[SPOILERS] Vampires again... It looks like a bookstore! Alexis of the Calabim

[Ilios]

Played the game as well, though I can't remember which clan...

The roleplaying game is pretty cool as well, World of Darkness is a great setting.

[Ichabod]

Played the game as well, though I can't remember which clan...

The roleplaying game is pretty cool as well, World of Darkness is a great setting.

I've already read the book, but never had people to play it with me (to be true, I can't play RPG, I simply can't take it seriously - maybe someday, though). Wish I had it with me, could be a great source of names to this thread, but it was borrowed from a friend.

The crazed scout was renamed Malkavian Scout . This bit I still remember.

Maybe I should rename my civilization "The Camarilla".

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 5:[/SIZE]


Turn 5 arrived together with a message. We made our first contact of the game ! Always nice to have someone to talk to.

Ichabod,

We have met in game.

I suspect that the players are all arrayed around the central
floodplain desert area that you can see just to the bottom-left of
your capital borders.

I look forward to working with you in the future; for the time being,
have you managed to meet anyone else yet? I've run into Mist as well.

Sincerely,

Sareln

As soon as I finished reading it, I got a sudden urge in my body, demanding that I build a lot of bloodpets and lead them all to this poor mans land. I NEED TO RUSH HIM! I cannot control myself!!



Jokes aside, here's what opening the turn revealed:

First of all, Sareln has a scout. The dwarves start with 2 warriors, instead of the normal scout/warrior pair. So, we have three options:

1. Sareln built a scout
   
2. Sareln popped a scout from a hut
   
3. Mapmakers mistake
   

The fact that the demos haven't changed since the beggining of the game leads me to believe that it's a mistake by the map maker. Mardoc... ! Just joking!

Of course, much more interesting is the fact that Sareln might take this as an opportunity to walk into an undefended capital. The rushed will one day become the Rushers. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Luckily for me, that won't happen now. My warrior can move back to the capital before Sareln can attack. I don't know much about the visibility mechanics, but I'm guessing he can't see that my capital currently has no defenders. It'll be interesting to see what he's going to do. I haven't talked about this possibility in the response I sent to his email. I'll let him do the decision by himself .

Actually, it would be nice if he invaded. Sareln is not a bloodthirsty player, so I guess he would feel sorry about having done it. I would keep cool and say things like "I was going to do the same thing" and try to smooth talk him into some kind of alliance, maybe get some kind of reparation (something like prefered trade partner for happy resources).

My scout headed northwest to the direction from which Sareln's scout came. I need to get a good look at that area, since it seems to be disputed territory which I'll have to quickly expand into. I'm confident I can outexpand the dwarves with my worldspell + their vaults. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a screenshot of the land. I'll post one in the next turn update.

My answer to Sareln:

Hey Sareln,

You are my first contact, but I don't think it'll take too long for me to find the others, since it seems to be a very small map. I sure hope I don't have Ellimist in my door, especially after he got 2 hut techs! Imagine if those were crafting and mining... Certainly a very scary thought. And we are the unlucky players, as you can see. All the others popped hut techs...

Did you see the ice/floodplains tiles south of my capital? What's up with that? Do you know if we can improve a ice/floodplain tile? I surely hope so, since I'd have a lot of problems expanding if I can't.

As you can see, my capital is in the middle of a cotton bonanza. I assumed every player would start near a batch of commerce/hapiness resources. If that's the case, I'm a bit frustrated, since cotton has the worst resource yield of the whole game. At least we'll have a lot of trading opportunities with it. Maybe we could work something to have a quick connection between our civs to trade resources and get a much needed increase in our happy caps. You don't need to tell me how annoying the Dwarven Vaults are at the beggining, since I'm also suffering this problem in my other game.

Ah, just so you know. I'm planning to get mining very early, but I don't have any intention to tech to Runes of Kilmorph.

If you want to chat about something related to the game, this is my google talk email too (kind of early to have to much to talk about, but alas).

Kind Regards,

Ichabod

[Mardoc]

As soon as I finished reading it, I got a sudden urge in my body, demanding that I build a lot of bloodpets and lead them all to this poor mans land. I NEED TO RUSH HIM! I cannot control myself!!

