SGOTM2 - Spoiler 2. End Game Submitted.

Once a team has completed the game, a nominated member of the team can post a continuation summary of their game from the previous spoiler. Once this has been done, the rest of the team can participate in the discussion.

Once again, cross lurking by team members whose games have not been completed will not be tolerated. Please don't risk the disqualification of the entire team by violating this rule. :)


Potential points for discussion:-

1. Did the changes made from the original GOTM8 reduce the effect of prior "spoiler" knowledge? (The changes made were a) moving the international date line, b) changing the start by replacing a jungle tile with game on forest and moving the wheat, and c) removing all goody huts within a 12 tile radius of the start position.

2. Why did you choose to go for the sponsored variant (or not), and how did you go about achieving it?

3. Technical aspects of the game in general. Was it to easy, too difficult, too long, too short etc.

You can obviously discuss what you like within reason; these are just a few things that would particularly interest me.

In short: We went for domination with a very simple strategy: get to military tradtion as fast as possible and use tons of cavalry to conquer until we crossed the domination limit.

In more detail:
We entered the Middle Ages 90BC and got monotheism for free. We had massive barbarian uprising in the west from 2 camps and the east from 1 camp. We lost a sword on a mountain to the 5th barb horseman, but our border towns were well defended and all barbarians died attacking. We got some elites, but had no losses.

Our 1st suicide galley succeeded and we contacted the other civs 160AD. We immediately slowed them down by declaring war on Japan and signed India as an ally. And a few turns later China also.

Since we wanted to dominate, we went monarchy and stayed it till the end. We did no waste any money on building temples (or even cathedrals). We built no universities nor banks. We also could run 0% luxury tax. Big cities got markets and combined with 3 mp, this was enough to prevent riots. As a consequence our Firaxis score remained low, because it is (partly) based on happy citizens.

We killed most of France (apart from 1 remote town) with our swords and horses (getting The Pyramids in Paris). This also gave us a Great Leader for our Forbidden Palace. Then we attacked England, the goal here was to capture London and The Great Library before finishing Sun Tzu's to trigger our Golden Age. This happened 640AD and pushed our research further until we learned mt in 690AD.

Regrettably, the Chinese built the Great Lighthouse and we needed to research astronomy before shipping our cavalry to the other continent (they mopped up England, Russia, and the last French city inbetween).

When we attacked India 780AD, we had 92 cavalry: resistance was futile! By disconnecting saltpeter, we could build 30 shield horsemen and upgrade them to cavalry for 50g each, since we also built Leonardo's. We had tons of money, because after astronomy we stopped research. Rapid conquest and hurrying libraries for culture eypansion (all other builds switched to wealth; we did not need any more units) achieved domination 910AD. :D

We might have won earlier (up to 100 years?) but we wasted some time becaue of non-perfect settler factory management in the early game (towns 5-15; probably with the biggest effect)
failing to really improve our rank 1 cities by cutting the jungle faster,i.e. not enough workers
not starting pre-builds for Sun Tzu's and Leonardo's earlier
not getting the Great Lighthouse (bad luck not getting another Great Leader, but you never get them when you need them).
We never ever had the slightest doubt of not winning, the question was only when we would dominate. :lol:

We look forward to SGOTM3!

To answer some of your questions MB:

1. I'm torn on how to respond to this. My only knowledge of GOTM8 was through cracker's article, and in that respect yes I liked the fact that you forced players to make different decisions in the opening moves. But if I had previously played GOTM8, I don't know how much difference it would have made. It seems the best solution to reducing prior spoiler knowledge is to change which civ a particular game is played as. For instance, GOTM8 as the Indians. The other option is of course to create all new games for the SGOTM (bring on the mods :D ).

2. The consensus was that we not go for the sponsored variant because, given this particular game, it could be over long before the variant conditions were met. After lurking I must confess that I'm intrigued by some of the maneuvering going on to achieve the prescribed victory condition.

3. Level: I like to see it mixed up. A team can always increase the difficulty by using XCC or AW variants if they feel the level is too low. I would definately like to see some more difficult games in the future.
Length of game: We were averaging 40 turns a week and since we went for early domination, the game was manageable. Assuming the deadline is two months we might have been pushing it had we gone for the variant.

PTW 1.27f

Roster:
Bede
conehead234
grs
Kuningas
t.neo
wotan

"Massive barbarian uprisings near Bonn."

This quote from a turn log highlights the biggest error made by this team. Bede misread the map early and suggested settling to the south and west of Berlin, rather than the north and west. As the Russians and French were located to the south and only the English to the west it seemed to make sense and the suggestion was accepted. As a result our new towns were surrounded by jungle, we could not take advantage of the relatively shield rich plains to the north, and we paid for it by suffering barbarian incursions that lasted a long time and required the expenditure of resources (troops) that would have gone to the south.

In 290BC the German people revolted against their tribal masters and declared their intention of becoming the German Republic. Concurrently the German army of swordsmen began their march to Paris.

In 230BC the French revolt against their tribal leaders just as the German swords are in position to attack Paris. Never one to refuse an opportunity the German general declares war on the French, even though he knows there are no reinforcements available, and won't be for another forty years or so. The German tribal council had already conceived the plan of gifting our government knowledge to the French just before declaring war, but the French spent their whole treasury buying Monarchy from the English, so we didn't have to.

Paris fell as soon as our swords reached her gates, in 190BC, and and most of the southern part of the continent were in German hands by 310AD (28 turns later).

The year 230BC marks the beginning of the continental wars, first with the French, then the Russians, then the English, and then the French again, until the continent was ours. The French hung on to 600AD as they had a settler in a boat once we had taken their last town in 550.

During the war we made contact with the other continent in 90AD with a suicide galley and discover an Asian stronghold (Chinese, Japanese and Indians), yet only one of these nations is even close to technical parity with the Germans.

By 530AD the Japanese had established two beachhead towns on what was soon to be our continent, so we declared war, captured the towns and hired the Chinese and the Indians to keep them busy on their own continent (while weakening all three for the eventual invasion and slowing down the research pace).

