Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[mackoti]

man, this was my morning reading every morning enejoying your reports and chat and just to find there is a cheat and problably will be no game.Shame.Could you please find a solution to continue this game?

[Sullla]

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the game and will continue to stick around as long as it continues. I'm just super frustrated that we based our strategy from before the game even started around landing Jesuit Education, and then ended up losing it because another team cheated to get an early religion faster than us. It really makes a mockery of what the other six players in this game were doing. The fairest thing to do would be to somehow edit the savegame file to change our Follower belief to Jesuit Education, but I very much doubt that's possible.

Whatever man. I played through the Apolyton Demogame, I'm used to unfair conditions in a MP game. I'm just very, very annoyed right now.

[Singaboy]

@Sulla,

I take it as if there are three human player teams and one team which is the AI on demigod level, getting unfair advantages but unable to build on it. You will see, that team will crumble now that the cheat has been exposed. The real contender was and is Russia/Germany.

[shallow_thought]

@Sulla,

I take it as if there are three human player teams and one team which is the AI on demigod level, getting unfair advantages but unable to build on it. You will see, that team will crumble now that the cheat has been exposed. The real contender was and is Russia/Germany.

I've only been lurking in this thread - and not following the tech thread - so only found out about this today. Ouch. You've been remarkably restrained in your responses. As Singaboy says, given the strength of your start, losing JE will hopefully only be an annoying rather than critical. The problem will be if punishing Khmer actually helps other teams more than you - I'm not clear on the geography.

Hope this game continues.

[Sullla]

I agree that Russia/Germany is the main competition in this game. TheArchduke has become a very, very good player at Civ6, and their team put together an impressive opening that wasn't caused by cheating. Both Russia and Germany are monster lategame civs, and as soon as they can get Choral Music's culture via shrines/temples up and running, it's going to solve their problem of being behind on civics research. We were planning to counter that via Jesuit Education science, but, well, you know the story about that by now.

I'm staying out of the general thread to avoid prejudicing the current discussion. This is a subject that can only be resolved via the lurker community since they're impartial and the only ones with full knowledge of the situation. If anyone cares what I think though, my punishment for that Khmer/Kongo team would be simple: they never get to use Jesuit Education. They stole a religion and stole a powerful belief, so their penalty is they never get to use that belief. Considering how badly they screwed over their expansion curve to get the religion, that would be a pretty huge setback and it wouldn't require changing anything that's currently going on in-game.

I'd also prefer that Mikeforall continuing playing this game, assuming of course that there's no further cheating. But it's not for altruistic reasons - I've come to the conclusion that he's not a very good player and I want our team to have a chance to extract revenge. When I read about what happened, that he had done some kind of text file editing to grant himself hundreds of gold for free, I was like, "Is that the best you could do?" Literal outright cheating of a savegame file and their team still can't even manage better than third place behind our team and the Archduke/Emperor K team. He cash-rushed a granary AND a trader with ill-gotten gold, and his whole civ still only has 4 population across 2 cities?! Pathetic.

Seriously, let this guy stick around. We'll kick his ass into next week if he has to play the game legitimately - and he knows it. That's what he felt he had to cheat in the first place.

[Modo]

Preventing Khmer/Kongo from using JE is only part of the solution, every other team that wasn't getting JE anyway now has the benefit of you not using it either.
But if it's functionality is not available to you can the effects be mimicked? I don't know if you can sell buildings in this game like you could in Civ5 but can't they buy them with faith, sell them and give you the gold so that you buy them with gold instead? You'd then only need to "destroy" the equivalent faith needed to buy them (buy missionaries to be killed maybe) to complete this conversion.

Sounds convoluted, maybe there's a better way to implement it along those lines. The main point is that you not getting the effects of JE impacts everyone not just them or you, it ripples throughout the entire game.

On another note there's a story about a kid crying out "wolf" and the moral of that story is that...the kid was not creative enough with his lying. Point being a proven cheater should not be allowed to continue for any reason.

[Singaboy]

@Sulla,

the game seems to continue. I am glad it does not end with a replay as I have invested so many hours thinking about the micro aspects of Rome/China etc. You have put in equal amount of efforts and I am learning while playing with one of the best players there is.

I also think, Cornflakes being the replacement will give the team a little more strength and that might be important in order not to get overrun by another team.

