P666-01 Fix the Trash Game

This isn't a traditional succession game, but more like a variant 'Ambrose golf meets Civ' in that the roster will play the same game and at intervals alternate between the least successful attempt and the most successful attempt.

All players on the roster will be giving it their legitimate best shot. The Prince level players are invited to play all rounds, while the Monarch level players play the rounds where at the end the best game is to be selected (i.e. fixing the 'trash game'), but they may choose to play the other round at their discretion. The roster is comprised of both Noble-Prince level players and Monarch-Emperor players.

End of round discussions will hopefully provide some 'educational' value.

The idea of fixing a succession game where the situation was regularly 'less than great' was Paul666's idea, and was floated in the Strategies and Tips forum. This format stemmed from that initial proposal.

The Settings

Civ: Germany (Bismark)
Landmass Type: Standard Continents
Sea Level: Medium
Climate: Temperate
Size: Standard
Barbarians: Normal
Difficulty: Prince
Speed: Normal
Victory: All types enabled however human player confined to variant
Version: 1.61 Vanilla

The Start



The Variant

Players play in rounds to agreed check points. Games are compared and discussed. The opening game (below) is played for 40 turns. The agreed least successful (non-loss) game is then played by all for the next round. Games are compared, then the most successful game is played at least by the Noble-Prince players. The game chosen alternates between least and most successful per round.

Germany can only win by Conquest, Domination, or Diplomatic-by-own-population.


The Players

Roster full.

Cabert : Monarch
Pigswill : Monarch
Armstrong : Monarch
Cam_H : Monarch
Mice : Prince
Petrucci : Prince
Calavente : Prince
VuDu : Noble

M.I.A.
William III : Prince
Paul666 : Prince


The Etiquette

Slow! Games to be posted by Saturday morning 'American time'.

Up to 1000AD*, rounds of 40 turns (* or thereabouts, to be agreed).
From 1000AD, rounds of 20 turns.

No reloads. No WorldBuilder.

Rounds

Round One: A great starting location with a great range of food, production, and commerce offerings. Settling on the spot looks like an option, but are there better alternatives? Looking for the least successful game to 850BC.

Round Two: The tribe spoke and the tribe went with Vudu's game as at 875BC. Everyone played on to try to provide the most successful game to 125AD.

Round Three: This time we took Cabert's game that had two strong cities and got a lot of mileage from Wonders and working the technology tree well. It was played to the end of the 1000AD turn.

Round Four: All submissions were strong, and in a close call it was Calavente's game that was chosen for this round's play. Everyone was invited to submit at 1500AD turn where the 'most successful' game was be chosen.

Round Five: In the end a game that showed both brains and muscle was selected at the most successful submission, and it was agreed that armstrong's would be taken for the next round. VuDu, Mice, Calavente, and Cabert each submitted winning Domination games from the 18th or 19th Century.

Game Over!

Well I plan to lurk this one, I'm sure I'll get some good insights from it.

Thanks for getting it running Cam_H.
Wow thats a good start position !

I looked at it and I thought "Why can't I normally get something remotely like that???"

We're probably an oasis in a Copper-less, Iron-less, Ivory-less desert!

It's an interesting start and not totally straightforward either. What year is 40 turns?

According to my reckoning, 2400BC.

Wow great dice roll on that start Cam_H! Thanks for getting things rolling! Also Nice work explaining everything out also , could have been easy to get lost with this rule set we are running with! Hopefully we can get some strategic metals to go with the shiney ones!

i'm not playing this round, but am very glad to see you opened it perfectly.
See you next week for discussion or is it advice time?

I think you should be back in time to disseminate your wisdom and point the naughty stick at the player with the least successful game.

I've been percolating on this start a bit and I agree with pigswill in that it's not that straight forward - in some sense a gluttony of riches that can steer the game in a few directions. With that said, I have a pretty good idea of the approach that I would take in at least achieving some mini-milestones.

Well, whizzed through the first 40 turns. I'll post the save a bit later. Wouldn't like to spoil it for anyone else.

A thought occurs to me: would it be helpful if the 'experts' played their own game as a series of demo games in addition to 'fixing the trash game'. Play according to intervals so as not to get too many spoilers and post towards the end. Its obviously extra work/play so would there be an interest in this?

pigswill said:

Well, whizzed through the first 40 turns. I'll post the save a bit later. Wouldn't like to spoil it for anyone else.

Click to expand...

do you think you're likely to be the worst?
i must say it's a rather uncommon start.
With gold and silver, and being industrious, it looks like happiness won't be too much of a problem...

Pigswill, I'd be keen to see these saves near the end of the game. Sounds like one more way to learn.
Heres my save.


Any criticism welcome.

Whew, glad I didn't post mine yet! I was going to write a little mini report, spoilers included! I guess we will be discussing each save posted and the merits and demerits of each based on loading up each save posted? I should have mine up here tomorrow unfortunatly work has been evil!

edit: I like the idea of comparing my save points to the experts! It is up to you, but something I would study after this thread has reached its resolution.

