Playing nice

I have been doing better in Through The Ages against the AI, and just got my best score today.

Barbarossa into Napoleon - I warred and warred and warred some more, resolving a culture war on all three opponents on my three final turns.  Smash!  I do not cooperate, I take what I want.

Sometimes though, I like to look at competitive games and imagine what they would look like as a cooperative game.  For example, last year at WBC I spent some time with people figuring out what the maximum score you could get in Castles of Mad King Ludwig would be.  You have to look at the game totally differently of course, and it is interesing to imagine how differently the game plays when the goals shift.

This week I tried that same sort of thing with Through The Ages.  I wanted to see what the highest possible score you could get for a single player would be.  Clearly the game has a lot of RNG so mathing out the perfect score would be a monumental effort - instead, I just wanted to try playing a 4 player game where the goal for all 4 players was to maximize player 1's score.

Think for a minute on what you think that score would be.

I thought for 15 minutes or so and came up with 2500 as my guess.  The key difference in the game is that it would be *drastically* longer.  You want as much time as possible to rack up as much culture as possible, so everyone mostly just takes the single end card each turn.  Player 1 needs to corral all the culture at the end of the game, but that is easy to do by having all the other players make as much culture as they can and then declare culture wars on player 1.  Since player 1 is the only one with any military, they can easily vacuum up all culture in the game.

I spent five hours running through a game in hotseat mode, where unfortunately I had to watch a recap of every turn before each player got to play, making this a tedious affair.  Here was the result:

Just shy of 3000 culture.  I screwed up my second to last turn though, and should have had over 3000. I forgot to scoop up a random tech, and it cost me.  The other 3 players scored some on the final turn and collected some impacts, so even though they all zeroed out their culture on the final turn they still got quite a lot of points!  I feel good about my 2500 estimate, as even though I was off by 500, I certainly got the ballpark right.  The main reason I underestimated was that I assumed the players would take a total of 5 cards per turn between them, but by the time I got to the end game I realized that no extra cards were worth taking, even if the ordering was really annoying.  Everyone just took whatever the last card was, no exceptions, and that extra game length gave me a lot more points that I had thought.  The table was making ~150 culture a turn, so even a couple extra turns is a huge swing.

There were some things that I hadn't quite counted on.  Captain Cook was an absolute monster, giving me 12 culture a turn for almost all of Ages 2 and 3.   I also set up the game so that I could win some big wars over territory and science in the midgame, but that might not have been such a good idea.  Player 1 got so many yellow cubes from colonies and had so much science production that winning those wars wasn't that great - the other players needed those cubes to maximize their own culture generation!  

I ended up at 222 Strength, which is kind of hilarious, but I could have done it with much less.  The other players had tons of turns to declare culture wars and hand me all their stuff.  Also the game has some glitches and struggles when you do things like this - it turns out that culture numbers greater than 999 cause issues at times, and the displays for colonies and wonders start to be a problem when you have 11 colonies and 10 wonders.  I also discovered that you absolutely have to maximize your civil actions, because when you have 9 wonders already in play you have to have 10 civil actions to take that last wonder!  It was totally playable, but things occasionally looked ... a little weird.

I am sure that with better play and luck I could get a much higher score yet.  I don't know if breaking 4000 is possible with a normal deck distribution, but I am sure if you could lay out the deck exactly the way you want you could get massively higher than that, surely as much as 5000 under ideal circumstances.  Given the way hotseat games work with the app though, I am not looking forward to trying this a bunch of times.  5 hours of clicking through warnings about unused civil actions and corruption is not much fun.

Not quite Alpha

I have been playing a bunch of Through The Ages against AIs.  I like playing against humans in theory, but in practice they spend time taking their turns, don't like it when I just wander away for an hour, and otherwise have needs.

AIs don't have needs!  They play exactly when I want them to.  So much more convenient than meat sacks.

The AI in TTA is quite good.  I have been playing a bunch of Skyrim and Civ 6 lately, so I have been exposed to hilariously bad AIs, which may have lowered my standards some.  Watching Civ 6 AIs send endless troops to their deaths and declare war on enemies they can't even reach doesn't fill me with a sense of awe, and laughing as I slowly whittle down Giants with my bow because they can't climb onto the rock I am standing on is no less silly.

TTA is vastly simpler to program than Civ 6 or Skyrim, no doubt.  Navigating terrain is a huge thorny mess, so it should be no surprise that the simple integers of TTA are much easier to solve. 

I seem to be able to crush the maximum difficulty AI consistently now, but I have managed to fail twice.  The first failure was just a second place finish that happened because one AI managed to be the punching bag and the other two stole all of its culture before I could resolve my first war on culture.  Some bad RNG on events in addition to poor military card draws left me unable to win. 

