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

[Irgy]

Do you have horses? If so, would it make sense to use Horsemen or Chariots to supplement your mages? They should be plenty fast and reasonably strong. Horse Archers would be a bit out of your way, but then again so would most other units to go with your mages, with the possible exception of the priests of whatever religion you go with.

Horse units were one of the options I was seriously considering. Their extra speed gives me a bit of extra threat range and might let me chase down stragglers. However, I have animal husbandry now and unfortunately not a horse to be seen. I'll still get Horseback Riding rather than Sailing though (or possibly as well as) on the way to trade, purely for the mobility promotion. I might be able to source horses from somewhere, who knows.

I don't have champions, and archers and rangers are both out of the way tech-wise, so there is a real shortage of decent options.

[Irgy]

Way of the Wicked has arrived.


This will allow me to revolt to slavery:


Yes, that's exactly why I would want to take slavery, for the 25% chance of capturing a slave in combat. Just like I'd take Aristocracy for the maintenance reduction. Next it will be "Would you like to implement Apprenticeship? If you do, you can get -10% military production!".

Education->Code of Laws will take 10 turns in total at 100%, plus another 2 or 3 more if I want to keep my cash levels high - which I forgot about this turn. Overall I'm certainly tempted to wait to do both revolts at once. Tongurstad is growing at about one population every 2 turns though, and will reach its happy cap at 6 pop. I'd like to whip a temple for 3 pop, followed by a monument at 4 pop. I'm procrastinating the decision until at least the settler is finished, so that I can move the settler while in anarchy.

Galveholm has reached happy cap, so it's switched to maximum hammers and building a settler, ready in 6 turns.


Grottiburg then took the rice, to work maximum food and grow to its own happy cap. It has 2 more population it can support, and a mine and a sage slot prepared for them.


The capital's borders have expanded again, revealing that the land to the SE definately doesn't connect to anything. The city site in the southeast is confirmed, unless there's seafood to the east. It's strongly overlapped with the capital, but it's a good site overall with a lot of food and production.


Also, no screenshot for this, but WarriorKnight's scout has been killed by a griffon. It's in range of my workers near Tongurstad, but I'm pretty sure it, like other animals, doesn't attack into a civilisation's cultural borders. Just in case though I moved my pyre zombie onto the workers. Because of the river, I'll have favourable odds if it does attack.

[Lord Parkin]

Yeah, Griffons can't enter cultural borders. I've never seen it anyway.

I wonder, based on the events in FFH2, what's the optimum amount of gold to keep on hand at any given point in the game? I mean, I know it's somewhere around 100 (mostly for those sweet Great Person events), but it'd be nice to have some exact figures, if anyone has them.

[Irgy]

A really nice event, though would have been even better earlier: Mushrooms!

In the capital. I've pre-chopped that forest, but I'll leave it alone now obviously. I'm pretty sure doing anything to it will kill the mushrooms. If someone knows otherwise let me know. Turns it into a nice 5 yield tile, as good as an extra resource.


Some skeleton dramas at Tongurstad. I think the image basically explains what happens. The skeleton appeared to the south of my workers, who I then protected with the pyre zombie. The skeletons stepped past to threaten the city, and the pyre zombie took them out. Enough xp for another level, but actually took some damage this time.


Finally, demographics.

I thought the situation might have improved, since we've just had a lot of growth. Maybe it has improved, I'm in the middle of the pack now for basically everything. I was at the bottom before in a fair few things. I've had more growth since, so maybe things will have improved further.

[Lord Parkin]

Looking reasonable. That Skeleton didn't stand much of a chance, heh.

As for the mushrooms, not sure if you can chop the tile, but don't see why you'd want to even if you could. You'd be left with a 3f/1h tile instead of a 3f/2h tile for the rest of the game. Not worth a temporary small hammer boost.

(Slight spoiler for Egypt in Pitboss 4.)

Similar reasoning for the forested Deer in the other game.

You certainly can't build any actual improvements over mushrooms, as I recall (mines, cottages, etc), so that tile as it is now is as good as it's going to get, I think.

[Ichabod]

You certainly can't build any actual improvements over mushrooms, as I recall (mines, cottages, etc), so that tile as it is now is as good as it's going to get, I think.

If I remember correctly, you can build improvements over Mushrooms, but that will destroy them (reverting the tile to its base yield).

[Irgy]

Yeah sorry that's what I meant, that I can't improve the tile with a mine or cottage or something. I realise I don't want to chop the forest if I can't build a mine or something. I said pre-chopped but I actually meant pre-mined anyway.

