Civ Rev Video Archive by dukeblue1987

[elthrasher]

It's okay. I won the 3 that counted last month

Oh, back in your glory days? Well, you can share a yarn with the other old-timers on a park bench somewhere. That's worth something.

[elthrasher]

Some of your points were mentioned in the video. The horsearmy tactic you mentioned would have been brilliant. I didn't even know that a flipped unit had movement before then, so it didn't even cross my mind. I'm still not even sure how the flipped movement works, as the HA only had 1 tile of movement.

That was really weird. Usually when a city is flipped, the army inside has no movement. I can't think of why that army would have an extra move since I had to move two tiles to even attack that city. That army wasn't elite, right?

My last army had march. I was waiting for you to come for it. I was going to try to pull back and get the drop on you like that.

[Grayson]

Good analysis, but here's where you are wrong. I got a really good deal for that 250 gold. I cost my opponent about 10 turns of teching and building settlers. Seeing as how the game had only been running around 35 turns at that point, that's pretty crucial. Without that, I have no hope here at all. I actually probably had better land, but that didn't really matter as you can see Duke never fills up his, just as I never fill up mine. Duke got two caps and could easily get to 20 trade (Hanging Gardens helped him here). I couldn't do that with my one cap.

So what happens if I don't press Duke like this? He beats me to CoL by five or more turns and has more cities to expand from. Basically I have no shot if that happens.

I wasn't saying you were losing. I knew you won before I watched the video. I was just stating the mindset I would have had after a very enjoyable clip. I would have felt like I had at least a good shot at winning the game, and felt a lot better at that point in the game that I would have several turns earlier, seeing the Aztecs with 7c, 3 vet HAs, and pretty much a two city front that's spamming units with empty cities to the south.

You obviously spent your time wisely, as many players that show up with that kind of an attack, don't have any more cards to show. I can see how you were hoping that your press would make him burn gold and turns, but at the same time, you must have been hoping for more out of the 3 HAs than just some gold and time burnt, as after those 10 turns, you were left with a single HA, and he took one of yours. If you had been playing almost anyone other than Duke, there would have been a lot more gained out of that equation.

[dukeblue1987]

One thing that I have definitely noticed from recording games is that when you go back and watch games that you have played, you are not nearly as good as you think you are. At least not on a technical level. I'm sure Grayson noticed the same thing. When I used to watch Grayson's video, I could go on and on about how I would have done this better, or that better, etc. Actually doing everything perfect real time is much harder than it looks. Luckily, strategy often trumps technicality in this game. Just my 2 cents.

[elthrasher]

You obviously spent your time wisely, as many players that show up with that kind of an attack, don't have any more cards to show. I can see how you were hoping that your press would make him burn gold and turns, but at the same time, you must have been hoping for more out of the 3 HAs than just some gold and time burnt, as after those 10 turns, you were left with a single HA, and he took one of yours. If you had been playing almost anyone other than Duke, there would have been a lot more gained out of that equation.

I was hoping for more out of those horse armies when I built them, sure. But by the time I finally found Duke, I knew that actually winning his cities was unlikely. I was hoping that maybe I'd kill any of his armies, probably losing one or two of mine in the process and then further hamper his expansion with the remaining army. I didn't really expect that though. I expected pretty much what I got. That's why you don't see me charging in with all three armies at the start.

[Grayson]

definitely not getting Literacy was a really bad bullet to bite for the Egyptians in that game though. Usually COL really helps just as much or more for them, but losing out on the Literacy race (which is almost the same deal as the COL race) was more of a pain.

But, yeah, in that situation, I can agree with Duke and Thrasher about not getting Nav in that game. That map and what went on in the game, it really just didn't set up for anything useful. Expansion via Nav wasn't needed, Without a close and visible Atlantis, it probably wouldn't be worth the time.

It's really hard to see what Thrasher has in this game, as the map really didn't get uncovered much throughout most of it.

