[SPOILERS] Yossarian blames Caledorn

[Caledorn]

I thought I'd give some additional thoughts and comments on what Yossarian has already posted about the other teams, just for the fun of it.

1. Team Mouthful - Lord Parkin / Arkipeller / Magno_uy (with WilliamLP dedlurking)

So, obviously LP is winning this thing, right? I mean, he’s currently undefeated at RB, including a handy win over Spulla, Plako and Mackoti in his first game, and a victory over Plako, Pindicator and MackSeven in his second game. In this field of Newbs, he’s going to steamroll the rest of us. My impression is that he is super-involved if he has complete control over his civ, but loses interest in team ventures. So maybe if Arki, Magno, and LP Jr. give a lot of push-back, he’ll end up dropping out of Team Mouthful, but if he stays involved, the rest of us don’t stand a chance. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really excited about him playing in this game, but I have no delusions about us being able to hold our own against this team.

The other aspect to keep in mind about LP is his ability to drive his competitors absolutely insane. ASM tried to hack his computer to try to keep him from double-moving! He destroyed PB 7 for a lot of those players. Cal and I have discussed this, and as has already been mentioned, we’re not going to be bothered if he uses a similar style in this game. Hopefully his teammates can keep him in check, but if he wants to cheese his way to a win (even though he doesn’t need to since his skill level is so far above the rest of us), then so be it.

Speaking of his teammates, let’s touch upon them a little bit. I haven’t followed any of WilliamLP’s games at all, so all I know about him is that he isn’t really Lord Parkin, despite the rumors. I take it that he is semi-experienced, though. What can I say about Magno? His Spanish team played a pretty poor game in the ISDG. He explained it to us that he thought they’d be at a disadvantage being unable to conduct diplo in English, so they set out to DOW the first team they met, which happened to be CFC. Fortunately, we were able to catch the military build-up, call them out on it, and then out-play them for the victory in that regional conflict. He is tons of fun to play with, though, and I really hope that he takes control of diplo in this game. We had a long-running joke with them that their stoner leader had an unnatural fondness for sheep, which we later used as our excuse to resume the war with them and wipe them out Arki is pretty new to MP Civ, and his SP strategies don’t always translate well.

My impression of Parkin is that he plays a very strong game, but has a dangerous side when it comes to lawyering game rules. Parkin's participation is one of the primary reasons I am against making the rules for this game complicated, as my impression is that he will happily follow the rules to the letter - including any loopholes - as long as it is to his advantage. That being said, Parkin gives me a good impresion in his regular forum posts, and seem like a polite and upstanding guy.

WilliamLP I have no idea about, so nothing to comment there at all.

Arkipeller is a friend of mine, so I know a little about his playstyle. He does prefer to get an early religion (usually going for Buddhism or Hinduism before Worker techs), and use that as an economic base for his civ. While that is probably an okay strategy for a single player game at an average difficulty level, I'm not so sure how good a strategy that is for MP as it does set your civ back quite a few turns. I expect Parkin will object heavily to this strategy anyways though, so I will be very surprised if they end up following Arki's preferred strategy.

Magno is a hilarious person to play with, and like Yossarian says, I really hope he will be conducting their diplomacy - but I will be surprised if Parkin won't be the diplomatic mastermind of this team.

2. Team Blame Caledorn - YossarianLives / Caledorn (with Scooter and Old Harry dedlurking)

It kills me not to put us up on top. I mean, why play if you’re not going for the win, right? I plan on putting my all into this game, including C&D, sandboxes, micro and macro planning, etc. In the end, I hope we can learn some things and play an impressive game. We welcome all the lurker input we can get. With Old Harry and Scooter following along, I hope and trust that I can come out of this a better player than I started.

Well, yeah, just blame me for everything that goes wrong.

3. Team Care Bears - Yuufo / Bisons

I’ve got to be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about these guys. I guess Yuufo is leading Team UCiv in the ISDG. They’re not doing too great, but the fact that he is in charge of one of the ISDG teams says something in itself (cue Krill’s complaints about how much that game sucks ). Also, he supposedly has a bunch of ladder MP experience. That doesn’t always translate well into long-term full-diplo PB style games, but it’s probably better than just being good at SP Civ. The wildcard here is their diplo. They’re going to be at a severe disadvantage if they dismiss diplo because of the language barrier. But if they don’t ignore diplo, and keep their thread updated so they can get lurker input, I think they’ll do pretty well.

I know very little about these guys, so I don't know what to expect from them. Yossarian has summarised things very well I think. I can add though that I am very pleased that they are actively participating in the setup thread, and that they're not afraid to ask about clarifications for things they find difficult to understand there. One of the worries Yossarian and I had about the rules were that they would be too complex for the participants who are not very fluent in English.

