Vicious Circle2 Upload pretenders - Page 12

Squirrelloid · #1 August 18th, 2009, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Hmm, I wonder what strategy guide Caelum read

zOMG, hax!

Besides, if you know what I'm doing, you should be able to hand me my *** on a plate, right?

Edit: Speaking of openings choices - some of you whom have apparently taken strong blesses really surprise me. As in, complete failure to comprehend what you were thinking. I can't wait to see what those blesses actually are. (Some of you who seem not to have taken a strong bless *also* completely surprise me).

mmmm... Graphs on. It gives you so much information.

Trumanator · #2 August 18th, 2009, 05:00 PM

What would make you think that some people have strong blesses? And just because I know what your opener is doesn't mean that I can do anything about it at this point. I'm just going to enjoy watching it crash and burn.

Squirrelloid · #3 August 18th, 2009, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trumanator

What would make you think that some people have strong blesses?

I don't know about you, but poor income and poor research tend to imply bad scales and no awake research pretender to me. Which means one of two things: (1) Strong Bless, or (2) expensive awake SC. Now, with so many cheap awake SC options, its hard to understand what would motivate someone to tank their scales for it. Also, they'd probably have a turn 1 research boost if they invested a lot of magic in an awake SC, which is the only way it'd be expensive. (I didn't notice anyone take a province turn 1, did you?)

You can come to your own conclusions about who's being crazy by playing a strong bless. However, one turn's worth of observation may be insufficient to ID some of them (or cause false IDs) - and the signal's getting weaker now that people are on different expansion trajectories.

Quote:

And just because I know what your opener is doesn't mean that I can do anything about it at this point. I'm just going to enjoy watching it crash and burn.

Our seat cushions can be used as flotation devices in the event of a water landing!

Fakeymcfake · #4 August 19th, 2009, 12:09 AM

I think you're reading too much into the graphs for such an early point of the game. It's only turn 5 after all and everyone is still busy gobbling up the indy provinces. Priorities shift and in a game like this long term goals are just as important as short term, don't judge the artist until they're finished the piece.

Squirrelloid · #5 August 19th, 2009, 01:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fakeymcfake

I think you're reading too much into the graphs for such an early point of the game. It's only turn 5 after all and everyone is still busy gobbling up the indy provinces. Priorities shift and in a game like this long term goals are just as important as short term, don't judge the artist until they're finished the piece.

No, early is the best time to read a lot into the graphs because there's very little noise in the signal. Absolutely zero at the end of turn 1 unless someone felt risky and took a province successfully right away (which also says something about what they did...).

In a 100% gold game everyone starts with 400 income in their capitol. As upkeep isn't deducted from the 'income' score graph that is indeed an absolute number. Anyone with income significantly less than 400 has chosen negative scales in excess of positive, which means they're spending points elsewhere - ie, pretender chassis and/or magic. Truly low early income means they've really sacked their scales and almost certainly have a strong bless or an awake and expensive pretender (ie, rainbow SC).

This is absolutely guaranteed unless your opponent is a moron. They had to spend those points somewhere, and there's only so many places you can spend points. (I mean, we can imagine someone sacked their scales and then *didn't* spend those points on anything, but then we're assuming that person is stupid.)

Basically, deduction and the process of elimination can use the graph reports (especially llamaservers nice numerical rundown) to conclude quite a bit about pretender design for each player. I've only talked about scales thus far - other ratings can easily give away choices made in pretender design. I leave that as an exercise to the reader, but I would bet off the llamaserver rundown after turns 1 and 2 I could tell you the quality of your scales, what type of pretender you're playing, and ballpark your dominion rating without too much difficulty. Add some knowledge of your unit set and I might even be able to make specific guesses at magic paths and scale choices.

If you wait to read anything into the score graph then the noise starts swamping the signal and you lose a lot of information. (What quality provinces do you control? How many turns did you hire mages, and how many of them are doing research? Etc...).

Trumanator · #6 August 19th, 2009, 12:36 AM

So in other words- "Yes, I did not take a bless strat, I'm playing for the long term."

Cerain · #7 August 19th, 2009, 03:49 AM

I hve a big impression with some nation who has a large power in the research I don't understand how, but there is incredible.

Fakeymcfake · #8 August 19th, 2009, 02:49 PM

Essentially what Kiet said. You're probably going to be fine, but is it really worth risking your long term plans just to take one province before everyone else?

aaminoff · #9 August 20th, 2009, 09:59 AM

Proposed Treaty of Non-Aggression between Helheim and Marverni:

- forces of parties will not enter provinces owned by each other, or independent provinces in the defined sphere of influence of the counterparty.

- Spheres of influence are defined by province-count-distance to capitals. A province closer to one nation's capital than the other is in that nation's sphere of influence. Provinces equidistant from both capitals is in neither sphere of influence; in effect they are first come first served.

- termination: this NAP will last until turn 12. (for simplicity. Helheim is quite willing to negotiate other arrangements later to extend it)

Marverni, please indicate in this thread your agreement.

Note: this is a quick version of this, as we have not had time to work out more detailed terms. I can live with it, I am happy to negotiate additional terms later.

iainuki · #10 August 20th, 2009, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaminoff

Proposed Treaty of Non-Aggression between Helheim and Marverni:

- forces of parties will not enter provinces owned by each other, or independent provinces in the defined sphere of influence of the counterparty.

- Spheres of influence are defined by province-count-distance to capitals. A province closer to one nation's capital than the other is in that nation's sphere of influence. Provinces equidistant from both capitals is in neither sphere of influence; in effect they are first come first served.

- termination: this NAP will last until turn 12. (for simplicity. Helheim is quite willing to negotiate other arrangements later to extend it)

Marverni, please indicate in this thread your agreement.

Note: this is a quick version of this, as we have not had time to work out more detailed terms. I can live with it, I am happy to negotiate additional terms later.

I am quite happy to agree to this. Let's talk more in PMs.