Qsc18-Celts - Results and Strategy Discussion

[Ribannah]

Pilferman: no secret.

I just sent the one Archer out to catch me some Slaves and maybe get a good peace deal, and found Carthage with Bronze Working discovered but no Mercs built yet, so I took the opportunity. Once healed I sent him out again for the same purpose and found a very backward France. Really too far away to be a great asset to the empire, but the room it gave me - basically controlling almost the entire north part of the map - was significant.

But you have to send out that Archer in the first place to be able to find such an opportunity.

In hindsight, I should perhaps have sent an Archer southeast, too, instead of a Warrior, with a chance of taking out a civ (Rome) there as well. They had excellent real-estate!

 

[Singularity]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy

Do we have to play 'always run the settler and worker around, till you find food' game?

Yes, anyone who moved settler to NW either moved it blindly, or moved the worker to that tile. Both cases are flawed strategicly as an opening move.

This is a bit OT perhaps.
But I like the gambit of prioritizing the first move as a way to gather info to move the settler to a better location. An example would be to sacrifice a move to bonus grass, to go to a mountain that could provide valuable knowledge of the closest tiles. But there must be an incentive to do the move, seeing part of a river delta in that direction or getting the much better view that a mountain can give is the incentive you need to make a move like that.

 

[TedJackson]

Congrats to all! Special congrats to ControlFreak for being up there with the "Big Boys"

I ranked better than I expected (36th) as I knew that I'd made a muck of it when I submitted. I went for a much looser city placement in order to grab resources and paid the price.

I think I'll be back up the ladder with this month's QSC and I'll be reading those timelines and making notes ready for GOTM 20. So watch out! I want one of those medals

Thanks to Cracker and the team for another great learning exerience.

Ted

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Singularity
Yes, anyone who moved settler to NW either moved it blindly, or moved the worker to that tile. Both cases are flawed strategicly as an opening move.

I did go blindly. It has nothing to do with strategy (except that where you are on the map and what terrain to expect north or south is always a consideration). It was a small gamble with fair odds. In an earlier game I crossed an entire desert to settle on better land at the other side.

As it turned out, the yield was small. With full knowledge of the surroundings I might have stayed put and have the fish shared by my next two cities, while the capital was building the Pyramids.

 

[TedJackson]

@Singularity

Yes, anyone who moved settler to NW either moved it blindly, or moved the worker to that tile. Both cases are flawed strategicly as an opening move.

Or to allow two cities to be built on fresh water sites (well that was my reason for moving).


Ted

 

[cracker]

The real design intent of the map starting position was to have you settle on the starting position and then place secondary towns to the northwest on either side of the lake.

I tested a number of starting sequences to see if there was major value in moving and I came out with it being what I felt was a wash because I felt that getting timely contact with both the Iroquois and the Carthaginians (was a key part of the early game.

My preferred opening move was to click on the lakes to display the terrain info and make sure they were fresh water and then to move the worker North onto the Bonus grass to build a road and then a mine. The road would speed the rate of travel of the first warrior that could go north along that side of the lake knowing that there would be a land bridge further north because the freshwater lake could not go on forever.

I could see no real reason that someone would choose the NW move that semi-lucked onto the fish, but if anyone would care to enlighten me, I can be taught.

 

[el_kalkylus]

I think that those workers that people bought were a huge help in the start. Ribannah, SirPleb and Bamspeedy bought 5 workers? These could join the cities to speed up production or just help out to improve the terrain.

Building 10-12 cities before 1000 bc without bonus workers would be unwise IMO (if it's even possible).

BTW, thank you very much GOTM staff for having this QSC and putting so much effort in it.

 

[Smirk]

Originally posted by Singularity

Yes, anyone who moved settler to NW either moved it blindly, or moved the worker to that tile. Both cases are flawed strategicly as an opening move.

I actually considered this move in the pregame thread (that or the hill), while it doesn't seem to offer anything in the way of better land, there are some very good defensive reasons for a move nw. I didn't take the move myself because I had no intention of ever being attacked on my soil so the defensive argument had no value.

It wasn't that risky of a move either, you'd only lose 1 turn. And if you go with the numbers, there has to be something nearby if you don't see anything in the immediate radius. That is debatable though since cracker may well have modifed the surroundings. (That is in a normal game, there has to be something nearby.)

Another possible reason to move would be if you wanted to go a tech route, the 2f2g tile is the best you'll get in that area, but in that case (and in hindsight) a move sw would be even better for gold. It would be interesting to see what other reasons people had to move, since it was really a shot in the dark even if you moved a worker there first.

