Lord Parkin
aka emperor
I am first in this case, so that's no problem. But I don't even need a savegame, a replay file works without a save.
Sirius Intra-Team Pitboss Game!
- Thread starter Lord Parkin
- Start date
Well, obviously I didn't check that when I got home from work that afternoon, as I still haven't actually had a look yet.
What I have done though is finally finish writing up the story of what happened in the game from my perspective. Kind of a spoiler thread, but after the fact (and so no screenshots unfortunately). I'd be interested to hear other's stories - I never really knew what went on in the other continent, but many of the people involved have left by now.
I may be biased, but I think the England/Mongolia story is one of the most interesting ones. Lord Parkin just chariot rushed a crippled half-civ, settled a huge continent uncontested, spammed out almost all the wonders along the way, completly ran out of control and won the game. Maybe he'd have more to add but that's what it seems like from my end. Similarly, the other continent basically minded their own business until a vastly technologically superior alliance came crashing down on their heads and wiped them out. I'm sure there was a bit more to it, but that's the summary. Our story on the other hand I think has quite a lot of drama in it, and is definately worth telling.
So, I'm going to post it one section at a time. I'm not sure who'll care enough to read it, but hopefully someone will. Here goes then...
What I have done though is finally finish writing up the story of what happened in the game from my perspective. Kind of a spoiler thread, but after the fact (and so no screenshots unfortunately). I'd be interested to hear other's stories - I never really knew what went on in the other continent, but many of the people involved have left by now.
I may be biased, but I think the England/Mongolia story is one of the most interesting ones. Lord Parkin just chariot rushed a crippled half-civ, settled a huge continent uncontested, spammed out almost all the wonders along the way, completly ran out of control and won the game. Maybe he'd have more to add but that's what it seems like from my end. Similarly, the other continent basically minded their own business until a vastly technologically superior alliance came crashing down on their heads and wiped them out. I'm sure there was a bit more to it, but that's the summary. Our story on the other hand I think has quite a lot of drama in it, and is definately worth telling.
So, I'm going to post it one section at a time. I'm not sure who'll care enough to read it, but hopefully someone will. Here goes then...
Well, here's my analysis on which traits work well in 2-civ teams - in other words, which traits only help one civ (half the team) and which traits are now twice as good for helping the whole team:
* Aggressive: A good trait for helping both teams. Build the melee and gunpowder units in one civ, and the archery, siege and cavalry in the other. Assuming you want a mix of units anyway. You'll then get the aggressive combat 1 promotion for effectively your whole team.
* Charismatic: Short of some dodgy trickery with gifting units, this mostly only helps one civ.
* Creative: Only helps the creative civ.
* Expansive: Mostly only helps one civ, but worker gifting brings a little bit of helping-both teams.
* Financial: At first glance this is a clear-cut case of helping only half the team. However, the thing about civ is city specialisation. Give all the commerce cities to the financial civ, and the production cities to the other civ, and financial is suddenly 2 civs worth of commerce cities. So I thought at the time, and it worked to an extent. What I didn't appreciate was the fact that a key strategy in two-civ-teams is to use two sliders, one civ focusing on gold and/or espionage multipliers and the other on science. This strategy encourages some commerce cities in both civs. Still, it's a good trait in the first place.
* Imperialistic: Similar to expansive, this can help both civs by building all the settlers and gifting them. I used this to reasonable effect, although it sometimes felt like more trouble than it was worth.
* Industrious: The mother of all traits to help both teams, and one I completely missed. The key is that almost all wonders help both civs in the same team. You only need to build it in the industrious civ and the other civ gets the benefits.
* Philosophical: A confusing one. At the time I thought it helped the whole team, and there's ways in which it does, but I now think for the most part it's mostly just helping one civ. The great people themselves don't get any whole-team benefit. While you can muck around a bit with which civ you generate the great people in, on the whole it's still optimal to generate some great people in each civ.
* Protective: It's bad, and it stays bad. Although at least you can generate archers in the one civ, a bit like with aggressive.
* Spiritual: Only helps one civ.
So, those considerations knocked out a fair few traits, limiting the field a bit. The next thing I wanted was two good UUs, and from different eras. The way I figure it, when you have a UU active, you build a lot of it in that civ. The other civ therefore needs to fill in with support units and continuing development. Two UUs at the same time is therefore certainly not twice as good as one, while two different eras basically is. Two complementary UUs might be interesting in theory, but honestly I can't think of that many good candidates. Maybe Musketeers and Cataphracts? In contrast, to me, France/Ethiopia was the perfect example of a bad choice for UUs - they both replace the same unit, and the Janissaries can't even keep up with the Musketeers. At least they're a kind of middle-ground unit in the rock-paper-scissors game though so you can just build a lot of the same thing.
