SGOTM7 - Team tao

The IBTs are part of the turn before them...
(The first IBT is part of 4000BC and anything buildt then would be buildt in 4000BC)
This is why all culture buildings wil have 1 turn of culture gain the first turn after they are buildt.
 
Furiey said:
GOTM16 was used as a base for SGOTM3, but the map was reversed and the start made to look almost the same.... The latin names were good though.
Thanks, maybe I need to try that then as I can still remember many features of the map and my memory isn't normally that good for details. (My first SG was SGOTM4.)
 
[party] It's a girl!!! [party]

Born June 20, Mom and baby doing fine. My wife and I are grandparents for the first time!

We got back late last night and I wanted to read the exciting finish. What a game! Way to go Tone and Renata! :beer: :band:

Great work, team! :clap: :clap: :hatsoff: :D
 
Congratulations, Keath! If my own parents are any indication, then you'll adore being a grandparent. I swear my father turns into a big pile of mush whenever my nephew is around. :)

Whee! [party]

Renata
 
I've been away focused on COTM13; let me add my congratulations for the performance of Team Tao :goodjob: and to Keath especially for some very good RL news! :D (You could have taken a bit more time ... it was nice to be the leader for a few days :) )

I am very surprised by the diffence in the strength and activities of the AI between different games. We landed in Arabia about the same time you did (our first landing site) and got greeted by a 14 high Immortal stack a few turns later! (This was after a few harbingers had already been disposed of so Persia sent 17-20 Immortals initially). I think I counted 4 total Immortals in your conquest of Persia. The AI defenses seemed considerably weaker in your game, also. What was the AI using its shields for? It was very strange that the Vikings never left their island in our game (from what I could see; not even a Settler on a Galley); just stayed put and built units; same for Persia. In your game they were more exploratory. Curious if this is a Vanilla - PTW difference at Deity, an aspect of your strategy, or just part of the randomness of the game.
 
I think there were a number of factors going on. The most important was the order of targets. We hit India first, not Persia. This was important for more reasons than just because Persia had immortals and India didn't, although I for one didn't fully recognize that at the time.

India was the first civ we contacted. They were in war mode from the get-go and had used up their unit support on archers, spears and warriors from long before they could build swords outright. They never had much cash, so that's mainly what we faced -- archers, spears and warriors. In your case, you met Persia fairly late, when they could already build immortals, so that's what they stocked up on.

Second: Keath did face a respectable number of units in taking on India, but relatively few of them were offensive units. Besides the war-timing factor I just mentioned, India had also been dropping off a steady stream of attackers on our territory since about 950 BC, so the attackers on their home island were constantly being depleted. I just skimmed through your thread, and failed to see mention of a single Persian landing on your territory prior to your invasion. (Possibly I missed one or two.) So all the Immortals were still home and waiting for you. I'm not sure why Persia failed to build many boats, but it didn't work in your favor.

As for later in the game, by the time we got to their landmass, Persia had been suffering war weariness for a fair amount of time from all the Immortals we'd picked off at AI Bait. They'd also been living with the lowered unit support of Republic for a fair amount of time. They'd lost access to two luxes when India and Zululand fell and would shortly lose a third. In short, you got them at the height of their power (as we got India, but with compensating factors); we got them when they were broke and hurting.

And of course, you had to fight through their golden age.

I've been looking through some of the other threads trying to tease out decisive factors. The biggest, I think, was the timing of our golden age, which quite honestly I don't think we could have managed any better if we'd hired all the geniuses in the world to plan it out ahead of time. Sheer serendipity for it to work out so perfectly.

Of the factors more under our control, I found two that I think made a difference. First, our consistent use of a bait town. We're the only team of those I've looked at in any detail so far (you, XTeam, Wacken) that never faced attacks in places we didn't want them to come. By leaving the town AI Bait open at all times and never leaving another town empty until the game was fully in our control, we never had to split our forces. Nobody ever landed in India except us, nobody ever landed in Zululand except us, and by the time we were in Arabia, it didn't matter.

Second, the Forbidden Palace. We finished that in 510 BC, about 25 turns before you or Wacken had one, and you were the next two after us as far as I've seen (having checked about a half-dozen team threads on that count). Our whole city setup was predicated on having a FP in a particular town, and although our production suffered slightly relative to strict RCP rings before it was built, afterward, it was fantastic -- we had I think nine towns at minimal or first-ring corruption even before gaining three more with the invasions, without much cramping even.

Renata
 
Congratulations Keath on your new :queen: !

I toyed with the 750BC save and it shows Vikings and America being at war. Surely a reason for them not showing up and being weak. I wonder whether Persia and Arabs also warred at some time, maybe triggering Persia's Golden Age.

And I agree with Renata: the landings at Al Bait, war weariness, and luxury deprival surely weakend the AIs in our game. And of course this was all planned by us. ;)
 
I also agree with Renata, many elements came together well in this game, even when things weren't going our way and we didn't manage to trigger our golden age earlier, it turned out for the best, the timing as it turned out couldn't have been better and we got the maximum effect from it. We would still have finished quickly without it, but we would not have had all the spare knights we had and free cash to rush temples and Settlers, that certainly speeded thing up at the end.

