Gaspar and NobleHelium - More Arguments About Buildings & Food.

[Gaspar]

Where we take our rightful place amongst the great duos of all time:



Laurel and Hardy...



Abbott and Costello



Gleason and Carney



McCain and Palin?

[Gaspar]

Reserved.

[Gaspar]

For the record, he's totally Palin.

[NobleHelium]

t.t

===

Players:

Mist & Ichabod: Victoria (FIN/IMP) of Byzantium (Cataphract (Knight), Hippodrome (Theatre), Mysticism, Wheel)
Gaspar & NobleHelium: Isabella (EXP/SPI) of China (Cho-Ko-Nu (Crossbow), Pavilion (Theatre), Agriculture, Mining)
oledavy: Gandhi (SPI/PHI) of France (Musketeer (Musketman), Salon (Observatory), Agriculture, Wheel)
yuris123: Huayna Capac (FIN/IND) of the Ottomans (Janissary (Musketman), Hammam (Aqueduct), Agriculture, Wheel)
Commodore: Darius I (FIN/ORG) of the Holy Roman Empire (Landsknecht (Pikeman), Rathaus (Courthouse), Hunting, Mysticism)

[Gaspar]

It occurs to me its going to be much harder to gin up dedlurkers with Us, Commodore and Dave in the game. The standard of play might be mediocre but the threads will be spectacularly well-updated. Nonetheless, we shall try. I guarantee NH & my antics will be more interesting than whatever Dave and/or Commodore come up with talking to themselves. They'll probably both report slightly more meticulously than I, however.

In the first instance of blatant post-boosting, we'd like to appeal to the lurkers for theme ideas. Things bandied about thus far:

Tribute (Naming stuff after great events in RB history - The Razing of Mason, the PB6 CV, the ill-fated Praetorian World Tour, etc.)
Great Duos/Pairings (See first post, Chocolate & Peanut Butter, etc.)
Famous Second Acts (Empire Strikes Back, Bruce Jenner, New Coke etc.)

We are of course open to other suggestions.

[NobleHelium]

ALL RIGHT, REMEMBER GASPAR, MAKE A COUPLE SPEARS THIS TIME.

[Gaspar]

I really, really, really, really hate you.

[NobleHelium]

Anyway, I made the decision a while ago that Gaspar should be making more decisions this game. I am more forceful (or maybe just persistent) than he is, so I ended up making many choices in 29 which he was better suited to making. So I expect this to improve our chances.

[Gaspar]

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the 8th wonder of the world
The flow of the century, always timeless... Opponent profiles!
Thanks for coming out tonight. You could've been anywhere in the world, but you're here with me, I appreciate that.

(Sorry, always wanted to do that.)


We'll start off with the first signup:



Commodore (PBEMs 19, 24, 26, 31, 32; PBs 5 & 7)

(I used the C64 last time I played against him.)

Starring as...



Darius of the Holy Roman Empire (FIN, ORG, Mysticism, Hunting, Rathaus, Landsknecht)

I'll start with the pick then talk about Commodore. Darius of HRE is the ubiquitous noob synergy combo, but it does work nicely. With Org Rathauses you basically obliterate maintenance. If spies end up being on in some format, you'd have to favor Commodore to get EP up high first. The problem is the horrible starting techs - Mysticism, Hunting basically is terrible, you're two techs away from BW and you're almost definitely going to have research Agriculture and/or AH first. Its pretty much guaranteed to have a slow start. Landsknecht are a so-so UU. They mean you're going to build a lot of pikes. It also pushes you towards an earlier than normal engy, so again if espionage is on, Castles come into play.

Someone remarked in Commodore's PB5 thread that somewhere along the line he swapped personalities with Lewwyn. There's no question something happened, likely the sour ending of PBEM24 combined with the craziness of PBEM26 to push his inner warmonger. Still, he's not a moron - you don't roll Darius/HRE to fight an Ancient War. He's going to intend to hunker in for the long game. The problem for him is that once upon a time he'd have a terrible start then pick up with an excellent midgame to get him in the winner's conversation. Now he has a terrible start and then tries to kill whomever started well. So if he's a neighbor, couple spears indeed. Overall, if the settings favor him, he can win (High maintenance, spies on.) If they don't, I don't believe he has it in him right now.

Commodore Snapshot:

Player skill:
Leader/Civ strength:
Aggressiveness:
Intangibles:
PYFT rating:

Exploitable weakness: Terrible starts followed by classical era suicide.
Biggest fear: We're the team he suicides into.
Pre-game prediction: 4th place.

[Gaspar]

Next up...



Oledavy (PBEMs 17, 30, Civ5 1; PB6)

Cheer up, sleepy Gene.

Starring as...



Gandhi of France(SPI, PHI, Agriculture, The Wheel, Salon, Musketeer)

Gandhi of France comes from the recently ended PB6. There's not actually a lot of synergy in an Ancient, non-team start. But that's okay, both picks are solid. Gandhi is the king of the specialist economy (well, he or Pericles) and I have zero doubt that's what we'll see from Dave here. France has the 2nd best set of start techs with an unseen starting position and will be right with us for fastest start. The Salon is pure garbage but Musketeers are an excellent UU, allowing you to defend two-mover stacks in the late medieval/early ren era. I'd expect a priority on getting there quickly.

Dave is still a relative newcomer to the RB MP scene but he's a good player. He makes some d'oh mistakes but generally learns from them and combines them with solid, solid play the rest of the time. He has a strong preference for the SE -> Workshop econ set-up and there's zero reason he won't follow that path here. Pyramids will be critical for him, probably more so than for us and we can expect him to head that route. Its certainly possible he'll try the Oracle > MC > Phi Engy route, particularly if we don't have Stone accessible. Regardless, I have zero doubt he will be one-two with us in some order in the early game. The question is if he can sustain it when the Fin civs get going. Once upon a time I allied up with a Gandhi player against a bloc of 3 Fin civs. If Dave can play the Sandover role for us, we'll be winning this game. I suspect we won't be so lucky.

Oledavy Snapshot:

Player skill:
Leader/Civ strength:
Aggressiveness:
Intangibles:
PYFT rating:

Exploitable weakness: Second least-experienced player, has a strong desire to be liked.
Biggest fear: He executes our game plan better than us.
Pre-game prediction: 3rd place.