[SPOILERS] Ceiliazul's First Dance: Louis of the Ottomen

[Ceiliazul]

Is this the end??

With the game perhaps being called soon, t100 was still a
fantastic turn. I settled a new city, trained my first
Janissary, and finished my palace reconfig. I'm the only one in
a Golden Age now, so the demos look absolutely obscene. I have
the majority of the gnp and mfg for the entire planet... maybe
Catwalk is right, it's time to call it.

All the machinations of game-long NAPs and such didn't even come
into play... long before those fateful discussions, I already
had an NAP With Catwalk until... t100! If we had never started
those negotiations, it seems likely the game would have had a
similar path.

Without further Ado, the state of the world in t100:

The Forbidden Palace and new Palace finished at EOT t100... my
GNP boosted by... 160??! Jiminy Cricket! And that
pushed my GNP beyond the combined gnp of the rest of the planet.
Wow, what a huge impact those 2 buildings have! I have
Theology selected as a placeholder so my gnp isn't skewed at
EOT.

Demos (before/after EOT)

Ottoman Empire:

Arabian Empire:

I show the Arabian empire for comparison, there's not even
really any pop to whip for defenses! If we did come to 1:1 war
on t120, if would not have lasted long. In an always war
situation, Catwalk would make short work of him too.
Speaking of Always War, I didn't completely forget war preps. I
finished a barracks in Vlad, and I'm prepared to swap to
Nationhood/Theocracy for drafting. If the game continues, tech
path will be HBR->Music->Mil.Trad, and Curs would be rolling off
the lines.

[Ceiliazul]

Game Over

Everyone hs conceded... the game is over. I wish it had been more balanced, or at least the victory borne out on the battlefield, but it seems no one still has their heart in it. We play for fun, so that's a good time to stop.

I have no judgements here, no criticism of the other players. I look forward to reading their threads and I hope to do a postgame report of my own experience.

Thank you Lurkers for making this game fun to play, and fun to report!

[Catwalk]

Is this the end??

With the game perhaps being called soon, t100 was still a
fantastic turn. I settled a new city, trained my first
Janissary, and finished my palace reconfig. I'm the only one in
a Golden Age now, so the demos look absolutely obscene. I have
the majority of the gnp and mfg for the entire planet... maybe
Catwalk is right, it's time to call it.

All the machinations of game-long NAPs and such didn't even come
into play... long before those fateful discussions, I already
had an NAP With Catwalk until... t100! If we had never started
those negotiations, it seems likely the game would have had a
similar path.

Very true, and an important lesson for me about NAP durations. I liked negotiating with you a lot during this game as we got along great, but I started seeing you as my main enemy a long time ago for obvious reasons. I'm not completely sure why I agreed to the first t100 NAP, I think I was afraid of being piled up on as everybody else seemed to be signing long NAPs.

That said, I think having only the original t100 NAP would have led to a different outcome (provided the other players didn't have a longer one with you). That would have meant being able to start scheming against you much sooner, forcing you to do a considerable military buildup which would have slowed your economy down. It would still have required a mean and well coordinated pile, with full participation from everybody. I think Ad Hoc and Pegasus would have been more motivated to go all out if they had a specific objective to work towards, so they probably would have performed a little better too. It would have been a tough battle and it likely wouldn't have ended with your demise, but I do think it could have opened the game back up.

[Ceiliazul]

That said, I think having only the original t100 NAP would have led to a different outcome (provided the other players didn't have a longer one with you).

Catwalk, I didn't enter the game intending to get long NAPs. I actually hoped to get all-but-one NAP (like you did with Pegasus) to keep my options open. What changed dramatically was the war with Cull, which opened up enough land to justify a long peace.

My NAPs this game were something like this:

• t35 Catwalk (set ~t20)
  
• t60 Ad Hoc (set ~t25)
  
• t80 Pegasus (set ~t35)
  
• t100 Catwalk (set ~t35)
  
• t120 Ad Hoc (set ~t55)
  
• indefinite Catwalk (set ~t60)
  
• t160 Pegasus (set ~t70)
  

I had them all leapfrogged out and staggered to discourage a pile. Coordinated *settling* against me could have been a viable weapon. Even there though, the empty Sumerian lands would have made that difficult.

By the time we got to t47 though, It was a 2-horse race. Again, I'd be very interested to hear what happened between t30 and t50... what caused Ad/Peg to fall off so severely? On the graph below, the mfg for them is cut to nothing as they pulled out all the stops to maintain gnp parity. It worked for a short time but hurt deeply in the long run.

[Gaspar]

By the time we got to t47 though, It was a 2-horse race. Again, I'd be very interested to hear what happened between t30 and t50... what caused Ad/Peg to fall off so severely? On the graph below, the mfg for them is cut to nothing as they pulled out all the stops to maintain gnp parity. It worked for a short time but hurt deeply in the long run.

I didn't play the game, but I'd say your game was extremely green-unfriendly. If you either don't play much SP or your SP experience is of the noble/prince variety - you simply don't have the experience required to deal with this sort of maintenance. I think ultimately that's why you were able to get so far ahead - you were the only player with the requisite skills to manage that. The vets game is more competitive for precisely that reason - more of the players have those skills.

I think greens games are a nice idea and an excellent way to get newer players acclimated to the site (I actually believe new players should play either a greens game or partner an experienced player as the only two options - its better for both the games and their development) but they almost always end up with a shark in the pool. While I don't want to overstate, it was pretty apparent to most of the lurkers that you were that shark very early on. So consider yourself a torchbearer for Kyan, Piet, Nicolae and NobleHelium.

Well played, Ceil.

[Ceiliazul]

I think greens games are a nice idea and an excellent way to get newer players acclimated to the site (I actually believe new players should play either a greens game or partner an experienced player as the only two options - its better for both the games and their development) but they almost always end up with a shark in the pool. While I don't want to overstate, it was pretty apparent to most of the lurkers that you were that shark very early on. So consider yourself a torchbearer for Kyan, Piet, Nicolae and NobleHelium.

Well played, Ceil.

Thank you for the kind words. I like the idea of a greens game too, I wouldn't have had the confidence to join an open game on first go. I don't understand your last part though... are Kyan and the others former 'sharks'?

Edit: on t47, Pegasus actually had the highest real pop and fewest cities... a more vertical opening that the rest of us. High maintenance should have actually rewarded his opening.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Yes

(v8mark did pretty well too)

(It's been to long, I really need to find some time to prove myself against worthy opponents)

I think there were some gaps in Peg's play, I spotted an unworked corn farm, on T44. But yeah, even on high maintenance, as long as you have pottery to provide a source of commerce, your first handful of cities have a very rapid RoI.

[pindicator]

Hey Ceiliazul! I hear you were looking for some charts, so here is what I used from pbem26. You just need to have a turn-by-turn tally (or estimation ) of what techs your opponents have researched. It should be pretty self-explanatory, especially since you seem pretty comfortable in Excel, but let me know if you have any questions on how to use it!

[SIZE="1"]Now I just need to wait for the server to get un-busy so I can post this....[/SIZE]