Chairmen NobleHelium and Gaspar Demand Your Presence in the Collective

[Gaspar]

So we played a turn. Spent a good deal of time arguing as per usual, though I was a bit groggy so I'll confess Noble was mostly right. I'm the big picture guy, he's the details guy. I suspect you all have figured that much out already anyway. Despite the here I actually think we compliment each other pretty well - at least for two guys who can barely stand one another. Unfortunate that our dalliance is up against such stern opposition - were we playing mere mortals I'd like our odds. Unfortunately for Noble, I'm not joining another game.

Anyway, first things first - Unity Lair settled for Plains Cows/Desert Hill Copper/Ivory *gag*



Exploration from the Argo brought the East Indies into slightly clearer view:



And our scout gave a slightly clearer picture of Korea:



Other than that, we cemented our status as the angriest empire in the world, with 3 cities growing into unhappiness. Fear not, furs will be hooked next turn, so all 3 citizens will be down to work before any penalty is paid for their current intransigence.



Here's the demos, showing our populace is the world's most pissed off.



Currency comes in at next EOT. That should be a huge impact on our GNP and hopefully will carry us through the next two crucial techs.

[Gaspar]

So new turn. Most interesting thing is that mackoti settled "marmuraresti." Google translate chokes on that a bit, but marmura is Romanian for marble, and the suspicion is that the -resti suffix means something like ville/town/etc. as in Bucuresti, which I believe is what Bucharest is in native Romanian. So we're assuming mackoti has settled his marble island. Good for him.

Beyond that, was a pretty quite turn itself in terms of stuff actually happening. We discovered another wine resource and evidence there's more riverage in the East Indies:



Here you can see the furs are hooked and suddenly the presence of stoles means the people of the Collective are once again happy...



Doesn't she look happy?

*cough* I meant the people of the Collective are once again happy...



That's really about the extent of the pre-EOT news. Ending turn landed us Currency, which along with the completion of a Library in Worker's Nest jumped us up 21 bpt. Next on the list, saving gold to fund a run at Confucianism, otherwise known as Gaspar's religion for players who hate early religion.

Here are the improving demos. Note no tech selected, so you don't see quite the same GNP improvement.

[Mardoc]

That's really about the extent of the pre-EOT news. Ending turn landed us Currency, which along with the completion of a Library in Worker's Nest jumped us up 21 bpt. Next on the list, saving gold to fund a run at Confucianism, otherwise known as Gaspar's religion for players who hate early religion.

That *is* a dramatic difference . More settlers, please!

[oledavy]

Tied for the lead in MFG, nice

*Obligatory poke to build more settlers*

Let's get that crop yield up.

Despite the early setbacks, I'm pretty optimistic about your position in this game. PBEM23 is evidence that given enough rope, N7 will hang themselves. A strong opening with a specialist economy does not necessarily translate in a game-winning position; and a well-played cottage economy is just as strong. You're protective, so no one is going to want to come after you for quite some time. You can expand and tech at will while the micro gods eventually get embroiled in a war with Angry Rusher Lewwyn and/or Bobby Fischer Mackoti.

How does early Feudalism sound to you guys?

[Gaspar]

That *is* a dramatic difference . More settlers, please!

Tied for the lead in MFG, nice

*Obligatory poke to build more settlers*

Let's get that crop yield up.

Despite the early setbacks, I'm pretty optimistic about your position in this game. PBEM23 is evidence that given enough rope, N7 will hang themselves. A strong opening with a specialist economy does not necessarily translate in a game-winning position; and a well-played cottage economy is just as strong. You're protective, so no one is going to want to come after you for quite some time. You can expand and tech at will while the micro gods eventually get embroiled in a war with Angry Rusher Lewwyn and/or Bobby Fischer Mackoti.

How does early Feudalism sound to you guys?

Thanks for the comments. I have a bit of a state of the game post coming up. You guys have to remind me that you don't see most of the conversations Noble and I have so the thread can get cold sometimes.

As far as settlers go, this really isn't the map for settler spam. Even IMP no7 haven't expanded any faster than us really. Only Lewwyn has gone spamming and as such, his economy has completely tanked. Its a toroid, so measured expansion with good worker support is the way to go. Anyway, we've got the settler in production that you see in the SS at Colony and Hive will start a settler next turn and whip it shortly after. Colony's settler will claim the flood plains/incense/fish site while The Hive's will head for the marble/silk/clams island.

Early Feudalism wouldn't be bad at all - LB aren't even a bad offensive unit if you get them in play early enough, but our short term priorities are happiness and culture. Once that's settled, I think there's plenty of room for maneuvering.

[Gaspar]

Its been a while since I ran an episodic post, so...



So what's going on in the world? What approaches have our competitors taken in the early game vs. the approach we have taken? And probably more importantly, how does that inform our future choices? Let's start with the clear early leader...



Little has happened to change the early impression of no7 as the world's bullies. They parlayed an early Oracle > Metal Casting grab into Colossus and a Great Engineer used to rush the Pyramids. I was surprised by the early Oracle grab - no marble or IND, so that's expensive, but they used it perfectly. They now have the tools to run a brilliant SE AND to make coastal cities quite profitable. It does distract them from Astronomy, but this isn't a map for Astronomy anyway.

In terms of expansion, they've moved at basically the same rate as us, which is interesting considering Imp. They're on 7 well-named cities and have only 2 happiness resources hooked (they're the only civ who has not yet settled the excellent gold/fish location.) Most interesting is they've been on 7 for a very long time - one wonders if they're working on a pink dot somewhere.

