SGOTM 06 - Xteam

[Gnejs]

Yes, that is exactly what I am working on. If it is written in the turn logs of the threads, I intend to capture it. It will be laid out in an XL spreadsheet.

I would be very interested to see this comparison also. Btw, it is probably quicker to load up the finish save of each team and check the in-game log...

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

Would have enjoyed playing more, but that's what you get when you don't have Warlords right? And I don't have BtS either...

Doh, the next SGOTM is almost certain to be Beyond the Sword.

I think it's difficult to point at one particular thing as decisive - after all we were only 14 turns slower than MW. Wasting the odd turn means a lot and for an average turn set of 20 turns wasting 1.5 turns per set would have resulted in a difference of 15 turns over 200 turns. So even the best strategy can fail if the implementation is sloppy.

I agree. I think the game by game comparison will show some decisions we could have made differently but there will also be a difference due to implementation which will account for some additional lost turns. Personally, I was impressed with Xteam by the attention to detail that was paid during our victory... much more than in my single player games!

If you can squeeze in these metrics, I think we can have a better comparison

Sounds good

I hope this spreadsheet can help us some, once it is finished...

Cheers Capt'n

 

[DJMGator13]

I would be very interested to see this comparison also. Btw, it is probably quicker to load up the finish save of each team and check the in-game log...

I was wondering if the autologger would allow you to open the final save and copy all of the event log details to a "searchable" format, ie Word or Notepad. But it did not work. We need something like how the HOF area gives you the Game log and Player log for the whole game.

 

[ShannonCT]

Chopping Pyramids in Athens would require 338 hammers which is the equivalent of around 1000 gold = 1000 beakers lost.

Let's say we were running on average 20 scientists for 30 turns. With Representation the excess beakers would be 3*20*30 = 1800 beakers. So building the Pyramids would have yielded around 800 surplus beakers thus cutting down the research time with 5-6 turns. I seem to remember that we got Machinery 4-5 turns after we could have had our last GS so the effect of building Pyramids is in that neighbourhood. On top of that comes the production bonus for units but when you subtract turns lost in revolt (to Rep. and later to Police State) I doubt there would be a substantial gain. In conclusion, Pyramids can only explain 30-40% of the turns lost compared to MW.

There are some other options for getting the Mids besides completely chopping them in Athens:

1) Working the gold mine and the copper mine, Athens produces at least 11 hammers per turn. It could produce the Mids in 30 turns or less with no help from chopping, or anywhere between 5 and 30 turns with some help from chopping. Mids are only useful after Caste System, so we could have partially chopped Mids in Athens and used the rest of the forests for gold, timing the Mids to be built when we got Caste System.

2) Chop the Mids in Ivoryville. By turning all of Athens's forests into gold, we would have kept our research at 100% at a crucial time. Also, by chopping the Mids in Ivoryville, we don't pollute Athens's GP pool with Engineer points.

3) Chop the Mids in Carthage. By turning all of Athens's and Ivoryville's forests into gold, we keep research at 100% even longer. We didn't really go into high GP production mode until after Carthage was captured and Philosophy was bulbed. Carthage could produce the Mids with a partial chop just like Athens, given the copper and horse in its FC. If we had captured Carthage 23 turns earlier and hadn't gotten screwed by the RNG, building the Mids in Carthage with a partial chop would have been easy.


There's nothing we could do about the bad luck at Carthage, and I think this event made it nearly impossible to equal MW's finish date. MW captured Tim only a few turns ahead of us. They captured Athens quite a bit earlier than us. They captured Carthage quite a bit later than Athens. If we had captured Athens and Carthage simultaneously as we were highly likely to do, we would have been MW's equal in the midgame.

But not building the Mids and being a little slow in conquering the final 3 AI probably cost us the silver.

 

[leif erikson]

Completed the comparisons spreadsheet. It is an XL file that I had to zip to attach to the forum. If you additions or a problem unzipping, please let me know and we'll get the file to you.

