[LURKERS] Sweet 16: Civ Party Fun Time and Philosophical Debate

[Jowy]

So 12 cities now. He's making more gpt than we are in a golden age, though. He played a very nice game, if an outdated one. Essentially, the old read Sullla's PB2 thread game, where you skimp on military to the lowest extent possible, tech to Rifling and draft an army which you then use to plow through your weakest neighbor. He executed this quite well, as the look at techs will show:

Darn copycat fanboy!

[Serdoa]

If they do know (or suspect) already that Mike = Sullla I find those comments not very nice from him. And tbh several of his comments do read strongly like he knows or at least suspects.

Anyhow, as for his map-whining I had typed an answer but I think it is better I post it here:

I've said enough about the map. But on what planet is it fair that one continent has 4 players and the others all have 2? I mean Jesus Christ, EVERYONE, EVER, FOR THE REST OF ALL TIME. HAVE SOMEONE REVIEW YOUR MAPS. K, enough about that.

...

So he's up on us 2357 beakers, roughly. I'm not counting CS because he might finish something useful this turn, hard to say.

...

Bottom Line - he's overexpanded. I'll touch on this in greater detail when we look at France, but there's a legitimate question as to whether his economy can recover sufficiently. Or rather there was before we took 4 cities off France.

What I gather from your last posts is:

- Mike could actually keep up with Seven quite good. Less cities but much better tech.
- Mike made the mistake of not building the necessary troops to defend. What he could have done instead of SoZ for example, so he wouldn't have had to cut cities for that.
- Seven overexpanded heavily with a shitty economy now.
- Yours is even shittier.

I mean, again, I said it before, yes the map has issues. But even from the points you wrote down you should realize that something other has gone very wrong in this game that had nothing to do with Seven getting his continent all to his own - which just led to overexpansion (so much for having your continent all for your own btw, I wonder what he would have done if someone came with Rifles while he is on Muskets at best). Again, yes, the map has issues. But faulting it when actually the quality of the players is practically below Chieftain and above Deity in the same game is hardly fair imo. No map in this world could have accounted for this grave disparity without being actively unfair to some players.

(And yes, Gavagais food was a fault.)

[Bobchillingworth]

Really, all this map needed to be balanced was a few players switched around. Switch Bantams with Seven, and then wetbandit with Bantams and it would have been much more competitive. Not that you could have predicted retep's premature demise nor Bantam's idiocy.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Really, all this map needed to be balanced was a few players switched around. Switch Bantams with Seven, and then wetbandit with Bantams and it would have been much more competitive. Not that you could have predicted retep's premature demise nor Bantam's idiocy.

That works on a duel-centric map like this one, but yeah, I think in general if players want a good, even match of Civ, we have to play a game where there isn't a great disparity in known skill level. In a greens game you get what you get -- known weed from the shitty "vets" (like me) that still qualified despite multiple appearances elsewhere, and who knows what you'll get from new players, you could see great play and completely terrible in the same game. So greens games are known wildcards. But if people want a "fair" game to play (aside from expecting a "fair" map), maybe it's best to enlist players somewhat close in skill level, however that is determined. I mean, it's not like we don't know this is a problem...

...hey what's that? A HUGE GAME IS FORMING OVER THERE IN THE PB18 FORUM LET'S GO GUYS EVERYONE SIGN UP THEY NEED EVERYONE!!!!

[Serdoa]

Really, all this map needed to be balanced was a few players switched around. Switch Bantams with Seven, and then wetbandit with Bantams and it would have been much more competitive. Not that you could have predicted retep's premature demise nor Bantam's idiocy.

I think all this map really needed was putting the copper outside the BFC (or at least not connected without road, I didn't realize that when I made the map). Without that retep would not have died, Seven would have been kept in check and everything is fine. Bantams of course is an issue and having him on the 4-player continent was probably the best that could happen actually. Also I would never place players any other way than random if not explicitly requested by the players to do so.

But if I look at Sevens current economy, I really think someone could have attacked him with tech-advantage. Not only one tbh, that map is torodial, there should be a few interested sooner or later. He simply is really good and probably could hold against an attacker, but that's not the issue of the map. And I'm not even sure if he has won this yet. But if he has, it is because he played well - and got a little bit lucky by Mike getting attacked (lucky = something he could not directly influence) and not because the map favoured him so much.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, I'm finding the Noble/Gaspar thread quite difficult to read at the minute. They're criticising the game of every other major player, who are all probably in a better position than them, and blaming the map for everything that went wrong with their own.

On the topic of Seven's expansion, he probably doesn't have a choice between vertical and horizontal. His advantage is more land, Mike/Gav/Gore's advantage is better traits. He can't win the vertical game on the same land so he has to make use out of his land advantage and go horizontal.

It does look to me like someone could use their tech advantage to punish him though. If Mike had gotten an early Astro and lifted just 4 island cities from Seven then that's 20 cities vs 20 and Mike still has the massive tech advantage. Seven doesn't have a direct border with any of Mike/Gav/Gore though and no-one else likely has the teching power to beat him there in a good time frame.

Still, Gavagai has Bantam's land, GoreRipper seems to have good chances at taking over Hashoosh, so they could be matching Seven in land soon, the game could still be interesting. I think if it was anyone other than Seven over there they wouldn't be conceding so easily. As it is, they probably call it when Seven lands the MoM.

[scooter]

Yeah, I quit reading their (Gaspar/Noble) thread. They are welcome to write what they want and I'll always defend that, but dumping on all these players who have just straight-up out-played them is not my cup of tea.

Since someone mentioned the SoZ build (too lazy to go find and quote it)... If Sullla had built, say, 5 spears instead of SoZ, he would have been fine. He knew all Gaspar had was HAs, and 5 spears in their front city probably would have been enough to kill this thing before it even began.

Just a matter of time before this thing gets called.

[Fintourist]

Hmmm... After "Mike" gave up this game somehow feels pretty empty That's a pity because according to my limited reading, there are still several players who put in a good effort and there's still a lot of play left.

[scooter]

Seven being about to snipe Taj is just the funniest thing. Game has been over for awhile now, but that ought to be the thing that prompts the flood of GG's in the tech thread.

[Ituralde]

So the game, which has been called after Turn 30, finally got called for real? I thought I'd never see the day!