One little thing I have noticed is that where we took Zulu primarily with Cats and Swords with Horses mainly as backup, the others were either at the Knight stage by then, or struggling with Horses with some Swords and Cats. Our approach although slow to get the troops in place was effective once they were there and left the Horses ready for upgrading and attack on the Arabs as soon as we got to Chivalry. After the Zulu war there were not that many Swords left of our original attacking force, but we certainly had a few Horses and were able to start on Arabs with the new force before we finished the Zulu with the old.

And Congratulations to Keath! Have you planned when she starts visiting you for Civ lessons yet? :)
 
You can do the replay from the final save, right? You could find out from that if Persia triggered their golden age. I'm not surprised the Vikings fought America based on them not showing up for a dog's age.

I overstated the case a bit for AI Bait making such a difference. I went back and looked, and the Zulus did land several units in India despite all towns being defended. But they were the only ones to do so, and of course with our units coming through there anyway, dealing with them was trivial.

The death toll at AI Bait (plus the early invasions at Iznik and a couple odd ones at Cowtown South) through about 150 AD was something like seven Immortals, a horse, a half dozen warriors, a spear, an Impi, and five archers. Plus one sunken Persian galley that no doubt had another couple of immortals on it.

Five or six Zulu units, mostly warriors, landed in India.

And of course this was all planned by us.

Of course! Says the woman who seriously advocated researching to military tradition and was wibbling over whether or not to start hand-building the Hanging Gardens a turn before somebody else completed it.

Renata
 
Thanks everyone! All the photos I took saw everyone with big grins on their faces and it looks the the members of team tao have the same look on their faces, too. :D Yes Renata, I can understand why being grandparents is such a thrill. ;) I can hardly wait to start spoiling her which I believe is a grandparent's rite and responsibility. :)

You are right tao, the sum of the players is greater than the individuals. I personally never expected to be on a winning team with such classy players. I was just hoping to learn some things, have some fun and I have learned a lot and winning is certainly fun. Great game, team! :goodjob:

Nice analysis, Renata. I agree that AI Bait was one of our winning ploys. I kept wondering where these tough opponents were. I think this makes June 20 a very memorable day.
 
It wasn't just the number of landings at AI Bait that played a part, but the distance the AI had to go to get there and the resources that they tied up doing just that. Units doing nothing but travelling in a galley occupied their unit count so they didn't build more - it was probably a good thing that we couldn't sink these early Galleys as they would have been able to build another quicker than they could get the first back. If we had chosen a town on the coast opposite the Zulu or the Persians, think how quickly they chould have transported units across!

One thing we could have done once we stopped research for good was sell the Libraries as soon as we had gained the border expansion we needed. This would have gained back some more gold for rushes, but with our Golden Age filling our coffers I don't think it would have made much difference in this case.

The other good thing about being a grandparent (or so I have been told) is that you can give them back when you've had enough! :mischief:
 
Renata said:
I've been looking through some of the other threads trying to tease out decisive factors. The biggest, I think, was the timing of our golden age, which quite honestly I don't think we could have managed any better if we'd hired all the geniuses in the world to plan it out ahead of time. Sheer serendipity for it to work out so perfectly.
I think that this is spot on! This is not to disregard the team play but that single RNG roll in getting our first GL at that time had a massive effect. How lucky we were not to get that luck earlier! :crazyeye:
 
Renata said:
The biggest, I think, was the timing of our golden age, which quite honestly I don't think we could have managed any better if we'd hired all the geniuses in the world to plan it out ahead of time.

Now I'm curious. When did you guys get your GA, and what was so great about it?

Good job too! :)
 
Furiey said:
The other good thing about being a grandparent (or so I have been told) is that you can give them back when you've had enough! :mischief:
Exactly! And my wife is showing off the ePhotos we took to all the staff members at her school. She is just beaming. So it's happy faces all around! :D

And Tone, you are right about the timing of our GA and of course we only really needed one GL and it happened at the perfect time, too! :cool:
 
MeteorPunch said:
Now I'm curious. When did you guys get your GA, and what was so great about it?
It coincided with Chivalry and with our well developed towns we were producing several knights each turn plus stacks of cash to upgrade the horses we had left (and rush libraries for border expansion). Not even I could use up all those knights so the supply exceeded demand. :mischief: It took us to the brink of domination and helped overcome the Deity production bonus at a critical stage.
 
Short timeline of our last 25 turns:

280 AD: get GL in attack on Bapedi
290 AD: rush Sun Tzu with leader starting our Golden Age
310 AD: finish researching Chivalry, we now have 2 cities building Knights in 2, and several in 3 and 4 with over 220gpt for upgrades and rushes.
330 AD: Invade Arabia with loads of Knights
370 AD: Invade Persia with loads of Knights
440 AD: First invasion of the Vikings with lots of Knights
490 AD: Golden Age ends
520 AD: exceed Domination limit
530 AD: win recorded.
 
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