Scorched Earth Succession Game

[Bloody Monk]

Re: -- Greeks

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
1620AD = Inadequate, Peace, Democracy - RAR Git has to pause and check his dictionary ... Having absolutely no compunction for his predecessor's reputation changes unsuitable construction orders in Lag to Colosseum...

You got him. Given how the turns began I wonder if it was an accident that you left it with a rushed aquaduct in Lag BUT no food surplus (so it won't grow). Very

Apart from the civil war, good turns!! Bulking up the core cities is a beautiful thing.

Monk

[-Jrabbit]

I guess that's what I "Git" for being nice enough to arrange for the Lady to be built in Stu's Hole...

FWIW Lagomorphia would have celebrated back to (8) at 30 lux without a colosseum, once the horsie moved back in range.

[-Jrabbit]

Speaking of rules...

Each player may only build one city and capture one city. The goal is conquest. In other words, all other AI cities must be razed - may can do this with Spy-poisoning or simply attacking the city until it is destroyed, or by capturing a size 1 city (destroying it, but still getting pillage).

Then, under "Clarifications"

- If the city you founded is somehow destroyed, you may not found another, but you may capture a second city from the AI. If the city you captured is destroyed... well... too bad

Not to be a bastard, but if we're playing the rules game, have a look at Stu's log and tell me it's OK to (a) capture the same AI city twice and (b) kill through engineer build, not spy poison or razing.

I could've taken Troy much earlier and more easily, but (foolishly) adhered to the above rules...

{not that I'm bitter, Stu...}

[Bloody Monk]

The wily AI has succeeded in getting the Hu-mans to fight among themselves.

Monk

[Scouse Gits]

Oh - I only captured it once - bought it the second time

Sorry -Jrabbit -- simply could not resist the temptation

If I am in rule violation - I will spend a remedial period at the Institute - but I did genuinely feel that I was adhering to the spirit of the constitution

Stu

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Oh, great You guys are giving me a headache!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Okay. I'm going to try to think about this and be fair.

Ok, done. Took all of 30 seconds.

Point 1. Jrabbit's Palace. While Jrabbit did put the shields in the box, he foolishly entrusted a RAR with those shields... In a way, I'm surprised a Colosseum appeared, instead of a Crook!

If the Palace had been actually built, no harm, no foul. The main point of this rule is to force us to allocate 100 shields to a Palace every turnset, which is a mild drag on our overall production. If it was permissible to add 100 shields towards a Palace and then convert to something else, the 'drag' effect would be lost, or diminished at least. We'd all build Palaces on our last turn, and the next player would change to a Factory/Market/Aqueduct/whatever. So... while I understand Jrabbit's intentions were good, the intention was thwarted by a vicious RAR, and the spirit of the rule was violated.

Point 2. Capturing, abandoning, and razing. This is a tougher call. Again, I'm going to try to look to the spirit of the rules.

quote:
Each player may only build one city and capture one city. The goal is conquest. In other words, all other AI cities must be razed - may can do this with Spy-poisoning or simply attacking the city until it is destroyed, or by capturing a size 1 city (destroying it, but still getting pillage).


Then, under "Clarifications"
quote:

- If the city you founded is somehow destroyed, you may not found another, but you may capture a second city from the AI. If the city you captured is destroyed... well... too bad

What I had originally intended was that each player could build one city and capture (and hold) an AI city. That was my intention with SixT.

Stu has come up with a loophole which DOES violate the letter of the rules. However, he's plainly indicated that he doesn't intend to hold the city he's captured - he wants to raze it, as required in the rules. This does allow for faster razing, and as Jrabbit pointed out, he could have destroyed Troy faster if he wasn't adhering to the letter of the rules - well, the letter of some of the rules, anyway.

Stu's trick has a couple of downsides, though. If you're capturing/abandoning/razing cities, you can only do that to one city at a time - you can't capture and abandon 2, 3 or 15 cities in a turn as that's clearly contrary to the letter AND spirit of the rules. And, perhaps more importantly, anyone employing this technique can't capture and hold an AI city (say, one with a lot of wonders in it), because they would be holding 2 AI cities at once.

Trouble is, how is capture-and-abandon policed? How long can one hold a city - for example, a 'beachhead' city for landing spies/howies in - before abandoning it? What happens if the AI never bothers recapturing it? What if another player wants to claim it? There's the potential for a rules exploit here... claim a city until a better one appears, then abandon the old city, wait for it to be captured, and grab a new one.

Bottom line is... in the spirit of the rules (destroying AI cities) I was tempted to allow this. But also, the spirit of the rules is to make the game harder. So, it's ok this time (because I hadn't really thought it all through when I previously posted on this, a couple of days ago), but henceforth, this technique will not be allowed.