What I think we need to do, is to do some active map busting. I am happy I am currently going for HBR. Once that is done and you have captured Buenos Aires, I want to produce a few horses and explore in the southwest.

[Sullla]

Now that we're up and running again, let me say here that I'm glad the game is continuing. I'm glad that Cornflakes was willing to step into Mikeforall's spot and we were able to proceed with only a minimal interruption. However, with that said, I have two points that I want to raise:

1) Was the Khmer/Kongo team punished at all for their cheating? I understand if this is something that the lurkers want to remain hidden from the rest of the other teams, but I don't recall seeing anything mentioned in the General thread for this game. Was anything ever worked out by the lurkers?

2) Cornflakes is a much better player than Mikeforall. On top of that, he also made the map for this game and knows what the whole shape of the world looks like, plus he was lurking the game previously and has been reading all of the team threads. To be honest, I'm *NOT* okay with that at all, and I've only stayed silent because I don't want to raise a stink and potentially shut this game down again.

So from my incomplete perspective as a non-lurker on one of the teams, it looks as though the Khmer/Kongo stole a crucial religious belief from our team by cheating, potentially were able to avoid punishment for the infraction, upgraded from a shaky player to a very good player, and furthermore gained access to full map knowledge and information about what the other teams were planning with their new replacement player. It kind of looks like they were rewarded for their dirty deeds, not punished.

Please tell me that I'm missing something here. I really want to be told that I'm wrong about this.

[Singaboy]

My understanding from Cornflakes is that there will be proper punishment meted out. I had sent a pm to him asking him to lead in the investigation and from the reply I got, I understand that there is a punishment which would be decided in the lurker thread.

I am sure, nobody would allow that team to simply continue without a proper punishment. You might want to raise the issue in the general thread. I am sure Woden, who had raised the issue in the first place (they must have met them in-game, else I cannot understand how he would know), would be up in arms if the game continued the way as if nothing had happened.

As I said, the team is at a weak state and it might be good that Cornflakes is playing now in order to preserve some balance of power.


*My assumption is: Can't use Jesuit Education at all. Anything that has been bought via improper means needs to be deleted (this can only be units obviously).

[Sullla]

Back to the current turn:



Movement proceeding on schedule in the north. My warrior has the cattle tile blocked for next turn, and I should be able to occupy the northeastern hill tile with my warrior to block it on the following turn, assuming that one city state warrior moves. There's no barbarian camp nearby so I think it will. Still on schedule here for that Turn 46 city founding.



The more interesting tactical situation took place in the south . A new warrior appeared in Buenos Aires and the one that had previously been inside the city moved to the marsh tile to cover the builder. I chose to reposition my units like so:



My warrior moved to block that city state warrior in the north from taking defensive cover. I may potentially declare war next turn depending on what the city state units choose to do. I'm hoping I can kill that northern city state warrior in a single turn's worth of archer fire directed against it. If not next turn, then the following turn will likely kick things off. The clear goal is to take out the units in the field first, then start working on the city center tile. I'm really glad that I have four archers here instead of just three; I think this would be a dicey operation with one fewer ranged unit.

Note that I also remembered to change my civics research from Military Tradition to Games and Recreation. I won't be finishing Construction tech in time for that boost and now's a good time to get started on it. Holding Military Tradition 1 turn away from completion keeps a free civics swap in my back pocket, and since I don't need to change any policies right now, there's no real downside. I'd like to spend 1 turn in Land Surveyors for some cheaper tile purchases in about eight or so turns. That ETA for Games and Recreation is going to come down fast when I settle city #3, and hopefully when I capture the Industrial city state. That was the plan before we had the recent interruption at least.



Speaking of other things that would be easy to forget, I also did remember to send the spices request to Singaboy. He'll connect a sugar resource on his turn and we'll both have 1 amenity apiece.

This was a turn with two consequential score increases. Japper finally planted his second city - yes, on Turn 43 - and Chevalier Mal Fet is the first to three cities. It looks like he had the "Singaboy" position on their team and prioritized a earlier settler over a district or anything religious. Interestingly, he built that second settler without Colonization policy in place because he only just picked up his fourth civic this turn. (That or he researched Early Empire without getting Craftsmanship, which feels unlikely.) I expect that we'll see a lot of people planting their third city in the next few turns, just as Singaboy and I are doing.

Nice to be back up and running again regardless. Over to you Singaboy.