Realms Beyond Forum

ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE.

"I may not be a lion, but I am a lion's cub, and I have a lion's heart" - Queen Elizabeth 1st

Ok Guys, now we have our own section on the forum, I thought I would add some of my thoughts about the picks and my adversaries.

Nakor/Gaspar: Willem(Fin/Cre)/??? [LAST PICK]

I know absolutely nothing about these players, from what I can tell they have not been in any RB games before? So this one is a bit of a wild card, need to be careful about them for this reason. With the pick of Willem I am doubting they will be an aggressive player, but nothing can be ruled out at this stage.

As at the time of this post, Nakor/Gaspar have not decided their civ

Whosit/Ravus Sol: Suryavarman(Exp/Cre)/Maya

Whosit is in the Vets mirror game for PBEM 4 and as the two games are identical I am not able to follow his progress there, however from what I have seen from other games he has a somewhat unpredictable streak but he seems to be fairly loyal (when he wants to be!).

Tredje/Sylon: Pacal(Fin/Exp)/Byzantium
OMG this player not only stole my civ but is playing with with one of the leaders I had as a back up if I did not get lizzy, so he is basically stolen my identity! I don't know this person, but stealing my civ (albiet unwittingly) was not a good way to get in my good books. He may be able to recover favor with me through his actions in game, but he better be very nice to me!

Kyan/RefSteel: Peter(Exp/Phi)/India

(possible spoiler re PBEM4 - do not read this paragraph if your in that game!) Out of all the people in this game, I have only really know Kyan from PBEM4, who has already shown his skill in the game and if intel from the other players are to be believed extensive use of deception.

Kyan is definately one to watch out for in this game and with him getting India as well, who are arguably one of the best civs in the game, I think he is definately one to either take out of play early on, or alternatively have on your side rather than against you, will have to tread carefully with this one.

GE1969*/Sandover: Shaka(Agg/Exp)/Inca

New to RB from what I can tell, he states he is a long term lurker, so this might mean he has lots of knowledge about a lot of players whilst remaining unknown himself, like with Nakor/Gasper, this person is an unknown and thus a wildcard, like Tedje he has also invoked my wrath, although with him it was a case of insulting me based on my play style in my first PBEM (PBEM4) and insulting my naming convention.

Definately not a good way to get in my good books.

GingerE is playing the civ that I am most familiar with having spent months playing it in PBEM4, and from my experience they are one of the better civ's available with their super granary effectiving giving them creative trait for free, also he will have his unique units right from the start of the game making him a harder than average rush target.



Ok, my thoughts and reasoning for my own picks

I picked Elizabeth

Philosophical - Great People birth rate increased 100 percent.
Double production speed of University.

Financial - +1 commerce on plots with at least 2 commerce.

Advanced unit is a super catapult which is a very good unit in times of war and remains useful for quite a large period of time.

Their unique building is also very good and has good synergy with the philosophical trait.

I intend to use these traits to focus on economy / tech rate, whilst still having the ability to switch to military should the need arise.

*Let the debate commence*

Malakai Wrote:Nakor/Gaspar: Willem(Fin/Cre)/??? [LAST PICK]

I know absolutely nothing about these players, from what I can tell they have not been in any RB games before? So this one is a bit of a wild card, need to be careful about them for this reason. With the pick of Willem I am doubting they will be an aggressive player, but nothing can be ruled out at this stage.

As at the time of this post, Nakor/Gaspar have not decided their civ

I know Nakor was at least in the Pitboss #2 as part of the Holy Roman Team (with DMOC), which I believe was one of the strongest Civs at the end of that game (they finished #2?). I haven't completely read through their thread, but I'd rate him as "experienced" at the very least and it's probably a safe bet to assume this team will be no pushover.

As for early game plans, well, it largely depends on starting situations, but to play to your strengths I would aim for two things:
1) Cottages in the capital, preferably on a river if at all possible, grow the capital to its happy cap and start working cottages after chopping/slaving out a few settlers and workers.
2) Writing after worker techs for a library in a city with a reasonable food surplus, so you can get a library and some scientists down. Leveraging your philosophical trait for an early Academy seems like a good game plan to me, and always remember to manage specialists for additional GP bulbs throughout the early and mid-game.

Of course... well, let me take a quote from Civ 5 a minute here:

"In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." -Dwight D. Eisenhower

It's all well and good to set up early game goals, but "interesting" terrain or aggressive neighbors can throw everything into jeopardy quick. Still, probably a good idea to think about things in advance just in case you get a chance to try them :wakka:

Ahh I didn't realise he was in pitboss *2, sounds like he is definately another one to watch for, tbh as this is only my second game here I probably have to watch out for all the other players lol.

Ok a little bit about my people


All hail the almighty Queen Elizabeth, aka the Virgin Queen, untouched by the hands of man.


An example of our buildings of education


Tools of war


Our standard Combat Training


Evidence of the romance within our borders

I will of course be looking to get a nice spot for my capital, as to whether I am on a river that entirely depends what the map looks like, if there is no rivers in sight, I cannot afford not to settle as this would give other players too big a lead.

However, the only tweak I may suggest to this is I am considering going for an early religion to counter not having creative.

Well, I prefer to just chop a monument in early non-capital cities to using the early turns founding a religion (it's pretty easy to snatch a late religion once you get rolling, bulb Philosophy if it comes to that, and in a MP game I don't imagine the competition for religion will be too fierce), but it's your call. Korea does start with Mysticism at least so it's not an extreme detour if you want to found an early religion.

Yeah the only downside is don't pretty much all the civs that have been chosen start with Myst?

Which means other people might be doing the same thing.

The only thing I would say is, that in PBEM4, no one had ANY religious techs til about turn 20 or something, which left me wishing I had gone for one.

So I am kind of on the fence with this, but you feel that it would not be a massive benefit?

Well, there's another thing, and it's that I don't like to rely on chance. Since you don't want to produce missionaries in the early game most of the time (if you even can, OR requires Monotheism which is a bit off the beaten path for most tech starts), you are relying on the RNG to spread religion to a new city. Sure, you are practically guaranteed to get a spread when you have a new city with no religion connected to a holy city via trade network, but it's still only "practically" guaranteed.

In quick speed, a monument is 20P and a forest chop takes 3 turns for 13P, so in order to finish the monument asap, you need to bring in two turns of 2P and one turn of 3P (in edge cases, you may be able to put in different numbers). A 2P city helps here, of course, but even so working a forest plains or plains hill for one turn is usually a fair option. This gets your culture expanding ASAP for the cost of 1 forest and 3 turns of worker use, which I consider a fair tradeoff in many cases (it may not be as important if the city has plenty of good tiles in the first ring, but I still prefer to finish sooner rather than later).

Feel free to correct me if my math is wrong, I just entered WB real quick to test it though so that should be accurate.

Not sure what I think about Nakor/Gaspers pick of England...it seems like a bit of a weak civ for multiplayer imho, great late game don't get me wrong, but what do they bring to the table for the first 100 turns or more of play?

I think it was a bad pick...but then again its not all about your initial pick maybe they want to prove just that lol.

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