RBPB3 - Gandhi of the Egyptians

[novice]

Okay, make that three.

[Krill]

I suppose I should post my opinions of my competitors as well, and their civ/leader combos.

*Mr. Nice Guy + Shoot the Moon - Pacal/Carthage Exp/Fin, Fishing/Mining. Good leader, awful civ. Unknown quantity as far as skill goes though. Wouldn't mind if they are neighbours.

*Dantski + Mukha - Willem/Portugal Fin/Cre, Mining/Fishing. Dantski is someone I would love as a neighbour provided they start far enough away that their culture doesn't crush me, and I don't know anything about Mukha. Great leader if they get a good start.

*Morgan + DMOC - Lizzie/France Fin/Phi, Wheel/Agriculture - supposedly good civ players, I think they are massively overrated, along with a leader that doesn't work that well with this game type. Civ is decent if we get stuck in a draft war prior to rifles, which I doubt. Arguably a good rush target.

*Kyan + Twinkletoes89 + Whosit - Pericles/Babylon Cre/Phi, Wheel/Agriculture - unknown quantity for skill, and I'm probably the only civ that could rush them, so I might catch them bluffing a military based on bowmen if they try to strong arm in negotiations. Also the ultimate academy based civ, which is a complete waste IMO, based on what happened to hte early academy civs in RBPB1.

*Exploit - Darius/Sumeria Fin/Org, Wheel/Agriculture - the guy with illusions of grandeur. Not a skilled MMer or warmonger, and everyone knows how he handles diplomacy. Combined with that he has a weak axe replacement, but a good UB that allows him to expand which should be good on this game type. But if he gets too big he pisses off his neighbours and then gets taken down a touch, that takes everyones' eyes off me, so I'm not complaining.

*athlete4life10 + Jowy + Kalin + Nakor - Joao/Incans, Exp/Imp, Agriculture/Mysticism - Athlete and kalin have improved massively since their first games here, as RBPB2 is showing. And they already know how I played that combo, so I have to assume they are approaching my skill level. Only real problem is that they need to massively focus on cottages with the much higher costs in this game which limits their expansion, the sole (albeit large) advantage that combo has. Definitely need to be wary of them.

*Cull + RefSteel + Maniac Marshall - Ragnar/Mayans Agg/Fin, Mysticism/Mining - great combo, and unknown skill level. Reserving judgement on them atm.

*Cyneheard + haphazard1 + antisocialmunky - Suryavaraman II/England Exp/Cre, Fishing/Mining - great growth civ, and they want the game to bog down into a rifle draft war which they win. Need to keep the game teching during that era to mess them about, and make sure cav are buildable by everyone to counter them.

*darrelljs + regoarrarr + sunrise089 + sooooo - Bismark/India Exp/Ind, Mysticism/mining - obvious dog pile choice, and they can probably get henge before anyone else which makes them equal to joao of the Incans for growth ability. Mostly old guard, so it'll be good to compare their skill in this game to the Incans. On the whole, I'm only wary that they form a dogpile on me, but I don't think anyone is going to fall for that trick again in a hurry. Probably my greatest competitors.

*SleepingMoogle + Bobchillingsworth + ManiaMuse - Hannibal/Byzantine Fin/Ch, Wheel/Mysticism - 3 promo cataphracts are impossible to stop, same as agg rome. High happy caps and Fin, and unknkown skill level. Whoever is near them needs to get a dogpile on them asap.

*Krill - Gandhi/Eygpt Spi/Phi, Wheel/Agriculture - unknown quantity (hey, I don;t know what is going to happen).

*Sandover + scooter - Kublai/Rome Cre/Agg, Fishing/Mining - rush them if they are near me, or agree to rush a third party with them. They've seen how not to rush with Rome, so the question is if they can pull it off. Probably get dogpiled later on if they pull it off, so only worry if they are near me and i can't buy them off.

*meatbalz + dazedroyalty + Ilios - Mehmed/HRE Exp/Org, Hunting/Mysticism - unknown skill quanitity, great civ to have expanding post CoL, which they may beeline/oracle. Be wary of them late game.

