Got my butt handed to me my Commnader_Biggun in a rated game - he was British and the map was Mediterranean. I have a "no preference" setting but I think that is bad strategy form the start. Clearly if you are choosing British and sea maps, then you'll have a distinct advantage over land map civs. Maya is not over-powered on sea maps. In fact, in this case they are severely outclassed. You can view the game here. But it is over early. Med maps are too tough to raid on and British easily control the sea. GG.

BTW, this game demonstrates just about the perfect strategy to play British on this map. SCI1, COM1, then fish boom and grab the center island. You win! Raiding is easily fended off because of the narrow access and once you control the sea and the center, you can strike anywhere on the map.
posted by Tim at 12:52 AM

HalfLotus posts a good article on Rush type vs. Boom type attacks

This is an extension of the basic relationship between booming and rushing (pure rush defeats pure boom). When developing an attack strategy, its strengths and weaknesses are based on the relative emphasis of economic vs military spending.

...

With a 'rush type' attack, you build only enough economy/tech to get to the target age and create a decent sized army. Examples would be a Mil first HI rush, French 150, a 10-11 minute Medieval attack, and Frogman's Spanish gunpowder attack (he attacks with GP army before getting Civ 3 and Commerce 3).

...

In a 'boom type' attack, you build your economy/tech 'as normal' while creating an army concurrently. Examples would be the Sci1/Mil1 HI rush (El capitan style), and Gooey's Medieval attack. The boom type is delayed so your attack has a lower chance of succes, but if it fails, your economy is in better shape.

I'm not sure if I agree with his distinctions. I'd categorize a Gunpowder age attack more of a boom attack than an ancient rush with SCI1 thrown in (there's a reason we call it a "rush"). There's also "rushing" to merely raid, such as the Mongol horse archer rush strategy. However, his point brings up some interesting considerations so it is worth pondering.
posted by Tim at 11:49 AM

EC posted his Ancient Age Heavy Infantry technique

Queue up 3 villies, put them on timber. While doing that, research Sci 1 and then Mil 1. The 3rd villie that is queued, don't put him on timber, but have him move towards the furthest area in your land to build your barracks when your timber reaches 120. With your scout, scout the nearest corner (don't pick up any ruins yet!). When you build your barracks, then pick up a ruin. Then build 2 farms, and queue up 2 more villies or however many until you have 5 farms and at least 5 villies on timber.

...

Just about everyone I've played, I've pretty much rushed. I've certainly won more than I lost (but lost more than I won vs. good players), but finding out their strengths and weaknesses will come in handy for future games.

There's a lot more so read the whole thing.

When I picked up playing more frequently on-line, I used to rush just about every single game. Even against Mayan, and I definitely won more than I lost. Losing was rare. Nowadays, I prefer to keep my options open. I'm better at the economy management anyway and it's easier to discover and defend a rush than it is to pull off a surprise rush.

Anyway it's nice to have independent corroboration that rushing is viable, given the arguments that occurred not too long ago with "experts" saying rushing was not viable against good players.
posted by Tim at 11:36 AM

The Sunday Dilbert from 11/16.
posted by Tim at 10:16 AM

Games are starting to be taken seriously now as educational tools. In this article at Governing.com, it explains how games are being used to simulate governmental decision-making

Computer games offer citizens the chance to see how government works and the trade-offs involved in policy making.

posted by Tim at 10:12 AM

I've posted updated O4B rankings as of 12/5/03. From now on these will be posted in their own section so they don't clutter up the main page. My focus is supposed to be on strategy, not ratings, so I've moved them. We'll continue to update them regularly, however, but you'll need to click through to view them.

Also, I've increased the dataset to include the top 200 players on the BHG list. There are 68 active established players in the top 200.
posted by Tim at 8:56 AM

Buried in the post about scouting technique, El_Capitan offers some great insight into his game that you won't get from viewing the recorded games.

