90 - Kemet, das Land der ersten Hochkultur

[Ginger]

This is a completely ridiculous exploit
The flag change was intentionally hidden from us. Vanguard knows full well if he gifted it before our turn we would've moved differently, its why he chose to log in after us.
We had no opportunity to react to an enemy unit's movement. This is so bonkers exploitable. Imagine making your move, then before you get any knowledge or forewarning, units change hands and get to move.

True, there is no rule against this, but you have to see how stupid it can be that it's okay to double move as long as you're gifting away. Somebody who cares to will find a way to break this.

Something like the beaming rule where it's frozen for a turn needs to be applied in future games. Or unit gifting needs to be limited to sequential turn games only.

There's no established grounds for rewinding or intervening, so I think I will swallow this crap and just play on, but for what it's worth, I'm not playing with this Vanguard douche again if he so blatantly clock-games like this. I'm genuinely upset and feel like this is intentional cheating or at least fudging of established turn rules and norms.

[Ginger]

Turn report, Metal offered peace for his city, which I accepted, comes with Granary and Monument.

He had two spears so Vodka gave us 6% odds of taking it. This is the best we could do although for the time being it costs maintenance, and we will have to worry about him in 10 turns.

While I was online, Miguelito build the Hindu Shrine, so there's some potential competition for the AP and they probably have a head start on us.

I'm starting to build the Moai in various places where we don't have urgent unit builds, dumping overflow into it, etc. We should also start building it in the capital.
Set up for a failgold payoff in the near future

If you log in later, swap Pi Ramesses and the Thebes tiles, so that fur goes to Thebes and Pi gets the Wheat

[xist10]

I will log in tomorrow. Peace against city is good.

[Lord of the Civ]

This is a completely ridiculous exploit

Yes, I understand. It certainly wasn't unproblematic. (Just once more to the sequence of events as I reconstructed it: the Impi was moved in a turn order (before your turn in each case), only the change of flags was within your turns (a "double move"), so that you could not react to the unit, which is not okay in a turn-based game).

The only question now is how to proceed. Since no damage was done to you (no combat, no city capture/loss, etc.) and the turn order could have easily been followed if vanguard had given the unit away that turn not before but after you've logged in, I would admonish vanguard and leave it at that.

[xist10]

I think, we could be able to win against metals troops, but we have a city more and no extra troop investment.
But we need a few axemen against a counter in 10 rounds.

[Ginger]

Yes, I understand. It certainly wasn't unproblematic. (Just once more to the sequence of events as I reconstructed it: the Impi was moved in a turn order (before your turn in each case), only the change of flags was within your turns (a "double move"), so that you could not react to the unit, which is not okay in a turn-based game).

The only question now is how to proceed. Since no damage was done to you (no combat, no city capture/loss, etc.) and the turn order could have easily been followed if vanguard had given the unit away that turn not before but after you've logged in, I would admonish vanguard and leave it at that.

My understanding was as follows, and please correct me if I'm wrong

First Turn:
we move to tundra hill
metal plays
vanguard moves to plains hill between our troops and Metal city

Second Turn:
Vanguard plays and gifts
Metal plays and moves Impi south
We play and find a new Impi out of our reach

Third Turn:
Peace concludes the war.

What we should've gotten is an opportunity to attack the impi on the plains hill tile where it stood.

I understand that there's nothing to be done at the present and I don't seek anything. But for future rulings, I highly highly recommend the adoption of something similar to the beam rule, where units gifted cannot be moved for one turn.

[Ginger]

I think, we could be able to win against metals troops, but we have a city more and no extra troop investment.
But we need a few axemen against a counter in 10 rounds.

yeah I whipped another axe, and will try to complete walls in the front city

Did you cancel Open Borders with Vanguard or did he cancel them? You shouldn't shake the boat when we're about to attack. We need OB for just two more turns to spy on his front city and then we could cancel or declare and ruin the trade bonus if Currency is the concern.
I reoffered with a request for 3 gpt. He'll probably refuse, I'm hoping he reoffers blank Open Borders, and we can accept and pretend like we're chastened so he won't expect anything.

Metal offered OB. I refused at the beginning, but this gives me an idea. What if he's happy with the current arrangement? He's not happy for sure, but maybe he accepts it as it is and doesn't want to commit resources to a fight, and just wants to keep an outpost for horse.
Afterall, we are 4 cities to his 1 on that continent. He could peel Phrygian back from our hands with considerable effort, but we're able to commit more because we have more to defend. If we convince him to disengage, we might be able to get away with an absolute robbery. I wish I had more insight into his character to know what he's thinking.

