[No players] Big epic lurking - PB74

[klops]

lol, that's something



It's kinda entertaining to read comments about early second cities.
Pindicator and Plemo each think they might be first. Donovan (and I think someone else) has them not even on his list, stating Comm, Dreylin and DZ.
Probably not that easy to kepp track in such a big field. I also didn't pay attention who was first but might be Plemo on turn 28

[Mjmd]

GT saw Xist had copper at capital (although unlike Scooter he didn't figure out why). He could have settled ON copper. Would have been fine.

Will be interesting to see if T/C chariot rush works. Because there isn't a space to 2 move attack Dreylin can attack out with an against A chariot if he can get one out. He didn't report it / T/C haven't reported, but it sounds* like he didn't snipe T/C warrior that was coming at him.

[klops]

both are interesting to watch.

GT has 2 worker, maybe he thought that's fast enough to connect.

[Mjmd]

Ouch, this is NOT the forest to chop..... Probably just a panicked fast click. Obviously the two forests behind the city are not only safer but don't open up double move attacks.

[Qgqqqqq]

God almighty, Tarkeel could murder one player and then lose their capital to the fright of a life. Very unfortunate scouting.

[Mjmd]

I had the same thoughts, but even if they knew Plemo was up there it may not have changed their mind.

We shall see what happens.

[Krill]

I don't think there is a single player on RB who actually understands scouting. In fact I reckon that the knowledge and use of scouting by most players is worse than that of the average player who has never played MP.

[RefSteel]

Since our warrior on the hill would get bounced on declaration, we move up to the corn, and then declare:

Amusingly, it's true the warrior would have been bounced - but it would have been bounced to the corn, still able to move! It's a minor point though and probably won't make a difference to the eventual outcome. I don't see a way for Dreylin to survive here, short of moon-shot combat luck. He'd have needed to plant on the copper, tech hunting before the wheel, and chop a spear out of the city - and knowing that was necessary in time would have required a level of precognition reminiscent of the legends of mackoti.

Mostly unrelatedly: Krill, I'm curious how (or whether?) you would suggest scouting differently from our "normal" MP games. Do you just mean that players tend to undervalue scouting (and scouting units) generally? I can definitely see that; one problem with relying too heavily on sandbox/spreadsheet micromanagement is that it's difficult to quanitfy the value of situational awareness on an unknown map that way, and unquantified value in a highly-quantified context tends to either drive everything else or get largely overlooked, I think. (Notable exception: Thrawn seemed to find a way to quantify everything, including the amount of scouting he expected to need.)

[Krill]

A player can quantify scouting in terms of a threat assessment: the simplest way is to understand the positioning and capability of neighbours (resources, worker positioning etc, not just military units. Potential matters). Scouting then becomes a quantifiable value as a player can calculate how many turns notice of an attack it can give, and this can be contrasted to the hammer output needed to adequately defend. Another version of this is barb busting.

For what it's worth, this is one of the measures I use to understand when a game is almost over: once a player gets close to perfect knowledge of the game state (they know what is on the board, even if they don't know what the player is thinking), then they can make better and better decisions, eventually squeezing out the long shot Hail Mary. See, scouting isn't just the unit movements, it's the demographics interpretation and espionage as well, whatever gives information to make a decision.

If I were trying to teachie a newbie, I would say "Paranoia is your friend. Focus on it, use it, but that means challenging those paranoid thoughts. You are scared someone is going to come along and attack you? Fine then. They probably will. So how will they attack you? From what direction, with what units? Stop focusing on how you will win, focus on how you might lose".

[Mjmd]

So to be fair to Xist what he saw from GT would not to me indicate he would be able to stop 3 axes, but ya if GT can get 2 out in time he might get rice pillaged but nothing more.

In other those German forum people are really agg, that axe rush from metal / hub is um questionable if he did any scouting. IE does he know that is Mig's horse city?

I'm sad Dreylin looks to be on way out. Was doing good reporting. I question some of the warrior placement as well as prior described chop. I also wonder if he had the opportunity to upgrade a warrior not in the city (IE 1SW where T/C couldn't hit).