Brief summary of The Council's game

[donsig]

Here's a very brief summary of my perspective of the game. It was a long game and I'm not sure I remember all the highs and lows but here goes:

• We opted from the start to try for a space victory.
• We learned very early that we were on a continent by ourselves and that each team had identically shaped landmasses. (We had an early ship named Chamsuri that survived the treacherous seas for a long time.)
• We had no way of know what resources were on each continent but we suspected each team would lack a resource.
• Being on an island and wanting to build a spaceship we began building the Great Lighthouse as a defensive measure. I think we missed out by two turns.
• Since BABE built the Great Lighthouse we braced ourselves for an invasion by them.
• BABE did come but all we had to do was block the coast.
• We determined that we would be isolated at some point as we reached for the stars. We needed large cities and were worried about happiness so we decided to build the Sistine Chapel. We went through a period of intense micro-management. (Well, any MM is intense to me.)
• BABE tried to invade us early so they were not a potential ally. IIRC we thought GONG was going for a cultural victory and for some reason they were never high on our list of potential allies. We were always worried about SABER who had the combination of Chamnix and the scientific trait. That put FREE at the top of our friends list. We hammered out a deal with FREE to split the research and advance an age. Our idea was to remain allied with FREE until the last age when the two of us would race for space.
• My memory is a bit fuzzy at this point. BABE and GONG all but disappear being swallowed up by SABER and FREE respectively. We fell out with FREE and ended up in a research partnership with SABER.
• Our Early Warning System (EWS) was our main defense. It was a system of airbases and jets that we used to recon our entire coast. We keep a vigil for rival transports and abandoned any threatened coastal cities.
• We were concerned about rubber. We didn't have any and we needed it not only for military units but for one of our spaceship parts. (The casing?) I think we were in a phony war with FREE when we seized a one tile island off old GONG that had rubber.
• We had secured a no nuke treaty with SABER. We weren't 100% sure they'd adhere to it if they knew we were about to win. We decided we needed an insurance policy and cut a deal with FREE to give them all the spaceship techs. We thought that we'd have a better chance of winning if we gave SABER a second target.
• At some point I became turn player again and put together a plan for finishing the spaceship. We didn't really have a problem with the research and we finished nine parts, including the one requiring rubber. We still needed the engine and we had three cities piling shields towards that end.
• By this time SABER was pounding us with their stealth bombers and we really had no defense. We plugged along and then the nukes started falling.
• After FREE's spaceship was destroyed we decide to move our capital further inland to safeguard our ship.
• SABER finally landed (a measly half dozen armor!) and as turn player I almost missed them since they blended in so well with the radioactive goo that covered our land. We rushed units to try to defend our capital and we even used our own nukes to take out the SABER units we could see. They nuked and bombed our defenders and took our undefended capital. We were less than forty shields away from completing the last part we needed to launch.

It was a fun game and I learned quite a bit. It was frustrating to get so close and lose, though if SABER had been able to sabotage our last part we weren't really as close as it appears. The really frustrating thing was the realization that SABER may well have stuck by the no nuke treaty if we hadn't foolishly broken the treaty. It was foolish but unintentional, we didn't think we were breaking the treaty. When it was brought up in the UN I tried writing a post defending our actions and after reading the old treaty I could find no defense. Of course since we were very worried about SABER we may have done the same thing had we realized we'd be breaking the treaty.

It would be interesting to hear what others, both on the Council and off, remember about the game.

 

[dutchfire]

I think you have missed some of the Council-SABER diplomacy. My memory is a bit fuzzy on this part (it is more than 3 years ago, isn't it?). We were also looking to complete the Great Lighthouse but were beaten (and then tried to build the GLib instead and were beaten too, so it became the Colossus). At some point we signed a treaty with you (Defence against Babe http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=223924&highlight=defence+babe&page=2) that said we would assist eachother if Babe attacked either of us. Babe wanted to invade us at that point, but we managed to block our coast with junk units just in time (which caused quite some stirrup). The alternative of letting them land, building good units and defeating them was considered, but we didn't want to do that because then we would have to declare war and BABE would get war happiness. Babe then sailed on and landed on the small council island. We were hopelessly behind technologically but managed to buy most of the ancient age techs from the Council. However, at that moment it was quite clear that BABE-GONG were allied (GONG going for cultural) and Council-FREE were allied.

I think we would have nuked you anyway if that was the only way to stop you from winning.

Looking back at the diplo threads, I visited Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, the UK and the United States during this game, completed high school and made decent progress towards my Bachelor degree.

 

[Whomp]

When Babe couldn't land units on Saber our whole team collapsed. We knew they were the team to beat for a domination win. By blocking it pretty much wiped out any interest our warmongering style players had.

 

[Cyc]

I feel bad for the teams that couldn't deal with Saber's uniqueness. And donsig, you put up a hell of a fight, right up to the end. Almost beat us.

I'm just glad I was able to learn from Chamnix and Calis. No matter how much I fought with these guys to get the things I thought we needed, they prevailed and showed me the basic fundementals to kick your guys butts. Ado, gentlemen of foriegn lands. Perhaps we shall beat play you another day.

 

[Niklas]

IIRC the reason we "fell out with FREE" was that we felt that they were wonder-hugging, and we feared we couldn't beat them if we reached the MT together. Oh what a different game it might have been had we stuck with FREE at that point!

 

[Calis]

Here (Post #1358) we recognized that you gifted all remaining SS techs to FREE:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237125&page=136

Our immediate reaction was: "It seems to be over now, as we are not able to stop both teams from launching a space ship".

At that point, we saw that nukes were our only option and the planning started here(Post #775):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=258754&page=78

Coincidentically that was the time, I got my heavy depression. Probably I should blame The Council.

And here you can find the beginning planning vs. FREEs space ship:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=244764&page=51

 

[Lanzelot]

Looking back at the diplo threads, I visited Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, the UK and the United States during this game, completed high school and made decent progress towards my Bachelor degree.

In 1995 the team of the "German Democratic Republic" (GDR) won the Bronze medal in the 10th Correspondence Chess Olympiad. So what, you may ask.
The funny thing about this is: meanwhile the GDR had ceased to exist as a state, due to the 1990 German re-unification... (The 10th Correspondence Chess Olympiad lasted from 1988-95 )

 

[RFHolloway]

• IIRC we thought GONG was going for a cultural victory and for some reason they were never high on our list of potential allies.

Thats because we were! Mainly down to my suggestion, of course completely forgetting that you almost have to win by domination to win by culture.

 

[killercane]

Well the crucial point in the game for the Council had to be Babe dropping off 23 mounted warriors and only 2 pikes to protect them. Council only had a handful of pikes and 2 muskets at that time it looks like so a logical even split of pikes/mws and a shipchain would have put a premature end to the Council or at least a big dent. There are a lot of permutations for all the other teams if that had of happened.

 

[dutchfire]

When we received word that Babe had landed such a unbalanced stack, we kinda wished we had just built offensive units instead of blockers, let them land and crush them.