Hey,
Since the game looks like it's over I thought I'd just post some of my thoughts about how the game worked out from my perspective. I was hoping to split this up with a few screenshots, but looks like the game is down and I don't expect it to be resurrected, I think it filled out a DNR
These are my thoughts and do not necesarily represent the thoughts of my fellow team members who were/are completely awesome people. Caution: Wall o' text ahead.
I haven't had a chance yet to read through the other thread, although I did look at the last page of the spoilers thread and saw someone (darreljs?) describe this game as a civ version of survivor, which I thought was pretty apt. Once the giant tech blocs formed it was really a matter of trying to make sure you weren't the next one out, with the secondary objective of trying to get some kind of advantage out of the next person getting kicked out.
To summarise our game, we had hoped pre-game to get mathematics early to leverage the Hammams, since we were headed down that path we also wanted to shoot for the Hanging Gardens. Personally I felt that was a late enough wonder that we'd have a good chance to feel what our chances of landing it were, yet early enough that we'd have a good chance of being one of the first to unlock it if we beelined for it. Later in the game we'd fall behind the financial civs and wouldn't get many opportunities to unlock wonders. I guess that indicates how little I'd thought about tech alliances at the time. I was certainly surprised to see tech cartels forming before alphabet was researched! In hindsight though, it's the obvious play and I think WK was the only team member who really understood this at the time. Getting into the CAN was a massive play, but as a result of the tech cartels we were pretty lucky to get the HG, I understand we only just beat the Indian team to it by a turn or two. We also managed to get a couple of cities out the turn before it completed which immediately benefited from the extra pop. Getting those two extra cities tanked our economy, we were in the red at 0% for few turns, but we managed to turn it around into a respectable surplus, good enough to swing ourselves into a teching rather than funding role.
I always felt it was pretty important to be a techer rather than a funder, but seeing it in action, now I'm not so sure. They're both vital roles and you end up specialising pretty early. Being creative I guess funneled us towards teching since we got cheap libraries. In any case, I think as a result of our poor economy(at the time) and the HG play, we were cut out of the next trading cycle along with a number of other teams. I think this was where the game really got defined as the split between teams was relatively even. If PAT had managed to swing even just two more teams, then I think it would have been all she wrote for the teams left out (similar to how the initial round of trading cut off a number of teams). Leaving behind enough teams which could band together meant that we could keep pace with PAT, due in large part to the GM bulbing strategy suggested by India (at least I think it was India).
And that was pretty much the game. After that is was just a rolling stalemate, where PAT would outtech us by a handful of turns but not be able to get a decisive edge. Meanwhile we ran out of expansion room, having poor land between us and our northern neighbours (desert to our north between us an Inca) and solid defined border with our ally(HRE) to the East, A hot/cold running war to our south with Carthage and no food resources to our West where we'd also be under threat by Egypt. The "good" land to our west was quite some way from our core and rapidly swallowed up between India and Egypt, which made expanding there more difficult and less appetising. In any case after a couple of false starts at taking a chunk out of Carthage/Egypt it soon became clear that we would make zero progress there and were likely to make zero progress all game, which meant we needed to look elsewhere, but everywhere else was surrounded by allies.
WK had been advocating a switch to PAT if the possibility presented itself, but the rest of the team was pretty wary about switching. Once we had a better look at the size of some of our rivals, we knew that we really didn't have any choice if we wanted to stay relevant to the game (which we did). HRE had also been having difficulties with their neighbours (Portugal I think?) and were keen to switch provided we moved too. Inca having been hit pretty hard didn't help matters. At the end of the day despite the problems (like having an ENORMOUS UNPROTECTED BORDER) it just made too much sense not to switch. TBH I still would have liked to have withheld steel from CUDDLE (I know I'm in the minority here) it just seemed folly to hand our new enemies tools to dismantle us (especially given our ENORMOUS UNPROTECTED BORDER). But I can live with the decision to play nice, particularly since I'm not involved in any other PBEMs whilst my team mates are. And then the game imploded for various reasons, mostly lengthy pauses and waning interest from most teams.
As a team I think we worked together pretty well, particularly when we had a clear objective to head towards (i.e. timing Hanging Gardens with an extra 2 cities, prebuilding cavs so we didn't die, getting Globe Theatre up and running when Nationalism came online) but when there wasn't a clear focus we slipped quite a bit. (I note the same general trend in my personal games.)
In terms of things we didn't do so well, as I see it the #1 error we made was not being anywhere near aggressive enough about claiming the final round of cities. I think this actually stemmed from our land divide with HRE early on in the game, where we ended up ceding a lot of the prime real estate between us, with the expectation that things would be just as good over towards ex-Korean territory (which ended up not being the case). In the end we got a solid ally with HRE, so maybe it wasn't all loss, but certainly from a civ playing perspective we missed a couple of prime city sites there. Then as mentioned above we basically ran out of land, partly due to the lack of incentive to expand (the land wasn't very good for the most part) and partly due to lack of focus (there didn't seem any clear need for another city *right now*). Put these two together and by the time we realised that we needed to have at least another 5/6 cities by the end game, there was only room for one more, with maybe another one if we fired off a culture bomb and started a war.
