Realms Beyond Forum

If you are playing in PBEM 12, and/or are spies seeking to use our secrets against us, well, get out! Otherwise, enjoy! I can promise you with 95.6785% certainty that this will be an interesting read, one way or another.

Now, in fine RB tradition, a few pictures to take up space. I'll start with my interpretation of your fine hosts (I'll let you guess who is who! )





And, for good measure, please take a nice, big helping of BOOT-TO-THE-HEAD!

This space reserved for discussion about our Civ/Leader pick.

Suryavarman II//Maya
Traits: Creative/Expansive
Unique Unit: Holkan (Spearman)
Unique Building: Ball Court (Colosseum)
Starting Techs: Mysticism/Mining
Discounted Buildings: Library, Theatre, Colosseum, Granary, Harbor (we get the most!)

We were originally hoping for Sury of Byzantium, as the Hippodrome meshes well with Creative, and the Cataphract is just mean. However, Maya was our second choice. It's UU is more useful to guard our expansion, rather than to attack our opponents, but the Ball Court is by no means a bad UB. Main downside is that Colosseums are rarely built. Still, +3 Happy is hard to beat, and we get it at discount since we're Creative.

I'll expand on this later, and with input from Ravus, but we chose Sury so that we could pursue a big land-grab strategy, and ride that to a dominant position. I'll be relying on Ravus to do some diplomatic shenanigans to keep anyone from pouncing on us. We'll see how that works out.

Notes on "Reputation": It's come up, for whatever reason, but I do have a "reputation" here. I even have some idea what observations one might draw from it. Whether that will be a service or disservice to me, I'm not sure. I suppose it depends in part whether my performance in PBEM4 has changed my reputation. If it has, it just hasn't done it enough to make people forget PB2. Well, I don't think anything can make people forget that. However, I will be handing most of the diplomacy tasks to Ravus, as I feel he is well-suited for that. As he has noted, he has no reputation, so we'll see how that works out.

Brief Plan Outline: As noted somewhere, we'll probably want to try for a Farmer's Gambit of some kind: Run light on military while we expand as fast as possible. Not my usual maneuver, but if I put my mind to it, I can probably avoid building unnecessary infrastructure and wonders. Once we pick up Bronze Working and Hunting, we can build Holkans without connecting Copper (but if we have Copper, we'll want to connect it, anyway). Those and a few Axemen should serve, though Chariots will make better "zone defenders."

We'll need to do a good job of scouting to find tasty locations as quickly as possible. Finding a "Pink Dot" site could be nice, although I don't expect anyone on RB to roll over and let us have it. We'll see. Cottage economy will be our backbone, though we'll want at least one GP farm. We do have the weakness in that we lack either Financial or Philosophical, so pound-for-pound, we won't be as strong as the teams that do. Therefore, we'll have to make sure we have the quantity to outdo the enemy's quality.

Opponent Dossiers

Nakor/Gaspar: Willem van Oranje//England
Traits: Financial/Creative
Unique Unit: Redcoat
Unique Building: Stock Exchange
Starting Techs: Fishing/Mining
Discounted Buildings: Library, Theatre, Colosseum

Observations: Willem is a very powerful techer. Financial makes cottages awesome, and cheap Libraries means that he can get those early multiplies in fast. Nakor is a competent and skilled player, though how well he handles warfare, I'm not sure. I only know that Sullla and Speaker beat him, but, that may not be a fair comparison. England most likely means a Rifling beeline, so we'll want them on the chopping block before then. Stock Exchange... eh.

Malakai/Magil: Elizabeth//Korea
Traits: Financial/Philosophical
Unique Unit: Hwacha (Catapult)
Unique Building: Seowon (University)
Starting Techs: Mysticism/Mining
Discounted Buildings: University

Observations: I don't know either player at all. I will have to look at any other games they may have played in, but I think that they are relatively new to Realms Beyond, at least. Elizabeth is one of the strongest economic leaders. The only drawback being that Cottage/Specialist economies work at odds, but that is not really a problem, as the bulk of their economy will be cottages, with one or two Great People Farms supplying Great People. Their Philosophical trait discounts their UB, the Seowon. Hwacha provides good protection, or even offense, as ancient-era armies are often heavy on Melee units.

Tredje/Sylon: Pacal II//Bzyantium
Traits: Financial/Expansive
Unique Unit: Cataphact (Knight)
Unique Building: Hippodrome (Theatre)
Starting Techs: Mysticism/Wheel
Discounted Buildings: Granary, Harbor

Observations: Know little about either player. Have been reading Sylon's game a bit, though. Seems capable. Pacal is a strong leader, with two of the best traits, and Byzantium is a powerhouse once they have Knights. Must keep an eye on them, stop them from making it to the medieval age. Otherwise, attempt to deny them Horses/Iron if possible.

