TURN 9
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Volcanoes and Demons and Shiii (Saruman's Sheaim)
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Hi there Saruman!
If you don't mind then I'll go ahead and deadlurk you in this game. Don't know how much help I'll be since I'm new to ffh, but I can try to ask some stupid questions from time to time to keep you on your toes.  First off, let's talk about pink dot I can see why you'd want a city in that vicinity. There's definitely some nice resources there and it's sort of equidistant between you and the clowns capitals with you you getting more land and the good resources. However, I do believe that settling your second city there will be seen as a hostile land grab. I'm not necessarily saying "don't do it", but if you do, be sure to get some pyre zombies there asap and if you see a hill close to the desired location, then settle on it, even if it for instance would mean losing out on the silks. I would also strongly consider settling Patria first. Not only because it's a stronger site initially, but also because it gives more legitimacy to your claim diplomatically (you're expanding to the north and this is the next decent site that you know of...)
Played in PB27
Ah secondly, congrats on Letum Frigus. Snowfall is one of the best collateral spells in the game and makes a play for an early religious hero quite appealing. I hope that you haven't been using the tile when building the worker though as surely you'll get better deals for workers/settlers with the floodplains?
Played in PB27
Hey Tao, Welcome!
Course I don't mind, advice is always welcome. I agree with you about pink (purple, ha) dot. It would definitely be risky. And economically it would take a while to get the city connected and developed. I am totally considering Patria first, but I do want to get the jump on Northstar with that location, so I plan to churn out units, and settle that spot as soon as I have enough to feel confident about keeping it. The defensible border thing is imo too important to ignore. I would probably settle Patria around the same time however with the lions share of my army being closer to NS. Well, anyway I'm still not sure, but i suppose the plan will change situationally. Thanks, yeah Snowfall is awesome, however, its also a tier three spell and thats a loooong way away in this game. It does however, make Octopus Overlords more attractive for Hemah. Ashen Veil has a shit ton of synergy with the Sheaim and the temple gives us one of our planar units though, so can't forget that. The weakness of AV is that it gives more zombie units, which we don't really need (just makes us even more vulnerable to destroy undead spells) whereas OO gives us water striding demons. Way cool. Definitely things to think about.
Yeah, Hemah is probably my favourite hero. Yet another option I guess would be to go for Gibbon (his summons can't kill, but I guess he can cast snowfall(?)), but apart from him and the shrine Esos is kind of meh and somewhat away from what I'd guess be your primary tech path. As you say AV is definitely the standard religion for sheaim, but I don't know... the grimoire could of course be good, but heroes aren't that amazing and ritualists (although good) could quite quickly become semi-redundant for instance with some (maelstrom?)-mages. On the other hand, all of your proposed three first cities are painfully vulnerable to cultist-attack and since there seems to be a fair amount of water on this map your opponent could very well go that route meaning you'll need a counter of your own.
Speking about your vulnerabilities, does anyone have Life as their palace mana or do you initially only have to be vigilant about the tomb of sucellus owner?
Played in PB27
(March 13th, 2015, 06:54)taotao Wrote: Yeah, Hemah is probably my favourite hero. Yet another option I guess would be to go for Gibbon (his summons can't kill, but I guess he can cast snowfall(?)), but apart from him and the shrine Esos is kind of meh and somewhat away from what I'd guess be your primary tech path. As you say AV is definitely the standard religion for sheaim, but I don't know... the grimoire could of course be good, but heroes aren't that amazing and ritualists (although good) could quite quickly become semi-redundant for instance with some (maelstrom?)-mages. On the other hand, all of your proposed three first cities are painfully vulnerable to cultist-attack and since there seems to be a fair amount of water on this map your opponent could very well go that route meaning you'll need a counter of your own. No, all my opponents are evil or neutral and don't start with Life, so that helps. In my experience ritualists are extremely powerful, not redundant. Their spell does much more damage than maelstrom though it has less range, but the important part is that they would be on the front lines rather than the mages. We have the summoner trait, so shades and the like stick around longer which means vulnerable mages are best used casting far and removed from the conflict - it can be extremely powerful. This means that death magic is the way to go (so I would generally not bother getting air mana). In addition, the AV shrine gives us entropy mana which is needed for the Tower of Necromancy. All said and done, the perks of using AV outweigh the sea vulnerabilities (do you really think my proposed cities are that vulnerable? I did purposefully set the one in Patria away from the coast.) So my plan is to attempt to found Ashen Veil (though I'm not in a huge rush) and use it in the early/mid game. You do raise a good point, though in that I agree that while ritualists are pretty awesome, I find Octopus Overlords generally a stronger religion, but other than Cultists, it really doesn't do much in the early game. So basically I do want to use it, but I think we would switch right around the time we're getting Strength of Will so we could snag Hemah before anyone else realized we could. Hopefully by then we would have AV temples for planar tar demons (love those guys) as well as the shrine for the Tower, giving us all the benefits of AV, but switching just in time to grab Hemah and catching the Stygian Guard train. Best of both worlds! Anyways, that's the tentative plan. Quote:Their spell does much more damage than maelstrom though it has less range, RoF and Maelstrom have the same damage cap (30%). The difference you're probably seeing is that Ritualists have no incentive not to promote up the combat line (which increases spell damage) whilst mages have all sorts of other spells you want.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Does it? I stand corrected.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
March 28th, 2015, 22:26
(This post was last modified: March 28th, 2015, 22:31 by Saruman the Foolish.)
Turn 15
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