RMOG: Renaissance Men of Genius

[oledavy]

Because let's be real here, we all know how this one ends

[oledavy]

Because let's be real here, we all know how this one ends

Relevant GChat when we were still signing people up:

Dave: I'll check for it when I get up tomorrow morning then
Hoping for interest
And that Mackoti doesn't come and murder us....
Warrior Knight: lol me neither
No though, catch you tomorrow!



Warrior Knight:
you got your wish, mackoti wants to join

[oledavy]

But now that Macedonian Gary Kasparov has arrived to show all us mortals how to play, we can relax, have fun, and focus on more important things! Like winning the post count war! (The only game that matters).

[oledavy]

In all seriousness though, I would probably rate chances at winning in the following order:

1. Mackoti
2. Plako
3. WK + Me
4. Commodore
5. Alhazard
6. Nic + El Grillo?

As always though, I expect it will more come down to who is next to you. Maybe Plako and Mack start next to each other and end up in a centuries long grudge match. Just really hoping we can avoid the fate of PB33 and people will be able to pick up teammates for modern era turns.

WK and I have talked pretty extensively at this point about how we value traits/civs, and what pairing we want to go to. However, due to our shit position in the snake pick, missing both the ability to pick a top civ and the pocket, we won't be making a firm decision until we see what everyone else selects.

[WarriorKnight]

Blargh, what's with all this pessimism? I've been in worse (Gaspar's DL in PBEM47).

Besides, we're actually the defending champ here:



Now if we just avoid losing via culture we'll be all good.

[WarriorKnight]

Getting some actual content in among the thread spam, here is what we've discussed via PM:

Hi dave,

With nothing better to do while wondering if/when we get a mapmaker, we could start discussing picks in a bit more detail (and gives us some stuff to post in the thread once we get rolling).

I think we were roughly on the same page regarding leader trait tiers. For easy reference:

SPI, IMP
FIN, ORG, PHI
CHA, AGG
EXP, PRO, CRE, IND

In a rough order. Tier 1 is tops, I expect everyone to be either SPI or IMP. Tier 4 is junk, I doubt anyone will pick from there (maybe Joao for REXing but otherwise...). Tier 2 is economy traits while Tier 3 is military, I'm assuming economy > military but IMO CHA and AGG are both viable options with the right civ in late era starts.

If I had to rank leaders, I would probably go for something like this:

Gandhi, Vicky
Julius
Asoka, Brennus, Genghis

Gandhi and Vicky are pure power combinations, with strong traits and lots of synergy. Julius is slightly lower due to FIN > ORG in a cottage economy but he could also be top tier as well (IMP expands fast to activate ORG quicker than SPI). Brennus and Genghis have great traits synergy but have a T3 trait while Asoka has decent traits without much else standing out. After that it drops due to anti-synergy (Mansa, Suleiman) or not enough to overcome weak traits (Cyrus, Monty, Joao), hopefully we don't have to pick from them.

For the civs, there are quite a few options now with everything unbanned. I'd say the following is my definite top3:

Byz: Prachts (duh), and hippodrome is nice too.
France: Musketeers (duh), Salon is crap though.
Khmer: Blank UU, but Baray is an free econ boost from T0.

After that it gets a bit hazy:

Russia: Cossacks are theoretically great, but civ is a blank otherwise. Could work out.
Mongol: Decent UB that is relevant for a long time. Might be good for metagaming even if not a power choice.
Dutch: Situational UU, Great UB although somewhat situational. Slow start but might be a good pick. Not really sure where to put them.
Viking: Situational but potentially very powerful UB.
Ottoman: Very early UU and UB, but neither are anything special. Might be good civ for Gandhi if we pick him 1st, otherwise there are better options.
England: Dunno why I wanted to ban this, UU and UB are both pretty bad IMO. I wouldn't pick them.

Any thoughts/comments?
WK

I feel like we probably want to pick up Civ first. I feel like the drop off in quality between civs and leaders is more pronounced. I'm a little partial to Khmer, but I have a really weak grasp on just how strong +1 food per city will end up being. Musketeers on the other hand, I love working with, although that commits us to rushing. We probably really want to know how much water will be on the map before making a final judgement call, because Vikings/Dutch could get a lot stronger depending on how the mapmaker flavors the map. I think at the moment, the civs I would be most interested in are these, in rough order of preference:

Khmer
Russia
France
Dutch (pending water)
England
Spain (wildcard)

I think we probably make our leader pick based on the civ we can get. I.E., if we're Khmer, we definitely want IMP to cram out as many Baray-powered cities as possible. On the other hand, if we get Russia, we want SPI for easier access to triple promoted Cossacks.

I agree with your trait ranking. If we do want to go Civ first, I think we just decide what we want our primary trait to be and pick the next best trait still available. With this in mind, here are some potential picks I wouldn't mind playing:

Julius of Khmer - REX so hard, motherfuckers wanna find me
Brennus of Russia - Cossacks that will haunt your dreams
Vicky of Holland - 2-1-3 water tiles for days
Genghis Khan/Montezuma of France - Musketeer rush someone

I'm a little Gandhi'd out at the moment, but I can always get excited for a spiritual leader. I think we only go with him if we want to go balls to the wall on a bulbing strat like we floated doing.

