Alright, everything looks pretty good, actually. I might have personally sunk our economy more to build more units, but I think that the riskier play, to build the amount that you did and try to keep our economy rolling, is the correct one, since Serdoa has evidently played an amazing game. Shock and awe sounds like the correct strategy to me. Do we not have a galley nearby which we could use to drop off two, say cho-ku-nos, as the stack advances, since they could move two tiles at a time like that? I should have mentioned that earlier, sorry. Fine if not.
As for the FP, yeah, Gnocchi is a great place.
Sian is a juicy target. If we get successful gains from Yuri and a secure border, or just wipe his ability to fight back, we should be able to at least take soem stuff from Sian even with leftovers. A few supplements, maybe, and we might be able to war with him. Still, that is just a dream atm.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
RB is getting too good for me, either that or I'm getting worse at this thing every game. yuri managed to pull another 5 Impi and 2 LBows somewhere despite me having city visibility on him and no slavery. Needless to say, with no collateral I wasn't getting past that (8 Impi, 2 Lbows) with 11 Knights without some real luck. Probably should've put my CKN galleys on the other coast but that's hindsight for you.
Needless to say, we're done in this game unfortunately. Tis a bit sad, but that's how it goes with most games. Maybe I should've gone more hardcore on the Knights, but even then I doubt we would've gone much further. Probably waited too long to go after yuri, but where were we supposed to get the production to do that early on?
To be honest, the situation isn't quite as bad as I've made it out to be, but I've really lost interest in this game. We're pretty much 4th at worst and maybe even 3rd in terms of demographics, but yuri is too strong to reasonably invade and Sian just doesn't fit in with our empire nearly as well.
Hey, so I've been really busy this week, but I have a fair bit more free time this weekend (exactly how much depends on if I go to the Sox Parade on Saturday). How about I take a look at the game and we create a plan of action for the future? Would that rekindle your interest?
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
I'm happy for you to look over the game, and formulating a plan would certainly get me more motivated in this game again. Probably best if we talk it over together though. Bit silly of me not to think of another one before now.
I'm researching Banking atm, but since I've signed a couple more OB ever since the yuri incident so maybe merc might be useful (although, the trade is nice and since everyone has OB with almost everyone else, we'd pretty much be the only one's shafted). Now that I think about it, Astro isn't far off, and that's crucial for us. Might even make attacking Sian beyond our island viable.
Speaking of which, I haven't used SPI much at all. It gets better the later we are, but that needs to change. Temp caste/pacifism switching for gp's, temp nationhood switching for drafting and probably a couple of other things I'm forgetting too.
Okay, cool. I can't guarantee any specific times when I'll be online to chat, but presumably most of your Sunday.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Update: We decided that we're not easily cracking Yuri, so we're beelining astro after alpha and going to try to invade Sian to pull ourselves back into this.
Also, our non-power demos are pretty mediocre right now, but our power is good. We shoudl be able to make something of this.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Hey, sorry that I wasn't super, super involved the last few weeks. Still, it was a lot of fun playing with you, and I wouldn't mind doing it again in the future.
I'm pretty happy with how we played, overall, especially our start, which honestly placed us in first for a fair few turns. I should have been more aggressive settling towards Yuris, for sure, and there was a small period of time where I halted horizontal expansion in favor of vertical expansion, and I timed it very poorly because of Yuris Actually, Yuris played a very good game. I'm not 100% sure what happened with the attack, to tell the truth, but after looking it over, it appears to me that we just didn't commit enough production and food to back up our tech investment. We weren't in a great position, though. Anyway, since we were kind of isolated for a lot of the game, that's my quick and dirty examination of the game.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
(November 9th, 2013, 23:55)Merovech Wrote: Hey, sorry that I wasn't super, super involved the last few weeks. Still, it was a lot of fun playing with you, and I wouldn't mind doing it again in the future.
I'm pretty happy with how we played, overall, especially our start, which honestly placed us in first for a fair few turns. I should have been more aggressive settling towards Yuris, for sure, and there was a small period of time where I halted horizontal expansion in favor of vertical expansion, and I timed it very poorly because of Yuris Actually, Yuris played a very good game. I'm not 100% sure what happened with the attack, to tell the truth, but after looking it over, it appears to me that we just didn't commit enough production and food to back up our tech investment. We weren't in a great position, though. Anyway, since we were kind of isolated for a lot of the game, that's my quick and dirty examination of the game.
Indeed, it was fun while it lasted. I'm not sure if I'll sign up for another game, but if I do I'd be happy to team with you again.
Haven't seen other starts yet, but it was rough expanding N through jungle and no MFG. Yuri did a pretty good job sealing us off from the N, and used his pick well (we were alright, but I haven't used SPI at all and EXP was slightly wasted since we built everything with food more or less). Being FIN Zulu, he did a great job recovering from his over expansion and stopped us before we made our move. Our scouting was, and still is, terrible which shouldn't really have happened.
