[PB75] Newbfragar and Rusty's Beginner's Guide to Civ4

[naufragar]

Yes, that’s right! On phone and not proofing sufficiently apparently!

[naufragar]

Forgive my sad little travel laptop's image quality. Still, it makes the point:


GT has 3 pikes and a warrior in Qahoito and 2 pikes and a warrior in Gondar.

I think GT has to retreat from this, which is annoying to me. If I can destroy his stack, I can roll over his entire empire. As I extend further and further from my production centers, each loss is harder to replace while he keeps reinforcing.

Interesting detail about this war. Pikes and Crossbows both defend against Catapults before anything else he's got. In fact, I'm pretty sure his Combat 2 pikes defend before his Combat 1, one-first-strike Crossbows. This means his anti-mounted units get chewed up before I even need to send in the cavalry.

Ljubljana seems stalled, but I appreciate him staying at war and at least threatening action in the East.

Next turn we either capture a city or fight a decisive battle. Either way, should be fun.

Of course, all this is irrelevant as Ginger, who has gotten away with running an army consisting of nothing but warriors, is teching to the moon. Oh well. Not my problem right now. Could be Ljubljana's, soon.

[MJW (ya that one)]

You could now argue that Ramk is now officially AWOL and apply for the correction now. You probably think it is too late though.

[Magic Science]

. May the most moral side win!

And wait, do you actually have a Worker on a Desert Hill in GT's culture? What is happening with that poor guy?

[naufragar]

You could now argue that Ramk is now officially AWOL and apply for the correction now. You probably think it is too late though.

It's a fascinating counterfactual. If I use the Engineer to rush the Great Library, I get that wonder something like 7 turns earlier, which is more beakers and 7 turns of Golden Age specialist production (and stacking with MoM for massive, massive GPP increases). Then I don't have crossbows when GT attacks, but the cap would have produced 9+ catapults instead of the Library, so I'm still safe. I could still (as was the plan originally) just wait for Ljubljana to enact my vengeance. But then I'm not close to knights and I can't make gains of my own. On the other hand, with all the Great Scientists, I'd already be a stone's throw from Liberalism by now. I think my original plan that I deviated from puts me in such a better position it's heartbreaking, but I can't deny that the game has at least been interestingly different.

I hope Ramk is ok. 

And wait, do you actually have a Worker on a Desert Hill in GT's culture? What is happening with that poor guy?

Fear the clandestine scout worker!


I captured him from GT and decided to use him as a scout rather than risk a unit. I meant to delete him last turn but forgot!  But then GT ignored him! (So I've now deleted him.) It also caused us a conundrum.


If I need lessons on leaving, I'll ask GT's catapults, who pulled a Houdini. Last turn they were on the tile on which the scout worker stands now. I can't for the life of me figure out where they went. I assume I'm missing something obvious, but I'm completely baffled. As I understand it, their only legal moves put them east or south of Hawulti but I can't figure out why GT would do that. So I assume I'm missing something. It's scary enough that I hesitated advancing my stack. A bunch of catapults with those 15+ pikes will hurt my stack, perhaps unto death. I advanced anyway because:



GT is gassed. His food surplus is way higher than mine (nice land), but even with the growth potential he has whipped heavily and it'll take a long time for him to recover.

On the other hand, he has friends propping him up.


I don't know how much Superdeath's assistance has changed GT's fate, but it's certainly pissed me off. Micro-lesson here: if you're going to declare yourself an enemy, make the most of the declaration.

Speaking of which, Ginger had a scout chariot in my recently conquered lands, pillaging villages before I got control of them, because

Ginger


The Meanie

I whacked the chariot and offered a ceasefire. He responded by offering peace in exchange for me converting to his religion. Between this, SD supporting GT after he begged roughly a million fish for fish messages from me, and GT's original city snipe, why is everyone in this game but me a jerk? Poor, earnest naufragar.

Pseudo-edit: Yeah, we're almost done with Gunpowder. Got a Great Engineer and used him to bulb it. Will get the next two great scientists for Chemistry in 13 turns. This puts us off Astro forever, but it means (hopefully) 15 turns after that we get Military Science.  Grenadiers before Maces, baby. Let's go. (This is a bad plan. I can't tech. Grens don't do anything for me. But c'mon. Grens before Maces!)

[pindicator]

You could now argue that Ramk is now officially AWOL and apply for the correction now. You probably think it is too late though.

It's a fascinating counterfactual. If I use the Engineer to rush the Great Library, I get that wonder something like 7 turns earlier, which is more beakers and 7 turns of Golden Age specialist production (and stacking with MoM for massive, massive GPP increases). Then I don't have crossbows when GT attacks, but the cap would have produced 9+ catapults instead of the Library, so I'm still safe. I could still (as was the plan originally) just wait for Ljubljana to enact my vengeance. But then I'm not close to knights and I can't make gains of my own. On the other hand, with all the Great Scientists, I'd already be a stone's throw from Liberalism by now. I think my original plan that I deviated from puts me in such a better position it's heartbreaking, but I can't deny that the game has at least been interestingly different.

I hope Ramk is ok. 

