SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

Well, there were two issues for us. One is that we didn't find all the AI until late. The second is that we didn't know where our metal was until late. We waited for alphabet to pick up IW so we didn't know where iron was until quite late (and nobody wanted to settle on copper to execute a rush).
 
I'll take a wood spoon. :D
Yeah, me, too. It would be well earned, since it was tough to raze so many possible whips (errr I mean citizens)!


We need to throw the next game a bit and get bronze for a complete set.
Haha, there's an awesome idea! Why bother to compete for the top spot when you can aim to take a lower spot of your choice? :lol: :cool:
 
Well, there were two issues for us. One is that we didn't find all the AI until late. The second is that we didn't know where our metal was until late. We waited for alphabet to pick up IW so we didn't know where iron was until quite late (and nobody wanted to settle on copper to execute a rush).
Those things, along with other factors, such as aiming to get Construction in trade rather than biting the bullet and researching it ourselves.

For quite some time, there were no metals, no Cats, and even no Archers--we played quite far into the game where the strongest land-based unit that we could have built was a Warrior! These points remained true despite being declared upon, to the point that we discussed for exactly how long we could intentionally delay the connection of our source of metal! :lol:
 
Yes, but delaying metal and cats were choices, not absolutes, right? My only point is that we considered earlier war but chose not to go down that path.

All things considered, war with galleys on this map must have been painful!
 
Nice game guys!

Interesting post game analysis. This game opened my eyes to what you can do with catapults. Gypsy Kings also decided not to go with an early war until much too late. And we thought drafting and musketeers was the was to go which clearly pushed our victory back.
 
What, isn't a Silver Medal good enough for you? You have to let the 'Ducks win every once and while, just to keep them coming back for more. :eek: :D

Thank you for your mercy of gifting the gold away.:rolleyes: Maybe you have thought that your extraordinary skill could easily beat us if you want? IMO you were a little arrogant to say so, you still don't own a gold yourself, right? AS BBP mentioned, we need more competent teams. I feel that you should be capable of forming a new team yourself for the competition instead of jumping here and there. Personally I am looking forward to see your new team to bring back your personal 1st gold.:D

It's funny to see Duckweed talking about us having "stuck to our guns" and stayed with an Astronomy strategy. I wonder if he realizes that we did not discover the 6th AI until Turn 143, 455 BC, when we met Joao II. By that point, we were pretty much committed--committed to the point that skipping the Astronomy plan would likely have led to a later finish date.

We were able to come to an incredibly amazing finish date (thanks to some awesome work by you guys) relative to when we started our first war (not counting the "war" where Ragnar declared on us and all that we did was sink his boats).

It's funny how the 'Ducks, after having seen the apparent ability to take on the world early on (having met the AIs early and thus chose to attack them early) decided to "stick to their own guns" and played a Domination-like game, keeping most Cities... even though they admit that most of those kept Cities played little to no role in speeding-up their victory date.


Also, having been one of the ones to make use out of Police State whipping, I can conclusively say that building The Pyramids was the right play for our given strategy and that building it sped up our victory by a large margin. If you aren't going conquering early on, you won't have as many population points that you can whip, so you need to make sure that every population point that you DO have to whip counts for as much as possible. Police State was the enabler here, and relying on an AI to build a Wonder for you is a bit too risky, partciularly when you're under the impression that DynamicSpirit listened closely enough to the feedback to isolate at least one AI from being reachable pre-Astronomy... Domination would still have been possible, making for a more interesting comparison between a rush-to-Astronomy Conquest versus a skip-the-last-AI Domination game.

Still, overall, he listened pretty well to the feedback and the map definitely reflected this fact in many ways, so I was quite happy with the game and really enjoyed playing it. Thank you to all of the hard work of the staff, including AlanH, in making it all possible!

I don't see anything funny here, instead I saw your unfriendly will on me! Even you disagree with my opinions, you could express them in a more polite way instead of showing your ignorance and arrogance. Here I still try to answer a couple of your questions and save others to yourself.

When your WBs circumnavigated the map and met 5 AIs, why didn't you realize that the last AI could also be accessed by galley? What stopped you from sending a WB to try to find the last AI if the issue is important?

Regarding the keeping city issue, simple, I realized the chance of getting wooden spoon, so I reminded kossin to keep all the cities for score milking. Moreover, our economic situation was good enough to support them. We even researched Machinery and CS during war time.

Last, I have a headache to see your wall of text and piles of pictures without spoiler. When I browsed OSS's thread, I had a hard time to skip them to find other valuable posts.
 
I think Dhoom was being sarcastic with his comment above. Let's keep this as a friendly competition and not get into personal attacks.

