RBPitboss #2 Athlete4life10 & Kalin

[athlete4life10]

2) I was impressed athlete with your quality of play, especially as compared to the PBEM game. You showed a definite (and sizable) improvement between those 2 games, and I was not the only one who noticed it (several lurkers have commented on it)

Well thank you very much. Coming into the game I knew I'd be better, and imo much better. I never considered it might play to my advantage till after we had already taken Paris though. Probably the biggest improvement I think is taking some time to think things through and do a bit of planning. Also having Kalin as a teammate has really helped a ton!!!

3) I was also very impressed with how much of the map you had scouted / revealed (as compared to us). We played conservatively by keeping our first warrior around and it showed in a lack of contacts / map knowledge

I had been playing monarch/no tech trading sp games for a while, atleast starting them...I wouldn't get too far as I just start over. But I knew scouts would be useless (due to barbs) so we went warriors. Kalin wanted to play a bit conservatively which helped and I saw how important being in early contact with everybody in PBEM and RBPB1 was so decided I'd try and fix my notoriously bad scouting ability.

4) Probably related to that, you played the diplo game very well. You had more (and earlier) contacts, which was a main reason that I think your attack was pulled off. I still believe (though there are dissenting views from others) that the proper move for Jowy was to prop us up by giving us metal. But you had achieved a better relationship with him and so he was unwilling to do that. I still am not sure what happened with our relationship with Jowy but whatever.... Same with IKZ - why is it in their interests to help you (their neighbor) reach a dominant position? And I think that is coming to roost as (I think) I saw tenative plans in your thread to take them down later on. (a lot of it is running together)

I suspect some of them choosing to befriend us rather than yourselves rests on the fact that they think we were/are the weaker team between Byz and Otto's. The Inca I can only surmise, after having taken out a team already, wanted to secure the border so they could push expansion before it got gobbled up by Rome. With Greece they probably figured if they treat us nice they can work a good chunk of land that would have been yours for no cost at all, while pushing expansion towards India. This is speculation of course but if I was in their shoes that's probably why I would have made the decision to befriend the Otto's.

5) Also an apology if I came off too harsh in my post yesterday about the reload. I don't think that you guys fully realize the amount of (in my opinion undeserved) crap that I am getting from folks, in the No Players thread, in our own thread, and even in this thread (mostly not from you two but from other folks like Jowy / IKZ).

Apology accepted though probably not needed. I stopped lurking RBPB1 as soon as this started. When that comment was sent to us I did check out what had happened in RBPB1 but was too out of the loop to really try and get it. I can't speak for Kalin here but I was a bit skeptical that you wouldn't try and bend the rules in your favour whether knowingly or not. This really stemmed from you (or your teams) refusal to partition the turn. Having had no real experience with combat in pitboss before I never understood the impacts of some of the manoevering and just how important a detail can be until now. At one point the 12 hour rule would have benefited us more, as it would have allowed us to double you up so I'm not sure I understand why we couldn't get a split turn agreement until it was basically forced on you by the majority. Maybe you can comment here?

WTH? So I feel like I constantly have to be defending myself from (again IMO semi-slanderous) attacks. And the more people talk about it, the more the casual lurker feels like I am just a big cheater-head. Someone that is up on the game and the exact situation might know that I have no malicious intent but the casual lurker just sees the overview and that I am embroiled in a rules "controversy" and just assumes that I am bending the rules and so I get another black mark. Like when we whipped that archer, and Jowy, who hadn't really been following along that much, just says "Oh make them delete the archer" even though it was a misunderstanding and a move that was allowed in other similar games - that was totally out of nowhere.

It's a shame you feel like that. I'm pretty sure we did say deleting the archer was a over the top. Anyways as Krill has mentioned we'll never get a perfect rule to handle combat fairly in pitboss, atleast to combat double moves and Sullla's consistent suggestion of splitting the turn seems the only reasonable way, but detracts from some of the attraction of pitboss. Splitting the turn can atleast erase you from some rules controversy maybe?

It's nearly enough to make me want to not play in PB3 because I feel like nobody will give me a fair shake. Maybe since you can see now that I really am just a sweetie at heart you'll ally with us and we'll be so grateful to have any friends that we'll let you win

I can't say we'll pre-plan to ally with you and your team but given the diplo will be huge we'll definitely need some friends so we might very well need you (or you us )!

Hope you continue to drop by and enjoy the lurk!

Athlete

[kalin]

Asking regoarrarr what their plan for the game was. I'm not saying it is, I'm wondering if it would count as spoiler info, and trying to be cautioius that no slip ups happen. There are tangential pieces of infomation that could be alluded to in anything regoarrarr says, that you don't know about.

Ok that's a good point. Rego/Darell/Sunrise, please be careful if you answer that

Kalin

[athlete4life10]

Asking regoarrarr what their plan for the game was. I'm not saying it is, I'm wondering if it would count as spoiler info, and trying to be cautioius that no slip ups happen. There are tangential pieces of infomation that could be alluded to in anything regoarrarr says, that you don't know about.

