[Spoilers] Commodore as someone of something, or, an entertaining failure

[Commodore]

Yep, might as well make this thingy now.

Until we know a thematically appropriate picture, here is this charming image of a wookie in the snow waving a "Don't Tread On Me" flag in support of Ron Paul.



What more is there to say?

[Commodore]

Here's the opposition:

GE: Hannibal of Greece
Kyan: Napoleon of Ethiopia
Dazed: Suleiman of Arabia
Ceiliazul: Brennus of Spain
Commodore: Ramesses of Japan

Ginger Eagle (Green, Inept): Hannibal of Greece (Hunting/Fishing)

So, what to say about GE? Well, for one thing, in the hands of anyone else here, Hannibal or Greece would murderize the field so fast our stab wounds would show windburn. Greece is a pretty okay civ normally hampered by sub-par starting techs...unless you're given a deer/fish start (see also PBEM 23, Mackoti). Phalanxes won't win any awards for bestest UU ever, but they're nice for what they are and they can be decently well promoted. Hannibal has the joy of Fin with the okay warmongering trait of Chm...he's one of the weaker Fin leaders, but still...he's Fin.

GE managed a pretty sad showing in all his previous PBEMs, but that doesn't mean he's not still dangerous in the "toddler with a handgun" sort of way. His units still hit as hard as anyone else's, and he's the least likely one here to do the math on the zero-sum nature of the AW calculus.



Kyan (Machiavellian, Impressive) : Hammurabi of Ethiopia (Hunting/Mining)

Kyan is going to be trying to KO us with a cherry tapping combo here, but he's going to be doing it with an actually decent warmonger. Agg is wonderful for rushes, but it's also great when it comes time to draft...a Agg Oromos are the most highly promoted draftees you can get. The synergy here, such as it is, is that an early rush that actually conquers a rival is a bit less economy-crashy than the norm thanks to Org, and of course if you want an eternally marching war machine Hammy here is about as good as they get. Still, never doubt, this is a bad leader with a subpar civ.

I'm hearing from all non-Davidian corners that Kyan is more or less a superhuman death machine at Civ, although there have obviously been overpowered aspects to his leaders and/or civs in every game he's won. I'm actually a little down about the Aggressive, because the only thing not heavily featured in Kyan's storied career is a major war at tech parity, largely because his diplo has been good enough to avoid that until his excellent civ skills make things a cakewalk. I expect him to try and subvert the CTON-AW limitations as much as he can get away with, via tech thread or whatever else he can. He should be interesting to watch, over all, as he marches to victory. I don't want him as my neighbor now, that's for certain, because making juicy wonders will make me a juicy target.



Dazedroyalty (Solid, Underrated): Suleiman (Imp/Phi) of Arabia (Mysticism/The Wheel)

Dazed managed to get one of the weaker combinations here, although it could certainly be worse. There is a definite synergy between Phi and the Madrassa, giving the impressive option of popping a GP three(!) turns after making your first one...if you're willing to get some Prophet points in there. Philosophical is a tricky trait to master, but with a wise bulb strategy Dazed can be very competitive. The bog standard Phi Oracle->forge->GE->'mids strategy is another option if he wants to try it, and Mysticism decidedly gives Dazed a leg up there. Imperialistic isn't any great shakes, although in AW the great general generation is nice and the cheap settlers are always sweet.

Dazed as a player strikes me as determined, competent, and unimaginative. The most illustrative example of his play that I see if actually from his numerous duels with scooter, where his superior general skill seemed to mostly make draws against scooter's innovative tactics. He's one of the most experienced players here, and given a better leader he'd be the clear favorite for second place, I think. He's probably going to be my closest threat for religion and wonder races.



