[SPOILERS] RB PB7 LURKER Thread

[Brian Shanahan]

Hey, he could be being sarcastic, you know.

As Wilde said: "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence."

On the other hand, I don't think so neither.

[oledavy]

Surely due some sort of award for the least effective home defense while frittering away their military achieving nothing in foreign lands? Not to mention how easily lurked into a trap they were by Lord Parkin: "Look! Empty city: You just need to move onto the open ground where I can whack you with 2 Warriors." That the turn player stopped reporting 2 weeks ago, probably isn't helping.

I found their debate over the morality of killing LP funny. Not because they thought they could do it in the first place; if I have am presented with an empty capital in an epic game early on, of course I'm going to kill it.

[T-hawk]

I think HAK's Great Wall question is understandable. We all asked it at some point. It is extremely counterintuitive for the wall to visually exist somewhere but have its effects extend beyond that.

What were the rules on espionage - tech stealing is allowed, right? The Great Wall might actually be worthwhile for that.

[oledavy]

I think HAK's Great Wall question is understandable. We all asked it at some point. It is extremely counterintuitive for the wall to visually exist somewhere but have its effects extend beyond that.

What were the rules on espionage - tech stealing is allowed, right? The Great Wall might actually be worthwhile for that.

It wasn't the question - just picking The Great Wall over Pyramids when you have stone that prompted me to

Tech stealing is allowed, so the GW could be worthwhile. However, I don't read HAK as grasping the synergies of the GW with the espionage economy or thinking about how to run one in the first place. Hell, I've never run one and would probably just be miserable at it too.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Plus there's the EP malus for Spy missions from war. Which the game is always at war.

[Cyneheard]

It wasn't the question - just picking The Great Wall over Pyramids when you have stone that prompted me to

Tech stealing is allowed, so the GW could be worthwhile. However, I don't read HAK as grasping the synergies of the GW with the espionage economy or thinking about how to run one in the first place. Hell, I've never run one and would probably just be miserable at it too.

TGW is also 1/3 the cost of 'Mids. I think he's much better off not burning so many hammers on the Mids...

[Krill]

It wasn't the question - just picking The Great Wall over Pyramids when you have stone that prompted me to

Tech stealing is allowed, so the GW could be worthwhile. However, I don't read HAK as grasping the synergies of the GW with the espionage economy or thinking about how to run one in the first place. Hell, I've never run one and would probably just be miserable at it too.

Stone = Henge. Always.

[timski]

As I read it, HitAnyKey appears to be primarily valuing the Great Wall for its ability to generate Great Generals...? What sort of Armageddon are they expecting to repel? Since, by their own admission, HitAnyKey is playing entirely on gut feeling, the best advice is perhaps to skip all Wonders: With 18...17 players, any Wonder will require a lot of commitment to gain, and hence must be used very carefully. Sadly hard to state that without spoiling.

Meanwhile Team Googly are in even worse shape than I realised. If their opponent's C&D is correct, Team Googly are playing a weird Oracle-we-don't-need-or-bust builder game, with barely enough defenses to deflect scouting Warriors. My money is on bust: Parkin appears to be preparing a Chariot rush, while Antisocialmunky is more convinced of the need to attack Googly with every passing turn. If Antisocialmunky blocks (or later pillages) Googly's Copper, and Parkins arrives with Chariots, they are screwed.

[Azza]

Well, now that I'm officially dead, I'll try to justify some of my decisions.

Azza opened with an economy game, which made sense at their start, but there were 3 clear inflection points when they should have at least paused for thought:

1. On turn 4, knowing that MackSeven had only started about 10 tiles away, and had moved their Scout straight at them. I don't precisely when Azza scouted MackSeven's lands, but is looks fairly soon thereafter. It would not have been hard to see MackSeven were in a crappy corner: They'd spent 3 turns before even settling, and the best land they could find was still poor? And so they might be planning a high risky move to get back into the game. Too early to change plan, but enough warning to watch them carefully.

I never got a view of half their lands because I didn't want to move my scout straight onto a forest to avoid losing him too soon, so I didn't know how good/bad their capital ended up being. And while I can't remember exactly how good the land was, they had more to safely settle than I did.

2. On turn 24, seeing MackSeven's power spike, and not commenting on the significance Bronze Working (I accept that "Warrior and 1 pop" is an accurate description of the jump on turn 24 itself), nor commenting on the Wheel several turns later. Why tech the Wheel immediately, unless the opponent needed to connect their Copper? There's a tacit recognition in vulnerability by teching Archery, but absolutely no change to the build plan, which is still focused on city #2.

I knew that the large spike before the warrior + pop was bronze working. The reason I'd screenshotted and commented on it was because my initial thought was that he'd lucked out and settled on plains hill copper, and that he'd just built an axeman. When I'd realised that there was no change on the MFG graph, and I saw that it had corresponded with a score jump I knew it had to be warrior + pop. I did screw up after that by missing the power jump from The Wheel, and falsely attributed the high production to IMP boosted settlers.

3. On (about) turn 32, Azza finally registers that their opponent is mass-building Axes, muses on some Archers, but continues to build their Settler. Their game plan remained focused on city #2 at all costs. A city which likely won't last long enough to build a single Chariot.

When I saw MackSeven's power jump, I decided that I would rather try to get some chariots out to counter attack, than turtle in my capital building Archers. I wasn't sure how many axes they'd built, but I knew that at best I'd be choked then killed if I didn't get chariots quickly.

By the time they get visual confirmation of the Axes approaching, it's too late for them to get more than one Archer out. Although they don't appear to realise that immediately, presumably assuming that MackSeven are approaching 1 tile per turn, rather than also building a road.

Yeah, I screwed up big time there. I thought I'd have time to move my first Archer onto the PHF, and build the 2nd Archer before he got there. But thanks to the road, and them logging in first the turn I got my archer, I could do neither.

Azza's only unluckiness was MackSeven's unluckiness: If MackSeven's start hadn't been so poor, they wouldn't have rushed Azza immediately. But aside from that, Azza's start was vastly superior. If Azza had adjusted their game plan (away from city #2) just once in the first 30-or-so turns, they'd probably have survived MackSeven's rush, leaving MackSeven crippled. With an incredibly defensible western border, Azza could have rolled into MackSeven's territory at leisure.

Sure, it's easy to write that as a lurker. But Azza *did* play the situation wrong.

If I'd gone with a turtling approach, I would've been choked to death by their axes instead, and all they'd really have to worry about until they eventually killed me off would be barbarians. The only difference for me is I survive a few extra turns while they build the necessary army to wipe me out.

[timski]

Thanks Azza. As I said, it's always easier to see things when lurking, than it is when playing. To echo Nicolae Carpathia, I'm sure you would have done much better than some of your opponents, had the starts been switched around.

Speaking of which, here's a fun quiz: Count the number of foreigners in Team Googly's land, and then try and work out why they're building a third Settler while teching Meditation...