SGOTM3 Rome Spoiler 2 - Game Over

SGOTM3 Rome Spoiler 2 - Game Over

To qualify for this spoiler players need to meet two criteria.
1. The team must have submitted their endgame to the server.
2. The nominated scribe must have posted a synopsis of the game from the middle ages to the bitter end.

Do not discuss or share the clues to the barbarian puzzle here.

Now I'm pretty sure we're not the first team to finish, but I'll go first anyhow.

The final save has been submitted.

A brief synopsis: Not much noteworthy happened since the last spoiler, except that we got completely overrun. I will not complain about rng shafts, because I think the team made it's mistakes, which probably were more than enough to sink us regardless. We were never able to mount a sustained offensive throughout the game, though we did have some flashes of brilliance from Romeo and M60 in particular. But eventially, the knights and cavs became just too much. We were only up to Chemistry at the end. We did end up getting about 5 or 6 leaders, which were used for the FP, Pentagon, and a few armies.

Conquest loss in 1365 ad.

I have absolutely no idea what the barb puzzle is, as we didn't see one for the entire game.

Did I mention we were playing the variant?

Opponents and war date:

Greece - Contact/declare turn 14
France - Contact/declare turn 54
England - Contact turn 54/declare turn 74
Germany - Contact turn 56/declare turn 94
America - Contact turn 65/they declare turn 105
Babylon - Contact turn 65/they declare turn 91
Russia - Contact turn 74/they declare turn 120
Aztecs - Contact turn 120/declare turn 140
Japan - Contact turn 121/declare turn 157
India - Contact turn 121/declare turn 160
Iroquois - Contact turn 121/they declare turn 133

Team Mauer: Non-variant
Spoiler 1

Started off the MA as a Republic, and at war with the Greeks. Research was set to Fuedalism at 40 to save cash for upgrades to knights, and iron was disconnected. We decided MT would be our stopping point.

EDIT: Too many SG's for me I guess. Actually Iron was not disconnected. We did build horsemen, but used them and constantly were building Legs. The only time our Iron was disconnected was while we were building warriors for upgrade to legs. Sad part is, no one on Team Mauer even noticed .

Wars: We had off and on wars with all of the civs on our continent throughout the remainder of the game. We would make headway with a war, and sign for peace when it no longer benefitted us. The turning point in our game came about in 50 BC. An extremely successful campaign against the Greeks left much unsettled territory. The fledgling northern tribes began running settlers through our country to settle this free land. This was deemed an unacceptable practice and they were told to remove their filthy flesh from the Roman territory. We were told to prepare our forces, which was cause for our militaristic empire to celebrate the beginning of their end.

The second continent was contacted in 70AD by a suicide galley. They are behind on techs, so we sell them republic and contacts. This is also about the time we began colonisation of Barb Isle.

I thought Disney World would be much more fun than this


520AD Babylon destroyed
540AD England destroyed
610AD last Greek city on barb island gone
710AD Final American galley sunk
770AD France destroyed on Barb Isle
840AD Germany destroyed on the northern island
920AD India is no more

When the Northern Provinces were cleared, we began resettling some of the local population to unsettled territory and increasing our national borders. Temples were also rushed in all coastal cities, and in cities near uninhabitable terrain. Many galleys were mass produced to prepare for upgrading and an ocean crossing. Once across the ocean we set out to ROP rape India with cav. I guess they got wind of our scheme, and decided to attack our cav brigades in their territory. Maybe a turn earlier than we wanted, but they didn't last but a few turns after that.

With temples flying up everywhere, and mass resettlement taking place, tile limit was coming close. Japan was deemed easy prey, since they still were using men with pointy sticks to defend their cities. Our sneaky ROP worked on Japan this time. Tom Cruise and his Samuri buddies didn't stand a chance against our cavalry. A few cities were captured and voila, Domination victory in 1070 AD. Total city count was 192.

