Hey, thanks for your comment! Happy to know that you are still following my channel. I also was surprised to see some of my plays from back then and think there was a lot of potential improvement for my turns. Makes me wonder how it will be if I will be looking back at one of my current games in 4 years haha. Yes, the Kremlin turn and delaying the science was very questionable and I would definitely play it different now. For the turn before the reason to not go for the Scientific Method is that one science is missing. I have only one different urban building to labs, meaning that developing Scientifc Methods would cost me 5 science with Gaudi which sadly is one more than I had during the turn. If enough science would be available your line would be a very strong play and probably the way to go.

@@weidenbaumtta2889 OH! I feel entirely dumb now. I almost never use Gaudi (I'm more of a 4p enthusiast so there's usually never enough breathing room for a pure culture leader) so I thought his ability reduced the cost by 1 for ANY type of urban building, not only the different ones than the one you're trying to research. That makes total sense then. I think that while your game has definitely evolved and became streamlined (I've noticed it myself before as I've watched all of your videos in your channel), I think players like Pajada and Genghisip are proof that there are many valid paths to greatness... so who knows, how you will be doing in 4 years (maybe some crazy 100 culture in age 1 Michelangelo gaming will be the meta, lol)

Thanks! Yes, it is quite interesting to take a look back and see all of those familiar names climbing up in the lower leagues.

Yes, I think it´s interesting to see how drastically the evaluation of certain cards has changed over time. I remember that for me the Semi Final of the Coupertin Cup was an important moment to realise the potential of Maria: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iGW9h4V7otSir9U In general this tournament influenced me a lot. With Fayebians play in the final I began to appreciate the Silk Road a lot more that I before almost never took. And also the use of Gaudi impressed me back then: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e52bh3dsgbJ2hsk

Ah, maybe I said it a bit misleading. I meant that this game is from the same season as the first on my channel, but it´s not the same game.

@@weidenbaumtta2889 Ok, now it's clear. Also one thing that definitely was improved is you English speaking :) Great job

@@Elginior Thanks! Doing those videos improved my English more than my English classes in school haha

Maybe I need to grow my beard a bit longer haha

Thanks for your comment! Yes, that Einstein play was very powerful. The 15% chance was meant as the chance for the whole operation to be succesful, so basically Martin_Pecheur needs to seed, which I estimated (source: gut feeling ; ) ) at about 80%, then Politics of Strength needs to be resolved, 50%, and I estimated the chance to get a war (without checking) at about 40%, maybe even a bit more, which leads to a chance of 16% of the operation being succesful.

Yes, that is an interesting alternative. With this I would be able to declare war and go up to 75 strength (sacrificing included) instead of the 88 I could have gone for with my play, but with a higher chance to get a war. Depending how nicely Martin can defend I think the war could turn out to be not big enough. If he goes for his Napoleonic Army defense he could go up to 62 strength making the war a 36 culture swing. With this I would have chances I think, but with the culture from Einstein + points from impacts Martin could still claim the game for himself. If he has the Positional Army tactic, he would have the chance to go for a defense including Manhattan, getting him to 58 strength only, but giving him 16 culture from Manhattan Project, which probably would increase his winning chances. So I think this play would give me a higher chance to actually have a war, but with a lower chance (but still decent chance) of the war being big enough to win. Maybe the sweet spot would be to go for a variation where I use one more MA on the turn, reducing the draws to 2, but allowing to build an additional age III unit to put the strength potential at 80. It´s interesting how it is possible to tune on the parameters of the chance to get a war and the chance to win with the war with those different variations.

@ Yes my gut feeling was two units and two draws, but there are some variations and of course I didn’t really calculate. But my feeling was such a play had overall higher odds than being all in PoS.

I think the Kremlin could potentially be interesting in this situation, but the problem is that I can´t take it together with the EG II if I want to go for Republic this turn. Without the EG II I think it is too expensive with the rock production that I am having, especially with wanting to for at least one more Barbarossa activation next turn, which is why I rather opted towards the Railroad at the end. If I would have one more CA at this turn I taking Kremlin + EG II is an appealing option I think.