I think most (if not everyone) from OSS recognizes that our failure to find the last AI, combined with our tech choices and commitment to the astro strategy, limited our options. Should we have reconsidered the astro plan in more depth after we found Joao? Probably. Although as I mentioned previously, I don't think we could switch to a catapult attack plan at that point.
 
Well, I think that we went far more whip-crazy than even Kossin did, and we certainly did not keep a lot of Cities.

It would certainly be hilarious if we did win the Spoons, but I'm still holding out for a late-game Conquest to beat us. Even a really-late-game Domination would get a lower Final Score.

12 turns behind PD is a great result given your very different strategy. Your astronomy date was amazing.

Definately 2nd for your but I do think you may end up with the wooden spoon as turks who finished 1700ad got a score of 170k. Unless TNT really do mess up their end game. They will have a much larger pop though and 70-100 cities too.

All good fun really. Nice to see PD and OSS swap 1st and 2nd place.

Perhaps challenge for next game should be conquest with the lowest game score. Would that be interesting or have OSS already shown this?
 
When your WBs circumnavigated the map and met 5 AIs, why didn't you realize that the last AI could also be accessed by galley? What stopped you from sending a WB to try to find the last AI if the issue is important?

I don't think the location of the final AI was that important at the time. One of the main reasons why I thought an astro plan would pay off, is that I thought that even with a sereis of early rushes some AI's would be bound to get feudalism before we could destroy them. Fighting longbows with cats+axes/swords is possible, but very painfull, and this made researching more techs before going to war viable. I also recall LC thinking that the speed advantages of galleons over galleys would pay off. Even if we had known the location of Jao earlier, it wouldn't have changed my mind. The relative weakness of the AI's on this map meant this wasn't true, unfortunately by the time this became obvious to me we were too heavily committed to the astro plan.

The other mistake I think we made was delaying the founding of our city in favour of the capital development, which cost us several turns.

Anyway, congratulations everyone. I think we played a very good game.
 
To give credit where it is due, it was mdy's aggressive gpp plan that allowed us to get Astronomy quickly enough to make the competition for gold as close as it was... We also can't forget our aggressive whipping plans at the hands of Shyuhe the Merciless.
 
Thank you for your mercy of gifting the gold away.:rolleyes:
Uhhh, you're welcome? :D

Congrats to you and your team, you played a great game! :goodjob:


Maybe you have thought that your extraordinary skill could easily beat us if you want?
I don't remember claiming that I am a particularly great player. If there is anything that is great about these SGOTM games it is the teamwork that people who are pulling together are able to demonstrate through collaboration, communication, and creativity. It is truly amazing to see what people are capable of if they put their minds together and work towards a common goal and I feel honoured to have been allowed to play alongside this team of truly talented and unique players.


I feel that you should be capable of forming a new team yourself for the competition
Thank you for the compliment.


your wall of text and piles of pictures
If my information troubles you, I believe that there is a forum option that lets you hide all messages from a single user. I will not feel offended in the least should you choose to exercise this option.

The team members in this thread did an excellent job in keeping up with all of the details that we discussed and I do not remember hearing any major complaints from them directed at the information that I provided to them. Should you feel that there is too much information to take in, then simply hide all of it--although you may, of course, be hiding some valuable information if you choose to do so.
 
Nice game guys!
Same to you! While I have not played with you directly, I have heard nothing but good things about you from the other OSS players. You and your team certainly played a solid game!

Taking the time to properly leverage Napoleon's Unique Unit certainly helped you out!


12 turns behind PD is a great result given your very different strategy. Your astronomy date was amazing.
Thank you, although it is my teammates who should be taking the credit.

Indeed, Mitchum is right in crediting mdy for his awesome GPP management plan. mdy also deserves a lot of credit for keeping us on track: he was the one that kept pushing us to attack sooner, knowing that we could do more than most of the rest of us believed was capable. I believe that he had a really good handle on the game and if anything held us back from winning sooner, it was my conservativeness in delaying the attacks.

shyuhe is a great whipper and tactician. Before this game, I would never have dreamed how it was possible to go from a Great Person beeline and completely switch gears into war-mode so quickly and effectively. It was his leadership that allowed us to so quickly convert our tech advantage into such a fast conquest spree and which helped to support the team throughout all stages of the game. Whenever people were too busy to play a turnset, he took charge and jumped right in to help out, like a good leader would do.

babybluepants was instrumental in getting our testing on track. He would often be one of the first ones to put out a plan, giving us the template that we could work on and refine. He provided solid knowledge of the Demographics information and could often be seen asking insightful questions that really cut to the heart of a particular matter, allowing the rest of us to focus on the issues that were the most important.

