SGOTM3 Rome - Team akots

[akots]

Here, it seems to be the opposite.

Never mind though. I'm not going to edit the two preceding posts of mine unless a moderator does edit them but IMO, these comments should not be taken very seriously either.

Still, I would like very much to know where did a marketplace go from Ravenna. It is a big thing after all, whole square of merchant tents.

 

[mad-bax]

This is a difficult game. It was meant to be difficult, and I said it was difficult in the announcement. Probably plays more difficult than deity. For people who have never played and AW game before it is certainly a tial by fire. I don't know whether you will win from this position, but you can have fun trying. In any case, for some people this will be their first experience of playing a game that they are actually in real danger of losing.

 

[jeffelammar]

@everyone - I have to say I have been kicking myself for the last 24 hours. I really thought I could do a better job for you, and was unhappy with my performance. Sorry about that.

@akots - I'm not really sure what you mean. Are you saying that there used to be a Forum in Ravenna and now there isn't? I can check my records. I made some mistakes, but losing Ravenna wasn't on that list.

Just as a note, my style was to optimize for production as I went. Rather than try for 6 every turn, I would get it to 7 and then modify the citizens to finish exactly and try to eke out more commerce. If you think this strat was a mistake, please let me know. We are all here to learn.

One last thing, don't spare my because you are worried about feelings. I may have a bigger ego than I can back up, but I am always willing to take the criticizm and try to learn from it.

As for the clowns, they are just there from this turn. The loss of the cities last IBT caused the unrest. At least I thought so. I was going to fix it after re-taking the cities, but I felt I had caused enough damage and figured that I would let the next player make the adjustments as needed. Plus I was just pissed off that those cities had been lost at all.

 

[akots]

OK, never mind, I'll conduct some investigation of "the disappeared marketplace case" by trying to dowload the saves from various time points and inspecting them. The most likely thing is that I posted in the log that I rushed it with the leader but may be changed my mind afterwards.

@madbax: Yep, looks like this. It does not play like Deity AW though, still somewhat easier and certainly, we can win, little doubt about that while the core is stil intact. The problem is to mobilize the team and try to improve the gameplay.

@jeffelammar: It is always possible to scroll forward and adjust the cities and clowns so that only one city is in disorder thus minimizing the losses.

 

[akots]

OK, found that market. I guess, I've been loading the wrong save. Sorry about that. Just getting somewhat nervous. Pray forgive me.

@Sam: where did the dog go? And what is about this axe? Why it is fuzzy? Does it need sharpening or what?

 

[akots]

Sorry for holding the game, I will try to play the turns tomorrow.

 

[jhigham]

Any luck? I'd suggest we move on, but you are probably the best bet for playing this set of turns

 

[akots]

Sorry, I don't have time atm due to some RL issues.

 

[jhigham]

See, you just aren't doing it right. When I have RL issues, I avoid them and play games. Come on now, what were you thinking?

Best of luck, I'm in no rush although we might miss the time limit. If the others want to skip that's fine, but I would like to see us recover and win, which IMO akots would be a big part of.

ciao

 

[akots]

OK, I'll try my best.

 

[akots]

OK, finally I got me some time. I have previously looked at the save and it looks grave. Many cities had clowns and were building pikemen (instead of legions). Some cities switched to cats. And these knights are everywhere.
IBT. Gonzo is lost to a German knight, many exposed units died.

[1] 870AD. There are many knights and some cavalries arouns and few troops to repel them. Pillaged Greek horses. The only civ we are at peace is Aztec.
IBT. We lose Jerusalem, Syracuse and Cumae.

[2] 880AD. Syracuse is recaptured. Japan lands samurai and pike near undefended Lutetia. By some miracle we defeat 2 musketeers with 2 legions and recapture Cumae. Some units won, some lost.
IBT. Gonzo is lost and razed. Palmyra is lost to German cavalry, Nicomedia is lost.

[3] 890AD. We lost a 7-hp army to a knight who won without any hp lost trying to recapture Nicomedia.
IBT. We lose another redlined army to American knight. Viroconium is lost as well as Caesarea.

[4] 900AD. That is a brutal game indeed.
IBT. We lose Hispalis, Pisae, Artaxata, Lunacantorium, Lutetia, Antium, Cumae, and our army trying to invade Greece.

[5] 910AD. There is nothing to wage war with.
IBT. Syracuse captured, as well as Byzantium.

[6] 920AD. Just will play to the end, so that we can submit the save.
IBT. Pompeii falls, Lugdunum is captured, Rome falls.

[7] 930AD. Rome recaptured but apparently not for long.
IBT. Rome lost again.