But, still, a few turns on tech for Nav couldn't have been terrible. What was terrible was Duke's moves in part 3. Not downright awful, as he said, he had a good strategy or overall blueprint, but some individual moves were pretty slow. He did methodically expand well to get up over 100 trade, but could have spent a few turns less on gold maybe, and a few less turns all out expanding. Though, his setup wasn't terrible.

A few really glaring errors in part 3 as far as units, giving up the HA for nothing to try and take that small city, which he saw coming with his militia and other units forever. Worthless city, and took away any might you had to the north. The two galleon drops were pretty bad too. I'm not a huge fan of the "I'll leave a city open with units around it" tactic, as anyone who has watched my games knows. Sometimes I do it. But, then you still left your cities open. With some techs that he didn't have in hand, and some gold in hand as well, that's not a good call for me. the GS spawing north was unlucky and pretty funny how that clip ended. But, it still could have been a very competitive game had this not happened.

I guess I don't get the full picture still on why Nav could have been a purely awful move. The race was on for oxford. But, still, there's plenty of open cities, Atlantis, and it actually did help gain a foothold in this game. Galleons add new tactics. Nav is a deadend on the tech tree, I know. But, still, 120 beakers isn't a biggie for its potential returns in my book.

Yes, a few tweeks to the either players tech pattern in hindsight could have helped get to Demo-inv-uni-indust a little faster, but there's many many factors that are involved in a close games between two good players that have time to expand, have units to fight with, and neither one is just outright dominating.

A very very good game. It could have swayed many ways, and it was very interesting to watch, as both the Aztecs and Egyptians don't really get better into the game, no huge swings in bonuses or anything. So, it was always going to be pure moves after the intial smoke had cleared.

Is there a part 4? Or is this all there is worth to show?

[dukeblue1987]

Is there a part 4? Or is this all there is worth to show?

That was it. Game went on for another 45 minutes or so, but its honestly not exciting one bit. Just me building fighters for no reason and most of them dying to knights, pikeman, archers, etc. I definately learned that fighters have 0% chance against industrialization bonus.

[Grayson]

I was hoping for more out of those horse armies when I built them, sure. But by the time I finally found Duke, I knew that actually winning his cities was unlikely. I was hoping that maybe I'd kill any of his armies, probably losing one or two of mine in the process and then further hamper his expansion with the remaining army. I didn't really expect that though. I expected pretty much what I got. That's why you don't see me charging in with all three armies at the start.

smart moves.

It would have been very cool to see your end of things. It's very easy to make assumptions based on one players map. You couldn't see his cities to the south, but the whole time, it just looked like if you could somehow break through that city to the southeast, not having to take or hold it, just get around it, it would have really broke him, and surely broken the front.

But, what did you have at that point? how many cities? How did you build up your end of things? From duke's end, it looked like you had put so much into those HAs, that you may have been strapped to expand well, even if you were able to win the race to COL. It just seemed like you could have pushed out an intial 5 cities or so, but then had to slowly build up gold to expand. But, I'm sure you got plenty of gold from huts and barbs outside of 7c.

I can sometimes make dumb mistakes with the Aztecs with my eyes a little too wide in the early game, and then stagnate when its time to start to expand and work trade more. You obviously did a lot right, but in that situation, my most likely paths would have gone like this:
1. put too much gold into HAs, and left myself with little later
2. put too much into expansion, and let the other guy have too much time
3. half-assed both rushing and expansion, and am left with little pressure, and dumb expansion.

[dukeblue1987]

smart moves.

It would have been very cool to see your end of things. It's very easy to make assumptions based on one players map. You couldn't see his cities to the south, but the whole time, it just looked like if you could somehow break through that city to the southeast, not having to take or hold it, just get around it, it would have really broke him, and surely broken the front.

But, what did you have at that point? how many cities? How did you build up your end of things? From duke's end, it looked like you had put so much into those HAs, that you may have been strapped to expand well, even if you were able to win the race to COL. It just seemed like you could have pushed out an intial 5 cities or so, but then had to slowly build up gold to expand. But, I'm sure you got plenty of gold from huts and barbs outside of 7c.

