[SPOILERS] scooter Reruns Bluey

[RefSteel]

So, when this city flips what will happen is one longbow will disband, and the other will down-convert into an Archer. Maybe that's not exactly what happens mechanically, but functionally this is what will happen.

(Mechanically, all of the barbs in the city are disbanded, and then you get a free archer in the city.  This is significant because it starts with none of its promotions or damage if it had been attacked, and no fortification bonus, though if you were Protective, it would get CG1 and D1.)

At that point he'll declare and try to take the city. The problem is being sequential turns, there's actually nothing I can do about this. What will happen is I press end turn -> flip happens, I accept, but cannot move units -> Commodore's turn, just one Archer inside. So even if I stick a bunch of units next to the city, I cannot move them in to defend upon flipping.

I have only tested this in Hot Seat, and can't test it in sequential pitboss, but it appears that the barb city flips at the end of the full game turn, and not at the end of your individual turn.  This means who gets to move first after the city flip depends on who's first in turn order for each turn (which I think means you?) - so there may (by pure chance...) be something you can do about it after all!

[greenline]

It's truly a wonder Commodore hasn't attained the forum reputation that Superdeath has attained despite doing the same things constantly. I think it's just because he reports better. If this clown wants to duel, I guess he can have it. Maybe this time I'll finally learn my lesson to never join games that he's a part of. This move decreases his chances of winning significantly, but that's never really been a consideration for him. This is the guy who practically ran TBS out of these games by kamikaze'ing into him every chance he got regardless of whether it made any sense for his civ.

I got the impression that people stopped thinking of him as a kamikaze player when he started to be the victim of many such attacks, a bunch of them coming from superdeath. Although it had started happening before he joined, I remember distinctly him being bitter he couldn't do a builder game when REM horse archer rushed him after building pyramids in that big game that taotao eventually won

[T-hawk]

I have only tested this in Hot Seat, and can't test it in sequential pitboss, but it appears that the barb city flips at the end of the full game turn, and not at the end of your individual turn.  This means who gets to move first after the city flip depends on who's first in turn order for each turn (which I think means you?) - so there may (by pure chance...) be something you can do about it after all!

I'm about 90% sure this is correct. The barb city flips as part of overall turn processing, not Scooter's end-of-turn processing. (Thought experiment: what if there were three players all with culture in the barb city, it wouldn't make three different flip checks at three different times.) Moving units in to defend the flipped city will depend on if Scooter goes before Commodore in the global turn order.

I looked at the code, and the revolt check comes in CvPlot::doCulture which is called by CvPlot::doTurn which is called by CvMap::doTurn which is called from CvGame::doTurn outside of any particular player's turn processing.

I'm also not sure when the accept-or-raze dialog comes up in sequential pitboss. I think it's not until the start of Scooter's own turn regardless of the turn order. I'm not sure what state the city is in during the time before Scooter sees and replies to the dialog.

Also, I think if you can get Feudalism before it flips, the free defender will be a longbow.

[scooter]

(Mechanically, all of the barbs in the city are disbanded, and then you get a free archer in the city.  This is significant because it starts with none of its promotions or damage if it had been attacked, and no fortification bonus, though if you were Protective, it would get CG1 and D1.)

I was pretty sure this was how it actually worked from my testing, but I wasn't 100% sure, so thanks for the clarification. It didn't make sense for it to actually be a downgrade, as the only time units ever "downgrade" in this game that I know of is when queued and a strategic resource disconnects.

I have only tested this in Hot Seat, and can't test it in sequential pitboss, but it appears that the barb city flips at the end of the full game turn, and not at the end of your individual turn.  This means who gets to move first after the city flip depends on who's first in turn order for each turn (which I think means you?) - so there may (by pure chance...) be something you can do about it after all!

So, I figured this was the case as well. My understanding is that barbarians and general end-turn resolution all happens last. The bad news is I actually am last in the turn order, which takes away the opportunity. However.

I'm also not sure when the accept-or-raze dialog comes up in sequential pitboss. I think it's not until the start of Scooter's own turn regardless of the turn order. I'm not sure what state the city is in during the time before Scooter sees and replies to the dialog.

I had not considered this possibility. I'm not really how to test this locally actually in a non-tedious way, so I may just let myself be surprised. If the dialog does hold until the start of my turn, then yeah, I at least have control over my own fate here. I still think the dialog will come up immediately, but I'm far from certain. I've been expecting it every time I end turn honestly.


Generally I think the fact that I am last in the turn order would make it pop up. The next turn STARTS while I'm logged in. I wonder if enabling Minimize Popups would stall it until my turn? Or if I got the popup, could I delay answering it until my own turn by killing the game without answering the prompt? I have no idea.

Also, I think if you can get Feudalism before it flips, the free defender will be a longbow.

I was pretty sure this was the case, and I've been debating running a pair of scientists in the capital to increase my chances here. I've been so far from Feudalism that I wasn't taking it seriously as a possibility, but as the turns keep going, it's becoming vaguely more possible.



Either way, from a Civ4 mechanics standpoint, this is a very interesting situation. I've got to be the first person to try something like this in a sequential MP game, right?

[scooter]

Generally I think the fact that I am last in the turn order would make it pop up. The next turn STARTS while I'm logged in. I wonder if enabling Minimize Popups would stall it until my turn? Or if I got the popup, could I delay answering it until my own turn by killing the game without answering the prompt? I have no idea.

