[SPOILERS] Might Makes Amurite -- Tatan tries not to screw up

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, it's cheaper in EitB. Baby spiders can be created when giant spiders kill units. Baby spiders can promote to giant spiders if they kill units.

[Tatan]

Wooooo-wait why am I researching Writing? I guess I never reset tech after setting up on of those screenshots from last turn. Anyway time for cottage spam!

First I just need to plantation this dye:



Err wait what? Oh, right, I never researched Calender. Looks like I just wasted 2 worker turns. *pimp*

I really need to get my head back in the game, all these pauses and long stretches of nothing happening have lulled me into autopilot.

EDIT: Oh, and I set research to Mining next so I get a few mines set up and crank out some more workers.

Baby spiders can be created when giant spiders kill units. Baby spiders can promote to giant spiders if they kill units.

Well, well, well, then before that can happen a certain arachnid might have to have an... accident.

[Tatan]

So I've been thinking (ALERT THE NEWSPAPERS!). I might just declare war immediately on everyone I meet. Why?

1) It will freak them out.
2) If I ever actually want to become "friends" with someone, then I can offer peace, and they might actually understand that I want to be friends when they look at the diplo screen and see me at war with everyone else.
3) If I'm at war with most people most of the time, then I probably won't have to decipher as many cryptic trades that are supposed to be messages.
4) People will be totally confused when I DOW them and then start building Towers. This is generally because it is a stupid thing to do, and other players usually expect you to avoid stupid decisions. But I'll show them!

Of course, the obvious risk is that I become everyone's worst enemy from the start and get destroyed. That is a, uh, "kink" in my plan that I have not yet worked out. But otherwise, this seems a clear way of communicating unambiguously my disposition to other teams, which I think is pretty clearly important in the wake of PBEM23.


Or am I just insane? You decide!


I'll just be over here!


[SIZE="2"]Waiting.[/SIZE]




[SIZE="1"]i'm still here[/SIZE]

[Commodore]

*cough* You're mad, mad I say!

Of course...(PBEM 29v spoiler)

...you could also screw up the micro of one of your less-favored rivals and royally torque them off.

...so, yeah, Horse Archer rush seems good.

[Tatan]

PBEM 29 Vets spoiler

Ha-ha, I am vindicated! It is settled, I will try to even the playing field via trolling tactics.

...so, yeah, Horse Archer rush seems good.

Really? I've heard wonders about the Amurite Hunter rush.


Overview pic because I'm lazy:

[Tatan]

t-54

Got Mining. Research set into Calender (I really should have researched it earlier for the happiness, didn't even think about that). I will probably research KotE next. Or maybe Exploration. Honestly I have no damn idea, I haven't found time to sit down and actually plan my moves for more than one turn ahead.

I am ~7 turns away from a settler in RR, which will go to founding that dot in the south (my future eternal adept crank). Other cities will probably alternate between workers/settlers and warriors/adepts for a while. I need to think about a religion for border popping (Ilios got RoK, so that's out).

[Tatan]

Oh, hey, where did that come from? Right, I researched Mining. Which does more than just enable mines. Don't know when I can get around to researching BW, but still that copper is in a great spot.

Anyway I've almost got my second settler built... in the mean time I've concocted a grand scheme to settle him without having to bother building any more pesky warriors. Of course I then forgot to take a pic of this grand scheme and frankly describing it would just be boring, so rest assured, I am indeed leaving a skimpy 1 warrior garrison in both my other cities. It's not as bad as it sounds though, as I have a chop coming in at MM that can rush a warrior if necessary, and RR is, well, in god-king.


The demographics:

Er... okay moving on.

I try not to sound like a serial joy-killer in my reports because that's boring and annoying to read, but honestly I really didn't play this start well at all. Tech path was screwy, micro has been sloppy (partially as a result of tech, but mostly because I'm too short-sighted), and worse, this game kinda lost my full interest. For a long time I was just moving scouts and performing literally pointless worker actions. No contact with anyone else has meant that I've had no one to keep pace with, leading to plain old poor play.