Maybe I'm engaging in wishful thinking, but we might persuade him to hand over (or underdefend) the remaining city if we permanently supply him with horse and gold. Because any army he makes will be dedicated to the defense of 1 city. We have to defend 5, so we can easily accept having to spend more hammers. For him it's uneconomical to properly defend.

[xist10]

I didn’t cancel. I think, vanguard saw our „spying“ ?
And I am not sure with metal, but I think, we should risk it. Open Borders enable spying, but it is a sign of relaxation.

[Ginger]

We needed to win 3 89.2% battles, total of 71% chance of success at razing the city, and we lost the very first one, this is incredibly frustrating, but what can you do?

I offered peace, Vanguard has enough units in the area to steal our three combat workers. Look at how the random luck snowballs, instead of him losing 5pop city with Barracks, Library, Market, Granary, it's us who loses 180hammers of workers.
Not to mention that capture gold would've significantly accelerated our Currency date

Now why those many, many units around weren't inside his city is a bewildering question, frankly it leads me to believe that his tactical experience might be somewhat limited. However, he has had Currency ahead of us for several turns now, and is snowballing in tech ahead of us. Probably researching Metal Casting or Iron Working.

[CivNoob]

Well, that was mission impossible. If you win all 3 battles you would not be able to hold that city with so many enemy forces in range. So you could only raze it. But fighting a war for no gain? Only usefull if its a total annihilation campaign against arch enemy. Is vanguard that already for you?

And by the way, having 3 troops for 3 enemies is generally not enough, there can always be a lucky win for enemy like it happened in your first fight. You should have some reserves when you attack, otherwise your attack is already desperate or badly prepared.

I guess he gambled knowing to be superior in numbers. He might loose city in worst case but then he could destroy your whole force in the next turn. And having some troops outside city gives him some extra tactical options, thus i dont think his tactical experience is somewhat limited.

[Ginger]

Well, that was mission impossible. If you win all 3 battles you would not be able to hold that city with so many enemy forces in range. So you could only raze it. But fighting a war for no gain? Only useful if it's a total annihilation campaign against arch enemy. Is vanguard that already for you?

And by the way, having 3 troops for 3 enemies is generally not enough, there can always be a lucky win for enemy like it happened in your first fight. You should have some reserves when you attack, otherwise your attack is already desperate or badly prepared.

I guess he gambled knowing to be superior in numbers. He might loose city in worst case but then he could destroy your whole force in the next turn. And having some troops outside city gives him some extra tactical options, thus i dont think his tactical experience is somewhat limited.

The intent was always to raze the city and acquire the capture gold in order to reach Currency.
I have no idea what you're talking about "mission impossible", there was a 71% chance of success.

Yes he could counter attack and destroy the bulk of my forces, a crushing loss of.... uhm, 3 War Chariots and 3 workers?

That's why your theory about him baiting for a counterattack also makes no sense, who risks such a chance of losing their city of 5pop*30 + 30 +30 + 90+150 +100 = 550 hammers in order to destroy an attacking force worth 90 hammers (270 if the workers die too)? I mean wut?

As far as being a enemy worthy of a zero-sum war, Vanguard has been nothing but hostile* all game and performed two dubious double moves to gain tactical advantage and we were punished because the rules allowed them. He had a much faster start, more land and is snowballing past us in tech while maintaining a front of hostile diplomacy.

*Worker steal, attempted to take our horse city, denied OB access for vision, continuously dumped all his espionage points into us instead of his other neighbors, double-move gifted his Impi to Metal.

You think we should wait for him to get Triremes 15 turns ahead of us, or should we start trying to even the field now?

[xist10]

CivNoob is right. Against 2 axes I would have tried that (although I would probably have declared no war by now), against 3 3/4% is too little for me, for the fact that we don't want to wage a real war.
Above all, you have to bear in mind that Vanguard has so far waged a relatively successful war against Superdeath and has been at peace for 3 turns. So, we are not opening a "2nd Front" (not that I feel SD has been offensively successful), but the only front.

I probably wouldn't have declared war or offered peace right back at the 3 enemy axes. "Sorry, was a misclick"

Of course, you're also right about vanguard being hostile to us (though I think that's almost the "normal" MP meanness). Further, I agree with you, we're going to have to do fight him. Still, I'm not sure that a "proper" war is really the way to go right now.

[Ginger]

I am on a road trip until Monday/Tuesday next week, can you take the turns Xist?

[xist10]

Yes, do we play first or second ? Or did the war end ?

[xist10]