08-08-2003 14:07									#1
	The fall and fall of Fanatika: should we care? Inflate your Upload Space

Posted following the last chat of Octy and nye:

It appears CFC will be in deep trouble shortly. GCA has once again had amazing luck with the RNG - 2 horses killed one fortified and one non-fortified CFC Sword on a Mountain! Octy reports that GCA will besiege Cha-Ching in 5 turns.

Now this begs a question: will CFC's plight affect our decision on when to attack GCA or not? I know that the longer we wait the better for our troops and the more use we can get out of the GA, and if we get Feudalism from the Creative Discovery Gambit (CDG - geddit? ), then the more overwhelming our troops can be, but what happens if CFC goes down?

It is unlikely CFC will be killed completely by the time we attack, but is it in our interests to keep them alive enough to kick GCA a bit? Their main use to us right now is as a distraction for GCA, and the more troops they have tied up there the better, yet should CFC be smashed, what will this do?

Both CFC's and GCA's UUs require Chivalry, so it is certainly in our best interests to blunt them here. GCA is miles from Chivalry, and even with the CDG trade, CFC would take around 50+ turns to get to Chivalry with their current GNP minimum. CFC also requires both Horses and Iron for their UU. It seems logical to try to prevent both civs from getting their UUs and thus effectively preventing their GAs. GCA is a no-brainer - we want to smash them into little pieces, and we have an "alliance" to that effect. But CFC?

After the war and a hopefully extinguished GCA, what use is CFC to us? A trading partner for our lux and we could possibly set up a tech-trading alliance, directing our researches forever more. Sounds nice, especially when faced with the scientific and military might of the other lands. But with our hugely superior GNP it will take us 20 or so turns to research any Medieval techs at 100% science. CFC would always be jealous of their larger and more powerful neighbour, and you bet they would do their damnedest to sneak their way to getting Chivalry, triggering their GA and use the production and the UU to establish their hegemony on the continent. It's what we'd do.

So what use is CFC to us at all? Their lands are nice, and would work better for us as the location of the Palace or FP, with the other either recentred towards Elucidium or midway between Apolyton and the current GCA lands.

From going through this train of thought only now, I think I conclude that CFC is better off dead and with their lands belonging to us, either directly or through GCA. So we should not bother to go out of our way to stop their losses. Let GCA take a city or two of CFC's. It will only serve to tie BOTH civs' forces up. making it that much easier for us.

However, it would of course be useful to hear any other ideas - are there reasons why we should keep CFC around? Will they benefit us after the war (excepting any UN votes - that's NOT going to happen in a MP game)? And more importantly, is there anything we can do to help them at least to a stalemate against GCA without giving them anything they can use against us?

	08-08-2003 14:35									#2
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The thing CFC could use now is feudalism. They might just get it.

I count 2 horse, and 3 sword (2 in an army) near CFC. There must be more. That is a major chunk of the military that is weak v us.

We may well move early, however we should complete as much of the 18/6/6 as possible.

Is it possible Octavian was embellishing to spark us to move?

	08-08-2003 16:07									#3
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quote: It appears CFC will be in deep trouble shortly. GCA has once again had amazing luck with the RNG - 2 horses killed one fortified and one non-fortified CFC Sword on a Mountain! Octy reports that GCA will besiege Cha-Ching in 5 turns.

*frown* I'm honestly starting to wonder too. Not that that is so unlikely that it in itself looks bad. The fact that they actually tried it, makes me wonder. If a team wasn't considering the possibility of a redo and wasn't desperate (aka on the defensive, do or die situation) would they even attack 2 swords on a mountain with spears? I mean I hate to accuse with only circumstancial proof, but thats not rational behavior unless your replaying the save until you get results you want.

	08-08-2003 17:22									#4
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Mr.WIA has a good point, and it is very much to our benefit if GCA crushes CFC. Heck, it won't make much difference if GCA *wipes out* CFC right as we launch our assault. Those cities will be too corrupt for GCA to muster troops from, and they'll still be forced to defend them somewhat for fear of us sending one or two horsemen around to eyeball them.

I'm not proposing we help GCA, but GCA winning actually only makes them more stretched out without any real production from those lands, which would only make our lives easier when the time comes.

Wow... uniting this continent under our rule pre-gunpower or even pre-cavalry would have staggering reprecussions in the world arena... WE would be the new power rising.

