games (Hi pratorean world tour), but even single line diplomacy can improve things.

Asking someone to help you in a war should not require a game of Charades just to hope they MIGHT know what you are talking about.

Basically three factors.
1.  It became clear that diplomatic success was more important than success at running your civilization.    When people signed up for a game of civ, they want the focus to be running the civilization.  With sufficient deniability and confusion, the role of diplomacy is lessened.  
2.  It also became clear that diplomatic success required a lot of time and effort.  To keep in the loop, you needed to have conversations with all your opponents all the time.  A Pitboss game is already a huge investment of time; people didn't want it to keep growing.
3.  It's a lot easier to remain friends with someone who's invaded you if you didn't already have a promise from them that they would never do that.  Also a lot easier to make friends with someone who's simply outplayed you than with someone who's arranged for you to be an outcast.

For those who really want the diplomatic game, we still have games for that: werewolf and Diplomacy.  Notably, to succeed, you still need to spend all your free time on the game while it's running, but these games typically last days or weeks instead of months, so people don't get quite as worn out.  Also, note that both games have explicit disclaimers up front that lying is expected, and you should do your darnedest to remember that Scooter, Kaiser of Germany, is a persona for Scooter, Fellow RB'er.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I think you just want to fight a limited wars against both your neighbors to take the ithmus territories.  If you can control both the seas, it improves your strategic position to launch attacks on either mainland.

As far as overall strategy goes, I think you should focus on gaining incremental advantages. You don't need to kill people outright in an all out war.  Instead you need to set limited objectives for quantifiable outcomes.  For example, I think your best bet short term goal is to take the ithmus and gold island from plako (I think its only like 2/3 cities on the coast) in a short 4/5 turn war and plop down some extra cities while Mackoti can't attack you.

Also don't you still have some marginal empty space?  Why not settle those, farm everything for the extra build queue + specialist like what REM did last game?

The problem with limited war is the other side might not let you. What if you only want the Ithsmus, but Matoki just whips a huge army and counter invades because you started it on principle, willfully giving up the chance of winning just to punish you?

[antisocialmunky]

Because I respect mackoti enough to know he doesn't throw away the game on an emotional whim. Plus 2/3 cities isn't the end of the world if you are busy building up another land mass worth of cities.

You can also think about it this way: You aren't going to win right now. If he did go into all out revenge mode over 3 cities, then you still don't win the game. If your gambit pays off then you gain 3 cities over everyone and 6 cities over him (zero sum) plus an improve strategic position against mackoti in the future.