[SPOILERS] scooter peruses RB's Greatest Hits

[Sullla]

Scooter, since we want a Great Engineer out of Pocketbeetle, why don't we work an Engineer and two Scientists there? We certainly don't need the extra 3 beakers from the Scientist specialist.

For Constitution tech, the Great Merchant lightbulb will produce (1000 + 2 * population) beakers, so probably around 1100 beakers given our situation now. We likely only need about 2-3 more turns of research to be able to use the lightbulb without wasting beakers. 

plako settling the spot on our border is a shame, we'll have to pull back to the forested hill NW-NW of Underwater Barb for our own city spot. We also need to kill those mackoti units and claim that city over in the east ASAP before he keeps adding more units and plants a city there himself. The next settler definitely needs to go there soon if at all possible. (That's a small complaint on the map design there: one tile choke points with jungle/hill terrain are really annoying to deal with. Props to mackoti for spotting it of course, but he really shouldn't be able to deny us that area of the map so easily.)

REM's ability to keep up with expansion while not being Imperialistic, and while also building two wonders, is deeply concerning. Although I like our opening in this game, his has just been better overall. We're going to have to land Statue of Liberty, or else I don't think we'll be able to compete longterm. Since it looks like REM is also pushing hard in that same direction, it should be a good race. 

Also it really sucks that we have to border both REM and mackoti, while neither one of them has to border the other. That's the luck of the draw though.

[Dp101]

Is it even worth it to stack defenders in underwater barbs? Seems like any city only 3 tiles from an enemies is going to be dead the second any war starts, so you could just give it a minimal garrison and assume it will get sniped no matter what. Of course I could be underestimating the impact of hill +amphibious penalty, but it just seems too exposed to me.

[scooter]

Scooter, since we want a Great Engineer out of Pocketbeetle, why don't we work an Engineer and two Scientists there? We certainly don't need the extra 3 beakers from the Scientist specialist.

My main concern is the risk of getting 2 engineers. There's a pretty decent chance an engineer pops out of one of the polluted cities, and I think 2 engineers would be more damaging than 3 scientists. My sense is that this race will be decided by tech rate more than hammer production. Do you disagree?

We also need to kill those mackoti units and claim that city over in the east ASAP before he keeps adding more units and plants a city there himself. The next settler definitely needs to go there soon if at all possible.

Working on this. I'll be in position very soon. Guess we'll find out how quickly he can reinforce...

Is it even worth it to stack defenders in underwater barbs? Seems like any city only 3 tiles from an enemies is going to be dead the second any war starts, so you could just give it a minimal garrison and assume it will get sniped no matter what. Of course I could be underestimating the impact of hill +amphibious penalty, but it just seems too exposed to me.

The hill makes a pretty big difference, and so does the amphibious penalty. Barring a severe tech difference, it's not really until airships that killing them amphibiously can be done without losing the hammer exchange. (There are a few obvious exceptions.)

you might be best off just whipping a round of settlers out of each city large enough to do so and then use your insane food surpluss to regrow.

That's the plan. I'll hit 11 during the golden age, and I should be in a position to whip 5-6 of them pretty quickly as soon as I'm back in Slavery.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Yea, that looks good overall to me. just don't forget those new settlers--a Non-Imperial Civ should not be out ahead of an Imperial civ at this stage of the game, REM is really whipping hard. you might be best off just whipping a round of settlers out of each city large enough to do so and then use your insane food surpluss to regrow. that should net you 5-6 after your golden age ends and take a comfortable lead.

That's impossible since Scooter has just changed from slavery to caste system. Caste system's merchants and scientists are what's needed to net all of those great people and haul in some beakers, alongside the pacifism and golden age combined +200% bonus to GPP.

Totally second the eastern gold island threat. Currently two or three more settlers are needed to lock down that border area. Mackoti has been very proactive, the inconvenience and uncertainty they've caused with a longbow and explorer more than pays for their expense.

Remember the settlers in the context of him saying he would whip another round of settlers after the golden age ends, not immediately.

