(June 18th, 2023, 14:18)Magic Science Wrote: In light of recent events, I should say more about the broken agreement and the overall Bing situation.
I broke the spirit of an agreement I made with Commodore to attack Bing together. He might not be upset, but I am sorry about it. There was no malice on my part, it was just that Naufragar attacked me and I had no choice but to focus on defending myself instead. At the time I made the agreement, I knew Naufragar was likely to attack soon, but I hoped he might attack a little later and I thought I had the upper hand against him, so I thought I could spare some forces to attack Bing.
I understand if people will still be less willing to make agreements like this with me in the future on the grounds that "This Magic Science guy is too clueless to know if he can actually keep this agreement or not! ". Treachery or no treachery, I still broke the agreement.
Anway, The main part of the final version of the plan when it was cancelled was to send 10+ Guerilla II Musketmen into the big Hill area between Yongampo, Kaechon, and even the capital Pyongyang and the peninsula city Unngi (spelling?). The Musketmen would pillage his only Gold, cut the road to his Sumerian conquests, and generally fork all those cities and pin units in the west (Naufragar's Guerilla II Musketman attack against me indicates this plan would have worked well). Meanwhile, Commodore would do something powerful and clever in the east. I was counting on Commodore outsmarting Bing somehow all along for us to win.
Ahh, well, this actually makes me feel better, in the end. I was trying to indicate to you that you should go north into the Squandered Lands (Superdeathia), just to have fun with it and conquer free stuff. I knew darn well that Bing would throw 100% of his efforts into fighting me, and I knew the power of Pro Guerilla II Risengardes would let me painfully but effectively break Bing's spine in his core. My worry was that Pindicator would be the only one attacking north...I'd hoped you two would be able to effectively 50/50 split the freebies, so he'd be less of a runaway and you'd have some hope of contention still when Nauforgor inevitably retook the Celtic Lands with his superior geography and Steel time.
Instead, disaster, Nooflugroar hit you before you could snap up those 4-5 cities (so I thought). I'd been frantically messaging him to just chill out and give you time to fight. But, in the end, if you'd instead headed to the hilly core then we wouldn't have had a much different outcome in any case. I guess the game was decided with Gav's choice to give away his capital to Pin.
Great thread, it's a pity about those Dark Ages but I really loved your reporting in this one.
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
(January 7th, 2023, 23:59)Magic Science Wrote: Hello! . This is a very long post. Much of it was extracted raw from my Word documents for this Pitboss and others, so it might be a bit ugly and messy. I hope you enjoy it.
EDIT: If you are allowed to do it, and if you have the stomach for multiple long Magic Science posts in a row (perfectly reasonable if not), then you should check the two big posts on page 3 of my PB66 thread. I did an opponent analysis of sorts there too, and this is building on my ideas from there.
PITBOSS 69 OPPONENT ANALYSIS:
Player/Leader/Civilization Combinations:
The Combinations: 1. superdeath: Mansa Musa (FIN/SPI) of Sumeria (Vulture/Ziggurat, The Wheel/Agriculture) 2. pindicator: Pacal II (EXP/FIN) of Mali (Skirmisher/Mint, The Wheel/Mining) 3. BING_XI_LAO + civac2 [???]: Victoria (FIN/IMP) of Carthage (Numidian Cavalry/Cothon, Fishing/Mining) [wow, even random combos has a favored meta, I guess] 4. Gavagai: De Gaulle (CHM/IND) of Rome (Praetorian/Forum, Fishing/Mining) [favorite combo] 5. Magic Science [ME]: Tokugawa (AGG/PRO) of Khmer (Ballista Elephant/Baray, Hunting/Mining) [cool also] 6. Commodore: Saladin (PRO/SPI) of Germany (Assembly Plant/Riesengarde, Hunting/Mining) 7. Naufragar: Montezuma (AGG/SPI) of Spain (Conquistador/Citadel, Fishing/Mysticism) [YOUR HEAD WOULD LOOK GOOD ON THE END OF A POLE] 8. Ginger + Miguelito [Gin-guelito]: Joao II (EXP/IMP) of Celtia (Gallic Swordsman/Dun, Hunting/Mysticism) [is this some kind of ironic punishment?]
Aggregate Data:
Traits: FIN: 3 SPI: 3 AGG: 2 EXP: 2 IMP: 2 PRO:2 CHA: 1 IND: 1 [CHA and IND are both only from Gavagai] CRE: 0 ORG: 0 PHI: 0 [very interesting how 3 whole traits are absent in an 8-player game!]
"Starting Era": "Ancient" = 1-38, "Classical" = 39-51, "Medieval" = 52-present. Just a fun little thing. "Culture", "Survivor", and "Victor": should be obvious. "Conqueror": this is vaguer. It does not mean rather or not you have ever captured a city or even eliminated a player. Basically, it means rather or not you have ever used your power to overrun a wide swathe of the map and paint it a new color of culture. Not just skirmishing and nibbling a bit, and not just piling on. Are you a mover and a shaker that really changes the political geography of the game? I hope you see what I mean and see the value of this category as a simple test characteristic of players, especially once you see which players are labelled "Yes" or "No". This is an important category. "Pick Phase" is mostly empty because it would be a waste of time to think about it for this hyper-random game, and the pick phase has been over for weeks anyway, and I am in a hurry.
Player Profiles: Them
superdeath Superdeath, SD History
Past RB PBs: 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67.
Total: 26 (record!)
Starting Era: Classical
Culture: Realms Beyonder
…
Survivor: Yes
Conqueror: No (surprising! Questionable. I think rushes do not quite count.)
Victor: Yes (Pitboss 48, full diplomacy game)
Notes Pick Phase
• (MORE). Main Phase
• He plays in too many Pitbosses at once. He spreads his attention too thin.
• Morale: Mediocre. However, it seems like it almost doesn’t matter to his performance?
• Mediocre builder. Usually, you can count on him to fall behind for no particular reason, eventually. Eventually.
• Competent warrior, but no more.
