SPOILERS!!!

Hello spoiler thread.















Nothing interesting to say yet I'm afraid.

Yes I know this is the 3rd poll, but I thought the first two were way too unfocused to be even slightly worthwhile. This is only concerning Warendorf. We are not discussing razing, we are not discussing the tundra cities, etc. I want this to be a straight democratic choice between the two options we have.

Option 1: We take Warendorf.

Option 2: We attempt to redline Warendorf for their chariot. If it works just right, WPC keeps the city. (If we accidentally win and take it, then we keep it. If we weaken it but WPC's chariot loses, we keep it.)


I think we've discussed this completely to death, so let's just vote and be done with it. I know whatever I decide will result in people unhappy, so let's fully crowd-source this decision.

Hey, I'm pretty new to the site though I've been on and off lurking for a while. This is my first pitboss, but hopefully it should be an entertaining ride.


<Additional content to come>

You know what you get i.e. not much.

Thread title shamelessly stolen from PB11 lurker's abode. Google Images characterizes Will Blunder thusly:



Seems appropriate. This is a spoiler thread for Bacchus and Cheater Hater, playing Suryavarman of Carthage. The game is played on a huge-size Big and Small map, Monarch difficulty, with barbarians, huts and no events or Tech Trading. Player interaction is limited to the trade screen deals. We are playing under the local balancing modification for the game, which introduces the changes described here. Now, everyone who wished to remain unspoiled for PB13 can stop scrolling (actual game stuff only starts on page 3, though).
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Seriously, stop.
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Ok. So what do we do now, again?

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Team Roster:

The Duumvirate:
Bacchus — micro/tactics/bad jokes
Cheater Hater — strategy/everything else

The Dedlurkers:
Gavagai — The Smart Guy
BaII — The Mysterious Stranger
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Values for micro

iResearchPercent: for Monarch = 115, for Large = 140, total = 1.61

Missile Base Theories
Missile Bases are a major part of the game but are couched in a certain mystery. The game does not show their cost like ships and when are upgrades needed. Some statements from the Official Strategy Guide (OSG):

1. Missile bases consist of a slab fortified by your best armour and a three-tube missile rack which can fire an inexhaustible supply of your latest missiles each with enhanced speed and range. Also includes your best DS, BC & ECM plus free Battle Scanner.
2. Costs for Armour, BC, DS, ECM are about 60% of the cost on a large ship but missiles are about 5.4 times cost (single-shot & Scatter-Pack) due to unlimited supply and enhanced speed/range. OSG has tables of item's costs.
3. Costs drop with tech level due to miniaturisation, 50% for each 10 levels (as on a ship). Note Planetology & Propulsion tech has no impact (free power!) and space is not a concern (unlike on a ship).
4. Base cost at game start is 283 BC - Slab 120, Nuclear Missiles 27, DS1 75 & BC1 61.
5. Bases are upgraded automatically as soon as you discover new technology used by them. You pay for the upgrade after it has been fitted before new Shield or new bases. Savings by miniaturisation are credited against future upgrade.
6. Bases are very good value costing less than an equivalent large ship and are constantly upgraded.
7. Bases maintenance cost is 2% and will generally rise since the upgrades are more costly than the miniaturisation savings.

After some limited testing my guesstimates are:
1. All true.
2. Broadly true for BC, DS & single-shot missiles. Armour costs are about 40% while low ECM is near 60% but the higher the ECM the higher the percentage, rising steeply for top end. My BCx table almost matches, my DSx table is 2-3 BC cheaper each item, my Missile table has a few close to OSG but Nuclear, Hyper-V & Stinger are much costlier and Scatter-Pack do not affect cost. My ECMx table starts close to OSG for low ECM but rises exponentially.
3. True but for ships base miniaturisation begins at an item's base discovery tech level. For bases, I believe, miniaturisation begins at tech level 1 for every item (see later).
4. Cost at game start is 255 BC - Slab 81, Nuclear Missiles 40, DS1 73, BC1 61.
5. True but UPGRD sign in DEF is easily missed. Also miniaturisation actually causes upgrade costs rather than being a credit against them! (see later)
6. True.
7. False, maintenance decreases since miniaturisation generally reduces more than upgrades increase - the main exception is ECM since you start with none so first ECMx will most likely increase base costs, significantly if very early (see later).

