SGOTM 01 - V Q
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
GreyFox
Make it so ...
Because we have won? 
ChrTh
Happy Yule!
GreyFox said:Because we have won?
That's just crazy talk!
I do plan on going back and replaying from an earlier save to see what a different decision would've done. Probably not tonight since I'm up in VQ06a, but hopefully before I'm Out of Pocket.
namliaM
Deity
*We putte they chickkeen into the potty* 
GreyFox
Make it so ...
SO we have not won? Geez ... I need a skip if I'm up.
13 more posts to #1000 ...
13 more posts to #1000 ...
GreyFox
Make it so ...
I was tempted to ... but am afraid AlanH would deemed it as spam ... 
blastoidstalker
The Geographer
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2006
- Messages
- 529
So now that you guys are done, Who do you think has a chance to win?
Lurker Comment:
I enjoyed following your game (and the games of others). Congratulations on your win. I've never played a succession game but I imagine the challenge of coordinating balanced against collaborative insights must be engaging.
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I've (re)played this scenario many times and the variations are fascinating. I've some comments on the design portion that I'll reserve until the contest is deemed over but I think it fair to say that the game is laid out such that a 'traditional' approach will yield poorer results.
My first run was not dissimilar from yours; a diplomatic win in 1804. I had a PA with Roosevelt and had to outrace Ghandi.
I had one win where I defeated Cathy in 575BC (not using any preknowledge of the map; just going all out military and declaring when I killed her initial scout(s)), but lacked the tech to support an infrastructure to keep Ghandi & Cyrus off the continent entirely. I share your amazement at Team One's feat of expansionism.
It is possible to found Stonehenge, Pyramids, & Oracle in the same game (or for that matter you can found any religion you choose if you're aggressive in science), but the Wonders choke your early game. Oracle -> COL seems to be the most consistent winning move. Then GP for CS. In one game, I was able to Oracle->Theology, GP for COL that same turn, and later GE for Feudalism. I think you need to pick one wonder, Oracle, for no reason other than denying the free tech to someone else.
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So far, I've found that Pottery -> Hunting -> AH is strongest, but Fishing (to use the lake and get cheaper Pottery) first is also an strong variant. It also gets you exploring with a work boat earliest. The Bronzeworking path is of dubious value IMO except to show you Cat's ambitions. I think the chops are of little value in the early game here.
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Anyway, have fun replaying! I look forward to watching you in SGOTM2
I enjoyed following your game (and the games of others). Congratulations on your win. I've never played a succession game but I imagine the challenge of coordinating balanced against collaborative insights must be engaging.
---
I've (re)played this scenario many times and the variations are fascinating. I've some comments on the design portion that I'll reserve until the contest is deemed over but I think it fair to say that the game is laid out such that a 'traditional' approach will yield poorer results.
My first run was not dissimilar from yours; a diplomatic win in 1804. I had a PA with Roosevelt and had to outrace Ghandi.
I had one win where I defeated Cathy in 575BC (not using any preknowledge of the map; just going all out military and declaring when I killed her initial scout(s)), but lacked the tech to support an infrastructure to keep Ghandi & Cyrus off the continent entirely. I share your amazement at Team One's feat of expansionism.
It is possible to found Stonehenge, Pyramids, & Oracle in the same game (or for that matter you can found any religion you choose if you're aggressive in science), but the Wonders choke your early game. Oracle -> COL seems to be the most consistent winning move. Then GP for CS. In one game, I was able to Oracle->Theology, GP for COL that same turn, and later GE for Feudalism. I think you need to pick one wonder, Oracle, for no reason other than denying the free tech to someone else.
---
So far, I've found that Pottery -> Hunting -> AH is strongest, but Fishing (to use the lake and get cheaper Pottery) first is also an strong variant. It also gets you exploring with a work boat earliest. The Bronzeworking path is of dubious value IMO except to show you Cat's ambitions. I think the chops are of little value in the early game here.
