Spoilers - Lurker Discussion Thread (No Players)

[Sullla]

I wanted to respond to Amelia's question here:

Anyway, i have but one question. Why are we losing? We have 2/3 of the map, sandover has just 1/3. We should be able to out produce him and slaughter him...

Because you don't have 2/3 of the map. You have four different teams which each control about 1/6 of the map, and that's not at all the same thing. In a game with only one winner, it's incredibly difficult to have a group of players all marching together in lockstep. We've seen how Amelia, scooter, timmy, and Moogle are all off doing their own thing right now. Unless they manage to find better coordination, or unless Sandover makes some kind of terrible mistake, I would still expect Egypt to win without too much trouble.

On another note, Amelia's plan of invading Sandover with galleons has about 5% chance of success. Take it from someone who has played Inland Sea Renaissance games, it's very difficult to pull this off successfully.

[Jabah]

On another note, Amelia's plan of invading Sandover with galleons has about 5% chance of success. Take it from someone who has played Inland Sea Renaissance games, it's very difficult to pull this off successfully.

Since Sandover has visibility on the roman cities, I would rate the chance of success to about 0%

[novice]

It would be interesting to get Amelias take on demographics and such, but she doesn't seem to be checking them at all so I guess it would be spoilerish to ask.

[Bobchillingworth]

Oh Amelia, turning on the allies who were trying to save her from herself.


Just because you're at war with a civ doesn't mean you have to ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK. The defensive strategy was clearly working against Sandover- since Rome isn't going to win anyway, the best option was to tie Egypt down and at least let a civ who wasn't run by a sociopath win the game.



But I suppose that while I came up with the idea of having timmy attack Egypt through my borders in order to get revenge on Sandover for daring to consider betraying me earlier, it was always unrealistic to expect Amelia to share the same conviction. But I am a little disappointed that she's angry with the other civs for such stupid reasons.

[Serdoa]

I can partly understand you. But then, as far as she tells, her allies were not really interested in doing anything else then holding Sandover back. And scooter pretty clearly stated that he does not really want to involve himself more then necessary in order to tech away. Why should she go on with that? What is her gain? Exactly nothing. This way she cannot win the game for sure. But if she is not a war with Sandover, well, then suddenly there are many troops of Timmy ported back - and scooter might not be that well defended. But even if those two go on with working together, they have to take on Sandover. Taking on Amelia first will give Sandover enough time to probably get again into a winning position. So, if she can play her cards right and get a little bit lucky, she might be able to let them fight and catch up a little bit in the meantime.

And that is from my point of view much better then simply giving the game away only so that someone else can win.

(Though I know from own experience that sometimes you will do that simply because somebody really pissed you off - but do not forget that Amelia simply does not have those memories you do about certain players)

[Rowain]

More like hijacking the AP to force peace with Timmy so he can kill Moogle in peace

Nah wouldn't work. As it would be 'peace with sandover' which would also include Moogle. I guess it is 'war with the infidel' which would teleport Timmy's units out of Celtic lands.

[Rowain]

At least Timmy was taking the thread seriously as well. Scooter, if you end up winning because of this, we deserve some credit for it.

Hm if Scooter wins this he does because he found people that are happily building units so that he can tech in peace. So the real credit is for scooter alone to get those 2. Double so as it was Scooter who was behind the attack on Timmy.

[Gaspar]

Anyone still lurking this have an opinion on the current developments? I really want to post in their respective threads but since I can't do that I'd like to chat it out here. Here are my thoughts:

1. All the non-Sandover players are WAY too afraid of Sandover. From my perspective, he really is a bully in this game. Unless he has basically 100% shot of winning, he just skips the battle. Other than the somewhat fortuitous hold at Chillingworth/Worthington and a couple decent plays in his own territory, he hasn't actually had to fight a real offensive war. TT didn't just fall over for him, he basically handed all his cities to him for nothing. Sandover clearly played well this game, but they're treating him like hes Spullla from PB2 and this disparity isn't nearly that large.

