01-05-2003 03:17									#211
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One of us should post in the forum, quickly.

We can always do this in the meantime. Use the road to. If the results of the forum discussion are that Vox has not been using it, we can kill next turn with the workers that wake up (space bar) and limit the units on H8 to moving 1 tile then space bar (no forting). If it turns out that Vox has been using it, then we proceed as normal.

	01-05-2003 03:20									#212
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That is what we would do if we do not want to hold up the game.

	01-05-2003 03:33									#213
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I just checked the resource situation, and GoW is getting iron from somewhere. Unless I'm missing something, the source pretty much has to be ND. I can only find one RP iron source connected, and RP has iron. Vox still has neither horses nor iron hooked up to their capital.

	01-05-2003 03:34									#214
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NYE, you really think there's that much chance Vox is using the trick for this tile even though they didn't for the last one?

	01-05-2003 03:36									#215
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I'm not sure they didn't for the last one, or that someone there didn't just learn of it. I recently found out about it. Can't remember where...

	01-05-2003 03:40									#216
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The question is, if they have been using it, and the consensus on the forum is that it is OK, then would we use it? Do we want to hold up the game to get that answer, or do we want to set it up so that if 'no' then we don't benefit, but if the anser is 'yes' then we do.

One other thing we could do, wake one of the workers up and reassign him to manual road. That should avoid the thing entirely if the answer is 'no'. I'm just trying to say that we can cover the bases and not hold up the game.

	01-05-2003 03:52									#217
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We could just ignore it for now, too. I'm fine with that.

We should bring it up in the forum, regardless.

	01-05-2003 04:09									#218
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I second NYE. This seems like the best approach, it leaves all the options open and it doesn't hold the game anymore than what's absolutely necessary.

	01-05-2003 04:11									#219
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I agree with NYE as well. Who is going to ask about it on the main page?

	01-05-2003 04:17									#220
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I guess if we really want to ask about it on the public forum, I can. I'll post a draft here first.

	01-05-2003 04:21									#221
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Would it be bad to post it after Vox has sent their turn, or would that be too obvious?

Was this mentioned someplace else, the strat forum or main forum or help? Would others know of this? Has Soren or anyone commented on it?

	01-05-2003 04:26									#222
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay I guess if we really want to ask about it on the public forum, I can. I'll post a draft here first.

It would be good if everyone knows the rules of the game so that we can all play by them.

	01-05-2003 04:32									#223
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Title: An exploit? Allowed or disallowed?

quote: One recently discovered quirk of Civilization 3 is that if you use the "road to" mechanism instead of roading normally, and then wait through your units' turns, your workers will finish the road during the turn (when it's their turn to move) instead of waiting until the end. This can, as best I understand it, be used for two purposes. (1) It can allow units to move on a newly constructed road earlier than they could otherwise. (2) It can avoid wasting worker turns when the number of worker turns needed to finish a road is not an even multiple of the number of workers assigned to build it (since the early completion eliminates the need for the last worker to spend time on the job). The drawback is that after a worker finishes the road, unless the worker can be caught and redirected first, it will move to the tile it was told to road to. Gathering Storm is considering using this technique, but we do not want to do so if other teams have objections, and we certainly would not consider it fair if we use it while other teams may not even know about the possibility. Also, we want to avoid the possibility that some of the other teams might know about and use this technique while others do not. Nathan

Edit: changed a "do" to a "may".

	01-05-2003 04:33									#224
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I'm sure I've read about the trick before, probably on the strategy forum.

	01-05-2003 04:38									#225
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I honestly don't consider this to be an exploit, and thought that everyone knew of it. BUt I suppose it should be posted, just prepare for laughs.

	01-05-2003 04:47									#226
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Unless the other teams have all discussed the trick internally, it seems almost certain that not everyone involved with the game knows about it. And I'm almost positive that feelings are mixed over whether this is an illegitimate exploit or a legitimate workaround for a an idiosyncrasy (if not outright flaw) in game design, namely, being able to finish something during the turn only if you bring in enough workers new to the task to finish it.

	01-05-2003 04:52									#227
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I will leave the debate over this to the main forum.

	01-05-2003 04:52									#228
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That looks good Nathan. To be honest, I would only consider using it if other teams have been to date. And then only if Vox has.

