30% Iron Civer Tournament- The Forge of Champions

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Aqualung71
This goes to the core of PBEM strategy [...]

i absolutely disagree with this! with this you are implying that firaxis and breakaway actually intended these features.
but looking at all the bugs, exploits and other specialities of multiplayer modus (including PBEM), it becomes pretty clear that MP is merely built on top of SP and only partly some things were corrected (like asynchronous diplomacy).

Remember also, that human players don't tend to like aggressors....so provoking an attack simply to give yourself war happiness is likely to have wider-reaching consequences for your longer term health in the game

social war disadvantages have nothing to do with it. after the REXing there often already are first alliances which forgive player A attacking B. and not always are there any other players around to hold this grudge...

but anyhow, it's a completely seperate point. the fact is that the PBEM exploit gives the attacker a clear advantage that he would not have in the regular rules. the whole idea of war happiness is that when your country gets attacked, the people feel more united and forget their personal problems!

the simplest solution to this exploit would be like alexman proposes: if you have the intent of fighting a war, declare war first, during the turn you enter the defender's territory.

[bongo]

Ouch, exactly the kind of discussion i need to work up a headache


Personally I feel it is PBEM that got it right this time, not SP. LoDW is a mechanism introduced to deal with AIs swarming all over your territory.


Also, being good at civ(and any other game) is very much about knowing the mechanics of the game. Even Napoleon or Alexander would be trashed by the regulars in the PBEM-forum until they got the game-mechanics right.

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by bongo
LoDW is a mechanism introduced to deal with AIs swarming all over your territory.

no, i believe it was introduced so a player couldn't just march through enemy territory and attack the capital directly.

LoDW iirc already existed in the very first versions of civ3 vanilla...

[Modo44]

There is a mechanism, introduced in ancient history, that forces an enemy to declare war before reaching your capital. It is called "Fortify units along the whole border". Of course, it is easier said than done, with the REX going so nice without defenses. And it would be suuuch a shame, if you actually had to build units (imagine that ) in the Ancient Age already. Sooo unrealistic, right?
[/sarcasm]

[sabrewolf]

that would be an option if we'd get back civ2-ZoC

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Rommel2D
I'm reading the arguments here as essentially "I've learned to use this exploit to my advantage, I should be able to benefit by playing against someone who hasn't".

This is certainly not what I was saying, nor do I believe it is something most players would concern themselves with. Going to war with a human opponent is a major decision, and often one that leads to the destruction of one or other player. If you are entering an opponent's territory for the purposes of war, then there are larger issues at stake than who gets the war happiness. However, the defending player certainly can choose not to attack if he prefers to win the war happiness battle....just make sure the intruder is shadowed with sufficient units.

I'm extemely skeptical of the claim that since the situation is the opposite of how the SP game works, it adds any "strategic depth". There is a difference between deep strategy and cheap tricks. If there was an argument that this wasn't an exploit based purely on PBEM's poorly designed mechanics, I'd be inclined to just drop it...

No, the argument is not that it adds strategic depth because it's the opposite of SP....that would be an inane assertion. I do believe it adds some strategy however, simply because it adds another implication to the "to war or not to war" decision.

That's not the proposal. The hard-and-fast rule would be that if you have multiple units in a given enemy's territory, only one of those units may attack on the first turn in order to initiate war.

That proposal is absurd. It would totally take away the ability to surprise attack in strength. If I move my stack of 15 Swords from the fog onto a hill next to another player's city, he has a limited ability to move sufficient defenders into the city in one turn. You seem to be suggesting that next turn I am only permitted to say "Here, my one Sword will attack your defending Spear as a warning, but watch out for that stack sitting there because they will really try next turn". Meanwhile, his defenders have reached the city. Not only that, he can actually attack my stack!

Simply ridiculous!

This is not as powerful as the LoDW option (agressor units may still trespass unhindered all they want), but it addresses what seems to be the most harmful exploit: The defender is not forced to make a pre-emptive strike and send what should be their War Happiness to the aggressor just to avoid having a number of his/her cities wiped out before s/he can get a single round of combat in.

In practical terms, this would almost never happen. Firstly, no half-decent PBEM player is going to risk moving his stack slowly through another player's territory in order to approach a juicy target. As a defender, I am quite happy to lose my war happiness in that situation. As an attacker, I would be attacking an outer-lying city anyway, and am moving my stack into his territory not to attract war happiness, but to do him some damage.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by alexman
Still, I would prefer an honor code of declaring war when you are trespassing with intent to attack.

...as you have so graciously demonstrated in our Iron Civer Final

Using this as an example, do you think this pre-war delcaration changed the outcome at all, besides notionally giving the war happiness to me instead of you (though largely irrelevant due to tiny populations)?

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by bongo
Even Napoleon or Alexander would be trashed by the regulars in the PBEM-forum until they got the game-mechanics right.

