Serdoa's SPOILER-Thread: I am legend?

[Charriu]

Don't worry. I didn't take it as "take away from my work". I just wanted to explain why further development isn't possible.

[Fintourist]

The first pages are boring game-theory that is wrong, partly because the map isn't what I expected and partly because normal and quick speed has different implications in terms of trait-value which I happily ignored in these posts.

Chiming in with others. Good to have you back and I enjoyed skimming through your thought process with regards to traits and civs as well!    Should you like delayed reactions, I felt that you maybe put a bit more emphasis on commercial traits (FIN/PRO/ORG) and less value on starting techs than I would have, but I'm definitely not a CtH authority..

[Serdoa]

I would agree with you. Not sure if for the same reasons though? My thoughts are that I should have realized much earlier that my start would be extremely well served by having Mining/Agri at the start, which only exists once. In general though I believe that the traits in itself shape more of your game than your starting techs IF you've chosen those wisely enough to not sit at Wheel / Myst while only having an AH resource to improve with your worker now idling away the turns. I guess with our CtH version you could discuss if Myst does not have more of an impact than I give it credit for, but as that has been changed already it is a moot point.

Why would you value the choice of starting techs higher than traits? Or did I misunderstand what you meant?

[Fintourist]

I would agree with you. Not sure if for the same reasons though? My thoughts are that I should have realized much earlier that my start would be extremely well served by having Mining/Agri at the start, which only exists once. In general though I believe that the traits in itself shape more of your game than your starting techs IF you've chosen those wisely enough to not sit at Wheel / Myst while only having an AH resource to improve with your worker now idling away the turns. I guess with our CtH version you could discuss if Myst does not have more of an impact than I give it credit for, but as that has been changed already it is a moot point.

Why would you value the choice of starting techs higher than traits? Or did I misunderstand what you meant?

Yeah, I was not really clear with my writing. I agree that traits are of course a bigger thing than starting techs. I was trying to say that in your trait analysis I would not value commercial traits quite so much that I would have personally ended up with Wang Kon (surely still fine).

And in your civ analysis I would have given starting techs a bit more value/points than you did. However, that is always very much map/settings dependent..

[Serdoa]

Ah yes, totally agreed. I think I tend to overvalue late game usefulness and denying that you somehow have to get there in a competitive position in the first place. I actually had considered starting with CHA or IMP. But the only game I really remember is one in which I played Joao and while that was fun I think it made me turn away from IMP (unfortunately together with undervaluing the impact of normal speed on its usefulness on top). CHA/FIN or CHA/PRO would be better. I mean, PRO is fine. I am making 3 commerce on each trade route, I think that is pretty good (but I really have no clue tbh).

Oh... wait, I am PRO? Now I remember, that is why I teched Archery. My cities are safe, hooray!

[Serdoa]

As an addendum: IMP would be especially fine on this map because I have more hills than food. There is a single 6 food tile in my borders and only a assorted few 5 food tiles.

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T78 was played and I've killed a Rusten Chariot. 44% odds to win, 5% to withdraw. So why take that shot? Well, because if it does not work, it does not matter. I will have lost a Chariot. I am clearly behind, pretending that this one unit somehow will change how my game plays out is lunacy. It won't - Lewwyn is running away as I can now see having finally gotten his graphs as well. He is up there in food and hammers as expected, but also in commerce. Yes, some of that is much higher culture output, but even so, it is clear that he at least has not stunted his commerce as much as I have. I mean I need 7 turns to get Currency researched. At 100% beakers. But I can do 30% consistently - so more like 18 turns. I think I will shave of a few due to having whipped heavily, but still, I will either get run over by Noble or Lewwyn will sew up this game by eating Bob and / or SD and then it just is a matter of us conceding. 