Currently, the file contains comparisons of Murky Waters, OSS and XTeam.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Thanks, leif. That's an interesting comparision. I suppose you guys feel like you made some strategic errors. We definitely do. I can see 8-10 turns where we probably could have gotten Astro sooner. Maybe more. OSS seems to have executed its strategy very well. The Machinery slingshot was definitely powerful. With stone available in Athens, though, I think the SE was even more powerful. I bet if we replayed both versions, knowing the factors, the COL slingshot/Pyramids would still beat the Mach slingshot to Astro. I mean without popping a GE, but only 3 GS's too. BUt who knows?

That aside, though, I think the critical difference was when Athens was captured. Before we even found Athens we knew that had to be our target because his production graph was out the roof.

One interesting detail not included in the comparision is what buildings Athens had when captured. We had to build our own lighthouse there, and maybe granary too, I can't remember.

 

[leif erikson]

Thanks, leif. That's an interesting comparision. I suppose you guys feel like you made some strategic errors. We definitely do. I can see 8-10 turns where we probably could have gotten Astro sooner. Maybe more. OSS seems to have executed its strategy very well. The Machinery slingshot was definitely powerful. With stone available in Athens, though, I think the SE was even more powerful. I bet if we replayed both versions, knowing the factors, the COL slingshot/Pyramids would still beat the Mach slingshot to Astro. I mean without popping a GE, but only 3 GS's too. BUt who knows?

That aside, though, I think the critical difference was when Athens was captured. Before we even found Athens we knew that had to be our target because his production graph was out the roof.

One interesting detail not included in the comparision is what buildings Athens had when captured. We had to build our own lighthouse there, and maybe granary too, I can't remember.

You're welcome.

What hit me in looking at the comparison is the tech paths and the trade offs. One needs Code of Laws to get Caste to begin producing Great Scientists. The Great Scientists aren't particularly useful without Machinery, which is needed to use them to bulb Optics and Astronomy. I think your path was well executed, especially having a Great Engineer just in time to bulb Machinery. I think OSS had a good plan and they executed it well. While we waited for Machinery, they were waiting for Great Scientists...

Considering that we finished neither The Oracle nor The Pyramids, I think we did pretty well to finish when we did. Bulbing Philosophy to speed great leaders worked very well but our tech path delayed our run to Machinery by too much. As others have pointed out, we could have waited on Construction and it would have been very nice if we had captured Carthage sooner. I think capturing Carthage, Timbuktu and Athens quickly was important in this game as they were all powerful city sites and good GP farms.

A very interesting game and much enjoyed.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The Great Scientists aren't particularly useful without Machinery, which is needed to use them to bulb Optics and Astronomy. I think your path was well executed, especially having a Great Engineer just in time to bulb Machinery. I think OSS had a good plan and they executed it well. While we waited for Machinery, they were waiting for Great Scientists...

With 4 Great Scientists we would have researched Alphabet to open up Machinery for bulbing. But we couldn't get 4 fast enough. Maybe with Philosphy you could have worked that out.

 

[leif erikson]

With 4 Great Scientists we would have researched Alphabet to open up Machinery for bulbing. But we couldn't get 4 fast enough. Maybe with Philosphy you could have worked that out.

We discussed that some iirc.

The four were used for Philosophy, Optics, and 2 for Astronomy. I'd have to go back and look to see how long it would have taken to generate a fifth and research Alphabet instead of Machinery. It would have been possible...

EDIT - Just finished adding Smurkz to the spreadsheet, although they haven't finished yet. Facing a tough fight against Longbows.

EDIT2 - Can't post a spreadsheet with Smurkz until they have finished, obviously.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

That aside, though, I think the critical difference was when Athens was captured. Before we even found Athens we knew that had to be our target because his production graph was out the roof.

It seems we were too slow taking the AI capitals, building settlers when others were building axes. It's interesting to note that we had founded our second and third city before either OSS or MW had even founded a second.

I must say that OSS had quite a different game and executed it extremely well. They had Athens and Carthage both captured well before us and beat us to Astronomy without the gold chops. :good job:

 

[DJMGator13]

It seems we were too slow taking the AI capitals, building settlers when others were building axes. It's interesting to note that we had founded our second and third city before either OSS or MW had even founded a second.

