[Spoilers] What's Sheaim to do? Irgy controlling Tebryn

[plako]

Sorry, if I'm too pushy with my ideas. Obvivously it is your game. I'm just a spectator. After all it might be that your co-players are not as worried as I would be having you as a neighbour.

[Irgy]

Sorry, if I'm too pushy with my ideas. Obvivously it is your game. I'm just a spectator. After all it might be that your co-players are not as worried as I would be having you as a neighbour.

Be as pushy as you like with your ideas. So as long as you don't mind me arguing if I disagree you can say what you want. I love a good debate, I'm hard to offend, and if I ever really do get sick of a topic I just won't respond

Obvivously humans don't care much about their alignment when looking for allies. However the unique features of the Sheaim might not be very popular among other players unless you promise to play it nice, but where is the fun in that . AC counter seems the main obstacle. After all Sheaim is the only nation getting substantial benefits from raising it: Worldbreak gets stronger, planar gates give more units and summons gets stronger. You'll also get indirect benefits: big part of your army should be non-living and you're probably running civics that can take advantage of excess population in severe unhealthiness cases.

I realise that's what you meant, but I'm still not overly worried. Sure, raising the AC will annoy everyone, but it's no different to the Illians or Calabim using their worldspells for instance. Yes it annoys people, but they appreciate that it's just what you do as those civs and shouldn't begrudge you for doing it. The builder in all of us wants to help our own development, but what matters is really your development relative to others. Those that are more prepared for the blight than others for instance will gain an advantage from it and should be glad for it.

There is still something in what you're saying though. Yes I will be annoying people with the AC, and it will have a psychological impact that I need to account for. And in general, being the only evil civ, and being one of the more notably evil civs at that, I do stand out, and standing out is indeed the first step towards getting dogpiled.

So overall I need to make a conscious effort in the diplomacy to make sure people act "rationally", rather than role-playing or letting their builder instinct lead them into protecting themselves from the effects of the AC. I expect I'll end up having to make this same sort of argument again with at least one of the other players

[Irgy]

So, let the destruction of the world begin.

Before:


You can tell it's an edited map because all the units are on the same square. It's a hill, so with the settler's vision I can already see everything I need to see. Not going to find a better capital location than 1E of where we started, so that's where I went. The gems I gain by moving will take a while to get, but I'm going to prioritise bronze working regardless so it won't be too long. It's a great capital location, 5 resources, 7 grass hills (my favourite production tile) and the rest grassland (except for one peak).

Moved the settler around a bit first, although I don't think I revealed anything extra by doing so this time. With 4 movement and a ridiculous sight range often you can reveal a whole lot of tiles with the settler and still settle where you want to on the first turn. So consider moving it even if you're determined to settle in place.

I can already see room for two good coastal cities to the south, and they're locations that are easy to secure too, so I'm looking like having a relatively worry free start. Maybe. I didn't want the capital down there because with the Lanun in the game coastal cities may become quite vulnerable.

I've set the tech to mysticism. Crafting will get me the wine, and will be the next tech to get. I don't plan on building a worker yet though, so there's no point getting crafting first. I'll get the benefits of God King on the other hand straight away. Next will be agriculture and mining, not sure which order.

Working the wines for 2 food 2 commerce. There's no 3 food tiles yet, so the best alternative is 2 food 1 hammer. 2 commerce is probably better than 1 hammer in general, and in particular I'll get some of the hammers back from an earlier God King (and probably the rest soon after from an earlier mining). When the borders expand I'll have the option of a 3 food tile, while might be better.

All in all a great starting area. Although I dare say everyone else's is similar.

After:


Oh and I'm winning! Yay By quite a margin too. Since I'm moving second, all this tells me is WarriorKnight didn't settle on his first turn. With 4 movement and all that visibility I can't imagine why you wouldn't settle first turn most of the time, but I'm sure he has his reasons.