Japan was our last opponent. Once the Germans secured the home continent we continued to build towns and villages to control all the land and coast and fought a lightning war with Japan on their continent to secure the territory needed for a domination victory in 980AD.

Germany never built a wonder and did not reach the end of the Middle Ages tech tree. Our miltary domination came with swordsmen and knights, and one successful naval battle against the French.

MB's Discussion Points

1. Did the changes made from the original GOTM8 reduce the effect of prior "spoiler" knowledge? (The changes made were a) moving the international date line, b) changing the start by replacing a jungle tile with game on forest and moving the wheat, and c) removing all goody huts within a 12 tile radius of the start position.

As far as I know no one on Team Kunningas had any prior knowledge.

2. Why did you choose to go for the sponsored variant (or not), and how did you go about achieving it?

The sponsored variant was never really discussed as the consensus of the team from the start supported early conquest/domination victory with maximum score

3. Technical aspects of the game in general. Was it to easy, too difficult, too long, too short etc.

Speaking only for myself here: The game was well within the skill level of the players on the team. There were four veterans and two relative new-comers (conclusion based solely on post count) and the game played comfortably for all, I think. If anything it may have been a little too much like an old pair of loafers worn only inside the house....

For future games I would like to suggest choosing a nation which does not have the benefit of "complementary traits". The popular combinations involving the scientific and miltaristic traits do not, IMHO, encourage "out of the box" thinking and creative solutions.

:thanx: to mad-bax, karasu, alanH and the SGOTM staff for hosting and supporting this series.

Members: akots, Bruindane, DJMGator13 & pindicator

We are playing an Always War variant. We ended the AA poised on Moscow’s doorstep. We had mainly expanded up to this point and had only battled RUS, ENG & FRA in a defensive manner, but all that was about to change. Since we are in possession of the Great Library we have had our science set to zero and have been banking the money.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots01.jpg

Our World at 150BC
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots02.jpg

130BC to 50AD (DJMGator13)
In 130BC the First Battle for Moscow took place, unfortunately our 6 Swords were not up to the challenge and were easily routed. We capture our first city in 10BC Dover, Eng. This victory is quickly followed by the Second Battle for Moscow in 10AD. I provided the following words of wisdom to my army before the second assault began “WE MUST TAKE MOSCOW BEFORE WE CAN DRINK” and a decisive victory for Germany followed. The promise of some Beck’s Dark always seems to inspire the troops. We have also founded 2 more cities during this period, bringing our total to 24.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots03.jpg

70AD to 250AD (akots)
We generate our 2nd Great Leader in 70AD and use him to create our first Army consisting of swords. France is sending the most units at us. We loss control of Moscow in 170AD, but recapture it and capture Odessa the following turn. We capture Minsk in 210AD and learn Monarchy from the Great Library in 230AD. We end 250AD in control of 30 cities and in Anarchy as we change our government.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots04.jpg

260AD to 350AD (pindicator)
This rounds starts with 3 turns remaining in our anarchy period. We have also started founding cities outside of our RCP pattern. We have produced two good rings around Berlin and are now settling in the best available spot, sticking with our 3-tile distance for founding our cities. Our cities without barracks we set to produce catapults. We become a Monarchy 280AD. We dispatch of all the French troops to our east and now face a steady assault in the Moscow and Minsk area. We end 350AD in control of 33 cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots05.jpg

360AD to 450AD (Bruindane)
As posted in Bruindane’s turn log: “There was much combat on two fronts: 1) A quick moving front against English in the west 2) a meat-grinding war against France in the East. The kill ratio was 67:8, little better than 8:1 but no great leaders produced for Germany. Russia is a non-factor, England is beaten down, and France is about the same. We have Horses and Catapults starting to make an impact on the war.” We capture 6 cities and end 450AD in control of 44 cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots06.jpg

460AD to 550AD (DJMGator13)
We begin this round by rushing 3 galleys; since we are in a commanding position on our continent it is time to find the rest of the Civs. We learn Feudalism & Theology in 510AD. Make first contact with Japan in 520AD and trade Theology, contact with RUS & ENG for Engineering, world map and contact with IND & CHN, and of course declare war. 530AD brought contact from China. We trade our territory map for their world map and 53 gold; declare war as parting gift. 540AD contact from India, nothing worth trading for so just declare war. We are now at war with everyone. A skirmish outside of London in 540AD produces our 3rd Great leader of the game, London captured the following turn. This round ends with us in control of 52 cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots07.jpg

560AD to 650AD (Bruindane)
We learn Invention in 570AD from the Great Library. We built our Foreign Palace in Leipzig in 590AD, and used our Great Leader to relocate our Palace to Hastings in 600AD. We generate our 4th Great Leader and use him to construct Sun Tzu in 610AD, triggering our Golden Age. The English are eliminated in 630AD, and Russia quickly follows in 650AD. That leaves us against only the French on our continent. We have continued to crank out our own settlers as well as capturing cities and we are now in control of 62 cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots08.jpg

660AD to 750AD (pindicator)
As posted in pindicator’s turn log: “Okay, so the RNG is like the ocean. Never turn your back on it. It'll look peaceful and accommodating, even pleasant at times when you see your 2/1/2 horsemen killing fortified 1/3 pikemen inside 12 pop towns. And then out of the blue, like a riptide it will suck away your 14hp 3/2 sword army to a 3/3 pike! Never turn your back on it.” We learn Gunpowder in 650AD. We generate our 5th Great Leader in 680AD and use him to rush Leonardo’s Workshop in Hastings. We upgrade our 5 front line spears to muskets. In 700AD we generate our 6th Great Leader and use him to create an army, which was a good thing because we loss our sword army in 740AD. In between the army exchange we learned Chivalry in 720AD and Education in 730AD, time to start our own research again. This round ends with us in control of 78 cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots09.jpg

