SGOTM3 Rome - Team Smackster

One area where we really outproduce x-team is gpt's, they are currently generating ~300gpt, while we managed ~500 at the same time and pushed this to 600+ after some MMing. Since they go HM/Cavalry with leo's they are however still ahead in raw spt/gpt to cavalry ratio. 30 shields and 50 gold for a cavalry...
 
I know for sure the other continent has rifles in the Xteam game, (there are ways of finding out) I think its ok for me to talk about that here right, as I'm not spoiling it for them as they shouldn't be looking here anyway.

It will be a very interesting battle.
 
Thread Spoiler 2 has been created.
But how will we post anything in that spoiler without giving out sensitive information to our competitors?
 
I'll start typing up some stuff tomorrow. Thinking of doing some minimaps this time, so will take some time :) Was thinking of an animated gif, cycling through the minimap at the turn shifts.
 
Exploration
We missed out on contacting the other continent on our own, and instead Japan contacted America first. Apart from that, most exploration done after the ancient age was settling in the barbarian filled continent, which we dubbed Hadrian's Wall.

Contacts and declarations
470 AD - DoW Iroquois
650 AD - India is signed against us by America, who immediately sue for peace. Gee, that's nice..
700 AD - DoW Aztecs
**Needs to be fleshed out**

Trading and Research
Feudalism from GL in 270 BC
Monotheism and Engineering?
Japan 270/280 AD: Offer Monarchy and get contact with Iroquois, WM and 20g. Then sell our WM back for all their gold, before declaring war
Gunpowder from GL in 290 AD
Chivalry from GL in 310 AD
Theology from GL in 340 AD
Eductaion from GL in 450 AD
Chemistry self researched in 500 AD
Metallurgy self researched in 600 AD
Aztecs 630 AD: Offer Metallurgy and get Astronomy, WM and 6g.
Military Tradition self reserached in 680 AD
Navigation self reserached in 900 AD

Warfare
The Roman Monarchy is founded in 310 BC, and on the IBT one of our legions defend valiantly against a bowman, triggering a great age of prosperity for our people. Around this time, the main enemy offensive is centered around Byzantium, where we would kill a few enemies with elites every turn. We got a small shock in 210 AD, when Germany actually dispatches a sword army towards us! Some catapults and a horse dispatches it without losses the next turn though.

Greek Front
After some early skirmishes, including burning a Greek city on OUR land, it was time to take the fight to them. Our legions raze Sparta and Pharsalos in 110 BC, followed by the undefended Herakleia in 30 BC. Athens burns in 10 AD, after 2 turns of siege. Argos follows suit in 30 AD, leaving them with 1 city left in the core (which fell in 110 AD), far away from their new palace. Greece was a non-issue after this, and they finally find their Pax Romanum in 280 AD

French Front
Tours was founded on our side of the hills and was razed in 110 BC to make room for our expanded frontline. In 110 AD we took the fight to the French, and sacked Paris. There was a brief lull in the action as we refilled the lands, healed and killed stragglers, but 2 more core cities fell in 290 AD. Orleans falls in 370 AD, followed by Lyons in 380 AD. In 540 AD Marseille is razed, reducing France to a OCC in the middle of Babylon. Hardly a threat, and they exit the game in 630 with the help of a new army.

English Front
The Brits were rather quiet in the start of the game, but around 10 BC they came rolling over the hills in the west with several horses and archers. It was a bit hairy there, but we barely managed to fend them of without losing any worthless border cities. After neglecting them for some time, they finally got some attention in 260 AD when we razed Dover followed by Oxford in 290 AD. Warwick goes in 370 AD followed by York in 390 AD. London is razed in 490 AD after 30 years of intense warfare, including a lost legion army. Hastings follow suit in 530 AD. Nottinhgam puts up a fierce fight, but is finally razed in 630 AD. They are finally shown the door in 730 AD.

Babylon
Babylon didn't manage to do much for the first part of the game, just sending a steady trinkle of leaderfarming victims. In 510 AD we had finally moved up to their territory, and razed Ellippi. Uruk and Nineveh follows suit in 590 AD. Babylon itself is razed in 770 AD, and Ur in 790 AD. Akkad goes in 810 AD, and Babylon finds peace at last.

Russia
Russia was more of a nuissance then a threat, they had only 4 cities, of which 3 were tundra fishing villages. They managed to raze a newly founded city in 510 AD and a filler in 730 AD. We finally pay them back in 840 AD, burning down Yakutsk.
** Need more details **

America
America was the big shot on our continent, with a lot of good cities in fertile land. We destroy their colony of New Orleans in 560 AD, but we didn't start touching their core for a long time. Philly and San Francisco burns in 810 AD, and 3 more the next turn. Washington is burned to the ground in 840 AD. Their core falls easily, and in 950 AD they are reloacted to the small northern island. In 1160 they are cleared from this island as well, and have only one city on Hadrian's left.