I always time my ruins whenever I spot one before either my scout or villie gets it. Many people think it's lack of macro, but it's not. I'm waiting. Waiting for a certain resource to become the lowest... either by manipulating the city by queuing up villies, or by building a farm or researching something that takes up timber, etc. Everything is planned for how I want to start my game.

Fast Classical raid or rush... I need at least 2 or 3 Ruins, and always food.
Ancient Age Heavy Infantry rush... I need usually 4 or 5 Ruins, and either food or timber, but most of the time, food.
Booming start 1/2/2/2 before Classical, I need around 6 or 7 Ruins in order to get to Classical around 5 minutes. I need Food or Timber, and never Wealth.

The only time I need Wealth from Ruins is when I'm doing my Greek fast 2/1/2/2 Medieval... which I can usually get in around 5 minutes, and with a few heavy cavalry ready for raiding.

posted by Tim at 8:07 AM

WhiskeyPete asks yet another great question. Or rather a set of questions. What is it with this guy?!

Let us assume for the questions below that you are not going to rush, you are not looking to perform and all out border push, you are not looking to perform very large amounts of raiding as quickly as possible. For the questions below assume you will do a standard build with small variations as needed. Nothing extreme. Even if you see your enemy build 2 wonders before classical you will not jump on them with an army.

1. Is the current list of functions of scouting I have complete?

Scouting for Ruins

Scouting to see what your opponent is doing

Scouting for 2nd city placement

Scouting for rares
2. Is the priority of these functions correct?
3. Is the use of villagers to scout economical?
4. Is there a pattern of scouting that you believe will net more ruins than others when on a random land map?
5. Are there set patterns to where ruins are located based on map type (i.e. do you do a circle pattern on old world but in the med you zig zag, or is it more specific than this?)?
6. Assuming you place your second city badly because of poor scouting doesn't it still hold a certain amount of strategic value (as in most forward position) so how large of a loss is that?
7. Is there a set time to cut-off ruin gathering and just focus on scouting the enemy? When is it?
8. Is searching your opponents side of the map first a good strat?
9. How many ruins are needed to recomp getting sci2 right out of the gate?
10. How many ruins are needed to find to justify building an early barrack and second scout?
11. Is the benefit of any rare worth putting off scouting your opponent? If so, what rares?

As a quick answer: 1 & 2 - it depends, 3 - yes, 4 - yes, 5 - yes, 6 - it depends, 7 - no, but it depends, 8 - it depends, 9 - none, 10 - it depends, 11 - doesn't make sense, scouting and rares are not mutually exclusive.

UPDATE: As a long answer...

1. Is the current list of functions of scouting I have complete? No. On island maps you want to be sure to scout out the islands, for the rares, but also so you can get to them to them quickly. Also on land maps, you want to just plain uncover certain portions of the map so you can see where the key terrain is. Key terrain is terrain that gives an advantage to the side that controls it. It could be a rocky area where your infantry gain a bonus, it could be high ground on SW Mesa, etc.

2. Is the priority of these functions correct? It depends on your goals, your civ, and the map. If you are Spanish, ruins are more important. If you are Bantu, you want to find a good place to lay your 2nd and 3rd cities. On African Watering Hole, you just want to push on the center, so no real city scouting is needed, but on Himalayan, you need to find a good source of trees as soon as possible to either build forward or backward, depending on your strategy. Find what works for you in various circumstances. It also depends on your opponent. If he is Mayan, stay out of his area, or be very careful.

3. Is the use of villagers to scout economical? Yes. It requires significant micro, but it is useful. There always comes a point where you will stop making villagers for a moment, so it is sufficient to only account for food costs for the villager(s) in question. Example: I (sort of) played a co-op game with El_Capitan, and asked him to make me a villager for scouting. Prior to Medieval Age, I managed to collect 4 ruins worth a total of 250 resources, paying for the villager cost almost 10 times over. Doing this requires good micro to avoid making errors on your city management.

4. Is there a pattern of scouting that you believe will net more ruins than others when on a random land map? Yes. Do not cross your path, avoid slow terrain, avoid being too close to mountains, forests or the edge, which limits your LOS.

