[spoilers]Commodore is Darius II of the HRE, now with less excuse.

[Commodore]

Yurp. The newbiest of synergy combos, voluntarily taken again. Mission: Get a better score this time:

[Commodore]

So hi, everyone. This is my second playing of my very first PBEM, where I got my newbie little butt handed to me on a silver platter by one Seven Spirits. He was and of course is a massive better player than I was or ever will be, but for all that, I fumbled. And so the shining Holy Roman Empire of Darius lost in a diplomatic UN vote as part of a desperate diplomatic gambit to win. In the year 1705, the sun set for the last time on Hyboria.



The other surviving defeated player was Yuri, playing HC of the Ottomen, and I'll get to his story later. For now, painful analysis of my own failures!

You could not ask for a more ideal map for Darius (Fin/Org) of the HRE as PBEM 19's Wheel. A small toroid, even at prince level the maintenance was impressive, and with the exception of the capital and the misplaced second city of Ophir, every single city placed seriously was coastal, benefiting from the cheap lighthouses onto Financial coasts which are Darius' real strength. Relatively early Code of Laws had the empire costing next to nothing, giving my the stupidly unexpanded HRE an undeserved tech parity.

I misplayed the start, waddling around with three cities while my rivals plopped down fifth and sixth. The early slow start required a hard farmer's gambit to recover from, and in return the near rivals MNG and GES punished me for it with pink dots.

I captured the western portion of the center hub in a bloodless and well-planned campaign of surprise, and then sat stupidly on my laurels while Seven Spirits used the slavish devotion of his neighbors to plan and then execute a brilliant Astronomy bulb and knight blitz of MNG's core. Churning out a small force of landsknechts I picked up the scraps of MNG's southern empire, but my light commitment saw me lose out on taking the Great Lighthouse and a critical southern port which gave Seven's Mali a foothold into my inner sea region. At that point, armed with a LK-heavy force against a knight-based army, I ought to have whipped to the ground and fought back, while rushing to Astronomy myself. I did not. I NAPed, and the by-now familiar long snowball game won things for Mali.

It was fairly obvious by then that the two biggest powerhouses, Mali and GES's Egypt, were in close collusion in the usual "let's suppress the wogs" outcome of a diplo-on game. I attempted to push Yuri into a surprise strike on Egypt with galleons purchased from Mali, reading correctly that the treachery would enrage GES to the point of attacking Seven. Unfortunately, Luddite took over just before the strike went through, and his cooler head prevented a complete breakdown of Mali/Egypt relations. Controversial NAP breaking occured later, but by then it was far to late and Mali ruthlessly crushed the united but poor coordinated forces of the rest of the world in a brutal series of Sirian Doctrine invasions.

So, here we are. A chance to start again, now with new foes (and one old, hey Yuri!) and on a new world. Later, I'll look at what brings the others players to the world of Second Chance.

[Commodore]

It's everyone's favorite time, opposition analysis time!

To start with, let's look at my worst enemy:

[SIZE="5"]Commodore (aggressive, impulsive) as Darius (Fin/Org) of the HRE (Hunting/Mysticism)[/SIZE]


Yep, it's me! It should come as no surprise to anyone that my best showing was debatably also my first. Darius isn't one of the big-name leaders, but he is solid. Org is one of those workhorse traits that saves money, and hammers, all over the place without having any one big plus. Fin needs no introduction, cottages are the way to go with it, but of particular interest to Darius is the excellence of Fin coasts, which with a lighthouse make for excellent 2/0/3 tiles. Given the Org discount, that ultra-cheap workhorse tile is even cheaper. It's a nice combo, just a little slow-starting...

...which hurts when combined with the very slow starting Hunting/Mysticism techs of the HRE. Once the Rathaus and LK come into place, both are nice boosters to their replacements, but that's a long, hard road ahead before they come online. Mysticism normally means a good early shot at a religion, although Mist/Ichabod having Mysticism too means it'll still be a bit of a gamble. I do like early OR with Organized, which makes a real dent in an otherwise rather expensive civic.

I have no idea what Commodore will be doing, but I'm sure he'll make some sort of rash choice that utterly tanks my game.

[Krill]

I still think Darius sucks. Action for the day: prove otherwise.

[Commodore]

I still think Darius sucks. Action for the day: prove otherwise.

He'd be okay if he had some other buff. Give him half-price libraries and he'd be a top-five.

He's above average, but not above the top 70%, honestly. He's good with corps though.

[Commodore]

Next up, meet Dave:

[SIZE="5"]OleDavy (entertaining, dogged) as Gandhi (Spi/Phi) of France (Ag/Wheel)[/SIZE]


Poor Davy. I'm glad he's back to his dinosaur avatar, because I hate it when people change avatars, but he had a Gandhi avatar for a while quite aptly. He's never picked anyone else.

If you love the specialist economy, it'd hard to prefer anyone else though. Spiritual is a massive boon to the SE, enabling bursts of Caste for specialists without giving up slavery, and that's intensified later with Police State/Representation, Nationalism/Bureau, Theocracy/OR/Pacifism, and so on. Obviously, as the main value add for a specialist economy is Great People, Philosophical is a tremendous boon as well. The only problem is that Gandhi is really comes into his own in the later game. In the early game, he's a couple turns advantaged from Spi and a "free" extra GP or two from a wonder/library gambit. So, another slow start.

