SGOTM 14 - Plastic Ducks

[Bebekija]

I know that, that's why I mentioned that we would have had to slow down our whipping.

Last time I checked, OSS's average pop was 4-6 pop, not so different to what we had at that time. The biggest difference is that they kept their capital + HE city at max pop.

Of course, they also kept all enemy cities, while we razed some (6-7) of them, that makes a difference in the end, but we could maybe have built a few more settlers as well.

I'm not saying that that's what we should have done, just wondering if it *could* be done.

 

[yatta77]

Great Game!

Cheers!
- yatta

 

[kossin]

If they finish before us, good for them! It means they will have played a much better endgame and we'll only have ourselves to blame for giving up a ~15 turns lead due to our warring. We had some very low participation at some points and played quite fast still in those times regardless.

It makes for a better show

EDIT: One thing that they are doing MUCH better at is troop movement. All those extra canal cities makes for a big difference and better galleon placement.

 

[Bebekija]

Sure they would have deserved it, I'm not saying otherwise.

Like you said, their use of canal cities is very good. The one they're planning to settle NE of the Zulu peninsula is especially clever.
Now they're even talking about teleporting when declaring to gain one galleon turn, another nifty trick I'd never have thought about!! (it seems pretty random though, no?...)

 

[kossin]

Not really, it sends you to the closest neutral tile that is acceptable (i.e. closest neutral water tile for boats).

 

[Gumbolt]

They are providing plenty of sales for the counter.

Now the deadline is the 10th. Does that mean finished by the 10th? If so which timezome does this mean? GMT? Were still holding out for a default 3rd.

 

[Bebekija]

I'd say the deadline is on Saturday 10th 11:59PM (23:59) eastern american time (GMT-5 if I'm not mistaken).
So exactly 2 days 11 hours and 43 minutes from the moment I post this.

 

[neilmeister]

The submission deadline is worked out so that a person can play and submit at 11:59pm anywhere in the world, and the game is accepted. So, its 10th 11:59PM (GMT-12) I think.

 

[beestar]

Not really, it sends you to the closest neutral tile that is acceptable (i.e. closest neutral water tile for boats).

We were considering doing this to accelerate our Galleon movement to Emerald City. We didn't understand the mechanism exactly, and we didn't have visibility into whether there were some sneaky neutral tiles in the middle of North's territories, so I chickened out in the end

 

[Htadus]

Superb game Ducks. Congratuilations on the medal.

 

[Gumbolt]

13 hours into the 10th here. So they have 24 or so hours left?? Perhaps next time Alan should just date stamp it GMT or perhaps forum date and time?
Still the slow must go on.

They have at worst 17 turns to play! -583 a turn but they are running very little wealth.

If they do hit strikes biggest danager is losing galleons with mace in!

 

[Bebekija]

I don't think you can lose a galleon with units in it. (I remember a post by DanF that said that, but it was a while ago, so not 100% sure)

You will lose the units inside the galleon though : that's what happened to us.

EDIT : LtC has found the post I was talking about.
I think they can manage the economy, it's the deadline they should worry about : only 22h hours to go ! They 're gonna have to rush it....

 

[kossin]

I must admit it's a unique choice of time. It'd almost be nice to set up an automatic counter (embedded) in the Maintenance Thread so that there is no doubt with regards to this in the future.

Galleons with units in them do not disband, check LC's dig of DanF code. Still it might give them some trouble to finish in time.

 

[Gumbolt]

I must admit it's a unique choice of time. It'd almost be nice to set up an automatic counter (embedded) in the Maintenance Thread so that there is no doubt with regards to this in the future.

Galleons with units in them do not disband, check LC's dig of DanF code. Still it might give them some trouble to finish in time.

Interesting!!! I must admit I rarely need to check these rules. Good to see teams pushing the game to it's limits.

I guess we have another 20-30 hours left? If it was down to me I would of said 23.59 GMT 10/12/2011. Much easier.

 

[kossin]

They get until 11.59 GMT 11/12/2011 if I understood correctly.

 

[Bebekija]

^^You got it right. AlanH's post in the maintenance thread made it clear I think.

It may seem like an odd choice of date, but I think the point was to ensure that it was the same date for everybody. As opposed to, for instance, if they had chosen the Greenwich Meridian as the reference, the deadline would have been on the evening of the 10th for some people, and the morning of the 11th for others.

However, it's true that the deadline is then actually on the 11th for everybody!!(except for the odd people who live right on the international date line). So they should have announced the 11th rather than the 10th.

 

[yatta77]

Uhm... IMO is the Mods choice was the most correct and the most straight forwards: if I understood it correctly, the deadline it is midnight between 10th and 11th in the part of the world were midnight between 10th and 11th arrives the last, which is the fairest choice possible IMO.

The fact that for American people it is the afternoon of 11th, for European people it is about noon of the 11th, and so on, sound just as a natural, easily acceptable, consequence to me.

Just my 2 cents.

- yatta

 

[Mylene]

I must admit that i'd rather not see a map that favors moving over the seas again next sgotm.
While i have no problems with ships going thru cities, using forts + city to cross 2 tiles of land is highly unrealistic
The AIs have no chance to gather troops on Emp. when being surprised like that, and the challenge comes down to avoiding too many strikes. Which is mostly countered by the amount of plunder gold that can be gained very quick, i'd find it more fun if they had a chance or if teams that cannot rush that fast don't fall behind so much from those mechanics.

 

[Gumbolt]

I must admit that i'd rather not see a map that favors moving over the seas again next sgotm.
While i have no problems with ships going thru cities, using forts + city to cross 2 tiles of land is highly unrealistic
The AIs have no chance to gather troops on Emp. when being surprised like that, and the challenge comes down to avoiding too many strikes. Which is mostly countered by the amount of plunder gold that can be gained very quick, i'd find it more fun if they had a chance or if teams that cannot rush that fast don't fall behind so much from those mechanics.

They could do a pangea but I suspect quite a few teams would finish too early. Of course they could up the difficulty to immortal?

You have to remember a lot of the players in the top team know how to abuse most kind of maps. Be it worker stealing, forts or getting a huge tech lead on emperor. Of course we could just give them all gunpowder or feud from the start. Hmmm.

 

[Bebekija]

Mmmmh, I'm not too happy about OSS planning an anarchy economy right now....

I remember that it's listed in the "disallowed" strategies in the main GOTM forum, but I don't know if this list should apply to SGOTMs as well. Anyhow, Dhoomstriker claims that it is an obsolete exploit, but I'm not sure I agree.

In any case, we chose not to use this strategy and I'm glad we did, even if it means losing by a few turns.