Given all that, Mongolia and England were quite good together. All four were traits which at least have some spread of benefits to the other civ, the only one I really missed out on was industrious. It would have been a good pick, but honestly the way the game played out I wouldn't have got much out of it anyway. They had two quite separate era UUs, and very good UUs at that. Mobility is much more important in multiplayer than it is in single player, so the Keshik is better than people expect. And finally, separate starting techs. All in all I'm still happy with this choice.
* Aggressive: A good trait for helping both teams. Build the melee and gunpowder units in one civ, and the archery, siege and cavalry in the other. Assuming you want a mix of units anyway. You'll then get the aggressive combat 1 promotion for effectively your whole team.
* Charismatic: Short of some dodgy trickery with gifting units, this mostly only helps one civ.
* Creative: Only helps the creative civ.
* Expansive: Mostly only helps one civ, but worker gifting brings a little bit of helping-both teams.
* Financial: At first glance this is a clear-cut case of helping only half the team. However, the thing about civ is city specialisation. Give all the commerce cities to the financial civ, and the production cities to the other civ, and financial is suddenly 2 civs worth of commerce cities. So I thought at the time, and it worked to an extent. What I didn't appreciate was the fact that a key strategy in two-civ-teams is to use two sliders, one civ focusing on gold and/or espionage multipliers and the other on science. This strategy encourages some commerce cities in both civs. Still, it's a good trait in the first place.
* Imperialistic: Similar to expansive, this can help both civs by building all the settlers and gifting them. I used this to reasonable effect, although it sometimes felt like more trouble than it was worth.
* Industrious: The mother of all traits to help both teams, and one I completely missed. The key is that almost all wonders help both civs in the same team. You only need to build it in the industrious civ and the other civ gets the benefits.
* Philosophical: A confusing one. At the time I thought it helped the whole team, and there's ways in which it does, but I now think for the most part it's mostly just helping one civ. The great people themselves don't get any whole-team benefit. While you can muck around a bit with which civ you generate the great people in, on the whole it's still optimal to generate some great people in each civ.
* Protective: It's bad, and it stays bad. Although at least you can generate archers in the one civ, a bit like with aggressive.
* Spiritual: Only helps one civ.
So, those considerations knocked out a fair few traits, limiting the field a bit. The next thing I wanted was two good UUs, and from different eras. The way I figure it, when you have a UU active, you build a lot of it in that civ. The other civ therefore needs to fill in with support units and continuing development. Two UUs at the same time is therefore certainly not twice as good as one, while two different eras basically is. Two complementary UUs might be interesting in theory, but honestly I can't think of that many good candidates. Maybe Musketeers and Cataphracts? In contrast, to me, France/Ethiopia was the perfect example of a bad choice for UUs - they both replace the same unit, and the Janissaries can't even keep up with the Musketeers. At least they're a kind of middle-ground unit in the rock-paper-scissors game though so you can just build a lot of the same thing.
Given all that, Mongolia and England were quite good together. All four were traits which at least have some spread of benefits to the other civ, the only one I really missed out on was industrious. It would have been a good pick, but honestly the way the game played out I wouldn't have got much out of it anyway. They had two quite separate era UUs, and very good UUs at that. Mobility is much more important in multiplayer than it is in single player, so the Keshik is better than people expect. And finally, separate starting techs. All in all I'm still happy with this choice.
Lord Parkin
aka emperor
I for one am reading with interest, so keep posting.
azzaman333
meh
Personally, I was intending to rush my nearest neighbour with Impis, but somehow I started relatively isolated, surrounded by jungle. Since I had all that land, I signed peace treaties with everyone and tried to REX, but with all the jungle it was difficult to do so at an efficient rate.
It probably wasn't clear, but when I said one at a time I meant one a day (roughly). My intention was to leave room for some discussion just in case anyone had something to say, and maybe even build a little tension. It's good to know at least a couple of people are reading, even though there hasn't been much discussion. Surely someone must disagree with my analysis of individual traits for team games?
The early plan was always a Keshik rush.
The problem I usually have with a Keshik rush is the amount of technology required to pull it off. Horseback Riding is expensive, and then you still need Archery, Bronze Working for chopping and slavery, and worker techs for, well, production essentially. The difficulty is that while I'm trying to set up a production heavy empire, the time to research Horseback Riding in particular just drags out and I lose my timeframe for an early rush.
