LowtherCastle
Deity
- Joined
- May 18, 2005
- Messages
- 23,741
Not to beat a dead horseThe thought of running every possible build path down with a test save sounds like a huge pile of boredom and tedium to me. It wouldn't be fun, and after all that's why most of us play this game. Maybe the tedium is the "price" to pay for playing well and doing good, but the level of play to which the last few turnsets have gone is a bit too much for me... Plus the fear of clicking a wrong button and instantly invalidating weeks of play for the whole team...
, but I wanted to take this opportunity to mention that I'm envious of bbp for having the most fun turnset of the whole game. In our last SG, MW had an amazing run-up to building Oxford that was deliciously intricate and involved a Mission Impossible-like effort of timing all sorts of things. What bbp has on his plate is actually even more complicated, if we want to maximize the potential (not to put any pressure on you, bbp, like Erkon always did with his infamous "Remember, this is the most important turnset of the game..." 
). MW had a surplus of workers and all the delicious stuff Gyathaar provided on that map. We are severely short of workers and hammers. But, in hopes of shedding light on my MMMania, to me it's not at all about "running every possible build path down," although there is usually an element of that early in the game. It's about figuring out how to get Oxford done asap, within the framework of our overall game strategy and without killing our economy in the process. About how to get the uni done in Bombay. Steal the worker from Oasis. Then in Rice. Then in Marble. But then maybe the Rice worker needs to go to Marble. Where does the Rice FP worker come from, Gold? But then we get to the hard stuff, Two Fish and Delhi. Okay, forge first in Two Fish, then uni, then NE (clever idea, bbp
). Well, Delhi is easy, it's a 2pop. Maybe too easy. If we're going to 2pop the forge in Bombay first, that might push the uni back a couple turns. Hm...that means we can delay the Delhi 2pop a couple turns and have more overflow for Oxford. Wait, that means with 4 chops, Oxford can be finished in 1t, which means we research Literature sooner, which means NE sooner. But only if we can get those three chops in Two Fish done fast enough. So how do we get the four chops in Delhi, followed immediately by the three chops in Two Fish. Hm...the Marble chopper was going to farm the Bombay fp next, helped by the Bombay chopper. Do I need them in Delhi and Two Fish instead. Oh, and when will that worker be coming from Ivory. Oh look, if we can somehow get Construction from Zara, then the worker can move from Aksum to the forest hill east of Delhi in 1 turn...or is this all too fast? Nah, never too fast. Now what about that market in Two Fish, can we poprush it too... 
To me, MM is all about a strategic puzzle. My first goal is always to establish what the team's strategy is for the upcoming turnset. Compare that with our overall strategy. In this SG, it's complex, because there's so many different paths we're travelling at once and it's very difficult to decide what the Critical Path (the longest necessary path) is. If we overlook any critical detail, it can extend our critical path unnecessarily. Like scouting the barbs fur. What if the barbs just happen to know Fasicsm already and are gleefully building paratroopers?! Anyone stop to wonder why Erkon cryptically warned against researching Industrialism and obsoleting Ivory? Probably nothing, but you never know...
Anyway, my point is that CIV is fundamentally a strategy game and MM, to me, is all about implementing the strategy. Not so much about anally retentively dotting is and crossing ts. Just wanted to explain that, in case it clarifies anything or perhaps motivates anyone...
