From the PCA website, here are games #1 & #2 from the finals of the Big Huge Smackckdown, featuring PCA_Frogman vs. El_Capitan. Thanks to HL for the tip.
posted by Tim at 12:52 PM

ReadyMan reposted some stuff Brian Reynolds wrote up a long time ago on the Skill Handicap and how it works

In a multiplayer game, if one or more players uses the skill column to announce a higher skill level (e.g. Skill + 5), then other players in that game with a lower skill level (or no announced skill level) will normally receive a handicap.

Handicaps range from level 0 to level 20. Once a player’s handicap level is determined for a game, the player receives the following advantages...

Read the rest of it to find out how it works.
posted by Tim at 12:42 PM

On the Rise of Nations Heaven Forum, jedianakinsolo asks a great question: When to research taxation?

When is a good time to do it? I usually research it about early medieval. But I'm trying to squeeze it in before classical so I can have that much more gold for the knowlege boom.

For the immediate growth in wealth income, it's not worth it. It's usually better to build another market, until you have more territory. However... it also improves your income from rare resources. Which could be a pretty big deal depending on how many you have. So yea, get it as soon as you can afford it.

On the other hand, you don't want it to slow down your raiding when you are playing 1on1. So, do not get it before classical, and do not get it before researching MIL2 and putting up a stable. After that, you can afford the food because horse archers don't need it.

HL points out that it's not good to be predictable, so sometimes you'll want to skip the raiding.

He's right of course. Don't be predictable. Not every game involves raiding. However, I have yet to see someone raid effectively and lose the game. So if I were teaching someone to play, or giving someone advice, I'd say it's better to raid than to get taxation. In general.

UPDATE: Be sure and check out the comments. El_Capitan has posted some good stuff.
posted by Tim at 11:17 PM

From the Big Huge Ratings page -- updated O4B rankings. Only 34 players in top 100 are established and active. This does NOT mean people are not playing, as there are 35 players who are active but have not yet played at least 10 games. As we mentioned last time, the current system has some flaws which are highlighted by the list below. One player has (at least) 3 different active nicks in the top 100. Also you can see the spam clan ... errr ... TuF clan is doing their level best to ensure the rating system is as meaningless as possible -- do they even have 5 total members who play RON?

On a good note: Out4Blood has finally broken into The List! Just goes to show what you can do by only playing newbies.

Anyway, here are the latest:

O4B Rank	Rank	Name               	Rating	Win	Loss	Games	Date

1	1	I_aM_AnDy          	2690	76	20	96	11/21

2	4	PCA_Frogman        	2302	35	0	35	11/29

3	6	AS_REVENGER        	2220	19	2	21	11/29

4	9	TWC_Mulfar         	2215	33	6	39	11/29

5	13	Apolonius          	2200	27	2	29	11/23

6	16	TuF_Astator        	2158	52	13	65	11/29

7	17	PCA_newty          	2156	51	18	69	11/29

8	18	ESPerItou          	2155	10	0	10	11/18

9	21	TWC_ShaDowZ        	2148	35	8	43	11/29

10	22	Udon_Bomber        	2148	31	5	36	11/10

11	26	TuF_Owns_The_Top100	2132	26	8	34	11/28

12	32	Astator_I_loVe_you 	2122	24	2	26	11/14

13	36	PCA_mayupu         	2115	9	1	10	11/19

14	38	DaRq_Vorfidus      	2111	18	7	25	11/18

15	44	TuF_PoWer          	2103	15	5	20	11/28

16	47	_RedruM_           	2096	21	4	25	11/26

17	48	DaRq_xYz           	2095	11	2	13	11/21

18	52	TuF_for_President  	2087	23	5	28	11/15

19	53	PCA_konkon         	2087	14	4	18	11/26

20	55	camel              	2086	9	4	13	11/16

21	59	AKoH_NiGhtMaRe_    	2079	14	2	16	11/24

22	61	Silvery_Dragon[ms] 	2079	14	5	19	11/25

23	64	PCA_Mell           	2075	25	5	30	11/29

24	65	Gigi               	2075	19	5	24	11/29

25	67	PCA_yuu_rerise     	2075	22	3	25	11/20

26	79	wown               	2059	10	2	12	11/28

27	80	El_Capitan         	2058	77	15	92	11/29

28	81	UD_Renegade        	2056	34	16	50	11/21

29	86	AU_MeMeNTo         	2051	33	10	43	11/29

30	88	Out4Blood          	2043	13	1	14	11/29

31	93	SolituS            	2037	13	1	14	11/27

32	94	GM_KouTousoV       	2036	9	2	11	11/24

33	96	PCA_MATUURA_AYA    	2032	35	10	45	11/25

34	100	smurfkiller        	2030	13	2	15	11/23

posted by Tim at 10:56 PM

At the Rise of Nations Heaven Forum, Rohag posted this tidbit about airbases.

When you build planes (fighters/bombers) at an airfield they remain inside the airfield until you give orders. You have your choice of issuing orders to individual aircraft assigned to an airbase or to the airbase as a whole – in fact, you can give orders to the airbase even before the construction of any aircraft and they will go to the spot or on the assigned mission once they are created. One tricky thing is the “repeat orders” stance button for airbases; you’ll find it in the options box in the lower left of the user interface – the default is ‘on’ and can be toggled ‘on/off.’ While ‘on’ the aircraft to which it applies (individual or base group) will automatically return time and again to the mission or spot to which you’ve ordered it after each refueling. For a poor micromanager like me, ‘on’ is good. ‘Off’ makes the aircraft perform the one mission and then it's back for refueling and waiting on your next orders.

Useful info. Be sure to read his entire post.

I must add that I have gone from making mostly helicopters, to now making fighters. Helicopters were weakened in patch 3, while fighters are more difficult for ground troops to handle. Also, fighters tear up helos, so if your enemy makes helos, you'll want fighters, and if they make bombers, you'll want fighters, and if they make fighters, you'll want more fighters. Looks like a dominant strategy to me. So just make fighters first! Also, most people don't make enough mobile air defense (whereas the AI makes too much).
posted by Tim at 9:10 PM

The brackets for the Big Huge Smackdown are up. Looking at the brackets - they did some good seeding, and it looks like we'll have some good matchups to look forward to. I'm hoping that all the matches will get posted for viewing.

UPDATE: It's El_Capitan (winner of the recent BLuT Gangbang Tourney) vs. PCA_Frogman (currently #2 on the O4B rankings and #4 on the BHG rating list). We haven't seen any final results yet, but I'll note them once the post comes up. Remember folks, this was a money tournament, so most of the best players competed. (Yours truly could not, of course, because of Wifey.)

UPDATE 2: Tann informed me that El_Capitan won. Congrats!
posted by Tim at 12:15 PM

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Enjoy the holidays. :-)
posted by Tim at 10:09 AM

Intersting read - gaming industry stuff from the perspective of a female: game girl advance
posted by Tim at 7:39 PM

From the Big Huge Ratings page -- updated O4B rankings. Only 33 players in top 100 are established and active. This does NOT mean people are not playing, as there are 42 players who are active but have not yet played at least 10 games. One player has a 2200+ rating after only 3 games. This exposes one of the weaknesses of the BHG system: it's really easy to get an established high rating. Unlike the U.S. Chess system, after which this is modeled, you can never smurf or play as an "unrated" once you've established a rating. So the system has no need to prevent smurfing. But this system doesn't translate well to an on-line environment where smurfing is common.

One suggestion for BHG: make it more difficult to create an established rating, not easier. Right now it's 8 games. Chess uses 20. BHG ought to use 25 or more, just to reduce the incentive players might have to flood the board with high-level nicks. If you're a 2300 rated player. You're a 2300 rated player. All the nicks you creat will quickly get to that high level. So if you were to smurf and play 8 games with 10 different accounts, you could easily have the top 10 listings. Another option they have is to screen names using IP addresses, or at least identify which names might be common IPs. These don't solve the problem, but they make it slightly tougher.

Anyway, here are the latest:

O4BRank	Rank	Player                   	Rating	W	L	#	Date

1	1	I_aM_AnDy                	2690	76	20	96	11/21

2	4	PCA_Frogman              	2302	35	0	35	11/22

3	6	AS_REVENGER              	2220	19	2	21	11/23

4	11	Apolonius                	2200	27	2	29	11/23

5	13	Mulfar                   	2179	22	4	26	11/26

6	15	PCA_newty                	2156	51	18	69	11/25

7	16	ESPerItou                	2155	10	0	10	11/18

8	20	TWC_ShaDowZ              	2148	35	8	43	11/25

9	21	Udon_Bomber              	2148	31	5	36	11/10

10	22	TuF_Astator              	2146	51	12	63	11/25

11	30	Ma_ARes_rS               	2122	24	2	26	11/14

12	31	#ICON40Strife            	2122	25	8	33	11/25

13	35	PCA_mayupu               	2115	9	1	10	11/19

14	37	DaRq_Vorfidus            	2111	18	7	25	11/18

15	44	_RedruM_                 	2096	21	4	25	11/25

16	45	DaRq_xYz                 	2095	11	2	13	11/21

17	48	PCA_Mell                 	2087	25	4	29	11/25

18	49	G_DoG_                   	2087	23	5	28	11/15

19	50	PCA_konkon               	2087	14	4	18	11/26

20	52	camel                    	2086	9	4	13	11/16

21	55	AKoH_NiGhtMaRe_          	2079	14	2	16	11/24

22	57	Silvery_Dragon[ms]       	2079	14	5	19	11/25

23	60	Gigi                     	2075	19	5	24	11/24

24	62	PCA_yuu_rerise           	2075	22	3	25	11/20

25	63	NaturalCoCaiNe           	2073	8	4	12	11/25

26	74	UD_Renegade              	2056	34	16	50	11/21

27	80	AU_MeMeNTo               	2051	33	10	43	11/25

28	83	I_HoSt_1oN1              	2040	77	20	97	10/26

29	87	SolituS                  	2037	13	1	14	11/17

30	88	GM_KouTousoV             	2036	9	2	11	11/24

31	89	PCA_MATUURA_AYA          	2032	35	10	45	11/25

32	91	El_Capitan               	2031	57	13	70	11/23

33	94	smurfkiller              	2030	13	2	15	11/23

posted by Tim at 7:53 AM

As most of you are aware, expert level rated games tend to be dominated by Mayans. Or, to a lesser extent, Spain. One feature that would exceedingly cool would be a setting that would enable you to prohibit your opponent playing with certain civs, perhaps 1, 3 or 5. Of course, both players would have this feature and it would be an optional mix in just like the other settings. Now, this isn't just newbie whining about "over-powered civs" or "boring games." This would actually enable another level of strategy.

