Screaming Orange Pumpkins - RR16B - It's tax day again ...

[vranasm]

How was Willie a debacle, V? I thought we handled him perfectly. We got several key techs from him at an opportune time.

would have to get a bit too deep into our thread for more analysis, but my initial analysis relied on extorting him of writing, alpha etc.

we had to get those techs from Asoka

not sure now what we really did extort of him, but my feeling is that we got more techs from Asoka...actually he was the best extort target?

I think I wanted to Willie have Alpha at the 1600 BC date which is sometimes possible, but that didn't happen, that was probably problem on my part of planning something that is actually pretty rare on Emperor.

we got great city out of him which was perfect, but Asoka was playing much more crucial part of the game and in that sense if we had finished Willie it probably won't make difference

edit:
rechecked the save event log... ok you were a bit right we got 2 great techs from Willie, but at 75 AD it was Alpha+Math and at the same time IW+archery+poly from ragnar

we got writing from someone out of war and if I remember right it was from Asoka

I guess the currency was selfresearched, but monarchy extorted from Asoka for some hapiness

not sure now from whom we got the construction, but my pure guess is Asoka too.

I regard the writing gift as most crucial thing of the game though... and 75 AD for alpha is certainly disappointing.

edit2:
and another thing that comes to mind is the whole situation of Holy city not allowing to work that grass cows of Amsterdam and even stealing for ~10 turns corn leading to starving of Amsterdam.
That surely costed us some...

 

[pigswill]

The turning point was getting writing from Asoka as an arrogant demand (LK's work iirc). I still think we should have gone for Chill before Asoka but no real need to go over that one again. In the end it was unit production and the ability to research through scientists and settled GS that were the key issues.

 

[vranasm]

The turning point was getting writing from Asoka as an arrogant demand (LK's work iirc). I still think we should have gone for Chill before Asoka but no real need to go over that one again. In the end it was unit production and the ability to research through scientists and settled GS that were the key issues.

well getting glh+shrine x attacking charismatic pro archers instead of longbows

tough decision. I still think going for the shrine was the better IDEA since we didn't get it the first war which was mistake on our part.

I regularly find out that on Immortal+ going for the right first target is absolutely critical as I learned in some NC game where I attacked wrong person and then replayed attacking the right one (ironic enough it was target with GLH and shrine city :-D).

 

[vanatteveldt]

Ok it seems that all of us cheated.

Ok, as the ruleset wavered a lot, I think it is betther to post the final* set of rules:

- 100% cash after getting this techs:

<snip>

- No Rep civic before Constitution 		

- No research build

Quiet builder set, where we actually made some tech progress by bulbing MC, self-teching @0% meditation and priesthood and by doing this deal, which I deemed worth it especially for cutting jungle.

Thanks LK for handing it off with 1 golden age turn left. That made first moves obvious, forget building catapults, bulb philosophy, adopt caste + pacifism. Played until London captured, will finish in the morning.

So both of us did at least one illegal bulb. I think that we didn't profit at all (since we didn't get the artist), but they will probably use forges and/or trade MC away...

Team A actually had quite some misunderstandings about the rules, e.g. whether building research was OK and whether they were allowed to research at all after the worker techs... It's amazing how they had money issues and decided to solve that by not settling the gold nearby the capital :-S

 

[vanatteveldt]

I checked the threads.

We mentioned dom on page #8, around 900BC, and it was immediately taken up as a good plan.

Nocho mentions dom 250AD (page #7), and they figure out it is possible 250 years later and seem to have a consensus that it is a good idea.

I really think that this decision is what made our game. I really like the level of focus that the other people on this team had, I would never have even thought about the end game in 900BC.. So, good work, guys!

(Edit: and I also think it is telling that on page #8 we are in 900BC while they are 700AD. This took us 17 pages. I agree with V that (at least from the point I was back) it was really good to have long discussions and short turnsets. I feel that at that important point we really did not lose time or focus. Maybe we could have captured Delhi earlier, and maybe we should have attached Churchill earlier, but we did not make any stupid mistakes and we progressed methodically towards our goal. I think this is a good example of how a SG can be much nicer than a normal SP game... so I am really lucky that his was my first SG! Aside: it seems that (the discussion/team play in) A was quite hampered by Imhoteb and IO having RL issues and being forced to skip quite a few turns...)

 

[lymond]

Where does it say we can't bulb techs? I thought we had agree somewhere that was ok.

In the back of my mind going into this thing I was think about fastest way to win...it is a competition. Otherwise, this game would otherwise be a long haul to something like diplo or space. That's fine, if we'd agreed before hand to some set VC. That was a main reason I pushed for the scout workboat early to get a lay of the land as fast as possible. You never know what you are going to get with Fractal Maps.

 

[vranasm]

I too don't see anything bad about the bulbs...

the rules were heavily simplified after the initial RR15 thoughts.

the research "build" i always took as setting any city to building research (the same way you can do with wealth/culture) accessible by Alphabet

Yeah fractal maps are ... well fractal maps we got a bit lucky with having enough land for domination, because honestly I don't find "no research" games interesting.

