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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
Is this unit named 'OPD' or 'Hungryopd'? Very confusing!
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Yes, I found the re-naming of units and use of acronyms for both units and cities to be infuriatingly frustrating while attempting to move things around in chat. I'm sure I'll catch up, but I already let Trip and E_T know that it would be absolutely wonderful if their orders included where to FIND each unit they're giving orders to. While I'm sure that the three Consuls have probably long since memorized where many of our units are located, I'm filling in for NYE and I didn't have a clue where some of them were...
I easily spent the majority of my time hunting down units that I couldn't find, were mis-named, or were burried in one of the larger stacks and this was not noted.
This was also true for E_T's worker orders.
Something else I noticed was that when actually in the chat, if a change is made to a standing order, it should always be posted in that channel (which should ideally have a minimum of general discussion) IN BLUE TEXT so that no consul has to go hunting it down in the midst of several pages of black text discussion. This is the entire reason we have a seperate channel for orders, so we should use it for that.
I'm more than willing to admit that the fact I was running on 1 hour of sleep from the previous night and I was on my absolute last legs of consciousness made the above more difficult than it normally would have been (I think it was apparent  ), but I still think a few chages to streamline things would improve the efficiency of the system. I figure if I'm going to be an acting consul for a few days, the least I can do is point out some things that the others are so familiar with as routine that they may not realize how aggravating they might be to anyone else 
All in all, it was a good chat, despite the 3 hours it took to complete. The fact that the consuls and ministers did as well as they did for the chat and stayed around as long as they did is extremely commendable. I'd like to note that I don't think the nation could have done better than to have Trip and E_T as the nation's chief advisors on these matters. 
The whole thing reminded me of an SPDG warchat... those things used to last hours, too, and I remember staying up late at night executing orders that E_T was feeding me for moving around 80+ units to wipe out the vile Germans  Maybe one day we'll use another stack of 25-30 artillery to attack GWT
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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:31
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Oh, and another thing I noted in chat. Apparently, someone (I don't remember which minister now) did a pre-turn move that was assumed to have already taken place by at least one of the consuls, but was unknown to at least me, if not the other consul and the other minister. For future, reference, if anyone was a specific pre-turn move they want to have executed, it really should be reflected in the orders post. Since that is the location I believe the consuls are looking at to determine the order in which moves will be played (since that is extremely important), it would be best if it was reflected there so it is done in the proper order. Also be sure to mark that the order has already been done once and, therefore, MUST be done again when playing the turn.
Sorry to have so many nitpiks, but I suppose I should be making as many as possible NOW while stuff like this is still fresh and before I would grow accustomed to it.
Thank you a ton, guys.
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Dominae
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Although I did warn not to take my criticisms to heart, they are still criticisms. I would like some explanation on some of our moves last turn, which seem sub-optimal to me. Perhaps I'm missing something, and I would like to know what it is.
Unless you go the chats, there is very little explanation of why certain moves are chosen. In particular the decision to attack the Horseman on the Hills baffles me.
Dominae
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Dominae
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Units do not need to be numbered: a simple name is enough to differentiate them (you can look at the stats to see what's what).
What is needed is a means of finding these units when playing along with the turns (as Arnelos pointed out). A simple "such and such unit, from here, to there" format should be sufficient.
Dominae
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BigFree
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Acampo, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
Although I did warn not to take my criticisms to heart, they are still criticisms. I would like some explanation on some of our moves last turn, which seem sub-optimal to me. Perhaps I'm missing something, and I would like to know what it is.
Unless you go the chats, there is very little explanation of why certain moves are chosen. In particular the decision to attack the Horseman on the Hills baffles me.
Dominae |
Consuls and Ministers were created to play the turns for the team. if they have to answer for every move they make, this game will suc the RL right our of them.
That said, I will explain why we attacked the Hill Horse instead of the flatland Horse (7-7 of RO):
We wanted to get a look at what was on RO9 since that could tell us what to expect from GCA in the future and we also were looking for clues as to what happened to the eleite Horsemen that GCA had shown us earlier. The only way to do this was to get adjacent to it. The plan was to attack the hill Horse, we had the odds in our favor. The we were to attack the one 7-7 of RO. Btu since the attack failed against the Hilled Horse and he was taken down to 2/4, it was deemed better to finnish him off and get a look at RO9 than to attack the Horse at 7-7 of RO.
If we had attacked the Horse at 7-7 and won, then attacked the Hill Horse then lost, we would still be at where we are now, 1 GCA Horsemen loss, but we would not have seen RO9. This was Trip's call, but I fully supported it. Maybe Trip can explain it better though.
