SGOTM 12 - ChokoMisfits

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Regarding Civ V, did you read Sullla's website with what went wrong with Civ V?
whatwentwrong

I read it after having played a couple of games, and I think that most of it is correct.
I think the concepts of one unit pr tile is good, and also that roads cost money, are quite interesting. But I agree that the game built around this is not yet complete, it looks to me like it was rushed, so it could get out before christmas, and I've never seen anything good come from that.
I will try more games soon, but I think we'll continue playing SG in Civ IV for a while still.

Thanks for the link to Sulla's "final word on Civ V and his departure from the Civilization series". That's almost as bad as Civ V lead designer, Jon Shaffer, leaving Firaxis.

I've only played one complete game of Civ V. I agree with Sulla that as implemented, it isn't really a Civilization game at all; it is a tactical war game with AI opponents that are clueless about combat and the one unit per tile rule is what ruined the whole game. Sulla quoted Luddite's well reasoned, terse, and extremely critical analysis of why Civ V is a total failure (quoted in yellow font near the end of Sulla's article) and I couldn't agree more. Civ V is a game full of exploits that the recent patch tried to fix, but ending up making the game even less fun to play.

Whereas Sulla is moving on, I've gone back to Civ IV BtS which I'm sure I'll be playing for years to come. I'm not sure Firaxis will survive the Civ V release fiasco. (I understand that Firaxis fired half the Civ V developers last summer; not sure Sulla mentioned that in his article.) If they do survive and redesign Civ V from scratch (unlikely) or develop Civ VI, I'll give the game a (second) chance, but for the foreseeable future, I'll be playing BtS.

I didn't mean to say so much about Civ V in this SGOTM thread ... I'm really disappointed that the game is such a failure ... I don't want to be so negative, but I'm realistic about its prospects for success. It will appeal briefly to people that lack tactical experience, because it will be so easy to militarily defeat the AI Civs and City States; that kind of appeal can only last so long; Infinite City Spread (with low Population) and Conquest will ultimately kill Civ V when players become bored with this simplistic general strategy for winning each of the four victories. Winning the four victories are simply variations on the general strategy. I have been following the discussion in all seven HoF Civ V Beta Gauntlets; I also looked at the first four GOTM Civ V Betas without playing. I also read Civ V Forum threads about the diplomacy system and other subsystems of the game. Just want to be clear that I didn't form my opinion of Civ V on just playing a single game and reading a single negative article.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[lymond]

^^^totally agree...CIV V was a major disappointment and all it's doing is eating hard drive space on my PC. Not sure about the economic impact at Firaxis since the game appears to have sold well. Of course, many folks like us devoted long time Civvers bought it without question but quickly abandoned it. I'm not sure that bodes well for the future market of CIV V content. The question I'd like answered is whether or not Firaxis has come to terms with how much of a failure CIV V is. It still shocks me though that there are actually some older players out there that like the game.

I'm just thankful that Civ IV is still such a fun and interesting game and holds my rapt attention. As long as I've enjoyed the game, I still find new ways of playing it and still strive to be a great player like you, Sun-Tzu, and other SGOTM and GOTM participants. Good to hear that you plan to stick around.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Thanks for the kind comment, lymond. I'm still learning too, which is part of the reason I play SGOTM; main reason is the great team mates!

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sleepless]

Looking at the top 2 teams settling in place made for a lot stronger capital due to the lack of water tiles than moving and perhaps more important no loss in turns. Something to look/think about in future.

Learnt why we couldn't make peace early like haphazards test game. Apparently we lost 85 warriors so the AI though they were kicking our butts and wouldn't make peace. Explains why when I looked at the workers we had built it showed 85 warriors killed.

Espionage. Gifting crap cities to get cheaper espionage costs of stealing techs. Valid option for high level probably not worth it for low level games as we wouldn't have a lot to steal.

 

[beestar]

Yeah, if you hunt through the game log at the beginning of the game, it shows 14 Russian warriors attacking a Modern Armor for each enemy AI (which then got deleted before the game started). Lots of war success for the AI.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Looking at the top 2 teams settling in place made for a lot stronger capital due to the lack of water tiles than moving and perhaps more important no loss in turns. Something to look/think about in future.

I would have thought that settling in place would have caused too much Fallout generated Unhealthiness. They must have spammed Workers very early, before the Capital could even begin to grow. Is there any clue how a City could survive/grow with around 16 Fallout in the BFC?

Learnt why we couldn't make peace early like haphazards test game. Apparently we lost 85 warriors so the AI though they were kicking our butts and wouldn't make peace. Explains why when I looked at the workers we had built it showed 85 warriors killed.

That should have been available on our statics tab throughout our entire game. We need to pay attention to it in future SGOTM for such clues when warranted.

