Ancient Empires #2

[Peaster]

ISeeAll - Your example sways me a little against city-bribing. Maybe one could say that your opponent erred in letting you make such a powerful bribe... other opinions on this ?

[Peaster]

Originally posted by RobRoy

Was this why you removed the trade restrictions?

No, this seems to be an unusual situation.

I really thought the proposals out there were fairly close and generally reasonable; all of them were better than restricting some trade exploits and not others. And they seemed to be getting support (or did I misinterpret people's posts?)

Dunno. Let's see if more people respond today and we reach some agreement. We don't have to restrict all-or-nothing. Some exploits are easy to fix and others not. Some bother me and others don't.

Minoans: Made peace with the Egyptians, again...deja vu. Killed a barb town and the Trojan guard!

How'd ya do that ? A Ram ?

Yay, Minos has a dip! So, as ISeeALL asked, do we have any diplomat restrictions in the real game?

Pls share your opinions on that!

FYI ... Just keep sailing west or wait till Minos kills the barb boats or they vanish.

Aaaah so! Do these red ships like to attack other ships - or do they mainly wait to unload?

[Peaster]

I've gotten bumped off the net 3 times while trying to talk about Persia, so I'm crossing fingers and splitting this into a separate post.

Sops for Persia?:

I guess Persia doesn't need much help, especially if we allow some tech gifts. I could agree to Persian auto-settlers OR to remove the hut limit, but not much more. And I wouldn't mind playing them, but would prefer something new. Player opinions ?

I wonder a little about Minos and Greece, too. I haven't played them and nobody has complained, so I expect they have equal chances.

RobRoy - remember that Platy was Ctrl-N'd last turn and had no chance to unblock your unit.

Everyone - pls read post #494 (at least) and respond about RobRoy's rules questions. Also about Persia.

Platy - You're up.

[ISeeALL]

Originally posted by Peaster
ISeeAll - Your example sways me a little against city-bribing. Maybe one could say that your opponent erred in letting you make such a powerful bribe... other opinions on this ?

He wasn't an experienced Civ2 player, though I would fall in the same trap too. There were maybe 2 riflemen and 2 tanks fortified behind walls in Minsk. He had a Panzerarmee and many bombers. He lost a few units while attacking, and 3 or 4 units ended their turns with yellow or red lives near the city. Then he uses another units to capture the city. If he doesn't put more than this single unit in the city, I still get 4 units converted when bribing the city. Also, he couldn't know I have a diplomat, because there was a railroad, and the diplomat came form a very distant city by this road. The unfair thing is that to bribe a single Armor I would have to pay maybe 700G or so (Axis have Republic), but to bribe a city with at least 4 units (maybe more) I pay just 500G and reverse the attack. In a situation like this the attacker looses in any way: he can't track down the diplomat, because it is far away, hidden inside a well defended city, and the attacker's units can't reach that city because of ZOCs, lack of roads, other cities on the way etc. If he attacks, his attacking units are in limited supply, so their MPs will end at some point, and most of them will be either inside captured cities or near them, because they have just attacked. End of turn. Now come diplomats, bribe the cities (which are in revolt of course), bribe one attacking unit, which easily kills a few other attackers. The only way to play is to sit in defense, make democracy and if the enemy isn't smart enough to switch to democracy too, bribe everything which comes in sight, especially barbs.

The only tactics may be to stack units, but this works in defense only! It's good to stack two Mech Inf's in a hill fortress and enjoy the show of waves of Armors, Marines, and even Howitzers to die like flies, but how do you stack two Crusaders? Suppose you still forget to stack something and leave one crusader unstacked. Here comes a diplomat, bribes it, and the converted crusader may now kill 4 crusaders at once. There is still a munchkin's way to attack: look for a hill or a mountain near the enemy city, bring a pikeman with two catapults, move pikeman forward on the hill, fortify, move catapults on the hill, attack. But in this scenario the map is too large for such tactics, and, more important, the defense values of all units are intentionally lowered to make the game more aggressive.

