[PB22 Spoiler] Joey and Borsche puke on the funny pages

[agent427]

I'm not familiar with the personas of this forum, what is horrid about bordering Commodore?

[GermanJoey]

I'm not familiar with the personas of this forum, what is horrid about bordering Commodore?

I think his old avatar text sums him up best... "Narrative Winner, War Winner, Game Loser." To break it down:

• Very good player mechanically
  
• One of the best tacticians on the forum, if not the very best. Extremely creative in warfare.
  
• Is insanely aggressive to his neighbors, and a big believer in attrition warfare.
  
• If you have a weakness, he will find it - a true predator.
  
• Makes impulsive, bizarre strategic decisions for "fun"
  
• Extreme, truly extreme tunnel-vision
  
• Gets caught "narratives" that he constructs for his opponents that may or may not have anything to do with reality, (the scary thing is, he often does peg people exactly, maybe hitting just as often as he misses), and generally wants to see his narratives taken to their "proper" conclusion than try to win the game.
  
• British of some sort - maybe this says it all?
  

I've read a lot of his threads (he's a really good reporter, fun to read), and IMHO the best way to see Commodore in action is PBEM62: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=213

First of all, he lobbied for a tight, cramped map. (be super cautious about letting Commdore choose your map settings!) Next, when given the option to pick from some top-tier combos (the pick setup was that the mapmaker rolled 20 leaders+civs, then picked the 10 best to offer to the players to pick) he instead picked Charlemagne of India, a ridiculous pick considering that the game was BTS. For reference, other players had like Viccy of China or Isabella of England, fantastic leaders with perfect starting techs, while he had one of the game's worst leaders with no starting techs and double-AH food. Next, he pink-dotted his neighbor, Pindicator, with his second city, founding Hinduism on the turn he settled so that its instant BFC overlapped with Pind's capital's third-ring. Next, he rushed with chariots, razing Pind's second plant, the Buddhist holy city. He then got a mobility axe with his first Imp GG, and was able to choke Pind almost to death, all while complaining, "Ah, its too bad Pind is going on tilt and I have to keep fighting this duel" as if this were such an unreasonable reaction to all his aggression. Finally, the game ended in a concession to another player, Ichabod, who had fought no early wars of insanity, expanded massively, and built lots of great wonders (mids, GLH, and TGL iirc), when it was clear that Commodore had no chance to catch up. Commodore's thoughts about why he lost? His terrible leader pick? His slow start? His pink dot and early rush from which he gained no cities? His continued harassment of dying France despite Ichabod being just as close to him? No, he thought it was because he didn't whip the GLH to completion a turn before Ichabod finished it naturally. Narrative winner, War winner, Game loser indeed!

Be very very afraid if you're near him in PB25!

[GermanJoey]

That said, be very very afraid of me too.

[Ichabod]

Not sure about Commodore, but this Ichabod dude does sound amazing.

And to be fair with Commodore, the game didn't actually end in a concession. It was just called off due to the fact that it wouldn't have ended in the players lifetime. He still had a chance to win, even though my personal opinion is that it was a very long shot. And another of Commodore's traits is that he's pretty resilient when playing from unwinnable positions (which is pretty rare around here), so I bet he'd have given me a run for my money if the game continued.

[Ceiliazul]

And another of Commodore's traits is that he's pretty resilient when playing from unwinnable positions (which is pretty rare around here), so I bet he'd have given me a run for my money if the game continued.

Hes also come from behind to win a couple times, notably against scooter is a duel after he lost his 2nd city (circa duel M?) And another tight pbem where he commandoed the leader's cap to win the morale victory condition.

His builder mechanics are just a bit behind the really good guys, so he often ends up playing from behind... and when he finds himself in the role of game leader (pb8) he doesnt even seem to like it. he just really ENJOYS active wars and tense borders!

[BRickAstley]

Hes also come from behind to win a couple times, notably against scooter is a duel after he lost his 2nd city (circa duel M?) And another tight pbem where he commandoed the leader's cap to win the morale victory condition.

that other tight PBEM, the leader he commandoed was also scooter.

Poor scooter...

[Krill]

And then there was PB8...yeah, that's why scooter doesn't play here anymore.

That said, I think if Commodore had whipped hte GLH as he said, he would have then also gotten MoM and he might have gotten the win there. Doesn't excuse the psychotic axe wielding.

[GermanJoey]

T200. Big Domestic Update, as promised!

Borsche may be gone, but we still be gold-poppas, and it couldn't have happened at a better spot.




She ain't no Zoo, but she'll do:




You might be wondering why I'm working that junk ocean tile - I grew this city up to 20 (and now up to 21, where I'll stop and remove the ocean) in order to increase the trade route multiplier, bringing my routes from 9 cpt to 11. I get almost half - HALF! - of my commerce income in this city from trade routes.

Some more cities:

Still big, still poor infrastructure. Also grew this one Too Big for the extra route multiplier.



Still 1-turning rifles, has got a lot of infrastructure built just from building up overflow to the point where it would be wasted.