Suppose you wanted to play Mayans. You would then prohibit the civs that might be competitive against them: Turks, French, Koreans. But of course, your opponent might prohibit Mayans, which would mean you'd end up as a different civ anyway. Or if you wanted to play Nubians, but wanted to reduce the chance of your opponent getting a raiding civ. If you picked a civ and that one was prohibited by your opponent, then the computer would select you as random. So there would be some strategic choosing and picking right from the start. This might improve the chances that someone would be pick random econ or random offensive, because they are likely to still get something they'll be good at, but maybe not have the single most dominant civ.

This would make rated games have a bit more variety as you couldn't climb the ladder just by playing once civ.
posted by Tim at 7:27 AM

WhiskeyPete asks some good questions over at the Rise of Nations Heaven Forum.

Ok, so lately I've been seeing some variants of early classical raiding. Normally I expect a couple CA'(Cavalry Archer)s to come tearing through and causing some havoc. Lately, I've been seeing a few more HC's doing the raiding or one Cavalry archer with one Heavy Cavalry for support. Or the 1HC, 1LC, 1HA raid. So I have a couple questions:

1. Is it better to raid with one or two CA's if you decide to raid with CA's?
2. What are the Pros/Cons of using HC vs CA for early classical raiding?

ceohammer responds with:

Whiskey, there is only one counter to the early Horse Archer raid - and that is to get to classical just as fast as you can. Without classical and your opponent is already there you are doomed. The ranged cav can just sit outside your cities firing radius and bring your economy to a complete halt.

I generally agree. If your economy is compact, archers are an excellent stationary counter to horse archers. Which is one reason why heavy cav is usually the next unit to show up. You could make some pikes to guard against HC, but then you've gotta have both archers AND pikes there JUST IN CASE they show up. That means you've gotta have 2-3 units for every one of theirs, because you can't be everywhere at once and you don't know which type of unit he'll hit you with.

So even though you can make counters from the barracks, speed kills, so stable units are much better for responding to raids. Light cav is the best option, but then that is the main reason heavy cav is the next unit to show up. Heavy cav beats light cav 1on1.

As G0dSpiral added:

LC is definitely what you want against HAs. The point of bringing along HCs isn't for additional raiding, but to deal with the LCs that pop up against your HAs. 3 LCs will beat 2 HCs, so if you can't match opponent HCs right away, some supporting LCs can help. HCs don't do any real damage so if there are no HAs left you can tuck your LCs away for healing.

posted by Tim at 11:08 AM

Having apparently given up on the Romans, the French are now HL's favorite nation. Here he has written up an excellent strategy article that takes advantage of the French bonuses to conduct an early attack. French 150 Attack.

This is a strategy for my new favorite nation, the French. I like all of the French bonuses, they allow for aggressive play from the start. Lumber bonuses are awesome, great for booming, and you can go offensive early with raiding or siege and still have plenty of lumber for Unis, Mines, Markets, etc. Their siege bonuses (cheaper, faster, faster to build), free early wagon, and UUs are great. And the free general, what a fun nation. This is basically a modified 150...there are dozens of ways to do a 150 and this is one of them.

HL has a recorded game of the basic strategy here. Richter syas, "Good strat, but don't try it on maya." So HL later goes on to post a recorded game of him doing this strategy against a 2000+ rated Mayan player. (That'll show him!) He includes some good analysis of the game from his perspective.

Regarding the game vs Mayan opponent, he didn't handle the rush particularly well, and I made several mistakes too. This isn't an ideal game for knowing how to defeat maya, but we'll analyze what happened and what could have happened.

posted by Tim at 11:00 AM

Along the lines of ramping costs, someone posted at the TWC this article awhile back on the best time to upgrade units.

If i decide to attack with 20 light inf in my army it will cost me approximately 1550 food and wood for the units themselves and 740 food 520 wood for the upgrade if i build before i upgrade.. total cost will be 2290 food and 1970 wood. Now if I upgrade and then build it will cost me 2620 food and 2250 wood for the units and 140 food and 120 wood for the upgrades. so 2740 food and 2370 wood. total these up to make it 1 number and you are looking at 4260 total resources if you wait on upgrades and 4870 if you upgrade first. you save 610 resources by waiting.

How important is that? I dunno. that's 30-45 seconds worth of food/wood at that point in the game. also the more you make the more you would save obviously. not going to run the #'s on that though. If you are uber booming and no one is touching you, it's definetly better to wait until right before you attack.

I really should devote some time to test all this ramping stuff out in more detail. I've noticed that the cost to upgrade units changes rather dramatically. I've also noticed that it sure seems cheaper to upgrade in enlightenment age than in gunpowder age. I'm wondering if that's because I tend not to make too many archers (why, when I can make fire lances instead?) Since the enlightenment age upgrade also upgrades the archer line, it may have a reduced cost if you don't have any archers. Anyway, more research to do :-(
posted by Tim at 12:24 PM

Spad posted 2v2 game over at RON Universe featuring 3 top 25 players. This was a rated game so more than just braggin rights were on the line.

Great game, Montana holds off Momento just long enough for me to finish off Mulfar with my French medieval attack - that i had tweaked to fit the raiding style of RoN, the original strat was developed by TWC_Strata_G_. Lots of action from start to finish, constant fighting. BTW, this game was meant to be Mulfar and me vs the AU's(Momento and Montana), but apparently when you try to do a 2v2 in quickmatch it always randomizes the teams, you can only decide who plays in the group, not who's on who's team.

posted by Tim at 11:55 AM

At this Monty Python fansite, I stumbled across an MP3 of I like Chinese. This is what I was referring to in this previous post.
posted by Tim at 11:08 AM

WhiskeyPete brings up an issue on how team games get organized. Do you play team games for the challenge or the ego boost?

You see a 3v3 or a 4v4 game advertised. You enter the game, all the settings look fine and sit back and read a book till the required number of players are in the staging area. While waiting for the host to click in, the first 3 or 4 players all switch to team 1. They then proceed to whup up on the opposing team.

I've encountered this - here are my thoughts:

• Random teams are cool if everyone is a random entrant. Everyone has equal chances of being on a the good or bad team. However random teams don't ensure fairness in a particular game, they just ensure some equal distribution of unfairness over a longer period.


• Use ratings to help balance out the teams. Take the top two rated guys and put them on opposite teams. Put the rest of the players on random.


• You could also pick teams, which might be a useful even if people don't know each other. The rating and number of games played woul dtend to give some additional information about skill level. I mean if the guy has played over 100 games he's probably not a newbie. If he's rated over 2000, he's probably pretty good. This is a better method for ensuring you have fair teams in a particular game.


• Offer skill points to balance out against set teams. If some folks absolutely want to play set teams, particularly against random opponents, then they should offer up some skill level points to the opposing players. BUD_Fustercluck and I played a set team 2on2 where we gave a +10 skill handicap. (Even though we won, +10 is probably a little too much.) I don't see enough usage of the skill handicap, and I think that team balancing is exactly what this is useful for. And I don't think this would get abused. I mean, who wants to brag about beating someone who had a +5 handicap.


• I think team strategy would be improved if clans played more clan vs. clan matches. Too often I see pick up games where it's random teams and random nations. This does not inspire good team coordination and good development of team strategy. There's a lot left untouched in the game of RON, particularly with regard to team play. Example: Team strategy using Bantu + Mayan partners. The Bantu spams toward the center, where the Mayan drops an early heavily fortified city. Taking vital space away from their opponents. You don't see stuff like this because there hasn't been much call for good team play.

posted by Tim at 10:37 AM

There are a couple new members of the top 5: Apolonius & Mulfar, and there are now 34 "established actives" in the top 100. (O4B is sitting at #35, but I'm not yet in the top 100, so it doesn't get shown here.) PCA has a whopping 7 members in the top 34. No other clan has more than 2. Of course, smurfs don't count, unless I know about them.