Let's not forget LowtherCastle, who took the time to share his vast expertise and to explain his points in a very patient and understanding manner. His ability to micromanage is one of the best that I have seen and yet he does not let himself get lost in the details and does an excellent job of keeping the greater picture in mind. When our team suffered from a lack of participation, he stepped up to the plate and brought us through and somehow managed to remotivate us to complete and enjoy the game!

Mitchum has served the role of mediator quite well, helping to bridge the gap between differing strategies and goals, allowing us to work together towards consensus and to collaborate on an even better solution than any of those that were originally planned. He has a good grasp on collecting, analyzing, and presenting data in a manner that makes it easy from which to draw conclusions. When it is his turn to play a turnset, he has an exceptional capability of taking in loads of information from many different sides and points of view and managing to incorporate it all into a seamless work of art of a plan.

RRRaskolnikov did a great job in providing us with a solid wealth of information that we relied upon in making some important game decisions. He also helped out considerably with the early game test runs. As usual, he provided some light humour to keep things moving along.

Rusten, ungy, and Emperor Peter also contributed valuable ideas to the discussion.


Gumbolt, you know that you and your team (Phoenix Rising) hold a special place in my heart, so I am glad that you were able to complete the competition with a very respectable date while also involving so many different players in playing the turnsets! Fantastic job! :cool:
 
Have to agree with mdy. I don't remember the Astro requirement being a major consideration for the team. It was mainly the belief that a 5-move, 3-cargo, no-trireme-support navy would be more efficient (and, I think, the implicit belief that we'd be facing tougher opposition than we did).

I was just looking at our and PD threads for AI meets. We spent a lot of energy developing a scouting plan for city sites; they went straight to Gold and then down towards Ragnar. The consequence was that we both finished major TS's in the 2200's BC, but we had only met Vicky, while they already knew of 5 reachable AI's. This is where they abandon Oracle MC and focus on how to capture GLH asap. We then met Cathy and Willem in about 3-4t after this. That was the point where we should have immediately stopped and re-evaluated, I think. TBH, there was so much effort into planning the first 85+ turns down to every action, that I think we must have been too tired to reconsider anything until after Oracle.

I certainly don't deserve any credit for this game, as I was initially opposed to our strategy and largely disappeared after about Currency. The discussion was a lot to take, IMHO. I know I participated in an even more insane micro discussion last game, but that probably took an average of 3-4 hrs a day and, frankly, hurt me in some ways IRL. With much more limited free time this time around, I struggled to even quickly skim through everything and understand it, let alone respond in a meaningful way. There's no denying that our methodology produces excellent results, after 3 successive top two finishes, but I wonder if we can try to somehow expedite the process for the next game.
 
I wonder if we can try to somehow expedite the process for the next game.
Well, I think that what you are touching upon is the sentiment that Sun Tzu Wu was trying to get at, although his efforts to persuade others were relatively unsuccessful by large, as teams went ahead and made very accurate test games, used spreadsheets, etc--not all teams, but enough teams did.

Certainly, nothing prevents a team from discarding some of these approaches, but you'd still want something to replace them. For example, rather than setting specific turnset lengths, you could simply pick players on your team that are good at doing "such and such a thing" and have them play for a short bit of time at the relevant points in the game. You would probably want very short turnsets with a lot of hand-offs.

Things can get tricky when you have players with different levels of expertise in 2 simulatenous things that are occuring--such as an ongoing war and something else going on, such as tech trading or Great Person management.


Another tangental thought is that a lot of great micromanagement can occur without having a script to follow, but you need someone who is a relative expert in that kind of micro to be able to do it by the seat of their pants.

Even then, by playing around with a test game, you can get more people involved and you can get more useful feedback to help in refining even the micro of the top players.

Not every player wants others poking their noses in and giving them feedback on how to play, but players that don't want that kind of feedback can be given turnsets where the micro does not really play as much of a factor.


I agree that it is tough to find a good balance.


I think that it helps to play using ways that involve teammates. For example, I have read a LOT of succession games and many of them are just plain boring or non-engaging. In fact, some of the shorter succession games are a lot harder to follow; even though you would think that "shorter/less messages = easier to follow," it is often not the case. The people who are doing the reading really have to be interested in the subject, and if that interest is not there, then the level of detail is irrelevant.


Also, just as much as some people can be turned off by a detailed discussion, others can be turned off by a lack of details, particularly when a player goes ahead and plays by making decisions without consulting others or where they ignore the feedback of others. I do not think that we suffered from the latter issue in this game, but it is all too easy to happen--and it can be very frustrating for someone to watch poor decisions being made that could have been easily improved upon with a bit better communication amongst team members. Often, you will see this behaviour occur when the Active Player feels that they have to "prove themselves" or "demonstrate their awesomeness," but in so doing they usually end up doing the reverse, because they forget that good communication and team-play are important aspects of a good succession game, far more than individual greatness.


