[SPOILERS] Pindicator plays PBEM62 (not to be confused with Twitch Plays Civ)

[Gaspar]

A Dedlurker's Guide to PBEM62 Opponents

Public Enemy #3 - DazedRoyalty



Playing as...

Frederick of Egypt (Philosophical, Organized, Agriculture, The Wheel, War Chariot, Obelisk)




What, you were expecting an obelisk?

Known Knowns:
I feel like I know Dazed as a player pretty well and yet when I stop and think about it, I don't know that I've really ever lurked one of his games - that's mostly because he doesn't report well - but most of my memories of Dazed's games are from other people's threads - PBEM7, His duel series with scooter, the first RB mod game, that game with Seven on the waterways map - and also long ago. What I remember is that he's a competent player who doesn't pay enough attention to be anything more than that. He's not particularly predisposed to anything, specifically that I can recall other than starting out okay and losing and not playing his turn fast.

Frederick of Egypt is an interesting choice. It was one of the typical picks - good trait + bad trait + very good civ. Org is probably very good rather than just good, but not on what we know of this map (fewer cities means fewer buildings for cheap, less water means the best of those buildings won't get built much, and the passive savings won't be as high on these settings.) Phi goes from awful to decent on smaller maps and there's certainly an expectation whenever you see Phi + Egypt that you'll see an early religion and early shrine. The downside is that all of the really good early game things here comes from the Civ. That prophet is possible because of the Obelisk; Ag/Wheel is 2nd best start tech bunch; War Chariots are really scary. Basically, for this to work Dazed has to have a shrined religion and have used his War Chariots to either gain land or, ideally, scare others away so he gets a better share without war. In a game that doesn't have two FIN leaders and Isabella, its a combination that can win. In this game, I don't buy it.

Known Unknowns:

A lot here for me but it really boils down to: has Dazed improved since the last time I paid attention? I don't think that's likely, since improvement is down to a combination of desire and time and I don't think he's got a lot of either. He's another likeable fellow following Ichabod though, so that's a good thing.

DazedRoyalty Profile

Peace Weight: 7/10
Unit probability: 5/10
Wonders: 5/10

Flavors: PYFT, Being a part of good games
D&D Alignment: Chaotic Good

Dazed'sYearbook

Final Fantasy Character:

I couldn't resist here.
Final Fantasy Tactics Job:

PYFT, seriously.
Twitch Emoticon:

Likeliness to Succeed:

Quality of Selection:

Exploitable Weakness: Gets bored, leaves civ to random newbie, take all their land.
Biggest Fear: Random newbie is the second coming of mackoti. (Yes, I just did repeat that for two players in a row.)
Pregame Prediction: 5th

[pindicator]

Time mage & PYFT
A+

What's this - we got a new turn? And it's not the 2nd version of the save but the first? Whatever, as long as it can be played by everyone

[pindicator]

Turn 001

I think I found where city #2 goes.



Now where does the scout go? I could see a case for 4 different routes.

Also, I gave us a password. Updated it in the first post

[Gaspar]

A Dedlurker's Guide to PBEM62 Opponents

Public Enemy #4 - TheHumanHydra



Playing as...

Victoria of China (Imperialistic, Financial, Agriculture, Mining, Cho-Ko-Nu, Pavillion)




I had a copy of the LRB that I used to randomly quote in college when it was a hipster-y thing to do. Hipsters are such douches, and I was definitely a douche. The capitalist running dog stuff is pretty funny, though.

Known Knowns:
So the sum total of my exposure to THH is the last 30 posts or so of the PBEM he played. He seemed to make a lot of the classic underachiever mistakes - primarily blaming everything on bad micro and missing the macro mistakes that really cost him the game. I recognize this tree, because I think I planted it. Anyway, he seems competent enough but I can't judge how much he's improved because its been a long time ago. I guess it put his comments about the quality of the field in this game in context - I certainly didn't perceive it as anything other than mostly competent and he looked at it as murderer's row. Sometimes, that can help you focus and improve your game. Other times it can depress you before a turn's been played and basically help you lose. We'll see.

