This is gonna be good: von Adlercreutz and Taotao

[taotao]

1. need to take a look, iirc 19 hammers overflow and prod combined
2. You're correct except for 1T into a plain farm fwiw

1. Hmm, 19h is actually quite a lot, could almost count it as the third chop being put into the next thing rather than the settler.
2. Yeah, don't know how much I value that farm, especially since we'll get our horses on that tile

btw. Naming theme. We need a name for the capital. In case we happen to be one of the first teams to settle I don't want one of the worlds top five cities to be called 'Amsterdam'. People might think we're not interested!
(says a guy on the team that has the third highest post count in their thread so far)

Name suggestions: Helsinki, Åbo (swedish was the official language when that city was the most important), Ivoren (ivory in dutch), Hoofdstad, Pyhäjoki (first major battle in 1808?) etc.

[von Adlercreutz]

Wheel earlier seems nice as we still get the settler same turn, but use workerturns otherwise more efficiently. Downside is that we get the possible copper later and so the production from that tile.

Re naming theme: About your suggestions, I like most the Finnish or the war of 1808-09 theme. Maybe the latter, the first is a bit boring for the Finnish team. We don't need to do it chronologically though, I think the cap should one of the decisive battles, Viapori (not so much a battle, but decisive event) or Oravainen (would that be a bad omen, naming the cap after a battle my avatar lost? ). Is Hoofstadt part of a bigger theme of yours or just a general Dutch themed suggestion? Naming the city just after a resource is a bit boring to me.

Btw, in the version where I went 2 workers 3 chops, the settler would have completed T28 without the last chop, I used it to allow the city to grow a bit more on the warrior build.

[taotao]

Re naming theme: About your suggestions, I like most the Finnish or the war of 1808-09 theme. Maybe the latter, the first is a bit boring for the Finnish team. We don't need to do it chronologically though, I think the cap should one of the decisive battles, Viapori (not so much a battle, but decisive event) or Oravainen (would that be a bad omen, naming the cap after a battle my avatar lost? ).

Until someone comes up with a better theme I say we stick with the 1808-09 one then
And for the capital a quite like Oravainen. Partly because I live about 50km from there, but more for the very fact that I love the irony involved

So where to send the scout? I don't have a strong preference, but probably lean towards the hill that used to be a peak. Then check the coast for seafood for a turn before starting to circle round. Barbs are on now, but I still don't mind that much stopping on an open tile as all animals will be str1 against our scout (but for instance bears have + 100% against our warriors). I'm guessing our closest opponents will be to our east/south, but even though we therefore should push in those directions fairly quickly, the first two cities should nonetheless be put in the best possible positions according to current knowledge.

[taotao]

With the game soon about to start I believe it's time for the second part of my initial:
Opponent ranking

16. Borsche as Hannibal of Vikings

Chances of winning:
Next door neighbour rating:
Entertainment value?:

Perhaps our main competitor for the seas?
Vikings no longer get the great movement bonus on their ships, but 25% naval production does help. And CR2, amphi macemen are fun (not to mention riflemen equivalents). Borsche hasn’t done that well in his games here at rb so far, but I still believe this ???* has an ace or two tucked into his sleeve. Overall though I’m far from sure this is to become Borsche’s game. Don’t get me wrong, Hannibal is good. Eventually. It’s just that when Borsche finally can get some use from his combo it might well be too late.
*Had Borsche down as Russian for some reason I don't remember anymore, apparently that's wrong

15. ReallyEvilMuffin as Julius Ceasar of Russia

Chances of winning:
Next door neighbour rating:
Entertainment value?:

I’ve got a feeling Adler has a better grasp of REM than I have, but anywho…
REM seems knowledgeable about the game, but can sometimes complicate things so much than he’ll trip over his own toes. Perhaps it’s a single player mentality where you try different paths in order to keep things interesting? On the other hand I believe he’s said things about playing a lot of MP games on other sites? Anyway, JC surely is a nice leader and Cossacks are great fun to play with . Might fall behind enough in medieval/renaissance era to not be relevant later on, but could also scrape by to the end.


14. Tasunke as Pacal of Persia

Chances of winning:
Next door neighbour rating:
Entertainment value?:

Tasunke seems to play a lot more ffh than bts. I’m not quite sure though how much of that attitude is for real and how much is an act? Described by many (I believe) as more or less crazy this is one joker of an opponent we’d better watch out for if ending up nearby (guard our workers!). In the end he’ll probably succumb to more even players, but until then he might put up quite the show!


13. The Wannabe as Joao of Egypt

Chances of winning:
Next door neighbour rating:
Entertainment value?:

The Wannabe is a new face here at rb, enthusiastic and eager to learn. For a moment I considered teaming up with him and I believe we would’ve had loads of fun. From the very beginning he has said that he’d like a teammate or experienced dedlurker and with such help I believe he could do really well. As of now I haven’t seen any other person write in his thread though so he might well be left on his own
As for the combo, Joao is obviously great for expansion and Egypt also makes him a bit more fearsome if someone crosses his path. Later on he’s got very little to help him through though, so I expect him to stagnate with the course of time.