760AD to 850AD (akots)
We have rehired our German scientists who have been on vacation since 230BC, and with a dedication of gold to our research effort we learn Astronomy in 780AD. We then set our sights on Chemistry in 4 turns. We have begun a continental library construction project as well as enacting a plan to increase our urban sprawl. As we continue our toasting of the French, we start to amass troops in Canterbury for our invasion of the other continent. 800AD sees our 7th Great Leader who rushes back to Hastings to build Copernicus’s Observatory in 820AD. Our Golden Age ends in 810AD. Our 8th Great Leader appears in 830AD and is used to rush the Heroic Epic. The French are eliminated in 830AD. Chemistry is discovered in 840AD and our German scientists now proceed to research Metallurgy. Preparations for the Great German Invasion are in full gear. We have also laid claim to two island territories NE & NW of our main continent, which brings us to a total of 104 cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots10.jpg

860AD to 950AD (DJMGator13)
The countdown to a Domination Victory has begun. At the start of this round we find ourselves 441 tiles from DOM limit, before stepping foot on the other continent. Our Urban Sprawl Project and Library Project are continuing, however there has been a call to upgrade the fleet. We learn Metallurgy in 890AD and set to Military Tradition, we will be nearly broke when we finish the research but we can send our scientists on another vacation. In 900AD our fleet upgrade is complete and we load up our 8 caravels with 21 knights and 3 muskets. In 930AD the Indians suffer a defeat and loss control of Calcutta, the first of many cities to fall to our overwhelming forces. In 940AD the scientist leave for vacation as we learn Military Tradition. We are now bringing in 351gpt and 21 members of the 1st Cavalry division are upgraded. We happen to have 7 caravels waiting for them to transport our second landing force. This round ends with the capture of the 3rd Indian city, Germany needing only 184 tiles for a Domination Victory and us in control of 122 cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots11.jpg

960AD – 1040AD (Bruindane)
As posted from Bruindane’s turn log: “Much tougher finish than expected, as both Chinese Riders and Japanese Samurai flooded the area, counter-attacking in force. Cultural defections from Karachi and Delhi decimated our initial invasion force, while the rng did us no favors.” Our Urban Sprawl project is nearing completion, so the Continental Library Construction project picks up some extra revenue and expands to include a federally funded Small Town Temple project. Our 9th and final Great Leader appears in 980AD. Delhi falls to us in 990AD, which also saw the formation of a Cavalry Army. We lost our Sword Army in 1000AD, while fighting back a JPN landing near Canterbury. CHN & IND towns are captured and added to the ever-expanding German Empire. In 1030AD we capture Tatung & Canton, and the rest of the World bows down before the Supreme Dominance of Team akots. We end the game in control of 145 cities, a Firaxis score of 6019 and a Jason score of 9368.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SP02akots12.jpg

What Ifs
Our biggest “What If” upon completion of the game was how much quicker could we have accomplished this AW Domination Victory if we did not have the long drought between our 2nd and 3rd Great Leader. We went from 70AD to 540AD in an AW game having killed several hundred units without generating a Great Leader. This cost us the building of The Great Lighthouse, which would have allowed us to find and safely transport troops to the other continent earlier in the game. This drought also affected our Foreign Palace and the relocation of our Palace to establish a second core.

MB’s Discussion Points
As for the GOTM8 map changes, I’m not sure that any of our teammates had played or read about that GOTM. We did not actually discuss the GOTM8 and no one seemed to have any inside knowledge of map, resources and/or location of other civs.

We toyed with the idea of adding the Diplo variant to our AW variant, we decided to see where the tech level was as we approached the later stages of the game. As it wound up we were approaching the Domination limit midway through the Middle Age and decided not to wade through the Industrial Age. Since we could not build the UN ourselves we decided against waiting for someone else to build it for us.

Great write-up, DJMGator13. :goodjob:

@Mad-bax. IMHO, the game was not a challenge to play for our team even for a moment. It was indeed very easy. May be the team was too strong for this particular map or just the map is cheesy a bit. And going for a sponsored variant was just plain boring. Since we could not trade the AIs into Modern Era, doing all research for them could have taken forever and we did not have a luck with a settler in galley or on a mountain.

Also surprizing is how well we did playing AW against other teams who played normal game.

The most amazing feature was the submission and automatic score plotting designed by AlanH! This is a thing out of this world indeed. :)

I think that the new players, some of whom have only played chieftain and warlord games before, may now realise that within a team they can take on games that they would not even consider as a single player. They may also realise by now, that by the end of even one of these games they will have improved enough to play higher difficulty games.

The upshot is that I will be gradually increasing the difficulty of the games until people begin to squeal, and then go from there really.

@Mad-bax. Where would we find the write-ups and the scores from the original gotm8?

Still reeling a little from England’s exit from Euro 2004, I am finally writing a little summary about team Offa’s game. Clearly anyone reading at this is also at liberty to read our spoiler thread in which all the gory details are explained so this will just be a quick résumé.

Our game plan was pretty simple: a straightforward quest for domination with no attempt at the variant. Our end result is rather worse than some of the other teams, but I believe that this reflects more their good play than our inability. I think our result is a fair par performance and congratulate the teams that beat us.

As for many of the other teams we settled on the start spot and set up a 4-turn settler factory. We built a tight (distance 3) ring around the capital, which was my idea. I think however, that we shouldn’t have filled that ring up immediately as it contained a lot of jungle towns that took a long time to become productive.

Our initial science choices went poorly, duplicating AI research and we didn’t catch up until a poly gambit paid off. Our research was very strong after that. Once in the Middle Ages we went straight for Military Tradition, bypassing chivalry. This probably slowed us down as our conquest phase stalled a bit whist we waited for cavalry. I find this judgement very tricky: whenever I go for knights I wish I had cavalry, and when I go for cavalry I wish I had just tried with knights. After we had Mil Trad we were able to research rapidly to navigation and then needed no more techs.

