09-12-2004 20:26									#301
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OT: Like the teenage Kicks sig, Alva Is that a memorial for John Peel?

	09-12-2004 20:38									#302
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quote: Originally posted by alva Not a big fan of the law of averages then, are you?

Oh yes, but on another level. With big battles, you know that the outliers die out, and get more to average. If you calculate before hand that with a stack of 100 units attacking, you will have 70 kills, it will be unlikely that you only have 50 kills. OTOH, if you only have 10 battles to fight, it makes sense that if you expect 7 kills, only 5 will die. You only need 1 tank-defeated-by-spearman to completely change the outcome of the battle, while if you fight with 100 units, you 10 of those.

Again, this is a bit of belief, as mathematically, chances are equal. But if I fight 1 battle, I accept I can get lucky, or unlucky. If I fight 10 battles, I only accept getting lucky twice.

This is different from fighting 5 battles, and saying: okay, so far I was unlucky, time to get lucky to 'get average'. That doesn't work. The second half of the battle is independent once the first half has finished.

We used this in the BB attack. After bombardment (which went well), the decision was made to continue. Doing it in steps increases our odds overall (and no combat calculator can compute that). If you don't take into account the decision, you'd think that we got very lucky, while in reality doing it in 2 steps improved our chances considerably.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 21:19									#303
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus OT: Like the teenage Kicks sig, Alva Is that a memorial for John Peel?

Yeah, sort off. I really liked the guy but I didn't know the song before.

It's one of me favourites now though.
-
DeepO

	09-12-2004 21:34									#304
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I'm working on the large map, but there is one thing painfully obvious: we know too little of Lego to be any help in planning our way up North. We can, apart from the likely cities already identified in the South, have a good guess at one other city, and that's it. This is not going to work, either we need their map, or we need explorers.

CH, did you mention to MZ already that the spy failed? You might want to ask him if he is willing to fund our attempt to steal Lego's map. We only need it to decide if we will get to them or not, so I'm a bit hesitant to fund it ourselves.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 21:40									#305
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO CH, did you mention to MZ already that the spy failed? You might want to ask him if he is willing to fund our attempt to steal Lego's map. We only need it to decide if we will get to them or not, so I'm a bit hesitant to fund it ourselves. DeepO

I mentioned that the spy failed. He said

quote: Damn Btw, spying is RNG dependant if I recall correctly, that is, whatever moves you guys already did you have to re-do them and THEN spy (just in case you loaded the save and tried to spy immediately... this might have also messed up your naval attacks) -MZ

I'll ask about the map costs - how much is it again for a safe steal? (We will pick up some gold from Lego cities this turn. {edit - and ND might pay too})

	09-12-2004 21:47									#306
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To MZ:

quote: We'll probably have to try to steal Lego's map to make a coherent plan. Trouble is, cash is tight and we have at least a barracks to rush next turn. Not sure what the cost is, and maybe ND can chip in, but can you help?

	09-12-2004 21:52									#307
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They really should go for that. If we get the map and pass it on to ND, they can spy otherwise unknown cities for GoW.

	09-12-2004 21:58									#308
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I think it's time to take Quanto. We need to decide what non-moveable troops to take with us to do so. I say only take 1 Marine in the Transport that can't quite make it. With only 4 Settlers we aren't going to be refounding Quanto or a shore city nearby.

	09-12-2004 21:58									#309
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Something else: we can't wait on this forever. So here is an idea: no matter what happens, I'd like to use those 7 non-moveable forces to try to hold on to Quanto 2 (1 is not so ideal, as it doesn't connect to as many RR tiles). As we can move MI up there later too, the best choice I think would be to put 7 infs on that tile. Later, we can decide on the exact troop formation, as we would also need to keep NI 6 for it to be of any effect.

Which means that we can decide later on what exactly is to happen, but at least we can move our transport which will not be able to reach Quanto with 7 infs and 1 marine, and take Quanto.

That's step 1.

Step 2: update our city information, and move the second transport with 4 settlers and 4 tanks into Quanto. This is also the same for all scenarios.

Step 3: capture the explorer with a marine (which are now free to move again). Probably use the wounded one, but that is not so important right now. Use the explorer to scout our borders (without losing mp!), to see if we can spot anything else. I doubt it, but you never know.

This can all be done without a decision on what the rest of our plans are going to be. The rest, however, is something else.

Step 4. Load all other troops into boats, and chain them into Quanto. We do not know what kind of troops we're going to take. If we let GoW do it themselves, without trying to interfere, we better take a couple of MIs with us for defense of whatever we might want to keep. Say 5 MI, the rest tanks. the 2 explorers join us as well.

However, if we don't try to help GoW, I would prefer to put one of those transports out in the open sea, to create a backup hub 3. Next turn, 4 more settlers are going to be worth more then 8 tanks are worth now, if you can't reach anything. We don't have the forces to create credible forks on multiple cities right now, and only a couple of settlers will get us to those forks next turn, with possibly all of our tanks instead of only a small detachment.

So, I'm in favour of loading the 7 infs and 1 marine into a boat, and sail to Quanto. It's about time we capture a city!

BTW: does anyone know what is going to happen with our transports, once we destroy Quanto? I don't want to exploit this... are they just put one tile out of the city, in the open sea?

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:01									#310
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huh.. cross-posting again.

CH, 338 gold for the map. And please tell MZ that we know we can't mess with the RNG, which is why each and every move has been logged so far. Plus, for as long as possible, I'm going to keep the safe open, so we don't need replays. That chaining gets on my nerves if I've got to do it too often

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:01									#311
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Note on the RNG:

Further to MZ's comments (above), it may not only be actively random events that move the RNG seed. I found in a PBEM that an attack I assumed to be the first RNG event of the turn was resolved differently when I replayed the turn. Might the game generate random numbers elsewhere - like the 'random' advisor's messages perhaps? Could other interface or graphical elements invoke an RNG number if selected?

