Lurker Discussion Thread (NO PLAYERS)

[Brian Shanahan]

Well I'm new here and I've been looking at a few of the player threads for the game. I'm just wondering as I've no experience of MP gaming (aside from SGs which are a lot different) what should I look out for in a good game? Also how is the game played, player A plays his turn, sends it to admin, admin sends to player B, player B plays his turn, etc.?

[novice]

Hi, Brian, welcome to Realms Beyond.

In PBEMs, the player emails the save directly to the next player, no admin is involved. Some games use a website called pbemtracker and upload the saves there instead of e-mailing them.

Not sure by what you mean when you ask about what to look out for in a good game. If you mean choosing a game to lurk, maybe choose solo players who update their threads regularly. A lot of RB'ers generally have very entertaining threads, check out Whosit, Sandover or Pocketbeetle, to name a few.

[Brian Shanahan]

First of all novice, thanks very much for helping a noob out. In who's playing a good game I mean what are the signs of a player making good game choices, all my experience has been against the AI (in fact aside from some FIFA I hardly ever play against a human opp), just wanting a bit of a head start when lurking.

[novice]

Well, ultimately, who wins determines who made the best choices.
In order to judge this during the game, you can really only use your own civilization skills to judge who's ahead. But players often post screenshots of demographics etc, and the lurkers can compare.

I guess the main difference between MP and SP is that you need to give your opponents credit, and you can't take shortcuts. For example just now in this game, Meatballz got his fourth city razed by TT because he had left it defenseless. An AI wouldn't have shown TT's opportunism, most human players would.

EDIT: The question of who's ahead is of course one that should be continuously and vehemently discussed in the lurker thread.

[Brian Shanahan]

Well, ultimately, who wins determines who made the best choices.
In order to judge this during the game, you can really only use your own civilization skills to judge who's ahead. But players often post screenshots of demographics etc, and the lurkers can compare.

I guess the main difference between MP and SP is that you need to give your opponents credit, and you can't take shortcuts. For example just now in this game, Meatballz got his fourth city razed by TT because he had left it defenseless. An AI wouldn't have shown TT's opportunism, most human players would.

EDIT: The question of who's ahead is of course one that should be continuously and vehemently discussed in the lurker thread.

Yeah was watching the razing almost as it happened over on TT and Ilios' thread, and then started meatballz, smirking to myself all the way through. It's very interesting to lurk.

[WarriorKnight]

So is this how the Iron situation is shaping up?


ad hoc & TT: ad hoc is about to settle the island while I'm fairly sure TT doesn't know it exists.

Tatan & Cyneheard: I think Tatan will get it as he knows about the Iron Island while I don't think Cyneheard has IW.

Serdoa & meatbalz: I don't think either of them know about Iron Island yet but meatbalz is just about to get IW and has already seen the island so I think he'll get it.


It'll be interesting to see what happens once everyone knows who has Iron.

[novice]

Should be interesting, yes. I think I'd be pretty annoyed as a player, but it's fun for the lurkers.

Meatbalz has mentioned sharing the iron with Serdoa which I think is a good way of securing your war-mongering neighbour as an ally. Tatan should probably share with Cyneheard, otherwise I see war there as imminent, and I would rather fight Serdoa if I were Tatan.

TT is screwed.

[pocketbeetle]

TT is screwed.

Awww, and he was doing so well with Ilios helping.

Not much Ilios can do I guess, if TT accepts straight away the opening offer in an aggressive email.

[Tyrmith]

From TT's bi-polar disorder to Meatballz's interesting accounting of diplomatic penalties diplomacy in this game has been pretty at least...

[Brian Shanahan]

Having a quick gander at the threads, and I see meatballz is right to be paranoid about Cyneheard, though for maybe the wrong reasons.

TT is just being Cyneheards cat's paw at the moment. He is walking himself into both pariahdom (from breaking a peace treaty) and irrelevancy (by attacking a neighbour I feel he can only slow down). But this suits Cyneheard down to the ground as it effectively irreprably stunts to rivals. Ilios will really have to reign in the leash IMO before TT is let on with this .

If he only admitted that he made a huge mistake in the peace offering and moved on working up his own economy into a strong position before DoWing. Also his twice breaking of the OB agreement (by pushing a chariot through meatballz's borders twice) is only signposting his intent and making it much harder for him to gain ground in a future war.