• Hugely favors building Stonehenge and making war in the early turns.
• Favors attacking the apparent leader in the later turns.
• Overall, highly aggressive. • [He will not win this game] Tier
Tier: 4/7
Notes Pick Phase
• (MORE). Main Phase
• Ultra-veteran.
• Morale: Poor. Declines almost by default over time. When he is demoralized, he is passive. Much better with a teammate. [no teammate this game] Tier
Tier: 6/7
Notes Pick Phase
• (MORE). Main Phase
• Mediocre builder, so you can count of him to fall behind for no particular reason eventually.
• Mediocre warrior, and not very aggressive.
• [dedlurked by civac2 this game. civac has already logged in several times] Tier
Tier: 2/7
Notes Pick Phase
• (MORE). Main Phase
• Ultra-veteran. Perennial contender.
• Morale: uncertain, since he rarely reports no matter what.
• Very untrustworthy dogpile ally.
• Long-standing rivalry with Commodore.
• Favors building about one of the flagship Wonders (ex. Mids, MoM).
• Highly aggressive. Tier
Tier: 6/7
Notes Pick Phase
• (MORE). Main Phase
•Commodore, I am sorry, but for some reason I am struggling to think of much to say about you. Ultra-veteran. Highly aggressive. Cool guy. . Tier
Tier: 6/7
naufragar
(nauf) History
Past RB PBs: 38, 41 (with dedlurkers), 45 (with teammate), 54, 59, 62, 64
Total: 7
Starting Era: Classical
Culture: Realms Beyonder
…
Survivor: Yes.
Conqueror: Yes.
Victor: No (draw with Amicalola in PB64).
Notes Pick Phase
• He likes to pick leader/civilization combinations that have some zany plan built-in for him to try in-game (ex., Alexander of Japan in RtR, Pericles of Dutch in CtH) [it is unclear if this behavior will exist in this game given the random "pick" method. It is also unclear what zany built-in plan Montezuma of Spain has anyway].
• (MORE). Main Phase
• Morale: Excellent!
• Highly aggressive. High aggression attributable chiefly to two reasons: One, if geopolitics indicates that someone will be his natural enemy later, he will attack them sooner. Two, if geopolitics indicates that his long-term position is bad, he will not bide his time and hope for good luck to help him, he will attack someone.
• On the rare occasions he is either at a loss for what to do or has decided that serious peaceful development is the thing to do, he likes chasing first-to bonuses of all types.
• He edits his reports to be nicer to his opponents. Tier
Tier: 5/7
Ginger* Ginger(), Ginger History
Past RB PBs: 63, 64, 67
Total: 3
Starting Era: Medieval
Culture: Realms Beyonder
…
Survivor: Yes
Conqueror: No (questionable)
Victor: Yes (Pitboss 63)
Notes Pick Phase
• (MORE). Main Phase
• Morale: Good.
• Excellent builder, even if his land is strange and difficult, particularly by way of Great People and Wonders.
• Mediocre warrior, but still reasonably aggressive. He will declare plenty of wars; he just might not win them.
•[Has an unclear team relationship with Miguelito this game, as in PB66. Miguelito has already logged in several times. Miguelito is an excellent player, maybe even Tier 7, so how much he is involved is a big deal] Tier
Tier: 5/7
Player Profiles: Me
Magic Science Magic, MS History Past RB PBs: 40, 45, 66. Total: 3. Culture: Realms Beyonder Starting Era: Classical … Survivor: Yes Conqueror: No Victor: No
Notes Pick Phase • (MORE). Main Phase • Somehow simultaneously green and rusty. • Morale: Excellent! Weak relationship with actual in-game events. • Mediocre warrior, but has never launched a real big offensive campaign, so is partially untested. • Viciously aggressive on the water; always beware of amphibious surprise attacks. • Favors surviving as long as possible, even if that means being in a weak or boring position for a long time. He will play a losing position oddly in service of this goal of having a good long last stand. Tier Tier: 3/7
THOUGHTS
This game is a sequel to PB64. PB64 was a great game and it was characterized by two things. One, it was “hyper-random”: huts, events, randomly selected combinations, and a random natural map. Two, it had a certain player composition: all the players were close enough in skill that no one was food-tier relative to anyone else. No skill gap was large enough for the better player to just do the RB typical thing and develop to Horse Archers / Catapults / Knights / Galleons / Whatever normally before overrunning the worse player mostly on their own. That is crazy! Normally that happens all the time in every game. If you don’t “eat a noob” on schedule then you are screwed unless you can manage something special. “Eating a noob” is like the prerequisite to be a part of the Cool Contender’s Club. I am rambling.
Anyway, in PB64 the usual pattern did not hold. Instead, players focused on conquering and getting ahead in 3 other ways.
One, grinding, shifting, coalition warfare. If you cannot win any of the available 1 vs. 1 conquests, then try to recruit allies and overwhelm them with numbers. But your “allies” are untrustworthy, greedy, short-sighted, and opportunistic wretches and your target is at least as strong as you individually (because again, the skill gap is small so the development level is about even), so this will be tricky. It will take multiples rounds of limited war, and a long time. The target may shift. You may have to weather a round where you are the target before getting the upper hand again. This was the dynamic of the Gavagai vs. Amicalola vs. Naufragar trio (+others around them). Gavagai was eventually defeated by coalition warfare, the complicated combined efforts of 4 players over 100s of turns. An incredible story for the only elimination of the game!
Two, gambit mismatch. The random map contributed to this. Commodore’s land (ha!) led him to try a Colossus colonization Farmer’s Gambit thing, meanwhile Ginger’s land led him to Oracle Machinery for ridiculously early Crossbows. They might not have been that far apart in strength overall, eventually, holistically, but at the moment Ginger had a comparative military advantage, and he COULD HAVE used it to successfully attack Commodore. Ginger made a mistake and offered peace, but I think the example and my point stands.
