This is gonna be good: von Adlercreutz and Taotao

[taotao]

Ok result. Next scout move sounds ok, I'd like to get a look at the spot S of cows. Then do a circle around the cap to check for early city sites. Can you play until weekend?

Should be able to play no problem and we seem to agree on basic ideas regarding scout. One thing that theoretically might come up before the weekend is what tech to research after hunting? I'd say that wheel was the best choice in initial sims, but with the land ending to the west there's less use in the road 1W of cap. I still think it's a decent choice (quite possibly the best), but just a thing to consider.

I actually have lurked badgame, Tsargon is somewhat weaker player than Borsche. In bgpb3 he took quite a lot of losses against Borsche+Boak team in their renaissance era warfare, making tactiacal mistakes like not taking hill terrain but open and getting his stack wiped. Also his building game and economy was weaker.

And that ranking is just troll , GJ is the strongest in bgpb as far as I know and then Borsche (although Boak is feared there also, as people who get their asses handed to them are "boaked" ). Well being trolly, insulting and weird is really what badgame is about, if you like political incorrectness then definitely check it out.

Badgame players seem to me also more aggressive than in RB. One difference is NAPs in diplo games; for some reason people in rb tend to consider NAPs almost holy and NAP stabbing as a big sin (I as a former diplomacy player appreciate a good backstab ), in badgame when someone NAPstabbed the response was just being sorry not to be the first to NAPstab.

Great that you've had a peek in there
The point might be somewhat mute as Tasunke probably will pick up playing soon, but good to know nonetheless.
(I actually had a feeling they were pulling each others legs with the rankings, but good to hear that the sentiment isn't far from the truth anyway).

[GermanJoey]

And that ranking is just troll , GJ is the strongest in bgpb as far as I know and then Borsche (although Boak is feared there also, as people who get their asses handed to them are "boaked" ).

ahahahaha that is not what being "boaked" means

[GermanJoey]

"getting boaked" is from our second bts pitboss. I was joao of china (base bts, so insanely fast starter), and chopped out a quick axeman from my second city after I discovered I was next to Boak, and sent it at him blind. the axeman happened to arrive just as boak was starting to mine his own copper, and since he didn't have horses hooked either he was pretty much screwed. however, because it was a diplo game, and especially because it was boak (you just gotta know the guy), instead of trying to inflict maximum damage on his civ I just used the opportunity to fuck with him relentlessly in the diplo thread + over steam by forcing him to participate in this ridiculously convoluted and horseshit "gamble" based on an gambling manga/anime called Akagi:

http://badgame.net/index.php?topic=32567...msg7125138
http://badgame.net/index.php?topic=32533...msg7124677

he, of course, totally flipped out and i just laughed and laughed and laughed...

anyways, the idea these days is that you don't want to be lazy about hooking up strategic resources in our crowd or else you too may risk... "getting boaked!"

[taotao]

"getting boaked"...

Thanks for the explanation Hopefully this is something we'll manage to avoid

[taotao]

All right, it's time for some more
Opponent rankings

In this post my intention was to present the teams with 3/5 stars in terms of chances of winning. When doing the initial rankings I only had one single guy with three stars though, so I swiftly upgraded the two highest teams in my 2 star category. Later on when reading through the players posts a tad more I think I might've overvalued CH('s combo) somewhat and probably he should be slightly lower, but anyway here we go:

9. Cheater Hater as Washington of Inca
Chances of winning:
Next door neighbour rating:
Entertainment value?:

I’m really confused by CH. I’ve read in numerous places (from himself) that he hates war. Yet, in pbem 58 the first thing he does after settling his second city, is axe rushing B4ndit. B4ndits second city is great (granted) but miles away. He then seems surprised when b4ndit later takes it back and is close to quitting the game.
In pb 18 he might be slightly less aggressive, but watches graphs closely and notices his opponents having lots more power, but still does nothing and acts really annoyed at their stupidity when they attack him. (At one point he’s even talking about attacking dtay whose power might be approaching double his own and is running around with knights when he reached catapults not that long ago…).
At first I was going to rank this team high due to the leader/civ combo and assumed experience of CH, but the more I read and think about it, the worse it seem to get. Yes CH is a decent sandcastle empire builder. Yes, bee lining culture producing granaries and whipping away their higher than normal happy cap sounds great. Will his nation stand the tests of time with nations on multiple sides though? No, eventually those rose coloured glasses of CH will turn into blood dripping red.

