[PB56] Amicalola and Tarkeel are Feeling Spicy

[Amicalola]

Final thoughts on my game here:

Objective Summary
Compared to other players, our land had average food, terrible production, few luxuries, and strong commerce. 

We began the game with two early granaries, but quickly decided the terrain forced an eastern rush. Originally we had planned to rush AT, but Noble got there first, so instead we tried to fight him. Noble's superior production combined with a major tactical error forced a peace, while Noble finished off AT. We had fallen far behind, and expanded north in a heavy farmer's gambit, with the lowest power and production for a long time, including dying players. We got lucky, and no one called us on it. Happiness was a huge problem for us, as we had no furs or gems. Thus, we built the Oracle, and took Monarchy for HR/wines. We also founded Hinduism early, and focused heavily on spreading it. 

We vultured a city from the dying Ruff, and then again got very lucky when Mjmd attacked Vanrober instead of Mr Cairo, for unknown reasons (we should have died here). We were able to acquire about half of Vanrober's territory at little cost, with an army of whipped HAs; these cities quickly became the strongest in the empire, even with only granaries and forges. Afterwards, we were able to maintain a friendly border with Mjmd, and had to choose between fighting Noble on the battlefield, or economically. We chose the latter, but lost, as we couldn't close the gap. The game went from 'probably' to 'definitely' over with the razing of Basil. 


Overall, I think I played the economic side of this game quite well, and the military side disastrously. It's really difficult to gauge our performance this game, because we were incredibly, stupendously lucky with geopolitical developments. If this game is run 100 times, we think we'd end up like Jowy/Ruff a good 80% of them, or more.


Learning From The Good
- Founding and spreading Hinduism, and an early OR conversion, carried us throughout this game. The early hammers and culture were invaluable alone, and we also landed a killer shrine that kept us ahead in tech. The OR hammers allowed us to keep up with the more fortunate players, while the culture helped us claim more land than we should have. I'm way more likely to go for a religion after this game. 
      --> As a sub-note, the Monk Wonders were really impressive, especially the AP. Further impressed by religion, and I'll have to try a SPI game at some point.

- Serfdom was a huge success. I'm really, really impressed by how strong it was, and I think we're massively under-valuing it right now. England went from the lowest to highest production in the game in 20 turns, thanks to this civic and the AP. It would have been even better without FIN, too! I'll be planning around a mid-game Serfdom conversion a lot in future games. 

- We correctly identified our relative lack of happiness and built the Oracle. This was nothing fancy, but I think it was good problem solving. Make more moves like this in the future!


Learning From The Bad
- I fought wars very badly, pretty much every time. In the Noble war, I made a major tactical error that forced a peace treaty. In the Ruff war, I nearly failed to vulture even that single city. In the Vanrober war, I underbuilt for real fighting, and overbuilt for vulturing cities (we ended up doing the latter). Overall, these issues can be placed on one major flaw:
     --> Poor foresight. My internal thinking of 'what will this look like in 10 turns' was awful, as I consistently under-estimated the strength of opponents. I expected Noble's units to be fighting AT, but of course he had more. I expected Mjmd to beat Vanrober quicker, but of course he stalled out without catapults. These were things a better player would have realised. In future, I should spend more time planning out how a conflict will look after it starts. 
     --> The early granaries combined with a rush were stupid. We should have either rushed faster, or not at all. This game taught me to never half-ass fights.

- Taking the game too seriously. Isn't this meant to be fun?? I don't know why I get so sucked in, but this game caused literal clinical distress, so I think it's pretty obvious that I need to chill the hell out. I'm very open to advice on this one, if anyone else has struggled similarly. I'd probably play better with less stress, too.

[Amicalola]

Right now, I'm going to primarily wait until I see the starts before deciding on a pick, since we wasted so much time on ultimately useless discussion in PB 55.

[Amicalola]

Since I'm solo again for this game, I can't count on anyone else to generate discussion. I thought I'd make a post detailing my (rough) goals for this game. These are largely things I did poorly in 51, or that Mjmd/Miguelito are teaching me in 55. Separated into high priority Important Goals, and low priority Things That Would Be Nice. 

Important Goals
1. Keep learning. My biggest regret with 51 was that I was knocked out so early that I didn't really have time to learn anything, other than "micro is important." The sheer number of questions I subject Miguel and Mjmd to in 55 makes it clear that I have A LOT to learn, and I figure the best way to do that is to keep playing games, and think about them lots.

