[pb74 spoilers] FUNNY IMAGE THREAD

[greenline]

So much seafood, ugh. Maybe I will reroll after all.

[Mjmd]

As a reminder CtH lets you build workboats without the tech.

[greenline]

Simmed on a large monarch BigNSmall map. If I go BW first then the worker still has to wait five turns doing nothing after farming the corn. If I grab fishing in between that the situation is even worse. LAME.

Reroll the civ+leader please.

[greenline]

Greenline is Shaka OR Mansa Musa OR Justinian of Aztecs

Well, that's even worse in terms of start techs!

On the other hand, I did want to play Justinian, and Aztecs seem like they could be fun?

[greenline]

how many more rerolls do i get?

[Mjmd]

1 more

[greenline]

In that case, I don't feel like I'll get more synergy or even a chance at mining, in another reroll.

Lock Justinian/Aztecs

[greenline]

Gavagai is Huayana Capac of England

Superdeath is Louis XIV of Babylon

Commodore is Darius of Maya

Hubabl is Joao II of Korea

Greenline is Justinian of Aztecs

Plemo is Victoria of Scandinavia

Bing is Napoleon of Khmer

Amicalola is Ragnar of the Ottomans

Magic Science is Willem van Oranje of Mali

Dreylin is Mehmed II of Portugal

Scooter is Elizabeth of Japan

Piccadilly is Tokugawa of India

Miguelito is Roosevelt of Egypt

Tarkeel is Julius Caesar of Germany

General Kill Cavalry is Nebuchadnezzar (PHI/IND) of France

GT is Kublai Khan of Zululand

Pindicator is Zara Yaqob of Sumeria

Xist10 is Wang Kon of Rome

Donovan Zoi is Suryvarman II of Inca

Alright, opponent analysis time. Might as well while I am waiting for the pb72 turn and this game is going to take another week probably to get going. These will be split up into categories:

CAN ACTUALLY WIN 


Plemo is Victoria of Scandinavia (odds: 66%)

Of the contenders here, Plemo is the only one I would put in the category of A+ Civ 4 players, alongside SevenSpirits, Krill on a good day, mackoti, and the OH+Fintourist team. In pb66 he tore apart mmjd's empire, then tore through Gavagai without breaking a sweat, all in the modern era. All he needs is one newbie neighbor to start snowballing off of and that's it. He might struggle if he gets dumped in a shark pit, but otherwise, I expect him to lead.

The civ & leader pairing is strong as well. IMP is good, FIN and un-nerfed vikings are especially good on a Big & Small script where everyone probably has some dogshit double clam start, nothing to complain about here.


Tarkeel (+civac) is Julius Caesar of Germany (odds: 12%)

Having Tarkeel as a dedlurker in pb72 convinced me he has way better macro instincts than I could hope for. Civac, if he's deeply involved, does micro like a charm. I'd say these two as a team can do more of an A level performance, but not quite at the top top level. Their best hope is that Plemo is first slowed down by random circumstances, so they can dominate a neighbor and so on. The pick is solid, too. IMP/ORG is very well rounded, and the Resiengarde is a pretty strong unit if one plays around it. 


Dreylin is Mehmed II of Portugal (odds: 8%)

Dreylin is a pretty crafty player, pulling a near win in that one industrial start pitboss and good performances elsewhere, completely owning me in the one PBEM we played together. His main weakness, I would suspect, is just rust. This is his first game in a while. His intuition is good, but your micro and macro senses need to be tight and you need to account for all the wackiness the mod changelog adds. 

The pick is all right. IMP not boosting Custom Houses makes the feitora much more of a luxury item than something to legitimately build an economy around, and EXP is not all it used to be. But you still can't complain much about ORG + an expansion(ish) trait, and techs ready made for chopping out workboats.


