[SPOILER] PB37 Dark Savant tries not to be a blatant MP n00b

[ipecac]

Well, consensus seems to be that it's still abusive, though I'm not sure what the concern is.  I thought the big problem with city gifting was with people playing kingmaker by giving cities to your enemy's enemies.

Exactly. The problem is players being able to give any city to any player at any time, and is highly abusable. However, liberating cities via the city capture menu only allow specific cities to be transferred to specific players at specific times, and is nowhere as abusable.

While we wait for that to sort itself out ... it's possible Gavagai is going to take his just-produced knights and try to run them past our fortified border.  That means I may need more pikes and shouldn't wait for our UU.

How much of a threat is that?

I haven't seen that done before, if at all. There are two reasons why such a tactic is extremely unadvisable: the attacking units are extremely vulnerable, and any city captured will be much more difficult to defend.
One key consideration when attacking is hammer exchange. By pushing units past the frontier city towards the core of the enemy, the attacker exposes his units to great danger: cats hit with collateral damage, and then even 'obsolete' units can mop up.

And due to this, it's much harder to hold any city captured. If you can't, then what's the point marshaling a significant force to attack? It might be worth it to raze a significant city, but the potential costs are likely going to be high.

[Mardoc]

For the record: liberating a city is not the same as the average city gift, and can't be abused to the extent of the latter. If unit gifts are left on, I don't see why someone else can't help you recapture your city and liberate it back to you.

This is probably moot for this game since Krill didn't intend to liberate but might be worth discussing for future ones.

Well, consensus seems to be that it's still abusive, though I'm not sure what the concern is.  I thought the big problem with city gifting was with people playing kingmaker by giving cities to your enemy's enemies.

I don't know how possible it would be to arrange the following scenario, but it would be pretty abusive if it did happen:

I invade you.  Capture a dozen cities, then start to slow down, so offer peace.  Ipecac, your neighbor on the other side, has open borders with you, and right after you sign peace, he starts to attack me from your territory.  Every city he captures, he liberates, so that they become yours with fully expanded cultural borders, giving him access to move his army very close to the next city.  I can't counterattack his army, because I'm in an unbreakable 10-turn peace with you and can't enter your borders. He has a cheesy tactical advantage that lets him get a lot further and kill a lot more of my stuff than if he had to keep the cities he freed and expose his army.  Potentially it swings the balance of power enough to affect the winner.

It's at least a plausible scenario, something that could happen organically; it only requires cleverness from one player (ipecac).

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Also, there's the fact that simple rules are a lot easier to administer. No city gifting for cheesy or kingmaking reasons needs a judge with full information on the entire situation on both sides and complete neutrality. No city gifting for any reason can be enforced by anyone who watches civstats.

[Dark Savant]

While we wait for that to sort itself out ... it's possible Gavagai is going to take his just-produced knights and try to run them past our fortified border.  That means I may need more pikes and shouldn't wait for our UU.

How much of a threat is that?

I haven't seen that done before, if at all. There are two reasons why such a tactic is extremely unadvisable: the attacking units are extremely vulnerable, and any city captured will be much more difficult to defend.
One key consideration when attacking is hammer exchange. By pushing units past the frontier city towards the core of the enemy, the attacker exposes his units to great danger: cats hit with collateral damage, and then even 'obsolete' units can mop up.

And due to this, it's much harder to hold any city captured. If you can't, then what's the point marshaling a significant force to attack? It might be worth it to raze a significant city, but the potential costs are likely going to be high.

Okay, understood.  Gavagai can see that I both have Engineering and a chariot watching what he's doing, anyway.  I don't want to build up too much defense, after all.  

Those random knights from a few turns ago are nowhere to be seen now, too.  I'll go look if they're closer to his border with Krill.

Also, there's the fact that simple rules are a lot easier to administer.  No city gifting for cheesy or kingmaking reasons needs a judge with full information on the entire situation on both sides and complete neutrality.  No city gifting for any reason can be enforced by anyone who watches civstats.

Ah, right, simplicity of administration is a good reason.

