[NO PLAYERS] Witnessing Democracy Inaction

[Sullla]

As another one of the few members here not on one of the teams, let me lay out some of my pre-game thoughts for the five teams. I'm going to go in snake pick order here.

Troll: Suryavarman (Cre/Exp) of India (Fast Worker, Mausoleum, Mining/Mysticism)



They had the first pick in the draft and went for the obvious play, taking India, which is the clear best civ in the game. They knew that they would get something good on the return pick for the leader, with only four other teams present, and ended up with Suryavarman. The combination of Cre/Exp is very strong indeed, and they have the potential to expand faster than anyone else. The downside is that they are the only team without Financial trait, a very serious disadvantage in this game. I'm still unsure whether or not it would have been better to bite the bullet and simply take a mid-tier Financial leader like Elizabeth or Darius to avoid that potential penalty. Don't get me wrong - I'm well aware of the strength of Suryavarman's traits. This team will have an explosive start. However, they're almost forced to build the Pyramids to be competitive in the long run, which is a significant handicap. What if they miss the wonder? Can they really sustain tech parity in the long run? I have no idea. Should be fun to watch.

This team has some very strong players. It also has a ton of spam posts clogging up their forum, unfortunately. I do wish that more people would avoid that, so that it wouldn't be so hard to find the genuinely useful information amongst reams of useless drivel. Still, I was impressed by the level of planning done by this group prior to making their picks. I think they are one of the favorites to win simply due to the quality of the player base.

Pirate: Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi) of Inca (Quechua, Terrace, Agriculture/Mysticism)



I didn't like what this team did with the snake pick at all. Given the second choice, they went ahead and picked Inca, which caused all manner of problems for this team. First of all, I honestly think Inca is somewhat overrated under these circumstances. Yes, the Terrace is amazing, but it causes problems when it comes to the leader pick. It makes it impossible to choose any kind of Creative civ, and unless your team has the luck to land Pacal (not going to happen here), you're stuck in the position of picking a sub-par Financial leader or trying to land some kind of weak Expansive civ. Inca by its very nature rules out Suryavarman (Cre/Exp), which is the best non-Financial leader in the game. In other words, picking Inca early on ties your hands on the reverse pick. We've seen this over and over again, and yet teams continue to do it.

Fortunately for this team, they didn't make the mistake of picking someone like Isabella or Mehmed, which I would have regarded as virtual suicide. They went with Mansa Musa instead, which was likely making the best of the situation. Still, that means no synergy between the civ and leader. They also failed to sim out the map in detail before picking, not realizing that Agriculture is actually a poor tech for this particular start. There's nothing there that requires farming; Hunting is actually a much better tech. Agriculture/Mysticism is quite possibly the worst pairing possible in this situation! Along with no early game traits to exploit, and no Fast Workers, this team is going to be off to a very slow start. They pretty much have to go Hunting -> AH, and then even after that they still need Mining -> BW to chop AND Wheel -> Pottery to build cottages. Ouch. Not a pretty picture.

This team also doesn't have the big "name" players, but I think their core roster proved themselves skilled in Pitboss #6, when playing against my team. However, due to their mistakes in the snake pick and their extremely slow start, I expect this team to be behind. I would not make them one of the favorites to win overall.

Gillette: Pacal (Fin/Exp) of Vikings (Berserker, Trading Post, Fishing/Hunting)



I was most impressed by what this team did. With the third pick in the draft, they were able to go ahead and pick the best leader in the game with Pacal. They have to have been pretty happy with that. Then they spent a lot of time and effort to come up with the highly unconventional pick of the Vikings on the reverse. I'll admit that I didn't understand that one either at first, until I read through their argument and was persuaded myself. On a map with water on it, the Vikings are a very strong pick. Their UU can be very dangerous in the middle game, and it synergizes extremely well with their UB. Getting three movement points on galleys is nothing less than amazing. It gives their civ a major leg up on the race for circumnavigation too, and if the Vikings manage to get that and land 4 move galleys and 6 move galleons... well, it's an uneven playing field, to say the least. The huge, crippling downside for the Vikings is their atrocious starting techs, with Hunting/Fishing being the two cheapest and usually worst starting techs in the game.

HOWEVER, this start is not like a typical one. Given the picture for the start ahead of time, this team correctly deduced that the Vikings would be viable for this particular location. Hunting is the key food tech for this start, not Agriculture. They can easily research AH out of the gate and be set on food. Of course, without Agriculture they are behind in the push to Pottery and cottages... except that no, they aren't, because Fishing is also an optional pre-requisite for Pottery! We so rarely see that used that we tend to forget about it, but Fishing will work equally well. Gillette is planning a fast rush to a second city working the fish resource, which makes a great deal of sense. They are also likely to be in the best position to land Great Lighthouse if they would want it.

Along with Troll, Gillette also has the best collection of players on their team. This was extremely obvious from the level of detail they put into their planning before making their picks. A lot of thought went into that Vikings pick. I was impressed at the attention to detail. I see them as one of the clear favorites to win, especially if they can leverage their naval advantages. Don't forget, they also have Pacal too!

