[SPOILERS] Frederick of Sumeria

[Pegasus]

Welcome to my PBEM13 thread where I will attempt to play Frederick of Sumeria. If you are a fellow player in this game then please do not read any further. For those of you that are interested in what I have to report then welcome. I hope it's a worthy read and not a complete waste of your time.

Feel free to pass comments / judgement on my play [as long as it is not spoilerish]. I don't claim to be a master of this game and probably fall a long way short, but I have to admit this game and this community certainly welcome all standards to come and enjoy themselves which is my No1 priority, and I hope you do too in joining me in my adventure.

[Pegasus]

I see I am running behind thread count already. Let's see if I can do something about that.

For starters I am going to take you through my opponents and there choices and maybe try and have a stab at how I think they will attempt to play. I will then move onto my choice, the reasons why I chose this particular combo and hopefully come up with some sort of opening play. Sorry for the long spiel of text.

Incidentally, you may have seen my PBEM9 thread. Is there anything you like that reads well that you want me to keep up, or anything you don't like that I should take into consideration, or anything that I am missing that you would like to see/read?

I will do my best to accommodate.



So without further ado my opponents are:

Ruff_Hi
Ruffing (Sitting) Bull of Spain
PHI/PRO
UU is the Conquistador (replaces Cuirasseur)
UB is the CItadel (replaces Castle)
Starting Techs are Mysticism and Fishing
Warrior Start

Interesting selection here by Ruff. He's going to be screwed over start wise if we are on an all encumbassing land based map or no COastal resource to work with. Starting Techs are certainly not my favourite choice and the PRO trait I do not value as highly as some of the others. PHI is usegull for cheap Unis (way down the line) and helping generate Great People. But Ruff has played tons of these games and I guess he is probably trying something different or has a strategy that can come up manipulating these techs and traits.

His UU is quite useful mid game. With +50% strength vs Melee units and 15% withdrawal chance, these are nothing to be sniffed at.
His UB allows for 5XPs for each unit built compared to that of a normal castle.
Maybe CHA would have benefited and formed some sort of Synergy with his UB.


I expect Ruff to be a stronger player than me in this game, but common trends I have noticed in his game play and rule selections are a) he likes to play for an early Stonehenge, b) he always persues allowing Espionage in games he participates in. For once, this rule passed for this game and he has demonstrated in previous games on this site his skills in manipulating the espionage slider, so I will be expecting some shady Spy missions being played out in this game by him. Lets hope they are not on me . I may try and tie that up in any NAP or peace play deal.



novice / spacemanmf / athlete for life
Huayna Capac of China
FIN/IND
UU is the Cho-Ko-Nu (replaces Crossbowman)
UB is the Pavilion (replaces Theatre)
Starting Techs are Agriculture and Mining
Warrior Start

Well it was no surprise to me that Huayna went first. Had it not, it may well certainly have been my pick straight out the blocks. I think once Tatans list gets updated Hayna will be the next banned leader. In a NTT game FIN is a huge benefit and the IND will certainly be useful once MC comes in. Extra hammers into Wonders will also be handy. It wouldn't surprise me if I see a play for The Oracle by these guys and expect them to take MC as the free tech to get the half price Forges into action, which will no doubt lead to The Collosus and allow them even more Coin on the water tiles (assuming there are water tiles!).

Tech wise they have plenty of Worker actions to be getting on with. Unlike Ruff, these guys are probably hoping for Wheat/Rice/Corn to work and plenty of non forested hills to mine. Although starting BW as the first tech would soon sort that problem.

Their choice of the Chinese empire is also interesting.
Their UB is of little use in my opinion. The extra 25% culture is probably going to be of little benefit to them. I think they chose the Chinese more for the tech start and the UU.

The UU allows for Collateral damage (so can act like a Cat) and getsan extra strike compared to it's replacement unit which is handy.


I know very little of spacemanmf but I have seen novice around here for a while and I know athlete for life was part of the PB2 games. I think they are decent players, again stronger than me but not as strong as Ruff. I expect them to make a play for peace. Get some good land and develop into a good economy and steam roll through the techs, picking up a few useful wonders on the way. These guys need to be watched to ensure they don't run away with a tech lead, but I also envisage them being main focus of any money / tech steals that the Espionage allowed rule permits.



ad hoc
Louis(rence) of Arabia
CRE/IND
UU is the Camel Archer (replaces Knight)
UB is Madrassa (replaces Library)
Starting Techs are Mysticism and Wheel
Warrior Start

Ah ha ... my good colleague of PB3. Between us we made up half of Team A4. Thanks to these guys, my game play has improved immensely and can now play comfortably at Monarch level. I was only at Prince with the odd attempt at Monach prior to joining this team. So if you are reading this guys Thanks!

