SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

[bobrath]

Remember folks, don't comment that we finished NOR what our actual end date was. Have to keep the spoilers down.

Speaking of Spoilers... LTB you've got some homework!!

 

[Cosmichail]

CFR are the masters wow......


EDIT: One can see how using GP farms/techs can make getting that needed tech much faster. We got hung up on Astronomy and should have been able to research it faster. I remember seeing the playback and noticing from 1142 ad to 1400 something before we got going with another war. Was that because of waiting for astronomy?? My turn before this one I remember leaving a huge stack on the German border and some 27 turns later we started the war on Germany. That was too late and should have happened as soon as the 10 turns treaty was over.

We did play well and whether my making peace was necessary I am sure if you go back you will see that it was. This was my first time at a GOTM so next time will play different. I think maybe building the GL might have slowed us down too which was on my insistence. We only needed sams had we invaded the other land pre ad or at the beginning. We finished the war with izzy around 1100 so we likely got hung up on that astronomy until 1300 as we did quite a bit of shuttling thereafter.

Live and learn. I never had any feeling of quitting at any point as I liked the challenge. I would love to play a warlords games with you guys in the SG since this is over. Although Warlords played fine for me it did something funny and just hope it won't happen again. (maybe need to update my video drivers).

I hope that we are all ok and that it is "just a game" and we did our best. Yes trials along the way but that's what makes things interesting.

 

[Cosmichail]

We may not have won the golden laurels but I have to say our reports our the best with lots of pictures and detailed info especially by NamliaM and LuvtoBuild and Bobrath.

 

[namliaM]

Had a look at CFR, they allready have the laurels... Good game... a bit dry and without color (low on "fun") IMHO.

Did anyone of us notice that they STOLE my plan for whipping and leaving behind horsehockey cities (Madrid for example...) whipping catapults overflowing into cheap units and abandoning the city?!

 

[bobrath]

Haven't done much in depth reading.

I did read the Smurkz thread and OMG, there's analysis and then there's.... overkill. That team went to the extreme, even to the point of "cooperativly" playing the first 20 moves!

 

[Cosmichail]

Must be a chess players. Went to look and like wow man they ran a bunch of tests first. See the word gambit a lot. I might replay the game at some later date (so my memory of it is faded) and try it again.

 

[namliaM]

It looks like to me we had the right ideas (GPs and Whipping a lot) but didnt pull it together...

 

[Cosmichail]

I think we as team stalled on Astronomy which took way, way too long to get. We should have thought about a trick or faster way of getting there science wise. If we had it in 1100ad we could have ruled the world world with sams but at 1400ad it means the AI just advances that much quicker.

The game was pretty much lost at this point in the GOTM challenge. However playing and finishing it is what counts for the team. Accomplishment only makes us better and strong opposing points of view sometimes can prompt one to think out of the box. We also played too much like a regular game and should have priortized our goal as number being getting Astronomy more than anything.

Religion may seem a waste in a game like this and I usually go for it for myself of one basic reason. Border expansion. No need for wasting hammers on Stonehenge. It also clears the way for popping a GP for a possible CS slingshot by not researching masonry.

This was a difficult game for us all and I wish too that we could have all been happier but none the less in the end we did pull together and win even if it was in 1850. Talk about an overkill army. Guys don't be afraid to attack and loose. Rather attack than sit idle being somewhat leary of being associated with huge loses. If anything I commend Namliam for taking the bold try to put down Bismarck and was successful but only made that one tactical error. An error that a general will never repeat again.

Perhaps a more "out of the box" approach was needed or some of the old too.

EDIT: I am not sure about the time line with Astronomy so don't quote me on the dates. I just remember it was taking a long time.

 

[bobrath]

Yup, I think we got too involved in making the perfect whipping scenario. After all at this point we could whip Kyoto forever and it would still chug along perfectly. We also ended the game far stronger then we needed to be. If our last offensive unit takes out the last AI defender, then you've achieve near perfection in conquest. Its risky, but if we'd gone with that mindset (and beelined as effectively) then it might have been closer.

Overall I'm happy with our outcome. I've learned more then I thought and hope that some of it sticks.

BTW, went back to the previous save and tried running it with the culture left at 20%... We hit a domination victory before a conquest!!!!! So I'll chaulk that up to another learning experience. When going for conquest, keep *only* the bare minimum of cities.

 

[Cosmichail]

Good thing turned off the culture for the first 8 turns.

 

[eektor]

Congradulations on the win. I certainly learned a lot from it even though I was missing for most of it. I got a better understanding on how to whip and how powerful it can be.

I'm surprised at how low the score is especially since the base score was 4000 +. Then again I haven't won by conquest before.

 

[pigswill]

I think that we probably got a bit bogged down in micro-management and probably didn't debate strategy as much as we should. Having re-read bits of the thread I cringe at some of my comments and suggestions.
As the game progressed we started playing better as a team I think.
Having checked through some other threads luck is a significant factor.
Having played through this game I'd be happy to join the same team for another SGOTM (if you'd have me).

 

[LuvToBuild]

Dan Quayle baby! You say potato I say potatoe, Let's just get a v-i-c-t-o-r-y!! YA!!!!


Ok, now that I have that out of my system, some (not so) serious analysis. I think we did take too long getting to the key techs that we needed.

DISCLAIMER: No finger pointing intended here. Most of the decisions that were made were TEAM decisions. I know we didn't always agree but for the most part, we went along with these decisions.