[Heisenberg]

Hi~

New here, followed from your link in a civfanatics thread.
Kinda of a "returning" FfH MP player, thought I might wanna lurk here, Sheaim being one of my fav civs in the old days (since it wasn't an outright ban) and I simply loved its flavour.

So.... I wont be reading any of the other spoiler threads... so maybe i'd make gameplay comments as a guy playing in your shoes might see it (hope you don't really mind Irgy)

Nice start! Great starting position to aristofarms.
Looking good on the Demog, Sheaim doesnt always have the easiest of all starts...
(I'm surprised u guys let Lanun in lol~ they are an outright ban along with Bals and Flauros in those games I played... Pretty sure they are top in GNP with their coves or else they ought to be shot )

As for mushrooms... u cant build over them or it would replace the mushrooms. Its a tile you dont have to worry about until lategame if u ever decide to go Arete+Blasting powders for massive hammers on mines else its not worth it.

=P would personally have gone code of laws first before Philo or WoW, the huge increase in commerce is worth it, WoW has much less economical benefits.
You're having multiple river tiles, giving aristofarms a huge boost.

As for the Assassins' point, use meta1, cheap, and good. floating eyeballs for recon are priceless and u can see invisible units--including the whole sidar army who goes into the mist You'd be able to keep your distance from assassins and pelt them with fireballs/spectres/maelstrom if they come near if you're on the defensive. If you're going on the offensive and they have roads, keep summons up in the few squares in front of your stack (your eyeballs would tell you which direction they come from) so you'd be safe unless they have a huge stack of assassins coming for you--in which case try and maybe get some succubi with mobility, haste them, run over and charm them before running back to the safety of your SoD.

Frankly not a fan of the Mounted line with Sheaim, its way off the paths for all the useful buildings you need to get Planar units. You can pretty much hold the fort with PZs, even ignore smelting/ironwork, just hit trade for tech trading, and rush down the econ + arcane paths. If you ever need "stronger buildable" units to get xp farmed on, use diseased corpses. Else just stick to the flaming monkeys!~

As for the timing of infernals, I'm personally a fan of the "pact > grimoire > manevolent" slingshot. You can start on the pact when u have priesthood teched, then go for fanat as you build the grim so you can bulb manevolent. This gives you quick access of Mardero + 4 beasts from a tier 4 tech which would have otherwise taken 70 oddish turns. You dont gain access to Eidolons till ironworking though, but the beasts kinda make up for them somewhat (not to mention the AC bumps)
Else technically if you have somewhere near sorcery teched u can bulb the Lore for a sage, or even better, Str of Will if u managed to even hit Arcane early (which i'm not a fan of either coz you are delaying the pact way too much... StW is such an overpowered civic to delay for too long)

[Heisenberg]

Kinda saw the earlier discussion over Sheaim leaders and I just happened to notice and absence about the C.Librarius. It is pretty much a "Core" wonder critical to Sheaim play. It's a pretty large map, so the importance of free Mage guilds for möbius witches cannot be clearer...

I once had the same discussion with a MP buddy of mine over the Sheaim leaders and we kinda agreed that:
Tebryn is good in the long run for highly promoted mages,
but this lead would be somewhat lost if they weren't able to control the Librarius, which leads to having a much smaller pool of witches to begin with.
Personally, if I had a Sheaim neighbour which I would eventually end up in a conflict with, the Librarius, though not the most useful wonder, might be something I would consider rushing just to deny them that advantage.
Ozzie on the other hand gives u a good chance of getting those critical wonders over your opponents, such as the Pillar, Guild o' Hammers, or even the Hall of Kings to culture push with Sac the Weak specialists. You'd be neglecting military techs in favour of Econ techs for Planar-spawning buildings, so you get a good chance of completing these Wonders first.

[Irgy]

Hi~

New here, followed from your link in a civfanatics thread.
Kinda of a "returning" FfH MP player, thought I might wanna lurk here, Sheaim being one of my fav civs in the old days (since it wasn't an outright ban) and I simply loved its flavour.

So.... I wont be reading any of the other spoiler threads... so maybe i'd make gameplay comments as a guy playing in your shoes might see it (hope you don't really mind Irgy)

Hi! What's to mind? Welcome on board. The more dedicated lurkers the better. All comments welcome, even if I disagree with them.

Nice start! Great starting position to aristofarms.
Looking good on the Demog, Sheaim doesnt always have the easiest of all starts...

Thanks, that's reassuring to hear. According to score I'm coming third, and the demographics kind of support that. On the whole I should be happy enough with that.

