[SPOILERS] Bobchillingworth Steals Your Heart

[Bobchillingworth]

Idk what you're writing in GasNoble's thread, Commodore, but I very much look forward to finding out after the game, since I think we all know you comprise The List's sole entry

[Commodore]

A paen of praise to Hitru, mostly. 

Who's on your List now?

[Bobchillingworth]

I muted 2metra ages ago, but honestly otherwise, while there's a few people on this site I think are complete lowlifes for reasons unrelated to gaming, I'm not sure there's anyone I'd outright refuse to play with, and if there was I'd have the guts to tell them directly (sorry Noble! I'll probably delete this before you read it).


Edit: ehh, maybe Mack. Kind of doubt he'd want to be in a game with me either though.

[Bobchillingworth]

Alright *cracks knuckles*, as required by statute, it's time to analyze everyone's combos!

I was going to make this a jokey list comprised of nonsense metrics and comic book panels, but decided it was trite and a 30 second gag wasn't worth an hour of effort.  Instead I'll briefly run down what I see as the synergies for each combo:


Gaspar & NobleHelium - Augustus of Byzantium




Synergies:

I had to think about this one for a little while- to the best of my knowledge, in all prior games if someone picked Byzantium if was because they intended to rush an opponent with Cataphracts, which means they'd want Charismatic for triple promos or Philo or Fin to get to them as quickly as possible.  Augustus does have half-price stables, which isn't nothing, but probably not the bonus I'd focus on if I intended to go all-in on the UU.  

CtH did also boost the UB by adding the Artist slots back, and combined with Industrious I suppose GasNoble could consider a Culture victory.  Still, a little surprised they didn't pick Lincoln or whoever is CHA / ORG instead.  


Rusten & Hitru - Justinian of Aztecs




Synergies:

Rustiru are clearly planning for a game of rapid expansion supported by swapping in and out of slavery.  Given that half my opponents picked it, it does seem likely I was undervaluing Imperialistic when ranking traits.  Changes to Emancipation mean they will likely spend the entire game swapping between slavery and maybe the new and improved serfdom.  Good combo for the team most likely to micro the game to a degree warranting a salary.  


Serdoa - Wang Kon of Russia




Synergies:

No synergy that I can tell, this is a simple economic power combo with a pretty good UU to reward you for getting to the early Industrial era (technically maybe the very late Renaissance?)


Lewwyn - Charlemagne of Spain




Synergies:

Lewwyn clearly wanted Wang (heh heh), but settled for Charlie as the next-best option for those half-price Citadels.  I know the appeal!  Unlike me however he probably wants them more for the economic benefit of a permanent trade route than easy access to Super Siege.  Won't the map be full by the time he can spam Citadels everywhere, though?  Maybe something other than Imperialistic would have been better to carry him there; we'll see.  Will probably found an early religion, assuming his capital has seafood like mine (almost a certainty).  


superdeath & GeneralKilCavalry - Mao of China

Synergies:




BORING.  But seriously, I don't get this one... I mean, okay, Protective makes a strong (albeit nerfed) UU stronger, but China's starting techs probably aren't such a big whoop now as they were when they weren't really cheap and before Myst got boosted, the UB is still pretty meh unless you're going for a culture win, and why not pick HRE or Sumeria if you really want to get good use out of Org?  I'm probably fodder in this game, but I'm not impressed by this combo, kind of a jack-of-all-trades pick I guess.  No sure that's going to cut it here.  


Bobchillingworth - Hannibal of Maya




Synergies:

Cheap happiness!  Lots of happiness!  Giant cities with bonus commerce to make up for poor expansion!  Might also compensate for over-whipping??

[Bobchillingworth]

Urghh... not that any neighbor being close by would have been great, but this is an especially lousy one to have. Probably too early to start thinking about what a Hokan rush would look like, though.

[shallow_thought]

So, how's it going? How do you feel about the rest of the neighbourhood?

[Bobchillingworth]

Good timing! I've just about explored enough of my immediate region to produce a dotmap, which conveniently just barely fits in a single screen capture:





I'm going to settle for (on) the sheep to my east first, then likely settle as far north as I can before backfiling the "safe" areas in the immediate vicinity of my capital. I'm reasonably confident in being able to claim "my" gold resource, unless Rusten settles a very aggressive location, much less secure about being able to grab one of the silvers.


Thoughts on the map so far... in terms of land, Pindicator seems to have taken my suggestion for "chokepoint geography" to heart

My territory is completely waterlogged, and there's very few tiles I could settle which aren't either A: coastal, B: on a resource, or C: on a floodplains. Of course, having a ton of coast isn't the worst thing in the world with Financial, plus Charismatic to potentially eventually produce elite boats. Production is going to be scarce, however, and I feel like my viable settling options are fairly limited, unlike Lewwyn who can plonk down cities in several excellent location in almost any order. I think I had a start like this in my last BtS PBEM, and as I recall it was fun having a fairly high tech rate for a while, until the lack of production meant I was inevitably overwhelmed by hostile forces, and having my cities strung out in lines across strips of land meant that none of my fronts could reinforce each other. I do have a little more land here, though, and it looks like at least one private island right next to my capital .


Guessing the overall map is two continents of three players each. I think my preferred draw would have been Serdoa and Lewwyn; Rusten is super-scary, and I'm very likely to be considered the "food" of my landmass, but at least I'm not living next to Jihad McBumrush or Team Cataphract (I think, I guess one of them could be to my south and we've somehow failed to make contact thus far).


As for what I've done thus far, aside from scouting I went Worker -> Fishing Boat -> Warrior -> working on a Settler now. Teched Hunting -> Agriculture -> Fishing -> working on BW. BW will complete on the same turn as my rice farm, will start chopping to complete the Setter, followed by a Worker, followed by another Settler, I think. Haven't worked out yet when to start whipping units, probably not until Pottery (which will either be the tech after BW or following an attempt at Polytheism) (Edit: also, will need The Wheel).

[pindicator]

but at least I'm not living next to Jihad McBumrush

I'm stealing this one for when I inevitably end up next to him in pb55

[Commodore]

but at least I'm not living next to Jihad McBumrush

I'm stealing this one for when I inevitably end up next to him in pb55

Shadup shadup shadup....

[shallow_thought]

It's not strictly relevant to this thread, but can anyone explain to me the mass change of avatars (it does seem to have swept Bob up in the flow)? There's nothing wrong with it, but I have completely missed any explanation of why, and it smacks of collusion. I have learnt over the years to, if not treasure, then at least embrace my ignorance, but this one is bugging me .