3rd Apolyton C3C Multiplayer Tournament

[notyoueither]

I'm not sure. We seem to have lost Mark.

[Edgar Newt]

I've also lost Sparta -- I can't seem to reach him.

Any thoughts?

[Arnelos]

Just sent Shogun Gunner another PM about finishing our match.

[sabrewolf]

all i see is people leaving the tournament because either they cannot establish communication or a connection. the latter can't be fixed that easy, but the first can...

an idea for better contacting would be for every member to mandatorily use an instant messenger.

there are several clients that know all major protocols (at least MSN, jabber, ICQ, AIM). i use SIM (http://sim-icq.sourceforge.net/)

[Edgar Newt]

I prefer not to use an IM -- I am almost always available by email and avoid IMs like the plague. The problem I have had with communication is not that I have been sending emails back and forth with my first round opponent, but have been missing each other -- its that I haven't had a response from him/her.

Emailing your anticipated schedule to your opponent should be sufficient. It just takes both parties being willing to actively participate.

Ed

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Shogun Gunner - when are we going to finish our match? PM me times and I'll try to be there.

Arnelos, yep. I can meet around 8 PM tomorrow, Thursday or Friday. Let's try for tomorrow.

[Beta]

Originally posted by Edgar Newt

Emailing your anticipated schedule to your opponent should be sufficient. It just takes both parties being willing to actively participate.

Ed

I agree.

Maybe we should include some simple tournament guidelines. For starters, how about:

If you enter the tournament, you commit to:

1. Making contact asap with your scheduled opponent.
2. Being 'reasonably' available to play the game.
3. Making every effort to get the game in by the tourney deadline.
4. Indicating to the tourney organizer asap if RL or tech problems are going to keep you from playing.

[MotownDennis]

Agreed.

If someone isn't going to respond to e-mail, then they aren't going to respond to IM's.

I personally hate MSN Messenger and the like.

[sabrewolf]

is there a webbased tool where you can enter times you'd be available? this should support several time zones... i could host this, if anybody has a tool and mark wouldn't want to have it on poly.

anyone here with civ3 ladder experience? how has communication been solved there?

[MotownDennis]

Yes, Sabre, actually I'm a Ladder member and the Head TD there.

We use e-mails and the forums that are linked to our main page to communicate. Nothing fancy.

The problem (as I see it) here is twofold:

1) Anyone who signed up was let into the tourney. I don't know most of these people and I'm not sure if the tourney organizer or other players know each other either. It's always easier when you are familiar with the players and know that they're reliable.

2) There is no penalty for blowing off the match or the tourney. With Ladder play, blowing off a match gets you a LOSS on your permanant record. This is why people don't drop from Ladder matches as soon as they see that they have bad land, no iron near, bad luck with RNG, or whatever.

I think the solution is to better screen potential players. Set up a tourney for established Apolyton members or people who others can vouch for. Sure, this means that Joe Noob won't get to partake in the fun, but it's either that or what we have now, which I think we'll all agree has been more chaotic than fun.


My 2 cents,

Mo D

[Beta]

Originally posted by MotownDennis

I think the solution is to better screen potential players. Set up a tourney for established Apolyton members or people who others can vouch for. Sure, this means that Joe Noob won't get to partake in the fun, but it's either that or what we have now, which I think we'll all agree has been more chaotic than fun.


My 2 cents,

Mo D

Agreed.

But lets also keep in mind that MP was new to a lot of us SP, pbem, and Demo game types. In that respect - the tourney has been useful - at least speaking for myself - of introducing me to a new and great way to play the game. That being said, some form of discipline is required to keep the tournament moving - and therefore fun.

[jeff76]

I'd like just to comment what is being said right now. It sounds like if me and McMeadows tried once to play, it didn't work so we said too bad, let's withdraw. We tried and tried, I took three full days to read all the documentation possible on how to solve our connection problem and couldn't solve it. It is, I think, better to withdraw now and leave the possibility to the organizer to add two other opponents or to organize differently than slowing down everybody, until the moment when, by chance, something is working. Of the possibily 100 times I tried to play MP since the beginning of the tournament, I connected 4 times (with random people on the net) and I can't figure out why...

