Rah's saturday game IV

[rah]

Damn, haven't played a good MP game in a while.
I'll probably be looking both Friday and Saturday night.

[trev]

Hello, free for a while, any game starting up soon?

[rah]

Just woke up, anybody around?

[Dominae]

Here - when were you planning on starting?

[rah]

Figure in about 50 minutes. I assume we'll have enough by then.

[Hercules]

Yep sounds good.

[rah]

Ok, so far we have me Dom herc barono snoopy. Would like one or two more. Top of the hour we'll see who else shows.

[Baron O]

let the beatings begin (probably mine)

[rah]

Time for game two, anybody interested

[rah]

it's hot

[Dominae]

Sorry for dogpile Baron O, it's was totally opportunistic and not at all pre-planned.

[Dominae]

Too bad that game turned sour in the end, I was just waiting for snoop to say gg.

I made a bad move and settled close to snoop's cap, hoping to reveal Iron close by. It turned out to be rather further and I was left defending Swords and Spearmen with Archers and Chariots. Slave as I might that's a losing battle. Once my roads were cut and my cap in danger I conceded. I didn't know it would be such a big deal!

rah I didn't know you meant the Copper was 3 tiles from my borders. Borders had expanded twice by then so it definitely required another city plus a bunch of Roads. I was on my way there but as I said my cap was about to be disconnected, I would have been able to make maybe 1 Axe before being choked.

And that's my AAR.

[snoopy369]

Dom, my issue with this is that you always follow this pattern, except when you have clearly superior land/resources:

1. Take significant gamble
2. If it pays, off, yay, brilliant dom!
3. If not, then quit.

There's nothing wrong with 1. and 2. - it's pretty much necessary to have a chance to win. I'd do the same. However, I wouldn't quit when it failed... I'd stick it out and try to bleed you dry, make it as hard as possible for you to take me out - slave archers every turn I could if needed.

You could have survived another 100 turns at least, at least long enough for construction if not further. I had a single sword near your capital... yet somehow that was overwhelming force. You could easily have gone for feudalism or construction, or who knows what else - I *know* you're that good of a player, you've done it before.

I don't care when people quit when they're defeated - but you hadn't lost a city, and probably could have drawn that out for 100 more turns easily. Sure, I almost certainly would've won if I played reasonably well, but I'd be a lot weaker compared to MD/Rah, and thus you leaving (and stopping doing anything, which is even worse) meant that I won the war easily, taking both cities quite quickly, rather than slowly, and so MD and rah were much worse off for it.

I don't think people should quit until they're defeated, as in ~10 turns or so to end-of-empire, or lost all of their major cities. (Assuming they're quiiting because of quitting because of bedtime or obligations, of course). That's fair to the rest of the players. Otherwise we might as well just be playing SP...

[Dominae]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Dom, my issue with this is that you always follow this pattern, except when you have clearly superior land/resources:

1. Take significant gamble
2. If it pays, off, yay, brilliant dom!
3. If not, then quit.

You're right, I play a lot looser than I used to. This is to keep the games fun for me. You're wrong about 3 though, I've tried many strategies that didn't work but didn't retire until other players brought their forces to bear. Conversely I've also quit many times (or propsed a restart) when I was ahead.

I don't care when people quit when they're defeated - but you hadn't lost a city, and probably could have drawn that out for 100 more turns easily.

I'm clearly denying you the kind of experience you want from your opponents. (The AI is pretty good at just building Archers). Is it an unwritten rule of rah's games to stay in until the bitter end?

I used to think it's unbalancing when one players retires, but I've learned that diplomacy counter-balances this easily. Defending against rah and MasterDave from the left and right would have made for an interesting end-game...

[OzzyKP]

My last game I stayed till the bitter, bitter, bitter end. hehehe. Dragged that out forever, heh.