[NO 73 PLAYERS] Lurkers Monitoring Variance

[Qgqqqqq]

Oxy is unquestionably the frontrunner now, right?

A key weakness for him though is his terrible scouting. He doesn't see the big empty continent so he doesn't think there's much to expand into (that's not on the death continent). Of course, the game will be won by who gets naval superiority with Scooter, so perhaps it's not the worst that he's not expanding into an exposed area.

I think its correct to write off Luddite. It'll be so long before he can expand into the full continent and tech to relevant naval position. Trying for culture would be amusing to see, but I don't think it's feasible.

[Commodore]

There's certainly an argument for Oxy, but on a B&S I'd choose to be Circumnavigation Vikings over any other position 100 times out of 100. I think it's impossible to overstate how valuable that added mobility is, Scooter can murder cities at will unless he somehow lags to Combustion.

[Krill]

Let's be clear, there are going to be many opportunities for each player to screw up.

We should set up a bingo card.

[T-hawk]

Scooter can't murder cities at will if Oxy can outproduce him navally with Kremlin whips enough to cover every forking approach vector. I have no idea how possible that is, but Oxy will have a significant head start on galleons with his bulb beeline to that. Zerks won't last forever as attackers either, Oxy will get to muskets for defenders eventually. And he'll catch up on scouting quickly enough with caravels.

It's a bit disappointing that despite the hype of the techs and all the intrigue of the draft, the game is most likely to just go to the isolated start who didn't have to worry about military. There's still a long way to go and Scooter will still have plenty of tricks, but fighting off what will be about a dozen phracts in total will just be too much of a setback compared to uninterrupted expansion.

And yeah, Luddite is never going to have enough naval tech or production to get his artillery anywhere off his home continent.

[Qgqqqqq]

Again, I think that is a fundamental issue with the map design.

Also, Zerks remain relevant post-Gunpowder, as they're still more efficient amphibiously.

[Qgqqqqq]

Is Guilds required for chemistry? Either way, I think building catapults and knights is a mistake. Oxy wins if he can dominate navally and use that position to fork and burn cities. Invading the mainland is unlikely to work and only matters if he's already dominated Scooter anyway. He should focus on the seas and efficient amphibious units - knights have a high base strength but you're wasting their extra move, and catapults have to be landed to attack.

Even if he can take and hold Yuris' holdings, those won't be decisive, and investing in that will detract from his ability to dominate the seas and burn Scooters core.

Still, strategically I think this is absolutely the right approach and seems likely to work. Astro is the first dominant naval tech and Kremlin/Police State should allow him to trade efficiently, if he maintains an edge technologically and/or has first strike. If Scooter attacks first at parity then zerks and +2moves will give him a good chance.

Everything depends, then, on how much damage Yuris can do to Scooter. If Yuris dies quickly, and Scooter can recover in tech and expand out to the continent Oxy has missed, he could use his traits and GLH to build a sufficient production and tech pace to match Oxy, outlast his production advantage, and outmaneuvere him to burn Oxys core. I don't think he'll be able to, but he does have experience in naval total war that Oxy might lack.

[Tarkeel]

Don't forget that scooter's new ships are likely to have +3 moves now due toe vassalage.

[Commodore]

Is Guilds required for chemistry? Either way, I think building catapults and knights is a mistake. Oxy wins if he can dominate navally and use that position to fork and burn cities. Invading the mainland is unlikely to work and only matters if he's already dominated Scooter anyway. He should focus on the seas and efficient amphibious units - knights have a high base strength but you're wasting their extra move, and catapults have to be landed to attack.

Guilds is one of the two paths to to Gunpowder, and a superior one to Education. Likewise, Construction is a must for Engineering which is the Chemistry prereq. Knights are a fine choice off boats, but I agree about catapults.

[Krill]

This game won't be decided by Astro without an alpha strike. Oxy is right: his traits fall off, scooters don't. scooter has the option to play the long game as well with FIN and SPI, and the Astro beeline forces Oxy to obsolete Colossus whilst the GLH will remain solid well past rifles, whilst scooter also has a solid land mass and safe backlines in terms of the islands towards Cairo and Luddite.

Theoretically, scooter has the option to try and pin Oxy onto his home continent, take his islands from him, and then take over the rest of the islands, tech to the future and then come back.

And that means Education and Liberalism come into play as well as Taj and drafted Zerks.

This is actually a very complicated game state, one we have never seen before.

[Commodore]

It'd be more complicated without Circumnav Vikings. As it is, it's very simple. Oxy's strategic post is correct, the game doesn't exist as a going concern past turn 130. Either Oxy explodes Scooter's capital in a couple dozen turns, or he loses.