Militarily we attacked Russia first (550bc) and initially made good progress. We stuttered a little then when the massive barb uprising from the start of the Middle Ages. We then attacked the French who had built the Pyramids in Paris. However, although we broke these guys we didn’t finally eliminate then until later. Paris was taken in 190ad. We finally eliminated the Russians in 530 before we got cavalry, and when cavalry arrived we rapidly took out the French remnant and the English. In 780ad the start continent was ours.

We had quite a bit of luck with leaders: first in 270ad used for a FP, later ones used for Leo’s (710ad) and SunTze (740ad). We hand built Copernicus with the mistaken idea that his theories had something to do with science, but got no golden age from this. We eventually got a golden age from building Newton’s in 1030ad but this was too late to help.

Our conquest of the second continent went steadily and we achieved domination in 1080ad. We took out the Japs which was it seems a much slower option than that taken by others. I see that team Tao conquered the home continent at around the same time as us but achieved a blisteringly quick conquest in the second continent, which was very impressive. It is intriguing that our Jason score is similar to that of team Tao, but considerably lower than team Kuningas. Clearly there is a lot to be gained from maximizing the score as you go along, rather than just achieving a quick win.

Overall it was good fun and I want to thank my team-mates. Also congratulations to the teams who beat us. I think the overall standard of play is very high. Our scores would have been very good in the original gotm8, although we were helped quite a bit by Mad-bax sweetening up our start position.

@Mad-bax. Where would we find the write-ups and the scores from the original gotm8?

I'm not Mad-bax but this is the original spoiler thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=23811

A lot of the original thread was about a worker dogpile exploit that accounted for the bizarrely high winning score.

I see that team Tao conquered the home continent at around the same time as us but achieved a blisteringly quick conquest in the second continent, which was very impressive. It is intriguing that our Jason score is similar to that of team Tao, but considerably lower than team Kuningas.
Even as a member of Team tao I was impressed by how quick the game moved in the last 26 turns. tao was confident and predicted the date well in advance. With focus and planning we were able to achieve his predictions. As I see it the keys were:

1. A perfectly timed GA to coincide with cavalry. This let us mop up the home continent quickly, build lots of horses for upgrade and still have plenty o' cash to rush libraries everywhere to rapidly expand our borders.

2. We too went straight for cavalry. We did build enough swords to pretty much take care of business on the home continent. Other than a few turns of peace, we were at constant war since first dipping our swords in Russian blood. When cavalry finally did arrive they just had to mop up the remaining few cities on the home continent before being shuttled across.

3. Early planning to have many galleys (upgraded to caravels) positioned at the crossing point. There was no delay at all in getting our troops on Indian shores.


Our scores would have been very good in the original gotm8, although we were helped quite a bit by Mad-bax sweetening up our start position.
Yes, one of the downfalls of having to tweak the game to avoid spoilers. You really can't compare the two games. And you miss out on the opportunity to see how much stronger (if at all) the collective community has gotten since GOTM8.


It is intriguing that our Jason score is similar to that of team Tao, but considerably lower than team Kuningas. Clearly there is a lot to be gained from maximizing the score as you go along, rather than just achieving a quick win.
The scoring curve has held a great deal of interest for me as well. I haven't analyzed the other games extensively but I assume Kuningas, and other teams as well, got a jump in score from better management of their settler factory in the early game and an earlier GL.

The reason of our higher Jason score is quite simple...we finished sooner.

edit: oops, many more finished since I have looked, we arent fastest anymore.

LogPlot and fine analysis of Fraxis scope.

Here is detailed analysis of Fraxis scope. Because it growth exponentially at the beginning of the game it is reasonable to plot it in Log scale. Also, to emphasize fine variation of progress I normalized it to our “average” growth (Lowest vs all other teams). The legend is Hue, aktos black, other teams in alphabetic rainbow scale Alamo: red, ankka: orange, bugsy: yellow-green, dgit: green, handy: green-blue, kuningas: light-blue-green, offa: light-blue, peanut: dark-blue, scout: violet,staff:dark-violet, x-team: red-violet. May be I miss or mix somebody, correct me, please. Now some features are visible. First there is two pronounced crisis: young civ crisis and mid-life crisis when exponential growth is not possible. (It looks, that X team reach next mature crisis). First crisis normally associated with second settler production, and its depth depend how well capital prepared for that. Details in “Open” shows that teams managed this period differently and digit team did it in the “best” way. Then we can observe “Settler Factory” period: at this time growth is truly exponential (linear in Log scale) and we can find who did it, how successfully, and when stop. So, put this dates in your summary. Interesting tendency is, however, that smaller young crisis, the stronger midlife crisis. Good exception Kuningas – moderate young crisis and no midlife, bad exception Scout: “normal” young crisis and strong mid-life. Particular features of mid-life may be very different and if you can put this details in summary will be nice.
There are two remedies against that: military expansion and Republic (Monarchy). For our team I showed that with letters “w” and “R”. Also, please state these dates or periods in your summary.

? I cannot even begin to understand this. Sorry... Please help me understand what is probably a very deep insight into the game we have played...

@wotan
this is the same plot as at http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm_submission_list.php.
the only thing I did is replot it in log scale and substract avarege growth rate which is the approximately the same for all teams.

I will probably be able to understand it better tomorrow morning. Just came back from the pub so anything even remotely comprehensible is probably beyond my grasp at the moment, sorry... ;)

Very useful I. Larkin. Looks like Team Akot's AW stance, delaying contact and the subsequent trade for pottery can be clearly seen on the "open" chart as the granary for the 4-turn settler factory got built on turn 56, which is about where the black (akots) curve picks up.

Speaking of which-- did akots have a midlife crisis, the black line appears to be excluded ?

Very useful I. Larkin. Looks like Team Akot's AW stance, delaying contact and the subsequent trade for pottery can be clearly seen on the "open" chart as the granary for the 4-turn settler factory got built on turn 56, which is about where the black (akots) curve picks up.

