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(August 8th, 2016, 08:29)scooter Wrote: So I really enjoyed reading this thread until it abruptly ended . Although I definitely don't blame you. It's hard to keep up the reporting energy when someone screws up your game early. You were also the only person to be directly bordering the players that finished 1-2-3, so that was some pretty poor neighbor luck. Anyway, great reporting, and nice job surviving to the end. Yeah, it was the perfect scenario: a great map, a new scenario not often played, lots of reporting, and me being able to ask questions without having to play turns
One surprising thing from looking at threads (though I still haven't dug into the Dreyote thread yet) is that even after we lost most of our cities, we were still semi-relevant--I guess that's good on DZ for remaining at least semi-engaged.
Honestly, I should be looking for someone to ded-lurk in PB35, as it's a similar scenario (assuming the map is good ).
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(August 8th, 2016, 13:09)Cheater Hater Wrote: Honestly, I should be looking for someone to ded-lurk in PB35, as it's a similar scenario (assuming the map is good ).
My thread exists in that game now, so you're more than welcome to ded-lurk that. I can't promise you a win, but I think you can at least be confident the reporting will be pretty consistent.
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I wanted to echo scooter's comments. This was a great thread to read while it was being updated, and we enjoyed having your team as neighbors in this game. We were also thrown off by how quickly some of the other teams were able to build settlers, and found the "going tall" strategy to be a bit weaker than we originally theorized. I enjoyed seeing how your opening moves played out, even though the early library + university + observatory + Academy didn't end up working out as well as hoped. Two things stood out for me:
1) Losing the triple Fast Workers to Dreylin, followed by abandoning the captured barb city was painful to watch. From reading the other threads, it looks like you probably could have held that city, and I know our team wishes you had kept it as opposed to Dreylin. Their team hadn't been building cities since they'd been investing in Great People and specialists and wonders, and getting that city helped to swing things in your part of the world. A nice aggressive bluff by Dreylin/OT4E that really worked for them.
2) The canceled war declaration against REM was another one of those "what if" moments in the game. REM was just finishing his expansion phase and beginning to consolidate. I don't know if this move would have been successful, or even if it would have been a good decision, but it certainly would have shaken things up. REM was able to grow his cities peacefully, start doing some real teching, and land Statue of Liberty. From our selfish perspective, we sure would have liked to see this attack go through...
Hope you guys had fun. Good luck in your next game!
August 8th, 2016, 23:56
(This post was last modified: August 8th, 2016, 23:57 by Cheater Hater.)
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Yeah, the retreat by DZ is one of the most painful things I watched (I said something like "Sorry for actually being a teammate instead of blindly agreeing with everything you say" when I strongly disagreed with it). I wonder if DZ's still around to talk about some of the retrospective stuff? The canceled declaration against REM is right about where DZ stopped reporting unfortunately (it would have happened right before DZ stopped, and he just said "we wanted Free Market/didn't want to leave the Dreylin border" in the one update around T300"), so that also would need his input.
Well, you know where my next game is: dedlurking scooter in PB35--again, the questioner role works well, especially when I don't have to worry about actually playing turns.
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I like how I was close to loosing that city. I played it just right though, I saw a power spike and I had the ability to ship over a rifle or 2 from the island, and I'm sure literally the turn or so after that aborted attack I got third ring borders there too. I think it would have been close should you have gone for me, although then Dreylin may have been able to snipe and do more damage to you.
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August 12th, 2016, 16:57
(This post was last modified: August 12th, 2016, 17:00 by Donovan Zoi.)
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Hey all, good to see some activity in this thread finally! Especially since I am fully to blame for its demise (as well as India's!). But after being pretty active in 3 games at once, along with new work responsibilities, not posting kind of became the new normal.
I'll answer the posts in this thread as I get a chance. Hopefully some discourse here will inspire me to show some love to my two other games threads as well.
But first, a long overdue apology to CH and greenline, who I am sure feel abandoned. It certainly was not fair to you guys for me to go AWOL, and even though sometimes I can be obstinate on some things once I make a decision (Chameleons, anyone?), I truly appreciated all your input.