I can sometimes make dumb mistakes with the Aztecs with my eyes a little too wide in the early game, and then stagnate when its time to start to expand and work trade more. You obviously did a lot right, but in that situation, my most likely paths would have gone like this:
1. put too much gold into HAs, and left myself with little later
2. put too much into expansion, and let the other guy have too much time
3. half-assed both rushing and expansion, and am left with little pressure, and dumb expansion.

Let think of what Thrasher had compared to me.

We both probably built 1 HA from our first huts/hammer.

He got 7 cities for 200 gold. That is 5 more horses. Evens out.

I got 2 cap and had HGB. He got 1 cap.

I think the difference here was he had 3 horse armies roaming around to get barbs. I had 1. That is a lot more gold for him I would assume. The turns he pressed me at the very least evened out the extra cap.

Against average Joe, I'm winning. Against a great player like Thrasher, I knew I was losing. Ranked gives you such a false misconception of what is really going on. That is just another reason why I don't play ranked games.

[Mawpawk]

magnificent job duke, thoroughly enjoyed them videos,much easier watching with voice over,what a lucky break 4 the aztecs! i wonder what else thrasher had on that boat? was there an AA dropped in the first city? he musta grabbed all them singles you forced him 2 build,id like 2 see the end

[dukeblue1987]

One more thing I forgot to mention. If I were Thrasher, I probably would NOT have attacked with the 3 horsearmies once I saw the choke area I had with the hill. I would have waited for that galley to sail around and load up my horses. Then he could have gotten all 3 horsearmies into my open territory and easily won the game.

Of course, I don't know exactly what his map looked like, and he didn't know mine. Therefore, it is unfair to criticize too harshly. As I've said repeatedly, I use a lot of galleys.

On a side note, I'm glad that these videos are generating good gameplay discussion. I think we've talked just about every aspect of this game to death over the last few years. Specific examples are always fresh though. That's the great thing about CivRev.

[elthrasher]

definitely not getting Literacy was a really bad bullet to bite for the Egyptians in that game though.

This is exactly why pressing like I did was so important. I finished CoL while the horse wars were going on, expanded a little and had Literacy before Duke had a real shot of getting it (unless he wanted to further delay expansion). There was no Literacy race. It was mine when I wanted it.

It's really hard to see what Thrasher has in this game, as the map really didn't get uncovered much throughout most of it.

I had about the same amount of cities by the end. I gave my tech path several posts up. At the time of the horse wars, I had just three cities and was teching at 12 beakers per turn. I had pretty much broken the bank buying all those horses because that would have been game if Duke had been a little closer. I find him 5 turns earlier and he's just doomed. Nobody survives three Aztec horse armies that early.

But, still, a few turns on tech for Nav couldn't have been terrible.

But it almost was. You can see how fast the game moves once we both start expanding. How much growth am I going to get off a whale? Zilch. Yes, I basically win the game by rushing in with a galleon, but it could have been a galley. That would have made the same thing happen sooner. Or I could have let Duke have his scientist and totally beat him to Industrialization by like 10 turns. Then what would he do? This is far more solid play. He very well might have beaten me if his scientist had spawned in Kyoto. That's with me making all the exact same moves.

But, what did you have at that point? how many cities? How did you build up your end of things? From duke's end, it looked like you had put so much into those HAs, that you may have been strapped to expand well, even if you were able to win the race to COL. It just seemed like you could have pushed out an intial 5 cities or so, but then had to slowly build up gold to expand. But, I'm sure you got plenty of gold from huts and barbs outside of 7c.

No, not a whole lot. I think it would have been a really poor game for me without the Seven Cities. I wasn't close to any AI and I had a whole subcontinent I ran horses around on that basically had 1-2 huts on it. It took a while to explore that and I found nothing, or at least nothing worth the expense of buying the army.

