[SPOILERS!] Grimace and wetbandit hope to stay on their side of the DMZ

[wetbandit]

False! Doing QA doesn't make me responsible for honoring the warranty. That's the manufacturer's job.

Besides, half of you guys that may live to see aluminum can thank me for it. Krill apparently hates space ships, modern armor, modern aircraft, modern map making, or the half of you guys who weren't going to get to build beautiful aluminum siding for your modern homes. And no airstream RVs! It was a tragedy in the making.

Most of this post is hyperbole, except for the part about filing complaints. You can lodge them with Star Command, if you like. Or ask Krill for a refund on the map deposit you paid. You guys paid up, right? No? Did you think the mentors were working for free?

Surely, you managed to sneak a side of uranium along with the aluminum.

To get back on topic, it's that time in the game to do opponent analysis, I guess.

[Grimace]

To get back on topic, it's that time in the game to do opponent analysis, I guess.

Well, as far as playing styles go, that's definitely something you would have more experience with than me. I have fairly limited experience with most of the players involved. It's also going to be thrown a bit because we don't know how slavishly the greens will follow the mentor's advice, especially when it comes to more general goals and decisions where there's not an obvious mathematical advantage.

But I will get us started with some more general thoughts.
1) Dreylin/Ipecac/Ruff - Montezuma (Agg/Spi) of Vikings (Berzerker/Trading Post, Fishing/Hunting)
This one surprised me a little bit. There doesn't seem to be any synergy between the leader and civ, except for the obvious benefit of an aggressive berzerker. The fast temple is best if you get an early religion to take advantage of it, but without Mysticism as a starting tech that becomes a fairly major detour. The Vikings are best with a coastal start with seafood, but if the starts are very similar, I would be surprised as seafood is a significant boost in commerce over any landed food sources and I know they try to balance the starts. Maybe they have visibility on some seafood that's just out of their BFC? This combination just seems like they will be very slow to get started and expand.

2 ) AdrianIer/Old Harry - Shaka (Agg/Exp) of Rome (Praet/Forum, Fishing/Mining)
This has me scared. Praets are terrifying city attackers in the RtR mod. Not the best starting techs without a seafood resource, but not terrible, and with the expansive health bonus and aggressive maintenance benefit they can REX decently. Forum is best with a Phi leader, but it also works well in any SE. I would be concerned about an early rush from them, and I would beeline IW in their place, after grabbing Agriculture first. I'd want to make sure I settle Iron as quickly as I could. If we see any early warring it's most likely going to be from them. OH seems to be more than willing to war if he has an advantage, so...

3) Agent427/TBS - Genghis Khan (Agg/Imp) of Zulu (Impi/Ikhanda, Agriculture/Hunting)
A good solid choice. Excellent starting techs if their start is similar to ours, a great UB that's cheap for them and a solid UU. Imperialistic will allow them to kick out settlers faster and the maintenance benefits of both the Agg trait and the Ikhanda will help keep their economy from tanking as quickly. I would expect them to REX as much as they can, building their cheap Ikhandas to keep the costs down and having 2-promotion units everywhere.

4) Caledorn/Plako - Julius Caesar (Imp/Org) of HRE (Landsknecht/Rathaus, Mysticism/Hunting)
These guys might start off a little slow (going for an early religion is almost a requirement when you're the only civ starting with Mysticism), but once their expansion starts they'll be able to push hard. Fast settlers, and when they get CoL the -75% maintenance from their cheap UB will help out immensely. Their UU is actually really good, and one of the few that will be effective against the Praets. I expect to see an early religion (probably Polytheism/Hinduism) or more than one, a beeline for BW, then CoL, and a slow start but then rapid expansion.

5) Elum/Mackoti - Augustus Caesar (Cre/Org) of Persia (Immortal/Apothecary, Agriculture/Hunting)
An interesting choice. As the only Creative civ, they'll automatically have the advantage in cultural border battles and they won't have to settle their second/third cities with critical resources in the first ring, allowing more optimal placement of those cities. With both Agr and Hun as their starting techs, I would expect to see them pop out The Wheel and AH very quickly, probably as their first two techs in that order. Certainly they'll want them before they build their first settler so they can try and nab horses. I think only DIR will be as weak on REXing as these guys as they have no real help as their civ grows.

