[SPOILERS] Rusten prepares to face the music

[Dark Savant]

I've only played one full game and died very early this game (can't really talk much about that), but ...

Fish for fish type deals are offered to signal peaceful intentions, but for how long are they considered to last? 50 turns? 100 turns? 150 turns?
I've not played any pitbosses on RB before so if anyone can fill me in on what's generally considered fair use here that would be helpful. Of course they're not binding in any case, but attacking 5 turns after offering one would obviously be a dick move. At what point (roughly) is it not a dick move?

I always acted as if it were binding for at least 10, maybe up to 20.  That's roughly comparable to how long peace lasts in a lot of other turn-based games.  It's vague, and should be.  (In some games popular on RB, the duration of a treaty can be random in about that window, but you don't even know what the duration is.)

It's not actually binding, though I would treat it as a nasty backstab if I got attacked before 10 turns were up, and maybe up to 20.  (Those numbers might also change depending on the game situation -- lower than 10-20 if tech gets advanced enough.)  50 is definitely too high -- that's a very long time once you are out of the Ancient era.

[Rusten]

I made a thing:



Early days still but I have already secured my main win conditions to secure an edge throughout the game. The first being a religion with shrine (up in ~6 turns) and the second being superior promotions. So far it's going beyond expectations. I did not think I would be able to tick so many of the boxes from the pre-game brainstorming discussion/post in a 25 player game.

[Rusten]

Trade routes:

The basic Formula for the value of a Trade route seems to be

[(1+F)*(5*(Pop-10))+100+Cap)* (Minimum ([T*50%], [D*70%]))*20%/100]

F is 150% (1.5) if it is a Foreign Trade Route, 0 if domestic
Pop is the Pop of the city Getting the trade route
T is the Pop of the City the Trade Route is With
D is the Distance to the City
Cap is 25 if one of the cities is conected to the Capital, 0 if not
[] indicates rounding down

This is for Overland routes, no Harbors, Tiny map

The 69% for distance is Probably specific to Tiny maps 

All the numbers (150% for Foreign, 5* population, -10 population adjustment, 25 for Capital, 50% for partner pop, etc. except the 1 and the 100 are in the XML files)

What this indicates is that on a normal map, once your empire is big enough, and the populations are about 20, then Domestic trade routes can make about 3 commerce, 2 quite easily. Foreign Trade Routes can get to 7 or 8 and don't require your empire to be big just to have sufficiently Distant and large-citied trade Partners.

edited from further analysis results

Checked World info for the other sizes too,

so for 
Duel is 80%
Tiny 70% (I discovered I made a distance measuring mistake in my 69% calc, Credit to Roland: I would have missed that)
Small 60%
Standard 50%
Large 40%
Huge 30%

Editing for BTS:
BTS explains it a lot better in that there are 2 components to trade
1.= Base value
Base Vaue is the SMALLER of 
Population of Other city/10
AND
Distance to the other City * 15%->40% (Huge->Duel)
but Base Value has a Minimum possible value of 1

2. Modifiers, these are all +% and are added together and then the total is used to modify the base value.
Then the Base Values have % modifiers added, the % modifiers are
+5% for population of the Receiving city over 10
+25% if the receiving city has a connection to the Capital
+3% per turn since your last war with the civ (if it is another civ) [max 150%]
+50% if you have a Harbor
+100% for the ToArtemis
+100% if the other city is on another continent
+100% if it is another civ on another continent AND you have a Customs House

So it seems like I need to get my trade routes from someone other than naufragar to begin with. If I'm reading this correctly I will not receive +2 trade routes until there has been 25 turns of peace. The only other available modifier is connection to capital for +25 and like most things in this game it's rounded down. We ended our war 11 or 12 turns ago.

If I've missed something and somebody knows better please inform.

