Lmtoops
Warlord
I read that Geezers won a Diplomatic victory in 1544.
SGOTM 01 - Short Straw
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
RobertTheBruce
King
Lmtoops said:
An impressively fast diplomatic victory. I think we will probably be the fifth or sixth fastest team.
You should look at the Rat Pack thread to see a war with Ghandi. They declared on Cyrus when he had a DP with ghandi. Now they are trapped in always war with Ghandi. They have no hope of winning because Ghandi is throwing superior troops at them and building their war weariness.
Once you get into that death spiral, there's really no way to get out.Read the CFR posts--was really interesting. Apart from having a few players that are stronger than anyone on our team and some who put a lot of effort into the game they mainly ruled the field with their early strategy.
they researched pottery first and started immediately building cottages. this enabled them to get the CS slingshot in something like 1300BC so they were not lucky to get it. CS that early is just huge--and their early cottages added to the picture.
Some other takeaways--they had some overlap (as we did), and had other cities work the cottages for a while so that they would be mature when the capital took them over (a little MM'ing).
They brought settlers over near the end and so rather than conquering and waiting for resistance to end they razed and settled--this probably saved 6 or 7 turns.
The rest of their game was generally well played but no great things happened to them. They were beat on the pyramids, their wars with Cathy were not exceptional. They took out Cyrus and used GA to hold the territory--they got music. Not sure if that whole plan was worth it--my guess is they would've been better off doing as we did--skip Cyrus and Music and finish FDR.
The ship chaining was a big plus.
I would say that they basically won the game with the CS slingshot (and of course the early cottages)--it was basically a gamble that Cathy didn't declare--a good one I think as they kept their relations good until they declared on her.
they researched pottery first and started immediately building cottages. this enabled them to get the CS slingshot in something like 1300BC so they were not lucky to get it. CS that early is just huge--and their early cottages added to the picture.
Some other takeaways--they had some overlap (as we did), and had other cities work the cottages for a while so that they would be mature when the capital took them over (a little MM'ing).
They brought settlers over near the end and so rather than conquering and waiting for resistance to end they razed and settled--this probably saved 6 or 7 turns.
The rest of their game was generally well played but no great things happened to them. They were beat on the pyramids, their wars with Cathy were not exceptional. They took out Cyrus and used GA to hold the territory--they got music. Not sure if that whole plan was worth it--my guess is they would've been better off doing as we did--skip Cyrus and Music and finish FDR.
The ship chaining was a big plus.
I would say that they basically won the game with the CS slingshot (and of course the early cottages)--it was basically a gamble that Cathy didn't declare--a good one I think as they kept their relations good until they declared on her.
Some lessons I learned from our game and reading other posts:
I think going BW was a mistake early--we should have gone pottery first(I was in favor of BW). I think AH was reasonable as learning where horse was was key with UU. Once we knew we had the horse, I think pottery and cottage spam was a big swing. Getting those cottages up 25 turns earlier or so is just huge and it took me reading other posts to realize how big.
Other than that I think our strategy was pretty good--civ is a game of lots of little decisions and better players rate to beat us in that area--just as we beat weaker players.
Some tactics from CFR--the ship chaining and the late game razing + rebuilding were useful to learn.
Not sure if it would have made any difference in our strategy, but I think a realistic assessment of diplo vs. dom earlier would have led us to conclude earlier that dom was the way to go--and that we didn't need Gandhi to be friendly.
I think we did pretty well--looks like we will be in the top third for sure
I think going BW was a mistake early--we should have gone pottery first(I was in favor of BW). I think AH was reasonable as learning where horse was was key with UU. Once we knew we had the horse, I think pottery and cottage spam was a big swing. Getting those cottages up 25 turns earlier or so is just huge and it took me reading other posts to realize how big.
Other than that I think our strategy was pretty good--civ is a game of lots of little decisions and better players rate to beat us in that area--just as we beat weaker players.
Some tactics from CFR--the ship chaining and the late game razing + rebuilding were useful to learn.
Not sure if it would have made any difference in our strategy, but I think a realistic assessment of diplo vs. dom earlier would have led us to conclude earlier that dom was the way to go--and that we didn't need Gandhi to be friendly.