2. Sandover's gotten a lot of disparage from the other players about his diplo, but I'd say he's second only to scooter in diplo in this game. He's basically gotten concessions left right and center from everyone by being more aggressive than they're comfortable with.

3. Amelia's peace treaty SHOULD be suicide. If Timmy had been a bit more with it, I think he would have declared on her eventually. Gold I think will come to the same conclusion. I don't see Sandover really intervening to her aid, and without that, I don't see how she can hold. I think she underestimated how much the Roman position sucks and how much the coalition was propping Rome up. Now if Khmer dawdles and she launches a Sandover puppet attack first, I'm wrong, but I don't think Sandover will actually do anything, I think he's just buying time.

4. Moogle's opening was (I haven't even read his thread, it was such a SP Noble opening I haven't gotten around to it) and scooter's misplay was to give him too much credit. If I were scooter rather than try and dogpile Sandover I would have probably stabbed the Celts.

5. If the original players all stayed, I think scooter would have won. With the changes and lack of same antipathy towards Sandover of the new players, I suspect he's going to have to fight a real war eventually. I still think he might win, but it will probably be tougher.

What's everyone else think? Hopefully everyone's starting to realize this detente/fake war helps scooter more than Sandover and that will spice things up a bit. Might even get to see nukes. :D

Not sure who I want to win, or if I even care, but the games been decently interesting, at least when you read it all in a couple days.

[Rowain]

Well sandover had a few fights to do (he killed TT's stack) but it is the Civ4#problem that you can't fight an offensive war against an equal opponent.
Now had it been Moogl alone (without the Khmer Army ) Sandover would have steamrolled the Celts.

The big play for Scooter was the support Bob and Timmy gave him. I can understand it from Bobs pov that he wanted everyone but Sandover to win but I can't understand why Timmy was that allied with Scooter. The later orchestered a 3v1 against him took a city from him and still he runs around supporting Scooter so much that now Scooter has a clear tech edge and will most likely win.

[Sullla]

In terms of pure civ micro and development, Sandover has easily outplayed everyone else in the game. The map that darrell created is... not very balanced, and the scooter/timmy lands are simply far superior to that of the other players. For Sandover to put himself in such a dominant position with the land that he had is a very impressive achievement. He has simply outplayed everyone else in building up their own civilization.

However, I think that Sandover's diplomacy has been pretty terrible throughout the game, and that's why the whole thing remains in doubt. From what I've read, it seems like Sandover could have made some allies extremely easily; Bob wanted to be his friend earlier, and when timmy got stuck in that 3 vs 1 war, there should have been a natural Egypt/Khmer alliance there. Instead, Sandover acted like a giant bully and irritated everyone so much that they all organized a coalition against him. And you're right Gaspar, Sandover's position isn't nearly as dominant as India's position in Pitboss #2. For all that people criticized us in that game, we made sure with our diplomacy that no one ever organized another coalition against us, fighting one opponent at a time until our production/research simply left everyone else in the dust.

scooter's been sort of the reverse of Sandover, with average civilization management but really strong diplomacy. I mean, scooter has never really fought anyone, just sat back and built while the other civs did the fighting for him. The current situation has never made sense to me, Moogle + timmy fighting Sandover while scooter techs and builds in peace. Huh? Moogle and timmy shield scooter so that he can win the game? I don't get it. Only makes sense because Sandover has been so abrasive in stepping on other people's toes.

The player replacements definitely work in Sandover's favor. Bob would have happily thrown the game to scooter just to see Sandover not win (and I kind of don't blame him, Sandover was a real jerk in their diplomacy). timmy had no time for diplomacy and was mostly going through the motions of playing turns. Moogle has little chance to win and pretty much has become scooter's vassal state.

I have no idea who will win between scooter and Sandover. They are the only ones who can win, but the winner will probably be decided by what the other 3 civs choose to do.