I don't mind explaining some of our moves, but I'm not about to try and explain every single one. I wil step down before that happens. There's simply not enough tie in the day for me to do so. If you like, I can post the complete chat log and you can sift through it to find your other answers. I can email it to those that are interested.
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by BigFree
Consuls and Ministers were created to play the turns for the team. If they have to answer for every move they make, this game will suc the RL right our of them.
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There are fewer than handful of moves every turn that require some debate. A brief description of those would be appreciated.
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We wanted to get a look at what was on RO9 since that could tell us what to expect from GCA in the future and we also were looking for clues as to what happened to the eleite Horsemen that GCA had shown us earlier.
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I anticipated the reasoning, actually, which is why I am questioning it. What is the value of information? Well, it depends on the nature of the information itself. By attacking the Horseman on the Hill, we get to peek at IDG and see one extra Hill tile. The potential information to be gained from this is very weak, assuming GCA is playing smartly (which we've been assuming all along, given CDG and CFC).
By attacking the Horsemen on the Grassland, we perhaps gain less informaton, but we would have a better chance of keeping both our Horsemen. It seems to me like we've sacrificed 2 Horsemen just to see an extra couple of tiles.
If it is to become policy to throw away our Horsemen and production power on the gathering of informaiton, then we will surely need more Horsemen than we currently have. Personally I think such "scouting" runs should be kept to a minimum. As long as we're in GCA lands, they can keep up us in the dark concerning their troop composition and locations. If GCA is playing well, our scouting will most often turn up nothing useful.
Dominae
Last edited by Dominae on 02-10-2003 at 02:58
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pikesfan
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What cities did the Chinese build or capture?
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by Trip
As I stated before, my primary goal in this war is to take out GCA units. If we take them out 1:1 then we win. It was hoped with a 65% chance for success we could kill the GCA Horse at IDG4 and the other Horse at RO7-7. However, we were only able to take one of them down. |
Then it would have been better to take out the easy target first, which would ultimately result in fewer losses for us: if we had lost our first Horseman, our second Horseman could hae taken shelter in our big stack after finishing their unit off. Last turn, we traded 2 of our Horsemen for 1 of theirs (because they will surely win the counter-attack). That's 1:2, not 1:1.
I would not get greedy when the odds are only 65%.
Dominae
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by Trip
Actually since our Horsemen all started in Nevermore it would have been 3 moves to be adjacent to the GCA Horse at RO7-7, then another move to kill it. It would then be exposed for them to kill.
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Ah, but the odds of success are higher! The chances of having to lose 2 Horsemen on a Hills target are higher than if the target is on flat land. So the better play is to make an attack on flat land: if that Horseman wins, attack the Hill target; if not, sacrifice the other Horsemen. As you can see, the maximum number of units that need to be sacrificed here is the same, but the chance that the first Horsemen wins is higher. On average we lose fewer units by taking the easy targets when they're presented to us.
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65% is probably close to the best odds we'll get during this war.
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We had ~80% odds against the GCA Horseman on flat land.
Dominae
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rush
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Tokyo
Jul 2002
time: 12:31
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quote:
Originally posted by BigFree
Consuls and Ministers were created to play the turns for the team. if they have to answer for every move they make, this game will suc the RL right our of them.
I don't mind explaining some of our moves, but I'm not about to try and explain every single one. I wil step down before that happens. There's simply not enough tie in the day for me to do so. If you like, I can post the complete chat log and you can sift through it to find your other answers. I can email it to those that are interested. |
Firstly, let's give the Consuls & the Ministers 3 thumbs-up for a job well done. They have shown great leadership & execution before the War, and so far in the last 2 turns.
Military casualties are unavoidable. And there are no perfect moves - everyone has their own distinct playing style, my move will be different from Trip, and Trip different from BigFree. At the end of the day, it's the Consul that makes the final decision.
Members can definitely question some moves, but not every single move that does not coincide with their playing style. Furthermore, questioning does not improve the situation, as we cannot replay the move. Instead, members should suggest to Trip what the next move should be.
The consul does not need to explain every move. However, it would be good to give their viewpoint on the high risk ones, especially when it ends up with fatalities.
Just my 2cents worth.
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by Trip
As I've pointed out elsehwere (maybe here, I forget) they have a large number of troops which have returned home, and may very well be hiding just out of sight. Had they had 12 Horsemen stuffed in IDG then that could have caused immense problems for us (though they would probably all end up dead, it would be quite a chore to deal with them).