Espionage. Gifting crap cities to get cheaper espionage costs of stealing techs. Valid option for high level probably not worth it for low level games as we wouldn't have a lot to steal.

That's an excellent way to stretch one's Espionage points. In our game, I did notice that Roosevelt's nearest city had about half the Espionage cost of stealing a Technology than his Capital. Unfortunately, he had nothing of value to steal at the time.

We definitely need to make Espionage an integral part of our game plan for future SGOTMs. We need to utilize every BtS subsystem available. Stealing a Technology on the same turn that an AI completes it can be a huge boost, since it can be traded away exchange for additional Technologies and when that's not possible, it can be traded away for Wealth to keep one's Research rate higher. There's no need to use the Espionage slider either for this to be effective. Just need to decide whether we want The Great Wall for an early Great Spy and decide whether to generate a Great Scientist 1st for an Academy or even a Mathematics bulb -> Civil Service Oracle. Once we start completing Courthouses, we need to decide whether or not to hire Spy specialists for additional Espionage points and additional Great Spy points, especially in the The Great Wall city.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[JerichoHill]

Yeah, Sun, you brought up the espionage economy in a pre gameplay planning. Clearly you were very, very prescient in that thought, so I've spent the last week actually reading up on espionage gameplay. I'm ready to incorporate it.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Espionage:

Yeah, Sun, you brought up the espionage economy in a pre gameplay planning. Clearly you were very, very prescient in that thought, so I've spent the last week actually reading up on espionage gameplay. I'm ready to incorporate it.

Great, its wonderful to see your enthusiasm and preparation for the espionage economy. I hope everyone else on the Team is similarly enthused and prepared.

Just prior to SGOTM-12, I'd been looking over several threads on how effective espionage can be and I did want to try some of that in our game, but I wasn't sure how to incorporate it into a game on a small scale to get a net gain, so I didn't push for it too strongly, but I did make several attempts throughout the game to use in smaller ways. Clearly, One Short Straw knows how to play the espionage economy better than we do. Plastic Ducks were very confident of their Win back on Dec 15th when kossin published his estimate of other team's progress and estimated finishes. One Short Straw won in part, because of their strong leveraging of espionage. To beat One Short Straw, we will need to play the espionage economy at least as well as they do (and do a few other things better as well).

The truth is SGOTM-12 was an obvious game where espionage could have been leveraged somewhat better than in more typical games (I didn't realize it then as well as I do now, thanks to One Short Straw). Every AI had an advanced Technology that we should have stolen from them the moment we had the prerequisites. We even knew what Technology several of them had, when they switched to a civic that required knowledge of it. In even normal games can make good use of espionage by researching one Technology branch gaining the lead there and stealing Technologies from the AI in other Technology branches we temporarily "neglect" the research of. Espionage is also a good answer for when one Civ has a Technology and will not trade it; it is costly to be forced to Research that Technology, but with proper espionage planning it can be easily stolen. Giving away a crappy city to lower espionage costs makes espionage instantly more viable for acquiring (stealing) Technologies and let's not entirely ignore other espionage missions. For example, in SGOTM-11, we used the Foment Rebellion mission several times with good effect.

Anyone interested in replaying SGOTM-12?:

It might be instructive to play SGOTM-12 over again, and do things very differently. I would not be surprised if could finish the game before 1500 AD, without taking advantage of prior knowledge of the map. It might help us understand what is holding us back in our SGOTM competitions. Who would be interested in doing so?

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sleepless]

I did think about playing the game over and still might but I have a big lack of time available at the moment. I can't even find much time for the GOTM's (will have to rush through the current ones if I want to play them).

I do think it is game dependant going for espionage in a way. I think its a lot easier on the higher difficulties because the AI do have things to steal. We should have thought of stealing communism/nat/ etc. Certainly without the amount of cities should have been able to get enough ep's.

Still unsure on the Great Wall though for a couple of reasons.

1. We have to go for it very early costing us time when we should be expanding.

2. No early GS for the capitals academy.

3. Options like this game where there were no barbarians.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Anyone interested in replaying SGOTM-12?:

I did think about playing the game over and still might but I have a big lack of time available at the moment. I can't even find much time for the GOTM's (will have to rush through the current ones if I want to play them).

Glad to hear you were thinking about playing the game. If we could nail a 1500-1600 AD finish with a better strategy that would good enough to convince us that we could have had an about 1750 AD win on a first play of the map with a better strategy.

I agree that finding time to play will be our biggest issue in replaying SGOTM-12.

A detailed analysis of the top three teams' strategy and execution might be a better use of time and probably should be done while replaying the game, assuming we have the extra time to do so.