Three, luck of the land and leader/civ. What is your start like? What is the geography like? How much land is in your reach? How good is the land? Do you have expansion traits to secure more land? Do you have economy traits to do more with less land? If no one ever profited in conquest in coalition warfare or a gambit mismatch, then someone will still win by default, and that person is the one with best starting luck of this kind. However, someone certainly will eventually, so instead the lucky ones just don’t need to profit as much to keep up. They have more leeway, more room for error. However, it still will not be easy for them, because I trust Mjmd and co. to select a good map (though that coinflip thing worries me… . What does it mean???), and I trust my fellow players to dogpile a leader if necessary. For PB64’s players at least, “Player X is strong and frightening” is a reason to ATTACK Player X .
…
But that was all about PB64, and this is PB69, right? . Yes, but again, this is the sequel and the settings are almost exactly the same, so all those ideas still apply. The difference is… the player composition.
Amicalola left, and pindicator joined. They are both skilled players, proven victors, even sharing the same unfortunate problem with morale, so I doubt this switch will change much at all.
However, BING joined, and I did too, and that could be a significant change, because we are clearly worse players than everyone else in this game. We might be worse enough that we are food-tier relative to them, and can be conquered in the RB typical way I described earlier (that exact fate happened to both of use in our most recent game, 65 66), and that would cause all the previous section of analysis to fall apart and not be true. I hope not, because PB64 was a great game, and there is reason to think it could be different for the two of us this time. BING requested a dedlurker, and he got civac, and civac is an excellent player and has already logged in a few times. Also, Realms Beyonders are people too, and people are complicated and can grow and change and improve. For my part, I like to think that I learned a lot from PB66 and have now shaken off the rust of my absence. I doubt I will win, but I think I can survive and avoid being pathetic easy food that warps the whole game around my corpse. . I want to be a significant participant who must ponder those 3 issues/ways I spent all that time considering above.
…
Alright, now for a last “quick”() word on traits. It is tradition to talk about traits at the same time as players, but I think that tradition is arbitrary (though good fun). Traits are just another set game mechanic, and there is no more need to reconsider them at the start of every game along with the players than there is to reevaluate every Wonder or technology or whatever (which is to say, reevaluation could be good because it is good to learn and grow on these topics over time). Just make sure you know by heart which player has which combo (which I do, and you can too if you want), and that is good enough. Especially the tradition of predicting a game-plan based on combo is silly, because the specifics of this map and this game will determine what happens. Says the guy who was conquered by Tokugawa of Rome with Praetorians like 2 months ago . Who could have expected such a thing from that combo choice? The point of this kind of analysis is to inform future predictions, not make any now with so little information. And I do hope that my famous fellow players wrote something pithy about me in this style, because I am vain like that.
But I will still say a word about traits in this context of a hyper-random game with, I hope, no food-tier players. On a natural map, I favor FIN, CHM, and IND. FIN because, much like in real life, water has a temperate, moderating effect. No matter how grim the land is, water will still be there for you to work (), and FIN is great for that (ORG nice too, but secondary). CHM for happiness when you are not guaranteed a good distribution of luxuries, of course. Also for cheap monuments to solve the dotmapping woes inflicted on you by cruel chance. For that reason I previously favored CRE the most, but now in CtH you might as well just be CHM instead and get culture AND happiness. Lastly, IND for terrain-dictated Wonder gambits. Does your harsh natural situation scream for a specific Wonder like the Colossus (see: Commodore PB64), or the Great Lighthouse, or the Pyramids? With IND, you have a much better chance of getting what you need.
In this context, you should think about players’ traits as part of figuring out who has the most luck, who has the most room for error because of that. Who is the Amicalola of PB69? Ginger’s EXP/IMP will be cashed in (visible in the demographics easily) for having more land. Superdeath’s FIN (and SPI) will mean he can have more room for error with less land of worse quality. I really like Gavagai’s CHM/IND (and again, how odd that he is the only one with either trait!), but again, it will be easily visible if IND does anything for him. A bit differently, naufragar’s AGG (and SPI, whatever) will help him in the long, difficult turns of coalition warfare.
I realize now I have said little about my own combination, Tokugawa of Khmer. . I will circle back and deal with that later. I have thought about it some, but it could use more thought, and this post is long enough. Overall, I am perfectly content with it, though. RefSteel be praised!
Holy shit. That was long. It is done. THE END. Thanks for reading.
Now I need to go play my turn and make a very important decision based on my ideas here, which I will report soon. My reports for this game should have a better schedule from here on.
Any questions? .
Just beginning here, but want to say this is brilliant stuff, top to bottom (although REALLY, NOTHING to say about me? ). I hope the rest of this thread continues to be this incisive and entertaining.
Thanks, glad you liked it, hope you liked the rest of it!
Sorry, really!
People always tells you that they like to read your analysis of them, and I liked reading your analysis of me, so I'm sorry that you specifically were denied that experience in my thread. I promise to write a solid analysis of you in our next game, even if you are the only one I do it for.
You can see that I was struggling with Pindicator's too. I recall that at the time I was struggling to wrestle with the format and to skim past games, and it began to feel less like "enjoyable thing that enhances other enjoyable thing" and more like "self-inflicted homework," so I just kicked what I had out the door.
Take solace:
ONE: I obviously know who you are, and you are not an enigma or a blank slate to me. I did consider things when playing, I just couldn't put it into words in the pre-game.
TWO: Lots of what I had to say about people was how they were bad, so Me Speechless = You Flawless?
(July 3rd, 2023, 12:45)Commodore Wrote:
(June 18th, 2023, 14:18)Magic Science Wrote: In light of recent events, I should say more about the broken agreement and the overall Bing situation.
I broke the spirit of an agreement I made with Commodore to attack Bing together. He might not be upset, but I am sorry about it. There was no malice on my part, it was just that Naufragar attacked me and I had no choice but to focus on defending myself instead. At the time I made the agreement, I knew Naufragar was likely to attack soon, but I hoped he might attack a little later and I thought I had the upper hand against him, so I thought I could spare some forces to attack Bing.
