SGOTM 07 - Xteam

[DJMGator13]

I would like to point out that at one point Erkon went on vacation/was absent and stopped updating klarius's corner. So it is not complete.

We need to prompt Erkon to update this when the game is finished.

The kind of information that can be learned by looking into the game code is cetainly useful. Full credit to klarius and Murky Waters for doing that, but it does create a gap between the "haves and have-nots". At least they are very good about documenting it so that it is available for all to read.

I'll have to try to remember the more usefull stuff and incorporate it into my own games - the gotms at deity level are tough and I need all the help I can get!

This is so true. It was the same with Civ III. In Civ III I would "stumble" my way thru xOTM games, but once I started playing some SG games with Klarius, Madbax, Bede, Scoutsout and others plus reading anything written by SirPleb and started to learn some of these "undocumented" items my gameplay increased. I got a few fastest finish awards and at one point had a top 10 global rating. But even then my games were usually still way behind klarius'. I found the difference between the really top players had more to do with knowing these "undocumented" items.

Leif played in some of those SG games and we even had AlanH playing, back when he had time to play.

 

[DJMGator13]

Just looked at MW 1010AD save:

They are only #5 in soldier strength and it looks like Salad, Hatty & Cyrus have riles. Those 3 are also -1, 0, and -3 in relations to KK. I wonder if any of the survivng homeland AI's could pull any of these 3 into the battle vrs them.

The Misfits 1270AD save:

Leif has already noted the pop issue and cathy isn't going to be an easy target. She has artillery of her own, rifles and a high power rating. If she goes into war mode on the other continent she could own most of it, causing them an even bigger pop problem.

They're sitting on 2300 gold and 26 cannons in their battle with Lizzy redcoats. Why?? Upgrade some artillery and mow through
those redcoats before Russia grows larger. They'll need the artillery if they plan on taking on Cathy.

 

[Mad Professor]

Fifth Element are enjoying their score spike from signing a PA with Liz. They're going for space race and talking optimistically about more teams passing 1700AD. Looks to me like they'll win the space race OK, but they might not like to know how many teams won't pass the 1700AD line!

 

[Mad Professor]

OSS have just signed a PA with Germany. They were going for diplo, but are having second thoughts, and toying with the idea of switching to domination and heading for steel...

 

[Cactus Pete]

Thanks for keeping us updated, MP.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I think we're set to come somewhere between 3rd and 6th. We only have a very small chance of getting third.

Murky and Misfits are about to win, Murky have beaten us by something like 25 turns! Impressive.

Our only hope for a laurel is if Smurkz and CRC aren't able to make diplo work - but both seem to have a good tech pace and will have a shot at the victory vote before our date.

There are two teams going for domination that are unlikley to beat our date, (but might be able to do it somehow): OSS and GKs.
I think OSS are out of it since they have only just switched to domination, although they won't be that far behind us.
I haven't read much of the Gypsy King's thread but based on their late PA I think they'll get domination later than us.

Fifth Element's space race is noteworthy and should be an impressive date. They prolonged their PA as much as possible to make use of tech trades. Although without much home continent warring their PA partner does not have that many cities.

 

[Mad Professor]

Fifth Element's space race is noteworthy and should be an impressive date. They prolonged their PA as much as possible to make use of tech trades. Although without much home continent warring their PA partner does not have that many cities.

I agree. I think they're going to produce a quite respectable space race result. It will just be quite a bit slower than the diplo and domination wins.

 

[DJMGator13]

Misfits just finished up on Turn 197.

 

[leif erikson]

Murky just posted a turn 177 win.

 

[Erkon]

Congratulations on your win!

We need to prompt Erkon to update this when the game is finished...

I'm not going to update klarius korner . There are over hundred posts that qualify there , and it would take days to sort them out

Just search the thread for klarius' posts. Every third post has something about the game mechanics.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Congratulations, guys!!! Looks like you played a great game. Since your thread is so short , I think I'll have a look at it!

Interestingly, the difference between Murky and Misfits is that Murky built no world wonders, while Misfits have built Hanging Gardens, the Great Lighthouse, and the Pyramids!

Actually, we built the Great Library. It was huge for us. Allowed us to pop one of our great leaders (or was it 2?) without hiring scientists, so we could build stuff faster. It was like having your cake and eating it too.

Yeah, they plan for 300 posts, play one turn and bang there it goes down the water.

Details, maybe, but I don't think we deviated from our original strategy one iota.

I think Murky had a good strategy and domination plan right from the start. Kublai was their top choice for PA partner and somehow, due to the AI war declarations and their own manipulation, he had captured 5 cities before the PA was signed!

Well, we played a number of test games before the save was even available and capturing 5 cities by PA was pretty normal. I was disappointed that we didn't have more at PA, but we had some bad luck.

