Post-Game Analysis and Discussion

[peter grimes]

I thought I'd start a thread to confine the discussion of what we read in the other teams' forums. It may prove that we prefer to split things off into team - by - team threads, but there may not be much discussion here after all.

I'm very curious to read about KISS invasion plans (and timing) when they assaulted TNT. Remember that sweet border they offered us?

I'm also curious to read their responses to our invasion.

Comments to follow...

 

[classical_hero]

I am good. Just about everything I said about the other teams was good, especially about KISS. Unfortunately I was not involved in the 1000 monkey treaty, but I would have tried to gain much more from KISS because I had a very good feeling that they wanted peace with us so that they could attack TNT without a worry from us. Tis a shame I ws busy at the time. I am still to read the other threads.

 

[fe3333au]

Havn't started reading other threads yet

But I'd be interested in diplomatic stuff ... how they reacted to our interaction and if any (if not all) of our speculations proved correct.

Also interested in the relationship between Nuts and KISS, I'm not sure if they were sharing or if each team was playing their own game at the end ... I suspect the latter.

I am also interested to see KISS' perspective on the treaty that almost resulted in fisticuffs ... and how Nuts justified their blatant breaking of our treaty.

Finally, each teams reaction to KISS' demise and our expansion.

 

[azzaman333]

So far I've only had a short look at the TNT forusm, since the forum is so slow at the moment. But I found it shocking that they had popped a settler from a goody hut, and started a SoZ prebuild so early when they ended up attacking Nutters so early too.

 

[peter grimes]

@ azzaman - I noticed the forums being super slow as well, but I determined it was due to the changes in the advertising banner. I have since disable my flash player, so the pages load super fast.

@fe - KISS has a Diplomatic thread. I haven't gotten too far in it, but so far I've found that all diplomatic dealings seem to be confined there. I'm at the point where they have just made first contact with us.

 

[killercane]

"teenager" "evil backstabber"

It looks like I played my bad guy role and Robi the good guy role enough to make enemies of everyone! It was all in good fun, and I had Fe convinced I was just an @ss who couldn't stand talking to him (not in the least bit true!). I hope there are no hard feelings.

You guys did a great job and won the game when you rolled over KISS. Your tech analysis was astute, and we were placed in a position where we had no real way to match you technologically. Well played on the diplo and game management front.

Also interested in the relationship between Nuts and KISS, I'm not sure if they were sharing or if each team was playing their own game at the end ... I suspect the latter.

I am also interested to see KISS' perspective on the treaty that almost resulted in fisticuffs ... and how Nuts justified their blatant breaking of our treaty.

I think our loophole was merely receiving techs from KISS for future consideration, but it was awhile back and I will try to find the thread. Our cooperative tech deal was proposed by KISS, and they consented to giving you guys metallurgy (I think there was puzzlement on your part over that). I was originally not in favor of doing the double dealing, as I did not know how we could do it honorably. I think in the end we had a pretty weak justification for it.

The only reason we finished 2nd was through the work of Robi D in winning the TNT war; we would have been last other than that. It is ironic that we were among the first two teams to meet, and I thought a tech deal at that juncture would have changed the game tremendously. But that may not have resulted in your win, and your decision to rebuff us was a wise one.

 

[Chamnix]

The thing I found most interesting/surprising from the other threads is that KISS and Doughnuts apparently had a deal that if either was at war with both MIA and TNT, then the other would be obligated to declare on both MIA and TNT.

Specifically, when KISS and Doughnuts were attacking TNT, if MIA had declared war on Doughnuts, then KISS would have been obligated to declare on MIA ignoring our 50 turn peace agreement.

Unless I'm misreading things....

 

[Whomp]

Nope you got it Cham. Our deal with them was signed before ours was with you and would've made for some complexity on our behalf.

The one thing that sticks in my mind where we failed was not driving harder on the jungle luxs. In hindsight, we should've never have given them to you. The other interesting thing is the land split. Fe insisted on a particular mountain be within your borders. How fortitous that it just so happened to be one of the two saltpeter sources (in fact Rik Meleet asked to see the map coordinates).

What I can't understand was how Donut and KISS couldn't beat you through the MA's techwise. I can't tell where that went amiss.

 

[General_W]

Yeah – it's been totally fascinating reading up on everything that went on diplomatically.

