PBEM 2, 3 or 4 players?

[Sian]

I've been thinking ... I think its time to concede to Ruff, since the quagmire i got into with Mardoc (more specificly his repeated espionage changing me out of State Proberty) have completely neutered the chances i have to stop Ruff ... hoped that Mardoc would have folded somewhat easily since then i would have had compareable land ...

[Mardoc]

I've been thinking ... I think its time to concede to Ruff, since the quagmire i got into with Mardoc (more specificly his repeated espionage changing me out of State Proberty) have completely neutered the chances i have to stop Ruff ... hoped that Mardoc would have folded somewhat easily since then i would have had compareable land ...

Told you you should have stayed at war with Ruff long enough to cripple him I may not win my wars, but I'll do my best to insure I'm not profitable to invade!

But yeah, you've taken me out of the running, so I'd be willing to concede to Ruff at this point. Assuming he doesn't have a near term plan that he wants to see through, anyway.

[Ruff_Hi]

I've been thinking ... I think its time to concede to Ruff

you've taken me out of the running, so I'd be willing to concede to Ruff at this point. Assuming he doesn't have a near term plan that he wants to see through, anyway.

I've got 8 destroyers in the waters so Sian will find it much (much!) harder to hit me now. I've also taken steps to recover the ex-Chinese, ex-Japanese cities that he holds on the 'mainland'. Future plans are all about controlling the oil.

I'm happy to call the game - I don't have any super critical future plans that I just have to play out.

I have just bulbed the rest of Scientific Method (revealing Oil) and finished Combustion on the same turn. I now have 6 destroyers in the water with 2 more upgrades from Frigates coming next turn. Sian has Scientific Method but is missing Railroads and Combustion. As such, I now control the waters.

My game plan from here is to control the Oil. I have 2 sources (both on land but both on the ocean edge). Sian has 4 (3 on land but right on the ocean edge, 1 in the water) and Mardoc has 0.

Once that is taken care of ... the game should be well in hand.

I may not win my wars, but I'll do my best to insure I'm not profitable to invade!

I have certainly seen that to my cost.

[Mardoc]

Well, then, good game Ruff! Nothing flashy, just good solid play.

And time for me to try to make a few less mistakes in the next one .

[eastway]

Sorry if this is inappropriate. I think it might be a chance to find someone interested in playing in a new PBEM with 3 others including me. I made a new thread in the general forum.

Well done for winning Ruff.

[Ruff_Hi]

Thanks for participating guys - really enjoyed it. I'll read through your threads (not yours TT) later this week.

The map certainly proved a challenge (I didn't have horses until I took some from Mardoc with rifles) and the 'anything goes' nature of the game (ie phants, spy actions all in, etc) were fun. I really didn't think I had a chance of winning this game initially ... even at the mid point. I was really happy with my tech rate all game. Setting up my Heroic Epic military pump was fun as was my Globe draft city. Losing my two powerful port cities sucked the big one but that was my own fault (well played Sian)

This is only the 2nd pbem game (against multiple opponents) that I have won. The other was a space victory at CFC playing on Civ4 vanilla.

Final conclusion - you are always in with a chance if your tech rate is good enough. GG to all.

[Mardoc]

Sorry if this is inappropriate. I think it might be a chance to find someone interested in playing in a new PBEM with 3 others including me. I made a new thread in the general forum.

If I weren't in three others, I'd be in. Pretty busy time in Real Life for me too. As it is, I think I'm going to have to decline for now. Need to wait for another one or two to end before I commit to more.

[Ruff_Hi]

Suggested summary for the pbem google docs doc ...

The random fractal map put Sian on his own island allowing him to farmers gambit with no downside. It also placed Mardoc and Twinkle relatively close together with Ruff away off to the north east. This led to early aggression between Mardoc and Twinkle resulting in Twinkle being removed from the game by Mardoc cats and horse archers ... not before he had some fun razing a Ruff city (just because he could).

Ruff concentrated on his Tech rich capital and select city alignment (HE fueled military pump, Globe powered drafting city, etc) and expanded into the jungle separating Mardoc and him slowly. Allowing Mardoc to rush settlers into the open south east and massively expand his empire. Sian teched along quietly, landing the circumnavigation bonus and proving to be an annoying water based menace.

Grabbing the GA based techs (Music, Nationalism) and wonders (The Mausoleum of Maussollos, The Taj Mahal) enabled Ruff to draft an army of rifles and take the war to Mardoc. Mardoc traded cities for time while massing large numbers of Cho-Ko-Nu. A few silly miss-steps by Ruff enabled Mardoc to stall Ruff's advance (read 'ruff's army is deleted from the map'). The first Japan / China war is settled with some city trades.

Meanwhile, Sian jumped out to a tech lead picking up Scientific Method, Physics, Communism and Physics.

During this war, both Ruff and Mardoc were talking to Sian (galleons and rifles) about joining the war. Ruff pointing at Mardoc's defenseless west, Mardoc pointing at Ruff's defenseless east. Sian decided to do both (or neither, depending on how you look at it), first razing some critical hammer rich port cities on ruff's east and west coast (gaining some ex-Mardoc cities in the process) and then launching amphibious attacks against Mardoc's west.

Following the end of the Ruff / Mardoc war and while Sian and Mardoc were knocking each other about (and in the end, not achieving very much), Ruff returned to teching, picking up Steel, Steampower, Railroads & Combustion. He also increased his coastal forces (machine gunners in all port cities) as well as rolled out a fleet of destroyers with aims to control all of the oil reserves in the world.

At this stage, Sian and Mardoc agreed that Ruff had the game in hand.

[Ruff_Hi]

I should put in something about Mardoc's EP adventure too. I saw him accumulating cash and not teching .. I'm glad to say that it only took me a few minutes to see where he was heading ... hence my counter EP missions.

[Mardoc]

A few silly miss-steps by Ruff enabled Mardoc to stall Ruff's advance (read 'ruff's army is deleted from the map').

Although your mistakes helped, I think I could have accomplished this anyway. Fundamentally all I needed was the time to amass Chos and you to be in my territory where I had a movement advantage. Splitting your stack just meant I took fewer losses and could do it earlier.

The summary seems pretty much accurate, but a little too long. I haven't looked at comparable games, but I'd want to cut out half of that.