Serdoa's SPOILER-Thread: I am legend?

[Charriu]

It's part of the last calculation step:

Code:

if (getDomainType() == DOMAIN_SEA && !plot()->isWater())
{
    if (!pLoopPlot->isWater() || !pLoopPlot->isAdjacentToArea(area()))
    {
        iValue *= 3;
    }
}
else
{
    if (pLoopPlot->area() != area())
    {
        iValue *= 3;
    }
}

The first if clause only applies to water units (DOMAIN_SEA). If:

• the unit is a water unit
  
• the current position of the unit is not a water tile (it's in a city)
  
• the current plot in the rotation is also not a water tile
  
• or the current plot in the rotation is not adjacent to the units current area
  

So some further explanation is necessary here. What is an area? Well every connected body of water or land tiles is its own area. If all of the above applies the value is multiplied by 3. Basically what this means is that if our water unit is in a city or fort, all non-water plots or water tiles that are not adjacent to the area of the city or fort, get a higher value and are therefore less likely to be considered.

Now for all units that are not water units or are in a water tile, we just check if the current plot in the rotation is not in the same area as the unit and multiply our value by 3.

[Serdoa]

Ah thank you Charriu. I've always stopped reading that part, somehow thinking all of these points would only apply to water units. I guess with a x3 multiplier there really is not much hope to convince the game to send me to the island.

[Serdoa]

Circumnavigation will be done soonish. After that finally Currency and I assume a much better outlook.

Though that depends on Rusten. He has not settled any cities since I destroyed his two newly founded ones - several turns ago. Now he has come up with a new settler, trying to settle even a tile closer. He has 2 Archers and a Spear in tow. I have moved Axes and a Spear to attack if he does indeed settle there. Come on guy, settle on your old spot, I'm ok with that, having seen your capital spot. But settling ON my borders? You basically scream "Raze me!". If it doesn't work with that group, the next one has been whipped now. 

*sigh* I get that behavior, but he was imo close enough to the leader that he still could have won, maybe still can. Yeah, he can make "SURE" that I won't win and he neither.. but maybe not taking it that personal and actually - after being pissed - cooling down would be... more sensible? We will be in this for several months to come, fighting a completely unimportant war while waiting for someone else to either finish us or win the game sounds not like fun. As in real-life fun. For neither of us. 

Anyhow, as he has a settling party there, chances are he'll not reconsider and if he has not more units in the fog (could very well be) he might lose that city - again, which probably will finally set him back enough that he really can't win. If he has more units, he probably will lose it still, just not that second. Either way, that city has one "food source" ... an oasis. So even if he settles there, it will take time to get enough culture pressure to really annoy me. It might even be that I get more culture pressure first and flip it? 

*sigh* That city is simply dumb. Sorry, I don't want to be rude, but that really is all just throwing the game away. Like you are in a good position in chess, not great, but good. Up on the opponent even. But then he puts your king in check and threatens your queen and instead of getting your king to safety you flip the board and scream about the unfairness (of the other player trying to win). Again, I get being upset at first, but making the game a miserable experience for yourself and your opponent seems not the smartest way to spend your time imo.

[Serdoa]

Well, one month since the last update.

- Rusten could resettle all his cities, I could not prevent that. Since then we are in a ongoing enforced peace-treaty. He did build Pyramids in his pink-dot city which does hurt culturally but hasn't taken any tiles I deeply care about yet (looking at you NoGas). I'm not sure what he is doing actually, no military-build-up yet it seems. He probably tries to tech away - I just don't know what for, probably attacking me. That will take quite some time though before he has enough tech-disparity between us that he can safely wipe me out. He should be able to get there though. 

Or maybe he is already. I really can't tell and might underestimate his teching.

- Lewwyn build away still. I could scout most of his land, didn't care to look much into it, for some reason or another he was able to get out to an early lead and keep that till now. I am not sure if he will be able to keep it throughout, even though it looks like it. But that assumes that nothing else happens, as he has more cities than anyone else. If someone was to take some cities off someone else though... who knows.

I think he should be teching Knights and attack Bob. That is the most logical choice. Or attack Rusten and get rid of that opponent for good. Taking on Bob of course might seem easier - but I am not so sure about that. He has low military but he should be not far behind in tech, if at all. He might have Pikes against those Knights if Lewwyn waits any longer. Also, if he can strike decisively against Rusten he should expect me to swoop in on the other side, which would make it very hard for Rusten to reinforce at all. 

- Bob is just in SP-mode I feel. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think he interacted much with anyone. I therefore really can't say much, except that I think he is going to tech in peace as long as he can, letting others build up military and hoping that he won't be the target. That might even work out for him, with how passive they all are.

- NoGas attacked SD last turn but so far not much has happened it seems. There is a war weariness of 6 displayed for NoGas when I click on SDs portrait in the relationship-overview, but I am not sure if that means NoGas lost units or SD did. If someone can enlighten me, that would be appreciated.

