Wrapup - What went wrong

[Chieftess]

Or, "Monday Morning Quaterbacking". (BTW, the password I put in for the save doesn't seem to be working, so I'm basing this on screenshots)

Ok, I've been watching from the sidelines. I'm not a great fan of MP, but I've been beaten up by Friedrich (as well as other beta testers) enough to know a thing or two. First, I think we were dead before we even got started. Reason?

1 - Civ Choice. Or rather, UU choice. We were more concerned on the civ (Japan, or Maya). Of the two, the Maya have the better UU for the early stage, however, here's the facts:

a. Iroquois 3/1/2
b. Gallics 3/2/2
c. Immortals 4/2/1
d. Javelineers 2/2/1

See something wrong?

i - Mobility. 3 out of 4 are mobile. Even if we were to put up a defense, atleast 1/3rd of their units will retreat, leaving us out in the open.
ii - The attack. We're the weakest attackers, and even our defense is no better than atleast 2 UU. This is the stats of the units you use in a "Poor Man's War", which is a short, temporary war to try and gain resources.

The other teams knew that we had a lousy UU. Once they contacted each other, they knew what would make for an easy victory. Our cities will be razed, or become no-man's land (with a few settlers for continental ports) for future wars. We also let them build up their mobile units. 30-40 Gallics is a pretty scary sight to any player, much less a coalition of 100 players. (too bad we don't have those resistor-type units of Civ2. ).

2 - Lack of exploration. I noticed another team established an embassy with us, and we haven't even met the 4th team yet. Apparently, the world was well met by the time this war started. Our exploration should have been more agressive. If the passageway was blocked, go around it, even if it means the 50% chance of sinking.

3 - Lack of Navy. The best way to stop an invasion (before navigation), is to block the coast/sea. The best way to stop a land invasion is to attack the ships before the units arrive. The best way to spot the invasion is... SENTRY NET!!!!. This is another one of my "told 'ya so!"'s. Sentry Nets are used by experienced players to spot an incoming invasion force. (Why do you think C3B wanted that mountain in the first place?).

4 - We waited too long. We didn't have the best UU, and we should have rushed C3B, or atleast tried to.

5 - We were too timid. This seems to be an inherient trait from the SPDG. (our agression level is either a 1, or a 2) If we keep treating this like a single player game, then we're NEVER going to win!

6 -

I guess those alarm bells were real... The offer to trade maps for instance -- sure we stood to gain their knowledge of C3B but we didn't think much about what they would gain.

If we traded maps, then that gave them vital info. They know the following things:

a - Where our cities are.
b - Where our resources are.
c - Where our roads are.
d - How much we actually know about the world.
e - Allowed them to conduct "espionage" (viewing our cities).

Do you know why e is possible? Without a worldmap, or territory map, you can not view cities that you don't know about!!!. We essentially said, "Here, view our cities!".

BTW, notice how we're dead last in score. That means others are larger than us, and have a higher population. Also, knowing the terrain allows for strategic planning, such as which cities will allow them to take the most maximum cities in 1 turns. (Remember, they have mobility).

7 - We play with single player tactics. We assume that the other teams are going to play like the AI (thus, trading maps for example. A human player will conduct team-based espionage). We assumed that the teams would come from 1 directions (I'm guessing our cities were undefended since they were at war, or at the border). While we built normal improvements (temples, libraries, etc.), the other teams were building up their UUs. 30-50 units isn't an unheard of number for MP battles in the ancient era.

(BTW, come to think of it - would that double move work over ocean? i.e., the galleys could have crossed a huge barrier, and not lose a single galley. Just a thought).



Let's try not to lose the single player demogame, otherwise we become the laughing stock of the demogame community.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

I agree on most counts, CT. Except the aggression part, and that was based on our weak UU. We had to try to play nice with C3B, and were foolish to act boastful with nothing to back it up.

