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

[Lewwyn]

I'd be interested in the chat that spawned that, unholy monster that it likely is.

I really don't want to see it. I think I might go blind with rage.

[Ichabod]

Nice discussion.

[NobleHelium]

Everyone can beat Noble every day, because the AI is dumb

I'd be interested in the chat that spawned that, unholy monster that it likely is.

Don't worry, there's no mention of you at all.

[Ichabod]

By the way, I'm not sure if it's wise to rate the game admin as a 5. Just saying...

Up me to tier 3 and I'll pretend that never happened.

[Mardoc]

Hey, thanks for that. It's useful to know that I'm probably playing against people of the right level. I've had a little angst about that.

Edit: Hey, where would you put Speaker and Sunrise? What would your guess be for T-Hawk if he weren't afraid of an MP game eating his life and sanity?

[Gaspar]

I can beat Noble any day.

I actually agree with this. But Noble is much more likely than you to put in a consistent performance, which is a factor.

Everyone could beat Noble every day, probably because of his charming personality :P

I'd be interested in the chat that spawned that, unholy monster that it likely is.

I really don't want to see it. I think I might go blind with rage.

Yeah, that chat's definitely not getting posted.

By the way, I'm not sure if it's wise to rate the game admin as a 5. Just saying...

Up me to tier 3 and I'll pretend that never happened.

TIER 1 - STUPENDOUS MAN

Ichabod

Better?

Hey, thanks for that. It's useful to know that I'm probably playing against people of the right level. I've had a little angst about that.

Edit: Hey, where would you put Speaker and Sunrise? What would your guess be for T-Hawk if he weren't afraid of an MP game eating his life and sanity?

To a large extent you're tough to rate Mardoc, since most of your experience is FFH.

We rated Speaker with Sullla originally, but since he's really never played a game here without Sullla and Sullla is the voice of the team, didn't really seem meaningful. Noble stated that T-Hawk is the epitome of T5 (unrealized potential) but since he's never played, that didn't seem fair. Obviously if he started playing, he'd likely jump to T3 in a heartbeat. We actually had discussed sunrise, I believe we debated t4/t5 but somehow never came to a solid conclusion that ended up in the tiers.

One thing worth mentioning - I think the basic premise of the tiers is that anyone in a upper tier would be favored in a game against someone in a lower tier. But its not necessarily a shock if they were to beat them. You're really grading their consistency as much as anything else. Consistency is really the main differentiator in the top 3 tiers. Only mack and 7 get t1 because they are pretty much dominant in every game unless something unfortunate happens/they play each other. Krill/Plako are strongly competitive in every game unless the same thing happens. The T3 guys is where it starts to slip a bit, but even still if you look at those players I can only really remember truly bad games from Serdoa, who at his peak level of focus is a T1 guy, he just has a few stinkers because he loses interest easily.

Once you get to T4, that's where the humans live and you win some and you lose some - but even still - those are all really good players who could win any game where the competed. Its not until you get to t6 where you would be surprised if they won a game and even still, that depends on the fields.

Final note - Kyan and Sullla are especially tough to rank. Kyan because he's finished so few games and Sullla because he's played so few and they were over such a lengthy time period. So while they're at the end of the ranked t3 there, think of them more as an honorary title than actually where they belong, that's just too tough to say.

[Serdoa]

Tbh I was surprised to find me where you rated me. Not so much because I don't think I can play well enough to "deserve" it, but because I can easily play so bad games that it's just unbelievable that the same guy is playing something like PBEM46 and PBEM47. Or PBEM12 and PBEM15 (though I guess 15 is a different story as I expected a different game when I signed up).

Anyhow, while we are at it: I think mackoti is definitely fine as best player - I still don't even get how he does it, he really has an absolutely impressive grasp on every aspect that is important while most others let something slip sooner or later - but Seven is imo on the same tier as plako and Krill. The difference is in playstyle only imo. plako and Krill imo are stronger players on the strategy-level while Seven is better in the micro-department. Novice I'd put even further on the micro-scale btw, I think if he plays a few more games to get experience for the strategy-layer he'll easily dominate most games. But in general I don't think that Seven is a better (or worse) player than Krill or plako.

[Ichabod]

By the way, I'm not sure if it's wise to rate the game admin as a 5. Just saying...

Up me to tier 3 and I'll pretend that never happened.

TIER 1 - STUPENDOUS MAN

Ichabod

Better?

Way better.

But still, I think you should read my PB13 thread. I have been reporting in a reasonably consistent way (there were some gaps) and I think it's an interesting read (I made some revolting mistakes, but overall I think the gameplay is solid). It has the added benefit of revealing a bit of wetbandit's thought process.

