PBEM5e - Dazed and scooter

[scooter]

If your name is Bobchillingworth or Sareln, get out!!

Anyone else, welcome! I don't feel like doing anything creative to fill space, so I'll just hit enter a bunch of times..






































Alright and we're off! First post coming up soonly.

[scooter]

So the two options for this game is Boudica (Agg/Cha) of Zulu or Isabella (Spi/Exp) of Vikings. I talked it over with Dazed, and I felt he might do a better job with the "get Impis in their face" role than I would, so he'll be playing Zulu and I'll be playing the Vikings.


Okay first, let's take a look at my starting land



1. Sorry if the tilt is annoying, I was in a hurry and that seemed to be the quickest way to get a good view of my land
2. My capital city should be namd "Canton." I opened the old save (from before I renamed it) to take this picture, so that's why it's not reflected in this screenshot.

I look to be on the end of the peninsula, so I went ahead and went work boat first. Since we know how close we are together, Dazed suggested that I go ahead and explore NE just in case there's a land bridge there. Let's look at his land, then I'll do some opening analysis towards the end:



Interesting start on a lot of levels. First, notice all the red circles... Coast/lakes all over the place. I tend to think it's more likely to be coast, but we'll know more soon. This hints towards some sort of snaky continents style map, since my section of the continent is similiarly thin, with small islands (I would assume?) visible to the north and south. We talked it over and we feel it's more likely that we are on the east side of the mirror, because the inclusion of Zulu practically demands to put the Zulus up front. We also realized that we do not know for sure that it's a mirror, so we know we need to be careful with assumptions right now. Dazed also mentioned the possibility of Toroidal world wrap, so I need to consider the possibility that we'll both have neighbors.

One thing we both noticed rather quickly was that the Zulu player had start geared towards commerce, and the Vikings player had a hammer-heavy start. I'm guessing this was intentional, as it makes it very interesting trying to determine how to configure out cities... Ideally we'd want the backlines guy teching, but his land is much better for it. I can use my hammer start to try to build some wonders, but if the starts are mirrored (would be shocked if they aren't), then they might do the exact same thing. Dazed suggested having me chop out TGL, so that's something we might explore. Pyramids has also crossed my mind, because I'm Spiritual and can change civics frequently. Stonehenge and Hanging Gardens are also attractive targets, as no one is creative (Henge) and the pop boost is even stronger in a team game (HG).

Strategy for the early game will revolve around Dazed trying to wreak as much havoc as humanly possible, while I try to quickly expand. I'll also try to provide Dazed with most of his workers since I'm Expansive, as well as do some sea exploration for us. We already have all the worker techs we need (we start with Fishing, Agriculture, and Hunting) so we're headed straight to Mining -> Bronze Working.

On a lighter note, Krill named the game "To Infinity and Beyond!" In PBEM7 I spent far too much time determining the reason for his name of "Slight Return" and I ended up being "right" and yet completely wrong at the same time. This one seems a bit more random, and I have a hard time thinking of a reason that would correlate with this game. I finally got around to seeing Toy Story 3 last week (loved it), so my best guess is just that Krill saw it recently too. If there's a hidden meaning, I'm totally at a loss as to what it is...

We also decided on a theme - we're going to do sports franchises. Dazed will do baseball, and I will do football (the American rendition). The capital cities will be the Hall of Fame cities, as it seemed like a nice starting point. If you have a favorite baseball or football player that you'd really like to see featured as a unit, go ahead and request it! 50/50 chance that we'll ignore/forget your request, but it's worth a shot, right?

Thus ends the opening notes... We've played two turns, but I just noticed this morning that we're on Quick Speed rather than Normal. I'm pretty sure we'll restart the game on Normal, as that tends to be the preference. Quick just obsoletes units too fast, and makes it way too easy to react on defense - as if the defender doesn't have enough bonuses. So it'll probably be a bit before much else happens of note. I won't be doing a great job of updating this for the next two weeks since the end of my semester will be pretty packed, but once Christmas hits I should be able to keep this updated pretty well. If Dazed ever updates this thing then that'll be a victory in and of itself!

[dazedroyalty]

If Dazed ever updates this thing then that'll be a victory in and of itself!

To be fair I updated my other thread once over thanksgiving. I might consider doing it again if I get any lurker comments. (Shameless appeal for comments, check.)