(August 8th, 2016, 08:29)scooter Wrote: So I really enjoyed reading this thread until it abruptly ended . Although I definitely don't blame you. It's hard to keep up the reporting energy when someone screws up your game early. You were also the only person to be directly bordering the players that finished 1-2-3, so that was some pretty poor neighbor luck. Anyway, great reporting, and nice job surviving to the end.
Thanks, scooter! I am usually pretty unflappable in these games (usually attributed to unwarranted optimism ), but watching Dreylin/OT4E spam 8-10 whips for a seemingly endless set of turns really aggravated the hell out of me for two reasons:
1. No one else on our small planet was doing it.
2. It forced me to continually second guess our decision to start with Serfdom instead of Slavery as an opening gambit.
The one good thing about the barb city gift is that it may have given the Khmer the chance to look elsewhere for the 10 turns of peace, allowing us to at least settle for 6th place. Although in reading their thread, I was a bit bummed to find that they would have accepted my peace offer outright if not for a diplo pause, and would have opened the turn to a vacated city! And once I realized that the whip-spam was going to continue even after the demise of Noble Gas, I resigned myself to not responding in kind and just hoped that the bell would not soon toll for India. That mindset did not pay off as hoped.
Surviving at the end was just a matter of being able to produce an Infantry every turn due to IW in Zoth Ommog, along with REM's intervention keeping Dreylin from cleaning us out.
(August 8th, 2016, 20:51)Sullla Wrote: I wanted to echo scooter's comments. This was a great thread to read while it was being updated, and we enjoyed having your team as neighbors in this game. We were also thrown off by how quickly some of the other teams were able to build settlers, and found the "going tall" strategy to be a bit weaker than we originally theorized. I enjoyed seeing how your opening moves played out, even though the early library + university + observatory + Academy didn't end up working out as well as hoped.
Thanks, Sullla! You were pretty good neighbors yourselves, up to where you were pretty much obligated to relieve us of Sector 19.
And yes, I certainly noticed that too in regards to building tall. In hindsight, i think that FWs could have been just as effective in a wide strategy, which was certainly a winning move in this game. In fact, building tall was also a problem due to all the wasted improved tiles once I did need to start whipping Settlers.
(August 8th, 2016, 20:51)Sullla Wrote: 1) Losing the triple Fast Workers to Dreylin, followed by abandoning the captured barb city was painful to watch. From reading the other threads, it looks like you probably could have held that city, and I know our team wishes you had kept it as opposed to Dreylin. Their team hadn't been building cities since they'd been investing in Great People and specialists and wonders, and getting that city helped to swing things in your part of the world. A nice aggressive bluff by Dreylin/OT4E that really worked for them.
Yep, no argument there. Definitely a time where my paranoia got the best of me. I did see that they were still considering a play on the city, so I think it would have been interesting had I not vacated.
(August 8th, 2016, 20:51)Sullla Wrote: 2) The canceled war declaration against REM was another one of those "what if" moments in the game. REM was just finishing his expansion phase and beginning to consolidate. I don't know if this move would have been successful, or even if it would have been a good decision, but it certainly would have shaken things up. REM was able to grow his cities peacefully, start doing some real teching, and land Statue of Liberty. From our selfish perspective, we sure would have liked to see this attack go through...
I needed to be ready for an attack on Percy as soon as peace was declared with Dreylin, IIRC. But I waited until about turn 6 of that deal and allowed myself to get psyched out. It would have been interesting too had I went for it, especially since Dreylin was eating its way to the outskirts of REMs other Fish city! Perhaps my actions would have kept the Khmer on the other side of the globe, and REM would not have had a chance to build up so quickly. I'd have to look at the timelines on some of this, to see if the above is fully accurate, but that's how I remember it.
(August 8th, 2016, 20:51)Sullla Wrote: Hope you guys had fun. Good luck in your next game!
Thanks! There will be a next game, preferably the next "big" game once PB27 frees up most of us. Or a Civ 6 offering here? I certainly felt out of my depths in this one. We'll see!
