This talk of [game redacted] has me thinking I need to do a better job of themeing my posts. So...
![[Image: iamerror.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/183296643/PB19/iamerror.png)
Ok - so before we get into leader valuation we need to answer the following question:
What are my goals for this game?
Here's the best answer I can come up with for that.
- Have fun.
- Explore a playstyle I have not personally executed recently.
- Pick a leader I've never picked before.
- Pick a Civ I've never picked before.
- Prove that I am in fact a good Civ4 BTS player.
- Kill Commodore.
Let's examine those goals one at a time.
Have fun
How do we have fun? For me, a lot of it can be summed with "don't let stuff you can't control get you down." Generally speaking, most of my dark clouds in these games come from making early mistakes and giving up on the game. The games where I've not done this - PBEM14, PBEM38 - are the ones I fondly remember. Interestingly, I played one of the top 10 worst opens on this forum in PBEM14 but I still was able to have fun and not give up on the game. Yes, being competitive in that game was entirely down to good early diplo, good exploration and crazy other players but those things CAN happen (well not the good diplo, since diplo is off, but you get the idea.) The point being that even if I make early mistakes, I'm not going to allow that to ruin the my mindset. Part of that is the thread - generally speaking, the most fun I have is in interacting with people about the game. Since I won't be having three hour chats with NobleHelium every turn, and since Lewwyn is certain to abandon me, that's going to have to happen here. So MOAR DEDLURKERS, please. And global lurkers, keep popping your head in and commenting on the stuff you can comment on. Thanks!
I'm going to group the next 3 together...
Explore a playstyle I have not personally executed recently
Pick a leader I've never picked before
Pick a Civ I've never picked before
Its pretty hard when you've played as many MP Civ4 games as I have to execute something totally unique. But let's take a look at my RB BTS MP history chronologically for context:
PBEM12 - Willem of England
PB4 - Asoka of the Vikings
I'm going to go ahead and discount both of these games. They were my first two MP games here and I was very much a second fiddle to Nakor, who was my teammate in both games. They were very good in helping me learn to become a better player, but they had very little to do with my actual ability.
PBEM14 - Bismarck of Maya
This was my first solo game. As I said, I played a terrible open, building Stonehenge before a second city and other nonsense. I played a very wonder heavy style, landing Stonehenge, Oracle, Colossus, Great Lighthouse and others. (I honestly don't remember them all.) I followed what I thought at that time was the "blueprint," heading down the middle of the tree and landing Liberalism. The game ended in a draw, though scooter likely would have won if the game played out longer, as he would have deserved to. The diplo in the game was a complete mess and turned all of us off diplo games to some extent (though I still had a couple more diplo nightmares to go.)
PBEM24 - Isabella of China
This was my best played solo game, as I rocketed out to fast expansion and was in good position til I got greedy, allowing mackoti to roll up on me with a pair of chariots and pee in my cheerios. More importantly was that I gave up after that, and while I played an okay game, it was really nothing special. This is the only game I've ever founded a corporation in, Mining Inc was a big part of my production in the farcical late game.
PBEM26 - Mehmed of Carthage
This was the 2nd worst open I've been a part of. I was teamed with Commodore here and we got way too cute. I created the famous Civ4 - You're Doing it Wrong meme in this game with a screen of our t20 position. We ended up in a brutal slog with Sian that we only succeeded in due to some great retreats from the underrated Numidian Cavalry. None of this mattered, as pindicator and regoarrarr made a deal with each other to ally until they were the last two standing and was the final death knell for me and full diplomacy. I quit on this game fairly early as well, leaving most of the turns to Commodore. But it was an education in terms of classical era war, which I had never been a part of before.
PBEM29 - Mao of Babylon
This was another game where some poor early game choices set us back (this was the first official Noble and Gaspar game.) We tried to land GLH and MoM and lost both in fairly close races. We did manage to fight back to a competent position but it could have been a lot more if we had played better and stayed motivated. Again, the focus here was mostly on wonders.
PBEM38 - Isabella of China
This game is my only win. I had wanted to reprise the start from PBEM24 but the map didn't allow for that so Noble and I prioritized a measured expansion and leveraged the Monk wonders to a production advantage which allowed us to conquer enough land to be the game winners. The end of the game was pretty ugly and led to the falling out with Commodore. This is the only game I've played where I've eliminated another player.
PBEM47 - Huyana Capac of Mali
This game was an absolute disaster. A combination of an annoying Serdoan pestering force and some absolutely awful play in prioritizing an Oracle build to get Forges in play left me in a terrible state and with little to play for when the game was mercifully called early due to whatever the things that Seven and mackoti notice that I don't. I've not played worse than this in a long, long time.
PB16 - Bismarck of Mali
This was the most recent game and has been rehashed ad nauseum lately. Relevant to this thread, let's just say the strategy was mostly survival based.
So with that history behind us - what does that tell us? I haven't had a steady expansion game since 24, I've played EXP in all but one of my games and I've spent a lot of time chasing the earlier wonders (PBEM38 had a failed Pyramids run.) So I'd like to play an expansion-heavy game here and will be not considering starts that rely on wonders or the IND trait. Now, that said, you have to play the map so if the map demands a slower expansion and wonders built, I will do that. But I'm not choosing a Civ/Leader pairing that encourages that to begin with.
Prove that I am in fact a good Civ4 BTS player
This is the last of the goals for a reason - the others are more important. I'm more interested in having fun and doing something different than this. And I'm looking to prove this to
myself, not to anyone else. I mostly don't care what anyone else thinks. While I do believe I've learned a lot over my time playing here, there's really no arguing that the results have been exceedingly mediocre. I think the perception of me is that I have a good understanding of the game but am error prone and not at all resilient. I think that's pretty accurate. I have a lot of little goals as well, which I won't bore you with, but that's really what I'm after here. I don't think I will win this game, but I'm going to focus on my own play, not on what everyone else is doing.
With that out of the way, I'll get into the leaders I'm considering in the next post.
Will you be updating your player ranking list anytime soon?
![[Image: leadership.jpg]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/183296643/PB19/leadership.jpg)
