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Call To Power 2 Cradle 3+ mod in progress: https://apolyton.net/forum/other-games/call-to-power-2/ctp2-creation/9437883-making-cradle-3-fully-compatible-with-the-apolyton-edition
As you know, the game has been good mannered and I've always been honest. At any time I could've decided to cash in that honesty and cheat.
I'd be curious to hear why you would consider this cheating. Wouldn't deceit and dishonesty roleplayed by players be behavior that needs to be considered/anticipated in diplomacy? Would you lump that in with alexman taking the save and starting it on a dummy server to explore other Civs (like we all know he probably has done regularly ;-)?
Well, first and foremost, I am real glad this game is over and kind of welcome Blake's decision to withdraw from the game. I myself got into a state where it no longer felt like fun, but like another job - and a pretty time consuming one. Part of the problem was I fought the war as one part of a 2-civ block which had to closely cooperate. It's way more time consuming to do that than just move your own army around. There was another reason why I wanted to play my best - but I'm not going into that, as discussing it is pointless.
At this point of the game, I've already stopped caring about who'd win, unless it would be Blake (you could also say "as long as it was not Blake") - if it was him, it would still make some sense, even if it made the result a bit bitter for me. I am well known to dislike the current victory condition system... and this game is a perfect example of why I dislike it. Anyone replaying the game would sure say that the most impressive empire was Celtia - but the current victory condition system just won't recognize that unless a VC would be triggered.
Now, with different rules, the game would have, of course, played out differently... but we are stuck with the game we have.
If "playing well" is supposed to be what a game is to be about, then I'm satisfied - considering this was my very first game of Warlords played (almost) till resolution, I'm quite happy with what I, as one of the Allies, have achieved against an opponent much more experienced. There were failures, even embarrasing ones, because, well, one has to learn - and one learns most by making mistakes... but overall, I don't feel ashamed.
As for who'd win (as in: who'd trigger a victory condition), I believe there were only two reasonable possibilities... either Blake would pull a space ship win or Alex would. Nobody else was in a position to do that, mostly because of all the Allies, Alex was the only civ capable of researching fast enough. However, Alex would still owe his victory to every other Ally, as the mutual cooperation went far beyond what would allow one of the Allies to "win" and claim that victory as "his" or "hers".
And for the record - I do not feel like playing on at this point. The last week we had the game stopped kind of reminded me of how "unrushed" my life can be without spending 2-4 hours on a single civ game every day.
To end my post...
I would like to thank Nolan for being the most patient and reliable partner, willing to go through my elaborate movement plans and bearing with me even when I needed an hour to stare a plan out of the map...
I would like to thank Alexman for a great game - it was encouraging to feel there was a true ally who'd not let me do the dirty work, while working on his own victory. While I'll take my side according to the cruel logic of this game, once I take it, I no longer care about my personal goals until the war is over. It was great to feel the same from Zululand. If you ever need an ally again, ring me up, Alex!
And sorry for all the hassles you have had to go through to keep the game alive on your server(s).
Thanks to Beta, Andydog, Snoopy, and Gyathaar - your contribution to the Allied cause may have been smaller overall than that of Zululand, Egypt, and Japan, but it has always arrived at the most desperate moment, allowing the rest of us to fight on.
And I congratulate Blake on a game well played (even if I'm curious to see your strategy write-ups... I daresay you have made more than one mistake yourself in this great war).
This has to be most interesting game of Civ I've ever played, so thank you all!
This past year, RL has been very busy and eventful for me, and as such I have not been able to immerse myself into this game as much as I would have wanted to. I was only able to provide sufficient attention to keep research coordinated with my initial allies, and to follow instructions during the world war. Apologies to all for not being able to contribute more than that to this game.
I especially enjoyed watching Vondrack formulating his military tactics; god help me should I ever be facing him in another game! Blake, congrats on your achievements, perhaps if the East had acted much sooner to the Celtic threat... well who knows.. I'll read your write-up on tactics with great interest.