I think Ben wanted to go for the heavy cavalry tactic this turn. If he disbands the warrior for the Pestilence, then he would need to destroy something else, using a CA, in order to get the necessary pop for the third knight, while with losing the farm to the Pestilence, he was able to disband the warrior, using a MA, to get the third knight.

Lol : D

Really interesting game. I thought the Caesar-Colossus-Akro setup looked good and that you were ahead, especially when you drew KotA. Fwiw, things I disagreed with were taking EG > Monarchy and developing Knights before Irri (I’d have gone for Phalanx instead of Heavy Cav).

Thanks for your comment! Yes Joan is always very pleasant to play, a very nice package of small bonuses that ad up. If I understand it correctly there are a few conditions that a channel has to fulfil in order to be monetized. I am missing only one condition, and that is reaching 1000 subscribers, which I will hopefully be able to reach in the near future. Then I will take a look into it.

Thanks for your comment! I think taking a copy of Movies could have been considered during those two early age III turns (I had two turns where I could have taken it for 1 CA (with Darwin)). At the end I just didn´t find the spare CA to do it, and Chaplin alone wasn´t enough of a reason for me to give up on the other things that I did during those turns. But with Iconoclasm coming there is of course some merit in being prepared for as many leaders as possible. Luckily Einstein was at the end also very fine for me (Pierre probably would have been even better). With developing 5 techs during 4 turns with Einstein I almost averaged the amount of culture that Chaplin would have produced me plus the additional science helping me to set up better for impacts (Allowing me the +8 Progress at the end).

Die Turniere werden über die CGE Website organisiert. Dort kannst du dich dann für die Turniere anmelden: account.czechgames.com/tournaments/

Oh, that is great, I am looking forward to the next season : ) What was your name on the App again?

@ it’s Arne in the app :)

"Surely this impact of architecture cannot backfire" was a nice comment before all that happened

@@julianabernethy2202 Famous last word vibes XD

Thanks for your comment and a happy new year! I don´t think that I went for Computers significantly less often than in Worlds 23, so I think less 4p games and already having fixed resource production elsewhere might be the main factors for Gates being at 0 appearences, though it is still very surprising. I think you are right that Barbarossa was at the high end of varience in Worlds 23 and that it balanced itself out last year.

Great questions. I'm also wondering if some of the good choices he didn't pick so often were because they were contested.

When playing the games I didn´t really watched my opponents moves with the question in mind if there is a general shift in how certain leaders and wonders are evaluated. So it´s difficult for me to draw such conclusions with now looking back and trying to remember the games. What I do remember is that I had some opponents that really seemed to value getting CA a lot, for example with paying 3 CA for cards like Saladin, Code of Laws or even Pyramids (if I recall one game correctly). I remember one game where Saladin was taken for three in front of me in a situation where I probably would have gone for him otherwise. So maybe that explains the decrease of me going for Pyramids/Saladin. A lot of changes are probably just by chance, as the amount of data is relatively small.

Yes, that´s actually interesting, I don´t know what the exact reasons are for that. In some of the games of this year I had multiple age III wonders, maybe this didn´t happen so often last year.

Yes, that´s true, but I don´t think the effect is very significant as for most leaders and wonders it should roughly even out over 56 games how often they appeared in a game. Though it´s not impossible that there might be a few outliers.

If you have a strong economical option available I think it´s good to go for that instead of for something uncertain. However I also think that in order to become a top player it is important to be able to spot the right moments where it is the correct move to go for a military push, even when you don´t have enough pay off cards in hand for now. This can for example be when you feel you are behind and need some luck to get back into the game. But also in a solid position it can be the right move to go for some pressure without having any pay off cards yet, because putting pressure on the other players can have more benefits than what you get out of aggressions/wars/strength events. As the other players have to take into account that you could have strong pay off cards in hand you can force them to being more cautious and sometimes they will panic and do something expensive in order to not fall behing in strength. So while you shouldn´t go for a more uncertain line unnessecarily, you also shouldn´t avoid such options if you think that the average and more likely (but not certain) outcome is stronger than the safe path that you could take. For example if you play in 1st position and have taken Colossus as your pick, and then at the next turn there will be Caesar and Hippocrates available, you could of course go for Hippocrates because you know more certain what you would get out of him, but I think that the average outcome that you get out of Caesar in this situation is often higher (especially with Suez being in the game) in such a situation and I would (of course also depending on other factors) go for him even though I don´t know what I will get as draws in the next turns. Only taking the safe paths I think works well against weaker players where you can get an edge over time by just playing more efficiently over the course of the game. But at the top level I think it is important to sometimes take certain risks and not be afraid of uncertainties when you think there is a decent chance that it will allow you to get an edge over the opponents. That being said, I still more often than not like it to go for a more economical route. However there are top players like Genghisip or a440 who in the majority of their games go for a lot of military, making the game chaotic and more often than not being at the positive end of all the mess, showing that military play can be a reliable strategy despite some uncertainties being involved.

