[spoilers] Now, Commodore Frogger, roll those 71 dice

[Mjmd]

We have a Fintourist request for a tier list of players in the lurker thread and I think a lot of people enjoy yours. Care to take a swing at it?

[Fintourist]

That's true. Good luck in the game Commodore!

Just to clarify, it was just a casual request related to this game.. But of course nobody is going to stop you if you want to dig deeper and cover the games since "whatever was the PB in which regoarrarr got nuked" 

[Commodore]

Fintourist has requested a (limited scope) tier list, and that seems reasonable because I’m slacking on the OpForAnal, so, then:

Commodore
Pindicator
Krill
Yuri
Thoth
Bing
Superdeath
Some of these might be controversial, but Krill’s obviously planning on mailing it in until his turn 60 vote, and then he’ll be quitting. He’s not the careful planner and theorist he used to be…he’s now a time-limited and impatient follow. Driving an inexplicably buffed civ, so still dangerous. Thoth is more of a FFH/EitB guy, aggressive but not high on base(ish) Civ4. Bing and Superdeath have both recently turned in bravura performances, but I note that both of them have had those with fantastic dedlurkers. Finally, Yuri’s been underrate for too long I think, his 68 game should have been more convincing than it was. Map, neighbors, combos, and luck will matter as much or more, but that’s where I think the skills currently lie

[Commodore]

A whim away, a whim away...

A WHEEEEEE, heeeeee-eeee-eeee eee dum dum da-lay...

[Commodore]

Well hello there, Superdeath.

[Commodore]

Opposing Force Analysis: Pitboss 71
It’s been a while since starting, but I figured we’d play a bit before finalizing my judgement on the combos, take a look at the map. And, uh…

…it’s pretty grim. I don’t really see how this is much better than Totestra? Anyway, I love a crummy map, so this is fine. It does mean some things for development:
-Coast tiles are much more powerful, given the food availability.
-Serfdom is tempting with the farms and windmills but that’s a very dangerous trap.
-Bulbs will be almost OCC-level important, given how weak tile yields are.


Bing/Civac (Cheery/Competent) as Victoria (Imp/Fin) of Babylon (Agriculture/Wheel, Bowman, Garden)
Player: ****
Early Game Power: *****
Midgame Might: ****
Late-Game Sustain: ***
Oh boy. I think without going into any details about PB69 we can say that Bing has proven much more focused and formidable with Civac as his teammate than his previous solo performances, and we know they can manage Victoria with reasonable competence. Couple that with the granary-garden, and bowmen providing a long shelf life in the slow tech environment, this is going to be extremely dangerous going forward. Plus, access to 2/0/3 tiles easily thanks to Fin. Scary.


Krill (Aggressive/Discouraged) as Shaka (Agg/Exp) of Sumer (Agriculture/Wheel, Vulture, Ziggurat)
Player: ****
Early Game Power: *****
Midgame Might: ***
Late-Game Sustain: **
Have I complained enough about how it’s bullcrap that Sumer got itself massively buffed? It really really is. Shaka complementing it, and Krill driving? This is a terrible combo to neighbor. Oh look, we neighbor him. The benefits of the combo do trail off around the midgame, so properly run he’s going to be feeling the pressure to expand fast, bully neighbors for a bigger early empire with Agg Vultures, then follow with Vulture/Cat/HA conquests.


Superdeath (Grouchy/Distracted) as Boudicca (Agg/Cha) of Mongolia (Hunting/Wheel, Keshiek, Ger)
Player: **
Early Game Power: ****
Midgame Might: ****
Late-Game Sustain: *
I definitely see some economic benefits to this combination here, but my Superdeath-read here is that he’s not going to be looking at the bright side. I think SD is already looking at these miserable lands and thinking “Imma Keshiek rush”. This is not a recipe for victory, but it can definitely ruin someone else’s game along with his own. Charismatic Gers are terrifying for knights, btw, but I expect SD to shoot his load long before that era.


Yuri (Dilligent/Friendly) as Lieu Ye (Org/Pro) of Holland (Agriculture/Fishing, East Indiamen, Dike)
Player: ***
Early Game Power: *
Midgame Might: ***
Late-Game Sustain: *****
Poor Yuri. Cheap granaries are just about it for his benefit packages until midgame, and even then I’m not impressed. The inexplicably nerfed Dutch are kind of miserable now, as opposed to “theoretically nice but in practice miserable” as they were before. I’m glad the RNG gave him a gold tile at his start, man needs the help. This is going to be a nightmare to make something from.


Thoth (Rusty/Militaristic) as Giggles (Cre/Pro) of Ottomen (Agriculture/Wheel, Janissary, Hanam)
Player: ***
Early Game Power: ****
Midgame Might: ****
Late-Game Sustain: ***
Thoth’s driving a very fine combo here, without any major problems at all. I think he’ll be fine early on; everything is in place for a fast start. But it’s definitely going to be easy for him to crash pretty fast here, and those Protective Jans are a long way away. I think Thoth will be out to a good start but he’s going to economically struggle later one.


Pindicator (Planner/Cautious) as Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro) of Japan (Fishing/Wheel, Samurai, Nanban)
Player: ****
Early Game Power: **
Midgame Might: *****
Late-Game Sustain: ***
Pindicator has himself a gorgeous combo, here. Only Industrious in the field means he’s going to be able to pick from a whole menu of early-push wonders, probably a Colossus shoo-in, and his preferred tech path will see him with samurai absurdly early. And…then it’s hard. Mace/cat stacks are great brawling forces, but that’s extremely slow to try conquering anything with. I suspect Pindicator will be able to hit his early marks very well but how well he can convert those to practical gains are going to be a real question, particularly given how expensive growth on this map will be.

[Commodore]

First event, looks like Yuri gets Cover on all his melee units. Nice.

We seem to lack copper, which, ah, puts a severe damper on any potential ideas about Colossus I might have been noodling.

[Commodore]

WAR

...I mean not really, I just DoW'd Thoth to move the scout past his capital city. Very near circumnavigation if that worth anything (hint: it's not).

[Commodore]

Oh huh...so we do have copper, but it's in about as backline a location as imaginable.

[Commodore]

Do I detect an...ISLAND???

Looks good in the fog. We need so so many more settlers ASAP.