5. Are there set patterns to where ruins are located based on map type (i.e. do you do a circle pattern on old world but in the med you zig zag, or is it more specific than this?) Yes. Use the all visible feature and generate a bunch of maps, you can see the patterns that ruins are laid out in. On some maps, like old world it's random, but even there, you can generally always find a ruin in the corner. Worth a villager if you can manage the micro. On other maps, there are specific layouts, e.g., colonial powers has NO ruins on the mainlaind. You can do the research on your own.

6. Assuming you place your second city badly because of poor scouting doesn't it still hold a certain amount of strategic value (as in most forward position) so how large of a loss is that? It depends. If the enemy is likely to raid you, you will want to ensure your cities are close by the resource gathering areas (e.g., wood, mountains) and you will want to build towers in those exposed areas. 90% of the time I just build toward the center to gain maximum territory, but that's just me.

7. Is there a set time to cut-off ruin gathering and just focus on scouting the enemy? When is it? No. I constantly scout out the map, ruins are still valuable, even in the later ages, and scouts are cheap. If you feel the need to scout the enemy, make an extra scout. After raiding, Light cav make great scout units as well, although they will not detour to pick up ruins. However, if you feel they are going to rush you, you will definitely want to scout them out early. If they are Mayan, you'll want to scout the terrain around them so you have better intel later when its difficult to enter their territory.

8. Is searching your opponents side of the map first a good strat? It depends on opponent, civs, and the map. If your opponent is going to scout you first, you might wanna get your ruins and then scout his place to get his as well. If they are Mayan, stick to your area. Just figure it out on a case by case basis.

9. How many ruins are needed to recomp getting sci2 right out of the gate? None. You're going to get it anyway and the real problem is getting enough wealth. This usually prevents all but Chinese or Spanish from getting it quickly. If you can get it without delaying - get it. But don't wait too long.

10. How many ruins are needed to find to justify building an early barrack and second scout? It depends on your strategy, when would you otherwise make a barracks? If you make one at 4 min, making one at 3 is not such a big deal. But waiting too long means there will be fewer rares to get. Personally, I never get a second scout early, but that's just me.

11. Is the benefit of any rare worth putting off scouting your opponent? If so, what rares? Scout can't get rares, so I'm not sure about the question. It doesn't seem relevant. You won't know what you've got for rares until you've scouted them and after you've scouted them, you can move on. Scouting and rares are not mutually exclusive. Your merchant will go to the rares later.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

posted by Tim at 7:39 PM

This is an old, old newbie tip sheet written by AoR_Bremidon and posted over at RON Heaven. Rohag had linked to it recently, and so I thought it a good idea to dredge it up. However, I'd recommend you ignore the first comment:

Don't Rush to the second age unless you really have a reason. Getting the second level of each of the library techs before going to the 2nd age seems to be a pretty good idea. I sometimes skimp on the 2nd science and 2nd military depending on my civ.

As you know, I've stressed gettign to Classical as EARLY as possible to get going on the knowledge and to facilitate raiding.
posted by Tim at 10:03 AM

<soapbox>
I think that all tournaments (with normal starting conditions) should be played in the rated room. Tournaments don't allow you to pick your opponents and therefore end up producing more accurate ratings. Ratings should reflect current skill, which is the result of playing real games, not the games you "pick." Of course, that would be difficult (but not impossible) to do. It would require participants to be in the QM lobby and to synchronize their "FIND A GAME" launching.
</soapbox>
posted by Tim at 6:34 AM

Okay, we weren't sure about taxation when we said this but it turns out we were right anyway, at least the most part. I did some research this evening and here's how taxation works:

1. Taxation research does two things (and only two things): 1) generates wealth intrinsically based on your territory, and 2) increases the value of all rare resources (including fishing).


2. Wealth generated from territory is based solely on the percentage territory you control, and not on any other factors.
   At level 1, you get +0.5 wealth per 1% of territory. (Thus the 50% rate it advertises). British get +1.
   At level 2, you get +1 wealth per 1% of territory. British get +2.
   At level 3, you get +2 wealth per 1% of territory. British get +4.
   At level 4, you get +3 wealth per 1% of territory. British get +6.


