Blasts from the Past: Looking back on the game

[Kloreep 10]

Pre-gameplay strategy The start of Apocalyptan decision making.

 

3840 BC: The Year We Make Contact We all pass the pre-turn time musing what to do with our AI neighbor. Then Harovan plays and comes back to tell us we got plopped next to another human - something we all assume, at the time, to be unfortunate.

 

3800 BC: Heady Days In the wake of contact with the Swine, debate still rages about what to do.

I got a good laugh from Andydog's Post #44 in this thread:

Guys, regarding the map check - Solver is not someone who is sloppy. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if he put every player next to another, sniggering away to himself as he did so.

IIRC Solver merely checked the generated map, he didn't change it, but this is still a great image. :)

 

Imperialist Swine Diplomacy thread The initial action in this thread occurs about here in the timeline, as the team briefly debates alternatives to war before agreeing that's pretty much where we're headed.

 

OODA-Loop Theory Con clues in those not already "in the loop," so to speak. Just in case you're wondering why you will occassionally see chants of "OODA OODA OODA" in this forum.

 

3640 BC War support builds as we scout the Swine.

 

3400 BC: The Year We Taste Hope (and it is Coppery) An exciting turn for us; in the span of a single thread, Rhoth informs us that the graphs show the Swine losing a warrior, and we finish research on Bronze Working.

 

3360 BC: The Year We Make More Contact Another full turn. We debate attacking a Swine scout, make contact with the Vikings, and Rhoth presents the first sims for what will become our plans to make war on the Swine.

 

Vikings Diplomacy Thread The first two pages are from pretty soon after contact, and we debate how to engage the Vikings. Then...

Well, even I'm surprised how little is in this thread, and I was on this team during the game.

 

Operation Squeeze Bacon Due to renaming, the original name for this thread is lost to history. It began with Rhoth creating a separate thread to discuss longer-range plans based off the sims he was beginning to play with. It quickly snowballed into a concrete plan, for which the thread is now named. It was the central thread for all our planning, economic and military, up until somewhere in the middle of our siege/choke on the Swine.

 

3160 BC: The Year We Got Lucky As our one-city civ gears up to commence Squeeze Bacon, our research is accelerated when we get The Wheel from a hut.

 

3080 BC and 3040 BC: The Years The Swine's Bad Luck Continues We freak out about the Swine's scout being in position to see our incoming warriors. Our ultimate solution? I can only recommend that should you find yourself in a similar position playing civs, you pray to the gods Sid Meier and Soren Johnson to send you a Lion.

 

2760 BC: The Turn We Declare War Nothing of great interest here, but how could I leave out our DoW turn? :)

 

 

 

That's through to our initial invasion of the Swine. Maybe I'll post more, or maybe someone else will have posted more before I get to it. I'm fast approaching the point at which my activity on the team fell off, post-Swine, anyhow.

[Rhoth 34]

Ah, memories. :)

[conmcb25 11]

My vision even astounds me at times:

 

(Although at first I envisioned an archer rush)

 

I believe it appears to be a group of SMACX-ers.

 

They are an unknown quantity. We need to assume they will be hostile and backstab.

 

Let Beta lay diplo games with them.

 

In the meantime get ready for a warrior/ archer rush to if nothing else choke them so we get to expand and not they. The goal being deprive them metal, and hope like hell we got some nearby, which should be a pretty good chance based on our sh1tty overall start resource wise.

 

Rush and choke, until we can sledgehammer them. Let Beta play nicey nice till we get the archers built.

[conmcb25 11]

And you missed the 3320 Thread which IMHO was the thread that won the game for us. Beta brought up a warrior rush vice the archer I had been pushing for.

 

http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?2652-Turn-17-3320bc

[Beta 13]

:)

 

That and the quick Mukata strike were my warmongering contributions. :gunsmilie:

[Beta 13]

And you missed one of the high lights, er probably low lights ... from turn number 1...

 

The Great Haro and Rhoth Password Dust Up!

 

Edited September 8, 2010 by Beta

[conmcb25 11]

Interesting read, I can't remember why but I wasn't very active early, I think I was working some nights and weekends trying to finish up my last project at Indy.

