SGOTM 15 - Discussion Thread

[AlanH]

At the risk of making Alan blow a gasket, perhaps the following small tweak to the "special condition" makes it more precise:

Special Condition: You must found Hinduism, immediately convert to it as your first and only state religion, and then remain Hindu for the entire game.

I think this would then convey the idea that Hinduism must be your first and only state religion, but not the only religion in your state (which would require some luck and a theo beeline, wouldn't it? ).

dV

I've made the change. My gasket is still intact.

 

[da_Vinci]

I think this would then convey the idea that Hinduism must be your first and only state religion, but not the only religion in your state (which would require some luck and a theo beeline, wouldn't it? ).

dV

It dawned on me that trying to have Hinduism as the only religion in one's state would mean you couldn't be the FIRST one to Theo for the relgion spread block ... or the first one to COL, or Philo, etc. Does never opening borders prevent religion spread?

Having only one religion in your state for the entire game could be a very stringent condition. So I guess we will see that for SGOTM 16

dV

 

[neilmeister]

It dawned on me that trying to have Hinduism as the only religion in one's state would mean you couldn't be the FIRST one to Theo for the relgion spread block ... or the first one to COL, or Philo, etc. Does never opening borders prevent religion spread?

You can definitely have closed borders and still have religion spread.

Having only one religion in your state for the entire game could be a very stringent condition. So I guees we will see that for SGOTM 16

Ooooh, that would be evil, and horribly restrictive. No conquests, no dominations.... SGOTM 16 indeed.

 

[neilmeister]

Concerning the map size, it is a bit meaningless, as it depends on the map type chosen. A Standard Terra map is probably bigger than a Large Team Battleground map. Also, it is easy to hack the WB file, and add extra rows or columns to the map.

I will confirm that the map size is 'Standard'.... but I am not going to tell you what map type it started out as.

 

[ZPV]

Concerning the map size, it is a bit meaningless, as it depends on the map type chosen. A Standard Terra map is probably bigger than a Large Team Battleground map. Also, it is easy to hack the WB file, and add extra rows or columns to the map.

I will confirm that the map size is 'Standard'.... but I am not going to tell you what map type it started out as.

The named map size affects things like tech costs, the number of universities needed for Oxford, etc.

 

[babybluepants]

Yeah, it's mainly costs.

 

[neilmeister]

Ahh yes, that makes sense.

I was in fortress mode, not wanting to give anything away. I didn't want to ruin the surprise when you meet the dragons. Oh crap!

 

[LowtherCastle]

You didn't give anything away that can't be figured out T0 anyway, unless of course, you hacked up the save...

 

[AlanH]

Some eagle-eyed players with far too much time on their hands have spotted a small change in the start position screenshots for this game. When they were first published, where there is a small area of remote terrain exposed in the mini-map. An update after a day or so removed that detail. [Although the reduced version I posted on the mail Forums Home page announcement was based on the original version, and has been there ever since.]

Since some people clearly saw the exposed terrain, and others may not have done so, it is only fair to make that information available to everyone. So the screenshots at the top of the Sign-up thread have been reverted to the original ones.

You will have to make your own decisions about whether the extra information in these images is relevant for your planning.

 

[Mylene]

My concern here is..do we start with Agri?
If not, it'd be very tempting to gamble and research it before Poly.
Working wet corn earlier puts you miles ahead

 

[Lord Parkin]

My concern here is..do we start with Agri?
If not, it'd be very tempting to gamble and research it before Poly.
Working wet corn earlier puts you miles ahead

It's India. So, I'd say no. Presumably it's the default Mysticism/Mining start.

 

[Habitus]

To try and encourage afew more people to sign up I'm hosting a Practice Forum Game on Strat&Tips.

Link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=450909

 

[AlanH]

Habitus

 

[vra379971]

Some eagle-eyed players with far too much time on their hands...

Farr too true Welcome to what it takes to wiiin around here lol.

 

[Mitchum]

My concern here is..do we start with Agri?
If not, it'd be very tempting to gamble and research it before Poly.
Working wet corn earlier puts you miles ahead

Yes, that's very tempting. The flip side to that is if you fail to found Polytheism, it's game over...

 

[Duckweed]

Moderator Action: Post-game discussion moved here from the Results thread

To conquer the English before they had redcoats was a bit lucky, as other less fortunate teams discovered.

I'd like to see how the unlucky situation is going to hamper us when we invaded England with 2 stacks of 5 dozens of units on T153 and capture London on T167, maybe if Liz got a level up to Immortal!

Neil, you should mention our luckiest thing -- pop a gem on T123, it's the only time in my own civ4 playing time.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Congats to all! Thanks to you, AlanH, for your eternal presence. Kudos to you, Neil, for a great scenario!

To conquer the English before they had redcoats was a bit lucky, as other less fortunate teams discovered.

As one of the teams encountering Redcoats, I'll throw in my 2 cents on this.

Spoiler :

I've only read the first half of the PD thread so I don't know how they got their SoDs from Toku through Hatty and Genghis, but I'm assuming they used OBs, at least partly. (If not, they surely should have, based on where they were when I stopped reading.) So the cleverness of their strategy boiled down to
1. scouting ahead with spies to locate Lizzie
2. Using the AP and other tricks to get OBs after breaking through Toku
3. Moving SoDs rapidly forward to capture the AP.

Based on the map, the primary (very minor) luck involved was:
1. Lizzie being closer to their initial warpath through Toku
2. Building their HE closer to Lizzie
3. Meeting Lizzie long before OSS did, thus knowing she was on the same landmass.

