Sgotm 01 - C F R

[Ptitsa Consul]

Great!

I am glad to play in our team! I am not a great player, but here I try to correspond our team level.

Congratulation for our tem and CB for this victory!

 

[Witan]

So fast and so interestingly!
Starting in May 09, we played this game 1 month and 1 week.
Thanks for Gyathaar and AlanH for starting game!
Thanks for Dynamic, Ptitsa Consul, akots, Obormot, Lexad and Cat Behemoth for team-work! I hope, that we will continue to play SGOTM together.

 

[Obormot]

Juat thought we should try to keep this thread active to try to confuse other teams

 

[Ptitsa Consul]

Juat thought we should try to keep this thread active to try to confuse other teams

It's good war ruse!

 

[Lexad]

I can try to write a spoiler but will not be able to di it till Saturday at the least.

 

[akots]

I can try to write a spoiler but will not be able to di it till Saturday at the least.

OK, that is great! Take your time and you might consider including some nice pictures there as well.

 

[akots]

Juat thought we should try to keep this thread active to try to confuse other teams

Oh, come on, they already know we finished.

 

[Obormot]

I don't think we can confuse everybody, but we should at least try

 

[Lexad]

Obormot can't stop strategizing even after the game's end

 

[akots]

Well, if they really follow, they must know that new saves are not appearing. Which would be even more strange considering that the posts are still coming. Must admit, it can work for a few days but not longer since we previously played rather rapidly.

I've read more through other team threads and it does seem that we did it right and there is not supposed to be anyone seriously competing with us for the fast finish. Again repeating, of course, we never know how it turns out. But we can relax and wait for the results to be announced may be within a month or may be even sooner depending on how other teams progress through their turns.

One good thing is that we have pretty early focused on Domination win and did not research some extra unneeded techs (except for Music but even that was somewhat handy and not completely useless giving us cultural safety against flips of Indian cities). Many other teams are still unsure and might consider going for Diplomatic win but it seems that on this kind of map, Domination is considerably faster and easier than researching all the way to UN. Even then, there is a trouble of locked war with Inca.

Some other teams went for overkill researching all the way up to Cavalry and Cannons which is not needed imho on this map. It might be grenadiers would have been rather useful though it takes slightly too long to research Chemistry and if the military phase is started earlier, it could have been accomplished with maces, pikemen, and cats as we have clearly shown.

Also, ship chaining seems to be very powerful on the continents map especially if AIs do not have Astronomy.

It might be, we would have been able to finish slightly earlier but only by a rather narrow margin.

So, I'm really satisfied with the way this game had been played and with extensive discussions aimed at finding the best solutions to these difficult problems we have faced in the game. It seems though, we did it right in most cases.

That's my brief summary vision of the first SGOTM here.

 

[Obormot]

I've read more through other team threads and it does seem that we did it right and there is not supposed to be anyone seriously competing with us for the fast finish.

Most teams do not compete with us, but I have read team Peanut thread and I am actually quite scared. They seem to be playing an excelent game, even though their strategy is very different from ours.

We went for the direct Oracle->CS slingshot and of course we benefited from it a lot, but on the other hand it also hurt us: we slowed down our initial expansion and lost ability to research usefull techs with great scientists, because Paper and then Education are high on the list.

The peanuts are very backwards compared to us at 200AD, but they can get Optics and most of Astronomy from GS (and already got compass that way) and they can get many other usefull techs from trade, perhaps even CS because Huayana got it with the Oracle (Yes, an AI did CS slinshot in their game ). So with some luck they can catch up techwise and expansion wise they are far ahead of us.

 

[hamfist]

Also, ship chaining seems to be very powerful on the continents map especially if AIs do not have Astronomy.

First off... congrats CFR on a very impressive finish. I've been lurking many threads and this one has been quite enlightening.

However, I don't understand what is meant by 'ship chaining'. Couls someone please explain what this means. It sounds like something that I should know how to do

I've replayed Peanut's current save and they'll be hard pressed to beat you.