Speaking of which-- did akots have a midlife crisis, the black line appears to be excluded ?
No, he did not. We are as well. We were so below everybody at start that could not afford midlife crisis. Speaking sereosly, I plot midlife without Aktos and Ankka to enlarge scale. Sorry, miss Peanut team data...

This Summary continues Summary from spoiler1.
Just remind, that at 850 BC Paris build Pyramids and we set our military goal to capture Paris and at 410 BC we enter Mid Age and capture Moscow.
At 330 BC we Capture Petersburg and make peace with Russians and get Tbilisi and Smolensk as peace deal.
At 250 BC we declare war to France and bring England to alliance for Poly.
At 230 BC Paris build TGL and London build GW.
At 230 BC we found Cologne on horses in between Russian Cities, raze Orlean. We discover Republic this turn but did not take a risk of anarchy in the middle of the war.
We got first GL at 30 AD and at 50 AD our troops reach the gates of Paris.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=55894
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=55893
We revolt at 70 AD and capture Paris and rush Lighthouse at 90 AD.
At 150 AD Galley spot Japan border and take suicide trip to establish contact.
We got contacts with Asian civs at 170 AD, unfortunately WM shows that overseas trade is impossible but overseas civs can not reach our continent before astronomy.
We capture Lyons at 190 AD and got Tours and Rheims as Peace deal.
At 250AD I misevaluate area of our continent and declare “clear” plan how to win this game in 80 turns. After Engineering we take 40 turns Feudalism gambit (single Scientist) other City grow. Cash rush Lib in Moscow - when it pick up Wheat it will have 10 food surpluses (Super Settler Factory). And we will pump Settler each second turn for 116 gold. In 30 turns we will enough to settle all our land. At turn 40 we rush Libraries in each City. At turn 74 we will cover all our land. I also thought that 80 turns would be enough to drive European AIs to the sea.
Next 23 turns was unintentional peace. We first thought attack English, but change our mind because they have too many swords in France and decide to attack Russians. We did not manage to regroup troops fast and decided to attack French when peace treaty expire. However, we change our mind again because they fight well vs English and finilly declare war to English at 490 AD. We also declare war to India this turn and asked China and Japan to “help” for Monotheism.
We Captured London at 600 AD and finish war at 650AD (that was longer, but more successful then I expected.) We make false peace with India (Got Chivalry for 50 gpt and declare again), also bring China for war with India.
We declare second wars to Russian at 690 AD, and to French 760 AD. Make peace with Russians 790 AD left with 3 Cities around Caspian Sea. Drive French out of continent at 810 AD (Settler on Galley) and declare third war to English.
At 830 AD we announced “D” day (34 turns to Domination) and rush Libraries in all 37 tiles Cities. (We settle rear just to cover land and coasts).
We got second GL at 840 AD and use it for FP.
At 860 AD make peace with English and left them 1 City.
We run mapstat and found, that our area will not be enough to reach Land domination (Population was close already) and decided to settle peacefully in between India-Japan. (It was free land because of their war). We remove Russians in one turn war at 920 AD and English at 960AD. We build first overseas City at 980 AD.
Japan Declare war to us IBT 980-990 AD and we gift this City to China, make RoP with India and MA with China. In 1000-1100AD we capture 3 Japanese Cities and founded one our in Asia. As we planed at 1160 AD we reach Territory domination limit, but surprisingly population needs 6 more Citizens for Pop domination. At 1170 AD we capture one more Japan City and that’s was it…

Mad-Bax points.
1. We did not play this GOTM and did not discuss it in our SG.
2. Difficulty level was normal for the average level of our team. Personally I prefer higher level (Emperor at least) and stronger team. I think better to have at least two strong players per team. Their discussion would be very beneficial for other 2-3 players. I also think that 5 players better then 4 or 6 say. Length was normal. I have no objection if we win 20 turns earlier, but we did not manage.
3. I think sponsor variant is too tricky at least for our team (win diplomatically, but not to build UN). We did not discuss this point.

Nice analysis, Ivan. Even though I'm not a statistics expert, I did understand some of it :lol:

Team Peanut has finally achieved success at the Sponsored Variant challenge. We gained a Diplomatic victory in 1415 AD, without building or capturing the UN, and while being at war with two civs simultaneously. Do we get a bonus if we get awarded both the Gold Laurel and the Wooden Spoon awards ?

Stay tuned for a modest writeup ...

Yes of course. You get the Wooden Laurel. :dubious:

Or perhaps the Gold Spoon?!? :lol:

Nice analysis, Ivan. Even though I'm not a statistics expert, I did understand some of it :lol:
I put better picture to discussion Thread.

I guess we'd better tell you all what we did on our holidays in Germany.

We upgraded our warriors to swords and went after Russia in 590 BC. France sneak attacked us in the same year and allied against us with England :eek: To cut a loooong story short, by 450 AD we had eliminated all but a couple of English cities and we had suicide galleyed our way to Asia. We saw little benefit in keeping the local civ around. Russia couldn't help us with research as vanilla gives then the same free tech we get ourselves at end of era, and none of them seemed capable of any sort of research rate. We figured we'd better assume we'd have to research to Fission ourselves. We didn't trade the contacts, concluding that our record of razed Russian, French and English cities wouldn't get a good press in Asia, so our local war crimes died with Liz I in 470 AD. Here's the world at 550 AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM2_XTeam_CB_550AD.JPG

We decided that we now needed a long period of peaceful research during which we would try to encourage our trading partners in Asia to start building the UN for us. They wouln't know that was what they were doing, of course. Long hours were spent poring over the tech tree and wonder list, and complex plans were hatched to persuade China, Japan or India to follow a cascade path that would accumulate shields culminating in a final cascade to the UN in 1335 AD, a date engraved on my heart, and completion some turns later. Our optimistic planning put the best UN date at around 1450 AD.

So we set about ensuring that we ran a four turn research program, and built infrastructure like fury. We built the Great Library purely for the GA. I don't think the AI supplied anything much in the way of compulsory techs, though the GL did deliver Chivalry, and we bought Mil Tradition and Economics later, IIRC.