3. For each level of taxation the income from all rare resources increases. However, for fishing, only the non-food portion of the fisherman's income is increased. Also, only the base amount is used for the bonus calculation. (i.e., Nubians do not get extra bonuses from researching taxation.)
   At level 1, you get a 20% increase in the rare resource (+10 becomes +12).
   At level 2, you get a 50% increase in the rare resource (+12 becomes +15).
   At level 3, you get a 100% increase in the rare resource (+15 becomes +20).
   At level 4, you get a 200% increase in the rare resource (+20 becomes +30).


4. For Nubians, the taxation bonus is additive, not multiplicative.
   At level 0, you get a 50% nation bonus for the rare resource (+10 becomes +15).
   At level 1, you get a 50% nation bonus + 20% increase (+15 becomes +17).
   At level 2, you get a 50% nation bonus + 50% increase (+17 becomes +20).
   At level 3, you get a 50% nation bonus + 100% increase (+20 becomes +25).
   At level 4, you get a 50% nation bonus + 200% increase (+25 becomes +35).
   That's kinda lame :-(


5. While we're on the subject of rare resources, the Porcelain Tower increases the (base) income from rares by 200% (again this is additive, not multiplicative). So that juicy Nubian rare which is netting +35 does not go up to +105, which is what would make sense: 35 + 2*35 = 105. Instead, the base of +10 is what is used, so an additional +20 is added. Capped out, with the tower, for a Nubian, a +10 rare brings in +55. For mere mortals, it would bring in +50.

One correction to the earlier post, Nubians do not receive any kind of bonus from fishing.

UPDATE: Ummmm, nm - Brits are correct.
posted by Tim at 10:29 PM

From the Big Huge Ratings page -- updated O4B rankings. Still only 34 players in top 100 are established and active, although the number of non-established actives decreased to 31

Out4Blood dropped out of The List -- oops!

Anyway, here are the latest:

O4BRank	Rank	Player                   	Rating	W	L	#	Date

1	1	I_aM_AnDy                	2690	76	20	96	11/21

2	4	PCA_Frogman              	2302	35	0	35	11/29

3	6	TWC_Mulfar               	2234	40	7	47	12/3

4	7	AS_REVENGER              	2220	19	2	21	12/1

5	13	Apolonius                	2200	27	2	29	11/23

6	16	TuF_Astator              	2158	52	13	65	12/2

7	17	PCA_newty                	2156	51	18	69	11/30

8	18	ESPerItou                	2155	10	0	10	11/18

9	21	TWC_ShaDowZ              	2148	35	8	43	11/30

10	22	Udon_Bomber              	2148	31	5	36	11/10

11	25	PCA_NE_O                 	2140	10	0	10	12/3

12	28	TuF_Owns_The_Top100      	2132	26	8	34	11/28

13	32	Offressor                	2124	17	5	22	12/3

14	33	Astator_I_loVe_you       	2122	24	2	26	11/14

15	37	PCA_mayupu               	2115	9	1	10	11/19

16	39	DaRq_Vorfidus            	2111	18	7	25	11/18

17	42	PCA_konkon               	2107	16	4	20	12/3

18	47	Silvery_Dragon[ms]       	2103	16	5	21	12/2

19	48	TuF_PoWer                	2103	15	5	20	11/28

20	52	DaRq_xYz                 	2095	11	2	13	11/21

21	53	yadayada                 	2094	25	5	30	12/3

22	58	camel                    	2086	9	4	13	11/16

23	62	AKoH_NiGhtMaRe_          	2079	14	2	16	11/24

24	66	Gigi                     	2075	19	5	24	12/1

25	68	PCA_yuu_rerise           	2075	22	3	25	11/20

26	79	PCA_Mell                 	2061	25	6	31	12/1

27	80	TuF__wown                	2060	11	2	13	12/2

28	81	UD_Renegade              	2056	34	16	50	11/21

29	82	El_Capitan               	2054	78	17	95	12/2

30	87	AU_MeMeNTo               	2051	33	10	43	11/29

31	94	SolituS                  	2037	13	1	14	11/27

32	95	TuF_Rox_You_Baby         	2036	19	5	24	11/30

33	96	GM_KouTousoV             	2036	9	2	11	11/24

34	98	PCA_MATUURA_AYA          	2032	35	10	45	11/25

posted by Tim at 3:17 PM

WhiskeyPete asks an "easy" question about taxation.

