SGOTM 11 - One Short Straw

[mushroomshirt]

Which would be the reason why our final save is not yet uploaded. Am I right there?

I don't think the final save is shown on the progress/results page because the code that does the graphing would show the final (victory adjusted) score, clueing in everyone on the win. I remember this happening in SGOTM1.

 

[babybluepants]

No, the final save won't show up until everyone's finished. Not sure on opening other saves - don't really see why not.

 

[shyuhe]

Final saves aren't posted until the SGOTM is over. I'm looking through posted saves now.

GK: 1500 BC Oracle for CoL. They need to go invade people to get their votes because of the -4 worst enemy trade penalties. They interestingly built the AP. They're at 1 turn from liberalism and have physics, radio, MM to go. They have an engineer and merchant hanging around.

Xteam: 1575 BC Oracle for MC. They need some help in the diplo department, although no state religion + theocracy should get them the votes they need. They are researching physics with radio and MM to go. They only have a single GE available now but haven't teched music/economics/communism.

Ducks: 1975 BC Oracle for CoL. They declared on Zara at 280 AD and Isabella declared war on them via Zara. They capitulated Zara pretty quickly and Isabella shortly after that. They are using MoM with golden ages in their game. They have 1 GE, 2 GS, and 1 GG sitting around. They also built the GLH. I'm not quite sure how they're going to manage their diplo though, as they need two additional civs to vofe for them. Justinian is pretty much out (-6 negative modifiers excluding religion), Mehmed is doable (-4 excluding religion), Toku is shared religion and -6 negative, and Saladin is shared religion and -6 negative.

 

[shyuhe]

Looking back at our game, I think our biggest loss was not getting the early GE at 95% odds. If we had gotten that, we could have built the GL in Delhi to significantly speed up our GP production and research and it would have freed up a lot of hammers we wasted on some military stuff. We may have lost a turn or two on MM, but otherwise I think we played a very solid game.

I guess now all we can do is wait!

edit: for the Ducks game, their F6 research shows scientific method (2), liberalism (1), physics (9), electricity (10), mass media (8). That's 30 turns of research + 2 turns of UN building + 10 turns to victory for a total of 42 turns from 214... With a GS bulb, it's going to be close I think.

 

[babybluepants]

I think our game was really good. Didn't expect to do so well when we started out, so I can't exactly complain.

The strategic mistake was sacrificing early exploration, as mysty said. We sorta knew that, though, and the Oracle gambit was, after all, central to our game strategy. Weren't in the position until quite late to evaluate further expansion.

The GE was really unfortunate. We maybe would've had another bulb available otherwise, and more base bpt in Delhi for a long time. That's 4-5t maybe? More than that would've required a significant strategic shift, IMHO. The only real micro mistake was me getting Oxford delayed by 1t, which is pretty insignificant overall.

 

[shyuhe]

@LC - do you remember what Saladin's diplo modifier was in this game? It looks like their plan is to capitulate Mehmed and take Saladin's vote but I'm wondering if they'll get Saladin's vote that way in time for the UN vote.

 

[mdy]

Looking at the other teams saves the only teams that look capable of beating us are the Plastic Ducks, and maybe at a push the X-Team. 2nd-3rd place is pretty good.

I don't think lack of exploration really cost us anything. The biggest single improvement we could have made would be to build the Oracle in the capital instead of Bombay. That way we could have built the Pyramids, H.G, and forge in Bombay. This would have guaranteed us an engineer, as well as allowing us to generate an additional GP. Under those conditions our strategy would have given us a victory date around the Ducks.

 

[shyuhe]

I think the Ducks will beat us if their diplo plans fall into place. I don't think xteam will beat us though since they only have a single GE idle right now.

Putting the GE points all into Bombay would have helped the GE front but added prophet pollution to Delhi, which is bad. Xteam's idea to put the oracle in a third city is nice, but I don't think that was doable with our aggressive CS sling.

 

[shyuhe]

From Alan:

Congratulations!

Thanks for letting me know. I can confirm that One Short Straw's final save reports a Diplo victory in 1030 AD. You have therefore finished the game, and can go and lurk in the threads of unfinished teams if you wish. You are the first to finish, so please do not post in any other team threads until they finish the game.

Please remember that they may see you reading their thread, and this may indicate to them that you have finished, and give them some clue about your date.

I am copying this reply to DynamicSpirit, to ask him to verify that you have met the rest of the victory criteria. He is the game designer, and was closest to the rules discussions at the start of the game.

Please feel free to copy this message in your thread to let your team members know the situation. I won't post there myself, to avoid any spoiler effect that might have.

 

[babybluepants]

Let's hope I didn't miss some stupid little thing. Can't wait for DS's response...

I don't really see how Ducks could possibly fail. They have lots of margin to please Saladin and cap Mehmed in order to beat us. Edit: if they experience a small problem, they can just leave UN 1t from completion, instead of having to wait for a second vote. That gives them 32t to get Saladin's vote and cap Mehmed.

The biggest single improvement we could have made would be to build the Oracle in the capital instead of Bombay. That way we could have built the Pyramids, H.G, and forge in Bombay. This would have guaranteed us an engineer, as well as allowing us to generate an additional GP.

Probably right. Got me thinking: yes, it would have been much better. Generally, I would think that a necessary GE (for UN or Mining-powered space) is much better in the second or third city, with a capital dedicated to max research. At the time, it seemed like the best option - maybe a delay in Pyramids would've been ok?