Scooter is Elizabeth of Japan (odds: 6%)

Scooter can give a good show, but he really needs a teammate to keep his game consistently on the A level. Without a helping pair of hands on board, he tends to fall prey to weird assumptions about the game state and very aggressive diplo maneuvers setting him back. Playing solo he has a chance at making it big, but only if the other sharks end up eating each other - is my guess.

The pick is meh. The techs work, Elizabeth is kind of slow but PHI was buffed so you don't feel too bad about having to copy Sullla's strategy, and Japan makes your ability to do naval strikes a teensy bit better. RtR's samurai are better.


Gavagai is Huayana Capac of England (odds: 4%)

Reprising his same pick from PB22 is Gavagai. Gavagai can definitely run the table on expansion and economy... sometimes. Of the players in the potential winners bracket, he's put in the most inconsistent performances in the years. Part of this is due to his unusual definition of realpolitik few other players share, which often has him ending up on the bad side of an early dogpile. He also tends to run minimal defenses a lot of the time to gamble on a win, and this often does not pay off. Gavagai can certainly get into a strong position and snowball, but he also might die early and flame out if the starting politics do not go his way.

Outside of BtS, I don't think Huayana is that good. FIN is slow to get you to forges, and you'll be playing rather slow if you need to do oracle -> MC early. The synergy between colossus and FIN coast is nice if you can land it though. England is solid mid-late and has good techs, so nothing to complain about there.

More to come...

[greenline]

Island winners:

You know the type. Whenever they get put on their own landmass they kill the poor other soul who has to share it with them, but the process of doing sags their economy and ensures they're not one of the top dogs. They may have no chance of winning, but they may be in a position to kingmake who the winner is.


Pindicator is Zara Yaqob of Sumeria

Pindicator is a good player, but he's prone to despair whenever something goes awry, and needs a teammate like Scooter does to hit that A level of play. I don't expect that to change in this game, although he might be willing to give it more of his all given that he's only playing in one other game concurrently.

Zara is good. Sumeria is good, but not as good on a more cramped map where axe warfare might be serious business. Superdeath might ruin his day if that happens.


Commodore is Darius of Maya

Commodore used to have a reputation for fierce duel type gameplay and dominating early warfare to the exclusion of winning. Nowadays, one gets the impression that he's chilled out a bit since those days, preferring to try odd combos and weird plays, which has readily see him be the victim of an early rush. His tenacity seems to improve once he hits the medieval era, so look to that if you expect him to control his initial sphere of influence.

Maya without CHM is a sad pick. Darius is slow, but Commodore doesn't seem the mind the slow economy picks, so he'll probably make due with him.


Amicalola is Ragnar of the Ottomans

Another player who has potentially lost a game to self imposed variants. He seems to be good enough at the fundamentals of civ, but not truly great. He could climb up a bracket if he puts in the elbow grease to make this game his tour de force, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Ragnar isn't that good of a pairing with Ottomans, not giving you the 40h for 2 happy hammam. At least you can attempt something with AGG jannisaries... I don't like this pick much at all, aside from having FIN coast to work.


Magic Science is Willem van Oranje of Mali

I don't have a solid read on Magic Science, to be honest. He seems to put in decent B- types of games and then suffer badly at the end when someone else looks at him funny. But B- is still in the top 20%, so that's not something to write off.

Willem is an alright leader. Mali is solid, if lacking in synergy. He can do okay with this pick.

[greenline]

Mid, dregs, and snacks.

At this level we hit players who generally tend to die so that other players can have big empires, along with those who just play well enough, C level, without being stand outs. No offense intended, but this is just what I expect to happen to these guys. Starting with:


Piccadilly is Tokugawa of India
Miguelito is Roosevelt of Egypt

I'm grouping these two together because I'm so used to them being on one team or something. I haven't really seen these players much outside of one or two games, but they seem to be OK. I expect them to do OK. Nothing more, nothing less.