I must say that OSS had quite a different game and executed it extremely well. They had Athens and Carthage both captured well before us and beat us to Astronomy without the gold chops. :good job:

OSS & MW both had the Oracle completed before we even started researching Priesthood. Targeting your goals from the very beginning is key. This (leif's) comparison helps to show how important the early game is. Here's a quick look at the first 130 turns:

Xteam
6 cities - 4 were built, 2 were captured, completed Stonehenge, founder of no religion

OSS
5 cities - 2 were built, 3 were captured, plus 1 more razed, completed Oracle, founder of Hinduism

MW
5 cities - 2 were built, 3 were captured, plus 1 more razed, completed Oracle & Pyramids, founder of Hinduism

[I've resorted leif's comparison for the first 130 turns with the teams intermingled, change the sort order to Teams then Turns and you can seperate the 3 teams from each other.]

 

[TDK]

Very interesting Leif! Thanks.

I noticed Cactus Pete saying that not grabbing Philosophy was a mistake, are you sure about that? It makes all subsequent GP's cost 150 gpp more, not sure how to calculate the gain/loss though.

What I get from the sheet for Murky and OSS, who used the same gp strategy, are the following cardinal points:

Athens: Murky 91, OSS 108 Difference: 17 turns

Pyramids: Murky 128, OSS 143 Difference: 15 turns

Astro: Murky 170, OSS, 178(180 is the correct number, but we revolted to PS and Slavery before Astro instead of after). Difference: 8

In conclusion, I agree with LC that capturing Athens was the deciding factor. We gained some turns building the Pyramids and GP's but we were simply too far behind Murky on capturing Athens.

I bet if we replayed both versions, knowing the factors, the COL slingshot/Pyramids would still beat the Mach slingshot to Astro. I mean without popping a GE, but only 3 GS's too. BUt who knows?

I'm not sure. It seems to me getting CoL early didn't help you much as you had to wait for the Pyramids anyway before running scientists. So I tend to agree with Leif on that one.

I also read both of your threads to find out how you came up with Bronze Working and I took a look at the ~30 turn saves.
What seems clear to me is, had you not struck copper, you would have been way behind the Animal Husbandry teams. If horses were around instead of copper, even more so.

TDK

 

[LowtherCastle]

Originally Posted by LowtherCastle
I bet if we replayed both versions, knowing the factors, the COL slingshot/Pyramids would still beat the Mach slingshot to Astro. I mean without popping a GE, but only 3 GS's too. BUt who knows?

I'm not sure. It seems to me getting CoL early didn't help you much as you had to wait for the Pyramids anyway before running scientists. So I tend to agree with Leif on that one.

We research Monotheism before Maths. That slowed down the Pyramids by a certain amount of turns (<8t). Furthermore, having Castes early is useful for speeding up research if needed, even without the Pyramids. Still, getting Machinery for the fre tech is also pretty powerful.

We may have made another mistake in making the Oracle in TImbuktu instead of London. That screwed up our gene pool. PRoblem is, that also got us Athens sooner. Bottom line, it's pretty hard to figure out what was optimal.

I also read both of your threads to find out how you came up with Bronze Working and I took a look at the ~30 turn saves.
What seems clear to me is, had you not struck copper, you would have been way behind the Animal Husbandry teams. If horses were around instead of copper, even more so.

TDK

Of course. Same as SG5, except in reverse. In fact even worse. CFR reseached AH and had horses in its fat cross. THen they built a city AND a desrt/hill mine before finishing IW, only to have iron on that hill. My statement has nothing to do with those kinds of hypotheticals. I'm saying given the actual game factors, I think beelining the PYramids, however you do it, was the winning strategy. Researching AH, building one settler and settling Stone City to the NE would be another way to beeline the Pyramids. Plenty of forests to chop there too.

As far as hypotheticals, Murky Waters gambled on needing Astro, because we knew there were a number of possible bridge sites and our workboat exploration was nada because of our warmongering. We gambled and it paid off.

 

[leif erikson]

Targeting your goals from the very beginning is key.

As far as hypotheticals, Murky Waters gambled on needing Astro, because we knew there were a number of possible bridge sites and our workboat exploration was nada because of our warmongering. We gambled and it paid off.

I think this is a big difference in our games. We did not commit to Astronomy for some time, continuing to search for a passage. So I'm sure this affected our decisions regarding wonders and tech selections. I think both Murky and OSS were committed to Astronomy pretty much from the start, at least that is my impression in reading their threads.

