This is gonna be good: von Adlercreutz and Taotao

[von Adlercreutz]

Nice story! We can only make guesses about Nyles, so need to avoid jumping to fast conclusions (notorious example the aforementioned Gav rushing Borsche). Skill level can be somewhat estimated by performance, but things like aggressiveness and likelihood to hold a grudge are harder to determine before it's too late.

While we're discussing opponents, how much do you know about Serdoa? When has he played the last time? I only remember one game where his naming theme was ex-girlfriends (PB8?) and from there I got the impression he likes going for wonders.

[taotao]

While we're discussing opponents, how much do you know about Serdoa? When has he played the last time? I only remember one game where his naming theme was ex-girlfriends (PB8?) and from there I got the impression he likes going for wonders.

From the top of my head... Serdoa participated in PB8. There he had some strange land where he only could fit two (good) cities on his own land mass before the tiles were completely swallowed in jungle. Instead he set sail and actually claimed a large chunk of fertile, nice looking land across the sea and did quite all right. (that was btw. the pb where commodore archer rushed impi-holding pindiscooter off his continent (and who in turn managed to completely take over Nakors continent during a short peace treaty with said commodore).
The one with ex-girlfriends though, that was pb12. Solid performance from him there, but the opposition wasn't the best and he had HUGE help from noblehelium in that game.
Since then he hasn't played that much. He participated in pb15 (which I have no clue how it went) and he started in PB13, but was uninspired early on and handed over to dhalphir...
I know I've seen Commodore comment his play... hang on...

Serdoa (clever, inconsistent) as Sulieman (Phi/Imp) of the Vikings (Hunting/Fishing)

Serdoa here normally has a plan, which often gets derailed. He might be doing something convoluted, but I'm pretty sure the thinking is to get extremely early GMs to bulb up the line to Berzerkers and then rampage. If everyone but Lewwyn wasn't in easy reach of MC->Machinery, I'd be actually worried. The starting techs of the Vikings aren't that bad for this setup, the Hunting start loses the deer's forest but still gets the nice 4/1 tile online fast, while Fishing's cost is a negligable -5 culture. Overall, this is one of the less esoteric Serdoa choices we're seeing.

As a player, I expect Serdoa to be aggressive early, which hopefully translates to being aggressive early in a direction that isn't us. A successful rush could put him in a good position, but his latest rushes have been in different circumstances. We should be seeing a generally solid, stable empire out of him pretty quickly...which he will then use to kamikaze someone else's game. He's probably top competition for the Oracle.

That was said in 2012 though, so some things can definitely have changed.

Similiar to plako, I'd say that that Serdoa is a straight up kind of guy who doesn't meddle with things he sees as fishy, if even he sees them at all. I think he'll manage his empire really well (at least on the micro level) and won't be overly aggressive anymore as long as he's doing ok and keeping interest. The question is what he'll do if things don't go his way. Possibly he could do something rash just to still be in with a shot...

[taotao]

Second page... I guess we shouldn't be so focused on having a life outside RB.
Anyway, re-rolls are in and even re-re-rolls. Didn't see that last part though before logging in recently, so here's what I thought of the changes the people who declined their first pairing got:

CheaterHater:
Toku of Carthage -> Washington of Inca: CH should be able to whip hard whip those terraces of his and bring out that second ring of cities quite fast. Without being bad (it’s Inca!) I still don’t feel too threatened by this new combo though.

Ichabod & retep:
Liz of France -> Nappy of Greece: In a luxury poor environment these guys should thrive and promotions sure will come easy to them. That said, I preferred their old combo by a lot.

Plako:
Rammy of Ottomans -> Pericles of Germany: Germany is something like the land version of the dutch. I.e. nice bonuses indeed, but often coming too late to really matter… Plako is going to be in this for the long run, however, so might have an impact. Actually, coming to think about it, plakos combo is very close to ours. Late game civs, creative to help early on and an economic trait as support (org for us, phi for p.).

Barteq:
Kublai of Inca -> Frederik of Byzans: Well, Barteq didn’t go for the culture-troll-combo That’s quite understandable, but still a bit sad. Instead he was rewarded with a nice combo indeed. Byzantium for small bit of extra happy and terrifying knights (nerfed since bts, but still one of the best UUs) and possibly the best leader for teching to said knights (phracts).

Grimace:
Gilgi of Aztecs -> Boudicca of Japan: Personally I consider the sacrificial altar to be good enough for this to be a clear downgrade. If he’s just looking to be more unappetizing though, you can never really go wrong with Boudicca. Make sure we have more units than him if we ever go to war.

