my H2H running record...

[TyShine]

No, he's better than that. He doesn't always just try for one set thing, he's a great player. One game I played with him he didn't bring knights.

But, what do you want him to do? Make tanks appear everytime in the BC or something? If you are playing a good player that uses the Americans, you should know what to expect by now. It's not easy to stop. The tried and true formula of horserushing, mass expansion, and knights is just the most common way to get the job done, but I wouldn't make the mistake of labeling him as an inflexible player.

He used to be a Zulu only player, and was #1 on all leaderboards with the Zulu. He wasn't just a Zulu noob that attacked with Impis and won all his games that way. He'd rush, then expand, and beat even the Chinese in tech. He's a really good player. I don't know anyone who was better at the Zulu. For the Americans, I know a lot of players that can do what he does, but when I say a lot, I'm talking about maybe 10 total players.

I want him to be a player who doesn't rely on American bonuses as his only means of being good. I'm glad to hear he is better than that. However, it doesn't matter as If I do play him then he will likely be America.

I guess I shouldn't ask for anything special. I know his name has been tossed around with Mortes and I want to see if its true. However, I probably will never be able to as I have played Morte 10+ times with multiple civs so I know what he can do. Basically I want to play the best of the best and see what they got.

[danthechan]

i had a h2h game the other day that made me equally as mad zef. the other player ignored dozens of peace requests after switching to democracy. many said he was busy but some i got thru to him and it just said he could not decide. he also contended that the game allowed him to do it so it was no cheating or glitching. it was a real shame as we were otherwise having a great spanish v. english battle. both of us really on our game. the advantages he got from not having to go to anarchy, and camping all my whale and dye with cruisers, gave hime just enough of an edge to win. i won't be playing him again.

[Grayson]

I want him to be a player who doesn't rely on American bonuses as his only means of being good. I'm glad to hear he is better than that. However, it doesn't matter as If I do play him then he will likely be America.

I guess I shouldn't ask for anything special. I know his name has been tossed around with Mortes and I want to see if its true. However, I probably will never be able to as I have played Morte 10+ times with multiple civs so I know what he can do. Basically I want to play the best of the best and see what they got.

well, of course it would be great if all the top rated players would be deadly with most of the civs, and I'm guessing that Kyodai would be just fine if he played random, and probably better than just about every player still. But, most of the top players don't use weaker civs or a vareity of civs to get into the top ranks, that's nothing new.

Morte has been in the top 10 with with the Arabs and Greeks, and can probably do it with a lot of civs. But, the two civs he has used the most in the last while is the Chinese and the Americans. If you are on his friends list and have had a chance to play him in unranked, then you have got to see his skills with other civs, which are top notch. But, if you haven't and don't know him, then you'd probably lump him into a power civ only catagory.

Kyodai did get into the top 10 with a 2nd account with the Spanish. It was XxShogunxX, or something like that. When I did face him once and he was using that account, I got excited because I wanted to see what he could do with the Spanish, because he spent the first game I ever played against me, when I was Spain and he was the Americans, basically saying that the Spanish are not a top 5 civ and that they suck. Shortly thereafter he started ranking up with the Spanish with that account. But, he chose the Americans in that game, so I was a little dissapointed. Kyodai has also said on these boards that he has used the Indians a lot.

I like to use a vareity of civs, but I don't think that means anything about my skill level. I still use power civs, but I feel really bad when I just stomp on someone in 20 turns. I actually was happy that I lost a game the other night when I got the Americans from random, and the Egyptian player got Collosus, a GS, and had 2 fish, 1 forest, and 5 deserts. I don't mind losing with the Americans, especially when someone else has a great game.

But, it's still a matter of choice. I can respect headless for ranking up mainly with the Arabs. Eventhough they are a great civ that can be really powerful in H2H, it's no easy task to do that in the face of the mass amount of power civ players out there.

Lately, I've been having fun playing with the Aztecs and the Zulu, mainly because I limited myself in the past from playing with these two civs. But, they still take more skill than the Chinese and Americans in some games.

Random is fun. It's a lot easier in FFA than H2H. But, I've learned more about the game still by playing random. If others don't want to do it, that's fine. I still think a lot of the power civ only players are really good players, and that it's unwise to brush them off as if they are only good because they use a power civ. We can all cry out for them to "grow a pair", but at the end of the day, it won't change the fact that most players will still use the best civs.

Let those guys have their fun, I'm not going to share my super-secret French strategies anyway.

[MorteEterna]

No, he's better than that. He doesn't always just try for one set thing, he's a great player. One game I played with him he didn't bring knights.

But, what do you want him to do? Make tanks appear everytime in the BC or something? If you are playing a good player that uses the Americans, you should know what to expect by now. It's not easy to stop. The tried and true formula of horserushing, mass expansion, and knights is just the most common way to get the job done, but I wouldn't make the mistake of labeling him as an inflexible player.

He used to be a Zulu only player, and was #1 on all leaderboards with the Zulu. He wasn't just a Zulu noob that attacked with Impis and won all his games that way. He'd rush, then expand, and beat even the Chinese in tech. He's a really good player. I don't know anyone who was better at the Zulu. For the Americans, I know a lot of players that can do what he does, but when I say a lot, I'm talking about maybe 10 total players.

Oh yeah, I still remember when Kyoday kept expanding to 4-5 cities only while telling me that expanding is for idiots..

And I also remember when he told me he has used China, Spain, Americans, all before me..

[TyShine]

i had a h2h game the other day that made me equally as mad zef. the other player ignored dozens of peace requests after switching to democracy. many said he was busy but some i got thru to him and it just said he could not decide. he also contended that the game allowed him to do it so it was no cheating or glitching. it was a real shame as we were otherwise having a great spanish v. english battle. both of us really on our game. the advantages he got from not having to go to anarchy, and camping all my whale and dye with cruisers, gave hime just enough of an edge to win. i won't be playing him again.

I hate that too. I get so tempted to boot them from xbox live, but I don't. Admittedly I have, but its not fair so I stopped a long time ago, although its not a given who will get the win. I thought it was showing them cheating shouldn't be done, but really it doesn't change anything. I guess all you can do is ignore democracy from him and avoid playing him later.

For the record Grayson I don't write off anyone as being weak because they use power only. Its just hard to tell whos really good and whos relying on good civs, and I was curious about him in particular. I don't really care what civs people use as I don't care about my own rank let alone what other peoples rank is, but I don't understand how it doesn't get boring for them. It would prefer to see a variety of civs used by all, but I dont actually care at all.

[Zefelius]

I will say from my expereience that he is a fair player, and really good with the Americans. But, that's like saying you're good at fighting toddlers.

In our games, he's never avoided diplomacy in democracy, or done anything outside of the rules. He's always been nice to me over the mic and in messages as well. I have zero problems with him.

You have a lot of credibilty in the forum, Grayson, and so it goes without saying that I trust your experience with him. To be honest, as I mentioned in my last post, I wish I hadn't wrote my comment. From what I could see of the tech paths we were taking, it didn't look like he could have gotten engineering (jumping math) and feud without first expanding a bit more via CoL. It was still quite early in the game, he was ahead 10-5 in tech, and at about that time I had gotten the bonus from CoL and was about to push outward. I don't remember GSs being used, or getting the GW obsolete notice, but I suppose it's always possible that I missed it. If so, it will just confirm that I never should have gone online with this. Even if I am right, I'd really prefer to give a player at least a couple of games before I formulate an opinion about him. Overall, this was just really poor form on my part. Pretty dumb, to say the least.

[MorteEterna]

I would like if it was the same for me..

