SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

Hey guys!!! Outrageously well done!!!

While you were having all this fun, I was saying my final good-bye to my father who died last Wednesday. Though of course that's sad for me, he was very old and had for some time decided that his time had come. He wished for us to celebrate his life and so I am learning to do that. I think this victory, though it's just a game, is none-the-less a fine reason to celebrate. We worked hard as a team, used our minds, kept our spirits and emotions high and achieved something special.

I would like to thank everyone on our team who particpated. No one's contribution, in my mind was of lesser value or significance, every detail was important (except for my numerous blunders, of course). I would especially like to thank all of you who carried the standard after I had to withdraw. What an amazing effort!!! Truly well done.

 

[bcool]

Hey LC,

It was a pleasure working and playing with you, and I'm sorry to hear about your father. It was my and the rest of the team's (I'm sure) pleasure to honor your early commitment to the game by finishing it in style.

 

[babybluepants]

My condolences, LC. Sorry to hear about that.

It was a pleasure playing with you. I think it's the last time, as I'm most likely done with SG-ing now, so I'm very happy that we pulled off such a tremendous effort.

 

[shyuhe]

My condolences as well LC.

@team - you guys are awesome! Especially bbp for keeping the ship running while I disappeared into the mist.

 

[Mitchum]

Sorry to hear about your loss, LC. You were glue that held the team together up until you left. I was sad to see you go. Luckily shyuhe stepped in at the right time. We had a solid start; all we had to do was bring it home. We didn't build the final part in one turn like you were planning, but two turns isn't bad...

 

[chopster]

Congratulations on the finish date guys, and on the "by a nose" victory!
I've followed this thread exclusively from start to finish, resisting temptation to see what the Ducks were doing in order to feel like your decisions were mine, and that I was playing alongside you.

Reading games like these does wonders for improving strategic thinking on how to achieve a number of goals simultaneously, and how to leverage certain situations that seem on the surface to be negative to turn them in to positives.

I look forward to reading how different other games were to yours, and to future game threads of the team.

 

[babybluepants]

We didn't build the final part in one turn like you were planning, but two turns isn't bad...

Typically you'd research Ecology last, right? 2t = 1t.

@reuster&chopster,
Thanks, guys. Nice to know we have some fans. You should feel free to post whenever, btw.

 

[Mitchum]

We didn't put a single cottage down anywhere all game. To be fair, there was a bit of a heated debate about cottages somewhere in the middle of the thread, but my tireless cottage-hating rants were too much for the others to bear.

IIRC, we did have a cottage in the capital for 5 to 10 turns before we farmed over it.

EDIT: bbp claimed that the cottage hurt his eyes!

 

[reuster]

@reuster&chopster,
Thanks, guys. Nice to know we have some fans. You should feel free to post whenever, btw.

The pleasure is all mine

Is it legal for me to post as a lurker during an ongoing game, even when I've read other teams' threads? I would have, but I didn't want to mess anything up for you guys.

 

[babybluepants]

No, it's illegal. My bad. I guess chopster said something about not reading other threads, but not you.

 

[reuster]

Lol, ok. Well, next time I'll be a dedicated OSS lurker.

 

[shyuhe]

Or you can always join the team

 

[Mitchum]

In many cases, the OSS discussions left me with the feeling that they could not see the forest for the trees.

I can see how an outside observer might have this opinion. We had a team full of micro managers (as evidenced by our HUGE number of posts) and we often spoke in MM language, always trying to get the most out of every action/hammer/beaker/citizen/etc. (Note: this MM-intensive style of play is annoying to non-MMers. I get it. It's not for everyone, but it seems to work for OSS.)

However, I don't think it's fair to say that we didn't have a good overall strategy (at least that's how I read "could not see the forest for the trees") or that our focus on MM was at the expense of having a sound strategy. I think having 95% of our posts focused on MM and tactics could lead someone to overlook the 5% of our posts regarding strategy. Okay, maybe the split was 94%/6%, but you get the idea.

With that said, you can have a great strategy with sub-par MM and still do well. On the flip side, you can't have great MM with a sub-par strategy and do well. In other words, strategy trumps MM, but both are important.

 

[reuster]

Or you can always join the team

Thanks for the offer

Unfortunately, I had to give away my CIV discs because the game was eating my life

 

[Gumbolt]

Thanks for the offer

Unfortunately, I had to give away my CIV discs because the game was eating my life

Didn't the last patch make civ 4 disc free? *whistles*

 

[Mitchum]

The replays are up if you want to compare our game to another team's game...

 

[babybluepants]

• They delayed research quite a bit mid-game. We're way ahead by the time we finished all the tech stealing from Roosevelt.
• We had Sushi in half of our empire and Mining as far as Old China by the time they founded the first corp (Mining).
• Researched Refrigeration and Flight!
• The hammer graph: we spike big time around Lib/Comm/Bio, and it's nearly identical through the whole end game. I think our Sushi was actually worth a lot of hammers, as it allowed us to grow onto workshops and keep growing?
• Expansion: even until city 6-7. They went on a spree after that.
• Warring: almost identical schedule. Roughly the same start on France. They were ahead in taking down China, but we caught up with Churchill. Thanks to the Bio/Comm/Steel/Nationhood boost, I guess.

General impression - they were setting up for a bigger end game, but kept delaying research too much.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

The replays are up if you want to compare our game to another teams...

I had no idea that feature existed. Quite interesting. I can't believe OSS played 137 hours to Plastic Ducks 36.

 

[mdy]

Congratulations on getting the gold and beating the Ducks by one turn everyone.

 

[babybluepants]

Slowly working my way through the game summary, btw. Our thread is just painful. If anyone feels compelled to do a write-up for one of the missing TS or add/correct anything, PM me.