ReallyEvilMuffin:
SB of NA -> JC of Russia: REM got another combo that isn’t too far from ours. He’ll have a slightly easier time with rexing, but otherwise the same principles apply. Good, balanced leader, but needs a bit of luck to still be in contention when the civ bonuses set in.

AdrienIer:
Ragnar of Japan -> Mansa of Portugal: Oh man, this feels slo-ow. It’s not necessarily bad (might want to compare this to commodore in pb13, but this nation relies on getting loads of fishing villages and needs a lot of time to set them up with quays, feitorias, harbours, lighthouses, courthouses, science/wealth multipliers, happy, free market etc. etc. Not a combo I’d like to play against humans.

Commodore:
Qin of Germany -> Sury of Ottomans. Ottomans are a nation that tends to divide peoples opinions and I don’t really remember where Commodore stands. Solid combo though with a good leader for expansion and some buffs to units and happy when people usually go to war.

theWannabe:
Darius of India -> Rammy of France: Why did the Wannabe reroll? Was he afraid that he’d be seen as too much of a rush target being green and not having an early military UU or pro/agg trait? Or was he worried that he wouldn’t manage quick enough expansion? Anyway I don’t see this roll being anywhere near an upgrade for him.

HitAnyKey:
Jus of Rus -> Alex of Maya: Aggressive Holkans, am I worried? Well… no. Alex is quite an interesting leader, but personally I’ve never really seen the sun when it comes to Mayans. Not necessarily terrible, but not great in any way either.

Yuris125
Sal of Spain -> Justy of Khmer: Ok, drop the pantsy religious route and grab some land instead. Or? I guess that was what Yuri was going for with the reroll, but really he just got more of the same. Ballistas are an improvement when defending against knights, but first you need ivory… Another re-roll upcoming I’d say.

NylesStandish:
Fred of Korea -> Bella of the Aztecs: Aztecs seem like an improvement while I’d rank Freddy as the better leader. No idea how NS will feel. If he’s a human goody hut I guess he’ll be even more so, but if he’s good there’s some potential here.

Gavagai:
Ham of Arabs -> Roosy of Mali: If anyone’s going to go for early forges in this game I guess it’s Gav. If you want synergy you have synergy. If you want early UU, here you go. If you want something for the long term, here, have an organized trait. I didn’t think Gavs first roll was bad, but the second did improve on that without being the obviously amazing thing which will get you dog piled.


Since then, we had 4 re-rolls, all which got quite decent combos in the end. Don't think I'll analyse them separately though, but will just do a slightly more thorough opponent analysis in a while.

[taotao]

random notes:
BGN has written in Elkads thread (which would be a huge addition if he started to ded-lurk)
and Bacchus in Gavs (Gav's probably the better player).
Mindy has not shown up yet in HAKs!
We need to convince Fintourist to help out here!

[von Adlercreutz]

Commodores new combo seems nice on the surface to me, but after closer consideration not too sure about that. Basically with cre and cheap hammam he can ignore religious line and monarchy for quite long, beelining economic bonuses or military teches. Then again, you can't delay monarchy too long, it's needed for too much stuff. There is little for late game too. Well, the early bonus for going math and still being able to grow tall is nice.

[taotao]

Commodores new combo seems nice on the surface to me, but after closer consideration not too sure about that. Basically with cre and cheap hammam he can ignore religious line and monarchy for quite long, beelining economic bonuses or military teches. Then again, you can't delay monarchy too long, it's needed for too much stuff. There is little for late game too. Well, the early bonus for going math and still being able to grow tall is nice.

I don't count Commodores combo as amazing, but it's definitely not bad due to the way it gives him options:
E.g., after currency he could go for horse archers to grab some opportunistic land from his neighbors.
Or he could head for the music artist, perhaps picking up SoZ on the way?
Or go for the epics?
Or an early Bureaucracy capital (through CoL)?

The only thing he really misses out on by ignoring Monarchy are longbows (usually not needed quite yet, at least not if being the stronger part) and the civics found at feudalism. Well that and possibly ignoring OrgRel (religion dependent anyhow).

How much do you value a couple of happy faces? I mean, two spearmen MPs cost 70h + beakers to Monarchy (+ civic swap). Slightly more costly we have a colosseum (80h) + beakers to construction (which we'll also need eventually for defensive purposes...). Just looking at this I'd probably say that the monarchy line wins, but it's good to not always go by habit also. (Remember also that you no longer need a 10xp unit for HE, but merely a colosseum, barracks and literature)


Btw. do you remember if caste system always has had high upkeep costs? Sure, it doesn't matter as much for us if this has been changed, but I was just thinking whether hilly terrain actually might make serfdom a civic to consider when we've passed the first slavery phase and don't need to generate GPP?

