Ok, let's get it on! First of all, thanks Harry for signing us in here! I would have probably missed this and also strongly considered prioritizing my RL, but now that things are rolling I can't avoid feeling excited 
And hello to Hydra! Great to have you with us! I think together with Harry we can promise to you and other potential (ded-)lurkers that a constant reporting will be performed even if we experience some miserable Mortius-type of early exit or some kind of crippling rush.
Practicalities & Approach
How to win this?
17 opponents and unbalanced map (although I'm sure that Brick is doing an awesome job!) means that winning this game might be impossible regardless of our actions. Getting competent neighbors and below average start while somebody is getting the double of our land with no extra efforts is a totally realistic scenario. E.g. PB8 had a huge amount of "crazy" wars and even if the history would not repeat itself there will be doors opening either for us or our opponents.
So as a conclusion, let's make event log our best friend and try to understand the big picture as good as possible! Meanwhile we must make most out of our land with careful micro. We are unlikely to get the best starting position, but we want to make sure that we are still in the relevant position in the mid-game when big wheels really start rolling.
Also, having 17 players in the game means that if we want a wonder, religion or some kind of first-to-get bonus we really need to be ready for sacrificies. I really doubt we want to be part of early gambles.
Other
It seems we have a nice diverse crew of players in the game. It's a pity that Krill dropped out. It would have been great to compete against him
I have now done the first round of studying on the latest mod and currently I'm still slightly leaning towards rerolling our civ+leader. More on that in the next post!
And hello to Hydra! Great to have you with us! I think together with Harry we can promise to you and other potential (ded-)lurkers that a constant reporting will be performed even if we experience some miserable Mortius-type of early exit or some kind of crippling rush.
Practicalities & Approach
- I will still be busy during the summer and have some weekends where I probably can't log in so it would be great if Harry you could be the responsible for making sure that we don't miss a turn. I'm sure that our communication will work, but it would be nice to have this somehow cleared and I thereby give you the full authority to make judgement calls (regardless of how crazy they are!) if the turn timer is about to run out
- These big unbalanced pitboss games are supposed to be more fun than extremely competitive. But well, we are most definitely not playing for the second place here!
- 17/18 players means that performing C&D would be a complete mess. Let's try to get graphs from neighbors, evaluate our rough position from demos and spend our time instead with sandboxing if we want to dedicate lots of time to this effort!
How to win this?
17 opponents and unbalanced map (although I'm sure that Brick is doing an awesome job!) means that winning this game might be impossible regardless of our actions. Getting competent neighbors and below average start while somebody is getting the double of our land with no extra efforts is a totally realistic scenario. E.g. PB8 had a huge amount of "crazy" wars and even if the history would not repeat itself there will be doors opening either for us or our opponents.
So as a conclusion, let's make event log our best friend and try to understand the big picture as good as possible! Meanwhile we must make most out of our land with careful micro. We are unlikely to get the best starting position, but we want to make sure that we are still in the relevant position in the mid-game when big wheels really start rolling.
Also, having 17 players in the game means that if we want a wonder, religion or some kind of first-to-get bonus we really need to be ready for sacrificies. I really doubt we want to be part of early gambles.
Other
It seems we have a nice diverse crew of players in the game. It's a pity that Krill dropped out. It would have been great to compete against him
I have now done the first round of studying on the latest mod and currently I'm still slightly leaning towards rerolling our civ+leader. More on that in the next post!