PBEM 18 Postgame Discussion

[Lewwyn]

Hey everyone, I'm putting this up and hopefully we can have a bit of discussion once everyone's had a chance to read the threads. I'm going to have my postmortem in a bit, but I wanted to get this up first.

Congrats to Nicolae and Mackoti, both Kublai of France.

[Lewwyn]

In the Pro game, I thought it was pretty close actually. I've been talking through my thread about my chances in this game and I think I lost it on 3 mistakes in particular.

1) I made a foolish tactical error when attacking Moogle. If I had waited an extra turn for my army from the south, or if I had accepted Moogle's peace offer for the city , or if I had kept all my units in a single stack on hills. I would have fared much better. If I had accepted the peace treaty I could have turned around and prepared to hit Mackoti with a full army and at least slowed him down, probably would have taken Grenoble at the least.

2) I got beat to Music and the GA. That hurt a lot. That was what I was going to use to slip into a GA and recover from the beating I'd just taken. I could have teched it earlier and I should have. Probably would have gotten it if I had accepted the aforementioned peace with Moogle

3) Neglected my Forbidden Palace and waiting along time to build Moai.

Mackoti, I thought you played a really solid game. You got key wonders that I was shocked you got. How did snag the colossus? Absolutely huge. HG, and Notre Dame were also really well executed. You played to your leader's strengths with earlier wars with Nakor. Really made the most of AGG and CRE pushing him. The extra early cities you got from him put you ahead and it was enough that I felt I was chasing you from the on. Also you had a barb city spawn that was really nice that helped and gave your military something to do. Just well played taking advantage of weakness and playing smart, never getting bogged down.

Moogle, I haven't made it all the way through but I thought you did well. You certainly defended my one attack very nicely. You blocked me off from my north area and that whole settling race was pretty tense. A number of times I thought about coming after you with axes after the scout incident. I did think you missed out on a bunch of wonders and thought you built a few that were less important. Overall though you were right there with tech and it was pretty fun sparring with you. I do think you could have gotten a bit further ahead then you ended up since I felt like you had a bit more land then me to exploit. My cities had a lot of overlap and I was pounding them in in order to exploit what I had to the fullest.

Nakor, Pink dotting the CRE/AGG civ? That was rough. I think your initial plant could have been better and I think you should have gotten MC with the Oracle to get the colossus. Nice work on circmnav though. That was something I was really thinking about late in this game. If we had continued I would have gone for galleons next and used them. I should have done it earlier actually and forced Mackoti to tech Astro to cancel out Colossus. Overall I think you got behind and stayed behind in part due to losing so many cities earlier. Admirable to get to Rifles by the end though. All 4 of us were able to do that so it was actually a very close game.

In the end though I think the extra land that Mackoti got and was going to continue to get as he took down Nakor put him ahead enough that it would have been hard to surmount. I was going to swing at Mackoti as soon as I got peace again with Moogle at the end there. I think I could have taken Grenoble and made a bit of a push to at least cause you some discomfort. In the end though I didn't have Cannons yet, and I wanted to tech Astro.

I'm not sure if my pyramid>spawn GE>Rush build GL gambit worked for the best. I think near the end here it proved to be good/at least even, btu I wonder if I could have gone a different route with better results. Mainly I'm thinking about all the time it took me to tech Aesthetics. A LONG time. It was something i struggled with all game. My gems were across the ocean and it was difficult to get around to get at them. I had no gold until it popped form a mine the turn after I traded for gold from Moogle. It was infuriating to have such a low tech rate and to be scraping the bottom of commerce for so long since I started cottages later due to the focus on getting the pyramids, and I had no great commerce tiles. Early gold goes so far with tech and is such a HUGE boost to expansion and the best I had was a furs resource that I didn't even settle until halfway through the game. I also had startegic resources further from home than the rest of the players. my copper was 2 cities away (I know it could have been in my second city but that wouldn't have been as effective a dotmap) and my horses were in the tundra across an ocean. If I had had horses in my BFC you would have seen chariots Moogle. You would have seen a bunch of them.

Also a note on Leaders/Civs I stand by my picks in my thread. You can go ahead and read them and my rationale there. However having seen the starts I would have put Asoka higher. I think I would now rank them:

Kublai of France
Augutsus of China
Asoka of Aztexs
Lincoln of Ethiopia

I grew to hate Ethiopia. The starting techs were terrible, the UB is not something you want to have to build, and the UU ended up being less helpful then I anticipated. Very much a disappointment since First strikes end up being terrible against knights and the collateral was almost normal. I still love China's UU and China has the best starting techs in the game. IND/IMP is something I like as well and I would have leveraged it to steal more land from Ethiopia than Moogle eventually did. Moogle also got a lot of use out of the IMP GG spwan rate combined with the Great wall.

