29 Vets Postgame Thread

[SevenSpirits]

Well I enjoyed that very much. I think the main lesson of this game is to go hard for the things you want. Mackoti did that the best. We did it reasonably well, but cut several things too close - marble city, jungle city, MoM, Taj... and therefore lost them to Mackoti who really sacrificed to get them. The competition for those things in this game was intense - I really thought we were turning it up a notch but Mack turned it up three notches. NobleGasket really got hit by this the worst, missing a lot of wonders that frankly they could have landed in other games.

Meanwhile... Lewwyn, I would say you wanted the wrong things. Didn't miss much of what he tried for but that didn't help him.

The other lesson is about traits. I think I misevaluated them quite a bit at the start of the game, though I don't remember how much of that is related to not knowing the map yet. I think I didn't know we'd all want lighthouses and courthouses in every city. Anyway, organized is better than I thought when the game began. Industrious too, and here's why: in these small PBEMs there are a lot of good wonders available per player. You can see how IND gave Mackoti first pick pretty much. We tried to disrupt that with forge engineers but we still couldn't get the best ones.

Our own IMP and PHI were... eh, PHI did not seem great. A large portion of our GPP were produced under 300-500% modifiers so that +100% really wasn't as big of a bonus as it looks. The cheap Seowons were nice and did give us a brief tech lead, but other traits would have been so much better. IMP is good but not great. My opinion there didn't change.

It seems like I overestimated EXP/PRO. I said at the start that I thought this was the best leader/civ. Though, keep in mind that this was with Brennus instead of Justinian. Mostly I underestimated ORG by quite a lot.

Justinian's IMP/SPI was strong. I thought it was better than our own IMP/PHI when it was given out and now I'm even more confident of that. SPI would have been amazing.

Mackoti and Lewwyn both say they think the other had a better leader. I'm still not sure what I think about that. I suspect I'd rather have Roosevelt on this map.

[SevenSpirits]

Lessons I learned this game:

* I finally realized how good the Taj Mahal is (near the start of this game, not just after it was built). But I never felt like we had a chance at it except briefly when we could get Lib if Mackoti was distracted enough. He wasn't.

* After 23 I reevaluated my understanding of how soon investments need to pay back to be worth it (see the thread I started in Civ General). As a result I did much better in that regard this time. We built an academy and settled two great scientists and I think in these circumstances it was a good play. I also think our oxford/NE rep scientist capital was a strong move. Due to running a pyramids economy our slider was near zero, so Bureau+Academy was a less interesting combo. And we made great use of Vassalage and Nationhood, which players running Bureau obviously can't do.

* Don't build Pyramids. Running a farm/specialist economy gives you too much score and crop yield, and people think you're doing better than you are. I previously learned this lesson in 23 but it apparently didn't stick.

[luddite]

* Don't build Pyramids. Running a farm/specialist economy gives you too much score and crop yield, and people think you're doing better than you are.

Wouldn't the Pyramids actually decrease your crop yield, since you're cutting food to run specialists? Admittedly there is a large scare factor to the Pyramids, especially when you build them

* After 23 I reevaluated my understanding of how soon investments need to pay back to be worth it (see the thread I started in Civ General). As a result I did much better in that regard this time. We built an academy and settled two great scientists and I think in these circumstances it was a good play. I also think our oxford/NE rep scientist capital was a strong move. Due to running a pyramids economy our slider was near zero, so Bureau+Academy was a less interesting combo. And we made great use of Vassalage and Nationhood, which players running Bureau obviously can't do.

I still think this comes down to the difference in maps. In 23 you could expand onto flood plains-islands with lots of resources, and pay only cylindrical maintenance. Here the land seemed noticeably worse, and it was toroidal maintenance, so overall growth was just slower. All the fighting you guys did also made a difference, of course.

Philo might be the trait that gets the best use of settled great people, since you can generate them faster than you can set up the really great bulbs.

Lessons I learned this game:

* I finally realized how good the Taj Mahal is (near the start of this game, not just after it was built). But I never felt like we had a chance at it except briefly when we could get Lib if Mackoti was distracted enough. He wasn't.

Yeah it's definitely a very powerful wonder, maybe up there with the GLH and pyramids even, especially when combined with the MoM.

Overall I think Mackoti's strategy was just perfect for this map- grab the GLH, then supress the demos by building lots of infrastructure rather than fast expanding, letting people ignore him, and then quickly race to a huge lead with the Taj Majal.

[SevenSpirits]

Wouldn't the Pyramids actually decrease your crop yield, since you're cutting food to run specialists? Admittedly there is a large scare factor to the Pyramids, especially when you build them

Well it's not technically required when you build the wonder, but for me at least if I get the Pyramids I'll build a lot of farms and few cottages. You grow faster and then stagnate at higher sizes (helped by the Rep happiness) than other players who are building cottages. Hence a higher crop yield.

[Gaspar]

I pretty much agree with Seven's take. I thought Noble and I played a pretty tight standard game but this wasn't remotely a standard game. Most of the games I've played I could either point to one huge mistake (24 - not building any military early on; 14 - not calling time on the farmer's gambit quickly enough) or just overall mediocre play (12, PB4, 26.) I don't think either were the case here - we didn't play great, but we played well and we didn't make one huge terrible mistake. We just didn't play at the high level required with the level of competition here. We could have landed GLH or Pyramids if we had gone all-in on them and didn't, so instead we landed nothing. There are other decisions like this throughout the game, no need to rehash them.

I know mackoti has this thing he does after he wins where he has to tell you it had nothing to do with good fortune - I don't know why, nobody on this site disputes his excellence unless they have a severe drug problem - but there's no question in my mind that FDR was the guy for this map. We got Mao picked for us as the last team in but yeah he was terrible. With all the necessary coastal plants even Exp wasn't as great as it normally is (still good mind you, just not as great.) And Pro is really just as awful as everyone says it is. Whatever benefit is gained from getting well promoted defensive units you'd trade in a heartbeat for something that gave you an economic benefit of any sort.

I don't really have a lot else to say. I haven't read anyone else's threads - though only N7 really put together a thread worth reading. I'll do that in a week or so once I have better perspective. I can't say I had a great time with the game, unfortunately. The competition level was further over my head than I realized at game start and it just mostly left me frustrated. But that's nobody's fault but mine. I did learn a lot though and so it was a good experience for that. And I mostly enjoyed playing with NH who while incredibly frustrating as a teammate also makes an excellent straight-man to my over-the-top antics.

Thanks for the game, gents.

P.S. I definitely think Lewwyn needs to change his avatar to an Angry Bird.