Besides from that I don't think they have reached Guilds / Cataphracts yet, so I am not sure if they decided he is building up too much military and thought before he can assembly his stack go on the offensive? I do hope they fight and get rid of some units on both sides. That would make myself much safer.

- SD is in war - and sends me every turn some diplo-offers. This turn it was OB and another asking to go to war with NoGas. I declined both, I really don't intend to upset them shortly before Cataphracts. I did however move one Axe and 2 workers on my border next to SDs scout. Maybe he gets the message of "economic build-up, have only ancient trash" and understands that me declining his offers is just awareness towards NoGas and not some intent on my side for war (though I declined so many offers by now I hope it would be obvious from me not having gone to war till now that I don't intend to).

As for myself, I am building up, will get Feudalism in two turns which should give some safety. I had to build some catapults to be safe in case of attacks, if I had been able to put all that in wealth-builds I would already be going for CS I guess.... I really need to build some more stuff in my cities. Courthouses when I get CoL, Forges when I find time... I also would like to get Engineering soonish, but CoL, CS first I think.

I also did not yet spawn a GP, partly because of no wonders that I built, partly because I did not put any scientists in my library-cities. I probably will get them later (if there is a later) and try to see if I can use them to get to Chemistry -> Steel or something like that (have to look into it in detail, but that is still at least one or two months in the future, so no rush...)

[Old Harry]

I can never figure war weariness out. This might help: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/w...cs.181512/

[Serdoa]

It helped, thank you

If what is written there is correct (it applies to 1.61, but I hope the core rules have not changed) war weariness only happens in land that is not culturally your own. No sure when that exactly applies (is 51/49 your land but 49/51 is not?) but at least that together with some observations lets me conclude a few things:

a) NoGas moved units out of their cities. Archers, Axes... defensive stuff or ancient trash. They are scrambling there units to defend and not to attack. 
b) There is war weariness shown of 24 - that has to be what SD has incurred when invading NoGas land as per a) he is the attacker
c) 24 war weariness this turn, 6 last turn means an increase of 18. I'm not sure if the numbers of that link still apply, but I can see that soldier top has gone down from 402k to 394k. The 402k was SD, so he must have lost at least 8000 soldier points, which could be 2 chariots or it is a Cho-Ko-Nu and some pop. 
d) NoGas has not yet lost a city and also not many soldier points according to the score board
e) NoGas has built more units, so that would alleviate some of the potential loss of fights

I believe they exchanged some blows but nothing decisive yet. Still, both have considerable armies so that could change soon.

[Charriu]

I can never figure war weariness out. This might help: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/w...cs.181512/

A lot of information is already in the provided post, but there are also some things missing, which is why I investigated all of war weariness here:

http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...#pid770148

In regards to the culture question. The game applies war weariness with a ratio of your culture and their culture. For more detail see my link above.

[Serdoa]

So I've gone through these posts - thank you Charriu for putting that information together - but unfortunately it meant that I found out that I basically cannot gather much from the information available to me. However, I can gather that SD must have lost a few units in his fights so far, as there have been 2 Great Generals born for NoGas and 1 for SD. That should also mean that SD lost more fights than he won, as you obviously do not get XP for losing fights so no GG-points either. 

The highest soldier points was 372k at the start of my turn - down from 402k as of two turns ago. So SD lost at a minimum 30k in soldier points but he also certainly built some, so lets assume he could get out of his 11 cities maybe 6 Cho-Ko-Nu, that would amount to 42k soldier points, which would indicated an actual loss of ~70k points or 10 Cho-Ko-Nus. Is that enough to get 2 GGs? Well, NoGas is IMP so they should get 100% more for that + 100% more for fighting in their borders. Which amounts to 300% more -> 1 XP in battle = 3 XP for the GG. They got 2, the first costs 30 the second 60, so a total of 90. They had killed my scout (*I have not forgotten*) so they already had some, I'd think 3. I'm not sure if they had any more fights, lets assume they did and had ... 15 points. So 75 via those fights or 25 without bonus. That would indicate like 12 fights they won as against Cho-Ko-Nus they shouldn't have tremendous odds I think. 

That would kinda add up. So, what is left from SDs army? Well, he had 400k points to start with. Around 130k of those amount for pop (30-40k), buildings (10-20k), wonders (10-20k), tech (58k). Leaves 270k for units. With 11 cities I assume 11 units for safeguarding, on average lets say 4000 per unit (warrior 2k, archer 3k, spear 4k, axe 6k). Thats ~40k, leaving us with a final 230k for his attack force.

Cho-Ko-Nus are 7000 per unit, if he had only those he should have had ~33. I ... don't believe that, he would surely have taken a city in that case. So, what did I not account for? Boats... maybe 5 Triremes and Galleys? Lets assume so and put down 15k for that. And some cities are on borders that he might actually guard, so maybe another 24k for those? That would still leave him with 190k or ~27 Cho-Ko-Nus. Of which he might have lost 5 now (more, but reproduction factored in). So still 22 left? 