OSS was ahead of the PD on T100 and in position to win, had we had the above strategy, but we didn't. End of story. The best strategy usually wins.

Of course, from the Kakus' point of view, PD was lucky that the AP didn't get built overseas. That would have guaranteed victory for the Kakus.

 

[Duckweed]

I've only read the first half of the PD thread so I don't know how they got their SoDs from Toku through Hatty and Genghis, but I'm assuming they used OBs, at least partly. (If not, they surely should have, based on where they were when I stopped reading.) So the cleverness of their strategy boiled down to
1. scouting ahead with spies to locate Lizzie
2. Using the AP and other tricks to get OBs after breaking through Toku
3. Moving SoDs rapidly forward to capture the AP.

Based on the map, the primary (very minor) luck involved was:
1. Lizzie being closer to their initial warpath through Toku

Blame Neil or the RNG, he should predict our intention and let Hammy DOW us.

2. Building their HE closer to Lizzie

The HE site was determined at the time when the eastern Gold site was discovered, we sacrificed the short term advantage for this future HE city. 5 tiles closer eastern-bound means very little to our war schedule.

3. Meeting Lizzie long before OSS did, thus knowing she was on the same landmass.

If you consider 4 turns to be long time, then yes.

OSS was ahead of the PD on T100 and in position to win, had we had the above strategy, but we didn't. End of story. The best strategy usually wins.

In fact, you were behind us on T100 and in no position to apply the above strategy in a good way.

We had 3 forges + TGL + NE + HE on T100, we decided on prioritizing economy to war from the beginning. Only our HE city was pumping military units in the beginning while all other cities were busy on infrastructures, missionaries and spies. With healthy economy and the earliest and convenient GP farm, we were able to afford the costly spy missions and able to bulb Optics on T123 to see the map layout.

We sacrificed our right of twisting techs from Toku just to avoid the -1 diplomatic hit so that we could bribe Hatty into war with us. While you aggressively DOWed those warheads without any consideration of making any friend.


Of course, from the Kakus' point of view, PD was lucky that the AP didn't get built overseas. That would have guaranteed victory for the Kakus.

Well, what if there's no easy site to gift Liz and Mansa, (Neil admitted that he did Edit: NOT intent for such result http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11483043&postcount=947) or the evilest but very bad design -- 1 AI is totally sealed by mountains? One could find numerous ways of assumptions to kick a game into a trash bin. The fact is that our team have always tried to keep our strategy flexible and tried to adapt to the new information gained in the progress.

These were quite funny assertions, just like the assertions that "using FC in SGOTM13 let PD find the gold site and that gold site worth more than 12 turns" and "if PD went Agri before Poly, the game was over". If you could calm down and read our discussions carefully and think it over, things would be different.

Speaking about lucky factors, I have never tried to use the lucky factor as an excuse since we should be aware of them as the build-in mechanism in CIV, live with it and it's your own choice whether to take the risk of those random factors. For instance, I blamed myself for misjudgement of AI move instead of the battle RNG in SGOTM14.

Have you noticed that our spy got caught 1 turn before we are ready to capture Tokyo? which delayed our SOD movement to North by 5 turns.
Have you noticed that the infrastructures left in our captured cities are very little, while most of your captured cities had lots of infrastructures left, including your most wanted CHs.
Have you noticed that our Hindu free spread were few and slow?
Have you noticed that Toku in our game went WHENOOHRN since T47, he DOWed us so late on T79 only because that we noticed his attempt early enough and was cruel enough to whip axes from our capital to delay his invasion.
Have you noticed that Toku had Alpha to bribe Hammy to DOW us when he DOWed, the reason why Hammy did not DOW us was probably because that our warrior was chasing his scout in the 1st few turns.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If you could calm down and read our discussions carefully and think it over, things would be different.

Dear Duckweed,

If you could calm down, you might notice that the primary point of my post was that your game was NOT based on luck and in particular, that beating down on Lizzie before she had Redcoats, was NOT based on luck.

Based on the map, the primary (very minor) luck involved was:
1. Lizzie being closer to their initial warpath through Toku
2. Building their HE closer to Lizzie
3. Meeting Lizzie long before OSS did, thus knowing she was on the same landmass.

and that my secondary point was that we did NOT use your suplerlative strategy, hence we didn't have any chance of winning.

Spoiler :

Your analysis of why we weren't ahead doesn't make any sense, because had we been following yoru superlative strategy we wouldn't have caused so many negmods with Hatty (duh). We were ahead because our military advantage was far superior and we wouldn't have needed Optics or any bit of a more advanced infrastructure. Just get Hatty to Pleased and move on Lizzie. But never mind, if you don't see the multiple uses of your strategy, so be it. I didn't see it then, now I do. Hindsight iw 20-20. Kudos to you guys. I don't care if you disagree with me. You always do anyway. Big jizboes.

This is wrong, by the way:

While you aggressively DOWed those warheads without any consideration of making any friend.

Actually, that is one more bit of luck you guys had. Toku bribed Hatty into war against us, so we lost the +1 for peace with her. But as I said, we didn't worry about making friends becausee we weren't using your strategy. That had nothing to do with bulbing construction instead of aesthetics. COnstruction was the better choice. We still got Engineering just as fast and TGL was only useful for Astro, which we didn't need.

Sincerely,

LowtherCastle

 

[kossin]

To be continued in Discussion Thread...