O4BRank	Rank	Player                   	Rating	W	L	#	Date

1	1	I_aM_AnDy                	2690	76	20	96	11/21

2	4	PCA_Frogman              	2302	35	0	35	11/22

3	6	AS_REVENGER              	2220	19	2	21	11/23

4	11	Apolonius                	2200	27	2	29	11/23

5	14	Mulfar                   	2164	15	2	17	11/24

6	15	PCA_newty                	2163	51	17	68	11/23

7	16	ESPerItou                	2155	10	0	10	11/18

8	19	TWC_ShaDowZ              	2148	35	8	43	11/23

9	20	Udon_Bomber              	2148	31	5	36	11/10

10	21	TuF_Astator              	2146	51	12	63	11/23

11	28	Ma_ARes_rS               	2122	24	2	26	11/14

12	32	PCA_mayupu               	2115	9	1	10	11/19

13	33	DaRq_Vorfidus            	2111	18	7	25	11/18

14	39	_RedruM_                 	2096	21	4	25	11/13

15	40	DaRq_xYz                 	2095	11	2	13	11/21

16	41	PCA_Mell                 	2093	24	3	27	11/24

17	43	G_DoG_                   	2087	23	5	28	11/15

18	44	PCA_konkon               	2087	14	4	18	11/22

19	46	camel                    	2086	9	4	13	11/16

20	54	Gigi                     	2075	19	5	24	11/23

21	56	PCA_yuu_rerise           	2075	22	3	25	11/20

22	57	AU_MeMeNTo               	2073	30	8	38	11/24

23	66	AU_MoNTaNa               	2060	17	6	23	11/24

24	67	UD_Renegade              	2056	34	16	50	11/21

25	72	Silvery_Dragon[ms]       	2048	9	4	13	11/13

26	76	I_HoSt_1oN1              	2040	77	20	97	10/26

27	80	SolituS                  	2037	13	1	14	11/17

28	81	TWC_LoKatZiS             	2036	15	10	25	11/23

29	82	PCA_MATUURA_AYA          	2032	35	10	45	11/21

30	84	El_Capitan               	2031	57	13	70	11/23

31	87	smurfkiller              	2030	13	2	15	11/23

32	93	UWF--FoLeY--UWF          	2021	13	2	15	11/23

33	94	zunko                    	2021	20	5	25	11/21

34	96	ert                      	2017	50	6	56	11/23

posted by Tim at 8:47 AM

Polly pointed out a potential bug where decoy units impact ramping cost calculations. Spad comments:

When i tested with with polly i had 4 muskets, then used the general and made 4 decoys. The price to make a 5th musket with 4 muskets already made was around, 76/66. After i decoyed the price jumped up to 96/88. Decoys count as units as far as price, so beware!!!

When I tested this, there was no impact, but Polly says:

You may be at price cap when you used them. Try again. (after a certain about of units produced the price does not increase).

LOL. I never noticed that there was a cap on ramping costs after a certain number of units. So what is the cap number for each unit type? Might be worth knowing. Looks like we have some additional testing to do on a couple of topics.
posted by Tim at 8:30 AM

Tann posted a link to this old article on the TWC boards On Caravans.

In team games if players trade with their allies, the caravan that is trading between them will do double bonus: it will give the gold income to that person's caravan who is trading and to the ally who is being traded to. Basically, it doubles the gold for the ally one is trading to.

Good stuff! Thanks for the link.
posted by Tim at 9:55 PM

You can add comments to each of these posts. If you don't like what I've written, you can make a rebuttal. If you have a different take, add your perspective. Just click the comments link at the bottom of each post.
posted by Tim at 10:53 AM

Note: I've edited this post to leave out the details of an ugly incident which hopefully will be put behind us. .

Some rude behavior.

I think a general rule of thumb should be to not smack talk when you're playing a 3 against 2 AND you got forward city taken from you AND your ally has to come defend your ass. Strat_gladiator decided to break this general rule of thumb. But that's his choice. Although, I'm not sure what drives people to be so rude to complete strangers.

UPDATE: Strat_gladiator posted an apology and a well-reasoned explanation (frustration and psychological warfare). Taken in that context his comments are less inflammatory, so perhaps I went a little overboard in my response.

One of his comments then might be close to the truth:

Was the reason ... the fact that even though you put forth your best effort, you, sir, are frustrated at the situation getting turned around?

He ends with:

I hope we meet again on more friendly terms and I again apologize for the use of that tactic to achieve the ultimate goal, winning.

To that, I accept your apology and consider bygones to be bygones; if you ever wanna play in the future, I'll be more than happy to.

Which brings us to this question. Normally, "all is fair in love and war" and "war is hell" so his "phsycological warfare" tactic would generally be in order, but as he rightly mentioned -- this is just a game. So is rude behavior ever justified in a game? And yes - you can discuss this here in the comments section.

UPDATE 2: Since gladiator has responded maturely, I've honored his request to reword the content of this post. But let us all remember and try to act civilly toward our fellow gamers.
posted by Tim at 10:06 PM

MeMeNTo crushes HalfLotus (nevermore) in a stunning example of how the Bantu city spam can cause seriosuly problems. MeMeNTo gets his fourth city up beofre HL even gets his third. To make matters worse for HL, because it's Great Lakes, he gets totally boxed in, and his third city has to go up in back! HL tries to put up some fight, but it's over by then, as he can't get any metal going. MeMeNTo does a good job of making use of his civs bonuses to win the game. Game is here.
posted by Tim at 8:02 PM

posted by Tim at 7:28 PM

Polly reminds us of the evolution of the 150 in a marvelous display of linking over at the Rise of Nations Heaven Forum.

As you can see these posts are general posts from back in july, but i dont really see anything evolving after that. Its the thing I still do and many others seem to do. Of course, if you think something should be added or don't understanding something feel free to post.

posted by Tim at 6:52 PM

niDe mentions something everyone already knows, but it's an importnat reminder all the same:

As long as you've got the attrition research at the smelter that stops you from getting attrition when stationary, your merchant will be fine once he gets there.

See, I consciously knew that the smelter line reduced attrition and prevented attrition when stationary. But I never really considered applying that benefit to merchants in enemy territory (or on the edge of your territory). D'oh! It's good to keep hearing this stuff; you can learn new stuff everyday. (Unless you're Myst.)
posted by Tim at 6:49 PM

Biggest news is that I_am_Andy has finally started playing again, so he'll remain atop the O4B rankings for quite awhile, even if he goes on a big losing streak. Another interesting tidbit -- of the top 100 players only 31 are considered "established" and "active."

O4BRank	Rank	Player                   	Rating	W	L	#	Date

1	1	I_aM_AnDy                	2690	76	20	96	11/21

2	4	PCA_Frogman              	2302	35	0	35	11/21

3	11	AS_REVENGER              	2182	13	2	15	11/21

4	13	PCA_newty                	2156	50	17	67	11/21

5	14	ESPerItou                	2155	10	0	10	11/18

6	17	TWC_ShaDowZ              	2148	35	8	43	11/20

7	18	Udon_Bomber              	2148	31	5	36	11/10

8	20	TuF_Astator              	2129	47	12	59	11/18

9	23	Ma_ARes_rS               	2122	24	2	26	11/14

10	28	PCA_mayupu               	2115	9	1	10	11/19

11	29	DaRq_Vorfidus            	2111	18	7	25	11/18

12	36	_RedruM_                 	2096	21	4	25	11/13

13	37	DaRq_xYz                 	2095	11	2	13	11/21

14	38	Gigi                     	2093	18	3	21	11/21

15	40	G_DoG_                   	2087	23	5	28	11/15

16	42	camel                    	2086	9	4	13	11/16

17	48	AU_MoNTaNa               	2079	13	2	15	11/21

18	49	miss Tiffany             	2079	13	4	17	11/20

19	50	PCA_Mell                 	2077	22	3	25	11/21

20	54	PCA_yuu_rerise           	2075	22	3	25	11/20

21	57	AU_MeMeNTo               	2070	18	5	23	11/21

22	69	Silvery_Dragon[ms]       	2048	9	4	13	11/13

23	75	I_HoSt_1oN1              	2040	77	20	97	10/26

24	76	SolituS                  	2037	13	1	14	11/17

25	77	TWC_LoKatZiS             	2036	15	10	25	11/21

26	82	PCA_MATUURA_AYA          	2026	34	10	44	11/15

27	86	UWF--FoLeY--UWF          	2021	13	2	15	11/21

28	87	zunko                    	2021	20	5	25	11/17

29	95	Nanjin                   	2010	61	24	85	11/16

30	96	Be_Good                  	2009	11	4	15	10/29

31	97	Renegade                 	2008	88	33	121	10/27

FWIW: Out4Blood is at a paltry 1990.
posted by Tim at 12:32 PM

HalfLotus has been a busy little bee, playing and posting several games against some decent opponents over at RON Universe recorded games. Get 'em while they're hot! (And yes, Cowboy, I linked to the page, not the files! :-) HL has chastised me for posted links to games without actually viewing them, but since he posted these, I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt.
posted by Tim at 9:40 AM

This is the game we mentioned earlier: SPOTLIGHT GAME: Frogman vs. newty. This was a very close game that was decided by a combination of seemingly harmless events, but when taken together spelled doom. Both players are Spanish on Old World. They both play similarly except newty goes for CIV2 while Frogman goes for COM2. This allowed Frogman to catch back up and pass newty with econ, while newty has trouble taking advantage of his early CIV2 because he can't get shis 3rd city up.

