RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[nabaxo]

Been waiting for this update a while now! Awesome!

[WilliamLP]

Great update, thank you very much!

[novice]

Nice recap. That micromanagement seems pretty intense, yeah.

The huge espionage benefit [jails] give at a critical point in the game cannot be underestimated

I'm not sure if I agree with what you wrote or what you meant - probably somewhere in between.

[scooter]

Thanks for the update! Very interesting and very impressive. Well played.

[Lord Parkin]

I'm not sure if I agree with what you wrote or what you meant - probably somewhere in between.

Lol, yeah... I got a bit confused there.

The thing with Jails is that not only do they give at least 7 free EP's per turn apiece to spend on other players (assuming you have Courthouses in place)... but if you get them 10 or so turns before anyone else, the skewed espionage ratio over those 10 turns drastically affects the variable % multiplier between civs. It considerably pulls down the threshold for you to get visibility on rival cities, and simultaneously pushes up the threshold for them to get visibility on you by a significant amount. Win-win.

[Lord Parkin]

I was just skimming through the start of my thread, and came across this:

Here's my prediction for the final rankings at the end of the game:

#1: Lord Parkin (De Gaulle of Egypt) - Of course I have to predict myself to place first, just as I expect everyone else does. If I'm not planning on the possibility of winning then why am I playing?
#2: plako and antisocialmunky (Catherine of China) - I see these guys as likely to do pretty well as long as they don't squander their position with the best expansion traits, and as long as they're able to keep their economy intact after all that expansion.
#3: Locke and Cervantes (Isabella of England) - Providing these guys can hold on in the game until Rifling, I expect them to become pretty fierce competition and place rather well at the end.
#4: sunrise089 and Rego (Shaka of Zulu) - I understand from reading other threads here that these guys are fairly strong players. Based on the assumption that they're are likely to become rather militaristic at one point or another with their Aggressive trait, I think they'll do fairly well as long as they aren't subjugated early on.
#5: Mackoti and Ioan76 (Roosevelt of Netherlands) - Map dependent civ pick of course, but from what I know of Mackoti he's a reasonable player and should do well with his leader pick regardless. If this turns out to be a heavy water map, then his expected finishing position will of course be inflated a bit.
#6: Sleeping Moogle and sciz (Louis of Babylon) - With a very safe civ pick for the early game as well as decent leader traits to keep them going, I expect these guys to end up in a solid position at the end.
#7: Luddite and Atlas1998 (Bismarck of Sumeria) - I would have ranked these guys higher for their leader pick, but then they went with the dubious choice of Sumeria as a civ, which kind of sucks in my opinion. Mind you, basing a player's expected performance on a civ/leader choice isn't exactly reliable, so maybe these guys will do well after all.
#8: WarlordDr (Washington of Greece) - Being a friend of sunrise and picking Washington as his leader, I initially worried about this guy a bit more. But with the rather undesirable pick of Greece as his civ when so many others were available, I have to wonder a bit about how well this guy will really do. (No offence to you WarlordDr, I'm just basing an entire analysis off civ/leader picks, which is probably very unreliable.)
#9: Nakor and Gaspar (Asoka of Vikings) - In my opinion, this was probably the worst leader pick of the ones chosen for this game. Pairing it with the Vikings really didn't help (and if the water level doesn't turn out to be quite high on this map, that civ will be nearly completely useless). No offence to you guys, I just think you could have done better with your picks. Maybe you'll completely surprise me and end up whacking me out of the game though, who knows!
#10: Adlain and Mania Muse (Wang Kon of Arabia) - Sorry, but I just don't see these guys as doing that well. They effectively only have one trait paired with a crappy civ, plus the trait that they do have is one likely to paint them as a target if they make good use of it. As always though, I might be proven completely wrong and have to eat my words. That's the fun of guessing though!

I'm impressed that I managed to get 5/10 predictions spot on (including the entire top 4). Of course, at the time I knew little to nothing about what to expect from most players and nothing at all about the map, so perhaps it was just lucky guesswork. Still, amusing anyway.

Of course, those rankings would have changed significantly had we played on, so perhaps there's nothing to it. (I would have taken Luddite out sooner or later, for one thing.)

[novice]

It looks like the game is officially over?

Congratulations on the win, Lord Parkin!

[Ellimist]

Congrats. This is a far more decisive victory than I think anybody expected.

[Lord Parkin]

It looks like the game is officially over?

I guess so. I would have preferred to play on, but apparently most other folks have given up already. I still think that's a bit disappointing and not entirely the spirit we should be promoting around here, but oh well. I mean, we only played 2 turns into the biggest war of the game... how sad is that? I was at least hoping to get a slightly more decent show from my opponents.

Just to name one thing, war weariness would have eventually caught up and become a major issue for me with all the different wars I'd be fighting - dragging my research rate back. (I already had 3 unhappiness from war weariness in the capital alone after 2 turns.) How would that have played out in the long term? We'll never know.

Congratulations on the win, Lord Parkin!

Thanks. Not entirely satisfying due to everyone giving up before much could happen, but ah well.

Congrats. This is a far more decisive victory than I think anybody expected.

Including me. That triple golden age did put me ahead quite a bit more than I thought. I was just about to start a fourth, too (partly to change back my civics). Even so though, I think there was still quite a lot of life left in the game before everyone else pulled the plug. If it had been me in their position, I probably would have stayed to put up a fight just for the hell of it. Apparently I'm somewhat unusual in this respect though... oh well.

[Gazzahk]

Yes thanks LP, I enjoyed reading your posts and thanks for your patience with our various requests.

Good Win.