I understand if people will still be less willing to make agreements like this with me in the future on the grounds that "This Magic Science guy is too clueless to know if he can actually keep this agreement or not! ". Treachery or no treachery, I still broke the agreement.
Anway, The main part of the final version of the plan when it was cancelled was to send 10+ Guerilla II Musketmen into the big Hill area between Yongampo, Kaechon, and even the capital Pyongyang and the peninsula city Unngi (spelling?). The Musketmen would pillage his only Gold, cut the road to his Sumerian conquests, and generally fork all those cities and pin units in the west (Naufragar's Guerilla II Musketman attack against me indicates this plan would have worked well). Meanwhile, Commodore would do something powerful and clever in the east. I was counting on Commodore outsmarting Bing somehow all along for us to win.
Ahh, well, this actually makes me feel better, in the end. I was trying to indicate to you that you should go north into the Squandered Lands (Superdeathia), just to have fun with it and conquer free stuff. I knew darn well that Bing would throw 100% of his efforts into fighting me, and I knew the power of Pro Guerilla II Risengardes would let me painfully but effectively break Bing's spine in his core. My worry was that Pindicator would be the only one attacking north...I'd hoped you two would be able to effectively 50/50 split the freebies, so he'd be less of a runaway and you'd have some hope of contention still when Nauforgor inevitably retook the Celtic Lands with his superior geography and Steel time.
Instead, disaster, Nooflugroar hit you before you could snap up those 4-5 cities (so I thought). I'd been frantically messaging him to just chill out and give you time to fight. But, in the end, if you'd instead headed to the hilly core then we wouldn't have had a much different outcome in any case. I guess the game was decided with Gav's choice to give away his capital to Pin.
Great thread, it's a pity about those Dark Ages but I really loved your reporting in this one.
I can't remember if I ever understood your message to say I should attack Former Sumeria. Didn't you just place Da on my side of the diplo screen a few times?
However, attacking Former Sumeria actually was my original plan. It was the obvious thing to do. Hold Bing off in Da and the newer Celtic coastal cities for relatively cheap and strip him of his conquests for relatively cheap. But then Naufragar looked stronger and stronger and more and more likely to attack sooner and sooner, so I kept diminishing the amount of Power earmarked to attack Bing, until finally there just wasn't much Power I could spare at all. That was when I devised the Guerilla II Musket plan. I just couldn't possibly spare enough units to comprise an effective combined-arms siege stack to attack Former Sumeria, but I thought I could still spare a few Muskets, and they could still do something useful for the war if used in that unusual way.
Though I think attacking Yongampo overland with a siege stack was considered too at some points, and the naval attack on Sonchon was part of it and unchanged from early on in the planning. I already had 2 Galleys from when the culture of Cathy Ames cut my empire in two, so why not? Yeah, for a little while the only overland route to Celtia was through Naufragar's culture. .
I didn't understand the situation at the Pindicator/Bing/You borderland at all. I thought Pindicator could only attack Former Sumeria in a small way over the sea, and that you might try to hold Bing off at Doppelbock and Former Cumae to attack Former Sumeria yourself. Obviously that was not thought through on my part. Big picture is that a 50/50 split of Former Sumeria with Pindicator was possible if Naufragar had left me alone. Maybe I could have tried declaring war on him to fish for binding Peace Treaty? But that would have been rejected and understood accurately as a sign of weakness.
Well, Pindicator conquering Former Sumeria was the winning move, or the move that meant only a dogpile could stop him from winning, so whatever event made that possible could be said to have decided the game, true.
The split of Rome working out to give him a land path was necessary, true. I haven't gotten there in my reading yet, so I can't say more.
I think Bing could have conquered Superdeath more quickly, and that could have helped him keep it. Also, he could have defended better when Pindicator attacked. Obviously his core is more important, and that's fair, but even a few good defenders on the margin would have been a great help for him and us. Force Pindicator to choose between bleeding his 2-movers or waiting for the Siege units! I have experience with this kind of defense, you know. And it seemed to me that Bing was moving his units erratically in the pre-war period. Not hunkering down and stacking up now that the conquest was over but running every which way singly or in little groups. I swear I saw the same units running back and forth, and units of the same type running in opposite directions. This could be related to being so easy on the margins when the time came.
The whole situation would have been much different if I attacked Superdeath earlier and stronger, which could have happened if the Hate Triangle with Naufragar and Ginger + Miguelito worked out differently, as it nearly did. Miguelito leaving Iago empty and vulnerable to the Morale trick was the key turning point. Incredible incredible ramifications for one little move. I was honestly ready to concede the rest of Celtia to Naufragar and attack Superdeath instead, which I think would have come soon enough before he got Guilds to work well? And even before that there was the creeping awareness that Superdeath had turned out to be so weak he was the food-tier civilization of the game, not me or Bing. Maybe it would have been better to never plan for more than Joker and Bibracte, but I had tunnel-vision and just didn't think anyone this game would turn out so weak without special circumstances like devastating harassment from 2 players.
And I didn't think the loss of Celtia was inevitable until very late. I still don't know when it did become inevitable. Maybe as long as Naufragar owned Cathy Ames? But there were lots of little domestic things. Not spending so much on upgrades so I could contest Taj Mahal with my GE? Being bolder with the new cities and not starting out with so much fortification and culture and units, so they became profitable in time? Accepting Buddhism (hammers helping me more than gold helped him)? Just not getting distracted in a Dark Age during the key period and doing generic development better? I don't know.
Being positioned better when Naufragar attacked could have traded Ban for Cathy Ames, maybe.
RE: Thread. Glad you liked it. .
RE: Dark Ages. Some of this was poor time management for real life concerns, but I should reconsider my reporting schedule and style next time too. They always take longer than I want to write. Maybe I can retain the nice parts in less time.
There's so much to say and thinking about this game. So many ways it could have gone. What a game!
(July 3rd, 2023, 15:35)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Great opponent analysis, MS (I must not have read it previously) - I would say you've proven you undervalued yourself from this game.
Good thing Commodore dredged it up, then.
