AUSG 101 - Domination Team DAR 2

[Master Zen]

So, if I have a city, say 5.5 from the FP, and there are 8 cities at 5.5 or less from the Capital, then that city qualifies as RCP-8 ?

[alexman]

What do you mean by RCP-8? If you mean the equivalent of a first ring of distance 8, then the answer is no.

Assuming that there are no other cities at 5 or 5.5 from the Capital, the RANK of that city is 8, even if there are 100 cities at less than 5.5 from the FP. By the way, I think 8 cities at 5.5 or less from the Capital are a lot, for the AI city placement.

(If there are more cities exactly at 5 or 5.5, then the rank is 8 minus the number of those distance-5 cities)

[Master Zen]

you just made me even more mixed-up (not your fault, it's me who ain't getting it)

do you have any pics perhaps? might make it easier.

[alexman]

Perhaps Qitai has explained it better than I can?

If not, then I can try again later. I'm late for work now...

[TheArsenal]

Interesting bug. This is the first I've learned of it.

[Jaybe]

Thanks for the Qitai link, alexman.
Now I understand what RCP is all about. I had been thinking it vain for you all to rigidly place cities equal distances from the Palace, but now I see how it reduces corruption considerably.

I find it unfortunate that now I should almost disregard the lay of the land and focus on regular spacing for the greater good of the empire long-term.

[Arrian]

I find it unfortunate that now I should almost disregard the lay of the land and focus on regular spacing for the greater good of the empire long-term.

Me too, but then again Alexman says that it will be fixed (removed) in Conquests. Which is good, since "RCP" always struck me as a bug/exploit.

That begs the question, however: how will the game rank cities that are equidistant (sp?) to the palace? Date of founding?

-Arrian

[Beta]

Originally posted by Arrian


Me too, but then again Alexman says that it will be fixed (removed) in Conquests. Which is good, since "RCP" always struck me as a bug/exploit.

That begs the question, however: how will the game rank cities that are equidistant (sp?) to the palace? Date of founding?

-Arrian

I concur. I would like to see RCP die a quick death. I find it really distorts city planning, and the natural flow of development. It puts an artificial (if I can use that word in a game ) parameter into the mix as far as I am concerned.

As to the ranking of equidistant cities - date of founding makes good sense.

[Beta]

But now having written that, I am not clear. Is Conquests going to eliminate the standard RCP equivalent ranking, or just the FP bug?

[Rhothaerill]

It is almost midnight EST so I'm going to go ahead and officially declare the second turn block over. Now we will start the process of deciding which saves will begin the next turn block. Per the suggestion of Defcon5 and Master Zen, the team decision will be shuffled around each turn block. Therefore for this turn block the domination team would choose for the spaceship team and in turn the opportunist team will choose for the domination team.

In the spaceship DAR 2 thread please post your preference for the next turn save for that team. It is also encouraged, though not mandatory, to discuss and critique the individual saves while posting your preference. The time period for discussing and posting your preference will last until 23:59 EST Thursday, and the next turn block will begin on Friday.

I will keep a running count of the voting updated in the first post of this thread. The choice for the next savegame will be posted in this thread and a brand new DAR 3 thread for the third turn block on Friday.

Please note that in the event of a tie by the end of the decision process either myself or Nuclear Master if I am not around on Thursday (unlikely) will break the tie.

[Arrian]

I have a question for those who have already hooked up their iron: why? You can't have possibly built enough warriors for a mass upgrade. Building swords from scratch is a waste of shields, IMO. Do you plan piecemeal upgrades, cutting and reconnecting the iron?

-Arrian

[korn469]

Ok after taking a look at all of the saves my vote goes to Taian

here's why

first I think he has a good balance of productive infrastructure, tech, and military...I think that Beta had the best overall structure, possibily even the strongest military but while his military is stronger, it isn't so strong that he can completely anihilate the AI in a turn or so, so I'm going with one in the hand is better than two in the bush

secondly out of all of the player's currently in a war, I think that Taian is closest to finishing his up, and when he does I think that he will be able to quickly pounce on the American's and take them out

his save just struck me as being in the best position, though none of the players were in a bad position by any means...

though I do have one question for the arsenal, why do you have so few workers? I think a few more workers would have been a big help to you

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Arrian
I have a question for those who have already hooked up their iron: why? You can't have possibly built enough warriors for a mass upgrade. Building swords from scratch is a waste of shields, IMO. Do you plan piecemeal upgrades, cutting and reconnecting the iron?

