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

[spacetyrantxenu]

P.S. Today is a really bad day to goad me for RL reasons.

Good rant, would read again. Highly recommended. I give it 0.75 Xenus, particularly regarding the tone of anger, use of profanity, and despair about the map. You didn't appear to choke on your rage or make yourself look like a complete ass, though, so you don't get a full 1.0 Xenu.

[Gaspar]

P.S. Today is a really bad day to goad me for RL reasons.

Good rant, would read again. Highly recommended. I give it 0.75 Xenus, particularly regarding the tone of anger, use of profanity, and despair about the map. You didn't appear to choke on your rage or make yourself look like a complete ass, though, so you don't get a full 1.0 Xenu.

I'm pretty sure you don't have to dig too far into my 6000 posts to find a few that rate about much higher.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Wait, I thought you liked the map?

/ducks

Thanks for the rant. FWIW, I don't disagree with much if any of that. You should rename the capital to Lew's Dirty Sock. That fits the 16 character limit nicely.

[Lewwyn]

Thought about it for a while, and I think only Chip Kelly can adequately express my position.

[Gaspar]

No sock?

[Lewwyn]

No sock?

Who needs a sock when I have your thread?

[Serdoa]

Sorry Serdoa - but I have to say this: This game was over on t0 when we got placed on this fucking terrible map. When I sign up for a 12 player FFA and my first opponent meets me on t3 and then even the exploring players don't meet their second opponent until t40+ the map is a failure. You can put 3 sets of 4 players in close contention and have it be fair but you can't put 6 sets of 2 players in close contention and have the game be anything other than a farce. You're swinging whole games on luck and randomness. I mean Seven is a great player and would probably have won anyway, but when you let him win a duel to gain huge advantages that none of the other players can do anything about well, you've failed as a mapmaker. So the map was a structural failure and this game is a waste of everyone's time.

On top of that, how the fuck do you not pay attention to everyone's capital? Its crystal-fucking-clear that lots of attention paid to our capital, because we got these bullshit lakes and peaks to make sure we couldn't move anywhere so we get our 1 food + 2 flood plains capital while Gavagai manages to settle a 3-food capital ... on t0! He didn't even have to waste a turn was moving to it. Like literally, no attention whatsoever was paid to that. So there's our fucking duel with Gavagai - he picks ahead of us in the pick order and gets Darius. There's no good FIN leaders left when we pick, so we pick a guy who should in theory be able to get out to a fast start... which is totally negated because we're put in a duel with a guy with a 3 food capital on a map that is otherwise mirrored-ish - mirrored-ish meaning we don't all have the exact same land, but there are no other distinct advantages in the neighborhood that we could conceivably take advantage of to make up for that cap. So while I'm sure Lewwyn is jerking off into a sock thinking about how this proves FUCK THOSE GUYS AND THAT LIST, NOT ONLY AM I BETTER THAN THEM, GAVAGAI IS TOO, this game proves nothing other than no matter how good a player you are you need to have someone smart look over your map in detail before you put it out to the world.

Did we play brilliantly? Maybe not. But we didn't play badly beyond covering those workers with an axe instead of a spear. But it didn't matter, because the game was over before then. I'd like this game to last about 10 more turns and then have everyone realize what a tremendous waste of their time it is.

Gaspar, while I can agree on some points (especially the one about Gavagais start, as that was an oversight that shouldn't have happened), I don't agree about your conclusions. PB8 showed that you can have a really bad start and still nearly win the game. A really bad start, not just one food-resource less. My map is not responsible for the actions of the players. I could have tried to anticipate even more crazy decisions than I did already but I doubt it would have helped as some things are just mind-boggling for me and I would never have expected anyone to do that.

Also: I'm not responsible for Seven joining that game. Nor did I let him win his duel. That's belittling his actions. Nor did I allow Gavagai to steal workers. Which probably had btw more impact than his food resource did.

[Gaspar]

Gaspar, while I can agree on some points (especially the one about Gavagais start, as that was an oversight that shouldn't have happened), I don't agree about your conclusions. PB8 showed that you can have a really bad start and still nearly win the game. A really bad start, not just one food-resource less. My map is not responsible for the actions of the players. I could have tried to anticipate even more crazy decisions than I did already but I doubt it would have helped as some things are just mind-boggling for me and I would never have expected anyone to do that.

Also: I'm not responsible for Seven joining that game. Nor did I let him win his duel. That's belittling his actions. Nor did I allow Gavagai to steal workers. Which probably had btw more impact than his food resource did.

Well - I highly disagree that the worker snipe was a bigger deal than a 3 food capital. I also disagree that 2FP = 1 food resource. I also disagree that PB8 is a valid comparison - KrillMOD game on a random map vs BTS game on a theoretically balanced map. I also find it frankly disgusting that you clearly balanced our capital with the players in that start position in mind. None of the above is really my issue, though.

The issue is this - putting players in duels in a 12 player FFA is frankly, bad design. I'm not belittling Seven's actions - he didn't win this game because of the map, he won this game because he's the second best player at RB and he will win most games he plays because he's that good. But the point is that what happened to retep could have happened to anyone. I don't doubt he had to fuck up pretty badly to get eliminated when he did with copper at everyone's capitals. But anyone could lose their duel quickly. And if, say, we had eliminated Gavagai instead of Seven eliminating retep the rest of the players would be able to feel similarly aggrieved. Look - everytime we do this and we don't explicitly say at the signup "OH BY THE WAY, YOUR NEIGHBOR IS GOING TO BE RIGHT ON TOP OF YOU" the game devolves quickly and everyone is annoyed because it introduces an unwanted additional level of randomness. PBEM31 is an excellent example of this and that game was a hell of a lot better balanced in terms of player strength. If I wasn't playing and you showed me this map, that's absolutely the first thing I would have said. Did you show this map to any good players before sending it out? Because I can't believe you did.

I love you Serdoa, regardless of how many times we argue or how annoyed with me you are right now, you're absolutely one of my favorite people at RB. You're a better player than me, and probably a better man than me. But this map is absolutely fucking awful.

[NobleHelium]

You know, we're actually not that annoyed with you. It's just a bad week for Gaspar. You didn't have to disappear from 56, lol, I wasn't going to flip out on you.

[Gaspar]

You know, we're actually not that annoyed with you. It's just a bad week for Gaspar. You didn't have to disappear from 56, lol, I wasn't going to flip out on you.

I'm not annoyed with Serdoa at all, but nothing I said about the map has anything to do with my bad week.