However, in this two-civ setup, one civ can keep a reasonable economy going while the other goes all out for the rush. So while Mongolia sets up for a rush, England can research the key techs. With the slightly faster tech pace as well, I saw the micro for a Keshik rush as being more similar to a standard chariot rush than anything else. For a chariot rush, you build two cities, then chop and whip like mad up to 10-20 odd chariots and send them in before 1000BC. So, that was roughly what I did, except 4 cities (including 2 capitals) because I had two civs, and 3 of them Mongolian because they make the Keshiks.
Mongolia built the settlers (with Imperialistic) while England built the workers. Then Mongolia built military while England built cottages on the flood plains in the capital and kept the economy going.
When we met France/Ethiopia quite early on, I started sizing them up as the target. I kept civil diplomatic relations though, even negotiating a settling border, to keep my options open. But without making any sort of NAP of course. However, later when I met Rome/Netherlands, and discovered their geographic situation, things changed. Basically, they had Rome, and they had literally one team as their neighbour: me. There was no way they weren't going to build Praetorians, and there was no-one else they would want to send them to than me. Especially if I left my back exposed while rushing another neighbour.
This was the first big decision of the game. T. Claudius and I discussed it at great length. Basically it was the proximity of France/Ethiopia against the Praetorian threat from Rome/Netherlands. In the end Rome/Netherlands were the choice, and I think it was the right one.
France/Ethiopia were meanwhile busy taking out the remaining and abandonned half of the rather unfortunately split Maya/France (or should I say Maya ... ocean ... France). I sent them a long message explaining why their turning on me while I'm distracted in Rome/Netherlands would simply bog us all down in war and lead to an easy run-away victory for Lord Parkin, who had taken out the other half of Maya/France and had apparently a continent to himself. This kept them off my tail, despite Rome/Netherlands pleading to come to their aid, although it ended up getting me into some trouble later on.
The broad plan was to rush in with Keshiks, pillage and raze whatever I could, cutting metals if possible (it wasn't in the end). Then, while he's spamming out spears like mad in response, I follow through with a big fat stack of axes (and catapults as it turned out). It played out exactly how I wanted it to in broad terms. I made some horrible mistakes along the way, and Grant played quite well, but the broad plan was good and it worked. The Keshiks razed only two cities at first, but kept him bogged down and distracted. He sent Praetorians in a long march to counter-attack, but by the time they arrived they saw axes and catapults a plenty, and simply turned around. So most of his army never even fought a battle. When some Keshiks circled around and surprised him by razing two more cities he surrendered.
My biggest mistake is worth mentioning, and came right at the start. I captured a worker, but saw there were too many units in the adjacent city for me to capture it, and sent the bulk of the Keshiks elsewhere. This turn, I should have deleted the worker, as it was bound to be recaptured, but I simply didn't think of it at the time. Because I didn't delete the worker, those units got to my launchpad city a turn earlier than they might have, catching it with two less units than it ought to have had defending it. The worst part however was that the gold from capturing this city let him upgrade a warrior to a spearman. It was only this upgrade which prevented me from capturing the Roman capital on the second or third turn of the war! Things could have gone a lot faster for me if I'd deleted that worker.
But as I said we won the war eventually anyway. The offer that Grant made in his surrender was the second big decision of the game.
The problem I usually have with a Keshik rush is the amount of technology required to pull it off. Horseback Riding is expensive, and then you still need Archery, Bronze Working for chopping and slavery, and worker techs for, well, production essentially. The difficulty is that while I'm trying to set up a production heavy empire, the time to research Horseback Riding in particular just drags out and I lose my timeframe for an early rush.
However, in this two-civ setup, one civ can keep a reasonable economy going while the other goes all out for the rush. So while Mongolia sets up for a rush, England can research the key techs. With the slightly faster tech pace as well, I saw the micro for a Keshik rush as being more similar to a standard chariot rush than anything else. For a chariot rush, you build two cities, then chop and whip like mad up to 10-20 odd chariots and send them in before 1000BC. So, that was roughly what I did, except 4 cities (including 2 capitals) because I had two civs, and 3 of them Mongolian because they make the Keshiks.
Mongolia built the settlers (with Imperialistic) while England built the workers. Then Mongolia built military while England built cottages on the flood plains in the capital and kept the economy going.
