Hmm - it was perfectly possible to have balanced the economy with tax collectors and wealth but nothing in the GOTM rules said we couldnt run deficit; I checked.

Ok - I've finished this one off.

Load the save.

Set everything to Wealth. Now about 90 gpt down. .
Tax increases all round.

Improved services for all with 70 tax collectors and we are now running at a profit.

Culture at 88594. Press return

1. 1280ad The Brits retake a city from the nastly vikings. We are noe +12 gpt. Culture is 90598

2. 1285ad The Brit city flips to us. The vikings commit unspeakable atrocities on our army with their cavalry. Wea re at +20 gpt. Culture is 92602

3. 1290AD. Vikings burn a jungle city then head for home. +17 gpt. Culture is 94604

4. 1295AD Vikings make peace with English.- and with us. +21gpt Culture is 96606

5. 1300aD +21GPT culture is 98608.

6. 1305 We win by culture. 113 hours, 55 minutes and 21 seconds..... Save game. Upload.

Good game, finally finished!

Thanks everyone for playing it!

We are solid second which is absolutely not bad at all!

This was the first indication that the money was gonna be an issue.

I did nothing to rectify the situation as I saw no way of getting around it.

Sorry Col if I passed you the shitty end of the stick ;)

Good game all.

SGOTM7??

Melifluous

I have browsed through the Offa's thread already. Did not yet have a chance to look through Jeffelammar's team log though.

Indeed, we were beaten by a rather close margin. And certainly, we could have been first in this game, a matter of few issues which otherwise might seem not so important.

A few conclusions:

1) We waited way too long to build FP before starting assault on China. That was a very bad move. The benefit from FP was relatively small and did not help us in the long run. Certainly, we managed to gain some production and gold but it was a very minor thing. Location of FP was rather good indeed. Thus, we lost 10 turns early in the game and this moved our finish date probably 15 or 20 turns forward which makes for a difference with team Offa. Some are being too greedy and too attached to the multiplayer style. With AI, it is better to be a bit foolhardy. Well, I'm suffering from this as well since I cannot get a good COTM result recently while doing rather well with GOTMs.

2) Optimal handling of settler factories would have enabled us to do better. Actually, IMHO, we did better in the beginning. And much better. Seems like they have built capital in the wrong place whereas we did it right and expanded almost optimally.

3) They went straight for Babylon to get the Pyramids and did not attack Mongols and Carthage. France finishing the Pyramids made our life a bit more complicated. We were certainly able to get there sooner and wasted about 10 turns. Also, we were idling some 15+ settler for about 10 turns which did not do us any good as well. It was due to confusion, might do some work on improving the understanding of each others intentions.

4) There is really very few important things that were screwed. Certainly, Japan should have been attacked before Mongols. By the time we got there, they had pikes and were really pain in the ass to handle. While Mongols stayed backwards and had a poor terrain.

5) Carthage was actualy a rather good piece of land to grab but it was possible to wait with it because they would not have had better defenders with Feudalism.

6) Seems that Indian/Iro jungle was a major pain for all teams.

7) Even thinking and discussing about ToA was a bad idea. We did not need it and the benefit was very insubstantial for the whole game.

8) Need to grasp the general picture better and discuss more global issues.

9) Team Offa will be split for the next SGOTM. Long overdue imo. They are too strong.

These are my impressions, nothing more than that.

Strategically, looking back, I think we waited too long before attacking, that we overcommitted forces west and should have split our army. We had enough to have attcked Japan earlier. I usually attack too early and run out of steam but I felt this time we actually had a larger army than we needed although this was only apparent too late.

The position of thePyramids was critical in a whipping game. If it all came down to 10 or so turns then its easy in hindsight to see where we might have been faster - but given the variety of styles and playing strengths on the team, and that it was our first attempt at an SG, we didnt do too shabbily.

Thanks everyone.

Very nicely done.

The Pyramids were key... I think we could have beat you by a ways if we had taken them.

Like you guys, our team is certain that they could have done quite a bit better. I kind of hope for another game like this one to try out what we learned here.

For Anarres: Seems that after the final result is declared, it is quite possible to post an announcement on the front page. Second place is not bad, absolutely!

Congrats Team CDZ Team! 2nd place is awesome accomplishment! Offa was stacked and won 4 straight. They will likely be loaded again since Northern Pike just recruited Handy. I say you guys are the team to beat. Though Team Jeffelammar will look to shock the world again! [:p]

Jeff is right we screwed up the pyramids pretty bad. Personally I didn't learn how to rush a pop 5 for 80 shields till the end so that prolly extended our time by a couple turns too. :(
I am a much better warrior than culture maker so hopefully I will make an impact this time.