I expect that with bribing the game won't be just more unpredictable and tricky, it will be annoying. If you could see all enemy units and could see where the diplomats are to be able to expect their tricks, it would be ok. But with limited FOV it's too much like playing poker.

[RobRoy]

Originally posted by Peaster
Dunno. Let's see if more people respond today and we reach some agreement. We don't have to restrict all-or-nothing. Some exploits are easy to fix and others not. Some bother me and others don't.

Well, I generally prefer an all-or-nothing approach. I think half measures create more problems than they solve. 'Van rehoming is the perfect example: you restrict a simple, easily replicable exploit, encourage more time-consuming ones that have odd games effects, yet do little/nothing to keep trade from becoming an abusive part of the game.

As you've probably figured out, the micromanagement and Hides exploits bother me far more than 'van rehoming ever did. The cap would be far more effective at limiting 'vans abusiveness without restricting players' options or encouraging odd gameplay.

I'd thought ISeeALL and Straybow, even you, maybe even ST, were expressing some support for caps. ISeeALL, I know you wanted more restrictions, but weren't you still in favor of the cap approach, if the more comprehensive restriction wasn't available?

Originally posted by Peaster
How'd ya do that ? A Ram ?
...
Pls share your opinions on that!

Had 2 vet C1s and a vet Sword already in range with an EC, another 2 C1s, and a skirmisher coming soon. Since I wasn't sure if we'd play many more turns, I took the shot sooner than planned and got lucky.

Restricting dips is like anything else - I'd prefer some sort of all/nothing approach, with a prejudice against restrictions. Since they aren't buildable till mid-game, I see it as "white noise", really. And if you're aware of the risks, you can defend against them okay, I think. If people see a problem, I'd prefer just to ban building them completely. That'd make those barb Palace Guards pretty precious, though.

Originally posted by Peaster
Aaaah so! Do these red ships like to attack other ships - or do they mainly wait to unload?

Yeah the red boats attack anything at sea, but only if you get near their movement path...they generally move adjacent to port or coast cities. Sometimes they raid ports, sometimes they don't, but they generally won't raid non-port coastal tiles and wait to unload.

Originally posted by Peaster
RobRoy - remember that Platy was Ctrl-N'd last turn and had no chance to unblock your unit.

Oh, right, forgot about that.

Originally posted by Peaster
I guess Persia doesn't need much help, especially if we allow some tech gifts. I could agree to Persian auto-settlers OR to remove the hut limit, but not much more. And I wouldn't mind playing them, but would prefer something new. Player opinions ?

I wonder a little about Minos and Greece, too. I haven't played them and nobody has complained, so I expect they have equal chances.

Maybe Persia's like "Name that Tune". He who claims Persia needs the fewest exemptions "Plays that Civ". My bid included exemption from trading handicaps, so Peaster's bid is leading... Step right up to "Play that Civ".

I think Greeks/Minoans are okay. Their limited hut access is softened since others won't be able to exploit "their" huts quite so quickly. And though the test game suggested otherwise, that corner position SHOULD mean fewer wrathful barbs. The pirates/Sea People do seem to target the Minoans more than others, but cities can generally be held, and, if the Minoans stick to islands, they probably won't be so bothered by the big hordes. The acid test is "would I be happy to play them?" Either of them would be okay as is, but Kull's readme notes about the four central civs being somewhat easier is still true, IMHO.

[ISeeALL]

Originally posted by Peaster
I guess Persia doesn't need much help, especially if we allow some tech gifts. I could agree to Persian auto-settlers OR to remove the hut limit, but not much more. And I wouldn't mind playing them, but would prefer something new. Player opinions ?

Peaster - I don't quite understand why Persia is worse than other civs, I haven't played it in singleplayer. Could you please tell me some details?