When we met France/Ethiopia quite early on, I started sizing them up as the target. I kept civil diplomatic relations though, even negotiating a settling border, to keep my options open. But without making any sort of NAP of course. However, later when I met Rome/Netherlands, and discovered their geographic situation, things changed. Basically, they had Rome, and they had literally one team as their neighbour: me. There was no way they weren't going to build Praetorians, and there was no-one else they would want to send them to than me. Especially if I left my back exposed while rushing another neighbour.
This was the first big decision of the game. T. Claudius and I discussed it at great length. Basically it was the proximity of France/Ethiopia against the Praetorian threat from Rome/Netherlands. In the end Rome/Netherlands were the choice, and I think it was the right one.
France/Ethiopia were meanwhile busy taking out the remaining and abandonned half of the rather unfortunately split Maya/France (or should I say Maya ... ocean ... France). I sent them a long message explaining why their turning on me while I'm distracted in Rome/Netherlands would simply bog us all down in war and lead to an easy run-away victory for Lord Parkin, who had taken out the other half of Maya/France and had apparently a continent to himself. This kept them off my tail, despite Rome/Netherlands pleading to come to their aid, although it ended up getting me into some trouble later on.
The broad plan was to rush in with Keshiks, pillage and raze whatever I could, cutting metals if possible (it wasn't in the end). Then, while he's spamming out spears like mad in response, I follow through with a big fat stack of axes (and catapults as it turned out). It played out exactly how I wanted it to in broad terms. I made some horrible mistakes along the way, and Grant played quite well, but the broad plan was good and it worked. The Keshiks razed only two cities at first, but kept him bogged down and distracted. He sent Praetorians in a long march to counter-attack, but by the time they arrived they saw axes and catapults a plenty, and simply turned around. So most of his army never even fought a battle. When some Keshiks circled around and surprised him by razing two more cities he surrendered.
My biggest mistake is worth mentioning, and came right at the start. I captured a worker, but saw there were too many units in the adjacent city for me to capture it, and sent the bulk of the Keshiks elsewhere. This turn, I should have deleted the worker, as it was bound to be recaptured, but I simply didn't think of it at the time. Because I didn't delete the worker, those units got to my launchpad city a turn earlier than they might have, catching it with two less units than it ought to have had defending it. The worst part however was that the gold from capturing this city let him upgrade a warrior to a spearman. It was only this upgrade which prevented me from capturing the Roman capital on the second or third turn of the war! Things could have gone a lot faster for me if I'd deleted that worker.
But as I said we won the war eventually anyway. The offer that Grant made in his surrender was the second big decision of the game.
azzaman333
meh
I think you underrate the possibilty of gifting cities back and forth, which makes imp, exp, cre and org better (cheap core buildings) but overall your summary of traits is pretty sound. I'd also add that ind becomes less useful the more ind civs there are, for the obvious reason that there's much more competition for wonders. On UUs, I think the key is they don't interfere with each other. For example, even though my impis and numidians came at approximately the same time, the numidians were an ideal follow up to the axe spam that would attempt to counter the impis. On the other hand, the skirmisher immortal combo was relatively poor, because skirmishers are outclassed by axes for immortal support. Especially since immortals get fortification bonuses.
Lord Parkin
aka emperor
I agree with Azz, you mostly had it right with the trait analysis in my opinion. Industrious wouldn't have been as useful for me if a lot of other people had gone for it, but as they didn't, it was an extremely powerful trait for me.
I think I would have preferred to send one big mixed stack at Grant myself, rather than Keshiks first and then Axes/Catapults later. But your way seemed to work out fairly well.
One major point where I thought you made a mistake was accepting long-term peace with Grant. I would have been inclined to finish him off, for the extra cities and reduced unhappiness. But then I guess you had France/Ethiopia on your other border, which made things more complicated.
I think I would have preferred to send one big mixed stack at Grant myself, rather than Keshiks first and then Axes/Catapults later. But your way seemed to work out fairly well.
One major point where I thought you made a mistake was accepting long-term peace with Grant. I would have been inclined to finish him off, for the extra cities and reduced unhappiness. But then I guess you had France/Ethiopia on your other border, which made things more complicated.
Catapults weren't researched until after the war started, and if I waited that long, well, it wasn't a rush. Not sure what you mean by a mixed stack, I certainly don't want the Keshiks to have to wait for the axes. They were kind of meant to arrive at close to the same time, but the axes ended up a little delayed.
