[SPOILER]PB58 - Mr. Cairo residing over the remains of Serdoas Library of Knowledge

[Charriu]

No, ORG is unchanged in CtH compared to BtS. It only works on civic maintenance. The important thing to remember is that it does not reduce the sum of all civic maintenance, but rather every single civic column on it's own. Because of that ORG can reduce civic maintenance by more then 50% in the early game due to fortunate integer calculations and rounding.

[Serdoa]

Thanks Charriu. I can never remember these things and have to constantly look them up. 

Lets make an update: I've settled my island city as posted. This city is bordering Tarkeels territory - and well, I had a galley nearby so I took a look:




Well, that is one warrior - I assume he did not expect any attacks on this side of his empire. I do however have a Spear and a Chariot on my galley... so ... well... uh... I wasn't intending to sign OBs with the guy with GLH anyway. Even though in normal circumstances befriending Tarkeel would have been obvious, just from a geopolitical point of view. Maybe it is now again, if he can forgive me. But I would absolutely understand if he is upset - I certainly am every time someone bulldozes my sandbox.

Apart from that, I had other reasons to attack: The city has been size 1 for quite some time but a monument has been built, how many turns ago I can't say. But I will need 7 more to pop my borders (well 6 after this turn) and I do not want to get in a culture fight, even though I would win it. It just opens to many avenues that - while I do not think he would even take them - would be a headache. Also I intend to settle for the crab as well as there are islands above it which are directly next to my mainland city, so I don't want him to claim these. 

Furthermore attacking him (and winning) will give some GG-points and I learned from Noble to value them more than I did in the past. That is a small but nonetheless existing benefit as well. He also has no other cities on this coast as far as I can see (no improved seafood to be found).

Of course if I raze it he might just resettle, but that city is bad and probably only placed for Stone - though GLH does not need Stone to build faster so I'm not sure what good that did him. Maybe he planned for Pyramids? Well, whatever the reason, now that city sits on this spot. The warrior that defends it is actually pretty strong. It gets 25% from the hill, 25% for defending a city, 25% fortify and 50% for an amphibious attack. That's a total bonus of 125% or making it a 4.5 str unit... hm... well, I am sitting here for 30 minutes or so now thinking what to do. At some point, you have to stop thinking and start doing (a mantra I told myself often when I was younger and I can attest that the no thinking part worked each and every time - the doing part not so much) 

So, to recap, my reasons to attack are:

- less cultural pressure or even the chance of no city in that area
- GG-points
- weakening the opponent with GLH (and probably more wonders to come as someone (...) has Metal Casting)
- no other cities on this coast

Enough words, attack:

4str Chariot vs. 4.5 Warrior @30% odds




Expectedly a loss.

4str Spearman vs 0.45 Warrior @99% odds




Expectedly a win. 

I did get 27 gold for taking the city and of course razed it. There was no way I could hold it sitting basically on his doorstep. Though it is an interesting idea - if I wouldn't need 3-4 turns to ferry units back and forth. 

I'll make an overview next turn when I'm getting my GProphet and build the Shrine.

[civac2]

I have a hard time understanding this action.

[Serdoa]

Care to elaborate? I'm happy to explain my thought process though I think I did so in my last post. Do you mean more along the lines of the general strategic decision process or what I believe to gain by doing this?

[civac2]

Yes, I have a hard time understanding how this advances your chances of winning in any way.

[NobleHelium]

Do you make similar posts when players gift gold to others?

You can argue the move is a net negative. That's fine. But to argue that it has no chance of increasing Serdoa's odds of winning is ridiculous.

[civac2]

I didn't say the move was wrong, only that I don't understand it. Having played in 1.5 PBs I don't have the confidence to say if it is correct or not. I honestly had hoped for a bit more explanation. The bits Serdoa wrote above have the ring of rationalizations rather than reasons.

The "chance of increasing odds" makes no sense. Either it increases his odds or it doesn't. It seems Serdoa views Tarkeel as a major rival for the win. If so hurting him obviously has some value.

[mackoti]

If is hard for tarkeel to retaliate  i would consider this a big win, For a chariot a city down plus free space for a clam city and making tarkeel realy to consider getting defence on planting his cities.

[NobleHelium]

I didn't say the move was wrong, only that I don't understand it. Having played in 1.5 PBs I don't have the confidence to say if it is correct or not. I honestly had hoped for a bit more explanation. The bits Serdoa wrote above have the ring of rationalizations rather than reasons.

The "chance of increasing odds" makes no sense. Either it increases his odds or it doesn't. It seems Serdoa views Tarkeel as a major rival for the win. If so hurting him obviously has some value.

Chance of increasing odds definitely makes sense. Your post implied that the action had no chance of increasing Serdoa's odds of winning - thus in no parallel universe, Serdoa's odds of winning increased. I am saying this is obviously wrong. There are some universes in which Serdoa's action increased his odds of winning, some where it decreased, based upon future actions by all players as well as some other factors such as randomness. To say that it had no chance of increasing the odds of winning would be to say no such universe can exist where the odds of winning increased. We don't know whether the number of increased-odds universes was higher than the number of decreased-odds universes; but I can confidently say that the number of increased-odds universes is a nonzero or even non-negligible number.

Not to throw in jargon for no good reason, but to phrase it differently, one's odds of winning is the base variable. The derivative of that is the change in one's odds. Given the uncertainty around whether the odds actually changed positively or negatively, there is also a chance associated with whether the odds changed positively or negatively. You can view this as the second derivative of the odds of winning, the base variable.

[Serdoa]

Yes, I have a hard time understanding how this advances your chances of winning in any way.

I think there is an interesting question behind your statement: 

"Does setting your opponent back increase your chances of winning?"

And there are two obvious answers to that:

a) No, you are not benefited at all directly. In this case I just lost 30 hammers.
b) Yes, indirectly because my opponent lost 145 hammers which he has to replace and is therefore set back in comparison to me.

There is a third answer, which boils down to a mixture of the two, because while you indirectly "gained" against one opponent you also indirectly "lost" value in comparison to everyone else.

I think they all are interesting starting points but of course there is more to it. Let me preface the following: I think very strongly in strategical terms (note: I do not say that my thinking is right or even good, just that my focus is there). Therefore I do not see value simply in terms of hammers gained or lost but try to think about the geopolitical state. Tarkeel is a player that I expect good play from - and Lewwyn is helping as well - who has built GLH and has the combination of IND/ORG which should benefit him as well on this map. I do not see us being in a friendly relationship ever, as I will not sign OB with him - or only in exchange for gold - so there is little value in not taking opportunistic strikes against him. However, taking those does strikes might be the difference between him pulling ahead and ... him not doing that. That of course itself is based on my assumption that he is - despite being last in score - doing much better than it looks. He had 10 cities and GLH and OB with enough players to fill all his TRs. What he has not is 

a) popped his borders or only did so later
b) grew his population

The first is leading to a low score despite him being very competitive. The second would often be an issue but he is keeping up very well in MfG and well enough even in food that we can conclude what he foregoes by not growing at much is commerce. Which GLH is giving him in spades. 

My attack therefore might look unnecessary - why attack the "last" player - but in my opinion I've set back my most fierce opponent and therefore increased my chances of winning.