SGOTM 10 - Team Liz

[juballs2001]

well klarius in 3 turns in and through the guard...

that would make it 530AD?

so he has 5 turns to bust the stronghold and then rid the rest of the continent... its gonna be close

 

[Paul#42]

well klarius in 3 turns in and through the guard...

that would make it 530AD?

so he has 5 turns to bust the stronghold and then rid the rest of the continent... its gonna be close

It won't be close

 

[Paul#42]

double post

Go Germany!

 

[Paul#42]

Looking at some other teams' threads I must say, I really enjoyed playing in this team, some great discussion, good planning, concentrated playing according to the plans (except for the slingshot thing - which also could have been a thoughtful decision at that time, given Writing spread under all civs and not really knowing the research power of Dr. Evil).

Those minor dissensions about intensity MM and worker moving was compared nothing to other teams conflicts over basic things.

This team is something very special and I would really love to do another competition with you guys

To have a more intens relationship to you all, I'd like to know some more things about you and post some personal things like other teams did in the beginning of their thread.

For me: I'm 36, software developer in Hamburg. Married with children , two girls 6 and 2 years old. I post at work and play at night

 

[Andronicus]

I certainly enjoyed playing this SGOTM, I'm still unsure whether I will play another (I decided after the last one to take a break from civ but like that never happened )

I enjoy the competition part of the game and my thoughts before the game were that there were 2 teams whose individual strengths were above the pack and maybe 5 other strong teams who I hoped to be competitive with. The surprises that I have seen so far are that we are very much at the pointy end and Woton with a new group of SG newbies (though I note some quite experienced Civ3 players) is doing so well.

I'm not sure how to word this as I dont want to hurt any feelings, but for me the idea of a competitive team game is enhanced when all team members are focussed on doing their cometitive best. If we were just out to enjoy a fun game then there are plenty of wacky SGs which can be a lot of fun. Reading other threads, it is a common source of frustration when intensely cometitive players interact with those who play more for fun. I certainly have learnt much from these SGs aboput civ3 and am learning more reading the other threads.

Following on from Paul's revelations. I'm 48, a fitness fanatic, married with 3 sons aged 18, 15 and 12 (none of whom have much patience for strategy games). I live in Adelaide in the south of Australia.

 

[Paul#42]

I just saw Klarius expecting some problems with settlers on ships and having diverted his forces.

Good thing that we took care of those ships while conquering the continent
So there is still hope...
But this tension is killing me...

 

[Abegweit]

We have a team with several very good players but no one who is excellent. Take me. I have a couple of GOTM awards but no medals (two fourths though and hoping for better in #55). I look at the GPR and see Paul in fourth and Redbad in seventh. But, as far as l know, the team has zero medals (apologies in advance to anyone who has one).

If we are in the hunt, it's because we have been willing to learn from each other. Not because we have a Klarius or a Hendrickzoom on our team (we don't) but due to our readiness to admit that somebody else had a better idea. I salute you all for that.

I thank you for making me a better player. And I thank you for this great game.

 

[markh]

I have to admit that I am playing for fun most of all, but of course I always do my best for the team. If a team like this one is going to play a competitive game I care much more of course. I spent much time doing my turns thinking about each move a lot more than I would do in GOTMs or single player games. Some still might ask whether I have thought of my moves at all.

I have to say that I learned a lot playing the last two SGOTMs in this team. I am about to win my first deity game now using some of the ideas of these games.

Unfortunately I do not have the time to play GOTMs regularly, but even if I would I would never be in a position to win a medal. I play them, but most of the time I cannot finish at the deadline. I got one award last year : Lowest score for a space race victory.

I am 32 and the nightmare of mothers. Above 30, no girlfriend at the moment and 2 cats. I live outside of Hamburg, but work in this beautiful city.

 

[Andronicus]

Looks like we missed by 2 turns, but well done guys , we certainly pushed some very good teams.

 

[Paul#42]

at least there is still some room for improvement left

If this does not motivate you to have another try at SGomt 11...

Redbad, how about you? Playing SGotm 11?
Maybe we should find another motivated player to join us?

 

[Paul#42]

Errors
3. We should have been in Barbaralia earlier.

Luck

1. Wonders. Getting the Pyramids early was important, although with our war footing we could have had it soon enough unless Evil built it. The rest is pretty irrelevant. I'd rather see Evil get the GW than the Mayans.

Being much earlier in Barbaralia might as well have resulted in earlier and heavier war weariness. Look at A team who had ww level 4 for most of the time.
But you are right, looking back I'm a little disappointed about Dr. Evil's weakness. 20-40 cavs (~5 turns) earlier would have been the right time for the attack...