Lord Parkin
aka emperor
Fair enough. By a mixed stack, I didn't mean the Keshiks should wait for the Axes, just that they should all arrive at the front at the same time for maximum effectiveness, rather than being staggered. Still, it didn't seem to matter for you too much in this case.
Fair enough. By a mixed stack, I didn't mean the Keshiks should wait for the Axes, just that they should all arrive at the front at the same time for maximum effectiveness, rather than being staggered. Still, it didn't seem to matter for you too much in this case.
You're probably right. That was technically the plan anyway. Maybe it did matter, I might have made much quicker progress if I'd had axes ready earlier, who knows.
FWIW wrote this post at work yesterday, but didn't click the submit button. So my thoughts are slightly out of order, but it doesn't matter.
I wonder if anyone actually did this? They certainly should have. I never really did though.
You know what, I tend to discount half price buildings when evaluating traits in general. Mostly because most traits have a cheap building anyway, so it kind of balances out. Exp is good though because granary is the one building you always build, and org stands out because it has a lot of cheap buildings, to the point of the buildings being a significant benefit of org.
That's true of ind generally though, not particularly more true here. In theory with 2 civ teams there's more civs and therefore more ind going around, although it certainly didn't work out that way.
I entirely agree. Your impi-numidian combination is exactly the example I couldn't think of with two same-era units that are actually complementary. Actually not so different from my guess of Musketeers/Cataphracts, one increased movement unit and one improved cavalry. It's a particularly good though because it rescues a unit (numideans) which I normally consider nerfed compared to the base unit, but which in combination with impis suddenly becomes good again. Still, you did put all your eggs in one basket by picking two early game UUs, and it cost you in a way when an early attack didn't turn out to be the correct choice.
I wonder if anyone actually did this? They certainly should have. I never really did though.
You know what, I tend to discount half price buildings when evaluating traits in general. Mostly because most traits have a cheap building anyway, so it kind of balances out. Exp is good though because granary is the one building you always build, and org stands out because it has a lot of cheap buildings, to the point of the buildings being a significant benefit of org.
That's true of ind generally though, not particularly more true here. In theory with 2 civ teams there's more civs and therefore more ind going around, although it certainly didn't work out that way.
I entirely agree. Your impi-numidian combination is exactly the example I couldn't think of with two same-era units that are actually complementary. Actually not so different from my guess of Musketeers/Cataphracts, one increased movement unit and one improved cavalry. It's a particularly good though because it rescues a unit (numideans) which I normally consider nerfed compared to the base unit, but which in combination with impis suddenly becomes good again. Still, you did put all your eggs in one basket by picking two early game UUs, and it cost you in a way when an early attack didn't turn out to be the correct choice.
Although I was more than happy to just take over Rome/Netherlands lands for myself and eliminate them, Grant made an interesting counter offer. The offer was a vassalisation (although not one supported by game mechanics, as that was disabled), and co-operation in turning my armies around against France/Ethiopia. Grant would gift me Praetorians for this war, then research towards Astronomy with plans to then build a fleet of the Netherlands UU. The keshiks had been busy, but our main melee stacks had never clashed, and combining them together would make quite a mighty force.
We spent a lot of time thinking this through. We made a counter offer to absorb both the Rome/Netherlands cities and Grant himself into the England/Mongolia team, to leave Grant in charge of his cities but combine the research rather than leaving it split between the two teams, but Grant wasn't happy with this idea on the whole (in hindsight I also wonder whether other players would have considered it an illegitimate deal?). I accounted for the fact that although I had always pushed for peace with them, I had made no binding agreements with France/Ethiopia. In the end, as good as Grant's land was, the idea of owning the whole continent was somewhat appealing.
I gave Grant quite a bit of land, claiming only the jungle belt and leaving most of his original land to him. This was to try and keep him relevant, motivated and useful. Also I would take a while to settle what I had, so more of the southern lands were hardly needed, at least in the short term.
Of course, France/Ethiopia, which was just BLubmuz at this stage, was not happy about the situation. My biggest regret in fact in this game was how much I upset BLubmuz with all this. He'd seen my diplomacy as pushing for peace, and saw this as a huge backstabbing. Although I'll conceed it was a backstabbing, I did stick to my own code of ethics in not breaking a formal deal and not technically even actually lying about anything - although I did certainly change my mind somewhat. We'd never formally agreed to anything, all I'd got back from him in response to my argument for co-operation was a message along the lines of "Sounds good, I'll see what hell_hound thinks", which he never followed up on (partly because hell_hound had disappeared as it turned out).
