Test: aggressive vs. peaceful

Smallpox vs. largepox, gen2 vs gen5, early war vs. peaceful alliances. Which is your favourite gaming style?
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Corbeau
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Test: aggressive vs. peaceful

Post by Corbeau »

Hello. Is anyone in the mood for a 1 on 1 social-experiment game? I am curious which strategy is more efficient, "early aggression" or "peaceful expansion" so I need someone with experience who would be willing to play "early aggression". This is just a rough outline, we can discuss the details. Anyone interested? if yes, please send me a PM.
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Chanthiran
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Re: Test: aggressive vs. peaceful

Post by Chanthiran »

I can't send you a PM as I do not have enough posts yet but yes, I would be willing to play with you. We can carry on this conversation in the FreeCiv Discord channel.
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Corbeau
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Re: Test: aggressive vs. peaceful

Post by Corbeau »

We can if you tell me your name there :)

And, BTW, I was thinking of doing this through the PBEM interface on Freeciv Web.
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Chanthiran
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Re: Test: aggressive vs. peaceful

Post by Chanthiran »

I am one of the 2 participants of the Aggressive vs Peaceful experiment as suggested by Corbeau. The other participant being Corbeau himself. What follows is a debriefing Part 1. Part 2 will follow in a few days. The debriefing gives some statistics from the game + my thoughts during the game. Oh yeah, I was supposed to be the Aggressive player vs. Corbeau's Peaceful. The game was played using FreeCiv's Play by Email (PBEM) system.

For those unfamiliar with the system, you start off on a small world with 6 settlers, 5 workers and 1 explorer. Also all techs cost 1/2 what they do in a normal game.

Debriefing Part 1
The game started off normally with me building my initial 6 cities within the first few turns. My aim was to go for Republic first so I started off on the normal research path of Alphabet, Writing, Code of Laws, Literacy, Republic with a diversion into Pottery so as to build some granaries.

Turn 31 - Discover Republic. Forgot to Start a revolution.
Turn 32 - Start revolution. (Get 3 turns of anarchy.)
Turn 35 - Become a Republic.

Now I am supposed to be aggressive so start researching the War-like techs so that I can get Chariots, Elephants, Catapults. Also not supposed to be peaceful so rather than building new cities, I start building military units and city improvements. I stop after 2 chariots, 1 Legion, 1 Catapult and concentrate on City Improvements + resume building new cities. Should be enough to take out his initial cities and then to pave the way for more military units to come.

Somewhere along the way, Corbeau sends me a message asking whether we are on different islands. Do a "/explain landmass" command and discover that the map is 50% land and 50% sea. Pass this info onto Corbeau.

Turn 42 - Finally meet Corbeau's explorer. So now I know where he is.

Send my Diplomat out in that direction to establish an embassy.

Turn 45 - My Diplomat ends turn next to his Phalanx, who promptly kills my Diplomat.

Hey! I am supposed to be the aggressive one.

So now I send out my military units + my explorer to attack him.
My explorer comes across his first city, Timoun or something like that, and retreats.

Turn 51 - My first chariot comes up. I prepare to attack the city. My chariot is 3 squares away from his city. I completely forget that I am not playing LongTurn with double movement points. So I calculate as follows: Move Chariot 2 squares, attack his city which does not have city walls with the 3rd movement point. Then either conquer city or retreat 1 square with the last movement point. Of course, I have miscalculated the movement points so I just end up next to his city and his Phalanx kills my Chariot.

Now I am down 1 Chariot + 1 Diplomat vs no casualties for him. Also i can see from the demographics, that I am 1st in population, 2nd in land area and settled area, 2nd in research speed and production. (Not very good for me.)


(The next few comments do not have turn numbers as I completely forgot to record the Turn numbers.)

In the meantime, my second Chariot has come up. My Legion and Catapult are also on the way with more Chariots, Catapults being built in my cities. My Chariot ends the turn next to a Warrior on a hill. Warrior starts running away back to his city. My Chariot catches up and kills him but takes some hit points as he was in a forest + river tile. In the meantime, my Explorer has been scouting ahead and discovers another of Corbeau's cities + he sees a Chariot and a Catapult on the way to reinforce the cities.