[SIZE="1"]*this is probably also what Ceil looks like in real life[/SIZE]
Ceiliazul (Cautious, Intelligent): Brennus (Chm/Spi) of Spain (Fishing/Mysticism)

If I won the lottery, Ceiliazul kind of lost it with this combination. Brennus' Spiritual is of course a wonderful trait, but Charismatic is decidedly average. It's a good warmonger trait, and when coupled with Spiritual temples means that the happy cap should be sky-high (maybe that was what Plako meant when he said it was balanced?). On the other hand, there's no fast-starting boost here, and Spain's starting techs don't need that additional burden. In the late medieval-early Renaissance era, Chm Spain is a royal pain on the battlefield, with easily triple-promoted siege complimenting pike-busting conquistadors. It's just going to be hard to get there in good shape.

Ceiliazul is probably the best player in a greens game right now, exploiting Louis' good traits and a good 'mids build in 25g to a solid lead. An obsessive planner, it will be interesting to see how much effort he puts into his tactics as well as his building. The only exploitable weakness I see is a definite lack of confidence, and an unwillingness to take excessive risk. Metagame hint: Those are not easy weaknesses to try and capitalize on. He certainly might be a threat on the religion/wonders front, but I'd expect him to really only trt for one religion and stick with it, focusing on building a solid empire and looking for weaknesses.

[Commodore]

Important questions: What shall the naming theme be? How likely is it that I'll starting without Agriculture again? And finally, how much will Kyan slaughter us?

[oledavy]

How likely is it that I'll starting without Agriculture again?

You should have played medieval-start, then this wouldn't be an issue :neenernee

And finally, how much will Kyan slaughter us?

<Insert Cheesy Inspirational Fortune Cookie Quote>

Kidding aside, as someone who took over a game for Kyan, he's fallible (i.e. - Researching feudalism for no apparent reason and only having a half-dozen cottages at your capital on t80). He's certainly not the guaranteed winner here.

[Commodore]

Kidding aside, as someone who took over a game for Kyan, he's fallible (i.e. - Researching feudalism for no apparent reason and only having a half-dozen cottages at your capital on t80). He's certainly not the guaranteed winner here.

Yeah, it's true. It's actually hard to evaluate him...he was Willie, India on an all-forest map, a ringer in a greens game, and Keelyn with lucky lairs in his various successful games. PB3...I can't tell, I don't have the year or so needed to figure out that [strike]clusterf[/strike] nonstandard game.

A lot will depend on the combos and how they match with skill. Dazed, Kyan and I already had a PM conversation about giving GE Willie of India, that's not enough to save him but it might keep him at least relevant. Ceiliazul, for all his greenery, has played a commanding game in 25g, more dominant than Kyan in 4g actually. Just have to see what the all-wise lurkers (that's you too, davy) decide.

[Commodore]

Baseless speculation/lobbying to follow.

I expect Kyan to get a good leader for his level of skill. Napoleon, his own suggestion, is extremely weak even given his fairly narrow available range, Brennus, DuGaulle, or heaven forbid Ramses might be more tempting to the council. If he gets Agg or Pro, he'll roll with it well I'm sure, Montezuma or Saladin might be decent middling picks for him.

Ceiliazul, who knows, it's wide open, but Exp/Agg of Inca would absolutely crush us all, and GE I certainly hope gets a strong Fin leader and excellent civ.

Dazed I'm less sure of. The strong leader available to him would be Peter, but all of the Exp leaders are nice, and Phi/something can be good. Not sure what he did to Kyan to get himself Sully, though, that's a rough combo if not in very skilled hands.

My own power trait available is Creative, and if I get it I'd expect it to not be Louis or Pericles, as they are a bit OP. Catherine of Sumer or Giggles of China would be nice, but who knows. Zara would be okay but not very thrilling. I'm having fun with Monty in the duel, but I'd hope to get something other than Spi/Agg although the duel only half counts. Ind is a weird one...it's a power trait if solo, but decreases with everyone else that has it. I guess Kyan thinks I'm pretty bad to get Ramses.

Thoughts? If I've caught you here first, you're welcome to sign aboard as a dedlurker, although see the thread title. I expect the usual Commodore game of a flubbed start, impressive recovery, and interesting and entertaining Hail Mary that fails to pull a win in the end. So buyer beware.

