RB PBEM #1 - Gandhi [spoilers]

[Ruff_Hi]

seems everyone is recording here - I'll be back when the game gets back to me with some thoughts and screenshots.

I'm going to use this post as a table of contents.




Table of Content

• T50: 1000BC Summary
  
• T67
  
• The birth of DeTOG
  
• T79 Summary - Post 1
  
• T79 Summary - Post 2
  
• T97 - Passive Spying
  
• T97 - Defense against The Sooooo
  
• T97 - Active Spying
  
• T97 - Charts
  
• T140 - Cities
  
• T141 - Charts
  
• T143 - Sooooo declares War!
  Sooooo looses 2 cities but crushes my stack on the flat ... I turtle and try to rethink attack plans
  
• ... still thinking at T160
  
• T160 - Mini Overview #1 & #2.
  
• Sparta Campaign II (T186)
  • Pre Engagement Planning
    
  • Turn 1 - Sooooo
    
  • Turn 1 - Ruff
    
  • Turn 2 - Sooooo
    
  • Turn 2 - Ruff
    
  • Turn 3 - Sparta Falls
    
• Dissolution of DeTOG / Formation of GaPR
  

Link to thread that has links to EP articles.

[Ruff_Hi]

Well, the game is back to me ... so here is my starting position ...



As you can see, I've started to research hunting - heading towards animal husbandry. I also want to get a few scouts out to meet people and see if I can form some trading blocks.

I could have chased a religion, but with only 5 of us in the game, there is plenty of time to grab one.

Oh - Oasis map and I am right against the edge of the map - I only have to worry about a few directions re defense (which is good).

[Ruff_Hi]

wait a minute - is that river to the South of my capital running East to the open water and West into the peaks?

[Sullla]

I don't know - are you complaining about having some river tiles at your start?

[Ruff_Hi]

I don't know - are you complaining about having some river tiles at your start?

Not at all - just thinking that part of my reports will include some mapmaker complaints to continue the theme that was started at our demo game. I don't expect to get many chances so I have to take the really small ones that I do find .

Re the game - I think I made a mistake of not moving off my plains hill and settling on the spice. It would have given me a lot of water tiles (and made life a little difficult for mh with his in-game spying) but the trade off would have been more food and more hammers from my land tiles. As it is - this will get me an early boost with the worker out of the gates early.

[Fenton Denton Smith]

Re the game - I think I made a mistake of not moving off my plains hill and settling on the spice. It would have given me a lot of water tiles (and made life a little difficult for mh with his in-game spying) but the trade off would have been more food and more hammers from my land tiles. As it is - this will get me an early boost with the worker out of the gates early.

Did you mean incense?

[Ruff_Hi]

Did you mean incense?

Probably - I always mix up the names and graphics. The tile 1 NW of my current capital.

[Fenton Denton Smith]

Scratch this post - siad something obvious...

[Ruff_Hi]

here is the latest ... (worker in 2, animal husbandry in 4) - worker will mine and then pasture the cows ... after worker - a squad of scouts while my capital grows ...



I've marked in yellow my alternate capital - lots more water with no water resource, probably equal number of hills but it also opens up other options for city sites. From what I have seen of the map (lots of peaks), I don't think this will be a game for getting all of your city sites sitting nice and flush. Also, I expect I will find some choke points caused by the peaks. This is both good and bad ... good that it will reduce the ways for people to attack me, bad in that my scouting units could find dead ends (and thus waste turns), also bad in that there will be limited ways for me to launch an attack.

Re Gandhi, he has 2 major strengths that I will need to exploit:

• fast worker - I must stand my cities up double quick time and not waste the advantage that I have. Others can match me but they will have to invest hammers in more workers
  
• spiritual - most people wouldn't see this as much of an advantage, but I have played a significant number of PBEM games and not having to waste turns in anarchy is pretty good - you don't know how off putting it is to have to spend a whole day(!) in anarchy - it really puts you off swapping
  
• philosophical - I did say '2' above, and I view this as a strength, but not a major one. I will need to leverage this during the game - quick acadamy, early great spy
  

General Game Plan

• get capital up and running quickly
  
• land The Great Wall (much prefer this over pyramids - I hope everyone else will be heading for that)
  
• get some early Great Spies and steal stuff - I am planning on grabbing a large number of early techs this way - hopefully from the same opponent so that I will not piss everyone off
  

Meta-game

• sooooo - I view him as my major opponent - not because everyone else sucks, but because I know sooooo is a good player. Ideally, he will be moderately spaced from me - close enough so that I can steal a lot of techs from him but far enough away that he isn't a major military threat
  
• athlete4life10 - no idea how good a player he(?) is - will have to wait and see
  
• Dreylin - pretty respectable player (I think)
  
• mostly_harmless - no doubt he already knows more about my civ that I do with all of his passive spying
  

I hope that Dreylin and mostly_harmless are on the other side of the map from me. If we can form a 3-way trading block then we can freeze sooooo and athlete4life10 out of the game. It is way to early to contact them about this as they could be right next door (and I don't want to give them ideas).

[Sullla]

Great Spy economy against human players? I look forward to watching that in action... especially the fallout if/when one of the spies gets caught.