Gaspar, Lewwyn, et al go full Sartre

[Gaspar]

Alright, I'm bored and I have the least to say about the last two, so I'm just going to blow through them now...

The Enemies - A Tactical Guide

Volume V - dtay



He goes to Harvard, I think. I live like a half an hour from Harvard but it couldn't be further away...

Roosevelt of Mali (Industrious, Organized, Mining, The Wheel, Skirmisher, Mint)



Yeah, that.

Known Knowns:

I know less about dtay than TBS because I found his thread slightly less interesting. He's clearly played a lot of SP BTS on Pangaea maps. He's basically got the CFC/Sullla plan down, I believe he got Liberalism in PB13 as well. In PBEM53 he played quite well but there was a moment where he debated between Taj Mahal and Liberalism as the guy who built MoM and picked Liberalism. I don't know that he would have beaten TBS to Taj but I can't even imagine how that would be a choice. Again, his mechanics are sound but he made a lot of tryhard decisions, where you always push the moment of truth off into the future. This is a mistake a lot of new players make - it is entirely possible he's learned from this and is ready to apply those lessons this game. If so, he'll be quite dangerous because otherwise his play was quite good.

Roosevelt is the GLH leader as gets mentioned everytime he's chosen. He's also sort of generically a production leader. You get discounts on the two biggest production multiplier buildings and generally speaking Forges are second only to Granaries in the cheap building power rankings. FDRs main issue is a slow start - there's just nothing that's really helping you get going until you get to Metal Casting. Org defrays cost a little bit before then, but it isn't any match for Exp, Cre or Imp in those terms. Anyway, Ind is a blessing/curse kind of trait. Its hard to not think you should be trying for every wonder if you can land them and that's a recipe for disaster in MP, particularly with another Ind leader in the field.

Mali was the second best Civ on the board, IMO. Skirmishers are really an excellent defensive unit and Mints are one of those buildings that are good because they provide a material, passive benefit to a building you'd always build anyway. There's obvious synergy with FDR in making those Mints cheap, and Mining/The Wheel is generically the 3rd best trait set. The downside is that its very start dependent. Since you have no food improving techs to start with, your early tech choices are all made for you and you probably can't actually get BW in play faster than anyone else.

Known Unknowns:

Really, the unknown is what he's learned. He's got two solid, well-played games under his belt but neither one can really be classified as a success. If he manages to to apply the mistakes from those games, then he's right there with the leaders in this game. If not... well, he can battle Commodore for Liberalism.

dtayAI Profile

Peace Weight: 9/10
Unit probability: 3/10
Wonders: 7/10

Flavors: Sullla, Civfanatics

dtay's Yearbook

Hearthstone Card He Most Reminds Me of:

(Since his particular game type "Belongs in a Museum"
Likeliness to Succeed:

Quality of Selection:

Exploitable Weakness: Underexpands chasing wonders, tech as our neighbor - acts as long-term goody hut.
Biggest Fear: Puts his mistakes from past games to use, runs away with the thing.
Pregame Prediction: 6th of 7

[DaveV]

I'm enjoying the writeups, as always. Dtay's hearthstone card animation seems to be glitched: I'm seeing a long period of blankness, then a very brief flicker of the card.

I don't think it's a spoiler at this point to say that TBS managed both a ridiculously fast expansion and a good economy in FFH 33. He appears to be very good at generating great people, something I still can't manage...

[Gaspar]

I'm enjoying the writeups, as always. Dtay's hearthstone card animation seems to be glitched: I'm seeing a long period of blankness, then a very brief flicker of the card.

I don't think it's a spoiler at this point to say that TBS managed both a ridiculously fast expansion and a good economy in FFH 33. He appears to be very good at generating great people, something I still can't manage...

Appreciate it, Dave. Re: Harrison, I swapped to the normal version, it seems to work now.

Yeah, everything I'm seeing seems to indicate he's a very good player. I'll talk about what I *really* think is going to happen here when I'm done with the writeups.

[Ichabod]

I'm ded-trolling so far, by the way.

dtay attacked me at PB13, he's not a 9/10 peaceweight.

[Gaspar]

The Enemies - A Tactical Guide

Volume VI - Ozyphenbutazone



Too cute by half, but whatever. Whenever I use this name online, I get constant random whispers from people asking me if I'm from Brazil, so who am I to criticize.

Pericles of Maya (Creative, Philosophical, Mysticism, Mining, Holkan, Ball Court)



Wonder what the plan is here?

Known Knowns:

Alright so I poked through Oxy's PB11 and PBEM57 threads, but I can't say I get a lot out of either. PBEM57 is the weird game type Commodore's created that suits his abilities and PB11 was a greens game with especially passive players and a pretty lousy map. The most noteworthy thing is that in PB11 he basically stopped trying and just built quite literally a million units. He had like 100+ Knights/Cats and pretty much nothing else. He's got a little bit of the Gaspars to him, from a quick glance. Decent enough player but gives up a little too easily and mostly is good at being a pain in the ass. I'd guess that's how a lot of you would describe me, at least.

