SGOTM2 Germany - Xteam

[zamint3]

[dance] [dance] [dance]

Well done guys.

Time to go lurking on the other teams, at last.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

[dance] [dance]

Woohoo! When I feel heavy metal

Well done, team. Although it was just a little too late, but the nice thing about succession games is that we can share the blame for that

 

[AlanH]

Diplomatic Victory in 1570 AD!!

Terrific! Well played Leif, and the whole Xteam

Now let's see that the others are up to

 

[leif erikson]

Although it was just a little too late, but the nice thing about succession games is that we can share the blame for that

I don't know if I would say it that way. The Jason is set up for us to build the U.N. at best date, not for the AI to build it for us. It is going to be interesting to see how the other teams fare that are going for the sponsored variant. Time to go read up on the problems they are facing!!

I think we did very well at what we set out to do. We expanded rapidly, the scoring graph tells that tale, and kept our momentum as we approached the domination limit. After that, it was trying to figure out how to get the AI to pre-build wonders while preserving our rep. I was surprised at the number of curves the AI was able to impede us with, but that is part of the game.

Thanks to all my X-Team mates for keeping it interesting and for all the interesting discussion.

edit - BTW Alan, you were right. I replayed the end last night after finishing the diplo victory by having the SS Party Lounge complete in 1565 and it required me to launch the space ship before it would allow us to vote. I'm going to have to find an old PTW save and see if the launch is required in that version. I'm quite sure I was able to delay it in another game I played, but I could be mistaken.

 

[AdrianE]

Well done everyone. The win was just in time for me to go on vacation.

I am especially proud that we won a difficult variant without resorting to demeaning exploitative tactics. Things like disconnecting resources to build cheap units to upgrade and starting wars on other continents that we can't participate in are really bad mannered and exploitative in my opinion. However those are hallmarks of high scoring GOTM play, which is really sad.

Another thing to remember is that we are slowed by up to 12 turns because we are using 1.29. The PTW folks can get an additional tech from the scientific civs as each enters a new age. In civ1.29 the free tech is predetermined and we were going to get it anyway. This won't be reflected in the scores though.

How many turns did we lose because of the Chinese leader? Would it have made a big enough difference to jason score?

Would the space win give us a better Jason score?

Any thoughts on things to improve on?
We might have got a bit higher score by researching sanitation immediately after fission so that we could build hospitals ASAP and increase our population.

The war in asia hurt us in several ways. The AI's built units not improvements and consequently did not have good enough economies to help us with research. Very few if any Indian cities had marketplaces, which are essential. Keeping the Indians and Chinese out of the German-Japan war might have been the better move. However the AIs do love long and pointless industrial age wars. One might have happened anyway.

 

[AlanH]

I guess we lost a few turns to the Chinese leader, but not enough to give us a score to beat Kuningas. I don't think earier sanitation would have helped either. Our scoring rate was actually deteriorating as we played the last thirty turns, so we were over some kind of threshold at that point. We'd have needed a major surge in population to make a positive score difference, and I don't know where that could have come from. I was joining workers faster than was healthy for pollution control, knowing we were near the end. I imagine Leif may have had trouble clearing it. To handle a really big polulation you also need Ecology and recycling ...

So the bottom line is we really needed a faster tech pace so that all the productivity advances could happen earlier. With 20:20 hindsight, an alternative strategy might have been to keep all the civs alive as research partners and build up territory to the domination limit using the other continent instead. If we could have kept things peaceful we may have been able to increase the tech rate to reach the UN earlier. But that would be a completely different game from the one we played. I'll have to go see if anyone else is doing it that way.

 

[a space oddity]

Firstly, let me congratulate you with the good win.

Secondly, check out Peanut's team, they have followed a different route to victory and have finished today.

 

[Bruindane]

Impressive job on the clean win and entertaining discussion! Just watch the lurkers come out of the woodworks.

.
I am especially proud that we won a difficult variant without resorting to demeaning exploitative tactics. Things like disconnecting resources to build cheap units to upgrade and starting wars on other continents that we can't participate in are really bad mannered and exploitative in my opinion. However those are hallmarks of high scoring GOTM play, which is really sad.

