Speaker's super top secret thread for the purposes of world domination; Neener Neener

[Speaker]

Perhaps the other linchpin was that you never had the espionage graphs on team 2. If you saw all three civs zooming up the culture chart, perhaps you might have caught on from that, and retested or looked up the mechanic on Civfanatics or some such. I agree that it's a shame it had to end this way, you were in a leading position but still close enough that a showdown between you and team 3 would have been amazing to watch.

Nah, I don't think it would have. We thought our test was fine, and that they were mistaken. We knew they all were running culture, from the Top 5 cities, from the way that India's culture blew past mine in that border city, and from their lack of research.

Not having the graphs was a pain throughout, but I don't think it had any effect on the end game.

[Injera]

While I know this must be a disappointing morning, I'd like to say is that while many lurkers intially had a great deal of skepticism about the format initially, by the end everyone was eating crow. This has turned out to be an absolutely incredible game to lurk, and I'd wager to say there's quite a bit of enthusiasm for another team-based, sequential Pitboss like this one.

[Speaker]

I just wished when you had noticed they were still going for it you had asked.

We simply thought they were making a mistake. Obviously, we made the mistake.

[Sullla]

Again, getting the graphs would not have done anything. We knew that they were going for one cultural city per civ. We were convinced that that wouldn't work. You know, since I went ahead and tested it several months ago? There's also no chance that any of us would have done a search on CivFanatics. Why bother, when I went into a team game, set culture to 25k in three cities, ended turn, and nothing happened? That certainly appeared pretty definitive, plus the F8 screen indicates the exact same thing. As I said before, we were thrown off by a completely unrelated and incredibly obscure rule (that you cannot win any victory conditions in the first 20 turns). The good news is that we've all learned a little bit more about how Civ4 works as a result of this game.

We're all a bit bummed about not seeing the factories vs Kremlin lategame showdown with Team 3. If Team 3 had managed to raze Beijing, their heavy losses and war weariness likely would have let my team coast to an easy win by space. On the other hand, if that huge stack had invaded me 10 turns ago, our team likely would have been in deep trouble while all those factories were still under construction. We can all have fun playing the what if game and wondering what might have gone down.

This game really was a blast to play. The one downside was the personal attacks that popped up. There were a lot of rude things said at times, and lurkers taking some potshots that were a little bit unfair. I don't want to get into that, I'm simply hoping that we can avoid that in the future.

One thing that we got some flak over was people questioning the settings for this game. There were a lot of comments along the lines of "why start in medieval?" and "why are you playing in teams?" I hope that Speaker and I were able to demonstrate why team games and late-era starts can make for very interesting gameplay. Ancient solo games are great, but it's not all you can play.

Renaissance Team game next, anyone?

[darrelljs]

And something else I have to say. Back when we had the arguments over turn timing and pauses and the banter thread, I joined the chorus in taking some snipy potshots at Sullla and the team from the safety of the lurker thread. I apologize for that, I should have been the mature voice of reason and known better. Please don't take any offense at those comments, if you happen to go through and read them.

Ditto. Except that part about being the voice of maturity and reason...no one expects that from me.

Darrell

[Speaker]

Renaissance Team game next, anyone?

I was actually thinking that an Ancient Start Separated game might make for a fun Pitboss experience. But Renaissance could be fun too....but please not on Inland Sea.

[oledavy]

Renaissance Team game next, anyone?

Definitely interested.

Already been batting around the idea for another AW teamer around with Scooter, Gaspar and Seven. I think if we spent more time in the setup process and making sure we have cohesive teams, it could be a lot of fun.

EDIT: @Speaker and Sulla, this game turned into being a lot of fun. Thanks for introducing this pitboss variant on RB

[Sullla]

At any rate, a lot more to say, but need to actually finish reading all the threads first. Congratulations to all three of you on a game well-played. @Sulla, as your neighbor, I just wanted to compliment you on the magnificent game you played. I'm still bummed out that we never got to lock horns and duke it out, but eh, can't have it all.

Yes, well I certainly would like to tip my hat in return. I was incredibly impressed throughout this game at the play of everyone on Team 3, and oledavy/Dave in particular. Your insane investment of time was apparent throughout, from the dozens of logins per turn to the 2000 posts (!!!!!!) in the past eight months. Our duel at sea was very entertaining, one of the most refreshing challenges I've had in some time in this game (even if I still hate the coastal blockade mechanic!) Very, very well played. I'm known as a bit of a curmudgeon and don't give out praise very much to other players, so please take this as a deserved compliment.

Maybe next time we can have some of Team 3's players on our side? I'm impressed at anyone who can out-type and out-image my posts.

[ssmagus]

Just for you to know, Can you yell at me for starting this "Tell Team 1 that their culture thoughts are wrong", At 6.00 pm tonight, Sullla? Speaker can do it as well if he wants. :neenernee

[ironstar]

Gracious in defeat, great to see. Hope to see more games from you guys, your spoiler thread is always an educational read. Also a definite redemption for the late era team game! I hope we'll also see more of those in the future.