Without a freezing after I had 27-28 technologies at 300 AD as Spain, and he only had pikemen while I was going to take his cities with tanks.

I would like if I didn't lose 4 archers when he only attacked ONE of them, without overrun (The battle was 4.5 v 3).

And, much more, but I can't remember everything.

[Grayson]

Just got done with a game against Klusion.

I got English from random, against his Chinese. With Roman, German, and Japanese AI.

I start out with a warrior start, getting my 100 gold in about 10 turns, but I had no land to expand to on the mainland that was any good. I rushed a galley and found a dye/fish island, which was nice. It helped me get irrigation, though I only had 3 cities.

I met Klusion to the west of me, and he had moved his settler. I saw with a warrior that he chose to just rapid expand, and it didn't look like he had much for defense at all. I was too far away to do anything early, so I just tried to expand a little bit to island, but only built about 5 cities.

He got 7 cities and I thought that was the game. He did expand ok, and he go the German cap, I had no idea where it was.

I got Knights Templar in the Ancient, at the south of the map, and I thought there was another entrance to the mainland just west of it, that would lead to his expansion zone, but it was one of those annoying no entry places where there was a single row of deep water between a southern island and the ice to the south. So I basically had to sail around the world.

He started teching up a little bit, and beat me to some of the Medieval bonuses, but he held back a little bit I'm guessing to expand easier.

I decided that I couldn't hang with him in tech, so I built a barracks in London while I teched up for 7 turns to Feudalism. My galley with the knights finally made it to a spot where it could go north, right to a place where he had expanded to, pretty remote, and he had no defenses in 3 cities. I took one, but he rushed pikemen in the others.

I got my knights out of London and sent them toward his cap. I made sure to steer clear of his cap at first, because he had hills there, and I saw the flag going up a few times at the beginning of turns, so I figured he was bunkering down there. I got my knights from a gally and took two islands that were some of his first expansions, and they were defended by archers. I beat one archer, and then double moved him to get a city on the same island that was empty. I guess he was out of money. But, with each of those cities I got a tech, so it was nice.

I teched to Religon and switched all my cities to gold for the rest of the game. I was actually keeping pace with him in tech, tied about 18-18, mainly because I kept getting techs from his cities. I sent my vet knights down to attack his cities to the south of Bejing, and got them both pretty easily, making them elite, and I got blitz. In another 2-3 turns I had two knight armies take Bejing, which had a double worksop in it, which was nice for me in with the +1 production bonus.

He started pulling away in tech, because he was in democracy. I decided I needed to finish the game before I saw any tanks at all. I GS'd gunpowder for protection, because he started bringing cruisers and knights to my cities. I was still working on all gold, but had kept picking up techs from taking his cities. I found Rome a few turns later and took it. I sent 2 knight armies north and took Kyoto.

I finally found Berlin to the southwest, protected by a single rifleman. The turn I got Kyoto, I attacked Berlin, taking it, and giving me 5 caps. He had just tried to rush one of my cities that I had taken from the south of Bejing, so I don't think he had anything to do but just end the turn and take the loss.

It was fun. I can't remember any other games where I ended up making it to the modern, and never having a beaker count above 35. I had my cities on gold at 200AD, and never took them off of it. I ended up taking about 8 of his cities, along with Romans and Japanese cities.

It's been a while since I had played Klusion, he took a break for a while. It's nice to see some familiar faces back.

[BigStank]

Had an unusual day in H2H, got in 6 ranked games in a row against the current xbox h2h leader, chief Rocka. All were relatively quick games being decided once the smoke from the early rushes cleared. I managed to go 4-2 winning zulu v americans, then winning 2 and losing one chinese v americans, a win my chinese vs his english(he tried to horserush but i got my army out and on him too fast)and finally a loss romans v his americans. Like I said all the games ended fairly quickly and the details of them too generic to recall, with the exception of the last loss.

The game started good from an exploration and gold standpoint getting my 1000 gold by 2900bc. I noticed he got the SoC and KT in that time but I had the AW revealed by a barb hut and rushed a galley getting the Pyramid. I formed a vet warrior army and kept in a galley next to a hill choke waiting for his horsemen (I've noticed people really dont expect armies to come off boats in their opponents territory). I get 5 cities out when i see his horse army comming with the militia exploring the mainland when he pops his KT knight and militia next to rome out of nowhere. For 25 gold I make a road system connecting rome to my 2 front cities and got 4 warriors to the point of attack. I switched into anarchy then fundy to make sure and dispose of the threat... so I thought. I unloaded the warrior army and killed his approaching army with a double move and killed knight with my army in rome, but funny thing, my victorious army doesn't advance. I stayed in fundy for a coulple of turns banking food and hammers before going back to republic when I thought the coast was clear and continued my expansion. Got 100g from threatening the indians(yes 100 at once) and expanded behind my cap away from him.

Then all of the sudden my city gets dropped, its got a road to it so i send that army down and there's no flag. A capture uses up a turn and you can't rush units on the turn of the capture so he couldn't have scrolled and sold them, so im thinking wtf and take it back. Next turn another city gets dropped and same thing, no flag when I got there the cursor tells me there's a 0 def knight on the forest next to it(it was invisible) and i overrun it. Then in the next 2 turns he gs'd irrigation (he hit 5 techs after taking my CoL) and flips my two cities connected to rome.

I quit at this point but its been bugging me all day how he not only kept that knight alive, but used it to drop my cities and not have a flag. It was all really unecessary, the two flips crippled me and irrigation bonus put me really far behind, taking my CoL with a glitched units that should have been dead was like rubbing salt in my ego wounds.

[BigStank]

i played a quick h2h game against a player formerly in question here, rabid ewok. i played him before and accepted a friend request so i had noticed that he climbed quickly up the standings after coming back. it was late so i figured rushing was my best chance to avoid losing or playing a 2 hour game. i chose aztec against his spanish. i rushed my warrior and set to hbr. a barb on the 2nd turn gave me bw. i got a walk in on america and with little gold still managed a horse army in 3200. i met the spanish warrior with my army 3 turns from madrid. he still managed a good defense. i killed 2 warriors and got vet. he got aw, switched to fund., formed an army after my 2nd attack, and lost 6-6 leaving his cap empty. i really only am noting this game because if he really was a freezer he would have done it then. i am confident that he is a good player and not a cheater.

Just noticed this one. Thanks for the vouching for my integrity, You're not the only one on this forum to spank me and I actually have a bad habit of throwing hail marry's and quitting as they inevitably be swatted down. I knew that game was gonna be rough when you had BW, HBR and a cap as i was getting my second warrior. I initially intended to just fortify a warrior army but you were too fast and got the vet off a single warrior before I could form the army, so it was a choice of defending 7.5 vs 9 or attacking 6 on 6, I chose the better odds and lost. I had my 100g settler but I knew i wasnt going to make a crazy comeback after giving up that much to a good player so I threw in the towel. In retrospect I should have teched BW as soon as I noticed the walk in and HBR gone, but that mistake aside, I dont feel that my approach using fundy was bad. If I had a vet warrior in behind my cap I could have waited to form the vet army and it would have been a different game. Oh well, thats what the Aztecs do best, pounce so early the defender made his mistakes before you got there. I dont know how I stay hovering around the top 20 with how many quick losses and early quits I have. Anyways thanks for sticking up for me.

[vanchinaman]

Had three games last night (stayed up WAY TOO LATE...or, early), all Spanish. One vs. an Egyptian with Colossus, one vs. Zulu who got walk-ins or early caps on the English and Arabs (having Monarchy and Fundy around 2500 bc - ouch), and another vs. Americans.