Awesome! Let me know how that works out. .

mistake by the map maker. Mardoc... ! Just joking!

Eh, I've done worse. At least it's a dwarven scout .

You don't happen to have a list of what everyone should start with, do you? I've figured out starting techs, but not always starting units, apparently.

[Ichabod]

Awesome! Let me know how that works out. .

I was just kidding with Sareln's fame. I don't believe in early rushes in FfH, except if you are playing Illians or Sheaim.

Eh, I've done worse. At least it's a dwarven scout .

You don't happen to have a list of what everyone should start with, do you? I've figured out starting techs, but not always starting units, apparently.

I think the Khazad start with 2 warriors and the Elves start with 2 scouts (both elves). Not sure about the Luchuirp, though.

Just between us, Ellimist first tech was popped from a hut or you gave him a starting tech? I promise I'll keep it a secret from teh others .

[Mardoc]

I was just kidding with Sareln's fame. I don't believe in early rushes in FfH, except if you are playing Illians or Sheaim.

Apparently my playing along with the joke tone didn't come through. You really should rush him, though, I don't think he knows how to play when he hasn't been rushed. You'd be doing him a favor, really. .

Just between us, Ellimist first tech was popped from a hut or you gave him a starting tech? I promise I'll keep it a secret from teh others .

Techs I got right. I had to check them anyway, since I haven't figured out how to start an immortal game without all the 'AI' players starting with 4 techs, a worker, 2 settlers, etc. If I messed that one up, (s)he'd have started with Agriculture, Crafting, Exploration, and Ancient Chants, like any other Immortal AI.

To answer another question - it was tested, you can farm ice floodplains. I wasn't going to put something that crazy in the game without *any* idea what it would do.

No comment on your eldritch C&D correctness, though. Ellimist might have just had a visit from the score fairy .

[Ichabod]

Apparently my playing along with the joke tone didn't come through. You really should rush him, though, I don't think he knows how to play when he hasn't been rushed. You'd be doing him a favor, really. .

In my defense, it's late and I'm just back from my german class, so my brain is in stand by mode. Seriously, german is HARD. Like I always say, the german people is one of the most intelligent in the world. They are able to learn german so young!

Techs I got right. I had to check them anyway, since I haven't figured out how to start an immortal game without all the 'AI' players starting with 4 techs, a worker, 2 settlers, etc. If I messed that one up, (s)he'd have started with Agriculture, Crafting, Exploration, and Ancient Chants, like any other Immortal AI.

To answer another question - it was tested, you can farm ice floodplains. I wasn't going to put something that crazy in the game without *any* idea what it would do.

No comment on your eldritch C&D correctness, though. Ellimist might have just had a visit from the score fairy .

Poor Mardoc. Being covered by my potentially spoilerish questions ever since WW5. It's just that I'm a curious guy, I'm really not trying to fish for spoilers here.

About the game, I'm guessing the Letuum Frigus will be in the icy region! Now I want to explore down there... But the stupid Malkavian scout (or better yet, the stupid voices in his head) decided to head the other way!

[Mardoc]

In my defense, it's late and I'm just back from my german class, so my brain is in stand by mode. Seriously, german is HARD. Like I always say, the german people is one of the most intelligent in the world. They are able to learn german so young!

What, fluency in two languages isn't enough for you? Yikes.

[Ichabod]

Well, the save hasn't arrived yet today. I guess the change of players due to bob's return kind of messed up with the schedule that we had going on. I'm not complaining, though, since I'm planning to do some sandbox exercises this weekend. Although I'm pretty curious about what Sareln will do about his scout.

That being said, it's [SIZE="3"]PLANNING TIME![/SIZE] :2dance:

It's nothing that special, really, but I had a nice idea while thinking about the game.

My initial techind choices are pretty obvious: Agriculture -> Calendar. Farm the land, improve resources, agrarianism. Unless you are pretty new to FfH, you probably know why I'm doing it.

