Team Gaspar - how PBEM47 was lost and where it got us.

[zakalwe]

Tiles in the fog are best guess.

Awesome, thanks.

[NobleHelium]

The other nice thing about our pick is that it advertises our game plan in flashing neon letters. Hopefully that will encourage the others to go for other openings.

Yeah I was thinking that Sumeria would be the safe pick in that missing out on Oracle wouldn't be as big of a hit. Mints are very good, but if you don't have MC that's a big problem.

[zakalwe]

I checked out the sandbox briefly. First impressions:

1. This is quick speed, and noble. Tech is pretty cheap.
2. This is quick speed. India really should have been banned.

[NobleHelium]

Should've taken mackoti's offer Gaspar.

[Gaspar]

While I'm thinking about it, who wants to be added to the tracker? Lewwyn already said yes - zak, WK, Noble?

[Gaspar]

We have SevenSpirits complete pick so that means...

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the 8th wonder of the world
The flow of the century, always timeless... Opponent profiles!
Thanks for coming out tonight. You could've been anywhere in the world, but you're here with me, I appreciate that.

(Sorry, always wanted to do that, so now I do it everytime.)
We'll start off with the first complete pairing:



SevenSpirits(PBEMs 6, 11, 19, 23, 29, 39, 43; PB 7)

Starring as...



Willem of China (CRE, FIN, Mining, Agriculture, Pavillion, Cho-Ko-Nu)

I'll start with the pick then talk about Seven. China is my favorite Civ to play - it starts with Agriculture, the most frequently needed immediately tech and because of Mining, often lets you go BW first out of the gate and get the Whipping/Chopping snowball started faster than anyone. Its uniques are useful if not mind-blowing - the Pavillion is helpful in culture wars but Drama is an oft-delayed tech. The CKN is not overpowering but because it works as collateral in all the situations collateral doesn't usually work - against siege, off boats - it has usefulness all the way to late Industrial. We used them to great effect in PBEM38, allowing us to takeout Yuri with completely obsolete units while maintaining modern stuff on the more important Commodore border. Willem on the other hand is usually the leader I recommend to new players trying out Civ4 for the first time - CRE and FIN are the easiest traits to use even if you don't know what you're doing. With CRE and China, fully expect a fast start here. It is missing EXP, but that's how the cookie crumbles.

Seven is the best pure player on the site. He's only ever lost to mackoti and even that game was really more of a situation where he played about as well as mackoti but lost because he managed Noble and I worse than mackoti managed Lewwyn. He looks at the game in ways that don't occur to the rest of us and has the ability to squeeze value out of every nook and cranny of his Civ. His willingness to constantly challenge assumptions means that he's not constrained by a lot of the false assumptions a lot of us made and held onto while we were learning what MP Civ4 was about and it shows in his play. His biggest weakness is basically that I think mackoti is in his head a little bit and as such he tends to make some mistakes when he's trying too hard to keep up with him. He also has a tendency to underestimate the human element of MP games, often making enemies that could have been avoided with slightly "suboptimal" but subtler play. Serdoa is pretty hot-tempered as well, so I could see those two butting heads if they're placed near one another. He also loves his wonders, though neither leader nor civ favors that here with and India player and an IND player already on the board.

SevenSpirits Snapshot:

Player skill:
Leader/Civ strength:
Aggressiveness:
Intangibles:
PYFT rating:

Exploitable weakness: Mackoti-envy causes him to underdefend a border somewhere or overextend in hopes of competing.
Biggest fear: We're right next door and end up being the hotheads who overreact to his lack of finesse.
Pre-game prediction: 2nd place

[NobleHelium]

Hey now, that picture is actually SixSpiritsAndARepeat.

[Gaspar]

Hey now, that picture is actually SixSpiritsAndARepeat.

No idea what you're talking about.

[NobleHelium]

[zakalwe]

While I'm thinking about it, who wants to be added to the tracker? Lewwyn already said yes - zak, WK, Noble?

Sure. I'm cherade9.zakalwe at the usual provider.