Winner: Huayna Capac
Runner Up: Louis XIV
First to Die: Hatshepsut
Number of Wars: 13
Victory: Domination
Finish Date: 297
Thoughts: Pacal's capital is great, but I think he is totally toast in this game. Not only is he one of the only peaceful leaders in a world where everyone except Hatshepsut is somewhat aggressive, but he loooves religion and will almost certainly found one. The problem is Saladin definitely will as well, and I think it is highly probable one of Huayna or Hatshepsut does, Huayna will get that religion from conquering Hatshepsut or will get Saladin's and the end result is I think Pacal will be hated by multiple other people due to religion. Since everyone outside Hatshepsut is low peace weight this will matter a LOT to war declarations. It's easy to imagine a scenario Suleiman gets Huayna, Hatshepsut or Saladin's religion and can literally only declare on Pacal. On top of that, Napoleon being right next to him means a high likelihood he gets roughed up early, and we all know Pacal's pre-Rifling issues.
So for me, the 2nd place spot comes down to Louis or Napoleon. Suleiman on the diplo side would be well done for 2nd place but his land is atrocious (no copper, tons of jungle) for an AI and I think will choke him out. Napoleon has a great shot to take out Pacal and co-runaway with Huayna, buuuut if he conquers Pacal then he will 99% take Pacal's religion, and if he doesn't then he won't get 2nd. Louis might end up with Saladin's religion, but I think he has some benefits that Napoleon doesn't, such as more paths to 2nd place and the fact his favorite civic is Hereditary Rule which will heavily boost his favor with Huayna Capac while Napoleon won't. So, Louie Louie it is! I actually think Napoleon and Louis both have some interesting paths to victory (Louis has a strong setup for culture), but Huayna's position feels far too strong to bet against.
I think this is going to be a religiously messy game with more aggressive civs that will lend itself to a militaristic finish, if Pacal and Huayna end up different religions I think we'll see only Huayna, Suleiman and 1 other person left, so I'm going to go with the bold Domination victory condition which would also be how Napoleon could win. I actually think the 2nd most valuable could be Culture, which both Louis and Huayna could win, but none of Spaceship/Culture/Domination feels "wrong" here.
Since Sullla liked the first analysis enough to post it on his site, I'll do one for Game 2 as well...
Not as incompetent of a game as the opener, but perhaps a wackier one. From weird settling patterns early on to all the crazy wardecs and no long-term alliances, I think most leaders got both good and bad strokes of luck at some point.
Saladin. A surprising first elimination of a leader who'd had one of the strongest openings. Saladin claimed a lot of land and majorly messed with Napoleon's early game by sniping a close city site early on, and was in position to become a game leader by absorbing Hatty. But he didn't do well enough diplomatically - after the initial wave of conversions, he was the only leader practicing his religion of Islam, and while he was able to rope in Pacal and Louis later on, one of those was a notable backstabber and not a solid ally. His religious tension with Napoleon was exacerbated by the agressive plants he made near him - had Arabia not founded those two somewhat far-flung cities near France, I bet Napoleon would've attacked somebody else. That provocation alone likely would've gotten Saladin eliminated, as Napoleon did have the stronger military, and then the backstab by Louis sealed his fate as first to die. Sal had a hazardous starting position in the center of the map, and he wasn't able to play it well enough to avoid multiple attacks.
Hatshepsut. Well, we all knew that barring complete insanity, Hatty wouldn't be leaving this map alive, and while the dogpile on Sal bought her some time and let her avoid being the first to die, she indeed was quickly dispatched immediately after his elimination. Hatty had a weak opening, with a poor second city plant and too-slow expansion, and that left her in a poor position where she wouldn't have had a chance at winning even if left alone. She managed to survive the initial French attack when Saladin got in the way and continue surviving in this weak position for a while, but then when attacked by Napoleon again, this time with Sal out of the way, that was it. That French attack came at the worst possible time too, as it looked like Hatty might actually be about to accomplish something for herself with an attack on Huayna Capac, but she had no chance in the 2v1. Hatty was doomed on this map, and her overall weak performance just made her inevitable conquest easier.
