4th Apolyton CtP2 SP Tournament: 3 September - 3 November 2002

[Velociryx]

Yeah...not a game-breaker, but it does add too much incentive for a very early attack on your nearest neighbor. I mean, I could *do* the terraforming (eventually) on my own, but when I get the requisite techs, with the points I'm keeping in reserve (still have not turned my own native PW generation back on), I'll be able to instantly transform my nation's economic structure. I like that....that's coolio, but I readily admit that it's a bit exploitive of the current system, and so as not to make it even worse than it already is, I curtailed any future incursions into enemy territory (now that I'm at max cities, I would have normally stopped, tho the way it's set up now, there's a big incentive to continue, but I'm not gonna take undue advantage).

AWESOME game so far!!!!

-=Vel=-

[mnbryan37]

Hex,

I don't have a clue as to what triggers it (the PW windfall). In 4 Cradle games, I only got it against one AI. Don't know what was unique about that occurrence.

[hexagonian]

The event happens early in the game because the AI gets a on-going bonus of PW, plus it starts out with a nice chunck of PW funds. The problem occurs because in the early game, the AI does not have too many Tile Improvements to build, and so the fund is not heavily used. Once the AI reaches some tile improvement-providing advances, the fund is whittled down quickly.

One of the goals of Cradle was to slow down the human's ability to early-blitz. Elements such as militias, low heal rates, barbarian incursion, reduced vision for warriors, and pushing the first scout unit (Jav Cavalry) back further on the tech tree were intended to buy the AI some setup time and make early-blitz harder to do - not impossible, but harder...

Vel's offensive PW strategy is a very sound one, (even without the bonus), but getting a total of 75k PW in the early game makes that strategy somewhat unbalancing. If Vel did not have the fund, he could still do what he wanted to do, but it would take longer and he would have to be more selective where he does it. The need to make a important decision has been removed from him, and the challenge in these types of games should always involve the need to make a decision at the cost of something else.

And I echo Vel's observations - Forts are incredibly important to a player - whether you are a peaceful builder or a warmongor.

To put it in perspective, at 3,500 PW per fort, he could put down 10 forts quickly, and basically cover all points of his empire with healing locations, as well as putting forts by any targeted civs - and also road his way to those civs - as well has quickly boost up most of his cities with whatever improvements he wants. This will significantly close the human/AI gap, especially for the warmongor. Couple this with the ability to raze cities, and Cradle becomes a lot easier to play.

You still have to deal with the tech disparity and to some extent, the city cap, but a major hurdle has been cleared...and it's almost too easy to pull off.

So I am not against removing the bonus, but it needs to be toned down.

[Velociryx]

::nodding:: That was my sense of it as well. I figured that the AI must have started with a big pool of PW points, and I just hit them before they could spend down. Interesting side note here, is that when a new civ spawns (I had the Zulu spawn in a Eutruscian city that rebelled as I approached....took 'em out anyway), they apparently do NOT get a starting boon of PW points to play with, as in that case, my PW did not increase notably.

But yes....it was VERRRRY tempting to use one of my roving settler teams (I have four on standby....none built, all from disbanded enemy cities), and it'd be very easy to road/fort my way into the southlands and simply raze everything and settle it at my leisure.

Probably, I could do that with the Greeks in the north, and the Egyptians in the east, and have this big continent to myself till I could get a better government form, but there'd not be much fun in that, so I'll leave them be, and see if I can do it the ol' fashioned way....

-=Vel=-

[Shadow]

Nukes have been made obsolete, so that's no help. Actually I'm not sure I'll need them though.

I'm finding it annoying that I'm at my city cap, and with my new power everyone mostly wants peace... which means my 20 odd 12-stacks of fascists are sitting around in their own strategically placed forts doing nothing...

I suppose I'm just saving them all up for when someone attacks. Keeping light blue, brown and green at between 1 and 3 cities, just so I can take techs from them.

It's gunna be interesting...

[Maquiladora]

Just destroy them all, tech or no tech, show no mercy!

Well I havent finished my game yet, with all the other stuff, is today still the deadline for this? Im guessing/hoping not...

[Velociryx]

LOL! You're better off than I am, Shadow! It's 1700something BC in my game, and I've got 11 cities, NO terraforming to speak of, and am still building warriors/slingers (been ignoring the military side of the tree).

