Fires of Bhall. Some orcs just want to watch the world burn. [SPOILERS]

[Ellimist]

Actually, the trigger for barbarian spawn is for the number of cities to be greater than or equal to 1.5 * number of civs. That should happen *really* early in this game...

Oh! I had forgotten about that! WS FTW!

Does that mean wolves won't be spawning, though?

[Ellimist]

Assorted thoughts:

So far, my testing has indicated that Basium will share the benefits from Jonas's barbarian trait, but not be subject to the 10% research penalty. So it will be worthwhile to focus Clan cities toward gold and Mercurian cities toward beakers. I'm hoping specialization of cities and civics can give us a very competitive late game tech rate.

As far as settling goes, would it be worthwhile to just constantly produce settlers? At 1/4 the normal cost, it seems like a never-ending land grab could be ideal.

I don't plan to focus exclusively on an Armageddon play, but I would like to keep the option open to use it as a tool. Building the Mercurian Gate increases the counter, and I'd also like to build Prophecy of Ragnarok relatively early. I'd like to pop Seven Pines when the AC is very low, assuming I can find and settle it early(so I won't have to worry about it later.)

Some of the later game Angel units probably aren't worth teching towards, but Warhorses may be worth using a Tower of Divination on. Are any of the others worth the effort?

I think we're going to do very well.

[Mardoc]

Ellimist, here's your land:

[Ravus Sol]

Well thats a lot of forests. Some flood plains and a grain and some Calendar.

With the forests impeding things it's probably better to wait for warrens and not rush it until you can chop them out. At least that's my initial impression. Scouting could give better choices in settlements but it looks like a choice between good options and not scraping the best you can out of the gate.

[Ellimist]

Okay, this is obviously just a repost of the same terrain Mardoc posted:

I think we settle in place and tech agriculture/calendar.

Game settings:

I ended up doing this:

The password is

ares

I couldn't get flying camera to work to check the world wrap. Could one of you check it for me when you get a chance?

[DaveV]

Actually, the trigger for barbarian spawn is for the number of cities to be greater than or equal to 1.5 * number of civs.

This is true, but only half of the requirement. There is also an absolute number of turns specified in the handicap file (iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed). Barbs will not spawn before this number of turns has elapsed. Sorry for the misinformation.

[Ellimist]

This is true, but only half of the requirement. There is also an absolute number of turns specified in the handicap file (iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed). Barbs will not spawn before this number of turns has elapsed. Sorry for the misinformation.

No problem. Do you know what the specific number of turns is?

[Ellimist]

Last turn(turn 1), we got an event:

Pretty useless this early, but at least it's not harmful.

This turn, the goblin finally reached the first hut:

Sweet! We would have had it in 6 turns otherwise, but it's still a nice boon.

Demographics:

Current overview:

As you can see, our second city is not in a great spot, but it seems like the best available in the area (if I won't be getting a quick border pop.)

I'm going to have the worker focus on the capital for now, starting with the (dry) corn.

[Ravus Sol]

A boon? That's AWESOME. That's 6 turns extra that your worker can be helping you snowball.

[DaveV]

Do you know what the specific number of turns is?

It depends on difficulty. 35 turns at Noble, 30 at Prince, 25 at Monarch, 20 at Emperor, etc.