SGOTM 05 - Geezers

[markh]

So, here is a suggestion. We certainly can't discuss every decision. However, as we make our broader strategic decisions, maybe we should take more time to discuss exactly what it means. For example, on page 7, after we settled on dom, we should have asked ourselves things like... given dom is the goal, what is our long term tech path? What are critical builds? What shouldn't we build? What techs don't we need? What types of units should we concentrate on? Do we need defensive units, or only offensive? Do we need a navy? I think these kinds of broad agreements would give all of us more context in our individual turnsets. The discussion would probably be very educational as well.

I cannot agree more with that and if I will be the captain again for the next one I will try to "moderate" and ask more of these questions to get us thinking more about the goals we intend to achieve in the turnsets.

I don't even know who that is. I hope you didn't think I was inferring this... that would be completely against the geezer philosophy. Heck, for my part, I'm even nervous about offering constructive criticism of other folks turnsets (although I recognize constructive criticism may add to the educational value of the game). Last thing I want to do is make decisions for someone else.

I just meant my statement as a general one and you should not abstain from constructive criticism. This helps a lot.

I still stuggle with the disjointed feel of a succession game, I have trouble maintaining my "situational awareness" with the big gaps between turns. However, the moderators dream up outstanding scenarios and I enjoy the discussions as we grapple with them. This is a great bunch of folks to team with. I'm definitely up for another go.

The great setups the staff is presenting for these SGOTMs is what many players make them join. They are always different from the games one usually plays. I agree that it is sometimes difficult to stay in the game if it is played too slow, but we had a good pace in this one. I somehow never had the feeling that I was out of it.

For the next one we have so far :

Pariah
Sam
Harbourboy
AgedOne
The Hawk
Erik (Welcome !)
Mark

 

[drhirsch]

After reading through some different threads, I too feel were lacking playing as a unit. Some very impressive wins on the other teams - the idea of turning the other civs into junkies, like Murky Waters did, would had never crossed my mind.

I am more a builder-like type and I feel I did not very well adapt to the necessities of this game.

But I think we had to much decisions which were not aligned to a global plan (which we were somewaht missing) but to a local idea. At the beginning of the game or after major breakpoints (after discovering we're on an island or something) there should have been a discussion about a long-term plan.

For mid-term plans, for example research goals, we should estimate some numbers to see if they fit to our city/military development and economy.

OTOH being I am not quite sure if I had won this special game when playing alone (usually being able to beat emperor) because I wouldn't have been able to come up with a working strategy. So take my advices with a grain of salt

 

[The-Hawk]

Gents, if you want an excellent primer on how to execute a focused warmonger approach, read CFR's thread from the start. Outstanding. Those guys are in a different league.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Gents, if you want an excellent primer on how to execute a focused warmonger approach, read CFR's thread from the start. Outstanding. Those guys are in a different league.

I finished reading that earlier today. Balbes certainly takes no prisoners. I think 'focus' is not a strong enough word.

Joking aside I was really impressed by that thread. The scary thing is that they could have finished even earlier.

 

[Harbourboy]

Balbes is a bit of a legend really. I still think the greatest game of Civ IV I have ever seen was his declaration of war on every single AI at once in the immortal level WOTM 7. He played an unbelievable game of cat and mouse with a handful of Persian immortals continually cutting off every enemy resource and running away.

At least we can win some sort of award for most posts made AFTER the game has finished......

 

[Sam_Yeager]

At least we can win some sort of award for most posts made AFTER the game has finished......

I haven't checked but I strongly suspect MW have won that particular award hands down.

 

[Harbourboy]

We haven't finished though.

And why can't we just do what CFR do? Everything they did sounds SO simple.

 

[AgedOne]

And why can't we just do what CFR do? Everything they did sounds SO simple.

I'm in the middle of that fascinating read at the moment.

I think one thing is that everyone's character is different, and we can't play the part of someone we're not (unless we're a skilled actor, and prepared to do that on a forum for 3 months!) That game seemed to be run by balbes, to my reading of it. Always pressing the others to be efficient, reminding them to input the comments that they agreed at the start (although the others nagged balbes to contribute sometimes when he dropped silent) The planning of the whole team was very exact. Calculating the relative benefits of attacking on T+1 or T+4, weighing up the defensive bonuses, march times across lush island!! Wow!
It's a harsh and uncompromising style at times, which might not go down well with a different bunch of players.

