Strategy Discussion - Metagame

[Swiss Pauli]

For our long term plans, and debate on our rivals' (un)likely strategies.

Templars - Inca - FIN/IND - Quechua

Imperio - Maya - FIN/EXP - Holkan

Banana - China - PRO/IND - Chokonu

Rabbits - HRE - PRO/IMP - Landesknecht

PAL - Egypt - SPI/IND - War Chariot

Team RB - Ethiopia - CRE/ORG - Oromo


Relevant settings: 2 Old World landmasses, Choose Religion, No Tech Brokering.

[Swiss Pauli]

quote:
Originally posted by Kylearan
...
The main problem here is the meta-game: Any team that plays long-term by putting emphasis on growth and which gets attacked will lose. Any team that plans short-term by focusing on hammers and will not attack will lose as well - against the third kind of team, which plays long-term and which gets lucky by not getting attacked. And in case this makes focusing on hammers and attacking a neighbour look like the best option: The diplomatic penalty by attacking another civ might make that team lose the game as well... Ugh.
...

The optimal strategy in this case is to make a deal with your neighbors to focus on economy and later compete for the New World and the other continent, whose inhabitants will be backwards due to early military buildup. (I would even favor a disarmament agreement for our starting landmass, with location and size of forces monitored by inspectors using Open Borders.)

I think the diplomatic penalty for early agression would be too high. And I personally would rather not play "us against the world" kind of game.

However, this also depends on who our neighbors are. PAL will probably do an early rush. Rabbits (and the rest of Apolyton forum teams) seem to enjoy the game too much to give any team an early exit. I have no idea about Imperio.

EDIT:
quote:
Originally posted by darrelljs
...
I guess I'd rather make mean on our home landmass and make nice on the other one. Is that even possible?
Darrell

Not really. I wouldn't trust a team that attacked its neighbor early farther than I could throw them.

[Swiss Pauli]

Some of my thoughts to kick things off:

Originally posted by Swiss Pauli
Templars - Inca - FIN/IND - Quechua

Rush chance: low. Strategy: tech lead via FIN and selected Wonders => Win (Space/Dom/Culture)

Imperio - Maya - FIN/EXP - Holkan

Rush chance: high, but easily negated by Copper/Iron if claimed in time. Strategy: rush one civ then turtle for tech and then attack again.

Banana - China - PRO/IND - Chokonu

Rush chance: low. Strategy: Wonder hog for culture win?

Rabbits - HRE - PRO/IMP - Landesknecht

Rush chance: low. Strategy: New World gambit, using Rathäuser to control maintenance.

PAL - Egypt - SPI/IND - War Chariot

Rush chance: high. Strategy: rush one civ then turtle for tech and then attack again.

[Sullla]

Since this is a rather uninteresting time in the game, good idea to hold discussions like this now. Some quick thoughts:

Templars/Inca: This is a good civ to rush with, but I agree with Swiss Pauli's characterization. The list of Templar players doesn't seem to fit the mold of early aggression at all (Locutus is on there, and he was one of the most peaceful players in testing. Spent most of his time modding, of course.) I'm pretty sure that this team picked the Inca for their traits and not their unique unit.

Imperio/Maya: I don't recognize any of these players... If there's a team that would try an early rush, this is a likely candidate. If not, the likely strategy is a settler/worker spam using the civ traits.

Banana/China: I have absolutely no idea what this team is thinking. The Qin pick doesn't seem to make much sense. Cultural win is the most likely thought... but honestly, a financial or spiritual civ works better for a cultural victory than an industrious one. (Doesn't everyone know that by now?) I suspect this team will do a lot of roleplaying nonsense and not be particuarly competitive. (I hope I don't have to eat those words later! ) The "Will" that's listed as team leader isn't Willburn of MP fame, right? He was/is an excellent player.