What might be a better use of time is improving our strategy selection process, since we can all agree that was the major reason we were not in contention for a SGOTM-12 laurels win. Even the top two/three teams had much they could have improved on; they are not unbeatable; in truth they are quite vulnerable, because they are in fact not even close to playing and optimal combination of strategy and execution.

We have great team players on our Team. We just need a bit more analysis, test games, focus and execution. Some of our team members post too much (I'm most guilty of this) and others have great input to add, but for various reasons don't speak out as much. More often than a care to admit, I post information that is incorrect; I'm glad to have Team members that will (gently or not so gently - doesn't matter to me) correct such mistakes.

My point is we have the potential to win more so than any other Team; we all have talents for playing this game we haven't even tapped into yet; we will win top honors as long as we invest enough time planning and executing and none of us gives up. We probably should be more flexible about our rotation for example; if a Team member doesn't have enough to put forth his best effort, he should feel more to free to have his position in the rotation pushed back; don't fell obligated to play when you have more than the normal amount of distractions in your "non-Civ" life.

Espionage:

I do think it is game dependant going for espionage in a way. I think its a lot easier on the higher difficulties because the AI do have things to steal. We should have thought of stealing communism/nat/ etc. Certainly without the amount of cities should have been able to get enough ep's.

Still unsure on the Great Wall though for a couple of reasons.

1. We have to go for it very early costing us time when we should be expanding.

2. No early GS for the capitals academy.

3. Options like this game where there were no barbarians.

I do agree that espionage will have more impact in some games than in others and your example of higher-level games providing greater opportunities for stealing Technologies is excellent. However, I don't think a SGOTM will ever be played on such a low Difficulty level that espionage is useless aside from seeing the "F9" information for each AI opponent. In any SGOTM we are likely to play, stealing Technologies will always be a consideration; it is just a matter of how we will invest into the espionage portion of the game.

I aslo agree that The Great Wall will be a major decision point regarding the espionage aspect of our game. I see three major options with regard to The Great Wall:

1) Do not build The Great Wall; the first major source of espionage will be Courthouses and the first source of Great Spy points will be Spy specialists.

2) Build The Great Wall, possibly in the 2nd city built; a Great Scientist will be generated in the possibly the Capital before the Great Spy; the 1st Great Spy will be the 2nd Great Person or possibly a slightly later Great Person.

3) Build The Great Wall. Espionage will be a major game focus, but the Espionage slider will most likely remain at 00%, but there may be some slim change of setting it higher, especially when the main source of Research is Scientists+Spy-Specialists/Caste System/Representation where spy specialists provide 4 Bpt and 4 Ept (compare to scientist 6 Bpt); The first Great Person will be a Great Spy and many subsequent Great People will be Great Spies.

There will of course be a broad range of the least espionage focused option #2 through the most espionage focused option #3. There will also be a range within option #1 from no spy specialists and few Espionage buildings beyond Courthouses to maximum spy specialists everywhere, priority researching of Technologies that unlock Espionage buildings and construction of these buildings ASAP.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[neilmeister]

I would have thought that settling in place would have caused too much Fallout generated Unhealthiness. They must have spammed Workers very early, before the Capital could even begin to grow. Is there any clue how a City could survive/grow with around 16 Fallout in the BFC?

Hi, sorry to throw my 2 cents in, but SIP had no health issues until size 3 or 4 IIRC. Even then, it was only for a few turns.

We (team Apostrophe) started with 2 workers straight away. City 2 had -2 health to start, but it was working the gold, building a WB, so would not grow, even without -2 health.

By the time the first WB was finished, the rice was connected, so we never had any issues with health, until sushi that is

 

[Sleepless]

Oh no we've been given the wooden spoon!!!!!! Definitley unfair.

 

[Ozbenno]

I have far too many of those spoons.

 

[BLubmuz]

Some hint from FE. Hope that my former team mate Sun Tzu Wu will read them.

We choose to not settle in place to have a Capital which can grow quickly, thanks to the 2 seafood and be a good Bureau Capital thanks to the 2 gold.
Our positioning of StPete was decided in the same moment we decided to settle on the coast.

We decided to not use Espionage (and probably we were wrong) due to the fact that an Espionage economy is not as good as a science economy, mainly for a Creative Leader. Unless you can have some Great Spy to infiltrate.

We knew almost from the beginning (surely before actually begin) about the 74 warriors lost to the AIs. My first test game did not accounted for that, then i asked and the answer was in a public thread. Your fault to have overlooked it.
Then i reproduced the slaughter in WB and my test game was very close to the official one.
We also know from turn 1 the techs Gandhi, Roos, Mao and DeGaulle has, and i gave to the others some (wrong) mid game tech in the test.

One of the key points in our game was a badly fighted war. I started a replay from that TS, and i gained some 10-20 turns compared to the actual game.