On a personal note, I take responsibility for leaving our team twisting in the wind in the early game. The void in leadership during this crucial time really did not help matters for us. My abrupt departure also put to rest my "big picture" plan for Feudalism, which would have allowed us to support over 120 troops for free. Peace talks with C3B also went out the window.

Seeing the growth of CGN and CDZ during the early game, along with their allied destruction of GCA (justified, of course ), tipped me off right away that those two teams were moving on and it would be between C3B and ourselves to lobby for survival. However, I was pretty much a non-factor by this point, as citizens were now dazzled by my successor and his need to build Aqueducts and Marketplaces for cities that could not grow beyond Size 7.

Finally, too many obsolete units! Showing the whole world that we were defending our homeland with Warriors and Horsemen is an embarassment and a disgrace, which I can proudly say I had no part in. No civ, no matter how unbalanced the scales, should lose 10+ cities in one turn.

So yes, there is need for improvement. Let's keep on discussing this so we can make ourselves better for the next go-round.

 

[Chieftess]

The markets and aquaducts (while in fuedalism!!) probably showed the other teams (once they investigated our cities thanks to a world map or two), that we didn't know what we were doing, or that we really understood how to play the game. In fact, such a move (markets and aquaducts in pre-size7 fuedal cities) is a very AI-like move.

Also, why did we even have those obsolete units? Was everyone expecting to upgrade them at once? (like in the single player demogame). Unlike the AI, human players don't wait for a war to attack. In fact, they don't wait for us to upgrade, either.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

Actually, CT...we never entered Feudalism, but were in Monarchy. But Markets should probably be avoided when you only have one luxury at your disposal, don't ya think?

The excuse for the obsolete units was that they were being used for cheap Martial Law so that some of our cities could reach size 6-7. Meanwhile our strong units were diverted to the north, leaving us for sitting ducks.

In PBEM games, especially against crafty opponents such as CDZ, a little paranoia is a good thing. We showed none of it in this game.

 

[classical_hero]

We were not bold enough when dealing with C3B. We should have attacked them hard once we had got the GA. We must use this experience and make ourselve better players in the future. While we never stood a chance against the big two, we still had a chance had we took on C3B. They were very much weaker than we were and yet we were way too timid to take them on. We had a unit that could easily have beaten them, the Ancient Calvary. We should have used it too our advantage so that we could have won some victories and got them on the backfoot. Once they were in a weaker oposition, then it would have been obvious to the other teams who the weaker nation was and thus surviving our nation. Next time we play a ISDG game, we must be much more decisive in our action. If we are going to declare wa on a nation, then we go through with it otherwise the DOW was pointless.

 

[Provolution]

I came in pretty late, around turn 105, and was invited to create a plan to break the deadlock. The plan was to get to the Brazucan center with a suicide force comprising of JT (4), AC (8) and swords (12) on 12 galleys. If we had presented this plan to CDZ, and conducted negotiations from a position of peer, not a weak begging underling, and applied reason and a sense of fairness around the Joker Scandal (not directy asking for C3B death sentence, but asking for them to wait for the outcome of our raid to finish them off).

I will ask the Brazucan military commander postgame to show me his positions postgame, and get to know which long term plans they had turns 115-135.
I told Micco about the City of God plan, and it may have worked given certain conditions were in place, same aqueducts not built (we needed some marketplaces for reaching some tech parity). What I did not like is that the ones proposing the plan was builled, ridiculed, mocked, disenfranchised, vilified and berated in the most derogative terms, as if our only mission was to massage the ego of the turnplayer at that point.

The turnplayer even created an internal caste system where the turnplayer surrounded himself with a court of 2-3 loyalists and ignored/berated the rest. We were not allowed to post warplans in the forums, polling these were outright rejected or filibustered with slogans from the GOTM community on how "Oh so invincible and oh so brilliant they were" (The Russian hacker from the Bond Movie "Golden Eye" springs to mind).

In my opinion, a last desperate invasion to strike [IMMEDIATELY] after the Brazucan payouts ended would be the best timing to strike as Rik forecasted. As soon as we changed regime in 125 I felt the chains of oppression were removed, and we got a very fine, enjoyable, friendly and progressive atmosphere.