Rabbits/HRE: Swiss Pauli has tagged their strategy perfectly. It's not a particularly good strategy either, as Adventure 19 showed. They wanted the Terra map for the express purpose of trying to settle the overseas continent. Hopefully we can use this to our advantage in some way. (I really, really think this team is 90% talk and 10% action. For example - are they skilled enough to know how to exploit settler whips for the Imperialistic shield bonus? I tend to doubt it.)

PAL/Egypt: Since Whiplash is the team leader, this is a dangerous group. An early rush is a very real possibility (although I think they may have gone with Hatty if they were thinking specifically in terms of early game). Our best hope is that the small team size causes interest to drop and lax play to creep in.

Overall, I would classify the teams into three distinct tiers: Imperio/PAL (most dangerous), Templar (middle), Rabbits/Banana (more interested in role-playing than winning). Obviously much of this is speculation, so we'll have to see what happens. We don't even know who our neighbors are yet, after all...

[regoarrarr]

So given from the cloak and dagger thread that we know (think?) that Rabbits popped BW from a hut, the following 2 thoughts came to mind.

Do we want to send some sort of message to them congratulating them for getting BW, just to kind of mess with their heads?

Or, given what we wrote earlier about a team pulling off a successful rush having a good shot at winning and a team that fails in a rush being hamstrung, do we want to warn the other teams at some point about possibly being rushed (not to mention if we turn out to be neighbors, of course)?

I'm not sure what #1 would serve other than just messing with them, and if we were to do #2, I'd think it might be better served a bit later after we see if they have a massive power buildup (from whipping / chopping several axes), but I thought I'd throw it out there for discussion.

[mostly-harmless]

I am strongly against any of those suggestions.
For one thing we might end up in a discussion about cheating, where we would have to explain how we gathered that information. And I don't like to reveal that, as we have to give up our complete knowledge lead on other teams as well. The ministry of thruth has worked hard to give us that knowledge and I doubt all the other teams have spent the same effort.
With the forewarning we have received from analysing the demoscreen we got ourselves prepared when we met other teams.

Second, I don't like to talk to teams we have not met in-game. With us finding the Templars we might agree to share some information with them. For example if theyborder Imperio on the other side,we have an interest to forewarn them.

This only my opinion, of course.
If the majority of the team decides to use the info we gathered to mess with their heads, then that is what we will do.

mh

[Sullla]

Echoing mostly_harmless' point here. The Ministry of Truth is our biggest advantage at the moment. We should not give that up lightly - and it would only attract suspicion anyway, as stated already.

[Zeviz]

I'll third the point about keeping our secrets secret. Information is power. And when we have information nobody thinks we have, we'll be in a much stronger position. If Mostly_harmless can maintain complete knowledge of other teams, we'll be able to call people's bluffs, or to see an attack coming.

[sooooo]

Can I bump this thread for more discussion about contacting teams. There was talk about proposing an alliance with PAL - any more thoughts about that? What kind of things should we say? Also amirite in thinking we have 2 diplomatic envoys now - Ruff_Hi and regoarrarr?

[ruff_hi]

seen nothing back in our gmail account - should we reach out again?

[mostly-harmless]

I repeat what I suggested in the Turn Players Thread a few days back:

Another suggestion to the Diplomacy corps:
Can we launch another round of contact attempts to all known rivals asap?
I am a bit stumped by the lack of inter team communication. Especially after our promising start with the Templars.
An increased level of communication is always helpful to avoid misunderstandings, especially as we are going to aggressively settle in the next turns.

Good luck Ruff_Hi.

mh

[regoarrarr]

I'm not a team envoy as far as I know - I think I'm just "lurker".

[Sullla]

Yes - we definitely want to hear from Templars again, and hopefully hear from Imperio for the first time.

Regarding PAL, both mostly_harmless and I thought they would be a good match for a friend on the other continent. I'm heading off to get some work done, but I'll try to type up a more formal proposal with PAL later tonight. At the very least, a map exchange (via screenshots) seems like the kind of thing that would benefit us both, since we have little grounds for conflict at the moment.

[Sullla]

Long-time bump for this thread here. But I think it's the best place to discuss the "grand strategy" issues that we're faced with.