The other time was far more clear:  I got cocky and figured the AIs wouldn't beat me up for a round.  I didn't have any military bonus cards, but I had a decent hand size.  Surely they would respect the hand size, right?  Instead of respecting me, they resolved two aggressions, blowing up my buildings and taking my rocks.  Next turn they took my rocks again, killed a population, and declared a war over territory.  I gracefully resigned, realizing that I had entered the death spiral from which nobody emerges intact.

So lesson learned there.  The AIs will build military and kill you, if you let them.  Don't let them.  In fact, this trend is stark.  In my games with humans the scores are often fairly high as some people go for massive culture generation.  In my games with AIs though, the scores are miserably low.  It is always a hardcore military race ended by massive wars on culture with whoever fell behind. 

In fact, I have never yet built a library or theatre building.  Two whole *types* of buildings, and none ever created by me.  How can you afford such things?  If you build them, violent people will show up, tear them down, and equip more violent people with the remains.  My mind is filled with images of Knights armed with violins and armoured with pieces of bookshelves.  Better to build your own violent people to tear down the libraries and theatres created by others than face such humiliation.

It makes leaders that focus on libraries and theatres seem silly.  I look at them and laugh.  Sure, I could get more culture if I had a huge culture engine.  But how am I ever going to have a huge culture engine with all the ravening hordes at the gates?

When I first started playing this game Umbra told me about his Plan A:  Get to 70+ military strength at the end of the game and drop a huge war on culture or two on the last two turns to crush people.  This plan works, and I have been following it avidly.  I feel like if I am going to play against great players I will have to have more things in my toolbox than this, but so far it feels like this is the way to beat the AIs consistently.

Double team

I am in another season of Through The Ages on MeepleLeague.  It doesn't seem like it is going so well.  In one game I really boxed myself into a corner by relying on Stonehenge for early science.  It gives a big burst of science at the start, and I didn't manage to get a good way to get science production, relying on the fixed amount Stonehenge gave me.  Then I got pinned into a spot where I had enough science to play an Age 2 science tech, but I was falling behind in military too.  If I catch up in military my science will take even longer to get online, but if I build science I might get beat up.

My situation was precarious.  I had seven cards in hand, and 11 Strength.  Two opponents had 18 Strength each.  I had a couple of 4 Strength cards, so I figured I was safe for a single turn and I could go for science.  After all, the first opponent that aggressions me has no chance, and they should know that.  Are they really going to toss away resources just to set up the second opponent to wreck me and take all the profits?

Yes.  Yes they are.

I ended up going the science gambling route and it was a catastrophe.  I stopped the first aggression, but the second one blew up the science I had just built and also all my happiness.  The first opponent, the one who I thought wouldn't hit me because why give the other leader a huge bonus, set me up for continual tragedy.

In retrospect I don't know if my gamble was right or not.  It sure worked out badly, but that doesn't mean it was wrong to try.  If I just plug away at Strength I am still behind, and I don't know how I am ever going to get my infrastructure caught up.  If I am aiming for first place I think the gamble is right - assume that player 1 is greedy and won't toss resources for no purpose.  But if I am aiming for 'not last' then my play was terrible. 

I suppose this is the sort of spot where you have to know your opponents.  Some people will be happy to have my stuff get wrecked because that eliminates one competitor, even if it doesn't help them directly.  Some people don't want the other player to grab all my stuff and run away with the game. 

In any case I scooped up Ghandi so it will be extremely costly for people to continue to beat me up and take all my stuff.  I won't win, that much is sure, but maybe I can manage to squeeze out 'not last', and that is about all I can hope for when every single urban building I had was burned down in a single turn.

Lesson learned:  You still have to get science production going, even if you happen to have a bunch of science sitting around.

Also, don't fall behind in strength.  Culture is for suckers.

I am not a bank

When people were teaching me how to play Through The Ages, (TTA) they told me that one of the key things in the game is making sure you keep up with military.  Being not-last is crucial, but even if you are safely above the last place in military there is a huge benefit to more military - you can beat up the person in last and take their stuff.

The person that falls behind and gets continually pounded is the bank, and if other people are raiding the bank, you want to be raiding the bank too.  You won't win if people are resolving huge wars on the person in last and you just try to build infrastructure the normal way.  Get a piece of the action!

I was worried in my league games that I would be the bank.  I didn't know what the heck I was doing.   I didn't know what the cards did, I was confused about many of the basic rules, and I kept on making errors for both of those reasons.

Turns out, I wasn't the bank.  I ended up with a 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 4th showing, which is pretty great for having gone in with only a sketchy sense of the rules.  I feel like I earned that result, because I really screwed up the game where I came 4th, (discarding wonders that are almost finished is bad!) and I quite liked my play in the game I won.  It was a tight finish with me only coming out ahead by 2 points, but it felt good.

One of those 2nd places was a gong show though.  I declared an early war against a player 6 military behind me.  I calculated that he could only gain 4 on his turn, so I was going to steal a yellow token from him.  Then Napoleon flipped off the top, and this allowed him to jump to 2 military ahead of me and I lost a yellow token instead.  Whoops!  That player then proceeded to rush massively ahead of everyone else in military and ruthlessly beat us all up for the rest of the game.  I managed to hold onto 2nd place because after pillaging and warring us all into submission he finished it off with two huge wars for culture and stripped 50 points away from the last two players, but left me alone.

