Nominated Players Tourney, Round 3 (MP)

[cavebear]

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by Nap Bonaparte on 06-16-2000 12:07 AM</font>
Just wanted to bump this topic back to the top with the results of our third round game. Crustacian's schedule did not allow him to play. We had a three player game with Arii, Markus, and myself. Markus got off to a slow start, evidently having bad luck with huts and corruption, so he trailed behind Arii and myself the entire game. Arii and I were running neck and neck demographically and on the power graph, but Arii had just finished a super science city with Colossus, CopOb, and Newton's in Pisae, and threatened to run away from us in the tech race. I sent a fleet of five triremes across 27 hexes of ocean to attack the city of Pisae in 1040A.D. Not only did Pisae fall, but the capital of Rome and the city of Veii were left undefended and they also were overrun in the same turn. Arii lost HG and JSB along with all the super science city wonders and capitulated in 1060A.D. It was a close fought game that Arii could have easily won had he completed his city walls in Pisae one turn earlier. We now wait for the completion of all the other 3rd round games, and the start of the 4th round.

<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

Nap - Yikes! Major congratulations are in order. I'm a bit stunned the game is over so fast (though I imagine Markus and Ari are moreso).

That was quite a gamble you took, building and dedicating such a substantial fleet to such a long-range conquest. Did you have knowledge of what defences you would find when you got there? Just goes to show that you can never count on *anything* playing MP against skilled players!

BTW, I need to know who came in second...

[SmartFart]

Congratulaions Nappy!

Whoever beats mighty Ariitea in MP Civ,deserves all credits.
You've mentioned round 4...thot this is the last?!?
How many rounds will be played in total,Cavebear?

------------------
No i ain't doing much,doing nothing means alot to me (AC/DC)

[Nap Bonaparte]

Cavebear....I wanted to answer your questions so I thought that I would give you a brief synopsis of the game. We all 3 made agreements before the game that there would be no tech trading or bribing of cities. Our world was essentially 1 large land mass with scattered islands.Arii was located in between Markus and myself and the way the geography went he was able to seal me off in a relatively smaller portion of the continent than he had. I was 1st to monarchy and I think that I had a temporary tech advantage but Arii got HG and expanded like crazy. I was held to 14 cities(due to riot factor) but expanded rapidly once I built Mikes. I soon ran out of land to build on and once Arii got monarchy he was learning at a faster rate than I so I researched mapmaking in an effort to get off the continent. Triremes allowed me to colonize numerous islands, steal 4 techs from Arii to close the R&D gap, and most importantly to explore and map the world. I had never faced Arii before but Markus had played him numerous times and knew his tendencies so when Arii completed Colossus in Pisae Markus informed me of the danger in Arii building a super science city. I told Markus that I would scour the oceans with my triremes and if Pisae was a coastal city I would find it. Eight triremes searched for 400 years and I found Pisae around 700 AD.It had no city wall at that time and Arii had just completed Cop Ob and researched University so I assumed it had a library and university at that time. Markus was Mr. Machiavelli the entire game trying to get me to fight an all-out war against Arii so that we would both suffer from a battle of attrition and Markus would get back in the game(Markus had a really slow start due to bad luck with huts, massive corruption and no happy wonders). In my 2nd round tournament game Curumbor had built Sun Tzu and had nearly defeated me in 400 BC so I built Sun Tzu for defensive(keep it out of their hands) purposes, not offensive. I also built Great Wall so I felt that neither player could hurt me (at least until metallurgy).About 820 AD I had 4 tiremes off my homeland ports plus a 5th trireme with 2 diplos lurking off the coast of Pisae ready to steal techs or sabotage wonders. The size of my attacking force was determined by my transport capacity i.e. 8 units. I figured that 2 vet pikeman would be sufficient for garrison purposes so that left an attacking force of 6 vet crusaders(4 were rush built).Cavebear...it was never a question of what it would take to capture Arii's super science city,it was more of a question of what force I could project in the shortest time possible.I was already the aggressor as I broke my peace treaty with Arii when I stole techs and I didnt want to be the 1st player to initiate a "hot" war but Mr. Machiavelli pressed the issue of attacking Arii or losing the game.As everything stood I could remain on the defensive and finish 2nd to Arii or I could take out his SSC and try to win the game- so attacking Pisae was really not a gamble. I figured that he was building Issac Newton in Pisae and when I saw that he was researching Theology (we both had established embassies)

