[SPOILERS] Seven Russias Into the Periclous Fray

[SevenSpirits]

Player number 5, me.



It's a tough choice to do myself but I think I'm OK with it, even though I know I'll feel incredibly embarrassed about what I write fairly soon. Right. So, compared to some of the best players here, I am relatively inexperienced in multiplayer civ. There are a lot of scenarios I've just never encountered - especially military ones. On the flipside, I think I'm near the top in time spent trying to analyze and measure the relative values of various economic actions, and I have a lot of experience with strategic games in general. Also, my experience with the game, while limited in quantity, has been extremely high quality. I've played a lot with skilled teammates and opponents, and it's all been in fairly recent games - games whose skill level has been built on years and years of experience. I think I've gotten a lot out of my games here.

The sacred animals have warned me that they might be biased or wrong, but here are their evaluations.


7/10

9/10

8/10

10/10

4/10


In this game, I chose Pericles of Russia. This is a mediocre pick. We know that AGR and PRO are the most unknown traits, and therefor from our perspective they have the greatest variance in outcome. Variance is pretty good in a 12-player game that can only have one winner. On top of that, as I mentioned earlier, I suspect AGR may be too strong, and other people suspect that PRO may be too strong and I have to respect that. I explained that I believe that IF the traits are perfectly balanced, this is a good pick, and that's true. But obviously, the traits being perfectly balanced is not to be expected.

Anyway, in this game I wanted to do the best I could to gain information about the power of these traits. And with other strong players obviously picking them, I needed to not pick them, as a sort of control group. (That's why I'm bummed about probably getting an inferior start. It means I can't do a good job as the control.) So here we are. I think it's a reasonable pick, but not the best one if I was just trying to win.

What sayeth the sixth sacred animal of this pairing?

Baaaaaa

[Commodore]

It's a tough choice to do myself but I think I'm OK with it, even though I know I'll feel incredibly embarrassed

Giggety!

[SevenSpirits]

SEE? See why I needed to research Iron Working way too early!? This motherfucking mapmaker.




That is my only metal. It's a goddamn iron and it's connected directly to the assigned territory (in fact a city of his already) of someone who has easily settlable copper, through hills only. What bullshit.

[Ceiliazul]

on the other hand, if you can win the hill next to iron that is the only mountain pass, you could fort it and have a 1t choke against land based attack. Helms Deep!

[zakalwe]

Cheer up, I'm sure you'll have plenty of uranium and aluminium to compensate. :P

[SevenSpirits]

on the other hand, if you can win the hill next to iron that is the only mountain pass, you could fort it and have a 1t choke against land based attack. Helms Deep!

It's not a bad thought, but I'd have to hold that tile. Forts don't work in enemy territory.

[Commodore]

It's Krill's way of saying 7mod needs cheaper Archery.

[SevenSpirits]

Obviously the price of archery isn't relevant in this situation.

Turns out HAK's city is 1NE of the rice - its borders just popped. So my iron is now adjacent to his culture.

I burned my scientist on Math (OW) and I'm whipping a barracks in A and chopping for three archers. B is making a settler and we'll see what we can do...

I'm also doing my best to scout out land tiles to the west and NW that could conceivably contain backup metals.

[SevenSpirits]

Krill told me I was supposed to have capital copper. I told him it was OK, but I would still bitch about it. So... great job Krill! It's not like +2fh/t in your capital from near the start of the game has any impact on your growth curve in civ. And as we know from experience, it's totally safe to not have copper at your capital while your neighbor does. What are the odds they kill you in the first 50 turns, anyway? And iron working is a super cheap tech which you always want to research ASAP anyway instead of esoteric stuff like mathematics.

t63:



The plan is does not involve any war declaration, just to settle on the signed spot and escort the workers to iron. This is the "greedy" play in that it claims rice and iron instead of no workable resources, doesn't block a clam city, and makes it a bit harder to defend the iron. What can I say, I'm still trying to succeed here and not just get metal.

Barring a preemptive declaration from HAK, the spearman will just be teleported away and have to attack into guerilla archers if that's what he wants to do.



Since I have IW and Archery, my power is a bit inflated compared to people with actual units.



Other demographics are obviously lagging. But at least I'll settle two cities next turn. Math is letting me not fall TOO far behind the curve here.



Gotta get that academy. We're going to limp to calendar for the 3+ happiness which is desperately needed.



For now, this is the only remotely reasonable city location that will increase our happiness fairly soon.

I am just building a mix of settlers and workers (and military). Workers are more efficient economic boosts, but only if you have the tiles to improve, forests to chop, and/or happy cap to work the tiles. Deficits in those areas therefore means to build settlers, and military to protect them.

[WilliamLP]

And iron working is a super cheap tech which you always want to research ASAP anyway instead of esoteric stuff like mathematics.

Swords, not nerds!