I think it should be banned from the game and 'Poly rules' in general because it obviously is not something the designers intended, and it gives a movement advantage to the forces of the Road-to user. Does that mean don't use Road-to? No, just do not cycle through the units to get the road finished before advancing on the newly built road.

	01-05-2003 04:58									#229
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If we'd rather no one use it, I'd rather not worry about it this turn, and I can rework the post to reflect a GS preference that no one mainipulate the mechanism to their advantage. Vox may surprise me, but it seems to me that if they were going to use it, we would already have seen the evidence by now.

	01-05-2003 05:10									#230
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I am agreeable to that. We should just get the turn done. What's left?

	01-05-2003 05:12									#231
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay I can rework the post to reflect a GS preference

Just to let you know, I will probably argue against you on the main forum.

	01-05-2003 05:28									#232
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I went ahead and went through the rest of our moves, ending up with our northeastern galleys where they started. (I had the second one move 6-6-4-4 to probe for a possible crossing for lack of anything better to do, but didn't find anything.) I also took the liberty of moving our newly healed WC from Sandstorm to Arashi since that gives it a wider range of places it can hit.

The big outanding issue is that I'd like to get a settler started in Cyclone with an eye toward either Inchon or Grog's Shadow. If we don't get started now and Vox's attack disintigrates, we could easily find ourselves needing a settler before we have one if we wait.

	01-05-2003 05:33									#233
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay The big outanding issue is that I'd like to get a settler started in Cyclone with an eye toward either Inchon or Grog's Shadow. If we don't get started now and Vox's attack disintigrates, we could easily find ourselves needing a settler before we have one if we wait.

I would rather build a unit. We have enough gold that we can rush a settler someplace when the need arises.

	01-05-2003 05:36									#234
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Units for the moment, please.

Sorry I couldn't participate, but I did check in during the day, and would have shouted out if needed.

Good job.

	01-05-2003 05:54									#235
	Remove this text

NM...

Last edited by alva on 01-05-2003 at 07:39

	01-05-2003 05:58									#236
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quote: Gathering Storm is considering using this technique, but we do not want to do so if other teams have objections, and we certainly would not consider it fair if we use it while other teams may not even know about the possibility. Also, we want to avoid the possibility that some of the other teams might know about and use this technique while others do not.

I like the message, but will this last part not make us sound arrogant (again). (The part in italics especially).

	01-05-2003 06:01									#237
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I would prefer to indicate that we do not want to use it... I'm in the exploit camp.

	01-05-2003 06:09									#238
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If we start a settler in Cyclone now, it will be able to load on a galley for Inchon six turns from now. It seems to me that that will probably be almost perfect timing, if not a bit late, for Inchon or Grog's Shadow. Since food is a major aspect of timing settlers correctly, the most logical alternative would probably be to rush a settler in Sandstorm (which is a lot better at food/growth than at production). But I'm starting to get sick of spending gold on units and getting almost no investment out of our golden age, and now that we're officially even with Vox in military power and unofficially probably a lot more powerful (not to mention the difference in production capacities), I think we need to be moving away from that. Another turn or two is okay, but I don't want to make commitments to keep spending gold on rushing units beyond that (which essentially is what "we can always rush a settler" thinking would demand).

	01-05-2003 06:33									#239
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Set to a settler. We can always judge results and needs during the production stage and switch if needed.

Also, keep in mind that Vox is still building warriors and cash upgrading, right? No iron in cap? That must mean they have gold still, or a steady stream of it, to continue doing the upgrades. I would say our cash rushing days are over when they no longer show as needing iron at TheVoice.

	01-05-2003 06:46									#240
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Vox is getting enough gold in conventional income to upgrade about one warrior per turn. I would expect them to want to have at least five warriors for future upgrade, maybe more, before they reconnect The Voice. Alternatively, they could leave only The Voice disconnected and keep it building one-turn warriors for upgrade while everyone else builds other units.

Also, unless Vox has a truly massive foreign income, they are highly unlikely to be working on a force of pure immortals. To whatever extent they're building spearmen, that cuts into their ability to get ahead on warrior production as a prerequisite for reconnecting their iron. So I'm not ready to assume that Vox has a massive foreign income for upgrading immortals just because they haven't reconnected their iron to their capital.

Our most flexible option would be to stockpile a few hundred gold as an emergency fund. Then if Vox shows up with a major unexpected strike force, we can rush a bunch of units in our small, outlying towns, while if they don't, we can use the gold for something else once we're sure the military situation is under control.