[SPOILERS] PB9 Lurker Thread

[scooter]

I thought this pitboss was running along the lines of "play the hand you're dealt". Sometimes balance does need to take a back seat when the goal of the game is to have fun rather than have a competitive experience.

Agreed with this which is why I was advocating the top group, but:

If we want differing strengths of combos in the game why not pick 2 combos randomly from each group (once decided) and then the last player gets a random roll on whats left?

IMO this is overkill though. The chance of somebody playing Toku/Russia while somebody else plays Sury of Mongolia is just cruel, and I really think the players would be upset.

[Dantski]

I thought this pitboss was running along the lines of "play the hand you're dealt". Sometimes balance does need to take a back seat when the goal of the game is to have fun rather than have a competitive experience.

Agreed with this which is why I was advocating the top group, but:

If we want differing strengths of combos in the game why not pick 2 combos randomly from each group (once decided) and then the last player gets a random roll on whats left?

IMO this is overkill though. The chance of somebody playing Toku/Russia while somebody else plays Sury of Mongolia is just cruel, and I really think the players would be upset.

4) Random unrestricted combos - basically play the hand you are dealt

This is play the hand you're dealt, not shuffle the cards and remove the cards ranging from 2-5.

[scooter]

This is play the hand you're dealt, not shuffle the cards and remove the cards ranging from 2-5.

I mean...

4) Random unrestricted combos - basically play the hand you are dealt -Okay, but a suggested modification: Someone rolls a good 18 random combinations, and skims off the worst and best (Toku/Russia and Pacal/India get axed).

Just need someone to probably roll a few and pick the one that is best with (ideally) no crazy good/bad combos for one or two players

And no happy-resource-less Australia. For civ/leader selection I like the suggestion of rolling a few extra and then shaving off the best/worst pics and then randomly assign the rest.

site note: completely hilarious that Commodore explicitly mentioned Toku/Zulu as something they'd want thrown out.

[Cyneheard]

huayna ind/fin zulu
sury exp/cre mongolia
isabella exp/spi france
hannibal chm/fin native america
louis cre/ind rome
pericles cre/phi khmer
augustus imp/ind inca

That's regoarrarr's top group + Augustus/Inca. I actually think that's pretty okay in terms of balance. It's not perfect, but none of these is an instant win IMO. Thoughts? I get the impression that all people cared about is that people aren't running around with Pacal or India or something. The top 3 here are a notch above the rest, but only a notch.

I like this suggestion: Huayna of Zulu is likely the best of the lot, but none of them are bad.

- Pericles of Khmer if and only if they're allowed to build Ballistaphants (as WE are generally banned)
- Justinian (Spi/Imp) of Portugal would be my choice for either "Swap for Pericles" if no Ballistaphants or #8 if an 8th team joins last minute (doesn't look likely).

[slowcheetah]

This is play the hand you're dealt, not shuffle the cards and remove the cards ranging from 2-5.

I think the map has a larger bearing on playing the hand your dealt (i.e. lack of happiness resources, far away horse etc). It's more satisfying (in my opinion) to have a bit more power in leader traits. Additionally, didn't they ask for leaders to be slightly balanced? A system where someone can have toku of russia and someone else ends up with Sury of Mongolia isn't balanced.

[scooter]

Totally agree with slowcheetah that the map will have more bearing here than the leaders. I'd take the worst leader here and the best map spot over the best leader and worst map spot any day. Anyways, there's 7 players, and I do like those 7 combos because all of them have strong things if you play them well.

One concern - I think it's best for the game if Commodore doesn't get Huayna Zulu or Sury of Mongolia. That is not only the 2 strongest leaders here (or at least 2 of the top 3), but they're also paired with rush civs. That's just a bit cruel. So I asked Commodore if he minded if we did not allow him to get 2 of the 7 we rolled, but it would be full random on which of the other 5 he got. He was OK with that, so I'm going to suggest we do that (no, I didn't tell him what they were, just said "best 2"). So yeah, I'd suggest going forward with these 7:

huayna ind/fin zulu - banned for Commodore
sury exp/cre mongolia - banned for Commodore
isabella exp/spi france
hannibal chm/fin native america
louis cre/ind rome
pericles cre/phi khmer
augustus imp/ind inca

If an 8th person appears out of nowhere today, Justinian/Portugal is probably the next best choice. Finally, I'd be more apt to ban Huayna if it was the only IND, but Louis + Augustus balances that out a bit. I look at all of these 7, and there's clear gameplans for all of them, which I think is important for "fun-ness" - especially in a game with mostly intermediate or greenish players.

Thoughts?

[slowcheetah]

Totally agree with slowcheetah that the map will have more bearing here than the leaders. I'd take the worst leader here and the best map spot over the best leader and worst map spot any day. Anyways, there's 7 players, and I do like those 7 combos because all of them have strong things if you play them well.

One concern - I think it's best for the game if Commodore doesn't get Huayna Zulu or Sury of Mongolia. That is not only the 2 strongest leaders here (or at least 2 of the top 3), but they're also paired with rush civs. That's just a bit cruel. So I asked Commodore if he minded if we did not allow him to get 2 of the 7 we rolled, but it would be full random on which of the other 5 he got. He was OK with that, so I'm going to suggest we do that (no, I didn't tell him what they were, just said "best 2"). So yeah, I'd suggest going forward with these 7:

huayna ind/fin zulu - banned for Commodore
sury exp/cre mongolia - banned for Commodore
isabella exp/spi france
hannibal chm/fin native america
louis cre/ind rome
pericles cre/phi khmer
augustus imp/ind inca

If an 8th person appears out of nowhere today, Justinian/Portugal is probably the next best choice. Finally, I'd be more apt to ban Huayna if it was the only IND, but Louis + Augustus balances that out a bit. I look at all of these 7, and there's clear gameplans for all of them, which I think is important for "fun-ness" - especially in a game with mostly intermediate or greenish players.

Thoughts?

Sounds good to me.

[scooter]

Leaders set. This is how I generated the leaders FYI:



I took the current list in this thread and made that my "left" list, I copied the roster directly from the IT thread and made that my "right" list, and then rolled, then match from left to right. If Commodore got one of the top two I would've done a flat re-roll, but this spat out Augustus of Inca instead, so we're good. Full list:

Twinkletoes: Isabella of France
Commodore/Brick: Augustus of Inca
Jowy: Pericles of Khmer
AutomatedTeller: Hannibal of Native America
Cornflakes/Q: Huayna Capac of Zulu
2metraninja: Sury of Mongolia
Azza: Louis of Rome

[scooter]

Funny, out of the Big Three (Huayna/Zulu, Izzy/France, Sury/Mongol), the two that have chimed in have both been down on what they got.

[dazedroyalty]

Late to the show, but I agree that "play the hand your dealt" is more about the attitude the players should take during the game. I think Scooter made the exactly right call to do his best to take random leaders and choose the most fun to play with. In this case, the best 7 combos was the right call.