All three games started off pretty abysmally. Whale hunted a bit (which I almost never do with Zulu, just because of the risk of getting picked off early by those mosquito-impi armies), but no luck except in one game where I got a whale and one-forest spot (blech) in 3700 or 3600. No exploration cash either while wandering around - I in each I was starting behind in the gold/barb hut race.

Ended up winning all three games, although I was SO close to quitting in all of them at one point or another - but I got two main lessons out of these games that might be worth mentioning. First, just sticking around and continuing to hang in there can be demoralizing to the opponent in and of itself - and I mean this in regards to tech especially, not if he's taking your cities right and left and you have no money or defenses or counter attack units. With each game, I started way, way behind - and just kept expanding, getting money, and most importantly - pressing the opponent. In the Zulu game, I actually ended up picking up Tripoli with a warrior well after the fact because he had moved his fundy impi army on to finish off others. By the time he came back, I had rushed and archer and 2 other warriors, and finished off a damaged impi army after he attacked the archer.

With the game vs. Egyptians, he pulled ahead in a huge tech lead early - he was at 19 while I was still at 7 or 8, I think. BUT, he got lazy, and stopped expanding (only had 4 cities). I was so far behind I knew I needed to keep bothering him - I got a double-turn take of one of his settlers early on, and blocked him off on his peninsula with a single warrior he failed to kill with an archer. I used a free spy to destroy a library he built in his third city. He got KT and was about to take my gold city with the knight, but after attacking, I finished it off with a legion army. He flipped the same city later, and I retook it immediately with the same legion army I had camped on an adjacent hill. He got a walk-in on one of my cities I had just settled, but then put the unit back on the boat and moved on - I retook it with a walk in 3 turns later. Basically, I just kept expanding, and kept pestering him. Once tech and growth got going, I caught up in tech pretty fast through backfilling. He still beat me to tanks, but I had just gotten riflemen, and was able to hold off his first army with another counterattack. With so few cities to produce, even though he had been 'ahead' all game, he quit out of frustration. Frankly, he was so close to overcoming my riflemen that if he had gotten rolling with another army, I would have lost.

The other lesson from these games for me, was the importance of getting to Currency first. Even though in all games I was behind in techs early on, I made it to currency first in each one because it had been passed over by the opponent, and that, single-handedly, is what allowed me to continue expanding (which is obviously what was critical for me to get caught up) while having adequate defenses and counterattacks, or making efforts to disrupt his flow through spies or galleon drops.

Also, in each game at some point, spies really came in handy. In each game, I think what stalled most of them was economic growth - many spent cash early on libraries to jack up their tech lead (with the exception of the Americans, who expanded as usual). Destroying buildings, especially pricey buildings, can really be frustrating - and so few protect cities with spies anymore. Doing a sneak drop with a defensive unit and 3 spies can turn a great city into a "meh" city pretty quickly.

Ahh... it's good to be back in the game.

[TyShine]

Here is a stupid one. I see a Zulu player and decide to pick America

I start with a scientist, and move out seeing a barb village. On turn two or three get a hut and HBR. Later I see the Zulu is taking the hut below me. Ok this could be bad but if he hasn't got an Impi army I'm fine. On turn 5 he has an impi army at my capitol. I just finished my horse and have 0 gold. I think about what I can do and move my scientist one space getting 10 gold, and then I sell it for 15 and rush a warrior. I figure he will attack next turn and likely win then I will attack with my horse and hopefully win, but he doesn't attack and instead goes north for a village. I decide to go for his capitol. From a hill I can see its empty I rush in to take it, but unfortunately I have to name a till, but its ok I got in just in time.

Not the best game to talk about, but that's the first time Ive had a Zulu at my capitol that early and won, so I was pretty happy about it.

[danthechan]

why he didn't attack we'll never know? over confident?

[TyShine]

Just played Cheif Rocka. When I saw he was in the room I was exited to play H2H #1. I knew it had to be an America v America battle.

I start out with the GH, and set my production to two trees and research HBR. I pick up a village on turn 2 giving me 25g, and switch to HBR. I am a little worried as the barb villages are few and far between. I meet with Russia to my Southwest and then Egpyt(Oracle) to my far South. Not long after he takes Egypt and I am anticipating a quick horse battle. My first village gives me pottery and I am really worried, because there is only one other village near and its a ways away. However, he took Thebes with a single unit horse I ran into. We met and he tried attacking hurt, but I was on a hill and the oracle wouldn't let him. I killed his horse and went for the village. I finally got a horse army in extremely slow fashion. I left my capitol empty, and saw him working on trees. I take Russia and move my horses out. A turn later as I am moving my caravan he attacks with a non-vet horse army killing my infiltration horseman, but I rush a Horse out of Moscow killing his horses but costing me my 100g for several turns.

After that things were more peaceful. My horse picked up some villages, and I had to sell my caravan. Eventually I got my 100g, while he went the masonry irrigation route. I went for CoL, and the same turn he uses a scientist on CoL. The only thing he tried to do to slow me down was send a single unit archer to attack my cities, but I put two rangers in any city he would come near. I hit Monarchy first, got a scientist, and hit feudalism at 75+ gold per turn. I didn't get my first knight army till 0, which is a slow game for me, and attacked at 50. I attacked a city with a single archer in and he quit.

It was a pretty slow game for me, and I am guessing for him too. However, going for masonry and irrigation seemed like a waste of time to me, and he didn't need to have an archer in his city that's a waste of money IMO. Plus I didn't really see him expand too much once he hit CoL, but that's probably because I covered my side of the map quickly and couldn't see south of him. I think we both had pretty slow games.

[Zefelius]

Just played Cheif Rocka. When I saw he was in the room I was exited to play H2H #1. I knew it had to be an America v America battle.

I start out with the GH, and set my production to two trees and research HBR. I pick up a village on turn 2 giving me 25g, and switch to HBR. I am a little worried as the barb villages are few and far between. I meet with Russia to my Southwest and then Egpyt(Oracle) to my far South. Not long after he takes Egypt and I am anticipating a quick horse battle. My first village gives me pottery and I am really worried, because there is only one other village near and its a ways away. However, he took Thebes with a single unit horse I ran into. We met and he tried attacking hurt, but I was on a hill and the oracle wouldn't let him. I killed his horse and went for the village. I finally got a horse army in extremely slow fashion. I left my capitol empty, and saw him working on trees. I take Russia and move my horses out. A turn later as I am moving my caravan he attacks with a non-vet horse army killing my infiltration horseman, but I rush a Horse out of Moscow killing his horses but costing me my 100g for several turns.

After that things were more peaceful. My horse picked up some villages, and I had to sell my caravan. Eventually I got my 100g, while he went the masonry irrigation route. I went for CoL, and the same turn he uses a scientist on CoL. The only thing he tried to do to slow me down was send a single unit archer to attack my cities, but I put two rangers in any city he would come near. I hit Monarchy first, got a scientist, and hit feudalism at 75+ gold per turn. I didn't get my first knight army till 0, which is a slow game for me, and attacked at 50. I attacked a city with a single archer in and he quit.

It was a pretty slow game for me, and I am guessing for him too. However, going for masonry and irrigation seemed like a waste of time to me, and he didn't need to have an archer in his city that's a waste of money IMO. Plus I didn't really see him expand too much once he hit CoL, but that's probably because I covered my side of the map quickly and couldn't see south of him. I think we both had pretty slow games.

