Ruff05 - Team SG

[Ozbenno]

I think if we started again the lessons we could learn are:

1) We should pick our civs, we had 4 civs that as a team were not that great. Some aggressive civs with early UUs (Incas, Aztecs). Julius is always nice. Coupled with a Gandhi, Qin type builder would work well.
2) No barbarians. For a proper no-interference, no-holds-barred, mano y mano fight with the AIs.
3) The above two might solve this but no CS slingshot. An early rush to swords, axes, catatpults would mean that we could be on the offensive, rather than the defensive.
4) Pangea map. This would mean that we would have one half the land mass, the AI the other. The benefit? They could only come at us from one direction, so two (probably) of our civs are behind the battlefield and can play more of a builder role (troop supply, research, infrastructure).

Keen to give it another go as it would be fun on a more level playing field once the battle got stired up.

 

[Conroe]

oh dear - anyone got any views on what went wrong?

I think one of our biggest problems is that we (or at least I did) tried to play all 4 civs as if they were a single civ. It sounds great on paper that Gandhi would build all of our Workers, but it didn't work out well. In the initial expansion phase, each civ needs to explore and expand to develop its own empire as quickly as possible. In other words, before Gandhi starts trying to help out Peter, he needs to get his own empire in order.

The other problem that hurt us was the map. We played 8 civs on a large map. This map normally holds 9 civs. That means there was extra room for expansion. But, our lack of early expansion also meant that there was a lot more room for barbarians. About the time we were getting our act together, here come the barbs! That extra room also meant more time to get the trade network developed. Plus, the lakes map meant that there was plenty of useless ice and tundra for barbs to spawn.

A standard Pangeae, as Ozbenno suggested, would probably be a better way to go. I have no experience with them, but we may want to consider the balanced and team battleground maps, as well. I believe these two maps were designed with multiplayer in mind.


As for the CS slingshot, I do not believe that it caused our problems. Yes, it did slowdown Qin's expansion but it did not prevent us from building Settlers for the other civs. And, if Qin were to build the Oracle in a high-hammer 2nd city, then it wouldn't even had slowed down his expansion.

 

[hamtastic]

I would try again also. I wouldn't be so concerned about the map type, but I think a few things are correct: every civ should build a worker first and develop their own stuff. Also, I think bronze working should be first tech (although I guess we probably did that this time too). The CS slingshot is fine, but I think Stonehenge is a waste, and Pyramids might be ok IF it could be done with stone and an industrious civ. We never even revolted to anything past hereditary rule, which, although it did help us with happiness some, was not the biggest deal...

 

[ruff_hi]

Well, seems people want to try this again. I'm game - I'll start a new thread over the week end.

Discussion points?

• difficulty? Same or down 1 level
• Map - team battle field or pangeae
• civs - random or select (if select, please list the two teams)
• no barbs (final, not a discussion item!)

 

[Ozbenno]

difficulty? Same or down 1 level

Not bothered

Map - team battle field or pangeae

Pangeae

civs - random or select (if select, please list the two teams)

Select - Us: Julius (praets), Tokogawa (aggresive, samurai), Qin (token builder, chokonuts), Huayana (aggresive, quechas)
Them: If we have decent leaders don't care.

no barbs (final, not a discussion item!)[/list]

Absolutely

 

[jeejeep]

Same as Ozbenno except I think random leaders again. I believe it should be relatively fair and we shouldn't stack the deck too much. I think we can do it with random, maybe down a level then.