Medieval Start PitBoss

[shallow_thought]

Good game everyone! This was a fun one to lurk, hope you all had a fun time playing it.

Agreed. Thanks all - that was fun to follow.

[T-hawk]

So that's it, you're just done, no postgame discussion from anybody? Although I guess there might not be much beyond Vikings vikinged again. Well, Thoth did get the last laugh over those who were criticizing the aggressive gameplay.

[Krill]

What's there to say except Thoth demonstrated that targeted violence was the right answer?

[scooter]

So that's it, you're just done, no postgame discussion from anybody? Although I guess there might not be much beyond Vikings vikinged again. Well, Thoth did get the last laugh over those who were criticizing the aggressive gameplay.

Have been really disappointed by the lack of this too. I went through every thread back when I got knocked out and commented on a bunch of things, but I was hoping for more opinions from other players once unspoiled.

What's there to say except Thoth demonstrated that targeted violence was the right answer?

This is part of why I was hoping for thoughts, because did he really? My read on what happened was that more or less everything Commodore/Pindicator did or didn't do in the first ~100 turns directly benefitted Thoth, and then they still had a chance to 2v1 him at the end, but they did not really coordinate at all, and their morale was significantly lower. I think a very obvious win condition in this game was "don't let Vikings get to Astro first" - and in fact he got to the naval techs more or less last - but nobody really tried to punish him. Well, I was going to give it my best shot - I was on the brink of getting Chemistry like 20-30T before him - but another player was invading me too.


I also think this game demonstrates one of the issues with 5p mapmaking if you insist on Cylindrical, which is that the only way to make it work is for everyone to have 2 neighbors and 2 players they can't really reach pre-Astro. For example, I think if Commodore and Thoth had started next to each other, whichever player neighbored neither of them was fairly likely to win.

[scooter]

This is part of why I was hoping for thoughts, because did he really? My read on what happened was that more or less everything Commodore/Pindicator did or didn't do in the first ~100 turns directly benefitted Thoth, and then they still had a chance to 2v1 him at the end, but they did not really coordinate at all, and their morale was significantly lower. I think a very obvious win condition in this game was "don't let Vikings get to Astro first" - and in fact he got to the naval techs more or less last - but nobody really tried to punish him. Well, I was going to give it my best shot - I was on the brink of getting Chemistry like 20-30T before him - but another player was invading me too.


I also think this game demonstrates one of the issues with 5p mapmaking if you insist on Cylindrical, which is that the only way to make it work is for everyone to have 2 neighbors and 2 players they can't really reach pre-Astro. For example, I think if Commodore and Thoth had started next to each other, whichever player neighbored neither of them was fairly likely to win.

Re-reading after posting, this comes across as a knock on Thoth's game which is REALLY not intended at all. The execution of all of it was really great. I think a lot of sharp decisions were made that nobody else wised up to - such as recognizing the barb cities were slightly bait and leaving them for ages, for example. The heavy emphasis on vertical growth rather than whipping was interesting too and I think really was paying off in the late-game. Ignoring the outer sea to such an extent that he more or less didn't settle cities out there until late was a great choice as well, as I explored attack angles out there to avoid his navy, and I found that there really weren't any.


I also think the morale edge he had in the second half of the game was hugely important and was a credit to him to keep looking for angles that Vikings provided even when the sledding got a lot tougher. I think a lesser player would have had a big morale dip after I wiped one of his big stacks and Commodore got like 90% of the spoils, but as far as I could tell he didn't, really. I think the consistent even keel is a huge part of how he won the game, and I think that's one of the hardest things to do.

[Tarkeel]

I also think this game demonstrates one of the issues with 5p mapmaking if you insist on Cylindrical, which is that the only way to make it work is for everyone to have 2 neighbors and 2 players they can't really reach pre-Astro. For example, I think if Commodore and Thoth had started next to each other, whichever player neighbored neither of them was fairly likely to win.

Yeah, I really should have made the map toroidal.

[scooter]

I also think this game demonstrates one of the issues with 5p mapmaking if you insist on Cylindrical, which is that the only way to make it work is for everyone to have 2 neighbors and 2 players they can't really reach pre-Astro. For example, I think if Commodore and Thoth had started next to each other, whichever player neighbored neither of them was fairly likely to win.

Yeah, I really should have made the map toroidal.

To be clear, I was under the impression you were told to make it Cylindrical, but I really don't remember. I think you would have had at least one player drop out had you made it Toroidal.

[pindicator]

I was very surprised when I found it had no wrap at all.

In general I was very demotivated by a number of missteps of my own creation. Combined with the perceived map imbalance I checked out pretty early on this one.

[Tarkeel]

I was very surprised when I found it had no wrap at all.

In general I was very demotivated by a number of missteps of my own creation. Combined with the perceived map imbalance I checked out pretty early on this one.

No wrap was probably more fair than cylinder here. I do think you got a bit fooled by the outer curvature and felt Yuri has a better claim than he did . But your food was probably further out than the others, due to the rebalancing of the sugars I removed.

[pindicator]

I was curious: did Thoth or Commodore take advantage of building fort channels on their side of the map to transition between the inner and outer seas? I was sad that I couldn't do it on my side of the map.