Nothing like the Prodigal Sons: The Odd Couple actually play as themselves.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

For my tinkering...

1.Sevenspirits/Krill - Montezuma of Zulu - AGRICULTURE/HUNTING
2.Zaldax - Huanya Capac of Byzantium - MYSTICISM/THE_WHEEL
3.Gavagai - Darius I of Aztecs - MYSTICISM/HUNTING
4.2metraninja - Roosevelt of Sumeria - AGRICULTURE/THE_WHEEL
5.Jowy - Suryavarman II of Persia - AGRICULTURE/HUNTING
6.Dhalphir & Hashoosh - Mansa Musa of Ottomans - AGRICULTURE/THE_WHEEL
7.Gaspar/Noble - Bismarck of Mali - THE_WHEEL/MINING
8.Retep - Mehmed of Carthage - FISHING/MINING
9.Kuro - Isabella of China - MINING/AGRICULTURE
10.Mikehendi - Elizabeth of France - AGRICULTURE/THE_WHEEL
11.wetbandit - Hannibal of Egypt - AGRICULTURE/THE_WHEEL
12.Goreripper - Zara Yaqob of Greece - FISHING/HUNTING

[spacetyrantxenu]

Angriest Empire.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Ok, so I've thought about the start about as much as I can without seeing more of the map. After looking over civstats and seeing what actions other players have taken, and making the assumption that the starts are not wildly different, I think we should move the scout toward the FP hill (so W/NW) and if nothing interesting is shown, SIP. Everyone settled this turn except Kuro and retep, and both have shown that they are more than willing to move the starting settler into the unknown for a chance at a better start...or a worse one.

Retep PB13 spoiler:

Link.

Kuro famously wandered his opening settler forever in PB6, so no need to go too in depth there.

Happy scouting!

[Gaspar]

t0 - A Real Scandal

First off, we discussed naming schemes for a while and while the contenders included Mountains, Rivers, Cities Whose Name Had Changed, Extinct Countries, WWII Battles and Things Conservatives Freak Out About, we finally settled on American Political Scandals. There's a lot of overlap between those last two categories. But it has good potential for name variety and interesting place names, so that's what we're going with.

Noble and I debated for a while and decided that despite all logic pointing to the western hill, we'd kick ourselves if there was something good in the south so we'd send the scout there. And so we did.



While the wet rice was interesting, fairly quick analysis led us to realize that SIP was a superior position on all counts. And so we did.




The Whiskey Ring Scandal. The scandal isn't terribly interesting, particularly as the Grant Presidency was really just one long scandal, but it is a pretty fun place name.



Settling revealed a decent bit of our immediate area, indicating that we are either on a peninsula or a corner, because there is at the very least water to the south, east and northwest. It also revealed delicious grass pigs in a sea of grassland, but with foreboding jungle to the east of that. We are moving the scout NW-SW next turn. We also suspect our next city will be in the west but we'll have to explore carefully to ensure we're not orphaning any seafood. My initial impression is that there might be more continents than players, so plenty of unsettled landmasses about. Exploration, as ever, will be crucial.



There are 2289 land tiles. Which with 12 players works out to roughly 191 per player. Plenty, but I'd be shocked if it were that easy.

Here's the completely worthless demographics. Going to have to figure out a more elegant way to do this with this big a player list. Been a long time since I played a Pitboss.

[Lewwyn]

Looks like you got some nice land around you. Shocker.

[NobleHelium]

In before Zaldax fails to claim his civ before the timer runs out and Dhalphir chastises us again "for no reason."

[spacetyrantxenu]

Second city: Teapot Dome, has a nice ring to it.

[Gaspar]

Second city: Teapot Dome, has a nice ring to it.

Huge fan of the name Teapot Dome, but the second city is usually a workhorse, mediocre city. I'd rather save Teapot Dome for the next good city. Maybe something lame like Debategate for city 2.