I think we did pretty well--looks like we will be in the top third for sure
mushroomshirt
King
ungy - thanks for the analysis. I find CFR's thread the most enlightening, but I have not read Geezers in great detail yet. RTB and Grogs have, I think. I'm very interested in their early diplo win.
My take on CFR is that they went 100% builder at the beginning and then 100% military at the end. I think this philosophical shift was pretty key for them. On the other hand, we always mixed our builder & war elements. Not going for BW early and cottages, cottages, cottages (who was our big proponent of that early on?
) was really part of their build emphasis in the early game.
I'm going to try this strategy myself in the current GOTM to see how it works. CS slingshot and early bureaucracy seems key as you point out.
My take on CFR is that they went 100% builder at the beginning and then 100% military at the end. I think this philosophical shift was pretty key for them. On the other hand, we always mixed our builder & war elements. Not going for BW early and cottages, cottages, cottages (who was our big proponent of that early on?
) was really part of their build emphasis in the early game.I'm going to try this strategy myself in the current GOTM to see how it works. CS slingshot and early bureaucracy seems key as you point out.
ungy said:
I just can't bring myself to ship chain. It seems so bloody cheesy. I also don't think it's that huge of an advantage or it would have been banned from the GOTM's. Take a look at the palace jump in C3 or Moonsinger's constant anarchy in CIV as a comparison. Those are strategies that you just can't compete against by any other method and have thus been outlawed in GOTM play.
ungy said:
I'm not really sure that trying to keep Ghandi happy slowed us down at all. We chose not to attack Cyrus (which I think was still good advice ungy) and while I remember some fear that attacking Catherine would get us penalties with Ghandi, I don't remember actually slowing down or cancelling attacks for any reason.
All in all, I think that the difference between CFR and us is that they had a vision of where they were going from turn 0, whereas we kind of groped our way along. That's what always seems to separate the middle of the pack GOTM players from the medal winners in my experience.
mushroomshirt said:
Actually, I haven't.
It's on my to do list, but RL things have been stealing my attention lately.mushroomshirt said:
This is going to be an interesting one, to be sure. I haven't played an archipelago game in CIV yet, so I'll be bumbling my way along. With an industrious civ like Germany, it's hard not to want every single wonder so the choice between CS slingshot or GL+Colossus (or make a go for all 3) is a tough one.
I've also been awaiting the GOTM06 results since it's been over a month now and no word, but I'll be even more interested in the GOTM07 results when they come out since I seem to have posted a competitive result for my particular VC (SS) if for no reason than nobody else really went for it.
I'm looking forward to the current GOTM--I enjoyed 2, 3, 4, and 5--then was actually mostly through 6 and kind of got bored with it and decided to wait for monarch to get back into it.
I've played a few archipelago but never rocky so there was always a production shortage. Cultural was easy as AI were slowed quite a bit and typically not as aggressive--usually didn't have the close borders and AI is always lame at invasions. Not sure how to go on this one but start looks pretty strong.
I've played a few archipelago but never rocky so there was always a production shortage. Cultural was easy as AI were slowed quite a bit and typically not as aggressive--usually didn't have the close borders and AI is always lame at invasions. Not sure how to go on this one but start looks pretty strong.
Grogs said:
agree completely--we also played a more balanced game while it makes sense that the winner would be one who took more risk.
As for having more of a vision, I think if most of us play together again we will do better in that area if we spend a little time and energy earlier. Again I think we did very well given that none of us had played together.
Grogs said:
I agree we didn't do anything differently re Gandhi--I just remember it was on my radar screen. I think the more experienced players would look at the game and know that astro+guilds or at most chemistry would finish the game and that would be much quicker than diplo.
I still think we did right to avoid Cyrus--my guess is CFR might have finished quicker if they had as well.
mushroomshirt
King
Grogs said:
During my second go we waited 10 turns to attack Catherine because of a trade agreement set up with Gandhi. At the time, attacking Catherine would have blocked off the trade route and given us a diplo penalty for cancelling prior to 10 turns (at least that was the theory).
Not sure we lost too many turns, but we could have attacked maybe up to 5 turns sooner. We had pretty overwhelming force when we took Moscow.
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