The Hanging Gardens: public posting.

[ruff_hi]

Heh, don't sweat it. One could write a similarly sized list for RB's mistakes too. Perhaps someone from outside our team with an outside point of view could do so. It would be informative.

yeah ... but you would have to wade through 12,500 or so posts [yuk!].

[Sullla]

Well, when you say it like that we look like absolute tw@ts...

My apologies, Zoid and Rabbits in general. I didn't mean to come off sounding like a pompous ass there! At our community, we have a tradition of critiquing each other's games after they finish. I realized this afternoon that that sort of thing might be interpreted the wrong way, and for that you have my apologies. As sooooo said, we'd be interested to see your critique of our mistakes. Error #1: trading PAL horses that allowed them to fend off the Rabbit attack!

Been looking at the tiny Banana forum since then, and all I can say is that I'm about ten times more impressed now than I was before with how Donovan resurrected the team from a state of complete helplessness and irrelevance. We were often unhappy with Banana's long NAP with PAL, yet it was absolutely the right move, and it allowed Donovan to rebuild a horribly-managed civilization into a contender. Absolutely amazing stuff, even if we lack the details on much of how it transpired!

[Zoid]

Heh, don't sweat it. One could write a similarly sized list for RB's mistakes too. Perhaps someone from outside our team with an outside point of view could do so. It would be informative.

I must say that I'm amazed by your level of detail in the C & D thread. That's hardcore gaming And you did manage to overcome a hopeless map. As mistakes go I'm sure you made some, but I didn't find any obvious ones while skimming your forum, except for the horsies to PAL thingie that's already been discussed.

[Zoid]

My apologies, Zoid and Rabbits in general. I didn't mean to come off sounding like a pompous ass there! At our community, we have a tradition of critiquing each other's games after they finish. I realized this afternoon that that sort of thing might be interpreted the wrong way, and for that you have my apologies. As sooooo said, we'd be interested to see your critique of our mistakes. Error #1: trading PAL horses that allowed them to fend off the Rabbit attack!

No worries mate, in retrospect I'm amazed we played this game so poorly. I'm not sure why... In the last DG Southern Cross did very well, and we were all members of the Rabbits. But I guess it's much harder to repeat that in a larger team with other people who have strong opinions on stuff... SC was a very tight knit group with an almost identical mindset.

I loved your game history btw, pure gold!

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Yes you evil horse dealing so and so's

But even then our attack plans against PAL were poorly implemented.

I joined the team just about the time the war begun, i voted in favour of it so I cant call any for it, Zoid i dont think any of our team are bad players but it is clear this time this team made many errors.

Having said that though ive never really felt that in demo games the win is the ultimate goal, important yes but the taking part is to my mind the most important !

[Zoid]

Chris, I know The Rabbits contain very good players. It's been proven in past DG's and pbems, this is what makes our failure even more strange and unfathomable...

And you're dead right about winning not being the ultimate goal in DG's, IMO getting there (and having a jolly good time doing it) is!

[Chuckman]

Had a chance to look at Rabbits' forum this morning. I might be inclined to do a short writeup later on what specifically went wrong for this team, which had a pretty awesome starting position but wasn't able to capitalize on it. I took some notes which I'll post here if the Rabbits (or other teams) would like to discuss them with us:

Rabbit Mistakes

It is certainly understandable that someone might interpret these as mistakes. Only someone well versed in advanced game theory would recognize them as classic components of the theoretical Roskolanovich Gambit.

Prior to the start of the game, the leaders of our team were approached by agents of the Sakerhetspolisen and NZSIS to attempt to prove/disprove the Roskolanovich. That is the real reason why it took so long for the game to get started.

Things for the test were going along just fine. I was lurking and being amazed. Then they asked me to do one small trivial thing. At that critical moment the hamster in my modem died (I knew I should have upgraded to a gerbil.) Fortunately for me this opened a new line of study otherwise I'd be herding reindeer in Lapland.

This is all abundantly clear at the secret Rabbit forum hosted by wedontlikeyou.com. Unfortunately for the curious here that forum was sealed for the next 147 years by executive order or President George W Bush 3 minutes before the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

An interseting little side note from this experiment will come out during the 60 Minutes expose about the Roskolanovich due to air in October. Cybershy is actually a high level operative for Interpol who was forced to take over Apolyton so the experiment could be completed

[Donovan Zoi]

Been looking at the tiny Banana forum since then, and all I can say is that I'm about ten times more impressed now than I was before with how Donovan resurrected the team from a state of complete helplessness and irrelevance. We were often unhappy with Banana's long NAP with PAL, yet it was absolutely the right move, and it allowed Donovan to rebuild a horribly-managed civilization into a contender. Absolutely amazing stuff, even if we lack the details on much of how it transpired!

Hey thanks, Sullla! Hearing this somewhat eases the sting of reading your comments in the NTSC thread (even though they were completely founded ). Sorry that I don't have more info in the Banana forum for you, but I wasn't really interested in keeping a diary and never thought that forums would be opened at the end of the game.

