Posts: 17,737
Threads: 82
Joined: Nov 2005
It wouldn't be a sports theme without a Way-Too-Early Pre-Season Ranking:
1. plako - The reigning champion is #1 until someone knocks him off
2. Krill/Seven - Seven has decided to take his talents to Krill. Will talent be enough to win out or will clashing egos get in the way?
3. bigger/lewwyn/qgqqqqq - This is potentially a reach, but I have a sense that this team is going to come out hungry and motivated in light of perceived snubs from PB8.
4. Serdoa - Predicting a focused Serdoa to come out and avenge the poor hand he was dealt in the last pitboss.
5. pindicator/scooter/Noble Helium - There were some growing pains as a new team got used to working together, but I think the success from the second half of pb8 continues through
6. commodore/kurumi - Putting Commodore this low feels wrong, but we shouldn't undersell the amount of value that Thoth brought to this team in pb8. Unfortunately Thoth could not be retained and is now a free agent; will the signing of a talented but unproven kurumi be enough to maintain this team as an upper tier contender?
7. dtay / retep - I have a feeling that this team will turn some heads. Dtay is an unknown, but if retep is allowed to flourish then they will do very well.
8. suttree - After a strong rookie showing, there are high expectations for suttree to build on the initial success in pb11
9. slowcheetah - Teams will be watching for slowcheetah now. Can he repeat his success in what's sure to be stiffer competition?
10. ichabod/wetbandit - I have a feeling that putting Ichabod this low is going to be one of those picks that I look back on and wonder what I was thinking. Ichabod has a mental hurdle to overcome in competing against strong teams and wetbandit is an unproven commodity.
11. nakor/CFCjesterfool - We'll see a strong improvement as this team continues to gain MP experience. Middle of the pack seems like a likely place for them to finish.[/b]
12. fintourist/oldharry - A strong greens game in pbem45 from Fintourist makes me think he will have a respectable game. But warfare improvements need to be made in order to climb higher.
13. mostly-harmless - I can see the angry emails from mh fans in my inbox already. And they may be right, but he hasn't laced up in a while and some rust has to be expected in his play.
14. williamlp - There's a high chance someone thinks he's Lord Parkin and invades him purely for this reason.
15. azza - I really want to root for Azza to not be rushed and eliminated early but it's hard to argue against history.
16. yuris - We can predict 2 things with yuris: 1. He will build the Oracle. 2. He will be conquered in the late Medeival / early rennasaince ears
17. jowy - Can he keep his mental toughness over the long haul of the pb13 season?
18. bacchus/cheater hater - I really have no idea what to expect from this team so they're in the bottom spot by default.
In the College Football tradition of pre-season rankings, these rankings are made up of a combination of reputation (20%), promised potential (30%), and pulling things out of my ass (50%). I can also guarantee that the final rankings will look vastly different than what we have at the start of the season. A team will vastly underperform (that was our role in pb8), a Cinderella will come out of nowhere (slowcheetah), and one of the favorites will likely go on to win (plako).
One of the reasons why this ranking will be wrong is I really don't have much of a basis on most of these teams. I've been following recent games only intermittently, and haven't seen a full display of the abilities of our newer members in those games, either because they are still ongoing or because I haven't been keeping up very well. From current pitboss games I have a feeling for who's good out of the gate and at building the beginnings of an empire, but what about war? metagaming? staying focused? adapting to changing situations? And some of this is based off reputation, because Commodore has been raving about the promise being shown by our newest members. I'm sure that a few of them are going to surprise us and make me look back on this ranking with regret.
On a side note, how awesome is it that we have so many new people at RB lately! We're still growing our MP community and Civ4 is now 8 years old. I love that and I hope we can keep being inviting for new members.
Suffer Game Sicko
Dodo Tier Player