As things currently stand, I agree that it would likely have come down to a space race between Blake and Alex. I personally would have liked to seen the outcome, but I appreciate that the time issue has prevented that, and I'm sad to hear that the 'fun' element was lost for some.
Blake, I'm curious as to why you feel this way:
If you'd beat me, I'd hope you'd feel ashamed of the "victory" :P.
Beta, Snoopy, it was great cooperating with you. Wittlich, sorry you happened to be nearest the Roman Praetorians, this pretty much stuffed the game for you.
The general concensus is clearly to let the game go. I am Ok with that as well.
I will add my nod to the fact that this has been the most interesting, and fun, game that I have been involved in to-date. (well, there was that one civ3 new world game...)
Congrats to all on a wonderfully played game.
A big thanks to my earliest ally, Andydog, and later snoopy, for the research and security bloc of eastern nations. Thanks to my later allies for the joint effort and co-operation. Haven't seen anything like that in a pbem/pitboss game before, and I appreciate the time it took, Vondrack.
And congrats to Blake on his empire and his accomplishments.
Originally posted by Blake
Simple. The game is not called "Win" .
I do not play to win. I play to play well. My objective throughout most of the game, was to play so well, that everyone would be forced to declare war on me.
.........
I may actually have stuck it out if you'd all played as individual players rather than a legion.
Not too quibble too much - but I think you can see the contradictory nature of these statements. If we had not played as a legion, it would have essentially been granting you the victory. Hence you are saying you would have stuck it out if you could have won???
In fact, what made this game remarkable for me was the co-operation amongst the allies, and the way you were able to fend us off - and even take down the Mali at the same time.
I'm quite earnest when I say I can't stand the idea of people wasting that kind of time and energy on a game. But people do what they feel compelled to do and that's that.
Look at it this way; I was not prepared to spend more than about 30-40 minutes a day playing. That to me, seems kind of insulting, to put such little effort in when other players as spending around 8-10 hours cumulative against me.
I do not feel as if I 'wasted' my time, nor would I doubt the others did. And I never felt 'insulted'. In fact, I learned a ton from this game - which was sort of its initial premise anyway.
Don't get me wrong. I do take obligations very seriously, but I've changed since we started this game like a year ago. I can not derive any satisfaction at all from playing such a game anymore. It's not as if playing it made me miserable, but even were I to continue to play, I'd just be "Going through the motions"
.....
Let me spell something out:
I do NOT like playing that hard. It is very boring to move around so many units and do so much micro, every single day for day after day after day after day... what's more there are LEGITIMATELY better things I can do with my time.
Understood completely on this, and no hard feelings from this end.
Again, many thanks to one and all for a great game. See you next time around.
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war .... aw, forget that nonsense. Beer, please.
I concur with letting the game go. Quite frankly, I do not wish to take over any part of Blake's civ - I just don't have that much time on my hands lately.
Good game everyone!
If there is another rendition that will be starting-up, definately drop me a line.
____________________________ "One day if I do go to heaven, I'm going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to heaven - I'll look around and say, 'It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco.'" - Herb Caen, 1996 "If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu ____________________________
Congratulations to all for a well fought war. I was very lucky that Solver handed over Japan when he could no longer enter the game. Thank you Solver! I wish to thank "General Radek Vondrack" for the most delightful military and strategic instruction. His daily company was something to look forward to. When I entered the game it was quite an eye opener to see how huge Blake's civ had become. I'd wondered just how any single player could keep him from swallowing their cities. I don't know why there had not been some kind of cooperation before.
The time zones were against coordination, and it was coordination that eventually saved Japan, re-took its lost cities and pressed onward. Quite a bit of this war took place on Japanese lands till just recently, so I was obliged to fight the international clock so we could actually have time to think of strategy.. well Vondrack thought of strategy and we had to coordinate completely since most moves were on Japanese soil. It might have been different if Japan was a back-of-the-lines civ.