​@@weidenbaumtta2889 Great advice, THANKS! This makes perfect sense -- different approaches may be warranted against weaker vs. stronger players; just playing an efficiency game may not be the best choice. It's certainly more chaotic and uncertain, but I can see that sometimes bluffing that you have a strong military position can force your opponent to make inefficient or defensive moves to your advantage. Setting things up so that you are prepared for possible/likely future draws seems trickier but I see how that can work. I'll try that more often!

The main benefit that comes with Acropolis is actually the increased limit of urban buildings, which is most important in culture-heavy games (allows you tu build aditional theatre with Bach or aditional pair with Shakespeare). 2p games are way less likely to turn into arms race than higher player counts, therefore there is way more room for utilizing culture-producing strategies. The interesting question is: why is 2p less military-focused than 3p or 4p? In my view, that's because TTA is structured in a way that if just one player starts pushing the strengh, everybody else has to follow or get crushed. In 4p, due to sheer number of players, almost always somebody will draw the short end of the stick with culture (eg. miss both Bach and Shakespeare). This person will be likely to play military then and force everybody else to follow. That's my take, but I'm super curious of Waidenbaum's opinion. :)

@@virillustris9388 ​ Yeah, my thoughts are similar on the culture focus on 2p. If someone focuses excessively on culture in 4p, chances are that at least one of the other three players will draw a good tactic and crush that player with a War down the road. But in 2p, it's easier to get away with a culture push because the other single player will need to consciously choose military and get some good draws/tactic(s) in order to punish it, which is less likely. My theory anyway.

I think virillustris has already named the most important reason. 2p games often tend to be very culture production heavy in that both players try to build a lot of culture production ideally with a fitting leader like Bach and Shakespeare and often not a lot of military is built in those games. Having the ability to for example build an additional theater with Bach thanks to the increased urban building limit of the Acropolis can give you a big advantage in those types of games, while in 3 and 4 player games it is often difficult to build a lot of urban buildings without getting punished by one of the opponents. Also the discount for government forms can get quite big in those culture heavy games. At the beginning of a 2 player game it sometimes happens that none of the players has the incentive to build an additional unit. In such a case you can sneak some strength events in and win them with the help of the one strength of the Acropolis. The reason why 2p games tend to be relatively peaceful sometimes is probably that when you go for a greedy line you only have to keep one opponent in check and can only get punished by one opponent. There have been games where I went for Shakespeare, my opponent went all out on military, declared two wars against me in age III but still wasn´t able to catch up the culture deficit. In 4p when you go for a greedy line, it can happen that multiple opponents will pile up on you with wars and aggressions. Interestingly in addition to the peaceful games, some 2p games not that rarely go into the other extreme, where from the beginning there is a very big arms race, for example because both players have pushed some strength events, and both players will try to increase their strength at the cost of neglecting the economy and even destroying things.

@@weidenbaumtta2889 Will you agree that 2p games are also quite shorter? I have impression that each age usually has 1-2 turns less than in 3p and especially 4p games. It all of course depends on number of civil actions, but still some generalization can be made. If that is true - players usually don't have much of time to research and build various things. Thus Acropolis is also important because it helps achieve more in the same (short) time in both peaceful and military games

@@goldblueranger I often forget to take a look at how many turns a game lasted, but I have the same impression that 2p games tend to be a bit shorter, which means that more economy heavy builds have less time to pay off, and will get rewarded less by impacts with your one opponent likely not seeding any beneficial impacts for you.