Welcome all to my hopefully succesful entry into pbem 5!
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Japper leads the Imperium of Man to death or glory
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Civ choices are in! And boy do we have some strong choices!
Rome, England and Egypt! I'm leaning towards Rome at the moment, but lets go through the whole lot: Rome: damn strong allrounder, and the free monuments are an especially good thing for me as I never seem to be able to fit them in my buildings queue naturally, even though they're good to have. England: An economic powerhouse with the double Trade Routes and very solid on water. Redcoats are cool, but not as relevant as the Roman Legion IMHO as they come much later. Egypt: ugh nope, Egypt, to put it in Filthy Robot terms, is generally weak and situationally mediocre, also as a historian I detest how frequently Cleopatra gets the spotlight in popular media over more deserving farao's like Ramses or Tuthmosis or a whole host of others. 
After a quick discussion with my dedlurker (who you'll all meet tomorrow, probably, hopefully EDIT: Ah well i spoke to soon he has already arrived welcome Mike!) I decided on Rome.
Our idea was that while Englands economy is a win in the mid to endgame over Rome, it lacks the means to defend this economy. Rome on the other hand has a strong early economy (the extra culture from the free monuments can be transferred into every other yield through policy cards) that tapers off in the mid-game (as everyone else builds/buys their monuments). Rome does however bring one of the strongest early game defensive and offensive units: The Legion! With legions I'm more confident I'll make it to the midgame (just imagine what I would have been able to pull off in terms of defense if I had legions on hand in pbem4...)
October 8th, 2017, 16:53
(This post was last modified: October 8th, 2017, 16:56 by Mikeforall.)
Hello there, I am Mike, Japper's strategic lurker!
During the last pbem I was passively following everything that was going on. For this pbem, I have decided to give some active strategic advice as the game goes on. Ofcourse, I will be doing this whilst basing myself solely on the information Japper posts in this thread. Now, as my first 2 cents in this thread: Based on wat Japper told me about the upcomming map, I would highly recommend going for Rome. Rome is a good early- and midgame nation (legions hype), that depending on your playstyle can actually achieve its early-game charm late-game too. For a player that likes expansion and warfare, but doesn't mind switching over to culture (which is how he always tries to outdo me in our personal games), the cultural element of Rome will give a nice early-game boost to 'start up' the civics engine. England is a great mid-game nation, and would be the obvious pick (out of these three at least) when the map of pbem 4 was played. For land-war however, they are pretty default. Sure, they get some nice units in the gunpowder era, but by then you are already approaching the late midgame. Their economy will give you a nice boost... but at the same time make you the ideal target for other players. Being targeted with just a default armyset isn't the best situation to be in, especially when the alternative would be Rome... Although: (October 8th, 2017, 08:01)Cornflakes Wrote: The map is ready as soon as you all have the civ selection completed. Single landmass, but naval-oriented civs should not be irrelevant.This makes me suspect an inland sea, or perhaps even a snaky map. Especially when snaky, England would suddenly gain a lot more points in my book, since long-line warfare which is so nice to do when playing Rome would be a lot more difficult there. Then again, it is most likely just a statement to prevent players from discarding the naval civs by default. Egypt kinda got summarized by Japper already. Although I think he downplays the nation a bit too much, it is no secret that they are generally weak in most areas. Sure, they got some nice boosts too, like every civ, but to outdo Rome or England? Meh. Edit: It seems Japper beat me to the post by 5min, but yeh, his conclusion basicly sums up my arguments given above.
I thought of a fun naming convention. I'm a big Warhammer 40k geek and since the Imperium of Man is basically pseudo-Rome anyway, I thought that would be a nice theme.
So on to planets of the Empire: Capital: Earth obviously First 3 expansions: Baal, Fenris, Macragge: Gotta get our spehz mehreens (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeCfod1XT7E) AKA Legion training centers down quick There is a nearly infinite amount of Imperial worlds in the 40K expanded universe so I won't run out off naming ideas anytime soon! http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Planets
With the game possibly starting soon, lets talk openings, here are a few I came up with:
Slinger-Builder-Slinger-Slinger: My bread and butter opening. It's a good opening to crush the barbs before they become too much of a threat, it also leaves us with three slingers to upgrade to archers for the machinery eureka. Slinger-Builder-Settler: The "farmers gambit", this opening kickstarts our expansion and economy. Especially since the second city immediately gets the free monument. This start will see us soar ahead in culture and science, it does have an obvious drawback though. We'd be left almost defenseless and stretched between two cities. This leaves us vulnerable to horse barbs(we all know what a pain those can be) or to early rushes. Warrior-Builder-2 Warriors: The proto-Legion start, will give us some Warriors to gold upgrade into Legions at the risk of tipping our hand to Legions, but honestly does anyone expect anything else out of Rome anyway?
honestly, I would abandom the Warrior-builder-warriorx2 idea. The slinger opening would, especially when not having all-to-much production at the start, be a great choice.