[Epoxy]

Yea, that looks good overall to me. just don't forget those new settlers--a Non-Imperial Civ should not be out ahead of an Imperial civ at this stage of the game, REM is really whipping hard. you might be best off just whipping a round of settlers out of each city large enough to do so and then use your insane food surpluss to regrow. that should net you 5-6 after your golden age ends and take a comfortable lead.

That's impossible since Scooter has just changed from slavery to caste system. Caste system's merchants and scientists are what's needed to net all of those great people and haul in some beakers, alongside the pacifism and golden age combined +200% bonus to GPP.

Totally second the eastern gold island threat. Currently two or three more settlers are needed to lock down that border area. Mackoti has been very proactive, the inconvenience and uncertainty they've caused with a longbow and explorer more than pays for their expense.

Remember the settlers in the context of him saying he would whip another round of settlers after the golden age ends, not immediately.

Alas, you were right, and I was wrong. I accept your wisdom!

[Nekira Sudacne]

Is it even worth it to stack defenders in underwater barbs? Seems like any city only 3 tiles from an enemies is going to be dead the second any war starts, so you could just give it a minimal garrison and assume it will get sniped no matter what. Of course I could be underestimating the impact of hill +amphibious penalty, but it just seems too exposed to me.

The hill makes a pretty big difference, and so does the amphibious penalty. Barring a severe tech difference, it's not really until airships that killing them amphibiously can be done without losing the hammer exchange. (There are a few obvious exceptions.)

Well...if you are neighbors with the Vikings, and they slingshot Civil Service while using an eairly engineer to bulb Machinery, a half dozen BC era vikings from a few gallies would be a pretty effective method 

[Kofiman]

FFH PBEM 1: Pocketbeetle

Disclaimer: I have no real interest in FFH. I tried it once, thought "eh, too weird" and never bothered again. This is the only FFH game I ever followed even though I tried again once or twice. This game is a mod PBEM with a handful of players, not a big Pitboss. Despite all this, Pocketbeetle's thread in this game is probably the most enjoyable forum thread I've ever read on the internet. It was wildly entertaining. A couple of the other threads were high quality too (Bobchillingworth and Selrahc come to mind), which made this game even better.

Pocketbeetle's blend of newbie-friendly explainers, extremely detailed game analysis, and ridiculously fun reporting style made this game unique, so I'll name the city after him. As far as I know, he never played another MP Civ game around here after that.

Sadly, most of the images appear to be lost to time since they were hosted on imageshack. I checked the wayback machine, and it couldn't do much of anything with it either. It's a shame, because I think this thread will always be my favorite.

Checked that thread.  Pocketbeetle uploaded the images to a dropbox, but the pictures haven't been reuploaded seperately and the thread edited to coincide with the new addresses.. that'll be a good bit of work.

[BRickAstley]

Sounds like we need a forum curator on staff

[scooter]

I'm not dead. I just never find the time to update on weekends. I should have some time tonight. In the meantime, here's a random assortment of things that have happened:

* We're halfway through the golden age. Great people plan is on schedule. Something came out of Masterclass on this past turn, but I haven't been in-game yet to see what we got. Maybe ask another player and report back to me?

* Mackoti is going to get that bridge location. He magically managed 2 longbows + explorer on the jungle hill right after I talked about killing his longbow. In response, I scrounged up 3 Knights, a longbow, and a catapult, and I landed a longbow behind that tile on a jungle chokepoint to prevent reinforcement. It didn't matter because he had a Cataphract + Pikeman on hand to kill it. I gave it the day yesterday before I played because I briefly considered tilting, so I let myself cool off. I'm going to settle copper instead with the settler that's out.

* That said, I'm still mentally making note of this with Mackoti. My primary goal is still winning. Should that become no longer possible further down the road, my secondary goal will be ensuring he doesn't win. I won't be in a position to do anything for awhile anyway, so it's best I keep my head down for now.

* I'm going to make a post soon to take a look at locations to go with the next round of settlers. We don't exactly have tons of great spots left.

* I have a feeling this game will be decided by whoever gets to capture the Kremlin from Alhazard. (It's going to be REM.)

[Tohron]

Is it considered acceptable to make strategic decisions using information posted in the Tech Issues thread?