AUSG 101 - Domination Team DAR 2

[Beta]

Originally posted by Theseus
Well played, Beta.

Hmmm... I am so constitutionally attuned to 3-tile placement that going all the way out to 5-tile was tough for me... it is, however, probably better if using a camp strategy.

Have you attacked anyone yet? I think no... so your first will be with Swords?

The way I see it is that the outer ring are 3 tiles away from the inner ring. Also - using MZ's save from the first round, the first ring was committed. I do not see them as 'camps'. In the longer term, as long as each city uses 'outer' tles, all the cities should work fairly well. That was another reason for moving the outer ring out to the 5/5.5 spacing.

I think Mecca will need to be a feeder city for quite awhile yet, to fuel continued expansion.

And no, other than a few barbs (with no promotions
), we have not attacked anyone yet. If this save is chosen, that will change in 4 moves. I plan on starting with the second American City in, and letting reinforcements take the most southerly city.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Master Zen
whoa, I have never actually placed 4 camps around a single city!

Or you can just treat Mecca as the single (settler+worker) temporary camp and leave the 2-ring cities there forever. I like it!

[Beta]

Originally posted by alexman


Or you can just treat Mecca as the single (settler+worker) temporary camp and leave the 2-ring cities there forever. I like it!

That's what I was thinking as well. The only downside is that you do not have the capital uber-city thing going. But then again, we are warmongers. Culture and stuff are for wusses.

Our philosophy:

Luxuries and happiness - by conquest.
Culture - by conquest.
Science - by conquest.
Land - by conquest.
Victory - by conquest.

[Master Zen]

the way the city was managed, it never needs more than 4 tiles to get the 7 turn settler/spears. Looks real good Beta

[Theseus]

Some thoughts:

* Long-term, we are prolly going to head south with slowmovers (LB and MedInf) and take on Japan and America with fastmovers (Horse and AW). Carthage needs to be denied iron, so that the likely GA will result in Archers (GL generators) and NMs. Japan needs to be denied horses (if not existence) prior to Chivalry.

* Until (and if) we control the GLight, we will want to maintain our rep.

* Economic development should be more critically examined in selecting the block winner. This includes CP and #, of course, but also the road network and number of high-value / shared tiles improved.

* We need to discuss our overall objective, as has been touched on in some of the other threads. Domination win ASAP? Ultimate Power? Or how about some sort of style... Ghenghis Khan and Caesar come to mind . I personally plan on being a right bastard, albeit within the rep rules. Also, remember that Rhothy has something up his sleeve... we have been set up with a KAI (I believe), namely the Black Land, which will make an IC invasion, uh, interesting.

Now a question:

Both Beta and I have executed a 2 tile, 4 camp plan (I pondered 6!). We are both also following that with strict RCP placement, with me at 4 tile and Beta at 5.

alexman suggested treating the CAPITOL as a camp, leaving the remaining city rings, and this got me thinking...

WTF happens to RCP when you move the Palace? Whether by abandoning a capitol surrounded by camps, or just down the road, when we have an FP in place and might want to start using the Palace proactively, doesn;t this whole system go to hell in a handbasket? Doesn;t this then mean that EVERY city needs to be placed with the FP in mind and an eventual relo of the Palace?

[Beta]

Yup - but why would we move the palace. We will have a very nice 12 city set-up, with some out-lying cities (the iron city, one on the chokepoint to carthage etc).

We then need to decide wher our next hub goes (hint - hint - Rockets red glare, though bombs bursting in air )

As to overall objective. I say pound America back to a small and submissive state. Then - yes - lets make sure Japan is either really very small or non-existant prior to chivalry.

And that takes us to Lego - er sorry - Carthage. We will have had them bottled up. They may get a city or two planted by galley. But then we descend on them with the might of Mecca and wish they were never born. (Timing yet to be determined - but stay tuned.)

To this end - I feel we should get a city on the choke point during the next round. Build walls. Firm it up a bit.

OK - Theseus - as to a long long long term objective - I am open. I like keeping the small civs around as vassals, only if it makes sense. Otherwise we bop them and take the land.

