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

[Sullla]

Well, I'll be damned. Talk about being screwed over by an incredibly obscure rule. I completely agree that we should *NOT* have been told about that mechanic. What a bummer.

Obviously we would have been significantly more aggressive otherwise. I don't see how we could be faulted for literally testing the mechanic, finding that it didn't work, only for the failure to be due to a completely separate issue involving the first 20 turns.

Live and learn, I suppose.

[Speaker]

Yes, your test misfired. The detail you ran afoul of is that the game does not check for any victory conditions in the first few turns, up to turn 20 I think. That is to let the player move the first settler before settling, so you don't lose by conquest for not having any cities at that point.

OK, that makes a lot more sense. So it's a problem with the test parameters, not with the way the game calculates the victory conditions in a real sense. I should have realized that, since obviously they just got 3 legendary cities this turn, and the game recognized it as soon as the turn was ended.

As Darrell said, there was much MUCH debate in the lurker thread over whether to tell you that. The consensus always came out as "no" because of the implicit spoiler - telling you so would have implicitly leaked the fact that Team 2 was going for it.

To be clear, we knew for months that T2 was going for a cultural victory. We just simply didn't think that it would work, which is why we made no effort to stop it. We didn't feel the time crunch because of our messed up test.

[Hesmyrr]

T-hawk worded that rather poorly. The major problem was obviously that we would be influencing the game by telling you of the mechanic problem, which is what lurker should avoid at most cost. (by mechanic I meant 'hardware', or you know what I mean)

[Speaker]

T-hawk worded that rather poorly. The major problem was obviously that we would be influencing the game by telling you of the mechanic problem, which is what lurker should avoid at most cost.

I understand the issue, and I definitely think discretion was the proper course.


This is hilarious, by the way.

[Ceiliazul]

T-hawk worded that rather poorly. The major problem was obviously that we would be influencing the game by telling you of the mechanic problem, which is what lurker should avoid at most cost.

Um... careful when disparaging the elders. I don't think the "mechanic problem" was the issue at all.

To wit:

Posting about the mechanic isn't inherently verboten, except that the act of posting leaks that the mechanic is important.

[Sullla]

No, we should not have been told about a mistake in the test I did. The job of lurkers is to watch the game, not influence it. You all made the right call. Nice job everyone.

[Ronald]

The funny part about it is that we knew what they were doing, and we thought we had tested it. I guess we messed up our test or something. C'est la vie.

My greatest respect for how you take this unexpected loss. Team 2 played a crazy variant in the true spirit of RB games.
You guys played a wonderful game with lots of superb documented insights about both strategy and tactics. I enjoyed reading your posts.
It is really sad that the game is over now.
I, and many other lurkers would have also looked forward to an epic clash of two completely different economic models (factories + power plants versus Kremlin + Cristo) but unfortunatley we can't have all.

Thanks for coming up with this new game setup of late start and teams. I will miss my daily read of the progress in this game.
I am sure you also will enjoy oledavys take of the events during the last weeks. One of the best reporting I have ever read.

Hopefully you and Sulla will propose a new game soon!

[T-hawk]

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.

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.

[darrelljs]

I knew you guys wouldn't have wanted us to say anything. I just wished when you had noticed they were still going for it you had asked. As novel as this ending was I would have enjoyed a shootout between you and T3. I know I'll never play in an AW game with culture or space enabled. Even if you knew the mechanic just having to drop everything to deal with someone going for it is disruptive of what I at least would be looking for in a game like this.

Not bashing T2 here...

Darrell

[oledavy]

I don't see how we could be faulted for literally testing the mechanic, finding that it didn't work, only for the failure to be due to a completely separate issue involving the first 20 turns.

While we did test the CV in WB to confirm the possibility, we also worked off a simple logic test: "If Team #2 has devoted hundred of hours to this game going for this victory condition, it's reasonable to assume they tested their presumption to the point of redundancy to ensure it would work." We assumed that they knew what they were doing, and wouldn't be wasting their time if they weren't sure it was possible.

I'm still a bit at a loss for words at all this. You three caused me multiple aneurisms as I tried to figure out why you guys weren't attacking Team #2. Turns out, I actually nailed why back in early April during a rant after a particularly bad turn:

3. They realize, but think that it won't work and therefore that there is no rush to invade. This is probably the least likely - it took us one WB test to confirm that the victory is possible. This is Speaker and Sulla we're talking about, their attention to detail is legendary. They had to have tested this in WB. Even if they decided not to, there is a simple logic test here. The more I look back on the game, the more I think Team #2 was planning to win a culture victory from the very beginning - from the wonderwhoring to the odd research path, it all adds up. Even the "Retrospectives Thread," which I wrote off at the time as them giving up on the game, is probably subtle misdirection on their part, as they're obviously still in it to win it at this point. The logical test is this: Lewwyn, ASM, and Luddite, when he was with the team, are all very competent players. There is no way they would try this if it wasn't going to work. A noob might make that mistake, but not them. If I was basing my entire game plan around as assumption on a game mechanic, I would test and confirm, and test to the point of redundancy to make absolutely sure that assumption was correct. If Team #1 has written off the culture victory because they don't think it will work, that's just hubris.

Sorry if it rubs any of you the wrong way, but the above post was written in a lot of passion. It was really frustrating watching your power graphs continue to be flat even as Team #2 inched closer and closer to victory.

I think actually, that may have been the only major mistake your team made - underestimating Lewwyn, Luddite, and ASM as opponents. Not saying I wasn't guilty of that multiple times along the way as well (just ask Thoth ). The consequences of my moments just weren't nearly as costly.

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.