Pericles is the bulbiest leader. Cre for cheap libraries and Phi to turn those into GScis. A discount on both Libraries and Universities while generating GScis also means he's the Oxfordiest leader and the one you'd expect to grab Liberalism if played well. Cre also doubles as an early game expansion-y trait. The challenge I think less experienced players often have with Pericles is thinking this means ALL IN ON SPECIALIST ECONOMY. A corollary of which is MUST BUILD MIDS. The problem with all in on specialist economy is of course you still need cottages in early cities to defray the cost of expansion. Once currency comes in, of course you can use wealth builds to defray costs, but that's often too fine a line to straddle if you're not expertly skilled. Maybe Oxy is - he was just Frederick in 57 and while I don't think those Commodore small, revealed map specials really have any correlation to normal Civ, he's at least had a run with Phi.

Maya is a terrible Civ, only made acceptable either in restricted leaders by Pacal's awesomeness or taking Cre. Creative Ball Courts are almost good enough to let you overlook the PuPu Platter of Mining/Mysticism and the utterly worthless on our maps Holkan. Almost. Obviously, to some extent Ball Courts are map dependent - if there's no happy resources around, well then Maya is a lot more attractive. Mining/Mysticism is really awful though - you have to resource all your food techs and Wheel for roads to connect cities/resources/access Pottery. Even worse is if you take the temptation to go for an early BW. Hard to say what Oxy will do here of course - Pericles of Maya can be played very well, IIRC mackoti was Pericles of Maya once or twice. Oxy's no mackoti, though.

Known Unknowns:

Primary unknown is the same with all the less-experienced players. There's usually a fairly decent growth from your first games to your second and third round. Oxy wasn't terrible anyway, just awkward, so there's certainly a chance he really puts it all together here.

OxyphenbutazoneAI Profile

Peace Weight: 4/10
Unit probability: 10/10
Wonders: 4/10

Flavors: ZOMG UNITS

Ozyphenbutazone's Yearbook

Hearthstone Card He Most Reminds Me of:


Likeliness to Succeed:

Quality of Selection:

Exploitable Weakness: Makes a mistake early, gives up, defends tenaciously and can be safely ignored.
Biggest Fear: The above but decides he'd rather go out with a bang and guess who's next door?
Pregame Prediction: 7th of 7

[Gaspar]

I'm ded-trolling so far, by the way.

dtay attacked me at PB13, he's not a 9/10 peaceweight.

Welcome aboard:

[BRickAstley]

So far I like your thread the best Gaspar

don't tell Commodore

[Gaspar]

So far I like your thread the best Gaspar

don't tell Commodore

I'm definitely not telling Commodore. That might cause him to redouble his efforts and I'm far more interested in winning the best thread competition than improving the overall experience for global lurkers.

[Gaspar]

I'll save previewing us - mostly to bait lurkers to come in here and ask me to do it - but also because I've talked about us and will continue to do so. What I'd like to do is talk a bit about my pregame predictions and how the game all comes together.

Obviously, the observant among you have probably noticed that by giving nobody else the #1 slot I'm predicting a victory for Team Filthy Casual. Mostly I'm doing that because I'm tired of counting myself out before the game so much as starts. That said, I can't imagine any impartial observer has us ranked as favorites. While I do think we probably have the best pick on the board, I think anyone logically would say that either TBS or Pindicator was the favorite based on performance in previous games. I think Commodore probably has enough fanboys who would say he's the favorite, too. Regardless, I think there's probably a case to be made for anyone in the field having a legitimate chance to win and that's pretty significant in the entertainment value for a game both as a competitor and for the lurkers.

I think a lot of the game for us depends on how well we execute our start, but more so on the vagaries of the map. If we're dead center surrounded by baying wolves, well I don't know that its a particularly winnable position. I think its interesting that the least BTS accomplished players are also among those who've proven themselves most thorny in previous games. It makes me think conquest is going to be especially difficult. That said, someone always screws up. I can see that someone being any of the players - if the players in this game were more consistent they wouldn't have been asked into the game. This is very much the T4-T5 set by design.

Anyway, gun to my head I think I'm most scared of TBS. But I do think if we execute the early game well and I can make solid in-game reads, we can and should win. Time will tell.

I'll probably cool off on the preview stuff now. Time next is to discuss some of the opening sim options. I'm a little hesitant to sim too hard, because there's not an obvious second city site and figuring that out will have serious consequences in both micro and tech path. And there's really nothing that's going to change worker first on a 3 yield tile until deer is in borders at which point we work a 4 yield tile, while researching Hunting > Animal Husbandry. After that, things are a bit more malleable, but it does dampen my enthusiasm to sim too heavily pre a bit more map knowledge.

[Mardoc]

This is definitely an 'any given Sunday' crowd, yes.

So of course the winner is obvious: Mr. Global Lurkerman!