Without those two gigantic wars our point spread is something like 120-140, a tight game indeed.  With those wars though, the winner crushed us by 110, and I beat the other two players by ~50.  It looks like I secured 2nd by virtue of looking weak and harmless, not even worth warring with.

Note to self:  Don't declare early wars unless you are really, really sure you aren't going to lose them.

I quite like TTA.  The flavour is solid, and the gameplay is a fun puzzle.  Some parts of it do feel strange though, like the numbers don't quite work.  Mostly I am referring to the Age 3 civil technologies.  I was looking at each of them trying to figure out the ROI on them, and they all looked mighty suspicious.  You only get about 5 turns in Age 3, and building one of the Age 3 civil techs costs ~10 science, takes 2 actions, and this gives you the opportunity to spend 6 rocks and 1 action to upgrade a worker from age 1 to age 3.  If I imagine that I upgrade 2 workers, and that an action can be spent for 2 rocks, this means I need to spend 10 science and 20 rocks to get 6 production per turn.  I need the full 5 turns just to break even!  If I get that tech down a turn or two after age 3 starts, I can never recoup the cost. 

Sure, if I have actions / rocks / science that is worthless then I may want to turn them into something better, but generally it just seems like a terrible investment.  I suppose if you desperately need food for example and you are stuck on the age A farm and you have lots of science and rocks then age 3 food could be good, but that seems pretty narrow.

I could improve my rate of return by upgrading 4 workers instead of 2, but then I am making 20 rocks / science / whatever per turn. That much of any one thing seems tough to use effectively, and even so I am still taking 4 turns to recoup costs.  I can't see how I get all that done in the first round of age 3 anyway, so it seems like a losing proposition.

What I really like is the age 1 techs.  They don't cost that much science, they stay out a long time, and they are an enormous advantage over age A.  I am pretty happy to take all age 1 techs, quite frankly, and use all my science later on to buy things like Military Theory and Air Forces, as well as at least one type of age 3 military unit.  I can't expect to actually get all of that of course, but my game plan involves getting 1 tech for rocks, food, science, and happy and only getting those techs from age 1 and 2.  At age 3, I care about military and culture.  The age 3 civic techs are a waste from what I can see.

However, I have only played 7 games in total, so I probably don't know anything.  Can anyone with more experience tell me where I am wrong on this?

I need tedium

At WBC this year a couple gamer buddies of mine taught me Through The Ages.  I didn't actually play a game though, just learned the rules.  They sold me on getting the app, and when I got home I played through it a couple of times.

That game is THICK.  It took me hours to play through even against only a couple of AIs who never hesitate or think.

I learned that I can beat the Training AI on my first run through, and the level 1 AI on my second game.  I also learned that playing online for my first games has some real issues.

When you play in person you actually have to move all the bits around.  That is annoying for sure, especially with all the bits that TTA has, but moving those bits gets you accustomed to how all the bits are supposed to move.  You actually know the rules!  When you play online for your first game all kinds of rules are handled by the machine and you never end up learning them.

For example, in my second game I was in a spot where I seemed sure to lose.  I just didn't have enough points to beat one of the AIs.  I durdled through my last turn, playing as many things as possible for fun, and then noticed that I was ahead instead of behind.  Juh?

It turns out I got a bunch of points for just playing out my cards.  I didn't know that was a rule, and had to try to figure out what the rule was by replaying my cards slowly and watching my point total shift.  I still don't know the rule properly... I got 3 points for some cards, but I don't know if that is 3 points for an Age 3 card, or 3 points for any cards, or what else it might be.  If I was playing in person I would have actually watched players moving tokens around and been able to ask what was up.  Against the AI though, it managed to happen in the background without me noticing.

I need to sit down with some experienced players and actually shove all those stupid tokens around a time or two so I can actually figure out what the heck is going on in that game.  Tedious counting and positioning, here I come!

Also, I need to play a bazillion times.  Every turn I was up against some problem of my own creation - not enough workers, and 1 food short of being able to make another one.  Too many rocks, and not enough places to spend them.  Not enough rocks, and a wonder that is going to blow up when the age changes.  I kept on making errors that cost me small amounts of stuff, and it is clear that I am going to need to play one hundred times to be competent at the game.

I can *feel* how bad I am.  I can see all the ways a good player would crush me, but I can't see them until I have already screwed everything up.  There are some games where I can see further, plan better, and my instincts work, and this one is going to take a long time to get there.

There is a league where I can play TTA but I haven't signed up.  I would just end up being the bank, the player with a bad army who everyone beats up to steal resources and points.  No point in playing there until I can be vaguely competent, I think.  Once I can beat the hardest AIs consistently I will be ready to face actual human opposition.