[plako]

There is definately good long term potential with this capital. However short term the lack of 3 food tiles (just rice) makes this capital to grow slowly. There are't many pre-mining hammers available for God king to multiply. Furthermore you should consider where you get your early beakers. Wines won't get you far. Elder Council would work, but there aren't too good food tiles so it might take awhile you could hire a Scientist. Gems would be other reasonable solution. I would consider postponing Mystisicm post BW and just tech agri, Crafting, mining and BW i.e. focus on essential worker techs.

[Irgy]

I'm putting off those worker techs mostly because of the lack of a worker. Depending on how many warriors I want to build first, even just an extra one or two hammers from God King might be enough to get the tiles improved sooner. Although it delays the techs it speeds up the production of warriors and the worker itself, which may be the limiting factor. It's an unconventional approach, and I haven't gone and done the math to be sure, but I think it's right. We'll see I guess.

One thing I forgot to mention in the post above was the unit movement. The scout is heading to the hut. When the hut is that close to the capital, you're kindly spared the hostile result regardless, so I could have safely gone there with the warrior. Also, the borders would pop the hut in a few turns anyway. However, it's as good a direction for the scout as any.

The warrior has moved onto the barrow and is going to stay there until I get the guts to explore it. Which could be a while yet, there's some very nasty results you can get from a barrow. In the mean time, while the warrior is on top of it it can't spawn any skeletons to harass my workers.

[Irgy]

So, a review of the opponents.

Nothing here about the players, as I simply don't know anything about them. Most appear to be new to RealmsBeyond, like myself. I'll have to find out in-game I guess.

Overall, it's an awful bunch of civs to find myself up against. Many have a specific reason to come after me in particular, and many also have things which specifically work well against me.

Just a disclaimer: I haven't ever even played with many of these civs, so much of what I'm saying is based on what's in the manual. It's not meant to be much of a guide to the civs themselves. It's just a description of aspects of them that are relevant to me and my choice of civ.

Elohim

The nice guys of FFH.

The biggest thing that I'm worried about with these guys is their worldspell. On quick speed, it gives them basically 20 turns of complete immunity. This makes it impossible to rush or really surprise them. In fact I'd go so far as to say it's pretty much not worth the bother even going to war with them. Note that it doesn't stop them from sending armies out and taking your territory, and once they capture a city it counts as their territory and you can't even take it back. So, the threat of using their worldspell keeps them safe better even than actually using it does.

However, if everyone does leave them alone, it gives them another excellent option - 20 turns of immunity with which to rush out a victory condition (the Altar, the Tower, or simply culture). On top of that they also have Corlindale to force peace, essentially extending their period of immunity even further (although at least hidden nationality units can work around Corlindale's peace).

So, it's not worth going to war with them, and not safe to leave them be for too long.

There are two ways I see of dealing with it. One is to try and force them to activate the sanctuary too early, at which point they become vulnerable again. It comes with a cost of basically having to put myself in a war-winning position twice, but it solves the problem. Or better yet hope someone else forces their hand for me. The second is to simply ignore them completely, and then out race them to a victory condition. Culture is slow, the Altar requires a boatload of super-expensive techs to finish, and there's no particular reason I shouldn't be able to get ahead in the race to the Tower.

The other notable thing about them is the "Tolerant" trait. The lets them build another civ's UUs and UBs. This is a bit of a "win more" ability, that won't help them get into a good position but does give them a better chance to snowball if they do manage to get into one. It's worth taking a look at what things they might gain:
* From us: Pyre zombies, and an assortment of anything and everything through the gates. Not a bad haul actually, which makes us something of a target. Alternatively though, it gives the option of trading them a city to secure an alliance with them - this would also encourage them to leave the AC high.
* Bannor: Absolutely nothing. Tolerant won't help them run the Crusade civic.
* Ljosalfar: Some slightly improved crossbows and horse archers. The biggest thing I'm concerned about is whether the elven workers they produce could build cottages on Elohim forests. Not sure whether this works or not?
* Lanun: Boarding parties, which would let them capture ships, and war tortoises. Useful, but not game changing.
* Malakim: Nothing of note really.

So on the whole the "Tolerant" trait makes us the best target, although it also opens an opportunity. Something for me to keep in mind.