[RobRoy]

Originally posted by ISeeALL
Peaster - I don't quite understand why Persia is worse than other civs, I haven't played it in singleplayer. Could you please tell me some details?

Well, I'm not Peaster, but I'll stick my oar in anyway, since I'm here.

Persia has an untradeable tech call "Persian Tech", which is in the Invention slot. Kull used it to graphically differentiate Persia's cities. Unfortunately, if you have it, you suffer two serious game effects: 1) goody huts never generate tech, so Persia tends to fall behind in the tech race, despite reasonable access to huts; and 2) having it (OR Navigation) reduces the one-time trade bonus (1/2 or 2/3 of what other civs get, forget which), so she can't exploit trade as effectively as the other civs. She also has relatively poor terrain, which isn't a huge problem (the Hittites isn't particularly good, some of the Greeks and Assyrians is mediocre too), except for the fact that she doesn't have much access to water/rivers, so a lot of "their" land is underutilized for a long time. The ban on the auto-irrigation feature is really only relevant for Persia, since the others don't really have much use for the feature.

Did I misunderstand, ISeeALL, or didn't you support some kind of cap on trade, rather than a ban on rehoming? I know you wanted more, but I'd thought you were still in favor of less, rather than nothing much at all.

BTW, if your concerns about dips include the ability to bribe all those barbs, don't worry about that. Kull made them unbribable.

Platy, you're still up. Heresson, you're on deck if nothing from Platy by this evening.

[ISeeALL]

Originally posted by RobRoy
Did I misunderstand, ISeeALL, or didn't you support some kind of cap on trade, rather than a ban on rehoming? I know you wanted more, but I'd thought you were still in favor of less, rather than nothing much at all.

Thanks for info about Persia. Looks fair that Persia should be able to use autosettles. No huts on the map and no vans would equalize its chances with other civs well enough, but since most folks want more goodies, we must compensate these shortcomings for Persia in some way. An easy way is just to give it something from start, like Monarchy
Would be fair!

As for caps, I am for the strictest restrictions on everything which can be even theoretically exploited. Since no one supports bans (people like caravans, which I can understand: I like howitzers and can't do anything about it), I would favor a hard cap on something: techs speed (no one supports this however), vans deliveries, vans production per turn, #of vans per #turns, anything to prevent expoitation of game deficiencies. Under "deficiency" I understand some special trait of a game, which is usually not mentioned in the tutorial, nor in the manual, and when players start a multiplayer game, they all suddently understand that they can exploit this trait to win. In the end, all players exploit this, and the ones more proficient in exploiting it, win. Most other features get neglected because they fail to the strategy of exploiting the deficiency in the rules.

Also, we both agree that restrictions should as simple as possible, partly because if they are too complicated, it would be easier to break them unnoticed. Therefore, any solution which includes counting of turns is, as you said, unrealistic. This should be a harsh, though simple restriction. % to cities won't work. #of vans per #turns won't work either. Van production per turn will hardly work, too, because caravan fans will ofter forget in what other city they are building a van and will still build it.

Vans deliveries limit looks simple enough, though 2 per turn is the same as no limit, in my mind. But if most players say that, let it be that way. At least I will know that there is a top limit of expoitation, not just unlimited exploitation Limited trade exploits can be beaten by a limited amount of units.

Whatever cap on trade, gifts, diplomats, and tricks is suggested, I support it by default, so other players seem to have a deciding vote.

[Peaster]

Good to see more rules discussions. We need 1-2 more people to speak/vote, especially about the issues in post 494, about bribery and about Persia. I will assign Persia to whoever speaks up last.

Everything said about Persia is true, but she has at least 3 advantages;

a) Good defensive terrain, in case she is attacked by a larger civ [but the terrain is not so great against barbs, which get the defense bonuses too].

b) Access to Central Asia, which is the best van target on the map. Not sure this compensates for the Persian Culture handicap, but it certainly creates possibilities.

c) The Sinbad Treasure (500g) seems huge in the early stages of the game.