Germany
Along with America, Germany was our biggest threat in the homeland. They were big, had good land, and were far away. Most of our losses during the homeland "mop-up" were inflicted by German and American knights. Their first city, Leipzig, burns in 820 AD and Frankfurt in 830 AD.

Hadrian's Wall (aka Barbie Island)
This strange island took us pretty long to colonize due to the terrain, but we started pretty early and always kept it as second priority. America and Germany both had a city here, but the others didn't have time to do much with it.

Japan
As the only civ from the other continent to be able to reach us, they kept landing settler pairs in the northern warzone, and the occasional longbow or other nuisance near the core. A samurai managed to raze a city on Hadrian's wall in 980 AD.

India
India was selected as the target of choice in the New World, and in 1040 AD we land forces at 2 places in the Indian core. They surprise us by not counter attacking, and in 1050 AD we clear the landing zone, razing Madras. The next turned we blitzed and razed Calcutta, Bangalore and Delhi. Bombay burns in 1090 AD, almost swallowing our cav army. We don't bother with the jungle filled peninsula, and continue towards the Iroquois.

Aztecs
The Aztecs managed to land a pretty fearful invasion force in 1010 AD, consisting of 3 Cavs, 2 Impis and a Longbow. They were quickly dispatched by newly built cavs though. After the inital blitz landing, the Aztecs managed to slow us down a great deal with counterattacking cavs.

Iroquois
After taking the easy Indian lands, Cattaraugus is razed in 1140 AD. Fierce counter attacks keep slowing us down, but Niagra Falls burn in 1230 AD.

End Game
After trudging through fierce counter attacks and some rifle defenders, in 1295 we are finally 7 tiles from domination.. Settle a city and get some culture expansion, and the result:

sgotm3-finish_copy.jpg


Leaders:
210 BC - Sun Tzu
10 BC - Hanging Gardens
290 AD - Forbidden Palace
310 AD - Leonardo's Workshop
370 AD - Army
420 AD - Heroic Epic
440 AD - Sistine Chapel
480 AD (ca) - Army
790 AD - Army
920 AD - Magellan's Voyage
1060 AD - Army
1090 AD - Cathedral
1140 AD - Army
1150 AD - Army
1160 AD - Colisseum
1220 AD - Military Academy
There might be some more in the last turns, as we didn't really know what to do with them and might have failed to mention them.

Wonders
Sun Tzu - Complete in 170 BC
Hanging Gardens - Completed in 30 AD
Great Lighthouse - Built by Japan in 130 AD
Leonardo's Workshop - Complete in 350 AD (Leader)
JS Bach - Builtby Japan in 1090 AD

General Thoughts
Our second city was quickly brought up to speed as a 4-turn settler factory, which we kept churning throughout the entire game. We never stopped settling, even while fighting defensively we settled in the opposite direction, and partly along the frontlines.
We decided to go for a tight built, and had RCP at 3-6-10 around the start location.
The only questionable tactics we used, were some ship-chaining halfway combat settlers, but we never abandoned cities to get far into enemy territory. We did not move the palace or use resource disconnection.

** Insert Mini-map animation here **

----

Please offer any input/additions, as it's hard to write about the military campaigns I only witnessed from the turnlogs :) Especially the coquest of Russia and Germany is lacking, as is the final turns.
A complete contact/DoW list is also missing
 
Great report for the spoiler Tarkeel :goodjob: !!!

and here is the quote from M-B:

mad-bax said:
For the record, and because I can read all the threads team Smackster have not been lucky. Over the course of their game their luck has evened out IMO. They played extremely well in fact and fully deserve the result they achieved. They may have made one fatal error however, which now leaves them hanging on the edge of their seats for a while.

What was our fatal error???? :sad:
 
Going for domination. Having to build all your own settlers, not being able to build any cheap culture and having a best conquest date some 23 turns later than the best domination date made a domination victory a poor choice IMO.

This was absolutley deliberate on my part.
 
Going for Domination and not the obvious: Conquest. Secondly, the lack of focus we suffered from during the late mid game and end game, when we discussed ways to boost score when it was totally irrelevant. Third: not asking the question; do we need this?, when starting to build something.

Those are the three mistakes we made in order of importance.

