[SPOILERS] scooter's thread

[scooter]

Alright so Mist is aware: Dazed has officially conceded.

I've told him if Lewwyn beats Bob he can just go ahead and read my thread if he wants because Lewwyn beating Bob will mean Lewwyn and I move on. If Bob wins though, he'd still be very much alive and he'll have to wait.

[Mist]

Alright so Mist is aware: Dazed has officially conceded.

Uhhh, am I? Well, now I am, I guess

How did you send that information? I haven't received any emails, chats or PMs from either of you.

[spacemanmf]

Uhhh, am I? Well, now I am, I guess

How did you send that information? I haven't received any emails, chats or PMs from either of you.

I think he means "Alright, so that Mist is aware"... and then is giving you that information...

[scooter]

Uhhh, am I? Well, now I am, I guess

How did you send that information? I haven't received any emails, chats or PMs from either of you.

Spaceman got it. Sorry, I left too many words out!

[scooter]

So Lewwyn just informed me via chat that he's not too far from being done with Bob and it sounds like he's going to win barring something miraculous. This means I'm in the playoffs no matter what I do against Lewwyn. So it's time to start thinking traits. I have used the following:

Spi, Phi, Exp, Imp
France, Inca

That's a tough list to lose. That leaves me with:

Fin, Cre, Ind, Agg, Chm, Pro, Org
Lots of good civs

So the problem is I'm not sure what the right play against Lewwyn is here. I could use something mildly junky like Agg/Org and go into the tournament with Fin/Cre/Ind/Chm. That'd be a decent group to go with. The problem there is it pretty much means Lewwyn beats me and I have a first-round match with mackoti where I'll have to use Willem of India and play really well to win. Face it - Mackoti is significantly better than I am and my chances of beating him will always be a bit slim. I could also take something strong and go for the win against Lewwyn. Problem is if I lose, I could be going into the tournament with REALLY bad traits and a 1st-round matchup with Mack (and a Lewwyn rematch in the final if I miraculously beat Mack). The upside of beating Lewwyn is pretty high though - I'd get a 1st round matchup against someone I like my chances against (whoever is 2nd from the other group), and Lewwyn/Mack would have a hard-fought game against each other and I'd play winner and probably be able to conserve something for the final. Hmm. Lots of options.

Before going further I'll pause and think about civs. I've used France and Inca. Bummer to burn Inca early, but there's still TONS of strong options left, such as India, Rome, Byz, Egypt, Zulu, Mali, China, Mongolia, etc etc. This means there's never really any reason to not take a really good civ (which is why the Native America pick was puzzling to me). So how does Classical start affect each of these?

India - probably weakens it a tiny, tiny bit. Still strong, but might as well save this for playoffs
China - starting techs don't matter so much weaker here
Rome - Iron Working can be researched on T0 in classical! The rush is probably much more dangerous here. The problem though is we've been playing Tiny maps which take forever for 1-movers so a pure rush is here as evidenced by my game with Dazed. Also we're closer to Construction here so Catapults become an issue sooner.
Byz - their terrible starting techs don't matter in classical. You're also more likely to reach Phracts from Classical. Definitely stronger but potentially pointless if the game is over before then.
Egypt - Depends on luck. You can see horse T0 so if you have it, you can get 5Str 2-movers awfully quickly. if you're able to settle ON the horses - even scarier. Might be the best pure-rush civ here because of 2-movers. Problem is your opponents can also see copper T0 so Spears are easy for them to get.
Mongolia - HBR is researchable on T0 and horse is visible. Settle for horse, research HBR, then chop whip chop Keshiks. Potentially better than an egypt rush.
Zulu - not sure this is worthwhile here as the opponent would just settle for copper or build archers out of the gate as soon as they saw a Zulu opponent. Still, you can build Impis on T0 so that's still scary.
Mali - Skirms can be built out of the gate. This is probably the best way to burn protective, but there are still scarier choices.