As we've already brought up in other threads, it's time to think seriously about who to ally with and how we want to try and win the game, at least in general terms. On the alliance issue, here are several possibilities:

1) Negotiate an armistice on our continent, and have the three team (RB, Templars, Imperio) coordinate economic action against PAL. Very sound in theory, may be difficult to make work in practice. Templars have been pushing this notion throughout the game.

2) Ally with Templars against Imperio. Biggest positive: we potentially eliminate the strongest rival on our continent. Negative: we are dependent on the incompetent Templar team for economic and military help. It also seems difficult at this point that we could get them to turn on Imperio.

3) Ally with Imperio against Templars. Positives: Templars would fall easily before our might. Easy religious spoils falling to the victors. Negatives: What are the odds that Imperio would actually agree to this? Also runs the problem of making Imperio that much stronger.

4) Go over to the "dark side" and ally with PAL against Templars and Imperio. We make a full economic and military agreement, wherein we each attempt to dominate our respective continents and be left as the only two civs standing. (Thus the "dark side" part.) Would require heavy coordinating of research. Positives: if it works, we more or less win the game. At the very least, make it into a final showdown. Negatives: PAL can't offer much military help to us, nor us to them. PAL (which has contact with all six teams) can easily maneuver into a superior trading position, since we only have contact with four teams.

Those are the four alternatives I can see. Feel free to suggest more!

Now... how do we want to win the game? I only see two realisitic possibilities:

A) Domination/Conquest. Domination will be harder to reach than normal, thanks to the Terra map script adding another 30% of the world's land out there in the fog. Conquest might come about sooner. Winning under this plan means destroying our rivals on the starting continent, then either invading or marginalizing the opponents on the eastern one. A backdoor diplomatic win (assuming we could get someone else to vote for us in the UN - bah, terrible change in the expansion!) also falls under this category.

B) Culture. Given that we're playing against humans, Spaceship win is just not going to happen. Someone will reach cultural victory long before we reach the end of the tech tree. This is actually a more viable option than you might think. With 3-4 religions (already present on our continent) and Sid's Sushi, it would be entirely possible to bang out a cultural victory in a mere 50 or so turns. By the time the other teams caught on, it would probably be too late. This would be REALLY effective if we controlled our whole continent, and someone had to conduct a Normandy-style landing to hold off a cultural win.

Keep in mind in the latter stages of the game, speed and unpredictability make defense almost impossible. I'm GLAD our capital is inland, because a large naval stack can do a Sirian Doctrine-style invasion just about anywhere on the map. You can't defend everywhere at once, so the initative enormously favors the attacker. Once we reach the Astronomy era, we're going to need to invest in a gigantic navy to stay safe. (Will other teams even realize that? Possibly/Probably not!)

Where do we go from here? Most recent sentiment seems to favor the fourth option above. Let's get everyone on the same page before we send out our next round of diplomatic proposals to the other teams.

[sunrise089]

At this early stage I think conquest victory is best. I am skeptical of staying alive to shoot to culture.

As for the short term, I fear a PAL alliance because I think their contacts with the other continent help them a LOT. If we can make contact with Banana and Rabbits sooner rather than later then I'll be much less concerned.

[Zeviz]

Thanks for bumping this thread. Here are my views on our options:

1. Continent-wide alliance isn't going to happen. We've already staked claim to more than a third of our continent, and the other two teams are likely to demand a change to this land allocation equation.

2. It's too late to try to ally with Templars. As roleplaying knights, they are likely to take their commitments seriously, and OB with Imperio is probably a sign of a long-term plan. Considering how slow both teams are to reply to diplomatic moves, the chances that they've negotiated OB treaty on the spot are pretty slim. An alliance with Imperio might also explain why they stopped replying to our messages. Remember our efforts to stall them until we were ready to attack? This is what their latest communication feels like, but done much more clumsily.

