[PB73 SPOILERS] scooter's Oracle

[T-hawk]

Yeah, replacing Constantinople on that hill seemed obvious to me (just didn't want to say anything until you committed.) Although the downside is hammer production, it can only reach the iron and one plains hill, it misses out on the hill it's on plus two others towards Thessalonica and Antioch. Anyway, you could have replaced Constantinople with Istanbul

Also helping - the fact that he did not spite delete his 4 workers.

I was wondering about that. I guess there was enough of a chance that he might hold the city on the last turn that warranted him keeping them. Is there any standard convention for whether to spite-delete workers or not?

[Zed-F]

Regarding those western grass hills — at least Thessalonica can use the one and Antioch the other, so productive potential isn’t wasted, and with trading posts it’s not so bad to work FIN coast as needed to keep food numbers at a reasonable level (a problem near Thessalonica especially, since it’s pretty dry.) Maybe one of those mines becomes a windmill during the extended GA?

[scooter]

Speaking of things that require a neighbor, we should be getting a few duplicate sugars online soon -- any chance of trading those for luxuries we don't have? Maybe Luddite or Cairo would like some -- albeit I'm not sure at this point how long both will be sticking around.

Luddite offered me Silver + 2gpt for Gold recently. That is a net happy wash for me, but I get the extra cash, so I accepted. However, once the 10T runs out I should have enough luxury duplicates online that I can modify the deal to trade him my other duplicates for the silver while keeping the Gold which will balloon my happiness further. That’s the hope anyway.

Yeah, replacing Constantinople on that hill seemed obvious to me (just didn't want to say anything until you committed.) Although the downside is hammer production, it can only reach the iron and one plains hill, it misses out on the hill it's on plus two others towards Thessalonica and Antioch. Anyway, you could have replaced Constantinople with Istanbul

HAH the Istanbul thing had not even crossed my mind. It’s even a canal city of sorts! Also, yeah, I was so “plains hill vs flat grassland” in my head that the grass hill had not even occurred to me until yesterday when my settler ended on that tile naturally and I thought it looked nice that way. I probably would have figured it out today anyway upon actually playing the turn, but I did genuinely overlook it for a couple days.

Also helping - the fact that he did not spite delete his 4 workers.

I was wondering about that. I guess there was enough of a chance that he might hold the city on the last turn that warranted him keeping them. Is there any standard convention for whether to spite-delete workers or not?

Yeah this is tricky. To be clear on my overall stance, if I had it my way, the “spite” moves would all be strictly banned. In particular the spite whips or self-pillaging. However, for some reason this has been normalized and is allowed, but still generally considered poor form. So it just means some players do it and get complained about in thread and others don’t. Odds are high one of them are gonna come into this thread now and give the same tired “but WHY would you leave ANYTHING for the attacker” argument.


To be clear, I’m considering “spite” anything that involves harming your dying empire for 0 benefit to yourself. Mass whipping units is strongly encouraged. Defend yourself for sure. It’s the “city whipped from size 10 to 1 in a single turn” nonsense I have nothing good to say about, and IMO it’s weird that we just allow it here.


As for the actual worker deleting, that’s a more variable spot. I think it’s definitely valid to delete a worker that your attacker could capture and use against you, speeding your demise. I even suggested he might delete his on the Iron a few turns back in favor of saving the capital. But if you’re huddled in your last city, I think deleting them is kinda lame. I don’t think it’s too hard to differentiate a tactical delete from a spiteful delete, but we’ve collectively decided they’re all fair game, so I’m not going to worry about it too much. I wouldn’t do it, and either Yuris agrees OR he thought he was gonna survive another turn.

[Mjmd]

I know I wasn't particularly thrilled when not only did the two green players in PB62 fall fast and easy, but then later I learned also both let their workers be taken. I think it probably depends on the war and if you think you made them work hard enough to deserve it.

I've both whipped down and not. If you want to give them less overall and think you might come back for said city, which is my usual intention seems fine. I've also left them at full pop to keep them in resistance longer in hopes of me or others taking advantage of no / weak culture.

[yuris125]

I have no strong opinion on deleting workers if I'm certain I'm dead, probably would've done it if I survived another turn. But there was no certainty (you said the calculator have you 70% odds of taking Thessalonica on the last turn?), and I thought there was a possibility I would have to rebuild the copper mine. So I opted to keep them, and if you could take the city on that turn, well done and you're welcome to them

[Qgqqqqq]

I think spite whipping and self pillaging should be banned, and the only reason it's not is that no ones bothered to code it in or create a thread in general about it. Workers is a bit harder - I think I'd delete if they were trapped but not if they were holed in a city and there wasn't a clear way they could be used against me.

[Tarkeel]

Yeah, replacing Constantinople on that hill seemed obvious to me (just didn't want to say anything until you committed.) Although the downside is hammer production, it can only reach the iron and one plains hill, it misses out on the hill it's on plus two others towards Thessalonica and Antioch. Anyway, you could have replaced Constantinople with Istanbul

Miklagard would have been more fitting to his civ though.

[Cyneheard]

I think spite whipping and self pillaging should be banned, and the only reason it's not is that no ones bothered to code it in or create a thread in general about it. Workers is a bit harder - I think I'd delete if they were trapped but not if they were holed in a city and there wasn't a clear way they could be used against me.

Yeah, I think it's really hard to draw a clear line of what's unacceptable for deleting workers. But it even comes up with "what's spite whipping" - Mjmd's situations seem to be more "how do I tactically navigate an active conflict" - if you're whipping down a city because you don't want it to whip out soldiers against you in five turns, that's very different from "and my last city is about to die, so it's Size 1 instead of Size 10", but I suspect how to cleanly draw the line is difficult.

[Qgqqqqq]

I disagree. Whipping is something you do to produce something. Dry whipping to produce a unit is fine. Whipping repeatedly simply to ensure the population disappears is, to me, exploiting a mechanic in an unintended way.

[xist10]

And we at civforum are thinking, if you lose a grown city to a know army (at slavery), you are a bad defender.
But I think, this discussion could be moved towards a separate thread in General.

Towards scooter: congratulations for your victory.
And 3 cities in one turn ? This is good.

Edit: two writing mistakes corrected