So...not sure where that gets me. Choices that appeal to me:
Byz - Rush Guilds like mad. Pair with Industrious and Oracle slingshot my way towards Guilds (all ancient wonders are buildable for Classical IIRC so IND is stronger here)... De Gaulle would be a decent choice here and leave me with acceptable traits for the playoffs.
Rome - Tech IW immediately. Pair with Boudica and just go for blood. A fast-as-possible rush is probably not advisable because of size of the map and 1-movers, but settle towards the middle and eventually the opponent will have trouble. Catapults could become a problem though.
Mongolia - Tech HBR immediately. Settle horses. Get 2-3 cities up then Keshiks like crazy and try to kill a city or two or at least do extensive harassing. Find a way to utilize their movement to unhook copper and then I'm golden. Pair with CHM and make them all shock.

Either way looks like I may be going for some death here. Problem though is I really like Industrious more than normal for a Classical start because Henge, Mids, and Oracle are all still buildable... So the Rome/Mongol rush options seem less appealing. De Gaulle of Byz would be a scary choice here and still leave me with Fin/Cre/Agg/Org/Pro for the final four.

Of course, it'd be nice to have that option in the playoffs too. I'm not sure here. I'll think more about this.

[Twinkletoes89]

Do you know what combos Lewwyn & your potential playoff partners have used?

Is there a combo you could use (perhaps a warmongering one) that they would not be able to counter as well?

[scooter]

Do you know what combos Lewwyn & your potential playoff partners have used?

Is there a combo you could use (perhaps a warmongering one) that they would not be able to counter as well?

Unfortunately no - we're picking blind here. So I can only guess. I know the Lewwyn/Bob game was a Ren start so it's pretty likely Lewwyn burned IMP for that. His Dazed game I think was Ancient but I really don't know.

So yeah, flying blind here on picks. Some luck involved for sure.

[scooter]

Time to duel it up with Lewwyn. Our selections:

scooter: De Gaulle (Chm/Ind) of Byzantium
Lewwyn: Napoleon (Chm/Org) of Mongolia

Now one problem here. I was under the impression that Classical start meant all ancient wonders are buildable. Yeah well, they aren't. Only Pyramids and Temple of Artemis are. If I knew that, I would've picked something else. Oh well. Part of the point of Byz too was using an Oracle slingshot to get Guilds super fast. That's no longer possible, so... Whatever. We'll see what happens. Anyways, Classical starts on T1 for some reason - T0 or T25 would've both made more sense but Settler's not costing 2k hammers in future era would make more sense too so what do I know. Clearly the BtS devs know more than me.



So this is what I saw. I moved the scout onto the Bronze and I liked what I saw:



Crabs, copper, riverside gold, and crabs? Ok by me! Get ready for some silly, silly cottage spam. Anyways guess what I did not do? REVOLT TO SLAVERY. Stupid. Good news is, I was idly chatting with Lewwyn when he sent me the save, and 2 mins after sending me the save he realized he forgot to do the same . So nothing lost, we're even. Anyways, bad news is, uh, I'm unhealthy at size 1:



Well THIS is going to be annoying. And... not many health sources in sight:



Um, I guess there's cows over thataway and clams too, but those will take awhile. So... I'm wondering if I've lost the game already . It should be ok actually. Anyways, funny thing is I CAN chop that forest for no cost at all since it's not getting me 1 health, but I'm considering leaving it and hoping/praying/etc that it grows another forest.

One important thing. Lewwyn is not settling here. We were idly chatting and he remarked "wow this land is pretty." I asked where he went, and he said south rather than towards the middle as I did. Wondering if he settled on the plains hill? Anyways, my capital will surely be a slower start horizontally with no real forests, but it should be a tech machine assuming I don't die first.

ALSO. Lewwyn is Mongolia and can research HBR out of the gate. I can only assume he will do so. I don't see horse anywhere which is good, but it's always possible it's in the "pretty land" down south that he saw.

As for my tech choice - my original thought was Metal Casting for early cheap forges. After playing this turn, I'm about to change my mind (between moving and revolting I haven't put any beakers into it yet) because I can't really afford the unhealthy anyways and my capital is suited for commerce and not really production. So I may wait a tad and go for something like Maths instead as that would let me build an Aqueduct (equivalent to +2 food). Need to think about it more.

