Qsc17-Carthage - Results & Strategy

[Renata]

Thanks Borealis, I agree on both those things. I did have about six or seven workers building at 1000 BC, and had no shortage later in the game, but could have used 3 or 4 more early on instead of the warriors. And Utica was definitely in the wrong spot. As for the infrastructure issue, I spotted a couple of errors in the spreadsheet which make that less problematic than I'd thought. Not that my micromanagement couldn't still use work ...

Cheers,
Renata

 

[AgedOne]

I'd like to add my congratulations from the bottom of the pile (or very nearly) to those awesome performances at the top.
I'm already back in civ school, comparing the timelines with my own paltry effort. Perhaps I really can't be taught? Aging brain, etc.

I agree with something that Shillen said in this thread, that those who met the Egyptians before 1000BC got a generous bump up the score chart. However, now I think about it, not getting there before 1000BC is probably down to poor strategy in any case.

Although it embarasses me to do so, I would like to point out a small mistake in my stats. I did research Writing already, and so am due a few extra points. Not quite enough to get me near the top ...

Well done to the organisers, too! Great job!
Now on with 18Celts...

 

[Xevious]

I'd have to attribute my lack of research points to one stupid and one bad (apparently) decision. The first was forgetting the archipelago setting, and researching bronze working first to get the numidians. Second was not trading techs with Egypt. I wanted to slow their aquisition of Map Making (they didn't even have writing when I met them) so they would be easier to take out when I was ready. I see now that trading tech would have been the better choice. These coupled with a bad opening move sequence cause me to go down in place compared to last month (60 compared to 41 last month).

On a positive note, I was able to turn things around and acheive my first ever domination win in GOTM, or any game with a map larger than small.

 

[Moonsinger]

Congrats to everyone who did well!

Personally, I did lousy (#32 on the list). Actually, I did very well. [dance]

Units/ People Points: I had 1120 points and the highest was 1590 points. I'm coming fouth.

Bldg & Infrastrct Points: I had 1479 points; I'm #1 on this list.

Treasury: I'm #2 in treasury. Darkness is #1! That's alot of gold you get there, Darkness.

Tech Points: I had only 1762 points. Because I took the wrong turn in sending my boat to explore West before East, I discovered Egypt 1 turn after 1000BC.

 

[TedJackson]

Wow!

I see I still have a lot to learn about research

Congrats to all the winners (& also rans), thanks to Cracker & the team.


Ted

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Yndy
It is now obvious that cracker created a started position where the choice of the first move had an important impact on the game development. Moving south proved to be the most beneficial move with 9 out of the first 20 being in Category 2.

Moving to the north proved to be the worst choice possible while moving twice towards the floodplains was only marginally better than not moving at all.

I'm not so sure about that last remark. The jungle tile, with access to the bonus grasslands, was great for my game (I wanted the Pyramids), but settling on the coastal floodplains, like DaveMcW did, gave a fantastic Settler factory.

Settling on the forest wasn't so awful either because that gave access to one more floodplains tile, allowing you to fully profit from the gold hill early on. Of course, putting cities back-to-back on both jungle and forest like SirPleb did took advantage of everything.

Moving to the east coast was IMHO also a vast improvement on settling on the hill. You could complete a Granary at size 2 and the first Settler built could walk to the floodplains area. You wouldn't be too far behind compared to moving there right away, be able to build the Colossus quickly if you were so inclined, and later find that you had the more central location for the capital.

 

[hotrod0823]

The thing that stand out the most is:
11 hotord0823
12 Lkendter


The person whom has been in my training games finished the QSC ahead of me.

Just goes to show you how good a trainer you are . I learned a few things in QSC 16 as well. I blew that big time. Made an effort to get the workers out. Imagine if I didn't lose a darn settler to the fog in the QSC period.

 

[Moonsinger]

I just want to thanks Cracker and the GOTM team for the quick result and the great job they have done. To show them my appreciation, I could bake some cookies but I don't think I can attach them through email. Therefore, please accept my sincere thanks instead. If there is something I could do to help, please let me know. For starter, I will behave and whine less.

 

[alexman]

I totally lucked out with the first move. I moved the Settler south to get away from the coast and to clear a jungle tile, without knowing about the flood plains. After I plopped Carthage, I was actually initially bummed to see that I moved within one tile of another coast.

Beginner's luck...

 

[ControlFreak]

Tis better to be lucky AND GOOD!

Congrats Alexman.