First build a sling and send it away, whilst meanwhile producing a builder and another sling. If you discover a good second settling spot, with not all-to-many barbs around, go for a settler. If not, and/or if there are quite some barbarians in the area, go for a warrior and then a third sling to clear them out. With 5 players, I don't think you will really be in an early-rush situation. And even if it occurs, better to get a good production city set up (especially when the capital sucks) and trow a military district in it. (October 9th, 2017, 12:43)Mikeforall Wrote: honestly, I would abandom the Warrior-builder-warriorx2 idea. The slinger opening would, especially when not having all-to-much production at the start, be a great choice. Yeah those were my thoughts, Slingers get us Eureka's, Warriors we can always build later (not to much later though) Anyway, now that we know the civs of the other players, let's look at what I expect out of each civ/player combo Alhambram of Arabia: One scary prospect, Alhambram's victory in PBEM2 came of the back of a cav UU and Arabia has IMHO an even better one (just FYI it's a knight that heals 20 HP every turn, even if it moves  ). That alone would make Arabia scary, but their other abilities combine to make them a strong package overall too. As for Alhambram himself, I might be biased because he is the only one in this game with an actual civ 6 victory under his belt. He seemed to has a good grasp on how to exploit a civ's strenghts to the fullest, he also seems to wait for the perfect time to strike instead of rushing. In pbem2 he pretty much sat back in a corner farming until his civ advantage allowed him to cost-effectively attack and close out the game. I expect him to do the same in this Pbem for now, though his optimal strike oppertunity is much earlier here, since his Mamluks come at a early medieval tech instead of Cossacks which are Industrial.Civ-threat: High, Player-threat: High Pindicator of America: Pindicator is currently rompstomping the hell out of PBEM3 at Ichabod's side. It's hard to asses how much of that is just Ichabod's prowess though (Ichabod is monstrously good). In his previous civ 4 pbem's and pitbosses he seemed to suffer from the same problems under which my own play often suffers: too much focus on expanding leading to overextension. He has a tendency to stick to one Grand Strategy, whether it ends up being to his detriment or not. His civ-pick baffles me, he had the same civs I had as choices in PBEM4 and went with weakass America (fuck yeah?) instead of strong Russia or mediocre Norway. The only worthwile thing IMHO that America brings to the table is it's +5 CS on it's own continent, which is to be fair, a reasonable bonus. it's uniques however, arrive at a way to late stage in the game to matter and aren't even impactful there. I wonder if he has some surprising strategy up his sleave? Civ-Threat: Low, Player-threat: Unknown (expected: Medium) Jesterfool of China: China is a solid allrounder with a particular focus on early wonders. It's extra builder charges makes it's economy just that little bit more developed than that of others (particularly if they net the Pyramids, which is easy with China). The player at the helm here doesn't impress me at all though, in PBEM4 his economy and score were behind mine even when I had already lost two cities in my core (including my capital!) to Singaboy. Then he pissed away his army in a stupid attack into overwhelming odds. His thread seemed a bit scatterbrained as well. I don’t honestly expect much out of this guy, but he might end up surprising me. Civ-threat: Medium, Player-threat:Low Krill of Spartaaaa: From what I could glean of Krill's old civ 4 pbem reports he's a massive aggression monger (both the leader trait in civ 4 as well as warmongering in general), also seems a bit of a troll (his threads are full of lulzy memes). He likes simming and using spreadsheets and comes up with like three plans for every situation which can indicate a lack of a single coherent Grand Strategy but also shows he is very flexible in his play. He has almost no experience in civ 6 or civ 5 and they do play very differently from 4. His civ is Gorgo, which is a civ that always ends up surprising me in it's strenght, especially considering how weak Pericles is. I expect lot's of aggresion out of Krill, whether he is any good at fighting in civ 6's new (for him) tactical environment remains to be seen. Civ-threat: Medium, Player-threat: Unknown (but aggresive, rushy) |