Now let's be constructive...

What the organizer should do is to test the "connectivity" of the potential players. It takes it's time but that's the only way... besides, you all know, sometimes it works and sometimes not. Thanks to Gamespy.

Anyway... I hope to figure out what's the problem, to solve it if it is on my side and to come back when possible. I woudn't like people then to say...don't take him in the tournament, he's not reliable...

Jeff

[MotownDennis]

Jeff:

My comments weren't so much directed to you as they were to the players who don't seem to be responding to e-mails and PMs. I'm not sure why someone would enter a tourney if they aren't going to even attempt to play.

With regard to your technical problems, you might want to scan through this thread:

http://civ3players.proboards2.com/in...i?board=TECHIE

This is from our Ladder forum. Believe me, you're not the first to run into these types of problems, and we over at the Ladder probably have the most experience in dealing with such issues. I hope you find it helpful in solving your problem.

I understand that MP is just starting to really take off at Apolyton, and that's great. I just think that people should try to play a few online games to test their connection and to see if they really enjoy MP before entering a tournament. Those of us who are ready, willing, and able to play our games end up losing interest if the tourney isn't kept moving (and, sheesh, they're already talking about the NEXT tourney!).

Again, as someone with lots of experience running online C3C tourneys, my comments are intended to be constructive and non-accusatory. I'd just hate for MP interest here at Apolyton to wane because the tourneys aren't run and played efficiently.

Happy MP Civvin!


Mo D

[jeff76]

Thanks MoD

Just a question though. I have Win XP, and a ADSL modem of Belgacom, which I think uses Cisco routers. (the technician of Belgacom told me they do not use routers... should I believe this, because I foud online a news article form Belgacom talking about how great is the security since they use Cisco routers...)

Well : How can I find which Cisco router I have (except by asking those who tell me I have none)

And How can i open ports on my computers (where do I have to go). is it online, on the web page of Cisco?...

Thanks...

[MotownDennis]

Unfortunately, I'm probably more clueless about such things than you are. I fire up my game and it works (thank God!).

One of our Ladder admins is a real techie and could probably help you. I'll e-mail him and have him check this thread.


Mo D

[CanuckSoldier]

Hey Jeff,

Can you tell me the model of the ASDL modem that Belgacom gave/sold you? Belgacom seems to use 7 different brands. http://www.belgacom.be/private/en/js...sl_wiredmodems

It's possible but unlikely that any hardware that Belgacom uses at there end is blocking any ports.

However, some "modems" are not just plain modems they are modem/routers and may have a hardware firewall. So when you tell me the brand/model I'll be able to find that out.

The other possiblity is that you have not disabled the built in WinXP firewall. If you don't know how to disable it look here.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...&Product=winxp



Cheers CS

[Shogun Gunner]

I must say, I think I was two steps behind in this whole game. Arnelos really built quite a few stacks of doom in this one!!!

In reviewing the screen shots and my notes, I count four major mistakes that I made..... This isn't to take away anything from Arnelos. He had a great strategy which really worked. Even if I had not made the following mistakes, he still would have been a formidable opponent and very likely would have still won.

------------

I was Persia, Arnelos was Carthage. The AIs were Celts and Mongols.

Well, it started optimistically enough for me.... Being the Persians, I was very happy to find iron in my capital's radius.

Then it started going downhill

I was so lucky [/sarcasm off] to have the Mongols as my neighbor the north. I was even more lucky when they started agitating for concessions from me. Well, I had my iron, and my immortals and I was itching to kick a little ass. My plan was to expand my territory at the Mongols expense. Hopefully I would get a MGL to form an immortal army. I knew I had to prepare for the eventual showdown with Carthage.

[Shogun Gunner]

Well, the mongols demanded Masonary. Surely the must be bluffing as I sit here with a bunch of immortals. Being stingy and not thinking I say "NO!" No, you weren't bluffing Mr. Genghis Khan? Okay with me, eat some steel.