We sacrificed potential scientists in Delhi for some 100t, about half of that with Oxford, and also didn't build GLib with marble. With just 2-3 scientists more on average (doable, I think), that's approximately 5k beakers (or 5t at the end). Probably more with GLib. Another GS bulb is 3k (3t), and an extra GP (maybe doubtful? ) would be another 2-3t. That's potentially as much as 11t off research. We were estimating an 8t UN slow-build/rush-buy. That's -6t compared to GE. So, 5t faster. If we got a low-odds GE and an extra GP, we'd be 8t better, which is their likely finish date.

We did have the option on capturing Aksum and another city, like LC suggested. That's clearly a good move in retrospect. We could've even done it very close to the end to good effect.

We're only losing by about 7t/250t, though, and to a team with a ridiculous roster. That's hardly a bad result. I'm more than happy.

Edit: We got Sci Meth 8t faster than them. They pulled ahead partly due to 2GG (6t worth of research) and the larger empire in golden age, I guess. Still, that's 28t research for us, to their 13t in the end.

 

[shyuhe]

Looks like they're eyeing a turn 238 victory, 10 turns faster than us. Hopefully we can hang on to second place!

 

[babybluepants]

kossin's estimate seems wrong. He's only got 8t MM-win, when it should be 10-11t. So, worst-case, we should lose by 8t. If they don't get the next GS, probably 6t.

 

[Silu]

Fantastic job, team I don't even care that much if we win or not, we (well, you) played fantastic and getting bummed about not winning unrighteously takes away from that. It comes down to such little things - millions of ways to choose worse and just a handful of ways to choose better, with luck playing a big part.

I'm happy to have been part of this, especially as it looks like it can be one of my last Civ(4) games to actually play in - Starcraft 2 has kinda bushwhacked my play hours

And agree that the format was extremely stressful. So many ways to insta-screw oneself I'll be sure to discuss more when I get to a computer, cell battery failin

 

[LowtherCastle]

Well done, guys!!! We played a good, solid game. We made a lot of safe (conservative) decisions, so it wouldn't be surprising to lose to a team that played more aggressively. CIV is very much built around warring and we didn't take advantage of any of that. If we had, we would have had a good chance for a gold. IF the Ducks got two GGs and only beat us by 6-10t, then my guess is that we equaled or bettered their MM and early game. I haven't looked at their save.

 

[babybluepants]

Edited the turnset report into my original post.

Xteam played another set, btw. We've definitely won Really awesome!

 

[shyuhe]

Woohoo! Congrats all!

 

[babybluepants]

Ducks played another set, and are on schedule to beat us by 10t, assuming no disasters.

I've been working on a retroactive game summary in my first post, btw...

Just for fun:

From Ducks:

I wonder how One Short Straw can have lost some score and power at the same turn (normally you lose power for score - capture a city - or lose score for power - whip or draft units).

I can't imagine how they can have lost equivalent 5 macemen without taking anything

It was 5 maces and 1 axe, IIRC.

From Smurkz:

You know, we might just have a shot at winning this. The teams that are ahead of us in score (Ducks, Gypsies, Xteam) boosted their power much earlier than us, which presumably means they have been beating people up. Sure, they'll eventually get a boost in teching by having more population if the game lasts long enough but in the short term they're spending resources on their military instead of focusing on research. Those new cities add to their score, but their scores are less reflective of pure tech progress than ours, so just maybe we're ahead on techs. Barley Demons seem to be following our approach--keep the peace (with late attack on barbs) and keep on techin.'

I don't think anyone thinks we're a contender. Our approach was seriously minimal. The CS sling went undetected, it seems.

It's kinda fun finishing first and browsing other threads.

 

[shyuhe]

Nice digs bbp Considering how different our strategy was from everyone else, it's not surprising that our graphs befuddle everyone Maybe we should keep on posting every once in a while to maintain the illusion that we're still playing?

I'd also love to know how our game would have gone had we gotten a GE earlier. I doubt we could have bridged the 10 turn gap with the Ducks but I think it would have shaved a few turns off our end date.

 

[shyuhe]

Also, that's a great summary you've started!

 

[mushroomshirt]

A few fun posts I found searching the SGOTM threads. Maybe you will enjoy, too:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9220373&highlight=OSS#post9220373

I just had a look on the power graphs and it seems like both OSS and Xteam have gone for axe rushes...not sure what is the point in our situation, just mentioning it...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9195947&highlight=OSS#post9195947

-Plastic Ducks+OSS seem to have Oracled CoL too. I am guessing that their culture curves steepness has to be from...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9185128&highlight=OSS#post9185128

You can tell from graphs that OSS won Oracle turn 93, my test time is turn 94, but at least I think we can be a bit more relaxed on chasing CS now that we can see another team got it on turn 93.

This one is funny considering we were even talking about this at the beginning of the game...
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9344712&highlight=Straw#post9344712

On a humourous note, we're well ahead in the Team Thread Messages count and we seem to be pulling away from the competition on a steady basis! We've even just barely scraped into 20th place in the SGOTM Threads in terms of the number of Thread Views' Ranking. Only one other Fifth Element SGOTM game is higher (SGOTM 7), and after a couple of weeks, we'll likely be beating it in the rankings, too!

One Short Straw is our closest competitor, with not that many Thread Views behind our total count. The race is on!

There is a discussion of the score drop associated with our Oxford build I think (several posts around this one):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9285942&highlight=Straw#post9285942

On a different note, looking at the progress it appears that One Short Straw suffered some minor catastrophe.

More on oxford:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9274414&highlight=Straw#post9274414

The progress page is quite interesting. One short straw graph has just dropped nearly 100 points. I suspect they may have lost a city!! We are not the only team to have been attacked perhaps. Could a whip for ox uni cause a huge drop? There power rating has dipped too. I think the progress page gives away far too much at times.