GKC's BadGame PB13 Thread on RB (Now with Ladder Game Reports!)

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Building city 2 next turn so I have maintenance. The 9 gold from this turn will be enough to complete pottery at 100% with -1 GPT

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Here's the tracker on civstats:
https://www.civstats.com/viewgame.php?gameid=3059

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Juri and I are the only ones to found a second city on the second turn.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

So, looks like I meet Gashbears, Ind/Fin.

Quoting the review of his playstyle -

The Player
The threads I've read make it look like he's someone who does a lot of preplanning and analysis. Feels like maybe the way to interact here is to put pressure on in the hopes of throwing his plans off in some fashion. I don't really have a strong (hurr) impression, but he seems vaguely in the know. Will have to get a feel for him over the course of the game, but I think the aim would be to get in his face early and often.

The Pick
Ind/Fin of Mali - I think RtR fin is still very powerful, and on a lake-filled torusland, this might be pretty good. Ind + Skirmishers signals a defensive play style, in contrast to what many other players have selected. No clue how close the potential skirmishers are, but will watch out. Skirms should not be a problem for holkans?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Demos are looking fine, 1st in crop, last in MFG, mid-tier GNP. Once the two workers are out, I'll let the cities grow on a few barb-defogging warriors or granaries and then go for settlers. Dotmap will be tight.

And so boak is to my north.

The BadGame description:

The Player
As dangerous as beardbeard. He won't suicide into you, but he also won't burn out and is less likely to make a mistake. The worst player in the game to be at war with, and I don't think it was just chucat running the economy in PB11 either. Definitely one of the players I'd least like to start near. I've seen Boak make the odd mistake from playing too quickly, but outside of that I'd expect him to be pretty consistently threatening to face down. If I'm next to him i should probably like, camp out on his horse and refuse to move or something. Most likely to raze the first city of the game.

My Analysis:
Boak is an unflinchingly aggressive player, evidenced by his early choice to invade boak in PB45 which won us the game. Although, I had to carry on for most of the game about T90, when he lost interest and it seemed that we had it in the bag. His micro is solid, but made a questionable choice in PB45 of understimating the power of stonehenge (lurkers agreed with my reasoning later). I feel like he is prone to spice the game up at the expense of winning sometimes, but also can play a solid game without critical errors. He's a better scouter than me (I tend to be very defensive and barb defog at the expense of scouting out the whole map).

I probably should have killed his scout when I had the chance - although, probably keeping good relations is a better bet.

Pick analysis: Cre/Fin of Rome.

Well, Boak probably also got a watery start (some didn't based on land tiles) and decided to go for the "I get an economy but I can also burn everything down with praets" option. Though, non-agg RtR praets are kind of un-scary without catapults and a few axes - they're no longer the same rush iron working monster they used to be.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Demos looking ok, will look better next turn when we grow both cities. After workboat/granary, full steam ahead with two settlers, and then a bunch of spears/axes.

boak up north

gashbears in the south

The capital is growing nicely.

[Charriu]

Looking at the map with resources, my first thought was: "Please name the capital Blob"

[3rdandmain]

nice food surplus. Lake fish is my favorite tile in the game. I'm guessing the starts were juiced by the mapmaker?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Here's a comparison with Gashbears, who is bottom score, but doing decently.








Still have largest city in world, charismatic is going to give that extra push after the settler, get a granary (takes 5 turns), grow out to size 9/10, and spam a few settlers. Lakahama in the south will provide units, working ~3 mines for 10 prod.

Next city will grab pig/deer/silk, sharing corn for the first couple of turns with lakhama, while lakahama steals mutal's crops. Settler coming in 3 turns, 2 turns to move, so city in 6 turns. A bit slow at turn 29 given these op starts, but I hope to be churning out more settlers over the next 10-15 turns than anyone else.

Plan is to go for Hanging Gardens and monarchy with around 6-7 cities popped out.

I'll name my capital blob next turn @Charriu.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Demos are looking strong. GNP is a bit behind, but #1 in crops and MFG and population. Which is what matters. Ahead in cities!!!


Tech path is plain as can be. Rush to metal casting for Colossus, and then towards math and construction for ball courts. It doesn't seem like this game will require hereditary rule - with charismatic, ball courts, and easy happiness the happy cap will be something like 13-14 BEFORE calendar.


