[LURKERS] Sweet 16: Civ Party Fun Time and Philosophical Debate

[Qgqqqqq]

Ichabod's argument seems to me to be convincing: "if they were on a 4 player island it would have greatest benefit to the neighbors who hadn't taken part in a war."
...
If your argument is that people who assign a low value to Agg are incorrectly modeling the range of maps players use at RB, then suggest a different model. I think the model implied by Ichabod's comment is pretty good, though.

Unless I've missed a post somewhere, I feel flattered


In general I'd say FIN would be an ok trait on Boreal maps, and still be better than AGG.

[plako]

Financial is still the king. It just happened that so many things made Seven's pick a way better than normally, but most of those reasons were not known when they made the pick so essentially it was just pure luck. This also illustrates why close quarters might not be best idea unless that is well known before the game starts so that everyone can at least be somewhat prepared for it.

Also retep should be fighting and making it as expensive as possible. Warriors on cities make reasonable defenders and if you've enough of them you could even counter attack. 4 would be enough in my book to try to take out shock Impi on flat ground. Of course you need to get lucky hits in with 1st 2 attackers to use all 4. He should also teching towards Archery (no idea, if he has it). He wouldn't win the game, but you surely could make it very expensive and also potentially buy time to settle the copper city. I guess he doesn't want another game to play from hopeless position and wants fast exit. This probably invalidates the game though.

[Serdoa]

I disagree with any definition of rushing which reads like "attacking your opponent when the attack comes too late to be successful". Plus everyone having immediate access to copper isn't necessarily guaranteed.

Well, the definition you seem to believe in "attacking your opponent when the attack comes early enough that it is successful" isn't that much better honestly.

But anyway, my point is that the collected wisdom of the RB echo-chamber is that all Seven / Krill have managed to do is free up land for retep's other neighbors and cripple themselves by investing in combat units instead or workers or settlers, so seeing arguments that the game is now "pretty much over" is amusing.

I think you generalize here pretty heavily Bob. Just the post above yours (read: mine) stated that it isn't certain how much gain they really made + that they main-point is that their opponent just rolled over and died. Quiet honestly, if I hadn't created the map I would have asked to play instead of retep because his attitude ("missed a turn, don't care", moving warriors out of the city which had fortify-bonus and leaving the newly created in) is just poor. He

- mis-moved at the start to a WORSE location AFTER he had discovered that it was a worse location (lost copper in the process)
- was informed by T5 (!) that his neighbour is Seven+Krill but still gambled that he might have copper even though he had moved away from his start (if he believed that copper wouldn't be placed at the start directly it still was a big gamble to hope that he moved onto it...)
- did move out his fortified warrior and left the new-build in the city when Seven has his Impi visible already (that's 25% or 0.5 str less for defense)

This situation does not show the strength of AGG, it shows the weakness of a player. And the strength of two others which are one of the bests on this site. And opportunistic to boot. And maybe to a lesser extent also the fail of a mapmaker who did not anticipate that players are moving wildly with no reason and who placed copper in their starting BFCs. If I hadn't done that, Seven would not have Copper, could not get Impis and this situation would not have been happening. (Which harks back to your point that copper is not guaranteed at the start - which is true and what makes AGG weaker because more often then not you have it in your 2nd city or later which means no attack with tier2-units before T45+.)

I thought my argument was fairly evident. The recent-ish consensus that discusses BTS in near-absolutes, where Aggressive is terrible and early war is zero-sum insanity is silly, as demonstrated by how two knowledgeable lurkers are already calling the game as a veritable lock for Seven / Krill, even though they are doing exactly what so many veterans have pontificated against (up to and including eliminating another player). If you're looking for some sort of comprehensive report on why Aggressive is statistically comparable to X-trait and analysis on the 70-turn dividends of hammers in Impi vis-a-vis Settlers, no.

AGG is terrible Bob. Not as terrible as PRO but still terrible. It does not add anything and players and land being equal the one with an economic trait will always prevail over the one with AGG. Which is imo not even worth discussing because as long as there is no war AGG is not adding anything. And even in a war, AGG can strengthen you, but as Defender you don't need it to defend and as attacker you still need tech-superiority even with AGG.

What I'm honestly missing in all your posts is the reason WHY you think that AGG is better than it is given credit for. What makes it better? That out of 70+ games on this site 3 times someone pulled off an early attack and twice it was someone that started with AGG?

