Why are the Captains of the #1 and #2 Teams trying to convince the #8 Team that it made Strategic Mistakes? Seems to me that Time and Words would be better spent Describing why the #1 and #2 Teams did so well with their Strategies.
These are all valid points, but the data applies to only a single Game. It is really, really hard to validate or invalidate a Strategy on the basis of a single Game's history.
There is at least one thing I will not concede. Although the power of Bureaucracy is very strong, it benefits only one City to the exclusion of all other Cities. The path to Victory doesn't always flow though Civil Service.
I really think that an early rush would have provided far greater benefits than any particular Research path. We probably should have made some Civs so mad at us, they would have submitted their DoW to us, and then we could have captured all their Good Cities and we would still have had two DoWs to submit to the other AIs as needed. I was pleased to hear that Plastic Ducks did "dominate" Zara Yaqob via an early rush.
I also think that Rapid Expansion is also more important in halting the expansion of the AIs and that should have been done mainly before Civil Service was even available.
I liked Plastic Ducks' Strategy of getting every bit of Commerce as early as possible as that type of Strategy will deny the AIs the same and often results in a Victory much early, at least those Victories that demand more Commerce/Research than anything else.
I wasn't too sure that One Short Straw made the right call by having an early Great Scientist (1st one?) bulb Mathematics to ensure that The Oracle was completed for Civil Service before an AI Opponent could complete TO itself. I wonder whether a 1st Great Scientist would be better used to Construct an Academy in the Capital? However, the gamble did seem to pay off, though Plastic Ducks did not stretch TO too far and Won the competition as a result.
Well, this is likely the last you will hear from me on the subject of SGOTM-11. As I said before, SGOTM-11 was a really wonderfully constructed Game! I look forward to the Game Designer Masterpiece that will be SGOTM-12! I've no doubt that my superlatively experienced and enthusiastic Teammates will agree.
Sun Tzu Wu
You are quite correct that this is only 1 game. However, we barely ever see anything other than CS>Bureaucracy in most any games that aren't Religious victories or early conquests... when science is concerned, Currency>CoL>CS>...>Education is the forum's preferred tech path, with sometimes a detour via Literature.
Bureaucracy affects only 1 city yes, but not having Bureaucracy means you're not getting any bonus period.
I'm not trying to say your team made a strategic mistake, but rather trying to defend our approach to use this strategy - if that makes any sense.
Our economy worked quite well because of
#1 GLH
Every city settled started off with 10+ commerce with 0 improvements. This meant we could keep cities small to avoid getting higher maintenance and whip in infrastructure/troops while still ameliorating the economy (as each city was a positive on our economy right out from the bat). Of course this favored a REX at this point and made overseas cities a priority, even with the higher upkeep, so that we could guarantee 2+ commerce traderoutes to all our cities.
Moreover, this meant we needed fewer improvements, thus fewer workers. Compared to OSS, we built 5 less workers in the whole game, but we had 3 of them as early as turn 60, making the most out of the improvements needed around Delhi/Bombay. Our worker micro was more complex as a result but it meant we could spend those hammers in settlers instead without worrying about economical efficiency.
#2 'Specialist economy'
We only had 2 cities set on cottages, Delhi and Varanasi[flood plains city] (although Delhi was a hybrid with hammers and GPP). Still, the largest part of our beakers didn't come from specialists in most cities but traderoute commerce as cities were busy whipping infrastructure in. Specialists everywhere only happened during the last turns of research for the Mass Media run. In any case, settling a GS and a GE in Delhi, combined with TGL, Oxford and the other science multipliers kept our research going even while we had our science slider at 0%. The limiting factor to our research was, as usually is, gold - which is where OSS excelled with two cash bombs. In any case, about 50% of our gold generated at 0% slider came from Bureaucracy Delhi so the earlier we got there, the better.
#3 Wonder economy
Maybe not as important as some other points, but it allowed us to keep generating GPP without Caste System. We got lucky and got all the GPs we were hoping for every time. In this category, I will also include our 2 MoM-powered Golden Ages which added a ton of hammers (minus the cost of Taj Mahal), commerce (minus the cost of Nationalism) and GPP. This helped us catch up on GPP as we had neglected this part up until then.
#4 War
So war costs troop upkeep, whipped populations that could be specialists instead, lost traderoute income. However, with GLH more cities = more science (gold wasn't much higher due to maintenance) - trade routes were lower yes, but our overseas cities still kept them at 2+ each or almost. Duckweed further pointed out that the gold gained from capturing cities would pay for the war... and he was right. Finally, it gave us 2 Great Generals which might or might not have changed anything to our game (as we could most likely have put 6 GPs on the fur anyway).
Bureaucracy is a good civic, but as you can see from comparing the Ducks with OSS, early expansion was worth more. OSS's thinking was that we would use the +50% hammers to "catch up" and get settlers out but I think the Ducks's strategy to get more settlers out earlier was stronger here.
And yes, we agree that Zara's capital was definitely worth conquering. That was one of the biggest strategic mistakes that OSS made.
The CS slingshot sure helped in making settlers but we were just more cruel with the whip and were able to make settlers from other cities since they had been settled earlier. Furthermore, almost all the forests around Bombay became either worker or settler (2~3 went for something else).
. Actually, looking at the progress graphs, we did very well in the early game with regard to expansion, but our fate was already sealed by not settling on the plains hill, with another nail in the coffin by not going after Zara and his Great Lighthouse. The early game is documented here and then the later game in a briefer account under the Current Status section, along with a Post Mortem repeated here:
