[SPOILERS] scooter - Zara Yakob

[scooter]

Why yes I'm going to go ahead and create my spoiler thread. I need the first post to be spam in case someone accidentally clicks on my thread, so here's a story for you all. If you're familiar with Darwin Awards you've probably heard it, but if not, this story is one of my favorites. Granted, it's an Urban Legend, but it's good enough to make up for it.

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Bizarre Death

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS, President Dr. Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story:

On March 23,1994 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to that effect, indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window which killed him instantly.

Neither the shooter nor the descender was aware that a safety net had been installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide."

That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room on the ninth floor, whence the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window, striking Mr. Opus.

When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window. The son had actually murdered himself so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

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Alright enough of that , first real post with some intro stuff coming up shortly...

[scooter]

First off, I'll go ahead and give you my thought process on my civ choices. It occurred to me right AFTER I submitted my choices that the Celts might be a good choice (you know, being Highlands and all), but I'm happy with what I've got. Here's a write-up of my thought process... I wrote this before I actually knew who I got, so each choice is detailed. I would also note in retrospect I'm starting to wish I had swapped my #1 and #2 picks, but I'm probably just second guessing.


Well Fin and Phi are out, so what to pick. First I eliminated Imperalistic and Charasmatic, because I just don't have much use for either of them. I also eliminated Agressive just because it didn't seem like it would be all that helpful long-term. Next I figured I would decide which trait I valued most. First thing that came to mind is "well Financial and Philosophical are out, what's the next best long-term economic trait?" Organized seemed like the obvious one, so that seemed like it might be one of the better choices.

Creative also jumped out at me because of raging barbs. Creative will give me extra warning against barbs, will help me get strategic resources quicker, and is just generally a nice trait in multiplayer. Also cheap libraries would probably be nice...

Spiritual seemed like it would be more powerful on quick speed as anarchy would hurt more, so I was definitely considering that. Problem with pairing that with Organized is you have two traits that don't really excel at all in the early game. Spi/Org is out as far as I'm concerned, but I'd be good with Cre/Spi.

Expansive is never a bad trait so I would be fine with that, but it didn't seem like it had any extra advantages in this context, so I bumped it down to 4th on my list. Cre/Exp is nice and all, but once the game is halfway done both traits have lost most of their use.

I also went ahead and eliminated Industrious, as that seemed like more of a "would be nice to have" than anything. Just too much of a gamble, because it's value is directly proportionate to how many players there are in the game that pick Industrious.

So here's the list I came up with:

1. Zara - Cre/Org - Ethiopians
2. Hatshepsut - Cre/Spi - Egypt
3. Mehmed - Exp/Org - Ottomans
4. Sury - Cre/Exp - Khmer


I still strongly considered putting Sury around 2nd on my list, but his UU is the Ballista Elephant, and since we will (hopefully) have no ivory on the map, that UU would be useless. That was plenty enough to bump it out of the top 3, so I submitted the first 3. Here's my reasoning for each one. Note that I'm writing this out before I find out what leader I get, so I don't actually know yet.

Zara is mostly obvious as I value Creative and Organized most highly. On top of that, the combination allows me access to six cheap buildings, which is a big draw for me too. Oromo warrios are solid, so this seemed like the best #1 choice for me, so hopefully I just get this and none of the others matter.

Hattie allowed me to get 3 things. 1: Creative 2: A solid trait that is better in the late-game AND its stronger on quick speed, and 3: a great UU that should make me nearly invincible against barbs provided I churn a few out. We're probably NOT looking at a rush map here given the size, but I do expect barbs to be coming frequently and in good numbers, so the War Chariot was just solid enough to convince me to keep Hattie in 2nd. Yeah there's no organized, but Spiritual is a solid consolatoin prize in my mind.

Mehmed was the next-best Organized leader in my mind. Just a well-balanced leader overall - good strong early expansion coupled with Organized to keep down expenses. Janissaries aren't gamebreaking but they're solid, and I've always really liked the Hamman as a UB.

[scooter]

A few random thoughts about this game. I don't expect to be one of the major players in this game, mostly because some of these players are just better skilled than me, but I completely intend to try. I really don't know a ton about many of these players, which makes things more interesting. I'm on the same team with Sandover in PB3, but past him I don't know the styles of many of these players. Playing with Sandover on PB3 will definitely not carry over to diplomacy here though - the only effect is I know his style and approach to diplomacy. 3 of the players are playing for the first time in PB3, so I haven't been able to see their threads to know what they're like. Timmy is new to the MP games here (though from reading a few reports he seems to be very skilled in SP), so I have no idea what to expect from him.

In short, this should be a very interesting game ... I don't have any real pre-conceived plans, I'm kind of just going to roll with it. I might try out a highlands noble raging barbs game on my own, as I haven't played noble OR raging barbs for awhile, so I don't really know what to expect in that area.

It is no tech trading, which means researching at a high rate is #1 priority. I'm thinking about trying to get to writing fairly quickly so I can whip out a cheap library, run a couple scientists, and get an early academy. I'm not expecting the map to be toroidal mostly because Highlands has a string of tundra at the north, which would be weird if they toroidal wrapped it. It's usually a flat map, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does turn out to wrap east-west for balance purposes. But with no toroidal + Noble difficulty, I'm hoping to be somewhat aggressive with claiming land, as it won't cost too much...

