pigswill said:
Did i sound critic? Not what i wanted. If it was for the best game, i would vote for yours though lack of war vs some neighbours will make it harder later (conquistadores? musketeers? not forgetting macemen, longbowmen...)
P666-01 Fix the Trash Game
- Thread starter Cam_H
- Start date
Did i sound critic? Not what i wanted. If it was for the best game, i would vote for yours though lack of war vs some neighbours will make it harder later (conquistadores? musketeers? not forgetting macemen, longbowmen...)
I've gotta say that I really like Pigswill's game for the fact that it's so 'left field' - it's healthy to see such a novel approach.
I've voted ... but regardless of my vote, I can't restrain myself on one point for much longer ... there are two submitted games that are in
that should be in
I admit - I'm the
of big cities, but +1 
per unit is just such a great opportunity for the 'non-Pyramid' games.
I've voted ... but regardless of my vote, I can't restrain myself on one point for much longer ... there are two submitted games that are in
that should be in
I admit - I'm the
of big cities, but +1 per unit is just such a great opportunity for the 'non-Pyramid' games.Cam_H said:I've gotta say that I really like Pigswill's game for the fact that it's so 'left field' - it's healthy to see such a novel approach.
I've voted ... but regardless of my vote, I can't restrain myself on one point for much longer ... there are two submitted games that are in
that should be in
I admit - I'm the
well, if my game is selected as trash game, we won't have too much happiness problems : notre dame + representation + gems+silver+gold+forges+free religion soon [Pigswill that's why i didn't bother to go for any religion]
Cabert,
I've compared yours and my games, and we've both taken a largely similar approach. I have not meaningfully traded technology with the AI, which has left them somewhat ******** compared to Germany (I think it's a key strength in my game), but you've made far more progress in terms of wonders and have a much better world map, so I feel that you've comfortably escaped 'trash game' status, because at best mine's equivalent to yours, and with your Wonders (how did you pop a Great Engineer so early?) it's arguably stronger.
I've compared yours and my games, and we've both taken a largely similar approach. I have not meaningfully traded technology with the AI, which has left them somewhat ******** compared to Germany (I think it's a key strength in my game), but you've made far more progress in terms of wonders and have a much better world map, so I feel that you've comfortably escaped 'trash game' status, because at best mine's equivalent to yours, and with your Wonders (how did you pop a Great Engineer so early?) it's arguably stronger.
Cam_H said:
all wonders+national epic are in PC
odds were higher on scientist/priest but i got an engineer.
"Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good." (Sirian)
Some thoughts about the various games (no spoiler needed, the deadline is behind us:
- VuDu : many troops = good position to storm through the continent. Being buddhist makes trade possible with isabella. But weak economy.
- Calavente : economy is alright, but too many hammers invested in useless theaters and temples (happiness is better managed with a forge for a silver+gold industrious leader
). Low on troops. Could be difficult to conqer the continent. + what pigswill said.- Mice : Enough troops (but to many axes IMHO) for the continent storm, + teching towards gunpowder. Economy is weak too + building in
fashion (lighthouse before granary in a city with good land tiles is useless). Not in a position to go for liberalism, nor in a solid position for oversea invasion. More to come.
armstrong
Prince
Okay, I'm going to go through all the saves right now (I vote, too, right?) Right now I have collected 3 ballots - from pigswill, Petrucci, and Cam_H.
armstrong
Prince
Okay, I did a thorough, but flawed, analysis of the games that I used to decide on which game to vote for. I'll post it after all the ballots have been cast.
Even with more than half the precints reporting, this is going to be a nailbiter...
Remember - everyone can and should exercise their right to vote!
Even with more than half the precints reporting, this is going to be a nailbiter...
Remember - everyone can and should exercise their right to vote!