Explorer retreats. Chariot also tries to retreat but his movement point is now 1 instead of 2. In the meantime, Corbeau's Explorer ends the turn next to my Chariot. Now, an Explorer has no ZOC. So I can do the wise thing and retreat - there is still time, or be rash and attack the Explorer, losing one turn and letting his Chariot catch up and kill my Chariot. So I order my Chariot commander, whose name happens to be George Armstrong Custer, to retreat but does he listen to me? No! He attacks and kills the Explorer. Then he tries to run but it is too late. The enemy Chariot catches up and kills my Chariot. The score is now: Chanthiran - 1 Explorer and 1 Warrior. Corbeau - 2 Chariots and 1 Diplomat.

In the meantime, I am now starting to suffer from Happiness issues as my cities are getting too big. Not been reducing them by building settlers. Also have to rethink my policy of attacking with a few units.

New strategy - Overwhelm his cities with military units. But I am a Republic. Military units outside my borders cause unhappiness. I need to fine tune this strategy.

Amendment to new strategy - Build Wonders to overcome this unhappiness effect. My targets are: Michaelangelo and Bach's Cathedral (for happiness), Sun Tzu (for veteran military units), Leonardo's Workshop for Upgrading my Warriors, Phalanxes, Pikemen etc. and Adam Smith's. First I build Michaelangelo so that I don't have to build Temples so soon. Corbeau counters by building Leonardo's Workshop. Then I find that I am spending about 50 to 60 gold per turn on my barracks, granaries, temples, libraries, harbours so I decide to build Adam Smith's Trading Company first followed by Bach's Cathedral. So I build Adam Smith's but Corbeau counters by building Bach's Cathedral. (Damn!)

In the meantime, my Explorer has discovered that Corbeau now has Musketeers. I am not going to send Chariots, Elephants, Legions against Musketeers in cities. I need at least Musketeers myself + Cannons. So the race for new techs begins but I am behind in research speed. So have to start building more libraries and universities. In the meantime, Corbeau sends me a message saying that I am not aggressive enough and that he may have to take the aggressive role.

Turn 98 - I build Sun Tzu's Academy.
Turn 100 - I discover Democracy and Start a Revolution.

5 turns of anarchy follows. Jeez! Can't a guy get a break?

Turn 105 - Become a Democracy.
Turn 110 - Build Women's Suffrage.

In the meantime, discover Espionage and build spies.

Turn 117 - Finally, establish an embassy. Discover that I am about 6 techs behind Corbeau.

For the next few turns, I am using my spies to steal technology. Catch up by stealing technology. He discovers new techs but I am stealing them from him.

Turn xxx (forgot which turn) - Corbeau discovers Genetic Engineering and builds Cure for Cancer.
Turn 133 - Discover Automobile. 2 reasons. One is to obsolete Leonardo's Workshop. Second is to build Battleships.
Turn 137 - Discover Machine Tools.
Turn 141 - My first 3 Battleships come out. One heads West, 2 head East. 3 more being built.

In the meantime, I am also building Alpine Troops, Marines, Artillery.

Turn 146 - My Battleship heading East kills an Engineer and becomes a veteran.
Turn 147 - My 2 Battleships heading West attacks Corbeau's city of Toulose, and kill off 2 of the defenders. One transport with Marines and some Artillery also attack and capture the city. Corbeau counter attacks but fails to recapture the city.

Turn 148 - For the first time, I record the statistics of the demographics.
They are as follows:

Chanthiran Corbeau
Population 13,970,000 28,300,000
Land Area 524,000 853,000
Settled Area 127,000 415,000
Production 367 394
Economics 701 1,137

Didn't record the scoreboard. But he is 1st in all the major demographics - population double mine, land area is 1.5 times mine, settled area is 3 times mine, production is 10% more than me and economics is 1.5 times mine.

So ends part 1 of the debriefing.
Part 2 will follow in a few days time.
Chanthiran
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Re: Test: aggressive vs. peaceful

Post by Chanthiran »

Oh yeah, forgot to mention - I didn't record the scoreboard but about Turn 120, I noticed that my score was about 310 and he was about 430. Can't remember the exact turn.
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Corbeau
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Re: Test: aggressive vs. peaceful

Post by Corbeau »

Image

Hey, you should have told me you were going to keep a diary, I'd have done the same and we could compare notes.

I made my traditional mistake, and that is started mass-building military units a few turns too late. Got lulled by the initial long period of peace, won't make that mistake again...

Probably :P

Wanna rematch?
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Chanthiran
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Joined: Sat Sep 02, 2017 1:50 pm

Re: Test: aggressive vs. peaceful

Post by Chanthiran »

OK. Let's have a rematch.
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