[LURKERS] Setting Up Tents for a Ren Faire

[OT4E]

Islands can be taken without grens.

50 cavs cant do, but not having 50 cavs can. What do you choose?

[Mr. Cairo]

I would say that Scooter's problem this game is exactly the same problem he had in PB 33: he never had any plans for aggression. In a set up like this, with a mirrored map and against competent opponents, you have to plan from the start to attack one of the other players. Instead, he and Sullla only planned the domestic side of things, which they did very well, but that wasn't enough. Mackoti, who's the favourite to win now IMO, picked Byz to get the Phracts to conquer a neighbor. He got lucky starting next to Alhazard who fell behind, but I can't imagine Mackoti picking Byz and not Phract-rushing someone. REM did get lucky landing the Taj and the religious trio, and they used that advantage to conquer their own neighbor, albeit with a lot more difficulty than Mack had.
Scooter/Sullla leveraged their own advatage (the SA's) into.... Statue of Liberty? Why not do what REM did and get Cavs and Cannons and attack Plako, who fell behind early on? Redcoats are no different that Rifles against Cavs and Cannon. He's only just starting thinking aggressively, and even that was with Airships and Grens, and limited to poking at islands.

[The Black Sword]

It really bugs me when people analyse their games like that. He didn't offer a single thing he could have done differently, it's 1) I got unlucky, 2) The others got lucky 3) I didn't get lucky again. 

I'm not even disagreeing that he had the toughest start but whenever I look over a game(not just civ) I always try to look at what I can improve first, not external factors.

As for what specifically he could have improved, I don't remember the game very clearly right now. I think I made some calculations earlier though that the Statue of Liberty was not really worth it without acquiring more land first. Also, when scooter says there was no contested land on the map, it's not entirely true; the islands were contested land. But scooter didn't compete for them very well, perhaps because Astro was so delayed. I agree with your general impression Cairo that all of their plans were very passive.

[Commodore]

I suspect you might be missing the root reason, which he only briefly touched on; he's burned out. Poor man took the slot from me when I got Hit By Stuff at the game's start, and he was already wavering about it. Aggressing PLAKO is nothing for the burnt out.

[Krill]

Scooter had the same issue with PB5 after it ended, and couldn't accept that there were other choices there as well. Which you can see from his follow up post.

[Mardoc]

I am annoyed that he's blaming me for 'didn't get to use IMP to claim more land' and not factors like:
a) Mackoti very carefully blocked scooter off, making sure to always have enough power on the border for deterrence
b) Scooter never prioritized anything naval: not coastal cities, not Astronomy.
c) Turns out, Spi is really pretty strong in these late-era games.  

Yeah, sure, there were one-tile blockade points available.  There were six of them!  Per team!  Scooter could have grabbed some extra land toward Plako and RMOG, he could have grabbed some extra islands, he could have built a navy and sailed around the chokepoint - every time he didn't, it was a choice.  It was a choice to grab the short term power at the expense of the longer term potential.

The borderlands were lower quality land than the middle, yes.  That was deliberate to make people choose between claiming more than their fair share vs. claiming the strong cities first.  Imp + strong cities first ought to have let scooter be the first team ready for war, and get the borderlands anyway.

That said, I think I agree with Commodore

Aggressing PLAKO is nothing for the burnt out.

Except that you can substitute any of his neighbors for that.  Pretty much any of the options for grabbing more than his fair share would have required awkward borders - which could have been defensible, but only at the cost of constant vigilance.

[greenline]

There was also that micro plan TBS had posted that used serfdom that was significantly better than Scooter's plan, I think. Course what really skewed the game is how weak Alhazard's plan left the Ottomans compared to everyone else. If that hadn't happened mackoti or someone else would likely have actively torpedoed REM's invasion of RMOG and the game would be much closer. That's my """educated""" guess anyway

[Fluffball]

I would say that Scooter's problem this game is exactly the same problem he had in PB 33: he never had any plans for aggression.

He actually went into the game with the idea that he would be aggressive and was talked out of it by his lurkers.  

Hindsight's 20/20 though. He put himself in a very solid contention position, and I agree with him not planning a early rush. I do think he should have thrown caution to the wind some point before it became clear he lost the game, and everyone including Scooter saw that point approaching. The entire point of putting yourself in a contention position is so you can pounce on the first opening that presents itself.

I have still never fully wrapped my head around this map since the players didn't post a lot of world pics, so my idea that he and Mack could split Al may have been wildly off. The idea was sound though. Split something with somebody.  

[Tyrmith]

If I remember right he seriously considered several different invasions but called them off because he didn't feel like they had a serious chance of success. He pretty much put all his eggs in the basket of getting kremlin.

[OT4E]

I cant find exact post from scooter, but it sounded like "I will not build enough power, but I will punish anyone who dares to attack him for not having proper military in the right time in the right place". For me this way of thinking  explains everything. He never believed his attack could work, thats why he wasnt building enough to be able to choose targets and use the opportunities the game could have provided him.

This resulted in:
 1) just watching how Mack ate Alhazard
 2) just pillaging when REM ate RMOG
 3) not even watching in plako's direction who was fairly behind.

Scooter is nice guy, but I believe that such logic makes him conceeding more often than actually winning and losing combined. 

I would like to see what would he do if he was bordering with Alhazard from the beginning. What would he do to stop Mack?