[SPOILERS] Tatan, CFCJester and Nakor try their hand at Mansu of India...

[UnforcedError]

Looking forward to the next game, guys Now I'm off to read the other threads

[Ceiliazul]

Hey, I understand you are all spoiled now. With that new knowledge, and the advantage of hindsight:

-Do you think Zulu made the best move for their team by evacuating and attacking you guys?
-How do you think the game would have gone if Zulu stayed put and died a slow Khmerian death?

[CFCJesterFool]

Hey, I understand you are all spoiled now. With that new knowledge, and the advantage of hindsight:

-Do you think Zulu made the best move for their team by evacuating and attacking you guys?
-How do you think the game would have gone if Zulu stayed put and died a slow Khmerian death?

The first question is pretty hard to answer. I would say yes AND no. The reason I say yes is that at the time, for whatever reason, their mindset was that they couldn't win against Commodore (even though they had copper and he had archers early on). It is pretty hard to mount a defense when you already think you've lost. Attacking someone you believe you have a chance against is at least a start to a winning position. Classic case of positive mindset vs a defeatist mindset.

The case for no is quite obvious. You don't give up your starting cities and stay competitive with the rest of the players. You fall too far behind in tech and have no chance of winning the game. Since we had GLH they were able to recover their economy relatively quickly but even GLH can't make up for in effect starting over T115ish. I assume, ofc, the goal is always to win the game, not just play.

The second question is an interesting one. First off, I don't think the Zulu would have been defeated by Commodore. They defeated themselves. Commodore should have never been allowed to hook up iron. In SP (oh the horror), you really don't care if the AI has metal (they can easily trade corn etc. for copper/iron/ivory so lack of metal doesn't mean they don't have metal) but in this case, they knew where the copper was and that Commodore didn't have any. This begs the question of "Why would Commodore act in an aggressive manner WITHOUT heading straight to IW?" If they would have asked this obvious question, they easily could have prevented him from ever getting metal. Remember that they researched Math and were saving gold for Alphabet. The proper response would have been to tech IW->run 2 scientists asap->bulb Math->research Construction->game over for Commodore. Who cares about using a GS for Math bulb (normally considered suboptimal) when you can secure the SHORT term benefit of eliminating a known "irrational troublemaker". And no, I consider Commodore's play to be highly rational, especially since to win on a big map, you always have to take someone else's land. The sooner the snowball the better your chances.

As far as how our game would have gone hard to say. I think we would have done okay but definitely finished at the bottom. Not because of research or micro or even the terrible city placement (which was too long term focused) but because we didn't constantly build units. We had no unit pump and had terrible production (given the Slavery nerf) so running a farmer's gambit was a big mistake. Kinda too late to start whipping units once an invasion is already underway. Tbh, I think I would rather of had Pindicator's/Scooter's start than ours. Although I was worried about power graphs, possible threats etc., the fact we were basically alone made building military always seem like it could wait. Also didn't help that we never finished scouting westwards.

Not sure my opinion matters much but thanks for asking regardless.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks for the detailed response!

[Ceiliazul]

I'm brainstorming about an informal adventure from your starting position against AIs. (as India, not Zulu) I'm thinking variant rules like no building bronze units or settling the mainland* until AI declares on you. Should make for an uphill battle...

*includes mainland France.

I'll see about making a scenario available after the game ends. Not a numbered adventure, just for fun.

(I expect Xenu posting outrate over my post here in less than 10 minutes.)

[CFCJesterFool]

I'm brainstorming about an informal adventure from your starting position against AIs. (as India, not Zulu) I'm thinking variant rules like no building bronze units or settling the mainland* until AI declares on you. Should make for an uphill battle...

*includes mainland France.

I'll see about making a scenario available after the game ends. Not a numbered adventure, just for fun.

(I expect Xenu posting outrate over my post here in less than 10 minutes.)

For the most part, we didn't start building metal units until Pindicooter declared on us (iirc we had ~2 axes already built). We did upgrade a warrior to a spear once they attacked but that would be allowed by the rules.

The scenario sounds fun. You might want to add that the player has to refuse all demands from the AIs (to prevent exploiting the beg mechanic to get a 10 turn unbreakable peace treaty) unless it is a stop trading demand (which would naturally anger one of the AIs).

[Ceiliazul]

Xenu called this thread 'long dead? '

troll++!

[scooter]

Hey guys, wanted to stop by first and say thanks for sticking it out in that war, and thanks for not taking it too personally. It was a crazy gambit, and there's no way you could have seen it coming. Thanks for playing it out. I was interested in your answer to Ceil's question recently, so I hope you don't mind me replying to it.

Hey, I understand you are all spoiled now. With that new knowledge, and the advantage of hindsight:

-Do you think Zulu made the best move for their team by evacuating and attacking you guys?
-How do you think the game would have gone if Zulu stayed put and died a slow Khmerian death?