When Alphabet came in Murky started manipulating their first inter-continent wars. This was a lot earlier than us. Although I'm not sure if it was luck or really good planning that let Kublai grow into a formidable power. Like if you set two AI's into war against a third AI you can't know which one will end up capturing the cities and which one will only be suiciding their units. I'm sure Murky had an effective way of influencing this, but there may have been an element of good fortune too.

KK was obviously the ideal choice (thanks for putting him on our continent, Gyathaar!), even though he played after all the others, which was a pain in the butt, but we set up our initial warring to PA with any of Asoka, Fred, or KK, depending on who captured the most cities. It seems that the closest AI captured the early cities, even though all were sending units. So, KK captured Tiwanaku, then Asoka captured Kyoto, then KK captured Berlin. At that point, we chose KK, obviously.

But we created some problems for ourselves in the process of instigating these world wars. Asoka captured Kyoto and gave him a big power and commerce boost. We couldn't get anyone to capture Huyana for a long time and he sent an attack force at us, which threw us for a loop. Then JC captured Huyana at a point in time that wasn't favorable for us, then later Liz captured it from JC and that gave Liz a boost we didn't need her to have. Then no one could capture Alex, though we wanted someone too, because KK was Friendly with him. So we had lots of problems that forced us to make 300 posts per turn...

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

Actually, we built the Great Library. It was huge for us. Allowed us to pop one of our great leaders (or was it 2?) without hiring scientists, so we could build stuff faster. It was like having your cake and eating it too.

I think in MP's post he assumed all teams had built the Great Library (since it was so good for OCC and the leader traits) so left it out and was looking at "Early Wonders". In our thread we had a long discussion about which "Early Wonder" to build... none/mids/GLighthouse/both. So we were most curious about which teams went for which "Early Wonder" strategy.

 

[LowtherCastle]

JT: Gotchya. I haven't looked yet, but what did you guys do to get that skyrocketing power graph?

 

[ShannonCT]

JT: Gotchya. I haven't looked yet, but what did you guys do to get that skyrocketing power graph?

Upgraded a bunch of cannons to artillery and built 4 every 5 turns for a while. Cannons are worth 8 power and artillery are worth 20.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Upgraded a bunch of cannons to artillery and built 4 every 5 turns for a while. Cannons are worth 8 power and artillery are worth 20.

Artillery? I guess you guys smoked us in terms of research. Interesting dilemma whether to focus on all-out early research or research plus early warring.

I still think KK could have had 8 or more cities by our PA (he had 6) without sacrificing our research more than a couple of turns, but I may be wrong. We delayed our building of cats when we first got Construction. I may go back and try it the other way, just out of curiousity.

 

[FiveAces]

EDIT - In post 3311, FiveAces comments on our power graph, correctly assessing that we gifted units. He's pretty sharp...
And then Klarius determines that we are done.

Thanks. I couldn't figure how it would have been possible to screw up that bad that quickly once you got that high, so it seemed like gifting units was the only logical explanation . But I never made the connection to artillery upgrades as the reason for it rocketing up in the first place I thought you were donating a bunch of saved cannons to take out the last cities and didn't think your tech pace was that much ahead of ours.

You're right that one of the main reasons for our finish date was early warring - we went straight to alpha and immediately initiated wars with everyone that could be bribed. This started shared war turns and the resulting captures determined our eventual partner once KK took Berlin for his 4th city and JC/Asoka only had 3 each.

You guys definitely played a great game - it was quite nervewracking watching your power graph climb so sharply and wondering when you were going to finish and if we would be able to catch you, considering that our graph wasn't on anywhere near as sharp a slope.

Congrats and hopefully your date will hold on for a medal - you never know what might happen, especially in the diplo attempts.

 

[FiveAces]

Curious to know if other teams' games had JC less successful early against the Mongols or if they intervened to assure this.

MW was very conscious not to bring KK into a war against JC while the praets were the dominant military unit until we could help with our cats.

 

[Cactus Pete]

MW was very conscious not to bring KK into a war against JC while the praets were the dominant military unit until we could help with our cats.

So KK was able to take more cities than the other AI's despite having to march through Rome to attack? (Great game you played, BTW.)

 

[Erkon]

So KK was able to take more cities than the other AI's despite having to march through Rome to attack? (Great game you played, BTW.)

Yes and no. KK took Tiwanaku and then Sparta, which were located on the SW coast of the continent in our game. He then had pretty clear access to Berlin, and even Madrid

JC took Cuzco, Asoka took Kyoto, then Liz took Cuzco. These three AI already had two cities, i.e. they reached three. Actually, Liz had a fourth city 3E of Beijing, but did not hold Cuzco very long.

(Thanks! Ohh, that was probably a compliment to FiveAces )

 

[Mad Professor]

Artillery? I guess you guys smoked us in terms of research. Interesting dilemma whether to focus on all-out early research or research plus early warring.

Yes, we certailny out-teched you - CRC have matched our tech pace though I think. I thought we did extremely well in that area. You outplayed us in manipulating the AI's early on, well before the PA was signed. You saved many turns there - well done!