 

Also an interesting write up about our last Demo-game at Poly. I value Locutus's analysis but sometimes I think he wears his SP glasses just a bit too much

 

Back to this game, after skimming all of the other Teams forums a bit I have two things to say:

 

1. To a variable degree I think the other three teams had a bit too much of an SP mindset. Note I said to a variable degree. That's a very general statement that can be easily contradicted based on this or that micro fact, but overall I think the tendency was there.

 

2. OODA clearly works. We drove this game to a large extent. We Observed, Orientated, Decided and Acted quicker and more effectively than the other teams. IMHO.

 

Back to Demo-games overall, I am now firmly convinced that less teams equals better. All of the other teams had very little depth over the long term, more teams just continues to spread out the player base, and increase the problem IMHO. The next time someone suggests a huge demo-game with 11 teams, I am going to run as fast as I possibly can.

[donald23 21]

Back to Demo-games overall, I am now firmly convinced that less teams equals better. All of the other teams had very little depth over the long term, more teams just continues to spread out the player base, and increase the problem IMHO. The next time someone suggests a huge demo-game with 11 teams, I am going to run as fast as I possibly can.

Please keep a camera rolling:

I'd like to start a new MPDG with at least 10 teams participating!

[conmcb25 11]

Please keep a camera rolling:

I'd like to start a new MPDG with at least 10 teams participating!

 

I was referring to the Warlords Demo-game at Poly, that I don't believe ever made it out of the ancient age. Several of the original 11 teams had participation issues, the turns played very slowly and everyone else got bored and stopped participating.

 

There is way too much ADHD around here to make a large game work.

[donald23 21]

I was referring to the Warlords Demo-game at Poly, that I don't believe ever made it out of the ancient age. Several of the original 11 teams had participation issues, the turns played very slowly and everyone else got bored and stopped participating.

 

There is way too much ADHD around here to make a large game work.

Just kidding with you, though I would like to see the movie of you running as fast as you can

 

Although I have never played a DG before this one, I do agree with you that the number of teams should be limited. Precisely for the reasons you mentioned.

[conmcb25 11]

No worries.

 

I just know you are new so I wanted to share the background, in general the more teams you have the more "turn players" get spread out. And the less chance you have of ever getting close to a finish.

 

Some disagree with me so I have a team planned for the First CIV V MPDG. Its going to be called the Do Nothings, and we are never going to play the turn. Then we will see what the "Its only a game, and you can't dictate to a team that they need to play the turn" crowd feels about that

[Unorthodox 12]

By demogame standards, this thing moved lightning swift from start to finish. I don't think it's so much # of teams as some VERY kick ass turnplayers on all teams this time around. We probably could have supported ONE more team, as Beta would have been playing turns here if Rhoth had formed a team on his own. Otherwise, we would have needed someone else to step up.

 

Still curious if the Swine can be killed yet or not.

 

Let's pray Civ V has some kind of sequential pitboss styled setup...

[conmcb25 11]

By demogame standards, this thing moved lightning swift from start to finish. I don't think it's so much # of teams as some VERY kick ass turnplayers on all teams this time around. We probably could have supported ONE more team, as Beta would have been playing turns here if Rhoth had formed a team on his own. Otherwise, we would have needed someone else to step up.

 

Still curious if the Swine can be killed yet or not.

 

Let's pray Civ V has some kind of sequential pitboss styled setup...

 

As seems to be the usual now a days I disagree, the more teams you have, the more the turn-players would get spread out, and the less chance you have of finishing, we had three turn players on this team, one of which completely disappeared.

 

There isn't a infinite amount of turn-players, and just because you have more teams doesn't mean more turn players are going to show up.

 

I am going to stop that discussion right here and now, because its just so much common sense, I still can't fathom why folks just don't get it.

 

We had a small game at a relatively small site and it went well. Rhoth forms his own team and starts working a job at the beginning of this summer (as the 5th teams turn player) and it could have been a lot different.

 

Read the forums, 2 of 4 teams had very little participation and no apparent back up, so from the get go we had a 50% chance of some RL problem messing up the game. Rhoth leaves and forms his own team, and has no back up and Harovan leaves early just like he did leaving beta with no back up. Now we have five teams and 4 have no back up. Now we are up to an 80% chance of failure. Its basic simple math and an estimate but the concept is clear to me anyway.

