[PB75 Mjmd] Call to Power

[Mjmd]

I need ONE kind lurker to roll a D6 and post here please.

[Tarkeel]

2

[Mjmd]

2

So I edited in a the results last night in first post so India it is!

Back in PB59 I couldn't decide between the random leaders I had to pick between. I flipped a coin, but really didn't like the result. Here is a piece of good overall life advice:

On the serious side this is a very good way of discovering your true desires. Flip a coin and if you feel sad about the result pick the opposite.

When Tarkeel rolled the two I was fine with it. Will I probably die or not do well. Ya. But this is a nice India start (speaking of which any chance of getting a forest or two back). Also, its about time I die. However, I do have a plan. Its not a good plan, but I always have a plan.

[Mjmd]

Cold Winds PB66. Of the former SD cities only one I really let be a semi commerce city. Along with good food meant it was a perfect candidate to get big enough to whip for tactical nukes!



Speaking of choosing India, lets go back to PB52 where I first choose India. My 2nd pitboss and first CtH game ever. I had forgotten until I reread a bit that India actually had a hammer increase to worker for a bit as well as change to movement. But yet El Grillo who was ded lurking let me choose India with this start:



Am I going BW before any food techs, YOU BET!!!! Shockingly Victoria of India allowed my to expand quite fast.

Here is the current game description, but IT FALLS SHORT. Not sure I would actually change it for a short read, but still.

Two triangles of death appeared: one in the west when Pindicator invaded GiraRober with Numidian Cavalry only to be invaded by Superdeath's horse archers while his forces were away.  The other in the east where AT invaded Charriu and Jowy then piled on.  Charriu held off AT and Jowy both admirably while Pindicator quickly eliminated GiraRober before barely holding off Superdeath.

This left the middle civ Mjmd to tech in peace. Pindicator/OH team started recovering their economy after finally conquering SD. Other players were stuck in wars without making progress fast enough to compete. Mjmd conquerred Charriu, butPindicator/OH launched a successful campaign against Mjmd while he was still fighting Jowy on the other side of his empire. Mjmd started crumbling and the game was called after fantastic Commando use by Pindicator/OH to raze important cities from Mjmd.

It leaves out my early war with Charriu, my invasion of Pin, and me not being able to sleep some nights........... to name a few. I'm tempted to add that I did have an early bad war with Charriu.

Getting pummeled in my first game expected. Coming out down in my war over a floodplain valley early this game expected. Using the power of financial and foolish Stonehenge build (there was a reason I didn't have enough units to defend against Charriu, but I was smart enough to interrupt build and didn't finish it until later) along with plenty of free land due to geography and Pin being distracted by his easy snack / SD to get back into this game. Oh by the way SD built Great Lighthouse and Mids and THEN decided to HA attack . Point being doing well I got in pretty deep. Mjmd of Pb66 maybe could have won this thing. Mjmd of PB52 not so much. Both A) because of mistakes / lack of experience, but also B) just mentally.

I did manage to raze Pin/OHs Great Lighthouse city with some sneaky galleons. Had some success in a knight invasion of Pin, but I probably didn't whip enough for it. However, If I could choose one moment to change it would probably be my invasion of Charriu. Sure it was easy (listen the man had just held off a 2v1 and then re held vs Jowy who had gotten rifles vs his maces), but it meant I had two borders to defend. Despite our early war and tight and long tense border we had used each other as a safe border for a LONG time. I probably should have teched up and THEN invaded him. Being at naval and military parity just wasn't great vs OH / Jowy. My tech path in general in this game wasn't great.

So lessons so far
PB51: Focus on early expansion. Specialize cities.
PB52: Neighbor balance is important / safe back lines are important. I had neither neighbor balance nor safe back lines, but at least for a while I made some by being a good neighbor to Charriu.

[Mjmd]

I was trying to think of what song I wanted for PB54 and then I actually started rereading my thread and I already had one in there that fits well. Its not sea shanty, but it will do.



Here is the official summary:

Players were occupying three continents with Miguelito, Elkad, Mr. Cairo and Giraflorens sharing one, El Grillo, Mjmd and Superdeath another and  Vanrober, Ruff_Hi, scooter and nafraugar the third.

Miguelito (and dedlurker Rusten) sped up their cataphract rush by judicious use of Great Merchants from SPI caste system phases. With their otherwise hammer-centric economy they had no trouble running over their continent other than struggling to not run out of money.

Meanwhile, El Grillos early lead was negated by a partially successful attack from Mjmd and that continent stagnated. Vanrober conquered scooter with Keshiks but still had his hands full of Ruff_Hi when Miguelito was done with his continent and started harassing Vanrobers lands, triggering the concession.

So I may have um chosen Victoria of India with this start:



And I had BEAUTIFUL micro set up. Absolutely stunning 4 cities settled by T43 with more on the way. But then after a lucky scout living through a barb (scouts had been nerfed in this patch version) I saw this:



Now listen. In general I like this map shape. But at least for me it had a very bad flaw. We were close together and my copper was towards him (SD had two) Heck if just the copper had been moved it might still have been ok. El Grillo who was also on this continent easily got the most room though so I feel like my start specifically probably should have been to the NE more. Anyways, lets move onto one of the lessons for this game. Take a look at this picture and try to identify real fast.



You see that settler popping out. You see that vision WAY over on SDs other side; that is my scout........ Lesson 1 from this game: keep your scout NEAR you. A lot of people like exploring. I get it. You want to see things. But even on maps with no barbs like PB75, your scout should be back in time to help cover your new city and keep an eye on one of your neighbors. 