And btw - I agree about maintaining our rep. But that doesn't mean we can't legitimately squash someone.

[Beta]

Originally posted by Theseus

* Economic development should be more critically examined in selecting the block winner. This includes CP and #, of course, but also the road network and number of high-value / shared tiles improved.

And yes - agreed completely. This afterall - is our source of power. I would add number of workers to your list.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Theseus
We need to discuss our overall objective, as has been touched on in some of the other threads. Domination win ASAP? Ultimate Power? Or how about some sort of style... Ghenghis Khan and Caesar come to mind

I asked this question in the main thread, and the answer is that all teams are trying to pursue the target victory condition ASAP.

WTF happens to RCP when you move the Palace?

RCP matters only around your palace. There is a bug in the rank calculations for cities closer to the Forbidden Palace than the Capital. For any such city, the rank is given by the number of cities that are closer to the Capital than that city is to the Forbidden Palace.

This means that you can have ICS around your FP and get away with corruption corresponding to the looser city placement around your Palace!

The current RCP around your Palace is all you need to get an early boost in production. When you jump the Palace to an AI core, the looser city spacing will continue to give you low corruption around your FP, even if there is no more RCP!!

[Theseus]

Doesn;t that get screwed the moment a second city, captured or built, is near you new Palace?

[alexman]

Say the closest city to your Palace is 4 tiles away (very common if you jump your Palace to an AI core).

Then all your cities with distance less or equal to 4.5 from your FP will have rank 1! This could be several cities if you have a dense build around the FP.

Again, in typical AI city placement, say that you have 4 cities with distance less than 8 from your new Palace. That means that all cities with distance between 4.5 and 7.5 from your FP will have rank 5. This could be LOTS of cities in a tight build around the FP.

You can see that with a Palace jump to an AI core, you get RCP levels of corruption without actually having RCP anywhere (provided you have a denser build around your FP than you do around your Palace).

Edit: Stepping back for a moment, I'm beginning to remember why I gave myself the "corruption nazi" nickname. Sorry!!

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by alexman
Edit: Stepping back for a moment, I'm beginning to remember why I gave myself the "corruption nazi" nickname. Sorry!!

If you're a corruption nazi in RL too then I could probably find you a job in Mexico City

[Theseus]

Sorry, I may a bit slow on the uptake.

Any city at equal or less corruption distance from the Palace (including .5), when compared to the FP... gets 1st ring corruption?

OK. Two problems:

1) Obviously, taken IC cities may exist too near the new Palace. So, abandon them ASAP?

2) There is still something I am not getting about RCP... does it more or less preclude a Palace move? If so, it's strength is weakend in my mind.

[alexman]

No problem, it's not an easy concept. Fortunately, RCP and the FP rank bug will be fixed in Conquests.

1) Taken cities from the AI are usually far enough from the Palace to give a corruption benefit to many of your FP cities. Abandoning the closest ones to the Palace will help even more, yes. In the limit, if you have your Palace on the moon, and all your other cities on Earth, all your cities will have rank 1 corruption.

2) RCP gets screwed up if you move your Palace, unless:
a) you have RCP around your new palace (not likely),
or
b) city spacing around the new Palace is such that RCP around your FP is no longer relevant. In this case you don't get the benefits of RCP, but you get the benefits of the FP rank bug.

So, the way I see it, RCP is a trick to get an early-game boost. After that, you have two options:
1) Use a leader to build the FP far away and keep the Palace, to continue to take advantage of the RCP.
2) Build the FP in your original core and jump the Palace to take advantage of the FP rank bug.

Both these approaches are comparable in the resulting corruption of your empire (depending on the density of your new Palace core), but the Palace jump has the advantage of not requiring a leader.

[vmxa1]

Can you tell again, what exactly is meant by the FP rank bug? I have seen the term, but am not sure I know what it means.

[alexman]

Sure:

Originally posted by alexman
RCP matters only around your palace. There is a bug in the rank calculations for cities closer to the Forbidden Palace than the Capital. For any such city, the rank is given by the number of cities that are closer to the Capital than that city is to the Forbidden Palace.