[NO PLAYERS] The Kibitzer Klub: PB13 Map & Lurkers

[SevenSpirits]

Giving up and doing something stupid, and what the AI does, are fairly similar in effect and are both leagues different from actually trying to put up a defense.

[Gazglum]

Giving up and doing something stupid, and what the AI does, are fairly similar in effect and are both leagues different from actually trying to put up a defense.

If you abandon a Pitboss to an AI, do they immdiately get the unit production bonuses if the difficulty is high enough? That might work as a bit of a balance for the fact they have no brain anymore.

I think there have been times on this site where checked-out humans have put up a worse defense than an AI replacement would have. I don't think it should be encouraged, but I can see an argument for turning over control to the computer.

Not saying that Slow has done worse though. I don't know the details, but in his situation I'd probably have fallen back to his capital too.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I think turning over a civ to AI should be a last resort when no replacement can be found. Exploiting the AIs is old hat by now and would make the final conquest even easier. Worker bait, inexplicable abandonment of threatened cities, etc would all come right into play, things even a checked out human wouldn't do.

[Bobchillingworth]

The AI knows enough to whip troops, fortify defenders in cities and attack vulnerable units when it has good odds. I understand that it won't set traps or launch brilliant counter-attacks or delete its own workers. My argument is that demanding a player go above and beyond in defending a doomed civilization in a game they no longer wish to play, as though Civ is some kind of unpaid second job they have to sink several hours into every week, is unrealistic, unfair and selfish (particularly coming from a lurker). Fair warning everyone: if I am in a hopeless war for survival in a game I no longer care about, and I do not loath my opponent and am finding no enjoyment in combat, I'm not going to put up an amazing defense. I will do more-or-less what an AI would; build troops, stick them in cities, and try to be done with the turn as quickly as possible. Life is too short to invest hours in pointless computer game battles when the only difference between inevitable outcomes is how badly you make some other guy suffer.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Anything that relies on the AI to put up an effective defense in a MP game is doomed to failure. Forget 15 units in a front city for an all-in defense and warriors behind. You get three units in five cities or something like that and it's just whack-a-mole until they're gone. The AI isn't going to inherit a healthy defensive posture, otherwise the player wouldn't have abandoned the game in the first place. This is just not a realistic option.

Anyway, the larger issue comes down to whether or not you think that whatever time you invest into the game is worth it to yourself and to the other players in the game. It's not simply a matter of running a SP game and restarting when it becomes tedious. There is an obligation to the other players that needs to exist within a community such as this so that we can rely on each other to make the overall game experience the best that it can reasonably be.

That said, real life concerns are more important than the integrity of a single game, so if you can't give your civ the time it needs for whatever reason, for the sake of other players still competing in the game, it's best to give it up. Even a dire situation can be taken by a green player who is willing to take a beating for the sake of the experience and getting better. This is where lurkers can step in and help guide a green player by providing general tactical advice, answering non-specific questions, etc. There is simply no reason to want to revert to AI or to half-ass the defense. We have plenty of new blood around here usually willing to give it a try in a risk free situation.

The biggest thing to me is how much you consider the other players' experience in the game to matter once the game has lost its appeal for you. There is a wide range of effort between world class tower defense and log in, whip cities, end turn. It isn't an unpaid second job, but it is somewhat of an obligation to the other players in the game. IMO, if you can't accept that obligation from the outset, you shouldn't be in the game in the first place.

We're going in circles now, so I'll leave this as my last word and go back into hiding for a little while.

[Bobchillingworth]

I see where you're coming from and can respect the difference in opinion. And I agree that when you join a game you have an obligation to not waste everyone else's time, even if you're no longer having fun. I would not support someone deliberately abandoning cities or gifting them away out of spite and/or in a such as way that it makes a farce of the match. That said, in slow's case (or any comparable situation) I also would not feel an obligation to invest extra time to make Ichabod's invasion as excruciating as possible, simply so that other players can benefit indirectly from his having spent more hammers to kill me.

In defense of the poor AI, the "defend everywhere" approach is sort of exactly what I think you're asking slow to do; bleed Ichabod by forcing him to waste at least one or two troops per city. The AI is stupid, simple to outmaneuver and prone to trying to play zone-defense with lone spears, but it does at least understand that threatened city = whip troops.


Anyway, more relevant to the game at hand, I love how Fintourist's plans all read like "Plan #Whatever: Invade X Civ with big armies and take all their cities". It's just that easy!

[fluffyflyingpig]

Whipping doomed cities to the ground: good or bad sportsmanship?

[SevenSpirits]

Whipping doomed cities to the ground: good or bad sportsmanship?

A good question. Personally I wouldn't hold it against anyone for going either way. If the opportunity were to arise for me, I think I'd try to destroy as much of my own stuff before it could be conquered as possible. So self-pillaging, worker deletion, whipping down... as long as I'm not hurting my own chances by doing so. Why?
1) These things are built into the game as options you can take.
2) These things provide the greatest possible opposition to the enemy player invading you.
3) These things mirror tactics used by real-life tyrants.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Scorched earth all the way. I don't want my captured cities in any way being capable of helping my enemy destroy me. Or maybe if I'm able to make the cities worse they contribute less to the attacker and I can gain some small advantage in the war while they pay for useless cities. I guess if the whole situation is hopeless and you're dead in any event you can think of it as a sportsmanship issue, but I'm going to whip anyway even in that case. Maybe I'm a jerk, or a bad sport, but to me the tactical consideration is that if a city isn't yours why would you want it to be any better than it has to be once it's in your enemy's hands? Burn them all down.

Edit: x-post. And also:

3) These things mirror tactics used by real-life tyrants.

It must have been predetermined that I'd take the position that I did.

[SevenSpirits]

3) These things mirror tactics used by real-life tyrants.

Scorched earth all the way.

I knew it!

Edit: And ninja edit, haha.