You see some of my turf from Duke's galley. The galley eventually rounds a peninsula and heads south. I put my 100 gold city on that peninsula and built an army there, but there was just nothing over there. Lots of time lost.

magnificent job duke, thoroughly enjoyed them videos,much easier watching with voice over,what a lucky break 4 the aztecs! i wonder what else thrasher had on that boat? was there an AA dropped in the first city? he musta grabbed all them singles you forced him 2 build,id like 2 see the end

That boat had an archer army, an archer, my march horse army and a non-vet legion army. I know. Kinda weak, but Duke didn't really have anything. My horse army killed Duke's, but then a fighter wing got it, ha. The legion army took that city to the south of Moscow. Then I rushed some horses and took a few more cities before he forced peace.

One more thing I forgot to mention. If I were Thrasher, I probably would NOT have attacked with the 3 horsearmies once I saw the choke area I had with the hill. I would have waited for that galley to sail around and load up my horses. Then he could have gotten all 3 horsearmies into my open territory and easily won the game.

Yeah, that would have been a good move. I think I went over the choke because I didn't want you sending armies at me through that choke and hitting my soft underbelly. That was probably dumb and overly cautious, but I didn't have any cities close enough to move archers over. I guess one horse army watching the choke and two on a boat would have been the best solution there.

[Grayson]

One thing that I have definitely noticed from recording games is that when you go back and watch games that you have played, you are not nearly as good as you think you are. At least not on a technical level. I'm sure Grayson noticed the same thing. When I used to watch Grayson's video, I could go on and on about how I would have done this better, or that better, etc. Actually doing everything perfect real time is much harder than it looks. Luckily, strategy often trumps technicality in this game. Just my 2 cents.

yup, putting yourself out there for all to see is a strange experience. It's real easy for anyone to hit pause, and rewind, and look at future things happening. If we were seeing the games in real time, there would be loads of bad suggestions.

But, I like the analysis. It's something we've not been able to do in the past, other than writing up our games. I know when I write up games, I sometimes have a hard time verbalizing or forget key parts. Video provides a nice extra level. It's not like chess, where you can easily write down the moves, and have others and a computer to analyze all your moves. But, it's a great deal. Thank for posting your videos. Keep em coming. It's nice to see something online other than my own games, which I don't really like to watch.

[Zefelius]

Okay, so I thought it would be an easy win when I got the Seven Cities so early, but it took me a while to find Duke. We just weren't close. He'd taken two caps by the time I found him. That means he would be dug in and means that I probably wouldn't beat him without some luck (his horse army loses while attacking mine, I get Fundamentalism somehow, etc.). I wasn't there to kill him. I knew I wouldn't. I was there to press him and make him burn gold and time. So what's the rush? I moved forward and back to 1) scout the area, 2) possibly draw an attack and 3) waste more time. Time, time, time, it's on my side. Yes it is.

Well, it was until I didn't follow the direct path to bombers. Then things got tricky.

Great answer...

As both you and Duke agree that 7C forced him to build up his defenses, is it possible that you could have arrived at his frontline, checked it out, and let it go at that since your main mission was accomplished, i.e., compelling him to put gold into archers?

You yourself said you weren't trying to win that battle, or at least it wasn't your overriding priority. If true, then why not keep those 3 HAs for further psychological terror? Maybe you pull back, and then Duke doesn't know if you put them on a galley to the south or not. Now he has to continually be on the lookout.

I suppose then he might come after you if you put them all on a galley. But then again, he doesn't know what you've done, and perhaps you merely bring them back---or maybe one goes back (akin to what you ended up doing anyway), and the other two are sent elsewhere.

Okay, final question guys. What if Thrasher bluffs the horse rush? What if he doesn't make 3 HAs. Would Duke still have made all of those archers? Could Thrasher have expanded and teched even more quickly? Just curious as to what you guys think!

[dukeblue1987]

Great answer...

As both you and Duke agree that 7C forced him to build up his defenses, is it possible that you could have arrived at his frontline, checked it out, and let it go at that since your main mission was accomplished, i.e., compelling him to put gold into archers?

