I&D - Faction Analysis - Sparta

[Archaic]

*Post to be edited according to discussions in thread*

Team Makeup
ChairmanSlick
DeathByTheSword
Dissident
GeneralTacticus
Googlie
Jamski
Kassiopeia
Maniac
Ogie Oglethorpe
Skanky Burns
Zeiter

[Archaic]

[c/p job]Know thy enemy. If anyone's got info on any of the players here, now's the time to spill the dirt. The better we can predict their moves, the better we can move against them, and manipulate their actions to our own needs.[/c/p job]

GeneralTacticus: While not all that confident in his own individual skill, is a very proficient player, and quite familiar with playing the Morgan game. Likely to be unfamiliar with the playstyle of Sparta, but should adjust fairly quickly under Googlie's tuition. Knows every single strategy I have outside of my diplomatic manipulation.

[jtsisyoda]

I would like to caution that these forums will eventually be opened to everyone, so be nice.

Ogie is legendary, and Googlie sang his praises. His Builder's Primer on CGN is 30% responsible for any skill I might have (Vel's guide being another 30%). There have been some improvements to it, though. Is he satisfied using what he knew back in the good old days?

Googlie says he's "lousy." He's probably just being modest. He read all of Kody's stuff in the Hive forum. The question is whether he's worked to adopt any of that.

Can old dogs learn new tricks? Or are the old tricks enough?

[CEO Aaron]

Judging from the roster of names of this and the other factions, this is definitely looking like the team we need to watch out for. Luckily for us, I think we have an innately stronger faction, if we can buy ourselves the time to leverage that power into a military advantage.

[Chaunk]

I'm not so sure. With big_Canuk, Darsnan, Chaos Theory etc. on board, the Gaian's look to be stronger on paper. Plus with the set up of the map, we can be confident that we'll get some good breathing space before Sparta comes a calling.

To be fair though, all the teams look strong. We just need to make sure we're stronger.

[Archaic]

I'd agree that this faction is the one to watch for. Unlikely to be manipulated easily in Diplo, likely to be able to predict our own moves with a high degree of precision, and with likely the most experienced PBEM players of Spartans (If not the most experienced PBEM players full stop) as part of their roster.

I have to wonder however if there might end up being infighting? While these guys aren't predisposed to it as, say, they might have been if Enigma_Nova had been allowed to join, some of them can get set in their ways, and I'd expect there to be some violent discussions over the best methods to use.

[Chaunk]

Forgive me, but the vets are Googlie, Jamski, Ogie and General Tacticus right? Perhaps Maniac also... now the Gaians have Darsnan, Hydro (Experienced, if not in PBEM), Chaos Theory (very experienced in TCP/IP) and big_canuk, who is buster rated at least.

I consider the Gaians to be the stronger team given the map and the likely hood that buster has made a jungle hive. The spartans always struggle against the hive, whilst the gaians can pop boom like nobody's business, even pre IndAuto.

What I'm saying is not that the spartans are weak, rather that all are strong in some aspects and we need to be careful of all our opponents. Lets not give some people too much respect, or even worse, too little.

[#endgame]

Jamski pulled out of a PBEM I am playing after losing his copy of SMAX. Wether he has obtained a new copy, I don't know.

-- CTO #endgame

[Vander]

My impression of Jamski is that he is a decent player, but he talks more than he plays. I recall him being aprehensive to take up the role of turn- player when the old Hive turn- player(s) were out.

How well are these players going to magnify the strengths of the Spartans while mitigating the weaknesses?

[Frankychan]

From what I know of...

Jamski-Industrial knowhow. He crawls like nobody's business (in other words, he's good). Last time I played him he was pop-booming while I was still sitting on my hands. I don't know what direction he plays (EXPLORE, DISCOVER, CONQUER, BUILD) or if he even follows this pattern, but he's a good player.

Googlie-Legend. No personal experience except but heresay.

General Tacticus- I first met him in AC-Fiction. He's a pretty friendly guy, but from what i've heard of, he's pretty ruthless in multi-play. I don't have any firsthand XP on him but he should have our eye's on.

The rest I'm not too sure. I can try and gather more data on the rest of them, but I don't know if my investigation on them will bear any fruit....

[arginine]

Googlie was originally the pusher of our Morgan faction, and we haven't changed our early game strategy since he left our team (he originally advocated a faction, in which people owned bases, unit, and ECs and acted as traders, but that would prove infessible).

Jaminski had posted about having played Morgan many times, and would do Sparta for a change.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I had extensive experience with Maniac in the previous ACDG, he is a good organizer but I noticed a few downsides.

The highly agressive war against the Pirates was mostly masterminded by Drouge with some assistance from Maniac, then Maniac and I performed most of the exicution of the build up and invasion, making modifications along the way as needed.

I felt Maniac sifened too many resorces towards military production which weakened our Build game, he also insisted on the Building of the Nural Grafter for a pie in the sky worm based army. We then went to the trouble to build a scout in every concored Pirate base when we were in FM which wasted about 4 turns across 12 bases. I think this poor internal build game characterizes Maniac and was compounded by Drouge's agressivness. Much may depend on how much power Maniac holds in the Spartan ranks.

[Vander]

With Googlie and Jamski in that team, I don't think it very likely that Maniac is going to have much sway. At least not enough to hurt the team.

[Archaic]

It may depend on exactly what he ends up in charge of, if anything at all.

[Chaunk]

I'm not sure that Googlie will take that active a role in the strategy and playing of the team. Because he rates himself poorly in PBEM (Not really surprising, he's played with the best, b_c, mis, buster et al. so he'll have been hammered a fair few times which always dents the confidence) he won't push his opinion. If you look at his posts from our old Morgan forum, he rarely commented on strategy, more on roleplay. He prefers playing the Spartans I think, so he may have more to say there, but I don't think he'll play a big role.

Jamski may still be too busy with NeverWinter Nights to play that big a role in the team. It'll be interesting to see who they move into key positions.