Gandhi of France II - Assuming Direct Control

[oledavy]

[SIZE="7"]The Codex[/SIZE]

ENTRY: REAPER - REDIRECTS: HARBINGER, MARAUDER SHIELDS



and



of



Mist (Enigmatic, Foggy) and Ichabod (Calvin, Hobbes) Playing as Victoria (Financial, Imperialistic) of Byzantium (Mysticism, The Wheel, Cataphract, Hippodrome).

No game would be complete without a wild card possessing a unit of untold power looming over the playing field; thus my characterization of this team as the Reapers of this world.

I really am not sure what to expect from Mist and Ichabod. From a purely objective standpoint, I'm pretty sure they're the least skilled of the teams here. I've played a Civ5 game with Mist where he ended up being my close ally, but I don't have a good grasp of his Civ4 skill. As for Ichabod, I love that guy and his reporting in PB7, and am really looking forward to reading his thread after this game. The guy just has a lot of style (and a healthy obsession with Calvin and Hobbes ) His Civ4 skills seem to be fairly solid from the little I've seen, but not exceptional.

There have been very few games I can think of where Cataphracts actually came into play, only PBEM14 and PBEM23. However, just the presence of Byzantium generally dominates the pre-guilds metagame. Regardless of how strong their economic situation is when guilds come online, the Byzantium player feels obligated to attack; and all the other players scramble to avoid being the guy getting rushed. However, often playing as Byzantium paints a huge target on your back, and you get shut down before you can even do anything (PB2, PBEM32). Either way, Cataphracts have a massive influence on the metagame, and it should be intriguing to see how it plays out here with this relatively level playing field.

Beyond the mounted terrors, the selection of Victoria of Byzantium is kinda a meh pick. Financial is godly as always, and I expect them to run the traditional cottage economy. IMP is generally good, but not great. This pairing can almost be a little self-destructive, as the player feels obligated to expand quickly when they should be leveraging their financial cottages - much like the competing priorities of Elizabeth (FIN/PHI). Hippodromes are pretty good as UBs go, but not OMFGHAX amazing. Th pick has no synergy whatsoever, in fact the only one in this game that really does is Commodore's (And NobleGas's to a lesser extent). The general trend is just pairing strong leaders with strong civs.

So, what we've got is two wild card players who possess a really strong UU, and decidedly solid, but possibly self-destuctive traits. All in all, they round out the field for what should be an interesting game.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="7"]General Thoughts[/SIZE]

Commodore first approached me about this game during the last couple days of PB6. At the time, I gave him a tentative yes. The format interested me, especially the fact that he and Gaspar would be playing. However, I was more interested in trying out the renaissance team game idea Scooter and I had been batting around. When that game fell through for lack of interest, I decided to give this one a spin. I had promised myself to never play a Ancient Start PBEM, however, the playing field for this game won me over. So, if you're just tuning in, let me tell you why this game should be a blast to lurk:

1. This game features some of the best writers on the site. Between Gaspar, Commodore, Ichabod, and myself, this game should be updated pretty frequently. I'm really excited about the prospect of having so many good threads to read through at the conclusion of it all. More than though, the people playing are generally pretty laid-back and funny. For those of you unfortunate enough to have missed Ichabod's hilarious posts in the PB7 Diplomacy Thread, or the chats between NobleHelium and Gaspar in PBEM29v, go check them out right now. I was initially a little hesitant at the idea of a banter thread, but upon further reflection, think this game would lose a lot without it.

2. Not only does this game feature players who report well and have a good sense of humor, but players who will play it out to the bitter end and won't resort to bending the rules to eke out a win. Looking at the field, we're a pretty good-natured, honorable bunch; so I think we won't see any of the drama that has characterized other PBEMs of late, and will be able to keep up a really good turn pace.

3. Finally, the leader/civ choices we've ended mean everyone will probably pursue a different strategy on a map that isn't perfectly balanced. So you lurkers won't have a game where it becomes all about who can micro their perfectly mirrored starts to death. Instead, you'll have five different approaches:

- NobleGaspar will play an explosive start followed by running some shade of a specialist economy.
- I'll be doing my usual specialist economy play.
- Yuri will be wonderwhoring.
- Commodore will be playing the long-term builders game.
- Mistybod will be going for a medieval beatdown.

I have no idea which one of these strategies will work out best.

4. Lastly, we have a pretty level playing field. I roughly peg NH and Gaspar as a peg above me, Commodore, and Yuris, and Mist and Ichabod a level below. There is no great skill disparity between players in this game, which means the winner should be in doubt for awhile. This is not one of those games that was won in the signup period.

So, if you're not lurking this game already, you should start

At any rate, let's briefly talk about the metagame before wrapping up this pre-game discussion.

[SIZE="7"]The Metagame[/SIZE]

I expect the early game is going to be somewhat peaceful. The biggest source of tension should be between us and Team NHG as we both make plays for the pyramids. Depending on how we decide to approach this, we may come into competition with Yuris as he goes for the Oracle. The early religions will probably fall to us, Yuris and Mistybod. Isabelle of China will have an explosive start, while the rest of us have decidedly average openings. Commodore will probably end up behind the curve due to his starting techs.

As we move through the classical era and into the medieval era, things should begin to get a lot more interesting. Provided they did not get bum-rushed, Mist and Ichabod will be heading for guilds to get their cataphracts online. NobleGas and me will both be looking up bulbing preferences, and trying to figure out who to go after. Yuris will probably land the HG about this time, and make himself a prime target for a dogpile as the SEs and Byzantium switch into military mode. Commodore will probably be quietly empire building in the background. After this point, it's really hard to say what will happen. Of course, I could be completely wrong, and we all get involved in an early game pissing match with chariots and HAs. However, given the player histories, I think the only one who might resort to that is Commodore if he feels sufficiently outclassed.

