Master builder poll

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by delmar
Do we have a rule that allows us to hold the save for 24 hours or not? As the other teams are not citizens of Legoland, I assume they are not looking for our best interest and therefore I consider it irrelevant if they want something that was not enacted as a rule.

In fact it might be considered psychological warfare (if not outright unfair) to push other teams into hurried decisions (I mention this for future reference, dear Department of Foreign Affairs ).

I think it's much simpler than that : everybody wants to have fun, and as such, nobody wants to wait a week (7*24 hours) only to press the "end turn" button.
I could say I range among the 'psychological warriors' , since I like to see our turn to be done quickly, and could push us to be faster. I don't want the ruin of the Legoland team, but I don't want the ruin of the game because of too great length at the beginning.

(And even if our rivals will be atrociously vicious in-game, I don't believe they'do such lengths in the meta-game : they are fair play, erm, as far as fair play can go in Civ3 )

[delmar]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I think it's much simpler than that : everybody wants to have fun,

So to summarize: we are playing the game without a strategy because we want to have fun?

I am sure you will accuse me of misinterpretation and quoting you out of context, but I seriously think that this is what it boils down to. And I also don't have a problem with this, as long as this is a conscious decision of the citizens of Legoland, not just "how things happen to be".

and as such, nobody wants to wait a week (7*24 hours) only to press the "end turn" button.

For the record, they don't have to. They are free to pass the game in 10 seconds if they want to and thus they will have to wait only 24 hours and 1 minute in worst case.

(And even if our rivals will be atrociously vicious in-game, I don't believe they'do such lengths in the meta-game : they are fair play, erm, as far as fair play can go in Civ3 )

I am not accusing anyone of playing unfair, I just wanted to point out that we seem to be screwing ourselves as badly as if someone was playing unfair against us.

[Spiffor]

2 warriors + settler OR 1 merc + settler ?

The num. merc has a great advantage, being an overly powerful defensive unit, but it has also a major flaw : it costs 10 shields more than the spearman it replaces.

In Legopolis, once our cattle and shield grassland will be mined, the production will look so, when our settler is finished :
- First 7 turns with one pop : 3 shields per turn. Total 21 shields.
- Second 7 turns with 2 pop : 5 shields per turn. Total 35 shields.
Total shields before Legopolis reaches pop 3 : 56 shields.

And, to build merc + settler, we'd need 60 shields, i.e one more turn. OTOH we can build 2 warriors + settler (or any 20 shields unit we have at disposal), and waste 6 shields.

Here's a comparative table:

Numidian Mercenary + settler
2 warriors + settler


The Good
- Better defense, unmatched safety in the ancient age

- It means we are sure not to lose our settler stupidly
 (HUGE advantage that is)

- No wasted shields

- Less units -> less upkeep costs -> higher tax rate
- One more unit to explore,
i.e to discover new fertile lands
 and to know earlier where our rivals lie

- No wasted time, we are at full speed




The Bad
- We are one turn late in the settler race

- We explore twice as slow,
 and might end up not exploring at all,
 since the merc is likely to fortify in our cities
- Having twice more units will cost us
 twice more in upkeep, while our
 2 units combined are worse than a merc.

- We risk losing our settler to barbarians
 or other, tempted teams.

- We waste 6 precious shields

I'm all for the 2 warriors solution in the early game because of this :

We explore twice as slow, and might end up not exploring at all, since the merc is likely to fortify in our cities

Later on, we'll change, but for now, exploration is absolutely critical, we cannot afford to ignore it.

I checked, and we can build Wealth during the first turn of the whole warrior - warrior - settler series (here's the math, don't read it if you're not especially interested):

Turn zero : build wealth. 7 turns to get to size 2.
Turn 1 : build warrior, finished in 4 turns. 6 turns to get to size 2.
Turn 2. 3 shields stocked. 5 turns to go
Turn 3. 6 shields stocked. 4 turns to go.
Turn 4. 9 shields stocked. 3 turns to go.
Turn 5. Warrior ready. 2 turns to pop. 2.
Turn 6. 3 shields stocked. 1 turn to go.
Turn 7. 6 shields stocked. Went to pop 2. 7 turns for growth
Turn 8. Warrior ready. Ordering settler. 6 turns to go
Turn 9. 5 shields stocked. 5 turns to go.
Turn 10. 10 shields stocked. 4 turns to go.
Turn 11. 15 shields stocked. 3 turns to go.
Turn 12. 20 shields stocked. 2 turns to go.
Turn 13. 25 shields stocked. 1 turn to go.
Turn 14. Settler ready, and pop. reached 3.