Tokugawa of India, I don't like. It's slow, fast workers are nerfed, and AGG/PRO pidgenholes you into using some melee UU India doesn't have. On the other hand, Roosevelt is super slow, but does at least like Egypt's techs so that you can build GLH a little faster.


General Kill Cavalry is Nebuchadnezzar (PHI/IND) of France

GKC seems to have had a serious run of bad luck, getting put right next to nasty neighbors over and over again who commit to annexing him in the ancient age. That being said, he's never managed to fight off those ancient age wars in the end, so that would put him as not the top level competition.

Nebby of France is unusual. No synergy, but nothing really wrong with it per se... although having such a large field makes competition for wonders much harder.




Bing is Napoleon of Khmer

Bing has been steadily improving since his first game here. He's come close to pulling off a successful conquest here and there and being in the driver's seat, but left himself open and been brutally sidestabbed. He's also been rushed a bunch of times. He is doing quite well in the ongoing greens game, but some of that is definitely due to serious assistance from civac. I expect a decent show from Bing, but I expect that the strong players will overwhelm him all the same.

Napoleon I don't like to pair with Khmer. You really want to do EXP barays with Khmer, especially given the map script. 



GT is Kublai Khan of Zululand
Hubabl is Joao II of Korea


These players I have no clue about. First timers can sometimes do really really well, but usually they do not. All there is to do is wait and see.

I do not want to be next to zulu, but it's just not the same as RtR when barracks don't give culture. Joao of Korea is perfectly okay and boring.




Greenline is Justinian of Aztecs


Hey, it's me! In 2 of my games I was food, and 2 I was a contender, which is okay. Not that great given most of those were green games, but oh well. I think given one expansion trait I can manage a decent economy, and I have a better idea of how not to bankrupt myself expanding. But I don't expect that to be enough to hold off a hungry civac or Plemo next door.

My pick is good long term. I've always found myself wishing I was SPI if the game gets past the classical era, and aztecs love guaranteed access to slavery the whole game. The only problem is the start techs are bogus, and the start is even more bogus. We will see if that can be worked with.


Superdeath is Louis XIV of Babylon

Superdeath lives or dies by the early rush. Sometimes he kills a player early and uses the extra land to cause a ruckus in the lategame. Sometimes he spends all his early foodhammers accomplishing nothing and dies. Sometimes someone else rushes him early and puts him out of his land induced misery. One common thread is that he can rarely build a domestic economy to save his life.

The good news is that Louis of Babylon does not aid any kind of rushes except the rare and awful archer rush. He should have at least aimed for CHM to boost those gardens, really... but no good UU here means that it's a waste for superdeath to pick this.



Donovan Zoi is Suryvarman II of Inca

Donovan is a nice guy, but I've never been impressed with his civ skills. Usually, he is just there for a shark to eat. One time, he pulled off an attack with horse arches that was even more self destructive than superdeath, razing a shrine and stonehenge! city off Commodore for basically no benefits. I am sure all the vets here are eager to start next to him.

EXP Inca I actually think is anti synergestic. A regular EXP granary is already cheap enough to complete with basically one chop and a few trickle hammers. It's better to take the reduced cost Terrace as a mini EXP and shop for better traits on your leader. Maybe the fresh water aspect will come in handy this game?



Xist10 is Wang Kon of Rome

All I have to go on for Xist is one game, but I do feel like it was not the best showing. Picking agg rome and getting rushed early is not the best sign. He has put on a dogged defense there, so it may be that a lot of his misfortune came from superdeath's advice. 

Rome is a better pick than I gave it credit for on the defense - Praets are obnoxiously powerful defenders even against shock promoted cataphracts. The techs are also good for this map. I think Wang Kong is a much better pick than an Agg leader for Rome, though - you want to use the Praets on defense and then tech away, and being able to put a free C1 or shock promotion on them doesn't really matter all that much. So here's hoping Xist can surprise me and put out a much better show this time.

I think that's everyone!