*Lobo.Thibron - Peter/Korea Exp/Phi, Mysticism/Mining - complete unknown quantity, but then he probably thinks the same of me.

*Sockboy + ad hoc + WarriorKnight + Pegasus - Zara Yaqob/Ottomans Cre/Org, Wheel/Agriculture - no synergy, and need to hope for early drafting and then breakdown in teching.

*Ruff_Hi - Napoleon/Aztec Chm/Org, Mysticism/Hunting - awesome drafting and slaving civ, he is one player that will need to be dragged along in tech, and have to provide extra resources such as troops. Definitely good ally, trusting and trustworthy. Definitely do not want to get into a war against him unless you have alot of allies.

*Broker33 + dsplaisted + Swiss Pauli - Huanya/Mali, Fin/Ind, Wheel/Mining - decent players, but by themselves nothing special. Probably not a great threat, seem to have a building civ all the way through the game. Just a bog standard game is what I expect from them, unless they oracle MC, then try to GE rush the pyramids. Can't think of anything special they could do in this game type.

[Krill]

I'm not really worried about any of these competitors. Some are unknown, some are good, but none that I think are a level above me in ability. Will haveto wait and see how the diplomacy shakes down.

[Krill]

OK, completely OT, but I've finally decided on a proper theme: Discworld! It's quite fitting, considering I'm planning an empire of five hundred religions, and ruling the world wholesale. I've renamed the capital to Ankh-Morpork, and the warrior to Corporal Gaskin, the guard who ran too fast...

[Rodge]

So presumably you won't need to research Construction for bridge building - your units will just be able to walk directly over the river Ankh

[novice]

OK, completely OT, but I've finally decided on a proper theme: Discworld!

I love it!

[banshee]

I'm gonna vote for option #2.

Any plans to manipulate your cities to influence where the religions will be founded?

[plako]

Good luck. Just one question concerning your view about gold being more important than beakers.

From my limited experince in no tech brokering games it is more beneficial to be researcher than gold producer, assuming you had to choose one of these roles. Having the ability to decide who gets your techs is powerful especially in cases where alliances are breaking down and especially if there are large tech disparities.

Of course you can try to fulfill both roles, but you are using hammers less efficiently than the nations focusing only on gold or beaker multipliers and doing co-operation.

[Krill]

Good luck. Just one question concerning your view about gold being more important than beakers.

From my limited experince in no tech brokering games it is more beneficial to be researcher than gold producer, assuming you had to choose one of these roles. Having the ability to decide who gets your techs is powerful especially in cases where alliances are breaking down and especially if there are large tech disparities.

Of course you can try to fulfill both roles, but you are using hammers less efficiently than the nations focusing only on gold or beaker multipliers and doing co-operation.

With 17 teams it's not like any one team has a chance of being the sole researcher of any tech, therefore that one team does not have absolute control over who gets what techs - one needs good relations with every team, but it's not impossible to try and set up trades for any tech.

The problem with being a techer is that you need a source of gold, which means if someone can persuade your gold supplier to recieve a tech that you as a techer want to research, your gold supplier has no reason to give you the gold, which makes you as a techer very vulnerable to a dog pile. What do you then trade for the tech that you wanted to research, assuming you can trade for it? More tech? Resources and units? And if you become self sufficient later on, such as in RBPB1 with the Incans, peopole tend to get scared.

The advantage of being a gold producer is that you will always have something that is useful to anyone; and the extra advantage of being a gold producer focusing of shrines is that you don't need that many markets/grocers/banks. And while it may not be the most efficient use of the gold you will always be able to tech for yourself at a good rate, when alliance shifts happen, or someone just screwed you out of a tech. In this game, I'm hoping to get up to 4 shrines (I want a minimum of 2) and then work as a gold producer until I can become self sufficient asap, maybe around t150 as a rough estimate.

[Krill]

I'm gonna vote for option #2.

Any plans to manipulate your cities to influence where the religions will be founded?

Not really. It's probably quite easy to make sure I land Judaism and Christianity in the same city though, if I can tech there fast enough. Mainly it depends on how quickly I need to get a third city to grab land due to the crampedness of the map.