General thoughts: I thought I had by far the best opening, though I am sure that is debatable...but my mid game was horrible, with me losing focus, not building enough Workers and in general just uselessly flailing away. I think I still had a chance if it wasn't for Ellimoogle's foolish "Settle the entire middle island" plan which gave NH like four free cities, but that NH was the frontrunner at that point. I think a big mistake was, in addition to gettinf distracted, these distractions moving me away from the center isle: I thought I would have more time to settle it than I did for sure! In fact, everything I did mid game was at a sluggish pace: Taking too long building HAs so Jkioan had Longbows and not Archers(At that point I was committed, though), for example. Too used to the SP pace, I think!
I also learned a valuable lesson: Don't start a game without having a solid schedule! I thought that would be a benefit, since I could play the turn whenever...but all it did was lead to unnessecarily long delays and hostility from others. I think I will wait on joining the next game to make sure I can play the turns proper and probably get a dedlurker/teammate who can play on the hopefully rarer occassions I cannot. PBEM29 was also a good boot to the head for this.
Though, for my first real game...I don't think I did bad, third place but with a strong start, something to build on, you know?
Reading the Ellimoogle thread:
Alright, so beginning to read through threads: Team Ellimoogle didn't know much what to make of me, although they did think my leader choice was "solid". Yay!
Lots of early planning and numbers, way more than mine I think...most of my micro plans were just Workers, lol.
"Kuro seems like a decent player, if a bit obsessive. I can see him going for the Oracle and micro-ing out 20 different plans for it. He's creative, so (like us) he'd have better access to the 2nd ring of his second city. He's not expansive though, so I think we'd have an edge vs him on getting workers out faster. Plus, we founded Hinduism and he didn't, so he probably isn't even going for it."
Very astute, I think: Though my obsessiveness floundered a bit by midgame, probably because I was no longer on the high of being in my first civ multi game.
Funny enough, I didn't even think about the fact I was conceding trade route income: I figured that not offering OB/denying them would just be too much of a faux pas and I wanted you as a bit of an ally. Apparantly none of you figured out I didn't want Monotheism except to delay you guys from OR, though: Nothing personal, but I was afraid you might run away if you got Forges + OR up too early, so I felt like a delay was in order!
Is it just me or did you not whip at all(Or at least very little) during the first 58 turns? o.O Whipping is THE best hammer maker in the early game and combined with the slower Oracle start, I think you should have been whipping out Settlers/Workers like mad. I think you might have been a little too wonder happy early on too: Not nessecarily in building, but planning.
"You should check out what Kuro did to Jkaen. Settled on the correspond plains hill in the south. No workers, no roads, and no garrison. If we're lucky Jkaen will punish Kuro for that. He deserves it, no military and 3 workers to cover 5-6 cities."
I'll have to check, but I'm about 90% sure that I had a NAP with Jkaen: And expected to get reinforcements in before it ended.
Also, yes, I did make little plans for the Colossus, but I pretty much abandoned them when I saw you were going to speed to it.
"Setting aside the tactics for a bit, what do you think about the strategic side of it? Are we making a mistake with so many settlers so fast?"
YES. Nobody will let you get out 8 cities with little defense on land everyone can get too when you can win the game with it. You should have sent some to settle non-Donut spots.
"I've deliberately avoided mentioning the center island at all, and so has Kuro. I get the impression that he's prioritizing it in the same way that we are, so I'm considering settling our first center cities right in his face, right after we give him the NAP he's been wanting all along. I could be completely wrong on that, I just get the impression that his intentions for Karkat mirror ours for Arcturus and as a result he doesn't really want to chop a wonder there."
Hilariously, the entire reason I did not bring u the center island is I thought I had more time to settle it: Again, sluggish Kuro here! Still, it is pretty funny how ignorance can change a game.
"I figure it's better to act tough when we can get away with it. I've been dropping hints to Kuro from early on about wanting to use Numidians, and he knows that skirmishers aren't a great target for them. Kuro also got a little nervous about some of our power jumps, such as when we built the axes. "
Very true: You mentioned Numidians early on and I knew I was your only target for them, so I was a bit worried at the time! I think I could have won a war...but it would have lost me the game, which is bad!
"It's possible(maybe likely) that I misjudged the Kuro/NH emnity."
I didn't have any emnity against NH/Lewwyn myself, even if I kept my diplo with them relatively short due to our distance, though I think they didn't like me...but mostly for my delays, which was reasonable.
"Hmmm, NobleHelium is basically refusing to talk to me, and Kuro is almost certainly planning to attack. I've made some major blunders diplomatically, I think, or maybe there was no way to do this amicably."
There is no way to do it amicably, no. You basically settled a bunch of cities other people thought they would be getting and, more importantly, lept out 8 cities: Which is a VERY big boost and IMO would have assuredly won if you had somehow not gotten dogpiled due to it. But unless all your neighbors are too weak to, you will always get dogpiled for it.
"I disagree that attacking us is the only way for them to stay in the game. Not only that, but Kuro already has almost double our city count, so it's not like we'd be expanding beyond what he's done already."
But you still had cities to be able to settle: I didn't except by Jkioan killing...and if I went that way, it'd give you the time you needed to get those cities going and I would have to compete with NH/Lewwyn for them.
"I get the impression from him as a player that he's not very skilled tactically and knows it"
Very true: I was very worried about my tactical abilities. What I offered you was no worse than what you gave NH though, so I don't see what the problem was still. :S
"Kuro has stated that he never trusted us and expected us to have attacked him already."
Giving my low defense opening, I thought that a quick strike given we had no NAP would have worked and probably won, yes.
"He says that he's expected us to attack him from the start, and considers us fools for trying to befriend him instead. I still can't completely wrap my head around his bizarre logic here."
I was mostly just saying that you could have probably won if you attacked me: As you guessed correctly, I am quite worried about my tactical abilities and I was never strong militarily. If you had put those Settlers into Military, you could have probably hit me unless I started really pushing defenses, which would have been a lose-lose...or if you had done it a bit earlier perhaps gotten me. At the least you should have mixed in some military with your island plan to bear teeth at enemies.
"This does leave Kuro out entirely, but eh, I gave him a chance and he wasn't interested. "
Sorry, but the deal I offered was virtually the same as NH's, so I must have just been unclear in presenting it, or perhaps my initial anger doomed me(Esp. since Vega was right where I was going to settle soon!). Eh, live and learn.
" I really would have preferred to work out something a bit less extreme with Kuro, but he made it very clear he wasn't interested in negotiating, period."
Okay, I definately was unclear.
"I'm considering sending this diplo message to Kuro. I think it summarizes things quite well:"
Laughed out loud at the image. +1.
(Of course, any advice I have hear should be taken with a grain of salt: I finished below you, after all!)
Will read NH/Lewwyn's later.