You yourself said you weren't trying to win that battle, or at least it wasn't your overriding priority. If true, then why not keep those 3 HAs for further psychological terror? Maybe you pull back, and then Duke doesn't know if you put them on a galley to the south or not. Now he has to continually be on the lookout.

I suppose then he might come after you if you put them all on a galley. But then again, he doesn't know what you've done, and perhaps you merely bring them back---or maybe one goes back (akin to what you ended up doing anyway), and the other two are sent elsewhere.

Okay, final question guys. What if Thrasher bluffs the horse rush? What if he doesn't make 3 HAs. Would Duke still have made all of those archers? Could Thrasher have expanded and teched even more quickly? Just curious as to what you guys think!

Great stuff here Zef!

I kind of alluded to this when I said I thought Thrasher should have put his horses on a galley. Would have I made 6 archers? No, of course not. Maybe 2 or 3 on my front line. I probably would have rushed a couple archers from the southern cities to put on the coast as scouts. The main thing here is that he showed me his 3 horse armies. That was all he really needed to accomplish. It was important for him to A. Get to COL first so I don't get the trading post and B. Get the literacy bonus.

Would he have accomplished both A and B if he had retreated? Hard to say. Probably not. But he could have won the game had he loaded up a galley and guessed correctly on where my cities were.

At the time, he felt that he needed to slow me down just enough to gain the advantage. I would say he did that. Had I not gotten the GA, I'm 100% sure there would have been button races involved to decided if the horses would have ended the game.

Again, great post Zef.

[elthrasher]

As both you and Duke agree that 7C forced him to build up his defenses, is it possible that you could have arrived at his frontline, checked it out, and let it go at that since your main mission was accomplished, i.e., compelling him to put gold into archers?

If I don't kill any archers, then he doesn't build any more archers. No, every turn I can wring out of him is a little victory. If I'd just headed out, he would have switched back to tech faster.

You yourself said you weren't trying to win that battle, or at least it wasn't your overriding priority. If true, then why not keep those 3 HAs for further psychological terror? Maybe you pull back, and then Duke doesn't know if you put them on a galley to the south or not. Now he has to continually be on the lookout.

Yeah, doing something with the galley would have been better. Running over the choke maybe wasn't the best plan. Of course if I put them all on a galley, he might have got his own galley and tried for the 1-1 battle. That's always risky.

Okay, final question guys. What if Thrasher bluffs the horse rush? What if he doesn't make 3 HAs. Would Duke still have made all of those archers? Could Thrasher have expanded and teched even more quickly? Just curious as to what you guys think!

If I'd known how far from me he was, I would have done this. Maybe one army to take the Zulu and keep watch. But even so, it would be hard to keep up with his tech and expansion since he had 5 cities easily to my 3. I count him as having 5 easy cities due to the Hanging Gardens making it easier to pull a settler out of Thebes. I know I could grow and expand in ancient, but I didn't know how remote my location was so why would I build anything other than horses until I learned this? By the time I figured out the map, the best thing to do was slow-tech to CoL (I started early fortunately) and start expanding.

[Zefelius]

Great stuff here Zef!

I kind of alluded to this when I said I thought Thrasher should have put his horses on a galley.

Ha! Didn't realize I was subconsciously stealing your ideas!

[dukeblue1987]

Here are the videos of my first game in the Round Robin Tournament against Dan!

Here are the videos of my first game against Dan.

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T--RnKi3syY
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ-Sz4SIYfE
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqeMtHniQgY

Played around with the audio for probably 2 hours. I need to remember to enunciate a little more clearly while I play!

Enjoy!

[TyShine]

Here are the videos of my first game in the Round Robin Tournament against Dan!

Here are the videos of my first game against Dan.

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T--RnKi3syY
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ-Sz4SIYfE
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqeMtHniQgY

Played around with the audio for probably 2 hours. I need to remember to enunciate a little more clearly while I play!