[SlowThinker]

Sinbad wrote about alliances:
>If you use civ2dip to end it [possibly with 3rd party help], the other player must agree.
...
>You can always escape via civ2dip (but you may need some 3rd party help).

How can you do it? I don't understand ...


>What if we add some other unit types to the barbarian respawns? Like Early Chariots and Horsemen?

IMO you should play raging hordes or even easier level first 20(?) turns. Otherwise the game is too much about luck / bad luck.

If you want I can replace static barbs so that you can enjoy revealing of the map. This way I could also make some civs easier and other ones harder.
Also I can delete some huts around capitals so that the early game is not affected by good luck from huts.

[ISeeALL]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Also I can delete some huts around capitals so that the early game is not affected by good luck from huts.

That woud be great. Nice idea.

[Addled Platypus]

small delay, final stages of cleaning up wind damamge


please play for me, thank you

[Peaster]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
>You can always escape [an alliance] via civ2dip (but you may need some 3rd party help).

How can you do it? I don't understand ...

Yes, you do! We (Persia-Babylon) cancelled our alliance this way in Game#1. Our rules do not allow the second player to say No. If either player does not have civ2dip, they will need help from someone who does, like me or you.

Units would not be teleported this way, so the allied players would need to trust each other not to take advantage. OR people need to find a better rule about this situation - but AFAIK Game#2 players oppose teleporting.

>What if we add some other unit types to the barbarian respawns? Like Early Chariots and Horsemen?

IMO you should play raging hordes or even easier level first 20(?) turns. Otherwise the game is too much about luck / bad luck.

I prefer not to make the game any harder (eg with barb EC's). I am OK with temporary Raging Hordes, if the game-mechanics experts (ST and RobRoy) are sure this will work correctly. I'd prefer not to playtest again, though.

If you want I can replace static barbs so that you can enjoy revealing of the map. This way I could also make some civs easier and other ones harder.

Huh ? "Static barbs" means the motionless ones, and "replace" means "remove" ? If so, how does this help us ?

Also I can delete some huts around capitals so that the early game is not affected by good luck from huts.

I'm neutral on this. Like I said, let's not make things any harder. But depending on our other decisions, about tech-gifts etc, this idea might be good.
----------------------------------------
I was hoping to start Game #2 by approx tomorrow, before we lose any players. Do we need more time ? more input on rules ? Or, are people tired of talking, and eager to start ?

And what about the play-test? I'd slightly prefer to end it, and focus on the real game IMO it's just as fun to learn-as-you-go, and it seems that we've tested the Wrath/Hotseat aspects pretty well already.

If we are going to continue, I guess Heresson should play Babs+Assyria again.

[ISeeALL]

Originally posted by Peaster
before we lose any players. Do we need more time ? more input on rules ? Or, are people tired of talking, and eager to start ?

And what about the play-test? I'd slightly prefer to end it, and focus on the real game IMO it's just as fun to learn-as-you-go, and it seems that we've tested the Wrath/Hotseat aspects pretty well already.

I am tired of talking and want to start.

I would also play this game to the end, but form this turn we are no longer testing and playing for real I would keep Persians and Greeks if you don't mind.

[Peaster]

OK - IMO we can settle bribing and alliances later. But we need rules (if any) on tech-gifts, van limits, and sops to Persia. Also any changes to the map/scen such as ST suggests. Let's give people one more day for input, and if there's still no consensus, I'll rule.

And then assign civs. If people [especially novices] have preferences, let me know. If you can give me 2-3 options, I can probably give you one of them. Also, can someone volunteer to play Persia ? But I won't consider it a "done deal" until we decide on the sop.

Sorry, but I can't continue the play test as a "real game". But anyone who wants to take over Egypt can have it - and it's in pretty good shape IMHO.