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

[Krill]

I think the point is that with other traits there would be other options that wouldn't mean an impi rush was the best chance, and even AGG impi don't have great odds of winning over such a series of battles.

[WilliamLP]

The best of all possible scenarios on this map was to finish off your duel opponent as early as possible, which your team did, and ended up in a position to play a single player game vs barbs while everyone else had humans to contend with. I'm not discounting the move or saying you couldn't have won the game with other options but surely AGG impis was about the single best combination you could have had for getting into this absolute best case?

[The Black Sword]

IIRC retep was stuck defending with warriors the whole time? You don't really need agressive to deal with that, just the impis to be fast enough to stop him connecting the copper. Even if non-agressive shifted the odds such that they had to build an extra impi, how would that compare with having an entire extra trait for the rest of the game?

Though, I have to admit I found it funny too.

[Krill]

AGG upped the odds enough that the impi did have a real chance of winning battles with enough HP that they subsequently didn't die to the next warrior attacking out of the city. However, that's looking at the absolute best case outcome...which actually would have been taking something like EXP/ORG or FIN/ORG and killing Retep with a warrior first start. Which actually would have worked. Seven counted the tiles, Retep's work boat>worker start was that slow. That would have lead to a faster start and then basically much better tech pace through the game and no reason to not spam cities.

[WilliamLP]

Did you have enough information to be sure that a warrior first start would win and had no chance of just screwing over your econ for the rest of the game? If you had Darius would you actually have gone for that move in the identical position with the information you were given?

[Krill]

No, but we didn't know the impi rush would work either when picking civs and leaders, and that did screw over the econ for the rest of the game. If you go back and check the turn we captured the capital was after others had settled second cities and the third city was even longer coming out. In fact I think there was in reality a less than 50% chance of the rush working as was anyway (simply due to taking too much damage and dying to a second warrior, losing out right etc).

Really, is there any difference between picking AGG Zulu and knowing you'll do and impi rush, and going warrior first in a game where everyone goes worker first? And you start with a scout to identify the target of opportunity?

[WilliamLP]

Really, is there any difference between picking AGG Zulu and knowing you'll do and impi rush, and going warrior first in a game where everyone goes worker first? And you start with a scout to identify the target of opportunity?

I did say "unknowingly" because how well the rush worked depended on factors you didn't know like that you were in a duel with no other neighbours, and would be the only ones in the whole game who could expand uncontested if you won early.

Whatever the odds of the rush working were, even though you only had to win 4 combats, the fact that each hit you took did less damage to an Impi, and at the same time each hit was less likely, multiplied small numbers a lot and influenced the odds overall more than most people would guess. (Maybe Seven calculated it all out before committing, the guy's a genius, it doesn't change the fact that Aggressive helped the chances.) How early the rush actually finishes is crucial: if Retep gets archery and builds a couple, sure you win anyway, but all those early turns get raised to an exponent later.

You know all this!

Really, I'm not sure why it's so controversial to suggest that if you're in a world with 6 2x2 duels, and you're going to be Zulu with copper in your capital against another who who doesn't have it, then Aggressive is a very valuable trait.

[Krill]

Due to the map knowledge gained from the scout, it was possible to work out the exact odds of each battle because it would be possible to figure out when the warriors could be built, and if an archer would turn up. So at that point it's possible to value the aggressive trait both in terms of hte free promotion, and the cheap barracks that can be built. Was AGG beneficial, sure, but I don't like those odds all the same. I do not think it is unreasonable though to state that Seven (or, frankly, a fair few people) could have used different traits on that satart and put together a game plan that gave better odds of winning on T0.

[WilliamLP]

I do not think it is unreasonable though to state that Seven (or, frankly, a fair few people) could have used different traits on that satart and put together a game plan that gave better odds of winning on T0.

I can't really argue and say you guys couldn't have won from that position with Darius, point conceded. But if Retep were allowed to get out of the early game I don't konw that you could have gotten into a position worth of conceding the game as early as you did?

[Ichabod]

Just leaving this here:

Is this game still open for signups? I've been lurking at Realms Beyond for a little while and this seemed like a good time to register. I haven't played any Multiplayer games before, although I did create and join a number of succession games at CivFanatics a few years ago.

I am not familiar with RB Mod and would prefer the normal BtS game. I wouldn't care about any other settings aside from turning off tech trading. I read some of the Pitboss 9 game here and the tech trading didn't look very interesting.

New players should play as a team member or in a greens game.

Heh. "Mike" did end up ragequitting, so the advice was sound

to that.

Also, I will use this post to express my disappointment (quite late, yes) of the game conceding so quickly. I do understand that the bunch of players who was hoping to win saw Seven/Krill will win for sure (kudos to them both for their awesome game) did not see reason/appeal any more to play the game, but for me personally, I was enjoying it. OK {15 seconds for self-advertising} I am used to win the pitbosses I play or at least have chances {/15 seconds for self-advertising} ,where in this game I had none for a number of reasons (all good ones), but It was new (and not that bad) experience for me trying to play to get as good as I can position and to achieve my small goals.

Some more rant:

Completely different story (on a level of disappointment for me) is no one even informed me (let alone ask me -as a player in this game- what is my humble opinion) about ending the game. Yeah, I must be looked upon like .... an evil alien ... in New York ... here at rb, or insignificant as a fly in this game, but still... I had to see the game paused for a long on Civstats and go check whats the reason only to find out the game was ended. Enough said *missing emoticon with thumb down*.

To end this somewhat negative post with something positive:
Good job to the forum admins for actually putting spoiler and screenshot tags buttons

Yes, sorry about that. I'm not happy myself with the way I handled the end of the game. It was a case of a lot of personal stuff going at the same time + constant requests for this game to get called resulting on me taking a more personal decision than a game-admin one, like I should have done.