Overall it really didn't amount to much IMO, the production loss for using that tile in your first city outweighs much of the bonus food. And most people settled the fish in their second city so got the benefit quickly without the production loss. Now if that had been a cow, you would have seen a much greater effect for a move. I'd move twice for a cow, maybe.

 

[DaveShack]

<courage booster: on>

Well, I got mentioned this time, if only for the "not so happy camper." Also ended up in the group which hardly built anything, by the standards of the pacesetters.

I have to ask, what does one do special to produce so much more during this time period? When submitting it, I thought my qsc was a great start. Later when the AI's ganged up on me it was clear that the unit count was too low, but things seemed to be going better than usual for me in the beginning, and getting trounced was a fairly big surprise.

I have read and thought I understood the strategy articles on choosing good squares and the order of improvements, but apparently not very well. Any suggestions on an additional study path?

 

[a space oddity]

@d8575: Well, you can start by reading some of the timelines. After that you could be trying to follow the steps of for instance SirPleb if you still have the opening save and you want to invest a little time. I have never actually done that yet but maybe I'll be following my own advice this time . But I could also gather my courage and start GOTM19... hmmm..
So basically what I'm saying is either study the 'books' or learn by doing or both, your choice.

 

[cracker]

d8575,

I just want to give you encouragement and support for your <courage booster> and applaud your effeorts to dig in here.

One of the biggest advantages of this format is the familiarity and common frame of reference that you now have with the game situation. Many people can give you general advice that may not help you to get a solid grasp on the issues the way you can by using these parallel examples of play under virtually identical circumstances.

The pacesetter games are almost always good examples of games that do alot of things right without having significant miracles occur. As an example, games that get the Pyramids from an early lucky great leader may not be considered as pacesetter games because in general the "pace" of the game may be heavily influenced by that one lucky aspect. The games will strill be great and powerful but not necessarily the pacesetter choices.

Another thing you might do is to look at the games in groups rather than looking individually at your game alone. If you can look at the games in your group together and then look at the games in a nearby group and come up with some differences between the groups, then these are likely to be bigger picture differences that you can change and have an impact in almost any game situation. It also feels a little better to look at the process in terms of groups because in reality every game includes some things that were done well and some things that could be done better. It is the cummulative effect of a lot of little things that begins to make a big difference at the end of 80 turns of game play.

Just look at the map of city placement positions and see that even by the time the second city is founded there are rarely more that two or three games that are on the exact same path even when ther are 90+ games to look at. I find the diversity of the game experiences to be fascinating and I learn something new from every set of the games that I look at.

I also want to point out some player examples who can share with you that the process really does work. ControlFreak was third in the scoring of this month's game and in Qsc15 he was 25 out of 56. In Qsc16, he was 34 out of 65 and Qsc17 he was 33 out of 88. It takes a few rounds of play to let you start putting all the decision and management pieces together in a way that lets you really start to take control of your own destiny in the games. Once the lightbulbs start to click on though, then it is hard to hold you back.

 

[Moonsinger]

Congratulations everyone! You guys are way too good at this game. Any tip for this old cow who is running out of milk?

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Lol @ Shillen.
Great game, Renata

I didn't have the time to prepare my qsc last month. Well, I thought I wouldn't be able to finish the game if I did due to RL. Turned out I had a few hours at the end of the month anyway
I managed to submit my game, though. Looking forward to seeing those results...

 

[alamo]

Congratulations to Ribannah for 1st place - took out Hani and Joan!


Edit: Did you really do it w/just 1 archer?!?!?!

I came in at 62 of 90 - not as good as last time, but lots of competition. I too stretched to grab resources and was way too timid about taking Ceasar's territory.

This is like drinking from a firehose. I'm glad I waited to start the next GOTM.

Excellent work in summarizing the results. Hats off to the staff.

d :-o

 

[rabies]

This was my first official GOTM submission....and I came in 26th. Respectable I think. I figured I would do much worse. However, analyzing some of the other games has taught me a lot about what I did wrong...and I sure could have used that knowledge in 19. Next time I'll follow Cracker's advice..and do like you alamo...wait till the results from last month before jumping into the current month.

I can't believe that Ribannah had already conquered 2 civs at the same time I am still thinking about where to put city number 8 or so. Amazing.

 

[Zwingli]

Wow! Ribannah had 20 slaves by 1000 BC.

The QSC portion of the game is probably where I could stand the most improvement. I allowed a riot in my capital even with minimal city management issues. Must... Not... Rush... Early... Game...