I noticed Cactus Pete saying that not grabbing Philosophy was a mistake, are you sure about that? It makes all subsequent GP's cost 150 gpp more, not sure how to calculate the gain/loss though.

Please explain this a bit more? Philosophy gives a 100% bonus to great people point generation in cities with your state religion. I'm not sure how that makes them cost 150 gpp more?

What seems clear to me is, had you not struck copper, you would have been way behind the Animal Husbandry teams. If horses were around instead of copper, even more so.

Perhaps. Researching Bronze and locating copper gave us the opportunity to plan for its acquisition, wherever it may have been located.

 

[rrau]

In our test games, acquiring copper was the deciding factor iirc, so I think that's why we went for it.

 

[DJMGator13]

I also read both of your threads to find out how you came up with Bronze Working and I took a look at the ~30 turn saves.
What seems clear to me is, had you not struck copper, you would have been way behind the Animal Husbandry teams. If horses were around instead of copper, even more so.

BW was vital to our Gold Wall Chopping strategy even if no copper was present. If no copper popped next tech would probably have been AH to look for ponies.

Being that it was an AW game I didn't think Gyathaar would leave us resourceless. If this was a standard GOTM map at prince then I'd expect to be resourceless in the immediate starting area.

 

[Gnejs]

Completed the comparisons spreadsheet.

Great work, leif!

Please explain this a bit more? Philosophy gives a 100% bonus to great people point generation in cities with your state religion. I'm not sure how that makes them cost 150 gpp more?

We needed 3 GP, priced at 150, 300 and 450 gpp. I assume you needed 4 GP, priced at 150 gpp (the one to lightbulb Philosophy), 150, 225, 300 (these three at "half price" from Pacifism).

In total it is 900 gpp vs 825 gpp in your favour. Not that much of a difference actually, but still about 4 turns at the gpp rate of e.g. Timbuktu and Athens in our game.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

BW was vital to our Gold Wall Chopping strategy even if no copper was present. If no copper popped next tech would probably have been AH to look for ponies.

Being that it was an AW game I didn't think Gyathaar would leave us resourceless. If this was a standard GOTM map at prince then I'd expect to be resourceless in the immediate starting area.

OSS never considered chopping walls quickly. Strategies to chop a settler for an early second city would research BW first as well. Getting a military resource hooked up quickly is a huge benefit and largely luck of the draw. AH and BW first were both very good choices. Those early decisions are made with imperfect knowledge and can have a big effect on a game. I expected there would be an early military resource as well. We read too much into the presence of cows and thought Gyathaar was saying "Hint, hint, researching AH quickly would be a good idea."

We chose to slingshot Machinery and beelining Astronomy before we built a wb and checked for a path to the other continent. This was a big time saver but could have been a waste if there was a galley path to Ragnar. The big moves that separated the teams always involve some risk and uncertainty.

Taking Timbuktu quickly gave you and MW a big jump but you then had bad luck taking Athens and Carthage. I think researching BW first, the machinery sling, and bad luck during your military campaign are the points where the finishing order was determined. Each team probably lost a few turns due to MM during the course and OSS and MW both got lucky and generated 3 GSs with contamination from wonders. The benefit from the Pyramids decreases with later build dates so taking Athens late removed most of its benefit for Xteam. We generated all our great people points under representation and finished the last gp and research at the same time so later builds either delay the scientists to lightbulb or run scientists before finishing the Pyramids.

 

[leif erikson]

OSS never considered chopping walls quickly.

Chopping Walls early was not about the walls. Please read this strategy article concerning hammer overflow. It is all about Gold...

EDIT - Almost forgot to thank Gnejs. I now understand total cost is what TDK was talking about. Sometimes I can be a bit slow.
Even though it wasn't quite so slow...

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

It was a bold move commiting to Astro right from the start. Medium and small maps have a high likelihood of galley access, although you could argue that the mapmaker wanted to give teams a fresh challenge from SGOTM5.

If we had horses on a river tile at the capital instead of copper I think we may have seen OSS taking the gold. (?)

To win, you need a strong strategy... but for games finishing before 1000AD a little bit of good fortune helps too! That's CIV.