Very impressive. I really don't know how you do it. When I play someone in the top 20 I always lose in ranked. I've beat plenty of folks in the top 50, but it's inconsistent. Then I read your comments and see that you beat the #1 player out there: that takes some skill. Nicely done...

[MorteEterna]

Very impressive. I really don't know how you do it. When I play someone in the top 20 I always lose in ranked. I've beat plenty of folks in the top 50, but it's inconsistent. Then I read your comments and see that you beat the #1 player out there: that takes some skill. Nicely done...

Chief Rocka isn't bad, but he isn't better than other top players, honestly. He knows how to play, but he still has got to learn some tactics, strategies etc.. Sometimes the number next to the name doesn't count so much

[BigStank]

Got in a game against Zeff earlier tonight. I've seen his posts about the greeks so I figured the Romans would be a favorable match up but he chooses Aztecs. Aztecs are a pain in the ass for any non rushing civ IMO. game starts pretty good for me, got 100 gold in 12 turns and in on a big peninsula with egypt ai blocking me off from the rest of the continent. I dont know when exactly he took out the egyptians, I think circa 1500bc, but that sucked as he got collosses, AW and switched to republic.

I'm anticipating horses for some turns now and have finished a barracks in one of my rear cities and switched everything to gold bracing for the attack. His blitz horse army shows up at my closest city to Thebes and kills an archer and and my only vet warrior. I made a mistake here and formed an archer army on the nonfortifed and paniced. I formed a non-vet warrior army and attacked for some stupid reason and lost giving him a blitz/infiltration/autohealing horsearmy. he killed my archer army 12 v 6 and proceeded to tear through my closest 3 cities.

My galley saved my ass as it let me spot an empty city of his really colse to me so i loaded a couple of archers and double moved him. I set that sity to pump archers and started camping all of the forrests I could. I also got KT and brought it back to my area and finshed a legion army in my barracks city, and connected it to his next best target city. With about 4 roads built I'm able and a few rushed legions im able to kill his horse army and kill the archers left to defend my old cities(spent about 45 gold on roads and could move instantly between 4 cities).

It Takes me to about 0 AD before I'm in the same position as before he arrived, sitting on 10 cities and 4 techs. I kept my tiles on gold and settled just engouh cities to break 20 beakers, rushed 4 more settlers, hit mideval and saw irrigation was still up for grabs. When I got that I had a significant tech lead that I never let go of. He quit about the time i got navigation and I had started banking hammers for the EIC after our conflict and had enough gold with the GE I was sitting on to rush it in under 4 turns from getting navigation.

We both had good overall startegies in this game but mistakes in reflex game cost us both dearly. I was a furious button flick from losing one or no cities rather than 4, and he didnt watch his open cities for double moves. In the end I was glad I used the Romans, the longer they survive the tougher it is for early peaking civs to keep pace in a marathon of a game. It was a slooow game tech and expansion wise but a lot of fighting, alot of tactics and alot of fun

[TyShine]

Chief Rocka isn't bad, but he isn't better than other top players, honestly. He knows how to play, but he still has got to learn some tactics, strategies etc.. Sometimes the number next to the name doesn't count so much

He was ok, but it wasnt at all like playing you or some other top players. He shouldnt be number 1 IMO. Even thou it was one game it was a weak game for me. I could see the mistakes he was making, and it was nothing like playing you. I think he just plays a lot, and is a very good player, just not elite. Plus he uses America all the time, witch helps anyone's rank.

[Grayson]

well, it's been a while since I've been in the modern in the BC in MP, but last night I did.

I got the Spanish from random, vs. the Chinese (human), with Romans, Zulu, and Mongol AI.

I moved my settler, got 20 gold, two spaces from Rome. I take Rome in 3600BC, giving me Code of Laws. I get a little more gold, and a barb tells me 7 cities is just to the north. I pick that up in 3200BC, and start spamming settlers. The Chinese player is on the mainland with zulu and mongols a decent space away from him, and he's horserushing, I'm on a large island that had me and the romans.

I start getting to islands, have 3 galleons, and 10 cities in 1800BC. I galley drop Bejing with his horsemen a ways away, and he has another city about 5 tiles away, but I'm able to get an archer army before he can do anything about it.

I get SoC, which gives me an explorer and scientist. I use the Sceintist on Literacy while the chinese player was on 4 techs, so he wouldn't get the bonus. I get Atlantis in 700BC, giving me 15 cities, 22 techs. From one of my GPs (can't remember if it's invention or monarchy), I get a GB, which I use to rush EIC.

At 0 AD, I've got Industrialization Corporation, I'm doing 500 gold per turn, 200 science per turn, and have 25 techs.

I decided to try for an early economic win, but I didn't have great production. I ended up rushing markets everywhere, and getting a factory and communsim around 400AD, which was kind of slow.

I messed up a bit as far as timing my 20000 gold and getting my hammers banked. I'm always trying to time the 20000 gold with the time I get my 500 hammers banked for the World Bank, as I don't want the other guy to quit. I should have just got my 20000 gold and then went for the hammers, it would have been faster.

I ended up with a 1025AD economic win, I was a little dissapointed. The Chinese player just tried to expand, but he didn't get any bonus, had nothing that could phase me, even though he took two AI caps and had about 10 cities.

[Zefelius]

We both had good overall startegies in this game but mistakes in reflex game cost us both dearly. I was a furious button flick from losing one or no cities rather than 4, and he didnt watch his open cities for double moves. In the end I was glad I used the Romans, the longer they survive the tougher it is for early peaking civs to keep pace in a marathon of a game. It was a slooow game tech and expansion wise but a lot of fighting, alot of tactics and alot of fun

Hey buddy,

I was happy to play you and it was a lot of fun. You're a very good player and I hope we get a chance to play again. Although I should say that I didn't quit: that 's not like me. I only quit when things look fairly hopeless, but in this game I still had some viable options.

In this game I captured two early caps. Since I played a couple of games since then, I forget the first one, but I think it was the French. Thebes was obviously nice to have as well. We both made a mistake or two, and I think my main one--besides not watching for the double-move which you mentioned--was not going to gold instead of tech while I was attacking. I had CoL from the AW, so I was doing okay with expansion. I should have backed up my horsearmy with something or other. But overall you did a fantastic job on defense, and you were incredibly resilient after I took 4 cities, whereas most players would have quit immediately. The one thing that pissed me off was that we both moved our armies along that road at the same time!! Geesh, that was horrible for me, as you must have beat me to the punch by a half second---which sent my horsearmy off the road for one move and then back on to the road for the second move!! At that point I was a sitting duck! Totally crappy!!! And of course you promptly took out the army and then proceeded to recapture all your cities. With some extra gold I could have either backed up that army or shored up my defenses, but you get a lot of credit for doing all the right things after your initial slip up.

In any case, though, I never would have quit just because I fell behind by a few techs, and lost the city number edge as well---especially when I still had Thebes with Collossus! I was furthermore saving up my GB while teching Monarchy. You got the lead partly because I was going for the higher beaker tech, while you were picking up some of the lower ones. That's okay in my eyes: both strats have their validity. But just as I picked up my Monarchy GP, the game froze on me that same turn as I heard the GP music playing! What a bummer!! I think you had the edge in the game, but I had some viable options with those 2 GPs (don't know what the second one was). Either I would have gone for the Samarai Castle and switched to Fundy with my Pyramid and used the barracks I had recently finished for an attack, or perhaps I would have tried to catch up in tech with the EIC. Probably the former, as I was getting annoyed by your pesky archers surrounding my prod city with its useless workshop!

