Forum game of Through the Ages 2

[Cheater Hater]

In, and I finally chose something other than Moses
Julius Caesar is really good though: The military action and strength bonus are both great, and the extra action is icing on the cake.

In other news I actually won that game I brought up earlier--it was strange, though, as the leader decided to just resign in the last round, even though you're not supposed to be able to

[Cheater Hater]

Again, another round where I'm screwed by the card row--I bet everything on getting actions, and now no yellow cards are showing up, and I literally wasted my turn taking techs I'll never be able to discover. Should I just resign and let you two play?

Edit: Well, I did resign--what the heck could I have done? I remember one turn I could have taken UC, but prioritized taking/discovering COL instead--after that I literally could do nothing since I had no research, no research help came up, and I had turns where I could do literally nothing--that would have happened the turn I quit.

[chumchu]

This is partly about position as well. I am behind rho who has had only 4 actions until last round and you are behind me who has 6 actions + extra from Newton and Ocean liner. Generally you do not want to play the same strategy as the player before you but rather that of the player after you.

[chumchu]

I find Julius Caesar to be the weakest leader in age A. Unless you get some payoff from early military his main bonus disappears just as it becomes important. You are gambling on getting attacks or strength events to do that, and it requires you to build some army before infrastructure in a way that your opponents can not respond to. He is also good for defense but I rarely find it that big of a problem early in age 1. What you really get is an improved chance to get the right tactic and better event selection but none of those are crucial. You get a decent chance for a tactic and some events without him.

For comparison, Aristotle gives 5-6 science which is warfare for the rest of the game when it matters more (and you have the flexibility to do something else instead).

[Cheater Hater]

How was I supposed to know what strategy to go for that early? CoL was something I was probably just over-prioritizing, but Constitutional Monarchy was basically the only option I had at that point to do something powerful, and I just had to hope some decent yellow cards came at that point.

Julius Caesar's main appeal for me is that it just accelerates the game by getting through all the Age A events faster, both in terms of the extra political action and the early military action drawing you more cards. The problem is that it's symmetrical, and it might be worse in the non-four-player games, as they burn through cards more-quickly, and there isn't as much acceleration (only 5 Age A events, as opposed to the 6 in 4P).

Overall one of the things I'm not sure I like that much is how little hidden information there is: with the exception of a couple pacts and early events, everything in the military deck contributes either to military or culture, and none of the economic events--it's too easy to take someone off a key economic resource. Science in particular feels too easy to block someone off of: you need Alchemy, Aristotle, or pro-Science events to take more than a couple techs in Age I, and the yellow cards can't really get you out of it like Reserves can (mostly since Breakthrough requires a tech to be researched first to get the bonus, as opposed to something like Rich Land where you get the bonus up front--this doesn't hurt Frugality as much because of Reserves and the fact you generally have a lot of food through Age I and the first part of Age II).

[chumchu]

There are many way to get around low science, the easiest is being frugal with what techs you pick and play. A good example is this game where a player beat me with an average 2 science/turn: http://www.boardgaming-online.com/index....pl=7302711. Also this; http://www.boardgaming-online.com/index....pl=7302334 for a good library game. I almost never pick science buildings to block my opponents, there are too many ways between wonders, leaders, labs and libraries. I block food, military and action techs most often but except for 2-player I do not do that much blocking.

The general mistake you made was trying to do too much. I think it was a big mistake to go for iron in your position. You did not have the actions/science/resources for it and you already had Leonardo for production. Further, if you take a wonder like Taj Mahal you want to finish it ASAP and not spend the age saving and upgrading iron. Picking iron the same turn just bottlenecks you either it is delayed or the wonder. That would have meant that you could play monarchy earlier. Then you would not have needed to take Robespierre instead of Napoleon which could have saved you.

[Cheater Hater]

I took Taj because there was literally nothing else to pick on that turn--I can't pick techs I'll never research, and there weren't any yellow cards. I had to go for Iron because I had no production--I had no way to get around production otherwise and I needed a hammer sink.

[rho21]

Yeah, I'm not too bothered by the Taj play. If you have spare actions, it's pretty much free because if it sits there and prevents you getting an Age II wonder it isn't a big problem. That's assuming there isn't a different Age I wonder you'd like to grab later, anyway.

I think I did a pretty good job of being frugal with my science in the first game. Boy does it hurt though, to have to pass on all sorts of techs you would love.

It's also important to be as ready as possible for whatever military your opponents can create. Even if you want to use the science elsewhere, having some military techs in hand can help hugely in a crisis. I'm aware I'm saying this just after being soundly defeated militarily, but that was a bit more of a perfect storm of an early Age II tactic combined with the technology to make use of it, while I didn't get a tactic.

Agreed about Julius being one of the weakest Age A leaders in the new version, despite being buffed from the old version where he was one of the stronger leaders. The problem is that early aggressions are much harder to pull off now, which means that Age I military card draws don't matter all that much any more. Age II draws are hugely important to find a good tactic, but that's just as Caesar has gone away.

[Cheater Hater]

Again, even if I did use my limited research on a military tech, does it get me anywhere other than remaining at parity? That was my thought: use my limited research to improve research and hope my opponents either couldn't punish me militarily (not drawing wars/aggressions or drawing defense cards) or saw the other as a threat (like what happened in the game I linked earlier).

So now that this game's ended prematurely (and rho's write-up has finished), do we have an interested fourth player yet?

[Ichabod]

I'm interested. Never played the game, only read the reports and liked it.

There's still some bits that I don't understand, though.

How is the game pace? One turn per day? Do we have to all be online to play or is it just like a PBEM?