[LURKERS] PB27 Map & Lurking: Walking in a :weed: wonderland

[GermanJoey]

Well, maybe perfect was an exaggeration - I tend to enjoy writing in hyperbole, maybe you've noticed. But, I remember subbing for him around ~T45 I think it was, and I thought his micro was pretty tight. Definitely not what I was expecting from an unknown newbie who said he was playing his first pitboss game. And yeah, libbing Econ is the obvious play here, I think. He could also try to be spicy and try to lib Rifling, but I have no idea on what his overall tech progress is like, other than having Phi, Nat, and Astro.

Mack, FWIW, I've always had trouble with team games too. Actually, almost game I've played here has theoretically been a team game (either with an explicit teammate or dedlurkers) that's always fizzled out early. I've always really admired the teams that work well together, I think its one of the coolest things on these boards. The team threads are always the funnest and most enjoyable to read.

But, its tough. I think that, even if you get along with your partner as a person, you need to have pretty equal skill/effort/enthusiasm as your teammate or else a.) one guy will eventually feel like the other guy is doing everything, so what's the point? or b.) the other guy feels like he's putting in so much work while the partner does nothing, so what's the point? And then going along with whatever your teammate wants, just to keep him involved, but then you stop caring. You see a lot of team threads go from 10 posts a day to 1 post every 2 weeks. (e.g. Team England in this game) Even if you're both enthused and active, is no guarantee of team success - if things start going south, you see a lot of teams start blaming each other and then fall apart.

By the way, now that you're global, what do you think of the map? Here's as close as what we've had to a global view, although its a bit out of date: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...#pid571241

[AutomatedTeller]

new Lurker AT reporting in!!

I know I bitched about the map some, but I probably shouldn't have. The map certainly isn't the reason I'm out 4th

I'm curious - 4 of my 5 neighbors got barb cities (barteq, molach, ichabod and adrien). It's impossible to not noticed that dtay and I are imp and we did not. Do you guys think this is a hidden cost to being imp? Expansion that is rapid enough to make it less likely to get barb cities? On a map like this, I think they turn out to be a little imbalancing, is all. I know Molach's helped him a lot - he could war earlier and he had an extra promo.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Barbs are inherently unbalancing. That's what they're best at. Look at them as an opportunity to keep the rabble of your empire focused on external enemies (empire focused and unified) rather than on internal jockeying for political position (empire fractured by ambitious figures and weakened by infighting in struggle for power). So what if your legions get dinged occasionally? At least your nobles won't be building their own personal armies to depose you from power because they'll be too busy helping you defend against the external threat of the week.

Perspective!

[The Black Sword]

I doubt anyone can play a perfect game but it's pretty clear that Tao(+some help from vA) played one of, if not the, best 50t in this field.

Tao: 4 cities, 10 pop, 4 workers

(Imp) Dtay: 4 cities, 8 pop, 3(?) workers, Stonehenge

Comm: 3 cities, 10 pop, 4 workers

Krill: 3 cities, 9 pop, 3(?) workers

Serdoa: 3 cities, 7 pop, 4 workers

I'm not bothered checking granary numbers. Whether he's as good in the late game I don't know, but I don't think any of the praise he's received is unjustified.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Couple of shots taken in a haste. Gonna play the turn later. Golden Age will be launched this turn.

Seems pretty clear to me from that power graph that Nyles made the big move in this region with the longest reach when he declared war on Elkad. That attack wasted both of their armies and allowed bigger, more dangerous neighbors to attack both of them in their weakened rear cities away from the front. I can't say I've ever seen a more spectacular disaster from a failed invasion. Nyles is going to get both himself and Elkad killed.

Maybe it doesn't need to be said again, but neighbors are definitely the most important factor on any map in deciding who is a contender. Nyles set plako back earlier when he invaded plako, and stalled plako's economic development. Now, just like in pb18, plako's luck is too late in coming (where he pulled the same attack against me after CH attacked my other front to draw off my defense) to make a big difference here. I think he's going to end up similar to his finish in pb18, winning his region (look out Yuri!!) and otherwise finishing out of the money. That's assuming he gets big enough to hold off REM from matching further east after Nyles is gone, but I think plako will manage it.

[GermanJoey]

Maybe it doesn't need to be said again, but neighbors are definitely the most important factor on any map in deciding who is a contender. Nyles set plako back earlier when he invaded plako, and stalled plako's economic development. Now, just like in pb18, plako's luck is too late in coming (where he pulled the same attack against me after CH attacked my other front to draw off my defense) to make a big difference here. I think he's going to end up similar to his finish in pb18, winning his region (look out Yuri!!) and otherwise finishing out of the money. That's assuming he gets big enough to hold off REM from matching further east after Nyles is gone, but I think plako will manage it.

I disagree with this. I mean, yes, who your neighbors are is very important and can definitely decide a game, all other things being equal. But so can a lot of things - the quality of your land, the quantity of your land, how well your starting picks match to each other and the map, etc. I mean, its a mixed-skill, non-mirrored, no-diplo, 23 player Free For All wargame, there's gonna be some, uh... variability... is probably the word I should use, instead of "crazy bullshit." But surely you agree that a player's own skill and decisions still matters the most in deciding who wins the game, right? Or else why do any of us play these games to begin with?

For example, both HAK and Krill neighbored TheWannabe, but only one of them took all his land. (and without copper!) AT bordered dtay, Molach, Barteq, and Adrien, but it was somehow dtay who ended up with the vast share of former Ignoblia. Serdoa/NH haven't gotten any easy conquests due to a pair of tough neighbors, yet they are still second on the scoreboard. REM is considered one of the favorites to win, yet his neighbors were tao/mack and Commodore. Barteq had relatively easy neighbors (not that AT is easy, but he was in conflict in every direction), but he is apparently still struggling. etc.

plako is a very, very good player but it's not as if this game had gone perfectly had perfectly for him even before Nyles invaded him; remember he failed the mids at T71 (to be fair, I'm still totally shocked he lost them at that timing), and had only 4 cities, IIRC, at that time. His first city was a very aggressive plant directly at Nyles that sealed off a large bit of land and made Nyle's southern border very awkward, and Nyles also tested plako once early. If plako had simply REXed early and gotten strong, or even if he had not planted an aggressive first city at Nyles if he was thinking about trying the mids rush, then I doubt Nyles would have ever been in a position to even consider invading him. IMHO, Yuris (sorry yuris but your heart doesn't seem in it) and an unknown green player are not the worst neighbors to draft in a game like this...

[ipecac]

...stay tuned, Brick's not the only one who left a mark on this map.

[AutomatedTeller]

Is it ok to tell CH that accepting a resource offered freely will not create 10 turns of peace?

Well, there isn't that much new on the taomack front--he offered me free wheat, but I declined it since I wasn't sure if that would lock me into peace (and I don't actually need it right now). He also put another CG2 Longbow into Maersk, but that isn't quite as bad as it seems since I'll have Cover on my Knights (though it's obviously bad--I'd rather that than have the iron stack move in at least).

[spacetyrantxenu]

Seems ok to me since he brought up the topic acknowledging uncertainty. Maybe tell him that paying tribute for enforced peace only applies to AIs.

[Mr. Cairo]

Just think of them as appreciated opportunities to have mid-ocean vision outposts/naval bases instead of big empty seas.

It might not matter in the short term (or even medium term), but these little islands certainly present a significant advantage to TaoTao's Dutch. Given enough time/rush-buy for a few key pieces infrastructure those little outposts can be powerhouses. Of course they are a bit of a win-more thing for TaoTao. If he's able to settle them and build them up he's probably already won.