-Arrian

Likely they are planning to upgrade as they can , the other thing is they are not worried about the iron being exhausted. Yes it can happen, but I do not lose sleep over it.

[TheArsenal]

though I do have one question for the arsenal, why do you have so few workers? I think a few more workers would have been a big help to you

Probably true. But it has always been my play style to build few workers, and take as many as I can through settler harassment and city conquering. And in my DAR 1 save (not as good as the one I am playing off of, no question) I had hooked up to horses for this purpose. Also consistent with my style is I concentrate nearly exclusively on military units, take a couple of cities to get a good empire base, then build furiously in the peaceful interim. Any additional workers that were not gained through aggression and would need to be built, would be done so during this building period.


- edited for clarity

[TheArsenal]

[SIZE=1]
Likely they are planning to upgrade as they can , the other thing is they are not worried about the iron being exhausted. Yes it can happen, but I do not lose sleep over it.

And it may be a bug, or maybe an observational lapse on my part, but I have never seen (at Regent/Monarch level) iron exhaust if you build the city over it.

[Arrian]

I think I have.

-Arrian

[Konquest02]

I'll get my game in ASAP (just give me some time to play my turns) and will come back for an update on my game... Sorry if it's taking so long...

[Konquest02]

Well, here it is...

It's my first experience with camps and I think I've done quite well... I've crept only 2 camps around Mecca. The other cities on the outside are position in a 4/4.5 ring pattern. Since 2150BC, the camps Medina and Damascus have been pumping archers and an occasional warrior in order to attack America.

The master plan is the following: Hit America with some archers (since he's closer to us) while building a chariot force. Upon the discovery of Horseback riding, upgrade those chariots to horsemen and hit Japan with those shiny new troops. Might want to add a couple swordmen in the mix too...

So I've done that... And it worked fairly well. I've managed to destroy Atlanta and Boston with only one casualty (a vet archer lost against a conscript warrior, no damage done )...

As it stands now, I'm still at war with Lincoln. However, he accepts to talk peace and offers us Seattle +22g to get our archers off his back. This is really slim. We might want to take this though... We can discuss about it...

Here is the save

--Kon--

[Konquest02]

The state of the emipre, 1250BC.

Our military is composed of:

5 workers
2 scouts
5 warriors (1 conscript, 4 regs)
6 archers (3 vet)
2 spearmen
1 swordman
3 chariots (1 vet)

Science-wise, we get MM in 4 turns with +5gpt coming in (the screenshot was taken early...)

That's about it...

--Kon--

[GodKing]

Tonight I teach. Tomarrow I have demo game responsibilities and a date (although I suspect that I will be dumping her soon - Nice body, but I am surprised she has enough brain power to tie her shoes....), so unless you all care to wait til friday, I am afraid that I probably will not be able to review and comment in time. Sorry.

[BigFurryMonster]

Well - did she wear shoes yesterday ..?

[Nor Me]

I've not really finished but I'm running out of time. This is what I've got so far:


The Arsenal- you know you could have done better with more workers. Honestly, much better. Why literature? You won't be building libraries soon. It's not the best to trade. Given that you'll be crippling 2 AIs shortly, the Great Library will not be very useful even if you get an AI to build it for you.

Theseus- Good work with the Japanese. You've obviously chosen to go with less cities and a bigger military. Close city spacing and enough workers to develop the middle faster seem to have meant that you've been able to outproduce your teammates.

One problem though, what next? It's obvious you need to either attack America or expand. You can't attack America with Chariots alone and your archers will take time to get there. You're not set up to expand. Attacking with horsemen would make your future options worse and delay Monarchy. You could delay Monarchy even further and do a quick mostly regular swordsman rush and leave the accumulating chariots as MP but your lead on Monarchy is half of what makes this save good and it would make the barracks and chariots overkill.

None of these options take advantage of all the things you've gained by slowing your expansion. Without that, I'd wonder if it was worth it. I wouldn't want to have to make this choice myself and I'm hesitating to make this team do so.

Beta- you've got reasonable expansion and the best attacking potential straight away. I like it. I can't really argue with those swordsmen with horsemen coming up. I'm not sure about code of laws though. Further examination of the save revealed that Japan has researched polytheism so there is at least the potential for a Monarchy beeline should this save be chosen.

