[SPOILERS] PBEM38 Lurker's lounge

[novice]

So, what did Yuri do wrong? Or was he just screwed by the map?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Slow expansion, and he just pink dotted good ol' Commodore. And Gaspar, but latter don't care.

Looking at the map, it seems that the shape of the jungles and the resource distribution pushed Yuri's expansion away from the centre, and instead towards the edges.

In addition, a trend I've noticed is that the Oracle/Colossus combo really saps the momentum out of someone's growth curve. We had that problem back in BTS21 and 23. I don't quite know why that is, is it because of the timing of the game? The other primary wonder push, towards the 'mids, seems to start some time after the Oracle push, meaning that someone going for 'mids seems to have a stronger base, with say 3-4 cities instead 2. That way, 1 city works on the 'mids, the other 2-3 focus on growth and can push out granaries and settlers and keep up the rate of expansion. On the other, Oracle is early enough that you need to go for it around cities 1 and 2, which means half your empire's entire production is not going towards expansion.

The first couple of cities are crucial. These cities grow so fast and pay off so quickly that I'm beginning to wonder if spending resources on non-expansion during that time, even for Metal Casting and Colossus, is worth it.

[plako]

Map has a minor part of it, but he has made mistakes. There was no reson to found all those backline cities far from his core. Gems and copper cities are only essential ones and he should have pushed towards the centre after having those. There are good spots to claim south from the jungle. North of the jungle and jungle itself should have been left to be backfilled later. His cities are also small and having little improvements indicating lack of worker force and that he hasn't managed happiness well. He still could make a comeback. Just building Colossus and growing cities would imrove his economy a lot without need for a bunch of new workers.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Ankara's a great 2nd city with wet rice and copper, but after that, the resource distribution meant there was insufficient incentive to push towards the northwest. Personally, I would have delayed Gems city because FIN/colossus means no lack of early colossus. Get your food up, settle past the pigs city. Maybe Yuri could have competed with Gaspar for the corn/sugar city, but there was jungle on Yuri's side and forest on Gaspar's side, meaning the latter is going to find it easier to develop. It's also awkward, all its food is in 2nd ring. Considering the development of Gaspar's city of Caldeum, Yuri was never ever going to steal the 1st ring corn using his 2nd ring. He should have settled 2 or 3 of its current position.

Yuri also lost the rice/gold city to IMP, but maybe he could have settled on a hill to form a nice solid front against the 'phracts.

But yeah, I'm beginning to think that you're better off getting more FIN citizens up asap, instead of making your FIN citizens slightly stronger. Not to mention having more citizens means having more nodes to push out culture and claim territory.

[Catwalk]

Being a newbie (indefinitely, it seems) I would like to ask if I have breached any lurker conduct with my posts in player threads so far. I gave yuris some advice today that had to do only with what was displayed in his posts, unrelated to what I read in other threads. If anything, I'd be advising him to get military fast rather than grow as he's probably going to be hit by Mistabod soon. I just wanted to peptalk him a little, as I think he's too pessimistic about his position. If I overstepped any bounds with that, I'm really sorry.

[novice]

Being a newbie (indefinitely, it seems) I would like to ask if I have breached any lurker conduct with my posts in player threads so far. I gave yuris some advice today that had to do only with what was displayed in his posts, unrelated to what I read in other threads. If anything, I'd be advising him to get military fast rather than grow as he's probably going to be hit by Mistabod soon. I just wanted to peptalk him a little, as I think he's too pessimistic about his position. If I overstepped any bounds with that, I'm really sorry.

Problem with peptalking is that you might know how their situation compares with the other players better than they do. In this case I think you're right that Yuri could possibly compete by holing up and cottaging his very green peninsula - he doesn't necessarily know that, though.

[Catwalk]

Well, I think that observation is independent of outside knowledge. He seemed to think that he was out of room for expansion, and that simply wasn't the case based on the screenshots he provided. But yeah, it seems like he thinks other players have way better/more land than him and that factored into his assessment. I will keep quiet now to be on the safe side, just got a little excited as this is a great game to follow and it would be a shame if yuri gave up a little at this point.

[Catwalk]

Any predictions on how these wars will fare? yuri seems confident he will only lose one city, but he also seems to believe Mistabod only have 8 HAs. His capital is next in line, think Mistabod will be pushing that far? They will be able to plant another 2 decent cities up north now, with Konya taken.

EDIT: Capital taken, that's a very nice land grab for Mistabod. Think it'll be enough to give them a shot at winning? They also have dibs on taking more territory from yuri when they please, he's in a horrible defensive position now.

[Bobchillingworth]

Haha, so both Commodore and Gaspar think the other is throwing their game away in a fit of unreasoning aggression, Davy seems to believe his position is a lot stronger than it looks, Mistabod may be running away with the game but nobody seems to realize it (including them), and Yuri bemoans that he has run out of good land to settle while his cities are spaced crazily far apart.


What a bunch of loons!

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Always the danger of specialist economies: when should I work scientists, and when should I whip out more settlers and workers.