[Tatan]

Yeah, it's true. It's actually hard to evaluate him...

Kyan's biggest two strengths are diplomacy and empire management. In PB3, IIRC his was one of the top teams by the end of the game in terms of actual civ development, and in PBEM4, make no mistake, he utterly obliterated all the other teams (waaaaaay more so than Ceiliazul in PBEM25). His main weakness, as far as I could tell from my brief stint towards the end of PBEM4, is that he is not as good at pressing his advantages as he is at acquiring them. Only 60 or so turns in, he already had only one other player capable of actually rivaling (=trailing behind) him in tech, Seifer, but it was another 50 or so turns before he even began to leverage his massive lead. And in PBEM12, it also took him an inordinate amount of time to win a game that was his from the start (he had one of the top 3 leaders in the game, with the best civ in the game, with the best possible map for his pairing).

He is indeed an incredibly skilled player, but his bark is worse than his bite! (ignore the fact that his bite is still really really really bad )

[Commodore]

Kyan's biggest two strengths are diplomacy and empire management. His main weakness, as far as I could tell from my brief stint towards the end of PBEM4, is that he is not as good at pressing his advantages as he is at acquiring them. He is indeed an incredibly skilled player, but his bark is worse than his bite! (ignore the fact that his bite is still really really really bad )

Well, fortunately Kyan's diplomatic pain train will be limited a good deal by the AW format (although I expect him to try many entertaining and underhanded subversions). Empire management, from the 20k ft view his PBEM 4 thread offers, seems to be very very solid, but so if I border him I believe the order of the day is to keep up the pressure (see PBEM5m, or, as I like to call it, "training camp"), never letting him sandbox without interuption. I hope that I can exploit that lack of flexibility, without being needled in turn by my other neighbor(s).

Thanks for reminding me of your involvement in 4, my first axeman will be called [SIZE="4"]Axe-Man[/SIZE], and I shall use his Vision-Vision well.

All shall be for naught, of course, if I start as Charlemagne of Crapistan halfway across the world. I'm probably the most aggressive player in the game, which isn't saying that much...if I cannae pee on Kyan's sandcastles, I don't doubt he'll win at a walk.

[Commodore]

Alright, looks like (barring a revolt of the rivals, but Ceil and Kyan already voted for him) I'm going to be Ramesses II (Ind/Spi)of Japan. As mentioned in the tech thread, I probably am that bad I guess. Look to the second post for thoughts on the other players and their combos as they get chosen.



Okay, so, Ramesses. Definitely one of the better leaders out there, although not picked very often. The traits are strong here, with Spiritual swapping enabling all manner of shenanigans in an AW game (safe usage of Caste, OR/Theocracy jumping for promotions on unit building cycles vs. hammers on infra) and a decently cheap +happy building, and Industrious for cheap forges and a leg up on wonder races. Ramesses is basically Mr. Pyramids, like FDR is Mr. GLH, so that's obviously the top priority, but Industrious/Spiritual makes the priest economy pretty darn tasty too.

Japan is all kinds of terrible. The starting techs of Fishing and The Wheel are some of the worst (Vikings and Greeks are allowed to quibble), the unique unit is a mace that looks 100% cooler but doesn't matter much otherwise, and the UB Shale Plant is too late to matter about 29 out of 30 PBEMs thus far. And also not very impressive. So basically it's all about the wonderful, awesome leader here.

My strategy thus far, such as I have one, has these in rough order of priority:
1. Build Pyramids.
2-34. Build Pyramids.
35. Don't die.
36. Research Agriculture (again!)
37. Get religion on the way up to The Oracle.
38. Oracle MC, get cheap forges online.
39. Bulb Theology for Theocracy and the AP
40. Priest economy on the way to Liberalism
41. ???
42. Win.

Truly, this is a foolproof plan.

[Commodore]

Oh, also, T-Hawk, when you see this, would you mind changing the "someone" to Ramesses II and the "something" to Japan?