MGL's (7) and uses
30BC-Sun Tzu's AoW
130AD-FP in Paris
500AD-Bachs & Leonardos' Workshop
510AD-army
610AD-Heroic epic
790AD-Copernicus Observatory

That variant sounded dangerous, and it proved to be. What made it worse - having to declare war early or having to be constantly at war?

alamo said:

That variant sounded dangerous, and it proved to be. What made it worse - having to declare war early or having to be constantly at war?

Click to expand...

I would say neither. The worst part was the Xenophobic part. Not being able to keep cities, and workers especially, was something we did not prepare well for.

We have had some discussion, and I think a few things really hurt us:
1. Lack of timely MGL's. We did end up with 5 or 6, but they all came at times when there was nothing truly useful to build.
2. Delaying GA. We waited to delay our GA until we got out of despotism, which cost us 20-30 turns when we had an advantage with legions.
3. Not pressing hard enough. We played defensively a bit too much, again not exploiting our advantage.
4. Probably not enough workers. We were slow to improve our terrain (though not horribly so), which of course translates to lower production.
5. We did not control the mountain range. This was bigger than it seemed, I think. We lost more units attacking than we should have, and could have killed many more defensively if it was us holding the mountains instead of the ai.

I'm sure there were more things, but these come to mind right now.

alamo said:

That variant sounded dangerous, and it proved to be. What made it worse - having to declare war early or having to be constantly at war?

Click to expand...

I think the order that the declarations were in could change the outcome a lot. We made an educated guess that America was furthest away and that France was close by. We chose to get all the contacts in one turn (beyond the first two), when they were available. So France was one of our last wars, and that buffer really helped to slow down other attacks.

I think everyone met Greece first, but their land was so bad that they posed only a little threat to us. Our second war was with Babylon, and they just sent a slow but steady group of Bowmen that we were able to pick off.

In the critical early MA period before Knights, when a large amount of AI were attacking us we were able to tunnel the AI off the mountains to move on our open cities, and then pick them all off in the open. This tactic led to very successfull leader farming.

I'm sure Tarkeel will be here soon with our spoiler.

A bit delayed, but here it is:

Exploration
We missed out on contacting the other continent on our own, and instead Japan contacted America first. Apart from that, most exploration done after the ancient age was settling in the barbarian filled continent, which we dubbed Hadrian's Wall.

Contacts and declarations
470 AD - DoW Iroquois
650 AD - India is signed against us by America, who immediately sue for peace. Gee, that's nice..
700 AD - DoW Aztecs
(Will need to edit this part with details when I find them)

Trading and Research
Feudalism from GL in 270 BC
Monotheism and Engineering?
Japan 270/280 AD: Offer Monarchy and get contact with Iroquois, WM and 20g. Then sell our WM back for all their gold, before declaring war
Gunpowder from GL in 290 AD
Chivalry from GL in 310 AD
Theology from GL in 340 AD
Eductaion from GL in 450 AD
Chemistry self researched in 500 AD
Metallurgy self researched in 600 AD
Aztecs 630 AD: Offer Metallurgy and get Astronomy, WM and 6g.
Military Tradition self reserached in 680 AD
Navigation self reserached in 900 AD

Warfare
The Roman Monarchy is founded in 310 BC, and on the IBT one of our legions defend valiantly against a bowman, triggering a great age of prosperity for our people. Around this time, the main enemy offensive is centered around Byzantium, where we would kill a few enemies with elites every turn. We got a small shock in 210 AD, when Germany actually dispatches a sword army towards us! Some catapults and a horse dispatches it without losses the next turn though.

Greek Front
After some early skirmishes, including burning a Greek city on OUR land, it was time to take the fight to them. Our legions raze Sparta and Pharsalos in 110 BC, followed by the undefended Herakleia in 30 BC. Athens burns in 10 AD, after 2 turns of siege. Argos follows suit in 30 AD, leaving them with 1 city left in the core (which fell in 110 AD), far away from their new palace. Greece was a non-issue after this, and they finally find their Pax Romanum in 280 AD

French Front
Tours was founded on our side of the hills and was razed in 110 BC to make room for our expanded frontline. In 110 AD we took the fight to the French, and sacked Paris. There was a brief lull in the action as we refilled the lands, healed and killed stragglers, but 2 more core cities fell in 290 AD. Orleans falls in 370 AD, followed by Lyons in 380 AD. In 540 AD Marseille is razed, reducing France to a OCC in the middle of Babylon. Hardly a threat, and they exit the game in 630 with the help of a new army.

