SGOTM 9 Results and Congratulations

[AlanH]

SGOTM9, The Star of India - Results and Congratulations.

What promised to be an interesting exercise in manipulating India to achieve your ambitions for him eventually turned into a rather frustrating lesson in how the AI seems to be programmed to fail.

Eleven teams set out to persuade India to launch a spaceship. No one succeeded, but when it became apparent that Gandhi had become a small tortoise, tucked into his shell, we modified the rules. You were first allowed to entice him onto the mainland by making peace, gifting one city, then returning to a state of war, and we later changed the victory conditions. To win the laurels you now needed to arrange for Gandhi to build the Apollo Project, and to learn all the techs needed to get into space. There was also the enticing prospect of a special Space Jumbo award if you could actually get him to launch.

Four C3C teams and three PtW/Vanilla teams achieved the Apollo and research objectives. Their Indian Apollo build dates were:

1690 AD: Smurkz (PtW)
1730 AD: klarius (C3C)
1730 AD: Peanut (PtW)
1826 AD: Wacken (C3C)
1872 AD: Jeffelammar (C3C)
1858 AD: Xteam (Vanilla)
1981 AD: CDZ (C3C)

Honorable mentions for effort go to teams Bede, Hagar and tao.

The Conquests Laurel for fastest variant finish for a Conquests game is awarded to:-

Team klarius - 1730 AD
klarius
killercane
Northern Pike
Obormot,
Ronald,
ThERaT
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The Gold Laurel for fastest finish for a "Classic" game is awarded to:-

Team Smurkz - 1690 AD - Playing PtW
Niklas,
CommandoBob,
ControlFreak,
Methos,
WarDance,
zyxy
_________________________________________________________

The bloody but unbowed recipients of The Wooden Spoon for the lowest Jason score suffered defeat at the hands of the highly cultured Celts. They are:-

Team Bede
Bede,
Bahzell,
classical_hero,
Crackie,
crazybeard,
madviking,
Marc Aurel
_________________________________________________________

Please join me in congratulating everyone who participated, if only for their displays of good humour and ingenuity in the face of overwhelming AI stupidity.

Full results and detailed stats are available here

 

[Ansar]

Isnt this the second game in a row where Team Bede wins a wooden spoon?

Anyways, nice job Team Klarius, Team Smurkz, and Team Bede.

 

[AlanH]

I only had to change a 'D' to 'Sm' to copy and paste all the award winning teams from 8 to 9. Lots of names changed, though.

 

[leif erikson]

Nice job Smurkz and Klarius!!

I thought we'd never get Apollo built, glad to see someone could get Gandhi off his tail!!

We'll get you next time??

 

[WillowBrook]

Congrats, everyone!

 

[tao]

Congratulations! I have to read the winner threads to learn how they did it. Very impressive.

 

[ControlFreak]

This was a fun filled varient until it came to actually building spaceship parts.

Thanks for the experience Team Smurkz and congrats to all!

(I am a little curious about when (game date) each team learned of the rules change. We were slow players and had a lot of game time to plan for eventually gifting India a town. I spent most of the game feeling we got an unfair advantage. Not that I'm turning in my laurels or anything... )

 

[Niklas]

Two in a row! Thanks to all the other teams for the nice competition, and good luck with the barbies in 10!

@Team Smurkz: Thanks guys, I had a great time, again! Here's to a third

@CF: Well, seeing that we in the end played exactly as we would have with the original rule set, I don't agree with you on any perceived advantage.

 

[madviking]

YEAH! Wooden Spoon!

 

[Offa]

Well, congratulations, to Gandhi I guess, for eventually building Apollo, if not a spaceship. Clever idea for a variant, but not likely to be repeated in a hurry.

I think a lot of teams were very close for when they put the indians in a position where they could build Apollo. However, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.