Enjoy!

Ive seen that map before. The weird land bridge makes it memorable. Easy win, and I liked that you made a point to play technically sound.

[Grayson]

seems like it was a little tough at times to do real time commentary, but I like it. At some points, it seems like you were distracted by having to talk while you were playing, which may have led to some in-turn mistakes, but most of the time, you corrected it and pointed it out in real time. I liked it. It was a realistic real time commentary, and I'm sure you'll get more used to it. I'll comment more on the game when I watch it again.

[Zefelius]

I think Dan predicted Egypt with CoR v Japan. Ha! Didn't Mawpawk get it as well v Grayson? There goes all the good luck!!

[dukeblue1987]

seems like it was a little tough at times to do real time commentary, but I like it. At some points, it seems like you were distracted by having to talk while you were playing, which may have led to some in-turn mistakes, but most of the time, you corrected it and pointed it out in real time. I liked it. It was a realistic real time commentary, and I'm sure you'll get more used to it. I'll comment more on the game when I watch it again.

I think the biggest problem is that it makes me play slower. And I already play slow to begin with. There were a few times where I ran out of time I think. I'm sure that I'll get better with practice.

I know there was one point were Dan said he thought he could have gotten a walk in on Thebes but his unit wouldn't unload properly. Not sure what year it was, but I know my Knight was close to Thebes. Not sure if it was in attacking distance or not. Really, it would have been pretty crappy city for him. No water tiles. My game might have even better better with hanging gardens because I could have gotten the HA out quicker. COL played little role in that game.

Oh, and I've found a new place to upload videos to youtube! I can upload on campus during class super fast. A 15 minute video only takes 5 minutes. Much better than the 30-45 minutes it takes at my house. Now I just need to figure out how to cut down the 75 min render per 15 min video time.

[ScottieX]

I think the biggest problem is that it makes me play slower. And I already play slow to begin with. There were a few times where I ran out of time I think. I'm sure that I'll get better with practice.

I know there was one point were Dan said he thought he could have gotten a walk in on Thebes but his unit wouldn't unload properly. Not sure what year it was, but I know my Knight was close to Thebes. Not sure if it was in attacking distance or not. Really, it would have been pretty crappy city for him. No water tiles. My game might have even better better with hanging gardens because I could have gotten the HA out quicker. COL played little role in that game.

I believe you were not close enough.
that turn that you contacted him but you requested his presence and he probably couldn't complete his double move. if you went to the city you might have been able to rush a unit in time. you actually revealed his galley on that next turn (the red X) sitting on the sea tile east of your cap which must have been there previous turn. your Kt was two squares too far away. I suppose Kt plus HA would retake it easily but that delays your extra cap.

you could have also gone for ending diplo fast and rushing a unit.

[elthrasher]

I know there was one point were Dan said he thought he could have gotten a walk in on Thebes but his unit wouldn't unload properly. Not sure what year it was, but I know my Knight was close to Thebes. Not sure if it was in attacking distance or not. Really, it would have been pretty crappy city for him. No water tiles.

Dan taking Thebes gives you -8 culture per turn and him +3 culture per turn for a total swing of 11 culture. If he holds it, you never get the first GP while he gets his faster. He gets an artist, and I think you're really in trouble. Thebes had lots of production. You don't want a trade city in the middle of enemy territory. It's a good city for him. I think him taking and holding it would have been pretty huge.

Now how you managed to pull off the slowest double-move in the history of this game is another question.

I think I prefer it when you add commentary after the game because you can speed up the boring parts, but I suppose that makes more work for you.