I did theatre for culture moslty, and because too much unit cost, and quite nothing to build save units so theatres were the least worst building in my opinion... idem for temple. but your right, for the newly conquered cities I should have build forges...
for units.. yep! I concure with you. but as I am usually more a builder than a warmongerer I am not really used to build many units. plus, war with spain will be long distance, I think I should take time to rebuild a new 6xp army, + maybe wait for early gunpowder units?
for the GP, I do not really know How to use them, I have not any city really specialized to settle them, no wish to use them to unlock theology, nor the previous techs, for the prophet maybe I shoud have used moses for the hindu shrine but ... no time to push a hindu spread (especially as I'd prefer going for conf as state religion when I will : as soon as nappy is converted).
do you have suggestions on about how to use the 2 GP ? (the ga came from music few turns after moses.
for units.. yep! I concure with you. but as I am usually more a builder than a warmongerer I am not really used to build many units. plus, war with spain will be long distance, I think I should take time to rebuild a new 6xp army, + maybe wait for early gunpowder units?
for the GP, I do not really know How to use them, I have not any city really specialized to settle them, no wish to use them to unlock theology, nor the previous techs, for the prophet maybe I shoud have used moses for the hindu shrine but ... no time to push a hindu spread (especially as I'd prefer going for conf as state religion when I will : as soon as nappy is converted).
do you have suggestions on about how to use the 2 GP ? (the ga came from music few turns after moses.
Cam_H said:I've voted ... but regardless of my vote, I can't restrain myself on one point for much longer ... there are two submitted games that are in
that should be in
I admit - I'm the
Why is this important if I'm not near the happiness cap in any of my cities?
armstrong
Prince
VuDu said:
It's not important in that case, but it might be a sign that your cities could be growing faster.
The results are almost all in, Calavente has yet to vote but there's still time left! Only one game now escaped without getting a vote cast for it. I'll post the final tally in about 3 hours. Note that even if Calavente does not have time to vote, it will not affect the "trash" game (none were really "trash", and all are in winning positions.) If he does vote, though, it might force me to cast a tiebreaker!
There was a clear separation between the Noble-Prince games and the Monarch-Emperor games. All of the NP games received at least 5 (weighted) votes, while none of the ME games received more than 2 (weighted) votes.
armstrong
Prince
Sorry for the wait! First off, the votes are in and, in a tight race between mice's and calavente's game, the voters have decided the "trash" game is calavente's! But it's not "trash" at all, and don't take any offense! The game's still easily in a winning position.
My Analysis
What were the differences between the games? The way I analyzed the game was in terms of which one was closest to victory. Since we're going for Domination, winning quickly requires two things:
1. Getting Astronomy - we'll probably need land from a 5th civ to win this one.
2. Getting a dominant military tech - either Cavalry (Military Tradition) or Grenadiers (Chemistry.)
It's probably possible to win with just Maces & Cats before the AI gets Riflemen, but I'm not sure how much of a pain it would be or if it would be efficient. This was a big assumption, but one I think most folks held. It hurt Calavente's game the most.
I chose Chemistry (instead of Military Tradition) as it requires less beakers, most of the games have lots of maces than can be made CR and upgraded to Grenadiers, Grenadiers can safely win even if Rifles appear, and the main advantage of Cavalry - speed - is nullified because most of their movement will be overseas on galleons anyway.
So, I figured out how long - at the tech rate closest to break-even - which games were closer to getting those two technologies. This was flawed, since I forgot to check on who was closer to Great People to help the research, and I did not factor in MM'ing for commerce/research or potential future trades (though I did consider currently available trades.) Finally, one purely flaw was I forgot to take a lack of Philosophy into account for Liberalism slingshots. So, don't qoute these as gospel.
I also looked at the army: the size of the current standing army and it's ability to clear off the current continent, whether there is sufficient forces now to quickly upgrade for an overseas journey, and whether the army is in position to fight right away.
Finally, I looked at the strength of the overall economy in terms of GPT at 0% gold and research at 100% research. This shows the ability of the economy to pay for new cities as they come online and the overall (research) strength of the empire.
Here's the data I came up with:
Research to Astronomy and Chemistry
Some of the columns might need explanation, but the important one I looked at was Sum Res. (sum of research left before getting both Astronomy and Chemistry.) A few things stand out:
1. All of the ME games are closer to this goal than any of the NP games. I think this suggests the ME players are showing more focus in the tech path. Interestingly enough, VuDu (whose economy is one of the weakest, in large part due to the decision to build river mills instead of cottages in the barbarian city) is actually closer to the ME players than to the NP. This is because she chose a strong research path - setting herself up with both Paper and Optics.
2. One of the significant problems with Calavente's game (according to this analysis) was that he researched both Feudalism and Paper -> Education. Because of this, it made the Education -> Liberalism path to Chemistry & Astronomy longer than the Guilds path. However, it meant he either wasted beakers researching Feudalism, or wasted them on Paper -> (part of) Education. Since this is a fast conquest we only need to go down one of the paths. If we're planning on winning with just Maces & Cats, his game rates significantly better on this metric.