I'll probably write more later, and I'll write some thoughts on leader choices once we know for sure what everyone's leaders are.

[scooter]

Oh yeah, if you have suggestions for a city naming scheme, speak up. I'm about as creative as a box of rocks, so thinking up something is...challenging.

I also will consider at some point in the game randomly renaming all my cities if I'm at war just to screw with the other player. Does this make me a bad person? Actually don't answer that.

[regoarrarr]

Thanks for the thoughts and we'll be following along!

[darrelljs]

Oh yeah, if you have suggestions for a city naming scheme, speak up. I'm about as creative as a box of rocks, so thinking up something is...challenging.

Then you should name them after rocks and minerals .

Darrell

[scooter]

Then you should name them after rocks and minerals .

Darrell

Why can I never think of things like that? I love it, I might go with it.

[scooter]

Well looks like leaders are finally set... Here we go:

SleepingMoogle - Brennus of Celts
Yeah, if I could do it over again I'd stongly consider this. Definitely could be a pain to fight against this... I don't know much about SleepingMoogle, he plays on the Byzantium team in PB3, but that's about all I know. He and Bobchillingworth have a connection together from PB3, so it'll be interesting to see if that affects diplomacy or not.

Timmy - Suravayryrvayvryaman of Khmer
One of the better leaders in the game, though he will be UU-less. He's never played in one of the MP games here, but from what I understand he's pretty highly skilled in SP at least. Definitely someone to keep an eye on, I suspect he'll try to leverage his traits into REXing as much as raging barbs lets him. Noble difficulty maintenance is less than scary.

Bobchillingworth - Augustus
Hello Praetorians and hello Industrious civ. Obviously Praetorians is not something I want to be messing with... I can't see the Praetorian rush being all that great unless the map makers stick us on a cramped map. Once again I don't know much about Bobchillingworth, so I don't know what to conclude really.

Sandover - Hatshepsut
The leader/civ that I was oh so close to picking as my #1 choice. I've kind of been wishing I had just gone with it, but I like Zara a lot too so I'm happy. He's the only player in this game that I know fairly well, only from being teammates currently in PB3. He is definitely a skilled player, and I know I can trust him to keep agreements if we ever make any in this game. Our diplomatic styles are probably a bit different, but not that far off. I won't say much more since people we are playing against in PB3 can read this, but I feel like Sandover could either be a reliable friend or a dangerous enemy in this game, and probably not much in between ... Probably would peg him as one of the front-runners in this game.

Twinkletoes - Bismarck
Another industrious civ... I'm sure glad I didn't pick one with two others in the game. Once again I don't know much about TT. He seems slightly less experienced, but certainly capable. I get the feeling he knows how to manage diplomacy (i.e. easy to get along with) from watching him a little bit in PB1. Will be interesting to see if he becomes a target because people want his wonders.

[scooter]

Alright I got the game, and here we go. Tell me if the image is too wide, I usually play in 1900x1200 resolution, so the screenshot was a bit... big. I cut it down as best I could, but I imagine this'll still be too big for some..? Let me know if it's a problem and I'll lower my resolution or something.



I founded in place, and the settler and scout were both where Aksum is. Saw no reason to move, so I moved the scout N-NW, and settled in place. Cow, grassland gems, irrigated wheat, 3 floodplains... Happy with that. I notice there's a peak in my fat cross, which makes me think my start was moved somewhat because that never happens naturally.

I set my research to Animal Husbandry first. Thinking there is 1- it helps me work the cows, and 2- it will reveal horse. I start with the wheel, so if I can quickly find horse I will rely on chariots in the early going to handle barbs. I did some quick testing with Noble raging barbs, and I'll be okay for 40ish turns, and then the first warrior wave will come in. Nothing too bad, but on highlands the barbs tend to play 1-2 difficulties higher. If I can have two chariots by then, I will be completely fine.

Went worker first, and the first thing I'll do is mine the gems and use that to speed up all my other research. Tempted to go worker-worker because of the 40 turn buffer, but I'll probably go worker-warrior just to be safe and so that I can find horses. Also I DO have a scout start so I don't want to be tempting another player to walk into an undefended capital . If I can't find horses, I'll have to take a quick stop at archery to handle barbs, otherwise I'm hoping to delay that for awhile. I have no real plans of going for early religion, I'd rather emphasize quick expansion to take advantage of noble maintenance (or the lack of it). I believe the only civ in this game to start with Mysticism is the Celts anyways, so I'm not expecting the early religions to drop all that fast anyways.

The capital seems like it would be perfect for an early academy, so if I can swing it, I'd like to get a cheap library in there and use my food excess to quickly get out a great scientist for an academy. I had no intentions of an early wonder - but seeing stone nearby makes the Great Wall pretty tempting. I don't think I'll bother, but it'll be in the back of my mind at least.

Turn updates will probably be slow for a couple weeks, but things will speed up soon enough. Also, I finally signed up for a Dropbox account for image hosting for this game, and it's definitely pretty cool. I like it a lot better than imageshack/photobucket... Anyone else use Dropbox?

[Yazilliclick]

[strike]Hey scooter, I think maybe you got the link to the image wrong (or still editing?) it's not showing up for me [/strike] Seeing it now

I find imgur.com to be a good host, it'll auto-create thumbnails for you too in case you want to post a big picture in a thread.