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Retep had a lot of barb trouble early on, which meant he wasn't able to push expansion in Commodtay's direction. This led to Commodtay grabbing ambitious sites like Warhorse before Retep was able to get there. Also, oracle did not fall early enough to prevent them from grabbing it cheaply with math forests and a marble resource to help, even though they hadn't really made it a priority; they just saw it as an opportunity they could take, and were successful in doing so. This got them Currency quite some time before anyone else was able to, contributing significantly to their snowballing tech lead.
They don't seem to think they are in an unassailable position yet, but if they can conquer Retep quickly with knights and consolidate those gains before others can manage similar victories, they probably will be. They have the weakest neighbors in the game, who are unlikely to be able to do anything about a strong Inca on their border. Gavagi and Joey also need to get big fast or this will become a one-sided contest.
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Thanks for the explanation! Oracling Currency is really a huge snowball-move, which I guess already alone explains the lead.
Are the bottom 4 (Elkad, HAK, Grimace, Borsche) just not playing too well or did OH screw them?  I guess the same applies to some extent to retep, GJ & Donovan. I'm aware of GJ's meltdown/struggle and retep's barb challenges, but I'm missing a lot here.
May 18th, 2015, 07:30
(This post was last modified: May 18th, 2015, 07:42 by Fintourist.)
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Aaand, let's add still something here. When I initially lurked this site, I've read the micro thoughts of RB vets with interest. Sullla's PB2, stuff from Krill, Seven, Novice etc. At this point, if I ever start a new game and want to have some fresh ideas regarding the early micro I would definitely give dtay's play/ideas a shot. For this purpose he isn't unfortunately reporting in a super-detailed way, but I think he has always played openings really well in PB13, PB18, PBEM53 and here with Commodore. (probably in other games too, but these came to mind).
EDIT: Actually thanks to team-working with Commodore there are lots of detailed micro posts in Commotay's thread. I simply had missed those! 
May 18th, 2015, 08:52
(This post was last modified: May 18th, 2015, 09:07 by Zed-F.)
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As far as I am aware, nobody really got screwed badly by the map itself other than perhaps Joey. Commodtay did not get a lot of land, but their land is reasonably high quality, and they leveraged terraces well to ensure they were competitive growth-wise. Most other players got more land to work with. Joey did not get a lot more land than Commodtay, but doesn't have the same level of land quality to work with.
Joey also has somewhat more aggressive neighbors to deal with. Joey's own natural aggressiveness and willingness to make enemies isn't helping him, of course, but his neighbors are also willing to rattle sabers themselves. Commodtay's neighbors are behaving less provocatively, at least toward them. This might be in part due to Commodore's rep but also due to the fact that they can afford a larger standing army than their neighbors, on account of their much better economic situation.
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(May 18th, 2015, 07:18)Fintourist Wrote: Are the bottom 4 (Elkad, HAK, Grimace, Borsche) just not playing too well or did OH screw them?
Grimace has had some sloppy play, and also some weird decisions. He grabbed Buddhism as his very first tech, got pink dotted by HAK, and has been behind ever since. I don't really approve of his dotmap, either, although part of that is reaction to the HAK aggression. And lately he's done things like push for an early Iron Working...in order to put one Gallic Warrior in his queues, slowbuilding leisurely.
I can't really speak for HAK's situation. I kinda feel that he was too aggressive against Grimace, rather than grabbing sites for their quality he pushed for chokepoints - which meant less snowball and more early military. It might have worked long term if GermanJojo and Borsche respected the sea as a border, but instead they chose to poach some of his backlines. But I haven't been watching him closely and could be wrong. Still, if he can survive being Commodore's neighbor and fight some successful limited wars, he might turn out ok.
Neither Elkad nor Borsche have been reporting enough to really know what's going on there.
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May 18th, 2015, 09:48
(This post was last modified: May 18th, 2015, 09:49 by Dreylin.)
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I've been quite enjoying the parallels between the threads of HAK/Mindy and Donovan/Adrien:
HAK/Donovan: yeah so I'm just doing my thing over here
Mindy/Adrien: we need to expand, more Settlers more troops!