Menagerie: Huayna Capal (Fin/Ind) of Khmer (War Elephant, Baray, Hunting/Mining)



In the least surprising pick of the whole draft, Parkin wanted Huayna Capac to build wonders more easily. I don't think that Industrious is particularly great as a trait, but sure, why not. It's not a bad choice here. Their team actually picked Khmer first, which is a significantly better choice, although not for the reasons they intended. They wanted Khmer for the ability to produce elephants, which is nice and all, but probably not terribly important in the end. I would be surprised if there was a lot of fighting early on in this game. More significant (and largely undiscussed in their forum) are the Khmer starting techs, which are perfect for this particular start. Hunting/Mining allows them to go AH -> BW, which is ideal for a civ that wants to connect both its food resources and then go after wonders with forest chops. They literally could not have done better for themselves, based on the style of game that they want to play. I'm amused that the team somewhat lucked into this while picking Khmer almost entirely for the elephants. Heh.

Where this team falters is in the player base. It's essentially Parkin and a group of less experienced players. I am on record as someone who is somewhat dubious as to Parkin's skill at this game, when not double-moving the crap out of people or somehow convincing everyone to sign 100 turn NAPs while he plays farmer's gambit for the whole game. The only other person making significant contributions in their forum is Mortius, who has some... interesting opinions, I'll leave it at that. This team also seems to think that they can easily build Stonehenge, Oracle, Colossus, and maybe the Pyramids too. Maybe they can, but it's going to be tough to do that and also tech and also expand. Some of their posters appear to be seriously underestimating the skill level of the other teams, all of which are very good themselves. I think this team will be rudely surprised at how fast some of the wonders will fall in this game. Needless to say, I do not expect this team to be one of the favorites.

TEAM: Willem (Fin/Cre) of Sumeria (Vulture, Ziggarut, Agriculture/Wheel)



They had the last pick in the draft and made some generally good decisions. Willem was the clear best leader available, and a no-brainer choice. I'm less impressed by the civ selection; I think that Sumeria is terrible, personally. Starting techs are nice, but everything else is inferior to other Agriculture/Wheel civs. The Vulture loses to non-UU axes in combat. I don't care if it's better against swords or horse archers or whatever, you're taking a civ where the UU is arguably worse than the unit it replaces! That's just silly. I have never liked the Ziggarut either. I don't think the map settings justify the interest in this UB at all. This game is on Prince difficulty / Normal size. Yes, it's Toroidal, but it doesn't make THAT much of a difference. There's no need to fetishize courthouses when nearly every civ in the game was available. I think that France or Egypt would have both been much stronger choices.

What's more, Agriculture isn't even that great of a tech for this starting position. Recall that everyone starts with a warrior and scout in this game, which greatly decreases the penalty for starting with Hunting tech. The key food tech for this start is actually Hunting, not Agriculture, for a change. Something like Hunting/Mining starting techs would be a lot more useful, to enable a AH -> BW start. I noticed that TEAM didn't really do much planning for the start before making their picks, and that was reflected in their choice.

TEAM has solid players, but a lot comes down to how seriously they take the game. Although their picks are pretty good, this is a game where everyone else has good picks as well. I expect them to do well, but not be the top team in the end. Hard to predict anything though in a game like this.

Overall then. Most impressed so far with Gillette, followed by Troll. TEAM in the middle, and least impressed with Pirate and Menagerie. I doubt that will hold up for long once they start playing, but that's what I take from the setup phase.

[timski]

I also suspected Menagerie's Khmer pick was primarily for the techs. The best evidence for that is simply that Khmer was picked before Huayna Capac, even though Capac appears to be far more core to Menagerie's (that is, Parkin's) long-term strategy than Elephants. But as you note, very little of the discussion focused on the tech aspect.

Unfortunately Menagerie's discussions are hard to read because they are heavily influenced by what Parkin has already decided to do in private. In this case Parkin's opening post lists civs with "animal UU's, which would go well with our team theme", the first of which is Khmer. Yet Parkin is one of the most power-gamerish players here, most unlikely to make a key decision based on roleplay. So that opening animal UU list is akin to subliminal advertising, and evidently works... Although one might ponder what role the rest of the team is playing.

Parkin is, as ever, one to watch for the way in which they don't play the game: The illogical, human stuff that routinely offsets any deficit in technical gameplay skill.

[Partisan]

I too noticed team Menagerie is somewhat less open than the other teams despite having a full private subforum for themselves. Oh well.

Good post, Sullla. I personally enjoyed team gillette's discussion regarding the Vikings. Always a fun civilization to play and watch. I look forward to what they do with them. Maybe they'll end up being antagonized diplomatically because of this. We'll see.

[timski]

Have we started the MM work at all, or even really discussing where to settle?