 

[Obormot]

You can load units onto a galeon, then move the galeon with units onto a tile that has another galeon (empty), wake the units transported and then load them onto the other galeon which still hasn't moved, then you can move the units again during the same turn. This you can get units anywhere you want in just 2 turns if you have many galeons arranged in a chain. One turn to load them on the first ship and one turn to unload when you reach the other side. This requires a lot of ships though.

 

[Lexad]

I also think Peanut are doing good, but perhaps their rapid expansion can put them back as well - they have no CoL to bring the upkeep down (although it will not take much to research it). Also, they're building harbors and lighthouses and aqueducts and even HG. Lighthouses complement Colossus, but I'm not sure they will obtain big cash on that.

However, these guys and Lunatics seem to be te strongest opponents.

 

[Mutineer]

Zdorowo myziki.
Lurker comment:

In my humble opinion you got lucky. On Monarch true SC sligshot requet luck.
Otherwize GG.

 

[Dynamic]

Zdorowo myziki.
Lurker comment:

In my humble opinion you got lucky. On Monarch true SC sligshot requet luck.
Otherwize GG.

Hello!
In all my games I got Civil Service via Oracle on Monarch. We just need to research right way.

 

[Obormot]

We have pulled off the slingshot in 1240BC. I think it is pretty safe even at monarch difficulty if you can get it before 1000BC, at least in GOTM3 which was monarch difficulty the earliest AI Oracle date was 960BC or so.

 

[blastoidstalker]

I would like to say great job to you guys. You had a good plan and stuck to it throughout the game. I think the oracle Slingshot worked well for this set up, and that you made the right decision for really going for it, delaying mining and BW to after. In my mind this was the closes thing to a gamble but more of a trade off, sacrificing some of the potential for an early war for a big boost to the economy. On an island with one other CIV, Horses nearby and Copper far away and close to the oppenents capital this turned out to go from a great stratigy to the best stratigy IMOP. On a map with more civs on a continent or if we could attack gahndi or cyrus had some decent land, then other stratigies would have been more on par with yours.
We (team 1) went for early war, having finished the RUssain by 800 BC I think. In doing so we researched mining and BW for production, salvery and copper. I think you MM skills were a little better than ours as well.
We both left Cyrus out of it (at least till the end) and I think this was a good choice.
Great job again!

 

[Obormot]

Thakns Oracle slingshot is a powerfull strtegy indeed, but I think we have to wait for team Peanut to finish their game before judging whether the slingshot or the early war is better on this map.

 

[akots]

...
In my humble opinion you got lucky. On Monarch true SC sligshot requet luck. ...

That is a very wrong statement.

For details see post #128 and other continuing discussion.

In my experience, you can almost always (99%) get CS from Oracle on Monarch and also in 99% you can get CS from a Great Prophet on Emperor.

It has nothing to do with luck but is only due to careful planning of research, city placement, wonder building, and exploration.

This strategy is very powerful and similar to farmer's gambit in Civ3, it can be called CS gambit in Civ4. it is especially powerful when coupled with the Academy gambit which is slightly more tricky to implement to get the maximal benefit out of it.

Indeed, it is very surprizing why nobody has written a strategy article on that in the Strategy article forum. May be the guys who write Strategy Articles there do not know how to do this?

... In my mind this was the closes thing to a gamble but more of a trade off, sacrificing some of the potential for an early war for a big boost to the economy. ...

Again, a very dubious statement. Really, there are many ways to win the game in Civ4, especially if you don't care when you win. However, when there is a competition game, you do care when you win and you have to pick up a best strategy to do this. it involves setting early goals and going very focused after these goals while neglecting everything else. So, Civ4 is not that different compared to Civ3 and to any other game out there. There is an optimal winning strategy and there is a winning strategy. While there are a multitude of winning strategies, there is only one optimal winning strategy for each specific type of map and starting civ and victory condition. Once you know type of map, get an estimate of how powerful your neighbors are, what are the victory conditions you want to reach, that is it. That information is enough to go through a path of optimal strategy and if you pick up a path of just a winning but not optimal strategy, chances are that somebody with optimal strategy will finish earlier.

I'm more surprized that no other teams went by a path of optimal strategy in this game. And this is really confusing. It might be that some stronger team of players compared to ours would be able to implement these optimal strategies earlier and better and hence provide for stronger competition here.