What is considered exploitive is a floating definition of meta-rules. In my viewpoint, planned RCP is exploitative-- but each to their own, as more players can play and enjoy the gotm and play to their likes.

Team akots handicaped themselves to play under the aw variant (we had hoped to trap a settler and win with a dictatorial vote, but alas no luck in this area), but it was great to see how well we placed with the non-sponsered variant play.

Playing a competive game closer its spirit, ignoring gray areas of mechanics, is what the RBCiv variant was about in sgotm1. I am always game for that! What would the AdrianE variant be like?

 

[AlanH]

Firstly, let me congratulate you with the good win.

Secondly, check out Peanut's team, they have followed a different route to victory and have finished today.

Thanks Space.

Indeed, I've just been reading Peanut's log. Beat us by 31 turns Well done to any lurking Peanuts

Some key differences I spotted: They gained considerably from keeping more civs alive, and probably as another result of this they won the vote when it was called by the builder, saving another 11 turns. They also got an advantage from PtW giving out lots of free techs at the start of each era, which is considerably more than 12 turns when you add up three era changes.

 

[zamint3]

..the vote...... was called by the builder

I wish somebody would tell us exactly what triggered this.

Team Peanut

 

[AlanH]

They won it by 4 votes to 3. My guess is that having more civs in the mix means it's less certain how the vote will go, and the AI is more likely to risk it.

 

[AdrianE]

Bruindane

RCP is not really exploitive. The AI's tend to build at RCP=5 (aka OCP) if they can. I like RBCIv rules as well.

Peanut's team did a good job. From skimming their logs they only took out Russia but they did it honourably. They kept the world peaceful which meant the AI's could build improvements and keep up the research pace. With the AI's left with big productive cores they had quite the economy.

 

[zamint3]

The win was just in time for me to go on vacation.

This goes for me too.

Nice playing with you guys, I learned a lot.

Looking foreward to the next one.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Seems like my allying India and China against Japan may have been the course of our downfall after all I've learnt one thing: I'll chicken in the next time anything like this happens...
If it hadn't been for that Chinese GL

 

[AlanH]

If we had avoided the war in the first place by having a stronger army we *might* have been able to make up the 31 turn difference, but I suspect the die was cast when we decided to eliminate the locals.

In PtW Peanut had a three tech lead on us by keeping Russia alive to give them another free tech at era changes, plus there was a chance the Germans would not get useless free techs like Nationalism. So make that a 12 turns advantage that wasn't available to us.

Add another 11 turns for the fact that the Chinese called the vote in their game, and we are down to an 8 turn difference. That vote was only called because there was a chance it could have gone the other way, so Peanut also had a significant risk element in their game. They could have lost the vote, whereas we went for minimal risk.

We were also trying for the double laurels, so elimination of the local civs fitted with that, allowing us to get close to domination early.

But hey, we played a fun game, I have further evidence that I should curb my warmongering instincts, and we taught each other lots of cool stuff. And we reached a triple victory.

BTW, I should have said I posted a Spoiler 2 summary yesterday. Check it out and let me know if I've missed anything vital.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Sgotm 3 anyone?

 

[leif erikson]

Seems like my allying India and China against Japan may have been the course of our downfall after all I've learnt one thing: I'll chicken in the next time anything like this happens...
If it hadn't been for that Chinese GL

I would have done the same thing, so I don't think you should use your namesake on yourself for one decision. I'm also not sure that you can apply that lesson to future games as this was an interesting case that I don't think anyone had tried before. Only in the mind of M-B would such a plot be hatched!!

In PtW Peanut had a three tech lead on us by keeping Russia alive to give them another free tech at era changes, plus there was a chance the Germans would not get useless free techs like Nationalism. So make that a 12 turns advantage that wasn't available to us.

Add another 11 turns for the fact that the Chinese called the vote in their game, and we are down to an 8 turn difference. That vote was only called because there was a chance it could have gone the other way, so Peanut also had a significant risk element in their game. They could have lost the vote, whereas we went for minimal risk.

While I have read Cracker's comments concerning the differences between vanilla and ptw, I never really appreciated it until this game. You MAC guys, who have no choice in th ematter, really have my respect. In many ways you have to play a little better just to break even.