I understand the argument, but marble-boosted Great Library is like 5 catapults tops

[Commodore]

Yeah, we were in universal agreement that the bulb was the better option.

[naufragar]

You all need to dream bigger. If I'm not committing to attack with knights, I also don't need to slow-build another Great Engineer for Engineering, so I can have the other cities produce their scientists faster. Getting Printing Press and Education by now would have my economy in outstanding shape instead of the wreck it is now. Plus, I'm 90% sure I'd win Liberalism and some other great tech. I think the danger would be minimal since GT still wouldn't be in a position to knock me out, and I'd be racing ahead to some other super tech.

Anyway, this turn I took two more of GT's cities and look posed to take a third. He's got three cities left. I'll get one. Chances are Ljubljana gets the other two, of which one is the cap. These two are the best of GT's holdings, but I won't be in a position to race. L and I are officially observing a turnsplit just in case, though.

Pics to come when I have a minute or am home. Whichever comes first.

[naufragar]

Almost done traveling and will be able to actually focus on my turns. In the meantime, have a brief snapshot.


Ljubljana will be able to take the north two. I'm at peace with that. His army is under my scout.

GT's doing something funky in the south. Exile enclave? Sneaky attack? Will try to check it out next turn.

I'm trusting diplomacy with Ljubljana will hold. I'd like to demilitarize this zone, although I could see Ljubljana being wary about this area.

[naufragar]

I've been busy and traveling and that does not leave much time for reporting war turns.

As expected, Ljubljana conquered Gondar and is moving on Aksum:



Other parts of the world have gone nuts. Apparently GT took all his catapults and marched them through Mjmd to attack Gavagai?? Perhaps with Superdeath's blessing as Gavagai is now also at war with SD. It's all very strange. Actually, a theme of this game is that I have no idea what's going on in the wider world. I don't know what the global tech level looks like. I don't know what other players' ambitions are. I'm just staring down a microscope at this war.

But people are trying to get my attention, so perhaps it's time to return to this thread's theme with another topic.

Intermediate Interlude: Diplomacy

We've already covered a few basic diplo messages. Now let's talk about how this system can tie into your larger goals.

Some players are renowned for their bewildering AI diplo messages. Superdeath sent me this one this turn:


This is actually one of the more comprehensible ones, I think. He proposes that we stop trading with each other's potential rivals. (Superdeath is supplying GT with resources. I've just got open borders with Gav.) He then suggests that this could be the foundation of a long-term peace (fish-for-fish and a 30 turn timer). Then he suggests that we focus our efforts away from each other by linking cities in the window that point in opposite directions. And at this point, my eyes glazed over and I didn't bother deciphering the resource trades. First rule of thumb: similar to writing a work email, don't require a lot of your reader. The intellectual pleasure you had in cramming a complicated message into the diplo interface will not find a match in your audience.

I sent back a fish-for-fish with 30 gold. "I don't see any short term reason why I would fight you."

Why would I tell him this? Well, silence might be perceived as a message. If he makes peaceful noises and I don't reciprocate, we might end up in an arms race along our border. I'm currently in last place (I'll show this later). I want friends everywhere.

You can see in my first pic that Ljubljana is poised to take GT's cap. This city is 14 tiles from my capital and 19 tiles from Ljubljana's. If we're splitting GT down the middle, this ought to be in my sphere of influence. But his troops are in the area, which makes him the influential party. So I sent him this:



It's always hard to know if you'll be understood. The four resources listed are the ones at GT's capital. My offer is to buy the city off Ljubljana for 200 gold. I'm incredibly poor, so this is like a dozen turns of research for me, but the capitals on this map are so much richer than everywhere else, so GT's cap would be quite a prize. Of course, Ljubljana doesn't actually own GT's capital yet, so this 200 gold is really me buying right-of-way to take it. (I'm very unsure that I actually can capture it in a reasonable time frame. )

But whether or not Ljubljana takes this deal and whether or not I can even crack GT's capital, I felt it necessary to open up lines of communication to Ljubljana. I hope the subtext behind this message is clear: I'm a reasonable guy who's willing to negotiate. I didn't make some attempt at a threat. I didn't stay silent as I moved my army up to his. I want Ljubljana to know that we can always talk.Hence a second rule of thumb: the key to good diplomacy is predictability. That's why I've taken pains to cultivate my image as a predictable, reasonable player.

To give away my plans a bit, I want to be Ljubljana's friend. He neighbors Ginger who is going to win the game, so I want Ljubljana to be strong but not at my expense. It's a nervy dance: I want to profit from the GT war, so I want to insist on my share from Ljubljana, but I also need Ljubljana pointed at Ginger and not doing, with Superdeath, what he and I just did to GT. Fascinating.

It's always funny to talk about diplo before there's any evidence that it's worked. So be it. Take from this lesson that the point of diplomacy is communication, not manipulation. I'm not trying to manipulate Superdeath or Ljubljana. I'm trying to communicate my perspective and show them that they can communicate with me. We'll see if this works.

As promised, here are some graphs:






I guess I'm not technically last while GT's alive, but once he's dead, I take his place as the player that will never research another technology this whole game.