You'd have to make a distinction between simply learning the game mechanics and learning the game mechanics that change because of the PBEM problems sabrewolf describes. As far as we can preserve the SP functionality in PBEM, we make the learning curve a number of days to know the mechanics. PBEM then becomes an extention of SP, only against more challenging opponents that learn and adapt. Allowing asynchronous irregularities to be the basis of tactics and strategy makes the learning curve span months instead, as PBEM becomes essentially a different game from SP.

At this point, I doubt many newcommers are going to be willing to invest months of learning Civ3 PBEM to get up to speed. If I can promote a second tournament as newbie friendly, maybe we can entice a few more regular SPers to join the fray...

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Aqualung71
That proposal is absurd. It would totally take away the ability to surprise attack in strength. If I move my stack of 15 Swords from the fog onto a hill next to another player's city, he has a limited ability to move sufficient defenders into the city in one turn. You seem to be suggesting that next turn I am only permitted to say "Here, my one Sword will attack your defending Spear as a warning, but watch out for that stack sitting there because they will really try next turn". Meanwhile, his defenders have reached the city. Not only that, he can actually attack my stack!

It would not affect your ability to attack to any degree. If your plan is to attack with those forces the next turn, simply declare war the same turn you move them into place. The following turn your entire force can attack. The only difference is the defender will get the war happiness and the first opportunity to strike at the encroaching forces, instead of being forced to choose between the two (essentially what LoDW does). Would you seriously consider that moving a Stack of Death next to an opponent's city without first declaring war qualifies it as a 'surprise' attack?

Why would you be "quite happy to lose [your] War Happiness" in such a situation? Feel the need to handicap yourself?

An honor system like alexman and sabre mention would probably be a straight-forward solution, but it seems like using a tournaquet to deal with an infected digit- better than nothing, but it goes a bit in the other direction by restricting attackers much more than in SP. The rule above would deal with the WH mechanism exploit, but still allow an agressor to 'probe' the enemy and test their resolve to tolerate infiltration without taking the mood hit- exactly the sort of strategy the exploit mongers seem to be defending...

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by alexman
It's true, that isn't strategy for the attacker, although there is some strategy involved in the defender's response.

And played well, I think the best a defender can hope for is to approach as good a situation as they would be in the same SP circumstances. This is just a matter of personal opinion, but PBEM games are less enjoyable by being geared to favor aggressors, which is why I'd consider an honor-code solution to LoDW to be better than nothing.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Modo44
There is a mechanism, introduced in ancient history, that forces an enemy to declare war before reaching your capital. It is called "Fortify units along the whole border".

I can't think of an example, in game or in RL, that even comes close to approximating this statement. Ok, the Great Wall of China is in the neighborhood, but from what I've ever heard its only practical use was to prevent barbarian raiders from escaping imperial lands with booty they had already aquired.

[Modo44]

Ever heard of Hadrian's Wall?

All medieval countries had castles all over the place, not only on borders. In the Civ3 scale, that was a Fort with a garrison on nearly every tile. If someone wanted to get in, he had to conquer those forts one by one - openly declaring war.

[bongo]

I have become an 'Exploit Monger'


Sorry but I simply don't see this as a problem in need of fixing. The war-happines is in most cases hardly noticable when compared to the war itself.

Forcing players to declare war when they cross the borders cause more problems than it fix as it forces players to reveal their true intentions prematurely.

Besides, your 'true intentions' may not be valid next turn anyway. It is not unheard of to change plans on very short notice when opportunities arise. The Fourth Crusade is a nice historical example of that.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Modo44
Ever heard of Hadrian's Wall?

All medieval countries had castles all over the place, not only on borders. In the Civ3 scale, that was a Fort with a garrison on nearly every tile. If someone wanted to get in, he had to conquer those forts one by one - openly declaring war.

I've heard Hadrian's Wall described as basically the same as the Chinese- a porus structure yielding primarily economic benefits because it's only effective use was to deter barbarian raiders.

If we're moving from the ancient to medieval era, I can't comment on the relative density of their placement, but forts and castles are even more porus arrangements- they cannot restrict enemy movement in and of themselves, just cut off supply lines and deny them a secure front for retreat.

Defending an entire border with a solid line of units would be prohibitively expensive in any PBEM I've been in. A line of forts and barricades might be feasible after a point, but doesn't seem to address the WH exploit with much scope...

[Rommel2D]

Bloody Information-Denying Exploit Mongers...

Originally posted by bongo
Sorry but I simply don't see this as a problem in need of fixing. The war-happines is in most cases hardly noticable when compared to the war itself.

Forcing players to declare war when they cross the borders cause more problems than it fix as it forces players to reveal their true intentions prematurely.

Besides, your 'true intentions' may not be valid next turn anyway. It is not unheard of to change plans on very short notice when opportunities arise.

...which is the point of the 'single unit attack' proposal, as it would allow everything you mention while preventing a War Happiness reversal. Do you at least recognize this is a problem that could use fixing, even if you don't like adding out-of-game rules?