New and improved Lurker thread - Now taking bribes :]

[Bobchillingworth]

I think I didn't have computer access when this game was made or something, so I'm curious- what was the rationale for giving Ellimist Perpy of the Sheaim? He has complained to me in chat about his combo several times now, and I am inclined to agree- there's just zero synergy there. Stuff like Falamar of the Sidar makes sense, faster wanes and larger cities for more Sidar specialists. Falamar is a great leader for the Sidar. But what does Perpy do for the Sheaim besides deprive them of their forgettable Sundered trait? Perpentarch is great with the Balseraphs in part because they have unique units and buildings all over the tech tree, so they have the potential to take advantage of most of his possible trait combinations. But most of the Sheaim UU come from Gates, which traits don't impact, and PZ don't really benefit from any trait except Aggressive, and without an extended melee line or being able to reliably exploit Spiritual or Raiders or Arcane, Ellimist really doesn't have any outstanding army composition options. Kind of like the Lanun, except without all the great economic advantages.


Also, going back to PZ for a second, why does he border the two most mobile civs in the match? Given the distances involved between them, it's not clear to me that Ellimist could have ever used his PZ to successfully rush someone, even if he had wanted to. And if that's the case, it really doesn't leave him with many unit options (maybe pray for an extended period of Raiders and then mass Recon / HA?).



I'm a little surprised that he didn't get Perp of the Kurios instead- I would have enjoyed lurking a game with non-sprawling Centaurs.

[Mist]

Sheaim / Perpentach (for a civ that is never quite sure whether it's a rush or lategame civ, the insane leader seems to fit perfectly)

This mostly. Everyone kind of agreed and went along with this thought, I think that was the only pair noone had any problem with at the start.

As for the mobility question - the map does not lend itself to rushes. The distances are big, everyone has cheap long range scout ( meta 1 adept ) and hammers are priceless. I assumed that by the time anyone assembles army of any significance mobility question will be kind of moot due to techs known, prevalence of roads ( note, no raiders on the map excluding Perpy at times ) and ability to zone around the choke points at the wedge boundary. It seems to play out according to expectations thus far.

[Bobchillingworth]

Sheaim / Perpentach (for a civ that is never quite sure whether it's a rush or lategame civ, the insane leader seems to fit perfectly)

Huh. Um, wow. So, the point of the combo was to be confusing and lack strategic depth?


And the Sheaim on this map are neither a rush nor lategame civ. PZ are gimped due to neighbors and distances, and the only late-game UU the Sheaim have is intended to exploit Summoner, which you can't even get from Insane.



I'm sorry, but Ellimist is right, this is awful

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Yeah, I made a comment to Ellimist a while ago, where playing Perpentach requires flexibility. Sheaim on the other hand need to remain highly focused, causing a horrible anti-synergy.

It's a credit to him that he's doing okay regardless. Long term prospects are poor.

[Bobchillingworth]

I think Ellimist has this game.



Talking with him in chat, his game-plan is very solid. He's thinking of a Tower Win, with a combination of Ratha, mobility-promoted PZ, and the Noctis for a rather nasty defense. He has plenty of nodes; he seems to be the only player with ambitions for the center, he can use any of the ice nodes once the Noctis is up, and he is also considering summoning Basium.


It doesn't seem at the moment like anyone else has a coherent plan for the End Game. Ichabod's stack predictably got wiped out, Iilos has been stuck on defense and now has to rebuild, Dave and Thohal are hopeless, and as seems to be typical, Lewwyn doesn't appear to have much of a strategy besides "piss of neighbors".

[Nicolae Carpathia]

So, once the bottled-up barbs have depleted themselves on the walls of the players, is that it? Will they no longer respawn?

[Mist]

So, once the bottled-up barbs have depleted themselves on the walls of the players, is that it? Will they no longer respawn?

Nope, there are some hidden, held, Ice 2 snow witches in the wastes, but once the initial mob expires it's the normal barbs all the way ( bears, wolves, cities, random orc units etc. )

[Xenoborg]

Do we even know if the barbs will actually go and attack someone now that the gates are open? We've seen them go into borders to kill a target they can see, but not hanging around or going for something they couldn't see.

edit: Oops, missed Lewwyn's thread, they totally will.

[NobleHelium]

Pretty sure we're past the animal spawn stage.

[Tholal]

Since you went ahead and gave the Svarts some extra forests in their starting spot, you should have also done something for the Kuriotates so that their capital wouldn't have been so gimped (by Kurio standards). Being limited to 4 real cities was already enough of a handicap.

Even if you had just extended the grasslands further down from the river to the north so that I could (eventually) chain-irrigate down to the capital might have been good enough.

Anyway, just some thoughts for future reference.