So far, it's been paying dividends, but it remains to be seen whether I'll be able to hold out.

I'm researching juicy terraforming techs now, with an eye toward doing a massive round of terraforming soon, and then, revamp that aging military! Right now tho, my warrior/slinger groups are hard pressed to beat the stuff I'm facing....charioteers and mounted archers, swordsmen and regular archers all outgun me. Thankfully, we've built a string of stout forts, watch towers, and such, and have advance warning when the baddies approach. If not for that, and making use of terrain advantages, we'd be totally unable to compete, and would be swept from our empire entirely.

Fingers are crossed that we can hold the line till we get our terraforming done tho....I've got about half my cities bulking up military, while the other half work on basic infrastructure.....

Probably, I should have kept the pressure on while I had momentum, but in an effort NOT to take advantage of the PW bug, I opted to hole up and defend.....that required a dramatic restructuring, and I've been paying the price, but I think I'm over the hump now....we shall see....

-=Vel=-

[Locutus]

Hey guys. My real life is a huge mess right now - I haven't been online much in the last two weeks. Because of this (I don't have time to tally the scores or start a new tourney right now) and because many (including yours truly) seem to need yet more time to finish the game, I will extend the deadline by a total of 1 month, so until 3 November. Unless of course there are strong objections to this...

The one good thing about this RL mess is that I hadn't really gotten far with this game yet and can now use some of Vel's wisdom to improve my game - and it seems to be working Because science is so incredibly important in Cradle I couldn't blindly follow Vel's strategies but I did make some adaptations to my own strategies and seem to be firmly in control of the game now: it's about 1500 BC and I'm not lagging too far behind scientifically (compared to my immediate neighbours anyway, the Egyptians and Carthaginians are still leagues ahead of me but not bothering me in any way) and in control of my own empire militarilly (few border incursions escape my attention - and devastatingly effective border guards ). I'm even about to launch a serious offensive (3 stacks) into Persian territory, something which I'm ordinarilly rarely able to do until around 1 AD or so (I'm a very peaceful player, building up invasion forces is pretty low on my priority list).

[ETB]

Hey Locutus, welcome back! Good luck with your game - it was real fun to play! Watch out for those Carths tho, they were a real pain for most of my game!

No objections from me for an extension.

[Maquiladora]

Nope, no objections here either! Afterall, Rome wasnt built in a day ... or a month either

[Velociryx]

BOOOO! Hiss!!! LOL....Just tried to load up my jammin' game, and it keeps crashing out on me So....I'm gonna start again. My game won't count, I fear, but that's okay....I'm still havin' loads of fun!

-=Vel=-

[Maquiladora]

Post it up here, someone can take a look at it, they might be able to move it on a turn.

[hexagonian]

Question (for all who have had crashes)...

Are you using the option, when capturing a city, to enslave the population? The reason why is that it seems that this part of the code is buggy. I ran a playtest recently (regarding the PW issue) and when I tried to enslave the city after capture, the game locked up. At the same time, I'm assuming that Vel was able to successfully use this option, at least based on his reports (Vel, is this correct???)

The bug search on this problem is especially hard, because I can't find the pattern here. Some players have successfully finished the game, others have had problems with it. And the hard part is that there had been little feedback on the stability of 1.32 up until the tournament. I know that v1.3 was very stable, because of little or no reports on game crashes. The reports of problems were due to incorrect installation.

If the problems continue, I may have to pull some of the SLIC's post 1.3. if I cannot determine what is causing the problems. Most are minor additions though, so the overall gameplay should not be affected.

Vel, what is your OS??? Some problems reported due to Windows XP. I'm using Win 98.

[mnbryan37]

Hex,

I had no crashes at the time I enslaved cities. In fact most of my crashes came before I Enslaved my first one. They always occurred during the AI's movement turn. My OS is XP.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by hexagonian
Are you using the option, when capturing a city, to enslave the population? The reason why is that it seems that this part of the code is buggy. I ran a playtest recently (regarding the PW issue) and when I tried to enslave the city after capture, the game locked up. At the same time, I'm assuming that Vel was able to successfully use this option, at least based on his reports (Vel, is this correct???)

Dave was it the last city of one of your enemies that you tried to enslave?

-Martin