In only 14 turns, we got 1 gold, 2 warriors and a settler. (remember, this will only work once both tiles are mined).

What do you candidates think of this ?

Edit : Finally I made my table look good with IE6, in 1024*768. Get rid of this bad browser, and get Mozilla everyone

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by delmar
I am not accusing anyone of playing unfair, I just wanted to point out that we seem to be screwing ourselves as badly as if someone was playing unfair against us.

Let me disagree. I think we're simply clicking the "end turn" button as fast as possible, so that we arrive to the more interesting part of the game before everyone gets bored. As you can see with my contributions, I'm not against discussion and strategy, but I do think we should only bother to discuss what our future decisions should be, rather than what the previous decisions should have been. Hence my previous post in this very thread.
When we'll have tougher decisions to make (such as choosing our new research if we get BW in a goody hut, for instance), I sure will want to take enough time so that most of us can discuss and vote. But I don't want to hold up the game for 24 hours when the only decision to meet is "should we move our warrior E or NE ?". Having a discussion beforehand for this matter is good, but if it's impossible to discuss it beforehand, then our military architect will be the one who'll meet the decision alone.

Edit : When there will be more orders to issue, as Jack_www said, we'll take our time, as everybody will do.
I understand you want us to have time to discuss, but I think the current pace of the game really allows us to discuss plannable matters : in the above post, I just suggested a 14 turns plan, something which should last 2 weeks or so if it's accepted.

Most planable issues are related to city planning and reseearch. If my plan for Legopolis is accepted, we've adressed ca. half the planable issues. And people agreed it was too early to decide on a grand plan regarding science. I suppose we can still discuss whether our worker should first road or mine our shield grassland.

[delmar]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Let me disagree.

I'm glad you do. In fact I hope there are at least 9 others in Legoland who disagree, because that would mean that everything is fine.

As you can see with my contributions, I'm not against discussion and strategy, but I do think we should only bother to discuss what our future decisions should be, rather than what the previous decisions should have been.

I agree. My opinion (or should I say: fear?) is however that previous decisions were made without proper consideration and as a citizen of Legoland I feel that it is my responsibility to improve this. The only way I could think up to initiate such an improvement was to point out that in my opinionthose decisions were made without proper consideration and to provide an example how it could be done differently in the future.

When we'll have tougher decisions to make (such as choosing our new research if we get BW in a goody hut, for instance), I sure will want to take enough time so that most of us can discuss and vote. But I don't want to hold up the game for 24 hours when the only decision to meet is "should we move our warrior E or NE ?".

I personally don't like this aproach where someone implicitly ridicules certain opinions or alternatives. For example: "I doubt there will be any NO, but it's very possible that some people disagree with the general consens about BW." I beg you not to take this personally and I apologize in advance if you do. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the quoted sentence is from you. My point is: we shouldn't assume that something is not important or is obvious because it is like that for us. I assert that there are situations where moving the warrior E or NE is important (just an example: that warrior might be needed to prevent civil disorder somewhere).

And as for tougher decisions: mining or irrigating the cattle was a very significant decision. And I am not mentioning this because I believe that the decision we made was wrong. I am mentioning this because similar decisions might be lining up to be made in the very near future.

[delmar]

Some observations about Spiffor's strategy:

1.) Why is he not running for the MB position!?

2.) 2 warriors don't necessarily cost twice as much as 1 merc as 4 units/city is for free under Despotism.

3.) Having twice as many units don't necessarily speed up exploration after a certain limit. I believe that having more than 4 units doing exploration is not significantly better than 4. Nonetheless exploration is critical.

4.) Two warrior defending a settler is more than enough against barbarians. In most cases you can outrun barbarians (until they come on horses) by moving one warrior first to see +1 tile ahead.

5.) "We waste 6 precious shields": I personally consider this a huge disadvantage.

