[SPOILERS] Dazed and scooter play Stalin of Vikings and make a big mess

[spacetyrantxenu]

1. Who is first to die?
2. Will you kill Brick/Mist as a training run before you go after more advanced foes?
3. Actually, what is going on with Brick and Mist, I haven't seen an update there in a while. Any news?
4. Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck? (link - about 1/3 down the page)
5. If you answer #4 seriously, I guess that would be a choice between fighting multiple also-rans simultaneously or fighting one of the contenders.
6. What is your end game at this point -- war until your enemies surrender or do you think you can make a space ship fly with only Replaceable Parts?

[Old Harry]

I'm not sure what format to take though, as I'm not used to playing in a game with so many players. Any requests on format and/or any particular information you'd like?

Similar to xenu:
1. Do you skip mist/brick and attack one of the contenders first?
2. Which one?
3. Why?
4. Where do you need to hit them to deal enough damage to make it worth it?
5. How long will you have the advantage on rifles for? If someone else researches them will they trade around or join you in an orgy of destruction?

[scooter]

Great questions all over. I was out a little late last night so I didn't get a chance to work on this, but the plan is to do it tonight and I'll answer all questions regardless of if it's about this game or ducks and horses . I just need to wait because I'd like to use pictures in game to answer a lot of it.

[scooter]

While you wait for answers and all that, here's a dump of various things that happened in the last couple turns:



Took no chances here.



Gotta get it from somewhere. Maybe he'll forget to cancel after 10T.



This one hurt my soul as a ridiculous price, but what can you do? This is why I'm not really interested in teching right now.



Hopefully this will make Commodore less mad after the Gunpowder event. A Gunpowder for PP trade is ridiculously lopsided even when you take interest on the Gunpowder advance into account, but this should put us back on friendly terms. There's actually no reason to pay this kind of cost because I didn't need Gunpowder prior to now, and I could have gotten it at a drastic discount had I waited until I needed it. So yes, Commodore got basically a gift here. NOW BE GRATEFUL.

[NobleHelium]

1. Who is first to die?

Pretty sure the answer to this starts with a p and ends with an o.

[scooter]

Pretty sure the answer to this starts with a p and ends with an o.

Dangit NobleHelium you stole the joke I had planned.

Working on the big update. I did some of it earlier, but I'm watching the Giants/Cowboys game (YES FOOTBALL IS BACK YES) so it may delay this further. We'll see. Should still be able to finish it tonight.

[scooter]

T202 extravaganza - Part 1

Ok. This is going to be the bulk of the extravaganza. I'm going to answer all the questions, some of them in far more detail than you wanted, and then weave in strategic plans for me. Once this is done I'll post it, then I'll write up a post analyzing all opponents and their first 200 turns and what role they have remaining in this game. Sound good? Here goes.

Alright, from the top:

Where do you see hot spots and conflict zones between the teams.

Let's talk about the key fronts that exist between my rivals first. Krill is the major wildcard here because out of the 5 fronts I want to highlight here, 3 of them involve Krill, and that A) doesn't include my front with him and B) one of the other two is of fairly minimal significance compared to the rest and arguably could have been ommitted. So here we go. I'm going to rank these from most potentially impactful to least impactful:



This border has existed and existed peacefully for quite a long time, however given Regopin's rise to prominence, it now becomes far more weighty. Krill's biggest rival is no longer me, it's Regopin. And what do you know, right on his border he has their core cities ripe for the taking. There's only 6 cities here, but they're all strong cities, and given that the bulk of Regopin's army is in Yuri-land right now, I fully expect Krill is at least entertaining the idea of romping over these cities. If he takes these, he really only needs to worry about myself and Nakor, which is a much easier world for him since we're both on his East side. Taking me is a nightmare with my tech and naval mobility edge. Taking Nakor is probably the easiest task, but also a pain because it leaves him with 2 powers on either side of him still which isn't a huge improvement. Therefore, Regopin is surely the juicest target for him, and it's the one I'd expect to be most likely at this stage. If you guys want some truly exciting fireworks, this is your best bet. I suspect Regopin right now is most vulnerable now while they focus on wiping out Yuri, so Krill has a bit of a window here to strike. In contrast though, he also has a window in which he's safe for awhile from this front (for the same reason, so let's look at his other two options in order of likelihood.