Frogman gets the upper hand during the early raiding action, killing two of newty's merchants. newty tries to get his 3rd city up in a decisive loaction, but Frogman kills the early builders. newty starts building his city and almost finishes it, which would have seriously cramped Frogman, but Frog manages to start his city just as newty completes his. Whew! That was close. Meanwhile, Frogman is still ahead in econ. He flanks newty's borders with a castle, and then builds a forth town deep in newty's territory. This enables him to place a tower right near newty's second city lumberjacks. However, he has trouble getting the tower up because the borders keep going back and forth. He goes after newty's gems rare and then pushes the border enough to get the tower close in. (Unfortunately, he never research religion, which would have been quite a bit faster in getting his borders moved closer to newty.)

That well-placed tower signaled the ned of the game as newty's wood econ dropped below +100 and he never really recovered. Frogman used that gap to start attacking Frogman's second city. So newty, instead of defending, decides to go after Frogman's second city. A min-race ensues to see who can bring the other's city down faster. But wait! Frogman stops his attack on newty's city and instead goes after his capital. There's no towers and no temple and the Madrid falls pretty quickly. When newty goes after Frogman's capital, he loses his troops and Frogman retakes his 2nd city. Game is over.

Lessons learned:

• Scout out your opponent well to learn where his rare resources and economy points are. Both players did a good job scouting each other out, but Frogman did a better job, which helped him in the end, particularly during the raiding. Too many players, including me, try raiding with no scouting. It doesn't work very well.
• RAID RAID RAID. In most of the games I have seen, the game is decided by the best raiding. Not every game, but most games.
• Don't under estimate the ol' border flank. It can be decisive.
• Capitals are often less defended than the border towns. Don't be afraid to go after it.

posted by Tim at 6:52 PM

posted by Tim at 2:02 PM

It was the expansion pack! Here's a news release.

Microsoft and Big Huge Games have announced that they are hard at work developing Throne and Patriots, the upcoming expansion pack to Rise of Nations, the strategy game released earlier this year. The expansion pack will include six more new playable nations to the original game's total of 18, along with more than 20 new units, and new features, like the expansion's new campaigns and its government system. The government system will let each nation in the game determine for itself how it will be governed--a decision that will affect its development over the course of history. The new campaigns will include scenarios based on real-world historical engagements.

Thanks to Sir_Vikin.
posted by Tim at 1:58 PM

War pointed out this pic on the front of the BHG website.



Maybe they're announcing an expansion pack?!
posted by Tim at 7:20 PM

Email from Graham regarding our thoughts on the presentation of ratings:

Thanks very much for you input. It's much appreciated. Some of the information we'd like to include on the page just isn't collected by GameSpy, but we'll do our best to make improvements to the ratings site going forward.

Thanks! We look forward to seeing the results.
posted by Tim at 5:32 PM

posted by Tim at 8:50 AM

The top two RON players duke it out. I don't have much info on this game and I haven't watched it yet, but it's just gotta be good. Download it here (PCA rec games). When I get a chance to watch it, I'll do a commentary.

UPDATE: It's also at MFO in the rec games library.
posted by Tim at 8:43 AM

I found the semi-final game between EL_Capitan and PCA_newty on the PCA website. Download it here.
posted by Tim at 8:39 AM

This won't be very useful unless you happen to read Japanese, but the Japanese powerhouse PCA clan has a pretty good website. How do I know it's good? Why they linked to me, of course! It shows they have excellent taste. Just kidding. It's actually a blog similar to mine, but maintained by PCA_Frogman, which many of you will recognize as being the #1 RON player -- according to O4BRank that is. Anyway, if you couldn't glean it from the title, PCA stands for Promotion Committee of Armageddon. There's some pretty good strategy stuff there if you can dig it out from the bad translation. Key takeaway is their general preference for cavalry and archers.

(Looks better in unicode)

UPDATE: What? You don't read Japanese?! Try this translated link.

UPDATE 2: If you're trying to view PCA recorded games, translated links apparently won't allow downloads to work. You'll have to manually parse the links to get them to work. You can view the code for links I've already created to get the right syntax.
posted by Tim at 8:18 AM

I get a lot of requests to play in the lobby nowadays. Some of them just want to call their mom and say, "Mama, I whooped up on O4B! WOOT!" Others want to prove me wrong about some strategy. And still others just wanna kick my ass. FYI, just because I am online does not mean I am always available to play. As some of you know, Wifey makes my playing ability severely limited most evenings. On some occasions I can get games going, but have to play with no sound. Rarely (like last night) I get to play freely with the sound on. When I need to play, but really can't play, I'll join some newb 4on4 East vs. West game, because if I have to alt-tab from that for 10 minutes, it doesn't hurt me in the game.

Anyway, to montana: You'll get your game, don't worry. And I'm sure you'll kick me arse just like you did last time.
posted by Tim at 7:45 AM

MFO is hosting a Big Huge SMACKDOWN!

Patch 3 for Rise of Nations has just come out and in order to celebrate BHG's critically acclaimed game, the company has decided to sponsor a major multiplayer tournament. There is no entry fee so join in for some fun multiplayer action thanks to BHG!

We want lots of players, so everyone go sign up!
posted by Tim at 4:33 PM

Not much to see here - move along people, move along. AU_niDe vs Out4Blood. Basically, he hit me with raiders and I lost my econ. Lots of informers let him know I was down, and so he made it end quickly.
posted by Tim at 4:29 PM

El_Capitan proposes a new style of playing Japanese derived from his victory in the recent 1on1 tourney.

with the japanese, i think they're able to rush all the time and still boom effectively from it as long as they're making the enemy waste resources on early defenses. just like the mongols early ha raiding, the purpose is to slow down the other nation while booming and raiding.

posted by Tim at 11:12 AM

Kasparov vs. X3D Fritz. Machines apparently are not good at the positional stuff, i.e., strategy! They key insights come from the analysis of move 18.

This useless-looking move confused most of the commentators, but to anyone with extensive anti-computer chess experience it makes perfect sense. The rook protects the f2 pawn, a potential weak spot, but why would you protect something that isn't being attacked?

The reason goes into how computers think. Its brute force calculation can only go so deep, even with four super-fast processors. Black's only possible source of counterplay in this position is to push its f-pawn and open up an attack against the area around the white king, f2 in particular.

If X3D Fritz's search, usually running 12-20 half-moves deep, ever reaches a position in which it sees success in such an attack it will put such a plan in motion. On the other hand, if it cannot reach a favorable position in its searches it will never play the initial moves required. With the rook on b2 protecting f2 already, the potential weakness of that critical square is somewhat hidden from the computer's search.

X3D Fritz can't just play it anyway like a human would, knowing that everything else is useless. A machine has to receive a positive evaluation from its search to play a move and always plays the move that gives it the best evaluation. Since X3D Fritz sees no danger here for itself it is content to play moves that do nothing, but don't cause any negative effect either. It twiddles its virtual reality thumbs. Any human would say, "I have to do SOMETHING."

The computer, not seeing any immediate tactical chances, fails to develop any kind of strategy. The same can be said of the RON AI. Or the AI for any strategy game. For computers, it's all tactics.
posted by Tim at 10:42 AM

Based on community feedback about the current BHG ratings page, I've produced a modified version of the Top 100 filtered by activity (played in the last 30 days) and total rated games (10 or greater).

O4BRank	Rank	Player                   Rating	W	L	#	Date

1	4	PCA_Frogman              2294	33	0	33	11/18

2	14	PCA_newty                2150	46	16	62	11/18

3	15	Udon_Bomber              2148	31	5	36	11/10

4	16	TWC_ShaDowZ              2145	33	8	41	11/17

5	19	TuF_Astator              2129	47	12	59	11/17

6	22	Ma_ARes_rS               2122	24	2	26	11/14

7	28	DaRq_Vorfidus            2111	18	7	25	11/18

8	34	_RedruM_                 2096	21	4	25	11/13

9	36	G_DoG_                   2087	23	5	28	11/15

10	38	camel                    2086	9	4	13	11/16

11	51	Prime_Time               2067	10	1	11	11/17

12	55	PCA_yuu_rerise           2062	16	1	17	11/16

13	56	UD_Renegade              2056	34	16	50	10/18

14	59	PCA_Mell                 2052	19	3	22	11/17

15	61	I_LoVe_YoU               2051	29	6	35	10/19

16	62	Silvery_Dragon[ms]       2048	9	4	13	11/13

17	63	TWC_LoKatZiS             2048	15	8	23	11/17

18	64	AU_MeMeNTo               2048	15	5	20	11/17

19	68	I_HoSt_1oN1              2040	77	20	97	10/26

20	69	SolituS                  2037	13	1	14	11/17

21	70	Gigi                     2032	10	1	11	11/18

22	74	PCA_MATUURA_AYA          2026	34	10	44	11/15

23	79	Hiromu                   2023	81	22	103	11/18

24	80	UWF--FoLeY--UWF          2021	13	2	15	11/18

25	81	zunko                    2021	20	5	25	11/17

26	85	TWC_Spad_                2016	8	6	14	10/19

27	89	Nanjin                   2010	61	24	85	11/16

28	90	Be_Good                  2009	11	4	15	10/29

29	91	Renegade                 2008	88	33	121	10/27

30	96	True_Ogre                2005	12	4	16	10/27

31	97	PlayRated                2005	51	18	69	11/13

32	98	TuF_Richter_             2004	65	12	77	11/15

posted by Tim at 10:19 AM

This time it's El_Capitan. MFO: thoughts on the best and worst civs

well, the top 6 don't matter so much, cause the game is so non-ensemble-like balanced with the other 6 civs. the worst 6 matter the most, because i think if someone were given the choice of having the best civ and then the worst civ, or two civs that aren't either, most people would pick the latter. maybe it's just me, but i feel i get screwed everytime i get em. btw, these are just 1v1 game civs

posted by Tim at 2:02 PM

This game, which you can download here, was the finals match for the recent BLuT Gangbang Tourney last Saturday. By virtue of the high level of play alone, it would serve as our Spotlight Game. However, there are several interesting lessons from this game that we can observe:

• The winner was Japanese vs. Koreans. So even an uber-civ can lose Any Given Sunday (or Saturday, as in this case).