Charlie_six- OK, your plan was successful in holding back the other civs. So Baghdad and Najran will shortly be able to usefully build enough settlers and workers while Damascus and Medina continue to build military units. Looking at it, I'd say you'd be successful at least until the AIs manage to hook up their resources.

I'm just not sure if it was ever the best idea. If I were at war with the Japanese, I wouldn't want to start an opportunistic war with the Americans. So my best units wouldn't be on the other front. You're not going to gain anything positive from your way with the Japanese nor any war with the Americans that could happen soon. Under the circumstances, I'd be either settling peacfully or looking for real gains from war. You seem to be committed to settling slowly. Of course expanding faster could give anyone more military power eventually.

Master Zen- a balanced development of your 1st game. I'd have had more workers for what you look to be doing. It looks like America will already be usefully pruned and that consequently you've got enough space to expand before you need to upgrade rush.

Kon- You have as many cities as I do even without the settler in 3850BC we had. Although you're noticeably behind in workersand tile improvement. I like the city placement too. Even with this, you've managed to seriously damage the Americans.

Regular chariots are an interesting idea. I suppose that you'd be able to get a regular horseman rush going very quickly from here.I'd have been attempting to get more money off the AI since their research can't really hurt you now and I wouldn't want to be selling Map Making now and have nothing to trade. Because of the worse retreat, regular hoprsemen are probably worse than regular sworsmen and I wouldn't want to be taking too heavily defended cities with them. But at the least, you can hang around in the space outside Kyoto, stopping the Japanese from ever hooking up their resources and killing off archers.

From here, it certainly looks like you'd be able to shut down both the American and Japanese and expansion while having the cities to expand yourself. That has to be good.

Map making is a bit of a gamble. But as a member of a rival team, I'd certainly like the spoiler information it could give . You don't look to be in a position to get out of despotism soon (Beta was lucky: the Japanese are researching writing in this save). It might be worth it.


Taian- You've done the most damage to a rival civ and things aren't bad domestically. It looks like you'll gain three cities from the Japanese.


But by breaking your peace treaty with them, you won't be able to any cities out of the Americans like that. You also seem to let the Carthaginians through the cokepoint. They have a city near the spices and have contact. That's bad as I'd be hoping to pull a quick Arrian deception if I'd broken a peace treaty. The Carthaginian presence making this unlikely.

You also don't seem to be in a position to slow down the Americans. Again, that would be better if you could take cities from them eventually but that's not going to be easy. Perhaps if they were in Monarchy and couldn't pop rush, you'd have a chance at capturing a few.



This team seems to have far more variety in their positions than the others. Warfare does that. So it's much more difficult to compare positions. I'm sure that some of the more ambitious plans have a good chance at working especially with so many of you to try.

I can rule out The Arsenal, I'm afraid . But after that it gets difficult. It became a choice between Beta and Kon for what I'm sure might be rational reasons.

Final vote: Kon

He's had good expansion while hurting the most threatening AI and is in a position to attack the other shortly.

[GodKing]

Originally posted by BigFurryMonster
Well - did she wear shoes yesterday ..?

Penny Loafers. No laces to require tying. Dumped her, and got a glass of wine (from someone elses table none the less) thown in my face. Never actually thought that would happen in real life, only the movies. Very sur-real experience.

After a very very quick and superficial read of the reports, not even looking at any saves or anything, I would go with konquest. So, in case of Tie breaker only, give 1/4 point/vote to that save from me. If I get the time (don't think I will, too many commitments for now I am afraid) I will do a real report. Sorry.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by GodKing


Penny Loafers. No laces to require tying. Dumped her, and got a glass of wine (from someone elses table none the less) thown in my face. Never actually thought that would happen in real life, only the movies. Very sur-real experience.

After a very very quick and superficial read of the reports, not even looking at any saves or anything, I would go with konquest. So, in case of Tie breaker only, give 1/4 point/vote to that save from me. If I get the time (don't think I will, too many commitments for now I am afraid) I will do a real report. Sorry.

Oh man I though that only happened in the movies!! Sorry Godking, but I'd say you're better off without someone that obviously high strung.

I went ahead and added your vote. If you change it later before the deadline I will change it then too.

[GodKing]

Heck - it was only date #4 IIRC. Life just gets stranger and stranger.

[Rhothaerill]

Maybe it's that C3DG president curse rearing it's head again. UnO's had some wild things happen to him lately and you've told us about a few funky things too.

