Suboptimal IV: Indonesian Insanity

[suboptimal]

Cornflakes - in thinking about my current position I think I've got two options for preparing for Woden:

1) Recall the fleet and add the knights to the defenders at home. Good but doesn't provide a counterstrike capability.

2) Send the fleet to his east coast (there are areas I can sit that are 2-3 tiles from his borders and/or land in general) and try to save up (and pillage) gold to be able to upgrade the chariots (and perhaps build 1-2 more for further upgrades). I'd need to come up with at least 180 gold, preferably 295 gold (to upgrade the slinger) to make this possible. After finishing the next two techs I could harvest the copper at Punky's (145) and a mine pillage at Stockholm chould net another 97 With 117 on hand I'd be -3 during this interturn, -13 on the next and then +5 the turn after that (trade routes to Lisbon up and running but increase maintenance costs). That would have me at 400 or so, sufficient for three chariot upgrades and the slinger upgrade.

[Jabah]

Aren't the walls shooting at the Jong fire power ?

[suboptimal]

Aren't the walls shooting at the Jong fire power ?

I don't know...that's something I'll need to test in a side game.  Walls attack at the strength of the most powerful "ranged" unit one has built.  I don't know if this means those units on the archer line or any unit with a ranged attack.  Looks like I'll be using Firetuner in a bit to find out.

EDIT: Checked with Firetuner - Jabah, you're right. The walls would be attacking at the strength of a jong (55). That means if I were to do Option #2 I could tank my economy and upgrade 3-4 chariots.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Well this game is over now. I want to say that this was the best thread and really fun to read.

[suboptimal]

Well this game is over now. I want to say that this was the best thread and really fun to read.

Thanks! 

Even though the game ended with a whimper I'll have a summary post coming at some point later today.  In the meantime, since I was going to found a city on the next turn I'll leave you (and everyone else) with one final ditty...

It’s a long and lengthy read
From the first turn to the last
Lots of words and fancy pictures to the end
But once you’re done and bleary-eyed
Go ahead and post your thanks
And the players really love it if you do
(if you do now)

(At The Zoo)

[suboptimal]

Error Playing PBEM 14. ( A )bort, ( R )etry, ( F )ail?

Another PBEM for me, another failure to reach Turn 100 (soclose) but them’s the breaks. At least it wasn’t a poorly defended invasion that got me. I’ll start off by thanking CMF for the map and Cornflakes for dedlurking, making me think in alternative manners and being a sounding board for a couple of the more unusual ideas that resulted. Tank you also to Pindicator and Banzailizard for coming in as replacements to keep the game going.

I had made the decision after my last post to pursue the aggressive option – sail the fleet around to Woden’s east coast and then lie in wait in case he declared war. With the knights and chariots at home, I figured I’d be able to defend if he were to regroup, particularly with the walls having a ranged CS of 55. Up at Boxer I would have kept two jongs and a knight for defense and sent the other knight south, plus upgraded the two existing chariots (and built 1-2 more for reserves). If he didn’t pull back but also didn’t declare war I might have declared war myself and invaded his coast to inflict some damage and raze a city or two.

Barbarian Island would have settled on Turn 99 (as At The Zoo) and that would have started the once every ten turns cycle of settle, relocate Magnus, chop out a Harbor, buy new settler, repeat. My second target site was the island south of Granada. It wasn’t in the screenshots I posted but there was a three-chop locate NW of the incense at the southern tip of that island. The next locations would have been the small island NE of Korea and closer to Granada.

The Map

Generally speaking I found this map to be interesting. Two land masses with a number of smaller islands scattered about, along with coastal routes all the way around. I’ll be curious to see what the full map looks like in the map thread (or maybe I’ll apply Cornflakes’ hack to load it in SP), particularly in the region north of the other continent.

Until I read Rowain’s/Pindicator’s thread to see what was going on there I’m not about to comment on that matter. As previously stated I’m also not about to comment on Archduke’s leaving. I prefer to let both of those dogs lie.

I do have some thoughts on city-states (in a bit). My concern with this map was actually Yosemite. Even though I was the one to benefit from it (and will be curious to see the comments from Woden & Archduke) I think that my start position was too close to it to have been fair. The yield cost for 3 turns of settler movement (heck, I’d say even 4 or 5) was far outweighed by the eventual yield of the wonder. The position I settled in meant that as of Turn 4 I had the science rate of a 6 population civilization, likely before anyone else even reached population 2. I guess put another way, the science lead from Yosemite, was a main factor in my being able to keep Macedonia at bay. Perhaps that was intentional, but I’ll have to see what transpired in the map making thread.

Pillaging

I will go on the record saying that I like what Firaxis did with the change to pillaging yields in this patch. Pillaging became useless once the game got so far along because the yields weren’t worth the effort. The new values for the yields that were used, taken in isolation, made sense. However, the Raid policy as it is (was) and crappy AI made the system the “new true way” and ripe for abuse. The patch that’s dropping shortly is eliminating science and culture pillages and cutting the Raid policy to 50%. Both of these help, especially with faith accumulation – even faith-prioritizing civilizations have trouble generating faith solely through districts.

City-States

Yeah, Nan Madol is broken, and I’m sure MJW made his views on that evident in the lurker thread. I got the first-meet bonus, got lucky with a quest and then completed Mysticism on Turn 36 and it was off to the races. My culture yield reached 20 on Turn 65 and no other player was able to crack that number until Scotland did so around Turn 83. Something needs to be sorted out with this city-state, either nerfing the city-state bonus via mod, removing it from play (again, via mod) or forcing a map-maker to re-roll starts if it shows up.

