[Spoilers] Biggus Decius and the Sucking Vampires (Bobchillingworth / Calabim)

[DaveV]

Alright, here you are:

Thanks!

Some surprising settings here. Large size for 6 players...

I was kind of expecting that, after Darrell seemed so surprised when you made contact with another civ on turn 2. But, yeah, that's a lot of land. I see this as being good for you, though, since the vampires can make a really good city out of nothing but irrigated grassland.

I hope my computer is able to handle that.

I feel your pain. But without huge AI stacks, it should be a little easier.

All unique features on is nice- that means I'll essentially have a free hero, Bridgit. For the unaware, Bridgit is a hero unit which players can capture if they have a level 14 unit; most players will never manage to get a unit that experienced, or will have much better things to do with them, but it should be fairly simple for me to simply feed a vampire in some backwater high-food city until they reach the requisite level.

A second immortal hero would indeed be cool. I'm starting to think that Stasis may have been a good play: if the Illians can find Letum Frigus while everyone else is huddling in their cities, it would be well worth using their world spell.

[Bobchillingworth]

Hardly anything has happened in the last forever number of turns, but I finally have my first enemy spotted:






A skeleton! I hope to summon quite a few of these guys for myself later. Right now this is about as minor a threat as I'm ever going to see (only non-Scorpion Clan goblins are weaker), but I'll move my second bloodpet into Prespur just in case I lose at 99% odds or something. This means that there should be a barrow somewhere NE... probably between 2-4 tiles deep in the uncovered territory. Unlike Lizardmen, who trample all over your land with their two movement and are difficult to defeat in the field without likely sacrificing a warrior, barb skeletons are pretty much free exp if they attack your cities & once you get a couple units promoted with Shock I.

[sunrise089]

I've played three FFH games now and I have a question since you're a Skeleton expert: what is the best decision for the "Dwarfs and Skeletons are fighting, pick a side" dungeon exploration event?

[Bobchillingworth]

I think you mean "Dwarfs and Lizardmen"?



If you select the Dwarfs you'll get two Dwarven axemen and be faced with 3 barbarian lizardmen; choose the lizardmen and you get two of them vs. three dwarf axes. I always side with the Lizardmen, for a few reasons. The lizardmen come with both movement points ready, so you can outrun the dwarf axes if you need to retreat, or run to a forested hill if one is available, where the 1-unit advantage of the dwarf barbs doesn't count for much. If you go with the dwarfs, unless you can find a hill 1-tile away to immediately run to, the lizardmen will hunt down and likely eliminate one or both of your new units.

Also, Lizardmen are more useful. Even with 1 extra strength and a 10% vs city bonus over warriors, a couple axes aren't going to take anything other than the most poorly defended towns. All barb cities spawn with at a minimum 2 archers and a warrior, so capturing those are out of the question as well. Lizardmen defend just as well as axes, and are more mobile, which counts for a lot. Lizardmen also are hunter-class recon units, so if you can keep your two lizardmen alive & level them up vs various animals and barb warriors, you can use them to scout and capture all the animals you'll need for a long time, without having to bother with the niche (and fairly expensive) hunting tech.



Furthermore, Lizardmen are way cooler.

[DaveV]

The case for dwarves:

1) They get 1/2 cost movement on hills, so they are pretty good explorers. This also lets them run away faster than lizardmen if the terrain is favorable.
2) If you have copper connected, they get bronze weapons (+1 strength) as soon as they move into one of your cities. Later in the game, they can also use iron weapons (+2 strength).

But I'd have to agree with Bob that the lizards are better because of the animal capturing ability (requires combat 1 and animal husbandry). Bears and elephants are the strongest units on the board in the early to mid game (with combat 1 and Subdue Animal, the lizards have +95% strength against animals, so they have good odds to capture them if you soften them up first). Once you build a carnival in a city (or right away, in the case of bears), you can turn your (non-elephant) animals into caged animal buildings which provide culture and happiness. With horseback riding, you can upgrade elephants into war elephants, who lose one strength but can attack.

Capturing a griffon means you can explore the map safely by keeping on mountaintops; capturing a spider means you can slaughter all the AI workers.

[Bobchillingworth]

Ahahaha finally out of stasis!



Looks like I didn't really need to keep both bloodpets at home, I'm going to explore a little with one of them, now that I can build reinforcements in a pinch.

[Bobchillingworth]

An image of what little scouting I've finally felt free to do:




Chicken the Scout will head 1NW next turn, then hopefully pop the hut the turn after. Ideally the skeleton will suicide vs. my bloodpet (across the river & in a forest)- if he keeps marching and something else appears out of the fog to threaten my capital, Prespur can build another bloodpet in defense.


Agr came in after I ended turn. Research will be Calendar next. I intend to build another bloodpet so that I can have 2 guarding Prespur, and then I'll build a worker, who will build a plantation on the cotton. I guess after that I'll farm at least one of the fp, then road to my 2nd city site and the pigs.


As for tech, after I finish calendar I think I'll go for crafting -> mining, so that I can use my hill, chop a few of the forests, and most importantly work the gold. That means delaying hooking up the pigs with AH for a long while, but I just don't need the extra food right now, especially since I intend to use my world spell to grow from size 4 to 6, which will be my happy cap after I connect the cotton.

[Ilios]

Was it worth building the scout, seeing there are now lots of non-animal barbs running around?

[Bobchillingworth]

If he pops the hut and gets a tech, as opposed to the possible horde of barb warriors I'd face if I used the bloodpet, then yes =)


It's true that scouts suck vs. barb warriors and skeletons, but they're cheap units and right now I need them to pop huts, find spiders (which are invisible, very dangerous, and don't roam), and scout for future city locations / unique features / other players. Bloodpets can do all those things, but not as well- and they'll still die just as easily as scouts to griffons, bears, and scorpions, without the advantage of sometimes being able to run away.

[sunrise089]

How do spiders work? When they don't roam, do they not attack at all? They're invisible, so can a 2-move non-hunter unit move onto their tile?