6) Whosit/Gavagai - Washington (Cha/Exp) of Mongolia (Keshik/Ger, Wheel/Hunting)
Another civ that scares me a bit. If they get horses and HBR, I would expect to see them go invading as their UU and UB work wonderfully well together to make ultra-violent 2-move units. Luckily that's a little ways off, but with them as a neighbor I would want to build a lot of spears. The combination of Cha and Exp will allow them to grow their cities larger early on, which is never a bad thing. And they have nice starting techs for going for early AH and grabbing horses with their second or third city.

What are your thoughts?

I have to run for a bit now, but I'll add more later. EDIT: Added some more.

[wetbandit]

Adding in brief now:

I would bet your house that anyone who took Fishing has a seafood resource. There's almost no reason to take it if you don't (maybe RtR Praets are one of them). I don't think we necessarily got jobbed at all with our land, we have two 6-yield tiles that we can hook up relatively quickly.

"Well, as far as playing styles go, that's definitely something you would have more experience with than me. I have fairly limited experience with most of the players involved. It's also going to be thrown a bit because we don't know how slavishly the greens will follow the mentor's advice, especially when it comes to more general goals and decisions where there's not an obvious mathematical advantage."

This is pretty key. I'm not real sure how involved others will be.

1. Agree that I didn't see Monty coming. Dreylin is an old timer here and hasn't played recently. Ruff has reported very well in some games and seems like a wonk for micro and extensive planning.

5. Augustus is IND/IMP, not Cre/Org. The only thing Mack likes to build more than settlers are "knigs," apparently, then wonders. His traits help him with two out of the three. They are a strong candidate for stonehenge to solve border popping issues, let alone the power wonders (mids, MoM). I know nothing about Elum.

[Grimace]

I would bet your house that anyone who took Fishing has a seafood resource. There's almost no reason to take it if you don't (maybe RtR Praets are one of them). I don't think we necessarily got jobbed at all with our land, we have two 6-yield tiles that we can hook up relatively quickly.

I guess in the grand scheme of things a coastal clam/crab is roughly equivalent to a wet corn. Coastal fish seems a bit more favorable, though.

1. Agree that I didn't see Monty coming. Dreylin is an old timer here and hasn't played recently. Ruff has reported very well in some games and seems like a wonk for micro and extensive planning.

It'll be interesting, that's for sure.

5. Augustus is IND/IMP, not Cre/Org. The only thing Mack likes to build more than settlers are "knigs," apparently, then wonders. His traits help him with two out of the three. They are a strong candidate for stonehenge to solve border popping issues, let alone the power wonders (mids, MoM). I know nothing about Elum.

Ok, that explains a lot. We can probably expect them to go for MC fairly early for their cheap forges. And lots of wonders.

[Grimace]

I logged in to change our capital's name to "Enterprise". Looks like D/I/R is the only team who hasn't completed their turn. They planted their city and logged out, but haven't ended their turn. They can't possibly have so much to do they couldn't have ended their turn there?

[wetbandit]

Given that they started with fishing, my guess is that they are still figuring out whether to build a workboat or worker first. Maybe even if they will beeline a religion.

[Grimace]

It seems like it's almost always better to build a workboat first, isn't it?

[wetbandit]

I wouldn't know without looking at their start. The best they could realistically do at this point is 5h/turn (PH settle and forested plains hill adjacent to cap) towards a WB, with netting early as possible on T6. If they can only manage 4h/t, the calculus may change. Maybe they have two fish resources and need to determine whether WB-WB-Worker or WB-Worker-WB is better. Maybe they all went to the bar on Friday night and forgot to hit end turn, in which case, I am exceedingly jealous.

Have you made a spreadsheet for score or C&D purposes? I'm not the best at C&D, but this would be fun for a mentoring type game.

[Grimace]

I have basically no experience with C&D...it's probably worth trying to track everything to get experience with it, but I don't know what a lot of the different changes mean.

[wetbandit]