GW in Dr. Evil's hands?!? Not amusing. We would have to chose between giving metallurgy to him (not knowing he had no salt) and fighting city walls even in the smaller towns. But you are right, most towns were size > 6, so no big difference here. Had the Mayas got it, it would only have meant we took their capital first. Not every capital is such a stronghold as Dr. Evil's.

I also value the few turns we had ToA. It gave us quite some culture (we would have sticked at 10 cpt the whole game) and reduced flip chances. Even more important however were those little headaches it gave the other teams thinking about our culture and territory graphs
It hid our strength very well to Klarius - although it had no effect.

 

[Abegweit]

Our decision to go later and stronger would indeed have looked better if Dr. Evil had turned out to be a more worthy foe (as would Klarius' choice to go with Monarchy instead of Republic). As it was, we had huge overkill while the other two teams had just barely enough forces to make it through.

As for Metallurgy, it is a tech which is useless to the AI even if it does have salt. They have no clue how to use arties.

 

[Paul#42]

As for Metallurgy, it is a tech which is useless to the AI even if it does have salt. They have no clue how to use arties.

metallurgy in itself just to overcome the Great Wall would be no problem imo. But that would have implied gunpowder and Dr. Evil could build muskets which are a little more annoying than pikes.

What quite shocked me was the fact (told by Gyathaar), that Dr. Evil did not get techs from his Thieves Wonder before he "met" us (and Byzantines or Dutch). Had we known that and avoided exploring, we would have faced very few pikes, MDIs and knights...
I was convinced that Dr. Evil knew everybody as it is apparent in the foreign advisor screen...
However that misjudgement should be the same for all teams and players apart from Hendrikzoon who had suspected such a difference.

 

[Gyathaar]

What quite shocked me was the fact (told by Gyathaar), that Dr. Evil did not get techs from his Thieves Wonder before he "met" us (and Byzantines or Dutch). Had we known that and avoided exploring, we would have faced very few pikes, MDIs and knights...
I was convinced that Dr. Evil knew everybody as it is apparent in the foreign advisor screen...

Actually, he knew you... but only byzantines of the ais could make contact with him before astronomy.
Barbs was however quite good at keeping up in techs by themselves thou

 

[Abegweit]

How did you pull that off anyway? I went back through a couple of our old saves and they clearly are at war.

There is something very strange about our 50AD game, BTW. Gilgamesh and Dr.Evil appear to not know each other. Yet they were at war both before and afterwards.

 

[Gyathaar]

Its easy really.. all civs start out with a running peace deal between eachother..

I simply removed the running peace deal and set it so the civs would never talk to earthother by editing the save...

For the human player I however had to give starting contact too... else there would be a popup every turn after you first met them saying they refuse to talk to you

For the gilgamesh thing it was simply that you cant see what are active deals between two civs you are at war with

 

[Abegweit]

Thanks. I should really learn to use the editor.

I just figured out what was different about our 50 AD save too. Since we were at war with both Sumeria and BN, we had no info about relations between them. You can see the same effect in other saves.

 

[Andronicus]

Retroscopic thoughts

Whilst reading other threads it struck me how much some other teams are wasting time and effort warring with AI other than Barbs. It reinforces to me the importance of maintaining focus on the objective. Thinking back to the beginning of my last turnset, we had achieved our objectives of initiaing GA, MT for cavs and Astronomy for transport. The war we waged against Gil got us HG but so what. Researching to Mag meant we ruled the seas but why when Dr Evil didnt have Astronomy. I had already calculated we could produce 150 cavs during our GA and we had enough caravels to transport them.

So, I did a trial of playing from the beginning of my last save but instead of warring with Gil and researching to Magnetism, I maximised tax to finance mass horse -> cav upgrades and took them across as soon as I could amass 20 cavs. The result is this save http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Elizabeth_of_the_English,_450_AD.SAV which I should have been able to hand on to next player (barb situation similar to the save Abegweit was handed 10 turns later ) and sure enough it results in Dr Evil's elimination 10 turns earlier.

I doubt any other tactical misjudgement cost us as much time.

The lesson - stay focused on objective and question whether what we are doing is helping speed our goal.

PS This is not to suggest we should have finished first as I am sure other teams could go back and replay things to finish quicker - it merely shows a sig difference we could have made by going this path.

 

[Paul#42]

The lesson - stay focused on objective and question whether what we are doing is helping speed our goal.

Nice pleading for staying focused. As for research you are completely right, yet the main reason for the war against Sumeria was at least initially to get a MGL. But we should have known that we only get a leader if we plan without him...

 

[Andronicus]

the main reason for the war against Sumeria was at least initially to get a MGL.

But whether fighting Gil or Dr Evil we would have been hoping for MGL. That alone was not a good enough reason to delay invading Dr Evil (note I didnt get any leader v Dr Evil when I replayed either).