Edited September 8, 2010 by conmcb25

[Rhoth 34]

I almost did form my own team at the beginning, when it was only SC and Apoc. Then Viking stepped up with his team, and then the Swine formed. So I stuck to my original plan of being in Apoc.

[Beta 13]

I almost did form my own team at the beginning, when it was only SC and Apoc. Then Viking stepped up with his team, and then the Swine formed. So I stuck to my original plan of being in Apoc.

 

 

Or I might be reading different after action reports right now......

[Unorthodox 12]

As seems to be the usual now a days I disagree, the more teams you have, the more the turn-players would get spread out, and the less chance you have of finishing, we had three turn players on this team, one of which completely disappeared.

 

There isn't a infinite amount of turn-players, and just because you have more teams doesn't mean more turn players are going to show up.

 

I am going to stop that discussion right here and now, because its just so much common sense, I still can't fathom why folks just don't get it.

 

We had a small game at a relatively small site and it went well. Rhoth forms his own team and starts working a job at the beginning of this summer (as the 5th teams turn player) and it could have been a lot different.

 

Read the forums, 2 of 4 teams had very little participation and no apparent back up, so from the get go we had a 50% chance of some RL problem messing up the game. Rhoth leaves and forms his own team, and has no back up and Harovan leaves early just like he did leaving beta with no back up. Now we have five teams and 4 have no back up. Now we are up to an 80% chance of failure. Its basic simple math and an estimate but the concept is clear to me anyway.

 

I'm not arguing with you. I'm saying this game's speed was dependant on the turnplayers. We had more than 3 turnplayers on this team. I would have happily been a backup, and Kloreep has been a turnplayer in the past as well. I wasn't needed, and went Neutral, and we lost two around the great fubar no killem swine deal. (not surprising, really, the game appeared dead)

 

I'll even go so far as to say Donald may have stepped up if asked/given the chance. Judging strictly from what I've seen from him in PBEMs.

 

What I am saying is # of teams in a demogame doesn't matter. You can have 12 teams, provided there's actually turnplayers to cover all of those. Next demogame should be "how many turnplayers do we really have?" not "how many teams do we want?"

[Beta 13]

What I am saying is # of teams in a demogame doesn't matter. You can have 12 teams, provided there's actually turnplayers to cover all of those. Next demogame should be "how many turnplayers do we really have?" not "how many teams do we want?"

 

Excellent idea!

[conmcb25 11]

The number of teams does matter if we had twelve teams (assuming a total of 36 turn players or at least 3 per team for back up, which is never gonna happen) this game would not have been close to being complete right now, and probably would have shortly died a slow and painful death w/ the release of Civ V.

 

So the number of teams DOES matter as well as the number of turnplayers.

 

Our disagreement revolves around responsibility, you think any ADHD 11 yr old who wants to have his own demo game team should. I don't care if he starts a team as long as he has at least 2 alternate turn-players.

 

That's the key difference in our opinion I believe. Thats why the first DemoGame we have here for Civ V, I am going to have the Do Nothings, and we aren't going to play our turn, running down the clock every time. Because its might right to do that, right? I mean who gives a sh1t about the rest of the players?

[ZargonX 10]

Gentlemen, you are arguing about the future when this thread is clearly about the past. Let us keep these discussions for elsewhere and elsewhen :)

[Unorthodox 12]

The only thing I've ever said is anyone that wants to join a team should be allowed to do so. I don't believe in rejecting people from playing.

 

Is 3 turn players per team enough? I don't know. PERSONALLY, I've always tried to advocate everyone get involved with the turnplaying when I start a team. That's the unrealistic ideal, I realize. My only point is that we can't just say "only 4 teams". Especially if it ends up the same teams as always.

 

 

 

You want to be an ass and sabotage a demogame, sure, it's your right to make an ass of yourself.

[GeoModder 14]

In the Viking team, we got around with 2 turnplayers: The Viking himself and me as backup.

[fed1943 11]

Actually SC began with 4 players. Then, 2 of them became less active for different reasons.

And we usually play more "chat room style" than "turnplayer style", as can be seen from our former private forum.

 

But sure the first question is how many players (players=they who play) are around and probably will stay.