Lazy Days of Summer Sxn Game

[Straybow]

Whoo, meeee?

Computer behaving today, drinking in the Apolyton. Ooo, head rush!

[duke o' york]

Poor Dukedom.
That means we can't bribe it back and get loads of free barb units.
I mean to take my revenge upon everybody and anybody, and will not cease (nor shall my mouse sleep in my hand) 'til I have renamed Washington Dukedom II in our lazy lazy lazy land!

Er, that is if I even get another turn at this one. Things seem to be moving very quickly indeed and the Americans are some way ahead. Go Stray!

[Straybow]

My eyeballs hurt (it seems I'm fighting off the flu )—

Could somebody compile a list of cities we've already stolen from? I thought we could only steal tech from a city once, but the log looks like 3 techs were stolen from Chicago in one turn.

[-Jrabbit]

Only dips are so restricted. We have spies now.

[Old n Slow]

Spies have a freer range from "new victims", but I don't have any additional information other than the previous posted logs.

[Old n Slow]

Hmmmm JRabbit's comment about me being a lazy sod (in Sailing) got me to thinking...

I think that this game may have close to the most players going completely automatic (Atomant & BobSmurf) with Vlad & Straybow currently semi-automatic.

Maybe the adjusted playlist should look like:

1) Old n Slow
2) JRabbit
3) Duke of York
4) LaFayette
5) Ben Kenobi

With Vlad & Straybow listed as at the ready whenever they return to active civ status.

Let's see what we can do with minimal resources (and lots of automatics.)

Of course, since we can only modify city builds when enemy units are within three spaces, maybe we should visit them...

[-Jrabbit]

Me?????

So, OnS, you seem to be saying that we should play this game out with only a handful of cities EVER being actively managed. Five cities, each actively managed only 1/5th of the time, and the rest forced to Auto.

I think (at least in Deity) even the AI can beat the auto function (which, by definition, is even dumber than the AI).

In order to have half a chance, we need to consider a rules mod allowing us to "take over" the ceded cities of our absent governors.

Or something.

Losing to the AI in a quixotic attempt to finish a game that's been seeing about 2 turnsets per month since July -- seems a senseless execise.

Let's discuss among the few remaining (near)participants...

[La Fayette]

I am afraid we are going to lose this game in any case, since we have so few degrees of freedom.

Does anyone know how to win ?

[duke o' york]

Yes!

We turn off all the auto-builds, get rid of the Goto function, and play the rest like a normal game.

We're already into the twentieth century, so you've done well to even survive this far. Can we now turn on the AI with all howies blazing? Please....

[Scouse Gits]

Sounds as if you guys have been having fun ...

[-Jrabbit]

A very frustrating game. We've had multiple defections, and as a result OnS's idea, for a quick-play format has been less than successful.

Care to join us, SG?

OnS -- We need a ruling on the 20th Century ruleset.

[Bloody Monk]

Yep. This a tough one. Amazing you got this far. But, changing the rules in midstream defeats the point of the SXN format..."Can you win with these rules??"

If you change the rules you lost. Might as well resign and move on. If you can see you're mated in x-moves, you tip over the KIng. Done.

Whatever happened to " This is a good day to die"??

Or, "Remember the Alamo!!"

Play on, win or die; but no retreat.

Think about it. How much pride can come from winning if you change the rules??

Monk

[Old n Slow]

And here I though that the waning interest was due to the fact that it looked like it was so close to done that we all figured that it was of no interest to ‘go though the motions.’

Part of my rationale with setting up this game was to see what “Auto” would actually do -- were there any predictable paths? And of course part of setting this up was to see what great players would do with a fresh challenge.

By some VERY liberal interpretation of the rules I’ve discovered that smallish cities (say sizes 3-6 or so) with open terrain are likely to opt for an engineer (a good thing imho.) and an empty city will likely opt for a defender -- and the domestic vs military voice may even ‘choose’ different defenders (one ‘picked’ an alpine, the other a rifle one time that I checked.) Other than that, the domestic advisor seems to opt for white goods to an extreme.