Another possibility is to have "roles" for the various players. For example, there could be someone that looks after trading, another person that looks after war deployments, another person that looks after whipping timing, etc.

The trouble with this kind of approach arises from the fact that while discussions can be done in a group, playing is done individually. For example, the person who is good at tech trading is often that way because the look for trading opportunities on every turn and they understand the implications of various trades that are made. However, the strength of this player will be greatly handicapped when someone else plays as the Active Player without even looking at the F4 -> TECHS screen and just plays ahead for several turns. A lot of potential trade opportunities are lost this way with the player who has expertise in the relevant area being unable to offer feedback.

So, in a way, we all need to be overall experts or else we all need to contribute our expertise to the Active Player so that the Active Player can become a temporary expert in multiple areas.

Since it is really hard to become an instant expert, tools like test games, spreadsheets, etc, are often used to enable that player to play various aspects of a particular turnset as though they are an expert in many areas. It is up to that particular player whether they will learn from the experience or whether they will just choose to feel like they are playing a game that is "so well scripted that even a 7 year old could do it."


Add to these facts the concept that a lot of things cannot be scripted--yet these things are still important to keep in mind--such as an AI going into "hands full" mode--and it is easy to see that the Active Player already has a lot of issues and details to deal with, regardless of whether they have any spreadsheets or other aids to help them remember other aspects of the game that can be pre-planned.


I do not profess to have an answer, but I think that it is a worthwhile issue to discuss.


Ultimately, the players who agree to play should feel comfortable with whatever approach is chosen, and if they can relatively agree on an approach that they are all comfortable with using, then it will be a fun and enjoyable experience for everyone, whether that be microing to the nth degree, using a totally-hands off mode, or likely somewhere in the broad spectrum in between the two extremes.
 
Gumbolt, you know that you and your team (Phoenix Rising) hold a special place in my heart, so I am glad that you were able to complete the competition with a very respectable date while also involving so many different players in playing the turnsets! Fantastic job! :cool:

Yes I think most of the team remember your cookbook games and your great picture story telling. I wasn't shocked when you joined OSS.

You and OSS give great detail in your analysis. The nice part about your 4t turnsets is the greater control you gain over everything. Our 10-15 turn turnsets certainly did not allow such micro. The only downside is you need players in your team that want to plan everything down to the last detail.

We played a reasonable game. Perhaps we could of used more great people earlier on. Better scouting, the navigation bonus and starting the first war earlier would of helped. 5 movement galleons would have saved us sooo much time.

I think another strategy we missed out on was ways to delay the AI getting feudalism. PD touched on this to some extent. Attacking Willem and Russians first for themcertainly helped here.

I do think it would be fun to see what you could do with a new team on here. I think it would be hard to break up your current team though. The main issue with new teams is finding the players and people you can work with.

I may have started in Trash Team but I had no regrets about creating Pheonix Rising with a lot of the cookbook players. It would be nice for someone to reform Trash team but I think all the core players have gone away or joined other teams.

I am not sure where they will go next with the SGOTM. Hopefully the game designers will think of some fun and different game to play.
 
I wonder how much other teams used the "Flying Camera" trick and how much of a disadvantage it was for us since we decided not to use it. I would assume that early on, it would have been helpful to figure out which way to explore, where the larger land masses were, etc.
 
I wonder how much other teams used the "Flying Camera" trick and how much of a disadvantage it was for us since we decided not to use it. I would assume that early on, it would have been helpful to figure out which way to explore, where the larger land masses were, etc.
It depends... do you subscribe to the "grand strategy" theory being the primary factor for a team's ranking? I do not subscribe to such a theory.

However, for those who do subscribe to that theory, then yes, the use of the Flying Camera trick was a potential game-breaker on this particular map. The Flying Camera provided the opportunity for a team to obtain the following conclusion from Turn 0:
From the looks of it, I'd say we are not even semi-isolated


Is it ruled as cheating? No.

It is a dirty practice? That's up to the individual player and/or team to decide.
 
Is it ruled as cheating? No.

It is a dirty practice? That's up to the individual player and/or team to decide.

I think this has been discussed before and AlanH has already made his thoughts clear on the matter. Anyway it seems to be a common tool for most teams now. It's just another scouting tool.
 
I too am curious to know how many teams used the flying camera, and whether it actually helped. The one big benefit I can see on this map is finding the gold early.
 
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