2. Have a well thought out and extensively simmed micro plan until at least T60. I was surprised how fun micro actually was after Mjmd got me to try it in 55. It's fun squeezing out extra turns of value and trying different paths. I also think it helps a lot with getting off the ground early, which is important for my next goal (or, you know, anything). 

3. Survive to the mid/end-game. Honestly, I do not see myself as in contention for the win, but I really would like to play a major role this game. I think as long as I can have a nice start, I can get myself into at least a decent position to impact the game. Who knows; maybe I'll get lucky somehow and actually contend for the win too. 

4. Fight at least one major mid-late game war. This is still the area in which I feel the most inexperienced. I have somehow still never fought a major war with someone in MP. I am a builder at heart, and my inclination will probably always be to stay out of wars and build my way to success. Unfortunately, this is obviously unviable most of the time, and I really need to get some experience here.  


Things That Would Be Nice
1. Try out traits I haven't tried before. Particularly IMP and PRO are intriguing to me. I think is is very likely that I end up with: (one of) IMP/PRO, and (one of) FIN/CHA. I think these are the strongest traits in CtH, and it would be nice to have some familiarity combined with some new experiences. In particular I think CHA is underrated, as with only 1 chop per city it is already a mini creative. 

2. I would really like to eliminate at least one player. I mean, this kind of goes hand in hand with playing a major role, but there really is something intangibly cool about scoring a kill, no?

3. Have this be my last 'Green' game. With a decent performance here (and potentially 55, though it means less because Mjmd and Miguel have each contributed so much), I'd like to finally have learnt enough to move out of the 'Green' category. I'm not a very prideful person, but more than 3 games as a green would be a bit grim.

[Charriu]

I can say that analysing your past mistakes is an important step on the way out of the green category. Also never be afraid to ask mechanical questions. What I learned through my curious civ player segment is that even veterans forget or don't know how some things work

[superdeath]

[Amicalola]

Thanks Charriu, I'll keep that in mind.

*This was basically a rambling drunk post about how important Fishing was; then Charriu reminded me that Fishing isn't mandatory anymore in CtH. Oops.*

[Charriu]

Don't forget that NA no longer has Fishing as a starting tech, they now have Hunting/Agriculture. They are the only ones that have changed starting techs.

[Amicalola]

Oh my goodness. Never post while drunk. Thanks for the reminder Charriu!!!! I guess now editing that post is even more important.

[Charriu]

But you can build work boats without Fishing in CtH. You only need Fishing to improve the actual sea food tile.

[Amicalola]

Having slept on it, I think that despite requests for this map not to be lush, SD will have made it quite lush. It's the new mapmaker's trap. Especially based on the capital. That makes Charismatic worse.

I also had a think about civs, and ultimately I think there are far more good civs than leaders, so we will be picking leader first.

Right now, the capital looks absolutely absurd for shitting out settlers, so Victoria is BY FAR the highest priority (FIN/IMP). If we don't get her, that's where we run into problems; Financial (double seafood start) and Imperialistic (absurd whipping boy) both look to be the nuts here, but I'm not sure how I'd pick between them. I THINK I'd want financial over Imperialistic, but it's close. If I assume either is good, that leaves these combos in rough preferential order, one of which I am guaranteed to get:

Victoria (FIN/IMP): No. 1 uber-leader. Even though I'm 4/11, I suspect she will be picked before me. If not, we snap her up faster than you can say 'Britannia!'

Pacal (EXP/FIN): Granaries scale well with whipping. Not much else to say.

Willem (CRE/FIN): Final 'pure expansion' trait.

Cyrus (IMP/CHA): Expansion with some pseudo-economy in the high happy cap and border pops. Falls off really hard, but a fantastic start. 

Charlemagne (PRO/IMP): Victoria, but worse (for this start). Still good. 

Darius (FIN/ORG): Lighthouse good. 

Hannibal (CHA/FIN): Less desirable than in 55 for two reasons; a) I have played him before, and b) I suspect Charismatic won't be great

Wang Kon (FIN/PRO): Uber-commerce. Pair with (one of) Inca, India, or NA. First two would probably be gone. Could try to think of other good pairings.

Ultimately, I think I'm looking at Victoria, with Pacal and Willem as my favoured backups. Civ thoughts to come, with the most important thing being fishing is not mandatory at all (thanks Charriu! ).