RBPB4 Lurker Thread

[Bruindane]

Some thoughts on the game so far.

China has played phenonmenal game, overcoming what appeared to be a problematic location squeezed between two civs (note that Sumeria and Egypt are roughly the same distance apart as Greece and Vikings). Assuming they slaughter Greece they'll be a strong position, but not neccesarily stronger than everybody else.

Greece managed to bungle its diplomacy badly, esentially treating their only contact with hostility. Being next to creative and imperialist China while having your back to the sea is in my opinion the worst starting position in the game. The building of warriors and settlers appear to be solid, though settling copper before gold is perhaps a fatal error.

Vikings have plenty of upside with lots of land choices. I think they will beat everyone to circumnavigation which combined with trading posts will make them quite fearsome. It's most likely that they'll be the first to settle some of the "islands" and they'll have a friendly neighbor (China) for a long time.

Of the rest, you gotta to love Babylon getting the Oracle for Metal Casting, while the Zulus and Egypt have a ton of land to settle essentially uncontested.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Some thoughts on the game so far.

China has played phenonmenal game, overcoming what appeared to be a problematic location squeezed between two civs (note that Sumeria and Egypt are roughly the same distance apart as Greece and Vikings). Assuming they slaughter Greece they'll be a strong position, but not neccesarily stronger than everybody else.

Greece managed to bungle its diplomacy badly, esentially treating their only contact with hostility. Being next to creative and imperialist China while having your back to the sea is in my opinion the worst starting position in the game. The building of warriors and settlers appear to be solid, though settling copper before gold is perhaps a fatal error.

Vikings have plenty of upside with lots of land choices. I think they will beat everyone to circumnavigation which combined with trading posts will make them quite fearsome. It's most likely that they'll be the first to settle some of the "islands" and they'll have a friendly neighbor (China) for a long time.

Of the rest, you gotta to love Babylon getting the Oracle for Metal Casting, while the Zulus and Egypt have a ton of land to settle essentially uncontested.

I thought Babylon was going for the hanging gardens, Sumeria is currently putting turns into Meditation and thus Priesthood.

China and Greece's blob of land seems particularly resource rich despite how cramped it is. Gold before copper was a definite mistake, now the copper city is doomed. I think Plako declaring war early was a slight misplay, as while lose a turn from getting pushed out by cultural borders, a 1.25 strength scout isn't doing much against a 2 strength warrior. Now, Greece can just run his settler into the fog forever, and come back when the coast is clear. Who knows, maybe Greece will lose his 2 core cities, and make a comeback via the jungle cities, a role reversal with Plako!

Anyways, China's game isn't completely in the bag, while the gold city is doomed against the axe, Greece is less than a dozen turns away from Archery, and he can probably make 3-4 turn archers. Hill archers, in 40% culture, are a nightmare, Greece is not going away anytime soon. China's best option is to just choke with a couple of axes, account for all builds from that 1 city, scout, prevent him from hooking up horses, and just expand, develop and tech towards something with odds against hill archers. Otherwise, focusing everything in that one direction will set him back against the others.

[Ellimist]

I think Plako declaring war early was a slight misplay, as while lose a turn from getting pushed out by cultural borders, a 1.25 strength scout isn't doing much against a 2 strength warrior. Now, Greece can just run his settler into the fog forever, and come back when the coast is clear. Who knows, maybe Greece will lose his 2 core cities, and make a comeback via the jungle cities, a role reversal with Plako!

Plako declaring war when he did was the perfect play in that situation. He needed to figure out what to do with a relatively hostile opponent, and the war declaration forced warlord to react in some manner. Even if Plako had lost his unit in the process, it wouldn't have hurt him too much. If warlord tried and failed to kill his warrior, OTOH, it would have been the end of him. Plako risked relatively little, and ended up learning a lot about warlord and how to deal with him.
As far as Greece "pulling a plako" such as in RBP2... I don't think very many players could have accomplished what broker/plako did in that game, and this one doesn't have warlord on the coast with an ocean to hide behind. Nor do I see plako giving him a peace treaty unless he has a ridiculous reason.

Anyways, China's game isn't completely in the bag, while the gold city is doomed against the axe, Greece is less than a dozen turns away from Archery, and he can probably make 3-4 turn archers. Hill archers, in 40% culture, are a nightmare, Greece is not going away anytime soon. China's best option is to just choke with a couple of axes, account for all builds from that 1 city, scout, prevent him from hooking up horses, and just expand, develop and tech towards something with odds against hill archers. Otherwise, focusing everything in that one direction will set him back against the others.

His position is a lot better than it could have been given the circumstances he encountered. And we already know Plako is both pragmatic and persistent. Warlord, so far, doesn't seem to be either. And if he's replaced... well I guess anything could happen but I don't see how it turns out badly for Plako. He could send the replacement player screenshots of the Greek/Chinese diplomacy thus far and probably even get an apology.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Plako declaring war when he did was the perfect play in that situation. He needed to figure out what to do with a relatively hostile opponent, and the war declaration forced warlord to react in some manner. Even if Plako had lost his unit in the process, it wouldn't have hurt him too much. If warlord tried and failed to kill his warrior, OTOH, it would have been the end of him. Plako risked relatively little, and ended up learning a lot about warlord and how to deal with him.
As far as Greece "pulling a plako" such as in RBP2... I don't think very many players could have accomplished what broker/plako did in that game, and this one doesn't have warlord on the coast with an ocean to hide behind. Nor do I see plako giving him a peace treaty unless he has a ridiculous reason.

Oh, I mean the second war declaration, not the original. The original was fine.

Warlord's already disappeared, his account's been logged in as "Eric" and "Daggerjones".

[Ellimist]

I expect that he's gone but it seems odd to just quit the game cold turkey and disappear. Not that I expected better from him from what we've seen so far.

[Bruindane]

Updated approximation of starting positions:

Sunrise/Rego -- SleepingMoogle ---- Mackoti/Ioan -------- Luddite ---- LordParkin

JUNGLE ----------------------------------- JUNGLE ---------------------------- JUNGLE

WarlordDr ------------ Adlain ------- Locke/Cervantes -- Nakor/Gaspar --- Plako

Kudos to SleepingMoogle for figuring this out, amusingly before Sunrise/Rego made first contact.

[novice]

Mostly, I just have sympathy for GES, even if he did volunteer. Being the game admin for something like this is a completely thankless job. It'll be much worse once our first wars break out.

Heh, that's already happened, Gaspar.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Heh, that's already happened, Gaspar.

I was thinking the same thing.

Just to put a close on this recent tempest in a teapot. I think I messed up not removing Warlord from the game and replacing him with someone who is an actual member of this community and who will behave in a way commensurate with this community's traditions and values.

But I think that ship has sailed for the time being, and I will do my best to be objective in any future dispute that arises that involves Warlord or his replacements.

I've been thinking on the whole double move issue. If you added this caveat: if you end the turn before you declare war after the person you declare on, then the other person gets to choose which half of the turn-timer they desire. I am sure there are plenty of reasons why this is a bad idea, but I'll leave that to you guys to point out.

Or what if I simply said that all reasonable attempts should be made by the war declarant to end the turn prior to declaration before the declaree. God, that sounds like horrific legalese written by a lawyer. But at least it adds a good faith component more explicitly.

Otherwise I see little way to overturn a double move that follows the rules under a strict interpretation.

[Kylearan]

Okay, now I have to agree that team Warlord is just disrespectful.

[Krill]

Yeah, sub is needed now, Plako is right to call it a farce...