12. Automated Teller as Charlemagne of Mongolia

Chances of winning:
Next door neighbour rating:
Entertainment value?:

One of the survivors of pb18, AT is a stellar opponent. Usually I’d say he’s been a bit prone to not expand as fast as the best, but Charlie should make sure that doesn’t happen in this game. Although still not belonging to very top forces, AT is a neighbor I’m not too keen on having. If my memory serves right he doesn’t quite try to go for a big kill against his opponents, but sacrificing a fair number of units in order to take a border city is something that’d be far from being beneath him. In this game I’m not too fuzzed about the ger, but the ability of having more attack vectors than what’s normally possible and a likelihood for aggression at a time we still might be focusing on peaceful expansion could make him very annoying.


11. Ichabod and retep as Napoleon of Greece

Chances of winning:
Next door neighbour rating:
Entertainment value?: (will peter off)

These guys are one of our main opponents when going for medals in the post-count war! Likely to be very active at first I still doubt they’ll have the consistency to do well in the later stages of the game. That said, I count retep especially as being a very competent defender, so I’d rather be well ahead before going in for the kill here. My hope is that these guys will be bogged down in a grudge match early on with someone that isn’t us and will whip their happy empire into some unsolvable unit costs.

PS. They’ll very rarely post on subject, so really, if you’re a lurker you’re much better off staying in this thread.


10. Barteq as Tokugawa of Aztecs

Chances of winning:
Next door neighbour rating: **
Entertainment value?: **

Barteq really has written too little on this board for me to be certain of his skill, but I’ve got a decent feeling about him. Cheap granaries and barracks also means that his cities will be quick to set up and once he reaches CoL he’ll be able to whip with more impunity than anyone else. If he had proven his skill more here previously I might’ve well ranked this empire higher.
* Barteq gets four head-splats replaced by stars as I've exceeded the limit for number of images in one post. Duuh.

[The Black Sword]

I heard something about a post count war? Some nice posts here, so you deserve a +1.

[taotao]

I heard something about a post count war? Some nice posts here, so you deserve a +1.

Haha, thank you
The post count war wasn't the one I intended to to win when I decided I wanted to join a team, but since we're doing pretty well in that department (2nd in posts, 4th in views atm) I guess we should keep on pressing where we might have a shot at a good finish.
Sadly we won't win the war unless we kill Krill early on (and possibly not even then).

...actually, Adler, what do you say if we try to chariot-rush Krill if we start next to each other?
(I'm kidding, but only partly so. Krill is bound to become a pain sooner or later and actually tends to be quite low on defences in the early turns)

[taotao]

The game is LIVE!

I tried to log in to take a quick peek, but so far I've failed.
- on first load I forgot that I was running rtf 3.0.0.2 instead of 4 and the game sort of froze whilst loading the correct mod.
- later on I've been running the correct mod, and logged in to the server getting a nice picture of Zara and the Netherlands, but when loading our actual game the program has suddenly switched off (getting an error message for a millisecond or three).
Wonder if I might've made some mistake in the natneg setup or what might cause it? Probably won't have time to figure it out during my lunch break, but hope that I'm not logged in and stopping you Adler from getting into the game currently.
Anyway, when the game asked for a password earlier I set it to:

1808

Feel free to change it to whatever if you manage to get in.

[von Adlercreutz]

Where did you get the impression that Borsche is Russian? I've lurked a bit in badgame and there I think he said he was Dutch (well more like that when he didn't like the Dutch civ, his teammate said he was ashamed of his heritage ). Lurking bg might lead me to ranking Borsche too high, he's strong there but the opposition is lower than here. Still I'd move him up in your ranking, higher than REM or Tasunke (and REM before Tas). He seems prone to taking late game focused benefits with his picks.

How did you guess I indeed know REM a bit more? Yes he has played in other sites and those fast games in gamespy. I lurked him in that pbem where he went for the super early cataphracts while neglecting economy, I was sure this was going to fail and someone focusing on economy would win, but there he just managed to take enormous amount of land and win with that. The same is hard to do here as there will always be someone who can build their economy and expand well if you don't and then you're too much behind. I think imp is good for REM, so that he gets some help with expanding.


Hmmm chariot rushing Krill? Sounds , but better players have regretted not doing so.

[von Adlercreutz]

I managed to log in, no problem.

Here is our start, with a couple more resources available with calendar:


Hmm scout move. SIP would kill seafood if there is any in west, but I doubt that as having SIP kill seafood would be really evil from mapmaker and the map has been checked by many. So scouting there is just to confirm this, then it's a dead end.

If we want to take the (imo reasonable) risk with seafood, I say scout 1S1SE to the ph. And we have huts on, I want to give luck a chance.

[taotao]

I managed to log in, no problem.

Hmm scout move. SIP would kill seafood if there is any in west, but I doubt that as having SIP kill seafood would be really evil from mapmaker and the map has been checked by many. So scouting there is just to confirm this, then it's a dead end.

If we want to take the (imo reasonable) risk with seafood, I say scout 1S1SE to the ph. And we have huts on, I want to give luck a chance.

Good that I haven't screwed things up for you at least .
Will have to run back to work shortly, but:
West is a total dead end and north doesn't look an awful lot better. Could be seafood there, but agree with your assessment that we could ignore that risk/possibility and just head south/east with the scout. I've got no problem with you doing so at this very minute if you feel like it.