So I saw Kill Bill at a matinee showing yesterday evening. That is, Kill Bill Voume I, Quentin Tarantino's forth film.

Uma Thurman is going to KILL BILL, in Quentin Tarantino's latest film, about a former assassin betrayed by her boss, Bill (David Carradine). Four years after surviving a bullet in the head, the bride (Thurman) emerges from a coma and swears revenge on her former master and his deadly squad of international assassins.

This is undoubtedly one of the most violent and goriest films ever made by a major studio. This makes Scarface look tame by comparison. Although violent and gory, this is some of Tarantino's best work, taking on the old chop-suey Samarai movies with a bit of his own brand of frenetic kilm-making. I recommend it if you like action movies and lots of blood. And I mean LOTS. We're talking geysers here...

posted by Tim at 3:17 PM

This game is not very good. Unfortunately, it was the most interesting game I had all week. My opponent said he was not an expert, so I suggested a skill handicap of +5. I don't see much talk about or use of skill handicaps, but they could go a long way to making the game more fun for the average players and more challenging for the experts. I hear some people leaving the community because they can't get "high rated" games. Damn, if you're so good, just give everyone else a +20 handicap! Another interesting thing is my opponent was Mayan - and I still rushed him! Here's this week's SPOTLIGHT GAME.
posted by Tim at 10:00 PM

Assuming the distribution of rare resources is completely random, what would you expect to get near your cities in a typical one on one game? This is a difficult question, partly because their appearance is so random and partly because there are maps that have special arrangements of rares (African Watering Hole and Colonial Powers come to mind). But I tried to do this anyway, just to see how things shake up. To start with I made some assumptions. If you want to use different assumptions based on your playstyle/experience, you can.

• Access to four rares
• There are 23 possible rares that appear in ancient age (I could be off in this). There are more rares, but they appear at later ages. Amber, Bison, Citrus, Copper, Cotton, Diamonds, Dye, Furs, Gems, Horses, Marble, Obsidian, Papyrus, Peacocks, Relics, Salt, Silk, Silver, Spice, Sugar, Tobacco, Wine, & Wool.
• Distribution is random (i.e., one rare does not appear any more frequently than another)

Based on this, you could calculate your expected take from rare resources. We take the average amount of each resource produced the potential early rares. This comes out to 13.9 food, 17.4 timber, 19.1 wealth, 13.9 metal, and 15.7 knowledge. Of course, you're never going to get 13.9 food from rares. You're probably going to get either 0, 10, 20, or maybe even 30 total food. Your probability of getting four non-food rares is probably ~20%, but you chance of getting four food rares is less than 1%. Understanding the expected amount can help you with planning. But at the end of the day doesn't mean that much. You will still have to scout effectively to find them, and you're probably still going to make a merchant to collect it.

posted by Tim at 12:06 PM

Rohag over at RON Universe (among others) has called me "another gaming luminary." I think that's a compliment. And he mentioned me with HalfLotus "one of the most prominent players in the community." Thanks Rohag!
posted by Tim at 8:43 AM

Promising news from Big Huge Games:

We are currently working toward a final version of patch 3 and so we are closing down sign-ups for the public patch test at this time. Those of you who already have the patch are welcome to continue using it, and our feedback form will remain active for you. We will keep you posted on the status of the patch as we move forward.

Let's hope this means they are closing in on completion of the patch. I still can't use the in-game Gamespy launcher with my Windows XP; although I can play fine through Gamespy Arcade, things like ratings don't show up in that interface. Not to mention I have load and unload the game every time. GRRRR.
posted by Tim at 8:36 AM

Over at Apolyton, HalfLotus has stumbled onto how RON is meant to be played.

I've gone through several phases: booming, rushing, classical stuff, medieval stuff, raiding, etc. With each new build or strategy I try, I find it to be generally effective, but nearly impossible to "maximize" due to the numerous changing factors from game to game (maps, rares, etc). Rather than try to maximize the efficiency of a certain strategy for each map type, rare resource combination, and nation match-up, I'm having more success (and fun) adapting on the fly to a strategy that is best suited to my current resource situation.