[8] 940AD. Ravenna still stands by miracle.
IBT. Ravenna captured

[9] 950AD. There is nothing to move.
IBT. Neapolis captured, Tarentum captured, we are down to Neocaledonium which is our only city.

[10] 960AD. I will finish this up.
IBT. OK, the last city is lost, game over. Score 697. We are Caesar the foolish!

Good thing, we made it to the end. Another good thing, we are not the last, only number 14. The Misfit team beats us to the award. Another good thing, we tried and no matter what, should be happy about it.

Just to summarize, IMO, we had bad luck with early leaders, failed to get Great Library and Pyramids, triggered our GA in Despotism, and did not research what had to be researched. Not so strategic, especially the leaders? But if we want something really strategic, we can always play chess. That is what I'm going to do now. It was fun playing with you all and it was a difficult game, we fought but were defeated.

 

[Sir_Ortin]

Thanks a lot.
I think that it was a good game which teach all of us a lot. At least me.
Hope that next SGOTM game will be more resultative.

Bye everyone and see you in later games.

 

[mad-bax]

It is tough when playing as a militaristic Civ when you don't get leaders within your first 25 elite wins. For this game it was almost necessary in order to win. A realistic chance of winning IMO needed either the pyramids or the GL. With either of these the game is a challenge but still a certain win.

I did not weigh carefully enough the possibility of not getting a leader, because in the 7 times I played to 1000BC I always generated at least one, and mostly two. The effect of this is that luck had a bigger part to play than I would have liked.

 

[jhigham]

Thanks for finishing up, I enjoyed it and learned more about how effective war can be managed even with weaker units. I good change of pace.

 

[DJMGator13]

Team akots - your demise was as swift as ours (Mistfit) at the end. We went from something like 16 cities and 4 armies to out of the game in about 15 turns once we started seeing some cavs. But most damage was still done by the knights. We managed the Great Library but even then we misplayed our early advantage. When I looked at your 850AD save I thought your game looked eeirly similar to ours at the same point.

I haven't read your whole thread, but justed wanted to say that this was a very tough game. I can't remember the last time I lost a civ game. Hopefully we will all play better in SGOTM4.

 

[akots]

I just wish that mad-bax improves his playtesting skill.

The game variant has been not so excellent choice for SGOTM. Playing Xenophobic AWE with that many AIs is really a bad idea because to kill the attackers you have often to expose your own units. It could have worked on a smaller map though with fewer opponents even for us or for DJM's team. I wonder if any of the teams who did not build TGL and/or Pyramids would be able to win.

 

[leif erikson]

Yes, we did. X-Team had very bad luck in the early game with no leaders. We got neither the Pyramids nor the Great LIbrary and still managed to win the game. But it was a tough go for quite a while.

 

[Tarkeel]

You don't have to kill to finish of the last unit though. Knock of a hp with a cat, and it will most likely retreat to heal. We took good advantage of that in our kill zone when we were low on troops. 4 cats managed to hold of 2 legions for a few rounds, without any problems.

 

[akots]

Indeed, Xteam had a very well played game with good strategy planning! I've read half of it already.

I'm not a good strategy planner. Just see it - kill it, all what I usually use and in most cases it works. Also, we have not decided to build lots of arty at the beginning of the game. Later on it could have been already too late. Apparently, in this particular game just sum of skills of individual players was not enough to win and some good strategy should have been devised with tips for all players on how to handle the particular combat situations. But this is not the GOTM-playstyle and more of SG-win-it-somehow style and is completely different from what people (me) expect in SGOTM. Good, some teams were able to adjust to this rapidly.

 

[jeffelammar]

Well, I want to say thank you for letting me jump in at the end there, even though I didn't do so well. It was a new experience for me. I had never played in a succession game.

As I said before, I feel that I let people down on this one. This weekend I confirmed it. I went back and re-played my 10 turns. Ending with about 14 more legions than I did in the REAL one.

Lesson learned for SG's. One TAKE MORE TIME.

Lesson learned for fighting with legions vrs more powerful knights.
1. More Patience. What got me in trouble in my turns was that I kept losing units in attempts to get rid of knights in our territory. In my re-try, I only killed them when they actually threatened cities.
2. See #1
3. I'm not as good as I thought.

As a note, on the group planning issue, I thing that is a good thing to mention. Notice that the number of posts in this thread is a fraction of the size of other threads played. In the case of team Misfit (Another team that lost, and in about the same time as we did) they had twice as many posts. In the case of the winners, they also had twice as many at the same year.
The winning teams, discussed a lot of things, like FP placement, Leader use, and other strategic decisions. They even would pause their turns for discussion. It is food for thought.