• El_Capitan attempts an Expansion Rush! Vs. Koreans! And fails! But wins the game! Whew. Korean repair and a quick tower prevented Capitan from taking the town. However, he did manage to kill off a mechant, a farm, a caravan, and, more importantly, the university. Just goes to show that rushing can work and is a Viable Strat, even among good players.


• You can still boom after rushing. Capitan gets little to show for his SCI1, MIL1 start, but still manages to outboom Richter. The key to this, IMO, was killing the university. Richter couldn't get COM2 for quite awhile and this made greater number of villagers worthless. After this point, the game was pretty much in Capitan's favor as Richter never could catch up economically.


• Meanwhile, Capitan researched SCI3 before getting COM2. This seems rather unusual, and he had to wait for a long time to collect the 112 knowledge to afford COM2, but it worked out great for him in the end. Personally, I'd prefer an early COM2 because it allows trade. Later COM research could be sacrificed for advancing SCI research, but what do I know?


• Capitan forces the issue by some excellent border flanking that results in a Decapitation Strike on Seoul. Capitan sacks Richter's capital. Richter rushes back to recapture, but then Capitan's main force sacks a city on the middle frontline. Game over.

This game had it all. Good rushing, good defending, good raiding, good booming, good strategy at the end. There was some really great micro on the part of both players as they skirmished in the beginning. WATCH THIS GAME.
posted by Tim at 11:43 AM

Are Mayans still too powerful? There's a thread at the Rise of Nations Heaven forum which says they are. If you rely on raiding, early attacks, or wonder wins, then you probably think they are. If you primarily win with better micromanagement, then you might think they are, particularly if you find your troops getting killed by tower and city fire. If you're like me where you prefer the macro game, then it's a toss up. Maya can boom effectively, but they aren't the best at it. They're my next civ to master, since I like to incorporate a few wonders into my gameplan, even in 1on1 games. So we'll be able to add some more wisdom to this discussion later on.

UPDATE: In the comments section, I said this in response to Tann's comments:

I think the biggest deal still remains the difficulty in reducing the Mayan buildings. Both Korea and Mayan cities are hard to reduce and THAT is what makes them really tough IMO. If you can't reduce them, you can't capture, and you can't advance.

HalfLotus says basically the same thing as I do:

The Mayan building HP bonus is huge in the late game. A maya major city has like 15k hp. Because it takes so long to destroy Mayan towers, forts, cities, barracks, stable, etc....they have lots more time to arrange defenses in the form of units/upgrades/techs. Taking a mayan city (the only way to make significant gains on them) is a chore. You can get more siege, but siege is very expensive and ramps quickly. I say nerf the building hp bonus a little.

This is also why Korea is a monster in the late game. The free repair means they hold onto cities MUCH longer than other nations. It's takes a much greater miltary or economic advantage to take a city from Korea and Maya in late game. nerf, nerf, nerf!

posted by Tim at 8:58 AM

I had sent an email to Graham Somers at BHG -- he's the Big Huge Community guy -- on the topic of Ratings Pages. He was nice enough to send this reply:

I'd say most or all of us here are in agreement with the community and I've definitely been reading all of the posts about the ratings page. We're looking into some options, including ratings decay. Would you prefer decay (nothing too drastic) or a solution like the one that you have on your site?

Cool. It's great to know they're listening and considering their options. So, we'll ponder a bit before we respond.

Props to BHG! Say what you want about the multiplayer code, but BHG has been just about the most fan-friendly developer I've ever been involved with. Even if they don't do anything to change the ratings, just getting a response is better than a lot of developers out there. Hats off to GS and the rest of the BHG crew. Keep up the good work!

UPDATE: Here's what I sent back to Graham

Graham: Thanks for your response. It's refreshing to see a developer play an active role in the community. It's rare to see. I'm not entirely sure what the "perfect" system would be, but here are my thoughts....

I think the bottom line for players is that they want to see who's currently playing the best. The current page doesn't satisfy that because many of the players who dominate the top of the page haven't played in almost 3 months. Also it appears that the rating system previously used was a bit different from the current one.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that my rating is dependent on the rating of my opposition. If I can only find players who are 1900 or so, then I will never achieve a lofty rating. So it's useful for me to see how I compare against the current crop of players. In that case, I want to see a rating list that shows the top active players.

Defining active then is one issue. You'd need to set the minimum number of games and define the period in question. It seems reasonable that you should require a small number of games (3-5 perhaps) per month. You don't want the number too large, because then it rewards constant play, not skill. We just want people out there mixing it up. Players who don't meet that minimum don't have their rating displayed on the active list. In order to get them to care, you make the active list the default view when checking the ratings page.

It's logical to assume that if a player is not playing the minimum number of games per month then they are not maintaining their current rating level. So some sort of ratings decay might be in order. From discussing this with folks, there does seem to be consensus. The important thing is to keep it reasonable to ensure casual gamers aren't adversely affected. Also, you might want to establish a "floor" below which a player could never go below merely by decay. To satisfy those would don't like decay, it might be a good idea to also display (but not sort by -- make that a separate option) the highest established rating a player has attained. Another alternative is a "Hall of Fame" page.

It's also good to only display established ratings (or a minimum number of games), or at least to identify those ratings which are not established, perhaps with an asterisk. A 10 or 20-game minimum before making the board might be a good idea. Players with less than the minimum could still "see" where they stand, but their names wouldn't be displayed.

One more thing: it would be really nice if we could see better individual stats. Like what nations does a particular player play most often. Or what nations are the most preferred. It would also be nice to see these stats specifically for the rated room. This is where the rubber meets the road. Is everyone playing Mayan or is that just a rumor?

On a technical note: If the system used to calculate ratings has changed at all, then you should probably 1) do a one-time reset of "old ratings" or 2) recalculate those old ratings using the new methodology. It doesn't seem fair to compare old rating with new ratings.

To summarize:

• Only show active players -- you decide what determines active (I did played 1 game in last month)


• Establish a minimum threshold for display -- you can decide that, too (I did 10 games)


• Use decay to estimate current skill levels of payers who've stopped playing -- 100 points for every month not active, again your choice


• Add the "highest attained rating" to the display for each player


• Add more detailed player statistics where possible

Of course, O4B is just one voice among many, so share your thoughts people.
posted by Tim at 5:34 AM

niDe asked to play. I told him Wifey was home and no sound so I "can't play serious." Instead, I suggested a 2v2 game where we give a +10 skill handicap. That takes about 5 min with us winning. So much for skill level -- maybe I shouldn't rush. Anyway, he says we oughta play 1on1, so I figure, what the heck... Koreans (him) vs. Chinese (me) on small Old World. Game is available at MFO.

We both start out about the same, excpet he does SCI2, CIV2, while I do SCI2, COM2. My raiding goes nowhere. His kills off my 2 merchants. He attacks me early, but I defend and hold him off, gaining ground on him economically. We trade one of my cities for a bit in Enlightenment and Industrial Age, but I finally recapture it and that pretty much ends the fight, although we battle into the Modern Age. He did more killing and managed his army better, but I had a larger econ and that ends up winning in the end. (It's easier to focus on the macro stuff with no sound.)

Interesting thing one of the observers pointed out is that I only had 2 universities (he had 4 I think). I guess it was because I didn't need that much knowledge. We were doing so much fighting from Classical on that there weren't enough "other" resources to need lots of knowledge.
posted by Tim at 10:46 PM

Think you know how airplanes really fly? Think again. And read this. (Discover)
posted by Tim at 2:26 PM

From The Onion, what happens when ... Mom Finds Out About Blog? Regular readers know we're most concerned about Wifey. :-)
posted by Tim at 2:04 PM

El_Capitan defeated TuF_Richter_ in the final. You can view the brackets from yesterday's tourney here. TuF_Richter_ was nice enough to post and comment on his games. The recorded game from the finals is available here (RON Universe).

old world, me with random Koreans against el_capitans random Japanese.
he tries a rush, I saw it coming but I wasted to much resources defending it (no one rushes me normally^^).
= I was overconfident and didn't realize that I build 2 universities to late (wasted wood and gold for rush defense).
after that this el_capitan went on rocking hardcore.
ends in modern age.
el_cap has amazing booming skills

The semi-final game featuring Richter is here.

great lakes, blut1210mkII with random russia vs me with random nubians.
well unfair civs, game was decided in enlightment and over in industrial.

UPDATE: The other semi-final game between EL_Capitan and PCA _newty is in the PCA clan game library. I think this is what he says:

Being to pull France, it tries to launch swift attack, but the partner gives up in Maya.
Being to be the arena, it does the bow cavalryman storm, but it is returned.
You doing the sea among those roughly, internal affair doing to be defeated, the quaintness.
It was in the last partner you putting on airs, it increases, (' the ･ ω ･ `) the ｼ ｮ ﾎ ﾞ ｰ ｿ

As for the Australian hinterland whether the sea of the partner it is good to devastate.
Such a wide sea control of the sea it is the case that it does not become matter of concern which is taken, but.

posted by Tim at 1:59 PM

VitalyB asks about undocumented features in patch 3 at Apolyton (I thought it was dead?!), and he mentions a very handy one.