Anyway... back to ad. He was always the counter proposer with various options. They were always logical but mostly aggressive. He was always keen to snap up the opportunity for a bit of blood and guts and get a war going, so it was no surprise to see him enter the AW PBEM 8. If I recall correctly he had Arabia high up in his selection for our chosen civ in PB3. I wouldn't underestimate his ability in war either, so others should be wary of him ealry doors, otherwise they may find he has extra cities to his empire.

His selection of Louis was going to be my pick on the way back up. CRE means border pops ealry doors and the ability to speed through library builds is also useful early game.
Being IND, as mentioned ealrier I can see a play for The Oracle and a free tech. It will also help him generate a GP for a shrine or even bulb Theocracy early on. Did I mention he came across as a little blood thirsty? I will be looking out for Hinduism FIDL early doors.

His Tech start again is not paricularly useful in my opinion for a worker start, but roads are always useful and never exhaustive early game (unless of course we each get our own little island).

His UB has synergies with his CRE trait being bale to build it quickly. Although like I mentioned before I can see the major benefit will be his ability to build a shrine or bulb theocracy and the extra priest specialist this build can generate will help here.

His UU is middle game play, so by then maybe too late for any real early war use, but rest assured I expect ad to scheme something up with these.

In terms of strength, I know ad can hold is own, and I have probably not even started to give him justice on his ability to play a more peaceful game! Which of that I also have no doubt.


Twinkletoes
Hammurabi of the Zulus
ORG/AGG
UU is the Impi (replaces Spearman)
UB is the Ikhanda (replaces Barracks)
Agriculture and Hunting
Scout Start!

I feel like I should know about Twinkletoes (TT) ability as it is a name I have recognised on here for a while but in all honesty I have no idea. I'm sure I have read threads and posts by him but for the life of me writing this I cannot remember anything.
In terms of strength I put him up there with Ruff and ad.

His choices indicate early game choke if possible. Both UB and UU are early game builds. Impis can wreak havoc in anyones lands and the Ikhanda is useful for the UU but also lowering maintenance which is good for rexing. As the only scout start, it will be interesting to see if he plays a worker gambit start or go with a Warrior from the off!
In all honesty I can't imagine any of us wanting to neighbour TT from the off.

The Tech start has synergies with his picks. Hunting is useful as BW will allow him to develop Impis from the off (resource permitting). Agriculture is also useful as mentioned earlier for something for the worker to do (again resource permitting). Having said that Hunting will allow him to develop resources too!

The traits of Hammurabi also work well, as the AGG will give promotions from the start and ORG will allow for cheaper civics later game once any early choke threat they may be planning becomes obsolete.

In all honesty I can't imagine any of us wanting to neighbour TT from the off.

[Amelia]

Start

[Pegasus]

Merry belated Christmas lurkers.

The game is underway

And i've just realised I have not updated my thread in relation to my chosen civ and leader and my plan in this game.

Pegasus
Frederick of Sumeria
ORG/PHI
UU is the Vulure (replaces Axeman)
UB Ziggurat (replaces Courthouse)
Starting Techs are The Wheel and Agriculture

For this game I went Civ first. I think I got caught up in the thinking that this game will play heavily on Espionage as most of the previous games have had Espionage excluded. With this in mind I thought that Sumerians would be a useful civ to play. Ziggurats are cheaper than Courthouses and are available to build at Priesthood, so my aim early doors was to get a head start on EP as I am paranoid as to what my oponents are going to inflict on me and I want to make it as expensive for them as possible. The starting techs in my opinion are pretty useful for a worker first option. The Vulture is an early game unit but I don't expect to get much use out of it. The extra strength could come in handy if TT comes knocking, but making a play to rush early doors is not what I had in mind.

Leader wise i was going to pick Hauyna but no surprise they went first. My second pick was Louis, but my good friend from PB3 ad picked him . So my options left in my mind was going to be Asoka or Frederick. I wanted ORG for cheap courthouses to tie up some synergy with my civ be it only marginal. The second trait I couldn't quite make my mind if I wanted SPI so I could swap in and out of civics at will without losing precious turns or whether to go for the PHI and try my hand at creating some GP. In the end I went with Frederick to try and utilise the GP play.

So, my early game play will be to scout my lands, develop my capital and get a few cities out ASAP. Tech wise, I will probably head for BW before then navigating my way up to Priesthood to unlock the Ziggurats.