Although I'd like to grow the capital out a bit more, we're really low on workers, and the capital doesn't have any great new tiles to work. We need 3 cottages to be built in the west, a mine, and a farm or cottage on the banana (probably cottage). Chops should go towards a discounted Chm/Cre library and then a lighthouse. The worker about to pop will be working on these improvements.


Lakhama is building a workboat for our new moai city (more on that below). After growing onto the mine, it'll start on a worker. The city needs a camp and a cottage, then the worker I build here will be free. Need to build a lighthouse here after the worker, then I can pump some settlers and axes, whipping off the rice/new cottage.


Uxmal just got founded. I need to build a bunch of workshops there on all the plain tiles, cottage the grasslands, and this will be an overall great city. I need to pump military eventually, and this city can get whipped hard (or workshopped hard, eventually)


Mayapan is our Moai statues city. Lighthouse directly into Moai, with 8 hpt, so that's 32 turns for Moai. Not that great but it'll be an amazing city once that happens. Getting extra commerce in every city from ICTR now!


And finally, Chicken Ikea, which will be cottaged all around with those rivers. Worker is building a pasture there, and then will camp the deep.


Dotmaps are below. There's not much good land to settle towards Boak, but I need to place a few units up there to watch out for aggression. The red dots are the next wave of settling. It's critical to secure the land-bridges to the south towards Gashbears and bingo. Those city sites are pretty decent. Then, we have some really great city sites to the west which need to be settled asap.







Opponent Analysis:

The Player: (Juri's analysis from BadGame)
Regardless of his pick, Bingo has Industrious written on invisible text. Expect him to go for one or more wonders and build some kind of specialized synergistic economy around them. With the aquatic wonders off the grid for this map you can probably expect that to be the Mids. I haven't seen him at war, but given his macroeconomic tendencies I'd expect him to be a relatively reserved and defensive player until at least the midgame. Diplo-wise it's kind of a mix of TBW and Chucat. His posting style and demeanor reminds me of a guy from another website. I wonder if they're the same person. He seems pretty reasonable and levelheaded w.r.t most diplo stuff, but that alone doesn't mean I need to listen when he asks me to donate all of my units.

The pick: (my analysis)
Cre/Org Sumeria. Cheap ziggurats + org scream rex, but on a rich map on monarch difficulty, org isn't that great? Although with early org rel + police state from mids that could be pretty useful. Creative is a solid trait on a resource-rich map like this where you want to grab everything ASAP. Overall - nothing special. Agg/Ind Celts or Cre/Phi Korea would've been much more interesting picks from the 4 options he had in the pool. Even Imp/Pro ethiopia gives a lot more interesting options. Not sure he's a strong player, and his demos are low.


The Player: (BadGame analysis)
TBW is a solid midrange player. Knows how to wage war, knows how to run an economy. He's opportunistic with instigating conflict and knows what needs to be done to hold onto the territory he settles in. He's not the player I fear most in a macroeconomic sense but he he's not going to crash and burn by a long shot. Diplo-wise he will pay close attention to the way you treat him, and won't hesitate to backstab you if you give him sufficient opportunity. Being on good terms with him isn't a reason to get complacent and any deals cut had best be backed with iron.

The Player: (My analysis)
TBW is a competent player, who got overly tilted by a shitty start in PB46 that just didn't give him much of a chance. However, he did NOT make the best of what he had due to mega-tilt and led to Krill quitting the internet. On the other hand, he's been doing well in pb48, but won't spoil much. Good plans, good micro, overall solid. He feels like the kind of player who wants aggression but can't always make it happen, but won't fall behind too much in econ.

The pick:
Agg/Org Aztecs. Well, looks like TBW doesn't like maintenance and wants to rex to his heart's content, as well as jaguar-harass someone. Not saying rush, because you can't really rush someone with them, just pick off newly founded cities that didn't chop forests. Overbuffed altar is going to secure happiness. Overall, this pick is basically TBW saying "I want to play on warlord difficulty while the rest of you are in monarch". Not too dissimilar from my pick, although probably his is stronger. Then again, me getting something like 15 happiness with ball courts, and 18 with forges without religion/calendar/hereditary rule is powerful. Just need to grow cities and use it.