I am talking about those nifty little changes that don't appear in the readme file but improve the game a great deal. For example: ctrl+home selects all the injured units. What else? Not talking only about key combinations but also of other feature/interface changes that tweak the gameplay.

Great question. Anyone else know of any?


posted by Tim at 5:20 PM

If you want to know how the BHG ratings work check here.

Me, I'm happy.

BHG is using Arpad Elo's formulas (with some slight modifications). Elo's formulas were rigorously tested with decades of data, and they've been in use for decades (US CHess and FIDE both use them). There are very good reasons for all of the components of the rating system.

1. You want to approximate the real rating as quickly as possible. Thus provisional ratings are calculated differently and will have huge swings until they are established. One of the worst thing you can have is to have ratings correlate with games played over time. You should need to play a few games to get your rating established. But then it should "stick" unless your skill dramatically increases for some reason.

2. Ratings should never reset. Ratings are meant to assess skill. Skill doesn't reset. Ratings systems that correlate strongly with games played are not designed to measure skill as much as they are designed to reward constant play. Therefore, they occasionally reset to encourage players to play agains for hte "money title." For example, Battlenet rewards players who rack up tons of wins more so than the prodigy who comes in and wins his first 30 games against top players. Even if the latter player is twice as good. A better example is the money title in golf vs. the Vardon Trophy. Tiger won the Vardon trophy (for lowest adjusted stroke average) while Singh won the money title. Tiger's the better play because he shoots better when he plays. Singh just played in a LOT more events than Tiger.

3. The "k-factor" declines and then remains stable at 16. Even after the provisional period, skill is likely to increase fairly rapidly as the player gets more experience. In that case, you'd want K to start out higher (about 31 for 25 games played vs. 16 for 50 games and beyond.)

4. Once both players are established, if you are evenly matched, then the winner would get 8 points and the loser would drop by 8 points. If you beat someone 400 points below you, then you'd probably get ~1 point (not sure how they do fractions). Established ratings are exceedingly accurate at predicting winning chances. At a 400 difference, I have a 90.9% of beating you. At an 800 difference, that chance is 99.0%. If by some miracle you beat me, you're rewarded with all 16 points and I lose all 16.

UPDATE: For geeks (like me) interested in comparing the BHG system to the USCF Chess system can review US Chess Federation: Rating Calculations.

UPDATE 2: Errr ... that's the old version. Unbeknownst to me, the USCF has modified their rating system. You can read the detailed algorithm here. Turns out the BHG system is EXACTLY like the new USCF system. As far as I can tell. They just have not adopted the "floor" concept.
posted by Tim at 10:18 AM

After sustaining a rare devastating loss in a team game (of all things), I'm rethinking some economic concepts. As I've mentioned before, rare resources play a huge role in team games because there are some many more rare resources on the map. In addition to the resources they bring in, they also bring in the bonuses, which makes them super doubly good. Of course, all this is pretty obvious, right? So get a lot of rares. The implication this brings with it, though, is you should set up your economy to get rares. Well what does that mean?

It means maxing out wood and wealth as early as possible. And the best way to do that seems to be an early COM2. I know this sounds like heresy, but I think it's true. First of all, an early classical has less benefit because raiding is not as prevalent in large team games as it is in 1on1 games. It's more difficult, and will likely set you back relative to the pocket players. Secondly, an early classical is designed to gather knowledge more quickly. In 1on1 games, I believe the logic of the early classical still holds. But in big team games, I think you can recover the knowledge gap with rares. Many rares have knowledge and getting those is better than spending wealth on scholars. So... in team games now, I am probably going to start going SCI2 -> COM2 or maybe even COM2 -> CIV2. I dunno, we'll see.
posted by Tim at 8:49 AM

Here's the change list:

General fixes

• Balance fix to Barks and Triremes


• Transport ships no longer receive +2 speed bonus from military bonus


• Scout line more likely to attack spies


• Can't upgrade to Commandos until Industrial Age now


• Helicopter bonus vs. tanks has been reduced


• Mobile AA units have range increased


• Siege and supply can now garrison in forts and cities. All other ground military units may garrison in any military producing building


• Units more effective against units three or more ages below

Nation fixes:

• Mongols now get two free Horse Archers when building stables with two military techs, and three at three military techs


• Mayan reduced timber costs for buildings no longer applies to military buildings


• Nubian rare resource bonus applies only in their own territory and not that of their allies


• Romans now get +15 wealth per city instead of +10


• Koreans no longer get free Taxation

Other balance changes:

• Moderate difficulty now easier


• Players now have the ability to declare war on nations that have resigned, and thereby take control of resigned nations' land


• Fixed exploit of Supercollider allowing instant razing of buildings


• Exploit fixed for Nubian buy/sell to gain wealth

Analysis:
Losers:

• Spies - CI is now "automatic." However, since CI still reduces craft, one scout scout can only take out 2 spies. You would still need several scouts to prevent spy spam. Also, they need to be in range. Scouts in back won't use CI on bribing spies unless they come within range. Good use for spies now is to ambush flanking cavalry. Or to sneak around and bribe artillery. Sending a scout with spies so you can see invisible scouts might also be worthwile.

posted by Tim at 1:30 PM

Based on community feedback about the current BHG ratings page, I've produced a modified version of the Top 100 filtered by activity (played in the last 30 days) and total rated games (10 or greater). The table below appears more relevant than the current incarnation.

O4BRank BHGRank Name                   RatingWinsLosses# gamesDate

       1   5    PCA_Frogman            2246  18  0     18       11/14

       2   15   Udon_Bomber            2148  31  5     36       11/10

       3   17   TWC_ShaDowZ            2133  31  8     39       11/12

       4   20   Ma_ARes_rS             2122  24  2     26       11/14

       5   21   AS_REVENGER            2122  8   2     10       11/13

       6   24   TuF_Astator            2117  44  12    56        11/9

       7   30   G_DoG_                 2101  20  4     24       11/14

       8   32   PCA_newty              2100  33  16    49       11/14

       9   33   _RedruM_               2096  21  4     25       11/13

      10   52   camel                  2057  7   4     11       11/14

      11   53   UD_Renegade            2056  34  16    50       10/18

      12   57   I_LoVe_YoU             2051  29  6     35       10/19

      13   58   Silvery_Dragon[ms]     2048  9   4     13       11/13

      14   60   I_HoSt_1oN1            2040  77  20    97       10/26

      15   61   AU_MeMeNTo             2038  11  4     15       11/13

      16   63   PCA_Mell               2036  16  3     19        11/9

      17   68   Hiromu                 2026  52  14    66       11/14

      18   71   UWF--FoLeY--UWF        2021  13  2     15       11/14

      19   75   TWC_Spad_              2016  8   6     14       10/19

      20   78   PCA_MATUURA_AYA        2011  29  10    39       11/14

      21   81   Nanjin                 2010  61  24    85        11/8

      22   82   Be_Good                2009  11  4     15       10/29

      23   84   Renegade               2008  88  33    121      10/27

      24   83   NoxMortus              2008  68  39    107      11/14

      25   89   PlayRated              2005  51  18    69       11/13

      26   88   True_Ogre              2005  12  4     16       10/27

      27   90   TuF_Richter_           2004  65  12    77       11/13

      28   91   _RU_Raven_Alx_         2004  11  3     14        11/6

      29   94   Killmeifyoucan         2001  17  5     22       10/26

      30   96   scb                    1999  14  2     16       11/13

      31   98   KBS_Wyvern             1998  14  5     19        11/3

      32  100   montana                1994  58  24    82       11/12

BHG: any chance you guys can make something like this the default view for the rated page? Then have an "all-time" ratings page using the current default.

Thanks in advance.
posted by Tim at 12:39 PM

Fewer players.

This leads me to believe that there are a lot of players out there running a cracked version and we might not see a portion of those players return until/unless new cracks are released. Disappointing, but not surprising.

UPDATE: That didn't take long at all. Game Copy World has a crack already! Now I can hide the CD from Wifey again!
posted by Tim at 9:31 AM

BHG has released the "ratings page" on their website (thanks Thao) as Big Huge Ratings. In the Heaven Forum there's a discussion about whether this is a good thing, should they reset, and should they have decay.

Ratings shouldn't reset. Skill doesn't "reset" and ratings should reflect skill. I applaud BHG for sticking to their guns on this. However, skill does decay if you are inactive for a long time. So a measure of rating decay for long inactive players might be in order. I would not use what was sugested in this thread about a rapid loss that tapers off. That doesn't mirror real skill decay either. It should be gradual and there should be a max decay threshold.

On the other hand, if BHG redesigned the rating formula, then showing old ratings that were established under the old formula is highly misleading and they should take action to rectify that situation.

Another easy fix is to have the default display page be one that only shows "ACTIVE" players -- players who have played in the last 4-6 weeks. This way you have 2 pages: ACTIVE ratings, and ALL-TIME ratings.

DISCLOSURE: To support some of the discussion, I managed a 2027 rating last night playing 5 games against average opposition. Only 2 games (against Ollive) were competitive.
posted by Tim at 7:32 AM

Some people over at the Rise of Nations Heaven Forum are bashing the British in the thread on Best nations, your thoughts.

Brits are the only bottom tier civ, IMO.

What's strong about Brits is how the COM techs align with the CIV techs. With COM1, I can max out at +125 usually with just 2 towns. That, along with the (at this point small) taxation bonus, I can hit CLASSICAL and raid with a stronger economy.