If Krill chooses to play conservatively, he'll set his sights on finishing the job down here. It would be fascinating to see if Azza could put up a better fight than Yuri despite being in a considerably worse position. Krill could swipe 8 cities from this region. The upside is this is probably not a terribly difficult conquest, but the downside is it does nothing really to harm anyone who has a shot at beating him, it just secures more land for him. This might actually be a bit more likely than Krill vs Regopin because Krill may view his position as one where he still doesn't want to be taking risks. Azza does have Gunpowder though, so that's a marginal improvement over longbows. Finally, here's Krill's other front:



The major upside on this front is Nakor's cities are better developed than any of the neighbors by a wide margin. This would mean any cities Krill took from Nakor would contribute very quickly - Nakor has massive well-cottaged cities with good infrastructure. One thing that's interesting to me here is the dynamics of AI diplo. You can get away with so much more diplomatically in AI diplo which is just fascinating to me. What do all 3 of these fronts have in common? The answer is that Krill has declared war, captured cities, and poached significant land on all 3 fronts. Yet, all 3 players seems to have very little interest in getting revenge against Krill. Don't tell me that would happen in a diplo game where nasty words would get slung back and forth . This is why I've really come to love AI diplo. It reduces the human reactions/feelings element a little bit and results in more rational decisions. Unfortunately that's to Krill's benefit here, but overall it's a good dynamic. Anyways, the main downside for Krill going after Nakor here is that he can't really reach the island cities, so he's always going to have the threat of Nakor coming back at him, and he'll be dealing with two unfriendly navies (myself and Nakor) and I'm not sure he's adequately prepared for such a thing. It would also weaken Nakor so as to let me swoop in and take freebie island cities if I chose to do so. So while I think Nakor is the most attractive target for him land-wise, I think this conflict is the least likely to happen because there's just too much risk. Again, I see Krill playing things out pretty conservatively right now while waiting for the dust to settle. The final front between two opponents that's worth mentioning is the Cyneheard/Commodore neverending war:



Seriously, Cyneheard is still alive? I think I'll never understand what happened to Cyneheard in this game - both in him always being behind and with him still being alive this far into the game. Hopefully I'll be enlightened afterwards. I suspect Commodore will regret coming after Cyneheard instead of Yuris where Yuri's land is much better and he seems generally less interested in defending it. I highlight this only because I think this dynamic will get awkward once Yuris is gone (SOON). Regopin will surely look at their still-giant standing army and want to get some more mileage out of it before everyone is toting Rifles. That probably means coming after these guys. Honestly, who is going to stop them from just having that entire continent? No idea. It seems likely to be all theirs if they push hard enough. That's a scary thought.

Where do you see soft spots of your opponents.

I swear this will be a shorter answer . I'm going to lump this in with this question:

3. Actually, what is going on with Brick and Mist, I haven't seen an update there in a while. Any news?

Let's talk about my neighbors. First, here's Mist's land:



I do see a city on the diplo screen that I don't see here, so I'm assuming that's at the pigs. I'd say Mist's land in general is a soft spot because his units are just so outdated. 22 turns ago I had brief visibility on his cities and these were what were in them:

Basically, Vultures. Not really something that terrifies Rifles. His power graph is pretty flat since then, maybe he's added 1-2 longbows. As best I can tell he's just relaxing and building things. On the other side, Nakor is even softer. Nearly all his island cities are defended like this:





Not too intimidating ya know? So really, both my neighbors have glaring soft spots.

1. Who is first to die?

Well the next dead is assuredly Yuris. He's just, yeah, getting whomped. Now that he's losing his island holdings:



Let's just say the end is nigh. After that it's a tossup between Azza and Mist. I think it's more likely they're both dead in 30T than it is they're both alive, for whatever that's worth.

2. Will you kill Brick/Mist as a training run before you go after more advanced foes?

Yeah I think so. I don't want to go aiming at Nakor or something and have Mist do something opportunistic down near me. If I do it right it should be pretty quick. We'll see. I've been building a few more galleys and prepping them so that I'll have my naval strike forces ready to roll.

4. Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck? (link - about 1/3 down the page)

1 horse sized duck, no question. Clubbing 100 duck-sized horses would be A) exhausting and B) would just feel wrong. I imagine duck-sized horses to basically be, well, puppies. And I like puppies. I just can't imagine being forced to take a blunt instrument and go to town on 100 puppies, so no thanks. In contrast, the horse-sized duck would be kind of awesome. I would feel like I was fighting a boss in a video game or something. A horse-sized duck basically sounds like a boss in Ocarina of Time, and that would be awesome. I'd use a hookshot and get mad at Navi for not shutting up and everything. I'll make some cool potions too. You know, let's just move on to the next question.

5. If you answer #4 seriously, I guess that would be a choice between fighting multiple also-rans simultaneously or fighting one of the contenders.

Er I guess we're not moving on just yet. But ok, let's hash this out too. Sort of, but unfortunately the analogy breaks down a little bit. There's a difference between 100 duck-sized horses and 2 duck-sized players (Mist, Nakor). Also, the one horse-sized duck (Krill) is a Galleon away and not a galley away. I just cannot take the fight to him until Astronomy, it just isn't possible. I'll get Astronomy after Rifling I believe, but it's still an even longer wait, not to mention that requires burning through gold I want to use on upgrades. Mist would probably be dead before it'd even be possible to take the fight to Krill. That's the main issue really - I have to travel so far via galley because the water to my west is just barely too wide for galleys.

6. What is your end game at this point -- war until your enemies surrender or do you think you can make a space ship fly with only Replaceable Parts?

Honestly, I don't know. Here's the thing - I just don't see how I can win this. This is going to devolve into world war because the tech pace will grind to a crawl (because who wants to sacrifice for a tech lead only to be forced to sell at 10cents/dollar) while the haves will keep pumping military to roll over the have-nots. This means I think we'll see a world where Rego owns the bulk of the west continent and Krill owns the bulk of the east continent and I own the islands. Yeah, I'm NOT winning that space race, sorry. How can I? I could workshop over stuff but I'm not going to be able to keep up with the insane amount of land they all have. Let me walk through some examples of why I just can't win this game. First, Krill's land:



Take a good look at how much land that is, and then you can take into consideration the 3 fronts I discussed to see where he can easily expand that amount of land. Now, compare that to my sad little Australian Empire:



How can I actually win with that? That's a fraction of Krill's land. Sure, I can theoretically take all this stuff:



But... that's just not going to cut it. Another example is the kind of stuff Regopin are able to do with their land. RB Mod is a workshop heaven, and:







Look at all the pure production. He can probably get more workshops than I have land tiles without much effort. I can't keep up with that. Commerce is not really in demand given the settings, hammers are, and hammers are something that's extremely scarce for me compared to those two guys.

However, defeatism aside, I know mostly how I'm going to advance with this. I'm going to try to play the settings as best as possible. I believe that means shutting off tech until people pass me in tech (that'll be awhile) and then I can turn it back on and tech at discounted rates OR try to buy it at a discount. If we're going to play crazy settings, might as well maximize it right? It might even be better to just spend commerce on EPs and steal the dang techs. And given that it'll be awhile before people get ahead of me in tech, I'm going to have a crapton of gold. That's the goal anyways. So I guess it's sort of take it as I go. I'll try to conquer all the islands and see where the leaves me. I'm mostly just looking to have fun here. My best bet lies in a long Regopin/Krill war, which is not impossible at all.

(Another factor that screws me is the stupid "OMG he is tech leader, no trade with him!!!" holdover from the traditional game. However, this is not a traditional game. A tech lead to me is safe because of my lack of land, whereas a tech lead for a powerhouse like Krill is lights out. Given that I've had tech for gold trades rejected by people for me and then that person turns around and buys the tech from someone else - I'm obviously getting locked out by the Tech Leader Syndrome. Again, checked-out players aren't thinking about the metagame here which makes things harder for me.)

Similar to xenu:
1. Do you skip mist/brick and attack one of the contenders first?
2. Which one?
3. Why?
4. Where do you need to hit them to deal enough damage to make it worth it?