6.) I once read a study about strating strategies and one of the important points there was that keeping the base population of cities relatively high is good for the long run. Specifically the argument was that increasing population costs 20 food regardless of size (up to size 6), while, say, 3 citizens can obviously produce more shields than 1. What I am getting at is that a basic decision to make here is what the base population of the capital should be. I am usually going for 3. Spiffor suggested 1. This should be carefully evaluated.

[ZargonX]

Whoa, go away for two days and you miss an awful lot, it seems! Was away for the weekend, but I see there was some quite in-depth discussion in my absence.

Delmar; it will take me some time to read through everything that has been discussed, but I will gladly share my position on the issues you've raised in regards to my running for MB. It might not be until tomorrow, but it's coming.

[ZargonX]

Originally posted by delmar


I don't recall saying anything about stretching the defense. Chances are we won't even meet anyone for another 1000 years and it will be yet another 2000 before they can attack us.

True, it is entirely possible that we won't encounter anyone for 1000 years. It also equally possible that we may be on an island entirely by ourselves. However, it is equally as possible that there is another team located 25 tiles away on the other side of the desert or jungle.

My point is that I think it is in our best interests to assume that we will encounter someone sooner rather than later. While it may not actually turn out that way, it is better to be prepared defensively for an encounter that may not happen then to be ill-prepared for one that does; if you see what I'm saying.

Err on the side of caution is my basic message, and I think one that will keep us safe.

[ZargonX]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I think it's much simpler than that : everybody wants to have fun, and as such, nobody wants to wait a week (7*24 hours) only to press the "end turn" button.
I could say I range among the 'psychological warriors' , since I like to see our turn to be done quickly, and could push us to be faster. I don't want the ruin of the Legoland team, but I don't want the ruin of the game because of too great length at the beginning.

(And even if our rivals will be atrociously vicious in-game, I don't believe they'do such lengths in the meta-game : they are fair play, erm, as far as fair play can go in Civ3 )

I think, in all honesty, that how long we hold on to a turn will be decided, dynamically, by whatever decision needs to be made. If it's a matter of pressing "End Turn," then that's that. If it's a matter of deciding whether to go to war, we'll probably hold on a little longer, no?

Keeping the turns moving quickly will keep people interested, and keeping people interested will mean more people will participate. More participation means more discussion about the strategy of the team, and that means probably a more succesful team in the long run. I don't think we'll ever actively rush a critical decision to keep the game moving, but at the same time we don't really need to hold on the turn 24 hours deciding whether to road or mine first. It should have been decided ahead of time, and as has been shown; it was.

What I'm saying, basically, is that I think a balance will be reached between turn time and decision time, and that we don't have to worry about it too much. I don't think anyone one this team would shoot themselves in the foot just to get the turn out an hour faster, right?

[ZargonX]

Spiffor: That looks pretty solid to me.

The way I look at things, however, might be considered more fluid than others. While I think having a ten-turn plan at this moment is reasonable, I am not willing to commit to anything beyond that until we have some exploration done. Our surroundings are critical to any longer-term planning. If there is another civ next to us, that will require a completely different tact than if we are on an island by ourselves. And then, from that point, further planning depends on how our diplomacy goes. Even my own stated policy of where I would like to optimally place cities is moot if the surrounding terrain won't support it. Don't even get me started on what happens depending on what we find in goody huts...

[Kloreep]

Well, it looks like there's a big split here: quantum_mechani thinks we should build our cities two tiles apart, the others seem to say 4 (though they stress a [i]few] tiles overlap is okay).

To the candidates: would you consider 3-tile spacing? This is the maximum you can space without having gaps in your border, BTW.

[Tiberius]

Delmar, you're killing me with these long posts! I barely have time to read and comprehend them, and I am supposed to answer, too!

*sigh* OK, here it comes:

1)
I agree that luxuries and strategic resources should be one of our main concerns during our expansion phase. This is what I implied when I said opportunistic approach.
Placing cities on hills is really something that depends on the terrain. You can’t plan such thing: sometimes it is good, sometimes not. I won’t place a city on a hill when the city spot is lacking production tiles.
I don’t like the “2-tile-between cities” placement style. I hate to limit in development exactly those early, carefully placed and planned future power-houses. Moving units in time to border cities can prevent succesful enemy attacks.
Some of your observations are so logical and self-implied that I supposed (and I’m still supposing) that (almost) everybody knows them (like what you said about harbors, dynamic assignment, tile improvements or pop-rushing).
I really don’t have the time to answer in detail all your questions/observations, so feel free to judge me based on what you’ve got. In addition, I’d like to answer some further issues that I feel are important before anybody could run for the MB. See 2) and 3) below.