4. Bowsling / Aivoturso

I guess Aivo would be considered the experienced player on this team? Really, I would probably classify them both as mid- to low-tier, but in this Greens game that’s not so bad at all. I was supposed to sub for Aivo in our intra-team PB at one point, so I logged into his civ and he seemed to be doing pretty well. He later conducted a successful war against Arkipeller. He seems pretty organized and likes things well-structured. How about Bowsling? He doesn’t seem to be doing too well in the intra-team game, I believe he even capitulated to Maga?!? It looks like he was involved in Team Quatronia in the last Demo-Game at CFC, but that team really didn’t do too well. He does speak French, so that might give them a leg-up in cooperating with the Care Bears.

I've played together with both of them several times, but I have little knowledge about their skills, as I've been with them in team games like the ISDG and the CFC MTDG before that. Bowsling participated both on Team Merlot and Team Quattronia in the last CFC MTDG. My impression is that both of them are above average skill, so I think they may compete with Team Care Bears for 3rd.

5. Team Master and Margarita - Slaze / Maga_R (with Jovan Kukic dedlurking)

I hear Slaze is really good, but tends to have bad luck and has never actually won an MP game. Some very positive things were said about him taking over Team Merlot and doing well with them in the last Demo-game. He’s on track to win the current intra-team game they’re playing. But, based on his involvement in this game so far (or rather, lack there-of), something tells me that Maga is going to be in charge of Team M&M. She seems very green to MP Civ and what I can tell about her style is that she’s way too cautious. Maga also has a chance to win the intra-team game, but she did take over the leading civ in that game some 100 turns in, so a lot of that might have been the position she inherited. She’ll definitely be in charge of diplo for their team, and could build up a strong alliance that will help them do well. But my pre-game prediction is that they’ll be middle-of-the-pack here.

Slaze is to my knowledge a really good player, but hasn't had much success in using his skills in MP games. I think he has played many games on CFC, and I think he is somewhat feared by the players there, so I suspect he may have been the victim of several gang ups just because he is slaze.

As for Maga, I am very much in agreement with Yossarian's assessment of her as a too cautious player. She has strong diplomatic skills however, and may be a very dangerous opponent if she is able to secure good alliances. Personally, I will be reluctant to entering serious agreements with this team, because I suspect she might have a lawyer-style approach to diplomacy (like Parkin and Sommerswerd) - and while I enjoy that myself, I would prefer to stay out of heavy agreements in this game if we can avoid it.

6. Dick76 / DMOC

These are two players I know nothing about. I would have guessed that DMOC had a lot of experience, but I guess it’s been a long time since he’s played any MP. Dick76 is playing on Team Apolyton, but as a friend of 2metra, he got involved in the intra-team game. He’s currently in last place amongst the surviving Civs, and I think he also capitulated to Maga for some reason. I probably would have ranked them last if not for Maga’s recent post that Dick should be considered experienced because of the multitude of games he’s playing. Then again, just playing in a lot of games doesn’t really always translate to playing well, so we’ll see how they do

I am playing together with dick76 in a diplomacy (RP style diplomacy) game. As the game has a rule about player anonymity, I can offer little detail about how he plays here without breaking the rules of said game - but I do know what civ he is playing, and I know he is playing a pretty good game. However, since it's an RP style diplomacy game, the rules for warfare is pretty prohibitive, and that may be the main reason he's doing good there.

DMOC I have absolutely no idea about at all.

7. Team "My Little Marathon Cannibal Pony" Classical_Hero / Halvgud

I think Halvgud is completely new to MP Civ, and though Classical_Hero has lots of experience, he seems pretty set in his ways and might not be up-to-date on the strategies that are now recognized as pretty good. Who knows, they might do really well in this game, but since they don’t know each other and have never played together, I’ll predict that they don’t gel as a team and suffer because of that.

A lot of these predictions are based on the intra-team game being played on Team CFC, and the players’ prior experience in other Demo-Games. I fully anticipate being proven wrong with most of my analysis, and hope nobody reading this post-game takes any offense. Maga said something in a chat the other day that rang true to me, that a bunch of newbs in a game makes things really unpredictable and interesting. I think that will prove itself here in this game.

Halvgud is also a friend of mine from RL. He is, as Yossarian says, pretty new to MP Civ. He has only played in an RP Diplo game, and he is an excellent storywriter. As such, I expect he will be the person responsible for conducting the diplomacy for this team. I expect that Halvgud will be aligned towards allying with Yossarian and me, simply because I am on this team, but considering the "Do not be a jerk" attitude I think it would perhaps be a good idea to avoid letting personal friendships affect who we ally with or not? If allying with a good friend would not be considered bad, then I suspect we can count on this team to be good friends with us when we meet them if we so desire.

I don't know much about classical_hero, except that we were on Team CFC together. The fact that these guys haven't played together may become a challenge for them, as Yossarian predicts - however, since I know that Halvgud is pretty extraverted when it comes to getting to know people he plays together with, I believe that Halvgud will be able to remedy that.