I figured that he was building JSB in Rome so that left Veii and when I captured Veii it had a barracks so Veii was probably cranking out vet pikemen for all 3 cities defense.Time was more critical than mass as I knew that when Arii completed Newton in his SSC in Pisae he would probably build city walls for defense.As it turned out , Arii spent all his gold on building wonders so there was not enough gold left to rush build city walls. My fleet reached Pisae in 1040 AD and as my 1st crusader attacked Pisae I sent the following communique to Markus...."There are NO city walls ....Yessssss!!!" Pisae fell rather easily and Markus pointed out to me that Rome and Veii were undefended so I captured both on the same turn along with Arii's capitol and HG and JSB.I now had ALL the wonders and with the SSC I would build the next 3 wonders 1st(i.e. Leonardos,Magellans,and SOL). If Arii had completed city walls in Pisae 1 turn earlier I still had 2 diplos that could try to sabotage it but since he probably had at least 6-7 improvements in Pisae it would have been a crapshoot.....and 6 vet crusaders against 2 vet pikemen with city walls would have been dicey. I could have initiated an all-out ground war over the land routes against Arii in 800 AD. but it would have been a pointless war of attrition and instead I used my production to build caravans for future wonders and did a series of WLTCD's to build up my cities and regain the lead in demographics. The attack on Pisae was very similar to the attack I made on Curumbor to finish off my duel with him but in the game with Curumbor it was much easier as I had 11 caravels and Magellans and fundy and 12 diplos and 14 vet crusaders and the ocean I had to cross was much smaller.

[cavebear]

Excellent summary of the game, Nap. An example, too, of the balance of logic and daring required to succeed against other good players!

Now I have to ask something that may cause a bit of awkwardness, given the way the game seems to have ended.

In the MP games, there are points for each position of finish, not just for the winner. The winner in a 4-player MP game gets 4 points. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th get 3, 2, and 1 point(s) respectively (in a 3 player game, 4,3, and 2 points).

I need to know who came in 2nd and 3rd in your game. If Markus and Ari surrendered at the same time, it would depend on the PG.

I'm not certain that this was understood in your game; Ari or Markus (or both) might not have surrendered as quickly as they did.

[Mark_Everson]

Cavebear:

I think you're doing a great job with the tournament, and we all owe you big for handling this! However, I do have one comment on the scoring system... something that seems rather odd to me. I'll lay out my ideas here, since if you do a future tournament, it might be valuable.

I think the scoring system you've come up with doesn't follow what I think is a good principal for scoring multiplayer games: in a game, the "expected average score" should be the same no matter how many people are playing. The principal is that if you took a bunch of people and had them play five duels, and another bunch of people and had them play in four-player rounds, the average score for the two groups should be the same. Your 4-3-2 scoring that you just presented has an average score of three. The duel rounds clearly had an average score of two... This has ramifications for scoring in a tournament even where everyone plays the same number of games of different types, but I don't want to get to that level of detail in this post

Here is a proposed scoring system that follows my principal, that might be of use if you do another tournament:

2 players: 4, 0 (or 3,1)
3 players: 4, 2, 0
4 players: 4, 3, 1, 0 (or 5, 2, 1, 0)
etc...

Thanks for running the tourney, and I hope this post is more useful than annoying

[cavebear]

Mark E - Your ideas are good ones, and follow ideas that I've been contemplating.

My initial thought was to make winning a duel equal to winning an MP game. At the beginning, there were equal numbers of participants who felt that one or the other should be equally valued. I agree with that.

However, I think I erred on the scoring of the 2 types of games. I realize now that "equal" does not mean "identical". Plus, I had a PC feeling that I should try to avoid "0" scores. Had I to do it over again (and I may, after a break), I would arrange a given number of points per player and emphasize the value of 1st vs 2nd (and whatever) in MP games.

My best idea now (for a future scoring) is 2 and 0 for duels and 4,3,1,0 for 4-player MP games (4,2,0 for 3-player). This has been a learning experience for me as well.

Thanks for the comments and the ideas. My MP scoring was an error, but I think we are stuck with it for this tourney. First, I don't know how to get out of it. Second, tourney scoring must never be changed in mid-stream.

Further discussion would be appreciated...

[Mark_Everson]

Hmmm... I think your new proposal shorts the duelers for the reasoning in my post above. Something like what you proposed was also my first reaction when I saw the scoring system, since I think a MP win is much harder than a duel win. But I still think the principle I mentioned above is correct. Can I talk you into:

2 players: 3,1
3 players: 4, 2, 0
4 players: 5, 2, 1, 0

That gives the same spread in points for duels, but keeps the average constant across number of players constant. It also gives a larger bonus to the winner in the larger games, which I think is a good feature.