Point 3. Destroying the city by building a Settler. A definite no-no, I should have noticed that before. To the Institute with him!

(Was the Settler destroyed? If so, fine. If not, please disband him, and let us never speak of this again. )

And now, a request: Please don't make me try to be logical at 1:00 AM again.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Final thought...

If you think I'm being unfair, tough and have a better suggestion, feel free to post it. I'd rather keep the game going than poll on this, tho.

Just bear in mind that the spirit of the game is to make it harder for us to win, and to promote dissention among the players (check!).

[Bloody Monk]

Just how are you going to "raze" walled cities if you can't starve them down to an engineer?? Wait for Spies?? Tedious!!

About your point #3...I asked for a ruling on that tactic two days before Stu used it. It is a logical extention of the priviously accepted ruling. Maybe if you had addressed it then you wouldn't have had to make a decision at 1am now .

And the rabbit could have hit enter and sent a save at the begining of the next turn, which reveals who broke the palace rule. The current way is a convention among gentlemen which does not contemplate RAR behavior, after all.

Is this what you mean by promoting dissention??

Seriously, these are hard rules to win under. It is already 1730 and the AI already have more than 50 cities. Mazel tov.

Sorry for the rant. My Sagitarian sense of fair play is overly excited.

Monk

[Scouse Gits]

Thanks Monk - if I understood you correctly I should be vindicated for destroying evil AI cities and then villified for my caddish behaviour towards a fellow gentleman - perhaps I should place an Article in the London Gazette stating that "Scouse Git[1] has forsaken all right to be regarded as a gentleman." as was once the 'done thing'.

Seriously guys, now I'm confused - it seems clear that I am a malefactor, but can we have some agreement as to what it is that I have transgressed.

Stu - en route to Sticky Mouse (which is currently in Egyptian hands and temporarily known as Memphis)

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

@ Monk - we can wait for Spies, or destroy the city walls with Dips and knock the AI cities down to size that way. Either/or.

Yes, it's a hard game... but if La Fayette is watching, he's probably thinking: "Rush to Espionage, switch to Communism, build several dozen vet Spies, start poisoning." I suspect that when the end comes, it'll be swift. 50 cities is not all that many.

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
Seriously guys, now I'm confused - it seems clear that I am a malefactor, but can we have some agreement as to what it is that I have transgressed.

Stu - en route to Sticky Mouse (which is currently in Egyptian hands and temporarily known as Memphis)

The transgression is the violation of the rule stating that you may only capture one AI city. Technically, if you capture and abandon cities, you're breaking that rule, as was pointed out by Jrabbit. Yes, I earlier said it was ok (which is why you don't have to replay the turns), but on further review... it strays too far from what was intended in the rules.

Also, building Settlers/Engineers to destroy a city isn't allowed.

Sorry to be raining on so many peoples' parades. The next succession game I start will have no confusing rules!

[Bloody Monk]

@ Six

This complete reliance on dips/spies will be tedious. I thought the "Git Variation" and the "Monk Extention" were necessary to give the game more flexiblity. But you have spoken.

It wouldn't hurt to write up a restatement of the rules to make things "perfectly clear."

As I understand the current ruleset, there would seem to be a premium on everyone getting a second city--to help get a more workable critical mass of production. Then the Warlords will become Raiders and Terrorists banging away on the fat, dumb, and lazy AI cities.

There could be some fun to be had after all.

Monk

[Old n Slow]

Maybe those who actually hold cities should build the Palace there (ASAP) so they can rule -- or perhaps the previous player can RB the shields so the palace appears on the click of the new turn.

As far as crushing the not desired cities before possession, just remember what they did to Slowburg (sniff!) and see if that will put you in the appropriate frame of mind.

[-Jrabbit]

So... while I understand Jrabbit's intentions were good, the intention was thwarted by a vicious RAR, and the spirit of the rule was violated.

[ ]
So let me get this straight...

1. I obey the spirit of the rule, dedicate the resources for the required Palace in the 8th turn of my set.

2. SG [1] misappropriates the resources, builds an unneeded, unwanted resource in my city, then uses the gold I kindly left for his use to build the required palace in Git's Hole.

3. But I am judged in violation of the rules and need to build TWO palaces during my next turnset, while the wastrel Git gets a slap on the wrist and wanders free??????????

Oh yeah, that's fair...

In my view, I'm guilty only of taking too few turns, while Stu fell to temptation, stole my resources to put me in technical violation of the rules, and then used a, uh. "workaround" to avoid the razing rule.

So tell me again,
who was it that moved outside the intent of the ruleset, and who is paying the penalty?

It's only a game and I don't really care. I, for one, will abide by the rules, and their interpretation by game's sponsor.

[/ ]

[Scouse Gits]

ROTFLMAO with not @ -Jrabbit