Now, back to that attack. Even if the unit matters not, why do it? Well, look you here:



Rusten planted his new city. I wasn't sure what is in there, but having tracked his units in this area, there really was not much that could have traveled there and alas it is just a warrior and a Spear NE which I both had tracked since they arrived in Arc. There are two workers 1E of the city. Had I lost my Chariot, I would have re-offered peace. No reason for him to take it, no reason not to either though. It mattered not, because I would have reinforced Rostov anyhow, peace or no peace and had the units already started to be built last turn. 

But by winning, I can force him to make a decision. Does he move his Spear onto the Workers? Does he move his workers? He can't move out from Inpulsa to help, he needs those units there. And Arc is undefended. And his capital should be close to my Galley. Bad spot to be in I reckon and maybe a possibility for me to take back some of what should have been mine. Besides that though, I also don't get why he settles there in the first place. This is not great land and I already showed that I don't want cities in this area. Just leave it alone. Noble and I do the same on my eastern side. Yes, there is place for a city, but it isn't gaining much (though more than Rustens) so we just leave it alone and can live life peacefully. There must be spots towards Lewwyn or in his backlines that are better, no?

Also in general: I mentioned that it seems players go to war early, but now seeing those small maps* and the way how everyone plays a super-crazy farmers gambit WHILE settling pink-dots is making that much more understandable. Funny that I am talking, being in last and all. And yes, I will not win and likely even be the first to be out and yes I played an awful game, lost 30-40 turns doing nothing sensible at all. But guess what, I don't get cities razed because even with them not being a pink dot, I defend them. I believe that - besides my bad play - this is also part of the reason I'm lagging behind. I did actually settle spots that I was able to defend. I delayed (as in microed the settler to come out later) settling a spot because I had no unit to defend nearby. But it seems my opponents just settle cities with at best a warrior defending them and assume no one will do anything. In all honesty: It feels as if the lessons from back in the old days are still being followed, but without any regards to the finer points of them. Expand like crazy, play a farmers gambit! Yes, true, do that. But at least get Archery at some point. Or place cities with some thought towards their defensiveness. If I do play another game, I will get 2 chariots early on, just to go around razing cities of people that believe a warrior is enough defense on T70.


*This small map is imo another reason for my bad standing. I knew that I would not be doing all that great early on, but I assumed that wouldn't matter with a big map that would not get settled immediately either. Now we are still in the BCs and the map seems close to settled completely apart from some backline and islands spots. That of course means having early expansion traits is much more relevant - by a long shot - than having any kind of late-game economy trait. Having two was too much in any case - again, I am certain that I lost that game by my own doing, not for the map - but the map being much smaller than expected didn't help either. So, let me just re-iterate: Please, if you ever make a map and you can read in the threads of your players completely different expectations than what you are building: Tell them. Yes, it is frustrating to maybe have to redo a map because players agree that they did mean something differently than you understood - but honestly, that's frustration with something you do for maybe a week, players are stuck with it for months. It is super frustrating for us too.

[mackoti]

because of this kind of maps i didnt played lately.All what is playing right now is some of quick civ..,Long planning? forget it, just get those cities up and hope some neighbours atack eachother.

[Serdoa]

Yeah. It's a shame I didn't realize that earlier, I would have taken some form of HA-UU and would run someone over right now.

[Serdoa]

T79:

Last turn I noticed that I could really use some happy-resources, so I have asked NoGas for Gold in exchange... for my eternal gratitude. I was greeted with this:



Excuse me? You still owe me a scout guys, giving me gold in return is the bare minimum. I probably would have accepted if they had accepted my gold-request and requested - apart from it - that I stop trading with Lewwyn. I don't have any trade going anyway, so it really does not matter to me. But I think we need to set the score right first.

So: Lets declare another war. 

Hey, look, there is a scout in Bobs land, next to my warrior. 



Would be a shame if he... had an accident.



Goodbye Scout. Greet mine when you see him!

Ok, yeah, that was fun and did satiated the grudge I hold from the beginning. I also might not take this game too serious anymore, but it does have some strategic reason as well:

1) I want them to take me serious. Either they get Cataphracts and throw everything at me at once - making it be over quick - or they will decide another target is less spiky. I hope for the latter.
2) I do get two GG points and I am nearly half way there. This was the easiest way to get a few more points towards it.
3) I can now offer them 10t enforced peace.

