[SPOILERS] Lurkers Thread - Well someone has to do it

[NobleHelium]

I'd really rate Serdoa at fourth at best. He's got a lot of land, but no ability to defend it from Ilios without help from the Calabim, and his land is very underdeveloped and not pulling in much science. Probably behind Amelia too, in terms of current situation, but I'd trust Serdoa's decision-making more after Amelia's complete and simple failure to promote her units to Mobility. Bob even mentioned it a couple days ago.

I didn't pay much attention to the mapmaking but I think you needed better consideration of coastal vs not coastal, because this is FFH and the Lanun are in the game. Uberfish really shouldn't have had to move his settler for two turns for the simple reason of removing his capital's vulnerability to Raging Seas, which would make a massive difference if he were to come to blows to Amelia. He's definitely the most capital-dependant of anyone in the game. Serdoa may yet regret his capital placement if it comes to that.

[SevenSpirits]

I'd really rate Serdoa at fourth at best. He's got a lot of land, but no ability to defend it from Ilios without help from the Calabim, and his land is very underdeveloped and not pulling in much science. Probably behind Amelia too, in terms of current situation, but I'd trust Serdoa's decision-making more after Amelia's complete and simple failure to promote her units to Mobility. Bob even mentioned it a couple days ago.

The map was of course made without consideration of which civs are in the game. Are you saying that people should never have coastal caps in FFH2?

[NobleHelium]

I'm inclined to say that non-Lanun civilizations should not be given coastal capitals if the Lanun are in the game, yeah. For MP.

Although now that I think about it more, it doesn't make sense to intentionally design the map to neuter their worldspell. I do think you did a great job with the land/water balance in the game, kudos with that. I guess my main gripe with uberfish's starting location is that it was a small negligible lake that really didn't do much. An actual coast would have been more useful.

[Mardoc]

And yes, I am totally putting Sciz there as his own fault, for not paying off Mist. That was a really bad choice.

The only way I can justify it at all is meta-considerations - if he wants a reputation of never paying the Danegeld. But even there, I think he'd have done better to pay Mist off, and reclaim his money with Golems later on.

Plus, well, I'm not sure a reputation like that is totally worthwhile - it means there's never a reason to leave you alive.

NobleHelium, you're opening a real big can of worms on that subject - if you're going to balance coastal starts for Lanun games, what won't you balance? No desert starts when the Malakim are around? What about putting Death mana where the vamps can get it? Forests around the elves? I can keep going, I'm sure. I think there's two ways, either you make a map that is your best guess at balance, ignoring civ choice, or you spend the time to craft every aspect of a map, optimizing for each civ. And I know which is going to be easier to do and get volunteers for! How do you balance a Lanun cove vs elven forests vs. Malakim floodplains?

I'll grant that it adds flavor to give each civ their preferred terrain, but that also makes balance a real pain.

Edit: On the original topic - Seven, the fact that the rankings are becoming dominated by quality of play and civ choice pretty much speaks for itself, I think. There may have been imbalance, but it's clearly balanced enough.

[Maksim]

The main lesson from this map that I've learnt, is to be very, very careful about river and gold locations.

Ilios is a good player, yes, but he's also had some excellent land to work, Copper in BFC, plenty of floodplains, riverside gold in second city... that's quite a bit compared to some of the other players.

Rivers are another thing - having a riverside start means an extra coin for each of the first few citizens. That's a big deal for the very early game.

[SevenSpirits]

The main lesson from this map that I've learnt, is to be very, very careful about river and gold locations.

Ilios is a good player, yes, but he's also had some excellent land to work, Copper in BFC, plenty of floodplains, riverside gold in second city... that's quite a bit compared to some of the other players.

Rivers are another thing - having a riverside start means an extra coin for each of the first few citizens. That's a big deal for the very early game.

If you look at the map, Ilios actually has a below average number of FPs. He has 2 in his capital (but everyone has that, or equivalent in food resources). Other than that, there is only ONE more FP that is closer to him than to anyone else, and another one nearby that's closer to Sciz. Calabim, to take an example, have 9 nearby FP. Uberfish has ~7 FP outside his cap that are in his territory, which incidentally is bigger than anyone else's, and just as filled with rivers as Ilios' land.

The much-discussed riverside gold is equidistant to Sciz. Mist has riverside gold closer to his capital than anyone else has gold; he just didn't settle it for a long time. (He also moved his capital AWAY from two FP.) And EVERYONE in the northern hemisphere, not just Ilios, is fairly close to the jungle belt that he got most of his luxuries from (the southern hemisphere civs are maybe 3-4 more tiles away from it, since they have more horizontal room).

Finally regarding rivers, everyone has them. Serdoa could have settled 1NE and had 10 riverside tiles including a FP and a sheep, plus an oasis, plus a lakeside grass, plus he'd be on a plains hill. Instead he settled 1S and has just one riverside tile (and it's a hill). That set him back immensely.

Most of Ilios' advantage is due to his workers (plus the fact that he didn't pay gold to turn them into warriors).

[Mardoc]

Don't count out the Calabim quite yet ... no chance in hell of being a dogpile target themselves anymore.

It seems I spoke too soon! If Ilios is willing to forgo immediate revenge, the Calabim could end up as the target of at least the Balseraphs and Lanun, possibly with a Malakim expeditionary force added on.

[Thoth]

It seems I spoke too soon! If Ilios is willing to forgo immediate revenge, the Calabim could end up as the target of at least the Balseraphs and Lanun, possibly with a Malakim expeditionary force added on.

I suspect the Calabim are going to be a dogpile target in pretty much any game in which they get close to Vampires.

[Brian Shanahan]

IMO Bob is giving Amelia some very bad advice at the moment. I know that I know more of Ilios' situation than Amelia does, but it is obvious that her stack is nowhere near enough to do anything other than make Ilios mad, Ilios smash, and she really needs to get peace asap, mainly to concentrate on her own land and get some decent units out to try and actually be able to make a difference later on in the game.

At the moment she could probably raze En-Kai if she can get mobility on her units, but where is she going from there, a counter-attack can wipe her out, and with Ilios essentialy free to his east he can just waltz in and have his way with her.

In PBEM1 a few of us said that Bob was still of an SP mentality in his actions, and I feel that he is still somewhat of that mentality with his advice, telling her that she may be best flying into the teeth of a superior enemy.

[NobleHelium]

It doesn't look like she can raze En-Kai. Razing it would be definitely worth it, it's Ilios's best city by a significant amount (and the RoK holy city, which refounding will not recover). She could take out that small priest stack on the jungle 1SE of it, then Ilios should be able to scramble enough tigers to block her.

She could have easily razed Horus and probably En-Kai if she had just promoted to Mobility before moving out though, despite being late to begin with.

I doubt Ilios will take peace without killing Amelia's stack unless he sees that he might lose a city. He's eying that Orthus's Axe, which is a decent prize even if his counterattack fails or is not worth the effort.