I think the key mistake that KISS/Nuts made on the MA techs was allowing the Dnuts to appear to backstab you by signing that deal with MIA. (Where MIA thought we were cutting KISS out of a trading partner) Those couple trades with the Dnuts gave us just enough of an edge to leverage our Golden Age, cheap science buildings, and Uber-Science town of Athens into keeping up through the MA.

As it was, we were just able to get Cavalry on turn 167, barley in time for our attack.

 

[Chamnix]

The one thing that sticks in my mind where we failed was not driving harder on the jungle luxs. In hindsight, we should've never have given them to you.

It certainly would have been a different game if you hadn't, but I don't think you could have claimed all of them with one settler because of the mountains in the middle. MIA created a crisis out of nothing because we didn't have enough map knowledge to realize there were 4 of each at that point. For you to deny them to us, you would have had to "waste" another settler, and it would certainly have led to a much earlier falling out between KISS and MIA - who knows where it would have ended up?

The other interesting thing is the land split. Fe insisted on a particular mountain be within your borders. How fortitous that it just so happened to be one of the two saltpeter sources

Yep. I remember arguing strongly in our forums that we didn't want that mountain - no food and I think a mountain on our side of the border is a defensive liability. I'm very glad my teammates ignored me .

What I can't understand was how Donut and KISS couldn't beat you through the MA's techwise. I can't tell where that went amiss.

We definitely made up all our ground early, and you were catching us at the end. We had a 3 tech head start with Construction and our 2 freebies although we gave 1 back by researching Chivalry. TNT did provide at least one tech (Engineering) to help us along.

Looking back through our threads, it looks like KISS completed Feudalism on our 117 but didn't complete Invention until our turn 131. During that time we finished Theology (120) and did all of Education (126) and Banking (131).

That was during your Golden Age, so you certainly could have researched faster, but maybe you were rushing units for your war? Or maybe you had luxuries turned up to combat war weariness cramping your research? We were playing an all-out science game at that point with our cheap libraries since we knew our northern neighbors would never renege on our peace deal .

 

[greekguy]

if anyone's interesting in TNT's most crucial decisions and some interesting discussion, i would suggest making 2 threads your priority while surfing the TNT forum:

Saving the Nation of Iron: KISS and Iroqi Invasion

and

Greek Communication Thread

the first thread is my last ditch attempt at saving TNT and how us brave No-Namers fought our last stand against D'Nuts and the Galls. go ahead and post what you thought of our plan to save TNT and our assumptions while doing so. the second thread is the diplomacy we conducted with MIA. MIA was obviously our most frequent diplomatic contact, and i'd like to hear what you guys thought about our diplomacy and our speculation about the other teams.

hope you enjoy the read!

edit: also, one last ironic thing to point out. our team was in the process of building a ton of new cities and really building up our infrastructure when KISS attacked, so they really timed their invasion well. we didn't have the best road system and many cities didn't have many buildings, and our settlement plan was never executed, so congrats on KISS for attacking us when we were right on the cusp of a huge domestic buildup.

 

[Whomp]

It certainly would have been a different game if you hadn't, but I don't think you could have claimed all of them with one settler because of the mountains in the middle. MIA created a crisis out of nothing because we didn't have enough map knowledge to realize there were 4 of each at that point. For you to deny them to us, you would have had to "waste" another settler, and it would certainly have led to a much earlier falling out between KISS and MIA - who knows where it would have ended up?

We intended on rushing cheap temples.

That was during your Golden Age, so you certainly could have researched faster, but maybe you were rushing units for your war? Or maybe you had luxuries turned up to combat war weariness cramping your research? We were playing an all-out science game at that point with our cheap libraries since we knew our northern neighbors would never renege on our peace deal .

We did slow a bit during our GA to short rush. It seems to me that early MA Donuts' research ground to a near halt. Maybe they were slowing down knowing you were in front of them and would get it cheaper.

if anyone's interesting in TNT's most crucial decisions and some interesting discussion, i woulds suggest making 2 threads your priority while surfing the TNT forum:

I compliment you and BCLG there at the end Greekguy. It was a difficult situation for you to deal with and I feel a sign of great character.
Ultimately, I think it was one of the major turning points in the game. The capture of our trebs was devastating.

We should have let Donuts finish business and headed home to deal with the inevitable clash on the green continent.

 

[greekguy]

I compliment you and BCLG there at the end Greekguy. It was a difficult situation for you to deal with and I feel a sign of great character.
Ultimately, I think it was one of the major turning points in the game. The capture of our trebs was devastating.

