30% Iron Civer Tournament

[Mickeyj]

appalling Rommel

[bongo]

Flandrien has been eliminated from colosseum B

By me


Only me and jshelr left now, he's got a tech lead (which he intend to keep as he has built 4 libraries over the last 3 turns) and a more advanced government (feudalism vs despotism). I've got the biggest army and large amounts of small über-corrupt cities. In terms of production and economy we are pretty much even. Both has access to iron and horses while I got more luxuries available.

[jshelr]

I'm accepting bets on the Russians in iron b, willing to give 3 to 1 odds as long as I get Bongolia.

[bongo]

What will the odds be if we continue as is?

[jshelr]

i have to play russia, but being an investment banker I see no problem with betting on bongolia

[bongo]

3 to 1, not bad. When you openly declared your embargo/alliance I viewed my own change of making it at roughly 10%

[McMeadows]

In the end you were allowed to play sitting duck with everyone of us...

[bongo]

I always wondered why you marched right into my homeland while the ZoC was at the height of its power, relatively speaking.

[sabrewolf]

i'd like to request following rule:
if you ENTER the oponents land and intend to do anything other than just pass through (therefore explicit permission should be asked for), you MUST first declare war.

why?
in one game an oponent entered my borders without asking. i could have attacked him (and likely killed him), but then he would have profited from war happiness. and i also had no idea if he intended war. but then he attacked my city and razed it to the ground.

in SP you can force the AI to "withdraw his troops or declare war". as in MP there is no "withdraw troops" possibility (due to asynchronuous playing), this rule would cover that disadvantage for the attackee.


note 1: i've used this move myself once (although i didn't attack). but if this were made to a rule, or at least into the etiquette, such things wouldn't come up

note 2: another player in another game declared war before attacking any of my cities/units. not that this helped me against his stack of doom, but i thought it was a noble gesture.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
note 2: another player in another game declared war before attacking any of my cities/units. not that this helped me against his stack of doom, but i thought it was a noble gesture.

This wouldn't be a certain Persian force of recent memory, would it?

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
i'd like to request following rule:
if you ENTER the oponents land and intend to do anything other than just pass through (therefore explicit permission should be asked for), you MUST first declare war.

why?
in one game an oponent entered my borders without asking. i could have attacked him (and likely killed him), but then he would have profited from war happiness. and i also had no idea if he intended war. but then he attacked my city and razed it to the ground.

in SP you can force the AI to "withdraw his troops or declare war". as in MP there is no "withdraw troops" possibility (due to asynchronuous playing), this rule would cover that disadvantage for the attackee.

I'll post my response to this in a link to sabre's original post: here and the next post is my response.

[Moonbars]

If you don't want people in your land, just tell them that if they enter it will be war. Anybody who goes ahead deserves Death!

Originally posted by sabrewolf
i'd like to request following rule:
if you ENTER the oponents land and intend to do anything other than just pass through (therefore explicit permission should be asked for), you MUST first declare war.

why?
in one game an oponent entered my borders without asking. i could have attacked him (and likely killed him), but then he would have profited from war happiness. and i also had no idea if he intended war. but then he attacked my city and razed it to the ground.

in SP you can force the AI to "withdraw his troops or declare war". as in MP there is no "withdraw troops" possibility (due to asynchronuous playing), this rule would cover that disadvantage for the attackee.


note 1: i've used this move myself once (although i didn't attack). but if this were made to a rule, or at least into the etiquette, such things wouldn't come up

note 2: another player in another game declared war before attacking any of my cities/units. not that this helped me against his stack of doom, but i thought it was a noble gesture.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Moonbars
If you don't want people in your land, just tell them that if they enter it will be war. Anybody who goes ahead deserves Death!

Of course. But the point Sabre makes is that you can't do this in-game against a human player; you must only do it through chat, and the game doesn't understand chat. The player that war is declared upon has an advantage in that his or her citizens gain a slight "happiness" from the war; just like the declarer generally gets a faster war weariness effect.

IE, if you attack someone for putting units on your territory, you give the person you attack happiness for his citizens, which leads to a slight advantage in the forthcoming war for that player.

---

Now my thoughts in more detail:

This is a minor exploit, but not one that needs the drastic fix Sabre suggests. I do believe that you remember the actions of the other player, and if he attacks you through this manner, you give him less room in the future, than someone who pre-declares war. But, it is an advantage strategically to allow the offensive player to enter anothers' land without declaring war; you might want to hope he doesn't notice, for example, or indeed hope to gain that war happiness.

If you're going to try and fix the exploit, I suggest a one or two turn allowed delay, like in-game SP. IE, you can be in one or two turn(s) inside the others' territory, but you must withdraw if asked, or declare war, on the turn after being asked, or two turns later if a 2 turn delay is allowed. (You might also allow a 2 turn delay to a single unit or any number of "non-offensive" units with power 0 like scouts (but not settlers), but a 1 turn delay to 2 or more military units power > 0.)

It should also be all or nothing. Deciding if something is an offensive incursion or just scouting is too complicated and debatable (even subjective). If you're in the territory of another, he asks you to leave (and you don't successfully negotiate permission to be there), you must head directly towards the outside border (or any other negotiated location) or declare war.

Also, you must consider "warrior-settler" tactics. For example, if I move a settler into or past your "area" (not cultural border, but say in the middle of two cities that are seperate), and settle a city, and you have a unit in the 9 square border of that city, 1) which turn is the first turn for these purposes (the turn I settle it, so you must vacate right away or declare war *on your immediate next turn*, or a one turn delay), and 2) do you rule that, since my warrior-settler is the aggressive move here, it is not really a violation of this?? I'd rule for #2, since I consider this to be an exploit of an exploit fix, but then you open a new can of worms in which you have to specifically define the situation this applies under.

Finally, you should specify the manner in which the defender must leave. Excepting the possibility of a negotiated direction (ie, promising to leave to the east, or something), it should be specified whether the defender must return through exactly the moves that brought him into territory, or through any direction that is equal in distance (ie, if you're 2 squares into the territory from all directions, but you could go either east or west, you can go either), or through any direction the defender requires of you. I vote either through the direction from whence you came, or through the defenders' direction. However, the middle option is the option that is "default", i'd suggest, since that's the Civ3 SP rule - and I suggest that it is a useful tactic to cross short amounts of territory. I don't personally prefer it, but it's probably closest to the SP rules.

That enough?

[bongo]

I think you get the war-happiness anyway when attacking units inside your own territory.

This was changed in PBEM to compensate the lack of a 'leave or declare war' option.

[sabrewolf]

are you sure?

i somehow have trouble imagining breakaway/firaxis thinking of such details while forgetting other major issues

anyway, if this is true, then i'll withdraw my request