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by TedJackson
Congrats to all! Special congrats to ControlFreak for being up there with the "Big Boys"

Imagine my surprise when my nick showed up in the pacesetters list! DISCLAIMER: Don't expect me there next month.

Thank you to Cracker and everyone else for your kind words.

Congratulations to everyone, good and soon-to-be-good. (There aren't any other kinds of QSC players!)

I think my showing may have had some luck involved regarding the contacts I found and the trades I was able to make when I found them. The tradability of your free techs changes as the AI make contact with each other. Meeting them in the "right" order allows you to get a lot of techs for free. Meeting them 10 turns later, when they've traded all their techs with each other, results in having to pay for even the lowest tier techs through the nose.

My big break through in knowledge this month was reading Sir Plebs writeup from GOTM17. To highlight something he does (at risk of having 55 players do better than me in the QSC next month ) is founding the second, third, etc. cities so that they share existing improvements. You have to be willing to do a bit of MM but doing this greatly increases your efficiency.

Elaboration: Your first worker sets about making enough improvements to keep up with your capitals growth. BUT you're probably building settlers and workers. So when you lose citizens, you stop using all of the improvements you've made. However, if you have a second city that can also use these tiles, you don't lose their power. You just have to MM to trade them back and forth. This works especially well with food tiles and granaries. This topic could actually be an addition to Bamspeedys terrific article about settler factories. On the turn you switch away from the food tile, your other city should pick it up.

Hope this helps you D8575 and anyone else. The thanks belong to Sir Pleb.

Discussion topic: The key difference comparing the minimaps from the very lite group with the other groups is their lack of knowledge of the map (and therefore the other civs). On a panagea contact is more important because there is nothing stopping the AI from meeting each other. The more contact you have the more trade potential you have, and the cheaper the techs become. Since we knew ahead of time that the map was continuous (verified by map makers.) exploring strategy became critical. (D8575, Cracker had a good discussion on exploring strategy in the HandyAndy game now archived in the Quick Game thead.)

 

[SirPleb]

Wow, thanks Cracker, Singularity, Shillen, and ControlFreak! I'll definitely keep writing detailed timelines and take more care with them in future, it is great to know that they're appreciated.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Smirk
I actually considered this move in the pregame thread (that or the hill), while it doesn't seem to offer anything in the way of better land, there are some very good defensive reasons for a move nw. I didn't take the move myself because I had no intention of ever being attacked on my soil so the defensive argument had no value.

It wasn't that risky of a move either, you'd only lose 1 turn. And if you go with the numbers, there has to be something nearby if you don't see anything in the immediate radius.

...

Overall it really didn't amount to much IMO

I dunno, can't second guess others, but it does seem an odd move to me. Regarding the defensive consideration, moving to the hill would be superior. (Though like you, my feeling would be that the need to defend my capital would be low ) About not being very risky I agree, a lost move is not much if there's something to be gained. But the odds on gaining something are not maximized by a NW move. It seems to me that after starting by moving the worker SW:
1) Moving the settler NW will bring five previously unknown tiles into the first city's eventual radius.
2) Leaving the settler at the start position brings six previously unknown tiles into its eventual radius.
3) Moving the settler S (the only remaining choice which makes the worker remain productive after its first move) brings seven previously unknown tiles within its eventual radius.
So I'm puzzled by the logic of moving NW - it seems to me to reduce the odds of a bonus at the same time as losing a move.

Re it not amounting to much, I don't agree - I'd move my settler two steps if it would mean a certainty of getting a food bonus. Food is the most important thing in the early game I think. I'd happily trade shields, gold, having to build an aqueduct in the long run, and throw in two settler moves, all just to get a food bonus I would guess that one bonus food for the capital translates to at least two additional towns built by the 1000BC QSC cutoff; and would guess that one bonus food available after capital borders expand would result in nearly one extra town by 1000BC. The compounding effect involved is dramatic.

@Ribannah - I know this is low odds but just in case: do you happen to have more detailed notes of your QSC period you could publish? I'm trying to understand high aggression early starts better, it is an area I've never done well at. I've been trying to replay your opening sequence but I'm not getting something right (perhaps the archer or warrior path), things keep coming out differently in my attempts. It would be great if you wouldn't mind publishing a bit more detail, for this game if you still have it, or for a future high aggression start.

 

[rabies]

Pardon my ignorance, but I could not find any the information i was looking for:
I looked at the QSC scoresheet for the firsttime. Facinating study. I noticed that there was a lot of 'color coding' for some cells...and I could not find a key explaining them nor could I figure them out. Are these for the spreadsheet makers use? Should I not worry about them?