[NO 73 PLAYERS] Lurkers Monitoring Variance

[Thoth]

Guilds + Arabia is slightly worse than Gunpowder + France due to worse starting techs and the need to tech HBR.

Artillery/Anti-Tanks are ok for defense but horribly expensive for early game and so is highly vulnerable to a Musketeer or Camel Archer rush.

Communism gets good eventually but doesn't provide much boost to initial expansion and teching. Suffers from the same problem as Phracts: Good eventually but takes too long to get there compared to the other options.

Civil Service's only weakness is getting hit with a Musketeer or Camel Archer rush before the snowball gets too big.

[Krill]

I think the best choice is still Egypt and AH in that instance.

[T-hawk]

But if Gunpowder is already gone what can you pick?

Well, one option is to pick France to deny the two-move muskets. Not really serious (you just cripple both yourself and the Gunpowder player with no synergies and let everyone else beat you both)... although there is a thought to take France, then either Guilds or Education, and Oracle Gunpowder.

But yeah, if someone picks Gunpowder and will get France... what is the counter to that? Camel archers probably can't come out in time. Arty obviously didn't. Even Bureaucracy probably can't build enough to defend a musketeer rush, since they can fork so easily. Scooter basically said, hope the muskets are on another continent and if I die to them so be it.

[Mjmd]

Honestly the only non gunpowder France option I had come up with is due to like imp/ind and do great lighthouse. As far as easily built broken wonders it was the clear standout. Not sure which tech would have been best for it. Could have paired with zulu for both UB and UU to rush if needed.

[Thoth]

I think the best choice is still Egypt and AH in that instance.

That would guarantee an early kill if horses are close enough to settle on.   It gets ugly if horses aren't spotted in the first couple of turns though.  

Problem here is what to do after you've taken out the first target.  A second kill is possible with WCs if the target is close enough and doesn't gave any anti tanks or Camel Archers on the board yet.   

This strikes me as a pick that is good enough to ensure not dying to a Musketeer rush but at the price of not beibg good enough to win the game vs one of the economy picks.

Picking France after someone taks Gunpowder isn't horrible but it still leaves a couple of dangerous options for the GP player    You get excellent starting techs  from the civ.  But that leaves the Gunpowder player sending Janissaries or Oromos.  Both of which are very difficult to deal with in the ancient/classical eras.   But they are slow and give them defender time to react.

Either Rangnar or Shaka of France/Gunpowder is a terrifying combination.  Easy access to pinch means even Anti Tanks don't fare very well.  Ragnar has Fin for post conquest economy, and Shaka can put together a 2 cities with granaries rush incredibly fast.

[Mjmd]

Luddite was probably correct to bait Cairo with workers earlier when he was trying to kill a low number of musketeers zipping around his territory, but if Cairo is just going for a contain it might be worth it for him to take a worker now.

[T-hawk]

I was reading back through some earlier posts:

Cairo ... could fumble through opening turns and find himself down 4 cities to us turbo-starters with his only real prize a unit that is barely more hammer efficient than a Horse Archer.

Scooter nailed that one.

[Mjmd]

I'm assuming Scooter just forgot to offer open borders along with the 3gpt, which is HILARIOUS.   

He might war peace to stop the that, but ruins any hope for trade connections. Maybe he will reoffer open borders for like another 1gpt or something once he figures it out.

[Mjmd]

Hm I missed he wanted it fixed. He should have mentioned for lurkers to take a look in the tech thread, INSTEAD of stating the whole situation in the tech thread.......

But ya seems like a missclick. IE he meant to offer open borders along with and just forgot. I'm natriously against miss clicks, but we seem to always allow to be fixed, so don't see why not tell Luddite to just send it back (or open borders)? Any other thoughts?

[T-hawk]

Yeah, ask Luddite to send it back (not me since I just posted in the tech thread and it'll be obvious if I immediately show up in another player thread as well.) If he disagrees then we'll figure out what to do from there.