Finally, they have a repeatable ritual to lower the AC. Which is going to irritate me. Although frankly I think they're wasting their hammers doing it. I have an identical ritual to do the reverse, but there's better ways to raise it.


Bannor

A civ that seems to be mainly defined by their unique civic, Crusade.

This gives them basically no war weariness, increased happiness, unit production, unit support, and a bunch of melee units (demagogs). They gain Demagogs for free by demoting towns to villages, although obviously they take a while to recover and lose commerce for doing so. They also lose the ability to build any commerce buildings, although if they have them already this doesn't really matter. Ignoring technology and just spamming units works better in FFH than normal civ, as the unit strengths are so much flatter.

It's all reasonably impressive, but I'm not really scared of it as such. They might generate twice as many units, but it won't stop me wiping out their big fat stack of doom with magic, burning zombies and summoned creatures if they leave it exposed. The unit-spam will make fighting them like fighting the AI, although I dare say they'll be a little bit cleverer about it. What I need to look out for is which religion they run it with, as that may provide them the depth they need. Magic is also good for them because their units are effectively immune to assassins.

One thing I'm a little worried about is Basium. Fanaticism opens up their Crusade civic, so they will likely all but beeline it, unlocking the option of Basium in the process. With 3 good civs and 2 neutral there's going to be a lot of angels generated. Not to mention that Basium's worldspell hurts basically my whole army. I'm seriously considering trying to beat them to him myself, as odd a thing to do as that might be.

One final thing to note: Their hero Donal (who also arrives with Fanaticism) regains the ability to recruit whenever he kills an undead or demon unit. As the only person likely to have any demons or undead, that makes me something of a target. It also means if I do fight them I can't leave spectres and the like running freely around their territory as I may just end up generating more units for him.

So, I'm likely to end up the target of a big fat crusade. If this does happen, my plan is quite simple. I'll stay put, and let them come to me. When a massive stack of doom arrives, I'll ambush it. If I can't wipe it out, then they've clearly played a better game so good on them. But I'll be surprised if I can't. I'll certainly have plenty of warning, because they need to declare war before they can switch to the crusade civic at all. What I'm most worried about is some cleverer tactics than the old SOD, but we'll have to wait and see what they might be.


Ljosalfar

Happy forest elves.

The biggest thing of note about them is that they can build improvements, notably cottages, on forests. Combine this with the Ancient Forests of the FoL and they have some seriously good tiles to work. So they can have quite a decent economy.

One thing that concerns me specifically is that they have life mana in their capital. They've specifically chosen an arcane leader, so I can't help but feel they plan to use mages. Put the two together and you have the "Destroy Undead" spell. This hits the whole stack, does a lot of damage, and has no upper limit (i.e. it can kill). It affects skeletons, spectres, wraiths, pyre zombies, liches, diseased corpses. A stack of 5 of them can wipe out a lot of good stuff, and in particular it leaves me with a distinct shortage of units with which to protect my own mages. It's enough to make me seriously consider changing my strategy.

So I'll need to tread very carefully near them, and find some other units to protect my mages. Some well placed assassins might also help me a great deal :D

A well powered worldbreak is going to seriously hurt their forest economy though, looking forward to that one. Just hope it's not yet-another reason for a civ to try and wipe me out early.


Lanun

They control the seas. Not so worried about these guys.

Despite what a number of people keep writing, as far as I'm aware the map script is called "Erebus Continent", not "Erebus Continents". I think they have it conflated with the script called just "Continents". In any case, people have specifically requested no ocean barriers to contact. So I am expecting a pangaea, and plan on going the whole game without building a single ship if I can get away with it.

Which is not to say they were a bad choice necessarily. They do have a very good economy going for them, with even basic coast tiles eventually providing an impressive 3 food 3 commerce, and pirate ports quite quickly developing into a whopping 5 food, 2 hammers, 7 commerce.

