[SPOILER] PBEM 13 Lurker Thread (No players!)

[Gaspar]

Obligatory mouseover protectection post.

[Gaspar]

I suppose after Ruff's comment in his thread someone's obligated to create one of these. Since I happened to be reading here, why not me? What's everyone think about this game so far?

I think the map is fairly interesting, at least in as much as the Civ's are relatively close together. I think the town vs mine question is largely moot - metals tiles are pretty attractive to work - I'd be surprised if everyone didn't choose to keep the town in the short term before eventually mining over it. There's no question it has a fairly significant impact on the early game however, folks will tech out of ancient pretty quickly. Maybe I'm wrong though, what do others think?

Obviously Ruff's game is the most unique here, and I have to say, I find it interesting the other players didn't feel like he telegraphed his intentions as much as some of the lurkers did. I'm curious to see how EE will play here. Part of what makes it work is how fast AIs can tech on high difficulty levels. Maybe it will work here, but it will be harder to make it work in an MP game.

Probably the greater impact of the settings will be once people are using spies as the broken invisible sentries that they are. It'll be awfully difficult to sneak attack an enemy if the players are smart enough to get spies on their borders.

Well there's a few opening thoughts, anyone else?

[zakalwe]

Picked up Poly for Hinduism and i'm now following that with masonry and monotheism which will hopefully be in on turn 23. the problem then is where to head next. i've run through a few sims and i could go priesthood - writing and try to Oracle Theocracy to have a Hydra in my capital city. Oracle would be built turn 43 so the downside is that the my first settler wouldn't be out to around turn 52 by my calculations. pause for thought

... pretty crazy opening by Ad Hoc. I don't think Ruff has deduced that he went for masonry, so he really should be a bit worried about the great wall. Novice did correctly deduce Ad Hoc's tech path and seems to be on top of the other teams in terms of C&D.

So far it looks like the NAS team will do very well, although they will lose the oracle if Ad Hoc persists with his crazy hydra opening, and Ruff should be able to stay caught up very easily due to the power of the espionage economy (provided he lands the great wall, that is).

As for TT's strategy:

Firstly, let me introduce who I am for this fantastic game and explain why on earth I decided to do something so foolhardy (yet damn cunning!)

[SIZE="3"]Hammurabi of the Zulu[/SIZE]

Traits - Aggressive & Organized

UU - Impi (Spearman) - +100% vs Mounted Units, starts with Mobility promotion
UB - Ikhanda (Barracks) - Cost 10 more hammers - reduces maintenance by 20%

Starting Techs - Agriculture & Hunting

Using this combo, I intend to kick ass and drink milk, and I just finished my milk! I want to capitalise on the vacuum of diplomacy to try and catch someone unaware and hit them hard and gain myself plenty of new land. With noone else going Aggressive themselves, and seeing how common the farmers gambit has become, I want to try something new and see what I can achieve (or not)

Organized is mainly a safety net choice for me, as half price courthouses, organized & half price Ikhandas should make maintenance small enough not to worry about, though it will also be helpful in making the land I (hopefully) take, manageable enough to hold, not raze.

He's promising an early rush it seems. I'm not holding my breath though.

The final player, Pegasus, seems to be playing a more conventional opening. Not sure what his long-term strategy is, but he does mention espionage in one of his first posts.

[Amelia]

It looks like my towns sped up the early game, but it seems that everyone is going to mine over it soon.

[Amelia]

Wow, was TT really building a scout after he lost his warrior? He's practically defenseless now lol. And being aggresive Zulu, i'm sure people want to get rid of him quick.

[Mardoc]

It looks like my towns sped up the early game, but it seems that everyone is going to mine over it soon.

Looks like matters are a tad bit more interesting than that

BW came in this turn too. Have I got copper Pray to the Copper Gods lurkers

Yeah, but No, but yeah , but ...... Oh thats just so unfair!

I wonder if Iron is on the opposite tile


Damn you Amelia. I have no idea what to do now - I wasn't expecting it there at all. Should I mine it? Should I leave it for the commerce early doors. That commerce early doors could be really useful - but I need the copper for my UU.

I think we definitely want to mine our copper, both for tile yields and for national security reasons. We would never cottage a copper tile late-game. But we do need the beakers from the town for a while if we're going to reach priesthood and pottery by EOT49.

Also, mining the copper doesn't speed up our development up to T50 anything much. Why not? Because we need to spend worker turns mining the copper instead of chopping forests.

Which town is it under? It will be funny if I am right about the town.

Yeah, that's all he shared with us

An interesting dilemma for some.
Well not for me!

Bronze Working was discovered at the end of this last turn and its under the grassland town! Classy.

Of course I'm going to mine it pretty quickly, then I don't need any more crappy 2 move scouts when I can have 2 move Impis!

Now I wouldn't be surprised if a few players didn't hook it up straight away as that hammer onto a 2 food town is pretty useful. I want to knock heads however, so I won't be leaving it for long.

As this game is normal speed, not quick, I have a little more time to play with my Impis so I may as well make the most of it if I can!

And Adhoc doesn't know about it yet.

So we've got one can't decide, one mine it but not yet, one mine it now baby!, and two we've got no info on.

[Amelia]

I loved Pegasus's rant lol. He sounds really confused when he said that.

[T-hawk]

Ruff has discovered it too, and wants to leave it for researching and rely on a no-metal army.

I think mining it is very obvious. The choice is 3 hammers or 4 commerce, which looks like a no-brainer in favor of the hammers to me, especially including that it's a strategic resource. Heck, once you have Alphabet or Currency, Wealth or Research pays out 75% of the research value whenever you do want economy instead. Unless you're racing for a religion, the town seems pretty inferior. Printing Press and Free Speech are a rhotillion miles away.

[Amelia]

Isn't having beakers early game to get the Essential techs better then having production which is normally not needed early? I'm pretty sure the only thing you need at the start are Workers and Settlers, which are normally gotten through Forest Chops and Food Surplus --> Whip anyway.

[Gaspar]

This isn't fascinating or anything, but I hate games where 1 or 2 teams update so much more than everyone else. We know quite a lot about NAS and Ruff's play, and a declining amount about all the remaining teams. As its quite apparent that TT has/had a rush in mind, it would be nice to know what he's up to from some means other than C&D from novice.

Just saying.