In retrospect I think it should have been a straight deity game on a smaller map. Originally this was the case with it set up as Babylon on a standard 5000 tile board. Unfortunately there was too much variation in where the pyramids went and it would have been a lottery. Also Babylon deity games have been played before.

It was interesting to see how many teams were within a few turns of the "Jason best" date. Considering the entire game was played in despotism (with the tile penalty) it does lead me to wonder whether whipping is actually more efficient than cash rushing.

I am in a little difficulty now as to what to suggest for future games. It appears that 100K games are tedious, and also AW games too. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

Whipping is efficient when there are many cities and lots of land. And Pyramids. And strong UU with cheaper than usual upgrade for C3C.

OCC is not tedious... Or 5CC. 300CC as it was here indeed cannot be played without MapStat. Not by more or less sane players.

Since it is SGOTM, you are essentially restricted to GOTM. But there were very peculiar medal series games which were never processed by AlanH. Like Babylon with Conquest victory, Persia with 100K, and Iro with conquest as well iirc all Deity level. The Balylonian game would have been rather hard and interesting especially remembering early encounter with Rome and lack of iron. Iro was also rather challenging while Persia was mostly limited to FP/Palace jumps all over the map. GOTM30 was a very sound setup as well. May be adding some condition like not building or capturing any cities not on home island?

Not that I know anything like akots but what about a Semi-OCC on arch?
OCC on that island but any other island is open tp settle.
This way naval operations come into play. Something we see very rarely in games.

How about a no-worker game :)
I like Whomps Arch-Semi-OCC thingy.

Or a game totally without iron or horses.

No lux games.

Despot Celts was cool. I whip a lot more in my SP games now.

200+ cities sucked monkey-nuts [:P]

Melifluous

Whoa Meli! No workers. Smoke and his javelin throwers? What a mess that would be! Love it.

You could also freak all the engineers out by doing a automated worker variant. I'm going to start one tomorrow on CFC. [lol]

I like a different arch variant - you can only settle the starting island.

It means you can make it as easy or as hard as you want by variying the size of the starting island. It also means you have to send huge navys out and I guess could lead to some very interesting city placements. ICS placement restrictions (if they exist) should of course be lifted for this game.

hey! i resemble that remark ;) actually, gozpel hosted a couple of those, and they are not too bad. as killer probably remembers, we won a DG game quite easily. imho, you should automate workers and turn on city govenors. that should drive people crazy [lol]

as far as sgotm varients, i think anarres hit the island nation thing right on the head. it would be very interesting to do a naval type game that way, especially with the English and all those free MoW's. Whatever it is, as sgotm3 proved, the rules need to be simple and clear. Arathorn's varient thread is also a good source of ideas as his are well defined.

oh yeah, congrats on an impressive finish [goodjob] the last few turns of this one really burnt me out, especially since we were down to 3 players at that point.

I had an awesome game once where the limitation was I could not construct a single building. That made for some fun and different play. (make sure flips are ON!)

2nd place guys! Congratulatoins, very impressive. That sure deserves a message on the portal page.

Fortunately. When I start to think about ship chaining, I feel dizzy and seasick. It is as bad as 300 cities. Fortunately, does not last that long, 30-40 turn maximum. The trick is to have enough ships and enough troops of course as well.

Interesting read.. finally read though it all today :)

I didnt see this one addressed:
When this happens.. just press num-lock, and it should work properly :)

SGOTM 5 was an OBC with an isolated start - but annares variant is a good idea for a few games time.
The problem with with automated worker/governor games is that they cannot be policed.
SGOTM 8 was indeed a luxury free map, and rather difficult. Unfortunately I have used it for GOTM43 - and put the luxes back in. I may do this soon, probably as an AWM.

I have read a couple of no worker games, and no building games IIRC - these too could be possible - though I may allow the starting worker and just disable captured and traded workers.

Forced archer rush games with no iron or horses is fine - but not really a variant. It's just a cheesy map.

Next game will probably be a 5CC space race. Not sure what level yet. Deity is OK but it tends to put off a lot of people from playing. I will probably allow each team to choose which civ they want to play as too. Give you something else to think about before you load the game.

Now that might even interest Kemal, Sid of space races!

Congratulations on a very creditable 2nd place,a result for which I take full credit.
I am now waiting for a vote of thanks but I shan't be holding my breath.
I'm looking forward to following your efforts in SGOTM 7 although you've got a real challenge in Handy's mob.AW is a bit special and the aforementioned are experts in the field.
Good luck,keep the agro to a minimum,I'll be keeping my beady eye one you shower.