I was feeling very conifdent after taking the Mongol capital. I lost a few Immortals, but I had plenty, right????

Mistake Number 1

[Shogun Gunner]

Mistake Number 2

I pushed my advantage after taking the mongol capital. I saw a lot of empty real estate, no sign of Carthage and was feeling a strong military surge of adrenline. Yes, mistake number 2.

I pushed my tired troops, without catapult support to the north. One mongol city fell after another....

In retrospect, I would have been smarter to leave a Mongol buffer between me and Carthage....but hindsight is 20/20

[Shogun Gunner]

Well, I apologize for not having a screen shot of this, but I will try to describe.

North of Almurikh...north of the jungle, there is the last Mongol city Ta-Tu. I take it and destroy the Mongols. (the completion of Mistake number 2) Then...

Mistake Number 3

Even though we picked pangea setting, it looked like it was just the Mongols and myself on the "island". Well, I didn't explore two tiles that would have revealed a land bridge... You guessed it, right across the land bridge sat a Carthagian city controlling the land bridge. (I hope Arnelos has a screen shot of this area).

My tired Immortals sack Ta-tu and are immediately on the defensive when loads of catapults, ancient cavalry, carth's UU and swordsmen come pouring out of the landbridge. I miscalculated and the price was a human carthagian wave!!!!

Then Mistake Number 4
I don't know what happened here, but I tried to abandon Ta-tu, giving myself two turns to allow the abandon selection to take place (I know there is a one turn delay). Well, to my surprise, the city is not abandoned after one turn. My troops had already fled heading to the jungle. I abandon again, but Arnelos was able to navigate his stack of doomTM into Ta-Tu.

[Shogun Gunner]

The Carthage stack of doom faced no serious challenge as it slowly made it ways through the jungle. The tired Immortals didn't turn to fight as they ran, dropping their iron weapons for safety in the border Persian cities.

I did my best to pop-build troops, build city walls, man the defenses, but it was no use.

First the old Mongol capital fell
Then one persian city...then another....

[Shogun Gunner]

What could I do. King Arnelos of Carthage was too strong...

Just what I needed, he formed an army of ancient cav...

[Shogun Gunner]

well, it was over...obviously.

My last strategy was building a bunch of boats and trying to pay a visit to Brennes of the Celts to tell him how bad of man his neighbor Arnelos was.

A few fierce naval battles with casualities on both sides did nothing to change the outcome. My spearman landed near Celtic lands, but never made contact.

I surrender to the superior opponent. Congratulations Arnelos. I enjoyed playing you. You are skilled and a fun opponent. You made a few chats that made me laugh during the game. Good luck in the tournament!

[Arnelos]

Well, Shogun Gunner and myself played the rest of our match tonight. We ended in 150 A.D. with his concession the turn after I think I killed much of what remained of his army and navy and took one of his core cities (and was 2 turns from his capital).

From what I can remember that took place tonight:

First, I had built my road all the way to the edge of a jungle that had seperated the Mongols and Shogun Gunner's Persians. At this point, I needed to either build a road through the jungle or I needed to load my catapults on galleys and land them somewhere my main army could meet up with them. Since I had been sitting on Monarchy for a good 15-20 turns without switching governments because I was pop-rushing units for the war and I knew it would take quite some time to build a road through the jungle and Shogun Gunner was unlikely to engage me in that time (since he was busy poprushing immortals, catapults, and galleys), I went into Anarchy. At the time I entered anarchy, I had been making only 6 gpt at 100% tax under despotism because of the sheer size of my military.

Seven turns later when I finally came out of monarchy, I had completed a road through the jungle, moved most of my army to the front lines, had a sizable fleet defending against anything Shogun Gunner might try at sea, and was ready to strike.