I had a nervous breakdown in 860 AD. We had just researched Steam, and here's my turn log entry:
Try to build rails, Can't. Check for our coal. Can't find it Move Workers around to do other things. Tell the team. AdrianE finds coal in several places. Book an optician appointment.
mad-bax's name filled the blue air in my study, closely associated with expletives, until the team came to the rescue of my blood pressure and m-b's reputation :rolleyes: I've become so used to the GOTM modded resources that I couldn't see the little bits of coal dust scattered around our forest and hills :(

In 970 AD the AI decided to throw its first spanner into our works. Japan landed a longbow on our mainland and declared war :eek: We had concentrated so heavily on infrastructure that we had not ensured we looked too strong to attack. We repelled borders, upgraded lots of horses to knights to increase our perceived strength, and, to avoid a dogpile on us, we allied the rest of Asia against Japan. This may have been a bad move, as the AI then proceeded to knock seven kinds of hell out of each other for a few hundred years. India went to Communism, then mobilised. We were monitoring UN pre-builds like crazy through all of this, and first Delhi and then Bangalore seemed promising. We imported workers under RoP to help them to improve their build rates, but cascade engineering failed to keep them going. China eventually dropped out of the war against Japan, and by 1300 AD we had two Universal Suffrage prebuilds running - Bombay, India in 20 turns and Hangchow, China in 30-odd turns.

The AI's next twist to the tale - I checked progress of the US prebuilds on my pre-turn in 1300 AD. I hit next turn, and US was completed in Hangchow :eek: China must have had a Great Leader, taking a slow, leisurely ocean trip back to the homeland!

So we gifted India and China to Scientific method, hoping Bombay would cascade to Theory of Evolution. Bombay didn't, but Tsingtao started it from cold. We completed our ToE build in 1335 AD, on the same turn that we completed Flight, giving us Radio and *Fission* as freebies, plus an Ecology chaser for reaching the Modern Era - Yeah!!! We donated Fission to the Asians, and China dutifully cascaded to the UN - finally :thumbsup:. The ETA wasn't great, but at least we were on our way.

We micro-managed Tsingtao for China to get the UN ETA down to the early 1500s, and put in place a peacekeeping force the like of which the world had not seen before. Panzers and Modern Armour and Artillery stacked a mile high stopped the war between India and Japan in its tracks. We then decided that India had nominated itsef for elimination, having got too big. We wanted China to feel nice and secure when they completed the UN, hoping that might encourage them to call a vote. So as soon as our 20 turn deals were expired with India we destroyed them (2 turns) and gifted lots of their cities to China, a few to Japan to help them to vote for us, and kept a few for ourselves to secure luxuries for the folks back home. China completed the UN in 1515 AD and didn't call the vote. I guess they could add up as well as us .. Germany + Japan = 2 ... :hmm:

So we had to sit out another eleven turns, preparing a military case for the transfer of the UN to German ownership, and then executing it. Tsingtao switched production from rice wine to Riesling in 1530 AD, and in 1535 AD Germany and Japan voted for Germany against China and .... um, China.

A Diplomatic victory in 1540 AD, without building the UN, and played to RBCiv rules as far as I recall. [party] Then Peanut spoils our moment of glory by coming home 31 turns earlier :gripe: Congratulations, Peanut :D

Purely for style points, the 1535 AD start-of-turn save can also be played to a Domination or Spaceship victory in the same turn. We didn't position our troops to enable a Conquest victory, but I believe we could have achieved a quadruple victory condition if we'd put our minds to it for a couple of turns prior to the final showdown.

Well played Peanut and X-team. I've been lurking a little in the threads since we finished and I found all the maneuvering going on in the diplomatic games particularly intriguing. It looks like the variant was a good way to extend the interest level of the game while waiting for the UN to be built.

@ X-team — Your score was quite impressive in the early game and one can only wonder if it would have rivaled Team Kuningas had you decided to take out India earlier and skirt the domination limit a little longer.

The chinese leader in the X-teams game was very unlucky I have to say. The strategy and effort that went into having the AI pre-building was very impressive.

Would you have beaten Team Peanut if the cascade had worked?
31 turns is a long time.

Team Peanut also managed to get the AI to call a losing vote. Something I have never seen before in my own games... not that I've won many diplo games :hammer:

Team Peanut also managed to get the AI to call a losing vote. Something I have never seen before in my own games... not that I've won many diplo games :hammer:

We had discussed this in the TDG thread and did not think the AI would call for a vote it could not win. Very impressive indeed. :goodjob:

Would you have beaten Team Peanut if the cascade had worked?
31 turns is a long time.
Our ETA for India's Universal Suffrage prebuild was 1400 AD just before China's leader clobbered it. If they had cascaded to ToE and onwards to the UN then India would have completed the UN in around 1415 AD and we might have finished in 1420 AD, but more likely 1470 AD. So the answer is no, but we would probably have been only 12 turns adrift.

Considering that PtW gives about a 12 turn advantage on tech rate due to the second scientific civ getting different freebies, plus Peanut skated on very thin ice when China called the vote 11 turns early, I think that would have been an impressive result.

We could have had a domination victory around the same time as the other teams if that had been our target, but our score and date wouldn't have beaten Kuningas' superbly played game :thumbsup:

As it is I console myself with our triple victory condition, higher Jason score, and the fact that I think we played it quite well and had a great time.

BUT! Never mind the score, look at the post count. Lurkers may find a little side show in our thread when m-b came back from his hols in Florida and accused us of drifting ever so slightly from the ever-so-serious purpose of our thread. I produced a ranking table showing the posts per turn ratings for the 13 teams, and we did, indeed come out top. But the variation in this statistic was 3:1 across the teams, and we were not so far above the second and third teams. I dunno what it proves, but for sure we communicated a lot! Maybe we are the champion spammers.