For our part, I intend to go whole hog to get the pyramids and develop my game plan from there. If pyramids fail, we get some other economic wonder. If Yuri builds all the economic wonders before we do, I run a weaker specialist economy, bulb up to guilds, and go stomp on his sandcastle. When I think about bulbing for a military advantage, nailing guilds and then hard-researching gunpowder sounds attractive. Stacks of knights and musketeers running around are really hard to stop. Additionally, I'm going to try to leverage Philosophical into as early as an Oxford as I can. The Citadel is not the ideal bureaucracy cottage cheese location, but it'll have to do. Mist and I had a pretty good repore in Civ5 PBEM1, and I'm hoping we can pick it up again here. If we can be my mercenary angry bird and attack people with cataphracts while I tech away in the background, that would be really cool. For the most part, I'm going to play very nice with everyone and hopefully that gets us somewhere. The key thing is just going to be not choking on the early game and making sure I have some way to power my economy. If I can get into the AD years still competitive, I should be able to have a good shot at winning this. So, in terms of skill, I rank the teams thusly:

1. Gaspar/NobleHelium
2. Yuris
3. Dave
4. Commodore
5. Mist/Ichabod

This list only features only marginal deviations in player skill. As for pick strength, I'd rank them:

1. Huyana Capac of the Ottomans
2. Isabella of China
3. Darius of The Holy Roman Empire
4. Victoria of Byzantium
5. Gandhi of France

If there's anything else anyone wants me to comment on or cover, say the word and I'll do my best to write something up. The save is now in my inbox, so I'll have another turn of moving my warrior up shortly.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 10[/SIZE]



Started farming the wheat and queued up a warrior in The Citadel. Commander Shepard found some Flood Plains to the East. Almost definitely going to settle in that direction first.

[scooter]

Glad you got inspired and got busy writing, I was about to spoil myself . I may still do that - the prospect of reading you, Commodore, NH/Gaspar, and Mistabod all in one game is just too enticing to limit myself to one... But for now I'm unspoiled.

No sign of stone I take it?

[novice]

I think improved spices are 4 commerce? Something like that. More interestingly, a spice plantation adds 1 food.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I'm pretty sure they're 3/0/3 base tiles, unless they're riverside or you're FIN.

Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUMl3WeDR68

[SevenSpirits]

Spice: +1c
Plantation on Spice: +1f +2c

[oledavy]

No sign of stone I take it?

Nothing yet. I'm honestly not expecting to find any close to the capital. If Plako and Novice didn't completely remove stone/marble from the map, they probably put it equidistant between starts and/or buried under jungle.

Thanks for all the responses on my spices inquiry. @Nic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUMl3WeDR68

You've pretty much ruined my ability to take Harbinger seriously as a video game villan ever again

I was thinking about this game last night before I fell asleep, and had a few ideas.

First off, I could found my second city to the northeast on the bananas for a 3f city center. Most crucially, it could share the cattle with The Citadel. Now that I really think about it, it's not that bad of a spot for a quicks-starting worker pump. It can pick up the cows and two grassland hill mines at size 3 for 10hpt; while still maintaining a 2fpt surplus. Early on, that's not all that bad.

Additionally, I was considering back-up plans if my pyramids bid fails, and running some sort of EE came to mind. I'll already have masonry for the pyramids, so it would be pretty simple to repurpose the chops into the Great Wall if Gaspar/NH build them first. Both even have the same doubler. I'm already going to be prioritizing Code of Laws to get Caste System online for popping borders, so I could just as easily leverage it into a bunch of early courthouses and spy specialists. While FIN is obviously the best trait for a full-blown espionage economy, I don't imagine PHI is that awful either. I've never run one in a competitive MP setting so I really am not sure, but I would think getting more Great Spies out sooner would come in pretty handy.

The more I think about it, the more I want to give it a go. I've never done it before, and it's outside my usual SE comfort zone, but I've already basically resigned myself to losing this game anyway, so I could use this PBEM as an opportunity to develop a new skill set. Additionally, everyone is going to expect me to run a SE, so I could take them by surprise! (for whatever that counts for here ) At any rate, I'm at least going to consider it as an alternative.

Back to the game though:



Here is a quick mock-up of the micro plan for the Citadel. I may end up moving capitals later on if I can find a better commerce location, but for right now, I'm going to assume on maintaining it as my capital and cottaging every eligible tile.

Basically, I'm going to groom it for max hammers and food early game - working all the tiles boxed in red in addition to a couple scientists - then shift it over to growing cottages on every tile as I expand my happy cap and get bureaucracy online. Working all the highlighted tiles gives the city 18 base hpt and a +5 food surplus at Size 10, enough to support a couple specialists. I'll want calendar sooner rather than later to get those spices online (try nabbing the MoM?). I have to say though, after working with an ungodly strong capital in PB6, this capital seems very very weak. It's got decent production, yes, but a fairly mediocre food surplus, and too many plains to groom it into an amazing commerce location. We'll see what I can do with it.

At any rate, I'm going to read up on Espionage Economies and try to ascertain how viable it would be. I have about 10-15 more turns to deliberate and get a feel for the map before I need to set a firm course for the rest of the game.

[oledavy]

Found my copper:

[oledavy]

And we've found marble east of the capital. Oracle -> MC -> Forge -> Engineer it is. I'm micro'ing out the fastest way to get everything, and should have a nice shiny plan up for you lurkers to look at sometime this afternoon.