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If they do have such a stack, it does not really matter where it is, because in their own land they can use Roads to hit us from numerous tiles which we cannot see. Additionally, we cannot see the number of troops they have in any given city (so scouting IDG for Horsemen was useless). These are the advantages the defender has, and there's really no way to thwart them if GCA knows how to play the game.
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My goal is to kill units... knowing where most of theirs are is rather important. The difference between 65 and 80 was worth knowing what GCA was up to.
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Like I said, I would much rather we play the numbers game than the "information" game. GCA can hide the critical information from us as long as they want. How many units do they have in Random Outpost? We cannot know. So there's really no point in figuring out how many units they have in tiles adjacent to it. For all we know they're baiting us with stacks of three units while they keep the bulk of their forces out of sight. In the face of this, the best we can do is put the odds on our side and go for the battles that have the highest probability of success.
Consider Vox's attack upon Gathering Storm. Vox could not possibly guess what Gathering Storm could do from turn to turn, which cause them to second-guess themselves and falter. The far better plan for Vox (in hindsight)would have been to stay on course and and "go for it" once they were committed.
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I don't expect to see many more unfortified Horsemen alone on flat land from now on.
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All the more reason to have destroyed the one when we had the chance.
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I realize that this seems like a pointless exercise in discussing things after the fact, but it is not. The decision was made that information was worth gambling the life of one of our units in a combat with less favorable odds. My point is simply that the information we can potentially gain is not worth this cost, especially when GCA is the one who ultimately decides what we know and what we do not.
Dominae
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MrWhereItsAt
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New Year's Resolution: 2005 is the year of Where It's At - come get some.
Nov 2001
time: 17:31
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Now to answer some questions:
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I've heard talk that the Fortify All trick is some sort of unethical exploit. When can we and when can we not use this? Is there an official list of moves that are unallowed in this game posted at the UN? We should have no ethical dilemmas doing things that other teams are doing as a matter of course.
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There is no such list, beyond the nebulous "no cheating" agreement signed by the first Consuls of each team on behalf of all of us. I am somewhat surprised there should be objections surfacing now, as we have been using this the entire time we have had Galleys - indeed it was the way we were trying to find the best place to cross to discover the next continent, and has been posted in every orders thread for yonks. I can't even remember if there was a specific thread on what to do with the Galleys when we first built them, it was that long ago.
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Perhaps Ghengis the Merc. would have been better here: it's a Reg. unit, and can reach the same spot this turn. Enamel the Merc. is needed at the front.
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A good point and one worth considering. Until now Enamel has been earmarked as one of the few units to stay at Poly to take down the Barb camps when they appear. Worth mentioning in the MoW thread.
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Is this unit named 'OPD' or 'Hungryopd'? Very confusing!
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Ingame it is named 'HungryOPD'. There is only one unit named after each Poly member. I admit this may be a little confusing, but the Consuls (except Arn, who has not been one for long) have known exactly what is meant here for ages. I guess this is just what comes of no-one bothering to do all the orders for so long for themselves once the turn is done, and now all of a sudden the interest is there the little things that Consuls and Ministers have been using for millennia come up for more open scrutiny. We should tidy these up for sure (the whole point of posting the orders is for team scrutiny), so please keep informing us of the parts of the reports we can improve.
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quote:
W02 BigFree moves 2 discovers Vet Horse 7 7of Outpost and 3 Vet Spears, 1 Vet Horse and a
Settler 7 of Random
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We did this move before investigating along the road 111 of Nevermore?
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Aah... couldn't easily tell you without the game in front of me. May have to get back to you here when I have the CD with me.
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S02 Flash pillages the iron road - according to negotiations screen GCA is denied Iron
S01 Jagjef attacks GCA Sword in Dun na Anarchy - wins 1 hp lost and takes Dun Na Anarchy.
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I know there was a mess-up here, but in normal circumstances I think we should have attacked first, then decided to pillage.
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I do not. Whether we could take the city or not, our top priority was to deny GCA Iron. The only way to do this for any length of time was to pillage. If we had attacked first and won + taken the city, would we not have pillaged the road? I hope we would have, making it one step more difficult for it to be reconnected. If we had attacked and thought we had a chance of killing the last defender with our second Sword, would we have attacked and not pilalged until the next turn? Risky, as this is the heartland of GCA. What if we lost and they still had Iron? The whole mission would have ended up pointless. As far as I was concerned (and as it turned out the other Consuls too), the one objective was pillage the Iron no matter what - the attack was more a chance opportunity. So it made sense, whilst deciding whether to attack or fortify, to do the one thing we all agreed on first - pillage the road. As I recall there was not much if any opposition to pillaging in the chat at the time either.