Good game, m-b, and a very thought-provoking variant, as you have seen.:goodjob:

@ X-team — Your score was quite impressive in the early game and one can only wonder if it would have rivaled Team Kuningas had you decided to take out India earlier and skirt the domination limit a little longer.No, I think Kuningas' victory date hit the sweet spot on the Jason curve as well as achieving the optimum scoring rate a few turns earlier than us. I was monitoring our Jason score options using the online calculator as we moved forward, and the scoring rate we would have had to achieve went up and up after their date. So milking our game could not have made up for the date difference.

Maybe we are the champion spammers.

How about a Golden Spam award, M-B?
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/spam.jpg
I think we'd actually have a chance of winning that one... :cool:

Only way to get back at people accusing you of spamming; spam some more :lol:

Anyway, what I wanted to say was very well done, Peanuts! :goodjob:

Team Peanut also managed to get the AI to call a losing vote. Something I have never seen before in my own games... not that I've won many diplo games :hammer:
"... managed to get ..." is being very generous, MB. As AlanH pointed out, we were on thin ice. Very thin. We are talking diet wafers here I think. I suspect that it came down to the random number generator in the end, and the AI could have won it. Mao had two sure votes to our one.

Not that I realised it at the time - if I had thought it through I would have stitched up alliances which probably would have meant no vote.

Well, you know what they say...

"If you can't be good, be lucky" :D

My spoiler post for '32 will demonstrate which of those I am. ;)

Team Peanut also managed to get the AI to call a losing vote. Something I have never seen before in my own games... not that I've won many diplo games :hammer:

I think that the AI will not call the vote unless they are going to get at least ONE other civ to vote for them. I achieved a diplo victory in gotm 31 with carthage building the UN. they didn't call for the vote for about 50 years, I think because at the time they completed it no one was going to vote for them. Finally 50 years later they called the vote. 1 abstain, 1 for carthage (plus hannibal voting for himself of course) and everyone else voted for me.

So the optimum number of AI civs to keep alive if you are not going to build the UN yourself (apart from any considerations of tech pace), is 3 plus the UN builder, not just 1 as we played it. Then arrange to be at war or close to it with one of them who likes the UN builder, and cuddle up to the other two.

Well, team scout is finally finished. I know some of you thought we were headed for the guillotine there for a while.

We decided early on that we didn't care about score, we were going for speed; a plan that carried a distinct chance of sweeping the wooden laurel/golden spoon combo.

I am looking forward to seeing how Peanut and Xteam pulled their wins, because it looks like they both skunked us pretty good...but as payback, we've taken team Peanut out of the hunt for the Wooden Spoon. :D

IIRC, we were one of the earlier teams to the Middle Ages. I'm not sure exactly where we lost the edge in the tech race. I know we didn't get much help from the AI in the industrial age.

At endgame, one of our team (Mistfit) came up with a rather interesting gambit. We actually gifted a city to Russia (distance 5 from Moscow) that had a factory and coal plant, among other things. We let Catherine build the UN for us there, and you can well image how things went from there...

I'm looking foward to surfing other teams' threads now, and offering some congratulatory notes.

Team Digit stumbled into a domination victory last night.

I'm afraid this write up is merely a tale of woe, and what ifs. I can't write it in a very positive light, and I'm happy to delete this post if any feels that feelings may be hurt too much, although no names will be mentioned, and I was certainly part of this team so as much responsible as anyone. Maybe this kind of post is good, as we can all learn more from games that go wrong I think.

OK, so we got a domination win in 1275AD with 8100 Jason points, not so bad I guess but after a fantastic start we should have won 400 or so years earlier. Here is why I think we messed it up.

We entered the MA in about 50AD, very late in itself, as was discussed in the previous spoiler.

We really struggled to get the team to actually play their turns in this game, and that hurt us partly as after 7 days at a time without anyone playing, everyone forgets what they are meant to do. So I will excuse all our mistakes as the game lost continuity, for me too.

As we entered the MA, we got good trades and had Fued and Eng, but not Mono. Now instead of researching Mono, we researched Theology, and researched it at 10% for about 20 turns. Obviously we should have researched Mono ourselves at max and that would have shaved off a good number of turns before we got to Chivalry.

Although we got a leader and built the FP we were very slow to build our core round it. Sorry but there were a few times in this game, when I got the save that I wanted to cry :( I built the FP, and then on my next go round (30-40 turns later), we had not built a single extra city round our FP. We had built many totally corrupt cities however.

As we were taking so long to get to Chivalry, we had to kick off wars with just our horses, although we made some ground, clearly it was hard going, horses vs pikemen.

Eventually we stumbled onto Chivalry in 520AD, but had lost focus. We actually only had only 17 horses at that time, and nearly all of them were chasing barbs in the nether regions of the empire. We had a lot of workers and so maintenance costs were high, and some Marketplaces were built, but too many by far. Cities that should had continued to build horses.

But by hook or by crook, we were able to thump the English and Russians out of existence by about 660AD, and then started on the French who were destroyed in 920AD.

In between we had met the other AI with our first suicide galley and made some trades with them.

After France had gone, we started building a force to invade Japan. We had a massive force of Knights and Ships, and we built lots of settlers but left lots of gaps unfilled at home.

A final mistake of the game, was to arrive at Japan in 1160AD without getting them to fight their neighbors so they had a huge force of Samurai which wiped out most of our first set of Knights. However, once our friends India joined in (with War Elephants), Japan was distracted enough that our second wave of Knights tore through them and with all the gaps filled in at home, got our Dom victory in 1275BC

Sorry to the Digit team members, but this is what my memory tells me. And I put my hands up as part of the reason we didn't do so well.

Smackster

Congrats to all that played. This is my 1st completed SG. (the TDG may take until 2010 to finish at the rate it is going) Props to the teams and the people that put this together :goodjob:

...but as payback, we've taken team Peanut out of the hunt for the Wooden Spoon. :D
Curses ! Just when I hired my celebration ball outfit specially selected to match and enhance that beautiful wooden laurel ! :crazyeye:

Although we didn't win the variant, I did want to post one more spoiler to the thread. I briefly mentioned this in my previous spoiler, but this is one of the more unique ideas our team had. I like to call it:

Mistfit's Gambit

We were chugging along in the 1300's, when I read this in between turnsets:Ok Here is Crazy Idea #2 from Mistfit:

If it is Russia that we are planning to have build our Un for us.