The temple upgrade taxation at classical gives you merchant bonus of 120%. Does this apply to both the resource gathering and "special" ability?

HL states/asks (you decide) an even more interesting question.

... taxation increases resources gathered from fishing?

I'm pretty sure that taxation increases ONLY the wealth component of fishing and that granary upgrades ONLY increase the food component of fishing. Examples:

Fishing is 10F/ 10W. After first granary upgrade (+50%) it should be +15F/+10W. After first Taxation upgrade (+20%) it should be +10F/+12W. After both upgrades it should be +15F/+12W. When both upgrades are maxed, I would expect it to be +30F/+30W.
I can't currently confirm this, but I'll check it later.

I think the Nubian bonus to rares applies in this manner also. So Nubian base fishing is +10F/+15W. The +10 food acts the same as a farm, so no extra bonus. The wealth acts as a rare, so you get the extra rare bonus. I think.

UPDATE: Nubians do not receive any kind of bonus from fishing.
posted by Tim at 2:45 PM

EC has posted his inaugural Tip of the Week at RON Heaven.

The biggest flaw I see from all players, from beginner to expert, is that they never seem to trade at the market. I'll see players have over 1,000 Food accumulating, and they're not spending it, when they can sell it to buy another resource, or make scholars with that wealth! So, the tip for this week is...

TRADE AT THE MARKET!

Be sure to read the whole the thing.

HL even stopped by to give his two cents.

My contribution for all you newbies out there is to ensure you've opened the tab at the top left of your screen that shows the current market prices. By clicking on the boxes you can quickly buy and sell resources without leaving the battle area. You can also SHIFT+click which buys and sells 5x the normal amount. Having the window up also lets you see how the market is moving, so you might wait to let it go up or down to try and time your buys and sells.
posted by Tim at 2:00 PM

Playing a rare rated game, and against a low-rated (~1800) opponent, my cable decided to blow out 5 minutes into the game. GRRR.

UPDATE: That little adventure cost me a few dozen points.
posted by Tim at 7:24 AM

Note: for those with too much time on their hands, here is the expurgated version of my half of the annual Christmas newsletter. Read at your own peril.

This is O4B. Wifey and I always go through a struggle when it comes to putting together a Christmas newsletter. She's the driving force behind this exercise, and so naturally the focus is on her and, now recently, the kids. Things that I do don't usually merit inclusion in the newsletter unless I:

1) move, or
2) change jobs.

This year was no exception. Wifey asked me to read the most recent newsletter and add my comments. After the fourth page of hearing about her stay in the hospital, my comment was this: "This is about you having a baby, not a Christmas newsletter." This unfortunate remark resulted in me having to actually contribute to this year's letter, as opposed to hastily editing -- which is much more my style. With that, I bring you my list of major events for your Christmas cheer.

1. We had a baby. (Of course, we didn't have one, Wifey had one. But there's usually a lot of patient effort the father has to go through as well. It's just not as painful.) This time around it was a boy, and things went smoother than the First Time. But I'll leave the details to Wifey and the other 90% of the newsletter.

2. We moved. Yes, the builders finally finished and we were able to move in on April 10th. As usual, I am already nitpicking about the builder's poor quality – rounded walls, unfinished paint jobs, mangled spackling, nail pops, stupid architecture, lack of follow up, unreturned phone calls, improper drainage... GRRRR. Okay I am stopping here before I start to get angry all over again. Anyway, Wifey likes the house, so I try to ignore the rest of it.