I'll take these all together because the answer here is pretty simple. I can't really attack one of the contenders first. Well ok, I could attack Nakor first, but I don't really consider him to be a contender. He's unwilling to take his one shot at victory (going after Krill). He seems to be in coasting mode - just quietly tech and not really build military or have specific goals in mind. Remember way back when I was panicking about him teching Nationalism to GE rush the Taj and I beat him by luckily generating a GE of my own? Well to my surprise, he actually wasn't teching Nationalism!! He was just slow-teching Education (he got it not long after I got Taj so he had to have been teching that), which is just not a good decision for anyone paying attention to the global situation. So I consider the contenders to be Regopin and Krill, and I'm definitely not able to attack either of them first.

5. How long will you have the advantage on rifles for? If someone else researches them will they trade around or join you in an orgy of destruction?

Hard to say honestly. I'm not going to trade RP or Rifling, and I don't think anyone can even sniff my tech rate right now. So maybe 15 turns? 20 turns? 30? I have no clue really. The game is blown wide open by tech trading really. So I'm not sure how to predict this. I suspect other people won't be so land-desperate as me (and not as easily able to upgrade to Rifles as me), therefore will be more interested in getting a return for it than flexing their muscles and gunning for somebody. Could be wrong, that's just my sense on it.

Ok, I'm going to go ahead and post this now. This is the bulk of the strategy post. The second half will ideally go up before the night is over and will focus on all my opponents. If you have more questions or follow-up questions (or disagreements!) on something I said, go for it and I'll talk more about it. This is by far one of the most fun games I've ever played, so I'm trying to enjoy it while it's still around . Hope this was a worthwhile read, tried to mix in pictures as much as I could to avoid Wall Of Text Syndrome.

[scooter]

FYI - the second half will have to go up tomorrow. Commodore's fault.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Thanks for the answers and for even attempting to answer the question about the duck-horse. Obviously you answered that one incorrectly, it would be infinitely more fun to smash duck sized horses. It's like playing any Dynasty Warriors game, just keep pressing X until they're all gone. As for the endgame question, cheer up, with Rifling in hand before anyone else you should have a bloody good time wherever you choose to send your rifles. We await the impending crushing of your enemies, driving them before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women.

@ NH, perhaps I phrased the question poorly, I wasn't asleep when Plako exited stage left. I intended to ask who Scooter planned to kill first but I'm satisfied that the answer is probably Mist first and then anyone who has had the misfortune to settle on an island.

[scooter]

Thanks for the answers and for even attempting to answer the question about the duck-horse. Obviously you answered that one incorrectly, it would be infinitely more fun to smash duck sized horses. It's like playing any Dynasty Warriors game, just keep pressing X until they're all gone.

Ok I really thought there'd be no way to change my mind until you made the Dynasty Warriors reference. Hrm. I still like my answer but this is persuading. I think we're going to need to put this to a vote. Lurkers?

As for the endgame question, cheer up, with Rifling in hand before anyone else you should have a bloody good time wherever you choose to send your rifles. We await the impending crushing of your enemies, driving them before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women.

I'm actually not too bummed at all. Nearly all game I have not viewed winning as a reasonably reachable goal. This was practically impossible when I spawned on an island in the middle of an ocean with no happy sources even remotely possible to conquer. That's basically unwinnable IMO. If Krill and I swapped positions before the game, I don't think I would have done as well as Krill has, but I don't think he could win from this position either. My goal has pretty much always been to just play it out as best as I could and get myself into a competitive late-game position. That's the thing with playing a non-balanced random map game like this - not everyone is really dealt a game-winning hand. Can you win this game from Brick or Commodore's position? I kind of doubt it. I've had a blast this game, but it's required setting aside grand notions of victory. I've tried to play like I'm going for victory, but if I end this game by owning all the Pacific islands and maintaining total naval dominance, that's a win for me. I can probably do more than that, but I'm just making the point that I'm not too bummed that my chances of winning are incredibly small. I pretty much knew that already . In a NTT game I'd have a very real shot at winning, but this is different. Brokering just enhances the problem, but even banning brokering doesn't solve my issue.