3. Imperio might have less roleplaying objections to betraying Templars, but they have no strategic reason to do so. An alliance with Templars gives them a much better chance to dominate our continent, considering that they could squash their ally like a bug whenever they get bored.

4. Alliance with PAL is most likely to succeede, especially if we explain to them that by supporting us they'll guarantee a lengthy war on our continent, while supporting Imperio will lead to our continent quickly falling into Imperio's hands.

So I prefer option 4.

As for victory conditions, conquest/domination looks like an obvious path, because we are unlikely to have enough spare resources to spread 3 religions and build tons of culture buildings while fighting for control of our continent. However, if culture looks achievable without slowing down overall growth and compromising security, we can invest in it as a backup plan.

[Swiss Pauli]

If we don't think we can turn Templars in the short term, then an alliance (formal or informal) with PAL seems to be the way forward in the medium term.

[Swiss Pauli]

From Sullla's post in the PAL thread:

Here's an ideal future for our team. In the immediate future, we concentrate on expanding and building up our economic infrastructure. We consolidate in the late classical and early middle ages, and look to make a move sometime in the latter middle ages/early renaissance period. We get to Nationalism first and begin drafting maces or Oromo warriors (muskets), we can take out a rival of our choice. Try to control the continent by the industrial age and then pick a victory condition from there. Easier said than done though!

I'd have to say that's pretty much how I see our best approach. Imperio has the better land, so they'd be my target of choice for the draft-rush (and I'd hope we'd be in control before the Industrial Age).

What do the rest of you guys think?

[mostly-harmless]

1.) I agree with Zeviz: Continent wide alliance is out. However the armistice part can be well combined with other strategies.

2.) It is unlikely in the light of recent Tmp-Imp OB agreement.

3.) This could be an option if we are strong enough to do it quick and fully on our own. Imperio might be bound by a NAP with Tmp.

4.) Looks good on first glance. However we are divided by a long distance. In case of conflict with a potential Tmp-Imp alliance we are cut off from trade and resource sharing until Astronomy. So the alliance is a paper tiger really. And, as I said before I want to assess and speak to Banana & Rabbits first before snuggling up to PAL too much. If we prematurely ally ourselves with PAL and then are faced with a Tmp-Imp alliance on our own continent and PAL is overrun by Ban-Rab alliance we are very lonely indeed!

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by mostly-harmless
4.) Looks good on first glance. However we are divided by a long distance. In case of conflict with a potential Tmp-Imp alliance we are cut off from trade and resource sharing until Astronomy. So the alliance is a paper tiger really. And, as I said before I want to assess and speak to Banana & Rabbits first before snuggling up to PAL too much. If we prematurely ally ourselves with PAL and then are faced with a Tmp-Imp alliance on our own continent and PAL is overrun by Ban-Rab alliance we are very lonely indeed!

As I mentioned elsewhere, a Templar-Imperio alliance is unlikely, unless we force them together by poor diplomacy.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by Zeviz
This has made a war with Templars inevitable. So the only question now is whether we fight them on our terms, or their terms. In light of this, I would take Swiss' thought even further: Instead of getting into cultural conflict over Templar borders, I'd suggest settling the best city sites we have, and beelining Maces. If we have to fight them anyway, we might as well do it after getting a much stronger economy, instead of wasting resources on culture conflicts.

The only reason to settle original Twin Peaks is for it to serve as forward base for our troops. However, we first need troops to deploy there, and before we start training troops, we need to found several good cities. So my suggested course of action is:

1. Settle the Marble spot. Templars can waste time clearing the jungle at Stone spot themselves. The stone city would be good in long run, but we want strong economy in the short run.

2. Quickly settle any other good city sites we have. Don't bother with fishing villages, border outposts, etc. Just places that can help economy or train troops.

3. After Monarchy, research towards Machinery, buying CS from PAL. (Or research CS, buying Machinery from PAL.)

4. Upgrade axes to maces and come to get our Iron.

EDIT: The best thing about this situation is that it gives us casus beli(sp?) to attack Templars in the future. We were considering that course of action anyway, and this will help us decrease diplomatic fallout.