If the turn crashed now, I'd fear for the replay.

	09-12-2004 22:02									#312
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If you disband a city all naval units in it are destroyed.

	09-12-2004 22:05									#313
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After Quanto I think we should move 1 Transport in. 4 Settlers are obviously going. 1 Explorer can be sent N/NE from Quanto. The other Explorer can explore the S from NI. Between them they can map out a good portion of Lego, and every tile we uncover will make stealing the map less costly. That will leave us with Lego's Explorer, but I'd rather steal the map before we capture it. That's because we can't use a N Marine to capture it until we've Taken Sand and Yellow at least.

That leaves 3 slots open in Transport1. 3 Tanks.

Then we will be in position to plan how to proceed.

	09-12-2004 22:08									#314
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from MZ:

quote: We went 100% tax last turn for any eventualities so we can help, ND was also going to do some spying for us but since that won't be necessary anymore we can "divert" that money to you. Also, I'm not sure if I said it clearly but what I was referring to was that if you loaded the save to spy then the result would be different than if you played your moves and THEN spyed and that perhaps spying beforehand would end up changing the results of your attacks (hence why you have to spy after moving what you have already moved).

(I replied that we're clear about the RNG sequence.)

	09-12-2004 22:11									#315
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quote: Originally posted by Trip If you disband a city all naval units in it are destroyed.

Wow - good point.

	09-12-2004 22:15									#316
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quote: Originally posted by Trip If you disband a city all naval units in it are destroyed.

Thanks Trip. So be it... so we're going to lose a couple of transports.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:16									#317
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The real worry would be if they were Transported somewhere. They are called Transports... but we wouldn't want to go through that again...

	09-12-2004 22:18									#318
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus Note on the RNG: Further to MZ's comments (above), it may not only be actively random events that move the RNG seed. I found in a PBEM that an attack I assumed to be the first RNG event of the turn was resolved differently when I replayed the turn. Might the game generate random numbers elsewhere - like the 'random' advisor's messages perhaps? Could other interface or graphical elements invoke an RNG number if selected? If the turn crashed now, I'd fear for the replay.

I have no clue what exactly differs in RNG generation. I hear that FoW is important, but perhaps the advisor messages are important too. Anyway, I only had to replay once (yesterday morning, in reopening the save), and so far I can keep the game open. My pc has the tendency of crashing, but let's worry about that when we get there. Everything is perfectly recorded (well... maybe not. For instance I do not note which infs are in which boat, nor which 8 artillery were put on the chainer), that's all we can do.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:22									#319
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quote: Originally posted by Aeson After Quanto I think we should move 1 Transport in. 4 Settlers are obviously going. 1 Explorer can be sent N/NE from Quanto. The other Explorer can explore the S from NI. Between them they can map out a good portion of Lego, and every tile we uncover will make stealing the map less costly. That will leave us with Lego's Explorer, but I'd rather steal the map before we capture it. That's because we can't use a N Marine to capture it until we've Taken Sand and Yellow at least.

Sando is, I think, not blocking the marines. Yellow might block it, but if that really is a settler /worker pump, it won't have any culture. The marines are not sure, though, so we can't count on them. I agree on taking 1 explorer in the transport.

I'll start on this now. After that, I'll publish my map (it isn't finished yet, but with more information it can change), and update it as we learn more.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:26									#320
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Do we give city captures in battle reports?

	09-12-2004 22:28									#321
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why not? It's the same thing: Lego doesn't know which unit takes a city in PBEM, while in SP you do see it.

Besides, it gives us an opportunity to gloat.. politely

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:31									#322
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The Explorer from NI should move 666688. It might be blocked by P3 though. In that case move 663686.

	09-12-2004 22:32									#323
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Argh!

I don't know when it happened, nor how, but the safe just hit a serious bump. The 1/4 transport has no mp left anymore? I certainly didn't hit the space bar, but this safe has been open for over 24h... I don't know what happened, but I hope nobody complains that I'll replay it. We can't afford this, those are 8 units.

Oh well. I guess we're going to find out in a minute exactly how accurate the RNG works...

See you guys in half an hour or so, this is going to take time.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:33									#324
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DeepO... are you still there? We can do it without replaying!

	09-12-2004 22:35									#325
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euh, we can?

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:35									#326
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It will only cost us 1 unit. The first Transport would have 1 Marine instead of 1 Tank.

We can get our MI to Q2 and Inf to NI 6 if we are going that way, so it shouldn't matter otherwise.

It would be your call if that 1 Tank is more valuable than having to redo everything.

	09-12-2004 22:36									#327
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Good thing I went for a coke first

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:43									#328
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I'm not sure. Do you have experience in how the RNG works? You did more then a bit of work at Civ fanatics judging games, would it make a difference you think? It's not the work which is bothering me, I just spent 2 hours in Coreldraw, drawing lines on a screenshot... it's more the chance that we lose the outcome of what we currently have.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:44									#329
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atm, I'm checking other things. If any other unit has stopped when it didn't suppose to, we simply have to replay...

DeepO

	09-12-2004 22:45									#330
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That one unit slot shouldn't matter either way I'd think. If we can make it to Ft Stanwix, we can't take it regardless, just weaken it. If we weaken it with ~20 Tanks instead of ~21 GoW is still sure to get through. If we can't make it to Ft Stanwix we are Settler limited. In that case we end up with 1 less unit on spot we end up defending on the rolling side of things, and 1 more unit on the NI side of things.