I think there's something to be said for Spain, as a final note. Pinch Conqs kill pretty much anything before rifling, you don't have to deal with their crappy starting techs like ancient starts. Also, I like the color of their civ (clearly the most important factor in making this decision.

I'm not entirely sold on civ first. I think I agree that the drop off between civs is larger than for leaders, but since we're 4th in the snakepick (and I agree, we got a terrible place in the snakepick) we may not have 1st pick of the best civs. Really, we just have to wait and see what gets chosen before us. However I think we can categorize based on whether we want to go wide or tall.

Wide:
Expand early, tech late
Assuming IMP (maybe Monty if rushing or Asoka if REXing)
Good IMP leaders are Vicky, Julius and Genghis - can also go Cyrus or Joao
Best civs are ones with immediate UU for offensive presence (Byz, France, Mongol, Viking?)

We don't have to commit to a rush if we go wide. We do want to put pressure on civs that can't expand as fast by stealing their land as leverage though, and that is much easier with a immediate military advantage. Khmer and Dutch can also go wide, although that isn't as great for metagaming pressure on others.

Tall:
Tech early, expand late
Assuming SPI
Ghandi, Asoka, Brennus, Monty
Pair with civs that are late game threats (Russia, Dutch, England) or decent early defense or economy (Khmer, Ottoman)

I wouldn't mind not picking Gandhi, the Constitution first gambit isn't a race and PHI drops in value if we aren't racing.

The decision on which way to go depends primarily on our starting land and the picks before us. Ideally we can pick a strat which hasn't had too many picks removed (ie if first 3 picks are Byz, Vicky and France then we probably want to go Tall), but our starting terrain is important too. For instance we probably want to go wide if we have:

Lots of forests
Weakish capital
Close neighbors, minimal land
Low maintenance
No very strong early game tech/wonders (which is probably true regardless of map)

Tall would be the opposite case. We probably have to evaluate both the land we get and the picks before us before deciding.

BTW, I don't think Spain is that good. UB is pretty meh. The issue is that the UU is at least 3 techs away. Rifles in comparison are only 4-5 techs away (depending if you count Nationalism for drafting) so there isn't a lot of time to use them. Also they can be beaten by other civs Cuirassiers. I would pick the other 3 mounted civs (Byz, Russia and Mongol) before them.

[picklepikkl]

I'm relatively new to RB; why is mackoti so feared? Has he won all his games?

I also feel the nationalist urge to correct "macedonian" to "former yugoslavian republic of macedonia-n" :P

[WarriorKnight]

I'm relatively new to RB; why is mackoti so feared? Has he won all his games?

Pretty much. PBEM25v is the only exception I can think of but maybe there's been more during the 3 year or so break that I've been on. Dave has teamed with him before, so he probably knows more than I do.

That said, I would put plako in the same category as mackoti. We can keep up with both of them as a team if dave and I play to our strengths (dave: obsession to micro and detail, WK: reading of macro game) but since there's 2 of us it is more fragile if something goes wrong.

[oledavy]

I'm relatively new to RB; why is mackoti so feared? Has he won all his games?

I also feel the nationalist urge to correct "macedonian" to "former yugoslavian republic of macedonia-n" :P

Ah, you are taking me back that year at AMUN where I represented Macedonia, whenever the dais would announce: "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia..." We would introduce our statements with "The state of Macedonia....etc." We also had a jokingly mean relationship with the Serbian delegation for the entire conference, made it our side goal to form a coalition with all the other Balkan States against them.

Reminiscences aside, are you Serbian picklepikkl?

To follow up on your question (and take my answer with a grain of salt since I was not here 2013-2016), Mackoti had not lost a game when I left with the exceptions of PBEM25v and PB4.

I do agree with WK that Plako is of similar skill though. I would give rate him only marginally less skilled than Mackoti.

We can keep up with both of them as a team if dave and I play to our strengths (dave: obsession to micro and detail, WK: reading of macro game) but since there's 2 of us it is more fragile if something goes wrong.

I agree

I am optimistic about this game, and am going to have fun either way. It's just way more fun to play the underdog role.

Still, thread title changed as requested, no promises I will not work bridesmaid jokes into this thread in the future though.

With all that being said, after over a hundred reported games, is there an original/interesting way left you can think of to do opponent analyses?

My only thought was to compare them to board games/board game factions, but I'm not sure how far I could take that. Do you have any ideas?

[picklepikkl]

I'm Greek-American. My people care an awful lot about Macedonia being part of Greece. I find this amusing on par with Taiwan's insistence that it represents the Chinese government in exile.

Also: jeez, that's impressive. Shame he apparently feels strongly about not reporting; any success I've been having in PBEM74B comes from having archive binged a bunch of games to learn from them .