English Front
The Brits were rather quiet in the start of the game, but around 10 BC they came rolling over the hills in the west with several horses and archers. It was a bit hairy there, but we barely managed to fend them of without losing any worthless border cities. After neglecting them for some time, they finally got some attention in 260 AD when we razed Dover followed by Oxford in 290 AD. Warwick goes in 370 AD followed by York in 390 AD. London is razed in 490 AD after 30 years of intense warfare, including a lost legion army. Hastings follow suit in 530 AD. Nottinhgam puts up a fierce fight, but is finally razed in 630 AD. They are finally shown the door in 730 AD.

Babylon
Babylon didn't manage to do much for the first part of the game, just sending a steady trinkle of leaderfarming victims. In 510 AD we had finally moved up to their territory, and razed Ellippi. Uruk and Nineveh follows suit in 590 AD. Babylon itself is razed in 770 AD, and Ur in 790 AD. Akkad goes in 810 AD, and Babylon finds peace at last.

Russia
Russia was more of a nuissance then a threat, they had only 4 cities, of which 3 were tundra fishing villages. They managed to raze a newly founded city in 510 AD and a filler in 730 AD. We finally pay them back in 840 AD, burning down Yakutsk. Details are sketchy, but they were more a nuisance then a threat, and both cities were lost due to mainly underestimating them.

America
America was the big shot on our continent, with a lot of good cities in fertile land. We destroy their colony of New Orleans in 560 AD, but we didn't start touching their core for a long time. Philly and San Francisco burns in 810 AD, and 3 more the next turn. Washington is burned to the ground in 840 AD. Their core falls easily, and in 950 AD they are reloacted to the small northern island. In 1160 they are cleared from this island as well, and have only one city on Hadrian's left.

Germany
Along with America, Germany was our biggest threat in the homeland. They were big, had good land, and were far away. Most of our losses during the homeland "mop-up" were inflicted by German and American knights. Their first city, Leipzig, burns in 820 AD and Frankfurt in 830 AD.

Hadrian's Wall (aka Barbie Island)
This strange island took us pretty long to colonize due to the terrain, but we started pretty early and always kept it as second priority. America and Germany both had a city here, but the others didn't have time to do much with it.

Japan
As the only civ from the other continent to be able to reach us, they kept landing settler pairs in the northern warzone, and the occasional longbow or other nuisance near the core. A samurai managed to raze a city on Hadrian's wall in 980 AD.

India
India was selected as the target of choice in the New World, and in 1040 AD we land forces at 2 places in the Indian core. They surprise us by not counter attacking, and in 1050 AD we clear the landing zone, razing Madras. The next turned we blitzed and razed Calcutta, Bangalore and Delhi. Bombay burns in 1090 AD, almost swallowing our cav army. We don't bother with the jungle filled peninsula, and continue towards the Iroquois.

Aztecs
The Aztecs managed to land a pretty fearful invasion force in 1010 AD, consisting of 3 Cavs, 2 Impis and a Longbow. They were quickly dispatched by newly built cavs though. After the inital blitz landing, the Aztecs managed to slow us down a great deal with counterattacking cavs.

Iroquois
After taking the easy Indian lands, Cattaraugus is razed in 1140 AD. Fierce counter attacks keep slowing us down, but Niagra Falls burn in 1230 AD.

End Game
After trudging through fierce counter attacks and some rifle defenders, in 1295 we are finally 7 tiles from domination.. Settle a city and get some culture expansion, and the result:



Leaders:
210 BC - Sun Tzu
10 BC - Hanging Gardens
290 AD - Forbidden Palace
310 AD - Leonardo's Workshop
370 AD - Army
420 AD - Heroic Epic
440 AD - Sistine Chapel
480 AD (ca) - Army
790 AD - Army
920 AD - Magellan's Voyage
1060 AD - Army
1090 AD - Cathedral
1140 AD - Army
1150 AD - Army
1160 AD - Colisseum
1220 AD - Military Academy
There might be some more in the last turns, as we didn't really know what to do with them and might have failed to mention them.