Thank you for the compliment. I feel perseverance is important, and even though the situation became unwinnable sometime over the summer, I still felt pressing on was the right thing to do.

 

[Rik Meleet]

For me, the tone was set with this joke.

 

[peter grimes]

I remember that - I found it a great way to start off the game

It's very interesting to be talking about all of this in the open. Each team had some really clever strategies.

I just read Whomp's post talking about the 'Big Picture" diplomatically - he lays out the elements of their first proposal to us in detail. If we had trusted them more, we really would have been the only two teams left!

 

[peter grimes]

....reading the KISS forum, MIA diplomacy thread. We had a Cuban Missile Crisis on our hands, and we had absolutely no idea!

Bede responds to one of our communiques just before the Republic trade

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3438556&postcount=127

We were very close to being trounced, all because of mis-perception on both sides. Lessons learned, indeed!

 

[killercane]

I just read Whomp's post talking about the 'Big Picture" diplomatically - he lays out the elements of their first proposal to us in detail. If we had trusted them more, we really would have been the only two teams left!

I read through and refreshed myself on the early diplomacy, how did either we and you or you and KISS not end up with some sort of Republic slingshot? I had forgotten about the early problems of dealing with your representatives, did that set off the chain reaction of bad blood?

 

[peter grimes]

KISS approached us very early - a few turns after contact, I beleive, and proposed that we unite and work as one until TNT and DNUTs are both eliminated. MIA found such a sweeping commitment to be scary so early on, so we simply agreed to work as one (or so we each thought) until we both left the Ancient Age.

There were many diplomatic missteps, whereby niether team was acting consistent with how the other team thought they would. For example - KISS told us they were shopping Republic around to the highest bidder. But we had signed an agreement that stated that KISS would give MIA and no one else Republic in exchange for the techs that MIA got. Trading Republic to BattleIsle was not part of our deal, so we were scared they would cancel the trade, leaving us in the dust. They had a huge score lead at this point. But then KISS told us that was just a ruse so the BattleIslanders wouldn't know that KISSMIA existed (something MIA was unnecessarily concerned with), so we didn't really know which to believe.

Likewise, MIA traded techs to TNT in order to get [Construction?]. KISS thought that went against our agreement, whereas MIA thought we were helping KISSMIA reach the Middle Ages sooner.

Other MIAers will undoubtedly remember more accurately than I, but those are two examples of the trust issued KISSMIA was working against.

 

[azzaman333]

From reading the MIA diplo thread at KISS, I noticed that Bede probably saved our life.

 

[Robi D]

"teenager" "evil backstabber"

It looks like I played my bad guy role and Robi the good guy role enough to make enemies of everyone!.

Don't take it too harshly, i was able to get on fe good side with his favourite drop, or 20. Although how he was able to misplace 30% of the shipments and never get caught is beyond me, MIA must have slack internal security
On a more serious note i think its just that fe and myself developed a bond far above the actual friendship between our nations

While i didn't feel comfortable with the double cross KISS (and whomp specifically) suggested we were well aware your previous under handed dealings (despite your preaching saying otherwise, which did grate the nerves towards the end, i think you guys kind of noticed too... eventually). Anyway we never really liked you, this goes back to the beginings of the Dnut-TNT war when we were looking for a tech trade, particularly HBR. Despite us being willing for you to extort us at a 2 to 1 beaker rate, you wanted a 4 to 1 beaker rate out of it. I must say that your threat that we should trade now or less the immortals will kill us was funny because of the absurdity of it.
Give us your techs or TNT will kill you

The two times i didn't listen to my gut instincts it came back to haunt me, the tech double cross i had a feeling from the start it would come back to bite us hard and it did, the other was when i saw donsig had manouvered in a way that an ambush was planned ahead, but ignored it and went ahead. That set us back a bit in the fight, we could have started taking cities a lot sooner if i had pulled back.

Also killer your too kind saying i saved Dnuts, at that point i had the advantage of no expections other than defeat, which gave me a long leash to take some risks. Only the Great Meleet knows how on earth 2 MW's killed 2 immo's fortified on mountains with barely a scratch. That and TNT did make it easy to defend (Gee they just had 3 workers spend 20+ turns through the jungle to our side, i wonder where there attack will come from). At this point i will return the kind words, for while i might have saved us from TNT, kuningas and yourself did a great job bringing us to a point where we had a half decent chance of winning the game. Had MIA not rolled KISS when they did we just might have pulled off the comeback of all comebacks.