Again, I think you did the overall superior job, and I still have a lot ot learn about tactics. You definitely beat me in that regard. But there's no way I would have quit that game, so it's too bad I got the freeze on my end. Next time I'll go with the Greeks. I think this time I chose the Aztecs since I hadn't played in a few days and felt rusty, especially when going against a top 10 player like you.

Looking forward to the next one, Zef

[Zefelius]

After playing such an up and down, rollercoaster game against BigStank, I played two of my most miserable and slow games against Grayson. Poor guy: he wants a competitive game and I make it too easy for him! In game one, he (India) simply made some great choices whereas I (Germany) took a risk and it didn't pay off: I saw Madrid not too far from me, and since I didn't have much land and only found one village (the other Madrid grabbed first), I decided to use the little cash I did have and take it over. Worked perfectly, except for the fact that Grayson, crafty as usual, took it right back the very next turn. He had been waiting on a hill nearby, I think, basically just biding his time with a horse army!! How evil. After that, I had no money, and there was no land except for what was between me and Spain, so I had to make a couple of quick archers to close off a choke point and then I just sat around waiting forever to make enough money to do anything. I quit as I really had no chance...

Then the next game was just lousy on my part: I took the same risk again since the Aztecs were close by. I deviated from the normal strategy I use for the Brits, which meant that when my 3-3 attack failed against their cap I was out of $$ once again, as my Japanese neighbors took a hut and village away from me as I sent a warrior army out in another direction. I guess I was surprised that the Aztecs already had an archer up at around 2800 or 2700. Perhaps it was Grayson again (Romans), making life difficult for me. What transpired after that is just plain embarrassing, as I sent a settler into harm's way. That hasn't happened in a very long time, and so I quit again. It's sort of funny, because I was just saying in the comment above apropos of my game with Big Stank that I don't quit easily. But since these were supposed to be fun games, I figured I would spare Grayson the slow task of picking me apart when really the game was over in both cases before I was even out of Ancient.

These were BAD games for me, but it's only fair that I say something about them as I beat Grayson last month during the tourney. So we're even. But obviously now I'll be looking for revenge!

[elthrasher]

I played (unranked) H2H against headless last night. We tried to make it a FFA with Zef, but I haven't been able to connect to him lately. Too bad. Anyway, it was quite a game. I had the English and headless had the Germans. The hapless victims were the French, the Zulu and the Egyptians (Stonehenge). We started at opposite ends of the continent from one another. Nice for once. I got a lot of gold with two warriors and settled dye early (one without food, but still worth it, I think), so I had the tech lead for a while and got most of the firsts except CoL and Currency (the latter kinda bad). My main problem was I was kind of blocked in by the French and Zulu. I actually think horserushing would've been a stronger start for me, but I never do that with the English.

I was only able to fit around 8 cities on the mainland and I got one good one on an island, off looking for more islands. I felt like things were beginning to stagnate. So of course headless picked this moment to attack with six elite knight armies. I lost a few cities and it looked like it was all over, but I managed to get a cruiser fleet and then find Atlantis and suddenly I could hold him off indefinitely with a single pikeman. Headless forced peace and we both went for advanced techs to wreck one another with. I got Industrialization. He GS'd Corporation. Actually, I didn't need any new techs. Just needed the cruisers in the right places.

I became the aggressor and took back some of my cities. Headless got his own cruiser fleet and sank mine (lucky!), so I GS'd Steel. Meanwhile I sent another cruiser fleet deep into his territory where most cities just had single archers and I took several of those with my archers and riflemen. Eventually I pretty well cleaned up with a couple tank armies in there for good measure. Headless was trying to get bombers to beat me back, but he couldn't get there in time. Good game. I thought I was gonna lose!

I think the lesson here is that England peaks early and then again late. Germans peak in the midgame. The midgame wasn't long enough for headless to get the win.

[Grayson]

After playing such an up and down, rollercoaster game against BigStank, I played two of my most miserable and slow games against Grayson. Poor guy: he wants a competitive game and I make it too easy for him! In game one, he (India) simply made some great choices whereas I (Germany) took a risk and it didn't pay off: I saw Madrid not too far from me, and since I didn't have much land and only found one village (the other Madrid grabbed first), I decided to use the little cash I did have and take it over. Worked perfectly, except for the fact that Grayson, crafty as usual, took it right back the very next turn. He had been waiting on a hill nearby, I think, basically just biding his time with a horse army!! How evil. After that, I had no money, and there was no land except for what was between me and Spain, so I had to make a couple of quick archers to close off a choke point and then I just sat around waiting forever to make enough money to do anything. I quit as I really had no chance...

Then the next game was just lousy on my part: I took the same risk again since the Aztecs were close by. I deviated from the normal strategy I use for the Brits, which meant that when my 3-3 attack failed against their cap I was out of $$ once again, as my Japanese neighbors took a hut and village away from me as I sent a warrior army out in another direction. I guess I was surprised that the Aztecs already had an archer up at around 2800 or 2700. Perhaps it was Grayson again (Romans), making life difficult for me. What transpired after that is just plain embarrassing, as I sent a settler into harm's way. That hasn't happened in a very long time, and so I quit again. It's sort of funny, because I was just saying in the comment above apropos of my game with Big Stank that I don't quit easily. But since these were supposed to be fun games, I figured I would spare Grayson the slow task of picking me apart when really the game was over in both cases before I was even out of Ancient.

These were BAD games for me, but it's only fair that I say something about them as I beat Grayson last month during the tourney. So we're even. But obviously now I'll be looking for revenge!

sorry that I couldn't stick around for another game. My son woke up last night at 1AM, and he had thrown up for the first time in his short life (he's 3 years old). So, I can't say last night was great for me, as I quickly left the xbox to swim in vomit (good morning!, hope no one is eating rt now).

I was hoping for a long game for either one of those games. I didn't really want to horserush in that first game when I had the Indians, but I got a hut in 3500BC, and I chose HBR. It actually took me until 2800BC to get my army, since a barb killed my first warrior in 3300BC when I stepped next to a barb w/ 3 flags that was on a hill. It's been a while since I've had a warrior die that early from a barb. I did form my army, and the Russians had told me that you and the Spanish had a peace/war thing going on, so I waited on the hill for a few turns, and took Madrid the same turn you took it with your warriors. I had sold the Spanish HBR, so i wasn't sure if you got that or Nav. But, after the slow start, I got Angor Watt, switched to Republic, got about 7 cities, took Moscow, got the Ark, and then was about to take the Arabs when you wanted to start over.

The second game where I was the Romans, I could have galley dropped you in 3200BC. I got a galley from my first barb, and saw your borders to the north. But, I wanted to make it a long game, so I didn't do it, and wanted to work on my Roman game, so I just got my 100 gold and started expanding. I got my 100 gold in 3000BC, had 5 cities in 2800BC, and 8 cities a few turns later when you sent me the message that you wanted to quit. I knew you were in a bad spot, because I could see the Aztec's borders right next to where you cap was, so I was pretty sure they took your settler.

Oh well, maybe we can get some games in another time, I was really bored playing ranked last night, and wasn't playing well in ranked either.

