RB Pitboss #2 - Postgame Discussion Thread

[Twinkletoes89]

To further Darrell's point, while you were isolated and had faced down a major war, many argued that you had the game wrapped up because we knew what a poor state most if not all the other civs were back home.

You had most of your infrastructure unharmed by the war, you had not been pillaged mercilessly or lost a fully developed city or lost a ton of workers. We all could see from your opening moves that as soon as the opposing forces were out of the picture, you would recover the damage in double quick time with your micromanagement of your fast workers.

You mention Rome and the Ottomans as the two favourites at the time but they were still a long long way behind you. They had few cottages or well developed cities and I would be surprised if their research rate was on a par with India's even at the height of the war. Yes they had the 'potential' to be favourites, but with your civ only slightly scratched, you would soon be the dominant power again.

Also, Jowy put all his chips on trying to wipe you out, and as soon as Dantski guaranteed you a safe border it was obvious that you would be able to mop him up at your leisure as he had compromised so much by the attempt.

We weren't judging on reputation, we had a lot of turns to see just how much better players you guys were and we could see first hand in the threads just how much the war had cost the CoW and how under-developed their land was in comparison.

You may not accept it, but it really was a foregone conclusion as the banning of tech trading meant that there was no way they would catch up tech-wise or militarily.

[sooooo]

This game is the perfect illustration of the "snowball effect", of how small advantages in the early game become very large ones by the mid-game.

Speaker and Sullla had India + Elizabeth (how they were allowed this I have no idea) and were the only team to properly think about their opening. Too many other teams had sent their early settlers too far away, leading to a lot of wasted worker turns. Many other teams also failed to build enough workers early enough.

The early advantage led to other teams to be forced to go into attack mode, which was an all-or-nothing gambit (but had to be taken). Once this gambit failed, no civ other than India was left with an empire capable of winning the game.

[Selrahc]

The early advantage led to other teams to be forced to go into attack mode, which was an all-or-nothing gambit (but had to be taken). Once this gambit failed, no civ other than India was left with an empire capable of winning the game.

Inca and Ottomans probably were. Ottomans really did just donate a token force that they could easily afford, while building up a fully functional empire back at home. Inca were clearly just not involved in the conflict at all, and given a little more time could have been developed into a powerful economy to go with their expansion.

Holy Rome had more of a cost involved but also came out of events reasonably well.

Rome went into an economic death spiral after taking the Korean cities then having to pay large army maintenance. By the end of the Spullla war they were clearly struggling.

[Darkmantle]

Inca, Ottoman and Rome all had positions that could have resulted in very strong empires. The problem was that Ottoman and Rome both wasted huge amounts of resources of producing ancient era units for the attack on Slaze. Slaze then played total war with vassalage longbows and showed them the error of their ways.

For me the final turning point that made it absolutely clear India would win, was when Athlete attacked Slaze the second time. That consumed the resources of two large empires in a massive slaughterfest that put them both too far behind.

[sooooo]

Inca and Ottomans probably were. Ottomans really did just donate a token force that they could easily afford, while building up a fully functional empire back at home. Inca were clearly just not involved in the conflict at all, and given a little more time could have been developed into a powerful economy to go with their expansion.

Holy Rome had more of a cost involved but also came out of events reasonably well.

Rome went into an economic death spiral after taking the Korean cities then having to pay large army maintenance. By the end of the Spullla war they were clearly struggling.

Well, no, I disagree. I wasn't saying that those civs suffered because they committed too many troops to the war. I'm saying they played their openings without properly thinking about them, with poor city placement, poor build orders and poor worker actions. That led them into a big economic defecit before war was even a consideration. Before they even met Spullla in fact. I quote:

- We topped 100 in GNP this turn. "Best Rival" is... 40.

And that carried on. Check out the early GNP graphs or the demographic screens. That was where the game was decided and that was before there was even a plan to bash on the Indians.

[T-hawk]

Necro-hijack back to the previous off-topic topic... Here's a real-life version of the Civilization 4 opening screen!

http://www.neatorama.com/2010/09/03/time...astronaut/

[Rowain]

To quote Sullla immediatly after Dantsky signed peace:

In the Demographics, against all odds we have preserved a narrow lead on Food, and that's going to grow significantly in the next few turns as our cities start growing like weeds. The tradeoff is that our Production has been decimated, as every city works max food/commerce, but we can live with that. GNP is a surprising third, and that while running 0% research. I checked to see what the number would look like at break-even research (40% right now), and our GNP would go up to like 90 at that rate, so we're almost even with the leader still. As we regrow onto many many grassland river cottages (and hell, we're not even working our gold or fur resources right now!) we'll reclaim that research lead in no time. Just you wait and see.