The first question is pretty hard to answer. I would say yes AND no. The reason I say yes is that at the time, for whatever reason, their mindset was that they couldn't win against Commodore (even though they had copper and he had archers early on). It is pretty hard to mount a defense when you already think you've lost. Attacking someone you believe you have a chance against is at least a start to a winning position. Classic case of positive mindset vs a defeatist mindset.

The case for no is quite obvious. You don't give up your starting cities and stay competitive with the rest of the players. You fall too far behind in tech and have no chance of winning the game. Since we had GLH they were able to recover their economy relatively quickly but even GLH can't make up for in effect starting over T115ish. I assume, ofc, the goal is always to win the game, not just play.

The second question is an interesting one. First off, I don't think the Zulu would have been defeated by Commodore. They defeated themselves. Commodore should have never been allowed to hook up iron. In SP (oh the horror), you really don't care if the AI has metal (they can easily trade corn etc. for copper/iron/ivory so lack of metal doesn't mean they don't have metal) but in this case, they knew where the copper was and that Commodore didn't have any. This begs the question of "Why would Commodore act in an aggressive manner WITHOUT heading straight to IW?" If they would have asked this obvious question, they easily could have prevented him from ever getting metal. Remember that they researched Math and were saving gold for Alphabet. The proper response would have been to tech IW->run 2 scientists asap->bulb Math->research Construction->game over for Commodore. Who cares about using a GS for Math bulb (normally considered suboptimal) when you can secure the SHORT term benefit of eliminating a known "irrational troublemaker". And no, I consider Commodore's play to be highly rational, especially since to win on a big map, you always have to take someone else's land. The sooner the snowball the better your chances.

As far as how our game would have gone hard to say. I think we would have done okay but definitely finished at the bottom. Not because of research or micro or even the terrible city placement (which was too long term focused) but because we didn't constantly build units. We had no unit pump and had terrible production (given the Slavery nerf) so running a farmer's gambit was a big mistake. Kinda too late to start whipping units once an invasion is already underway. Tbh, I think I would rather of had Pindicator's/Scooter's start than ours. Although I was worried about power graphs, possible threats etc., the fact we were basically alone made building military always seem like it could wait. Also didn't help that we never finished scouting westwards.

Not sure my opinion matters much but thanks for asking regardless.

On the defeatist mindset thing: At the point the decision was made to flee, the end was going to happen. We could have survived quite awhile I think, but we had maybe 50T left. Our capacity to tech from that position was gone (we were barely breaking even at 0%) with how few cities we had left, and it was only a matter of time before a huge stack of ballistaphants ran our axes over. We definitely never considered fleeing when the fight was still competitive. Our chances of winning were 0.00000 regardless of whether we stayed or left. When it's impossible to play for the win, I'm of the opinion you play to better your position as best as you possibly can. To us, that meant survive as long as possible. Since we could estimate pretty accurately how long we could survive on land (we figured around 50 turns), we knew if the invasion succeeded we could do way better than that. So that's the rationale, it wasn't giving up on the game, it was a genuine and plausible attempt to better our position in the game.

That said, I'm not sure such a strategy could ever work twice, since now people will keep an eye out for crazy stuff like that.

Also, I don't think you running a farmer's gambit was a mistake at all. Building GLH and running light on military while on an island was 100% the right call, it's insanely powerful when you're getting IC trade routes. I think the dotmap and city management issues (working mines over high food tiles for long stretches of time) were the main problems - when GLH finished you guys were dead last in food, which is usually the main barometer of how well you are expanding for the first 100T. However, the odds of a dying civ loading up and attacking you from across the ocean are so minuscule that I think building extra military to cover for it would have been a mistake, not running light on military. You can make the right decision and unluckily get a poor outcome, and when it comes to farmer's gambit on an island, I think that's what happened to you guys.

Anyway, thanks for the game, and I hope to see you guys in another game.

[Bigger]

Why haven't they defended their homeland with this army...

Yeah seems kind of weird...almost like they emptied out their homeland city. I'm guessing Commodore has crossbows. If he doesn't then maybe Scooter figured it would be easier to start over somewhere else. What is Commodore doing over there? I'll be interested to find out how Scooter even had time to think about sailing off with such a big standing army. Makes me think we're being trolled somehow (by Commodore that is...Happy Meal says it all from Scooter's/Pin's perspective).

Still don't understand what they think they will gain though (in the long run) but then again I play plenty of Civ so starting a new game after a loss is no big deal. I just don't think I could keep interest going if I already knew I was going to lose. They'll have an interesting tale to tell at the very least though.

ergh, so, Happy Meal was my chariot. sorry about that, I expected him to be used against Commodore, not you.

Nice thread .

[Nakor]

Thanks Scooter and Bigger!
We did our best and I wonder what would have happened should the Zulu's not have invaded us...
But that's for another time and place...