Shogun Gunner had 2 northern border cities, both walled and both stocked with a good number of immortals, spearmen, an archer or two, and some catapults. Unfortunately for him, the area had a lot of rivers (courtesy of the jungle to the north, I'd guess) and he didn't have a road directly linking the cities (his road curved around through another city to the south across a river). My force was situated on my new jungle road directly in between his two cities and I decided to strike the more western of the two (since the Eastern one I could watch with my galley fleet and otherwise ignore it until the other half of his army moved to engage mine).

I think he anticipated what was coming when he moved a spearman on a mountain and saw my main army and the jungle road. I think I noticed him pull out a number of units from the Eastern border city, probably to shore up defenses of the Western border city. Don't really know, though.

When I attacked, I think my stack was something in the range of about 40 units (not including the workers), including Numidian Mercenaries, Swordsmen, Catapults, and Ancient Cavalry, though much of my ancient cavalry was running about doing recon. and skirmishing in the wilderness to make sure I didn't get flanked.

I moved my main army south to the jungle tile (with gems) directly opposite his Western border city and he shelled me with I think 3 catapults. I then moved across the river to a flood plains tile the next turn (so I was out in the open). He attacked, starting my Golden Age. Because I had so many catapults stacked with numidian mercenaries in the stack (along with swordsmen and ancient cav with slightly less defense, but still decent), he lost the bulk of his attacking immortals and the few that succeeded were wounded. On my turn, I bombarded his city and took down the city walls, though almost ALL of my other catapults missed. I then attacked with my swordsmen and killed quite a number of spearmen and immortals. With the last attack, I used my elite swordsman to take out his archer and I got my only Great Leader, Hamical.

I ran Hamilcar north along with 2 ancient cavalry (to be met by a third from the core) and made an ancient cavalry army, a true terror to behold with the blitzing ability.

With his city razed (it was only 1 pop when I finally beat it), I built a fortress with my workers and healed my wounded units while waiting for the Ancient Cav army to catch back up (which didn't take long). I also grabbed the 3 (?) catapults I captured and added them to my stack.

Meanwhile, both of us were amassing galleys for a naval battle in the waterway between our subcontinents. He attacked my stack of 3 galleys with 2-3 galleys and 2 of mine survived (one was promoted to vet). Now in my Golden Age and in Monarchy, I used most of my production at this point to build galleys and send them south to make sure he couldn't break through and land very much on my subcontinent (though it was defended by a reserve force including several swordsmen, numidian mercenaries, and 2 ancient cav).

With my main army rested and the ancient cav army caught up, I moved on his next city, which I took with ease. This was when he first saw my ancient cavalry army. He then loaded at least 1 spearmen (don't know if there were any more) on his fleet of 3 galleys and moved them toward the southern edge of my subcontinent (a long way from any of my or the Celts' cities, but on my landmass none-the-less).

I moved my main army south and he moved his force from the Eastern border city (which I had now cut off) to retake the city I'd just taken. He also moved some immortals to a hill I'd occupied with an ancient cav and retreated my ancient cav (scouting unit).

Last turn of the game: I used catapults to reduce his 2 immortals on the hill to 1 hp each and the 2 immortals in his core city I had under siege to 1 hp each. I ran another catapult north and reduced his spearmen of the northern detachment by 1 pip. I then sent the Ancient Cavalry army north and bowled over his northern detachment, capturing another 2 catapults and moving them south to join my stack.

Also on the last turn, I attacked his 3-galley force off of the shore of my subcontinent with my 5 galleys and destroyed it. I think I had 2 galleys left down there at the end, 1 with 1 hp and the other with 2 hp. Thankfully, that wasn't all the navy I had, as my reinforcement navy of another 4 galleys was headed south and ready to resume the blockade of his Eastern shore.

As you can see from the screenshot, at game end I was within a few tiles of his capital, the next likely target.

---------------------

I'd like to say that this MP game was actually a lot of fun. I'd also like to say that if the game were played on anything but slow, it would have been absolutely impossible to manage my military advance in the last turns of the game. There were simply too many units doing different things to manage.

As for Shogun Gunner, you played quite valiantly. When you wiped out the entire Mongol civilization in the first half of the match and started marching toward my core and I knew you had at least 1 galley, I was QUITE afraid that the game might end in my demise rather than yours.

