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[SPOILER] Krill rambles on

HAK (and Mindy): Alex (AGG/PHI) of Maya.

Where to start. HAK has played in a fair few PB games recently, playing in PB18, currently playing in PB25, and played in PB20 (a ToW mod game where he died at some point to either mack or Seven, so as expected). He recently teamed up with Mindy in PB25, and again here, so I’m going to assess both of them. Mindy is basically a professional ded lurker, never plays, but always writes copious amounts of mind numbing posts about strategy that even I can’t bring myself to read. Mindy never plays, barely even logs in, but has so much control over strategy s/he is an important part of the team. Perhaps it’s fairest to say that Mindy is the player that needs the assessment most of all.

HAK has struck me as a generic civ player that is gradually coming to terms with how to play MP. He can work out a dot map, knows how to micro workers. He’s the human equivalent of a filler AI in a large game by himself. Perhaps some people will take offense at that, but not everyone wins games. Some people just sit there and play civ until someone more clinical comes along and removes them from the game. HAK has flaws like anyone else, but when he gets frustrated he will throw his game. He also can't understand hte extent of his actions that well: if he attacks someone he expects to get so many cities, but even if he is right about that he never consideres what third parties do, and leaves himself open to get trashed by smarter opponents.

Mindy though, Mindy is a whole different type of player. So much more dangerous. Mindy does think much more about cause and effect. Mindy will use dot maps for specific aims, work on tech beelines. That's all well and good. The dangerous thing is that Mindy will decide to attack someone and it is just the wrong time to attack. And s/he will press onwards, through hell and high water, and lose. And make other players lose. S/he may be deserving of the leadboots award for all the wrong reasons.

Mindy is the more dangerous of the two players by far, and may be the most dangerous player to start next to. Mindy also has the frankly annoying fixation on putting some people on a pedestal, and that warps the opinion of them from what a person can do with the specific game state, and into Mindy's worst nightmare.

You can never be quite sure what is going through Mindys head, and for that I rank them as a tier 3 player threat, but I'd raise that to a 2 if he bordes me.

The leader and civ combination leaves a lot to be desired IMO. PHI is good, perhaps the only trait that can get a Culture Victory. Bulb and GA to a mid game lead in the Ren era. AGG for the hodge podge of advantages. Slow as everything else and PHI tends to slow it some more until an early academy or bulb can give a tech lead that snowballs back into other economic advantages. The civ is...not bad, works with AGG for unchokable holkans that start with C1, but the Ball Court, well...3 happy now for 80 hammers and +1 happy from incense. It's a decent building, but doesn't fit the traits. So lots of things spread around, it'll take a while to pull it together. I'm not concerned at all about this combination, by only concern is if they neighbour me. If they are on the other side of one of my niehgbours, then this may in fact be something to take advantage of.
Current games (All): RtR: PB80 Civ 6: PBEM23

Ended games (Selection): BTS games: PB1, PB3, PBEM2, PBEM4, PBEM5B, PBEM50. RB mod games: PB5, PB15, PB27, PB37, PB42, PB46, PB71. FFH games: PBEMVII, PBEMXII. Civ 6:  PBEM22 Games ded lurked: PB18
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Just sub Tsargon in now Joey.
Current games (All): RtR: PB80 Civ 6: PBEM23

Ended games (Selection): BTS games: PB1, PB3, PBEM2, PBEM4, PBEM5B, PBEM50. RB mod games: PB5, PB15, PB27, PB37, PB42, PB46, PB71. FFH games: PBEMVII, PBEMXII. Civ 6:  PBEM22 Games ded lurked: PB18
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(August 24th, 2015, 13:41)Krill Wrote:
(August 24th, 2015, 11:44)Fintourist Wrote:
(August 24th, 2015, 10:58)Krill Wrote: Also, FT, I have a dare for you. Play a game without simming past T35. And Tasunke (probably) needs a sub.

Ha! Quite honestly I think my first try on ~T35 sim is not really far away from what the actual play will be. It's the T40-70 region when stuff gets complex and one can come up with ideas + make ground towards opponents with good play. Mmmm, I really enjoy that part of the game and the analysis related to the phase so I might not want to skip the simming there if I have any time at all. But if someone prepares me a T40 sandbox I can start from there next time. nod Depending on enthusiasm level simming just has to stop somewhere around t80-100. (assuming normal speed everywhere)


EDIT: Obviously if the map is super rich of resources then t35 simming might be really beneficial. If you only have couple of food resources around and only 1 decent spot for a 2nd city then doing all the planning without actually seeing the game is easy-ish.

So here's the question: do you really need a sim for that, or can you do it in your head and with a spreadsheet to record the actions?

