RBP3 [SPOILERS] Hannibal of Byzantium (Bobchillingworth, ManiaMuse & SleepingMoogle)

[Bobchillingworth]

Early diplomacy totally is dependent on who we meet. We should be friendly with everyone, but much more open with information and treaties with someone like Twinkletoes than, say, Exploit. Not that nice guy newbs won't declare war on us at some point as well (or us on them), but there are some players who I think it will be very dangerous to our health to trust any more than is strictly necessary. Rome or Aztec are tricky propositons- they have every reason to rush us, and we only have promises of future cooperation to keep them off our backs and away from our cities. I suggest that we be at least a little forthright about them that we understand what a great target we are (I'm sure it's nothing that they haven't considered already), but also make them aware that we're amenable for future cooperation, and if they seem aggressive won't go down without a fight. The major issue is that we don't want to come across as too defensive or weak, while at the same time we need some sort of understanding so we know whether to expect future aggression. Their reactions to a proposed NAP with a fairly long cool-down period may be telling.


I have other thoughts on diplomacy, but they involve some spoilers concerning other games on this site. We can all discuss more via email once we meet somebody.

[SleepingMoogle]

There is no benefit in defining our opinion of Civs before we even meet them in-game based on who is behind the wheel. All that will do is poison relations before they are given a chance. Let's judge Civs on their actions instead.

Anyway, turn 7:



The east continues to be uninteresting. Next turn we should defog some more tiles from that hill though.

[ManiaMuse]

Went and moved the warrior onto the hill and found an unirrigated corn a bit further to the east.

Also looks like someone has built a warrior and the Incan capital must have grown to size 2 already.

[SleepingMoogle]

I finally got around to testing the latest plans, tweaked some things, and resolved some more silly errors. The full list has been mailed and should be put into the second post in the thread soon, but here's a quick overview:

Turn 20: Worker farms rice
Turn 23: Citadel reaches size 2
Turn 24: Animal Husbandry research finishes, Citadel completes Warrior
Turn 27: Worker pastures sheep
Turn 28: Citadel reaches size 3
Turn 31: Mining research finishes
Turn 34: Worker mines hill
Turn 38: Citadel finishes Settler
Turn 39: Citadel finishes Warrior, 2nd city founded
Turn 45: Citadel finishes Worker, Bronze Working research finishes

The math still gets a little fuzzy towards the end (what our Workers do and which Civs we encounter may change a lot), but I'm fairly confident it is more or less correct now. This is still assuming we don't have horses in near our capital and found the 2nd city on one of the southern tiles.

This may also be a good time to start considering alternative scenarios. Say for example that Animal Husbandry reveals horses, but not near our capital or towards the south. Would that be a reason to move the location of the second city?

I'll see about putting together some more scouting paths for the next 15 turns or so later.

[SleepingMoogle]

Part deux: diplomacy. First contact probably won't be too far off now, so it would be good to get some rough plan out at least. I'm curious in how far you feel past performances from players should influence our diplomacy in this game. It's something I'm not too comfortable about myself, but I'm open to arguments.

[ManiaMuse]

I don't think it should affect anything but if a team admits that they have aleady contacted other civs already then we should be ever so slightly weary of them just in case they'd already buddied up with each other.

[SleepingMoogle]

Some initial ideas on the scouting paths. The red path is again safe and never strays more than 4 tiles from the capital, the blue one is slightly more adventurous, exploring more tiles but being 5 tiles away for some turns, and having more chance of revealing a barb unit while on flat ground.

I plotted the path until turn 24, which is when we finish our second warrior under the current plan. At that point we can safely start defogging the area to the south.

[ManiaMuse]

The big danger is that there are so many fogged tiles from where a rival warrior could move from and be only 3 tiles away from out capital. If our warrior was 4 tiles away then we would be kind of screwed if they decided to take a risk.

As painful as it is we might want to be more cautious about exploration so long as the capital is exposed. Even with the double move rule we are still vulnerable at 4 tiles away if they move first.

[Bobchillingworth]

Regarding exploration, I can't see the posted image yet, but we should probably stick to safer ground for the next few turns- as you said, it won't be long until we meet somebody, unless everyone is doing the circular capital scouting dance we are.

Regarding diplomacy, I do feel that the prior game actions of other players should influence our opinions, if not our actions. One particular team has shown a willingness to double-deal constantly in the previous pitboss games, and I think it would be dangerously naive of us to assume that players on any team will behave entirely differently for this game. To act like we've never heard anything about these teams before in making our in-game decisions seem to me like taking an unnecessary burden of role-playing upon ourselves. Again, we shouldn't be frosty or aggressive to a team immediatly just because of how the behaved in a prior game, but I do think that we should trust some more than others, and that should factor into our allies vs. potential targets calculus.

[SleepingMoogle]

Risk is part of the game. The problem is that if we don't want to go more than 3 tiles from the Citadel, there's almost nothing else left to do for the next 15 turns or so, while those turns could instead be spent defogging the rest of the area. Besides, there's a few things that help us here:

Leaving one's capital unguarded caused a very early elimination in RBP2. Every team that has been lurking or playing in that game will know this, and it should drive some to caution (as it has us).

We're now on the 9th turn, and the only Civ that has had it's score increased are the Incas. Looking at the stats, they are also the only ones with a size 2 city. Cities grown on a 3-food tile would have grown by now, so this means that unless they have been slow-building a Warrior, most, if not all, others are starting with a Worker. This may cause even more teams to keep their starting Warrior close. Two teams started with a scout instead of a Warrior too. Even if they build a Warrior first, it will be a while before it can reach our capital.

I mentioned this a few times, but no team will be able to see our capital. Unless they know where our Warrior is, they won't know for certain that the Citadel is unguarded, and declaring will be risky at best.

All in all, I feel we should be relatively safe to follow the red path at least. Any more than that is probably a little too dangerous,