Vicki of China is a fantastic choice, well worthy in a game that didn't have this picking method. Imperialistic is the best of the bottom tier traits, only good when paired with something else to do the heavy lifting. Financial - really good at doing the heavy lifting. Obviously the plan is get ahead on claiming land with fast settlers, pay for it all with the easiest trait in the game to play. Fall asleep, gain lots of commerce. Its slightly less OP on a map without water - turning coast into not bad tiles I think is often the best thing FIN does, but as it turns out, there aren't any actual drawbacks to getting a bunch of free commerce. I think China is the best overall Civ. It has unique, excellent start techs which require avoiding pitfalls to make the most of us, but still awesome. And the CKN is one of the 3-4 best UUs in the game. Certainly better than the Praetorian, no matter what conventional wisdom is. Because CKNs don't require screwing up your whole gameplan to use and they're good basically forever. You don't realise how good having Siege that doesn't count as Siege is until you play with it, trust me. Pavilions are less exciting but nobody's perfect. Anyway, don't get me wrong, I'd still rather have India's broken UU or Inca's broken UB but of the non-broken variety the clear best three in my mind are Egypt, France and China in some order. So to get a top-tier leader and a top-tier civ? I don't know what the lurkers who rolled these picks were smoking.

Known Unknowns:

It has been a while since THH has played, so it is entirely possible he's improved dramatically. Its also possible he intends to make up for perceived mistakes, so we could see a different game from him this time. He's definitely the biggest question mark in the field - most players improve dramatically from their first to their second game, I know I did.

The Human Hydra Profile

Peace Weight: 3/10
Unit probability: 8/10
Wonders: 5/10

Flavors: Cavalry, Self-doubt
D&D Alignment: Lawful Neutral

THH's Yearbook

Final Fantasy Character:

I couldn't resist here.
Final Fantasy Tactics Job:


Lots of predictions here. He really does remind me of a young me.
Twitch Emoticon:

Likeliness to Succeed:

Quality of Selection:

Exploitable Weakness: Doubts self, is paralyzed by indecision.
Biggest Fear: Doubts self, decides to prove himself vs us.
Pregame Prediction: 4th

[Gaspar]

Corn AND Pigs?

Gut feel on the scout is NE-N and then maybe do a circle, since we're meeting everyone fast this game anyway.

[pindicator]

Corn AND Pigs?

Gut feel on the scout is NE-N and then maybe do a circle, since we're meeting everyone fast this game anyway.

Yeah, I think it makes sense to explore out that spot and everything else in first ring of the capital. There aren't any huts so there's no pressing need to go out into the void. The one thing that we should be aware of is that there are barbarians, so we will want to stay on defensive terrain after turn 4 or 5 or whichever it is. So I can see a good argument for going NE-N and then circle around west to scope out the whole pig/corn area, and then continue going counter clockwise around the capital from there.

[DaveV]

Wow, that war chariot picture is wrong in so many ways. Put aside the obvious first impression that he's going to shoot one of his horses. How the heck do you draw an arrow *behind your neck*? And the bow string appears to pass in front of his chest, under his neckpiece, and behind his hat. So I guess the horses are in no real danger: he'll just get a bruise on the back of his neck and the arrow will flop to the ground. Or was this picture included strictly for meta purposes, recognizing the errors?

Edit: great job on the analyses, as usual. Although a little context for those oblivious to Final Fantasy would be helpful.

[pindicator]

Turn 002

Wow this map is green



We better not have any strategic resources or I'm not going to know what to complain about. Maybe barbarians will kill all my starting units again and save the day.

[NobleHelium]

Wow, that war chariot picture is wrong in so many ways. Put aside the obvious first impression that he's going to shoot one of his horses. How the heck do you draw an arrow *behind your neck*? And the bow string appears to pass in front of his chest, under his neckpiece, and behind his hat. So I guess the horses are in no real danger: he'll just get a bruise on the back of his neck and the arrow will flop to the ground. Or was this picture included strictly for meta purposes, recognizing the errors?

Edit: great job on the analyses, as usual. Although a little context for those oblivious to Final Fantasy would be helpful.

I don't know much about FF either, but you can figure out the characters by checking the file names. I also told Gaspar that half his gifs were incomprehensible.

We better not have any strategic resources or I'm not going to know what to complain about. Maybe barbarians will kill all my starting units again and save the day.

You complain about Commodore getting grass gems to your desert gold of course. Because gold is so good it needs to be nerfed to hell with desert.

[pindicator]

We better not have any strategic resources or I'm not going to know what to complain about. Maybe barbarians will kill all my starting units again and save the day.

You complain about Commodore getting grass gems to your desert gold of course. Because gold is so good it needs to be nerfed to hell with desert.

I remember that game! That was 45, right? Oh wow that was annoying. Good thing we won it anyway