You also did a good job of using the time my delay trying to trudge through the jungle gave you to prepare a defense. By the time I got there, you had a sizable number of immortals, spearmen, and catapults waiting for me, along with a horseman here and there. I had good reason to fear what you might be capable of when I moved my main army onto the flood plain tile and let you attack me there with your immortals. If you had gotten more lucky than you did, I might still have won that battle, but it could have slowed down the next battle and given you time to prepare something else while I rebuilt lost units (assuming I'd bother, which I might not have... depends).

You also put up a valiant effort to break down my galley blockade and open the sealanes for flanking my army by perhaps invading my own subcontinent. Your galley forces (and seemingly rather good luck in galley battles) had me worried enough to be keeping a reserve force of troops in my core rather than using it to reinforce my main army (since the good 15-20 tiles of road in between would make sending something home to defend myself if you made a successful landing near to impossible). I was constantly afraid that the few galleys I saw might only be a vanguard for a larger force of galleys you might have poprushed just behind it.

All in all, it was a good match. Now it's probably my turn to get beat by MoTownDennis.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
You guessed it, right across the land bridge sat a Carthagian city controlling the land bridge. (I hope Arnelos has a screen shot of this area).

My tired Immortals sack Ta-tu and are immediately on the defensive when loads of catapults, ancient cavalry, carth's UU and swordsmen come pouring out of the landbridge. I miscalculated and the price was a human carthagian wave!!!!

Here ya go. Utica is on a hills tile, btw. I consider myself VERY lucky to have received a chokepoint that valuable. It would have helped A LOT had you ever made it that far and tried to attack me by land rather than sea.

[Arnelos]

I don't think Shogun Gunner ever did get to see my core, so here ya go. The image is from 875 BC when I was still prebuilding the Statue of Zeus, so a LOOONG time ago:

[Arnelos]

70 B.C., the turn I came out of Anarchy and made my move so I could start my Golden Age and finally win this long game.

The fact that I had my army between his two border cities may or may not have been critical, depending on whether he correctly anticipated that I was going to dive for the Western one and just isolate and blockade the Eastern one, leaving it to rot for all I cared. I COULD have built another bit of road to the east and taken that city so I could use galleys to move around my troops more quickly (assuming he didn't sink said galleys, of course) or simply headed south from that angle instead of to the West.

The thing I found interesting is that you didn't pillage the two tiles of that jungle road you built yourself when your immortals were retreating south. That would have forced me to rebuild them and delayed my catapults another good 4 turns (2 for moving my workers, 2 for building the roads). That may not seem like a lot, but on the last turn you could have even goten in a free trn of bombardment on my troops while I was rebuilding the road across the river from you.

In your defense, if I'd gone East rather than West, leaving that road in place would have allowed you to flank my army if you had any horsemen either cut my reinforcement road or use it yourself to run north and threaten my cities while most of my army was burried deep in your territory. I suppose you were also keeping the road around because you'd done so much poprushing that the gems luxury was critical to keeping your cities out of unrest.

[Shogun Gunner]

I had Karakorum guarded more heavily... I didn't want to just give Sidon away however..so some troops were there.

I thought this was indicative of the game for me. You were attacking more homeland, but you had the interior lines, not me. My the geography and city layout, I did have to divide my army.

If I was lucky enough to destroy your attacking armies without a mortal blow to my country, perhaps only losing a city or two, I might have had a chance....

My key mistake was totally destroying the Mongols. I should have built up my kingdom and military a bit more before making contact with you....

[The Slayer]

, sorry for being an "intruder", but, Arnelos, you're good!!!

One question : how did you get those cataputs into the jungle, eh?. Modified scenario? Which scnerio are you using here, tournament, quick civ or the standard game?

What is the difference between normal and a tournament game?

Also congrats to the another winners!

[sabrewolf]

slayer: he wrote that he took workers with him and built a road. wheeled units can cross jungles and mountains if they're roaded tiles!

to the two players: nice game and great AARs!

i hope the other games are posted soon