If you want to be PC you can add 1 to every score and it doesn't change the good features of this approach one bit...

BTW I do know the difference between principal and principle (from my post above), but my dictation program obviously doesn't!

[arii]

For more details about our game please read the thread markus arii nappy crustacian.
I guess I should be 3d in that game since I capitulated 1st.
I agree that Nappy took a great risk with this attack. The timing turned out to be perfect and a couple mistakes from my part sealed the game for him. I knew he was up to something and was cranking out vet pikemen as fast as I could and building city walls in my cap and science city as quickly as possible. When the surprise attack came I had 2 vet pikemen in each city and would have completed the walls in the cities at the begining of my turn. I think that 1 turn later and the attack would have bugged and I would have pulled away in the game (since while he was preparing his attack I built 2 key wonders). Critical mistake on my part for building isaac and JSB before stepping up the defenses.
We played a rematch (outside the tourney) and this time I laid the wood on Nappy.
I started really strong again in that game and took a more militaristic approach. I went quickly for feud and mono. I built the colossus, light house, mike and sun tzu. Quickly build a fleet with 4 triremes 1 pikemen 7 crusader 2 diplos and lauch an attack on his capitol. An other army of 3 pikemen and 4 crusaders attacked on the other side of our frontier. The capitol which had the piramids and was building another wonder fell, and the other army captured 2 of his cities.
Nappy and markus conceded (no fun for markus since I was capturing all of nappy cities and was ahead).
We are now on a new game. This time Nappy started strong and Markus is looking good. Markus built the HG and nappy mike. I only have the lighthouse.
My 2nd city was captured by barbs very early in the game which set me far behind. To be continued.

[markusf]

Well what wasn't mentioned is that first game was diety... Now with nappy controling the great wall and 3 of the happy wonders, and working on the last one there was no way i could have won. not only that he had Arii's super science city, i didn't see much point in playing on. I had 30 cities less then 5 where in a 10 square range of my cap, about 20 where on the other side of the world. massive unrest and corruption basically killed me. Even with temples in size 2 cities i was still in rebellion. Worst part was i controled close to 60% of the land on the map... With no happy wonders that is hard to maintain in diety, not to mention beating back those raging hordes.

[carnide_]

Smartfart, capTVK, Empress and me (carnide)
- - -
The game is over
SF win
I was second
capTVK was 3rd
Empress did not even started.
- - -
SF managed to built the deity killer combo: Mikes+Bach
He also had SunTzus and his population was double of mine (or CapTVKs).
- - -
Congrats to SF
Was a great game.

[SmartFart]

We've finished it about 600AD.
Pyramids decided a winner. I've choosed them instead of HG. I knew Carnide will expand rapidly and i need something to keep up with pop until i build decent defense from my right side where CapTVK lurked for opportunity to kill. And i also knew that with them Pyramids i'll have at least 6-7 cities where i can hire scientists.
In the meantime,Carnide build Gardens while my superproduction city started work on Mike.
I was surprised noone went for Sun-Tzu and i grabbed it as well.
Getting JSB was a hard part. Carnide stole Mono and i was forced to pick Wheel instead of Theo. Lucky for me,i got Trade by conquering and one of my cities were surrounded with 5 others,connected with roads.
I knew Carnide have enough caravans already,so i slowed down my science rate until i have mine ready because i was affraid of stealing.
All was perfect timed. I got JSB one turn before him. Game was pretty much over.
I had a spare plan with mass attack including vet catapults,triremes,pikes and crusaders,but my large army was rised in vain
Good game.
Looking forward for round 4.

SF

------------------
No i ain't doing much,doing nothing means alot to me (AC/DC)

[cavebear]

Congrats to SmartFart for a successful strategy and the win! I've registered the results in my log...

[Mark_Everson]

Our game is Finally over. here are the results:

winner Mark Everson (by powergraph)
#2 finbar
#3 Deity (withdrew)
#4 curumbor (withdrew)

Good game guys!

Sorry we held up the tourney so long , but RL made it difficult to finish any earlier.

[cavebear]

Mark E, congratulations on the difficult win!

I've registered the results of your game. I am setting up the Round 4 games and maps now, and will start a new thread for Round 4 (last).