The trouble is BLubmuz didn't really see it that way. From his perspective, I'd made a big speech about peace, and he'd agreed with it. The difference between this and a formal agreement is rather technical, especially for a non-native English speaker. And whether it was technically breaching anything or not, it's always going to upset you when someone you expect to be your ally and who has convinced you they don't want to go to war suddenly turns up on your door with two massive stacks of units that you have no good answer to.
On the whole I still think what I did was fair game and part of the pitfalls of diplomacy. But I could have handled it better and I'm sincerely sorry that I basically put BLubmuz off multiplayer entirely.
Being as upset as he was, after the second stack appeared over the hills BLubmuz basically rage quit. He disbanded all of his units, leaving me to capture the cities as fast as I can move to them. I never really understood this move. In the same situation I'd have put up as big a fight as I could have, and made the conquest as difficult and costly as possible. Maybe he wanted to deny me the unit experience points? In any case that was how it went and I couldn't do much about it even if I'd wanted to.
We spent a lot of time thinking this through. We made a counter offer to absorb both the Rome/Netherlands cities and Grant himself into the England/Mongolia team, to leave Grant in charge of his cities but combine the research rather than leaving it split between the two teams, but Grant wasn't happy with this idea on the whole (in hindsight I also wonder whether other players would have considered it an illegitimate deal?). I accounted for the fact that although I had always pushed for peace with them, I had made no binding agreements with France/Ethiopia. In the end, as good as Grant's land was, the idea of owning the whole continent was somewhat appealing.
I gave Grant quite a bit of land, claiming only the jungle belt and leaving most of his original land to him. This was to try and keep him relevant, motivated and useful. Also I would take a while to settle what I had, so more of the southern lands were hardly needed, at least in the short term.
Of course, France/Ethiopia, which was just BLubmuz at this stage, was not happy about the situation. My biggest regret in fact in this game was how much I upset BLubmuz with all this. He'd seen my diplomacy as pushing for peace, and saw this as a huge backstabbing. Although I'll conceed it was a backstabbing, I did stick to my own code of ethics in not breaking a formal deal and not technically even actually lying about anything - although I did certainly change my mind somewhat. We'd never formally agreed to anything, all I'd got back from him in response to my argument for co-operation was a message along the lines of "Sounds good, I'll see what hell_hound thinks", which he never followed up on (partly because hell_hound had disappeared as it turned out).
The trouble is BLubmuz didn't really see it that way. From his perspective, I'd made a big speech about peace, and he'd agreed with it. The difference between this and a formal agreement is rather technical, especially for a non-native English speaker. And whether it was technically breaching anything or not, it's always going to upset you when someone you expect to be your ally and who has convinced you they don't want to go to war suddenly turns up on your door with two massive stacks of units that you have no good answer to.
On the whole I still think what I did was fair game and part of the pitfalls of diplomacy. But I could have handled it better and I'm sincerely sorry that I basically put BLubmuz off multiplayer entirely.
Being as upset as he was, after the second stack appeared over the hills BLubmuz basically rage quit. He disbanded all of his units, leaving me to capture the cities as fast as I can move to them. I never really understood this move. In the same situation I'd have put up as big a fight as I could have, and made the conquest as difficult and costly as possible. Maybe he wanted to deny me the unit experience points? In any case that was how it went and I couldn't do much about it even if I'd wanted to.
BLubmuz
HoF Quattromaster
Irgy, i'm reading your write ups with interest. Now you call me, i answer.
First, i jumped in this game to see how MP can be. The Civs were already chosen by others and not much room was left for last minute jumpers.
So i find myself playing with a trait-UB-UU civ very weak for the early game, so very weak, dot.
But i wish to try to learn the mechanics and usually, once i take something it's a commitment.
For what i remember, short after we meet, you made a proposal which i accepted under condition that hell hound agreed too. Then you renewed that proposal and by that time hell hound disappeared.
The war with the Maya AI went not so good as expected, since someone logged and did something (don't know what) before to leave Maya to the AI.
But, seen the impressive score of LP, the decent amount of land where i could expand and your maybe not official (but i don't know what makes a peace agreement official in MP. our messages weren't enough?) i went for peaceful techs, like currency, CoL and so on and not even researched contruction until very late.
So, i was peacefully playing my game, thinking you was busy somewhere West of me and planning my expansion, when i saw your stacks. This has scared me and seeing English Praetorians more. I could not understand what happened with Grant, less if he was still playing with his civs.
