SGOTM 16 - Phoenix Rising

[Mylene]

Did not check, but maybe some other teams had Mauso too..
GAs been a bit weak for us, only 8 turns and 2 triggered by great peoples.

We overestimated future tech, remember how we thought we still need many more turns.
With better timing and planning we could have found out that's not true, and use our GAs earlier.
Overall we test and think less than PD or Kaku, but i somehow like that
4 months of thinking about 1 game? Bit much for me..

 

[Jester Fool]

Let's hope we can keep the team going for the next game.

Yes, I hope so too.

 

[Jester Fool]

Overall we test and think less than PD or Kaku, but i somehow like that
4 months of thinking about 1 game? Bit much for me..

Yeah, I think PD had a sim up until the end...that's a lot of time and effort (ofc killing off Rammy and Brennus would make it easier to maintain). I have no problem with how we played.

 

[Gumbolt]

Deleted

 

[kossin]

Yeah, I think PD had a sim up until the end...that's a lot of time and effort (ofc killing off Rammy and Brennus would make it easier to maintain). I have no problem with how we played.

We stopped the test game around turn 120~140 if memory serves.
But then I 'updated' it for turn 214-something to make a few end-game tests.

on the finish, I have a lot of reading to do without the saves.

We Oracled Monarchy to make up for the lack of instead of Pyramids.

@Mylene
We didn't build GLH in the last previous 3 SGOTMs

 

[vranasm]

We stopped the test game around turn 120~140 if memory serves.
But then I 'updated' it for turn 214-something to make a few end-game tests.

on the finish, I have a lot of reading to do without the saves.

We Oracled Monarchy to make up for the lack of instead of Pyramids.

@Mylene
We didn't build GLH in the last 3 SGOTMs

you did capture it this SGOTM? I admit I followed your early game very vaguely...

anyway it seemed to me GLH stronger play from the test run I did...especially when I spotted the western island when settling city 3 on west coast, which seemed like natural strong city spot.

I was very impressed by PD's rex after GLH... like 14 cities 1 AD? or something like that... you had around 18 cities before first war if I remember correctly.

 

[vranasm]

oh and gratz PR's and PD's to victories and finishing games (I think everyone will eventually end here from both teams as usual :-D)

Was pleasure to lurk both teams

 

[UnforcedError]

Maple Sporks just won Culture / Dom on T279. Given that getting the 3rd LC is a lot more time consuming than building the AP/UN and doing some diplo this is quite an achievement.

 

[kossin]

you did capture it this SGOTM? I admit I followed your early game very vaguely...

anyway it seemed to me GLH stronger play from the test run I did...especially when I spotted the western island when settling city 3 on west coast, which seemed like natural strong city spot.

I was very impressed by PD's rex after GLH... like 14 cities 1 AD? or something like that... you had around 18 cities before first war if I remember correctly.

Sorry, meant the last three (SGOTM 13-14-15), edited post to previous instead.

 

[UnforcedError]

Fifth Element is done (T265).

 

[Gumbolt]

Fifth Element is done (T265).

yep 3rd is really close this game now OSS have split up.

 

[UnforcedError]

Sure, we been trying hard..just not as hard as PD or Kaku, just compare our sometimes funny posts about strats with what they do with their highly analytic tactics
I think you did very well Neil and our teams been very close, both hard working, no offense at all intended by me.

What i was trying to say, these rumors are a bit silly. Me among others do understand more than just Deity 6 cities, Pyras and Curis outbreaks..what makes the difference in reality, concerning what Duckweed writes, is that we have some players that need much advice (so much that we even lost UE thru that, which made me sad cos i really like you UE), while teams like PD or Kaku have peoples with so much game experience and knowledge that they can easily say "this was the best way".

I thought of reflecting to your post here figuring this was more of a PR matter
One of the things that really fascinated me in my first SGOTM experience was actually the possibility or even necessity to test and calculate optimal turnsets and to plan out a master strategy to the T with input from the whole team. (This is not something I would ever do in a normal game not even in HOF games where one would aim for a competitive finish.) Which is one of the reasons I was a little bit disappointed in PR's style of rushing things, not having too many macro discussions and basically making decisions on the fly very often without giving Zero, Jester, Bobby or JB the opportunity to reflect to a given plan. Yes, sometimes too much planning may overcomplicate things (see Kakumeika's original IW-stealing strategy in this game which took weeks of testing, code diving and debating and finally resulted in them simply building a spy and stealing it ). But I guess that's part of the fun. I"m sure they enjoyed it. And you never know when those tidbits of information you learned from comparing those results could come in handy
As for advising less experienced players: sure. It's your game too and you want it to be perfect. But I don't think playing their turnsets is the right way to go about it (this is my personal opinion though). Stopping and checking after every turn and discussing the next one in detail would probably be a better option. They won't really learn anything new otherwise and would always have to step aside in "critical moments".

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah we have always gone in and played the game. Some sort of grand plan at start may have been a good idea. We didn't truly have a big debate about what was best for wonders, leader, traits and overall strategy. I think we should spend a few days on this next time. PD thread has pretty much done the whole plan on page 1 on day 1.