Yeah, you are right. It would be dishonest to rate myself so poorly again. I should be up there with Naufragar and Ginger. Not a food-tier player, I think.
It was just that I wrote that after being conquered 1 vs. 1 with ease in PB66, so I wasn't feeling too good about my skills, but I guess being conquered by Plemo of AGG Rome with no other neighbors should not be taken as a terrible mark of shame.
You were looking really good this game and I loved the reporting. I had asked a question in lurker thread I was curious about.
Quote:Since he will most likely read stuff post game I'll be curious thoughts on what happened. Too much infrastructure builds? Not enough? Not enough attention to cultural swaps (easy thing to miss). If he wanted to go after Bing I wonder if like 2-3 turns before everyone declared if he should have war peaced Nauf (paying him off if need be).
Hi Magic Science, that was a great thread! As someone unfamiliar with your games I thought you played very well and was quite impressed with your economy in the mid-game despite a lack of cottages. A couple things I noted from reading through:
- I wasn't even considering the commerce implications when I first offered you Open Borders; I was only interested in scouting. But that was a valid reason to decline me. Also, rather funny how the crab demand was misinterpreted. I thought it was you telling me to lay off the crab city that you were about to claim.
- Though it looks like we did communicate peace well with the galley movements!
- I'm not sure I would have kept Joker, I would have considered razing and replacing in a more defensive position. Though in the moment I might have made the same mistake. But I might be only thinking about that knowing what happened later when Naufrager's culture made it impossible to defend. Your original city of Bolan was in a very nice position defensively.
- I also thought that you taking over Ginger's lands was really dubious long-term because they were going to cost you a lot in maintenance and seemed almost impossible to defend. I think Naufrager showed why they were so hard to hold when he made his attack later on.
- I really enjoyed the evacuation of your troops from the Gingerlands, shuttling them up through the last few holdings of Bing. Nice Dunkirk moment by yourself there.
- When offering you deals before I was trying to tell you that if you joined with me against Naufrager then you would get to have revenge against Nauf and the opportunity to recapture your cities (and then some). I was really surprised at how you seemed to join into the dogpile, though I don't fault you for it. Teaming up against me and then finding the right moment to backstab Naufrager was a slim hope but probably your only shot. Or letting Naufrager's troops get eliminated by me first and then coming in after to mop up - also a valid choice.
- I was too slow on any naval invasion. Probably was another 5 turns away from coming at your coast with a bunch of rifles in galleons, up until I saw Naufrager's stack and then everything unraveled.
It's been a while for some of this and I will not reread my threads or peruse my screenshot archive to jog my memory, so take this all with a grain of salt.
(July 6th, 2023, 15:53)pindicator Wrote: Hi Magic Science, that was a great thread! As someone unfamiliar with your games I thought you played very well and was quite impressed with your economy in the mid-game despite a lack of cottages. A couple things I noted from reading through:
- I wasn't even considering the commerce implications when I first offered you Open Borders; I was only interested in scouting. But that was a valid reason to decline me. Also, rather funny how the crab demand was misinterpreted. I thought it was you telling me to lay off the crab city that you were about to claim.
- Though it looks like we did communicate peace well with the galley movements!
- I'm not sure I would have kept Joker, I would have considered razing and replacing in a more defensive position. Though in the moment I might have made the same mistake. But I might be only thinking about that knowing what happened later when Naufrager's culture made it impossible to defend. Your original city of Bolan was in a very nice position defensively.
- I also thought that you taking over Ginger's lands was really dubious long-term because they were going to cost you a lot in maintenance and seemed almost impossible to defend. I think Naufrager showed why they were so hard to hold when he made his attack later on.
- I really enjoyed the evacuation of your troops from the Gingerlands, shuttling them up through the last few holdings of Bing. Nice Dunkirk moment by yourself there.
- When offering you deals before I was trying to tell you that if you joined with me against Naufrager then you would get to have revenge against Nauf and the opportunity to recapture your cities (and then some). I was really surprised at how you seemed to join into the dogpile, though I don't fault you for it. Teaming up against me and then finding the right moment to backstab Naufrager was a slim hope but probably your only shot. Or letting Naufrager's troops get eliminated by me first and then coming in after to mop up - also a valid choice.
- I was too slow on any naval invasion. Probably was another 5 turns away from coming at your coast with a bunch of rifles in galleons, up until I saw Naufrager's stack and then everything unraveled.
Looking forward to seeing you in your next one!
Yeah, I never formally proclaimed a variant game, but I only ever had 3 cottages. Though I would have happily worked more in Celtia if Naufragar and you hadn't pillaged them all. If the situation with Naufragar had been slightly less dangerous, then I would have declared war to kill your Horse Archer in retaliation. Or maybe not if I judged that Naufragar would have gotten them all without your help.
-Yeah, with the Crabs. I am just up to that part of your thread now (reading slowly this week). Was that the first resource deal you saw all game? Could explain why you though it was a demand and not a gift.
-Joker was a stronger city because it had the Stone (big hammer saver with all my Walls and Castle and eventually Chichen Itza) and more Riverside Plains Flats. And I think I still hoped of getting Cathy Ames somehow at the time. Also, though I'm not sure if was really thinking of this at the time, it was vital for the cultural aspect of defense that Joker be on that tile to produce culture. My main army had to be in the middle at that place south of the mountains to threaten Cathy Ames and defend both west and southeast. If "Joker" was 2 tiles north, then it would be distance of 2 vs. distance of 2 with Cathy Ames, and Naufragar would have gotten control of that tile with Cathy Ames' culture and cut me off catastrophically. Yeah, I doubt I was thinking of that though. And my eventual downfall speaks for itself to say I could use some constructive criticism. .
-This is the big decision, the big question. More on it at the end.
-I have lots of experience with fighting retreats into naval evacuations now. .