3. We survived a hurricane. Hurricane Isabel hit September 18th. Its eye passed within 20 some miles of our new location. The damage was less than I expected. We lost several big trees on our property but by God's grace they didn't hit our house, although one came 6 feet from crushing the O4B-mobile. The only house in our neighborhood that was hit was an unsold property, so only the builder suffered. I had dashed out to visit Wal-Mart and it was eerie, like a scene from a disaster movie. There were no cars on the road at all, and the Wal-Mart was nearly deserted, except for a handful of hardy employees who remained to inform prospective buyers that "NO! WE HAVE NO MORE BATTERIES!" The neat stuff happened on Friday as everyone in the neighborhood mingled to inspect the damage and compare war stories. On a sad note: the husband of someone I knew from work was seriously injured by a falling tree. Coincidently, someone else at church worked with the husband and requested prayers. It's a small world.

4. I traveled a lot. I made my first trip to Spain. Madrid is my new favorite European city (edging out the former favorite: Prague). I spent the better part of two months (May & June) jetting to and from Virginia, Madrid, and our offices in the UK. It was hard work, but it was fun. Unfortunately, this came right after the baby was born. However, we had planned ahead and arranged for our parents to visit contiguously for the entire period. So Wifey had plenty of help. When I finished with that, I had to go to Mexico for some other work. This occupied most of July. No, I don't speak Spanish yet, but I did enjoy some of the best food I've ever had. Mexican food rocks! Spanish food on the other hand... As a side note, but not worth its own bullet: I saw the Matrix Reloaded 7 times in the theater in 3 different countries.

5. We bought a new car. The lease on the O4B-mobile expired in November, so we needed a back up. Wifey's embarrassed to reveal what we bought, but I'll say this: we did buy used, but we still spent more than we really wanted to, or should have.

6. I built a new computer from scratch. Tired of the 5 year old clunker that wouldn't run Windows XP, but unwilling to pay the $$$ to buy a new one, I decided to build a computer of my own. It's sleek and black and super fast. Can you say 2 Gigs of RAM? Of course, Wifey doesn't want me playing games anymore, so it's going to shameful waste. ;-) However, my real goal is to do some video editing and DVD-authoring. I hooked up the DV camcorder and KK enjoyed making some mini-movies. We'll see what comes of that.

7. KK has a new best friend. Her name is Emily, she lives across the street, and they seem to get along really well. They love to play with each other. Emily has a big dog, which KK is afraid of, so they mostly play over here. Which is fine. KK has this great playroom with fun, colorful, padded flooring (the dining room). It's loaded with all her toys. A LOT of toys. Most of the other interesting news is all about KK, but I'm sure Wifey will relay all of that.

8. We gave up our dog. Jenna is gone. I don't wanna talk about it.

9. I still don't have a piano. My Beethoven is coming along nicely. I can now play the second movement of the Pathetique pretty well and am working on the second movement of quasi una Fantasia (Moonlight). Since we spent too much on the car, we decided to hold off on this for awhile. So I'll be sticking with the ol' Casio for awhile. Just as well. I know that as soon as I get a real piano, Wifey won't let me play it. "It's too loud!" she'll say.

Okay, well that about wraps up my contribution. There's other minor stuff that happened: KK's great birthday party, my Grand Punkin Pie Experiment, the great shelf-making exercise, etc. If you wanna know more about this stuff, call and ask.

posted by Tim at 6:08 PM

In this thread at RON Heaven, Polly posts a bunch of tips. These are mostly newbie tips, but as Polly himself mentions, it's good to hear this stuff over and over again, "as I frequently do not follow my own advice due to laziness or forgetfullness."

Ain't that the truth. Every 1on1 game, I now have this mantra I recite as the game loads:

Scout! And raid!
Scout! And raid!
Raid!
And Scout!
Scout! And Raid!
posted by Tim at 6:01 PM

{BLuT}KrebS is unhappy with the BHG ratings.

