We just watch. And Judge. FFH PBEM III Lurker Thread.

[Selrahc]

I think WK would need Destroy Undead before he could easily muster a successful attack. Irgy has slavery and pyre zombies.

[Selrahc]

I like Thoth's play. Both as a lurker, and from a gameplay perspective. Gutsy move irrevocably pissing off another player without much pre-conflict contact. But with cultists being fantastic raiders he should be able to stall Irgy significantly for very little cost. And with Thoth heavily suspecting a dogpile(correctly) then any move that screws up opponents is a very solid play.

Watching the diplo fallout from this should be good.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Wasn't there a dogpile in PB1, and didn't that work? I haven't really read through it, just 2nd hand information from PB2.

[Brian Shanahan]

Wasn't there a dogpile in PB1, and didn't that work? I haven't really read through it, just 2nd hand information from PB2.

Had a really long and elaborate reply to this, and then I realised you said "PB1" not "[FFH]PBEM1". D'oh is me.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Post it anyway. I read Pocketbeetle's thread, but I still don't understand how he won in the first place (because that was before I started playing FFH)

[NobleHelium]

Basically he outmaneuvered everyone diplomatically and everyone else busied themselves with each other while he grabbed great land/resources and blazed out in tech (and built nearly every useful wonder in the game). And he had an adaptive leader to boot.

[Brian Shanahan]

Post it anyway. I read Pocketbeetle's thread, but I still don't understand how he won in the first place (because that was before I started playing FFH)

Well what I was going to say was that at a number of points Bob did try to scrabble together a dogpile on PB, but for various reasons, detailed below, they never came together, and when he did attack he was more sure of his alliance than he should have been.
1) The joint attack with Iskender, PB suspected something along these lines (not knowing what was going on, I didn't either only read other threads later) and snuffed out the Iskender thread by masterfully snuffing out Iskender, by using the tactics the Hippus are meant to use themselves.
2) Trying to get Selrahc to support him in a 2v1 at the end, PB was a lot more nimble diplomatically and tied up Selrahc before Bob had a chance. Bob went in surer of Selrahc than he should have been.
3) Tying himself up with Cull and Sareln as vassals. Both players weren't strong enough to help him militarily, and he never depended on them for anything. But having them as vassals was like painting a target, and he did expect him to join in a dogpile.

1) & 2) are big things while 3) is only icing on the cake really. But dogpiles never materialised due basically to what NobleHelium describes.

[Krill]

Basically he outmaneuvered everyone diplomatically and everyone else busied themselves with each other while he grabbed great land/resources and blazed out in tech (and built nearly every useful wonder in the game). And he had an adaptive leader to boot.

Well, you say that with hindsight but in the beginning that land was not particularly good, nor was the fact that a 4 city empire was stuck in the arse end of nowhere, next to the Illians, with nowhere to expand but into the Illians face.

TBH I still don't know how he won that.

[Brian Shanahan]

Well, you say that with hindsight but in the beginning that land was not particularly good, nor was the fact that a 4 city empire was stuck in the arse end of nowhere, next to the Illians, with nowhere to expand but into the Illians face.

TBH I still don't know how he won that.

He got lucky the PoW rush was pointing in another direction, and leveraged that early luck with top notch game play and diplo to a victory.

Oh, and the fact that Bob was playing essentially a single player game helped too.

And now watch as this post comes and bites me up the ass over the next few months.

[Bobchillingworth]

TBH I still don't know how he won that.

Played very well, knew the fundamentals of the game better than anyone else, never got attacked thanks to deft diplomacy, functionally had far more than four cities due to being able to hire mercs in settlements, opponents on various mind-altering substances.



Regarding Nicolae's initial query, I believe that the PB1 dogpile is the only successful one in RB history. But the civ that got piled on was I think by that point isolated, falling behind, poorly managed, and attacked by a coalition who largely individually weren't that much worse off. So it kind of straddled the border between "dogpile" & "gangbang" :P The problem why these things never seem to work is that nothing gets organized until people notice that the leading civ is running away with the game, at which point it's typically too late to stop them anyway. That and the constant temptation for someone(s) to betray the group and try to buddy up with the #1, even if doing so will ensure their inevitable loss by rendering the leader unstoppable. Also most players who are leading the pack have enough foresight to stagger their NAPs to prevent exactly this scenario.