Ok, so I'm not sure what happened there. I might be wrong on a few counts of course, maybe he has only 15 Cho-Ko-Nus but some more Axes and stuff? I would have expected that to take a city still - even if he can't hold it, but take and - if nothing else - raze it. But that has not happened yet and the longer the war goes on the less likely I feel it becomes. If he couldn't push through at the start, I have my doubts he can later on while NoGas produce additional defenders.

In other news: I have now the most soldier points again...

[Charriu]

Yes, it is very hard to conduct any information from enemies war weariness. I think my posts are more useful to estimate and work against your own war weariness.

[Serdoa]

So, I build up a few units over the last turns and had them sit around the last... 5 I think, not knowing what to do. My options have been:

1) Hit NoGas while they are being attacked by SD, maybe take 2-3 cities.

I would have done that in a heartbeat if SD had taken a city / made a dent in their defense and it had seemed like they could fall. If it were though, nothing like that happened. Consider, my border with them is at Solaris Temple, which is 3 tiles back in their own culture and Harbour Bridge, also 3 tiles from me. My "shortest" attack path would still have given them 2 turns of preparation time - and in case of Solaris Temple would still require me to attack over a river or take a route that takes 4 turns. 

So, basically they really had to be occupied and already whipped down for me to consider that. They are not, instead they took a city from SD and are fielding Cataphracts, something I expected to see shortly but hoped we had some more turns remaining. My sole - notable - defense against those is one lonely War Elephant. Which would lose.. considerably. Everything else is even worse, maybe except the Longbows, but only on defense and even then most likely not enough. I would in all honesty not even be able to hold the cities I took from them - if I could take them in the first place.

Basically, hitting the guy with Cataphracts who has tech superiority, production superiority, whipping superiority and food superiority is not going to happen, no matter how often SD sends messages requesting that I throw my game for him.

2) Hit Rusten while SD and NoGas are occupied.

I strongly considered that. I am certain I could have taken at least Inpulsa the Pyramids-city directly on my border that is making my life very hard on that side of the map (culturally). There are a few things that would be negative doing so though:

a) Lewwyn might join from the other side and Rusten would probably defend against me with more force as emotionally I am certainly the "bad guy" to him. That would allow Lewwyn most likely to take more of his lands. I basically would maybe get 3 cities out of it, 2 of them pretty bad. 
b) Rusten is not pre-occupied with someone else and has kept quite some forces on our border.
c) Rusten has more production capacity then SD, due to having more cities.
d) There is a slight chance I might not even have taken Inpulsa, as he has already 6 or 7 units in the city, with the potential to add several more.
e) Rusten might not be accepting peace after I take a few cities and instead counter-attack.

Especially the last point is a real consideration. And I am certain if Lewwyn did not join in, he would be happy to eat Bob in that time instead, while NoGas takes over SD. The end effect most likely would be a runaway Lewwyn (more than already), a NoGas being twice as big and Rusten and me being in bloody and not decisive fights, bogging us both down. That would invite NoGas attacking me from the other side.

So, even though this line at first glance seems like a logical choice for me, I believe I would lose horribly in nearly all circumstances.

3) Hit SD while he is fighting with NoGas, take 2-3 cities off him and let NoGas finish the job while I tech Engineering. 

This is the third of my three options and the one I took. SD is in a fight with NoGas but was losing horribly BEFORE they fielded Cataphracts (I saw them build HA) and while he was on the offense at the start he now is already starting to lose cities while they build more and more OP-Knights. 

SD and I have two border cities which do exert some cultural pressure towards me and I considered hitting them several times already. As long as I could see into them, they have been underdefended and so far nothing seems to have changed. Taking those two cities should be fine with NoGas I believe. There will be a border stretched west-east, similar to USA and Canada, but with how the map was setup, this is nearly inevitable. And that would be the case no matter if I take these cities ore not. 

I am not intending to take more than that right now, because I am

a) not sure I can and
b) don't want to upset NoGas as long as they are stronger than I am

If I can take those two I can plant one more city to get up to 15. Still not enough to win, just be on par with Rusten and NoGas right now (and NoGas will have more cities in the future of course). I don't see myself taking more as I want NoGas to 

a) have to work to take out SD and 
b) have a border with Lewwyn

We will see if that works out. And as I know everyone wants to see pictures, here is a picture of my attack-stack:



A total of 

13 catapults
10 Horse Archer
10 Axeman
2 Spearman
2 Chariots
3 Archers
-------------------
40 units

I admit, the archers are there for defense only. I had them available and they can be put in a city and upgraded to LBs, so that should be fine. I hope this is enough. I would have liked 30 units more, but I did not want to whip myself into oblivion. Maybe I'll regret this, we will see.