I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say after diving in to all the threads, but I figured I'd post this here before I get biased by that.
First of all, Xenu, I appreciate the map. You gave us what was requested and it looked quite good. I'm sure you've gotten gross tons of crap dumped on you, but this was professionally done within the constraints. These super-buffed capitals were just insane, lot of fun there.
As for the map parameters...er, oops. 200 tiles per player on a normal script would be one thing. On the crazy-lush uber-viable FoR lakes setting? With one player getting the early bum's rush? Yikes, is all I can say. And again, um...oops.
Pin, I haven't read your thread yet for the complete story, but an impi rush at that stage in the game is pretty hard to stop, plus apparently you managed middle position. Ow. Nothing to say really, beyond maybe you should just ban Zulu in your games?
I got kind of testy in the end there Ox, but I guess your piling everything on the side I had territorial ambitions wasn't personal, you just seemed to have time issues all over.
You played an impressive early game, and I've got to say your naming scheme delighted my heart every time I saw it. Sorry you lost interest/time/commitment.
I don't think anyone could say you died poorly, Dtay. Honestly, dogpiling you isn't my preference every game.
I think I get where your game went...I felt behind on the expansion curve too. Pink dotting me and then not having much of a culture or road backline would probably be counted a mistake no matter what, but getting the dog pile hurts no matter what. We didn't get anything cheap and I don't think anyone will consider you an easy mark, ever. Good game, worthy adversary! Next time, split a border with me evenly and we can split someone else together. 
One hell of a tight contest was shaping up for silver medal...
Gaspar, we didn't have a ton of interaction, but you were a decent neighbor and seemed to play a good game. The MoM note is a fun one to play, isn't it? You did well grabbing those two Dtay cities before I razed them in the blitz, and your resettlement out in my far east was a good “can live with” position. Seems like you played a good Ox campaign, pity it just wrung out the last of his careometer. Your empire's internals were the darkest to me, never did get a good picture of how Middle Turkey looked, which was a bummer.
My nervous ally/rival Thoth, good game played over all. I think the early rush on Pindicator gave you a nice land windfall, and probably still was worth it despite TBS also gaining a fair bit of land for free from the deal (and me, a most excellent moai). Horse archers and catapults didn't cut it for the Dtay invasion, but you did well in managing an economic recovery, catching back up very nicely in the end there. Pity it never came a cropper. I did think we did a pretty good job with splitting our hemisphere.
The one thing I have to ask...why the hell with the peace time turn split? I was never hostile to you, nor did it seem you planned on invading me. It was kind of annoying and a stress to always have to play ASAP because I knew you would staunchly refuse to log in until after I was done. That sucked.
TBS, you vindicated my early-game prediction with flying colors, good job. We never interacted much directly; the lack of good interaction planes for you/me and Gaspar/Thoth is probably the final nail in the coffin, actually. Still, you nailed an awesome series of first-to bonuses...I did check the last few pages and yep, you were beating me to the Kremlin handily, nicely done. I suspect Sid's would have been an interesting race, but having the whip hand makes those competitions easy. Good economy managing all game, I'm impressed by the Joao play (and Stonehenge was quite the coup).
I was actually most impressed by your strategic play here. You took advantage of Thoth's rush to get a nice early land lead, and obviously managed to take solid borders with Gaspar and Ox without making either one go all tilty, either. I probably wouldn't have turned my lead into angry draft victims quite like that, but it's hard to argue with results, good judgment there. Well played after conquest of Maya, too...you took your advantage over Gaspar and pushed him for a solid border region and ten turns of peaceful culture-growing.
I'm sure I've bitched about luck from time to time and wryly spoken of my own mistakes and bad play, but you won this completely deservedly for taking full advantage of any circumstances you found yourself in and (from outside looking in) avoiding any and all major screw ups.
Finally, a bit about my own game. Reading my thread you'll see early on how I correctly identified my worst decision: Taking Rammer of Rome. 180 turns and some fifty praetorians later, I'll still stand by that one...Exp, Cre, or Imp should have been a given with the map size and picking fishing was just silly.
Still, I had fun within those constraints. The Oracle->Colossus was absolutely the best wonder path given the lakey bonanza here, snagging circumnavigation was important not just for invasion logistics but also as denial, and I'm pleased with the timing of my knight push. Over-all, it was a good performance, if you ignore willingly putting myself on the back foot from turn 0. I delayed Civil Service longer than I ought to have, and only building Oxford's universities now is laughable. If either of my second-place rivals cares to waggle E-peen and say how they were looking to outperform me, I won't get into an internet argument about it.
Over all, while this wasn't a perfect game, this was a good and fun one. Cheers guys.