I still think CRE is way powerful as I've said before since you get cheap libs and you do not spend an extra 20H per city on hammers. AGG is even more powerful in CTON plus with fast popping borders you can plant and get extra city defense so much faster. Really great IMO. I do think that France has a just okay UB but the UU I think is superior to Ethiopia's. Additionally, France has fair starting techs and no scout start.

Asoka is interesting because SPI is amazing mid- late and with the sacrificial alters I think it could have been a lot better. I think you did not play to Aoska's strengths Nakor. You really should have been switching civics every 5 turns. Would have been awesome.

So that's a bunch of my thoughts. It was a fun game. I complain about my land and I think I do have some wiggle room to do so but it probably isn't as bad as I think it was. Resources were just awkward. I learned a lot from this game as well. And on a personal note I think I've grown from PBEM 14 to this, to my most recent game in 22. If anyone has any questions about everything I just wrote, have at. I'm interested to hear others opinions.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I've had a week or so to mull over some thoughts.

I agree that Sareln/Lewwyn were the worse off, both land and trait/civ wise. Ioan/Nakor easily had the best starts, Ioan invested an extra turn into settling on that plains hill and I think it was ultimately worth it. That was a *power* capital. On the other hand, I still don't agree with Ioan trying to axe rush me, doing so set him really far behind. Ioan still caught up the rest of the crowd, due to me bottling in Sareln, some lucky barb city spawns, and really nice harassment of GE letting him steal the best land between them. If I hadn't been as proactive, Ioan would have been a real contender.

On the other hand, the second big war with GE was a mistake. That war drained a ton of resources from my front, and that was enough of a window for me to mass a ridiculous army of draft musketeers and cuiraissers.

What should I have done differently? I think the biggest tech/building mistake I made was neglecting the Feudalism-Guilds-Banking line. For the longest time my tech rate was stuck at ~20% or so, and when I finally got by grocers and banks up I saw an enormous increase in bpt. Big mistake by me. I really should have spent my golden age teching through Feudalism, and going vassalage instead of bureaucracy would have netted only slightly less commerce. Once that line was done, I should have doubled back and teched the Paper-Education-Philosophy-Liberalism route, but at the time I didn't know Sareln wasn't pursuing it strongly. I made great use of the mid game wonders though, I'm proud of that, even though it was never originally on my hit list.

I also should have used that great scientist on a golden age, and my music great artist on a culture bomb on the Sareln front city. That would have saved me alot of hassle, and I could have even taken that front city and threatened Sareln's capital. Wasted opportunity. I also saw an avenue of attack on Sareln near the end of the game (though it had been staring me in the face for the longest time). Oh well, too late.

I was a bit concerned about post-astronomy warfare, but I was confident that most of my cities were safe. Sareln had a city on the northern sea that could make galleons to threaten my capital, but it was shielded by land and I was confident I could outbuild him there. I captured Ioan's only city that could threaten my southern sea, but there was actually an opportunity for boating action using a tactical city plant at a landbridge.

I have some other thoughts but I'll post them as they come back off the tip of my tongue.

[mackoti]

I think I could have taken Grenoble and made a bit of a push to at least cause you some discomfort

Well you had me once but i was fuly prepared this time and 5 more cavaliers were 2 or 3 turns there and i could draft 3 more rifles and upgrade 2 riflemans so you had to beat somethig to strong, just my opinion.

[mackoti]

I think i can wrote something about this game,please forgive first my 'short' english.

First point i can tell you Lewwyn that building mids was the best think you done in this game.About wainting an engineer to pop i usualy play diferent, i put reseach on 0,and hire 2 scientist and let the rng to decide.If its agreat engineer well i build great library reseaching at full speed Aestetic literature if not i build academy and with the moy i foud my reseach co CS.

Lewwyn you wasnt the only which made wrong decision, for example,I could easily to take liberalism, i was seeing you reseach, i had like 1000 gold in pokets, i had a golden age,you remember how i took Col,but i took other decision then, beter go machinery, teocracy, inginering so i can put teocracy at the end of my golden age, and go and atack nakor,which wasnt smat because when i finished preparing my atack, longbows in Nakor cities, so i lost liberlism buil 24 macemans, 6 galeys for nothing,because nakor had cats and longbows more than enough to repel me.

And the most hilaroius decizion its to go at war with you, you gave me 1 city, i build lots of infrastructure, i prepare you a trape there assuming you are coming there, yes i ahd 6 boats with units other waiting and you go to grenoble, you get the ciy back, the improved spices and me nothing, i even buil a corthose i sent a misionary and build a busist monastery, that was just awesome on my part, i should just raze that city.....well i was greedy and i underestimated you...

