P666-02 Fix Another Trash Game

[cabert]

is the round over?
who coordinates votes?

 

[Cam_H]

No word from Armstrong ... so send your votes to Cabert for counting.

We're looking for the least successful submission, so;

3 votes for least successful
2 votes for second least successful
1 vote for third least successful

You can't vote for your own game, however 'disappointing' you think that it might be!

Please get your votes in within the next two days.

(Armstrong - you can still vote if you wish, provided it's done in the next day or so).

 

[Calavente]

pff..

I can't seem to be able to note those games...
either less powerful but soon maces..
or less cities but more pop/ more units..
and almost everybody is at the same tech (the only differences are more tech !!)

hard to find one that is worse !!
a best game would have been easier to find. well done everybody !

 

[cabert]

Help for voters : we're aiming for space victory.
It requires production and tech for the long run.
I value very high sooner teching + strong economy + city placing and infrastructure.
The other key for the win is to bring down strong opponents, but it's continents, and it's very likely the other continent is full of AIs trading like crazy before we can find them! For me it's not the right option here.
We should use our trading partners, then bring them down (and capture their best cities).

Edit : I have the feeling some of you (well, at least one!) forgot that we're spiritual = free civic switches.
I made all my efforts towards getting a good civic to switch too in every category : HR/bureaucracy/slavery/OR (theocracy is better but i have no monastery for now and I needed missionaries)

Edit 2 : I only have 1 vote in for now + my own. I know it's tough, since no game is obviously bad, but it won't be easier tomorrow

Edit 3 : I have 4 votes + mine. 2 missing : VuDU, Armstrong.

 

[cabert]

Even without the last 2 votes, we have a "winner".

Everyone got his share of votes, but ...
if we except pigswill's massive vote for himself...

VuDu's game is our starting point for next round.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=139591&d=1159709911
If I'm not totally out of my mind, we'll be playing for the best game at 1000AD.
Game due friday at midnight US east coast time.

 

[mice]

Got it. Should be a good round. Mansa or Julius... hmmm.

 

[VuDu]

Even without the last 2 votes, we have a "winner". VuDu's game is our starting point for next round.

Sounds unanimous . Since my vote isn't going to change the results, I will skip sending it in, and accept this round's "trophy".

 

[Cam_H]

It was a very tough round to judge, but VuDu's is one of the few games with six established cities, so I think that we've got a lot to work with.

I think that it would be fair to say that the quality of submssions on average have lifted since the first few rounds of P666-01, so I hope that all players, especially 'the artists formerly known as the Prince level players' feel that their games are 'on the improve'.

Thanks Cabert for doing the votes. While the focus on this round was on the least succesful submission, I thought that your game was strong - to get an Academy in Tenochtitlan while also being close to getting Macemen by 125AD is good work. While you were attacked by Rome rather than being the aggressor (which is actually much better from a diplomatic stance anyway) it's encouraging to see some conflict underway.

I have two very big work weekends coming up in a row, so I will struggle to get a submission on in time for this week (1000AD) although it's an outside possibility, but will miss the deadline for the following week (1500AD). Please skip me, although I will be able to assess the games after the submission deadline and will be following the thread.

Should we discuss future strategies?

I am not sure to what extent we should start discussing the game in terms of strategy and tactics from now onwards. Armstrong submitted a game where he indicated where the Heroic Epic city should go, while Pigswill made a passing reference as to who he thought our first target should be.

It doesn't concern me one way or the other to discuss tactics in advance - is it 'more educational' to have the roster discuss strategy before the playing takes place, or is it better for people to make moves and then see the (possible) errors in their decisions?

Analysis

[Edit] I had written a small thesis on game analysis but chopped it out [/Edit]

I welcome further game analysis - particularly in this last round where I thought that there was an 'evenness' in the quality of the submissions. Having said that - I'm at work for most of this week, and can't do an analysis myself!

 

[mice]

On the idea of discussing strats, I look for hints from other players, but on the other hand it might be better if we don't, so we can see the different approaches more clearly. If we really want to stick to the fix my trash game variant then it's better I think to let everybody run in their own directions.

I'm making notes of things I learn but mostly it's finding out what monach difficulty is like.

Will study the saves some more.

 

[cabert]

It was a very tough round to judge, but VuDu's is one of the few games with six established cities, so I think that we've got a lot to work with.

right!