Or at least the form the original idea went, this compromise was borderline for me.

Research and getting tech advantage is actually one of things I find most interesting in CIV.

I would play maybe some other SG but with a bit more relaxed way, but set on higher difficulty.

For example "you could not use science slider after writing, but every other options are open to you (meaning you can rep, build research, bulb, use EP slider, culture slider etc etc)" on Immortal.

 

[vanatteveldt]

O sorry, my bad; I had misread 'build' as 'bulb'... Never mind!

As said before, I would like replay with stricter rules, and maybe on monarch. I think I proposed very clear rules in the pregame discussion (that we criticized as 'too complex'), namely: cannot do anything that generates beakers, including bulbing (which generates a determined amount of beakers but normally autocompletes a tech until late game), after worker techs. Also, I would rule out "early" domination, preferably by picking a map that makes this (practically) impossible, such as custom continents or hemispheres.

An alternative that would be slightly easier is: start with all the worker techs, and no beakers at any moment. That might make competing on emperor feasible again?

But I guess vranasm disagrees, and I understand his sentiment. Research is normally the core of CIV.. I guess we'll have to wait for the other team's finish and start this discussion in the common thread.

 

[vranasm]

no one's saying you can't do such succession game van... i am just stating that I won't most probably be part of it ;-). will probably lurk though

 

[pigswill]

I myself wouldn't care for another retread of this variant straight away, maybe later but obviously if there's enough people interested at the moment I'm sure they'd manage just fine without me .

 

[vranasm]

don't want to be too optimistic, but seeing the last 900 AD save I don't see how they could beat us...

what is even worse Asoka has open path towards Engineering and Churchill is 5 turns form having machinery and having open eng too.

and the army is really small for the task of taking on churchill who now fields LB's.

If I remember right we had around 900 AD 2 big stacks of ~15-20 melee units and lacking cats which I solved? or was it a bit later?

I think we did much better job with military production

And the gold west from Uruk is really sad sight.

 

[LKendter]

At 820 AD we had 30.8% of land. 29 vultures, 30 cats, 8 elephants.

There 900 Ad has 29.7% land - close to us. However, 26 vulture, 10 cat, and NO elephants. The scary part for them - Asoka has machinery. There city placement looks tougher to cover the gaps. I also think we have won it, mostly on the military.

 

[vranasm]

I just went to the 1300 AD save to see how many troops we needed...we produced something over 200 units and lost around 100 units in the process

screeens

Spoiler :

thinking about throwing some 2c to the A team...they seem to be a bit in deep troubles, but that could be wrongly read.

 

[lymond]

Yeah, I would probably avoid any direct advice/contributions in the A-team's thread.

 

[vranasm]

Yeah, I would probably avoid any direct advice/contributions in the A-team's thread.

well i still hope that it's first friendly competition then anything and i want the other team succeed, but I feel they face pretty big troubles and not sure they're really aware of that...

honestly not sure how to play out their save. they really fell behind a lot compared to our effort with 2 AI's being still too strong.

they can now make some dent into churchill with the stack, but that's mostly 3-4 cities after the steam goes out. And Asoka is bigger tech danger

 

[LKendter]

they can now make some dent into churchill with the stack, but that's mostly 3-4 cities after the steam goes out. And Asoka is bigger tech danger

Well if Asoka trades Machinery to Churchill is will really get ugly for them!

 

[vranasm]

Well if Asoka trades Machinery to Churchill is will really get ugly for them!

luckily for them it looks like Church has no techs for bribe...they should beg peace from Asoka for sure though.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Yeah, I would probably avoid any direct advice/contributions in the A-team's thread.

Frankly, I don't see how team A will really benefit from our knowledge other than in a general way (i.e. as if we were playing on their team). They have already realised the possibility of pre-astro domination and have committed to a mililtary strategy. They have enough knowledge in their save (techs, map) to realize that asoko and churchill will be tough nuts to crack.


I wouldn't mind if we would just be open to them and tell them our finish date and invite them to read our thread if they so wish, and we could discuss with them on how to finish their game (eg start actively contributing in their thread).

I agree with V that it is a friendly competition, and I would rather discuss strategy with them than be silent to increase our bragging chances (which are pretty good anyway ). I agree that it will be difficult for them to beat our date, but I would also like to read their heroic effort to do so.

 

[lymond]

Just to be clear on my comment, I was not referring in any way to some advantage or benefit we might provide - and any concern I might have regarding such benefit.. I was instead referring to being "invited" first before providing any contribution.

It is a "friendly" competition and I wish them the best. However, people are different in their competitive nature. Some would rather win or fail on their own merit.

 

[vranasm]

Just to be clear on my comment, I was not referring in any way to some advantage or benefit we might provide - and any concern I might have regarding such benefit.. I was instead referring to being "invited" first before providing any contribution.

It is a "friendly" competition and I wish them the best. However, people are different in their competitive nature. Some would rather win or fail on their own merit.

that's how I understood your comment and intervened in their thread very vaguely (hopefully).

If they ask us...I will be of course very open about their situation, but I think they won't want such infraction...

they are not hot on discussion in their team anyway, so why would they invite us?