Suleiman. Poor Sillyman was almost as shafted by this map setup as Hatty, and I don't think there was much of a way he could've done better with his situation. He expanded as well as he could given the economic constraints of his terrible land, he made a bold move in attacking his weakest neighbor, Huayna Capac, before the Inca grew too strong, he managed to hold back the Incan attackers even when the tide turned against him, and then he got in a situation to make some gains again when he and Hatty started to 2v1 Huayna. Then he got Wang Kon'd, conquered by a stronger leader from literally the opposite end of the map. I don't see how he could've played this situation better - maybe he could've gone after Hatty, but she had no land bordering him, and the best he could've gotten would've been a few cities under cultural pressure from their neighbors, which wouldn't have put him close to a winning position or done anything about Louis's completely random attack. Suleiman was quite simply placed in a situation where he couldn't win, and couldn't survive for very long despite his best efforts.
Huayna Capac. Huayna had quite a game here, playing both well and poorly, getting both lucky and unlucky. He was unlucky in that he had a cramped starting position, but lucky in that Hatty started by settling away from him to leave him more land, and that he had an absolute dream of a floodplains cottage cheese city site. He played poorly in that he didn't expand enough, building a bunch of wonders and only 6 cities, but well in that he managed to keep pace with the other leaders in tech for most of the game despite having less land. He got unlucky in having Suleiman attack him early on, but played poorly as well in that even when he took the fight to the Ottoman lands and had the tech edge, he couldn't capitalize and actually take cities. He got unlucky with several more attacks from other leaders across the course of the game, but lucky in that others would jump in to save him every time, whether by backstabbing his attackers or simply winning the game, and in gaining three Egyptian cities by doing absolutely nothing. He played well in that he was able to remain decently relevant and survive the entire game, but poorly in that he never made any sort of move (such as running the culture slider) that would have put him in the conversation to actually win or advance unless everybody else killed each other. He got unlucky by having his defensive pact, which might've been a saving grace if HE was the one attacked, turn Napoleon against him for the rest of the game, but he made his own luck by signing that pact in the first place.
This was a game where Huayna had an uncharacteristically poor performance, especially given his promising start. It was a game where he demonstrated how dangerous he is, and how well he can keep up, as long as he's still alive. It was a game where he had some bad breaks, with a sub-par starting location and some inopportune war declarations. It was a game where he had some lucky breaks, getting saved from really bad situations three different times to survive to the end. A very up-and-down game for Huayna, and that extends even to his fantasy performance for Sullla - he scored 0 points in this game, but survived and will have the chance to run roughshod over the Wildcard game moving forward.
Louis XIV. An impressive game by the Sun King, given how poorly he started out. Not only was he the last leader to send out a settler for a third city, but then that city got auto-razed to set him back further! He easily had one of the worst early-games with his slow expansion rate and being boxed in by barb cities, but his insulated starting position then worked in his favor, as he was able to bide his time, fill out the remaining land for a decent portion, and not have to worry about any of the more aggressive leaders roughing him up, especially as he joined Saladin's religious bloc. Then, when the time for action came, Louis performed well for the most part, expanding his holdings and holding back other leaders with a series of opportunistic backstabs. His first stab of religious ally Saladin was the most successful, giving him a nice plot of land bordering his territory and putting him on the map as a serious contender in this game. He followed that up with a bizarre across-the-map conquest of Suleiman, but one that was nevertheless successful and gave him a nice second pocket of territory. His first backstab of Pacal seemed suicidal, but as it turned out, it succeeded in stopping him from rolling over Napoleon, keeping the other French leader in contention, and Louis was able to peace out unscathed. Then he got a couple more cities and swiped the second-place position from Napoleon by backstabbing HIM while he was off fighting the Inca.
End the game with that and Louis would have had an impressive display of savvy opportunistic moves that put him in a strong position despite his poor start. Unfortunately, he chose to throw it all away in the eleventh hour, attacking Pacal once more and getting brutally torn apart at the end of the game. He lost second place purely by his own stupid mistake - he who lived by the backstab died by the backstab. We'll see how he does in the Wild Card game though - he's the sort of leader who would normally do pretty well there, although with the unusually stacked field he might have a tougher time.
Napoleon. A successful warmongerer's game for once! Napoleon prospered in this matchup by executing a strong opening and, for the most part, choosing his battles wisely. He did one of the best jobs of expanding in this game, making it easy for him to build up the strongest military and go a-conquering. His first war against Egypt didn't work so well due to Saladin's interference, but he recovered from that and went on a relentless campaign from there on out, never staying at peace until he had conquered most of Arabia and then Egypt. That put him in a very strong position, with a large swath of territory, still the strongest army in the game, and his choice of whom to conquer next. But then he made his biggest mistake of the game: He waited. At least Pacal and HC had stronger economies, and time was on their side, while to capitalize on his advantage, Napoleon needed to keep conquering. Instead, he let them keep teching, not going to war again until Pacal had developed a tech lead. His too-late war declaration on Pacal would've eliminated him had Louis not stepped in to save the day, and he could never really regain his momentum after that, especially not when Louis backstabbed him as well. Napoleon played well early on, but messed up by resting on his laurels before gaining a convincing lead, not capitalizing on his advantage and thus leaving himself in a position where his second-place finish relied on Louis throwing away his own game.