So even after beeing invaded by 4 armies and losing a city they are still the top-gnp-nation so why should there have been any doubt that they will win the game??? Clearly as soon Mali signed peace the game was over.

@sooooo it was not only India+Lizzie. they also got a very nice green starting position with rivers. Not to forget that the Ottomans were forced into an early war against Byzanz and had to neglect their development for it.

[Sullla]

I'm still going to have to respectfully disagree with those who want to claim an "inevitable" victory for Speaker and myself. Rowain's post shows that we were the leading team 110 turns into the game. Great. That's a long way from "certain to win", however. I see this a lot when working with history: because events happened a certain way, people looking back in retrospect will start assuming that the result was predetermined. That the American Revolution was inevitable, that sort of thing. But then when you go back and look at what people at the time were thinking, you see a very different picture, and the whole notion of predetermination turns out to be incorrect. (Another good example is sporting events - people will look back at certain teams or games and think that one side was certain to win. But the fans sitting in the stands at the time didn't feel that way at all! As someone who watched every single game of Maryland's 2002 basketball national championship, believe me there were many close calls and escapes along the way.)

I simply don't think it's true that, "Clearly as soon Mali signed peace the game was over." At that point in time, we had exactly five cities and many, many enemies on all sides. What most of you keep forgetting is that the real genius of the conflict wasn't just defending, but successfully counter-attacking to cripple our neighbor Jowy without losing a single military unit. We've seen that, what, maybe once or twice in all of the Pitboss/PBEM games here? And Jowy was not in some sort of helpless position at that time; his Power rating was roughly 200k to our 300k. Jowy had Construction tech for catapults, same as we did, and had just been gifted eight Praetorians from Whosit. The one and only military advantage that we had were horse archers, and you could say that was more than countered by having those Praetorians. The fact that we were able to hamstring our neighbor and effectively double the size of our territory (5 cities to 8 cities) was the result of some outstanding tactical maneuvers. It was not foreordained, and Jowy could have prevented it with some different movements:

- What if Jowy's Praetorian stack was in a different location, instead of being caught out of position and never engaging in battle?

- What if Jowy simply has 2 spears in every border city? We do not raze Sparta then, or at least not without losing our whole horse archer stack.

- What if Jowy was willing to fight on rather than take peace? He could have wrecked our army, which meant we would have had to rebuild it rather than focus on economy after the war.

Even after we were successful in this war, how about some of the other key moves we made: what if we don't weasel 250g from other teams to finish crash-researching Currency? (That was simply gigantic from an economic perspective.) What if Whosit and Nakor eliminate Korea once their NAP runs out? They probably could have done it. What if Kathlete uses his army to defend Jowy rather than attack slaze? What if Inca became part of the other alliance of teams? (I think that could have been effected rather easily.) What if Dantski switches sides yet again? We were expecting another 5 or 6 vs 1 situation to materialize, and it was by no means unthinkable.

I know these are purely academic questions, but yes, it does irritate me when others post that the game was simply over and no one else had any chance to win. It cheapens what we achieved: "well no on else had a chance, you were going to win no matter what." Uh, no, not true. We won because we made some really good moves, and our diplomacy was significantly better in the second half of the game, keeping Korea and Romali as allies and our enemies constantly tied up with NAPs or guessing as to who we were going to attack next. Just remember how many people thought it was "inevitable" that regoarrarr would win the Pitboss #1 game, so there!!! :neenernee

On that note, here's Part Six of the writeup for this game: http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ4/RBPB2-6.html

[darrelljs]

Let me clarify...I don't think you had a winning position after the war like others have implied. You absolutely had a lot of work left to do, and that's really where you had your biggest advantage. You put way more into the game and as a consequence got way more out of it. Put another way, is there any NFL team playing at pre-season intensity that could be the Colts or Saints playing at play-off intensity?

Darrell

[Rowain]

I see this a lot when working with history: because events happened a certain way, people looking back in retrospect will start assuming that the result was predetermined. ... - people will look back at certain teams or games and think that one side was certain to win. But the fans sitting in the stands at the time didn't feel that way at all!

Well I did post that you will win the game as soon as Dantsky signed peace in you own thread so it is not an 'aftwerward assumtion'. In this case the fans (=me & others) have seen how the teams played and made the call which team was the clear best and will win. And as it turned out it was a correct prediction.

It cheapens what we achieved: "well no on else had a chance, you were going to win no matter what."

Wrong and in your assumption that I thought so rather offending. You were the clear favorite to win because you were such good players, because your Civ-skills shown in this game were so much greater than those of the other teams. So it was not 'you win no matter what' but a 'you win because you are clearly superior'