[von Adlercreutz]

Commodores new combo seems nice on the surface to me, but after closer consideration not too sure about that. Basically with cre and cheap hammam he can ignore religious line and monarchy for quite long, beelining economic bonuses or military teches. Then again, you can't delay monarchy too long, it's needed for too much stuff. There is little for late game too. Well, the early bonus for going math and still being able to grow tall is nice.

I don't count Commodores combo as amazing, but it's definitely not bad due to the way it gives him options:
E.g., after currency he could go for horse archers to grab some opportunistic land from his neighbors.
Or he could head for the music artist, perhaps picking up SoZ on the way?
Or go for the epics?
Or an early Bureaucracy capital (through CoL)?

The only thing he really misses out on by ignoring Monarchy are longbows (usually not needed quite yet, at least not if being the stronger part) and the civics found at feudalism. Well that and possibly ignoring OrgRel (religion dependent anyhow).

How much do you value a couple of happy faces? I mean, two spearmen MPs cost 70h + beakers to Monarchy (+ civic swap). Slightly more costly we have a colosseum (80h) + beakers to construction (which we'll also need eventually for defensive purposes...). Just looking at this I'd probably say that the monarchy line wins, but it's good to not always go by habit also. (Remember also that you no longer need a 10xp unit for HE, but merely a colosseum, barracks and literature)


Btw. do you remember if caste system always has had high upkeep costs? Sure, it doesn't matter as much for us if this has been changed, but I was just thinking whether hilly terrain actually might make serfdom a civic to consider when we've passed the first slavery phase and don't need to generate GPP?

I'm not too big fan of the early monarchy play (meaning before even currency). Maybe with going oracle, since then you're teching the pre-reqs anyway. Obviously you need the tech eventually at the very least for the teches it leads to, it's only about timing. To me, early game is about securing you the land, ie. horizontal growth, then one can start grow tall. But to go horizontal, one needs to be able to pay for it and there is the traditional currency and with the rtr mod, alpha is also much more important. After that monarchy is quite far in the tech tree compared to stuff like calendar or construction (which have other benefits than happy too, while monarchy is all about happy).

So the value of a couple of happy faces? One needs to be growing all the time, so I think the value goes up when you can't grow horizontal without war anymore, but need means to keep growing.

This is all very situational, I don't think that we can go too much into our techpath without seeing the game situation.

[von Adlercreutz]

Re serfdom: Serfdom: +1 hammer from mines, +75% worker speed, +2 artist, scientist, merchant specialist slots. Medium cost, requires Feudalism

So it's not like one can't generate gpp with this. We also have the cheap libraries, so we can have a nice amount spec slots without caste. A total of 8 if one doesn't care about the type of GP which can be true for golden ages.

[taotao]

I'm not too big fan of the early monarchy play...


This is all very situational, I don't think that we can go too much into our techpath without seeing the game situation.

Yeah, everything here is quite abstract without having game specifics. By what you're saying I'm glad to see though that I believe we have somewhat similar playing styles. What I'm still trying to do though is question whether the default line is always the best. For instance I usually do something like:
Expand horizontally while teching to currency.
Look if I've got border tension -> ha's/cats,
if not, then look if I've got calendar resources and shot at MoM,
if not (desired), beeline CS (generating GA (+ possibly rel/OR/Mon)),
look if I want knights,
look if I want lib?
what about Taj or great people?
military?...


But,
I don't know,
maybe creative (and the cheap science buildings from there) means not pushing horizontally as fast would be better?
Or perhaps an earlyish push to forges will do tons of good?
Etc.

So, in other words I might push questions like these to keep us alert and hopefully avoiding any bigger pit falls of habit...

[taotao]

Re serfdom: Serfdom: +1 hammer from mines, +75% worker speed, +2 artist, scientist, merchant specialist slots. Medium cost, requires Feudalism

So it's not like one can't generate gpp with this. We also have the cheap libraries, so we can have a nice amount spec slots without caste. A total of 8 if one doesn't care about the type of GP which can be true for golden ages.

No, it's possible to generate gpp. But (at least later, (and not counting the NE city)) most gpp I think we should try to generate in golden ages and during those limited turns it's good to have more than two slots of a certain type.
We're also always going to have the easiest time when trying to generate Great Scientists, but if we want later GAs, then we need other types as well and I don't know how many first-to-bonuses we can count on here...