I think it's amusing that we - despite being the Geezers - are a much softer bunch of characters (that's what comes across in print anyhow) - who write at length but don't attack each other for playing below standard. Not sure how it would work if we were to change our spots. If, for example, markh started tearing strips off the previous turnset player and basically asking them what the hell they were playing at! I don't know how that would be taken. Could be anything from arguments, snapping into line, disappearances. . .


I think we could borrow some of their ideas though.

Maybe someone could (unofficially) appoint themselves chairman - responsible for gathering the ideas that were being put forward, and stating the current game aims before a turnset starts.

I think there could be something in the variable length turns that they used. First one up played 40 turns! Then once they settled, they went for 10 turns in peace and 5 + 5 in war.

However, they did suffer (!) from not being able to get players to take their turn regularly enough. They were only putting in 1 turn per week sometimes - and they recognised that this was going to run them out of time - and get drop-outs through boredom. However, of course, their game was planned so incisively that there just weren't that many turnsets in the game!


I'm back to finish the read now.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

And why can't we just do what CFR do?

Well you can! You have the starting save and you know what CFR did so you can replay the game from the start and see how well you can replicate their result and timescale.

It's something I considered doing myself but currently I'm a bit sick of that map. If I have the spare time and no longer feel so fed up with that map I may well replay it.

Everything they did sounds SO simple.

Precisely, that's because it was. However being able to judge just how few techs are required, on a particular map, and making the best use of resources, particularly , is not easy. If you read all of CFR's thread there are a number of occasions when they have discussions on this subject, not to mentions moans when resources are deemed to have been wasted or too much of a risk was taken.

 

[Harbourboy]

That CFR thread is fascinating. We can surely adopt some of their principles (in a Geezery sort of way). Maybe more discussion and less blow by blow descriptions? Maybe more analysis of what will happen in 10 turns time if we take such and such action now?

Despite the fact that Balbes was clearly the ringleader, the others were quick to question him when he said something dubious (i.e. they did not always just accept him at face value).

I for one have no problem with someone ripping my turnset to pieces. It's the only way I'll learn.

I agree that sometimes it makes sense to play 8 or 12 turns instead of always 10, depending on the situation.

 

[drhirsch]

Yes, we should simply play 10-20 Turns, and stopping at a natural point, i. e. research completed, city taken and so on.

Ans some people should get over the habit to promote after building, you may notice, nobody else has done this

 

[Sam_Yeager]

The key thing about the CFR thread is that it lets us know how high the bar is. Whilst we can't hope to reach that height immediately at least we know some of the bulding blocks required to get there.

To an extent it highlights the truth of the saying 'failure to plan is planning to fail'.

 

[drhirsch]

However being able to judge just how few techs are required, on a particular map, and making the best use of resources, particularly , is not easy.

Yes, thats the point.

If you read all of CFR's thread there are a number of occasions when they have discussions on this subject, not to mentions moans when resources are deemed to have been wasted or too much of a risk was taken.

And yhey had there economic problems too, I remeber they were runing at -11 gpt @ 0% in one time. Actually many teams were on the verge of an economic collapse. Anticipating this 20-50 turns before and take some measures for the future economic problems beforehand is the real mastery

 

[Harbourboy]

How about this remarkable declaration from Balbes, just after they got Alphabet:

Domination vs conquest is still unclear. We'll have to see how quickly the AIs will spread when at peace. In both cases we should be aiming to finish in ~70 turns from now.

I'd love to see us make a prediction like that with such confidence!

 

[erikthecelt]

I think that as well as the discussion, CFR puts in a lot of time behind the scenes. There are a number of points where they go into the source code for answers. Does anyone on this team know how to go into the SDK? MW also plays a very tight game with a lot of exceptional players but there's so much trash talk it would drive me nuts.

I think a team has to find it's own style and the Geezers are the local pub style of players.

 

[drhirsch]

Compared to me Balbes is a god (or a deity ), but it's just "normal" play, only it is executed very well. Surely different from my play based mostly on hunches and some very rough time estimates

But I find the plan of Murky Waters way more impressive, just because I would never be able to come up with something like that:

Refined Gnejsian War Plan: Creating a World Full of Junkies

This plan superimposes on all of Gnejs' ideas.

Key Concepts

1. AIs with 3 cities will accept faraway, pillaged, pop1 Junkie Cities.
2. We have 3 foreign continents with prime Junkie City real estate.
3. Capturing, gifting, and re-capturing 1) gives us and maybe units, 2) avoids maintenance costs, 3) hurts AI economies, and 4) are easy to eliminate when we so choose.

