More cottages is only an effect of more pop. On this PB12 picture you can see 11 pop in three core cities and here I have fifteen in just two (and there are much more in cities which didn't make to the picture). In PB12 even if I had cottages, I would have no citizens to work them.
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Gavagai's spoiler thread
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Gaspar built Pyramids which is most probably a good sign. It decreases the probability that he is planning to attack me in immediate future and also it increases the value which I would be able to get from conquering him (and I'm, actually, more interested in Police State than Representaion; my economy will forever be cottage-based and I'm not going to have any troubles with happy cap).
He has a modest spike in power but I think that this is most probably a defensive buld up. I didn't see any massive whipping on his part and he never tried to scout me. Of course, I may be wrong in my estimation. I'm kinda prepared to defend myself but yes, he can seriously harm me if he attacks right now. I doubt that he will be able to gain anything for himself, though - I can get something like 10 HAs in just a couple of turns. I soon should actually build the first one and may be I will show it to Gaspar. Just to let him know what he may be facing.
What history? I sniped a couple of unprotected workers from him almost 50 turns ago, it's not a big deal. He is doing pretty well, actually, 2 wonders ahead of me and two cities behind. His GNP is shit for some reason but I don't see why it can't be fixed. There was no reason to start an armageddon war from which we both really has nothing to gain.
(My plan is to amass a stack of HAs and cats which I will through at his megastack when will start marching towards me. To survive that and be able to still make gains, he will need some ridiculous amount of staff. I trust that he is able to build this staff, I'm not sure that he would be able to pay support costs.)
If you know you can't win the game, holding onto grudges and striking back can be a rational metagame play. If other people know someone is going to freak out 50 turns later in the next game, they might not snipe those free workers next time. If player A does this and player B doesn't, and they both play a million games against observant competition, player A will win more games.
February 10th, 2014, 13:05
(This post was last modified: February 10th, 2014, 13:14 by Gavagai.)
Well, I would snipe these workers anyway and I'm pretty sure that Gaspar or any other player would do the same in my place. Reward is just too big.
EDIT. Also, if I would spare these workers, I would still have no guarantees that at some future point my neighbor wouldn't decide that he somehow can't win and that breaking my game would be more fun. Chances are high that I would end up in the same situation, only I wouldn't have two workers. And I don't think that they have no way to win this game. Losing 2 workers early is painful, I grant it, but Industrious + early forges + expansive + Pyramids + very high skilled team is a considerable collection of trumps. I'm sure that something more interesting could be done with that than stupid ancient era war.
It's tricky and kind of fascinating to me how relationships and game theory could work in an AI diplo game. Someone you treat well could decide to spoil your fun when they can no longer win but it wouldn't be a rational move - quite the opposite since they've lost their signal for future games that early relations will matter, so they've weakened their diplomatic power in future games.
Maybe you're optimistic about your chances to win a game if you lose two workers early, against a team of Seven and Krill who immediately conquer a neighbor, but I wouldn't be. But this is theoretical and and devil's advocate position. I'd also be tempted to snipe the workers too, and good neighbors should cover them with a spear anyway perhaps. But on the other side I'd be very tempted to devote at least some of my game to being spiteful against someone making an ancient age first strike, and I'd feel perfectly logically justified about it.
February 10th, 2014, 16:06
(This post was last modified: February 10th, 2014, 16:07 by Bacchus.)
Holding onto grudges and striking back would only be rational if you indeed think that spiteful retaliation at the cost of winning prospects would somehow dissuade people from attacking you in the future. But there's actually no rational reason to think so — for the same metagame purposes it makes sense to commit to pursuing advantages, in this case — a worker steal — regardless of what the reaction would be. After all, if someone chooses to throw both your prospects away on spite, you probably have no business proving your goodwill to them. And committing to pursuing advantages regardless of possible reaction takes all the detterrence rationale out of the spiteful retaliation, and thus itself becomes rational. Or it would, if we accepted the same premises on which spiteful deterrence is deemed rational.
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