As it relates to the new pillaging rules, city-states still allow for abuse even with the elimination of science and culture yields. Some have suggested only allowing limited pillaging, others have suggested no pillaging. Of course, there’s also what evolved on the other continent – take out as many city-states as possible before your opponents in order to grab an early and hopefully insurmountable lead.

I’d like to propose a house rule - players may not declare war directly against a city-state but may do so by declaring against its suzerain. I find this idea appealing for a couple of reasons:

- City-states cannot be conquered or farmed early to gain advantage.
- Suzerainty now carries a risk larger than “you might have more envoys than I do” since suzerainty could expose them to attack.

Of course, how either of these could play out in an MP game would remain to be seen.

[Woden]

I had made the decision after my last post to pursue the aggressive option – sail the fleet around to Woden’s east coast and then lie in wait in case he declared war.  With the knights and chariots at home, I figured I’d be able to defend if he were to regroup, particularly with the walls having a ranged CS of 55.  Up at Boxer I would have kept two jongs and a knight for defense and sent the other knight south, plus upgraded the two existing chariots (and built 1-2 more for reserves).   If he didn’t pull back but also didn’t declare war I might have declared war myself and invaded his coast to inflict some damage and raze a city or two.  

Interesting. Would you have accepted a friendship deal if I had offered it next turn? I was mulling over sending you a friendship request and then shifting my army to the other continent to see if my units were still viable.

I’d like to propose a house rule - players may not declare war directly against a city-state but may do so by declaring against its suzerain.  I find this idea appealing for a couple of reasons:

- City-states cannot be conquered or farmed early to gain advantage.
- Suzerainty now carries a risk larger than “you might have more envoys than I do” since suzerainty could expose them to attack.

Of course, how either of these could play out in an MP game would remain to be seen.

I was going to suggest the same but was going to wait until I see what the patch was going to do. I would add that there should be a gentleman's agreement not to declare war on the suzerain just to pillage the city state but all bets are off if you go to war with the player.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yosemite was my only real regret with the map. It came about because I placed Woden's start first on that continent, in a lush lakeside region, but then trying to mirror yours made it tricky to place - I moved you up into the cramped coastal spot in an effort to make Yosemite your SECOND settle, not your first, which seemed roughly balanced to me (note that starts were randomized, it wasn't "Woden's start" and "suboptimal's start" but "Start 1" and "start 2").

What I should have done, of course, is placed you at Nan Madol's start area and placed Woden in Hattusa's start area. You live and learn.

[suboptimal]

I had made the decision after my last post to pursue the aggressive option – sail the fleet around to Woden’s east coast and then lie in wait in case he declared war.  With the knights and chariots at home, I figured I’d be able to defend if he were to regroup, particularly with the walls having a ranged CS of 55.  Up at Boxer I would have kept two jongs and a knight for defense and sent the other knight south, plus upgraded the two existing chariots (and built 1-2 more for reserves).   If he didn’t pull back but also didn’t declare war I might have declared war myself and invaded his coast to inflict some damage and raze a city or two.  

Interesting. Would you have accepted a friendship deal if I had offered it next turn? I was mulling over sending you a friendship request and then shifting my army to the other continent to see if my units were still viable.

I wouldn't have taken a DoF - I felt I had a reasonable edge with knights that there would have been an opportunity to inflict some permanent damage.  Based on my pregame theorycrafting I was operating under the premise that no one player could feasibly achieve victory until/unless they had rendered all opponents on their starting continent dead or irreversibly crippled.  A DoF with the player on my own continent woudl be contrary to that notion.  I perceived an reasonable opportunity to raze Methone and Aigai, with the loss of the former being a significant blow.

I’d like to propose a house rule - players may not declare war directly against a city-state but may do so by declaring against its suzerain.  I find this idea appealing for a couple of reasons:

- City-states cannot be conquered or farmed early to gain advantage.
- Suzerainty now carries a risk larger than “you might have more envoys than I do” since suzerainty could expose them to attack.

Of course, how either of these could play out in an MP game would remain to be seen.

I was going to suggest the same but was going to wait until I see what the patch was going to do. I would add that there should be a gentleman's agreement not to declare war on the suzerain just to pillage the  city state but all bets are off if you go to war with the player.

I actually don't mind someone declaring war against the suzerain just to pillage, IMHO.  With this rule in place I feel that if you're going to suzerain a city-state you should be committing to preventing that (or in effect allowing it to occur).   There's also the fact that policing the "if you go to war with the player" can get touchy.

[suboptimal]

Yosemite was my only real regret with the map. It came about because I placed Woden's start first on that continent, in a lush lakeside region, but then trying to mirror yours made it tricky to place - I moved you up into the cramped coastal spot in an effort to make Yosemite your SECOND settle, not your first, which seemed roughly balanced to me (note that starts were randomized, it wasn't "Woden's start" and "suboptimal's start" but "Start 1" and "start 2").

What I should have done, of course, is placed you at Nan Madol's start area and placed Woden in Hattusa's start area. You live and learn.

Your planning might have worked if Yosemite's yields weren't visible from my starting position. 

I will say that geographically the land mass that we started on was quite interesting, with the mountain ranges dividing things up and creating choke points.