I'll probably do CIV2 before COM2, so I'll likely be getting that third city up before most other civs. This enables me to do some early border pushing or to establish a stake in the center, around whatever key terrain might exist.

Something HalfLotus might like: the longer range of the forts and towers enables British to emulate the Roman aggression strategy as well, by dropping a fort and using the towers, the longer range towers, partly make up for weaker border effect.

Once I've built the third city, I'll fill it out with workers and then research COM2. At this point I have a +187 economy. Researching SCI techs, the production boosters, and COM3 push that pretty high very quickly.

The better economy allows you to do a number of things: build bigger armies, build wonders to press your econ advantage, continue booming, etc. I'm not saying they are the strongest civ, but they are better than a number of them. They are certainly better than Russians. Let's put it this way, I'm happy when I get Brits.
posted by Tim at 7:11 AM

BHG announced that Patch 3 is out! The download version is not available yet, but it should load automatically when you enter Gamespy. Nod to HalfLotus for the heads up.

UPDATE: You can download patch here (BHG).
posted by Tim at 11:44 AM

I discovered a nearby colleague with whom I work also has a blog: Raj's ruminations. His is more thoughtful than mine, of course, but in discussing blogs we both commented on what the loss of anonymity might do to our blogging habits. No more blogging about how much I hate my job! (Just kidding -- I don't.)

Some people have blogs that are anonymous and they write some revealing things. The blogosphere acts as a sort of confessional. But if people you know read your blog, such as Wifey, The Boss, your parents, your GF, etc., then you have to be more circumspect about what you reveal. Maybe. We'll see.
posted by Tim at 7:57 AM

Yahoo has a story on the theory that Saddam might be behind the insurgency in Iraq.

The recent string of high-profile attacks on U.S. and allied forces in Iraq has appeared to be so methodical and well crafted that some top U.S. commanders now fear this may be the war Saddam Hussein and his generals planned all along. Knowing from the 1991 Persian Gulf War that they could not take on the U.S. military with conventional forces, these officers believe, the Baath Party government cached weapons before the Americans invaded this spring and planned to employ guerrilla tactics.

This was actually something I had considered before the war in our watercooler talk around the office. Saddam's bluster was just a front. He had to know there was no way he could win a head-to-head battle against U.S. forces. Given that situation, what was his best course of action? When faced with a superior force, avoid battle. Appear weak where you are strong. Use surprise attacks to sap the will of the enemy occupation forces. These are basic strategy concepts. I find it hard to believe that this outcome comes as much of a surprise. But, the Yahoo story goes on to say:

If these observations are borne out, it would be a significant departure from previous U.S. government assessments. Before the war, the Bush administration never gave any indication that it expected to face a large-scale, planned guerrilla campaign. Just recently, U.S. officials who interrogated former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz and other former Iraqi officials said they found no evidence of such a strategy.

Where was mighty RAND? Some simple game theory analysis would have likely indicated that the Iraqi leadership would attempt some form of long haul insurgency. They know we can't stay there forever, but they can. Time is on their side.

This is one reason why I think a prerequisite for promotion to General should be some form of hard-core strategy gaming experience. This is something that probably should have been obvious. We should have planned for it and set appropriate expectations with the UN, our allies, and the people of this country. Success will probably require us to have a presence there for years. Maybe longer.
posted by Tim at 7:33 AM

On the AU clan boards, niDe makes an amazing admission. Disgusting.
posted by Tim at 2:32 PM

WhiskeyPete posts a good solution to this problem:

I seem to have a problem that when using forced march, unless the general is with an army of all cavalry he outpaces the other units and thus doesn't help them out with the forced march ability after a short amount of time has passed.

posted by Tim at 11:23 AM

Some people have taken umbrage over my response to Sea Biscuit's Tips for playing koreans. He said this:

i dont play them much so i dont know. let me know

My response was short:

ROFL! You should probably play them some before posting anymore "tips."

I followed it with an explanation:

"Tips" are generally considered as "here's something that has worked for me, give it a try" or "here's my well-thought out analysis, see how this works for you."

If you're just guessing what works for a civ that you don't play much at all then you should be posing questions, such as "What do you guys think of this?" Don't go posting tips. You don't see ME posting the authoritative how-to-play-Aztec guide, cuz I don't play Aztec. If I do, I'll be sure to let me peopel know what I learned.

There are a lot of people who might read that and think because it's a "tip" that it might be a good idea, and they might try it in a game and discouraged when they get their head handed to them.

This was apparently offensive to Sea Biscuit who responded:

O4B- Do you have a psychiatrist??? you need one!

and

I am not sure what you are trying to contribute to this discussion.

Here was my response to that:

I take strategy pretty seriously. Whether it be for games, economics, negotiations, or plain old office politics. I enjoy game theory and the search for the Nash equilibrium. I believe that it is important for strategy development for strategies to be published so that others can improve them or refute them. Publishing strategies, tips, and techniques helps the community as a whole improve and increases the talent available for pushing the strategic envelope. Another role for helping the community is commentary on strategies so that newer players can get a sense for whether a strategy is worth pursuing or not. To cultivate a garden, you have to pull some weeds. That's all I'm doing. Pulling weeds.

If you have serious strategy to contribute, fine. Post it up and let it stand on its own merits. But if it is not serious, you can expect some negative responses, particularly when it pretends to be serious. I read almost all strategy-related posts on all related websites. I link to the good ones, ignore the obvious trash (My expansion pack wish list!), and refute the not-so obvious trash. Yours is the latter case. You purport to having insight on Koreans, yet claim you don't play them much. Based on your comments alone, I'm gonna call bullsh1t. If only to help newer readers who might not know that the "latest tip" is rather controversial and apparently untested.

If you want more positive replies, then take an example from HalfLotus on how to post your strategies and tips. It's one thing to post garbage strategy as a joke, and quite another to post it in the guise of serious "tips."

Now you can come back with more name calling and insults (no, I don't need a psychiatrist), or you can come back with some serious analysis or some recorded games of you performing these "tips" against good players.

Other than that, I stand by what I said. Don't assume that I think everything you post is bad. I've linked to you in the past. I just think this was a Bad Post, and I said so. Just so you know, I don't presume to know everything. Which is why I often ask questions of my own.

I sure this will end on a positive note.
posted by Tim at 10:35 AM

Arch Mage asks the common question: What's the best nation? It's good to periodically review this because perceptions and fashions change. What was once good might not be as effective once people learn to counter certain strengths. (Don't forget those Nubians!) Also, I'd like to mention that some people believe the Germans are a top 5 civ. (So don't forget the Germans.)Personally, I like Chinese and British the best. Koreans, Mayans, and Mongols are good, of course, but they don't fit my playstyle quite as well. I prefer Chinese, but British absolutely rock in team games where you have a chance to get the mighty economy going.
posted by Tim at 7:22 AM

TuF_Astator has the current lead in the Celtic Warriors Info Age race with the amazing time of 22:35. And he used Nubians!
posted by Tim at 7:19 AM

The Official X3D wesbite has this analysis of Game 1. The game ended in a draw, but it was an exciting draw, with Garry being up the exchange, but the computer with more active pieces.

Garry Kasparov came and he saw, but in the end he could not conquer. His took the fight right to X3D Fritz in this exciting first game and gained a substantial advantage. The machine defended precisely and then battled back at the first opportunity. X3D Fritz gained enough play to force a draw, an offer that Kasparov could not refuse.

I managed to watch a big chunk of this game on ESPN2 yesterday. It's extremely rare to have chess matches shown live on TV. They did a good job making this interesting to watch. Errr.... interesting to a strategy gaming geek, I suppose. Next match is schedule for 1 pm EST on Thursday. I'll be setting my Snapstream to record that one! HEY! I can do that ONLINE!

UPDATE: WOW! That took 2 mintues to log in and set the computer to record all of the future episodes! That is waaaaaay cool. Almost as cool as the Warhammer 40k mod for Rise of Nations.
posted by Tim at 7:00 AM

Raven has some reading comprehension problems.

You guys probably don't know this but Knight and O4B said flamethrowers are useless...

Here's what I actually said:

So what the heck are Flamethrowers supposed to do? The AI makes these guys all the time in SP, but I have yet to (consciously) make these in a competitive MP game. Wouldn't you rather just reduce it with artillery instead of attacking the garrison? I mean, we are talking industrial age here... Does anyone make them, and if so what do you use them for?

I hope everyone notices, I was asking what people use them for, which is far different from saying they are useless. At any rate, he does offer a pretty interesting use for flamethrowers.

In modern/indust age, coupled with a general and a couple scout cars, sneak into emeny base until you find a unveristy, flame it!! and Out come to scholars, now fry/shoot them, kill those nerds!!

Of course, I have never seen this in a game nor a recording, so it's apparently only theoretical at this point. But it sure sounds like a great idea. Or does it? Tann counters with this:

I dont see the point to take his scholars...when all you need to do is send in a small force of a flamie, 5-6 specforc and some machine guns....dont forget the general this will take down a city in seconds...then you can have all the buildings....not just the uni.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Polly weighs in with The Answer.
posted by Tim at 5:57 AM

I told Wifey not to get me anything for my birthday (or Christmas) since I built a new computer and bought a Mercedes. I mean what do you get for the man who has everything? The answer is this: Karaoke Revolution

Turn your PlayStation 2 into a high-end, interactive karaoke machine with Karaoke Revolution, the latest in Konami's award-winning line of music video games. Featuring an impressive list of tunes from current hits to yesterday's classics, Karaoke Revolution will give gamers of all types something to sing about. Sing your favorite tunes while Karaoke Revolution judges you. Perform your way to the ultimate concert venue in Showtime Mode. Choose from a list of hits from the 70's, 80's, 90's and today!