First of all, Xenu, I appreciate the map. You gave us what was requested and it looked quite good. I'm sure you've gotten gross tons of crap dumped on you, but this was professionally done within the constraints. These super-buffed capitals were just insane, lot of fun there.
As for the map parameters...er, oops. 200 tiles per player on a normal script would be one thing. On the crazy-lush uber-viable FoR lakes setting? With one player getting the early bum's rush? Yikes, is all I can say. And again, um...oops.
Pin, I haven't read your thread yet for the complete story, but an impi rush at that stage in the game is pretty hard to stop, plus apparently you managed middle position. Ow. Nothing to say really, beyond maybe you should just ban Zulu in your games?
I got kind of testy in the end there Ox, but I guess your piling everything on the side I had territorial ambitions wasn't personal, you just seemed to have time issues all over.
You played an impressive early game, and I've got to say your naming scheme delighted my heart every time I saw it. Sorry you lost interest/time/commitment. I don't think anyone could say you died poorly, Dtay. Honestly, dogpiling you isn't my preference every game.
I think I get where your game went...I felt behind on the expansion curve too. Pink dotting me and then not having much of a culture or road backline would probably be counted a mistake no matter what, but getting the dog pile hurts no matter what. We didn't get anything cheap and I don't think anyone will consider you an easy mark, ever. Good game, worthy adversary! Next time, split a border with me evenly and we can split someone else together. One hell of a tight contest was shaping up for silver medal...
Gaspar, we didn't have a ton of interaction, but you were a decent neighbor and seemed to play a good game. The MoM note is a fun one to play, isn't it? You did well grabbing those two Dtay cities before I razed them in the blitz, and your resettlement out in my far east was a good “can live with” position. Seems like you played a good Ox campaign, pity it just wrung out the last of his careometer. Your empire's internals were the darkest to me, never did get a good picture of how Middle Turkey looked, which was a bummer.
My nervous ally/rival Thoth, good game played over all. I think the early rush on Pindicator gave you a nice land windfall, and probably still was worth it despite TBS also gaining a fair bit of land for free from the deal (and me, a most excellent moai). Horse archers and catapults didn't cut it for the Dtay invasion, but you did well in managing an economic recovery, catching back up very nicely in the end there. Pity it never came a cropper. I did think we did a pretty good job with splitting our hemisphere.
The one thing I have to ask...why the hell with the peace time turn split? I was never hostile to you, nor did it seem you planned on invading me. It was kind of annoying and a stress to always have to play ASAP because I knew you would staunchly refuse to log in until after I was done. That sucked.
TBS, you vindicated my early-game prediction with flying colors, good job. We never interacted much directly; the lack of good interaction planes for you/me and Gaspar/Thoth is probably the final nail in the coffin, actually. Still, you nailed an awesome series of first-to bonuses...I did check the last few pages and yep, you were beating me to the Kremlin handily, nicely done. I suspect Sid's would have been an interesting race, but having the whip hand makes those competitions easy. Good economy managing all game, I'm impressed by the Joao play (and Stonehenge was quite the coup).
I was actually most impressed by your strategic play here. You took advantage of Thoth's rush to get a nice early land lead, and obviously managed to take solid borders with Gaspar and Ox without making either one go all tilty, either. I probably wouldn't have turned my lead into angry draft victims quite like that, but it's hard to argue with results, good judgment there. Well played after conquest of Maya, too...you took your advantage over Gaspar and pushed him for a solid border region and ten turns of peaceful culture-growing.
I'm sure I've bitched about luck from time to time and wryly spoken of my own mistakes and bad play, but you won this completely deservedly for taking full advantage of any circumstances you found yourself in and (from outside looking in) avoiding any and all major screw ups.
Finally, a bit about my own game. Reading my thread you'll see early on how I correctly identified my worst decision: Taking Rammer of Rome. 180 turns and some fifty praetorians later, I'll still stand by that one...Exp, Cre, or Imp should have been a given with the map size and picking fishing was just silly.
Still, I had fun within those constraints. The Oracle->Colossus was absolutely the best wonder path given the lakey bonanza here, snagging circumnavigation was important not just for invasion logistics but also as denial, and I'm pleased with the timing of my knight push. Over-all, it was a good performance, if you ignore willingly putting myself on the back foot from turn 0. I delayed Civil Service longer than I ought to have, and only building Oxford's universities now is laughable. If either of my second-place rivals cares to waggle E-peen and say how they were looking to outperform me, I won't get into an internet argument about it.
Over all, while this wasn't a perfect game, this was a good and fun one. Cheers guys.
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
I write RPG adventures, and blog about it, check it out.
I write RPG adventures, and blog about it, check it out.