Maki I guess that means you're next for outrageous stuff to happen to you.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Nor Me
Theseus- Good work with the Japanese. You've obviously chosen to go with less cities and a bigger military. Close city spacing and enough workers to develop the middle faster seem to have meant that you've been able to outproduce your teammates.

One problem though, what next? It's obvious you need to either attack America or expand. You can't attack America with Chariots alone and your archers will take time to get there. You're not set up to expand. Attacking with horsemen would make your future options worse and delay Monarchy. You could delay Monarchy even further and do a quick mostly regular swordsman rush and leave the accumulating chariots as MP but your lead on Monarchy is half of what makes this save good and it would make the barracks and chariots overkill.

None of these options take advantage of all the things you've gained by slowing your expansion. Without that, I'd wonder if it was worth it. I wouldn't want to have to make this choice myself and I'm hesitating to make this team do so.

Nor Me (and everyone else):

Once again, I don;t think I did a very good job of describing my intentions (Although I DID get my DAR up on Monday night, you slackers!!).

I don;t think you get the sheer production power of the four camps and all the 'middle' (i.e., shared) tiled improvements.

If I forecast correctly, I will in 1000BC have two more 'keeper cities up (prolly Istanbul 9999 and 1112), thus then 4 camps and 4 keepers in a RCP4 ring. I should also at that point have 2-3 Settlers being built, with probable delivery in another 3-6 turns.

This is by virtue of building Settlers amongst the military units, whenever a given city is going to otherwise have to have an entertainer, even with 1-2 MP (thus generally just when they turn 4-5 pop), and also by virtue of Istanbul having a granary and temple, and thus, with 2 Warrior MPs, building Settlers just when at 6 pop (in other words: FAST).

Also, and here's the fun part, by 1000BC I should have AT LEAST:

12 Warriors
5 Archers and and 2 Spear (same as now)
10 Chariots

What I didn;t communicate is that as of 1250 BC, I can go to peace with Toku and extort EITHER Edo or HBR... I'd rather raze Edo and then extort HBR, but not until around 1000BC, or when we have at least 10 Chariots and some gold for upgrades (and maybe even a LEETLE bit later... 20 Chariots??!!). The key, of course, will be having enough gold for upgrades; I figured on staying at high research until the low 20s-turns remaining, and then going to 10% research to build up enough gold. This should time things approximately to upgrading, decimating America, and converting to Monarchy all at just about the same time.

And, btw, this early in the game, I wouldn;t hesitate to send 10+ Chariot into America's vicinity, maybe in two teams, just in case there's a Warrior / Settler team or two or three about (no attacks against Spears, though). Possibly time the acquisition of HBR from Toku to upgrades (and healing) of resulting wounded Chariots.

BTW, I have no problem with building many Warriors at this point... they are fine as MPs, and my guess is they won;t get used until upgraded to MedInf for the attack on Carthage.

Sorry for not explaining fully earlier... trust me, this is an insanely powerful position.

I'm a total convert to camps (and huge internal tile development)... in the screw-around game I'm playing as Ottomans, my first move was to build three camps, on hills, which is even better.

So, to your concerns:

Expansion - On the way, fast.

America - Toast. Burnt to a crisp.

Pyramids (Washington) and Oracle (Kyoto)?

Priceless.

[BRC]

Guys, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to abstain. Just not enough time. I will make it up though, I promise.

[Dominae]

I want my vote to count, but I have no time to write up decent notes on my decision. So I'm going to vote now, and comment on the weekend.

I vote for Kon.

Everyone seems to have taken a different route in this block, which is interesting but makes it that much harder to judge. In the end I feel that Kon's game is perhaps the most conservative, which I think is good thing on this map. There's plenty of space, resources are accessible, the other civs are not too strong, and so there's no need to rush into things. Kon's plan seems to be to efficiently build up an overwhelming force and go from there, and I think that's the best decision here.

Honorable mention goes to Theseus for sticking with the MZ game even though he vehemently disagreed with it. I'm sure we're all feeling a dose of this, but Theseus vocalized his concerns and then trudged on anyway; now that's participation!


Dominae

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Dominae
Honorable mention goes to Theseus for sticking with the MZ game even though he vehemently disagreed with it. I'm sure we're all feeling a dose of this, but Theseus vocalized his concerns and then trudged on anyway; now that's participation!

I quite agree. This is new to all of us and I'm really glad to see people sticking with it so far. It runs a bit counterintuitive to the way we all normally play an SP game, but I think it's working pretty well so far with all these great DAR's and tactical discussion!