[Dark Savant]

I'm beginning to think that going straight for Gunpowder isn't actually going to pay off that well.  I was doing so to make sure our defenses are good enough, but they may already be.  We'll be able to produce knights imminently, and that's worth quite a bit on its own.

Is it going to be worth chasing Astronomy instead?  That's not cheap but quite a few people already have it, and as long as I don't have it war on the seas is going to be awful.  Also, that lets me order up some observatories.

Alternatively, I can go down the Aesthetics line and try to generate the GP for a third Golden Age -- we have no National Epic.  In particular, we still don't have any religious civics available, and I'm wondering if it's worth it to get Philosophy just so I can get into Pacifism at the end of the current GA (my guess is no, but I don't have a feel for that).

[ipecac]

If you won't be attacking or defending in naval warfare soon, I'd grab Aesthetics first.

[Dark Savant]

Well, even if I do get involved in naval warfare -- it'll take me most of the rest of the GA to get Astronomy anyway.

That may be because I'd be researching it with not enough people having it -- I should double-check that once the game resumes.

[Dark Savant]

t152:

Okay, the game is underway again.

Horseback Riding in.  Now that I feel our defenses are okay, I start Aesthetics, due in 1.  Chichen Itza is due in 2, which will be even more defense.

Gavagai is apparently loading up some galleons to stir up some trouble ... somewhere.



I whipped a pike in the nearby island city just in case.  That may be paranoid, as I think it's likely Gavagai's real target is someone else.

Krill just lost a couple small cities to Coeurva.  That's not good, though I don't think there's going to be a better time to attack Coeurva than right now, really -- and he's still playing the turn so I don't have to greet someone new with a war declaration.   I declare war and land everything I have next to Emerald Island.



That should be enough to beat a longbow and an axe behind walls and a river, though he may be able to reinforce it.

There is a good chance this isn't going to end well, but I feel I have to do something here.

[Dark Savant]

t153:

Coeurva has been replaced by chumchu.

He moved a stack of galleons next to Emerald Island, but didn't reinforce it (instead killing a trireme and galley), and in fact evacuated the longbow.



I retake Emerald Island at the cost of 1 sword.  With the walls intact, I might even be able to keep it against knights.

I discover that Regna still exists:



I thought it would have been razed?  I'm confused -- I could have tried to take that instead.  It's going to be hard to get there now if there are 5 galleons running around.

The two galleons Coeurva had on the border move northeast.  I believe I have everything covered.

Gavagai has several knights in the northwest of his territory.



Are they just playing zone defense?  That's a lot of military to be doing only that.

Aesthetics in, Literature due next turn.

[Dark Savant]

t154:

Literature done; Drama due in 1 (it's cheap, lets me produce theaters, and makes researching Philosophy cheaper).

Chichen Itza is also done.  I think I may have gone overboard playing defensive turtle.  

Are we really going to fight this hard over a size 1 city?



Well, I have enough units to repel an attack for at least this turn.  I won't be able to reinforce Emerald Island nearly as quickly as chumchu can.

Krill retook Regna from chumchu.  They're still at war.  I'm going to wait at least a turn or two to see who can actually hold it, but I don't want to attack Krill just for that city.

I found where Gavagai's knights are staging.



That's a lot of galleons for them to load onto, as well.  And they aren't pointed my way.

I move some units away from the front with Gavagai to cover chumchu; he still has that pair of roaming galleons on my west coast.  That should be covered against no matter what those galleons have in them and no matter where they go.

dtay just whipped a ton of units.  I have no idea whom he is going to target next, but he'd have to stretch to attack me at all.

GermanJoey is almost done conquering DZ/CH/ex-Ventessel.

6 turns of GA to go.  I was thinking about whipping a bunch of knights, either now or when the GA ends, but Gunpowder is already out there, and I don't have Astronomy for the naval power to guard transports full of knights.  Would whipping knights accomplish anything at this stage?

[Dark Savant]

I'm not sure I should invest so much into the defense of Emerald Island -- part of the point was to use that as a stepping stone to reclaim Regna, which looks doubtful.

I'd shift to the western sea, except it wouldn't exactly take many galleons to murder any launching attempt I make.

I'll have to research Astronomy after all, I suppose.  The question is whether to get in Gunpowder in the meantime.