8. AdrienIer as Hammurabi of India
Chances of winning:
Next door neighbour rating:
Entertainment value?:

I still consider AI a noob when looking at the roster of players here at RB. He is one that’s been around for quite a few games though and who I actually think has started to learn the ropes by now.
In Civ, India is the big peacenik of civs, not even getting a unique military unit. It does, however, get what could be considered the best unique unit in the game. To not look like too tasty a target AI managed to pair his civ with aggressive Hammurabi. Now, some people think agg/org is anti-synergistic, but still, Adrien really has all the components to make this work. He’s got better workers than everyone else, speeding up the initial game. He’s got agg barracks to get culture in his cities. He’s got org/agg to support the costs of his growing empire. He’s got agg promotions to defend his land grab and if all goes awry, well, at least those promotions can be put into other uses than defense as well.
One thing that might speak against Adrien is that he’s slightly stretched over several games and tends to do some unnecessary mistakes from time to time, but perhaps this is the time he’ll get everything lined up properly?

7. Molach as Willem of Celts
Chances of winning:
Next door neighbour rating:
Entertainment value?:

I believe Molach is a good civ player. His empire management is close to top notch, but he rarely gets much to show for his efforts. Why? Well, for one thing he’s too passive when it comes to initiating war. That doesn’t mean that he’s bad at warfare though and if attacked he’s quite likely to go on a full tilt against the offender, so he might be better not poked by us. If I remember correctly he might also have a slight tendency towards “cute” plays, so in this game we really better watch out for guerilla3 units attacking our diagonals…
Otherwise I don’t really know what to say. Willem is a decent leader, but not the mammoth he’s in vanilla and well, celts only really have their promotions… Could be a contender, but more likely to end up in the same bracket as the one he’s in in pb18.

[von Adlercreutz]

"getting boaked" is from our second bts pitboss. I was joao of china (base bts, so insanely fast starter), and chopped out a quick axeman from my second city after I discovered I was next to Boak, and sent it at him blind. the axeman happened to arrive just as boak was starting to mine his own copper, and since he didn't have horses hooked either he was pretty much screwed. however, because it was a diplo game, and especially because it was boak (you just gotta know the guy), instead of trying to inflict maximum damage on his civ I just used the opportunity to fuck with him relentlessly in the diplo thread + over steam by forcing him to participate in this ridiculously convoluted and horseshit "gamble" based on an gambling manga/anime called Akagi:

http://badgame.net/index.php?topic=32567...msg7125138
http://badgame.net/index.php?topic=32533...msg7124677

he, of course, totally flipped out and i just laughed and laughed and laughed...

anyways, the idea these days is that you don't want to be lazy about hooking up strategic resources in our crowd or else you too may risk... "getting boaked!"

Well, at least my misunderstanding provided lurker activity, thanks for the explanation! In BGPB3 B&B used the term at quite different occasions. The gamble was a nice read!


@Tao Am I reading your rankings correctly, do you consider these players to be higher than Retep+Ichabod? To me the South Americans seem to be one of the stronger ones, a bit behind vets like Gavagai and Comm.

[taotao]

Am I reading your rankings correctly, do you consider these players to be higher than Retep+Ichabod? To me the South Americans seem to be one of the stronger ones, a bit behind vets like Gavagai and Comm.

To semi-quote pindiscooter from pb13:

The rankings are made up from:
a) Past games at RB (20%)
b) Promised potential (30%)
c) Pulling stuff out me ass (50%)

More seriously, the rank is according to how likely I find each combo (players + civ + leader) to be winning the game*.
That means that eg. unpredictable types like Tasunke are likely to get a higher ranking than they deserve since occasionally that crazy gambit might actually pay off...

In the case of Ichtep their pure skill level would probably put them higher, but I kind of bank on them misprioritising something later on, their interest fading and them generally not putting in the effort to optimize that space ship launch...

*NS being an exception here

[taotao]

Played t2.

..and got annoyed at myself. I should've moved the scout 2W instead (doubling back over old territory), but so it goes.



Moving on I see two options.
A) We go south of the mountain, check out the shared cow city and later head straight across our already explored area to look for potential second city city E/N of cap
or
B) We head north of the mountain, check potential city and go further south before starting to circle our explored area.

Do you have a preference? I might go with B, but not sure what's better.

Is it enough that we get the scout on the 'A2'-tile or does it need to hit the coast further north?

[taotao]

In international news Gavagai has finally settled his capital. So as a recap: 21/23 teams settled on the first turn (t0), REM settled on the second (t1) and Gavagai on his third (t2).

That also means that demos should be somewhat interpretable if anyone wants to make a lot of effort for little gain:


Seems like one of the creative players has a seafood start?
and 7 other players have a forested ivory or has planted on stone/marble??
Most people have coastal capitals, but there's at least one capital slightly inland?

Oh, finally, Serdoa and CheaterHater both have popped a tech from a hut each. I guess technically 44g is better than a tech and if we're really lucky they've even started researching the techs they got, but you know, jealousy...

[taotao]

T3
Moved the scout according to "plan B". Spotted another pigs which makes "shared cows city" viable (though I still definitely want some seafood there and that also might move the city location 1S). Will be interesting next turn when capital pops borders and the scout reaches the coast. Also took hunting as our first tech and we'll get that as the turn rolls.




Abroad, NylesStandish got a tech from a hut.