What i surely understood was that your peaceful messages were only a way to cheat an unexperienced MP player. (yes, despite my great experience in solo games and some good achievement i played i think no more than 4 hours in MP).
I also was a bit (maybe more than this) frustrated by hell hound defection and to play with 2 civs i would have never chosen, the less paired together.
So i could not counter your stacks. They simply were too much. One would have been enough, i was building structures, my units were roughly 2 per city, i wasn't even running slavery.
I did not took it well, no. If you messaged me just asking for OB i would have played quite different, but it was too late. The worst thing i thought of was to deny you the GG points. So i deleted all my units, the GSpy and the GS included. I did not even bothered to use the GSpy for a GAge. I simply was too scared. Also in the few MP games (but with all the players on line) i've seen some way to cheat, using the timer to make double (or even more, i think) moves and other ways i don't like.
So, i prefer to stay in solo, at least i avoid this kind of troubles.
First, i jumped in this game to see how MP can be. The Civs were already chosen by others and not much room was left for last minute jumpers.
So i find myself playing with a trait-UB-UU civ very weak for the early game, so very weak, dot.
But i wish to try to learn the mechanics and usually, once i take something it's a commitment.
For what i remember, short after we meet, you made a proposal which i accepted under condition that hell hound agreed too. Then you renewed that proposal and by that time hell hound disappeared.
The war with the Maya AI went not so good as expected, since someone logged and did something (don't know what) before to leave Maya to the AI.
But, seen the impressive score of LP, the decent amount of land where i could expand and your maybe not official (but i don't know what makes a peace agreement official in MP. our messages weren't enough?) i went for peaceful techs, like currency, CoL and so on and not even researched contruction until very late.
So, i was peacefully playing my game, thinking you was busy somewhere West of me and planning my expansion, when i saw your stacks. This has scared me and seeing English Praetorians more. I could not understand what happened with Grant, less if he was still playing with his civs.
What i surely understood was that your peaceful messages were only a way to cheat an unexperienced MP player. (yes, despite my great experience in solo games and some good achievement i played i think no more than 4 hours in MP).
I also was a bit (maybe more than this) frustrated by hell hound defection and to play with 2 civs i would have never chosen, the less paired together.
So i could not counter your stacks. They simply were too much. One would have been enough, i was building structures, my units were roughly 2 per city, i wasn't even running slavery.
I did not took it well, no. If you messaged me just asking for OB i would have played quite different, but it was too late. The worst thing i thought of was to deny you the GG points. So i deleted all my units, the GSpy and the GS included. I did not even bothered to use the GSpy for a GAge. I simply was too scared. Also in the few MP games (but with all the players on line) i've seen some way to cheat, using the timer to make double (or even more, i think) moves and other ways i don't like.
So, i prefer to stay in solo, at least i avoid this kind of troubles.
azzaman333
meh
I wasn't too sure of the mechanics of city gifting, and I'm still not entirely sure how they work, but I did gift a couple across after building quick Granaries. I'd definitely investigate it further if I were to participate in a team game in the future. Especially the effects of culture/culture buildings, which would greatly effect the benefit of CRE.
The most frustrating part was if I'd started in almost any other position it would've likely worked out. Instead I get vast open lands with my impis so far away from everyone.
Culture is never lost, but it's only ever owned by the civ that created it. So if you gift an English city with English culture to Mongolia, then it starts with no Mongolian culture. Although, unlike conquest, it still has the culture buildings. And if it's later gifted back, it still has the English culture. That's my understanding anyway.
We knew of Lord Parkin's rough location from early on because the original France/Maya player had mentioned contact with him. We had spotted land on the other side of a water gap with early exploration, and figured that would be where we could find him. We could tell from civ stats if nothing else that he'd wiped out the France half of France/Maya (which was incidentally the only industrious civ other than Inca), and seemed to have control of that piece of land. He had been wonder-spamming like mad and had a ridiculous lead on the scoreboard. As such, we were rather afraid of him. The turn I finally got a galley over and made contact, I moved the galley back to avoid him seeing where it had even come from.
Contact with Lord Parkin brought us to the third (and final really) major decision for the game. On the one hand I could do the right thing by the rest of the players in the game and attack the runaway leader with my large, if becoming out of date, military force. On the other hand, I could become a minion, creating an alliance which would basically doom the rest of the players, with hopes to turn the tables on him at the end of the game.