[Zeviz]

One more thought about the above plan: The good thing about capturing Iron with maces is that it makes lack of other sources of Iron irrelevant. Most Iron units such as Pikes and Knights are slightly higher on the tech tree, so by the time we get there, we might have the Iron site secured.

PPS Even if we decide not to beeline maces, playing peacefully on Templar border would be good, because it might lull them into a sense of security. If they are playing for cultural victory, they might get distracted by chasing wonders, while we build up economy and train troops.

[mostly-harmless]

I am not yet convinced on the beeline maces plan, but I am all for the spamming cities startegy.
Southern Marble next and a dot map discussion starting right now.

mh

[mostly-harmless]

Attempt on DotMap:


And the same with resources:


I would settle in the following order:
Blue (Southern Marble)
Red (Bad Ass aka. Twin Peaks)
White (Colored Mollusks)

The penciled in Desert Marble south on the Clam coast is a bit shaky (could also be moved 1S or 1E) and does not have high priority.

So, voice your opinion.

mh

[Kylearan]

/delurk

Hi,

quickly settling some more important city sites is essential, IMO. I find it frightening how many cities PAL already has - sure, they probably have some economic problems right now, but this will translate into an decisive advantage later on as their cities get improved. And seeing how well they are playing the trading game, we *have* to catch up as quickly as possible economically.

The only risk to overexpansion IMHO is that you might get attacked by a neighbour at the wrong time. Doesn't look like that will happen in their case, although we cannot tell for sure without all contacts. If they don't get attacked, they will come out ahead mid-game.


I also like the plan of beelining to maces to get our own source of iron. Trading for iron (or ivory) a) will be very expensive if our trading partner knows what they are doing, and b) will be unstable, i.e. we might not find a trading partner, or get a running deal canceled for diplomatic or other reasons.

So I'd say let's secure our own source of iron, the new city/cities also serving us economically. Whether the double move can really serve as a reasonable casus belli that the other teams can understand remains to be seen, though. The problem is that if we don't post a public note about it now, the war might not be easy to justify to the other teams in a couple of months when the war will actually start. If we do post a note about it now, we come along as whiners though, which is probably even worse...maybe a light note in jest without any real accusations, only the observation of the double move might work?

-Kylearan

[mostly-harmless]

If we decide on going for Maces to fight for the Iron, we have to plan our next city placements carefully.
I doubt we can hold Jericho against Templars culture, so it has to be razed to be replaced by our own Iron city nearby.
However, Pink Peaks is no longer available if we go for Twin Peaks.
The question is: do we hold back on Twin Peaks until we have razed Jericho?

I am a bit concerned that we will fall back in the next 30 turns or so, planning and conducting that war.

Also do we just want to raze Jericho and leaving Templars only little weaker than before or do we have more war objectives?

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

If we decide to fight Templars, we should use Jericho as a feint, and send an Armada to Jerusalem. Templars will likely over-protect Jericho and under-protect Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, we have too many fogged tiles at present to see whether or not this plan is realistic.

[mostly-harmless]

So are we aiming for a local struggle to wrest control of Iron from them or all out destruction?

Unfortunately, we have too many fogged tiles at present to see whether or not this plan is realistic.

The coast line south of Jerusalem is more or less know to us, as is most of the terrain from tile bleeding.

Anyway, in case of conflict, I suggest to move a couple of spies into their territory.

But lets get some more opinion in whether we go for war or not.
I am still undecided.

mh

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I think *if* we decide to attack Templars, we should do more than simply to secure iron, because all the war efforts which will set us back have to pay off. Securing iron is vital for our mid-term military survival; capturing one or two key cities is vital for our long-term economical competitiveness if we neglect our infrastructure. Otherwise the military buildup would cost us too much overall.

-"never thought to become a hawk" Kylearan

[mostly-harmless]

That makes sense.
Problem is, the only valid military target is Jerusalem (80% cultural defense), as all other gains will be dominated by Jerusalems culture.

mh