Quiet honestly, in my humble opinion you have taken the result ("AGG is terrible and rushing won't pay off") of a lengthy discussion and ignored all the points that were made and the exceptions that were given. But all these exceptions don't change the fact that when you go in blind into a game you are better of with EXP or FIN than AGG.

You can argue that Aggressive & rushing only paid off because of a very specific set of circumstances. My counter is that it's disingenuous to argue that the factors which have seemingly aligned to make this attack a success are unique, while ignoring that the same holds for any combination of traits and strategies for any map. Financial blows if you're playing on a Boreal map. Industrious is bad if all of your neighbors have stone and marble. While several RB games have used carefully balanced maps, it's hardly a standard.

See, the thing is:

FIN is good EXCEPT in Boreal
AGG is good ONLY when 5 unique circumstances align

For most traits it can happen that they are not as good if certain circumstances happen. But for AGG and PRO is the opposite. Certain things need to align that they are good. Or said differently: FIN is good 9 out of 10 times, AGG is good 1 out of 10 times. Not knowing which time you'll encounter going with FIN is the better choice EVERY single time.

Maybe Seven and Krill really did doom themselves from turn 0 with their pick, and have sealed their fate attacking retep. I don't know. Like I said, I simply found the comments here amusing in light of recent discussions in certain other PB lurker and player threads.

Seven and Krill are much stronger players than the opposition (in the whole game, not just retep). Ignoring that when analysing their chances IS disingenuous. They basically decided to play with one trait less than the rest to level the playing-field. Just got "unlucky" that instead their 2nd trait did come in play strongly. And even then as I stated in my first post about the topic I'm not sure how much they really gain by it. But just due to the fact that they can now expand without any issue AND are still stronger players than all others - and all others most likely will go to war later because the map is made that way - means that I personally would rather play a new game.

And spoken personally: I find the way you act very unfair. Your posts display for me no interest to really discuss the merits of AGG and rushing - which might be an asset to the whole community because it might make some players realize that general rules don't apply always - but instead seem only interested in mocking those that voiced their opinion in this thread.

[novice]

Even in this perfect storm of circumstances, Krispits still have a 10% chance of their rush failing.

[suttree]

Ichabod's argument seems to me to be convincing: "if they were on a 4 player island it would have greatest benefit to the neighbors who hadn't taken part in a war."
...
If your argument is that people who assign a low value to Agg are incorrectly modeling the range of maps players use at RB, then suggest a different model. I think the model implied by Ichabod's comment is pretty good, though.

Unless I've missed a post somewhere, I feel flattered

At this time of year, the spirit of Ichabod inhabits us all.

Ichabod, ichabod,
Sitting under his ichabodhi tree.
Does a Q have ichabuddha-nature?
Mu.

Sorry

[Bobchillingworth]

I don't think that AGG is better than Financial, or most of the other traits, or is even a particularly good trait. But I do question that it "does not add anything" and is "terrible". How can anyone claim to fairly evaluate the trait as being irredeemably awful, when its successes are discarded as luck and/or the results of severe skill disparities, players hardly pick it because everyone thinks it's awful, and maps are made to neuter early aggression and boost economic traits?


I think the crux of my disagreement has to do with the following assumption:

I believe that the Aggressive trait is terrible as an investment and early war is zero-sum against ideal opponents

The thing is, nobody is ever playing against Foresight Bot 4000, who connects strategic resources at the first possible opportunity, whips an impenetrable defense before any attack and never makes a dumb choice strategically. Could retep have teched archery and/or have copper hooked up? Yes, but he didn't, and that's all that matters. Or he could have, but decided to play like Kuro and settled an early expansion towards his neighbor with only a single warrior defender and built a spear instead of an axe as his first real military unit. Now, I admit that it's not a great sign for a trait when it relies on dice rolls and opponents playing less-than-perfectly to work, but even veteran players regularly screw up in wars and Aggressive does help win fights (and hence games).

The fact is that traits don't matter nearly as much as player skill, and this is the case for every trait, but Aggressive makes the impact more apparent than most. Aggressive aids in capitalizing on suboptimal play and fares poorly against ideal, always-prepared foes. And I think that the former is much more likely than the latter.

So it's not clear that Agg is actually adding any value outside of the special case where Seven/Krill and Retep are isolated.

It seems pretty clear to me. AGG opens up retep's share of the land for expansion, and provides stronger troops to secure it. Later in the game AGG means tougher draftees and things like access to commando units- which won Rome PB1. Of course PB1 had diplomacy, some questionable plays and a non-mirrored map, but so have a lot of games, recent trends notwithstanding. Most games end in buckets of bloodshed, and it's not like the boost from Aggressive wouldn't have an impact.