(I'm surprised u guys let Lanun in lol~ they are an outright ban along with Bals and Flauros in those games I played... Pretty sure they are top in GNP with their coves or else they ought to be shot )

They're lagging behind me at the moment in fact, in score at least They do have a great economy, but for all that their sea-economy is broken in BTS terms, compared to aristograrian farms it's not completely out of line. I'm beating the Lanun in a 2 player game against Lord Parkin at the moment, though I'm using another member of the ban list (Flauros) to do it. On the whole I think they have a great economy, and are fearsome on water-heavy maps, but their lack of any significant bonuses on land will hurt them in the long run I expect.

As for mushrooms... u cant build over them or it would replace the mushrooms. Its a tile you dont have to worry about until lategame if u ever decide to go Arete+Blasting powders for massive hammers on mines else its not worth it.

Yep that's what I thought. No complaints about a 3f2h tile though.

=P would personally have gone code of laws first before Philo or WoW, the huge increase in commerce is worth it, WoW has much less economical benefits.
You're having multiple river tiles, giving aristofarms a huge boost.

There's a few reasons I didn't. One is that I'm further behind in development and expansion than I am economically, and slavery helps with that while aristocracy actually hinders it in a number of ways. Compared to the aristocracy revolt, the slavery revolt leaves me with:
* The ability to whip (well, obviously).
* +50% production in the capital (worth 7 hammers a turn currently)
* Keeping the extra food from farms.

If it was just a matter of 1 food vs 2 commerce, I'm happy with the 2 commerce. However at the moment I'd be slowing down development in a number of ways for that extra commerce.

As it stands, I'm still tossing up whether to wait until I have both slavery and aristocracy before revolting, in which case it wouldn't matter which order I researched the relevant techs (as they all have few side-benefits).

As for the Assassins' point, use meta1, cheap, and good. floating eyeballs for recon are priceless and u can see invisible units--including the whole sidar army who goes into the mist You'd be able to keep your distance from assassins and pelt them with fireballs/spectres/maelstrom if they come near if you're on the defensive. If you're going on the offensive and they have roads, keep summons up in the few squares in front of your stack (your eyeballs would tell you which direction they come from) so you'd be safe unless they have a huge stack of assassins coming for you--in which case try and maybe get some succubi with mobility, haste them, run over and charm them before running back to the safety of your SoD.

Indeed this sounds quite a bit like what I'm hoping to do. If they have roads, I'll simply pillage the roads with summons. It's fairly difficult to block physically a stack's progress otherwise.

Frankly not a fan of the Mounted line with Sheaim, its way off the paths for all the useful buildings you need to get Planar units. You can pretty much hold the fort with PZs, even ignore smelting/ironwork, just hit trade for tech trading, and rush down the econ + arcane paths. If you ever need "stronger buildable" units to get xp farmed on, use diseased corpses. Else just stick to the flaming monkeys!~

I don't plan on researching much of the mounted line, although I need Horseback Riding for the mobility promotion, and need Trade as a prerequisite for Deception, which is something I plan to research. If I had horses I'd consider getting chariots, which only require Trade and Construction, both of which I plan to research anyway for the economy.

The thing I'm concerned about is that diseased corpses are undead. One problem is that they cannot be hasted, and simply won't keep up with the mobility+hasted mages I plan to have. The other reason I'm concerned about being undead is that almost every opponent in this game has life mana, which could eventually translate into Destroy Undead. That's basically what I'm worried about when it comes to wanting some more living units for support.

As for the timing of infernals, I'm personally a fan of the "pact > grimoire > manevolent" slingshot. You can start on the pact when u have priesthood teched, then go for fanat as you build the grim so you can bulb manevolent. This gives you quick access of Mardero + 4 beasts from a tier 4 tech which would have otherwise taken 70 oddish turns. You dont gain access to Eidolons till ironworking though, but the beasts kinda make up for them somewhat (not to mention the AC bumps)
Else technically if you have somewhere near sorcery teched u can bulb the Lore for a sage, or even better, Str of Will if u managed to even hit Arcane early (which i'm not a fan of either coz you are delaying the pact way too much... StW is such an overpowered civic to delay for too long)

The current plan is to bulb a good chunk of Arcane Lore and take Strength of Will from the grimoire - which is one of the things you mention. Malevolent Designs is quite a decent second choice for the grimoire tech though I agree, and in fact I've done this in my Flauros vs Falamir game. It's certainly an alternative that I'll keep in mind.

As for Sacrifice the Weak, it is indeed awesome, but I find you can often end up with simply too much population and be limited by happiness instead. I'd like to run it sooner, but I do still think holding back the Infernals is wise. If summoned too early they can actually be quite a menace. I also plan to have Deception when I summon them, so as to get a partner for the Undercouncil, so that will hold it all up too.

Thanks for the comments, hope my responses make sense.