MP: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI. Game Over. Team ACGHHS wins!

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by pyg

The Devas were defeated by diplomacy. If this game had been non-diplomacy we would have been ceded the game >5 turns ago. In order to win against 12:4 odds you need to have had a much larger lead than we ever did. For me, the diplomacy aspect of the game is the thing that bothers me most about losing.

I have to say these kind of statements annoy me. We all knew going in from the beginning that the Devas were (far) the strongest team. Hinnom is *banned* from most games, due to strength. There is no way to beat hinnom without ganging up on it. So I find no value in complaining "we were ganged up on"

Had this been a no diplomacy game, and *if* Hinnom was still allowed, no, we would not have conceded 5 turns ago. We would, however, have had to use a lot of different tactics.

On the turn that was not played, we were doing a 600+ gem arcane nexus. It would have been higher, if it were not a team game.
We would not have let Gift of Heath go to another player; and we would have had to expand as rapidly as possible, against the blesseds and the mysterios.

There were a lot of factors that went into the game: it was very unbalancing that the devas were able to expand against two people that staled for 5 turns. Even so, we were able to intervene each time at critical moments (caelums kings, the invasion of TC's capital, the melqarts running rampant) to stop the game from unbalancing.

I think the next critical factor was that you guys attacked all three teams- how can you not expect them to gang up? For the first 20 turns cooperation was almost non existent. More than 80% of the cost of all the rain of toads, locust swarms, and calls of the wild were *solely* done by team achoo.

Now, I admit, I provoked DrP in an effort to get him to attack team Achoo; strategically I didn't want you to take out Lanka, Kailasa, Yomi etc. And it worked out.. I think that was a mistake by you guys. But if you had not attacked us, we would have attacked you anyway... and you would have been involved against formoria etc.

The way the game was going, time was on team achoo's side. We had 3 of the 4 research leaders - which would allow us to compensate for giant SC's.

So, all we had to do was not lose. This was why our armies (mictlan and sauromatia) didn't attack. So long as we tied up the big Hinnom and Niefle armies - and prevent them from being used... things were fine.

So sure, if the game was different - we would have had to use different tactics. But I thought we were very effective in raiding Niefle early game; in cutting down the number of niefle jarls, and in preventing Niefle from getting a strong blood economy going (early goals).

Even the choice of Niefle (and not Hinnom) was strategic. We wanted to be able to be able to point to Hinnom's success and say... look.. look at Hinnom! we have to unite! Hinnom is the

[rdonj]

For the record, I'm preeeetty sure we never attacked the blesseds. They started attacking us at the exact same time as you guys did, without any provocation I was ever aware of. We should definitely have finished off the mysterios though. We were getting pretty close to being able to completely topple them there, and I think we would have been able to pull off a win if we'd finished them. It was a strategic mistake on our part.

I don't think though that hinnom was actually THAT big of a deal for us to have. Pyg was doing well, but both mictlan and sauromatia of ACGHHS were probably comparable in strength to pyg's hinnom for most of the game.

[Septimius Severus]

While diplomacy may have factored into ACGHHS ultimate win (as I noted) there was not much choice really, particularly for either the Blessed Ones or the Mysterios. The Deva's had Niefel, Hinnom, and a veteran captain and experienced and talented team members. No fault of the Deva's of course regarding the nations they got or chose, this occurred because other teams failed to rank Hinnom higher for whatever reasons. Diplomacy can be an equalizer (in this case giving the underdogs more leverage) or an unbalancer depending upon who you ask and the situation.

As Chris says, the odds had been calculated before hand so we all knew going in. Nation selection of course will be a non-issue in game 2 as teams are pre-made and Ashdod will be either relegated to AI or left out entirely (looks like it will be the later, as Caelum is a better fit for the AI theme). The same may likely hold true for LA R'lyeh and/or LA Ermor I suspect in game 3.

The experience level gap played a large role as well in my opinion, ACGHHS and the Deva's having the most experienced captains and the Blessed's having three noobs, as well as a few roster changes. This was largely due to the inability to find an experienced captain for the Blesseds and/or other players. I attempted to address it as best I could by giving both the Mysterios and Blesseds veteran advisors.

Hopefully we will be able to get more balanced experience levels among teams next game, recruiting captains and advisors first and letting them do most of their own recruiting may also help to ensure harmony within a team. Thus the need to ally will be reduced and will also be reduced by the introduction of VPs which generally discourages broad or long term alliances.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by rdonj

For the record, I'm preeeetty sure we never attacked the blesseds..

I'm pretty sure thats not true rdonj. You guys attacked TC half a dozen turns before we united to attack you guys - we were discussing what the difficulties they were having dealing with you guys.

And I have to give Kudos to Stagger.. and algae.. they did great reconquering a lot of that territory.

As for hinnom not being a big deal... he led the leader board in provinces for awhile, and was top echeclon in gems as well.