On the other hand, though, France is a quite decent boost to the early game with Agriculture and The Wheel probably second only to Ag/Mining in awesome starting techs. The musketeer is an excellent UU that the game often rushes past, but the Spi drafting is nice. The Salon is mostly forgettable, but at least with a SE Observatories are probably going to be built in many places. Nice manly blue color.

Dave will want the Pyramids, naturally, although against the also-'mids-wanting Gaspar that will be a hard fight. Either way, I expect him to come up with creative and interesting bulb paths. Dave is a good player, who would easily be an excellent player if his obsessive micro and planning were put in service of better macro.

[Commodore]

Winning the leader/civ combo pick we have:

[SIZE="5"]Yuri (improving, victim) as Huyana Cupac (Fin/Ind) of the Ottomen (Ag/Wheel)[/SIZE]


Also coming from PBEM 19 is Yuri's awesome HC. Financial is always amazing, naturally, but when paired with Ind's cheap forges and leg up on the wonder of his choice. If we do a lakes script then the Colossus will be king, particularly for Fin who already like working coasts, plus the avoidance of Astronomy is less likely to be completely lethal. This is easily the best leader in the game, and it's coupled with a solid civ.

The Ottomen own some very solid start techs, much like France, and they have a much more useful UB, more happy is always a good, particularly one that is a pre-req for the Hanging Gardens. Janissaries never did much for me, but a UU that can actually tangle with cataphracts is nice (mine can too decently, but Jans are better at it). They bore the crap out of me, but Ottomen are never a bad choice.

Yuri keeps getting better as a player, putting up a good showing in the duel league, kinda hurting Krill a little bit in the RB Mod Lakers game. It's good to see his growth as a player, and this could be his breakthrough game. For all that, he still seems to lack a crucial element of aggression...but there are many worse traits to have (like having too much, ahem).

[Commodore]

In a second chance for me as much as Mist, we have:

[SIZE="5"]Mist (visionary, impractical) and Ichabod (clever, unfocused) as Victoria (Fin/Imp) of Byzantium (Wheel/Myst)[/SIZE]


The dynamic duo here are running the doughty Victoria. Financial, as ever, be good, and it more or less forces them to be sensible about their economy. Imperialistic is a dangerous trait, enabling its owners a quick route to crashville, but nothing beats Fin for making gold to pull yourself out of that hole. If warmongering is more your thing, Imp is a fun little boost to the very useful Great Generals, which is nice. It's not the best combination of traits in the world, but a solid one.

Byzantium, on the other hand, is crazy. First of all, if I wasn't the HRE, I'd make fun of the dismal starting techs (if the script gives me elephants or deer, I still might). The grey color is most excellent, cool and comforting while carrying a calm dignity. The UB, the Hippodome, is pretty nice, giving decent happy for its cost, but not good enough to justify the starting techs. The UU, however...oy oy vey. Cataphracts are bad, bad boys who have no counter until rifles. Whoever gets 'phracted, is getting royally screwed. That being said, two musket UUs that help against them, a pike UU, and a UU with lots of first strikes ('phracts get no immunity to those), all around the Guilds time-frame, make this a less attractive 'phract setup than almost anything else. Still, the Byzantines are always worth respect.

Mist and Ichabod are probably a good team, come to think of it. Mist is prone to visionary plans but completely handwaves the mundane details of execution, whereas Ichabod's biggest weakness is in the long-term planning, being a very competent player. I expect them to push an early religion with Mysticism, expand pretty well, and otherwise...who knows. If it's a Mist-plan, it'll be rather far out there. Nonzero chance of them going for a culture win, in my opinion.

[Commodore]

At least we'll have a girlier color than yellow in the pool with:

[SIZE="5"]Gaspar (depressive, perceptive) as Isabella (Spi/Exp) of China (Ag/Mining)[/SIZE]


Isabella, or Bella as we'll be calling this vampire-lover from now on here, is an awesome leader. The only Expansive in the game, she's going to rocket out into an excellent start no matter what the map looks like, and Spiritual means that specialists will be pushed to the max. Bella is all about Turn Advantage, here.

And how's this for synergy: The Best. Darned. Starting. Techs. In. The. Game. China's UB is uninspiring and the UU is useful in niche roles at best, but the ability to farm immediately and research Bronze Working right off the bat is amazing. As Gaspar said in his 24 thread the first time, he could be playing the Martians for all it mattered.

I expect Gaspar to utilize the traits and techs to their fullest into a hybrid economy, boosted by probably either the 'mids or the GLH. Gandhi is a better specialist-user late game. Us Fin chaps are better cottage users in the late game. Gaspar wielding Isabella can reach the late game massively faster than the rest of us. With Noble's entertaining verbal abuse added, they'll probably win the thread wars too. In my opinion, nice as Yuri's combo is, Gaspar is the favorite to win this thing.

[Mardoc]

Isabella, or Bella as we'll be calling this vampire-lover from now on here

I admire your bravery, Commodore-san!