Plus, I really need to watch out for the "raiders" trait, which neutralises the biggest part of one's home-territory advantage when defending. Coastal raids are also almost impossible to deal with if I don't keep a navy. So if I do get in a fight with these guys, I'll need to make the most of their lack of any sort of natural advantage in a land battle by hitting them hard in their own territory.

They'd make a good ally though on the whole, as I'm not especially scared of them in the long term, and they can likely harass our enemies very effectively.


Malakim

Desert nomads.

Don't stand anywhere near their cities (although it's fire damage, so pyre zombies resist it at least). And don't try and fight them in the desert. Otherwise though their unique features are mostly flavoursome but not worrying.

Their worldspell however will give them an absolute ton of highly experienced units. Watch out if they're running the Council of Esus, as there'll be a number of highly promoted Assassins running around. What a scary thought.

The most worrying thing about them is their mana. Like the elves, they have access to life mana in their capital, so I need to worry about Destroy Undead. On top of that, they have sun Mana, giving them "Blinding Light", a spell which immobalises your units, a very bad thing to happen to them. Mind mana is also pretty scary, if they get up to domination.

[Irgy]

Popped gold from the hut. How dull, was hoping for mysticism

Not likely to be anything worth reporting for the next little while. The hut turned out to be in the middle of an invisible jungle, and there's at least two more tiles of jungle before the scout can even start moving two tiles at a time again.

[plako]

Destroy Undead seems pretty devastating for you indeed. 2-4 Life II Mages is sufficient to destroy almost all undead including Liches and Pyre Zombies. Is there anything that could counter or weaken that spell?

Impving your mana nodes something else than Death is definately an option although nothing can totally replace the synergy in Spectres and Wraiths and their Death affinity. Fire summons are alright, but Fireball just can't take the role of the Spectre. Entorpy has Pit Beast and Law Host of the Einherjar that could be considered. At level III there starts to be good alternatives, but then you would need e.g. Entropy node for the Pit Beast and as many Shadow nodes as possible to make Mistforms better. Not optimal.

[Irgy]

Fire mana I have already, and fireball is a spell I'll be getting a fair bit of regardless as it's a good utility spell. But you're right that it doesn't replace summons.

Pit fiends are good, and without entropy affinity I don't have any obligation to get more than the single entropy mana I get for free from the Stigmata of the Unborn. I expect I'll use a fair few of those.

Wraiths and Spectres I can look at as suicide creatures, which attack the enemy then die, so I don't have to feel bad about them getting hit by destroy undead - it just means I can't rely on them as stack defenders.

Overall then I'm not so worried about having the summons get killed by that spell, it's the liches, pyre zombies and diseased corpses that are the problem because they're permanent units, and the two sorts of zombies would otherwise be the best options for protecting the mages. The upshot is basically that once we get to sorcery I won't rely on zombie and skeleton units to protect them particularly on offence, I'll need to build something else. The gate creatures would do, but I only get so many of them. Basically I think I'll need to take either another religion or a tech detour to get some other sort of living unit to be the meat in my stack. Archers maybe, or Rangers. Zombies and Liches will probably have to stay at home on defensive duties - where I can protect them better.

One good synergy with that is that if my whole attack force is living units, I can use the haste spell to give myself some speed. Mobility is important. Haste plus movement 2 summons gives me an attack range of four tiles, which is decent. Whereas by comparison pyre zombies would have a range of 1. Good for the inevitable doom that is a well planned pyre zombie rush, but otherwise dangerously slow.

[Irgy]

Scout moved and found dyes, and also something interesting. It turns out we're at something of a south-east corner of the map.


At the end of the turn, the borders popped and more thoroughly confirmed what you can fog-gaze in the image above.

It was strange actually, the turn ended, it saved the game, and then the borders popped. I could then actually look around, and even enter the city screens, change tech and all sorts. Of course it wouldn't get saved, because the save had already happened. All ordinary behaviour I'm sure, but it's new to me (only played pitboss and self-play-hotseat multiplayer previously).

Is it considered bad form to look around after playing the turn? Normally there'd be nothing to see that you couldn't see before, the borders popping is a bit of an exceptional case.