[LURKERS] Setting Up Tents for a Ren Faire

[Fluffball]

But guys if I want war, I am not suicidal so i will choose a better target then plako.

Any about 100 quotes about Mackoti.

I am new to RB, are these two really THAT much better than everyone else? It seems a little far fetched, especially since Mackoti isn't even winning the game and every one that has seen Plako is rating his opening as mediocre at best.

I mean there is a perfect game, and neither of these two are playing it. Are they really that scary or is this hero worship?

[greenline]

I am new to RB, are these two really THAT much better than everyone else? It seems a little far fetched, especially since Mackoti isn't even winning the game and every one that has seen Plako is rating his opening as mediocre at best.

I mean there is a perfect game, and neither of these two are playing it. Are they really that scary or is this hero worship?

for what it's worth most people tend to assume that their strengths are more rooted in long term macro as well as in military tactics rather than short term growth based on their prior games. There have been a lot of games where mackoti and plako didn't start off by leading the demographics but ended up in a commanding mid-late game position. They also have generally made themselves either prickly or entirely unassailable targets of conquest (except for mack in pb22 )

[GermanJoey]

But guys if I want war, I am not suicidal so i will choose a better target then plako.

Any about 100 quotes about Mackoti.

I am new to RB, are these two really THAT much better than everyone else? It seems a little far fetched, especially since Mackoti isn't even winning the game and every one that has seen Plako is rating his opening as mediocre at best.

I mean there is a perfect game, and neither of these two are playing it. Are they really that scary or is this hero worship?

yeah they are. remember they've both played tons of games here and have a reputation for a reason. I've never seen a tier list that didn't have both them at the very top. (well, I guess mack's tier list that he made in PB27 doesn't have plako in the top tier, as it has himself as only single person there, but, well... )

IMHO, it's also impossible to truly judge who is winning the game right now. what a perfect game looks like for a ren-era start hasn't been proven yet. at the given moment, I think the Khmer position looks the best, followed by the Aztecs, but, for example, mack has two late-game traits and his civ sorta gives him MT for free, so the fact that he's pretty much keeping up with the Imp civs is very worrying for them as they're close to "using up" their trait already while he's barely scratched the surface of either of his so far. likewise, while the Khmer have gotten some awesome benefits from the (IIRC) 4 great people they've used thus far, mack has used just one, meaning he has more potential for doing things with them later.

the question is thus, how much is all that potential in total worth when you try to calculate his overall position in the game? if this was an ancient-start game, i might be able to give you an answer, but i'm really not sure right now because this is the first competetive ren-era pitboss game I've seen. as greenline said, civ is more than just about openings and snowballs or else we'd just call games as done by T50 every single time. snowballing is important for sure, but if BIGGER FASTER STRONGER QUICKER was the only thing that mattered then, for example, Joao, and not Darius, would be considered a standard ban in ancient-era BTS pitboss games.

OTOH, plako hasn't reported on anything, so who knows if things are going as planned or if he feels he's made some missteps. from what scooter's screenshots showed, things don't look great to me, but i'm not going to judge plako so lightly because i've played against him a few times now and have seen him do some really crazy shit. we also don't know if his seemingly anemic expansion rate is a big problem in the big picture. for example, it doesn't seem like each civ will be able to easily expand beyond their "cell", so its likely he'll end up with about as much peacefully settled land as the fast-expanders. his later cities will indeed be behind the others' corresponding growth curves a bit, but maybe he's gotten something in exchange for that. like, for all we know plako will suddenly have oxford+academy next turn out of nowhere and every other player will suddenly shit themselves when they see that he's pulling in 300bpt.

[The Black Sword]

Plako has said himself that he doesn't put as much effort into civ games anymore. But a disengaged plako is still better than the average RB player. And he'd certainly be one of my last targets to attack. Part of his reputation is a supernatural ability to stave off dogpiles(IIRC, there was 4 player PBEM where he was dogpiled by the other 3 players in the early game, one of which was Rome. He managed to break the dogpile and come back to win.)

In comparison btw, I consider war a better option than usual against any team with Sullla on it, though Scooter probably covers that weakness.

As for Mack, his is the opening I'm most impressed by. He doesn't have the free food of the Khmer or the free hammers of the IMP civs, yet he's still second in city count after building an early library for that academy. He's not superman, some of the comments might be overhyped for fun, but he does deserve his reputation as the favourite going into this game.

[darrelljs]

The easiest prediction to make in RB is mack, he wins at a higher percentage than anyone else. He can lose, but its still a good bet.

Darrell

[The Black Sword]

So the Khmer are trying to steal the silver island while RMOG take the copper island between them. Interesting to see how that will work out. I think the copper is probably a bit better since you have a third player involved for the silver.

Mack's research strategy is a bit unclear. He said he was going for Astro initially but screenshots show some beakers into Edu; maybe just enough to bulb it? Currently he's getting PP, which doesn't look very valuable on its own merits. IIRC Astro is next on the scientist bulb list too?

Also I wonder if scooter's thread have forgotten that the minimum distance between cities only applies to the same landmass. Otherwise I think you'd settle the plains hill.

[OT4E]

But guys if I want war, I am not suicidal so i will choose a better target then plako.

Any about 100 quotes about Mackoti.

I am new to RB, are these two really THAT much better than everyone else? It seems a little far fetched, especially since Mackoti isn't even winning the game and every one that has seen Plako is rating his opening as mediocre at best.

I mean there is a perfect game, and neither of these two are playing it. Are they really that scary or is this hero worship?

It is just the simplest way to say "there are better targets, but I am too lazy to explain why"

[OT4E]

Btw, SPI is showing itself a way better than IMP this game imho. We will see, but I think the things will only improve later on.

[GermanJoey]

Btw, SPI is showing itself a way better than IMP this game imho. We will see, but I think the things will only improve later on.

It's looking that way to me too. Or at least, where the Spi civs are right now is looking way better than the Imp civs. Mack being #1 food by a good bit and #2 MFG is pretty surprising - you wouldn't expect Imp to behind just 40 turns into the game.

And one of the biggest benefits of Spi - drafting rifles - hasn't even been unlocked yet. I wonder if anyone will build a Globe Theatre?

[OT4E]

I wonder at which point Sulla's analys is turned completely into dithyramb singings. Is he preparing to the elections?