On second thought, maybe we should "forget" to give CFC their techs.

In other news, I think Wervdon has a point that GCA's actions are not logical, strictly speaking. There's a few possibilities here, though:

1- GCA knows they have CFC on the ropes and are being reckless and profligately spending troops to finish them off.

2-GCA isn't smart enough to know better. (Hey, if CDG was doing doofus things.... c'mon, look at GCA's city spread. :P )

3- GCA is replaying the save.

I'd actually consider one and two more likely, but we should probably devote someone to 'calculating the odds' every turn we're at war with GCA. If we see astounding luck as well, we may wish to present a case to 1BC.

	08-08-2003 18:08									#5
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quote: I'd actually consider one and two more likely, but we should probably devote someone to 'calculating the odds' every turn we're at war with GCA. If we see astounding luck as well, we may wish to present a case to 1BC.

I've been giving this some thought recently, what with both CDG and CFC claiming that GCA has had some astounding victories. Statistically speaking, it would not be a particularly hard test to find out whether they were cheating - you could just use a standard chi-squared test.

However, it would take a rather large amount of work and time. We'd have to collect a large and unbiased sample size - in other words, we don't just look at the battles we lose - and we'd have to calculate the expected wins and losses for each battle to compare against the observed values.

Despite the claims of CDG and CFC, I find it unlikely that GCA are cheating. Firstly, it would require their player to be a very dishonest person, which I hope they are not. Secondly, what we are probably seeing is biased reporting on the part of CDG and CFC - they are hardly going to tell us that they had some incredibly lucky wins and defences. Thirdly, I just think that CDG and CFC were outnumbered and outplayed.

That said, if it does seem like they are winning far more than they should, it would not be too difficult to work out the odds that they're cheating. In fact, we could probably start now if we really wanted to by analysing CDG's savegames.

	08-08-2003 19:44									#6
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Luck or cheating, we can't really tell for sure until we SEE some of these battles. Thus we can really only start to know when WE are attacking GCA. Without precise troop info I don't think we can do much from the older saves. BFM did a lot of work figuring out a rough force for GCA and CDG when our strengths were comparable, but it was still very uncertain.

	08-08-2003 19:47									#7
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Obviously you're right - we can't do anything about it until we take part in several battles against GCA. But if we were really bothered about it, we could get CDG's saves and look at their battles with GCA in the past - or get CDG to do it themselves.

	08-08-2003 20:05									#8
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I dont think the outcome of the battles will prove alot.

My point was just that if they are assaulting fortified swordsman on mountains with horseman then one of the following is true:
1) They are alot more desperate than the situation would suggest.
2) They just have more units to burn than we think.
3) They are incredibly reckless AND lucky.
4) They are relying on replaying the save when it goes bad to eliminate the risk.

We definately need to see it for ourselves before we make accusations though, and even then I dont know that anyone could ever prove anything since if they are cheating the cheat is just reloading and redoing if they dont like the results.

Incidently, I dont think the odds of taking out that swordsman was that bad (as in super unlikely, but it was a huge risk)

swords defense = 2, horse attack = 2
2 * 250% for mountain = 5 defense

2 attack vs 5 defense, I think it works like this:
2 out 7 = the sword damaged, 5 out of 7 the horse damaged

Things we don't know (at least I dont):
Status of units before the attack: Regular, vet, elite
Number of hitpoints the horses have left.

The fortified swordsman would have more defense though....

If it was 2 elite horseman vs 2 regular swordsman only 1 fortified
and they ended with 1 hp, then I can believe it happened. I just have trouble believing they took that risk without a safety net. I dont think we'd do that anyways.

	08-08-2003 20:17									#9
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Oops, double post.

	08-08-2003 20:22									#10
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Sure, I agree that they probably aren't cheating. We're getting second-hand info from CDG and CFC here, and presumably they're only reporting the battles which they feel they've done particularly badly in, and not the opposite.

But the point remains (and I don't wish to belabour it - I will drop the matter if people want me to) that *if* we wanted to find out whether they were cheating, we could - either during our battles against them, or by analysing other civ's savegames. This could be accomplished using a relatively straightforward statistical technique that could show us, quantitatively and in the same manner that scientific experiments are carried out, whether we could be confident that GCA was cheating. The proof doesn't come from an altered savegame - it comes from looking at the probabilities.