The first turn seems to have taken Team Pirate completely by surprise. Fish? Deer? No idea. Follow Xanes' "build a Quechua army while waiting for techs" sandbox, or Luddite's "plains hills are always good" gut feeling? Or not. I paraphrase, but strategic disarray abounds, both in game and out.

Added:

I wonder if Team Pirate will settle the Fish? Their Warrior move revealed a second area of coast, which should evoke the Lewwyn-ism, "Fucking Commodore and his fucking water." Pirate have no relevant tech and no plan, which right now equates to absolute flexibility. We've seen the allure of water in the past - notably in Pitboss 4, where Sunrise et al decided to move off a perfectly strong inland start position to secure The Great Lighthouse in their capital, in the mistaken belief that the map contained somewhat more water than it did.

[Commodore]

They wouldn't do poorly with a water start, actually. Probably still not the best, but solid. Pirate is sadly a bunch of nice, smart guys who all play very loose games unless they have a particular goal. A good captain move would be "okay, I want X and Y, how quickly can we get it?" and let the amazing micromanagers have at it. Unfortunately, Dave doesn't really engage that way himself without a good scheme or a good war visible.

[timski]

The starts aren't perfectly mirrored, but the comparison is still interesting:

• TEAM settled T0, riverside plains, with Sheep, Deer, Sugar and Spice. Teched Hunting. Built Worker.
  
• Menagerie-trois settled T1, riverside plains hill, with Deer, Sheep, Floodplains and Wines. Teched Animal Husbandry. Built Worker.
  
• Gillette settled T0, riverside plains, with Pig, Deer and Floodplains. Tech unconfirmed, presumed Animal Husbandry. Built Worker.
  
• Pirate settled T0, riverside plains hill, with Cow, Floodplains and Spice. Tech and build unknown, possibly Animal Husbandry and Settler.
  
• Troll settled T0, riverside plains, with Pig, Corn, Floodplains and Wine. Tech unknown. Built Fast Worker.

Pirate have one less food resource at their capital than everyone else, having swapped 2 extra food/hammer later, for 1 free hammer now. Pirate were also musing a Settler-first opening. Unconventional, but perhaps pragmatic given their lack of Worker techs.

Menagerie secured 2 food resources and an extra plains hill hammer under their capital, at the cost of just 1 turn's movement. That option only appears to have been available to Menagerie, at least prior to scouting. Since Menagerie also have the best starting techs, they should be off to a fast start.

The other 3 teams opted for the obvious sideways move onto the riverside plains, before opening with a Worker.

[timski]

So, I think I've scolded (pindicator's word) Team Pirate enough for one day... and at least they're in the committee stage of exploration planning now, so might manage to move their 2 units a mere 20 hours after the last team played.

But for the record, comparison of pre and post-restart screenshots suggests that turn 0 wasn't replayed accurately - note the position of the Scout. Probably just a mistake, and I doubt anyone has any desire for another delay, but there it is.

[Sullla]

Pirates have indeed screwed this up badly. I couldn't believe where they settled:



They are the only team with a single food resource in the capital, and what's worse, it's only a 4 food resource too! Everyone else will have capitals that can run +8 to +10 food per turn. Pirates can't do better than +5 (with the floodplains). That's a huge disadvantage. When you remember how they also don't have any fast-starting traits (no Creative, Expansive, or Fast Workers), it starts to look even worse. Nothing is over this early in the game, but wow have they ever created a major hole to climb out of.

It's extremely obvious that Pirate didn't have the same level of planning as the other teams. No one took the time to simulate out the start (which would have revealed that moving to pick up the deer was far superior to founding in place). They founded the capital based on a gut feeling that it was a good spot. They don't have a clear person in charge of playing the turns, which is why everyone else played in 1 hour while they took 15 hours. timski is right to be critical - they've managed to make major errors in the span of the first turn.

What were they doing in their forum the last two weeks?

[NobleHelium]

timski is right to be critical, but I don't think that post should have been posted in their forum. I would have posted it here.

[timski]

What were they doing in their forum the last two weeks?

IMHO Team Pirate need some sort of aim or direction, just enough to cause the players there to wake up and realise they've got decisions to make, that the game has actually started, and isn't going to play itself. Give Pindicator a specific wonder to micro or Shoot the Moon a war to fight, and they have no problems at all. Perhaps lurkers throwing volleys in from the sidelines isn't the best approach, but I did at least get them grumbling in unison...

Still, hard to tell whether they've grasped the basic point: That the complaint about pace isn't really a complaint about pace, but a complaint about the absence of teamwork, organisation, or just about any other management strategy one might wish to deploy. This is the defacto reason why they didn't use the 3 days between turns 0 and 1 to discuss turn 1's moves; why nobody on the team seemed to want to even acknowledge that turn 1 was waiting to be played; and why as I type there's still a pause for opinion gathering over what should be a relatively trivial decision on scouting.

Hopefully Pirate will get it together, and won't simply become an easy first victim for one of their opponents. Although perhaps someone rushing them is precisely what they need to get into the game...

(NobleHelium - Retrospectively agreed.)