---
Anyway, have fun replaying! I look forward to watching you in SGOTM2
Oh, I'm sure you have some genuine pearls of knowledge to share with your public as a result of this game?GreyFox said:I was tempted to ... but am afraid AlanH would deemed it as spam ...
namliaM
Deity
A few of the early mistakes we made IMHO:
1) Did not sign OBs with Cathy thus did not know about the Copper south.
Had we known it would have been easy to take 2 chariots and run South, pillage the Copper and saveguard us from Axe and more importantly Speers...
Lesson: Make sure you know your opponent
2) We did not send a (work)boat out early enough. I think we spotted "foreign land" even during or just after the first war. This should have THE moment to get a (work)boat ASAP, even if slowing down our "rush" on Cathy. Also If we had done #1, we would have known this even earlier. Gotten even earlier contact etc...
This would have made use aware of Gandhi and Cyrus much earlier, thus probably get Earlier trades going and trade routes. Also them two AI knew tech so our tech would have been cheaper (not sure about this one)
At the very least we should have gotten some extra coin earlier from trade routes...
3) Settling. I think we settled OK... Not great... One thing I picked up was "Overlap is not bad..."
On settling we went wrong on the following, fill your own land ASAP, for low maintenance and nice coin (took this one into VQb in founding Okinawa (no spoiler I hope) )
Going from the dotmap Greyfox made....
a) We grabbed the (easy) silver way to late (major mistake IMHO) Also I (IIRC I founded it finaly) should have founded it ON the Silver. I dont think we ever worked that silver tile. And founding it early on that silver would have allowed it to be a farly decent fishing town.
b) The white city was founded WAY to late. Missing out on quite some research...
c) We could have gotten another city on the south mountain. Low upkeep and some nice coast to work... It could have borrowed the clams for quick growing
4) Building settlers is a pain and even if an AI city is not "perfect" sometimes it can be (very) smart to simply keep it (i.e. St. Peterburg)
Personaly before this game I would have Razed Moscow as well... Either in the first or second doesnt matter, moving it 1NE would make it so much better. But you lose out early a lot due to time and building a settler.
5) I cannot believe HC was such a push over. (not really a lesson or anything)
Just a few nuggets from me anyway...
Edit:
6) Dont know if this would make much difference... BUT when you do something DO IT... Refering to having the Pyramids, going for a rush and building barracks ?? and not using Police State??
I normaly dont rush, but was it smart to build barracks instead of having 4 more chariots? I dont know...
But not using Police state that first war? That was an obvious error I think....
Edit2:
One responce to this one "nugget" from all our team member and we hit #1000 If we really need to discuss it to some level #1100 here we come 
1) Did not sign OBs with Cathy thus did not know about the Copper south.
Had we known it would have been easy to take 2 chariots and run South, pillage the Copper and saveguard us from Axe and more importantly Speers...
Lesson: Make sure you know your opponent
2) We did not send a (work)boat out early enough. I think we spotted "foreign land" even during or just after the first war. This should have THE moment to get a (work)boat ASAP, even if slowing down our "rush" on Cathy. Also If we had done #1, we would have known this even earlier. Gotten even earlier contact etc...
This would have made use aware of Gandhi and Cyrus much earlier, thus probably get Earlier trades going and trade routes. Also them two AI knew tech so our tech would have been cheaper (not sure about this one)
At the very least we should have gotten some extra coin earlier from trade routes...
3) Settling. I think we settled OK... Not great... One thing I picked up was "Overlap is not bad..."
On settling we went wrong on the following, fill your own land ASAP, for low maintenance and nice coin (took this one into VQb
in founding Okinawa (no spoiler I hope) )
Going from the dotmap Greyfox made....
a) We grabbed the (easy
) silver way to late (major mistake IMHO) Also I (IIRC I founded it finaly) should have founded it ON the Silver. I dont think we ever worked that silver tile. And founding it early on that silver would have allowed it to be a farly decent fishing town.b) The white city was founded WAY to late. Missing out on quite some research...
c) We could have gotten another city on the south mountain. Low upkeep and some nice coast to work... It could have borrowed the clams for quick growing
4) Building settlers is a pain and even if an AI city is not "perfect" sometimes it can be (very) smart to simply keep it (i.e. St. Peterburg)
Personaly before this game I would have Razed Moscow as well... Either in the first or second doesnt matter, moving it 1NE would make it so much better. But you lose out early a lot due to time and building a settler.