Sad Moai Face. This is my only unhappy face in the empire, just as of last turn when it grew to size 22. Gavagai wants 20gpt for furs, arrgh, I reoffered at 16... not worth it right now just for an extra merchant specialist, but I figure I'll get some WW buildup soon.

And the rest:







My cities, in general, are very very big, working shitty coast yes but also reaping in huge rewards from cothon-amped trade routes, whose value, remember, increases the larger the city is.

I forgot to grab an SS of my NE/ToA city, but it just popped the merchant for my 3-man GA and is growing right now so as to better starve it then.

Empire shots

Northern core



Central core



Southern core



Eastern core



Ocean's 7

Finances and Techs

Long story short, my expenses are A Lot, even with the Agg discount and my paltry few courthousen. For the curious, my Agg trait is currently saving me 1.38*(315/0.75 - 315) = ~145gpt. Org would be saving me 237gpt.



Gawdzak turned out to be beelining AL. A t this stage of the game Org is suuuuper good, its cost discounts are amazing and half-priced factories will save truly multiple thousands of hammers. Note that despite him having very little gold banked, he is not gaining GPT. That means he's researching it at a break-even rate. It is a very expensive tech, 16k beakers... so I think he'll still have 6-7 turns or so to go.




Maybe I should follow suit... gotta think about how much Physics would delay me, and whether I really want to bother with a 4-man GA or not. Cause, like, if I don't want a 4-man, I could just, like, BULB SM and get the Physics GS that way...

OTOH, Gavagai has mostly caught up, finishing Steel this turn and jumping to the top of the scoreboard. He is only down the Philosophy line of techs: Philosophy, Nationalism, Constitution, and Corporation. My economy is still much better than his, but not by enough to compensate all his new land.

War status

Gonna hit next turn after my Frigates remove that last 5% defense modifier... I still gotta sim out where I want to use my cannons. My best hitter, a CR3 rifle, already gets like 88% odds, but C2 Pinchers are only 70% atm. So, I want to use at least a few cannons at first, but, ideally, I don't want to lose more than 4 seige units total attacking this city so that I have enough momentum to take a second city shortly after this one before REM is able to whip it down. (I've noticed that REM generally plays the war turns, and he seems to be a fairly competent tactician even if his strategic sense is a little more hair-brained.) On top of that, there's only a few strong defenders in the city - the knights, for example, will get eaten alive by my rifles. Only the rifles, and to a lesser extent, the longbows, simply due to the hill, will end up mattering. I don't think I'll end up taking this city next turn, he has too many raw numbers of defenders for that, but I do have my super medic on hand so its not too big a deal to hit it two turns in a row as long as I have more seige.




Finally, as you can see, I am READY to settle those FUCKING c's that I put down 175 turns ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Demos and Graphs

Nice big food lead, Ok MFG (I still don't understand know how Gawdzak has better MFG with less land when most of my tiles are workshops). Still low in power, but I'm catching up. More importantly, I finally had enough EP to spare to get Commodore's graphs, and his power lead (and he might not even be #1, as I don't have plako's either) is considerably higher than Gawdzak/Gavagai. So, I feel a little better about only being 6th.




Look at Donovan and Gavagai's graphs. Christ, the white line doesn't even have a ripple - even ultra-backwards, tiny, barracks-less Furungy caused Gawdzak a slight downward dip!







Notice that Commodore, unbelievably, used a THIRD culture bomb on plako. A third! He didn't even declare war this time! Three great people down the drain!!

edit: finances in

[agent427]

British of some sort - maybe this says it all?

[GermanJoey]

T201.

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man, what a great feeling! Almost 150 turns after we first harassed this city with a lone axeman, it is finally ours. The seige even went better than expected! Only 2 cannons lost for 28 units killed!






I didn't think about this before, but if you've got a big stack of Knights and a big stack of Pikes in a hilltop city, the pikes will actually be top-defender against rifles due to the +25% against mounted that rifles naturally get plus the +20% defense from the hill. Thus, my rifles were able to clear out most pikes before my Knights ever had to fight, and therefore I was actually able to use my Knights. After the first two cannons, every fight over like 85%+ odds - the vast majority being 95%+. Many of my rifles are actually still near full health and have promotions available, so I could be taking the Korean capital in maybe 3 turns from now.




Check out that beautiful Hindu Shrine with market, grocer, and bank installed! I garrisoned with a CG2 LB, a CG2 musketman upgraded to rifle, a C2 F Pike, and the two catapults - now upgraded to cannons.




I of course settled those two spots straight-away, hell yeah. Jack will open borders with a caste artist first, while Star Power won't need to pop borders at all as its two food resources, an already-improved deer and sheep, are already in my culture.

With my success at MCG, I now feel more emboldened at tackling Furungy without taking significant losses. I upgraded three catapults->cannons and another musketman->rifle. He had 33 units in the cap this turn, more than MCG but I think I can attrition him down even more easily considering that he has so few quality defenders.