There was a lot of rampant paranoia throughout our team for a lot of the game, most of which was probably due to the lack of MP experience on the team, and consequent fear of those who do have a lot of MP experience. If we'd been wedged between players other than Krill, General Sunrise (and co) and Ruff, I wonder if we'd have viewed things a little differently. I understand it's not necessarily fair to use outside information to influence in-game decisions, but it's impossible to separate between the two when you're playing, even if it's only subconscious. (Note: I still think there are issues using hidden identities to play the game, particularly here at RB where we all create threads to discuss the game. But it *does* color the judgement of the players in the game.)
In hindsight, I think for what was essentially a Pick-Up Group we managed ourselves pretty well. We're all still here and checking in when we can, which I think says a lot about the dedication of our team. I'm pretty proud of the fact that we were all still standing at the end when so many other teams had to search for subs as people pulled out.
Thanks to Sunrise for hosting the game, and to the other teams for providing such good competition. I might not have liked all of what happened and I wish we could have seen it played out, but getting to play against opponent of this calibre was great fun. Most of all thanks to the RB community for being an environment where a game like this can take place. Everyone thinks it, but it doesn't get said often enough, this place rocks
For the team:
WarriorKnight, I completely underestimated the amount of diplo that would be involved and I have to give you my props for essentially dealing with all of that, to the other players you *were* the Ottomans
There is absolutely no way I could have done this, I'm terrible about replying to emails in a prompt and efficient manner With diplo playing such a huge part of the game due to the 'Survivor' style of the game, I think a large part of our survival was down to your efforts. Thanks also for manning the post during my many, many absences.
Pegasus, I know you can't post here as often as you'd like due to pesky office net filters. But, those epic lunchtime gmail chats were always useful. Discussing the rationale behind approaches that seem obvious is never a bad thing. Sometimes it even leads to interesting avenues of thought and that can be invaluable. Remember, it's only paranoia if it doesn't happen. If it does happen it's foresight
Ad Hoc, Thanks for keeping an eye on things. You might not have posted as often as some of us, but when you did have something to say it was usually spot on, particularly in the pre-game discussion. It was also nice to know that someone was watching us play and ready to point out any obvious errors
Also thanks for the theme and the city names, Conan was a really cool idea even if it did make in-game diplo difficult at first contact Enough Talking!
It's been an absolute pleasure civving with you guys, best of luck in your PBEMs (and RL, but we know what's really important right)!
Since the game looks like it's over I thought I'd just post some of my thoughts about how the game worked out from my perspective. I was hoping to split this up with a few screenshots, but looks like the game is down and I don't expect it to be resurrected, I think it filled out a DNR
These are my thoughts and do not necesarily represent the thoughts of my fellow team members who were/are completely awesome people. Caution: Wall o' text ahead.I haven't had a chance yet to read through the other thread, although I did look at the last page of the spoilers thread and saw someone (darreljs?) describe this game as a civ version of survivor, which I thought was pretty apt. Once the giant tech blocs formed it was really a matter of trying to make sure you weren't the next one out, with the secondary objective of trying to get some kind of advantage out of the next person getting kicked out.
To summarise our game, we had hoped pre-game to get mathematics early to leverage the Hammams, since we were headed down that path we also wanted to shoot for the Hanging Gardens. Personally I felt that was a late enough wonder that we'd have a good chance to feel what our chances of landing it were, yet early enough that we'd have a good chance of being one of the first to unlock it if we beelined for it. Later in the game we'd fall behind the financial civs and wouldn't get many opportunities to unlock wonders. I guess that indicates how little I'd thought about tech alliances at the time. I was certainly surprised to see tech cartels forming before alphabet was researched! In hindsight though, it's the obvious play and I think WK was the only team member who really understood this at the time. Getting into the CAN was a massive play, but as a result of the tech cartels we were pretty lucky to get the HG, I understand we only just beat the Indian team to it by a turn or two. We also managed to get a couple of cities out the turn before it completed which immediately benefited from the extra pop. Getting those two extra cities tanked our economy, we were in the red at 0% for few turns, but we managed to turn it around into a respectable surplus, good enough to swing ourselves into a teching rather than funding role.
I always felt it was pretty important to be a techer rather than a funder, but seeing it in action, now I'm not so sure. They're both vital roles and you end up specialising pretty early. Being creative I guess funneled us towards teching since we got cheap libraries. In any case, I think as a result of our poor economy(at the time) and the HG play, we were cut out of the next trading cycle along with a number of other teams. I think this was where the game really got defined as the split between teams was relatively even. If PAT had managed to swing even just two more teams, then I think it would have been all she wrote for the teams left out (similar to how the initial round of trading cut off a number of teams). Leaving behind enough teams which could band together meant that we could keep pace with PAT, due in large part to the GM bulbing strategy suggested by India (at least I think it was India).