5) I cannot believe HC was such a push over. (not really a lesson or anything)
Just a few nuggets from me anyway...
Edit:
6) Dont know if this would make much difference... BUT when you do something DO IT... Refering to having the Pyramids, going for a rush and building barracks ?? and not using Police State??
I normaly dont rush, but was it smart to build barracks instead of having 4 more chariots? I dont know...
But not using Police state that first war? That was an obvious error I think....
Edit2:
One responce to this one "nugget" from all our team member and we hit #1000
If we really need to discuss it to some level #1100 here we come
GreyFox
Make it so ...
Maybe, maybe not. I have not matured my skills to fully appreciate the value of scouting, but in Cathy's case, I deemed it irrelevant. Even if we know ther is a copper down south, what then? Nothing much we can do. Its hard enough to keep our units alive, not to mention moving a10 tiles in hostile land to pillage her only metal.namliaM said:
Quite true, quite true. We were too focused on the war (whch isn't a bad thing) butsometimes you have to divert your attention from the short term objective to the longer-term implications of the gamenamliaM said:
Yes, we should've founded the silver city right after we killed Cathy off, where we had a chance to breathe before the war with HC.namliaM said:3) Settling. I think we settled OK... Not great... One thing I picked up was "Overlap is not bad..."
On settling we went wrong on the following, fill your own land ASAP, for low maintenance and nice coin (took this one into VQb
Going from the dotmap Greyfox made....
a) We grabbed the (easy
b) The white city was founded WAY to late. Missing out on quite some research...
c) We could have gotten another city on the south mountain. Low upkeep and some nice coast to work... It could have borrowed the clams for quick growing
That, IMHO, is the greatest mistake we've made in the early game. Our war with Cathy was almost for nothing ... except for the measly techs we managed to extort out of her ... Could've gained us a lot more. Perfect city placements, is always a luxury to me. When settling, you have to mak sacrifices and tradeoffs, so sometime you don't get the perfect site. IN war, you must get even less choosy. Just bite what you get and make the best out of it.namliaM said:
I am sure bob would grossly disagree with me, but razing cities, IMHO is a big mistake, esp early game. Late game, when you can produce a settler in 2 turns (and your growth rate is like 30 turns to increase a pop), yes, raze all you can and re-settle to the prefect spot you want. Not early game.
I was ... should I say disappointed? ... with the defense brought on by HC as well. Hell, the greatest trouble he caused us was his lone caravel comin to harras our coastal tiles!!!!namliaM said:
Yep, must write a note and paste it on your monitor:namliaM said:
Code:
"CHANGE CIVIC IMMED AFTER BUILDING THE PYRAMIDS".
"WHEN SPIRITUAL, RE-EVALUTE YOUR CIVICS CHOICES EVERY 4 TURNS"namliaM said:One responce to this one "nugget" from all our team member and we hit #1000
... I think 1000 is enough ... let's not try AlanH's patience ...namliaM
Deity
IIRC even when we did come all the way south there was an Unclaimed spot of land right next to it.GreyFox said:
We could have send 1 or 2 "suicide" units south BEFORE the war. One turn 1 of the war pillage it....
Quite true, quite true. We were too focused on the war (whch isn't a bad thing) butsometimes you have to divert your attention from the short term objective to the longer-term implications of the game
Yes, we should've founded the silver city right after we killed Cathy off, where we had a chance to breathe before the war with HC.
I too tend to raze and replace too much... something that I think I must try and change...GreyFox said:
Code:
"CHANGE CIVIC IMMED AFTER BUILDING THE PYRAMIDS".
"WHEN SPIRITUAL, RE-EVALUTE YOUR CIVICS CHOICES EVERY 4 TURNS"
bobrath
Emperor
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2005
- Messages
- 1,238
Yes - Bob is just the bane of all bad city placements.
I agree that there are times when keeping a city is the best (only) solution. I get hung up sometimes on keeping a secondary city that serves no purpose other then the AI followed the light blue suggestion circle of .... foolishness (ie Nara).