[danthechan]

i had time for 1 game last night. i made it extra hard by watching the lakers in split screen while playing. i was arab against rome. i took out england early, then set about expanding after i was blocked from further attacks by archer armies. i had a little tech lead, but lost out on the all important workshop and market. i got a gl and decided on the knight rush, but stupidly got feud. as my 14th tech. this made putting the armies together a slow process without much production. i stayed in fund. throughout this so rome got a tech lead through the juicy middle techs. he switched to dem. and pulled away while i took out the mongol cap with 1 army and headed the rest to his chokepoint. i snuck behind him with some leftover warrior armies and did some good damage to island cities. i took out rome but he came back at me with a wave of knights and whittled me down. there was a hill next to it which he defended a vet archer army on to support his attacks. i forced peace on him which sent him to anarchy and slowed him down a bit. i saw that steam was still out there so i used a gs and sent my best army (inf., blitz, medic) out looking for the last a.i. another gs came along and i got gunpowder (not first) in an attempt to hold rome. luckily a greek galley came along and showed me athens around then. i headed for it, while selling off assets all over to keep some defense in rome. he only had one knight army left there so it bought me some time. i had to attack athens without naval support the first time and won a close battle over his hopilites. medic allowed me to heal while i brought my cruiser around the backside. he finally got blitz and had me down to one rifleman. the next turn i was done. i attacked athens twice and took it, winning the game before he recovered rome. he must not have understood what was happening because he otherwise would have attacked with his archers as a last resort. a very fun game on my end.

[the headless 10]

I played (unranked) H2H against headless last night. We tried to make it a FFA with Zef, but I haven't been able to connect to him lately. Too bad. Anyway, it was quite a game. I had the English and headless had the Germans. The hapless victims were the French, the Zulu and the Egyptians (Stonehenge). We started at opposite ends of the continent from one another. Nice for once. I got a lot of gold with two warriors and settled dye early (one without food, but still worth it, I think), so I had the tech lead for a while and got most of the firsts except CoL and Currency (the latter kinda bad). My main problem was I was kind of blocked in by the French and Zulu. I actually think horserushing would've been a stronger start for me, but I never do that with the English.

I was only able to fit around 8 cities on the mainland and I got one good one on an island, off looking for more islands. I felt like things were beginning to stagnate. So of course headless picked this moment to attack with six elite knight armies. I lost a few cities and it looked like it was all over, but I managed to get a cruiser fleet and then find Atlantis and suddenly I could hold him off indefinitely with a single pikeman. Headless forced peace and we both went for advanced techs to wreck one another with. I got Industrialization. He GS'd Corporation. Actually, I didn't need any new techs. Just needed the cruisers in the right places.

I became the aggressor and took back some of my cities. Headless got his own cruiser fleet and sank mine (lucky!), so I GS'd Steel. Meanwhile I sent another cruiser fleet deep into his territory where most cities just had single archers and I took several of those with my archers and riflemen. Eventually I pretty well cleaned up with a couple tank armies in there for good measure. Headless was trying to get bombers to beat me back, but he couldn't get there in time. Good game. I thought I was gonna lose!

I think the lesson here is that England peaks early and then again late. Germans peak in the midgame. The midgame wasn't long enough for headless to get the win.

yeah, once my knights lost i was in trouble.. in hindsight, i may have misplayed the endgame as well.. i gsd corp and ruined my oxford bombers opportunity.. it would have taken me a lot of turns to build it, and i really didnt want you to get both money techs.. but my only real chance was destroying your fleets, and gsing corp didnt help me do this..

ah well, a very fun game.. good random civs to play against each other.. perhaps we can rematch tonight.. or you grayson.. ive been getting a little tired of ranked..

[elthrasher]

yeah, once my knights lost i was in trouble.. in hindsight, i may have misplayed the endgame as well.. i gsd corp and ruined my oxford bombers opportunity.. it would have taken me a lot of turns to build it, and i really didnt want you to get both money techs.. but my only real chance was destroying your fleets, and gsing corp didnt help me do this..

ah well, a very fun game.. good random civs to play against each other.. perhaps we can rematch tonight.. or you grayson.. ive been getting a little tired of ranked..

There isn't very much you can do once England gets to modern in reasonable shape. I teched Flight after Steel, so bombers would've been pretty iffy. However, this is one of the closer games we've ever had. If you'd gotten to me one turn earlier, you could've broken through my choke point and taken my two production cities (such as they were - they each only had ~8 production). One was empty and the other had a single archer. I was keenly aware of how vulnerable they were, but my forces were stretched so thin, I had to risk it.

I'll be on a little later tonight (maybe 10ish) and will totally be up for playing. Maybe we can get four and have a nice FFA or even a team match.

[TyShine]

There isn't very much you can do once England gets to modern in reasonable shape. I teched Flight after Steel, so bombers would've been pretty iffy. However, this is one of the closer games we've ever had. If you'd gotten to me one turn earlier, you could've broken through my choke point and taken my two production cities (such as they were - they each only had ~8 production). One was empty and the other had a single archer. I was keenly aware of how vulnerable they were, but my forces were stretched so thin, I had to risk it.

I'll be on a little later tonight (maybe 10ish) and will totally be up for playing. Maybe we can get four and have a nice FFA or even a team match.

If its teams, and I am on, hit me up. I have tow write a paper after work, but maybe it will be done in time.

[Zefelius]

I was looking all over for that thread on "dumbest things you've done" because I've been playing so lousy lately I could add some great comments to it. Alas, I think it's either deeply, deeply buried in the thousands of threads which constitute a veritable Civ Rev avalanche of theory, strategy, and gossip; or I'm just blind.

So after running my settler right up to an AI warrior in a recent game against Grayson, I've topped myself by playing the Spanish yesterday and completely forgetting to settle my 2nd and 3rd cities next to whales!! I really do think I deserve some kind of award or trophy for all-time non-noob stupidity!! My problem, besides the fact that I'm currently grading 57 philosophy papers (supposedly college level, but sadly they write at a 10th grade level if I'm lucky... the American university system is a very horrifying and depressing situation infused with a superabundance of deepening ignorance, to say it nicely) and thus distracted by real life employment, is the fact that when I switch civs I have a tough time changing my habits on the spur of the moment. You guys who play random.... that's respectable!

Okay, I've made my Spanish confession. I really can't wait until I start playing some decent games again. Once I start winning I'll pretend like none of this ever happened!!

Zef

[Grayson]

I was looking all over for that thread on "dumbest things you've done" because I've been playing so lousy lately I could add some great comments to it. Alas, I think it's either deeply, deeply buried in the thousands of threads which constitute a veritable Civ Rev avalanche of theory, strategy, and gossip; or I'm just blind.

So after running my settler right up to an AI warrior in a recent game against Grayson, I've topped myself by playing the Spanish yesterday and completely forgetting to settle my 2nd and 3rd cities next to whales!! I really do think I deserve some kind of award or trophy for all-time non-noob stupidity!! My problem, besides the fact that I'm currently grading 57 philosophy papers (supposedly college level, but sadly they write at a 10th grade level if I'm lucky... the American university system is a very horrifying and depressing situation infused with a superabundance of deepening ignorance, to say it nicely) and thus distracted by real life employment, is the fact that when I switch civs I have a tough time changing my habits on the spur of the moment. You guys who play random.... that's respectable!

Okay, I've made my Spanish confession. I really can't wait until I start playing some decent games again. Once I start winning I'll pretend like none of this ever happened!!

Zef

I seem to remember you saying something about some conference this weekend that you were going to, and that you needed to take a break or you might be embarrased to show up without any research. Maybe that has something to do with it

I guess I'm on the opposite side or the American univeristy equation, where I end up writing stuff at a 10th grade level because I'm up all night playing this game.

If I could submit my homework and papers on a forum-like template, I think I'd be able to really advance in my studies. I'm still holding on to some hope that my university will offer a Masters in Turn-Based Strategy Games, but I'll probably just have to stick with psychology. At least i haven't stooped as low as somehow tying my interest in this game into some psychology paper and trying to make it fit for the subject, kinda like this guy I've had a lot of classes with, he will take any subject the prof gives him and somehow tie it into an arguement as to why pot should be legal. It was funny the first few times he presented a paper like that, but now it's just sad.