I was delighted at the prospect of playing with Vondrack again. We had many many leisurely test games for Civ4 Vanilla, where we played as a team vs. the AI, noticing everything, writing careful extensive reports, teaching a very dyslexic me how things worked. Since a stroke took down a great deal of the symbolic recognition, what was needed was to get out of the instinctive play and force myself to concentrate on the data. All in all Radek made this a pleasure. Because of the stroke, relearning even to type and walk gave me the patience to wait for Radek to find an hour in his work day so we could evaluate the turn. The time difference did not help at all!
As I took Japan, a land overgrown with jungle in need to be cut, roads needed to be built, railroads were non-existent. Longbows and spears looked out at enemy stacks of infantrymen. I wished to live till the end of this game. The goal was achieved due in fact to the war training and back-up of Vondrack.
After Blake declared he had won the game, everyone was ready to worry him a little.. and thus came about the world alliance vs. a civ that held about half of the game map. Indeed, an alliance was the ONLY way any success could be achieved in worrying the huge civ and its great resources.
I learned quite a few navy tricks from Radek, and saw the huge value of workers, who in their own way became a late game military feature. At the end I had 14 workers in the front lines. The army of workers enabled quick roads in enemy territory, rebuilding roads in Japan after they were destroyed. I learned the value of getting Scotland Yard as soon as it was available. We were able to build enough spies to watch nearly every build in every Celtic city by the end of the game.
Should there be another pitboss game with the group, I'd suggest taking it down for the weekend or a few days a week, so that folks can tend to real life issues. Perhaps this might be done mid game, when things start to heat up and one feels they can't miss a turn.
Originally posted by Beta
Not too quibble too much - but I think you can see the contradictory nature of these statements. If we had not played as a legion, it would have essentially been granting you the victory. Hence you are saying you would have stuck it out if you could have won???
In fact, what made this game remarkable for me was the co-operation amongst the allies, and the way you were able to fend us off - and even take down the Mali at the same time.
What I mean by that, is playing as individual players, but co-ordinated, not playing as legion.
I mean co-ordination would be saying "Everyone launch their invasion in 1942". Forming strategies and stuff.
What I consider excessive co-ordination is things like having aircraft on other peoples carriers, sending GP's to other players, sharing detailed "map information" and so on and so on (naturally I don't know for sure what co-ordination was done, but I got the impression there was a fair bit between some players). Really, even playing turns at the same time rather than playing turns in order, is excessive co-ordination. The game "should" be played, much like a normal CIV game. IMHO.
In other words, I consider that co-ordination at the strategic level to be entirely acceptable and to be encouraged, but not at the tactical level.
To explain something about my tactics vs Vondrack/Nolan:
While pursuing the Mongol and Mali wars, I just wanted to keep you on the defensive. That means i wasn't trying to invade you, it just means I was trying to make you think I was trying to invade you. As long as you were dumping way too much resource into building a maginot line, I could recklessly launch invasions to the East because you had no actual ability to pressure me.
I also decided to encourage some ship building, because Celtia was not terribly vulnerable to the sea. There was only one coastal city which actually needed to be defended. Any resources dumped into ships was basically land units I wouldn't have to deal with.
In that regard, my campaign against Vonolan was incredible successful, I had very little to worry about - actually getting invaded.
If I made a mistake, it was in not making myself appear weaker. Maybe if I'd made some very big "mistakes", I could have encouraged an invasion from from Vondrack, and then counter-attacked.
I don't believe I made any mistake as big as letting me get the Pentagon. The Pentagon in the hands of Brennus is entirely wicked.
If I was playing to win, I would have invaded Alexman a lot earlier.
Um, I mean I would have invaded Alexman.
I actually didn't want to. The game was not called "Kill Alexman", after all. And I quite like Alexman, he was also the player with the most honorable conduct in the game.
But there was one point, where Vonolan was very on the defensive, and the others seemed indecisive, where I could have rolled into Zulu territory and probably wiped out Alexman. I think you know what I decided to do instead, I invited you all to declare war on me, in my own way.
As for mistakes made by other players:
Haravon:
He fought me.