 

[Zwingli]

I got the warmonger award?
It must have been all of those boats. It's quite interesting how much of an impact the first settler move made on the units/people score.

 

[Smirk]

All I can say is wow! I didn't do the QSC or even know about when I played 17 but this is some motivation to try it. Great job, this is some very interesting stuff! I'm going to read some of the timelines to see what is expected, and hopefully learn something!

Should be interesting to see the final results from these.

 

[a space oddity]

Well at least my first QSC attempt result leaves room for improvement . I am one of those who did not move the settler. Maybe I can be even more proud that this GOTM ended with my first win on Regent. Like moonsinger (dare I compare myself with one of the great of this board ) I met the Egyptians a few years later, and traded well. I did realize right there and then it would cost me in the results of the QSC.

I would like to congratulate my fellow tourny conscripts: mad-bax and Mad Swede (what's in a name...) with their results .

 

[mad-bax]

a space oddity: It's great that our paths cross in this forum too!
Personally I jumped from 63 out of 66 to 27 out of 88 this month.
And you know I blame my improvement on you.

I add my congratulations to all the tournament conscripts who have ALL performed magnificently.

The data returned from the QSC is THE best learning tool available IMHO. I tried to replicate the starts of (I think) eight of the Roman timelines spread throughout the table. It's amazing (and a little worrying) how some peoples minds work.

Alexman: I tried to replicate your timeline today, do you have a key for the cypher you use?

I like the minimaps.

I'm glad I moved my settler South.

 

[Shillen]

It's easy to say which spot to settle was the best after you've seen the map. If that wheat wasn't there then moving south or west wouldn't have been very good at all. And everyone who moved the worker to the mountain would have actually been worse off than the people who just founded on the start position due to the lost worker turn. Like DaveMcW said in the first spoiler thread, the decision whether to move the worker or not was the hardest, after he saw the wheat it was obvious that the start position was a bad place to settle. If I played another game that had an identical looking start position, but was a different map, then I'd plop my settler down on the start position again.

 

[Renata]

Yeah, but the potenial gain in visibility from the mountain is so huge in this case, where you can initially see only the 9 tiles. (And there were hints of flood plain under the fog, weren't there?) I'd probably do it again in a similar situation. The loss of two worker turns is fairly trivial in the long run (esp. with industrious workers). The loss of a +5 food settler factory capital is not.

Renata

 

[Moonsinger]

I think the starting position was fine. My game ended in a low score because of my other stupid mistakes and bad luck with my galleys. If I have meet the Egyptians before 1000BC, thing could have been much better. I think there are two major groups here: people who met the Egyptian and people who didn't meet the Egyptians. The lesson I learned from my QSC: Don't wandering around; pick a direction and stick with it. My galleys wandering back and fore too many times.

 

[planetfall]

Thank you Cracker for the quick posting of QSC. Now I wish I would have waited before starting the new GOTM. Oh, well I am only about 1/3 into it. Unfortunately it is almost a mirror of the beginning of this game. I thought I would not build 4 granaries this time and see how that changes the start.

Congratulations to all who played. I really appreciate the game logs. They helped me improve a bit from last QSC. At least I am no longer in the bottom 5.

-- PF

 

[cracker]

Picked up several of those errors and will have them fixed. The PTW versions were playing a bit of havoc with the process because territory, techs, and food/shields had to be hand counted for the PTW games.

Writing will be added for AgedOne, BillChin, and Gen. Maximus. (each player gains a step or two in position rank down somewhere below 38th place)

Horseback Riding will be added for Bamspeedy (no impact on rank or awards)

Territory and improvements for Renata will be updated (improves score ovall postion rank but decreases cramus rank)

Shields will be increased by 54 for Ribannah (no impact on rank)

 

[Shillen]

Originally posted by Renata
Yeah, but the potenial gain in visibility from the mountain is so huge in this case, where you can initially see only the 9 tiles. (And there were hints of flood plain under the fog, weren't there?) I'd probably do it again in a similar situation. The loss of two worker turns is fairly trivial in the long run (esp. with industrious workers). The loss of a +5 food settler factory capital is not.

Renata

You could see the flood plains yes, but they were reachable from the start position. There was no way to know a wheat was there. I've played a number of games with start positions next to a mountain, and from my experience 9 times out of 10 you're not going to find a justifiable reason to move your settler. It's a gamble to move the worker, a gamble I wasn't willing to take personally. I guess it depends on the map type though. I'm still learning how # of civ's and things like that affect bonus resources and regular resources. But they wouldn't apply to a custom map like the gotm anyway.