Edit: If we had gone for Conquest we would not have needed gold for "culture" rushing so would probably have used the "connect/unconnect" resources to maximize output of Cavalry but since we did go for domination I would not regard this as a mistake (not doing so, that is).
 
Just checked out X-team, they have just landed (1090AD) on the other continent and found Rifles... Just as Smackster predicted (knew). The cost they had to bear for the first city raised: 6 cavalry... They have about 45 - 50 turns left to beat us though so I guess they will win anyway.
 
I hadn't actually checked the best dates, and (wrongly) assumes that conquest would have an earlier best date then domination. I also (wrongly) assumed that best dates would take xenophobic into account atleast...

I think X-team still will have a hard time beating us, as it will take clearing the other continent. I predict it will be very close in whatever way though.
 
Actually, you make a strong point Tarkeel. The best dates drop out of tha calculator automatically by counting the available food on the map, the number of different types of tile etc. and they are used to calculate the win bonuses for a straight game. These dates can't be changed and required the team to decide which victory condition would best suit the variant.

I am rewriting the "draft constitution" for SGOTM and I will emphasize this in there.
 
I'm having a look at the old spoiler threads, and compare these pics to our game:
GOTM16_2150BC.jpg

GOTM16_1000BC.jpg

GOTM16_350AD.jpg


Notice the severe lack of mountainranges and neighbours? It looks like mad-bax did the old switcheroo on us.

Edit: After looking at the game.. The 2 continents appear to be swapped around, and the civs mixed around, and the current Aztec starting location is the old player location. The middle continent seems to have had some changes as well.
 
And it amazes me that it has taken soooo long for this to be discovered.

Yes. East and West were swapped and a start position selected to give the same minimap start position is in the original. The local terrain around the start was modified to be similar (but obviously different to anyone who could be bothered to make the comparison) to the original. The barb strip was redone and some sea tiles added, since there was only one "adjoining" sea tile in the original which allowed a lux deal to be broken simply by a barb galley ending its turn on that tile. I didn't think this was fair.

Greece was selected as the first opponent you would meet, simply to scare the hell out of you. Lots of opponents were selected on the start continent because normally in AWE maps are selected to severely limit the rate at which opponents are met. OTOH I made sure that the AI in the north could not reach OCN without a war, which helped everyone out I think. And the reason for the Xenophobic variant was for this reason. The local AI warred very early and lots of workers would hide in the capitals. This would give a huge advantage to vanilla players who could buy up to 10 workers for 250g

I also made it possible to build the iron works in Rome, since A) I wanted people to be scared of palace jumping in future SGOTM games, and B) once steam is reached it should always be possible to win, and therefore I decided this would help keep games within the 10 week target timeframe.
 
mad-bax said:
Greece was selected as the first opponent you would meet, simply to scare the hell out of you.

You must have had a good laugh when reading variant team threads re. this. We were as you so aptly put it scared stiff by it ourselves. "The worst possible first contact" IIRC... ;)
 
I guess I didn't really know the rules of the game and difference on Jason scores between Domination and Conquest...

Khhmm... isn't it my time to get pissed off??? :rolleyes:
I am a newbie, 1st time SGOTM player certainly can be excused. But you are all seasoned players, how could you miss such a fact and make a tragic mistake :mad: :mad: :mad: ARGHHH!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

Well, actually i am not pissed off, but still i am happy to know that not just newbies but also some pros slip once in a while :lol:
 
mad-bax said:
Going for domination. Having to build all your own settlers, not being able to build any cheap culture and having a best conquest date some 23 turns later than the best domination date made a domination victory a poor choice IMO.
.
As I posted previously I was playing for score for most of the game, and then when I realised that score didn't count for the golden variant, I read the first page of the maint thread that simply states fastest win (does not mention relative to Jason score). But even after everyone explained these simple facts to me, it still seemed potentially easier to get a dom win, at the point that we attacked the other continent. I thought we only needed 2/3rds of India to do it (which wasn't far off) and thought we had the military to get that quicker than Conquest. I'm sure now I was mistaken.

However, I for one will get pleasure in beating the score of some non-variants, even if Xteam with their O-so-superior tactics and no-luck-at-all :), actually do beat us to the fastest win relative to Jason dates.

Consider that none of us had met before this game, and didn't know each others abilities, I think for SGOTM4, we will eat Xteam for breakfast, lunch and dinner :)

smackster
 
First of all don't take all the blame... ;) everyone is guilty IMHO...
But we sure did have fun.

and Second,
smackster said:
Consider that none of us had met before this game, and didn't know each others abilities, I think for SGOTM4, we will eat Xteam for breakfast, lunch and dinner :)

smackster

Have you been reading my mind???? :mischief:
 
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