3. Petrucci's game deserves a comment as well, as he has 700eek gold on hand, which is enough to significanty speed up his research. His game is closer to mice's when that is taken into consideration.
Standing Army Size
I really didn't focus on this too much. Everyone had enough army to clear the continent (or at least enough to get started.)
1. pigswill's game deserves a note. With only 3 macers (but plenty of cats!) he's going to be a bit slow to dominate the world. That - combined with his speedy research, might mean he missed a "sweet spot" for fast conquest. I think his game would have been stronger if he hadn't turtled up as much early on.
Economy
This is somewhat interesting. I mainly looked at both beakers per turn at 100% research, and gold per turn at 100% gold rather than beakers per turn, which I think can be misleading (at least in this situation.)
1. I think many people underrated mice's game on this point. While his economy is looking rough even at 40%, he actually is producing the third most beakers at 100% - he just simply has too many units and not enough infrastructure. But too many units is one of the easiest problems to solve - just capture some cities! War means you'll lose some units, and more cities let you support a larger army.
2. The ME players tend to have stronger economies. I don't know how much of that is better MM, or a stronger focus on it, but it's there.
A Final Thoughts
1. How many turns do you think we should play for the next set?
My Analysis
What were the differences between the games? The way I analyzed the game was in terms of which one was closest to victory. Since we're going for Domination, winning quickly requires two things:
1. Getting Astronomy - we'll probably need land from a 5th civ to win this one.
2. Getting a dominant military tech - either Cavalry (Military Tradition) or Grenadiers (Chemistry.)
It's probably possible to win with just Maces & Cats before the AI gets Riflemen, but I'm not sure how much of a pain it would be or if it would be efficient. This was a big assumption, but one I think most folks held. It hurt Calavente's game the most.
I chose Chemistry (instead of Military Tradition) as it requires less beakers, most of the games have lots of maces than can be made CR and upgraded to Grenadiers, Grenadiers can safely win even if Rifles appear, and the main advantage of Cavalry - speed - is nullified because most of their movement will be overseas on galleons anyway.
So, I figured out how long - at the tech rate closest to break-even - which games were closer to getting those two technologies. This was flawed, since I forgot to check on who was closer to Great People to help the research, and I did not factor in MM'ing for commerce/research or potential future trades (though I did consider currently available trades.) Finally, one purely
flaw was I forgot to take a lack of Philosophy into account for Liberalism slingshots. So, don't qoute these as gospel. I also looked at the army: the size of the current standing army and it's ability to clear off the current continent, whether there is sufficient forces now to quickly upgrade for an overseas journey, and whether the army is in position to fight right away.
Finally, I looked at the strength of the overall economy in terms of GPT at 0% gold and research at 100% research. This shows the ability of the economy to pay for new cities as they come online and the overall (research) strength of the empire.
Here's the data I came up with:
Research to Astronomy and Chemistry
Some of the columns might need explanation, but the important one I looked at was Sum Res. (sum of research left before getting both Astronomy and Chemistry.) A few things stand out:
1. All of the ME games are closer to this goal than any of the NP games. I think this suggests the ME players are showing more focus in the tech path. Interestingly enough, VuDu (whose economy is one of the weakest, in large part due to the decision to build river mills instead of cottages in the barbarian city
) is actually closer to the ME players than to the NP. This is because she chose a strong research path - setting herself up with both Paper and Optics.2. One of the significant problems with Calavente's game (according to this analysis) was that he researched both Feudalism and Paper -> Education. Because of this, it made the Education -> Liberalism path to Chemistry & Astronomy longer than the Guilds path. However, it meant he either wasted beakers researching Feudalism, or wasted them on Paper -> (part of) Education. Since this is a fast conquest we only need to go down one of the paths. If we're planning on winning with just Maces & Cats, his game rates significantly better on this metric.
3. Petrucci's game deserves a comment as well, as he has 700
eek gold on hand, which is enough to significanty speed up his research. His game is closer to mice's when that is taken into consideration.Standing Army Size
I really didn't focus on this too much. Everyone had enough army to clear the continent (or at least enough to get started.)