[danthechan]

heres my take on it, pasted from the tourney thread.

seems like a blowout, but i believe this game was very winnable for a better tactician. i settled on about the 4th turn with 60 gold. i rushed a warrior and set to hbr. moving forward i had 2 horses, east and west, that took barbs on the same turn. the east got blitz and found madrid about 6 horse days from kyoto. the west revealed an empty thebes with hills next to it. i had about 120 gold at this time. what to do? i rushed horses the next 2 turns, then a galley on the 3rd. on the 4th i made a huge mistake by waiting until late in the clock to drop the militia. by the time the diplomacy cleared it was too late to land the horses and warrior. it gave him time to get his knight back into position. after i didn't get it quick he was always going to be able to rush units to hold me off until he killed my HA. even if i pulled it off and snuck in it would have been very hard to hold.
what i should have done was, take a deep breath, and then continue on to madrid with a blitz HA. maybe 10-12 turns later i might have come back at him with a galleon, 2 HA's, and maybe an AA. with that i could have done some damage, and hopefully got a free trading post for my trouble. any other ideas from the arm chair generals?
(btw, that wasn't anything tricky when i dropped off the archer. the start of turn my cursor moved back to kyoto and i was desperately trying to get back to the galley to protect my HA. instead i clicked on your city, next to it, which put us in diplomacy.)
edit: so sloppy. i can't believe i didn't discover that outlet to the top. i walked by it with my settler and for some reason thought it was lands end. not seeing you walk up on my 2nd city was lame. if i had kept that city i could have got the blitz HA over to thebes right about the time the game ended.

[elthrasher]

I think you had the right idea, but I would have tried for a simpler solution. The soonest you can grab his city, some of his gold, derail his horserush on the AI and generally cause trouble, the better. I would have rushed the galley first and tried taking Thebes with just a horse and a warrior or something. That leaves you with sufficient resources to go after Madrid, which, really, you have time to do. Get Thebes early and hold it, and that's probably game. Get Thebes early and make him devote massive resources to getting it back equalizes things in a big way.

When in doubt, attack your enemy. Don't leave a player like Duke to do as he will. You want to put units in his face constantly. If you let up, you yield control of the game.

[danthechan]

you're probably right, as i would have had at worst a 1.5 v 1.5 warrior battle for it. he would have diverted his HA and picked up the knight so holding it would be very tough.
i played thru what would have happened if i had simply dropped off my HA earlier in the turn we met. next turn i attack his rushed archer. if i do this before he rushes a 2nd the city is mine. he moves the knight to within 2 spaces. i move the warrior in to defend. next turn another race. if i get the HA back on the hill before his knight hits i'm keeping the city for a while. does he attack the warrior and then lose his knight to my HA? if he does then i'm weapons free in his land with a vet HA and a milita for a spotter. either way his plans are derailed and i can sell my galley and retake tokyo with a blitz HA. then on to madrid. i waited so deep in the turn to ensure he had no counters to move in if i showed my hand early. instead i went all plaxico and shot myself in the leg.

[TyShine]

Normally I would say go for Duke right away, but the AI was Spain. Nav plus Dukes play-style=Great opportunity for flanking.

[dukeblue1987]

Normally I would say go for Duke right away, but the AI was Spain. Nav plus Dukes play-style=Great opportunity for flanking.

Spain is my most feared non power civ by far. They are underrated in my opinion. And it's not like people think they are bad.

[dukeblue1987]

So heres the deal guys. I got a couple games against Zef from the RR tourney. The games aren't the best played, and they are pretty lengthy for the little amount of action that happens.

Do you want me to post all the tourney games or just the good ones? Also, I was doing live commentary on them. Do you guys like that? Or would you prefer it sped up so you can watch it quicker? I can do a commentary over the sped up game, or none at all.

Just trying to get some feedback so I know what you guys like.

[Zefelius]

I won't be offended if you don't show them. There's not much to learn in those games, considering how in each one the winner had excellent access to the main continent. In the first the loser was stuck on a thin, long, vertical peninsula-like monster. That player got an early cap, but was obviously slow to gold (his only hut giving him a vet warrior!). And there were also a couple of tactical mistakes in it that are pretty obvious (such as not guarding the seaway with a galley).

Interestingly enough, the loser of the second game also got a quick cap but hardly anything else--certainly no gold! In that game the winner was grabbing gold almost every turn, while the loser never even got to 100 by 1800. Just nothing he really could have done differently!