2)
Reading on what you expect from a Master Builder (and generally from a Minister, from the other thread) I can safely say that I don’t have the time nor do I feel like doing at least half of these things. Outlining a strategy is one thing, but I have a job and even at home I have better and more important things to do than making scenarions with every single shield that should or should be not assigned here or there. This is way too much for me, I’m sorry. Generally too much in terms of time and in particular too much in terms of fun-hours. I want to actually have fun in those few hours I have to enjoy myself, and pinpointing every wasted shield does not fit in my idea about fun. If this is what the citizens of Legoland wants from a minister, then I forfeit from any executive position that I could ever obtain in Legoland.

3)
Reading your comments that we should hold the save for 24 hours only to play with all those numbers to see what is better: mine or irrigate (well, an extreme example, but you get the point) made me think obsesively since then on what is your primary goal with this game: to win or to have fun? I know the obvious answer is both, but if you had to choose, what is your uttlerly most important goal? Because mine is to have fun, to learn and only on the 3rd place comes the winning. If I wanted to win and only to win, I would have joined some other more balanced team, 'cause it is well known that civ3 is more suited for aggresivity than for peaceful building. If the owerwhelming majority of people from this team wants to win by any price, I better play alone at home where I can have fun.

[Spiffor]

Tiberius : what do you think of my plan ?

[delmar]

Tiberius, thanks for taking the time to read my posts. Keep in mind that I am only 1 of the 18 citizens here, so in theory you can feel free to ignore anything I say (until I post a vote and win ). This is something the other candidates should keep in mind, too. Don't be scared if you think that I won't be happy with you, because it just doesn't matter.

Now back to criticism:

Originally posted by Tiberius
1)
Some of your observations are so logical and self-implied that I supposed (and I’m still supposing) that (almost) everybody knows them (like what you said about harbors, dynamic assignment, tile improvements or pop-rushing).
[...]
I have better and more important things to do than making scenarions with every single shield that should or should be not assigned here or there.

Do I sense a slight contradiction here? My main purpose for mentioning this is that there seem to be a whole lot of things that many people think are "obvious" only to find out later that we did or should have done something completly different. See the issue with fortifying the warrior, if you will.

The secondary purpose is that I want to let our esteemed candidates know that I won't vote for anyone who doesn't promise at least aproximate evaluations of what would happen if we assigned a tile to one or the other city and careful consideration of wasted shields when assigning cities to unit building, because this is something I can do real time when playing against people.

made me think obsesively since then on what is your primary goal with this game: to win or to have fun?

I will answer this question in the Role of the Ministers thread.

[Tiberius]

No, there isn't any contradiction if you are willing to understand my post rather than only reading it and searching for weaknesses. (Of course I micromanage my cities in the early years, just not 20 turns ahead). So my point was that I don't have time to plan in advance every single move "outlined to a satisfactory level of detail". IMHO you are confusing the word "strategy" with something else. Strategy means an outline, a general plan, not pinpointing tiny details. I'm not and don't want to be a chessprogram that calculates every single possibility in advance with 100 moves to see the best possible outcome. There's no fun in that for me nir do I have the time to do it. I'm not saying that it is bad to do this, it might be very efficient after all (as long as you don't lose the big picture while playing with the details). I just don't feel like doing this.

The secondary purpose is that I want to let our esteemed candidates know that I won't vote for anyone who doesn't promise at least aproximate evaluations of what would happen if we assigned a tile to one or the other city and careful consideration of wasted shields when assigning cities to unit building, because this is something I can do real time when playing against people.

Hah. Then don't. If this is fun for you, go ahead, be Master Builder.
My post wasn't addressed only to you, I'm not so desperate in becoming a minister. It was a general question to the whole team (read my post again). If they want a Minister like this, than I forfeit and let others.