Finally - at some point soon I'll want to get out a Spear to protect from Keshik raids. I'll watch his power though to see when he techs HBR. Once he techs HBR I'll probably not have that long, becuase I moved closer to the middle so I'm closer to him than normal.

[Mist]

Anyways, Classical starts on T1 for some reason - T0 or T25 would've both made more sense but Settler's not costing 2k hammers in future era would make more sense too so what do I know. Clearly the BtS devs know more than me.

That's actually me. You can set the starting turn number in the WB file and since it was something ridiculous like 32 ( iirc ) I set it to 1.

[scooter]

Update time ya'll. Things are not going all that great as Lewwyn got REALLY aggressive on me and caused problems, but I broke his initial choke and we'll see if I can turn things around. First, fast-forward to T10 when I decided on my second city site:



Downside of this is forking potential, so I'll need Spears to counter... However, this lets me share tiles with the capital which is a must here (and lets me grow cottages for the capital). Plus that wheat is worth 2 health for the cap once it gets a granary which is basically 2 food. I planned to get a really early second city but Lewwyn started to derail that quickly:



Found his border. He settled here:



This is actually a terri-bad capital, but it's made for rushing me - horses, plains hill, several forests, etc. Again, if I can survive his choking, my capital is much, much better. His only food is a plains cow, and I'm not really sure that even counts. Anyways, I started on my settler:



My one forest is going into this settler. However, I spy Lewwyn's cap next turn and it starts to unravel:



Wonderful. So I start to invest on a spear because 2T later:



Oh yay he's sending everything at me. This is going to get annoying. My archer easily gets back because of the worker combat roading, but this is still annoying.



Yep he's def still coming. At this point I forgot to take pictures for 9-10T. Basically, I didn't want to gamble on an attack on Lewwyn's archer and I regretted it later as he got onto my copper and was tough to dislodge. He then proceeded to get a chariot and a scout on that copper too. I whipped several archers and fought him off, eventually killing the chariot and then finishing the stack on T25:



Basically, I weakened his archer with a suicide archer on the previous turn, allowing me to take a run at his chariot with my spear. I of course won that battle. That meant the next turn he had a weakened archer + scout against my spear + archer. Now, he was able to promo and take Guerilla, however that only got him to 2.2ish strength, and my spear also had a promo available... So I won at ~68% odds, and easily dusted off his scout. He was dead either way, but it sure was nice to win that 68% battle and come out with a C2 spear, because...



Next wave was on the way. I actually intentionally got him to kill the scout a turn later by moving W of the Keshik, causing him to slow down by a turn to get the kill. However, what I didn't realize was (and Lewwyn told me this by chat) was that this got him a second promotion. Oops. So I do regret that. Anyways, we finished at T30, so here's demos at EOT29:



Not pretty. This is largely because:



He's ahead of the curve on pop due to my heavy military whipping. Good news is all the military he's invested in has cost him too. I do have the better land and should be able to out-tech him if I can hold him off, but he has the production edge easily so it'll be a tough slog.

I went Maths first to open up health and boosted forest chops. I then went Calendar so I can found a banana + clam city NE of me. Next will probably be Metal Casting maybe. Need to think about it. T30 situation:



Copper hooked back up. Had to move the Spear back - I should be safe in every direction. Should be able to do some combat roading too if I need to. Anyways, he'll likely move either NE-N where I cannot hit him or E-SE. Either way my cities are safe, so hopefully he moves in such a way that I can pop him with my spear if my workers can road. Power graph is annoying:



May be more coming. Though it's slightly distorted by HBR and higher pop, but it's still annoying. He likely has another Keshik at least.

Anyways, that was our first session. Lewwyn sure provided the blueprint for how to play aggressively early. Nicely done by him. I feel like he's easily in the lead, but I'm hoping I can catch back up on the strenght of my capital once I get it going. I may never get it going though if I don't get my situation stabilized.