HAK/Donovan: but there's this shiny thing....
Mindy/Adrien: forget about that, Commodore/Joey is going to eat you if you don't expand fast
HAK/Donovan: but...
Mindy/Adrien: focus!
Which has actually been working really well for both teams so far. Less so Adrien's attempts to convince Donovan of the value of Binary research.... 
May 19th, 2015, 22:51
(This post was last modified: May 19th, 2015, 22:51 by Zed-F.)
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(May 19th, 2015, 21:59)Donovan Zoi Wrote: On the other hand, there are two other nearby cities where the garrison is not quite as impressive, with only an Axe in the new Wine city (Look Down) and and Archer/Chariot in the landbridge city (One more Day). These are two cities I want in order to give Yorktown some room to breathe and build safe production across the channel. They also are named cryptically as some sort of premonition, but we seemed to have our bases covered for the time being against retep as far as I could see.
Or, instead of being a premonition/warning, they could just be songs from Les Miserables... 
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Looks like Borsche failed to observe Dr Ceiliazul's Law Of Civ Combat (something about building spears). Be interesting to see if that's the limit of Gavagi's ambitions...
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(May 18th, 2015, 09:48)Dreylin Wrote: I've been quite enjoying the parallels between the threads of HAK/Mindy and Donovan/Adrien:
HAK/Donovan: yeah so I'm just doing my thing over here
Mindy/Adrien: we need to expand, more Settlers more troops!
HAK/Donovan: but there's this shiny thing....
Mindy/Adrien: forget about that, Commodore/Joey is going to eat you if you don't expand fast
HAK/Donovan: but...
Mindy/Adrien: focus!
Which has actually been working really well for both teams so far. Less so Adrien's attempts to convince Donovan of the value of Binary research....
MindyMcCready gives wonderful (sc. terrifying) advice, and (s)he and HAK seem to have a good working relationship. I think this has been my favorite exchange:
(May 12th, 2015, 12:06)HitAnyKey Wrote: Duh, I'm an idiot. In my rush glancing at the tech tree and my own random thoughts/rambling, completely forgot that as soon as we get Currency we'll be able to build Markets for a nice Happy boost.
Anyway, we'll know more on timing in a couple turns. I didn't look at it closely, but I know right this moment when I turn on the slider to 100% Currency is 7 turns away. But we currently only have treasury for about 2-3 turns. So need to accumulate gold for at least a few more turns before turning the slider back on.
Now, I had been putting off posting one wee little (LOL) piece of info since I figured you'd yell at me ( ) and wanted to wait until it either happened or we got close. And we're now close, so may as well post it. For the past handful of turns I've been having Happy building TGL. This was the reason for the earlier pre-chops I had commented about. As it is right now, next turn I have workers in position to finish 4 chops around Happy to have TGL completed end of next turn with 201 of 200 required hammers for it (I can make it be 204/200 if I slightly starve the city again next turn). I've been doing this for two reasons. If someone beats us to it....well, that failgold will help us get Currency all that much faster. If we actually get it...well, that in and of itself helps us get Currency faster. And then that also helps us possibly get a Great Merchant as our first GP. Though if I end up having that city work Scientist specialists a bit (as was the plan after TGL) at least until I can build a Market there, might also have a chance of a Great Scientist (also a good option).
Summary: I'll be able to more accurately figure out timing for Currency (and other techs) in 2 turns.
And I now await your scolding me for both starting TGL and also for not telling you. 
(May 12th, 2015, 13:27)MindyMcCready Wrote: LOL,...that's hilarious.
Well I probably should have known about because it would have changed our posturing towards GJ. Like,.... :LOL:,....like we're picking a fight with him while being behind in city count and wonder building. :LOL:
I've been wondering what the hell was taking so long with the settlers.
Well if you land it all is forgiven - it's a hell of a lot better than HG. However, you'd beter send GJ a blank peace offering before he sees you build it. Terminator style we'll be back with catapults.
LEFT hand,...meet right hand. 
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Mindy's defensive war vs Knights 101 is excellent, when will we get to see her actually piloting an empire into war?  
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In progress: Rimworld
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