#1) Improve the city Cologne to the Hilt, every possible improvement tile and city.
#2) Gift the city to Russia this would become almost a 1st ring city for them. She only has one city closer Tblisi is at 4 this and quite a few others would be at 5.
#3) Hope that this becomes her most productive city so she builds the UN there.
#4) Once she builds it take it from her the next turn.
#5) This would make the city almost flip proof because it would be full of German citizens.

Think this one over. I've not had a chance to study the Russian cities to see if Cologne would be a better choice.

...and he followed it up with this little image....

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/gift.jpg

I don't think he expected us to take him seriously. After all, Gengis and I had shanghai-ed him out of the Training Day Experiment, right?

Even though we had Hoover Dam, Cologne began construction on a coal plant in 1325.

In 1395, Mistfit handed Cologne over to the Russians.

1465 - Northern Pike investigates Cologne, sees that it is 2 turns from finishing an infantryman.

His summary of the other Russian cities:

To make a long story short, no other Russian city is worth a d___ (only Kiev even has a factory), so the Cologne gambit is brilliantly vindicated, Mistfit.

1475 - We gift the Russians into the Modern Era, and give them Fission as well.

IBT - The Russians start the UN.

By 1555, this is what Cologne looked like:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Sneakypeek1555.JPG

In 1575, the "Russian" city of Cologne completes the U.N.

In 1580, German Modern Armor roll through the streets of Cologne...

...and all but one Russian City.

Team Scout,

I was lurking your thread after we finished, and saw what you were doing with that city. That was a very sharp move. Even though you didn't win, you should take pride in the creativity used in coming up with that and the successful execution of the plan.

Thanks bigchief, I thought it was a pretty innovative idea too. I look forward to seeing Mistfit ranked above me in some GOTM results someday soon.

Unfortunately, style points (like timeouts in a ballgame) don't do you all that much good in the locker room. But we had a heckuva lot of fun playing the game.

Incidentally, I posted the "pre-slugfest save" in there somewhere... if you'd like to share our fun and run over Russia with some modern armor. It's so much fun it's almost theraputic. If you download it, be sure to say 'hi' to Cathy for me.

:hammer:

Do we have to post a continuation of the last spoiler?

How about a fairly brief summary, since we're all pretty bothered by our result?

We decided early on to try to "beat" the Jason scoring by securing our continent, and then milking until the UN vote. We thought that this might enhance our score, assuming our end date was similar to that of other teams.

We declared war on Russia, England, and France, in that order. In those wars, I think we got about 4 leaders, which were used for the Fp, Sun Tzu's an army, and something else I can't recall (sorry).

At this point, we sort of went into "milk mode" to try to enhance our Firaxis score.

We decided that we neede more luxuries to furthur enhance our score, so we eliminated India and took their luxes.

We started planning for the endgame by buddying up to Liz, Cathy, and Joan with gifts, MPP's, and RoP's. japan and China were somewhat equal in strength, but Japan was bigger.

When we gifted japan up to the Modern Age to induce the UN build, they were at war with China. Although we made efforts to peacefully control this war, we were unsuccessful.

China had to go, or Japan would never start the build. Unfortunately, Cathy had an MPP at the time with China, so she became a victim as well.

Once China was eliminated (or very close) Japan finally began their build.

The moment the UN build was finished, we declared war, signed MA's with Joan and Liz, and took Tokyo. Then we just tried to do some pillaging (tanks and MI's were becoming a nuisance) and waited.

FINALLY, after all of our posturing, the vote was called.
Bismarck votes for Bismarck.
Toku votes for Toku.
Cathy abstains.
Liz abstains.

AAARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!

We knew that that the numerous trades and deals we had broken in our late game warmongering had cost us the variant. In 1820 ad after an annoyed flurry of modern armor and nukes that destroyed all the civs left (for all intents and purposes), the dom limit was tripped.

@SesnOfWthr: Daang... you nuked 'em too?!??

Look at the bright side of it, you helped team scout snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Anybody wanna take any bets that Team Bugsy takes the wooden spoon from Team Scout?

:blush: scoutsout <--- hears crickets chirping in the distant forest

That's what I thought.

Damn right I nuked 'em, and they desrved it too!!

1. If they had started the UN when we had our forces dividing the continent, we would not have had to destroy China and Russia, and probably would have won the variant.
2. THEY built manhattan, I merely put it into use. :D
3. It's always cathartic to nuke someone....

:p

You know,if we had won the spoon, then at least we'd have SOMETHING to show for all of our hours of plotting and planning.

This is the final post for the Staff team. We are a little late as we finished the game about two weeks ago. However, we thought you might like to know about the little mistake we made that might have cost us a first place victory.

We secured our continent and then started building ships to take our units across to the other continent. Since early in the game we had been focusing on invading Japan first. They only had one source of Iron, which was on a hill on the coast. It seemed like an ideal place to land to start and invasion. Unfortunately, we had tunnel vision with regard to it.

The problem was that almost all of the ships we built were on the eastern coast of our continent. It turned out that the only safe passage across to the other continent was from the SW coast. I played the next to last turn and realized the mistake. We all gnashed our teeth and came to the conclusion that the only way to conclude the game was to sail all of our Galleys/Caravels around the entire continent to the safe passage. I spent my entire 10 turns doing that and at the end, in 950, we still only had 3 Caravels in place. There were 25 Knights and an Army waiting to cross but no ships to take them.

Ainwood took the final turn and played a masterful series. He waited until 1000 AD when we discovered Military Tradition and upgraded all of our waiting units to Cavalry. By that time the other Caravels were all ready. He loaded up 40 units in 1010 and set sail. Declared war on India, signed an ROP with China, set up units next to their cities and by 1070 achieved a domination victory. :D