My comment in the game thread (worth every minute!) was rather cynical and sarcastic, as this was one of the shortest games I've ever played - 2320BC!

Techpath was AH->Mining->BW. I figured that since Holkans are resourceless, I could rely on them for barb defense and skip Archery, also without Hunting to start the path to BW isn't much longer. I was on lower barb alert after discovering how close neighbors were, although maybe I should have been more careful after the closest one (Mehmed) built GW at 2880BC. However, I thought I was doing a good job of warrior spawn-busting (can't find a link, but barbs can't appear within the 5x5 square centered on a player or AI unit, even if that unit can't see all the tiles. So it's actually not that hard to mostly block out spawning. Credit DanF at Civfanatics) - only a little land to the north, which was usually filled by some AI's wandering scout, and a barb city to the south, helping out.
One warrior came near:

I was planning on mining the hill 2E of capital, so parked my worker and warrior there, hoping to lure the barb into suicide rather than pillaging - had just gotten BW, so no holkans capable of fighting on level ground yet. Plan works, except that the barb wins at 3.3%. I had built a 2nd worker so this was not quite game over; had to rush another warrior out of the capital. The wounded-but-promoted barb laughs at the innate defensive bonuses and wins again at 3.5% for elimination.

Note Lakamha in the above picture - I couldn't access the combat log after losing, so I WB'd in a 2nd city just to see what the odds were. Then oddly enough, that act reset the random seed and I won the battle. Too bad real RBCiv play can't work like that....

----

I had hoped to run a bunch of deity pangaea starts to around 1000BC or so, just to get a handle on balancing the higher barb defense and the need to expand ASAP before the AI grabs it all, but didn't have time. With AI's close, I intentionally went for faster expansion with lighter defense, mostly by building a 2nd worker and intending to turn that into a settler-chop-storm. Lesson learned, although it does rather sting to lose a game to a near-literal one in a thousand RNG results...

I really hope no one else has such a bad outcome, although from how quickly the "game completes" were rolling in before I started I thought we might see a lot of early defeats or retirements. Deity pangaea is always cramped but it seemed this map was more so than average, and while the capital was strong and lots of grassland in vicinity was good, there wasn't a lot of food resources availabe in the expansion areas. I went into WB after losing...I think I was going to get the cows to the NE, banana just east of start, and the fish/ivory to the SW if everything went well for a total of 5 food resources...maybe get the barb city at cows/corn to the south (in my limited experience this is tough, a lot of archers defending means that an AI will surely try to take it before you can assemble enough units, and they are much less likely than on lower diffs to bring force insufficient to win on their 1st try). It looked to be a pretty hard map even considering the player had the advantages of no violent neighbors plus a strong leader/civ. Not to criticize Sullla - Deity is SUPPOSED to be hard, and I'd rather have something on the harder side than a HOF-style start.

Discuss:
http://gamersyndrome.com/video-games/pre...ld-wars-2/

Guild Wars 2 is looking awesome!

So Courin sent me a PM...

Quote:Hey WB,

I wanted to follow up with you in regards to your post in the Guild Direction thread. The instructions asked for a "Yes" or "No" vote on a three month trial of the guidelines, not a break down on section-by-section support. I appreciate that you may like and/or dislike certain aspects of the guidelines more than others; however, just like when you are electing a representative, you cannot mark your ballot "I vote yes for you on the issue of Capital Punishment, but no for you on the issue of Tax Increases", you can't pick and choose from the guidelines in this case. It's a choice between "Yes I am willing to try this" or "No I am not willing to try this". We will never have something that satisfies every member of the guild 100%. What we are aiming for is a compromise that the majority of people can live with.

Quote:This was the reason I approached you while the guidelines were being formulated, to make sure that your point of view could be heard, considered, and incorporated into the various areas, over and above what was said in the forums. You chose at that time not to take that opportunity, and I respect that decision. I am, however, disappointed that having refused to give your input during the formulation, you now have chosen to criticize the results of other's inputs and the hard work that was put into this whole process.

Quote:As it stands now, your vote would probably be considered a 'spoiled' ballot as it were, given that it is not a clear "Yes" or "No", and so cannot counted in the results for either side. If you want to come down on the "Yes" or "No" side, please consider editing your post to clearly state your position with a simple "Yes" or "No" to the entire set of guidelines. However, if you want to protest this whole process by "spoiling" your ballot so to speak, that of course is your right as well, and would be reflected in the results as a "spoiled" vote.

My concern is making sure that your opinion is heard, whichever way it goes.

Courin

Having read through the many forum posts in the last few months regarding how the guild has been functioning and the differing ways people see it going, it seems clear that in order for RBGW to survive and thrive, we need to get some consensus on a number of issues.
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Realms Beyond is, at its heart, about the people. It states this very clearly in our philosophy, and RBGW is a continuation of this philosophy.
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The events of this summer have made it clear that while we all want a “laid back”, “relaxed”, and “mature” gaming experience, this hasn’t been happening, and that the problems seem to stem from differing expectations of the guild. The guild has in the past been largely operating under a set of ‘unwritten rules’. People seem to associate this with us being ‘laid-back’ but this leads to people getting upset when they perceive violations to those ‘unwritten rules’, or when they feel they are being ‘reprimanded’ for breaking those ‘unwritten rules’ that they were not even aware of.
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In order to try to move forward from this point, a group of RB-ers undertook a review of various threads in the forums this summer, looking at the issues, the proposed solutions, and the arguments for and against these ideas. In addition, several individuals who posted in the forums regarding the issues were contacted, asking for their opinions. While some chose not to participate in the process, most seemed to genuinely want to resolve these matters once and for all. Based on this, a written set of guidelines for how the guild could operate moving forward was developed.
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The purpose of this thread is to propose the idea of adopting these guidelines for a trial period of 3 months.
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At the end of the trial period, the guidelines would be up for review, to either be abandoned, amended, or adopted on a more permanent basis, keeping in mind that as the game and the guild’s needs change, the guidelines could be modified to reflect those changes.
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Given that what we are deciding on is a potential route for the RB guild within GW, it seems logical to suggest that only those who are currently playing the game vote on this issue. To this end, anyone who has played within the last 2 months as of this posting is ‘eligible to vote’. Screenshots taken this morning of the guild roster are here:

The "within the last 2 months" criterion means that everyone down to and including Torcail Lagos is eligible to vote. Voting will be considered open for 1 week. In order to facilitate this, we will NOT be using the poll function in the forums.
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Instead, please reply to this thread, clearly stating your Primary Character Name, and your answer (Yes or No) to the following question:
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Do you agree to accept the guidelines as proposed in this thread for RBGW for a trial period of 3 months?

Please note that we're looking for a Yes/No vote here; this thread is NOT for open-ended discussion of the details.
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________________________________________________
RBGW Philosophy and Guidelines
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Guild Administration
All members of RBGW are first and foremost members of Realms Beyond. As such, there is an expectation that we will all embrace the Realms Beyond philosophy:
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We're a community, not a clan, that are spreading across the traditional lines of game title and who are like-minded on several key points...
... to seek challenge and fun, not simply 'high score' or 'the most elite stuff!'
... to excel is virtue
... to look to become friends with those you play with
... to treat others with respect, whether you agree with them or not
... to steadfastly avoid cheating
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Within RBGW, there is an additional expectation that all members will abide by the RBGW guidelines as outlined here. Membership in RBGW indicates a member’s agreement to be bound by these guidelines.
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Members, Officers, and Guild Leaders
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Within GW, the roster is broken up into 3 groups, (not including Guests):

• Members
  
• Officers
  
• Guild Leader
  

• Leave the guild
  
• Use guild and alliance chat
  
• Wear a guild cape
  
• Access the Guild Hall
  
• Participate in GvG battles
  
• Use Faction Transfer
  
• Access the exclusive area of a town or outpost
  
• Add NPCs to the Guild Hall
  

• Make announcements
  
• Kick members (not officers) out of the guild
  
• Promote other members to officer
  
• Invite players to the guild
  
• Give guest status to visitors
  
• Authorize a rated GvG match by their presence
  

• Demote and kick guild officers
  
• Change the guild's cape design
  
• Disband the guild (must be the only person in the guild)
  
• Promote someone else to leader (which demotes themselves to officer)
  
• Buy or change a Guild Hall
  
• Join/leave alliances
  

As most of you know I and a few others will be joining Aion. This does not mean that I will be giving up on GW, but I do want to see what Aion has in store.

I spoke to Viper and he will be the one of the Legion leaders on Aion. He's taking me in to AB with them. He has also welcomed the other RBers to their Legion when the game comes out.

The Pre-Select is on the 18th. In which players will be able to pick their servers and their character names. The Basin has not yet picked a server because NC is all its wisdom still hasn't settled on the times that the Fortresses will open. The Asmodian/Elyos thing is still under scrutiny.

Please register on the Basin forums to keep up with all the happenings on what will be going on. http://www.theamazonbasin.com/forums/ind...wforum=116
Thanks,
Jude

Olodune has pointed out that we never made any official announcement here that the Apolyton Demogame had concluded. There's a (very lengthy) writeup on my website for those who may not have seen it posted a couple of weeks ago. So if you haven't seen this already, enjoy.

Now that I got my Charisena the first track of Survivor title (no big deal), I want her journey to Indomitable Survivor (maybe beyond) to be done solo with only 3 heroes; and farming Fow and or UW exclusively. Of course, if there's going to be double exp cap weekend, she will do that too.

She current enjoys using Necrosis with Anthem of Flame, Vicious Attack and Barbed Spear, (and there's always one hero with Epidemic). Necrosis current does 80 damage. One handicap thinking up builds for herself is that she is barely out of noob island so she has only Cautery Signet as an elite skill, and Barrage (as well as any elite caps nearby) is a consideration since it's only a short hop away and I may need Koss. She can buy almost any non elite skills.

She has only unlocked these heroes, monk, necro, ele, ranger, dev, and war (but Koss needs to be rescued). They have access to mostly all non-EotN skills. Jin is only lvl17 but not a big deal.

So lets put your thinking caps on and give me some team builds. :catapult:

I think the time is right for our first Extreme Imperium in a while: Can you assimilate the galaxy?

I'm sure some of you saw the announcement go up for this game over at CivFanatics today. (Some details here.) It's a little weird, but they are putting together a game with two teams, 5 vs. 5, with CivFanatics fielding one team and Civplayers the other team.

So since we all seem to be active on the Pitboss game front right now, is there any interest in organizing a Realms Beyond contingent to represent CivFanatics? Or does everyone have their hands full right now? I might be interested if we could get a fair group together once more. I daresay that if we could pull Krill and Memphus in along with most of the Realms Beyond Apolyton team, we could pull off some interesting team stuff.

Anyone interested in playing an 'always peace' pbem game?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=334833