Wifey and I played it for several hours last night. It's a lot of fun. It'll be more fun at parties as up to 8 players can compete and you can have your own little American Idol party. With the big screen TV we have, the PS2 becomes a very entertaining party game.
posted by Tim at 5:48 AM

Game is here (MFO)

So WhiskeyPete tracks me down in the unrated lobby and says he wants to challenge the "blogmaster" himself. Despite wifey being home, I agreed to play, even though that meant playing with the sound off and some light key stroking (no banging on the keyboard obviously). niDe and WP both asked me why I don't just use headphones. Well, the noise isn't really the issue. It's the playing that's the issue. To keep from getting caught playing, I have to have the sound low. I can't use headphones because I need to be able to hear her sneaking down the stairs. So slightly handicapped, I hosted up a game and we commenced to playing. It was secret random; he chose Koreans and I chose Chinese.

I hit classical not too long after him and raded a bit some HA. He fended me off with LC. Although I killed some villagers and caravans. It did put me behind in getting my 3rd city up. With a presumed slight econ advantage, I pressed the boom, getting to Medieval and putting up both the Colossus and Pyramids. I made a fort and sent a spy to to make informers in most of his cities. Meanwhile, I kept pushing on the econ envelope, crusing along. Then I realized I still hadn't made much military. At that point he attacks my weak middle area with a large force. I tried to slow them down but they pressed right on through my troops. I made it to enlightenment age and upgraded for the counter attack, but not before he managed to sack my main econ city - the one with the Pyramids. I took it back and destroyed hsi army. He managed to slip away 2 cannons and a supply cart. Those managed to bring down the Colossus wonder before I could kill them off.

So the game settled down into a slugfest in the middle, where he had a strongpoint which was flanked on one side by an expansion town of mine. My poor micro kept me from managing my troops properly and so despite a larger econ, I was unable to capture his forward city. I'd about had enough trnech warfare, so I went industrial and built the SOL. He followed me into Industrial but beat me to Modern. Neither of us was making any headway. However, I wasn't too worried because I had informers all over his territory and could see his troop strength. I was making just enough to prevent him from breaking through. Eventually I reached the Info Age and made a bunch of Apache helicopters who tore up his defenseless ground troops. I also attacked on the wing with a small raiding force to capture a flank town. With his army gone I managed to finally capture that forward town. He resigned once I started lobbing shells onto his capital.

So despite the sound handicap, I managed to eke out a lucky win and maintain blogging rights for another week. GG!
posted by Tim at 8:34 AM

At the Rise of Nation Heaven Forum, Sea Biscuit writes about why Spain is one of his favorite civs.
posted by Tim at 5:07 PM

According to the Big Huge Games website, patch 3 should be out in a matter of days.

Patch 3 has been given the green light by the Microsoft testing team and is being packaged for release. This includes a localization pass and the creation of a stand-alone version of the patch. This means that Patch 3 will be available for download in a matter of days.

Thanks to LameAim for the heads up!
posted by Tim at 11:31 AM

Knight posts on his blog something I hadn't really considered about markets.

[Trading] usually means you are not managing your resources properly. Yet, one of the great new ideas BHG implemented was a commerce cap, thus making trade at the market more important.

That's a great point. Sometimes you have to trade because the commerce cap doesn't allow you to get what you really need.
posted by Tim at 10:31 PM

HalfLotus posted a new Roman Aggression rec at Rise of Nations Universe. This time is against someone decent. And this time it loses.

Well every strategy has its foil, in this case it's Turks with gems. There's a replay at RoNU. With his free catapults, my towering/sieging was for naught, I should have taken a different approach. The raiding went well, I might have been able to outboom him. I was able to catch up later, then made a significant strategic error which cost me the game.

Download the game here.

UPDATE: Okay, I watched the game. This was a great example of pulling defeat from the jaws of victory.
Twice.
In one game.

I'll give my comments on the game below. But I encourage everyone to watch this game. It has several instructive elements:

• 2 variations of a SCI1, COM1 start on Australian Outback. One with CIV1, one with SCI2. SCI2 seems like the better route to go as it gave HL more ruins and he had an earlier Classical. It would have been nice to have seen a SCI1, COM1 vs. a SCI1, CIV1 start, but we'll save that discussion for later.


• Example of 1-city raiding. HL has pushed this as a good strategy for Egypt. Well, boys and girls, it works quite well with other civs also. Using fishing to boom his food income, he does an early Classical and hits Mell with HAs. Mell made the mistake of going barracks first, but deletes it, and gets a stable up; however, not in time to prevent losing a few villagers. He rushes Mell with 3 HAs which do a decent job of keeping Mell's econ down below HL's. After the raiding, HL has about a +125 advantage on Mell. He manages to keep this up through most of the game. Unfortunately, he puts it to "bad" use.
• Example of the Roman Aggression strategy in action. This ends up nearly costing HL the game, because his push doesn't go anywhere and he ends up losing all of his forward buildings to Turkish artillery. As we mentioned here, I think the weakness of this strategy is using the forts to push the borders, making them easy targets for the enemy. Of course, this is even worse if your enemy happens to be Turkish, but you can bet everyone else will be making artillery as well. HL probably could have sealed the deal if he had placed his third city in front of his fort and military buildings. His superior numbers would have prevented Mell from capturing the city and the city would have prevented the artillery from getting close to the fort and mil buildings. With no city, the arty just mows through the buildings and creates a big hole in the middle. I think he probably would have won this game fairly easily if he had just pressed his post-raid advantage in a more conventional manner. HL pretty much admits this in his above quotation.
• A great example of Border Flanking on the part of Mell. Mell builds first a fort and then a city on the edge to flank HL's border and get close to HL's capital. It's a risky strategy given his weakness in the middle, but it becomes important later on.
• An outstanding example of using ambush to surprise the enemy. HL does not upgrade any of his troops until he reaches Enlightenment Age. This means he loses pretty much all of the early battles. But once he reaches Enlightenement Age, he upgrades all of his troops just in time to ambush Mell's Gunpowder Age army. HL routs Mell all the way back to Mell's seond town. HL sacks the town and does a great job ripping up Mell's econ. But...
• Meanwhile, Mell had sacked Rome (launching his attack from the border flank) and assimilated it, then built a tower and sent all his troops there to reinforce. HL doesn't respond until it's too late. (Maybe he didn't see it? Or was that the "significant strategic error" he mentions?) Game Over. Mell wins with better strategy, despite being down in military and economy.

I've now watched all the games of the Roman Aggression strategy, and while it still can be argued either way, I think the strategy requires some improvement. I like the idea of pushing hard with the fort, but I think that an early third city HAS to go somewhere in front to protect the fort. It's really too easy to take down a naked fort. Also, the other recorded games were against players who were so bad, a simple Ancient rush or normal boom would have won more easily, so it's hard to say the "strategy won it."

Anyway, this was a great game to watch. GG fellas!
posted by Tim at 9:01 PM

So what the heck are Flamethrowers supposed to do? The AI makes these guys all the time in SP, but I have yet to (consciously) make these in a competitive MP game. The official MS site says:

The particular value of the Flamethrower (besides great animation) - is that using it against enemy-occupied buildings results in the expulsion of the garrisons of those buildings. The buildings and the units don't fare very well, either.

Wouldn't you rather just reduce it with artillery instead of attacking the garrison? I mean, we are talking industrial age here... Does anyone make them, and if so what do you use them for?
posted by Tim at 2:18 PM

In the MFO Rise of Nations Forum someone was arguing that Starcraft is the best RTS game ever. I disagreed. Starcraft is one of the best games ever made, but IMO, there are certain things missing from Starcraft that are in other games.

• Unit experience (units can level up, like Red Alert 2 and Kohan)


• Unit facing (tactical maneuver is important, like RON and Kohan)


• Random maps (variety, like all the other games)


• Logistics (some representation of supply requirements, like RON and Kohan)


• Customizable units (like Kohan)


• Customizable unit AI (as in Dark Reign)

These things significantly add to the experience.

posted by Tim at 2:10 PM

The BLuT ClaN (means Blood in German) is hosting a 1on1 tournament.

{BLuT} CLaN likes to welcome you to our first RoN tournament hosting. Tourney name is as you can read 'saturday gangbang'. The first saturday gangbang will be held at 15th Nov 2003 18:00 GMT+1. Place is Gamespy unrated room 4. All players are invited to participate. The prize for all efforts will be honour and pride in the RoN community as well as on our web site.

You can go directly to the sign-up page.
posted by Tim at 7:20 AM

HalfLotus posted at Ron Universe another reprint of an old strategy he developed back in the Apolyton days. This one is titled Egyptian One City Raiding.

What follows is a fun strategy that uses the Egyptian 'super-city' to good effect. As we know they can build 7 farms per city and start with a free granary in the capitol. You'll stay with one city early on and build some Egyptian unique Horse Archers for raiding. This is carried out much earlier than standard HA raiding and can obliterate the economy of an unprepared opponent. During the raids, you'll expand your economy and territory aggressively

Once again, this is how you write up a strategy. There are two example games, located here and here.
posted by Tim at 6:45 AM