Then, after the first TS, the strategy was drafted: war, iceballs, research. Hoping for the AI cleaning the fallout is hope for a diplo vitory. I made also some test (before actually begin the game) to see if fallout can be cleared with OB. No, it's treated like forests/jungles. You cannot.
I discovered after posted the final save that you can clean it if you're at war. Well, i don't think we can have made use of that. Better use the troops to fight than to protect workers.

Hope this helps.

 

[Sleepless]

We could have used esp to steal a few techs along the way but certainly at this level shouldn't have been the main focus for a space victory.

Looking back for me one of the things I think slowed us down a lot was running serfdom instead of slavery. True we cleared the fallout quicker at the cost of much quicker expansion/buildings/units. In hindsight in my opinion we should have just built more workers.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Some hint from FE. Hope that my former team mate Sun Tzu Wu will read them.

Thanks BLubmuz, for your comments on the game. Also, congratulations on your 3th place Win!

I still say that this game was tailor made for Espionage to be used to steal the advanced Technologies that each of the AI opponents (except Gandhi whose Alphabet is impossible to steal, unless one can build Spies without Alphabet). In retrospect, it is so much more obvious, since the winner indeed used Espionage to great effect in their Game. Frankly, with the edge that stealing Technologies gave them, One Short Straw may not have won; easy to say, because their winning margin was only one turn. We did concentrate our Espionage on one opponent at a time and that probably would have been enough to steal 2-3 Technologies from different AIs without even using a Great Spy for Infiltration against an AI. However, I could not convince enough of my Team mates to use Espionage effectively, so that made Espionage a useless Game element as far shaving turns off the win.

Our biggest failure was in not preparing for war as early as possible and for not pursuing war early as the means of clearing all Fallout as well as building an Industrial/Economic power house to reach the SS Technologies ASAP and then build Apollo and the SS, again ASAP.

Getting peace with the AI opponents wasn't very difficult despite the "huge" war success the AI may have "had" destroying dozens of our Warriors.

We did not use test games as effectively as you did; this is a key failure in optimizing our win date.

What really hurt us in the end was not realizing how slow the AI was in clearing Fallout in non-BFC plots, despite being given dozens of our Workers. In my final turn set, I probably gave away 60-90 Workers in a futile attempt to saturate the AIs with so many Workers they would start clearing Fallout in non-BFC plots; However, the AI only cleared a couple non-BFC plots on its own; they just don't prioritize clearing Fallout in non-BFC plots.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[haphazard1]

Sun Tzu Wu,

I agree that we need to do more with test games. The usual problem is time. Work and family and life activities seriously cut into my Civ time.

I will have to try to do better with the upcoming SGOTM 13. A trial game or two as Napoleon should be helpful, although I am not sure how to generate a map of the right sort. Sounds like a fair bit of editing has been done, but we can game out the start and some warfare.

 

[Sleepless]

Must admit my big problem atm is time as well. Not even getting past the first few turns of the GOTMs and we have a month plus to play them.

Not sure espionage will be big in this new game either. Hopefully we will have won by alphabet. Of course the more likelihood is we will need astro to get to some of the AI and have no military resources either.

 

[haphazard1]

Must admit my big problem atm is time as well. Not even getting past the first few turns of the GOTMs and we have a month plus to play them.

I know exactly how that feels, Sleepless. Some interesting xOTM lately, and I just have not had the time to play them.

Not sure espionage will be big in this new game either. Hopefully we will have won by alphabet. Of course the more likelihood is we will need astro to get to some of the AI and have no military resources either.

The mention of the map being difficult for war definitely set off an alarm in my mind about military resources. I suspect we will have to conquer some, or place a remote/junk city specifically to get them.

Tiny island starts also present some issues with production for war. Especially if you need to spend lots of hammers on ships to move your units around. A sizable fraction of total production gets diverted into naval units which don't help much (if at all) in the fighting.

I do like the selection of Napoleon -- he is a bit different than most of the trait combos we usually see. People wanted a bit different sort of game, and this one sounds interesting. I wish France had a better UB, though -- the Salon is pretty crummy. An observatory with automatic artist pollution is not exactly awe-inspiring.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Not enough Time to Play Civ:

I agree that we need to do more with test games. The usual problem is time. Work and family and life activities seriously cut into my Civ time.

Agreed; I didn't really have enough time myself at the beginning of SGOTM-12. I've found that one just has to set realistic goals concerning Civ play with regard to other commitments.

Test Games:

We need to get the proper absolute coordinates of a visible plot in the start, so our test map at least has the correct N-S polar boundaries and for flat and toroidal maps the E and W edges of the map (cylindrical maps have no absolute E-W boundaries). I believe that is what FE asked for at the beginning of SGOTM-12, but I'm not sure, since I know next to nothing about World Builder.

Sun Tzu Wu