I think that it would be fair to say that the quality of submssions on average have lifted since the first few rounds of P666-01, so I hope that all players, especially 'the artists formerly known as the Prince level players' feel that their games are 'on the improve'.

right again!
I must say that I had not voted for your game first VuDu, because 6 cities (not ideally placed maybe, but it's debatable) is much better than my 4 + one captured.
As I said everybody (I didn't say almost! everybody has at least 2 votes, including me, cam_h and pigswill) had his share of vote, showing that the choice was tough, but It's true your game was cited by everyone, and IMHO the main reasons are
- the lack of infrastructure
- low tech level
- GL not yet built.

Arguably, you're in a better shape than others who need to go to war (or worse already are into a war like me) to expand, but we're running for space and for this you don't need landgrab as much as you need good cities!

There is a lot of playing style difference that makes the choice tough and I can see people voting one game the worst and others voting it the best, so no sweat for "trash game" and no brag for "best game".

Thanks Cabert for doing the votes. While the focus on this round was on the least succesful submission, I thought that your game was strong - to get an Academy in Tenochtitlan while also being close to getting Macemen by 125AD is good work. While you were attacked by Rome rather than being the aggressor (which is actually much better from a diplomatic stance anyway) it's encouraging to see some conflict underway.

About coordinating the votes, sorry about the delay! I could have given the result earlier, but RL got me (karting is fun ).
And about my own game, I'm not too proud, since :
- I had gold and gems pillaged by romans That's partly why I had scientists running in technotitlan and so that's why I have an academy already .
- I had to sue for peace when a lone HA threatened a worker (then declare war on romans after a while = no diplomatic benefit here )
- I traded everything I could, so MM is stronger in my game than in all others. IMHO it's beneficial for us to have strong trading partners. Rome isn't a good trading partner.

I have two very big work weekends coming up in a row, so I will struggle to get a submission on in time for this week (1000AD) although it's an outside possibility, but will miss the deadline for the following week (1500AD). Please skip me, although I will be able to assess the games after the submission deadline and will be following the thread.

If you can give us a rushed game, armstrong way, we'll be happy to select it!

Should we discuss future strategies?

I am not sure to what extent we should start discussing the game in terms of strategy and tactics from now onwards. Armstrong submitted a game where he indicated where the Heroic Epic city should go, while Pigswill made a passing reference as to who he thought our first target should be.

It doesn't concern me one way or the other to discuss tactics in advance - is it 'more educational' to have the roster discuss strategy before the playing takes place, or is it better for people to make moves and then see the (possible) errors in their decisions?

I avoid giving to much "direction", but if we hope to learn something from those games, discussion is needed. It can be afterwards, or some restricted to general directions.
Anyway, we're bound to see some advice going wrong or some contradictory opinions.
In the trade matter, I'm "all time trader", while others, like you cam, are not so happy traders.
It's arguable in both directions, however I'm sure I can do more with the techs than the AIs can = I'm happy to be at a high tech level with AIs at the same high tech level+they research interesting things if you give them the prereqs for them

Analysis

[Edit] I had written a small thesis on game analysis but chopped it out [/Edit]

I welcome further game analysis - particularly in this last round where I thought that there was an 'evenness' in the quality of the submissions. Having said that - I'm at work for most of this week, and can't do an analysis myself!

too bad i missed answering your thesis when i first saw it, I remember I had a lot to say...
However, I was one to advocate about the minimal content of a submission, and now I post games in french, without turnlog, without any piece of strategy, ...
Sorry about that. I run the previous round to prevent from worst game + to have a feeling of the game. I didn't take much care, so no turnlog, and not much thoughts + I'm not very comfortable with space race, so I fear my strategy isn't the right one, and don't want to show how noob I am for such a game

Some general indications of what I thought was important in the previous round :
- good cities, with improved land, infrastructure, and units to defend them.
- techs! priority to economic ones.
- pushing for civics! We're spiritual, switching to OR is free, so is switching to HR (calavente! you have monarchy tech and you didn't switch to HR, why?)

Some lower priorities:
- using religions as much as possible. This includes having your state religion everywhere or playing the diplomacy game with it. (changing state religion is free too, but it's not beneficial to change often = diplomatic bonus doesn't have time to accumulate)
- managing relations. It's important but not game changing, since in the not too distant future, we'll have a lot of enemies IMHO. My strat was to trade as much as possible then crush everyone
- building wonders : we're not industrious, but i noticed VuDU's pushing towards stone as a side benefit for some later wonders. One wonder I like is sistin chapel, and MM already has theology = probably too late to build, but soon we can capture it. That's why I didn't give much value to stone, but I may have missed some important use?

edit : i started playing next round, and took notes, then my computer crashed (again!). I'll try to go for a turnlog with pictures this time.

special dedicace to VuDU :

Spoiler :

1) I traded in 125AD with my friends and You could have submitted a much better game with this :
- traded for calendar with romans
- then traded calendar for HBR to cyrus.
You had a city with 3 calendar ressources in the south! You needed this tech!
2) I whipped a catapult in a size 4 forge building city with a barracks, the overflow will go to the forge, the catapult is badly needed for a war against Rome. I could have whipped a spear, which is also badly needed, but cats are just better. The city will grow back to size 3 in the next turn so, almost nothing is lost.
3) I changed tiles arrangement in a city building a market. You need to work the cottages, and the market will still be finished in the first turn.

