The Hanging Gardens: public posting.

[sunrise089]

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

Nothing is more ridiculous in this game than this claim, which sadly was propagated by PAL and Imperio.

Even if Krill wasn't watching the forums like a hawk, anyone who couldn't make sense of Banana's choices obviously didn't think much about the end-game. During the RB-Imperio war PAL was rocketing into a nigh-untouchable lead in the game. They were the most aggressive civ and the one with the greatest potential to produce a large army. It should have been obvious to anyone that PAL would attack Rabbits and then Banana. So Banana needed a strong partner who more importantly wasn't working with PAL. Imperio refused to take a side and just took whatever opportunistic deals presented themselves. RB was willing to make a long-term deal with Banana and agree to not have anything to do with PAL. We were willing to give Banana a game-long NAP and declare war on PAL once we controlled our continent. Was Imperio offering the same thing?

[UnOrthOdOx]

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.

It's been an interesting experience, the Rabbits.

Our failure came early. There were, essentially, 2 plans posted VERY early. 2 deeply devided camps on either side.

In the end, I honestly believe either path would have succeeded, but what DID happen, is the two camps, partly out of respect for each other, did not really push their views, and we started down something in the middle trying to keep both happy, and doing both half-assed instead of doing one well.

It was the most pleasant team I've ever been a party to. No internal disputes or bickering, everyone getting along all happily...and that's where it failed. Some heated debates and some vocal opinions are needed to guide the ship in A direction. By the time we got around to picking one path, it was already too late.

This is where the rabbits failed.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Unorthodox made some great suggestions

Awwww.

[Zoid]

It's been an interesting experience, the Rabbits.

Our failure came early. There were, essentially, 2 plans posted VERY early. 2 deeply devided camps on either side.

In the end, I honestly believe either path would have succeeded, but what DID happen, is the two camps, partly out of respect for each other, did not really push their views, and we started down something in the middle trying to keep both happy, and doing both half-assed instead of doing one well.

It was the most pleasant team I've ever been a party to. No internal disputes or bickering, everyone getting along all happily...and that's where it failed. Some heated debates and some vocal opinions are needed to guide the ship in A direction. By the time we got around to picking one path, it was already too late.

This is where the rabbits failed.

So thats our fault! We were being to nice...

[UnOrthOdOx]

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.

Well, the harrassment was much later than it was supposed to occur. I can't remember precisely, but it was 10 -20 turns, possibly even more (hard for me to keep track of # of turns at this speed I know several cities were settled in between), later than I proposed going through with it in the first place. We kinda half did that plan, and half this other, and ended up accomplishing neither.

In all honesty, the team would have faired better without me around. It was clear from the get go, no one else on the team was familiar with the style of play I tend to follow, thus as I would make comments, they were not always fully understood, and often at odds with the rest of the team's wishes. I should have recognised this and kept me trap shut. This was compounded by my lack of BTS, yes, but even moreso by the fact I just can't keep up with the turn speed of these pitboss games.

I'm a PBEMer. And, I'm afraid my usefullness to demogames is at an end due to this fact. This game taught me that much.

[Zeviz]

Well, the harrassment was much later than it was supposed to occur.
...
It was clear from the get go, no one else on the team was familiar with the style of play I tend to follow, thus as I would make comments, they were not always fully understood, and often at odds with the rest of the team's wishes.
...

This might not be an exact parallel to your situation, but in our team the builders also didn't always agree with the MP veterans. Our solution was to split the duties between them:

During the war we had two turnplayers: Surnrise for military and Sooooo for economy. While the team ran by consensus and held informal votes when required, Sunrise played key role in developing and executing the military plans. We would choose one of the options he presented and suggest some improvement, but his opinion carried the most weight. (There were a few cases where most people said "we aren't sure about this, but if you think you can pull it off, go ahead".) So Sunrise would say what troops and workers he'd need when and where, and Sooooo would deliver them.

Economically, we made long term plans and worked to meet them. (For example, Sunrise told us how many troops we would need to be safe against Imperio, and we made sure to have that many troops and spend the rest of resources on economy.) While I don't know internal dynamics of your team, perhaps you could have a similar organisation, with military players requesting units and moving them, and builders handling economy.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Yeah, that's largely how it's worked for me on other teams I've been involved with. Kloreep and I, in particular, built a great relationship with him handling the bean counting and me bonking heads over several games. It's a great setup. I've learned to not discount those builderers in the MP environment. They may not be as cutthroat as some of us, but they do have things to teach as well. Seen them squeeze more beans out of a useless hunk of rock one too many times.

As mentioned, though, my involvement here was much less than required for this kind of input, especially with a pitboss game, and it would have been better had I just stayed out and observed.

And, like I said, we were all being way too nice. We were a bunch of former leaders in previous demogames, no one wanting to rock the boat or offend, so nobody took up a real leadership role till it was too late. Or, perhaps, we were a bunch of PBEM vets that may not have adjusted to the Pitboss speed as quickly as some others. A slower game, I think this team may have had much different results as well. That may be more accurate, I know a number of early decisions needed to be made before a full team concensus could be obtained, so the turn players took the safest route due to the clock and not wanting to offend.

[Zeviz]

That's a good point about PBEM vs. Pitboss. We came from Succession Games, which is probably more similar in pacing to simultaneous turn Pitboss. So we were more used to shorter decision cycles with turnplayer having the final word. It also helped to have a lot of lurkers actively following the game.

For example, when we discovered Copper, over half a dozen people expressed similar opinion in the course of a few hours, so the decision was made before some of the team member even checked the forums, enabling us to turn on a dime and beat Imperio to Copper and Horses by a single turn. If we had waited for everybody to express an opinion, we would have lost that site, and ended up locked out of all strategic resources. On the other hand, when I waited to reach a unanimous agreement on some diplo messages, the drafts kept changing and changing, delaying them too much.

[T-hawk]

As a heads-up for anyone not following the Realms Beyond subforum, Sullla has finished his writeup from the RB point of view, here:

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ4/ADG1.html

[UnOrthOdOx]

I've nearly finished my own write up on how to make a realistic skeleton, from scratch, out of paper mache...


ok, not so many here interested in that....

[MyOtherCar]

I've nearly finished my own write up on how to make a realistic skeleton, from scratch, out of paper mache...


ok, not so many here interested in that....

Well, I think you need to flesh out some on your writing.

[dsplaisted]

Well, I think you need to flesh out some on your writing.

Buh-dum ching!