[Gaspar]

The Enemies - A Tactical Guide

Volume X - Zaldax



Huanya Capac of Byzantium (Industrious, Financial, Mysticism, The Wheel, Cataphract, Hippodrome)



Known Knowns:

Zaldax is off to a bit of a rocky start in his first game. This, by the way, is 50% of the reason why I say everyone should team/dedlurk in their first game. Anyone can read Sulla's PB2 write-up and think wow, it'd be super fun to play in one of these. But there is a very real commitment you are making. Yes, this is just supposed to be fun. But in order for it to also be fun for the 11 other people, you also have to treat it like a responsibility. Not everyone is prepared to do that. That's another reason why I think everyone should also have a teammate. The other reason is its more fun when someone else is sharing your success/failure. Anyway, off the pulpit. There's little on the forums outside this thread to tell us about his skill level, but his pick tells us a little bit. It actually reminds me a bit of my pick of Bismarck of Maya in PBEM14 - I understand that there were good things there - Ball Courts, two good traits, Holkans are ok in case you get skunked on copper (you never get skunked on copper) - but they don't work at all together, and they really undersell what's important in the early game.

Anyway, that's what this combo looks like. Hmm, FIN is great. Hmm, IND is pretty good with no stone/marble. Hmm, Cataphracts are awesome. Nevermind that those three things all require a different focus. You can pair FIN with any one other strategy and be fine. When you add a second, you're just trying to do too much. Byz has mediocre start techs, requiring you to research whatever your food resource is first. I think FIN wants Ag/Wheel more than even EXP, just to get cottages in play as early as possible. I suspect we'll see him go after Henge and Oracle, land them, fall way behind the development curve and not live to see Cataphracts on the field.

Known Unknowns:

The biggest question here is will he last long enough for the personal portion of this profile to be relevant. I suspect not, but time will tell. If he can stay focused, head on a semi-focused beeline for Phracts and only sprinkle IND in when its useful, this combination has enough stuff going for it to be very much powerful, even with the drawbacks I've mentioned. If I were planning on taking the Byzantines, I'd probably rather Vicki or Hannibal than HC, though.

Unknown Unknowns:

Guess this category really doesn't serve much purpose for most of these starts.

Zaldax's Yearbook:

Pro Wrestler Their Personality Most Reminds Me Of:

Likeliness to Succeed:

Quality of Selection:


Exploitable Weakness: Please god let us start next to him.
Biggest Fear: Please god let him be nowhere near Seven.

[Gaspar]

The Enemies - A Tactical Guide

Volume XI - SevenSpirits



Montezuma of the Zulu (Aggressive, Spiritual, Agriculture, Hunting, Impi, Ihkanda)



Known Knowns:

The number of games where first pick lands you Monty of Zulu I'd guess is pretty small. There's zero doubt Seven was giving himself some degree of minor handicap since he's better than the next two players in this game added together. I'm sure he'll have some condescending reasoning when he reads this postgame, but consciously or not, that's what he's doing. Anyway, there's obviously a good bit to like for a weak pairing here - while I still submit that Hunting is always the wrong start tech, he's got the likely food resources covered, and Ikhanda's aren't a bad building, since you'll eventually want a good number of Barracks and the maintenance savings adds up. Spiritual is always a good trade and Impi's are excellent early game deterrents and scouting units. My guess is that if Krill does stick around, Seven will be more aggressive than normal as well, particularly with so many weak teams in this field. I'm sure whatever he ends up doing will be smarter than anything I can project for him here.

Seven is either the best or second best player on these boards, depending on who you ask (mackoti is the other candidate.) Pitboss is a great equalizer though - 12 players injects a huge amount of variance into the game. Nonetheless, I expect him to land MoM and Taj, do a deep beeline to something, and collect a concession around t175. We'll endeavor to stave that off, and if we're fortunate enough to not be too close to him, its a possibility. But Seven is a brilliant player with an analytical mind and high creativity. His only real weakness, a lack of social skills, doesn't come into play so much in AI diplo games.

Known Unknowns:

What his deep beeline will be? What non-traditional strategy will he show us should have been traditional all along? How long will Krill last as a teammate? How unbelievably condescending will he be in the tech thread and in the postgame? Will his streams be entertaining enough that I'll want to watch them postgame despite the unquestioned disgust I'll have with him by the time the game is over because I'm an irrational jerk?

Unknown Unknowns:

Guess this category really doesn't serve much purpose for most of these starts.

SevenSpirit's Yearbook:

Pro Wrestler Their Personality Most Reminds Me Of:

Likeliness to Succeed:

Quality of Selection:


Exploitable Weakness: He tries to be too cute to have the game last a while and leaves an opening somewhere.
Biggest Fear: Everything else.