August 12th, 2016, 17:12
(This post was last modified: August 12th, 2016, 17:13 by Donovan Zoi.)
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(August 11th, 2016, 05:40)ReallyEvilMuffin Wrote: I like how I was close to loosing that city. I played it just right though, I saw a power spike and I had the ability to ship over a rifle or 2 from the island, and I'm sure literally the turn or so after that aborted attack I got third ring borders there too. I think it would have been close should you have gone for me, although then Dreylin may have been able to snipe and do more damage to you.
Ever since the lost workers and privateer strike at the hands of the Khmer, Dreylin/OT4E were pretty much my Sword of Damocles in the colloquial sense, taunting my every move even while not an imminent threat. And I am overly cautious about conquest as it is anyway, which I really need to get over if I want to continue to spend time here at Realms.
But yes, I was certainly watching your border pop closely, because my advance relied entirely on FW roading that hill tile unnoticed before you claimed it. It didn't help that there was a lake placed in a way that made it tough to mask my early moves too! The spy you found in Percy during that era was mine, by the way. Pretty big shocker there, I'm sure
Congrats on the victory!
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(August 12th, 2016, 17:12)Donovan Zoi Wrote: (August 11th, 2016, 05:40)ReallyEvilMuffin Wrote: I like how I was close to loosing that city. I played it just right though, I saw a power spike and I had the ability to ship over a rifle or 2 from the island, and I'm sure literally the turn or so after that aborted attack I got third ring borders there too. I think it would have been close should you have gone for me, although then Dreylin may have been able to snipe and do more damage to you.
Ever since the lost workers and privateer strike at the hands of the Khmer, Dreylin/OT4E were pretty much my Sword of Damocles in the colloquial sense, taunting my every move even while not an imminent threat. And I am overly cautious about conquest as it is anyway, which I really need to get over if I want to continue to spend time here at Realms.
But yes, I was certainly watching your border pop closely, because my advance relied entirely on FW roading that hill tile unnoticed before you claimed it. It didn't help that there was a lake placed in a way that made it tough to mask my early moves too! The spy you found in Percy during that era was mine, by the way. Pretty big shocker there, I'm sure
Congrats on the victory!
I think that spy was the trigger to go 'oh shit, they're watching me. This might not be a buildup to deter the khmer'
I think at that point I had a few Cav able to go up down or around depending on needs. It's hard to remember exactly but a Cav/rifle mix is good defence vs attack in this era.
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(August 12th, 2016, 17:26)ReallyEvilMuffin Wrote: I think that spy was the trigger to go 'oh shit, they're watching me. This might not be a buildup to deter the khmer'
I think at that point I had a few Cav able to go up down or around depending on needs. It's hard to remember exactly but a Cav/rifle mix is good defence vs attack in this era.
Ha, yeah that stack was trying to be both, which is never a sound strategy.
I don't have very much luck with the shelf life of Spies -- I think Percy's was camped a total of 2 turns before capture and was trying to leave-- which is what makes Krillmod so appealing to me because it allows me to not even consider building them at all with that useless Secretive nerf. In fact, there was a point when I had sent two spies to check on Dreylin's advance and all looked pretty safe just before I got to his capital so I deleted them so they wouldn't be apprehended. 3 turns later, the Khmer still managed to rush me from every angle.
Then later when I was beyond the point of caring, I roamed an errant Spy around Dreylin's land for a good 10-12 turns before it finally fell, just to see how long it would stay alive. So it seems I need to convince the game that my diplomatic standing with others is of absolutely no concern in order for Spies to work for me.
IIRC, I was also running a Scout through your lands too and saw just enough to deter me. But there was a brief bit of time where you were pretty vulnerable if I actually had the courage of my convictions.
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Yeah. I was probably most vulnerable a few turns before you were planning to go. Then even though you were adding stuff, I was adding about the same amount and with the innate def bonus it was getting less practical.
I rather dislike spying myself - I'm much more of a fan of racking up EP for the hell of it. I spent about 80% of the game with full vision on every Dreylin city, and a large chunk with that on Scooter too.
If I were allowed to tech steal...
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