It was tough and stressful for some to play this game due to the high expectations. Our slow and planned play certainly took off many turns off our game. It required a lot of work too though. It's tough to find a balance. If people want help I have no issue.

Understanding why we are making decisions is important and maybe this need more explaining at times. We did miss JJ and his xtml codes this game.

It was tough for you and Zero joining us. We really pushed the team to their playing limits this game and some of the debate got quite heated. Trying things outside our comfort zones is always tough. Less defenders/city tile micro/use of workers/ how we go about war etc.

There is lots this team can do to improve. Positive suggestions are always welcome. There's no point looking back now pointing fingers. We need to move on. If people want to be a part of this great!!

You still consider yourself part of PR.

 

[justjohn]

We did miss JJ and his xtml codes this game.

I do apologize for not being able to participate during (most of) this game. I hope my schedule and our captain will allow me to come back stronger next time.

I havn't read most of our posts this time, but judging by the final result (if I read them correctly), I think congratulations are in order. This game was more challenging that normal, requiring each team to balance their progress in many areas, a very difficult task to play optimally.

-jj

 

[Gumbolt]

I do apologize for not being able to participate during (most of) this game. I hope my schedule and our captain will allow me to come back stronger next time.

I havn't read most of our posts this time, but judging by the final result (if I read them correctly), I think congratulations are in order. This game was more challenging that normal, requiring each team to balance their progress in many areas, a very difficult task to play optimally.

-jj

You are always welcome JJ.

 

[Shaandore]

Huuh. Just read your thread. It did require a couple breaks

First of all, congrats on your great game!

It is clear that we (FE) should have built one more early wonder besides Oracle. It looks like GLH would have been superior, but Mids were pretty good, you had a much faster start than us. We lost many turns in the early game.

Here are the things that I would do differently:
- You were a bit overexcited about micro, and not excited enough about macro. I don't mean to say that your macro was bad, only that it wasn't discussed enough. For the best ideas to surface a team needs discussion IMO. (Or Duckweed, but he is not around in every team)

- Your GPP planning might need some more thought. A little pollution is difficult to avoid, but that last shrine was very luck dependant. I know, SB popped a prophet, but that was nowhere near sure, nor was the last GP that you recieved near the end. It could have easily costed you many turns if you don't pop the Prophet in time.

Overall it was a good read. Kudos to the 3 players that brought it home, you had many long nights. I wonder how people are able to go so long without proper sleeping

Now I'm off to read Kaku and PD

 

[Manco Capac]

To me, 10 turns difference is a huge gap between games, especially as the date goes earlier and earlier.
PD outdid Kaku by a huge margin for instance. That is my opinion though.

A small margin to me is 1-5 turns and a tremendous humongous is 20 turns. Normal speed ofc. If that was quick speed, those numbers would change.

Time for some bad comparison, just like accelerating stuff, the nearer an object approaches the speed of light, the harder it is.

Same for victory date.
It boils down the earlier the victory, the less capability an empire has and more and more a game enters a region of gambling/risk to save one more turn.

Jesusin's almost incapability to get his desired sub-1000 AD cultural victory is somewhat proof how exponential to get earlier and earlier victory.

 

[Gumbolt]

Thanks Shaandore. Well done getting through all 292 pages! You deserve a Laurel for that. We are honoured to hopefully finish 3rd again.

Our heavy micro and late nights were not easy. The end 50-80 turns took many, many hours to complete. I am guessing our game length will be longest of any team in terms of time. It will be interesting to see this once the graphs are out.

Macro/GPP strategy/ No GLH and those pesky priests were perhaps not our strong point this game. I think we have already commented on this anyway. Hard to change one part of the game without changing many other things.

Maybe a non mids/GLH strategy could of won this game? What if a team had HA rushed Egptians and Celts? No commerce for this I guess. Would have been interesting.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

To me, 10 turns difference is a huge gap between games, especially as the date goes earlier and earlier.
PD outdid Kaku by a huge margin for instance. That is my opinion though.

A small margin to me is 1-5 turns and a tremendous humongous is 20 turns. Normal speed ofc. If that was quick speed, those numbers would change.

I agree in the sense of blindly comparing the final turn of each Game. However, Kakumeika's result suffered from an inferior Grand Strategy. Kakumeika alternated from optimizing the two Legendary cities to Future Tech 1 with both goals suffering. At some point early enough to be very significant, Plastic Ducks had their two Legendary cities goal planned using the Spread Culture mission with huge discounts. This enabled Plastic Ducks to focus their attention on optimizing just the Future Tech goal. Without the Spread Culture plan and execution, it is quite likely that Plastic Ducks' ranking would have suffered. That is my opinion. Others are welcome to disagree and even try to disprove it.

In any case, Plastics Ducks played the game significantly better (Grand Strategy, including diversion to Communism for The Kremlin whipping of research multiplying buildings) than Kakumeika and clearly deserve the gold!

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Kaitzilla]

Not the best thread to be kudosing the Ducks


Congratulations Phoenix Rising for the Bronze Laurel!
Competition is pretty stiff to get a medal these days.