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Ethically, we should disband all slave Workers.
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Ethics, whatever - that suits me! 
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Why not attack the Horseman on Grassland (just discovered at Random Outpost 77)? There are better odds of defeating that unit, and upon victory our Horseman would still have enough movement to join the big stack at Random Outpost 87. The only good reason that I can think of is that we wanted information by claiming the Hills at Incredible Dancing Girl 4. But would that information really be worth (now) 2 of our Vet. Horsemen? We know IDG will be abandoned, and if GCA is smart they will be hiding the bulk of their troops along roads outside of viewable distance (or even inside Random Outpost itself). I think we threw away 2 good units here, and now we have to build more.
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In addition and extension to Trip and BF's comments before, I think the information learned may well save us a great deal of fussing after IDG, which we discovered was surprisingly undefended! The fact they hadn't disbanded it suggested they may have wanted to keep it, and could we really be sure enough to leave it standing if we moved everyone else south to Outpost? The plan was going to be AGA move towards Outpost and AGB move towards IDG so as not to miss any GCA units in the mad push forwards. The Horses were used to get this info, which meant we were able to combine stacks for greater protection whilst being certain of GCA troop positions. If we had moved South they could have had troops from IDG move right next to Nevermore in 1 turn, and Horses from Outpost in the same time! Not very careful of us if that had happened, with all our force further south by 1-2 turns...
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W12 WWNN moves 3 (to lure GCA units into attacking and thus exposing themselves).
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It would be great if this works, but do you really think it will? I mean, woud you attack a harmless lone Warrior with a perfectly good unit when under siege? We could have used Warrior With No Name somewhere else, I think.
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No, it likely won't work, but there is the possibility. Think of it like chess - would they endanger a stronger unit to take out a pawn? Probably not, but that pawn is beginning to threaten one of their cities next turn if they don't. With the exception of the Elite, the warriors were also (after long discussions) allowed for use by the MoW as scouts and bait. This is exactly what is happening here, as they can do little else right now. I would be very interested (and I think Trip would too) to hear if anyone had any ideas how these Warriors could be used better at this time.
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Cuildo de Alcohol - Cat Build, start building Settler (turn 1 of 10).
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The Settler will be completed faster if we let this city grow in 8 turns by working 2-Food tiles first. We'll also get a bit more Commerce this way.
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Hispanica - Building Barracks (last turn).
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I recommend building a Settler here before starting on military units. This city's contribution to the war effort will be minor. Although we have spent time on building a Barracks, I think a Settler will be more useful here.
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Worth comparing with E_T's plans when I get home and can view them. Often things like this come up but E_T has considered them and is not doing so for a good reason. The Consuls have sometimes learned that the hard way. But questions are good, so let's look into these. Build queues are the least well-established plans, so there may be room for leeway here.
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Again, I think we're wasting valuable resources on the war effort here. We should be fine in military production without having to join Workers to these cities. There is still a great need for Workers, and we're actually reducing our total number of them. I know plans were made some time ago to make BigFurryCity and Hispanica into military production centers, but I think these should have been revised. Another option here would be to take Bananatopia off military production (however good at that it may be), reduce it below size 6 and revert back to a Settler/Worker pump.
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The worst thing we can do is have too few units and end up with a far longer war than expected - war weariness WILL kick in, so we want the war over as soon as possible. We have lost some units, and they must be replaced. We started with too few Horsemen and too few NMs, so we have to get to our targetted numbers of them and maintain them until we at least have won most major battles. IMO it is far too early in the war to underestimate the army strength we need, and with these cities at 10spt, we can build a worker in 1 turn anyway. MIs, NMs and Horses take 3-4 turns, and then a few more to rush to the front. Doubtless we will switch away from military production sometime, but lets' stack the odds in our favour first. There have barely been minor skirmishes to date.
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Are we going to attack CFC right after GCA? That's the big question that should affect all our decisions right now. If the answer is "yes", I can understand all the efforts put into more military; if it's "not sure", I think we should concentrate on our economy again.
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Ah - a BIG question, but not one we can very clearly answer for a time. This war is 2 turns in and very uncertain from one turn to the next. What if GCA turtles to one or two cities preventing us from reaching CFC without Galleys or by going through Equilibrium? We would have to face most of their army there first. Then rebuild, likely. The decision can't even be discussed very effectively until these latter stages of the war - not that we should completely defer it until then.
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Overall, I'm very impressed.
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Thank you - it was a helluvan effort.