UPDATE: I differ from this opinion in that I feel its possible to "wargame" certain situations ahead of time and have some sort of objective and strategy. You may find that in-game activities force you to alter your plans somewhat, but at least you have a default.
posted by Tim at 9:43 AM

In accordance with strict o4b policy to post all losses, here is this game against LowGear. My wife showed up unexpectedly and I had to quickly bail in this game. My apologies to LowGear. GG

It's an interesting game for two reasons:
1. I rushed with Incan, sacked his capitol, and then boomed.
2. I forgot I was playing Incan and didn't start mining metal until WAAAAY late. That won't happen again! (I hope.)

At the end, I had almost 2x the economy and was almost 2 ages up. But a loss is a loss.
posted by Tim at 9:27 PM

Saw a link to the Alliance Francophone at RON Universe. This is a French RON strategy site. So it's in French. Duh (although they kindly place a BabelFish link for automatic translation for the non-Franophones). Some of their articles are translations of English strategies; other articles are original, including the "We Surrender" strategy.

Just kidding, of course :-)
posted by Tim at 9:04 PM

The bar has just been lowered another notch ... errrrr ... raised another ... oh never mind.
We have a new faster time! 12:17. Still using SCI2 -> CLASSICAL. Took RollYerOwn's advice and ditched the mines altogether. Stumbled through with +24 metal. Getting early Gunpowder (sub 11 minutes) really helped.
posted by Tim at 7:44 PM

Over at Heavens Forum, blue_thunder started a thread asserting that perhaps Colossus is the best wonder. So what is the best wonder? Originally, I had said:

I like Pyramids. You get the food bonus and the +1 town bonus. Those are good early on. The Colossus is better but it's not as good as the SOL, IMO. You talk about wonders being a waste of resources - try upgrading a huge army!

But after running the Challenge Game, we've seen that wealth is incredibly important to driving knowledge, and knowledge is the single biggest factor limiting age advancement. Colossus gives you a +30% bonus to wealth, which means if you have +100 wealth already, it's payback on wealth alone will be in a little over 3 minutes. Total payback would be just under 7 minutes. So, I'm probably going to have to give the nod to the Colossus in the early stages. Later on though, I'm definitely going for the SOL.

UPDATE: There's an interesting Apolyton thread on Wonders. And I'm sure there are other "best wonder" threads out there as well.
posted by Tim at 10:10 AM

It occurs to me that enlightenment age may be too early to use as a test. What we're really trying to compare is an early II versus COM2. But if we would never get to +150 anyway, then COM2 is useless in this test. But that defies reason since, you'd need those resources to make military. Of course, there IS some efficacy to this. The resources devoted to getting to those later ages could be used to make military and thus conduct early attacks with superior troops. This could be a proxy for it. However, it's clear that to achieve this goal you're forced to do things differently than you would if you knew the game were going to last a long time. Taking the learnings from this Challenge Game might help shape the next one.

Perhaps a refined test goal would be to include a certain level of military at a certain point in time. If we defined the goal as a healthy military force upgraded and ready to attack at a certain age, then that would have real-game implications.

We'll finish up Challenge Game 1 and see if anybody can break the current record of 12:23 held by Buckets (has to be a film!)

Meanwhile, I'm looking for suggestions for Challenge Game 2. Perhaps fastest to Medieval or Gunpowder army consisting of 1 General, 1 Supply cart, 2 siege, 5 fully upgraded knights, 5 fully upgraded archers and 5 fully light infantry, 1 explorer (and maybe a spy or two, if available). Thoughts? What would be useful?

The clear thing to realize is that researches and expansion which improve the economy (normally no-brainers) might actually SLOW your ability to get an army assembled. And thus in competition, you might have a bigger econ (temporarily) but you'll find yourself losing cities to an early attack.
posted by Tim at 9:55 AM

While doing some of the analysis for the resource equalization post, I noticed a common trend in most of the games I saw. In analyzing typical booming and anti-rush build order patterns, I found that most players research CIV1 pretty early and usually build their second expansion town around the 2:00 mark. I also found that a 3-4 hoplite rush could enter enemy territory as early as 2:00. Even the most wary boomer will usually drop a second town before researching MIL1, so it appeared that there was a window of opportunity to easily capture the enemy's first expansion town. On that topic, here's what we said two weeks ago:

Another interesting note is the possibility of a quick attack on the second town at the 2:00 mark. This is less devastating than going after the capital, but it also has a higher chance of victory. There's no chance of a temple. There's fewer villagers who can garrison or repair the city. And you will be attacking almost a full minute before the capital attack. While it seems absurd to pass up the sack bonus, the possibility of taking and holding this town is pretty high. The opponent will probably still be stuck at +60/60 econ and you can send villagers to repair the town and use it as a forward base. Not to mention that you've created a 240 resource differential. You've gotten a town for free while he's still got to build another and go MIL1 and build a barracks right away.

This may be true, but given that the capitol offers a juicy +500-to-all sack bonus, the expansion city seems less attractive as a target. In support of this, at Heavens Forum, Apollyon asserted that "If you can sack the second [city,] you sure as hell can sack the capitol." At first glance, I'd agree with this statement. But after further reflection, there are definitely scenarios where you might be able to sack the expansion while an attack on the capitol might fail. As everyone knows, if you rush and don't capture anything, you're pretty much screwed. So if you've committed to the rush, but your attack on the capitol looks too risky, you might go for the expansion. Examples of when this might be a good idea:

• The enemy has scouted you already (i.e. seen your troops and barracks) and is planning defenses at his capitol


• The capitol is further back, forcing you to travel through enemy territory. You're likely to be seen, losing the element of surprise


• The enemy has built a temple at his capitol adding +25% hit points


• The number of villagers near the capitol makes getting slingers in unmolested too risky

So why would this likely be more successful? By attacking the expansion:

• You are hitting up to a full minute before a normal ancient rush would occur. 4 HI can be attacking the town usually not later than 2:15-2:30. 4 HI will take down a small city in under 1 minute


• The enemy will likely have at most 1-2 villagers nearby to either garrison or attack slingers


• The enemy may not even have sufficient food this early to immediately upgrade to MIL1, buying you extra attacking time


• Defensive buildings (like temples) won't be built yet on the expansion city


• The enemy's barracks will likely be built by the capitol and far enough away from his expansion that he cannot easily get troops into the defense

"Okay, so I can get the town, but I don't get the sack bonus!" Yes, this is true. But all is not lost. Your opponent has just spent 108 food and 120 food and timber building that town. You got it for free. This partly makes up for the huge expense of MIL1, barracks, troops, and foregoing +50 ruins. But no, it's certainly not as good as the sack bonus. The other major difference from the capitol sack rush is here we plan to HOLD the city. You've already got a big lead on local military, all you need to do is maintain that lead and make the appropriate counters. You've now got a bigger production economy than the enemy, so that shouldn't be too hard, although you may have fewer stockpiled resources. Meanwhile, you're going to start using his city as an econ point. And knowing the enemy, you probably just captured his juiciest wood location. Send new villagers from your capitol to use any farms or lumber camps left behind. Don't forget to use a villager to begin repairing the city. Played properly, you WILL assimilate it, and you want to make it as difficult as possible to retake. Unlike a capitol sack, the expansion is closer to our home, so we can continue to reinforce with troops and villagers.

The key to all of this is keeping strict tabs on the enemy. In order to pull this off, you need to know what he's up to.
The enemy has three main strategic choices:

• Build lots of troops from his barracks and attempt to retake the city


• Ignore your attack and build another expansion somewhere else and continue booming


• Some combination: train defensive troops and build a second city when he can somewhere else

If the enemy tries lays down a barracks and trains up troops to retake the city, he's likely going to lose. You're already ahead on troops and time is ticking away on the assimilation meter. By the time he gets a barracks up, you should have 4-7 troops: 4 HI and 3 LI. Archers will be his first choice, but those require significant amounts of wealth. You should have enough slingers to deal with those. If you see him making other troop types, ensure you have the right counters. A good player will keep his troops garrisoned until he has enough to attack. You may not know how many or what type of troops he's got until he attacks. This may result in you over-producing or under-producing troops. This is why you have to see if he's building a second city and doing #2 or #3.