Wonders
Sun Tzu - Complete in 170 BC
Hanging Gardens - Completed in 30 AD
Great Lighthouse - Built by Japan in 130 AD
Leonardo's Workshop - Complete in 350 AD (Leader)
JS Bach - Builtby Japan in 1090 AD

General Thoughts
Our second city was quickly brought up to speed as a 4-turn settler factory, which we kept churning throughout the entire game. We never stopped settling, even while fighting defensively we settled in the opposite direction, and partly along the frontlines.
We decided to go for a tight built, and had RCP at 3-6-10 around the start location.
The only questionable tactics we used, were some ship-chaining halfway combat settlers, but we never abandoned cities to get far into enemy territory. We did not move the palace or use resource disconnection.

Well done!

I don't think I would fare so well in that variant.

We didn't do iron disconnect simply because we had more warriors than we could upgrade, and not all of them were vets.

I'm not sure what this means

The only questionable tactics we used, were some ship-chaining halfway combat settlers, but we never abandoned cities to get far into enemy territory.

Click to expand...

alamo said:

Well done!

I don't think I would fare so well in that variant.

We didn't do iron disconnect simply because we had more warriors than we could upgrade, and not all of them were vets.

I'm not sure what this means

Click to expand...

Settle a city, to push back AI culture, move another settler into the culture gap you created, disband first city, use second settler to create new city, and you can keep doing this until your Cavalry are next to their city, all in one turn. Allows your Cavalry to push through AI culture much quicker.

Which is what we didn't do btw We just used one city to get closer, and did not abandon it

We played the variant and entered the Middle Ages the turn after having built the Great Library in 650BC, little did we know this was going to be the highlight of our game. We were concerned from the beginning of the game about not being able to trade and falling way behind in techs, so we had decided to start a prebuild on the Great Library. Hand building a wonder in a game like this turned out to be our glaring and fatal mistake.

We got a great leader in 750BC and used him to rush the Library and switched our prebuild to Sun Tzu. By the time we generated our 2nd great leader in 350BC we were 17 turns from hand building Sun Tzu, so we created our first legion army. We generated another great leader in 310BC and created another army. We were feeling pretty good about our chances at this point. Here is a pick at our minimap from 310BC.





We become a monarchy in 170BC, but are facing a continuous onslaught of forces. From this point until the end of the game we are playing an almost entirely defensive game. We did not count on the intensity of the other civs. Against them individually we were strong, but when you combine them it was overwhelming. This is when we realized our mistake. The 600 shields invested in Sun Tzu could have produced 20 legions and with 2 armies at the ready we should have steam rolled over our continent.

Instead we lost one of our armies on the IBT to 130BC. We generate our 4th great leader in 30BC, use it to rush Sun Tzu and switch our prebuild to Leo’s Workshop. By 10AD we are at war with the entire starting continent. The BABs complete Leo on the IBT and we switch to Heroic Epic wasting 387 shield (almost 13 legions worth). Here is a picture of what we were facing at 50AD.




This onslaught never let up. I tracked the units I killed in a 10 turn period from 70Ad to 250AD. I killed 50 units and razed 3 towns and there was no slowdown to the wave of international forces flooding us. The only thing that changed was the unit type. We did not have enough money to do horse to knight upgrade and ended up using most of our funds rushing legions for defense. We were never able to close off our northern area and we ended up fighting a 2 front war. We generate more great leaders in 350AD & 390AD, use for armies. We lose a knight army in 480AD. Generate 2 more great leaders in 570AD & 640AD, used for armies.

At the end of 650AD our military consisted of 2 spears, 1 pike, 5 knights, 5 cats, 7 legions, a 3-man knight army, two 3-man legion armies and one 2-man legion army. We had 18 cities and 19 individual units (counting the armies as 1 unit). Here is a picture of our minimap.