@Rik, you lifted this team up and we did some very good things bilaterally with Brazuca, and we managed to get a Golden Age where they did not.

A turnplayer with a good teamculture is essential, and attacking your loyal advisors for
no valid reason or to protect ones CIv ego does never work out well. And attacking the CoG plan for getting some popular support in order to shelter ones own legacy as the team leader was prtty low, given the methods to stop it. I will not rest on this issue even postgame, and would like an investigation of the Brazucan deployments turns 115-135 to dispel these arguments, and I will obliterate each for them ad verbatim and by conceptual and strategic planning. Heck, I may even game test two parallel teams, one with Akots and one with my plans against the same Brazucan plan.

 

[ali]

i Feel that there was a military incompetancy that really led to our defeat and a lack of good leadership excluding the Rik administration (including Provolution) whom really came too late to change the outcome of the war the team never seemed to have centralised planning with each area going their seperate ways and I feel in a demogame multiplayer we should not change military commanders via a vote in each term or have one military leader but a council of them or a group of Generals by changing military leaders everyh term it challenges the concept of have a grand stragety and forces the military into reacting to the moves of the enemy i propse we do why the athianians do elect Generals up to the number of five for a term longer than a month and if each fail in their duties than we bbring it to court and poll for their sacking and bring in a new General this allows for creative ideas and a long term stragety

 

[Provolution]

Ali, what was even more pathological was that the said previous leader of said authoritarian regime tried to put all blame onto me in the UN threads just in order to accomodate his new masters in his future CDZ team, just for stating that said management style reminded of Soviet Union doctrine. I may have hurt some CDZ feelings their, but when I see a duck, I call it a duck.

The above mentioned allegiance to CDZ can be indirectly shown (Stockholm Syndrome, making us weak in said negotiations) here :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=111448&page=1&pp=20


We should quarantine turnplayers, military leaders and domestic leaders with too close contacts to rival teams for negotiation purposes. You do not mix business and pleasure. Fact is, if I have been a pig, I could have enamored some women in the workplace, but policy dictates restraint and temperance.
So for the future, we need to know what relations turnplayer have with officials of rival teams.

 

[Emp.Napoleon]

i Feel that there was a military incompetancy that really led to our defeat and a lack of good leadership excluding the Rik administration (including Provolution) whom really came too late to change the outcome of the war the team never seemed to have centralised planning with each area going their seperate ways...

It was/is not the Rik administration, it is the EMP-Rik administration, I am king after all

 

[Provolution]

Indeed, EMP and Rik was the joint presidency, and EMP gave room for team temperance and helped in toning down internal differences.

 

[Ankka]

And you were silent for most of the term...

 

[akots]

@Provolution: I choose not to respond just because you don't listen while still repeating the same bs again and again in this forum similar to the UN. I'm sure you are happy with Republican micco discussing the disgusting Eastern Europeans.

@Chieftess: Please refrain from speaking for the other teams and what do they think about our game since you don't know that and what you are thinking they are thinking is wrong. Besides, this is not a RT MP game, this is PBEM.

 

[ali]

@Ankka just expressing an opinion mate and i spend most of the term trying to understand the situation of this demogame and the gameplay and rules
@provolution i must commend on your work i do not mean to imply cristism onto u
@Emp. Napolen, my apolgises for the mix up

 

[GenMarshall]

Finally, too many obsolete units! Showing the whole world that we were defending our homeland with Warriors and Horsemen is an embarassment and a disgrace, which I can proudly say I had no part in. No civ, no matter how unbalanced the scales, should lose 10+ cities in one turn.

That makes me glad that I did not won the Military Leader elections in the past ISDG elections nor nominated myself for the possition after losing 2 (IIRC) elections in the ISDG .

 

[akots]

Well, I know of a PBEM game between actually two very skilled players where one of the players lost about 40 or so cities in a single turn. In that game, they had more or less even militaries. Nothing to be ashamed of.