It has nothing to do with ability ranks, mind you. It's more about the thread being so deserted that I feel a bit depressed when reporting, sometimes.

By the way, I asked Noble to be my ded-lurker in that game and he refused me. So my overall game plan is to destroy the game of the team he's in (in a way that makes us both lose, obviously - no point in messing with their game only to win it myself, they wouldn't be revolted in that case).

[TheHumanHydra]

These lists have been really interesting. I thought it was kinda an RB no-no to rank players, but I have to confess I'll probably be coming back to this as a reference often - I definitely experience that "anyone better than me is superhuman; can't differentiate" syndrome (with some exceptions). I was surprised to see myself on the list, though I was where I guessed. I'd like to say I hope I can move up, but as I have no plans to play a long game at present ...

Though Merovech, by all means feel free to try and resurrect my Christmas game idea ...

[Gaspar]

Tbh I was surprised to find me where you rated me. Not so much because I don't think I can play well enough to "deserve" it, but because I can easily play so bad games that it's just unbelievable that the same guy is playing something like PBEM46 and PBEM47. Or PBEM12 and PBEM15 (though I guess 15 is a different story as I expected a different game when I signed up).

Anyhow, while we are at it: I think mackoti is definitely fine as best player - I still don't even get how he does it, he really has an absolutely impressive grasp on every aspect that is important while most others let something slip sooner or later - but Seven is imo on the same tier as plako and Krill. The difference is in playstyle only imo. plako and Krill imo are stronger players on the strategy-level while Seven is better in the micro-department. Novice I'd put even further on the micro-scale btw, I think if he plays a few more games to get experience for the strategy-layer he'll easily dominate most games. But in general I don't think that Seven is a better (or worse) player than Krill or plako.

Thanks for this, I was hoping for a little more debate on the topic. Re: you - you're probably the most inconsistent player in T3 but you have hit heights few others have in your best games. That's enough for me.

Re: Seven - I think you can certainly make a strong case that he's T2, and you have, but I personally would favor him over Krill or plako.

These lists have been really interesting. I thought it was kinda an RB no-no to rank players, but I have to confess I'll probably be coming back to this as a reference often - I definitely experience that "anyone better than me is superhuman; can't differentiate" syndrome (with some exceptions). I was surprised to see myself on the list, though I was where I guessed. I'd like to say I hope I can move up, but as I have no plans to play a long game at present ...

Though Merovech, by all means feel free to try and resurrect my Christmas game idea ...

If there's a taboo about it, I'm unaware, and I've been here for a while. We'd certainly never do an official ladder - that's un-RB. But the good players all have an informal ranking in their heads, this just puts it down on paper somewhere. I don't intend to speak for anyone but Noble and I here. I know that I've had one form of this conversation or another with at least 5 different RB'ers over gchat and I don't even really talk to anyone other than Noble and Lewwyn that much (though anyone can feel free to msg me, if I don't want to talk I'll just ignore you.)

Your ranking was 100% Noble, I have no concept of your play.

Another note on the top 2 tiers - experience is the best teacher. Seven aside, those other three have been playing Civ4 forever and have played dozens of games on other sides and in gamespy lounges in addition to their work here. Seven is a bit of a savant. I think novice is probably the only T3 player who could eventually reach T2, because his issues are with lack of confidence mostly, IMO. The others all have a fatal flaw which keeps them from ever getting there (Noble is weirdly indecisive, rego is guaranteed a major screwup every game, etc.)

One last thing, these are tiers, not castes. I think if we had done these ratings a year ago, they'd have looked different. I would say that anyone T6 or above has the ability to move up a tier or two. The indictment of the players T7 and below is simply that they've shown they don't learn from their mistakes. I believe I've reached my own personal skill-cap - I'll never be a T3 player because I can't maintain the focus. I could definitely drop to T5 as well. I actually think that's the defining characteristic of T4 players - they all are good enough on their best day but are basically proven inconsistent. I would be less surprised to see some of the T5 players jump to T3 eventually, particularly the newer players because almost across the board their issue is lack of experience or lack of practice (in the case of the more veteran players.)

Oh, and to the newer players chiming in - if I can make any suggestion if you want to move up - play a game on a team with someone above you. If you can't get a game as a teammate, dedlurk and just play as if you were part of the team. I actually think the best way to improve short of actually playing the MP games is reading the threads and trying to learn from them. Don't play SP for that purpose - the stuff that helps you at high level SP play actually hurts you in MP, because you're chasing an entirely different whale. Playing a bunch of greens games isn't going to help much either, though. Play one, then get a teammate and challenge yourself.