[SPOILERS] Serdoa, Ichabod and Ex-Girlfriends - co-starring NH,Bigger and Lewwyn

[Ichabod]

Post your sandbox Serdoa? It's been a while since I've done any real sandboxing.

Serdoa uses an excel spreadsheet. I made a crude Sandbox, probably with problems, but here it is, if it can help you (need to update with new info).

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2124...dSwordSave

[Lewwyn]

Settle on PH, get a settler, settle on the stone, steal henge? Can we save the forest in the grass hill that the stonecity will share with the cap for henge? You said you simmed using 5 forests, can we do 4?

The fish isn't orphaned at least because you can settle on the tundra south and get it.

[Lewwyn]

Does this mean pyramids are on the table? I mean... Stone right there. I feel like that makes it almost too powerful to pass up.

Also capital name? Should we list Ex-Girlfriends for future use in naming scheme?

[NobleHelium]

I'm not sure our names should be on the thread title - it looks like we're newbie bashing now.

[Commodore]

I read it as implying that NH, Bigger, and Lewwyn are the ex-girlfriends.

[NobleHelium]

Well if you want to name a city after me I'm not going to object.

[retep]

I read it as implying that NH, Bigger, and Lewwyn are the ex-girlfriends.

I actually thought the exact same thing.

[NobleHelium]

Eh, played around a bit and decided that it's pretty hard to decide how to build Stonehenge when there isn't any food within range of the stone (if we settle on it) right now. I'll leave that to Serdoa.

So anyway, here's the first edition of NobleHelium's strongly opinionated and short player previews! This shall be listed in ascending order of probability of victory.

10. BaII playing Zara Yaqob of the Ottomans
This is an okay pick with a good amount of water on the map, but maintenance costs won't be very high on Large/Cylindrical with Monarch. I would have picked Bismarck instead, as I don't like CRE that much except on cramped maps. Aqueducts are shitty buildings to build, but with the random map he may not have many luxuries, so an extra +2 has much better potential to be useful than the typical high-happy Commodore map. However based upon his posts so far in PB11 I find it very unlikely that he will be a breakout green player.

9. Jowy and Qgqqqqq playing Mansa Musa of Babylon
Ah, Jowy. Jowy who was stomped in PB2 and hasn't learned much since, while the rest of the site has advanced immensely in skill. He lacks knowledge of fairly basic game mechanics and doesn't really listen to people. Qgqqqqq also doesn't listen to people, mostly because he doesn't read what they say most of the time. He's also wrong about game mechanics roughly 80% of the time. So yeah, I thusly assess them as #9. FIN is easy to use, but SPI is not. I do like Mansa more than some other people, but I think Huayna Capac or Darius would have been a better first pick. There was no reason to pick Babylon over France, bowmen are terrible. We'll see how much mileage they get out of FIN.

8. Nakor and CFCJesterFool playing Pericles of Egypt
Nakor's modus operandi is to spam cottages everywhere and hope everyone else ignores him. It works pretty well for most of the game but inevitably someone else comes and punches him in the face, at which point he either dies or goes back to spamming cottages until the game is called in favor of someone else. Jester is a Deity and is very good at abusing AI, and has a good grasp of the game as it pertains to that, but not much else. With a Pericles pick (which I wouldn't mind playing sometime), I expect early scientists and lots of bulbs. But they can't trade them away, so their performance will largely depend on who they spawn next to. If they spawn next to some newbies that Jester can attack, then they may do well. I'll take the low end bet however.

7. Gavagai playing Elizabeth of England
Completely unknown entity, so I've placed him above the proven failures and below the unproven potentials. I also like Elizabeth more than most people (not sure if she's better than Mansa, I haven't played either, and SPI is more effective on a high food map, whereas PHI is more effective on a low food map where it's harder to run specialists normally). England could be good depending on whether the techs are good. Stock exchanges are okay, redcoats are probably better in a larger game than usual. Most of the time in a smaller game they arrive when you're winning with rifles anyway or you're just using them to defend against infantry.

6. Kurumi playing Mehmed II of Mongolia
Another newbie, I've placed him this high because his posts in PB11 show promise. Mehmed is also a decent pick, better than Zara Yaqob. Mongolia is interesting of course, but I expect it to be a miss. But if the techs don't hurt him too much it shouldn't be too bad.

5. Sian playing Huayna Capac of Carthage
Sian is an interesting case. He's a bit like Nakor in that he focuses on his own stuff too much and doesn't pay attention to potential imminent attack, which has resulted in abysmal results in some games. I think he'll be better long term than Nakor if left alone however, so I've placed him up here. HC is a good pick, Carthage is meh but decent if he has a seafood start. He tends to build a lot of wonders so we'll have to see whether another round of IND causes him to overbuild or speeds up his wonder builds enough that he can improve the other aspects of his game.

4. Slowcheetah playing Suryavarman II of Mali
The guy with the stretched screenshots! Very annoying. He's doing very well in PB8 but hasn't done much outside of that, so this ranking has definite potential to be too high. I don't like Sury as much as some other people (except on cramped maps) because it lacks staying power, and early leads can attract undue envy. But he's never a terrible leader to take. Mali is almost always a good pick.

3. Dazedroyalty playing Victoria of the Zulu
Dazed, dazed. This also has potential to be way too high due to his erraticism. But I think he's smart enough to be a good player if he pays attention, and I like that potential more than anything else in the players below him. FIN is always good, but he can easily fall into the IMP trap here, made easier by a civilization without 2/3 of the prime techs. But he's still got Agriculture so that's not bad. I doubt he will get aggressive with impis.

2. WarriorKnight and Merovech playing Isabella of China
WK is pretty much the only player with good results, so he's here simply because of that. But I personally haven't seen that much of him since he doesn't post much and when he does he's playing a team game with oledavy and Shoot the Moon, and I've never really paid attention to how much influence each member of the team really has. Merovech seems quite intelligent but I've been very unimpressed with his posts in the ISDG which tend to be either just wrong or not paying attention, so I'm not sure what's up with him. He also seems to have tons of time to post but never any time to play, which is very odd as well. Isabella of China is a solid combo of course. But they will need to have good planning and flexible play to use the combo well.

1. Serdoa and Ichabod playing Darius of Sumeria
Yes, this team should be a big favorite in this game. Keep in mind though due to the sheer number of players the probability of victory is still not that large. Serdoa is easily the best player in the game when he's paying attention. I think the probability of his not-paying-attention has reduced recently although he is in a number of games. I will of course provide my standard snarky remarks, Ichabod will post Calvin and Hobbes comics, and hopefully the thread keeps being updated! Bigger will provide his Texan grins and Lewwyn will be angry that the Eagles are losing again. Darius is probably the best leader on the board, and Sumeria is definitely one of the best civs, so there you go.

[SevenSpirits]

So anyway, here's the first edition of NobleHelium's strongly opinionated and short player previews! This shall be listed in ascending order of probability of victory.

I am a fan.

[Serdoa]

So anyway, here's the first edition of NobleHelium's strongly opinionated and short player previews! This shall be listed in ascending order of probability of victory.

I am a fan.

+1