I'm now of the opinion that it would have been completely morally ok to declare war last turn.
Hopefully there won't be any more reloads required but from what I can tell it certainly needs a better/fairer rule than what it has at the moment. Otherwise it's just yet another reason to play last in a turn, as if there is another request for a reload you won't be caught out forced to make moves in response to actions that have no longer occurred, you would also have a full-turns information advantage on other teams. As Rome hadn't previously played t72 and we had they were able to disrupt our moves this turn by moving their war to the tile we had previously moved our chariot to. So yes we were forced to play differently this turn anyway (and sub-optimally as that forest tile would have protected our workers)
Knowing what I know about the effect that reloads have, I don't think I would have been so quick to vote for this one without a clarification on actions we can take in response to the changed Roman situation. Our moves are so closely entwined with Rome's that it's not feasible to arbitrarily allow one to respond and not the other. This would apply in any case of cold war or open hostilities.
To make the point yet again, we were making the decision purely based on the information in game and the only information from out of game was the information about whipping mechanics. It doesn't take a genius to figure out Rome was whipping spears, they are pretty unlikely to be whipping scouts.
So here is the summary of the reload situation as far as I can tell.
Pre-reload:
T71
Rome does 2 2pop whips. We have them pegged on spears.
T72
Rome doesn't receive any spears. Doesn't play the turn.
We play the turn based on what we know of whipping, that Rome could have as many as 4 spears defending capital so we don't declare. We had chats with India about this, and we calculated that if they were smart they had prebuilt 2 wars to have 4 hammers each on receiving hunting and then could 2 pop whip in each city with 29 hammers overflow. This is exactly how both Rome and ourselves believed whipping mechanics worked.
Rome requests reload.
Post-reload
T71
Given the option to replay the turn but as they wanted to whip anyway the turn was reloaded to Mali's login. Effectively Rome replayed the whipping part of this turn, they just chose to remake the same choices. For argument's sake we could also make the point here if they had chosen to reload before the whips and not whipped at all we would still be forced to take actions as if they had whipped 4 spears! If they were smart this is exactly what they should have done, as they knew we were rule limited to not attack the next turn, they could then safely build for a turn and avoid whipping at the swap penalty.
Our turn was already played, no changes.
T72
Rome gets 2 spears, with 5 overflow whipping hammers + base prod in each city.
Rome plays the turn with no limitations on what they can do as they hadn't previously played this turn. They do have some information from prereload of our intended moves (they saw our chariot pre-reload) and so are free to move to disrupt them. They can also make whatever changes are neccessary to defense based on knowledge of new whipping mechanics, fewer spears overall so perhaps need to shuffle defenders around differently from how they originally planned. They decide to whip again, they seem to think it's ok for us to attack this turn or why would they bother to whip at the swap penalty again?
Apparently, people would like us to play this turn still playing as if we don't understand whipping mechanics. So we would be forced to make moves designed to respond to a Rome with 4 spears, not the mechanically limited maximum they now have (2 spears plus 1 if they whip again, maximum of 2 spears in capital, well they could move the 3rd from other city but they are unlikely to). As they whipped again clearly expecting an attack this turn, we decide not to attack.
And to answer Dantski, I don't want to kill their warriors because they've been whipping. I just don't like scouts.
Hopefully there won't be any more reloads required but from what I can tell it certainly needs a better/fairer rule than what it has at the moment. Otherwise it's just yet another reason to play last in a turn, as if there is another request for a reload you won't be caught out forced to make moves in response to actions that have no longer occurred, you would also have a full-turns information advantage on other teams. As Rome hadn't previously played t72 and we had they were able to disrupt our moves this turn by moving their war to the tile we had previously moved our chariot to. So yes we were forced to play differently this turn anyway (and sub-optimally as that forest tile would have protected our workers)
Knowing what I know about the effect that reloads have, I don't think I would have been so quick to vote for this one without a clarification on actions we can take in response to the changed Roman situation. Our moves are so closely entwined with Rome's that it's not feasible to arbitrarily allow one to respond and not the other. This would apply in any case of cold war or open hostilities.
To make the point yet again, we were making the decision purely based on the information in game and the only information from out of game was the information about whipping mechanics. It doesn't take a genius to figure out Rome was whipping spears, they are pretty unlikely to be whipping scouts.
So here is the summary of the reload situation as far as I can tell.
Pre-reload:
T71
Rome does 2 2pop whips. We have them pegged on spears.
T72
Rome doesn't receive any spears. Doesn't play the turn.
We play the turn based on what we know of whipping, that Rome could have as many as 4 spears defending capital so we don't declare. We had chats with India about this, and we calculated that if they were smart they had prebuilt 2 wars to have 4 hammers each on receiving hunting and then could 2 pop whip in each city with 29 hammers overflow. This is exactly how both Rome and ourselves believed whipping mechanics worked.
Rome requests reload.
Post-reload
T71
Given the option to replay the turn but as they wanted to whip anyway the turn was reloaded to Mali's login. Effectively Rome replayed the whipping part of this turn, they just chose to remake the same choices. For argument's sake we could also make the point here if they had chosen to reload before the whips and not whipped at all we would still be forced to take actions as if they had whipped 4 spears! If they were smart this is exactly what they should have done, as they knew we were rule limited to not attack the next turn, they could then safely build for a turn and avoid whipping at the swap penalty.
Our turn was already played, no changes.
T72
Rome gets 2 spears, with 5 overflow whipping hammers + base prod in each city.
Rome plays the turn with no limitations on what they can do as they hadn't previously played this turn. They do have some information from prereload of our intended moves (they saw our chariot pre-reload) and so are free to move to disrupt them. They can also make whatever changes are neccessary to defense based on knowledge of new whipping mechanics, fewer spears overall so perhaps need to shuffle defenders around differently from how they originally planned. They decide to whip again, they seem to think it's ok for us to attack this turn or why would they bother to whip at the swap penalty again?
Apparently, people would like us to play this turn still playing as if we don't understand whipping mechanics. So we would be forced to make moves designed to respond to a Rome with 4 spears, not the mechanically limited maximum they now have (2 spears plus 1 if they whip again, maximum of 2 spears in capital, well they could move the 3rd from other city but they are unlikely to). As they whipped again clearly expecting an attack this turn, we decide not to attack.
And to answer Dantski, I don't want to kill their warriors because they've been whipping. I just don't like scouts.
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0201.jpg]](http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx48/willemofo/Willem/Civ4ScreenShot0201.jpg)
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0202.jpg]](http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx48/willemofo/Willem/Civ4ScreenShot0202.jpg)