An analogy: imagine you have a coin-tossing competition and whoever gets the most heads out of 100 wins $20. You and your friend go into separated, closed rooms, flip 100 coins and promise to tell each other the truth about how many heads you got. You get 52. Your friend reports 80. You know that his coin isn't weighted because you can inspect it - so either he's been astronomically lucky, or he hasn't been honest in his reporting. You can't *prove* that he cheated, but it's practically a certainty.

Of course the analogy isn't perfect, because GCA couldn't just 'make up' the results of battles - they'd have to mess about with the order of movements and probably spend quite a lot of time experimenting with the savegame - but it serves to illustrate the principle.

In any case, the cheating merely remains a possibility, and a low one at that.

	08-08-2003 20:46									#11
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Besides, if we're smart, WE will be the ones attacking. There's nothing they can do to alter those outcomes, not even theoretically.

	08-08-2003 23:02									#12
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

We could file an official complaint to the UN, requesting the savegame be inspected to determine if GCA is cheating. I'm not 100% sure how this works, but I believe it is possible to detect reloads in savegames.

If GCA were playing fair and to win, they would not be attacking so recklessly right now. They have a lot of land to exploit, and would do better by not spreading themselves too thin. Attacks with a low probability of success are for the desperate, and GCA is far from that point.

Horsemen attacking fortified Swordsmen on a Mountain certainly makes me feel like there's some foul play here. Of course, we would need CFC to tell us exactly what's happening in order to make a better judgement.


Dominae

Last edited by Dominae on 08-08-2003 at 23:45

	08-08-2003 23:03									#13
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quote: Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt Besides, if we're smart, WE will be the ones attacking. There's nothing they can do to alter those outcomes, not even theoretically.

Sure there is. They could counter-attack only when they know they can do so without loss. That's quite the advantage.


Dominae

	08-08-2003 23:35									#14
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We should not rush our preparations. Our ultimate success in this war, and in this game, is dependent upon our waging a victorious campaign against GCA.

I believe we should give CFC reassurances and stick with NYE's quote about "not being CDG v2" ... tell them that our cities actually have to FINISH building units before we can attack GCA. Remind him that it takes time and that it's only been, what?, 5-6 turns since we agree to fight GCA. We can't get an army together in that short of time.

However, we should try to give them an estimate unless that estimate is a long time from now. Does anyone have a solid number on when we can start this war? If it's 10+ turns I say don't tell it to them. If it's anything less, let's give them the number.

--Togas

	08-08-2003 23:39									#15
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Well, we're about 15 away from our "ideal army composition," and we could get 8 turns of anarchy.

So don't mark anything down on the calendar yet folks.

	08-08-2003 23:53									#16
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I agree that I think attacking fortified swordsmen on a mountain with a horseman is HIGHLY suspicious behavior for someone clearly winning a war.

By itself, it might simply be see as an anomaly, but with all of the other examples (though I'm CERTAIN they are part of a biased reporting scheme of examples by CDG and CFC), GCA's "luck" is moving into highly improbable territory.

As I stated in another thread, I would be more than willing to do the work of statistically testing GCA's luck (hey, I have to do this stuff for my research anyhow), I just need unbiased data. Right now, I simply don't have the data and what little we could piece together of data is quite certainly biased.

What I or another would need is a reasonable assurance from CFC or CDG that they give us data on every combat fought with GCA forces without any deletions or additions. Then I can compile the data, test it, and determine if GCA's "luck" is statistically significant. Simple enough, it actually won't be that bad since I already have a spreadsheet I made a long time ago that computes the propability of victory in Civ3 battles and the stats itself should be pretty simple.

That would definatively answer the question as best as we can w/o GCA honestly stating one way or the other (assuming we could believe them).

The problem, it would seem, is getting all of that data from CDG and CFC.

	08-08-2003 23:58									#17
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Now, sorry to MrWIA for the threadjack.

As for CFC, I agree with MrWIA's instinct that we have no real use for them in the long-run and we would quite likely be better off w/o them on our continent always available to become a client to to an off-continent power wishing to give us trouble.

If we can bowl over GCA, I see no reason to stop there... might as well finish the job and take over the rest of the continent.

If we get a GL, we can rush the FP in CFC's territory and eventually move our capital to somewhere near Elucidium.

