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[xspuipuke]

Ecoline was a 600+ player who was 700+ before. He played really well—I couldn‘t spot any obvious mistakes on his part.

GHG Producing Bacteria was played, gaining a microbe and used for a second microbe, all of which have been immediately (that gen and the next) stolen by Ants, which was passed along in that gen‘s draft IIRC. So GHG did nothing even!

[Sonid]

Galilean Mining is a joke that's not even remotely viable here.

Honest question, do you really think Biofuels with no cities is better than Galilean Mining as Credicor? Not saying Galilean is good by any stretch of the imagination but imo it was easily your 2nd best prelude. Credicor is one of the few corps that can eat that -5 credits without losing too much of their starting engine. Plus you natually want to play the more expensive space/jovian cards and the titanium leans into that.

In 3 player it's just too easy to get attacked. Biofuels into Viral E and AA just paints a giant bullseye on your back and you're going to lose plants. Maybe in 2p it's easier to control the draft to keep the space events in check. I dunno I only play 3p.

Also sorry Im not 500+ so feel free to ignore. BGA is mostly just a way to kill time when Im doing other stuff. I mostly play in person where there is no ELO

[RoyalRook]

I had a look at this game from your perspective a few hours ago and I can only agree with what the others have said:

- Your SP oceans weren't optimal, as some of them didn't allow you to convert but left plants hanging, for which you were - rightfully - punished.
- Deimos against Ecoline's 12 plants would've been an instant choice for me - would get development and hinder theirs, but you went for the milestone, which only slowed you down, basically to a halt. The following 3 gens or so you were at like 20-something cash, unable to play Deimos or anything really.
- I agree with keeping Cupola and not keeping Biofuels.
- GHG producing bacteria was useless: you knew you had passed Ants; why would you keep and even play GHG?
- I would've kept and played Methane.
- Was it you passing Protected Valley? Don't remember what you kept instead, but that allowed Ecoline to secure the Southern ocean walk and steal a spot from you.

I think that's pretty much it.

Thanks, cupola would have slowed me down even more and I didn’t need any teleport. Even let’s say I save 11 MC from ghg this would still be a loss, there were no microbes so I just wanted some value from Ghg but didn’t work. The ocean walk was development and income 2. There will always be chances for me to hit ecoline later. I think the problem was plant prod got out of hand for ecoline and ai happened. You play methane when you are going to play Deimos? And somehow you can also afford Cupla and losing heat prod from the energy? That wouldn’t work. There are plants hanging bc I have tempo I converted whenever I could. There is no way loan is better than biofuels here, it’s immediate boost on the ground, if I am hit I am hit.

I am credicor, why would I ever play cupla? Cupla and underground are the worst city in the game, I sp city for 21 instead of paying 19 and energy prod for Cupla. Ewwwwwww.

I should have paid more attention to this one of course, but this is just really interesting how a seemly dominating position was able to be neutralized. I hit my steel target in the end with no over buy and under 20 cards played. Say somehow I get terraformer this would still be a loss. Ecoline was ineffective bc he dropped 5 science and played valley cloud seeding and such while oxy are filling up anyway. He barely won in the end while he should have been untouchable. He is so comfortable I wonder if bc UNMI was feeding him good cards from the draft.

[RoyalRook]

Galilean Mining is a joke that's not even remotely viable here.

Honest question, do you really think Biofuels with no cities is better than Galilean Mining as Credicor? Not saying Galilean is good by any stretch of the imagination but imo it was easily your 2nd best prelude. Credicor is one of the few corps that can eat that -5 credits without losing too much of their starting engine. Plus you natually want to play the more expensive space/jovian cards and the titanium leans into that.

In 3 player it's just too easy to get attacked. Biofuels into Viral E and AA just paints a giant bullseye on your back and you're going to lose plants. Maybe in 2p it's easier to control the draft to keep the space events in check. I dunno I only play 3p.

Also sorry Im not 500+ so feel free to ignore. BGA is mostly just a way to kill time when Im doing other stuff. I mostly play in person where there is no ELO

Oh yeah no never Galilean, it’s zero day minus 5 for 6 prod in tit with no equity. Comparing to asteroid mining, the prelude is a meme vastly inferior prelude, probably the worst along with society. Bc what if Saturn is in town and AMC for good morning?

[xspuipuke]

Ecoline didn‘t barely win—he won. He had complete control over the end of the game. Why wouldn‘t he choose to win? Next gen, he would‘ve crushed you anyway so, of course, he takes the immediate win.

Plus, his win was only “bare“ because you spent 14 to buy 5 VP for the other player.

I’d keep Cupola to play it immediately: for development, to not have energy hanging that others can tap, and to claim a good spot on the map. Plus, it‘s 1/3 towards Mayor if I get the right cards and 1/8 towards Builder if that‘s something I can get. Cupola is one of the better city cards in the game. I agree, Underground City is trash.

Even the math works out for Cupola: with energy valued at 7 Cupola is a 26 cost city for 3 MC prod compared to your SP city as Credicor for 21 and only 1 mc prod. If you ever play a card like Sponsors for 9, why wouldn‘t you want 2 more MC prod from Cupola for 5 more?

[RoyalRook]

The game was going to end on gen9 no matter what, there is no next gen. UNMI played security fleet with advanced alloy if he done anything else ecoline wouldn't cover. There were no need for city at that point if I drop city I lose gardener you make it sounds like I had all the time in the world to do whatever. I don't need to carry it if I can sp later whenever suits me.