Missile Base Miniaturisation
So if base item costs represent the cost at the base discovery tech level you can understand ship item's miniaturisation beginning at that level so why does missile base item miniaturisation begin at tech level 1 (my theory) for all items? Well it could be a bug or it could be by design or an update.
Consider a large ship at game start with BC1 costing 100 BC (ignore engine cost and space since not used for MB). If your next BC is BC4 with computer tech level 15 then new ships can use either full cost BC4 at 160 or miniaturised BC1 at cost 38. Now if the same miniaturisation applied to missile bases, even taking into account their 60% cost compared to ships, there would be an upgrade fee of about 75 BC per missile base! And all upgrades must be paid before you can build/upgrade shields or build new bases. So a planet with a modest 20 bases would have to pay 1,500 upgrade before any Shield or extra bases it may be desperate for and consider multiple tech hits together in MB tech, this could be a huge burden (nice to have upgrades for free but onerous to pay before increasing defence). The MB upgrade from BC1 to BC4 would actually cost about 14 per base from TL=1 to TL=15.
Of course with ships you have a choice whether to use your latest and greatest or wait until increasing tech reduces cost (& space on ship), with missile bases you have no choice - you always get the latest. This could be a reason for a different approach, although they could just have reduced the base costs of higher MB tech instead. Note this suspected miniaturisation from TL=1 is the main reason why missile base cost reduces over time instead of increasing as stated in OSG so it could be a bug. If it is a bug then this is a significant change to resolve with MB costs & upgrades becoming a major issue, for example with TLs=14,15,10,x,x,11 with Hyper-X, DS3, BC3, ECM3 a MB costs about 190 but would be over 320 with ship-like miniaturisation, not to mention the upgrades from cheaper MB builds done with lower tech.

Missile Base Upgrade
Consider game start 2300 with you having one missile base already, you set to discover BC2 in 1 turn and an enemy scout to visit in 2 turns (to check if you are upgraded). How does the missile base cost change and do you need an upgrade (after all I have said costs generally go down).
2300 MB costs 255
ibt discover BC2
2301 MB costs 240
ibt scout visits and missile base already has BC2
2302 MB cost now showing UPGRD for 10 per base then new cost of 250
It seems strange that you pay 255 for a MB then have to pay 10 to upgrade it to a MB worth 250 but the game counts the effect of miniaturisation first (reducing existing BC1 base from 255 to 240 at TL=5) before calculating upgrade costs for new tech (BC2 base 250 at TL=5). Similarly DS2 (if first tech) makes MB 252 with upgrade of 11 and Hyper-V Missiles makes MB 256 with upgrade of 9. Note you will frequently not see UPGRD since it will be deducted from any partially built base if any, it does not show for first year due when you may still pay it or if you pay more than the upgrade the game will simply show the turns to next MB.
MB upgrade costs kept in savefile at PLANET + x'62' - previously unmapped.
You only pay UPGRD for BCx, DSx & single-shot missiles. You do not pay upgrade for Armour or ECMx. You do not pay any extra for Scatter-Pack missiles - MB cost is based on best single-shot missile.

Missile Base ECM conundrum
ECMx is a unique tech on MB since you do not start the game with any (basic armour is zero cost but armour is cheap and more than paid for by construction miniaturisation). There are no upgrade costs when you acquire it but the first ECM will push up costs eg. if ECM1 is your first discovery the MB cost rises from 255 to 309. One odd thing is my calculated costs for ECMx rise exponentially so ECM1 is 63, ECM2 71 but ECM10 is 425 +/- 50. It could be that MB miniaturisation works differently on ECMx or the MB ECMx cost is worked out differently from other items (or it could be my mistake!).
Another odd thing about ECM (a bug?) is that the game will only fit your latest ECM if your computer tech level is higher than the base discovery level for that ECM. Normally your tech level will be at least your highest tech in field but if you tech jump (Artifact planet discovery, tech exchange, steal or plunder beyond current tech tier) then your tech level can be lower than your latest tech - if this latest is ECMx the game will not fit them to your missile bases. This could be good (temporarily) reducing cost if you are building bases but bad if you are trying to defend with MB's without your latest ECMx tech.

Oddities
1. For cheap early MB's construction tech gives best return (Slab is most expensive item) until first ECMx when computer tech is more efficient at reducing cost. Armour upgrades use construction miniaturisation also but armour is fairly cheap. Of course avoid any early ECMx if possible/desirable because this pushes up cost notably and you will not pay any upgrade cost on existing bases when you discover ECMx later (do not leave it too late!).
2. For cheap Scatter-Pack MB's avoid single-shot missile upgrades so you pay the cost of miniaturised nuclear missiles (not likely to be practical).
3. Many players have reported games where MB's were not automatically upgraded to the latest tech. I could not discover any evidence of this or how this might happen in my limited tests (any repeatable savegames anyone?). It has been recommended you trickle feed DEF for MB upgrades at key planets - even if this is not needed for new tech, it is still useful to avoid upgrade costs building up & delaying Shields or new MB's when you need them quick.

