(December 6th, 2013, 13:17)Qgqqqqq Wrote: PBEM 37, where Seven dominated. I think the reason Rome Civs tend to fail badly has more to do with the players that pick them, as highly skilled players generally uninterested in them due to starting techs. Plus, of course, the tendency for an unprofitable early game war.
Queeg, if you're one of the minority of players not actually involved in PB13, I've actually touched on this in a recent series of essays/strategy articles in my thread there.
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
(December 4th, 2013, 11:59)Commodore Wrote: Wait what? How on earth can multiplayer Civ4 be "discovered" in either diplo or non-diplo manifestations?
I guess it depends on the exact environment? It looked to me like Serdoa and NobleHelium's play in PB12 was getting close to converging on "solved" BtS. I.e. it was a map where they best play is optimizing for pretty clear objectives. And the play could be improved incrementally I'm sure but a lot their moves seemed like the one correct thing to do in the circumstances. But I see the point, if there are a few players close to each other in micro skill on a balanced map then the game will still be decided by the very large strategic decisions they make, and chaotic and unstable equilibriums.
We thoroughly outplayed everyone by the end in that game, but our game was not remotely optimal. We had an abysmal start deciding to settle off the coast (more importantly going from a two-food to a one-food capital) and then threw away probably one worker turn every two turns moving them in extremely suboptimal fashion up and down the narrow strip of land that we were on. It was only when we landed the Pyramids and the Colossus and the galley logistics started getting into rhythm that we pulled away from the game.
But I would agree in that I'm pretty close to my personal skill cap in this game. One day I'll stop playing when I consider the game thoroughly explored for me, but I haven't reached that point yet. Chance of me wanting to play a diplo game at that point is still zero. There are plenty of other games in the world that are far more worth playing.
(December 6th, 2013, 13:17)Qgqqqqq Wrote: PBEM 37, where Seven dominated.
(December 6th, 2013, 13:17)Qgqqqqq Wrote: PBEM 37, where Seven dominated. I think the reason Rome Civs tend to fail badly has more to do with the players that pick them, as highly skilled players generally uninterested in them due to starting techs. Plus, of course, the tendency for an unprofitable early game war.
Queeg, if you're one of the minority of players not actually involved in PB13, I've actually touched on this in a recent series of essays/strategy articles in my thread there.
Argh, I am so far behind in my lurking of other games right now. I just got to your Rudyard Kipling post, really amazing stuff. I'm looking forward to getting to the strategy articles
We're zipping right along in the game, and I'm falling behind in my posts. Here's a quick summary.
On T101, we see that Arki is sending us a missionary, but will they spread Hinduism or Christianity?
On T102 we spot Dinos' stack. Will it be enough to fend off the Romans?
Well, looks like we get Christianity. Any suggestions for where we should spread it and when we should convert? Right now I'm thinking it should go in Server Problems. We also got a free spread of Taoism in Serdoa's Chariot. That is Asterix's religion.
We're ready to move a small stack into Rome's view on T105 (which I'm about to play right now). I was trying to delay as long as possible so we could swoop in undetected and raze the city. But Dinos are starting to panic and are begging us to send our troops into view to distract some of the 25 praets that they say Rome has. They think we're underestimating Rome's leader Barteq, who they have played with before and almost won their last game. They're probably right that we're underestimating Rome...
Here's a shot of Orgy's land. I am enjoying their naming theme:
Arki just sent an email saying that he charged Suttree 40g for a Missionary, and is asking if we're willing to pay him 20g for the one we just got. Seems a little shady since it was supposedly free until after it was gifted. He says he won't mind if we can't pay, so I guess it's not so bad. We definitely cannot give him anything before we finish Currency. He also asked how our deals with EggHeads are going. Apparently he was insulted when Teddy tried to sell him a worker for a missionary + 40g.
Meanwhile, Asterix has been on me to accept a Horse + Silk for Silver trade. We do need the horse, but we can probably settle for it ourselves pretty soon. I'm thinking about countering with a Silver for Silk + GPT trade, but I'm not sure how much to ask for. There is something about diplo with Asterix... Suttree put it this way: "Maga has such a unique personality that it takes a great deal of effort to negotiate even basic deals." Asterix also wants us to kick EggHeads out of our defensive pact. Her reasoning is that she believes Teddy is trying to get India to join the pact, which makes him untrustworthy. I just don't get that logic.
(December 6th, 2013, 13:17)Qgqqqqq Wrote: PBEM 37, where Seven dominated. I think the reason Rome Civs tend to fail badly has more to do with the players that pick them, as highly skilled players generally uninterested in them due to starting techs. Plus, of course, the tendency for an unprofitable early game war.
Queeg, if you're one of the minority of players not actually involved in PB13, I've actually touched on this in a recent series of essays/strategy articles in my thread there.
Dedlurking Lewger. Too spoilerish to share?
(December 6th, 2013, 20:19)NobleHelium Wrote:
(December 6th, 2013, 13:17)Qgqqqqq Wrote: PBEM 37, where Seven dominated.
Right...
Whoops, I meant PBEM 39. (Unless you were correcting me I'm not sure what you meant)
...
Yossarian, could you give a brief summary on what is going on with Asterix and that drama? I've heard it mentioned a few times, but I'm not paying close enough attention to work it out.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
I'd tell arki that you're doing him a favour spreading his religion around when you already have Taoism. Except that might be tactless, so go for the no money angle.
I'd give the missionary back if the place with Taoism has the hammers to make missionaries and he kicks up a stink...
I've finally arrived at some of those strategy posts. Very interesting stuff. Maybe the vets had internalized it already, but it's some really good food for thought for me.
(December 6th, 2013, 21:30)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Yossarian, could you give a brief summary on what is going on with Asterix and that drama? I've heard it mentioned a few times, but I'm not paying close enough attention to work it out.
I really like Maga personally, so I probably shouldn't. but I'm too much of a gossip I guess so here goes.
I'm going to start way back at the beginning. Maga joined Team CFC mid-way through as a complete unknown. I don't think anyone knew her, I don't know how she found the game. Anyways, Team CFC had an intra-team pitboss going, and she took over a very strong position from bistrita (Mackoti for those not in the know). Slaze was the other contender for the win, but through some slick diplomacy, she obtained NAPs with every team that could stop her from racing to space, so the win was secured as hers. But then Slaze NAP-stabbed her and started razing cities with impunity because she had no army. This is where things get kind of foggy, but I guess she was being so..persistent.. with her allies, one or two of them just gave her their passwords and told her to log in and gift herself the help she was requesting. She did so, and ran their civs into the ground trying to help her own civ. The game fell apart and was called for cheating.
So onto this game. Maga and Slaze were teamed up but Maga kicked him off her team when he NAP-stabbed her in the other game. Then, around the time the other game was collapsing, she posted over here that she was withdrawing from the game but had found a replacement, Asterix. Well, several people noticed striking similarities b/w Maga and Asterix, including the same problems logging in at the same time. When she asked Caledorn to help her fix that, she admitted that she had the exact same IP address that Maga had. For my part, chatting with Asterix feels exactly like chatting with Maga used to.
Anyways, the drama from this game comes because EggHeads started spreading the idea that maybe Asterix is actually also playing the Roman civ, and that is why they refuse to talk to anyone except Asterix, and why Asterix insists that all our diplo with Rome must go through her. They confronted her with this and things got pretty tense, Asterix threatened to quit, is trying to get Plako and Caledorn to vouch for her, etc. I think most of the drama has died down now. Dinos confirmed to me privately that they've played with the Roman team in previous games, so there is no way that Asterix is playing Rome
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