And that was pretty much the game. After that is was just a rolling stalemate, where PAT would outtech us by a handful of turns but not be able to get a decisive edge. Meanwhile we ran out of expansion room, having poor land between us and our northern neighbours (desert to our north between us an Inca) and solid defined border with our ally(HRE) to the East, A hot/cold running war to our south with Carthage and no food resources to our West where we'd also be under threat by Egypt. The "good" land to our west was quite some way from our core and rapidly swallowed up between India and Egypt, which made expanding there more difficult and less appetising. In any case after a couple of false starts at taking a chunk out of Carthage/Egypt it soon became clear that we would make zero progress there and were likely to make zero progress all game, which meant we needed to look elsewhere, but everywhere else was surrounded by allies.
WK had been advocating a switch to PAT if the possibility presented itself, but the rest of the team was pretty wary about switching. Once we had a better look at the size of some of our rivals, we knew that we really didn't have any choice if we wanted to stay relevant to the game (which we did). HRE had also been having difficulties with their neighbours (Portugal I think?) and were keen to switch provided we moved too. Inca having been hit pretty hard didn't help matters. At the end of the day despite the problems (like having an ENORMOUS UNPROTECTED BORDER) it just made too much sense not to switch. TBH I still would have liked to have withheld steel from CUDDLE (I know I'm in the minority here) it just seemed folly to hand our new enemies tools to dismantle us (especially given our ENORMOUS UNPROTECTED BORDER). But I can live with the decision to play nice, particularly since I'm not involved in any other PBEMs whilst my team mates are. And then the game imploded for various reasons, mostly lengthy pauses and waning interest from most teams.
As a team I think we worked together pretty well, particularly when we had a clear objective to head towards (i.e. timing Hanging Gardens with an extra 2 cities, prebuilding cavs so we didn't die, getting Globe Theatre up and running when Nationalism came online) but when there wasn't a clear focus we slipped quite a bit. (I note the same general trend in my personal games.)
In terms of things we didn't do so well, as I see it the #1 error we made was not being anywhere near aggressive enough about claiming the final round of cities. I think this actually stemmed from our land divide with HRE early on in the game, where we ended up ceding a lot of the prime real estate between us, with the expectation that things would be just as good over towards ex-Korean territory (which ended up not being the case). In the end we got a solid ally with HRE, so maybe it wasn't all loss, but certainly from a civ playing perspective we missed a couple of prime city sites there. Then as mentioned above we basically ran out of land, partly due to the lack of incentive to expand (the land wasn't very good for the most part) and partly due to lack of focus (there didn't seem any clear need for another city *right now*). Put these two together and by the time we realised that we needed to have at least another 5/6 cities by the end game, there was only room for one more, with maybe another one if we fired off a culture bomb and started a war.
There was a lot of rampant paranoia throughout our team for a lot of the game, most of which was probably due to the lack of MP experience on the team, and consequent fear of those who do have a lot of MP experience. If we'd been wedged between players other than Krill, General Sunrise (and co) and Ruff, I wonder if we'd have viewed things a little differently. I understand it's not necessarily fair to use outside information to influence in-game decisions, but it's impossible to separate between the two when you're playing, even if it's only subconscious. (Note: I still think there are issues using hidden identities to play the game, particularly here at RB where we all create threads to discuss the game. But it *does* color the judgement of the players in the game.)
In hindsight, I think for what was essentially a Pick-Up Group we managed ourselves pretty well. We're all still here and checking in when we can, which I think says a lot about the dedication of our team. I'm pretty proud of the fact that we were all still standing at the end when so many other teams had to search for subs as people pulled out.
Thanks to Sunrise for hosting the game, and to the other teams for providing such good competition. I might not have liked all of what happened and I wish we could have seen it played out, but getting to play against opponent of this calibre was great fun. Most of all thanks to the RB community for being an environment where a game like this can take place. Everyone thinks it, but it doesn't get said often enough, this place rocks
For the team:
WarriorKnight, I completely underestimated the amount of diplo that would be involved and I have to give you my props for essentially dealing with all of that, to the other players you *were* the Ottomans
There is absolutely no way I could have done this, I'm terrible about replying to emails in a prompt and efficient manner With diplo playing such a huge part of the game due to the 'Survivor' style of the game, I think a large part of our survival was down to your efforts. Thanks also for manning the post during my many, many absences.Pegasus, I know you can't post here as often as you'd like due to pesky office net filters. But, those epic lunchtime gmail chats were always useful. Discussing the rationale behind approaches that seem obvious is never a bad thing. Sometimes it even leads to interesting avenues of thought and that can be invaluable. Remember, it's only paranoia if it doesn't happen. If it does happen it's foresight
Ad Hoc, Thanks for keeping an eye on things. You might not have posted as often as some of us, but when you did have something to say it was usually spot on, particularly in the pre-game discussion. It was also nice to know that someone was watching us play and ready to point out any obvious errors
Also thanks for the theme and the city names, Conan was a really cool idea even if it did make in-game diplo difficult at first contact Enough Talking!It's been an absolute pleasure civving with you guys, best of luck in your PBEMs (and RL, but we know what's really important right
)!