Pacal II. The one big threat to Pacal early on, and the reason why some predicted him first to die, was the fact that he was the closest neighbor of Napoleon, and so the most likely to be the target of a major warmonger. However, peace weight concerns, Nappy's southward pattern of expansion, and some aggressive plants from Saladin resulted in the French leader turning his attention elsewhere, and Pacal had no other big threats early on, leaving him in peace for a long time. That means we had a Financial leader, who executed a solid landgrab, being left to tech in peace for ages on end - is it any surprise that we ended up with that leader winning by spaceship? Pacal played well, taking full advantage of his favorable circumstances to grow to the point that once people actually started attacking him, they no longer posed any threat and he could hold them off with ease. It certainly ended up being a very favorable game for Pacal, but he handled the situation properly as well, and certainly deserved his victory.
Game 3 should be an interesting one, and I think it may well come down to a battle of the peaceweights. Qin is isolated and Shaka and Giggles tight on space, but Asoka and Ramesses have icky jungle starts, Asoka has a lot of peaks that will probably mess with settling somewhat, and Ramesses has zero copper anywhere nearby, leaving him vulnerable to potential early attacks. I think that the low peaceweights have a better setup to partition the central high peaceweights and are likely to succeed - Augustus will do fine early on with his isolated start, but I think he's likely to fall later if Qin and Gilgamesh are both strong. I pick Gilgamesh to win because he's proven much more competent in that regard than Qin in the past, and Shaka's too squeezed to have a good chance, I think. Asoka has the most exposed position and no military unique unit so I think he's more likely to be First to Die. Of course, Shaka being Shaka, he could just as easily attack Gilgamesh early on, hamstring them both, and let the peaceniks dominate this game.
Game Two is in the books! Thanks to everyone who turned out on the Livestream yesterday for a special Saturday livestream session, it was a lot of fun sharing the experience with you. Here's the big list of links as we continue with Season Six:
Congratulations to Charriu and SilenceoftheClams as the winners of Game Two's picking contest with 17 points. Scoring was somewhat below average for this game at 6.9 points thanks to some favorites coming up short. We're back to our normal Friday schedule for next week's game. This time we have Gilgamesh and Shaka to shake things up - who do you have this week?
Despite not getting any of the leader picks right (should've gone with my gut and picked Pacal for No. 1, just thought his expansion was too good but held back because he's been pretty anaemic with settling the previous seasons) and the number of wars way too low (I'll pick higher for the other 7 team games), I'm happy with eight points. A little luck and I'd have been close to maxing scores.
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
(May 16th, 2021, 13:59)Commodore Wrote: Without spoiling this one in particular, is Pacal the most passive low-peaceweight leader? It's definitely my SP impression of him.
Willlem certainly springs to mind. I've had so many SP games where even though he's a great peaceful neighbor, his single archer defending frontline cities just makes it too tempting. I think that's why Willem has suddenly seen so much success. He's like Mansa if people like Monty and Napoleon liked tolerated Mansa.
I don't think he's quite as peaceful as Pacal, but Qin springs to mind as another peaceful low-PW leader. Much worse tools than Pacal though, so he stands out a lot less. I think Pacal is the least aggressive though, yeah.
(May 18th, 2021, 07:31)Amicalola Wrote: I don't think he's quite as peaceful as Pacal, but Qin springs to mind as another peaceful low-PW leader. Much worse tools than Pacal though, so he stands out a lot less. I think Pacal is the least aggressive though, yeah.
I don't think Qin is "peaceful" so much as "sucks at war because he's always building wonders in the middle of it".
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
Quote:The random number gods decree a late culture victory (turn 412) by Gilgamesh who had earlier teamed up with Ashoka to make sure Shaka is first to bow out of the game. The game will be middling warlike with nine separate wars breaking out. Will wonders never cease :D
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
Scoring was somewhat below average for this game at 6.9 points thanks to some favorites coming up short. We're back to our normal Friday schedule for next week's game. This time we have Gilgamesh and Shaka to shake things up - who do you have this week?