I just thought of a solution that would piss everyone off spectacularly. I play my full turn, but I never actually End Turn and instead let the clock run out. But I would have to do it every single turn, because I don't know what turn it'll actually happen on. That would surely work, but uh, yeah. Can imagine the response.


(I'm vaguely tempted to use this scenario as an excuse to demand for it to not get insta-sniped, but perhaps I should sleep on that one. )

[scooter]

I should delineate my Concerns/Frustrations here. There are two totally distinct things in my head, which may not be obvious.


1) I'm annoyed at Commodore doing Commodore things, specifically trying to fight me before T30 to the very likely detriment of both of us. This is independent from the mechanics issues, which there's a real chance he doesn't even know about given that I had to test this myself to even know how this worked.


2) I'm amused by the absurd mechanics at play here, but also annoyed that there's a chance the sequential + turn order may be the thing that screws me in a super unique way.

[RefSteel]

I'm also not sure when the accept-or-raze dialog comes up in sequential pitboss.  I think it's not until the start of Scooter's own turn regardless of the turn order.  I'm not sure what state the city is in during the time before Scooter sees and replies to the dialog.

Oh.  Huh.  So, first:  When the city flips, it's immediately assigned to Scooter.  Then when the dialog pops up (at the start of his turn in hot seat) if he still owns the city, he basically is being given the choice of keeping or disbanding it, but (in a hot seat game, where there's no chance to log in before your turn) the option doesn't come up until after Commodore (playing earlier in turn order) would get a chance to declare war and conquer or raze the city (from Scooter).  But in sequential Pitboss, where you're able to log in out of turn?  I don't know if you'll get the dialog at turn roll or if it waits for your turn to start!  I do know that minimizing pop-ups won't affect it; this dialog box always shows up at the start of the turn whether you have that option checked or not.  Delaying your selection wouldn't help anyway though, since it's your city, no longer a barb city, as soon as the turn rolls.

Also, I think if you can get Feudalism before it flips, the free defender will be a longbow.

And sadly (and to my surprise) this doesn't seem to be true.  A flipped city never comes with a Longbow for some reason.  (Nor a Crossbow; it skips from Archer all the way up to some kind of gunpowder unit; I didn't bother checking which since they're presumably all out of reach.)

And yeah, I can see how the crazy unintended ways a bunch of game mechanics interact here are both amusing and really frustrating. I had no idea how this worked either until I tested it fairly extensively (and not extensively enough to find definite answers on a couple points, even)! And I certainly can't fault Tarkeel for failing to anticipate a possibility like this in placing barb cities on the map....

[T-hawk]

Would it be worth appealing for a lurker ruling that Commodore should let you keep the city, since it's an (unfair) artifact of turn order that he'd get to attack first and that he wouldn't face the same problem?

Pretty sure RefSteel is right - the city gets assigned to Scooter immediately on the turn roll, then the dialog offers the choice to raze it from there as a separate operation. (It's not really keep-or-raze, it's auto-keep and then optionally raze separately.)

I didn't follow what you get by letting the clock run out - how is that any different than manually ending turn, since the global turn rolls when you do anyway if you're last?

[scooter]

Alright, I'll provide some closure first on the barbarian city thing. I moved into Commodore's borders with a Trireme declaring war, then offered 10T peace on the tiny remote chance he didn't want a hot war. Unsurprisingly rejected. I did see something amusing in-game.





Almost as if I called it, Pindicator actually became the first to take a barbarian city, electing to take the one next to Yuris. Of course, because Commodore has decided to duel me, that means Pindicator will get 2. Who could have forseen this? He's in between the one player without real tools to invade him and a player who is into a protracted war already at just 5 cities, so he's going to run away with this game effortlessly. But we're going to spend several months of everyone's lives first pretending this won't happen.



Anyway, upon pressing Enter just now, I got the barbarian flip prompt. I've thought about it a ton, and I made my decision.






I thought very seriously about razing and settler racing. Vodka says Commodore has around a 70% chance of killing that archer with his unpromoted axe/archer combo. However, if he razes, that has the same effect of me razing, except his units will be weakened, and I can mop them up (or he deletes) resulting in him spending 2 units to my 0 (not counting the free archer). He'll get a tiny bit of raze gold, but not a game changing amount. If he captures, well, I will have a similarly good chance to recapture immediately the following turn, so I'm fine with that. If he goes that route, and I dice roll poorly twice, is what it is. Incredibly annoying to get screwed by a weird quirk of Sequential, but I can't do much about that.


That said, I don't intend to seriously report this game further because it's generally not worth my time to do so. I suppose there's a small chance I'll check back in at some point, but don't hold your breath. I report games as a way of staying engaged, and I play games to win. Unfortunately I'm stuck next to someone who generally does not play to win, and that's my fault for joining a game with him. Most likely we'll stalemate for awhile, and his Chm/Vassalage/Mongols will slowly win out, and eventually Thoth will join, and then I'll collapse. At that point Pindicator will have twice the city count of either of these guys along with better traits, a food-like neighbor option, and an era lead on them tech-wise, and shortly after everyone will concede.

[scooter]

Would it be worth appealing for a lurker ruling that Commodore should let you keep the city, since it's an (unfair) artifact of turn order that he'd get to attack first and that he wouldn't face the same problem?

Commodore once double moved me in a back-breaking way and lurkers more or less allowed it because they like Commodore. I only joined this because it was Sequential, but lol. I don't see why anyone would take my shakier claim more seriously this time around, so I'll just play the hand dealt and get on with the duel until Thoth shows up to reap the benefits.