-I was 100% committed to the dogpile. It was not a weird backwards way to get revenge on Naufragar. I was not feeling very vengeful, and if I was, I could have just stayed uncomfortably neutral against Naufragar in the dogpile and caused him (and Commodore, and me) to lose to you by concession quickly. Though I admit that the possibility of you attacking Naufragar on my behalf through my lands seemed too absurd to be true, and I did not understand that part. Big picture, I meant what I said about counting loss by concession the same as elimination. It seems a good way to rationalize motives in a hopeless endgame state, and it pointed me to extending the game by fighting you in earnest.
-I skimmed the end of your thread, and I see you had Frigates. I had not clue whatsoever that you had Frigates. . My Caravels were for trading acceptably with Galleons. You would have crushed them and had your pick of my culture-bombarded coast. That said, I had a bunch of units prepared to stuff in my cities, so I'm not sure how well it would have worked to compel peace. .
Glad another person liked my game and my thread, and see you next time. .
(July 6th, 2023, 09:43)Mjmd Wrote: You were looking really good this game and I loved the reporting. I had asked a question in lurker thread I was curious about.
Quote:Since he will most likely read stuff post game I'll be curious thoughts on what happened. Too much infrastructure builds? Not enough? Not enough attention to cultural swaps (easy thing to miss). If he wanted to go after Bing I wonder if like 2-3 turns before everyone declared if he should have war peaced Nauf (paying him off if need be).
THE CELTIC QUESTION.
Regardless of the outcome, I am proud to have succeeded in the conquest temporarily. I never had a conquest like this in my Civ IV career previously, and this one was not easy to pull off. It relied on a GG Morale trick to work at all, and that was incredibly cool. .
Also, in some plausible alternate histories of the game, I think the Celtic conquest is my only path to victory. If Superdeath was as strong as he should have been given his in-game starting conditions, then profitable 1 vs. 1 conquest would have been impossible, and probably the tense 2 vs. 1 against the Celts would have been my only hope. However, in reality Superdeath was weak, and I could have noticed this and switched to target him instead. Tunnel-vision. .
Though it should also be pointed out that Naufragar's only path to victory was through me, therefore my only path to victory was for him to die, and every city I took from the Celts was a city denied to him. A 2 for 1 swing in my favor. If I conquered Superdeath, then Naufragar could match me by conquering the Celts, and then could I kill him?
Okay, so I think I was pretty close to the first part of the goal, which was just to stop Naufragar from kidnapping what I had rightfully stolen. If I had paid more attention to the culture of the despicable cursed city of Cathy Ames and realized that Music let him build Culture, then I could have countered in time and stopped him from getting control of the tiles adjacent to Joker. Also, if I had settled the filler behind Joker before I lost Joker, then that would have let me retain control of the tiles behind Joker (the Sheep) and get a better chance to revenge-strike the victorious razing army.
If I do that and I boost my economy just enough to match Naufragar's time to Steel, then we stalemate, I think. Naufragar doesn't have the chance to catastrophically first-strike the vital middle defensive spot of Joker, and my army is strong enough to kill his if he enters my culture and gives me the first strike. So he likely gets away with some clever razings along the edges of my empire, maybe even Ban as in reality, but he doesn't bring the whole Celtic half crashing down, and maybe he gives me an opportunity to take Cathy Ames and that would have been relieving. Actually there might have been such an opportunity when he burned Ban if my preparation was better and I wasn't preparing to fight Bing, though it wasn't hyperbole that he was a danger to raze all of Western Cambodia at that time. If he had, I recall, built/used a diagonal neutral road and really dove in, he could have burned Bie and Bolan-Bie.
Though it would have been a bigger ask to match his tech rate longer-term and stop him from getting to Cavalry or Riflemen first and wrecking me with that maybe.
The second part of the goal was to conquer Naufragar and thereby win the game. That is so far away from what I actually accomplished, especially considering the 20/20 hindsight outside deadline of Pindicator conquering Former Sumeria and becoming ascendant. Nothing I could have done about that with Naufragar clinging to my back, so I just hoped that the broader geopolitical situation of the other fivefourthree TWO of you worked itself out favorably, or at least too slowly. Meanwhile I would win the duel with Naufragar.
Yeah, I don't know how I could have done this. It would have been incredibly difficult, so maybe this is the part that means conquering Celtia was a fatal mistake and I should have taken advantage of Superdeath's self-inflicted weakness to conquer him instead. But then I still have to kill Naufragar to win. But maybe Commodore could have thought that about Pindicator, who was also pinned against the edge, and Pindicator found a way out. Maybe if Naufragar gets Celtia and has the ocean in the west and east, then he starts thinking about Astronomy and naval vectors against Bing and Commodore in the southern ocean? . It doesn't seem like him though. He was probably tunnel-visioned on me (his thread is next and last, best for last).
What could I have possibly done differently to do better? Surely something. After the first few turns of the reporting blackout, at the start of May, that was my exam week and I started playing worse and spiraling into poor morale over that and still not reporting for my adoring fans, so I must have missed some good plays in there.
I could have not gone crazy with upgrades to Knights and Longbows and Pikemen, or at least upgraded less. I was a bit trigger happy with getting "free" units without having to pay for them (with production, at least) . But that might have been necessary to beat Naufragar at the time. If I could have spared that gold, I could have raced and possibly got the Taj Mahal with my Great Engineer instead of him, and that would have been huge.
I could have been bolder with buildings in the new conquests. Less Walls and Castles as the first builds, more Granaries. Let the mature cities back home take care of panicked unit-training. That said, that whole region, and especially new cities in the region, really wanted Slavery and I could not do that. And some of those cities had no choice but to build culture buildings or lose vital tiles. Iago had to train 2 Galleys when Old Mack's tile fell to Naufragar's control, and I don't know if there was any way around that. Calculate how long until I got it back and accept some incredibly uncomfortable turns without connection back home until then? Maybe then I could have gotten the Forbidden Palace, which kept not being built.
I could have maybe done a different order of multiplier buildings or done a different ratio of infrastructure/wealth? Maybe go for Compass and delicious Harbors sooner? Never got many Banks, but by then the build-up for the inevitable war was underway.