The Basic Plan:
Goal 1: Turn every AI into a Junkie asap.
Goal 2: Prevent AIs from getting Feudalism by increasing their maintenance costs.
Goal 3: When all AIs are fully addicted Junkies, just raze cities.
Goal 4: Administer the lethal dose.

Phase 1: Making Junkies. For example:

1. TeamSal captures a Sal city, pillages, plunders, rapes, and poprushus to pop1, then gifts to Prime Candidate (most threatening AI w/3 cities or less: has Hereditary Rule, has 3 cities and good , whatever)
2. TeamIsaToku captures an Isa or Toku city and gifts to next Prime Candidate.
3. TeamQin...

The above sequence of capture depends on when our Invasion Teams can target cities. In other words, for now it's just hypothetical. If we can go to Sal before Isa, then we do, because that starts the dominoes. Sal goes from 4>3 cities, becomes a Candidate. Then Isa goes from 4>3 cities, becomes a Candidate. Etc.

Of course, we definitely prioritize making Toku a Junkie asap, but in some logical sequence which we can't predict yet. That was for the peanut gallery...

Phase 2: Making a Junkie WasteLand
The Team on each continent reinforces itself with poprushing, if possible, and then moves on to its next target, but it keeps one unit close enough to recapture Junk City #1 after 10 turns. For Sal and Qin, this means that the Team has to neutralize 4 cities. When we run out of Candidates to gift cities to, we just raze. (game probably about over by then anyway.) We keep moving the Junkies to different Junkie Cities. Keep them totally dependent on us for their next fix. That what you do with Junkies, right?

Phase 3: The Jamestown Massacre
Eventually, (probably Gnejs' turnset), we put cyanide in the Junkies' kool-aid and that's it. Pretty sick, eh?

Note on Prime Candidates:
This may be a bit tricky, because we need to manage our WW. We don't want to be at war with guys with lots of WW points, but we need to DoW them early enough that they'll talk to us when we ready to gift them a Junk City.

Note on WW:
I have no frigging idea how this works out with WW. I defer to klarius to figure that one out...

EDIT: Additional note on the Use and Abuse of Junkies
We should feel free to use Junkies like Alex to store Junkie Cities when our next Prime Candidate isn't a Candidate quite yet. We might give Alex a couple JCs, then take one away to give to Toku. As far as I know, that's normal treatment with junkies...

EDIT: Note on Stonehenge
Under this strategy, when capturing foreign cities with no native culture, SH can be counterproductive, because after gifting we wouldn't be able to raze, only re-capture. Kind of like magic candles on your birthday cake...

 

[drhirsch]

There are a number of points where they go into the source code for answers.

I noticed that too ^^

Does anyone on this team know how to go into the SDK?

[/QUOTE]

I did some C++ development in the past, but I have only had a slight look at the source, it can get rather time consuming.
But I could have looked up something WW (like they did) in the source pretty fast I think, but it wasn't exactly necessary - all the information was available in the strategy section of this forum. You can of course always second ask

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Does anyone on this team know how to go into the SDK?

Looking at the SDK is dead easy. Finding where the info you want is and understanding what it means is another matter altogether. Maybe drhirsch can become our SDK guru.

I think a team has to find it's own style and the Geezers are the local pub style of players.

 

[AgedOne]

Does anyone on this team know how to go into the SDK?

I really ought to, since I'm in IT and have written in Java, C++ etc. I'm ashamed to admit that I've never really had a look at it . I'll make it a bit of a homework project.
As drhirsch says, it can get rather time-consuming. It's not just a matter of understanding what the code says, it's trying to work out what it is actually achieving. Also - there is quite a lot of it - and trying to wade through it all is not a ten minute job!

I think a team has to find it's own style and the Geezers are the local pub style of players.

We are! But I don't think that should stop us from thinking that we can improve considerably on our performance as a team without having to resort to changing our personalities completely. A little organisation can go a long way. I think this is the time - in the gap between games - when we can make a few decisions on how we are going to play next time. Call it our pre-season training, if you like, and if that doesn't clash too much with being pub players.

Our proud ambition "To become the best pub team in the world"

 

[AgedOne]

@Sam_Yeager
Interesting cross-post there ! Same points. Slightly different angle.