[spoilers] Commodore and Dtay are Sitting Bull of Inca, somehow.

[Commodore]

Password is "Cow"

THREAD HIGHLIGHTS:
Naming scheme
Snake Pick Thoughts (discarded because INCA)
Dtay's snake pick thoughts.
Commodore's snake pick thoughts.
Game Start
Oracle Slingshot
Colossus
Turn 100 (ish) Update
Players ranked by drama potential
(Abortive) War with Retep/Aztec
War with Grimace/Celts
War with Joey/Zulu
A Play Regarding Taj Whips
Cities in the Mad Times
Libbing Steel
War with Retep/Aztecs
Turn 200 (ish) Update
Fin

[dtay]

I find that train strangely awesome

[Commodore]

I find that train strangely awesome

Oddly hypnotic, ain't it?

[dtay]

fwiw I wouldn't actually mind having mystery-smurf-x as our 10th player, though I wish he'd just come and said "hi this is a smurf account can I play?"

[Commodore]

fwiw I wouldn't actually mind having mystery-smurf-x as our 10th player, though I wish he'd just come and said "hi this is a smurf account can I play?"

Unless his reputation was bad due to missed turns/crappy turnplay, me too.

[Commodore]

You know, I'm actually kind of bummed this game* is another snake pick. I mean, yay synergies and all that but I honestly find the "pick from 2-3 random rolls" a real strength of RBmod.

*alleged game

[Commodore]

Snake Thoughts v.25

(Interestingly, PB25 here marks my 25th RB game, if you count the abortive PB24 as having happened.)

So I'm not going to reiterate my thoughts on RBmod traits and civs for the umpteenth time again here; basically, all traits are good, all civs are viable (save those named America, Germany, Russia, and England), the world is our oyster. I will say, however, that targets can shift somewhat this game because of the field*:

Gavagai
GermanJojo
Retep
Elkad
Grimace
Donovan Zoi (AI ded)
HAK (Fenn ded)
Borche (Agent Johns ded)
{____}
Commodore (Dtay ded)

Let's be frank; the scariest non-me person here in that list? My teammate. Gavagai, Retep, and GermanJojo are all strong players who can absolutely win, but they are also all strong conventional players. There is a very promising crop of newbies crowding further behind them, but they're all reasonably untested. Soooo...we're in a very different realm.

What does that mean? It means that gambits and first-tos are much more acceptable as early targets. Specifically:
-Philosophical gets a boost because I think esoteric bulbery can win more races in this lot.
-Industrious gets a boost because wunder-micro should be relatively tighter.
-Esoteric civilizations are in a more forgiving category.

So...what then? Well, I'll never turn down Justinian or Saladin of the Aztecs should I receive such a moving of the spirit, but I'm also correspondingly favoring some other fun civs and/or leaders a bit more:
-Egyptians with their war chariots might find a newbie victim and obelisk priests can be useful for bulbs.
-Arabian 70h libraries with priest slots are huge, and camel archers are in a great period to go wreck face in.
-Spainish citadels are still kind of dry but going hell-for-leather for conquistadors would be a Phi bulber's dream.
-Byzantines still get some buffs to their knights (best 2-mover romp is going to win this), plus like Spain can get religion silly-early.
-Louis or Bismarck get more pull for wonder strategies.
-Peter, Sitting Bull, Pericles, or even...Gandhi might be HELLA fun.
Let's look at how this game shakes out, if indeed it does (worst comes to worst a 9-man Pitboss is fine people). Dtay, you like any more of these “interesting” cool play options?

*As ever assuming no PlakomackotisevenTBSharrytourist taking that last slot.

[dtay]

Still obviously lacking knowledge of exactly WHAT he's doing, my opinion of GJ's net results has been on an upward trend during PB22. Discussion in more depth probably can't happen.

Phi Arabia = cool
After the try for it last game, still would like to spin RBmod Spi (well, Spi with RBmod civics...)
The combo of those two is gambit-y for sure. Pretty sure suboptimal to some degree but we're not picking strictly for that (The relatively boring boring Exp/Pro, Exp/Org are probably my choices for best generic trait pairings fwiw).

"best 2-mover romp is going to win this" I strongly agree with. A lot of the rest of the field is probably going to be snackable with a quick HA or quick Guilds rush, and land > everything else. Probably a setup that can get to that tech relatively quickly is more important to pulling it off than an actual UU in the slot though.

[dtay]

My opinion of retep is probably unjustly low as well, from his very limited PB13 performance where he got trapped with no land at the beginning.

[Commodore]

One additional, weird-to-me thought about Spain...the citadel is no longer "must obsolete ASAP RIGHT NOW PROBABLY EVEN BEFORE YOU CAN BUILD IT" with the buffs to Merch and FS making the viable alternatives.

Phi Arabia = cool
After the try for it last game, still would like to spin RBmod Spi (well, Spi with RBmod civics...)
The combo of those two is gambit-y for sure. Pretty sure suboptimal to some degree but we're not picking strictly for that (The relatively boring boring Exp/Pro, Exp/Org are probably my choices for best generic trait pairings fwiw).

"best 2-mover romp is going to win this" I strongly agree with. A lot of the rest of the field is probably going to be snackable with a quick HA or quick Guilds rush, and land > everything else. Probably a setup that can get to that tech relatively quickly is more important to pulling it off than an actual UU in the slot though.

I am strongly anti-repeat, but as I never actually got to use them...France is very much on the table too. Saladin of France sounds pretty awesome, actually. Or, Gunpowder via Education, Some Phi Leader of France.