Well if there's anything spoilerish about any potential response, please don't respond at all.

Here's another question and again if you feel the answer is spoilerish at all (yes/no/maybe) then just don't answer at all.

Have you told anybody about our HA's?

Also were you honestly under the impression we had researched IW. Did you even consider HBR?

Athlete

[regoarrarr]

Well if there's anything spoilerish about any potential response, please don't respond at all.

Also were you honestly under the impression we had researched IW. Did you even consider HBR?

Athlete

Can't speak for the rest of the team but I don't think that I did. I feel bad about dropping the c&d department early on (it's so hard to catch up if you miss a few turns). I feel like if we had kept that up, we'd have known you were chopping out an army and could have acted differently. 1 more turn and we might have saved Paris (with an archer) and 3 more turns we'd have settled across the coast (and been saved from elimination)

This really stemmed from you (or your teams) refusal to partition the turn. Having had no real experience with combat in pitboss before I never understood the impacts of some of the manoevering and just how important a detail can be until now. At one point the 12 hour rule would have benefited us more, as it would have allowed us to double you up so I'm not sure I understand why we couldn't get a split turn agreement until it was basically forced on you by the majority. Maybe you can comment here?

2 reasons that I can remember - #1 sunrise didn't want one because he felt as an MP guy he didn't really care for it and #2 (and probably more important) we were all pretty pissed and operating under the assumption of "whatever they want we automatically don't want" (so in other words, acting like 10 year olds)

[sunrise089]

I'm not sure I understand why we couldn't get a split turn agreement until it was basically forced on you by the majority. Maybe you can comment here?

I objected then and still do to the forced rule change. In this case, with you guys as the attackers, moving second benefited you. The game wasn't started with a turn split rule. IMHO, rule changes after a game has begun that benefit one party over another should happen very sparingly, if at all. But I think things were made worse by lurkers and other (non Byz or Otto) players who seemed to have a very casual and matter-of-fact attitude about the rule change. They seemed to feel that since a rule split made sense to them it was a priori the right decision.

I will state that while I'm looking forward to playing RBP3 and try to finally have a successful Pitboss game the prospect of another enforced turn split is by far the thing that gave me most pause about playing another game.

I'm pretty sure we did say deleting the archer was a over the top.

You indeed did, and thanks! We thought Jowy was way over the top there, but you guys were fair.

BIG EDIT: Some more discussion (from our thread) about double moves, the prevention of being one of the main reasons for the enforced turn split rule:

Regarding my classification of you as "Rule-bender", my apologies. May be, I should not have used that word. It came worse than I wanted. Yes, I don’t have any MP experience and it might take me some more time to digest that double move sometimes is unavoidable. Also, the opinon I expressed is my personal only and there are lots of people who doesn’t mind it at all.

Ultimately I think this is the problem. Some people, including probably most of the very SP-centric RB crowd seem to view any occasion where one player gets to move twice as something unfair, unsporting, unbalancing, etc. The MP crowd does not view things this way. They (and I) take the attitude is that what is to be avoided is a situation where I can move twice and you cannot react at all even if you want to.

In real-time MP civ played via Gamespy, Firaxis uses an 8 second delay between moves. This always allows a defender who is paying attention to move his defenders into his city or attack out at a stack or what have you, but it does NOT allow him the opportunity to promote his units and attack one at a time, or deal with say 5 enemy stacks all moving in versus different cities simultaneously. Why would Firaxis penalize the defender in such a way in what is on the surface a MP simulation of the sequential SP game? Because it makes for better gameplay and keep the game moving. In exchange the defender gets a host of bonuses (strongest unit always defends, control-a, new units appear in cities ready to defend when the turn rolls over, drafted units appear immediately, auto-explore and auto-improve getting defending units to safety) that we can assume the developers of the game thought were balanced with the power of attacks only 8 seconds apart.

In single player of course the turn order always goes AI->human->AI->etc. BUT the AI gets other bonuses when attacking to make up for their inability to ever move twice in a row - specifically the human looses the advantages of auto-explore, auto-improve and control-a. The AI will always capture your workers and undefended cities or pillage your tiles before you have a chance to react. Presumably this was also considered balanced by Firaxis.

So....in my opinion by trying to create a SP-style game experience with MP-style game mechanics we're actually offsetting the proper balance of MP civ. The defender has powerful advantages, and by arbitrarily eliminating some and strengthening others to preserve the appearance of SP civ we are on very shaky game mechanics ground.

[athlete4life10]

I objected then and still do to the forced rule change. In this case, with you guys as the attackers, moving second benefited you. The game wasn't started with a turn split rule. IMHO, rule changes after a game has begun that benefit one party over another should happen very sparingly, if at all. But I think things were made worse by lurkers and other (non Byz or Otto) players who seemed to have a very casual and matter-of-fact attitude about the rule change. They seemed to feel that since a rule split made sense to them it was a priori the right decision.

