LURKER THREAD- No Players

[Papa Bear]

Superjm has gone on the offensive and attacked SvenBvBFan (who plays Ashoka). Any idea on how to get him to report on how that goes? He's been quiet for months in his story...

[Miguelito]

I fear he has never been one to talk a lot, and having lost his dedlurker he seems to have gone completely offline. His forum panel is showing his last visit here was in March

[Mjmd]

Ya very sad there hasn't been more reporting. Glad you guys are sharing snip its honestly. Seems like a cool (if poorly balanced and slow) game. Would have loved better reporting from Realms.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Superjm has gone on the offensive and attacked SvenBvBFan (who plays Ashoka). Any idea on how to get him to report on how that goes? He's been quiet for months in his story...

Most of the RB players in this game are known as low-commitment low-reporting players.

[Miguelito]

I was reading the PB51 Zuschauerfadensbeitraege and I saw the debate about axes+cats vs. horse archers. I can't imagine ever being scared of axes+cats if I was roughly as strong as an opponent. For every two catapults an attacker has, the defender can get three axes (more because the attacker has to travel slowly). I can't imagine a situation in which axes+cats defeats someone that was not already practically defeated. The Numidians are so much more scary because after taking the pigs city, they can fork every city in my empire. If he didn't have the two movers, I could choose which cities to lose and which to defend. As it stands, I'm terrified.

As said before, I've been lurking most of the threads on civforum and posting occasionally, so I've given this game a good amount of thought.
First, on these 52 players world maps, there will invariably be players who are "practically defeated", be it because leader/civ power difference, geography, a failed attack, or skill level. 10 players have been eliminated already, and I count at least 8 more who are living corpses (although only 3 of them completely toothless, sadly BaII and superdeath among them). All of these were either conquered either by cats/axes/phants or just plain axes or chariots. One was Impi choked. Only Coco in South America has been bringing some relevant horcher action at least.

I think the determining factor for the RB folks was the Deity setting. I think most put it down as an eccentric choice of the locals, but it alters the game dynamics totally: They are now on turn 135, which would be peak knights in our games, or maybe a little past it?, but here all relevant armies are fielding cats and phants (if they can get ivory) or just axes. A few small techy civilizations have recently brought a few cross- or longbows online. So that means that a conquest with cats and axes, or horchers, maybe elephants, is necessary if you want to stay at all relevant, meaning you have to expand well and hope there is a neighbour who serves as a good target. Even cats and HAs, which I think used to be popular here befor emy time, is less viable because if you've managed to get to construction getting HBR and archery in addition is a very significant cost/delay and you really want currency, moreso if you're expanding.

Another consequence of Deity is that it's totally cottages or bust, which imo takes away from the game.

Rn win candidates I, and the general opinion, make out are

• Jesper Portus with Ragnar who has got all of China and mainland SE Asia up to Eastern India with two easy conquests. He's one of if not the strongest player on the forum. He'll end up with all of India mid term and is surrounded by more targets. Has a storng Indonesian (Zara) player in his south who apparently is more of a peacenick though and in any case is looking towards Australia
  
• wahl-profi with Peter in NA who swiftly conquered 2metra and BaII. Very dedicated, plans a lot in advance, and has the resolve to push forward. Has more viable targets, and could only be derailed if Qin in the center of the continent mavericks himself to a sizeable CKN stack blocking further advances (he still has no currency and seems to be surviving on a credit snowball system. The question is if he can get out a GE for the machinery bulb, he has the rest of the ingredients ready). There is a well-expanded Ramses in Alaska, but I don't think he will put up siginificant resistance after wahl-profi takes 2 or 3 more neighbours.
  
• Coco with Hammurabi, conqueror of superdeath. Will get the whole continent quickly. He had a very easy conquest of his NE neighbour after choking SD, who is now down to the cap I think. Pacal was doing ok by virtue of being Pacal, but fought a disastrous war against a cornered Boudicca and now Coco gets both easily. After that he has no real avenues though because wahl-profi is already in Central America. Maybe he can achieve something in Africa which is still pretty splintered, but doubtful, see below.
  
• Dulland with Huayna in western Africa. Made one early conquest around Cameroon (?), and nobody else around him has expanded. Isabella in Lybia is the score leader because true to theme she founded 4 religions, has the dominant shrine, and is now aiming for monk wonders with the AP finished already (side note, the meta is for everybody who can to switch to the AP religion and build monasteries. They play with resolutions barring the diplo victory). But the land is just horrible and the neighbors solid, so he will just be a huge prize in all likelihood. Dulland has a plan to get to Cuirs and should then have sufficient advantage to collect the several underexpanded African nations, who in part have been fighting endless wars as well. Some of the stronger players are located there though, so it seems a longshot.
  
• Plemo with Charlie in western Siberia. We have seen that he can play pretty well, and he came out ahead on peaceful expansion with great leveraging of IMP. He is just now starting to expand, but picked a prime target in the Khmer who recently conquered Elkad and also have the original Dutch territory, but are now somehow completely defenseless and also broke. So he should advance pretty fast there, and then has more options in Carthage to his west (particularly if Hannibal gets himself entangled in an logistically dubious offensive against naufragar, or Lizzy to his south, who already has LBs), Stalin in eastern Siberia, or superjm in Afghanistan who is doing surprisingly well, but got his offense stalled against one of the living corpses with teeth.
  

Does anybody read and enjoy this type of report?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Thanks for the update, i would've lurked this game using google translate had I the time. These are great to see!

I do think that I'd be interested in playing in one of these games if it were on a 12-16 player map.

[Mjmd]

Someone is at paper already! Have I mentioned I love maps? Thanks for the updates Miguelito. I'm very sad we haven't had better reporting here.

[Miguelito]

Someone is at paper already!

Yup, that is said Isabella, probably aiming for Sankore (player hasn't reported in ages but there was a cursory update yesterday with the promise for more)

[Kaiser]

Thanks for the summary, it is a great overview. I have the advantage of not needing translate, but the forum structure and amount threads discouraged me from keeping me updated myself.

[Charriu]

It's funny I don't need translate, but still it's harder to understand because of the different German terms and abbreviations