Long story short I settled on the copper, but SD had warriors waiting for me. So surely that is it. 2nd city lost I'm out of the game. I thought so. BUT go go Victoria of India!!! A little payback and border adjustment vs SD:



I then used Imp to race up the race up the side of the continent and I even took some cities that almost certainly should have been El Grillo's even if I hadn't gotten had my 2nd city knocked down. However, due to no developed ports on the inland sea early El Grillo beat me to the island.



Ya El Grillo placed an extremely intrusive island city. Now I really really wanted to go after SD this game. You know the whole killing my 2nd city thing, but instead I used a T112 HG to whip out a whole bunch of units and attack El Grillo. Lesson 2: HG is really good for doing come backs. Did SD promise to help me and then proceed to not even build an army. YOU BET! I took and razed a couple cities / resettled 1, but eventually longbows and El Grillos own build up meant couldn't go much farther. Oh and see what eventually winner Mig was up to at same time.



Oh those units are really heading south fyi! SD did eventually figure it out right before I got peace from El Grillo and declared war on him. I razed 1 city, but he had JUST gotten engineering and with the turn of warning got his UU pike out. 

Anyways, I tried attacking Mig once to slow him down, but I poorly positioned, got 100g for peace (had some galleys threatening). And then just waited for the eventual El Grillo and SD 2v1. SD of course sent multiple misleading messages including fish for fish before declaring. Luckily game ended via concession as it started. 

I probably should have just taken Great Diamond and immediately gone vs SD instead of going north, but ah well. Lesson 3 which I probably should have learned in PB52 was that taking on someone who is strong is hard, even if you catch them unprepared.

[Mjmd]

PB63 Roll the Old Chariot - just a fishing village but was a baller and held off a 2 unit naval attack with just a chariot, because plot armor.



So is Victoria of India actually a good combo? I'm somewhat famous for playing, but I actually only played it twice, although players I'm ded lurking have a distressing habit of picking Victoria and counting this game I've also been India twice more.

On one hand there is some logic of pairing imp with India. If you are going to ignore a food tech and instead spend your time chopping forests, might as well get more for it. On the other pairing a fast civ with a fast trait is somewhat double dipping. If you are going to dip is Julius Imp/Org just better? Now on Monarch which both of those games were I do like financial more than org by a tad, but to fully abuse the speed a think Imp/Org would be better. Combine that starting with myst meaning you are even farther away from pottery for cottages and ya maybe not the best combo per se. Although PB52 it did really serve me well.

I've been debating how much to delay pottery this game (IE if I go to Oracle before), but I think I don't want to delay granaries and cottages.

I've also been debating about just choosing Darius, which I think would do very well with how the pick is going. I have wanted to try Darius of India for a while.........

[Mjmd]

Welp I took Neb  

How many people will guess this was for the funsies in the pick analysis? If anyone says its good feel free to laugh. Again, Neb should be played with like 6-max 8, but ah well.

Now to avoid doing too much micro work, which is actually why I'm writing this to force myself to wait until T10ish. I can't attribute this to any game in particular, but I've definitely done a lot of micro and then had to redo because of new information. Neb of India is going to require a lot, so trying to pace myself and doing micro before knowing anything about surrounding land let alone where copper is is crazy. For instance in my original micro to test I just sent a worker with my first settler and it never came back as I just slept both of them. What turn does the worker need to leave and where from?

Another lesson is how to scout. I've seen some people just send their scout out in almost a line at the beginning, but again for micro I WANT INFO!!! So I usually do at least one circle if not 2 or at least partially 2. 1st check: any chance of moving capitals? No even if the grassland cow is still there (there is a non plains hill spot to grab 4 food atm, but its a trap). 1SW could be scouted just to check, but  I doubt moving off the river and opportunity to improve ivory is the right move. So scout will be going a little north first. I know my river WAS going that way. Is there a river up there? is there an ocean? I won't go far, but worth for scouting to see if you just can avoid an area. The main thing will be to check the west along river and then down south.

Questions to answer:
- 1 worker or 2? Its almost certainly 2, but if there is specifically NW city (ie near the ivory) this might change).
- So questions like what are chops going into? I CAN get a T33 settler then T38 stonehenge, but should the stonehenge chops just go towards settlers? I'm mainly worried about Rickety just not producing a settler and doing stonehenge 1st (a valid single player strat as if you want as the computers will take otherwise). But I don't know if a T38 beats that anyways, so why not delay a bit more?
- WHERE are the chops going. Am I chopping down west or going east?

[Mjmd]

RICKETY!!!!

#&#^@! A

I guess I can do faster than T38 stonehenge..........

Financial; great trait for this game nobody else has taken. Industrious - you are competing with bloody Neb of India. WHY!!!!

I almost wonder if he doesn't know the traits of Neb....... He is new in the mod. It would explain things.

[El Grillo]

Taking a restricted leaders combo in snake pick has to be worth something, doesn't it?

[Mjmd]

I guess.....

He actually read my first post so he should know the leader traits; ah well.

Its going to be interesting, because whomever wins the stonehenge race gives the other the advantage in the Oracle race because of the generated fail gold. I do have both tech (mining more expensive than hunting) and civ bonus to finishing. However, he 100% can win if he just ignores expanding. I'm not going to contest that as expanding is more important (unless there is literally no food anywhere close).