Carborga:
He fought me.
Gyathaar:
He fought me.
Snoopy:
He fought me.
I mean that too. Every one of these players tried to engage Celtia's armies on Celtia's terms, and got pummeled. Gyathaar and Snoopy were particularly foolish because they actually sent their entire army into Celtia territory, for the dragon to munch on. I'd love to know WTF Gyathaar was smoking when he sat his army on my borders.
The correct strategy in every case, would have been force-preservation, not losing their army to Celtia, until they can call in reinforcements from another player.
Oh but speaking of Snoopy.
After Beta declared war on me I wasn't entirely sure if it was world-war against me or not. I thought some players might choose to stay neutral. I was SERIOUSLY considering declaring war and wiping out snoopy regardless of his plans, but then he declared war on me and rolled in his army for me to eat (war-weariness and guilt free!), saving me the dilemma.
I don't know if you lot figured out where I built the Internet, but it was in the Mali city of Gao. I powered in a coal plant and chopped a bunch of forests to speed it along. I figured it wouldn't take more than a turn of two longer than building it in Bastion.
On one hand, you praise yourself how extremely successfull your "campaign" against me and Nolan was in that you managed to keep us on the defense, while killing Mongolia and Mali. On the other hand you are wondering what kind of weed players who sent their armies into your territory to die smoked...
So which is it?
Were we fools to first work on our defenses before starting to attack/take your cities? Or were they fools to send their armies to die, leaving themselves open to your lethal counterattack?
Gyathaar didn't actually PRESSURE me with his army. He just sat it there on the borders. He didn't co-ordinate with anyone else, he just left his army sitting there for a good dozen turns, so I could kill it whenever was optimal for me to do so, like after my army had wiped out some other invaders and healed up good.
Were we fools to first work on our defenses before starting to attack/take your cities?
In short,
Yes.
Because I sent my entire army over to the eastern players to destroy them. I didn't need any homeland defense, there was nothing threatening it.
This basically meant, it was the entire Celtic army vs the Zulu army. I didn't need to split up my army.
If I had decided to invade Zululand, you could have done nothing to worry me, because your units were nearly all defensive ones. Artillery and city defense units.
Basically you left Alexman high and dry and basically facing nearly my entire army alone.
That war would have been a foregone conclusion, which is why I decided to do something else instead.
I don't normally pull my punches, but as I said, I like Alexman, and it didn't really feel right to kill Alexman in a game called "Teach Alexman".
Re cooperation:
Perhaps some of what is being criticized is the difference in playing vs. the AI and the playing vs. humans. Humans will cooperate creatively in the MP area, especially if they judge it the only way to stay alive while the AI will use programmed logic. It was logical to cooperate fully as the huge Celtic empire was controlled as one.
Celtia might have a different view of the world than those of us who have a regular online MP presence. After all you ARE the AI Maestro.
We might discuss the differences in planning games for MP and the expectations/reflexes it causes in human players.
Like we knew where your whole army was and what it consisted of, Blake... I was finishing my Scotland Yard while you were taking Southern Japanese cities and invading Gyathaar. Alexman got his first spies from me only to be able to watch the very last Gyathaar's turns - and I remained the only Allied player being able to build spies up until 1800's when Wittlich finished Scotland Yard in New London, after a bit of prodding from me...
What may look like stupidity or weak play if you have all the "insider" information, may in fact be the best or at least a completely valid strategy/approach considering that the information you have to work with is, well, completely incomplete.
Blake, congrats on your achievements, perhaps if the East had acted much sooner to the Celtic threat... well who knows.. I'll read your write-up on tactics with great interest. 
.
I was very lucky that Solver handed over Japan when he could no longer enter the game. Thank you Solver! I wish to thank "General Radek Vondrack" for the most delightful military and strategic instruction. His daily company was something to look forward to. When I entered the game it was quite an eye opener to see how huge Blake's civ had become. I'd wondered just how any single player could keep him from swallowing their cities. I don't know why there had not been some kind of cooperation before. 
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