I can make a nick and play 4-5 games and get a 2.1k rating. Now think about the 30-40 best players doing that. The result will be that the top 500 ranks will be covered by just a few smurfs (greetings from AOM). Imo this cannot be the aim of a rating system. It is defenitely too easy to get high rated nicks. BHG has to change this if they don't want smurfing to destroy the rating system.

Actually I think the point of the rating system is to accurately display your rating -- as quickly as possible. It shouldn't take more than 20 games to establish where you are supposed to be -- in BHG's case it is 8 games, but that's another matter. A system that requires you to play 200 games before your rating is "accurate" isn't a true rating system, but a play for points system. Where you are not measuring skillas much as you are measuring time invested.

Richter says to "just stick with the O4B rankings" ;-) I appreciate the plug, but even the O4B rankings would be subject to this manipulation.

However, I could just increase the threshold for appearance to 50 or even 100 games. That won't stop serious smurfs, but it would clean out 95% of them (all except the Spam .. err... TuF clan :-)

Their rating system is excellent, however, the biggest flaw is the ability to create an unlimited number of nicks. They oughta just make it one per CD key. "But what about my brother?" yada yada yada Buy your own game! Until they make it so you can only have ONE (or at least limit it to a small number) nick per CD, then they'll always be subject to this (you'd also need to allow for changing your nick to allow clan turnover and the like). You WANT to be able to get to 2100 in 4-5 games if that's where you belong.
posted by Tim at 3:44 PM

One of the glaring holes in RON theory is the entire subject of team strategies. There's very little if anything published about team strategies. There's a few forum posts here and there and there are several recorded games of high quality players playing a team game, but there's not much other than that. And most of those examples are merely reaction to rushing or booming by one or more players. No what we're talking about goes much deeper than that.

There are several categories of strategy in team games that are worth exploring:

1. Strategies for complementary civs


2. Strategies based on map type


3. Strategies based on opponents' nation choices


4. Strategies based on victory conditions

As an example of a strategy for complementary civs, you can test out the combo of Turks and Mongols. This comes from the imagination of El_Capitan. Both of these civs have good rushes, but they are usually not that threatening in team games. The Mongols can't reduce a town, so they are reduced to merely fearsome raiding. They are good at it, but you can defend against raiding. The Turks have the power of siege, but need an army to bring it safely to bear on the enemy towns. However, together they have a synergy that has the potential to be devastating. An early classic by both players followed by Mongol stables and Turk Siege factories results in an immediate and free army. By hitting one player early with the siege, the Mongol mounted troops can reach the battle quickly, guard the siege, and capture the reduced city. Meanwhile, one of the free horse archers can harass the other player forcing him to react to the raiding, keeping him from booming hard. Once the first player has been taken out, the game becomes 2on1.

Another potential strategy is to use Bantu and Mayans together to establish an early and impregnable foothold in the center, particularly effective on certain map types where there are an abundance of resources in the center, such as African Watering Hole, and Great Sahara. This strategy is both based on complementary civs and map types.

As you can see, there are a lot of interesting options. This is but a tiny sample. I'm hoping to spark dsicussion and practice of more and better team strategies. However, most team games seem to be random teams, so coordinated activities (such as civ selection) never seem to happen properly; there is plenty of work to be done in that area of the game. Of course, this might require changing the culture of only RANDOM TEAM games among high-level players, and a harkening back to clan vs. clan matches.
posted by Tim at 3:31 PM

From the PCA website, here are games #1 & #2 from the finals of the Big Huge Smackckdown, featuring PCA_Frogman vs. El_Capitan. Thanks to HL for the tip.
posted by Tim at 12:52 PM

ReadyMan reposted some stuff Brian Reynolds wrote up a long time ago on the Skill Handicap and how it works

In a multiplayer game, if one or more players uses the skill column to announce a higher skill level (e.g. Skill + 5), then other players in that game with a lower skill level (or no announced skill level) will normally receive a handicap.

Handicaps range from level 0 to level 20. Once a player’s handicap level is determined for a game, the player receives the following advantages...

Read the rest of it to find out how it works.
posted by Tim at 12:42 PM