Part 263: Extras - Hinnom Rates Everyone

Meet the Players

I had intended to do one of these posts but then Lilli beat me to it and I basically agreed with her.   It's been a while now, so let's revisit everyone with another Meet the Players post.  In some cases, my impressions are the result of turns beyond the current turn posted in the LP but I won't spoil anything and I've played multiple games with everyone here already so I have decent source material.  Because it will be fun and not at all controversial I am going to score everyone on affability, aggression, truthiness, deviousness, tactical skill, strategic skill and diplomatic activity.  Ten is the most, one is the least.  Because everyone playing this game has been playing for a while, scores will be skewed toward the high end.  Nobody here is bad at anything. Please bear in mind this is just an opinion regarding behaviour in a game and not a reflection of what I think of anyone as a person.  

Dawkish

Dawkish and I recently won a team game together and prior to that we were staunch allies through much of legoman's aborted LP (short summary here).  We get along pretty well generally.  Dawkish needs to do more micromanaging to be really good and, at least in this game, needs to appreciate that video games are serious business and he shouldn't lose witch kings just because he has to "work" or "feed his family."

Affability - 8. We get along very well and he's generally pretty nice to most folks.  
Aggression - 6. He's not all that aggressive relative to the other folks here but he doesn't turtle by any stretch of the imagination.  
Truthiness - 8. Dawkish won't lie to you, but he's also not going to give anything away that he doesn't need to.  
Deviousness - 5. Not all that devious. He mostly just makes a friend or two in game, crushes an enemy and then plays out his endgame. 
Tactical skill - 7. He needs to do more micromanagement but he's good at using the tools he has appropriately.  
Strategic skill - 6. His strategies are generally sound but he does need work on tying together his long term strategy and his medium term strategy and thinking about which tools he should go for next. 
Diplomatic activity - 6. This is before he got busy.  He's only on during east coast business hours but when he's on he's pretty active.

Dexanth

Dexanth beat me in Lilli's aborted LP, newdawn, by getting the rest of the world to gang up on me while he killed his neighbors. Dexanth succeeds primarily on strong diplomatic effort married to solid play. His standard MO in my experience is exactly what he did in newdawn: try to convince the other players that someone else is an imminent threat while he lays the foundation for an easy endgame win. 

Affability - 7.  Dexanth is really friendly and nice until things don't go his way when you're fighting.  In newdawn he was pretty mad at me for putting up Astral Corruption and for trying to win through Dom kill and he could have been nicer about it.  That said, he does a great job of consistently sending out funny in character messages (except in this game ) which I very much appreciate.
Aggression - 8. Dexanth actually does a great job with this.  He's quite aggressive early and really leans on folks for borders that the tactical situation doesn't justify and is successful in getting them.  Then he's quite consistently good at killing his weaker neighbors or helping other folks kill his stronger neighbors.  The one thing I think he does is tend to turtle up when he could be both expanding and forging/researching/summoning.  In this game, for example, he expands like crazy, is aggressive with boundaries with both TC and Pan and then he goes to turtle and 
make gemgens and research instead of making gemgens and pressing his significant research advantage.
Truthiness - 8. Dexanth's lies are those of omission.  He's prone to overstating the threat someone else poses or not mentioning the potential threat he poses, but when push comes to shove he's not going to lie to you and if you make a deal with him he won't ever screw you over after the deal has been made.  
Deviousness - 6.  I don't think his MO is all that devious.  He does a great job of convincing folks to attack whoever the threat of the moment is and he's one of a number of players who does a really great job of never proposing or agreeing to anything diplomatically that isn't good for them.  It's not clear to me why this works (it does), but being like "yo, someone else is a huge threat so attack them and ignore the threat I am while you waste pixel mans and I grow" is not devious.
Tactical skill - 6. I think this is Dexanth's big weakness.  He's a solid player but I think he relies too much on getting other folks to fight wars for him and never having to fight anyone on even footing.  When he does fight he's not as good as he could be at using his tools.  For example, Lilli has posted a bunch of turns of fighting and how many times have we seen his oreiads who everyone agrees are awesome and can not be magic dueled?  
Strategic skill - 10.  He never fights anyone on even footing and always gets other folks to fight his wars for him.  He also does a great job at focusing on winning the game.
Diplomatic activity - 10.  He talks to everyone all the time. 

Feinne

Feinne is relatively new and my impression is that he is risk averse and uncomfortable fighting. He wants to just roll folks and doesn't like to make decisions that will result in losses for him.  

Affability - 8.  Feinne is quite nice all the time.  Even when he screwed me on turn nine he was nice about it. 
Aggression - 5.  I think he needs to be more aggressive.  He got kind of pushed around by Dexanth in choosing borders and he kind of waffled on invading anyone until his hand was forced by Pan's sacrificing and (what he thought at the time were) sneaking revelers in his land raising unrest. 
Truthiness - 2. I asked him if he was still in on the whole invading TheDemon plan and he said yes. But he wasn't.
Deviousness - 9. That was a really clever play because I ended up locked in a terrible war with TheDemon while he expanded free.  Then he did some clever dancing with everyone else before finally having his hand forced by Pan. If he can get more aggressive then he will be quite good.  
Tactical skill - 6. He's much better with C'Tis than with other nations.  I think this is mostly inexperience and not really knowing the toolbox he has well.  
Strategic skill - 7. Sticking me and Sauro with a war with TheDemon and Lilli with a war with Dexanth was really incredibly clever, but his potential bad result is everyone turning on him because they feel like he screwed them.  That's fine if he can quickly beat Pan and continue researching, but if he can't he may be in serious trouble later.
Diplomatic activity - 6. He's usually around and happy to chat but rarely initiates. 