[elthrasher]

I played headless again last night. I figured I was dead right away, but I managed to turn the game around and then turn it around again. So if you followed that, I lost.

I had the Romans and headless had the Arabs. The AI were the Zulu, the Japanese and the Egyptians (Stonehenge). I got a fast walk-in on the Zulu, although I had to bypass a barb to do it. Probably worth it, although the barb eventually went to headless. He was about equidistant from Zimbabwe and brought warriors and horses to mess with me fast. I thought I was dead, but I managed to get archers up just in time. Amazing. Then I had the problem of headless looming over me and making expansion impossible, so I teched Iron Working and chased his arse out of there with legions. I was actually kind of amazed at how well it worked. I also built a road between Rome and Zimbabwe so I could easily settle along it and send my legions in to clear up any trouble that may arise. Then I put my three legion armies (two non-vet and one with infiltration) in a galley and sent them Tripoli-ward.

I got the city, but unfortunately headless was able to stop me at the next city with catapults. I couldn't believe I was winning so of course I didn't. I'm not sure what happened. I expanded okay, but didn't really get enough defenses in place and somehow didn't get a commanding tech lead over headless, despite the fact that he never left Fundamentalism! Maybe it was that he got Navigation pretty fast and I got it later, so a few good whale cities can make up for a lot.

So eventually he brought his knights in and I was kind of keeping him slow, trying to get Steam, but then he GS's Industrialization! I had more beakers and more techs and yet I couldn't. Ugh. And he got his cruiser fleet in too fast. I just had a single cruiser which was in the wrong place, so I eventually gave up.

I know I could've kicked out a couple more cities, but I still think I should've been able to keep a tech lead with what I had. I think getting navigation before me was just really key for headless. I'll bet his six or so cities (what he had around that time) ended up being about as good as my ten or so cities.

Best part of this game was that we slowed each other down so much at the start, we were actually behind the AI in techs for a while. Awesome!

[Zefelius]

I seem to remember you saying something about some conference this weekend that you were going to, and that you needed to take a break or you might be embarrased to show up without any research. Maybe that has something to do with it

I guess I'm on the opposite side or the American univeristy equation, where I end up writing stuff at a 10th grade level because I'm up all night playing this game.

If I could submit my homework and papers on a forum-like template, I think I'd be able to really advance in my studies. I'm still holding on to some hope that my university will offer a Masters in Turn-Based Strategy Games, but I'll probably just have to stick with psychology. At least i haven't stooped as low as somehow tying my interest in this game into some psychology paper and trying to make it fit for the subject, kinda like this guy I've had a lot of classes with, he will take any subject the prof gives him and somehow tie it into an arguement as to why pot should be legal. It was funny the first few times he presented a paper like that, but now it's just sad.

Well... if any of my students turn in a philosophy or ethics paper using Civ Rev for examples to illuminate the deeper meaning of life, I think I'll have no choice but to give them an automatic 'A'. That's probabaly not fair, but "oh well." Seriously, though, I do use Civ Rev from time to time in class -- for example, on lying and cheating -- and the kids think it's pretty funny and dorky. Some of them have also played it, or have friends that do, so that's pretty interesting to find out just how many ppl know about it. I didn't realize how popular it's become...

[asmodeios]

Well... if any of my students turn in a philosophy or ethics paper using Civ Rev for examples to illuminate the deeper meaning of life, I think I'll have no choice but to give them an automatic 'A'. That's probabaly not fair, but "oh well." Seriously, though, I do use Civ Rev from time to time in class -- for example, on lying and cheating -- and the kids think it's pretty funny and dorky. Some of them have also played it, or have friends that do, so that's pretty interesting to find out just how many ppl know about it. I didn't realize how popular it's become...

I've gotten at least 10 of my friends/co-workers to play it regularly so I imagine others have as wel. I bet a lot of the players started because of word of mouth.

[danthechan]

having an xbox360 will buy you a certain amount of cred with the students. i would love to see an official thread to chronicle dumb moves by smart players. my favorite is still by an opponent. he got a free sdi from oxford in his cap. then i took it and he rushed the bomb and nuked me, only to have his defense system protect me. it was a doh! of nuclear proportions.

[Zefelius]

having an xbox360 will buy you a certain amount of cred with the students. i would love to see an official thread to chronicle dumb moves by smart players. my favorite is still by an opponent. he got a free sdi from oxford in his cap. then i took it and he rushed the bomb and nuked me, only to have his defense system protect me. it was a doh! of nuclear proportions.

Okay, that's just HILARIOUS!!

[Zefelius]

ps: i've never used the sdi... does it automatically respond to an attack or do you have to push some buttons to respond in time? thanks...

[asmodeios]

if it is going to nuke the city with the sdi then the sdi shoots it down automatically

[the headless 10]

I played headless again last night. I figured I was dead right away, but I managed to turn the game around and then turn it around again. So if you followed that, I lost.

I had the Romans and headless had the Arabs. The AI were the Zulu, the Japanese and the Egyptians (Stonehenge). I got a fast walk-in on the Zulu, although I had to bypass a barb to do it. Probably worth it, although the barb eventually went to headless. He was about equidistant from Zimbabwe and brought warriors and horses to mess with me fast. I thought I was dead, but I managed to get archers up just in time. Amazing. Then I had the problem of headless looming over me and making expansion impossible, so I teched Iron Working and chased his arse out of there with legions. I was actually kind of amazed at how well it worked. I also built a road between Rome and Zimbabwe so I could easily settle along it and send my legions in to clear up any trouble that may arise. Then I put my three legion armies (two non-vet and one with infiltration) in a galley and sent them Tripoli-ward.

I got the city, but unfortunately headless was able to stop me at the next city with catapults. I couldn't believe I was winning so of course I didn't. I'm not sure what happened. I expanded okay, but didn't really get enough defenses in place and somehow didn't get a commanding tech lead over headless, despite the fact that he never left Fundamentalism! Maybe it was that he got Navigation pretty fast and I got it later, so a few good whale cities can make up for a lot.

So eventually he brought his knights in and I was kind of keeping him slow, trying to get Steam, but then he GS's Industrialization! I had more beakers and more techs and yet I couldn't. Ugh. And he got his cruiser fleet in too fast. I just had a single cruiser which was in the wrong place, so I eventually gave up.

I know I could've kicked out a couple more cities, but I still think I should've been able to keep a tech lead with what I had. I think getting navigation before me was just really key for headless. I'll bet his six or so cities (what he had around that time) ended up being about as good as my ten or so cities.

Best part of this game was that we slowed each other down so much at the start, we were actually behind the AI in techs for a while. Awesome!

heh, far from a bc modern era game.. it took me a very long time to get my 100 gold.. plus, with my capital soon(ish) gone, i had to kind of cram myself in the middle of the ai.. my horses lost to egypts cap (animation looked promising to start, but quickly soured) but the free horse i recieved from a barb took a wandering settler.. fair deal..

and why leave fundamentalism? dont need to pay those expensive libriarian salaries.. were you holding a gs at the end? i almost used mine on steam power because it was gonna take a bunch of turns, but figured industrialization was more important..

fun stuff, maybe again tonight..

[asmodeios]

Played a China vs China matchup tonight with Egyptian AI (Colossus) Neever found out the ai during the game and forgot who it was at the victory screen.

Started out by moving my settler over to a spot where I had 3 forest. Only 1 grassland and 2 sea tiles but had 2 desert squares as well.