GGs Sir Duke

[sn1p3rk1ll3]

full length audio comments please

[danthechan]

yeah, you guys move fast enough. i'm not fond of the speeded up clips.

[TheMystic]

Just want to say danthechan great work, and excellent quality on those videos. What do you use to capture your 360 in HD if you don't mind me asking? Please keep up the great work, I'm almost tempted to jump back into Civ Rev! (Former #1 on the Civ Rev Ladder)

[dukeblue1987]

Just want to say danthechan great work, and excellent quality on those videos. What do you use to capture your 360 in HD if you don't mind me asking? Please keep up the great work, I'm almost tempted to jump back into Civ Rev! (Former #1 on the Civ Rev Ladder)

First off, I'm the one making the videos!

I use the Hauppauge PVR to record. Its about $200 and you can get it at Best Buy. This is the only way to capture in 100% true HD quality from what I understand. You can capture in 1080, but I do 720 because of file size. It already takes over an hour to render a 15 minute clip. For the voice recordings, I just use my Turtle Beach x11 Headset and then use Audacity to do some fancy (not really) audio cleanup. For the video editing I use Sony Vegas Pro 10.0. It gets the job done, but isn't very user friendly in my opinion. Maybe it's just because I'm new to it.

As for you coming back, it would be great! I'm sure the game would be much different now (against the top players at least). I know I made it to #1 on the leaderboard about a year ago and I know 10 times as much about the game now. You should join the next Round Robin Group!

[Zefelius]

In case you don't see my post in the other tourney thread, I just want to reiterate that I don't want the Mongol game shown, as I requested earlier in the week and just prior to our game. But if you show the second one I'd be willing to rescind my request (which was made when you asked us if we were okay with our games being put up on Youtube) simply to be fair and polite, as I wouldn't want you to have to only show the game in which you lost.

Thanks very much Duke...

[ShowtekGER]

i'd like to see all matches uploaded. those that end with a walk-in in the BCs are the ones that could be spared, otherwise i think i find everything interesting. the longer and closer, the better.

live commentary is awesome.

in my opinion, parts of videos can be boosted if you have to hammer something out in the BCs or so, i.e. when nothing happens and we have to wait. i don't think it's necessary, though, as you can always just fast-forward.

[Austinisreal]

I really like your videos(and Graysons). When do I get my chance to get on youtube?

[dukeblue1987]

I really like your videos(and Graysons). When do I get my chance to get on youtube?

Send me a friend request at dukblue1987 or RIP Nelson and you can have your chance!

In fact, anyone that is open tonight feel free to send me a message. I want to get some good competitive games uploaded. Quality over quantity.

[TheMystic]

First off, I'm the one making the videos!

I use the Hauppauge PVR to record. Its about $200 and you can get it at Best Buy. This is the only way to capture in 100% true HD quality from what I understand. You can capture in 1080, but I do 720 because of file size. It already takes over an hour to render a 15 minute clip. For the voice recordings, I just use my Turtle Beach x11 Headset and then use Audacity to do some fancy (not really) audio cleanup. For the video editing I use Sony Vegas Pro 10.0. It gets the job done, but isn't very user friendly in my opinion. Maybe it's just because I'm new to it.

As for you coming back, it would be great! I'm sure the game would be much different now (against the top players at least). I know I made it to #1 on the leaderboard about a year ago and I know 10 times as much about the game now. You should join the next Round Robin Group!

Doh sorry! Good work though! I had a handful of vids that I put up on Youtube but the majority of them were related to the single player game. I only managed to capture one multiplayer game, and that was against a couple of the other old top players. I was always stuck in SD mode though by splitting out my 360 to a MiniDV camcorder.

I've thought about getting a PVR, but I really don't play console games nearly as much as I do PC. I'd hate to see the thing sit.

I'll let you know if I ever decide to jump back in, although I'd imagine I'd be very rusty. I haven't played for a long time.