From here the end was fairly swift and very one sided. We lose 1 of our legion armies in 680AD, another on the IBT to 700AD and cavalries are attacking us. We generate our last great leader in 890AD but have nothing to do with him, some leader. Then to add insult to injury India contacts us on the IBT to 930AD we make some trades and declare war on them, declare war on Iroquois and finally declare war on Japan. The game ends on the IBT to 960AD with the fall of the Roman Empire.

Ouch! Things really got out of hand there.

I'm still a little confused by the combat settlers - why would you bother to disband the town after pushing back the culture boundary?

Also, if you have enough cavs to take several cities in one turn then why didn't you send some of them in sooner?

I'm still a little confused by the combat settlers - why would you bother to disband the town after pushing back the culture boundary?

Click to expand...

Maybe because that was the variant rule...

Also, if you have enough cavs to take several cities in one turn then why didn't you send some of them in sooner?

Click to expand...

We never had a cav. We did not reach military tradition. We did not send in our knights "sooner" because we did not have any of them "sooner".

Gator summed it up quite well. I asked the team to do the wonder prebuild and worse asked to switch it twice when we rushed the GL -> Sun Tzu's and when we rushed Sun Tzu's in another city to Leo's which ended up as the most expensive heroic epic build.

We may have made a mistake in the sequence of declaring too, as we were at war with our nearest neighbours first and I read from others that did it better. In parts we had no choice and in parts we made mistakes. All in all the variant was too difficult for us as a team. AW would in fact have been easier as what really crippled us was the xenophobic variant. We razed a town in the same place over and over again. Once is was Greek then French then Byzantine...

Despite the rule confusions we had at the start, is was an interesting game, but we could not swallow the peace of cake we took. Maybe we need a better balancing of teams next time...or maybe we just thought it would be easier than it was.

Has anybody else noticed that Team Peanut is nearing the IA, while still in despotism ?

alamo said:

I'm still a little confused by the combat settlers - why would you bother to disband the town after pushing back the culture boundary?

Click to expand...

Sometimes you need to push the culture boundary back one more space than the first city gives you all in the same turn. Your first city would allow your second settler to move next to that space, but can't build another city as its next to the first city. Disband the first, and you can build the second, effectively pushing the culture back another space, which may be what is needed to get to another AI city in the same turn.

With rails and enough cavalry and settlers (and workers if the AI hasn't railed everything), you can take over a continent in a single turn.

Congrats to Team Smackster. Very well played. I'd like to thank MB for this mess this was the most challenging civ game I've played to date. I have come away from the game learning a lot. I may try this start out in a personal game to see if I can do better with spoiler info and some techniques learned from te other teams. (now if I can just find an extra 96 hours 15 min 7 sec to play )

smackster said:

Sometimes you need to push the culture boundary back one more space than the first city gives you ... you can take over a continent in a single turn.

Click to expand...

Ok, that make sense.

I am still a litle skeptical about the efficiency, though. If you have enough troops to take every city at once then could you have taken half of them 20 turns earlier?

alamo said:

Ok, that make sense.

I am still a litle skeptical about the efficiency, though. If you have enough troops to take every city at once then could you have taken half of them 20 turns earlier?

Click to expand...

Regardless of this tactic you should attack when you have enough troops available. But lets say you have 20 Cavalry, and take the first city with the first three Cavalry, you may find that the next city is now 3 more culture squares away. With the Settler trick you can make that two squares, and the rest of your Cavalry can attack the same turn.

This tactic is particularly useful when invading a continent with high culture.

smackster

Btw: Not to sound like a coplete cad in my previous post I will add. Congrats to everyone on their games. Team Mauer - Excelent job

@grs - Please don't make it sound as if it were your sole decision to go after the wonders. The rest of us were right there beside you the whole way. There is plenty of blame to go around.

@ whomever cares to listen -
If I play the next SGOTM - I will not choose the varient - I already have quite enough wooden cooking utensils to my name.

@grs, I concur with Mistfit. Decision on wonder prebuild was a TEAM decision.