Yup, I already do the very early micro in my head, maybe scribble something with pen and paper. It's a lot faster than simming when thinking questions such as what size do we grow our capital after the first worker, how do the timings work with 1 worker vs. 2 workers before settler opening, optimal tile usage in reaching hammer and food surplus targets etc. Of course there is always a chance for a human mistake, you screw up a tile yield, etc. so playing out the opening in the sandbox has validation value. The later the game gets the more useful the sandbox becomes and doing stuff in the head isn't necessarily faster anymore.

OH is a bigger fan of early micro spreadsheets, personally I find updating them when plans change pretty damn PITA-ish --> I prefer communicating with save stacks or screenshots, which of course have their weaknesses too. I use spreadsheets more for specific analyses or modelling. In PB18 we had e.g. a sheet for GPP planning, spaceship production and actually I built quite a nice model where you enter tech order, estimated growth rate and binary tech speed changes (such as GAs and internet) as inputs and the model spits out the tech timings --> it worked pretty nicely when we estimated what will be the turn when we have all the techs needed for spaceship finished, when will we have tanks and stuff like that.
Finished:
PBEM 45G, PB 13, PB 18, PB 38 & PB 49

Top 3 favorite turns: 
#1, #2, #3
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I've used all those methods in the past with various partners, and truth be told I don't like any of them. I don't think there is anything that compares to the spreadsheet in terms of ease of access to double check whilst playing the turn though. I remember the SANCTA game where I kept the SIM and spreadsheet up to date by T100, never ever want to do that again.

I've never used spreadsheets to calculate stuff like that, the most is growth in individual cities later in the game when trying to balance that with stuff like wonder builds. I'm going to call it an illegal enhancement tongue j/k. Cyneheards combat calculator is the only thing that I've seen before. I'm sure someone would pay you for those excel files, maybe even the highest bidder hammer
Current games (All): RtR: PB80 Civ 6: PBEM23

Ended games (Selection): BTS games: PB1, PB3, PBEM2, PBEM4, PBEM5B, PBEM50. RB mod games: PB5, PB15, PB27, PB37, PB42, PB46, PB71. FFH games: PBEMVII, PBEMXII. Civ 6:  PBEM22 Games ded lurked: PB18
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Need a sub on T0, need a sub for every turn.


Current games (All): RtR: PB80 Civ 6: PBEM23

Ended games (Selection): BTS games: PB1, PB3, PBEM2, PBEM4, PBEM5B, PBEM50. RB mod games: PB5, PB15, PB27, PB37, PB42, PB46, PB71. FFH games: PBEMVII, PBEMXII. Civ 6:  PBEM22 Games ded lurked: PB18
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Turn 2 scouting is...interesting. I thought the land to the north west was just a spur or spit of land, turns out it's a hell of a lot bigger than expected.




Scout moves are now expected to be 41>98>96>63 to finish T5 on the grass forest hill the scout just uncovered, at that point borders have popped and I'll be able to figure out a scout path for to move around the already uncovered land (with minor deviations for hills etc). I may change that and move the scout 44 next turn, if the move 4 makes me think the current tile 77 of hte scout is a hill, and then I'll hop along (44)>79>(89)>33 to end up on the sheep on T5.
Current games (All): RtR: PB80 Civ 6: PBEM23

Ended games (Selection): BTS games: PB1, PB3, PBEM2, PBEM4, PBEM5B, PBEM50. RB mod games: PB5, PB15, PB27, PB37, PB42, PB46, PB71. FFH games: PBEMVII, PBEMXII. Civ 6:  PBEM22 Games ded lurked: PB18
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that 96 move is invalid: sheep tile is a hill.

What's that interface mod?
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Oh, the top left? Some shitty AMD raptr program or something. Only reason I've not uninstalled it is that it may turn out easier than my current setup for if I start making a video or two again.

Yeah, it's an invalid move but I meant to write 98 not 99 for the previous move so that would be valid.
Current games (All): RtR: PB80 Civ 6: PBEM23

Ended games (Selection): BTS games: PB1, PB3, PBEM2, PBEM4, PBEM5B, PBEM50. RB mod games: PB5, PB15, PB27, PB37, PB42, PB46, PB71. FFH games: PBEMVII, PBEMXII. Civ 6:  PBEM22 Games ded lurked: PB18
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Ah I see what you plan now.
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Yeah, but now we just sit in what Joey likes to call the "withdrawal" stage and wait one day per scout move. This game should get interesting around T10 if only because I'm going to have a warrior to move as well!
Current games (All): RtR: PB80 Civ 6: PBEM23

Ended games (Selection): BTS games: PB1, PB3, PBEM2, PBEM4, PBEM5B, PBEM50. RB mod games: PB5, PB15, PB27, PB37, PB42, PB46, PB71. FFH games: PBEMVII, PBEMXII. Civ 6:  PBEM22 Games ded lurked: PB18
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