PBEM25 Mapmaking and Lurking

[Sullla]

We will see if he accepts. If he does, it should be good reading for the lurker of the responses of any players following resources. "Why would Woden send iron to TAD?" Because I want the luxury and it is not necssarily a bad thing if TAD takes out greenline or attacks pindictor. Either should distract pindictor into having to defend his eastern flank and may provide an opening for me to attack him or if I find Yuris is closer, provides a distract to pindictor to prevent an attack on me while I go and take over Yuris' lands. I think I am ahead in the swordsman race and even though TAD has upgrade gold, I should be able to start marching around the same time he can with a few strategic chops.

This seems extraordinarily unwise to me, helping the player with a big early game lead to more easily rush another player. Perhaps this is a form of 5 dimension chess but it sure looks like a strategic error.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

OK, you invited me to pick apart Whosit . Here is another one: TAD has a ton of highly promoted warriors (JC gets full XP from barbs even after first level up), a ton of gold and a UU coming soon. And you want to build wonders? Why on earth would you paint a target mark on your back? You should make it as unattractive as possible to be the target of the inevitable Legion rush.

Not only this, but you know the Legions are coming at either you or your neighbor. Surely it'd be extremely valuable to have a military capable of intervening in that inevitable Legion rush, no? 

Instead what will end up happening is Archduke will attack greenline, who will promptly give up and best-case stall Archduke the way he did Whosit, more likely Archduke's more determined execution and greater experience will carry him to victory, and the Ottomans will have to throw up their hands and say "oh well nothing we could do with the units we had," when a small force of horsemen and archers could make all the difference. But you gotta build the horses and archers now, not in 25 turns.

[Japper007]

That deal of Woden's seems greedy in a stupid way. Sure you get the boosted (or in this case, not malused) yields from the amenities. But helping Archduke grab extra cities, extra fast, seems like a net loss. There's no outscaling someone who's about to eat someone else whole.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I can always get frustrated with the geopolitics of these games. But I have to remind myself that the players don't have the same information I have.

I'm...not sanguine about greenline's chances, but I suppose he saw off Whosit's legion rush last game. So it's not impossible! But Pindicator and Whosit neatly locked themselves out of any chance of interfering, provoked by Woden. Woden seems content to stir them into defending against him, but it seems to me that once he spotted Caesar (and Caesar's spiralling empire & military scores) next to greenline, he should ahve encouraged an anti-Roman coalition to form. That would mean things like diplomatic overtures & friendly gestures to the Ottomans, gently nudging them to focus their defenses east, not west. Could Woden have done this? Did he even have the information to? I'm not sure, but from 10,000 feet up it seems like the best move.

[RefSteel]

I'm...not sanguine about greenline's chances, but I suppose he saw off Whosit's legion rush last game. So it's not impossible!

True, but ... that "rush" began 40 turns later than this one! As Sullla put it in the lurker thread:

I need to focus on not getting eaten by Whosit first, of course. The good news there is he doesn't seem to be the kind of player to commit to an objective and focus on it. He builds wonders and districts when he should build units, and the result is he's baffled by a fairly weak and somnolent Korea, for example. He could have piles more units than me, instead he has 300 more power - ie, less than 10 more units, and he has 3 fronts to monitor, I only have one.

Chevalier perfectly captures Whosit's biggest weakness as a player, trying to do too many things simultaneously and never sticking to any one plan for long. Rome had an incredible starting position on this map and two weak neighbors, he should have focused on running over one of them early in the game which would have effectively ended things. I guarantee that thrawn or Chevalier would have already eliminated someone if they had been gifted that start.

My frist reaction on reading that post was that at least one more player - TheArchduke - could certainly be added to the list of those who would already have had a kill before Whosit's attack began. And greenline seems to be of the same opinion after trying to snipe legions with archers.

[Japper007]

I've had the "pleasure" of watching in horror while the Archduke took half the map with Macedon. It's cool to see someone go all-in like that though. Sometimes a killer instinct like that is more important than the civ you are playing. Just look at Rome in Whosit's or... my fumbling hands and when Sulla or Arch get their hands on them.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yeah, looks like it's curtains for greenline. Not a WHOLE lot he could have done, Archduke is murderous in any circumstances and it seems 80% of the barb camps have spawned within his zone (probably because he kept whacking them), so he's got something on the order of 1200-1500 gold to juice himself up.

[Alhambram]

After TheArchduke has conquered Greenline, he can expand in west and leave east empty to turn it into barbarian breeding ground for farmimg gold from camps.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Ceaser's performance is good enough here to make me want to ban him in a "pick me" format (PBEM 23) because he'll get picked every game. He might be okay in a format like this PBEM but in "pick me" he's going to be picked every game.

I give Greenline a salt score of 4 out of 5.

[Japper007]

I haven't tried Julius out yet, but seems a very RNG leader. I've had games where I don't have a single barb camp spawn near me before all free area is settled. Then Trajan is just objectively better.

On maps with lots of tundra (like Tilted Axis, Seven Seas or Inland Sea) though, seems very strong.