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

[GermanJoey]

Hah, somehow I missed this first time through.

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!

Also, I'm an American, my teeth are excellent and my liver is intact.

Oh yeah, back then I was far more generous to you and more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Now I am quite convinced that you do not think of MP Civ4 as some sort of strategy war game, but as some kind of fucked up performance art. PB25 is ultimate proof of that.

[Commodore]

Oh yeah, back then I was far more generous to you and more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Now I am quite convinced that you do not think of MP Civ4 as some sort of strategy war game, but as some kind of fucked up performance art. PB25 is ultimate proof of that.

My initial impression of you has, alas, remained the same.

[Gavagai]

Joey, you can't seriously accuse me of lying to you if you completely ignore my explanations. Seriously, I'm quite shocked that you hold to your completely erroneous interpretation of my actions even after you read my spoiler thread. Nevertheless, I'll try one last time.

You seem to completely ignore the difference between preparing to war and making the decision to go to war. My purpose was always to be in position to destroy you if you attack me or I make a decision to attack you. I positioned my forces with military scenario in mind and with understanding that I may need both offensive and defensive actions. But this is entirely different from making the decision to actually go to war. It appears for me that you fail to understand that. You always interpret any deployment of troops on your borders as a sufficient proof of agressive plans on behalf of your rival. You don't seem to even consider that the deployment may have a defensive character and that your rival can see you as a threat too.
Now let's turn to specifics. Of course I thought that you didn't know about Subs. Why should I have thought differently if you didn't show me any sign that you knew. Subs could be very useful both if I was attacking and if I was defending - provided you didn't know about them. But such deployment is pretty much useless if uncovered. That's why a single destroyer in the area would be enough to scare all of them away. So - why didn't you show me this destroyer? An absence of reaction to the first sub showed that you weren't really paying attention and I sent more.
About lake - of course you should have put your fleet right behind the fort, that was an ideal position. Fort can be rebuilt in one turn, so it is useless to try to destroy it. Why I wasn't satisfied with the way our fleets were positioned initially I have already explained at length.
The last thing I feel the need to explain is my military build up which alarmed you so much. This, actually, was nothing more than inertia. I had a certain vision of my fleet composition with the core of subs loaded with nukes and guided missiles. As I researched Radio before Rocketry/Fusion, I built a lot of subs first; at this point you and Gawdzak stopped to build units but I still decided to build missiles for subs because without them they were marginally useful.

[GermanJoey]

Oh yeah, back then I was far more generous to you and more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Now I am quite convinced that you do not think of MP Civ4 as some sort of strategy war game, but as some kind of fucked up performance art. PB25 is ultimate proof of that.

My initial impression of you has, alas, remained the same.

...ok?

[GermanJoey]

Joey, you can't seriously accuse me of lying to you if you completely ignore my explanations. Seriously, I'm quite shocked that you hold to your completely erroneous interpretation of my actions even after you read my spoiler thread. Nevertheless, I'll try one last time.

You seem to completely ignore the difference between preparing to war and making the decision to go to war. My purpose was always to be in position to destroy you if you attack me or I make a decision to attack you. I positioned my forces with military scenario in mind and with understanding that I may need both offensive and defensive actions. But this is entirely different from making the decision to actually go to war. It appears for me that you fail to understand that. You always interpret any deployment of troops on your borders as a sufficient proof of agressive plans on behalf of your rival. You don't seem to even consider that the deployment may have a defensive character and that your rival can see you as a threat too.
Now let's turn to specifics. Of course I thought that you didn't know about Subs. Why should I have thought differently if you didn't show me any sign that you knew. Subs could be very useful both if I was attacking and if I was defending - provided you didn't know about them. But such deployment is pretty much useless if uncovered. That's why a single destroyer in the area would be enough to scare all of them away. So - why didn't you show me this destroyer? An absence of reaction to the first sub showed that you weren't really paying attention and I sent more.
About lake - of course you should have put your fleet right behind the fort, that was an ideal position. Fort can be rebuilt in one turn, so it is useless to try to destroy it. Why I wasn't satisfied with the way our fleets were positioned initially I have already explained at length.
The last thing I feel the need to explain is my military build up which alarmed you so much. This, actually, was nothing more than inertia. I had a certain vision of my fleet composition with the core of subs loaded with nukes and guided missiles. As I researched Radio before Rocketry/Fusion, I built a lot of subs first; at this point you and Gawdzak stopped to build units but I still decided to build missiles for subs because without them they were marginally useful.

I really don't understand how you can detatch the preparation for war in full view of an enemy and the decision to go to actually go to war. As you prepare, I need to adjust to match your preparations, and so on, until we got to the point where we basically have a knife to each other's throat. That's why I tried not making any sudden adjustments of my stacks, and I'm pretty sure why Gawdzak did not move his main stack at all either. Seeing a big stack move around is quite startling. My read was that you thought you'd get the better of this exchange and force me out of the game, which is indeed what had happened.