And spoken personally: I find the way you act very unfair. Your posts display for me no interest to really discuss the merits of AGG and rushing - which might be an asset to the whole community because it might make some players realize that general rules don't apply always - but instead seem only interested in mocking those that voiced their opinion in this thread.

I'm sorry you're upset, Serdoa. You're a pretty cool guy, and I wasn't trying to make you angry. But I also don't really know what you want from me; I didn't post here to open some academic lecture on the merits of Aggressive. Like I have said four or so times now, I saw vets posting that the Zulu are about to run away with the game, for doing exactly what vets argue against. But apparently this was a once-in-a-lifetime event, so please ignore me & go back to perfecting micro-plans for laboratory condition mirror matches, or whatever people who are actually good at BTS do

[Jowy]

I know we're all just waiting for the shit to hit when Seven gets a second capital and eliminates retep, but once that happens, and its looking like reteps not even going to put up a fight, do you call the game? Seven will have access to more uncontested land than anyone else and I find it hard to believe anyone could actually defeat him at that point.

The case may be made that you play it out and "anything can happen", but with Seven's skill level and that advantage I'm simply not sure if it is fair to have the rest of the players play out the string for the next year. "The journey is what matters" is an argument to be made I suppose, but honestly would any of you want to go on that journey?

Nah no reason to call the game. If the players wanted a fair fight, they wouldn't have let the two pro teams replace the dropouts during sign up.

[Qgqqqqq]

Nah no reason to call the game. If the players wanted a fair fight, they wouldn't have let the two pro teams replace the dropouts during sign up.

While I very much doubt they will quit, this is very much a silly comment - while they did not expect a easy game based off Seven and Noble/Gaspar joining up, it is one thing to know one has a very low chance of winning due to skill and actually seeing another player gain a potentially game-winning advantage.

Edit: I very much find my excessive use of very much here odd.

[Old Harry]

I don't think the game is over yet. You just need someone to donate their developed cities to a neighbour and they have an even better position than Severill.

Who could that donor be? What is kuro up to?

[Catwalk]

The fact is that traits don't matter nearly as much as player skill, and this is the case for every trait, but Aggressive makes the impact more apparent than most. Aggressive aids in capitalizing on suboptimal play and fares poorly against ideal, always-prepared foes. And I think that the former is much more likely than the latter.

That makes it a win-more trait, right? Or more to the point, a win-faster trait. I think the general argument against it is that it requires a lot of luck to work out:
1) 2-player isolation.
This is all but required, otherwise the gains are too low. It's not sufficient to get early XP, a size 1 revolting city and a little gold. In order for it pay off, you need to substantially change the strategic landscape. With even one more player present, that won't happen. Let's say 25% probability of this being the case, with another 25% chance of semi-isolation for a total chance of 50%.
2) Weak play from a close opponent.
Settling decision was very bad. After failing to get copper in his capital, the right move (against a zulu opponent) would have been to get archers. There was plenty time for that. Additionally, retep already folded a full 9 turns (that we know of) before the first impi attacked. I'm going to assume that player levels are usually more balanced than in this case, and that the chances of the above clusterfuck happening are 40%.
3) Having the opponent very close by and locating him fast.
Both happened here. How often do you typically run straight into an opponent with your scout, half the time? And maybe half the time he's this close? Every turn your rush is delayed is one more turn for him to prepare and one more turn before you reap the rewards. I'll cautiously say 50% chance of this happening.
4) Copper in the capital.
Unless I'm sorely mistaken, AGG warrior rushes are very unlikely to succeed. +10% offense vs +25% defense without fortification makes attacking very painful. So you are relying on having copper in your capital. That happened too in this game. You could argue that this is a general assumption, but even a slight risk of having it slightly further away adds to your total risk of failing. In this game they switched from Wheel to BW, gambling on having it in their capital. I'll say 80% of this happening, unless you know for sure.
5) Combat
Even if all of the above happens, you're pinning your game on the roll of the dice. Let's say 90% chance of winning, if everything else goes perfectly.

Chance of early rush success: 7.2%. That's actually higher than I would say is likely, but I did put all numbers high. Let's say chances of limited success might be 18% or so, leaving a 75% risk of failure. Other than a very early rush, other traits will give you a better military advantage through economic power. So I think the general assessment of the merits of AGG shouldn't change much after this game. I also don't see any reason to get upset over this discussion, though

EDIT: After reading retep's post, I agree with him that point #2 was blown out of proportion.