[Rusten]

Aretas has incredibly weak defenses. I could easily just roll over him with axes, but I'm trying a greedy approach where I settle contested areas while I still can and pick up his cities afterwards -- also letting him grow a little bigger first for bigger gains. It could backfire if someone attacks him first, but based on map reads I think I'm his closest neighbour and naufragar doesn't seem interested yet. Not sure who's to his NW, but as long as there's noone about to attack from there it should work out for me.

If I were to invest into a bunch of axes only to capture ~3-4 cities that doesn't help me much if it means I miss out on 3-4 good city spots which could get settled peacefully. IMP settlers are so cheap and I want the best of both worlds. This approach also gets me key economical techs much quicker to snowball as previously mentioned.

Also, it'll be much easier to capture his hill capital (with fortified archers) using HAs. I'm trying to regain some of the "lost" turns by getting extra workers and pre-chopping forests. Having 2 movement over 1 helps too. I'll reach his core sooner and for this type of military strike I don't need stack protection. I can just move 2 tiles at a time within his territory.

If I do get beaten to the punch I suppose I can just capture the cities from the initial attacker.

[Rusten]

It may indeed backfire. Some disturbing finds this turn.

Not sure how to deal with it. The plan is still HBR next. Might have to DoW on mackoti depending on how the next 10-15 turns play out.
At any rate I will retreat the warrior next turn -- we still haven't officially met. I don't want him knowing that I'm there.

I'm making some filler axes to take Prague (border city) if it's clear that Aretas is collapsing. It seems like a shitty city though so I'm not satisfied if that's all I get. My hope is that mackoti is simply taking a border city with little to no losses and ignore his capital until later. Aretas has archery so it *should* be difficult to take (hill+40% culture).

Given that Aretas is relying on archers mackoti probably has little to no spears, so a surprise attack should be able to claim what he's recently taken if it comes to that. As long as he doesn't know where I am and what I'm planning this could still turn out good for me. In that regard it could be argued that I should avoid taking Prague. It would give him warning.

[Rusten]

Aretas rolled over and died sooner than I had hoped.

Don't think I can allow for mackoti to encroach on me. I should have the upper hand in the near future with HBR, CHM and the SoZ. I want that territory for myself. The question is whether he'll cut his losses or if it will escalate to a serious war. I don't expect for him to have made a big stack, but I should have eyes on the area soon.

I had hoped to attack superdeath with HAs before WEs and longbows though. Quite the pickle -- some important decisions to be made.

[Rusten]

Mackoti took Prague first and now borders me. I got fucked over by Aretas dropping culture and mackoti now has a chariot within reach of one of my cities (and the spear is defending workers). It's my tile, but not until next turn. Won't lose the city, but I have to sacrifice a worker to protect it. Can't rely on the axe defending.

Can forget about surprise attacking him at this point. He attacked with HAs (got vision on 1), so the same idea I had.

[Rusten]

In other news naufragar is at war with Commodore, so at least I don't have to worry about that power spike.

[Rusten]

In other news naufragar is at war with Commodore, so at least I don't have to worry about that power spike.

I shouldn't assume. That could be another work boat slipping through.

I'm very low on time today so I can't make a post that the situation deserves. Maybe later tonight.
As mentioned earlier in the thread HAs come at a time when it's very difficult to defend against 2-movers and mackoti is posing me problems. The fact that I'm still 2-3 turns away from my own HAs hurts. If this had all occurred 5 turns later I'd be much better prepared. Unfortunate -- you're the weakest just before you start the build-up. I'm the one who's going to have to cut my losses most likely.

[Rusten]

Based on the number of units near me I imagine mackoti is #1 power right now. He seems pretty committed to this. It's only T85 and he sent 4 HAs, 4 axes and 3 chariots on me out of nowhere. He's settled very few cities of his own. I will drop a city this turn, no way around it. It's on a hill with culture and 4 units defending, but he has the numbers. I decided to stay and defend because he'll lose more hammers attacking it than I am defending it and it will slow down any further moves.

The real worry is that Aretas is green and did not chop his forests, so mackoti has near unlimited production. I thought having him near me was a blessing, but it's turned into a curse.