In the coming days, I'll see if I can come up with some sort of outline of Bananian progress, but it'll be no match for your history threads, to be sure. I have no problem shedding light on some of the key points in our diplomacy, and will try to give it the "fly on the wall" treatment that your forums afforded all readers.

[Swiss Pauli]

Chris, I know The Rabbits contain very good players. It's been proven in past DG's and pbems, this is what makes our failure even more strange and unfathomable...

Having looked at your forums, I think organisation was a major problem for you and was compounded by a key team member (unorthodox) not having BtS and therefore being dependent on turn reports for information. At RB, we had two good, and strong-willed, main turnplayers (with a third joining when war broke out). Whilst our turnplayers were open to discussion and debate, they put forward clear visions of our situation that helped frame the debate for the other team members.

The importance of our C&D dept can't be understated, but even if your team didn't have the time to put that mostly_harmless & Sullla did, there was still a lot you could have gleaned from the demo graphs that would have steer you away from the ill-fated 'harrassment' strategy that backfired so badly.

[mostly-harmless]

Just been through the Imperio forums.

Don't know a word Spanish (apart from cerveza), but from what I gather they actually moved from a coastal capital inwards. So that whole silver cluster was intended even closer to their starting spot.

Very interesting to see their initial dotmaps.
And from what Babelfish tells me, they were pretty much set early on for conflict against RB, rather than Templars. Game-wise a good decision.

And Cape Town really pissed them off. But I feel they lost the overview of the greater game and focussed to single-minded on getting Cape Town.

From PAL to Imperio in the Diplo Thread

Next we would like to discuss a technology alliance … Would you guys be interested in a technology alliance? This would mean you can dominate that island. We can totally freeze realms beyond out of all technology deals, which would make war very easy for you.

While working together with RB to deny them Civil Service via the Oracle, PAL also offered Imperio a full alliance to smash RB. Well played, PAL!

For people shying away from Spanish and Babelfish, read at least the diplomatic thread during war time:
"Diplomacia: Intercambio de Mensajes. " Quite interesting. Imperio must have been very happy during that time, being the focus of so much positive diplomacy. Nice to see the Templar misjudgement of the situation leading to the capture of Jericho.

And for all the shouting we got from Imperio about honoring pacts in game, there seems to be some discussion of breaking the NAP with RB prematurely after the Cape Town settlement

And it looks like that the lack of responses RB got from Imperio throughout most of the game was quite deliberate.

Imperio thought that RB and PAL were allies and planned to attack on T154 if I read this correctly.

Ah, you got to love Templars for requesting marble from Imperio to speed up the AP. (AP does not speed up with marble).
And that with their war going to start any turn now.

The war is about to begin. I feel pity for Imperio now. They have focussed on Cape Town for the last 50 turns, aligned their allies and troops only to find that Templars really, really suck at being a reliable ally in the upcoming conflict.

Also I found a part where Imperio is suspecting Rb recruited a friend (from CFC) to take over Banana.

mh

[ruff_hi]

This is all abundantly clear at the secret Rabbit forum hosted by wedontlikeyou.com. Unfortunately for the curious here that forum was sealed for the next 147 years by executive order or President George W Bush 3 minutes before the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

One small fly in the ointment for you ... www.wedontlikeyou.com is hosted in Germany so Pres GW Bush has no jurisdiction there - your thread at that site remains open

[Zoid]

Swiss Pauli, you're probably correct. Our intel was sorely lacking...

Chuckman, you're not supposed to mention that in public!

[Zoid]

On an unrelated note, we need a replacement player for a pitboss game. Tracker here: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=186769

The civ in question is in the lead, but at war. I'll try to negotiate a cease fire though...

Any takers?

[Swiss Pauli]

Just been through the Imperio forums.

Don't know a word Spanish (apart from cerveza), but from what I gather they actually moved from a coastal capital inwards. So that whole silver cluster was intended even closer to their starting spot.

That silver cluster was for the 7th civ, I think. But most intriguing that they moved inland: I did consider it odd that Mutal didn't have access to fresh water, but hadn't considered a settler move at all.

I had a look at the Imperio forums to find out about the peace treaty between RB & Imperio that ended very badly for the latter team. It seems to me that Imperio were shocked we accepted their terms: they did not realise that we got completely stitched up by Banana taking Gunpowder, and PAL trading them Nationalism for Gunpowder. No way could we continue to fight a two front war without trade route income against a technologically superior enemy.

Imperio had proposed to trade Nationalism for Gunpowder as part of this peace deal. We thought they were operating in bad faith by proposing us a deal that they soon afterwards closed with PAL, but according to Naldo's post he offered the trade to PAL by mistake Imperio also didn't see any problem with ignoring our request for Gunpwowder as per the peace deal (not our fault that Imperio messed up), but were then shocked when RB decided not to honour the NAP

I would have been intrigued as to whether Team RB would have gone through with the backstab if we'd got Gunpowder as requested. Some members stated they'd have voted against it if Imperio hadn't already - in our eyes - broken the treaty. This proved to be the game-winning move: by allowing us to capture Acre, it opened up the chance to raze the Warning, precipitating PAL's resignation.

[darrelljs]

I guess PAL should have turned down that Nationalism/Gunpowder trade .

Darrell