Last edited by MrWhereItsAt on 02-10-2003 at 09:48
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
I think the information learned may well save us a great deal of fussing after IDG, which we discovered was surprisingly undefended!...The plan was going to be AGA move towards Outpost and AGB move towards IDG so as not to miss any GCA units in the mad push forwards. The Horses were used to get this info, which meant we were able to combine stacks for greater protection whilst being certain of GCA troop positions. |
I believe we had already (tentatively) agreed that the stacks should be merged because we did not have enough Merc. defenders for two stacks. But even this is not that important, because if GCA had left even a lone Spearman in IDG we would have been left in the dark concerning their total numbers there. I imagine in this case we we would have done the exact same thing (stack merge) because to attack us from IDG would leave them open to a counter-attack from us before they got there.
As you can see, the information that we could get from scouting the Hills tile would in all cases not affect our actions during the turn. The value of information is nil if it does not lead you to alter your initial decision. And with this value (nil) in mind, I think the better play would have been to attack the other Horseman, which we had better chances of defeating.
Dominae
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:31
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Out of curiosity, has anyone ever figured out the formula for capturing gold? Would be interesting to extrapolate how much gold their civ has if they lost 8 in DNA. Is it a random amount from the treasury, or is it a set percentage of the whole nation or based on the city's individual income? I've never paid attention to that stuff, but it might be useful in such a slow paced game with lots of brain power.
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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by BigFree
How do you know our motives?
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I think this is precisely the problem he's getting at, actually.
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I sugget you head to the MoW thread and make suggestions for the next set of moves. That way your input can be evaluated by Trip, and the Consuls before the turn arrives. |
This, however, remains a reasonable suggestion. That said, before the turn arrives, he will not be privvy to information that will only be known after it arrives.
Not much can be done about that, though. Ultimately, Dom, you're welcome to disagree with the decision of the Consuls and point out how you believe they/we should do it next time. That said, we're/they're also entitled (especially the MoW) to continue to disagree with you. The basic difference seems to be that the Consuls and Trip place more value on intelligence information than you do.
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by BigFree
I disagree with you Dom on the importance of Information gained. Why did we even bother with investigations of those cities if the info didn't matter?
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I was not really a supporter of investigations, either. Still, ~40 Gold is not really comparable to the sacrifice of perfectly good Horsemen.
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How do you know what the MoW or the Consuls would have done if we had found units inside of IDG? I'll tell you what; I'm not going to debate with you what would have happened if there had been units there. That takes too much time on a subject that is past and may never come up again in the same exact circumstances. What we did debate, in the turn chat, is what to do to find out about IDG and what to do after we found out is was empty.
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I'm not really sure why you're taking this stance. Are you not to be held accountable for the decisions you had a part in taking?
My only beef is this: with the first few moves, I believe too much emphasis has been put on gathering information, when all this war really comes down to is moving our stacks down into their territory and making favorable trades when they become available. I seriously do not think you would have changed your decision if IDG was defended (which is why I think you're avoiding the issue), and therefore the reasoning behind the decision to attack the Horsemen on the Hills for information-gathering purposes is not sound, IMO. Please: consider how information would actually change our decisions (if at all) before throwing units away.
Like I've said above and elsewhere, the planning and execution of the war effort has been top-notch in my estimation. Regardless, I think a little criticism is always a good thing.
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You say we likely would have kept all the units in one stack regardless of what we found by moving to RO9. How do you know our motives?
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Like Arnelos pointed out, this is the whole point. If your motives and thought processes are not open to the rest of the team, why would anyone want you as Consul (remembering that this is a participatory game)? Although you do not need to explain yourself every step of the way, I think you should do so on request.
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How well do you know my playing style? How well do you know everyone else's playing styles?
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My expectation from Consuls and Ministers is a distancing of themselves from their standard playstyles in order to better consider all the alternatives. Since we're playing to win here, we want to find optimal paths, not optimal paths within a playstyle. This is why it's so good to have many members. If we're stuck in the playstyles of the few Consuls that make the decisions, you can bet some of those decisions will be sup-par.
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WIA went above and beyond answering your questions, yet you still bemoan the decisons that were made and the reasons behind them.
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An explanation is supposed to end all discussion and disagreement? "This is why we did it, now shut up" is not something us Citizens want to hear, for many reasons.
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I sugget you head to the MoW thread and make suggestions for the next set of moves. That way your input can be evaluated by Trip, and the Consuls before the turn arrives.
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Yes, I will try to do so. Nonetheless, I think the points I have brought up here are general enough to be applicable to future turns in this war. So I do not believe these last few posts were entirely academic.
Now, let's move on (if possible).
Dominae
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01-10-2003 22:40
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