All this to say you've got an overall good submission but I have the feeling you didn't bother much with details.

 

[Calavente]

Go go next game !!!

pfff, that was a close call.

some comments :

VuDu, your game was not a trash one IMO, maybe only the "less excellent" ?
but one thing I loved in it was : cyrus is hindu !!!! cyrus is a friend !! only game we have this advantage....
one of the very bad point you have is in not connecting our beloved HE city to the main trade network you see all this unhealthiness ? poor little citizen that do not want to procreate and so the city stays at 1 pop.
two other little malus minus points were : low tech rate + GL not finished : still at risk to loose it.
otherwise, the 'lack' of military was compensated by 6 cities (even if low pop) + good city placements.

for other peoples...
I will edit this post when I will come back home.. (in 8h) because, if VuDu's is in my mind, other were all equivalent, with boni compensating mali minuses, so I am confusing all games

EDIT : malus/mali (apparently only french)==> minus /minuses

 

[cabert]

boni compensating mali, so I am confusing all games

Mali's Mansa Musa's country. Better to stick with bonus (bonuses?) and minus (minuses), malus is a french only word, AFAIK .

By the way, your game was quite good, calavente. Only this HR thing got me mad

 

[Calavente]

AFAIK : bonus = comes from latin : plural is boni in french and even in english !!

What is this HR thing ? I'm not sure I remember (sorry)

 

[cabert]

AFAIK : bonus = comes from latin : plural is boni in french and even in english !!

What is this HR thing ? I'm not sure I remember (sorry)

bonus comes from latin, but is not a real latin word, so it's plural should be bonuses.

The HR thing is you had the monarchy technology and didn't switch to HR.
Being spiritual, you basically lost 1 happiness minimum in every city for no gain (AFAIK).

 

[Calavente]

oh!!!

HR !! I understand what you mean !!

euh : my defense ?

I never ever used HR in any game!!
my weakness : some civic I never used : they seems unuseful for me !! (I know I'm wrong but I can seem to be able to overcome this)

vassalage / servage / HR / nationalism are some of those.
I know people say they are great !! but ..

and here (I don't remember my current gov civic) I think I either : hadn't thought of it / either didn't want to go to anarchy in a race, then forgot about it. or already in rep ? no ! we don't have the mids

EDIT : oups we are spi ? no mids ? my bad !! eek , cal = really bad player
oh, and I'm quite sure about the bonus / boni thing!! (at least in french) (and in english also)

 

[cabert]

my usual way of playing is the following:
question 1 : what are our traits.
question 2 : what is the situation (map/neighbours/relations/...)
question 3 : what victory do I aim for, given the answer to the first 2 questions. In this thread, we aim for space, and so the question is not really a question, but the answer is a "hard" one = no choice + not the easiest for our traits.

answer to Q1 :
our traits are spiritual and aggressive. My understanding of this is we can lead aggressive diplomacy quite far, since we can switch religions easily, we can switch civics to match our trading partners favourite... while attacking civs we don't need.
answer to Q2 :
look at the map!
we've got iron, but no horses, no ivory and no copper. We've got gold and gems, and wine and bananas and sugar. Our neighbours have various situations, but what makes me feel bad is that mali and america can have good relations. Better than what we have to them = bad!
+ MM has ivory.
3 options:
- bring him down before he hits construction (unlikely IMHO)
or
-wait until you have maces (easier, and more useful = keep trading longer )
In the open maces and elephants have similar strength but elephants don't get neither CR promotions nor terrain defense bonus, so maces kill elephants in the end.
or
- keep him has a buddy, while getting FdR down. Hard work diplomatically, but highest reward.
Q3 : going for space means IMHO building high production cities, and teching fast.
You need a high production city near the equator (space elevator!) and you can benefit from a high production city on a river (3 gorges dam + watermills + fresh water for health).
You also need to be better than your opponents = dominate land, be able to defend = we also need a coastal high production city (that's why HE where armstrong proposed it is quite good, although it lacks fresh water)

 

[mice]

Calavente, I want to say I thought your submission was really strong. I studied it to look for things to improve in my save.