In terms of international relations, they've had OB with mackoti basically since they've been available and are not spending EP on him at any sort of clip. Instead they've got their highest concentration on us. Its pretty clear they're trying to chum up to him to avoid the PBEM23 maneuvers. In fact, I might add that I think that was part of the motivation behind teaming up with him in PB7 - I've seen that sort of behavior before, not naming any names. They don't have to worry about Lewwyn due to distance, so we're the natural enemy in that case.

In terms of potential weaknesses, I think their biggest potential mistake was putting Colossus and Pyramids in the same city. I certainly have debated boating it, and I'd imagine others the same. I believe it was built in their Colony analogue, but I haven't actually seen the city yet. Its something to watch out for.

Allow me to use this for an aside - I think the non-Fin metagame has gone a bit too far. Since Fin is banned every game on any non noble-flat map, there are basically 3 ways to boost your early game economy: Pyramids, Great Lighthouse, Colossus (in that order for strength and ease of use.) Sure, all the normal stuff applies about limping to Currency and whatnot, but ultimately if you get shut out of those three, you're going to fall way behind. I think we really need to either start reintroducing Fin or banning Pyramids in these games.

Anyway, the game is there's to lose but not prohibitively. They sometimes try to get too cute and I think there's still a danger of that here. I also think mackoti is in it to win it, even if he told me a few days ago he wasn't thrilled that he signed up for this game (that was the extent of the diplo, rules hawks.) If there is some conflict they have to deal with, I think that bodes well for the rest of us. If they're allowed to tech in peace for a long time - well, gg.

I'll break the post here before moving on to the #2 team.

[Mardoc]

As far as settlers go, this really isn't the map for settler spam. Even IMP no7 haven't expanded any faster than us really. Only Lewwyn has gone spamming and as such, his economy has completely tanked. Its a toroid, so measured expansion with good worker support is the way to go.

I follow. There's a reason I figured Currency acquisition was a cue for a settler nag , when I hadn't done so for quite some time.

...incense...silk

And here's the reason I really want to see more settlers - so we can see more pictures of happy people . Although I suppose those aren't relevant this instant, either, since BtS calendar is a tech you're only nowish able to research.

[Gaspar]

Next up, mackoti:



err, mackoti!





Mackoti just settled his 7th city this turn, presumably for marble. He's also leveraged his Ind trait, grabbing a super-early Stonehenge and pipping us to GLH by 2 turns (basically his traits.) He was the second player to the Gold site and has done his usual mackoti game. Settling slowly but deliberately, using forests for wonders, etc. He dances to the beat of a drum unlike anyone else on the site. Its a shame he's not better reported, because I think he'd be great to learn from. When I've chatted with him about Civ its always been enlightening.

He does have some weaknesses though, and they're apparent again here. One is that he just always builds in the same sort of way. The other is that he's intensely cautious. I think he of all of us could afford to expand more aggressively. With GLH and being first to Currency, he's getting 4 TRs in all his coastal cities and as such, can really fund the heck out of his expansion. He should therefore be grabbing the land before the Imp players take all of it. Either that or trying to boat no7's Pyramids/Colossus city.

Anyway, I expected the game at the beginning to come down to these two and I see little reason to change my mind here. The one caveat is mackoti is the next most likely target of Persian aggression and if there's one thing we should all know - Lewwyn cannot sit still in a game where he can go to war. I think future Perso-Sumerian conflicts are pretty much a given. Remains to be seen if that gives the game to no7, since we also know mackoti likes to hold a grudge.

I also think he's our main competitor for MoM and we should maybe think about shuffling priorities to land it. But I'll discuss that when I discuss us.

[Ilios]

One is that he just always builds in the same sort of way.

Care to elaborate?

[Gaspar]

Next up, Lewwyn:



Lewwyn has been, well, Lewwyn. He's actually even more one-note than mackoti. He dislikes wonders. He loves to spam settlers. He likes to agitate his opponents. He's done all those things this game. Unfortunately, his #1 weakness - inability to read the picture has hurt him here (and hurt us as well.)

His attempted warrior choke forced us to divert beakers to Archery and give up Mids. We would have landed it given we knew the target time (due to how long a Phi GEng pop takes, we had it aimed to land the turn before no7 GE rushed it.) By doing so, he strengthened the team that absolutely didn't need strengthening. Even mackoti would have been a better target - ultimately, on a meta-level it made most sense for both of us to lay back against each other and try and bash the "marquee" players a bit.

He's been the most aggressive settler, he's on 9 cities, 2 more than anyone else for quite some time. And as such, he tanked his economy. We saw him get Silver up before Deer because he needed the commerce yield. He's been lagging in GNP before we have, and as best as I can tell, still is. And he's still building units - he just passed us in Soldier points this turn.

Like us, he's wardec'd everyone so far. Though his wardec's have had greater intent. He's about even on everyone on EP. We're his only OB agreement. Ultimately, I think he's pretty much Kim Lewwyn Il, a rogue leader nobody likes who keeps his people backward.

Still, Lewwyn is a skilled micromanager and I have no doubt he'll rescue his economy eventually. My gut is he's going to turn his aggression towards mackoti, who has built little to no military so far. There's a decent chance that that bogs both players down a long time. That's actually a bad outcome for us, because we need everyone strong to keep no7 honest.

I still see little to show me he's anything but the last place finisher, even if he's currently first in score.