Bureaucracy > Vassalage? .
Da was the only conquest where everything was good and profitable, and the only one to survive in my control until the end. Not a coincidence.
I just don't know. I suspect this will be a topic in my daydreams until the next one starts.
That got a bit more rambly than I intended. . That's what you get in the postgame after a two-month Dark Age.
P.S. One last key thing: Naufragar never misstepped with his army. He never picked a fight with me he couldn't win. Ever. Even when it would have been easy to do so, like in the one time at Joker, way back when he had cultural advantage the first time and I was so sure he would wreck me until I carefully used Vodka at the last moment. That could have saved me. Or if he misstepped after the mass upgrading when I had 10+ Knights ready to whack anything that came into my culture. If he had tried a fight against me and lost and lost his army, given me time to take Cathy Ames and forced him to whip up a new one in a panic, that would have been huge. But he was too smart for that. Very well done.
Thanks for in-depth reply Magic Science. Lots of good stuff in there. A couple things I want to respond to:
Re: Joker
Yeah, I think you nailed the real issue was Naufrager's culture building. Honestly that's a move I didn't even consider in my game (I used culture builds to pop borders in Superdeath cities but nowhere outside of that), so I think it might have caught me flat-footed as well. PB65 had me recently thinking more about Culture (and also pillaging - see next answer) and so I was trying to do more with that in my game how i settled on Commodore, but obviously there are more avenues to account for. Nauf just played that part really really well.
Re: Pillaging
I completely forgot about that event. In PB65 Cornflakes had pillaged my conquest of Bing and I remember that being on my mind when I saw Naufrager's chariots by your newly conquered cities. Now, I don't really remember what my thinking was when I started pillaging with my horse archer. It was either "Naufrager is going to pillage so I'm going to pillage with my sentry just to make sure he doesn't get anything" or it was "Let's pillage with my sentry to giving Naufrager FOMO on pillage gold and so he'll pillage those mature villages." Honestly can't remember which it was, and I don't think I mentioned it in a report.
Re: Frigates
I was intentionally keeping them out of sight. Once you ended open borders I started frigate production and was 1-turning them out of Thundercats. If Naufrager had been 5 turns slower on his attack I would have had 4-6 galleons loaded with rifles & cavalry and ready to go after your coastal cities. I also think it was a mistake - but I was also very afraid of you researching Astronomy and getting Frigates & SotL out ahead of me.
Re: The Celtic QUESTION
This is a big puzzle for me, as I've thought a couple times about how I would handle things if I were in your position. In theory that land mass would be an even 3-way split, but with the mountain chain running E-W through the middle in reality it left you 3 in an unbalanced split of that continent. I think what you should tried was nibble more and conquer less. You needed to conquer but at the same time keep your borders from getting indefensible, so you really had to nibble at both Spain and Celtia. Or at least nibbled away at Celtia while you kept Spain to a standstill. So Naufrager has his forces largely tied down to defending against a possible attack from you and can't then use them to ocnquer Ginger, while you are able to take the cities Ginger settled to the east of Joker. Easier said than done, especially with how well naufrager played. But you couldn't let him take all of Ginger because then he gets too big, and the geography does not let you take all of Ginger yourself.
Re: New City Builds
You ideally want your core cities building the troops while you get the new cities up and running with necessary infrastructure. Sometimes you just don't have a choice and have to build units everywhere. Walls vs Granaries is usually dependent on the battle situation for me.
Re: Bureaucracy vs Vassalage
I actually made this mistake in game! I swapped to Vassalage in my 2nd golden age and immediately realized it was wrong for me. For you, you had a great capital so Bureaucracy was like adding another city's worth of production and research - but did you really need the promotions for your new units? I don't think Vassalge's unit costs are worth considering here - Bureaucracy is going to win the economics in this debate if your capital is good - but if you need the promotions for new units then that is where Vassalage pulls ahead.
I was intentionally keeping them out of sight. Once you ended open borders I started frigate production and was 1-turning them out of Thundercats. If Naufrager had been 5 turns slower on his attack I would have had 4-6 galleons loaded with rifles & cavalry and ready to go after your coastal cities. I also think it was a mistake - but I was also very afraid of you researching Astronomy and getting Frigates & SotL out ahead of me.
I did see your Caravels as soon as you started producing them. It was just the Frigates I was clueless about.
When the game ended, I was saving money on Paper and deciding rather to go for Rifling or Astronomy next. I thought I could reach at least one of them before the end but maybe not both. Either choice would have obsoleted one of my Wonders, sadly. I was leaning towards Rifling because Replaceable Parts was along the way and because Astronomy seemed "too niche". The use case I imagined for Astronomy was training Frigates to fence Bolan-Ban against your Galleons after the mainland fell to survive longer. Except in my mind that wouldn't work because... your Galleons could dart in and out of cities and Forts on the nearby peninsula. . Never ever a clue that it wouldn't work because you, with your superior GNP, could reach Frigates too.
Honestly, you were going to win any kind of naval encounter just on the grounds that I was not thinking things through by the end.
If it had occurred to me that you could discover and train Frigates, I would have saved money and decided what to do next after Military Science, without Compass and Optics. No use in Compass and Optics for Caravels when Frigates are on the scene.
(July 9th, 2023, 10:48)pindicator Wrote: Re: The Celtic QUESTION
This is a big puzzle for me, as I've thought a couple times about how I would handle things if I were in your position. In theory that land mass would be an even 3-way split, but with the mountain chain running E-W through the middle in reality it left you 3 in an unbalanced split of that continent. I think what you should tried was nibble more and conquer less. You needed to conquer but at the same time keep your borders from getting indefensible, so you really had to nibble at both Spain and Celtia. Or at least nibbled away at Celtia while you kept Spain to a standstill. So Naufrager has his forces largely tied down to defending against a possible attack from you and can't then use them to ocnquer Ginger, while you are able to take the cities Ginger settled to the east of Joker. Easier said than done, especially with how well naufrager played. But you couldn't let him take all of Ginger because then he gets too big, and the geography does not let you take all of Ginger yourself.