About Hereditary Rule. I prioritize it now. An archer or spear can equate to a worked cottage or scientist. In the past I was worried that I became dependant on it, then might have a happiness crash when I moved away from this civic. In fact it seems that the alternative to HR, ie. representation, or US come when you have many more happiness resources, and it isn't much of a problem. It means you can boom your population just when you need to. By the way I'm with "bonuses".

 

[Cam_H]

Mansa or Julius... hmmm.

Rome > Persia > America > Mali … there! I said it!

About coordinating the votes, sorry about the delay! I could have given the result earlier, but RL got me (karting is fun ).

What … karting when you should have played Civ?

I thought you were quite speedy with the results. Thanks again.

I traded everything I could, so MM is stronger in my game than in all others. IMHO it's beneficial for us to have strong trading partners. Rome isn't a good trading partner.

Rome’s a good trading partner … it’s surprising what they will trade for 10 turns of peace.

I hate trading with Mansa. I’ll only do it with a multi-tribe exchange, and even then he’ll get the most rubbishy deal I can get away with, and nothing that’s going to lead him to Liberalism.

If you can give us a rushed game, armstrong way, we'll be happy to select it!

I think that rushing my games is the exact problem. I get caught up in the moment and focus on the big picture issues at the cost of micromanagement – I’m hopeless in wartime as my complete attention is drawn towards the conflict and I make offhand decisions when it comes to city build queues and which tiles get worked. I even put my trust in the Governor!

Just to illustrate, I won a Montezuma Space Victory on Monarch on the weekend … just practicing … and spent about 50 turns in Barbarism when I had both Vassalage and Bureaucracy available, but I was so wound up in messing around with my Labor civics that when I picked up Civil Service and Theology I was still in faux-revolution and couldn’t change the civics, so the suggestion window didn’t pop up and I totally missed the options.

Anyway, I’ll be planning to get my game done on Australia’s Saturday afternoon, so I should make a USA Saturday morning cut-off. Where did this Friday midnight deadline come from?

In the trade matter, I'm "all time trader", while others, like you cam, are not so happy traders.

It depends. I don’t mind trading with tribes that are floundering, but happen to have tech’s that I’ve skipped. I don’t mind trading with tribes that I’m going to kill in the next few turns. I don’t mind trading in multiple-tribe 5-for-2 type deals. But I’m very wary of simple trades with ‘peaceful’ leaders such as Mansa or Frederick unless there’s a really compelling incentive to do so.

However, I was one to advocate about the minimal content of a submission, and now I post games in french, without turnlog, without any piece of strategy, ...

I'm not very comfortable with space race

Focus on Great Scientists > Take continent > Build Space Elevator > Win. … it’s easy.

I think Armstrong may have some good thoughts on early Space wins if that earlier screenie he posted wasn’t from one of his Chieftain games. Where has he gone this time?

That's why I didn't give much value to stone, but I may have missed some important use?

I can’t recall – is The Hanging Gardens still available? Certainly shaving a few turns off Ironworks and The Oxford University will be handy.

cyrus is hindu !!!! cyrus is a friend !!

I never ever used HR in any game!!
my weakness : some civic I never used : they seems unuseful for me !!

You can get some really big cities, still be semi-respectable on the PowerChart, do something useful with your out-dated troops, and can whip or draft up an army because the resident troops are placating your citizens.

we can switch civics to match our trading partners favourite

Not that I think it's going to matter too much, but by the way;

• Cyrus = Representation
• Julius Caesar = Representation
• Mansa Musa = Free Market
• Roosevelt = Universal Suffrage
• Gandhi = Universal Suffrage

Not a bad bunch to choose from for a Spaceship win – shame about the conflicting Government Civics.

I'm curious who's over there with Gandhi though. Tokugawa, please be Tokugawa!

 

[cabert]

I'm curious who's over there with Gandhi though. Tokugawa, please be Tokugawa!

That's exactly why I think we should trade all we can. Gandhi will be trading with his neighbours! He will even trade with tokugawa, with time.
Only if he gets in religious trouble, can we hope he's not miles away from us in tech, without trade.
So in VuDU's game (i played 5 turns on sunday, then my pc crashed so i replayed 5 turns in the same manner although i feel there are variations), I traded 2 techs immediately, then another after a few turns.
I didn't tech a single one by myself, but I know 3 more techs, and have a lot of money in the bank

 

[pigswill]

Gandhi? Spoiler?