Enough pointless ranting.

Regarding victory conditions. To me, this map is very lopsided.
Time can be ignored as always. Religious is far too impractical as always. With the map, Conquest and Domination seem impractical at best. Too much space. Once a player manages to mostly fill up his region, he could probably mount a decent attack that with a little luck could obliterate his neighbor. Meanwhile, some micro-monster on the other side of the world wins via Tower. Or maybe even Alter because of EitB's changes, though I still doubt Culture has any chance.

So I've been given both a sure-fire chance to get to the epic Amurite late-game and at the same time a clearly more optimal win condition that doesn't involve Firebows or Wizard spam at all.

[Commodore]

I try not to sound like a serial joy-killer in my reports because that's boring and annoying to read, but honestly I really didn't play this start well at all. Tech path was screwy, micro has been sloppy (partially as a result of tech, but mostly because I'm too short-sighted), and worse, this game kinda lost my full interest. For a long time I was just moving scouts and performing literally pointless worker actions. No contact with anyone else has meant that I've had no one to keep pace with, leading to plain old poor play.

Enough pointless ranting.

Regarding victory conditions. To me, this map is very lopsided.
Time can be ignored as always. Religious is far too impractical as always. With the map, Conquest and Domination seem impractical at best. Too much space. Once a player manages to mostly fill up his region, he could probably mount a decent attack that with a little luck could obliterate his neighbor. Meanwhile, some micro-monster on the other side of the world wins via Tower. Or maybe even Alter because of EitB's changes, though I still doubt Culture has any chance.

So I've been given both a sure-fire chance to get to the epic Amurite late-game and at the same time a clearly more optimal win condition that doesn't involve Firebows or Wizard spam at all.

Admit it, you just don't have the time or inclination to fight a wedge-to-wedge involving probably on the order of two or three hundred units.

Gogo culture...you're Spiritual man!

[Ichabod]

Regarding victory conditions. To me, this map is very lopsided.
Time can be ignored as always. Religious is far too impractical as always. With the map, Conquest and Domination seem impractical at best. Too much space. Once a player manages to mostly fill up his region, he could probably mount a decent attack that with a little luck could obliterate his neighbor. Meanwhile, some micro-monster on the other side of the world wins via Tower. Or maybe even Alter because of EitB's changes, though I still doubt Culture has any chance.

So I've been given both a sure-fire chance to get to the epic Amurite late-game and at the same time a clearly more optimal win condition that doesn't involve Firebows or Wizard spam at all.

I feel I am the one to blame for this (better yet, *I am* the one to blame).

But the few pointers that I had when doing the map is that it should be big, with enough starting land for anyone to win, and that all the players should have a "safe chunk of land" to develop.

But it seems to me that I just made a big, boring map...

Sorry.

[Tatan]

Admit it, you just don't have the time or inclination to fight a wedge-to-wedge involving probably on the order of two or three hundred units.

Oh man, don't tempt me. It would cost me the game, and most of my spare time, and any respect the other players may have in my abilities, but I COMPLETELY COULD do it! Had enough experience recently in my failed FFH adventure moving a hundred or so Dragon Slayers around in conjunction with an army of about thirty Mages.

I feel I am the one to blame for this (better yet, *I am* the one to blame).

But the few pointers that I had when doing the map is that it should be big, with enough starting land for anyone to win, and that all the players should have a "safe chunk of land" to develop.

But it seems to me that I just made a big, boring map...

Sorry.

No no no, you misunderstand me. The players asked for a builder map with a ton of extra land and a ton of extra safety, which is exactly what you made. I had a hell of a time dot-mapping it, too (in a fun way ). I have simply discovered that I do not actually like intense builder games, partially because I already experienced something very similar in (BTS)PBEM11, and partially because my planning is . I fail to see how you could have satisfied the players' criteria and still magically pleased fickle me.*

[SIZE="1"]*That said, what can a guy do around here to get a triple-gem floodplains start? Sheesh.[/SIZE]