Mice - thanks for being so speedy. I can't look at your game for a few days, although I have some views on what you've outlined in your written summary.

To all: I would suggest to minimise spoilers while others are still playing please. If you must, perhaps use the 'spoiler' tags.

I think that everyone is at sufficiently similar level to lose these "newbie" and "expert" tags - I'd prefer "Prince-level" and "Monarch-level" if everyone's OK with that. The last thing I want is some Immortal-level lurker suffer coronary failure from excessive laughter at my "expert" advice. Hopefully Pigswill, Cabert, and I may nonetheless make at least a few worthwhile calls!

I am a little mindful that my game if I play this round might not look that much better than the Prince-players' games given 40 turns. I know I'm unlikely to do any backward-triple-somersaults with a start like that, envisaging a very workman-like approach.

Cam_H said:

I think that everyone is at sufficiently similar level to lose these "newbie" and "expert" tags - I'd prefer "Prince-level" and "Monarch-level" if everyone's OK with that. The last thing I want is some Immortal-level lurker suffer coronary failure from excessive laughter at my "expert" advice.

Click to expand...

that's why i wanted one real expert around

Hopefully Pigswill, Cabert, and I may nonetheless make at least a few worthwhile calls!

Click to expand...

well, i'm sure we will, but i still fear we're gonna lose this game...

I am a little mindful that my game if I play this round might not look that much better than the Prince-players' games given 40 turns. I know I'm unlikely to do any backward-triple-somersaults with a start like that, envisaging a very workman-like approach.

Click to expand...

No problem, it's the worst start that will be selected
Just try to avoid being this one!

Cabert: I'm confident that we won't lose, the game may lack elegance with various twists and turns but we'll win.
Edit: personally speaking I'm more than happy to lose 'expert' tag; it never felt right to start with. But it would be good if an experienced player could join in.

I have every confidence we will win this game!

Oh yes, btw here is my submission!

Tiny report below in spoiler tag (yes some spoilers included, to compare after you have submitted your own save). Can't wait to see how I stack up against everyone!

cabert said:

well, i'm sure we will, but i still fear we're gonna lose this game...

Click to expand...

Where's that unbridled confidence? Actually losing is the least of my concerns ... as per one of my earlier comments over on 'the other thread in the other forum', I would have pushed for the game to be put up to Monarch level, but I sensed that others weren't too excited about that. Perhaps at the end, we'll be able to better assess whether the difficulty level was right.

Given the 'friendly competitiveness' within the group, I think that we'll see fewer moves than one might have in a normal single player game (at least I hope so!).

What we might find however is competing strategies that end up twisting the game in two or more different directions, which is one reason why I wanted to avoid allowing a German Cultural or Spaceship victory. I can envisage that we will talk our way through to developing a few consistent thoughts on our loosely agreed direction as the game unfolds, regardless of which game is selected in a given round.

cabert said:

No problem, it's the worst start that will be selected
Just try to avoid being this one!

Click to expand...

It may sound like an excuse, but I think that we should also be mindful of the extraordinary good or bad luck that you can have with this game. The least successful game might just be one of the ones that was well played ... but 'yes' - I'll try to avoid submitting the worst game!

We probably should have thought about another thing, which is how we are going to present the rationale for the games submitted: Is a turn log appropriate? Dot maps? Explanation of technology path? The war plan?

... Is this overcomplicating things, and maybe the games should be taken on their own merit?

The dreaded voting for 'least successful' ... thoughts on approach?


Petrucci, thanks for your game. I look forward to having a look at it in the next few days.

Thanks Mice for fixing the spoiler.

I'm a bit concerned not to have heard from William III and VuDu - if you could check in, that would be great.

Paul666 is having 'Free Speech' issues with 'the tribe with The Pyramids' I'm assuming.

Do we have any in this group? I'd hate to refer to someone as a by mistake!

Edit:

cabert said:

that's why i wanted one real expert around

Click to expand...

OK ... I'll open up the roster to invite a player who has a track record of Emperor or higher level wins on 'normal' maps and is willing to put up with the rest of us through the long haul!

Edit2: OK ... forget about Edit above!

cam_h, don't worry
the game is started, we'll play it just as good as we can, and learn just as much as we can=too late to involve another "expert"
+ we built the rules according to our roster, so no problem

About the writeup, i think we need to understand the why and how for each game=what was intented and how it went.
A turn log is cool, but not necessary since 40 turns make a huge log! We'll have to open every game (that's why we need 2 days for the vote)!

Cam_H said:

Do we have any in this group? I'd hate to refer to someone as a by mistake!

Click to expand...

<----- me

I'm not sure if there's the yawning gap of expertise that I guess I envisaged.

Click to expand...

Thanks for adding me in! It's the above quote that compelled me to contribute toward the yawning gap of expertise .