1. pigswill's game deserves a note. With only 3 macers (but plenty of cats!) he's going to be a bit slow to dominate the world. That - combined with his speedy research, might mean he missed a "sweet spot" for fast conquest. I think his game would have been stronger if he hadn't turtled up as much early on.
Economy
This is somewhat interesting. I mainly looked at both beakers per turn at 100% research, and gold per turn at 100% gold rather than beakers per turn, which I think can be misleading (at least in this situation.)
1. I think many people underrated mice's game on this point. While his economy is looking rough even at 40%, he actually is producing the third most beakers at 100% - he just simply has too many units and not enough infrastructure. But too many units is one of the easiest problems to solve - just capture some cities! War means you'll lose some units, and more cities let you support a larger army.
2. The ME players tend to have stronger economies. I don't know how much of that is better MM, or a stronger focus on it, but it's there.
A Final Thoughts
1. How many turns do you think we should play for the next set?
On the "trash award"
ok ok ok....
not a really good award but ok.
hmm.. I'm not totally surprised of the results. I know I had lost some focus on research, I am sadly doing it again on a off line game.
I have some difficulty to choose a relevant long term research objective. Before, I did it in the what's next methode, now I'm trying to go for mid-term goals to use most of game's potential. But in fact I went to feodalism for vasselage (to use it for the first time !!) and not for liberalisme. The goal to liberalism came later reading some threads : "oh yeah ! liberalism is also a race..!!", I went to monarchy to go feodalism and because the GP would give me monarchy and I didn't want to use it for that.
So as it is the first time I go for conquest/domination as a goal (the other time it was a 1900's "how-to-end-the-game" strategy), and being told of my game :
.
If he had said : "thats a terrible game, it will be very difficult to salvage it before modern armor", that would have be terrible !!
lets go !
On the pre-next round
May the Monarch gamers discusse the main objective / the main strategies they think of so that us prince gamers (me in particular) have an idea of how to proceed? such as : "goto liberalism then gunpowder, SR + Theocratie + vassalage, then raze isa while discovering next continent, then raze nappy...etc"
(but only if you think such a discussion is sufficiently general so we won't all do it the same way)
I ask this because otherwise, I think that while you will try to win my game, I will continue as started and not really improve my play.
EDIT:
On the number of turns for next round
80 is very very long. My preference goes for 20 : more of a challenge for monarch players to produce an outmarking game ; and if there is not enough differences between the games, go for another 20 turns. But even 40 turns is IMO a bit long to have the possibility to trash it again
(for me, if we play 40t, and choose the best game, for the next round (trash) nobody would be able to make a trash out of it, maybe nobody won't even be able to not win in the trash round). So maybe going for a 30turns round would be a good choice.
Either we go for a win this time (1round) : 50+turns seems ok, either we go for a minimum of 3 round (salvage, trash, salvage-win) and 20-30t would be good. maybe 40-50t to trash it but not sure. (going for a win in 2 round is IMO not a desirable option)
ok ok ok....
not a really good award but ok.
hmm.. I'm not totally surprised of the results. I know I had lost some focus on research, I am sadly doing it again on a off line game.
I have some difficulty to choose a relevant long term research objective. Before, I did it in the what's next methode, now I'm trying to go for mid-term goals to use most of game's potential. But in fact I went to feodalism for vasselage (to use it for the first time !!) and not for liberalisme. The goal to liberalism came later reading some threads : "oh yeah ! liberalism is also a race..!!", I went to monarchy to go feodalism and because the GP would give me monarchy and I didn't want to use it for that.So as it is the first time I go for conquest/domination as a goal (the other time it was a 1900's "how-to-end-the-game" strategy), and being told of my game :
I take it as an honorarmstrong said:
.If he had said : "thats a terrible game, it will be very difficult to salvage it before modern armor", that would have be terrible !!
lets go !
On the pre-next round
May the Monarch gamers discusse the main objective / the main strategies they think of so that us prince gamers (me in particular) have an idea of how to proceed? such as : "goto liberalism then gunpowder, SR + Theocratie + vassalage, then raze isa while discovering next continent, then raze nappy...etc"
(but only if you think such a discussion is sufficiently general so we won't all do it the same way)
I ask this because otherwise, I think that while you will try to win my game, I will continue as started and not really improve my play.