.
Naufragar, Ginger + Miguelito, and I formed a trio. We have much more border contact and attack opportunity with each other than with the rest of the world. I had more outside contact, but they didn't have enough. Though Ginger might have remained in control of Hannibal, and was it inevitable for Commodore and Naufragar to be at peace over their Not-Island? So maybe the other two could have had more outside contact too.
In turn, Naufragar and Ginger + Miguelito were a duo with more border contact and attack opportunity with each other than with me. One of them was pretty likely to be the first of us to die from the beginning. But then the winner would have to fight me, for need of more land and lack of more options to get it. It would be too difficult to defend against that while also attacking outside the trio to get more land myself, so my path had to be winning a 1 vs. 1 between the winner of Naufragar vs. Ginger + Miguelito. Not a 2 vs. 1 because no attack routes outside for them means no attack routes coming in for one of the other 5. Attack routes are 2-way streets. What I mean is, I had no possible allies against Naufragar.
That's the catch. I had to somehow win a 1 vs. 1 fight. That is pretty tricky. I thought I could do it by miraculously getting the lion's share of the spoils of Naufragar vs. Ginger + Miguelito, but that didn't work, in large part due to the land being indefensible.
I take your "nibbling" suggestion as being a way to preserve the Naufragar vs. Ginger + Miguelito conflict for longer. Basically, keep the fight as a 2 vs. 1 in my favor as well as possible for as long as possible. Jump from side to side, maybe. Get the defensible Celtic cities, then leave them to fight. Maybe if I take Joker in peace, which was offered to me, and the Celtic army survives, Naufragar has to leave himself vulnerable in order to beat them and get his share. So I can take Cathy Ames, and now he is the one with defense geography problems (Cathy Ames, Iago, and Ursuala kind of formed a 3-city line with each city dominating the next, though that element was overshadowed because I got everything south of Iago and Ursula too). Maybe I could snatch Tortuga. Or try for a decapitation strike on the Wonderful cities of Mos Eisley and Ankh-Morpork. They were technically border cities, after all. But so much cultural depth...
But that might not have worked because Ginger was so checked out after the loss of 3 cities and 1 triangular prism. But maybe he wouldn't have been so checked out and weak if I had refrained from burning Mack? I thought about it at the time, but in the end just went for the easy guaranteed hit to a rival. .
I could go on and on and on. I love this game. Obviously Civ IV in general, but Pitboss 69 in particular was just great. Best one so far, for me. Such a fascinating game from start to finish. There were so many turning points and different ways it could have turned out. .
(July 9th, 2023, 10:48)pindicator Wrote: Re: Bureaucracy vs Vassalage
I actually made this mistake in game! I swapped to Vassalage in my 2nd golden age and immediately realized it was wrong for me. For you, you had a great capital so Bureaucracy was like adding another city's worth of production and research - but did you really need the promotions for your new units? I don't think Vassalge's unit costs are worth considering here - Bureaucracy is going to win the economics in this debate if your capital is good - but if you need the promotions for new units then that is where Vassalage pulls ahead.
Vassalage was worth the 2nd level promotion for Muskets, Siege units, and Caravels (ha!), but not Mounted everywhere except Bolan-Mei with its settled Great Generals (though by the end the breaking point was such that I got 3rd level promotions there from Vassalage too). So Vassalage was worth a lot of promotions, but I didn't do anything special with them. Just more +% all around.
I never did the math for Bureaucracy. It just seemed not so great with a GPP-focused capital, and I thought of Vassalage like a civ-wide production bonus when building units, and I did build a lot of units. But I could have moved my capital. I should have just been invested enough to do the math when the Golden Age arrived. Then that would have certainly concluded what you did, that Bureaucracy is actually a great civic. Who knew?
Also, related, I took too long to do the math for the fillers. They had been marked as a possibility for ever, and I think they became profitable as soon as I got onto the Conqueror's Plateau when conquering Celtia. I waited too long to settle them for no good reason. That hurt too. Never did think about settling the filler city up north on the peninsula. It could have taken up tiles from the capital, which wanted to work specialists but had all those good tiles too and the happy and healthy problems.
By the way, I finished reading your thread and will get back to you about it soon. Really enjoying the back-and-forth post-game discussion with this one.
". Treachery or no treachery, I still broke the agreement.
. This is a very long post. Much of it was extracted raw from my Word documents for this Pitboss and others, so it might be a bit ugly and messy. I hope you enjoy it.
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. What does it mean???), and I trust my fellow players to dogpile a leader if necessary. For PB64’s players at least, “Player X is strong and frightening” is a reason to ATTACK Player X 
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) word on traits. It is tradition to talk about traits at the same time as players, but I think that tradition is arbitrary (though good fun). Traits are just another set game mechanic, and there is no more need to reconsider them at the start of every game along with the players than there is to reevaluate every Wonder or technology or whatever (which is to say, reevaluation could be good because it is good to learn and grow on these topics over time). Just make sure you know by heart which player has which combo (which I do, and you can too if you want), and that is good enough. Especially the tradition of predicting a game-plan based on combo is silly, because the specifics of this map and this game will determine what happens. 
), and FIN is great for that (ORG nice too, but secondary). CHM for happiness when you are not guaranteed a good distribution of luxuries, of course. Also for cheap monuments to solve the dotmapping woes inflicted on you by cruel chance. For that reason I previously favored CRE the most, but now in CtH you might as well just be CHM instead and get culture AND happiness. Lastly, IND for terrain-dictated Wonder gambits. Does your harsh natural situation scream for a specific Wonder like the Colossus (see: Commodore PB64), or the Great Lighthouse, or the Pyramids? With IND, you have a much better chance of getting what you need.
). I hope the rest of this thread continues to be this incisive and entertaining. 
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. But that might have been necessary to beat Naufragar at the time. If I could have spared that gold, I could have raced and possibly got the Taj Mahal with my Great Engineer instead of him, and that would have been huge.