I started doing a spreadsheet turnlog comparison between our game and Team Peanut as a post-mortum, as it were. Alan, I see you have already done a very good summary of events, so I might play COTM02 instead, after I finish GOTM32.

I think we played a very good game. From the little time I've read Team Peanut's thread, I think they maximized their research efforts to get to Fission as quickly as possible and went for broke, a very good game with good decisions by them. It appears they received Fission on turn 251 as their free tech at age change, that is only 6 turns ahead of us and we had to research it. For me, that is the way it goes and Alan is right that they could have lost the vote. They were at war with several other civs at the time and got the vote.

That shouldn't minimize the game we played as I think we did pretty good at maximizing our research keeping things moving. There are several things that didn't go our way, this time! But I appreciated the discussion and the hard work that everyone put in,

Sgotm 3 anyone?

If you guys can put with me, I'm game!!

edit - Almost forgot, I read your summary of our game Alan and it was excellent.

 

[AlanH]

Sgotm 3 anyone?

I've already signed up. I wasn't sure whether you guys would put up with me for a third game on a row, but I'm game if you are. I'd like to play the variant for the hell of it ... literally . I'm just a masochist, really.

 

[leif erikson]

I've already signed up. I wasn't sure whether you guys would put up with me for a third game on a row, but I'm game if you are. I'd like to play the variant for the hell of it ... literally . I'm just a masochist, really.

Put up with you? You have been great at listening to all my goofy ideas, and pointing out when I screw up, without chastising. I have learned a great deal from our discussions and very much enjoyed the companionship, with all of the X-Team.

While it was a tough loss, as a team we won because we are able to present ideas and discuss them without shooting each other. And enjoy learning as we went.

Of course we'll play the variant! How does it go, "The situation is grim, we have little hope and the enemy is all around us. When do we start?"

 

[leif erikson]

Well I'm back home and I thought I'd take a look at a couple of situations that occurred at the end of our game.

First, Gandhi declaring war on us. In our SOD, only a few Workers have actually done anything this turn. We move everybody else forward leaving them exposed and India declares war. It appears he did this to gain a few cheap workers so I played around with defending them.

Case1: Leave entire SOD with Workers, no declaration (so it is tied to defense)
Case2: Leave 1 MechInf with Workers, still declares War
Case3: Leave 5 MechInf with Workers, still declares War
Case4: Leave 5 MechInf, 5 Panzers with Workers, still declares War
Case5: Leave 5 of Everything with Workers, no declaration
Case6: Leave 1 MechInf, 1 Artillery with Workers, NO DECLARATION.

So, in this case at least, the presence of 1 Defensive unit and 1 Artillery prevented Gandhi from attacking. The Artillery, for whatever reason, seems to be the key ingredient.

I also wanted to investigate the whole China building UN and calling a vote, or not, with India at war or not, and what sorts of diplomacy affected things.

First, assuming India is at war with us before we declare against China. I never quite followed Peanut's time line, and I never quite got a vote. In one case I got France and Japan allied vs China, and ROP's with everybody - no vote. Then I dropped the Alliances and sign ROP's with everybody - no vote. Then I signed a ROP with only France (since they switched on us, just to see if I can keep them on our side) - still no vote. So it appears that any improvement of the diplomatic status ended in a no vote. So I played it straight up, no diplomacy, and got a shocker: India gets Russia to ally against us, and we lose the vote, 3-4!!! The overall outcome is extremely sensitive to RNG effects; making or not making a particular trade or diplomacy deal can sway the results dramatically.

I also looked at what happens if we keep India from declaring War before we declare on China. I did the Artillery thing. In 1405 I moved everybody up to the Chinese border. In 1410 I declare on China, taking Hangchow, moving bulk of SOD to within 2 spaces of Beijing. All my units were either in or adjacent to Hangchow, or in Chinese territory; none were in Indian territory. India still declares War on us. I suspect China has a trade position to make to buy India into the war. China builds the UN, but doesn't call the vote.

I think it was really fortunate to win when we did; in a more controlled situation, I don't think China would have called the vote and we would have won according to bigchief's test results.

In case you haven't seen this, this is how close it was for Team Peanut. There is also some good info on Dilpo and AI attitude.

edit - The end result would have been the same, but they estimate that they would have won in 1470 instead, just to complete the picture.