Another alternative for the enemy is to ignore your attack altogether and make a new city. This is probably not wise. A second expansion city will fall just as quickly as the first one, particularly if he makes it too far away from any defenses he might have. Also, because you have a large force RIGHT ON HIS DOORSTEP, he has to be wary of you continuing to build up and going after his capitol. At a minimum you should expect a competent player to research MIL1, build a barracks, and train at least a few troops. If he's read the forums, he'll probably build the barracks on the other side of his capitol. This is good for you. It enables you to conduct harassing attack on his capitol or farms with your troops while forcing him to ungarrison his troops to shoo you away. If you sense weakness and think you've got enough troops, a final push on the capitol could win the game, but this is risky.

Probably the best course of action for him is to make a significant quantity of defensive troops (archers & slingers) such that he can fend off any further pushes and build a replacement city. This new city would ideally be placed so that he's got access to wood - his second-best spot - and so it's within range of his barracks, so he can defend both expansion and capitol. His best approach is to milk the remaining econ advantage he has and advance faster to a later age where he can dislodge your troops. This middle ground approach is probably the best for him and the most dangerous for you. If you attack one of his cities and he counters you, then you're likely going to lose the captured town. On the other hand, if you do nothing, he may recover economically.

So it all comes down to maintaining the initiative. The best advantages you have are the already sizable army you've got and its placement right in the heart of his territory. Try to keep tabs on him and keeping your troop strength above his. Probe aggressively for any weaknesses and try to discern his troops strength. And good luck!

UPDATE: I think I'm gonna start calling this the EXPANSION RUSH.
posted by Tim at 6:53 AM

WOW.

If repeat business is the sincerest form of flattery, the sports cable giant ESPN has very good things to say about chess. In January they showed hours of live coverage of the final game between Kasparov and Junior. The ratings and reaction were so good that ESPN will cover all four of the X3D Kasparov-Fritz games in November. This time they will show a remarkable 17.5 hours of chess during the week of the match!

via Pejmanesque.
posted by Tim at 6:40 PM

RollYerOwn reports he's done a 12:23 time with what I think was a SC1 -> COM1 -> CIV1 -> SCI2 -> CLASSICAL. It's hard to tell because he didn't outline his build and he didn't post a game. Post your games people! The value is not in stating your time; it's in comparing the different approaches.
posted by Tim at 2:02 PM

Illustrative example why you shouldn't talk smack. Mr. "We all FRiggin know how to do the rush and how to the counter it [sic]" Raven gets it handed to him by ... *GASP* ... an ancient rush. It's not like this was a big surprise given the big argument over at Heavens Forum. I didn't even bother going after his capitol (which was undefended BTW). Instead, I used the technique I alluded to in this early post on resource equalization during rushes, whereby you constrain the enemy by hitting their expansions. To top it all off, he displays his true colors by "ungracefully" dropping from the game as I begin killing off his classical army. Game is here or at Carch's site. Should be available soon. Thanks Carch!

UPDATE: So Raven tracks me down in a game room and says to me, "So you're making a fool out of me now?" I reply, "No, you're making a fool out of yourself." Then he starts spamming "hahahaha," so I kicked him.

UPDATE II: Game is available at Carch's site now.

UPDATE III: Raven responds on Heavens Forum:

I knew 04b was gonna brag (what a bitttch), I knew this guy thought he was ubber leet when he started talking about beating seven toughest ai (sigh) kids today...

Whatever happened to gaming etiquette? Like saying "gg" before resigning. Or "You beat me fair and square, but I'll get you next time!" And is it now the standard to end a game you're losing by disconnecting? As for bragging, the game was going to get posted win or lose. If I lost, it was going in the "How to defend against the rush column," and if I won, it was going in the "Resource equalization during early rushes column."

UPDATE IV: Raven makes nice:

O4b I dont wanna get into a argument or a big deal (seeing as you already have) I lost, I acted stupid, I didnt do the right thing, you obviously have this thing down to a science, I hope you had fun, Gg if I forgot, I didnt disconnect on purpose Btw, I got a pop up that lagged me out (but your probably thinking I'm making excuses) end of story, take your article off the site and end this...geeeez

Well, "GG" to you as well, Raven. I hope we get to play more games as exciting as this in the future!
posted by Tim at 12:15 PM