1) So what can we do? We have the choices of the great governments of Democracy, Republic and since we’re too lazy to say no, Communism.

2) We have spies… and they look oh so wonderful. For all practically purposes, the existence of spies should guarantee tech parity.

3) “Fortified units can attack out of their cities when the attack is at the door. Units can also be called up to move up to three spaces from cities to chase down bandits, barbarians, invaders and other riff-raff. -- This is the only time when a player can disturb the otherwise preplanned city activity of a fellow mayor. Naturally, said units should be returned to the appropriate city as soon as possible after the emergency is over.”

Well let’s see -- one can interpret the above statement to mean “only move three spaces from originating city”…but one can also construe a thought the units need to stay within three spaces of ANY city (yes it is a stretch, but maybe we’re close to not caring.) After, all maybe the sole nearby city will be unable to fend off the riff-raff by itself (like poor Dukedom). With a reasonable rail network/boat chain, we should be able to move our defenders to any of our lands. This should guarantee a reasonable defense. (A side effect from having an empty city is that the advisor may opt for the construction of another defender…)

So maybe we should build a few forts around the perimeter, inviting the barbs to come in and feel comfortable in their new homes. If there is a city or two within a few spaces of that ‘riff-raff’ (which will STAY there, of course) then those cities can pump out spies for the duration….Hmmm a bit sleazy, but hmmm.

I’ve made the mistake of founding new cities (and then noting that we were only supposed to found one -- but in the spirit of the game) & setting them to Auto. Feel free to found new cites & set them to auto as well. (But of course if there is riff-raff around, then the call to action may dictate something other than what the advisors would recommend.)

4) “I’m willing to consider a modification mid game or later for up to three turns of player control solely for the generation of camels & trucks depending upon the trade routes already in place, but otherwise I think that the new cities to the republic don’t get equal rights, don’t get mayor council votes and don’t get player controlled services. Of course, this also means that existing mayors don’t get extra cities to control and gain all of that unequal extra power.”

During my last set of turns I checked though & found a few of our cities with fewer than three trade routes & proceeded to see if I could add a few. Feel free to abuse this (we can certainly use the $$.) Also during a “local call to action” the cities at risk (one close & one nearby) built some spies…(So I guess one CAN get more than two per turn.)

5) With the exception of the remaining player cities, Slowville, Warrenville, Tatooine, La Fayette, Antlergrad, and the soon to be founded/renamed Dukedom II, any player can switch the advisor -- in fact, there may be the possibility that switching from one choice back to the first choice could even change that first choice (??hmm? -- not sure but I think that I saw something funny there once.)

We can make Howies, and the tech for tanks is right next door. Jeeps should also be available soon since our neighbor is collecting info every other turn. We are sooo set to roll!

(By comparison, in reading over the log in Silly, we “picked up” Mass Production in 1915.)

A) Strategy -- I’ll quote from Kev over at Cfc:

“Build stuff & kill. Kill lots.” I couldn’t have said it any better.

B) Tactics: Switch to Commy & stay there. We’ll need a few boats of merit off the eastern shore -- one to two BB’s and a couple of cruisers should do it.

Spy away all the American techs.

Any city with fewer than three trade routes (can and maybe) should build trucks.

‘When the enemy comes near, cities can be roused to action…’

Well, duh -- after we invade the American coast, we should get a few partisans from our first city. So leave one alive nearby (riff-raff) & keep that city pumping out howies! As we walk though the American empire, we should have a few ‘hot spots’ making all of our new cities ‘at risk’ thus allowing our freedom to make the necessary units for (an offensive) defense.

Once we roll through the Americans, the pattern should be set.

[duke o' york]

How about our cities produce loads of howies. ()
Then, at the last turn in that turnset, the player rehomes all of the howies to the home city of the next player, before moving them back to a port city. Since the next player is allowed to move the units from his city with impunity, then he has ten turns to ship them across to America and to capture as many cities as possible. Meanwhile, he is building a load of units to home to the next player's city, and so forth. It bends the rules a little (all right, a lot ), but it seems to allow us a decent chance of getting back into the game. Or we could buy enemy cities with spies.....

[-Jrabbit]

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