[SPOILERS] Seven Russias Into the Periclous Fray

[WilliamLP]

Let's resume the opponent analysis.

It's about time! I think the mole, with its rich and nuanced tactile senses, may be on to something here.

[SevenSpirits]

t37. I made a dotmap!

City 3 seems basically set:



... and we might just stop at 3.





Here is the empire.



Going 4t worker, 4t settler in the capital. Might have to research IW next after pottery, though of course I'd prefer writing and math. I'll decide when I get there.

[SevenSpirits]

Opponent number 4, mackoti.



I might know mackoti better than I know any other player on the site - certainly more than I know anyone else who's in this game. He's a really strong player. I would say he has two truly great skills:

1) Converting temporary advantages into decisive permanent ones.
2) Focusing resources to gain temporary advantages by sacrificing in other areas.

These skills are complementary in an obvious way.

I played a couple games teaming with mackoti after doing the same with novice. The mindblowing thing for me was that each of them have significant skill that the other doesn't. Novice is really good at extracting every last pip of advantage from the environment. Mackoti's no slouch at that, but he leaves a lot of value on the table over the course of a game. These players are scary good and yet I consider myself to have proof that significantly better play is possible. Speaking of which, I think we traded some skills a bit while partnering and he's probably gotten even better in the meantime, so...

What do you guys think, sacred animals?


10/10

8/10

9/10

6/10

5/10


(WilliamLP, would you care to explain your mole's rating?)

In this game he's playing Charlemagne (IMP/PRO) of Germany (HUNT/MINE). Seeing as mackoti is particularly good at putting temporary advantages to use, two of the traits that give the biggest front-loaded benefit is extra strong for him. They also make sense together - IMP wants to work plains hill mines and so does PRO. Also, this map seems to be pretty heavy on forests, which is very lucky for him if it holds true in his area as well. (Of course, the other interpretation is that my area got more forests so his likely got less than average. Who knows.) Germany seems a fine choice - in terms of starting techs, I chose the identical Russia, and it has a cool new UU to try out.

What sayeth the sixth sacred animal of this pairing?

Baaaaaa

[novice]

These players are scary good and yet I consider myself to have proof that significantly better play is possible.

I consider yourself to be that proof.
You have both our strengths and none of our weaknesses. And you top it off with the essential ability (for someone at your level) to not get complacent.

[WilliamLP]

I've never been let down by the mole before, but I think the bucket-headed sheep may be the winner on this particular front.

[SevenSpirits]

Thanks novice.

[SevenSpirits]

HitAnyKey built stonehenge.

I'd be more excited about this if the land between us were worth talking about. But it's not, and I don't expect to interact with him for a while yet.

[SevenSpirits]

Mackoti autorazed Gavagai's second city, planted a few turns before. That can't be good.

Having had some opportunity to explore now, I can safely say that copper is nowhere near me. This is really atypical for a Krill map. I can't imagine he would consciously do something wacky like have it only exist on islands. More likely he rolled a random map without the strategic resource option checked and didn't deem it necessary to adjust for some reason. I disagree with this decision. I don't think it was laziness because he clearly went to some trouble to put in mountain ranges to create chokepoints. But maybe HAK is my only close neighbor or something?

[SevenSpirits]

Settled my third city.

Demographics are looking pretty bad - they have been getting worse and worse since about when I settled my second city. I am 15 points behind Napoleon who has no early acceleration from traits, and behind HAK in every economic category. My assumption was that his relatively low micro ability would approximately cancel out his powerful resource distribution compared to mine, with the sick lake fish and a bonus FP putting his position a couple turns ahead. And then of course he's productive which should be worth maybe a 7t head start, but he founded a religion in his capital and more importantly built stonehenge with no bonuses. 120h is way more than 7t at this stage of the game so I thought I would be ahead of at least him in economy. However, this is not the case, so I am reevaluating my thinking. It may be that I've just played this suboptimally, though I don't know how I could do it better. I guess I probably had to build more warriors than other players? But then, I saw HAK build an axe a couple turns ago so it's not like he's been ignoring military.

By the way, I realize that demographics are not everything, especially since people hit gigantic crests and troughs during this early part of the game. But I'm almost at the top of my crest right now. And the worst part is I have no granaries and no more cities I can settle for more than a single crappy resource. So things are worse than the demographics imply. Next city probably has to go for an ivory and no other resources, which is going to add next to no economic output.

The capital has now started a library and will pop out a quick scientist at size 5, to speed up research of IW and mathematics to compensate for the need for the former. Once I get those techs, I may be able to recover the position. On the bright side, my third city claims three resources, bringing me from four to seven. So that's going to be a good boost over the next 12t. Now that I think about it, I was probably set back by not having a particularly good second city location. The best I could do within reasonable distance had two 2nd ring resources (albeit one of them claimed after just two turns by creative capital third ring borders, and the other one added by creative in the city itself), which is probably below average. So I don't know, maybe I messed up by not settling the second city where I'm putting the third one?

[Krill]

Mackoti autorazed Gavagai's second city, planted a few turns before. That can't be good.

Having had some opportunity to explore now, I can safely say that copper is nowhere near me. This is really atypical for a Krill map. I can't imagine he would consciously do something wacky like have it only exist on islands. More likely he rolled a random map without the strategic resource option checked and didn't deem it necessary to adjust for some reason. I disagree with this decision. I don't think it was laziness because he clearly went to some trouble to put in mountain ranges to create chokepoints. But maybe HAK is my only close neighbor or something?

Just saw this.

I believe the term you might be looking for is Hanlon's razor.