EDIT:
On the number of turns for next round
80 is very very long. My preference goes for 20 : more of a challenge for monarch players to produce an outmarking game ; and if there is not enough differences between the games, go for another 20 turns. But even 40 turns is IMO a bit long to have the possibility to trash it again
(for me, if we play 40t, and choose the best game, for the next round (trash) nobody would be able to make a trash out of it, maybe nobody won't even be able to not win in the trash round). So maybe going for a 30turns round would be a good choice.Either we go for a win this time (1round) : 50+turns seems ok, either we go for a minimum of 3 round (salvage, trash, salvage-win) and 20-30t would be good. maybe 40-50t to trash it but not sure. (going for a win in 2 round is IMO not a desirable option)
Calavente, based on armstrong's data my game was 'award winning' too. You just got unlucky I think. How do we get better? seeing these figures really makes it clear that there is plenty to learn.
Just to clarify, the next turnset is an upswing. We vote on the best save.
20-30-40 ?
Just to clarify, the next turnset is an upswing. We vote on the best save.
20-30-40 ?
mice said:
since i voted myself as deadliner, i say (and it's not to be discussed)
we go up to 1500 AD (that's 50 turns!) before saturday morning (= friday midnight east coast time).
If all of you think it's too much turns = too easy for us, then ok, but last round was 70 turns!
And mice, to be true, i think your game was a bit weaker (because of a trashy economy + power from axes
)armstrong said:My Analysis
1. Getting Astronomy - we'll probably need land from a 5th civ to win this one.
2. Getting a dominant military tech - either Cavalry (Military Tradition) or Grenadiers (Chemistry.)
So, I figured out how long - at the tech rate closest to break-even - which games were closer to getting those two technologies. This was flawed, since I forgot to check on who was closer to Great People to help the research, and I did not factor in MM'ing for commerce/research or potential future trades (though I did consider currently available trades.) Finally, one purely
ok, i just now read how you think your analysis is flawed, so i don't need to explain it
Just one aspect of economy I think most overlook : money in the pocket can fuel your research just as good as gpt! That's why i mostly focus on getting beakers multipliers
) to see i had the best 100% tech beakers output) and on war to get the gold. Courthouses are good, but not as good as markets + cottages because 0,25 * 16 is better than 0,5 * 5! You just need to cottage spam and mine those gems...Research to Astronomy and Chemistry
Some of the columns might need explanation, but the important one I looked at was Sum Res. (sum of research left before getting both Astronomy and Chemistry.) A few things stand out:
1. All of the ME games are closer to this goal than any of the NP games. I think this suggests the ME players are showing more focus in the tech path. Interestingly enough, VuDu (whose economy is one of the weakest, in large part due to the decision to build river mills instead of cottages in the barbarian city
interesting result.
(joke) Why didn't we just look at the scores?
(since i'm the only one over 1300 points, that makes my game the best)
or just at % of land? (domination goal is pop and land, pop will come easily, land you have to conquer) Being the only one over 23%, my game must be the best
(no joke) : it's hard to judge how a game is going to be salveageable or not, but i can see the biggest challenge for the next round will be :
- conquering land asap
- managing the economy
in the same time.
Some interesting "races" :
- circumnavigation (very possible to gain, powerful!)
- liberalism (possible, one way to make things faster techwise)
- islam (Dr is a dead end, so IMHO it's useless)
- economics (one free GM would give us breathing time, but very unlikely to get it)
- physics (a far away goal, right now isn't it?)
? I don't understand the use of feudalism for the conquest of the other continent?
I'm afraid liberalism's free tech could be lost... well, we'll see.
3. Petrucci's game deserves a comment as well, as he has 700
those 717 gold in bank made it clear for me that petrucci's game should not be the trash game.
well, i assumed that mice's game would be our next starting position (no offense, reasons already given) and started a economic restoration peration, and trully you can't do anything else : war vs isabell was the only way out. (some light spoiler :
Spoiler :
i know i focus on an economic path (it was Specialist Economy for me)
for some symetry between rounds, i think we need roughly as much turns as the previous round. 70/80 is a bit too much, and would make this the final round for sure. So i propose (and already said so) 50 turns, up to 1500 AD. I don't think any of us will manage a domination win this fast, starting with cavalente's save at 1000AD (to be true, i don't think we could manage a domination win this fast from any of our saves, including mine and pigswill's).
But we should see some strong differences between games, enough to select a "best game" for the next round.
I'm afraid that a shorter time-span would result in very similar games. Not very interesting, is it?