As you can see from Amelia's post above, a couple of fully developed commerce tiles is certainly an interesting start. I'm guessing we all start with these, so it will be interesting to see who goes the cash route first to get through the techs.

To Amelia and all of those that have helped. Many thanks for developing this map for us to play.

[Pegasus]

As mentioned in my previous post, Turn 0 has been played.

First things first, I took a screenie of the game settings.



Large world size! Surely Amelia wasn't that cruel and put us all close together, and in fact we have ample room to rex out

Level is Prince too. Must remember this. I'm so used to playing at higher levels now that I expect to be crippled maintenance wise when I expand. I can be a little more liberal on this level plus with the 2 fully developed commerce tiles, this is going to help tons.


I decided to move the Warrior SW. I think there may be coast further west.
Apologies, I didnt take a screenie of the land as it didn't reveal much from the tempter above.

Stamford Bridge was founded in exactly the same spot on where the Settler was standing. I was tempted to move 1S but felt that the move wasn't worth the sacrifice of a turn. It looks a nice spot anyway with extra hammer boost, and I can't help but think that maybe we were supposed to settle in place.

I set the build to Worker (due in 12) working Rice tile and the tech to Mining.

C&D

Everybody settled this turn.

Demographics wise



It looks like 2 of my opponents went with the commerce tiles from the off, and the other two maybe with 3f 1c tile similar to myself.

ad and ruff start with Mysticism. I wonder if we have religion race going

[Pegasus]

We have managed to play a couple of turns today.

I decided to send my Warrior west first. With a large map, I am going to risk sending my Warrior a little further out on exploration and hope nobody comes knocking early.

Here is the map as at end of T002.



Look at those Flood plains

Already my mind is racing about the possibility of settling over there, farming the tiles and then with my PHI trait, running tons of specialists.


Here are the Demogs as at T002



I had a play around with the tiles worked in Stamford Bridge to understand the GNP. The maximum I can yield is 21. Based on the average above we have one at max 26 and one at low 17. To get the Avg I make it that someone else is running at 26 and another running at 21.
So if that works right, 3 out of 5 of us are working the improved commerce tiles. However, 2 of the 3 get +5 bonus which I can only put down to a pre-requisite on a tech

Ad's borders have also expanded giving him the lead on land points.

[Pegasus]

Happy New Year lurkers.

Fortunately, my laptop didn't overheat whilst playing this particular game.

We are now up to T5. Ad's borders popped on T2 because of his CRE trait and everyone elses expanded on T4.

This is the map that as I know it.



I have to admit, I wasn't expecting to see all that water to the North!

Stamford Bridge will complete it's worker in 7 and Mining comes in, in 2 more turns.

[Pegasus]

Turn 6 played.

Of note this turn was this:



Based on the fact that on hitting end of turn, TT, Ruff and Myself went up to 36 pts, then either Ruff or TT had secured it. I have put this down to Ruff because my Soldier pts would not tally up otherwise.

On that point, I may have been a little slow on the uptake. I noticed in my C&D spreadsheet I had a formula error and was excluding Novice but including myself in the averages. I have now fixed this, but noticed from the off AVG Soldier count was at 4k. See Demogs above. I double checked my analysis on starting techs, and am happy with them, which means it could only be starting units. I wonder if Amelia has made a itsy bitsy mistake and given TT a warrior start instead of a scout

Then again, my C&D analysis isn't that great and could easily be me miscalcing....again

[Pegasus]

Turn 8 played.

On logging in I get the following Diplo screen



8 turns in on a large map and we have our first contact!

TT is my neighbour


I replied after looking at the map - heart in mouth moment please be from the West.



You can't see TT's Warrior. I took this picture after I moved my warrior to guard the path back to Stamford Bridge. He is 2 West of my warrior.

I wonder what his cunning plan is I have continued with Worker this turn, but with a Combat 1 Warrior heading my way, i'm wondering if I should switch to a Warrior now .

I responded in game with Good day Sir! How goes the land to the West?

[Pegasus]

Oh dear, i just realized that i made a mistake with the unit giving in this map >< Sorry i totally forgot about Aggressive players.

Amelia, is this something to do with what I have posted regarding TT's Warrior? I didn't want to say anything spoilerish in the PBEM thread.
If it is, TT's warrior starts with a Combat 1 promotion I believe for being AGG. However, with a Hunting start, shouldnt TT have a scout rather than a Warrior?

Apologies if I come across as complaining, that was not my intention. I am very greatful for you doing this map for us. My main point is it was something I was not expecting and in RB fashion a variation I have to deal with.