I threw a peace treaty (and that I stop my non-existent trade with Lewwyn) back at them. I expect them to take it. They have some units at our border and I do not have that many, but enough to hold of an attack for certain. Whip-potential makes war at this stage pretty unenticing.

Oh... war. Yeah, wait, there was something else to do this turn. Let's see, what did Rusten do?



So Rusten moved his warrior to block my chariot - he knows that I have two moves right and that I do have my move after attacking him still? If I win this fight, his city is gone. My chariot is very damaged though, 0.3 life remaining. We have a promotion pending and as I have C1 already, I promote it to Shock. And with that, it is time to attack:



And we won! Barely with 1 HP remaining. Well, I can't really complain, I've won 44% fights, now I nearly lose an 81%. With that, another of Rustens cities goes down in flames. 

Moving my Chariot up, I can see his two workers that previously have been 1E of his city now being 1N on the oasis tile. I expect them to be gone next turn, nothing I can do though. My chariot is at 0.0 health with 9/10 xp. My "stack" (1 Axe, 1 Spear) moved on the hill 1NE of the now burned city. There is a road, so they can in theory attack Arc next turn. Oddly enough, Rusten has two Spears in Arc, one which was produced last turn. I might be inclined to throw my units at those two spears regardless if he doesn't get an Axe in there. My odds with the axe are ~90%, the spear has 25%. If I could have just one more axe there... alas, I cannot. I pondered moving a worker into the forest in which my stack stood last turn. Had I done that, I could have roaded it this turn and next turn while having two axes in there. I could have gotten two more workers up there this turn, so I could have roaded 1SE of Arc next turn and attacked with 3 Axes, probably taking the city. Not that I would know what to do with it, because I finally found Rustens capital:



Oh. Oooh. Umm. I though this could be the spot of his capital but also that it could be further back, as mine is 4 tiles further down south. Now these cities of his don't actually look so bad. I guess "I" am the bad guy here after all. 

But in all seriousness: This map is really small and there is no way we could settle 3rd ring cities here without competing for spots. Those silvers are 7 tiles away from each our capitals. That means 2nd ring cities that already have to clash. It also means that IMP is obscenely overpowered on this map, which does in part explain NoGas, Lewwyns and Rusten great performance. Surely as well because they are good players - and they did pick IMP which is part of being a good player - but still, that really does put things in perspective for me. 

Well, too late now though to change course. Rusten won't believe a peace offer and will never expect real peace. Offering it would only mean giving him time to build up units to harass me. I'd rather be the harasser myself if I have to choose. Though quite honestly, if he would take peace, I would give it to him and leave him alone. Those cities were absolutely in his right to plant and had I realized earlier that we are really that close to his cap, I probably would have been fine with Rustov. 

That said: I really have no more place to expand into. 5 or 6 more cities, that is it. And that already counts those "Rusten" spots. With a better dot map, I might have gotten 2 or 3 more, again, SDs city is in an awkward spot for me. But I can realistically only settle as much cities as Lewwyn already has if I retreat now. Well, maybe 2 more (so up to 13), but one would have no food source, the other would have to split its food source (4 food cow...) with another city, both having nothing more than that. Call me slow in settling, but even if I had produced more settlers already, there is no place to put them. And Rusten just planted on the middle-line between us. SD only that one city forward that probably is also in the middle between us if I go from what I know now. Maybe Noble did settle up on me, but if the deer I can see is an indication, he also did not. The simple truth is: I took all the land area that I could consider rightfully mine and it apparently seems to be much less than Lewwyn got. I definitely seems to be far less than Bob, who from what I can see right now, should be able to settle another 7-8 cities, maybe even 9-10. Which should see him at 16-18 cities in the end. 

Anyhow, it does not help to cry over spilled milk, lets play the hand I'm dealt.

[Old Harry]