I do know that on this game, my choice to raize the first St. Petersburgh was necessitate soley by the fact that I was unable to keep it. I possibly brought this on myself tho by not attacking with enough forces to capture *and* hold. I attacked with my last unit and it won easily... but would have had a hard time holding it. The counter attack never came. Was it because the AI saw no reason to attack ruins or was it never going to come?
Never know, but I do know that if we could have kept that first version of the city... well the war goes different! Maybe next time in that situation I call for peace instead of raizing.... Of course I do think we asked for peace too often.
I agree that there are times when keeping a city is the best (only) solution. I get hung up sometimes on keeping a secondary city that serves no purpose other then the AI followed the light blue suggestion circle of .... foolishness (ie Nara).
I do know that on this game, my choice to raize the first St. Petersburgh was necessitate soley by the fact that I was unable to keep it. I possibly brought this on myself tho by not attacking with enough forces to capture *and* hold. I attacked with my last unit and it won easily... but would have had a hard time holding it. The counter attack never came. Was it because the AI saw no reason to attack ruins or was it never going to come?
Never know, but I do know that if we could have kept that first version of the city... well the war goes different! Maybe next time in that situation I call for peace instead of raizing.... Of course I do think we asked for peace too often.
Bob - FWIW - when you have superiority in numbers or military tech, I'd opt to not take the town with that last unit. War chariots cost the same as archers and you have the advantage of mobility in that you can choose to attack a different town if he reinforces St. Pete. In the meantime, even if your military production is a standoff you're choking the life out of her, because her worker is not improving her tiles and your worker is.
I don't recall which group said flanking was useless, but in this specific scenario it was huge. War Chariot starts with 20% withdraw, Flank 1 is 30% and Flank 2 is 50% in addition to leading to the -1 terrain cost to cross jungle and the hill barrier. Just one of these units is a huge harrasser and can single-handedly cut off future reinforcements (as well as doing recon and killing the copper). Leading with a flanking chariot gives you a 30%/50% chance to do some damage, gain a promotion, and even if it doesn't win outright it sets up a Combat 1 chariot for an easy victory and a more useful promotion.
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There... I set you up for #1000. Bring it home!
I don't recall which group said flanking was useless, but in this specific scenario it was huge. War Chariot starts with 20% withdraw, Flank 1 is 30% and Flank 2 is 50% in addition to leading to the -1 terrain cost to cross jungle and the hill barrier. Just one of these units is a huge harrasser and can single-handedly cut off future reinforcements (as well as doing recon and killing the copper). Leading with a flanking chariot gives you a 30%/50% chance to do some damage, gain a promotion, and even if it doesn't win outright it sets up a Combat 1 chariot for an easy victory and a more useful promotion.
---
There... I set you up for #1000. Bring it home!
bobrath
Emperor
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2005
- Messages
- 1,238
Mine!!!!!!
I hear ya on the flanking promoted WC being a beast. I think part of this comes back to our lack of knowledge of enemy lands in that first war. Knowing where the second copper resided would have made a huge difference - esp given the AIs refusal to send archers out on offense. I held back because the few WCs I sent down south were summarily executed by a wave of attacks. The tradeoff always favored us (we'd kill 2-3 units to our one loss), but the far south east of her lands were the great unknown - add in the desire to hold the checkpoint and you've got timid Bobrath all aquiver.
Still, it was a fun game. Just wish we (collectivly) had managed to finish first. you know VQ and all.
I hear ya on the flanking promoted WC being a beast. I think part of this comes back to our lack of knowledge of enemy lands in that first war. Knowing where the second copper resided would have made a huge difference - esp given the AIs refusal to send archers out on offense. I held back because the few WCs I sent down south were summarily executed by a wave of attacks. The tradeoff always favored us (we'd kill 2-3 units to our one loss), but the far south east of her lands were the great unknown - add in the desire to hold the checkpoint and you've got timid Bobrath all aquiver.
Still, it was a fun game. Just wish we (collectivly) had managed to finish first. you know VQ and all.
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