As many of you have noticed, we're about to be attacked by 3 nations from turn 170 onwards.

The stakes:

For too long, Team RB has been top dog, and in response to that a dogpile by our neighbours has been brewing. The in wake of the too-fast collapse of the German/Incan team, the situation is desperate, they must do something to drag Team RB back into the pack or else the game is forfeit.

The Good Guy:

We have: a ton of land, a laggard tech rate that will improve as we start working German cottages.

Our strengths: we are close to rifles. Time is on our side, we just to hold them off until we get to rifling and make ourselves nigh invulnerable, and once that occurs time is completely on our side to develop our German holdings.

Our weaknesses: a knack for overconfidence. Do not expect something like the PB2 dogpile, we should always assume the worse and that

The Bad Guys:

In the Northwest, we have Team Apolyton:




What they have:
18 cities, Rifling, Nationhood.

Threat level: High. They have the potential of throwing together an immense army of rifles within a very short period of time using drafts, that we will have a difficult time of dislodging. The are taking The Gauntlet, and are then capable of threatening several fairly new cities with underdeveloped population and cultural infrastructure. They also have access to Knights, but I expect the bulk of their hammer production will go into Catapults.

Their expected goal: take Old Germania for themselves, PB9 style. Make the massive war undertaking that we went into not worth it, and force us into so many whips and drafts that our tech rate suffers and never makes it to or past rifles.

How to deal with them: Expect that Gauntlet will fall, and once they land on flatland, we ruin their stack with Barrage I Catapults and kill the remainder with drafted macemen and muskets. Force them to suffer draft anger and SoZ war weariness until they capitulate to a favourable peace deal. Afterwards, I dunno how good they are at military management.

In the Southwest, we have Team Civplayers:






Threat level: Medium. They have (or will have) similar tech to us. If anything, they'll be behind thanks to the gold gifts to Apolyton. They have a decent amount of production going thanks to continuous Sacrificial Alter whips.

Their expected goal: Brick-by-Brick. I expect (in their minds) that BbB belongs to their sphere of influence thanks to that strangely placed lake, no matter how close it is to our capital. Afterwards, take what they can, Ditchdigger and Seven Tribes are also under threat. And thanks to the oddly placed lake, we're going to have a hard time responding. If we want to guard against both Apolyton and CP at the same time, a good location for a tile to run zone defence is 2N1W of Ditchdigger, as it can respond to any thrusts along that axes. Unfortunately, there's no way we can keep it a secret, Apolyton and CP probably have a gazillion spies running roughshod through our land.

How to deal with them: Hold BbB at all costs, because the SoZ will be crucial to fending off our opponents. Other than that, just kill what we can.

Team Civfanatics:




Threat level: Low-Medium. Thanks to a hot(?) war with CivFR, they are currently distracted. Whether or on they will remain so is unclear. I'm reasonably sure that CFC is completely in the loop with regards to the attack by the two teams mentioned earlier. Yes they were thinking of a NAP with us until T200, but they are still on the fence about it and will happily wait for as long as they can until they can or can not swing a good peace deal with CivFR. And CivFR aren't an existential threat to CFC right now, they'll pull out once they feel their honour is satisfied.

They have nothing to fear from us, as they know were are distracted by our rifle-wielding foes to the west.

Otherwise, their tech rate sucks as much as ours and they don't have anything special over us. They also want time to develop their Spanish holdings and make it productive, which makes it think they'll only be in it for quick gains.

Their expected goal: Wither Starfall or Eastern Gem Dealers. Starfall is under threat from 2-movers, so we'll want muskets and pikes and a Castle holding that city. If they go for EGD, they'll need to spend at least one turn within our territory.

How to deal with them: another stack of cats and hitters, zone defencing from the tile 2S1E of Forbidden, where they can cat any tile they land on. The danger is if they move a big stack of 2-movers 1E or 1SE of Lakambha, as that would pin down a stack inside Starfall, and then they are capable of moving north towards EGD, where the units in Starfall will be tied down.

What else we need to do: Fend off their attacks, buy time, and use the sheer size of our empire to run everyone else over. Churn out more cats. Don't draft for another 2 turns until Gunpowder comes in, as Maces aren't that useful. Build some spies and start scoping out our opponent's stacks.