I could easily take the merchant from economics, but i had no need for the tech and would delayed my atack on Nakor so i dont know about this one if it was good or bad...

I see that you preferd Kubay as firs even me until i saw thw map, after that i think i would prefered Asoka's.You complayn about cooper but it was more closer then mine and stone very close too so its not that bad starting pozition.

I found Moogles starting pozition very bad,and was screeming for colosus,no river i dont like that.

It was a point in which i believed that i have no chanses to win , Lewwyn got mids and i have 14 turns to monarchy....., hard times.

Yes the fact that i got gold from building maoi in several cities,and getting colosus saved my game.

Everyone is saying you build axes and go agresiv but man cost money and you find your self in a deep hole and no traits to recover.

I had lot of fun hope we will play again.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Hahaha, I find it hilarious that you built a fort there. I did that too earlier, and I managed to unload units from a fort at the same position and surprise raze Sareln's city.

[Lewwyn]

First point i can tell you Lewwyn that building mids was the best think you done in this game.About wainting an engineer to pop i usualy play diferent, i put reseach on 0,and hire 2 scientist and let the rng to decide.If its agreat engineer well i build great library reseaching at full speed Aestetic literature if not i build academy and with the moy i foud my reseach co CS.

It was a point in which i believed that i have no chanses to win , Lewwyn got mids and i have 14 turns to monarchy....., hard times.

I was really rushing those pyramids I actually thought it hurt me a bit to put such a big value on the mids because it gave me less worker turns to cottage. In the end the plan actually worked out, though.

I really actually like that idea of running the scientists and letting RNG take its course.

Yes the fact that i got gold from building maoi in several cities,and getting colosus saved my game.

That's huge. I didn't know about the Moai fail gold, very nice. The Colossus was when I got really worried. I'd expected Nakor to get it and thus be less effective overall, but I knew as soon as you got it that there would be trouble, and sure enough you were teching pretty hard with me.

Everyone is saying you build axes and go agresiv but man cost money and you find your self in a deep hole and no traits to recover.

Yeah I've been there.

I had lot of fun hope we will play again.

[SleepingMoogle]

Well, some words now that we're finished. First off, congratulations to Mackoti for winning!

I probably didn't play on my traits as well as I could have, but truth be told I was rather jealous at Mackoti's Agg/Cre France combo. It just felt significantly better than the others (drafted C1 Muskets? yum) , and from the looks of it Mackoti played a very solid game.

Landing the Colossus would have been a big win on this map, especially since my start had very few river tiles, and this is something I realized way too late. Stonehenge did a lot for me, but in hindsight going for the Oracle and getting early MC would have been a better play. As it was, the Colossus was built before I even had Metal Casting.

Looking at the starting positions, Mackoti's and Dmoc's look to be the stronger ones, but not heavily so. Without the benefit of rivers, I still had two gold resources relatively close to the starting position, even though one was about halfway between me and Dmoc, and the other was in a rather bad location for a city. Happiness was also pretty limited until Calendar, but I think almost every Calendar resource was somewhere nearby for me. It also looks like I was the only one with access to Marble, and I did build some wonders through that (Mausoleum, Parthenon, NE), but the big ones were claimed before I could reasonably get to them.

Speaking of strategic resources, my iron resources were awkwardly placed. During the first war with Lewwyn, he connected my (then) single resource that was right on the border, and the only other one was in the far northwestern corner, beyond the ocean and locked in snow. I did eventually get that resource, but in order to make my medieval units, I had to surrender my marble monopoly and trade it for Mackoti's iron. I'm guessing this allowed him to rush the Taj, but I felt I didn't have any other options.

Also, my UU was neatly countered by Lewwyn's, which is not a melee unit and takes reduced collateral damage. I should have just built Cats instead. The first war ended in a bit of a stalemate. I would have continued to push Lewwyn, but 80% of my Knights was badly wounded and I had no more Catapult support so you could have drafted out a defence in time. I probably should have demanded the return of my city for peace though.

Later on, I actually saw the Workers next to my southern city, but decided to play the rest of my turn first and promptly forgot about them. Then the next turn I made the very same error Lewwyn made by exposing my stack to a big attack that basically left it useless to take any cities. I wish I could say I saw that big stack of Cuirassiers in range, but I just didn't. That was basically when I figured to propose ending the game, because it was just getting embarrassing. Had we continued, I'd have had little recourse but to retreat, and whip/draft rifles until the end of days. That would most likely have stalemated us again, and that doesn't do too much when the leader will soon have half of the map.

All in all though, it was a fun game. Hopefully everyone enjoyed participating in it.

[Ioan76]

On the other hand, the second big war with GE was a mistake.

I tried to avoid it as I could ... but GE want some blood & revenge too ...