Early Military and Conquest

Turn 19, 3430 BC: You have discovered Mining!
Turn 31, 3070 BC: You have discovered Hunting!
Turn 37, 2890 BC: You have discovered Archery!
.....
Turn 54, 2380 BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!
Turn 55, 2350 BC: VQ Black adopts Slavery!
.....
Turn 130, 550 BC: You have discovered Iron Working!
.....
Turn 195, 425 AD: Isabella declares war!!
.....
Turn 247, 1142 AD: The Spanish Civilization has been destroyed!!!

We chose to head for Hunting and Archery after Mining rather than BW and then IW. I'm not sure if we should have beelined to IW and been stuck with warriors the whole time or if we were wise to get Archery. The problem with Archery is that it didn't help us get closer to Samurai or anything else that we needed later. It was good for the short term but a large number of quickly produced warriors might have been just as efficient until IW and Iron became available. I haven't yet read CFR's thread in detail but they seemed to have gone that route from what I read in the spoiler. I did skim their thread for an IW date and came up with 1540BC, about 1000 years ahead of us. They declared on Spain in 310BC and finished them by 65AD, roughly 25 turns later. In contrast, we were DECLARED ON in 425AD. We weren't yet ready to take her on and spent the next 52 turns trying to finish her off, pretty much double the time. How much longer would we have waited to take her out if we hadn't been delared on first? I suspect it would have been a while.

Early Culture

Turn 43, 2710 BC: You have discovered Mysticism!
.....
Turn 68, 1960 BC: You have discovered Animal Husbandry!
Turn 80, 1600 BC: You have discovered Sailing!
Turn 85, 1450 BC: Stonehenge completed
Turn 89, 1330 BC: Hinduism spreads to Osaka
Turn 92, 1240 BC: You have discovered Polytheism!
Turn 100, 1000 BC: You have discovered Priesthood!
Turn 100, 1000 BC: Work has now begun on The Oracle
Turn 108, 880 BC: You have discovered Writing!
Turn 117, 745 BC: You have discovered Meditation!
.....
Turn 149, 265 BC: Zoroaster has been born in Kyoto!
Turn 156, 160 BC: You have discovered Code of Laws!
Turn 163, 55 BC: You have discovered Civil Service!
.....
Turn 196, 440 AD: A Great Scientist is born in Kyoto!
.....

Mysticism was a diversion for getting SH and obelisks. The GP that was generated later helped us get CS and the obelisks helped us to pop Osaka's BFC but that could have been done with no state religion as it turned out. In the end though, it didn't cost us much in beakers and SH was built in Kyoto where production choices were limited and management of the whip proved useful. It helped but I think we could have done just as well without it in hindsight.

The Oracle attempt was a mistake. A lighthouse should have been getting the production until it became whippable. It also seems that we had this fairly long period where we spent a lot of time worrying about getting techs that we "needed" for using the GP to get us CS. While this was important, I'm not sure that we were very efficient at getting there. Due to having the prereq techs, the GS had Philosophy available when he popped instead of something like Compass, Optics, or Astronomy.

The Chaos Continues

.....
Turn 181, 215 AD: You have discovered Alphabet!
Turn 186, 290 AD: You have discovered Literature!
Turn 191, 365 AD: You have discovered Mathematics
Turn 193, 395 AD: You have discovered Masonry!
.....
Turn 202, 530 AD: You have discovered Construction!
.....


In hindsight, we were probably going in too many directions at once and that seemed to plague us throughout the game. We wanted TGL so we diverted through Alphabet to Literature, time that in hindsight would have been better spent researching Mathematics and Construction. It took us 18 turns to discover Alphabet and another 5 turns to get Literature. Was it really worth the investment at the time? We never got much from Izzy so Alphabet didn't help much until we met Bismarck. While TGL helped our science, I think going for it actually hurt us since it distracted us from taking Izzy out. In contrast, we could have picked up Mathematics (~5turns), Masonry(~ 2 turns), and Construction (~ 9 turns) in about that same time period.

Anyway, those are my thoughts concerning the early period. I'll probably have more thoughts later.

 

[bobrath]

I'm surprised at how low the score is especially since the base score was 4000 +. Then again I haven't won by conquest before.

Gaythaar indicated the low score was caused by a setup mistake. He created the game as a quick one and then post creation changed it to epic speed, without modifying some other setting.

So the final score is looked at as being a "late" date on a quick speed instead of the much faster epic speed. It affects all the teams, so score comparisons will be the same.

 

[Cosmichail]

Great analysis LTB. I agree we got hung up in some areas and TGL was one of them. I always play building that but after and during this game I experimented with warring without a lot of science and found one can do well with highly trained troops against more advanced troops.

The only area where it hurts is the navy. Oddly enough though CFR did get religion in the beginning. I didn't recall us making an attempt for the Oracle??

 

[pigswill]

We should certainly have discussed strategic direction at the beginning; got agreement on which wonders we wanted and stuck with the decisions. It was messy at the start.
With the benefit of hindsight we should have prioritised metals; either through a copper city with first settler or going straight to iron if copper was too far away; we didn't do either for a long time and that's what put back our expansion.

 

[LuvToBuild]

After a long delay due to Real Life, writer's block, and just plain ole procrastination and laziness, I've finally managed to get a first spoiler posted. I hope it meets with the team's approval. I would have liked to have done a more detailed storyline but then I realized it would take much longer and probably not be as easy to read as some of the other spoilers. So, I chose to stick with a short story to set the mood and then wrote most of the spoiler in terms of the game and our decisions.

 

[namliaM]

Nice touch LTB, dragons

 

[pigswill]

Nice story LTB. Taimat?

 

[Cosmichail]

second that motion great story as usual LTB........