[LURKERS] Mr. Gradgrind's Review

[Thoth]

The spy is killed. Your opponent also gets a message in the turn log indicating that they have caught one of your spies.

[Fluffball]

This game got me to sign up for the forums. I've been really enjoying reading all the threads (well the 2 teams that are actually posting regularly anyway; would love to know what REM is doing at the least!)

I think people are really underestimating what DZ is doing. He is strategically in a bad spot because his in the middle of a clusterpoop, but he's not an easy target and I think has some long term potential. I gather he has a bad reputation around here (?) and that may play into his hands. He's most certainly off to a better start than several of the teams that are about to be irrelevant.

Thanks to the admin and teams for breathing some life into one of my all-time favorite games!

[DMOC]

This game got me to sign up for the forums. I've been really enjoying reading all the threads (well the 2 teams that are actually posting regularly anyway; would love to know what REM is doing at the least!)

I think people are really underestimating what DZ is doing. He is strategically in a bad spot because his in the middle of a clusterpoop, but he's not an easy target and I think has some long term potential. I gather he has a bad reputation around here (?) and that may play into his hands. He's most certainly off to a better start than several of the teams that are about to be irrelevant.

Thanks to the admin and teams for breathing some life into one of my all-time favorite games!

I don't know about DZ's "bad reputation", though to be fair, I haven't been browsing the forums that much after Pitboss 14 (which was a mistake in retrospect, due to the time it takes to do full diplomacy). But I would have thought DZ has a great reputation here, due to the Apolyton Demogame.

In any case, I try not to judge people since there's so much context we miss from being on a forum versus in person, and if I play another game in the future, I would try to refrain from using someone's history against him.

[Fluffball]

I honestly am not sure about his reputation, and didn't even recognize him from the demogame (which I did read many moons ago). The other teams as well as a few lurkers seem to be really giving him the low-ball estimate. I'm thinking scooter specifically who has several times said he thinks DZ is in over his head.

I am new around here, so not entirely sure what all the players' past experiences are. What I've gathered this far is people underestimate DZ and think OT4E is a pyscho! :D

[picklepikkl]

Thanks everyone for the espionage mechanics lesson! I'm very new to Civ 4 and have done basically nothing with espionage other than twiddle EP spending.

And yeah, Fluffball, I am going to be really excited to see DZ take the defense force he created in case of Dreylin attack and go whack someone over the head with it.

[GermanJoey]

Donovan's, ah, had a hard time in his last few games, including this one, I think... that play of abandoning that barb city for free after losing the workers was hard to watch...

That said, I do like his idea of GE'ing his Ironworks quite a lot. That's a big play that a lot of teams have overlooked. He'll get the 700h for the wonder plus +100% hammers for however many extra turns it woulda taken to finish it otherwise... about 14 turns, as a guess, in a city with 40 base hpt? So that'll be another 500-600 hammers or so that he wouldn't have if it wasn't for the GE. Call it 550h, so 1250h total for one Great Person. That's probably about twice what Sulla/Scooter got outta their GA, with a civ that was pretty much designed to maximize output from a GA.

[Fluffball]

This dreylin/scooter upcoming conflict should be interesting. They're both assuming they've got easy control of the barb city. Depending on WHEN (and I do think it's a when, not if) war breaks out will drastically affect who wins it. The later the better for scooter. Personally I think dreyline is going to steamroll scooter's military and take the barb city, but I wonder at what cost to the metagame?

Pindicator and DZ are both proving interesting wildcards; I expect conflict originating from them soon.

[GermanJoey]

does Sulla actually not know that production modifiers also apply to whips? whaaaat????

[Fluffball]

does Sulla actually not know that production modifiers also apply to whips? whaaaat????

He definitely does, where did you get that?

[GermanJoey]

does Sulla actually not know that production modifiers also apply to whips? whaaaat????

He definitely does, where did you get that?

read his latest post:

Like Dreylin, he has a bunch of heavily whipped cities that are all sitting at small sizes. There are more cities that we can't see here off to the east, over by Donovan, but I doubt they're any larger. It's the same general strategy that Dreylin/OT4E used to create their big army: use Slavery for production and keep whipping over and over again at small sizes. That tactic has proved to be stronger than I expected going into this game, and it's served both of their teams well thus far.

HOWEVER, there's a limit to how long Slavery civic will be effective. I stated before that I think Communism tech / State Property tech represents a breaking point of sorts. I think that with levees and State Property watermills/workshops in place, our team's production-based strategy can equal the Slavery-based strategy of Dreylin and REM. Our capital can get something like 70 production/turn even outside of Golden Age mode (with the Bureaucracy bonus) now that it's been buffed up with a levee and lots of workshops. I think we'll be able to 1t rifles pretty soon after growing a few more sizes, and that's more than you can do with Slavery civic at pop 6 or whatever.

rifles are 88h for an industrial start, which is just under a 1pop whip with coalplant+kremlin.