Metaliturtle's Opening Strategy Contest

[Metaliturtle]

My roommates and I are arguing about the best ways to manage opening positions (especially bad ones) and I felt it was important enough for us to put some scientific method into it via the message boards.

By opening strategy we mean the first 30 moves of a game.

Due to the variety of "good" strategies, and all of Blake's crazy threads about whipping food into hammers etc. it is easily apparent that to call a strategy good a preset goal must be made.

I will be posting a save that we can all play to shoot for a specific goal. Each person should post exactly what they did that turn (This way we can replicate it) allowing us to learn from each other.

Some of the goals we have come up with so far are:
Maximizing Commerce
Maximizing Tech Lead
Cheap Techs vs. Deep Techs
Insane (unit name) build up
Maximizing production
Most Cities founded
Can you pull a Victory in 30 turns?


Here is a picture of the start location. It is a pangea map with Elizabeth as the ruler.


Make sure you post your goal at the top of your turn by turn. I'll be playing along too.

[Metaliturtle]

Reserved

[Metaliturtle]

Saved

[Diadem]

30 turns? Isn't that a bit short? I don't know if you're playing on quick or not, but even on quick.

You can build a worker and a warrior in 30 tursn, that's about it. Research maybe 4 techs.

[Metaliturtle]

30? maybe 60 oops....

Ladder games are 130 turns making 30 roughly 1/5 of the game, I guess that was where the 30 came from.

[Bobby Chicken]

Ah, warlords, no wonder it didn't work.

[Blake]

I suggest going until 1000BC. That is 75 turns. It's enough time to pull off a slingshot and such.

[Diadem]

Well I've never understood why ladder games are only 130 turns. I assume that's only quick setting, but even so it seems ridiculously short. Got nothing to do with civ, it's just half a game, and in that half about 3/4th of the strategies are useless because they don't give enough short-term gain.

[Krill]

Because those 130 turns can take up to four hours due to lag. MT is talking about CTONs... which is effectively an everyman for himself setting, so the games almost always go the distance, with no conceeds possible. Most people just can't stay in front of a computer for 4 hours straight, never mind longer. You aren't just sitting there planning and playing, you are looking out for everyone else, and constant vigilance takes it out of you. Fast moving in particular makes you pay attention.

It is different for team games though. 3v3, 4v4, 5v5...these games can last as short has half an hour becuase someone has been killed in 15 turns (play a ren game against some of the best, and they will kill you in that amount of time. I've seen it happen way too much).

But you don't see many ladder games on pangaea, or at least I haven't. Usually on inland sea, tbh.


[q=Diadem]in that half about 3/4th of the strategies are useless because they don't give enough short-term gain.[/q]

Well...you adapt. There are quite a few strats that work in CTONs, though the aim isn't so much as to reach a victory condition but to have the highest score at the end of the game. It is the change of focus that generates so many new strats. People can tech to rifling in 130 turns and that amount of tech gives quite a few points. Though there are other, safer ways imo.

[q=Diadem]Got nothing to do with civ,[/q]

I would rather play games with humans that don;t cheat and have no extra boni over me than with a bunch of AI that are dumb deaf and blind yet given massive advantages.

[couerdelion]

What are the settings?

[Diadem]

Are you talking about quick or normal speed Krill?

There is no way to kill someone in 15 turns. No way. You can maybe build 2 warriors, if you start with good production, but you have to be amazingly close together for even your first warrior to make it to your enemy. And just your starting warrior is not going to kill someone. Unless that someone leaves his city undefended, of course. But that's a noob mistake, really. Besides, you still have to start out walking into the right direction, which is pure luck as well.

Even on quick it's impossible. You may build units faster, but the time it takes to walk them to the enemy is still the same.

Researching to rifling in 130 turns? That might be possible, with an extremely good starting position. But even then only if you beeline, and skip many important techs.

It's just not enough for a normal game!

[Diadem]

What, by the way, is CTON?

[Krill]

[q=Diadem]There is no way to kill someone in 15 turns. No way. You can maybe build 2 warriors, if you start with good production, but you have to be amazingly close together for even your first warrior to make it to your enemy. And just your starting warrior is not going to kill someone. Unless that someone leaves his city undefended, of course. But that's a noob mistake, really. Besides, you still have to start out walking into the right direction, which is pure luck as well.[/q]

You just proved your own opening statement false. Not a good way to argue.

And I have seen maybe 5 games hosted in the lobby that were not on quick, and I haven't seen one of the get launched

---

And of the two types of MP games that are standard, you aren't going to get more "normal" than anc Inland Sea CTONs or anc TBG Teamers. I'd argue they are more normal than Immortal level games; You can go into the lobby sometimes and see them launch every 5 minutes, and people keep on coming back for more.

And CTONs are effectively an every man for himself game, AW, no tech trading, no diplomacy; there isn't time for diplo in most ladder games, though you can get diplo in none ladder games, they almsot never have tech trading as that can be incredably unbalancing (when you have a pair of friends enter the same game and no one else knows them, the pair can team up and just trade techs the entire way through the game).

[Diadem]

How exactly did I prove my own opening statement false? Obviously I meant under normal circumstances. If your opponent helps you I'm sure you can kill him in 15 turns. But we're assuming he is not trying to commit suicide.

[Krill]

By giving one of the scenarios in which a player dies in dies in 15 turns?

Seriously, in MP there are very few "normal circumstances". If you mean Quick speed, continents/pangaea, no turn limit, no city elim, medium turn timer, no AW games as normal...they constitute less than 50% of the games played via MP easily.

There are quite a few era start games played in MP; are they construed as not "normal circumstances"? People can die in a future era game in 5 turns; Ive done that to others and had it done to my self. People die in 15 turn in ren era games to treb rushes. You seem to think that "Commiting suicide" makes these rushes null and void, where as it is the opposite. The player that dies simply made a bad decision that under different circumstances will have paid off, and he may have made that decision without knowing he was about to be rushed. The guy who lived got lucky, the guy who lost got unlucky. That is civ. *shrug*