After that, I'm planning to get Crafting -> Mining. Since I'll be swimming in food, I'll quickly be in my happy cap. That's not a problem while building workers and settlers, but that's not all I want to build (bloodpets are the other thing), so I need production. Mines are the way to go. If I mine the 4 hills in the capital BFC, I can work a farm, the cotton plantation and 4 hills while keeping stagnated, which will give me 15 hammers per turn. Good enough.

So, I was thinking about what to tech after the most obvious technologies. A beeline to Code of Laws is certainly tempting, since aristocracy is such a nice civic. But two things were bothering me. First is the always present "early culture" problem. I simply can't stand having to waste 40 hammers on a monument. That's 2 bloodpets + some change. It takes way too long and waste too much resources. The other problem was not using my philosophical trait. As a lot of people already said, the benefit of the philosophical trait is more related to getting GP early rather then getting more of them.

But Alexis has a great flaw in her gameplan. The most common early use of the philosophical trait in FfH is: tech Mysticism -> quick Elder council -> work scientist -> Quick Academy. But, behold!, the Calabim can't build Elder Councils. So, I'd have to wait until writing to get a scientist slot for an academy (library has one -> it's also cheap for philosophical leaders). That's one of the reasons why Alexis is considered a bad leader: while the other calabim leaders have traits that have a lot of sinnergy with the civ (mainly organized for cheap Governor Manors), Alexis have traits that don't go along with the calabim (philosophical -> no elder council; agressive -> vampires swim in XP, so combat 1 from the get go is almost nothing). But that's only seeing one side of the picture, since both agressive and philosophical are both very nice traits.

Ah, the lack of Elder Councils and the Sinnergy with Aristocracy are the main reasons for not rating Mysticism very high with the Calabim.

So, how to benefit from the philosophical trait? We are certainly going to get an academy for the capital, but that will take a while. Actually, my plan is going for an Obsolete capital (obsolete is a famous player in the civfanatics forum, with a very peculiar way of playing), which consists in stacking a lot of GP and stuff in one city, usually the capital.

But what about our first GP, the one that we can get in 13 turns? Here's where the fun begin. After mining, we'll tech Festivals. Festivals open up the Carnival building, which gives +1 happiness. It's a very expensive building (80 hammers at quick) and it'll be a pain to build it early (gotta avoid building useless stuff in the capital), but it also opens up an artist slot. And that's what we need!

So, what's the big deal with a great artist? Well, while we wait for the GArt to come (building workers, settlers and bloodpets), we will tech Ancient Chants -> Education. These techs are prerequisites to Code of Laws (very, very important tech), but they are also needed to open a very interesting bulbing opportunity:

[SIZE="3"]DRAMA[/SIZE]

Yes! Drama! A very, very useful tech. First of all, we'll be able to build culture in cities, reducing the hammers needed for a border pop from 40 to 5. Very Nice, especially in those recently founded cities! It'll also get us a free Great Artist, which will be used to get a very early Sanitation (+1 food to farms, opens a +3 happiness building), after we tech Bronze Working.

I'm very happy with this plan! I'll have to work some things that haven't yet been decided (wether to build a monument in the second city for the incenses in the 2nd ring or wait - wether to tech AC before or after Festivals - when to use my world spell - go for a 2 workers opening or play more safe), but the tech path won't change too much.

So, we'll be getting:

1. Agriculture
   
2. Calendar
   
3. Crafting
   
4. Mining
   
5. Festivals
   
6. Ancient Chants
   
7. Education
   
8. Bulb Drama
   
9. Code of Laws
   
10. Bronze Working
    
11. Bulb Sanitation
    

That should keep us occupied for quite some time! Hopefully we can pop a tech from a hut or something like that. Anyway, I think this is a very nice mix between economy, expansion, production and military. Hopefully it'll get us a nice early lead!

So, what do you guys think about the plan? I don't think it's too optimistic or impossible to do, but maybe I need some reality injection.

[Selrahc]

Well... when you said Festivals I was thinking early GMerchants. Focussing GBards from the beginning of the game is certainly innovative. I'm not entirely sure where the teching power comes from though. If you are worried about culture, surely an easier solution is to Lightbulb an early religion?

I have no idea if it would work. I've certainly never tried it.