Inertia with military buildup was the big problem I think. It was a huge issue for me as well, even with all the hammers I spent on airports and transport chains. For example, deciding "between my existing stuff and what I have half-built in queue, this is enough units for now" and the last unit being built and moved into the stack could have been as much as 8-9 turns for me. This was exacerbated by my not realizing that missiles could be rebased beyond their stated range until one of the last turns of the game. (that's why I couldn't understand how you had so many on your subs already when you wiped my naval stack despite my beating you to rocketry and also I think fission; IMHO they are completely unbalanced like this; I thought they were overpowered even at 4 rebase-range) Likewise, noticing that your buildup will eclipse mine while I'm already in a very vulnerable position, would leave me at pretty much the same number of forces for at least 5-6 more turns. That was a big reason I felt like I needed to strike preemptively, because I was completely vulnerable during my "wind-up" time.

I don't know what these delays were for you, but considering my graphs were delayed by 2 turns and all I could see with my airships was a constant stream of battleships, subs, carriers, and transports arriving at the lake. For you, I guess it was just finally moving units that you had built several turns prior into position. For me, combined with other aggressions (your alliance with 2mn, the subs, the cultural buildup against Maracana), I felt like it was a do-or-die moment. With a smaller military,less land, worse MFG and GNP, and a far more spread-out empire, my chances to defend myself even if I launched my ship first were essentially zero. So, I thought the best choice was to try to get rid of you first with as light of losses as possible, and then draw Gawdzak back in by forcing him to stop building wealth.

[GermanJoey]

Oh yeah, back then I was far more generous to you and more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Now I am quite convinced that you do not think of MP Civ4 as some sort of strategy war game, but as some kind of fucked up performance art. PB25 is ultimate proof of that.

My initial impression of you has, alas, remained the same.

I think I just realized what I find the most singularly irritating thing about you Commodore, this google image search thing you do in every other post of yours, digging up some ancient ass meme to post as if it were out of obligation. It's simulanteously lazy and tin-ear, like you're some 65 year old grandmother who just discovered tumblr.

[Krill]

This was exacerbated by my not realizing that missiles could be rebased beyond their stated range until one of the last turns of the game. shakehead (that's why I couldn't understand how you had so many on your subs already when you wiped my naval stack despite my beating you to rocketry and also I think fission; IMHO they are completely unbalanced like this; I thought they were overpowered even at 4 rebase-range)

Um. Guided missiles have always been moved via rebase mechanics. They have always been loadable onto subs. And they've always had 4 range.

The only changes I made to them were cost (lowered from 60 to 50) and they collateral 2 units now. That's it.

[2metraninja]

Haha. Selling nukes to slow down an ss participant v selling ga to speed up culture win.

Funny. Yeah banning all unit trades is probably necessary...

Was GJ at all building a SS?

Also the nukes you made in this mod are just bleh... Artillery is more efficient in hammer per damage I think, besides they do not collateral MGs.

[2metraninja]

Oh yeah, back then I was far more generous to you and more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Now I am quite convinced that you do not think of MP Civ4 as some sort of strategy war game, but as some kind of fucked up performance art. PB25 is ultimate proof of that.

My initial impression of you has, alas, remained the same.

I think I just realized what I find the most singularly irritating thing about you Commodore, this google image search thing you do in every other post of yours, digging up some ancient ass meme to post as if it were out of obligation. It's simulanteously lazy and tin-ear, like you're some 65 year old grandmother who just discovered tumblr.

FWIW I personally enjoy the pics Commodore posts. Makes otherwise dry matter more human

[Krill]

Haha. Selling nukes to slow down an ss participant v selling ga to speed up culture win.

Funny. Yeah banning all unit trades is probably necessary...

Was GJ at all building a SS?

Also the nukes you made in this mod are just bleh... Artillery is more efficient in hammer per damage I think, besides they do not collateral MGs.

It's a comment relevant to PB18, rather than here. Gavagai selling nukes is fine as far as I'm concerned, and there were no rules against it; I'm not calling it out for that, just noting that the gold given to Gavagai helped him in the race to SS against the Zulu. But in PB18 one a Great artist was sold for a gold value that was reasonable and people bitched there because it sped up the victory (and it wasn't a cheap cost, either). It's a more relevant comment to PB18 than here though.

Tac nukes, ICBM and Guided missiles have different functions to artillery. Arty is better when defending in your own borders, much more flexible where it hits but it only has about 2 niches when used offensively and that's in bulking out a stack in a battle of attrition. Guided missiles, and tac nukes have the offensive capability to bomb down city garrisons but need to get in range. ICBM just need to be rebased to a neary by city because of the extra range. And all these compete with the cheap collateral ability of bombers that is countered by fighters in another war of attrition. Then there's the different tech requirements for all of them...there's different balancing points for all of them.