I have never played a game with Bob and Sareln was my sub for PBEM7. It's really hard to get a feel for either of their play from my experience. I would say Sareln is conservative (vs. risky) but that might have just been because he was playing my turns and didn't want to risk my units.

I think getting an early wonder rush would be great for us. If we are close enough to each other that I can effectively harass them, it might be enough to deter them from wonder-lust. Not to say we're experts but the fourth Always War game in a row might help us. I'm not away of any AW games they've played -- not that I know their entire gaming history!

[scooter]

To be fair I updated my other thread once over thanksgiving. I might consider doing it again if I get any lurker comments. (Shameless appeal for comments, check.)

Well I guess there's hope for you yet!

I have never played a game with Bob and Sareln was my sub for PBEM7. It's really hard to get a feel for either of their play from my experience. I would say Sareln is conservative (vs. risky) but that might have just been because he was playing my turns and didn't want to risk my units.

Something to note - Sareln must be Vikings and Bob must be Zulu, so your guess on Sareln is probably pretty accurate. I only know Bob from PBEM3 - where he fell behind, but in all fairness he had very poor land, so I really don't know if he could've done better or not. To me he seemed like a very competent, but not fantastic player, which is the exact tag I'd place on myself. For what it's worth, in a MP game I'd be slightly more nervous about a Dazedroyalty Zulu neighbor than a Bobchillingworth Zulu neighbor, so maybe we've got that going for us.

I think getting an early wonder rush would be great for us. If we are close enough to each other that I can effectively harass them, it might be enough to deter them from wonder-lust. Not to say we're experts but the fourth Always War game in a row might help us. I'm not away of any AW games they've played -- not that I know their entire gaming history!

We probably need to rank wonders in terms of priority. If/when I get some time soon, we can talk this over on chat.

[scooter]

Not much happened, but we do have contact with Bob and Sareln now. First, let's look at the south, which my scout (Barry Sanders) has been exploring:



As we were scouting we were starting to think that we would find them to the south rather than the west, as the west was looking like it was going to round off into ocean. Then we realized it was going to be some sort of landbridge, which leads us to where we are now:



This is obviously a turn or two after contact, as Bob's scouting has gone past our scout. I thought the heavily forested land was interesting, as that obviously seems to be a tactic to further encourage the use of Impis, as nothing will keep up with them in forests. Remember that Dazed explored north first, so if they went directly towards us without a northern excursion first, then we might still be a few tiles away from the center.

I noted that his scout will likely move onto the grassland hill next turn, giving him extra visibility. Dazed was hoping to try to kill his scout before he is able to take a look at our land (though if it's mirrored it wouldn't matter THAT much), so he's going to have to maneuver that carefully to not give away the position of his warrior too soon. Hopefully we're able to get the kill on the scout quickly. I believe he otherwise plans to head straight to Bob's capital with the warrior and hopefully harass him a little bit. It's highly possible that the warrior will obsolete before it gets much use, but we are on normal speed so hopefully he'll have a little extra shelf life as opposed to quick.

[dazedroyalty]

My assumption is that he'll move his scout onto the hill and then 2 E 1 N onto the other hill for maximum visibility. So I moved my warrior straight north which is three tiles away from his scout so no visibility. Then I'll move one north again. Then he moves off the hill (still can't see me) and onto the next hill. Bingo! I'm next to him but he's out of moves so he can't do anything about it.

If he doesn't follow that pattern, I'll probably just start moving straight west and not worry too much about the scout.

[Krill]

Guys, turns out I made a rather noob mistake on the map. I can replay all of the game, and get you a remade game without the error later today, but I need your passwords and any MM that you did for city builds. Tech path as well.

[dazedroyalty]

Guys, turns out I made a rather noob mistake on the map. I can replay all of the game, and get you a remade game without the error later today, but I need your passwords and any MM that you did for city builds. Tech path as well.

I went warrior first. When borders expanded, I switched to the higher food yield tile but ended up switching back to get the warrior out one turn sooner.

Scooter went WB first. He meant to switch to the three hammer tile sooner but he missed that change for a couple of turns. Not sure how many exactly.

[Krill]

Could do with a copy of the last save you guys played plus the password.

[dazedroyalty]

Could do with a copy of the last save you guys played plus the password.

Sent the save and my PW. Don't know Scooter's...