I'll agree with you in that I don't believe rules should be changed mid-game. I'm not a fan of that but when you're starting out with something new (or atleast new to some) that can happen. Trying to look at this from your side I think I would feel like my hands are tied having to play first and I would certainly not enjoy the inability to make any reactionary moves. There are some instances where as the defender I'd want to play first but for the most part, whether offensively or defensively speaking I think I'd want to play second most of the time if I'm going to have to split the turn. In my mind, splitting the turn is the easiest way to conduct combat, but not necissarily the fairest. Not that I really have a good suggestion to put forward but those are my thoughts.

[kalin]

I'll agree with you in that I don't believe rules should be changed mid-game. I'm not a fan of that but when you're starting out with something new (or atleast new to some) that can happen. Trying to look at this from your side I think I would feel like my hands are tied having to play first and I would certainly not enjoy the inability to make any reactionary moves. There are some instances where as the defender I'd want to play first but for the most part, whether offensively or defensively speaking I think I'd want to play second most of the time if I'm going to have to split the turn. In my mind, splitting the turn is the easiest way to conduct combat, but not necissarily the fairest. Not that I really have a good suggestion to put forward but those are my thoughts.

Some quick thoughts now, a bit more later.

We didn't necessarily want to play second. We would have been happy to play first. All we wanted was to have a clear turn-split so that neither side can move twice without the other side having a chance to react. In particular, we wanted to avoid the following: one side moves second, runs the clock for 9-12 hours, then when the new turn comes in moves first. Note however that by the time the rule came in effect it had little influence over the outcome of the war.

The reason we wanted the above is that we want the pitboss to be more or less like SP with human opponents. I personally don't want to play civ like an RTS game (like starcraft or warcraft). I think the game should be about planning, strategic and tactical choices, and not about who can click faster, or who can log in at any time. I am also under the impression that the vast majority of players (though not all) in the RB community share this opinion. This is why I called a vote on the issue. I honestly believe that having a turn split rule was better not just for us in this particular game, but it is a good rule in general!

@Athlete: Regarding playing first or second in the turn, both have some advantages. For example, assume one plays first as the attacker and that you threaten 2 cities simultaneously. By playing first you can choose which one to attack. Of course playing second has some obvious advantage of being able to respond to moves. Shady also gave some examples a bit earlier on this issue.

Kalin

[athlete4life10]

Here's a picture for the lurkers of our capture of Athens:

[kalin]

Athlete,

I see that we are quite likely to lose Wes the chariot. I left some a sign about a barb axe and was hoping we'd be more careful. We may now have to whip a chariot in Endor. In the future, we should be more careful.

Also, I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to play some of the turns. Maybe we can do some split where you play for say 10 turns, then I take the next 10. We will still have to discuss of course, particularly on important issues.

EDIT: The HAs going to Greece should hug the coast, behind the chariots. We really don't want to bump into an Indian scouting unit... Another question: why is Owen building a road?

EDIT2: The units outside borders are costing us 6gpt. I think that at least the HAs should have gone inside Istanbul to heal and save some money. I assume the 2 chariots are going to take the barb city. We have to be careful because we promised Jowy 8 units: 4 HAs and 4 chariots by T100.

Kalin

[athlete4life10]

Here's a brief diplomatic update and an overview of our plan:

Greece: Our #1 Ally, we have an agreement to exchange some of our army for workers, will also discuss partitioning of the former Byzantine land. Member of CoW.

Rome: Our #2 Ally, currently at war with Korea, will be late to the CoW party but will be a big help when he arrives. We have just finalized a 3-way alliance between ourselves, Rome and Greece.

HRE: Friendly, with great communication. Member of CoW.

Korea: We've been friendly with them, but expect that they shall be a non-factor and hopefully sooner than later eliminated.

Mali: Friendly and Member of CoW.

Inca: Friendly but extremely frustrating. Their refusal to settle the lands towards the former Zulu while pressing expansion towards us was not considered very acceptable. Also there seems to have been a misunderstanding/miscommunication regarding one of our city sites. We have an NAP with them until atleast T130 with a 25T cooldown. If not for that and CoW I'd suggest we hit them hard right now. The Inca are not a member of CoW and when CoW is finished I expect Rome and us to divy up their lands.

India: The holder of Weapons of Mass Destruction! Atleast that's what we're saying to justify organizing CoW (Coalition of the Willing). CoW currently plans to attack on T100 from atleast 2 directions. Rome will most likely be late and provide the 3rd prong of a 3-pronged attack. It appears more and more the goal of CoW will change from disabling India to their complete and utter destruction.

That's a brief overview. There's been quite a flurry of diplomacy since the elimination of the Byzantines so I'll try and get the posts up to date throughout the day. Also, judging by Kalin's current post you can probably tell we're not quite on the same page in terms of Micro (at the moment). We're working on that .