Irony.or.Death

Irony.or.Death won Gabriel Pope's LP and as such is the reigning champion of the world.  He has a tendency to sloth and to doing things in big maps that will result in him vs the world.  

Affability -  9. He never gets mad, even when you're murdering his pixel mans.  
Aggression - 7.  He does a great job, but, like so much else, he does sometimes let his desire not to micromanage get in his way.  
Truthiness - 6.  He always sticks to his agreements and he generally won't lie to you but his omissions are significant. 
Deviousness - 9. Pay close attention to what he says.  He means it and nothing more.  He's quite good at never giving any information away and using what he has to advance his cause.  
Tactical skill - 7. This could be a ten but he's lazy and micromanagement.
Strategic skill - 10. How does someone who expends so little effort always end up as one of the last players in a game?  I don't know, but it's pretty brilliant.  
Diplomatic activity - 5.  He's around to chat but doesn't often reach out.  

Lilli

Lilli beat the pants off me in Aristocrats (this was a tourist game and you can download and watch old turns here).  She is both very good and consistently wins games, two things whose correlation isn't as high as you might think.  Lilli is one of the players who does the best job of keeping her eye on the prize, which is smashing everyone's teeth in with giant armies of pixel mans.  She's always working toward winning and does a great job at it.  

Affability - 9. Lilli is friendly with everyone and everyone is friendly with Lilli.
Aggression - 9. Lilli is quite aggressive.  She expands well and "encourages" folks to make borders that "make the most sense." She doesn't hesitate to fight when it is to her advantage to do so.
Truthiness - 7. Lilli is excellent at pretending she isn't about to absolutely crush folks even though that's what she's working methodically toward doing.  She's just so darn friendly, surely she's not about to crush me!  
Deviousness 7. She's great at being friendly with everyone and making them feel like she's not an unstoppable juggernaut of death and spikes and more death and look! A puppy!
Tactical skill - 10. Did you see what she did with the turkeys and Rainbow Dash?
Strategic skill - 10. She is great at always having a goal that fits into her long term plan and working toward it.  And her long term plan is always a good one.
Diplomatic activity - 9. She reaches out quite frequently and is always talking to everyone.  Even the folks she's crushing. 

Schneeble

Schneeble replaces Dawkish.  We both got crushed by Lilli in the tourist game so we have that in common.  Schneeble runs a lot of interesting scenarios like the one Lilli did the mini-LP about with LA ermor.  

Affability - 10. Schneeble is the nicest.  
Aggression - 6. Schneeble is not all that aggressive.  He's quite mercenary and as a result he sometimes just sort of hangs out while folks bid. 
Truthiness - 10. He's quite straightforward about how mercenary he generally is.  
Deviousness - 10. I said no spoilers
Tactical skill - 9. He really knows the tools he has and what to do with them.  
Strategic skill - 7. He needs to be more aggressive with those tools and needs to focus more on winning the game.  I think he can get a bit lost with his shiny toys.   That would merit an 8 here if not for his love of Fomoria which is a terrible strategic decision.
Diplomatic activity - 9. He's always talking to everyone. 

TheDemon

TheDemon is the physical embodiment of evil and destruction on earth.  If he gets off his island we all die.  From stabbing. Because he is also a stabbing robot.  It's complicated.

Affability - 2.  He is a giant robot literally made of knives and he does not suffer fools gladly. 
Aggression - 9. TheDemon is very aggressive, and rightly so.   His level of aggression would be misplaced on a less skilled player. 
Truthiness - 10. He doesn't lie.  
Deviousness - 5. There was that one time with pretending to be Christian Shepherd, but otherwise he's mostly just a whirlwind of destruction and death. He doesn't set folks up to fight each other or twist what he can do, he just shanks you and thanks you for not making too much noise on the way to Tartarus.
Tactical skill - 10. He knows what all the tools are, what they do, how to use them and which ones to use.
Strategic skill - 7. He doesn't win many games because, although he knows exactly what he's doing, everyone tends to see the sixteen tons of hot drop forged German steel blades coming from a long ways away.  
Diplomatic activity - 6. He does a good job reaching out to folks initially but doesn't maintain contact in the same way that Dexanth or Lilli do.  His MO is also pretty well documented already - crush someone's army and then threaten them away. I think he would be wildly successful if he just used a little more honey than he does now.   But who needs diplomacy when "brutally murder fools" works so darn well!

builds character

That's me!

Affability - 7. I'm pretty friendly but I tend to hold grudges.
Aggression - 10. I am overly aggressive.  I tend to feel quite lost when I'm not fighting someone and that's a bad place to be.  
Truthiness - 8. I'm pretty honest about things.
Deviousness - 6. I'm also pretty straightforward. I think I would be better at this game if I were a little more devious and not quite as direct about what my plans were and why.  
Tactical skill - 5. Perhaps you have seen my war with TheDemon?
Strategic skill - 8. I have decent plans and stick to them.  That my plan re: TheDemon is so good is the only reason I'm alive on turn 19.  But I tend to get too focused on whatever it is I'm doing and lose site of the overall goal of winning the game.  
Diplomatic activity - 9. I'm one of the more active players diplomatically.  

Please remember this is just a post about a game of tiny pixel mans and not a personal attack on you or your favorite player.  I would happily share my scotch with anyone in this game in person.