Tallanas, as long as I'm not receiving the Wayne Rooney Award for looks, or for command of the English language, I'm delighted.
He's never going to be David Beckham off the pitch, that lad....
Regarding Team Peanut's quick variant win:
1. They got their FP built in 30 AD with a GL. The difference between the prospects of a civ which gets an early FP from a GL, and those of one which agonizingly hand-builds the thing, is almost impossible to overstate. Notwithstanding the factors below, if we'd completed our FP when they did we might have equalled their finish time.
2. Playing PtW, they got Fission as their free IA tech, and I believe Russia's free IA tech may have helped them too (though I emphasize that this isn't clear to me). In vanilla, neither of these things was ever going to happen for us. Moral: let's not play vanilla next time, please. Somewhat ironically, the gentleman for whose benefit you accepted this handicap wasn't able to finish the game.
3. They pulled off the freakish feat of winning a UN vote called by the AI (so full credit to you, Scout--it is possible). I don't know whether this makes their victory more or less meaningful (actually I do know, but it wouldn't be chivalrous to go into that
).
I admire the refinement of getting the client civ to pre-build the UN--but given the lack of late-IA Wonders, one would need an enormous tech lead to try this. I'm not sure we were ever that far ahead of the pack (the FP issue again, ultimately).
As Mad-bax has indirectly informed you all
, I'm not in a position to play SGOTM3 from the beginning, due to travel over the next month. But I'd be pleased to see this team stay together, and I'd be glad to play in SGOTM4 with the rest of you, or possibly join SGOTM3 midway through.