If he doesn't spent so much on useless heat to chase thermolist he would score other ways anyway. Ecoline would have iced the game if not spending so much on the fillers.

[ft029]

This is my first post; it was a very interesting game so I feel compelled to comment. I think credicor went all in for a rush strategy (e.g. passing mars university). Sure, the opponents got some “filler” but it ended up letting them contest milestones/awards and just have more economy overall, which allows them to afford good cards (and card draw!!). The rush works only if you’re actually getting more points than your opponents. Only getting several oceans + greeneries for TR with not many other points or milestone competition just isn’t enough points.

For example two SP oceans, in a very good scenario, gives 8 plants (4 from arctic algae, 2-4 from placement, 0-2 extra from greenery placement) and about 6 coins rebate in total. That’s 30 coins for 4.5 TR (2 from oceans, 2 from a greenery, 1 0.5 from herbivores). Not worth compared to some of the cards that opponents were playing (e.g. NRA, large convoy, imported nitrogen, etc. EDIT I mentioned eco zone and farming but realized they were kinda irrelevant). And this is a way above average scenario that assumes your plants don’t get destroyed.

I think, if your single goal is ending the game as fast as possible, you did well to achieve it. But with a relatively good ecoline, that is not a win condition.

[RoyalRook]

This is my first post; it was a very interesting game so I feel compelled to comment. I think credicor went all in for a rush strategy (e.g. passing mars university). Sure, the opponents got some “filler” but it ended up letting them contest milestones/awards and just have more economy overall, which allows them to afford good cards (and card draw!!). The rush works only if you’re actually getting more points than your opponents. Only getting several oceans + greeneries for TR with not many other points or milestone competition just isn’t enough points.

For example two SP oceans, in a very good scenario, gives 8 plants (4 from arctic algae, 2-4 from placement, 0-2 extra from greenery placement) and about 6 coins rebate in total. That’s 30 coins for 4.5 TR (2 from oceans, 2 from a greenery, 1 0.5 from herbivores). Not worth compared to some of the cards that opponents were playing (e.g. eco zone, large convoy, farming, etc). And this is a way above average scenario that assumes your plants don’t get destroyed.

I think, if your single goal is ending the game as fast as possible, you did well to achieve it. But with a relatively good ecoline, that is not a win condition.

Yup, the crazy part is that I do this all the time with far less good fortunes and dominate. Somehow it just didn't work, yet on paper it sounds so intimadating. My question for you is that, wouldn't most top players would go all out in this setup with credicor? What can we, as players recognize trappings like this game? What was the tell that it's disasterous? Could we win or this is just one of those unwinnable ones? Or simply the lesser ranked (UNMI) passed more impactful card to a fantastic ecoline player that doomed us? This game is kinda insane, surely with arctic algae and deimo alone credicor can do this, I also have GIA, Ice asteroid, greenhouse AND viral enhancer. With UNMI AI online, and huge ecoline plant prod and econ, it's not like we can just drag. What is the counter play here?

[FrankJones]

Ecoline was a 600+ player who was 700+ before. He played really well—I couldn‘t spot any obvious mistakes on his part.

GHG Producing Bacteria was played, gaining a microbe and used for a second microbe, all of which have been immediately (that gen and the next) stolen by Ants, which was passed along in that gen‘s draft IIRC. So GHG did nothing even!

Whoops, my mistake. UNMI was the 200-rated player who came close to winning with the score of 79.
Well, credit to UNMI for hanging with two top players and nearly pulling out an improbably win.

[FrankJones]

Yup, the crazy part is that I do this all the time with far less good fortunes and dominate. Somehow it just didn't work, yet on paper it sounds so intimadating. My question for you is that, wouldn't most top players would go all out in this setup with credicor? What can we, as players recognize trappings like this game? What was the tell that it's disasterous? Could we win or this is just one of those unwinnable ones? Or simply the lesser ranked (UNMI) passed more impactful card to a fantastic ecoline player that doomed us? This game is kinda insane, surely with arctic algae and deimo alone credicor can do this, I also have GIA, Ice asteroid, greenhouse AND viral enhancer. With UNMI AI online, and huge ecoline plant prod and econ, it's not like we can just drag. What is the counter play here?

It sounds as though several of us in the thread have reviewed the game from your perspective.
Have you reviewed it from UNMI's perspective? Maybe UNMI did pass ecoline some good cards, but, maybe UNMI needed to pass good cards. If you get two good cards, you need to pass a good one, obviously.

Given that UNMI scored 79, it's difficult to assert that UMI passed poorly.

Also, I'm unclear what was so supposedly dominating about the initial Credicor position. You had a mediocre hand with mediocre preludes.
I would think a strong Credicor hand would be one where you could play some big cards in Gen 1 by taking advantage of the 87 Credits for the corp and the loan prelude. Ot maybe the hand you actually had but with protected habitats?

I think your starting situation was very vulnerable, which in fact turned out to be exactly the case.

I did not review the ecoline starting hand either. Maybe ecoline just had a winning hand from the start.
As was pointed out, the ecoline player was the 640-rated player. If ecoline had a strong hand, that's a tough situation for the opponent(s).

I do think it's rather bizarre to declare a SP city a better play than Cupola City. You made it sound as though it would be "wasting" the energy production. What else is the purpose of low energy production other than to play a good city card or something like that? I mean, if you had 4 energy and were using one of the oxygen factories, sure, then you would not waste it on a card like Cupola city. But, you simply had dangling energy production.