Kyan/RefSteel: Peter//India
Traits: Philosophical/Expansive
Unique Unit: Fast Worker (Worker)
Unique Building: Mausoleum (Jail)
Starting Techs: Mysticism/Mining
Discounted Buildings: University, Granary, Harbor

Observations: A leader/civ combination designed to expand. Most likely will generate many great people for tech bulbs. Upshot for us is that Philo is the weaker of the two economic traits, in the long-run, I think. Still, he's a good player, and I'd rather not start next to him as I expect we'll be fighting for living space.

gingereagle1969/Sandover: Shaka/Inca
Traits: Aggressive/Expansive
Unique Unit: Quechua (Warrior)
Unique Building: Terrace (Granary)
Starting Techs: Mysticism/Agriculture
Discounted Buildings: Barracks, Dry Docks, Granary, Harbor

Observations: Don't know a thing about GE, but Sandover is tough. Shaka suggests he'll be on the warpath at some point. Combine that with the Terrace for a quasi-Creative trait, so he can skip building Monuments. If we start near him, we'll want to use diplomacy to make him point his sticks at someone else. Good news for us being that Inca wastes any UU potential of the Aggressive trait. He does not have long-term economic potential, though. At least, none of his traits will help him in that regard.

Overall Traits
Expansive: 4
Financial: 3
Creative: 2
Philosophical: 2
Aggressive: 1

Overall Starting Techs
*Incomplete until Kyan chooses
Mysticism: 5
Mining: 4
Wheel: 1
Fishing: 1
Agriculture: 1

So, nearly everyone can choose to chase a religion right out that gate. However, that would be counter-productive for us (we may want a later religion, just to unlock a religious civic). 3 Civs, including ours, have the Mysticism/Mining combo. Something else to consider. Only one, so far, starts with a Food tech.

This space reserved for an ongoing executive summary/table of contents that will probably never be adequately updated.

No praetorians on a world tour? I'm soooo disappointed I hope you'll make it up somehow Whosit

Anyhow, you got yourself a lurker guys. Good luck with the game.

Mist Wrote:No praetorians on a world tour? I'm soooo disappointed I hope you'll make it up somehow Whosit

Anyhow, you got yourself a lurker guys. Good luck with the game.

Umm, maybe I can make due with a Holkan world tour? We were planning on a Cataphract World Tour, but someone messed that up!

But, water under the bridge... water under the bridge....

[SIZE="1"]I've got your number, Tredje! [/SIZE]



Seriously, though, well, slightly more seriously, the general plan is to grab as much land as possible, maybe risk a bit of a Farmer's Gambit if Ravus is up for it, and leverage that into a winning position somewhere down the road. Guess we can just use the Holkans as less-sucky warriors for protection, and the Ball Courts should ensure that we don't run into happiness problems.

Ravus reporting for duty.

Yes Whosit, i'm thinking without the Cataphract World tour we'll have to leverage out super expansion skills and a farmers gambit works best. Hopefully we can paint some sucker as the bad-guy or threat.

And we will in no way try to make that person that everyone turns against Tredje... Because we arn't that petty. honest. You can trust me.

So looks like my luck didn't hold and we got the Mayans. Unfortunate but we can probably get slightly more done mid-game without everyone automatically assuming we need to go on a stompy world war-tour.

So who are our Opponents?

Nakor/Gaspar: Willem(Fin/Cre)/??? [LAST PICK]
Whosit/Ravus Sol: Suryavarman(Exp/Cre)/Maya
Malakai/Magil: Elizabeth(Phi/Fin)/Korea
Tredje/Sylon: Pacal(Fin/Exp)/Byzantium
Kyan/RefSteel: Peter(Exp/Phi)/India
GE1969*/Sandover: Shaka(Agg/Exp)/Inca

Need to wait for the last pick and maybe look around to check out their usual play-styles.

Ravus Sol Wrote:Need to wait for the last pick and maybe look around to check out their usual play-styles.

Yeah, I'll include my thoughts in the post above. Will get to that shortly. I know the most about Nakor Kyan, and Sandover. Several of the others are in concurrent PBEMs, like Sylon. Unfortunately/fortunately, I have my "reputation," as well. But, briefly, Nakor is competent and wily. He's fooled me before, in PB2. I'll be relying on you, Ravus, to make sure I don't fall for obvious diplo tricks, although I think I've learned to be much more pragmatic and self-serving than before.

Kyan, based on a previous PBEM I played, is good at rapid expansion, and he's picked a leader/civ combo designed for that. If we're nearby, we'll surely be fighting him for land. He's fairly skilled. I'd rate myself slightly higher than him, but that's based only on my experience playing with him.

Sandover, though only an adviser, is by far the strongest player here. Just look at PBEM3. How well gingereagle does depends on, well, GE's own skill (which I do not know, but it sounds like he's a relative novice) and on how much Sandover coaches him.

Of course, any research you do would be appreciated, and will be incorporated into our Dossier, above. Also need to add starting techs to everything. We have Mysticism (bleh) and Mining (yay!). One step from Bronze Working, but we'll need to research a food tech, first. Hopefully we'll have either grains or seafood, simply because Animal Husbandry cannot be directly researched, and takes more time.

Ah a new Whosit-game to follow and a nice portrait of him to boot

For a change I will only follow your thread (=dedicated lurker)

Wish you 2 Good Luck.

Rowain Wrote:Ah a new Whosit-game to follow and a nice portrait of him to boot

For a change I will only follow your thread (=dedicated lurker)

Wish you 2 Good Luck.

Hey, thanks! No need for that logic and good sense you'd find in those other threads, amiright? Heh heh. Speaking of, Ravus has started reading about my adventures in Pitboss 2. Wonder when he'll finish. Heh... Oh, Ravus, you flatter me when you say that you think the "Praetorian World Tour" involved me burning city after city until I was stopped.

Kinda gettin' antsy. Not much more to do until our starting positions are revealed, but maybe Ravus and I can consider various possible openings until then.