As for tech, we should hopefully have contact with the other far mroe powerful continent in the not too distant future. We would become the GS or Lego of the ISDG, the off-continent balancer of a sort. If their continent is as rich as Trip seems to think (and their scores are high enough to indicate that it is), our entire continent may only make us slightly larger than their largest power (sorta like the PTWDG...).

So yes, I agree with taking out CFC.

As for other reasons to take out CFC, they are the home of the "Jedi Knights" and my avatar has only one proper response to this:

"Wipe them out... all of them!"

	09-08-2003 00:55									#18
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KILL KILL KILL

If they are not dead by the time we get there, I say we kill them ourselves.

In other words, I agree with MWIA.

Now, in terms of cheating, I do NOT think it is appropriate for us to even be discussing this with other teams at this time. Amongst ourselves is fine, but not to ANY outsider. An accusation, whether true or false, made by us makes us the "squealer" so to speak.

If, by some chance, there is something apparent in our battles with them, then we speak up cautiously. For now, as we have not experienced it first hand, we simply take mental note of it. If one of the other teams that has experienced it speakes up prior to our attacks, we can offer to be the "arbiter" and look into it thouroughly then.

Sorry for the rambling.

	09-08-2003 05:07									#19
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Just let CFC die! They are no help to us vs GCA, they are too weak.
BTW: I think GCA is cheating (reloading the save), but we can't really do anything about it, can we? At least not when we aren't involved in battle ourselves.

	09-08-2003 05:22									#20
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Im indifferent to CFC:

I'd rather they still be alive (just barely) when we attack so GCA has to deal with them too, but I don't really see a reason we should expend any resources or attack early just for that slight benefit.

Post GCA war: There can be only one.....as far as our continent is concerned anyways.


-shrug- So I guess my opinion on CFC is it's not our problem.

	09-08-2003 11:35									#21
	The problem with removing CFC from the game Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

If we take complete contrale of this contenent, we could have a big problem. With the likely hood of not having any contact with the other civs for a very long time, we will need at least one other civ to help us keep technological parity with the other Civs, until we do finally make contact.

Yes, we will have to worry about the possibility of CFC wanting to trigger a GA against us, But if we can work it right, then they can get their GA and not hurt us in the process. True, that will help to reverse all that they have lost to this war (which we do want), but then, it would keep them at bay.

This is something that we need to think about, long and hard.

E_T

	09-08-2003 13:04									#22
	Re: The problem with removing CFC from the game Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by E_T If we take complete contrale of this contenent, we could have a big problem. With the likely hood of not having any contact with the other civs for a very long time, we will need at least one other civ to help us keep technological parity with the other Civs, until we do finally make contact. Yes, we will have to worry about the possibility of CFC wanting to trigger a GA against us, But if we can work it right, then they can get their GA and not hurt us in the process. True, that will help to reverse all that they have lost to this war (which we do want), but then, it would keep them at bay. This is something that we need to think about, long and hard. E_T

Very darn good points.

Let's keep up the thinking outside of the ruts! We need to win this game, not just this continent.

	09-08-2003 13:31									#23
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CFC will very likely not get any tech in less than 40 turns unless they conquered a sizeable amount of land from what they have now and changed to at least Monarchy. Will they really benefit us that much? And more importantly, will they play ball, seeing as it would be clear that the only thing in the way of them being our puny tech-trader cousin is the possibility of their UU and GA to redress the balance. It is difficult to say what events will lead to when we start the war, or even when we finish, but as they stand we cannot deny CFC Iron or Horses (they have both), and Chivalry will be theirs eventually. It is my hope we will have contact with the other lands by then and thus can wipe them out. Then I believe (based on how cooperative the others are) we will have no need for CFC at all.

Which should we aim for - finding a balance for CFC that means we aren't threatened by them yet they are content with the state of affairs, or put efforts into getting to the other civs? The latter will likely entail suicide Galleys - wasteful but valid. This would have to wait until we were properly in our GA and were sure we could spare the shields. Fortunately there will be some number of turns between the start of the war and the time we even have the option of reaching CFC in which we can decide.

	09-08-2003 18:53									#24
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I can near-guarantee we're not going to take control of our continent before we contact other teams/continents.


Dominae

	09-08-2003 20:56									#25
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Question #1:

Anybody think CFC would be willing to be Apolyton's vassal?

Question #2:

Can we pull of an Arrian Deception?