Horse rushed ( I don't do it often but usually will if I can get a 3 forest cap) got my 100 gold together by 3000 BC because I hammered out 3 warriors to start with and got like 4 barb huts before I got my horse army together which also got a hut with 2 flags and killed a egyptian legion to make it a vet.

Apparently my opponent and the AI both had 2 cities settled before me although not by much.

I take out Thebes and get that almighty wonder plus iron working....3 water tiles...not bad but not great. Got a spy from a friendly earlier used it to steal the GS from the 100g egyptian city. Used it on currency and put a market in thebes. Took out the egyptian 100 g city...notice my opponent still only has 1 tech.

didn't get masonry first...must have been a french AI in the game. But did get CoL, Irrigation, Currency, Monarchy...etc first.

tried to takeout the 2nd chinese city with my blitz horseman vs warrior army....lost. Rushed a legion army took out that city moved the army out rushed an archer. Put together another legion army from both the opponents 2nd cities. He flips his 2nd city back...I immediately take it back with one of the 2 legion armies siting right next to it. Put together another legion army and attack Beijing and the warrior army in it and lose. 2nd army beats that army. 3rd army not over there yet.

At this point my opponent messages me saying I'm a scrub I suck because my legion couldn't take out a warrior army blah blah blah...I reply back to him...Yeah I suck alright. Its 200 ad i'm well into the industrial era and you don't have any tech besides the free one you started with.

I proceed to use 2 legion armies to take out his next warrior army and 1 warrior he haves left and take his last city.

Get another message saying I'm a disgrace I suck blah blah blah I didn't get any warriors wah wah wah...

I reply back saying I've had starts without any barbs or one barb before and sure as hell got to industrial before 0 ad still. Never heard back from him

jjj outlaw jjj rofl....

The audacity of some people I swear. I suck because he can't get a barb hut?

Nevermind he made his 2nd city way to early and because of that he didn't get any barb huts...the barb huts near him I picked up and the AI did because he felt he needed to build a setter on the first turn.

[asmodeios]

Had another game tonight.

China vs Greeks.

Game started out with Beijing being stuck on a 6 tile island no huts naming or barbs.

I proceed immediately to building a galley then 3 warriors then start production on a settler.

Find AoC 3 tiles away from my capital. Don't take it yet.

Find the mainland a few turns later and first thing I see is a barb hut!

Gives me 50 gold. 4 tiles away are the spanish. I see a friendly hut 1 turn away grab it and it gives me a caravan. Find Delhi 3 turns later pop out my produced settler and my 100g settler on same turn. Move warrior army over to attempt a takeover of Madrid. 4.5 vs 3 loses to non fortified archer. Blah... Find one move friendly and it gives me pottery.

100 g city is a 1 tile island with fish and dye. 3rd city is fish, whale, and another whale in courthouse range. Pump out 1 more settler from Beijing settle a 1 tile island with whale and fish.

Get AoC. 3 turns later I get a GA (would be a trend to this game as I got 4 of them)

I look at my opponents tech he has 9 to my 2. I'm thinking oh boy....this is going to hurt. I look at the tech tree and masonry is still available...switch everything over to tech and have it in 2 turns and well as back filling BW, HBR, and Alphabet.

So now it is 9 techs to 7. Irrigation still available got it 2 turns later. CoL still available....got it. Then got currency and free market in my whale, fish, dye 2 tile city.

Got something like 220 gold...rush a settler from every city on the same turn.

Use galley to plant 2 of the cities and waited for industrial to the other two (like 4 turns later and when I got navigation) loaded those up on a galleon and set off. Oh Btw the Greeks got SoC really early as well as atlantis later on around 24 techs which gave him corp and industrialization first. When I noticed this I rushed a 2nd and 3rd market in newer 1 tile cities. Giving me about 200 gold per turn. More than what he had with those two techs.

I started island jumping rushing a settler from each newly settled city. Although at this point I was already in democracy as he had held a tech lead the whole game until about 29 techs then it was either tied or I was in the lead. Around 27 techs he switched over to monarchy and started taking out the Egyptians and the Indians (I had already converted without a GA 3 indian cities) so now I had about 22 cities with 5 being on the mainland.

He had went the Combustion route since he got ind and corp for free meanwhile I had gotten metallurgy, communism, gunpowder, railroad, engineering, and mass production first. As soon as I got railroad I rushed a iron mine in a city that had 3 mountain ranges then started working on a factory...rushed it as soon as I got communism. Pumped out leo's workshop so I'd have MI everywhere. Which was a great idea since he was doing work with those tanks. As soon as he got Delhi I had gotten Leo's and he immediately went back to demo. despite he have teched Advance flight. He knew was ready for whatever he could throw at me.

I noticed he was at 4/8 on the economic charts and was getting worried about him getting an econ win. So I switched every city over to gold and went from 2/8 to 4/8 in 5 turns. Started rushing markets, banks, and courthouses in every city but my two production cities.

Pumped out Oxford and it gave me Superconductor (was great since 5 turns later he rushed the nuke) now had sdi for free in beijing and rushed another in my production city.

at this point he was 5/8 and I was 6/8. He rushed TFair with a GB.

No worries I'm getting 2500 gold a turn now.

I get a GS...notice electronics is an available first and got the free +2 trade per city boost...not much but it helped.

I get to 7/8 a few turns later and so does he. Now i'm starting to sweat. He rushes MI complex and Magna carta? Wtf...

His culture starts to push in on one of my 3 cities with a great economist...rush a wall.

2 turns later i'm at 8/8. Next turn eco. win.

I almost quit at the begining of this game because of the 6 tile island but expansion to islands from the start was the difference.

He had a 9 to 2 tech lead at 2000 BC. and I won an econ victory.

I'm still wondering what the hell he was teching since I got Masonry, Irrigation, CoL, Mathematics, and currency first.

he must have went for construction and he definitely got Invention, monarchy, feudalism, and steam power first.

He really shouldn't have let me get currency and irrigation first. Especially since i got AoC with 4 cities early on as he was never able to flip any of my cities.

[Zefelius]

Operating on 2 hours of sleep from the night before, and several drinks from going out to a bar with friends and colleagues, I managed to squeeze in a game last night at around 1:30 am until whenever. In a half daze of white russians and exhaustion, I actually managed to play a decent game against Therapism 101 who had crushed me not too long ago as the Arabs when I was the Japanese. This time I was the Spanish against his Arabs.

He climbed to an early lead by taking Collossus from the Egyptians and flipping one of my early whale cities on a giant island I had been hoping to colonize. That set me back to 2 cities, but I didn't stop expanding with my other whale city so no problem. By the time he sends his Arab horsearmy and warrior army my way, I had legions to defeat them. I'm really starting to like what those legions can do on defense if you have time to set them up.

I wasn't moving too quickly, being in my delusional half-drunken state, and got a message from the other guy. I haven't read it yet, but I have a good idea what the point of it is. But I'm glad I took th extra time to set up some decent tactics, which I usually suck at, because by the time he sent an archer army and knight army to my first line of defense on the mainland, where my prod city was, I already had enough legion armies (as well as 3 new ones converted from saved wonder hammers) positioned just right on hills and behind rivers so that by the time he attacked it wasn't much of a contest bringing him down. He quit not too long after he realized I was surpassing his tech lead. Ultimately, it's nice to know that a simple archer army and knight army united in a single attack is not sufficient tactics to overcome some thoughtful strategy.

I wish I could keep improving my game and tactics today, but my gf says I have too much work! Maybe tonight at around 1am again.