Lord Parkin himself said this is the most likely point that I could change what I did to potentially have won the game. It is true that I had a large military at this stage, and with my war opponent rage-quitting, although the units weren't experienced they were still in good shape. Lord Parkin himself had a bare-bones skeleton of a military, having barely enouch quechas to even garrison all of his cities. The big killer to any war plans I might have had however was the naval situation. I needed to use boats to get across the small water gap. However, all I had was a single galley, and even that had been a painful struggle to finish constructing. I had barely a coastal city to speak of, and only gained one more from capturing France/Ethiopia's cities. Rome/Netherlands could build ships, but they weren't in good shape themselves, and the ships would still have taken forever to arrive.
So the fact is, that by the time I could have even transported my units across the water, Lord Parkin would have had plenty of time to be better prepared. Even without that delay I think I'd have struggled, as although I had a lot of units, Lord Parkin had a lot of cities, and far superior technology - which would only become more so if I didn't concentrate on getting my economy going. He'd likely have had crossbows and his own catapults by the time I could cross the water, and While I might have gained a few cities with surprise and initial numbers, they'd have torn my army to shreds before I could have significantly crippled him.
On the other hand, the other thing I had was plenty of good land to myself on this continent. Once I could settle and develop it, this much land ought to have been enough to eventually catch me up in technology. Owning land that was originally assigned to 6 different civilisations, I should have had twice as much land as Lord Parkin, and eventually that should have turned into an advantage. Of course what I didn't know at the time was that Lord Parkin's continent of 3 civs was almost as big as my own continent of 7, and blessed with fertile grassland and gold while much of the "extra" land area I did have was the tundra wasteland.
On the whole though, the need for peace to get my land developed and economy going, the long term land advantage that I thought I had, the military technology lag and the lack of ships all pointed towards taking the minion option, and that is what I did. On the whole I still think it was the right choice. I think I had plenty of potential opportunities to turn things around on Lord Parkin, and gave myself much better odds than I'd have had in war.
And so, I decided to co-operate, which Lord Parkin was happy with, and eventually agreed to the rather ridiculous NAP lasting until "All other players have been eliminated, or one of us is 20 turns from a victory condition".
Contact with Lord Parkin brought us to the third (and final really) major decision for the game. On the one hand I could do the right thing by the rest of the players in the game and attack the runaway leader with my large, if becoming out of date, military force. On the other hand, I could become a minion, creating an alliance which would basically doom the rest of the players, with hopes to turn the tables on him at the end of the game.
Lord Parkin himself said this is the most likely point that I could change what I did to potentially have won the game. It is true that I had a large military at this stage, and with my war opponent rage-quitting, although the units weren't experienced they were still in good shape. Lord Parkin himself had a bare-bones skeleton of a military, having barely enouch quechas to even garrison all of his cities. The big killer to any war plans I might have had however was the naval situation. I needed to use boats to get across the small water gap. However, all I had was a single galley, and even that had been a painful struggle to finish constructing. I had barely a coastal city to speak of, and only gained one more from capturing France/Ethiopia's cities. Rome/Netherlands could build ships, but they weren't in good shape themselves, and the ships would still have taken forever to arrive.
So the fact is, that by the time I could have even transported my units across the water, Lord Parkin would have had plenty of time to be better prepared. Even without that delay I think I'd have struggled, as although I had a lot of units, Lord Parkin had a lot of cities, and far superior technology - which would only become more so if I didn't concentrate on getting my economy going. He'd likely have had crossbows and his own catapults by the time I could cross the water, and While I might have gained a few cities with surprise and initial numbers, they'd have torn my army to shreds before I could have significantly crippled him.
On the other hand, the other thing I had was plenty of good land to myself on this continent. Once I could settle and develop it, this much land ought to have been enough to eventually catch me up in technology. Owning land that was originally assigned to 6 different civilisations, I should have had twice as much land as Lord Parkin, and eventually that should have turned into an advantage. Of course what I didn't know at the time was that Lord Parkin's continent of 3 civs was almost as big as my own continent of 7, and blessed with fertile grassland and gold while much of the "extra" land area I did have was the tundra wasteland.
On the whole though, the need for peace to get my land developed and economy going, the long term land advantage that I thought I had, the military technology lag and the lack of ships all pointed towards taking the minion option, and that is what I did. On the whole I still think it was the right choice. I think I had plenty of potential opportunities to turn things around on Lord Parkin, and gave myself much better odds than I'd have had in war.
And so, I decided to co-operate, which Lord Parkin was happy with, and eventually agreed to the rather ridiculous NAP lasting until "All other players have been eliminated, or one of us is 20 turns from a victory condition".
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