[SPOILERS] Balseraphs: A Guide to Mis-Management (by Kyan and TT)

[Bobchillingworth]

You sound like Amelia :neenernee



Btw, there are (minor) PBEM V spoilers in that chat, so you should probably preface the spoiler with a warning saying such :P

[Kyan]

You sound like Amelia :neenernee

No idea what to make of that. Thanks, i think?

Btw, there are (minor) PBEM V spoilers in that chat, so you should probably preface the spoiler with a warning saying such :P

Done. Sorry pal.

[Bobchillingworth]

No idea what to make of that. Thanks, i think?

It's probably a compliment! You just seem to fit your leader, is all



Regarding different spells-


Obviously it's too early to actually make any confirmed decisions about what spells you're going to use yet, without knowing the lay of the land or having any idea of who your neighbours are. But don't rule out any options from the very start- while not every spell is useful ("Trust", anyone?) every sphere has at least one situationaly helpful offering. You'll definitely want Courage if your opponents wield spectres themselves (or somehow get a supply of Nightmares). Shadow Walk and Blur are both useful for taking heavily fortified towns, especially if the enemy has a lot of drill and/or archery units. Haste is almost a necessity- an extra movement for every unit in a stack every turn is huge (plus you can use it to double the rate of mana node construction). Regeneration is almost as good, giving free March to every unit in the stack on the tile where it's cast. Every one of the Entropy spells is nice, and at strength 5 pit beasts will make a valid alternative to spectres for you. Scorch turns ice to workable tundra and can build desert barriers to invasion; Spring turns useless deserts into acceptable plains. And Water Elementals are great with Summoner, since you can spam them like nobody's business (each one which dies turns into two weaker mini-water elementals- you can exploit this to create a truly alarming amount of units with just a few casters). And Mutation with Chaos II is one of the coolest and (IMO) best spells in the game.


Conversely, Domination is somewhat overrated- 90% chance of getting rid of a unit is pretty good, but if you're not fighting powerful units then it would be better to wield one of the more dangerous elemental summons. And it has a short range which puts your spell casters at risk, and it wastes Summoner. And it's really easy to counter- Loyalty is only a first-tier spell, after all.


So keep an open mind, is what I'm saying =)

[DaveV]

Animal Husbandry and Hunting should normally not be among the first five techs you research.

I think you'd be much better off researching calendar to get +1 food on all your farms. That way you can produce faster workers and settlers (5 food on the two floodplains and the cow; 4 food on the grasslands).

I think you need more workers in FfH than in BtS: since food is so plentiful, you need a lot of fast improvements to keep pace with city growth.

[Krill]

Crazy clown number 3 stepping out of the mini.

So...what's the idea? Play so bad everyone laughs to death and we win by default?

[Bobchillingworth]

I think you'd be much better off researching calendar to get +1 food on all your farms. That way you can produce faster workers and settlers (5 food on the two floodplains and the cow; 4 food on the grasslands).

I think you need more workers in FfH than in BtS: since food is so plentiful, you need a lot of fast improvements to keep pace with city growth.

This is good advice, although I think that AH is valuable enough that you'll want it very early on regardless, with the capital being relatively hammer-poor. Having a ton of farms and nothing else won't help you build settler escorts or replacement scouts to find new city locations. Also if you're going for early Godking then that's the point where you'll want to start pumping out the otherwise very expensive settlers, and you'll need to work hammer tiles to get the most out of it. And I'd be a little surprised if you don't have horses (or copper) in the BFC.

[Kyan]

I think you'd be much better off researching calendar to get +1 food on all your farms. That way you can produce faster workers and settlers (5 food on the two floodplains and the cow; 4 food on the grasslands).

I think you need more workers in FfH than in BtS: since food is so plentiful, you need a lot of fast improvements to keep pace with city growth.

I see your point but i probably wouldn't revolt to agrarianism until i have god king also, which lessens the immediate impact of calendar. I think the fact that this will give us *some* production, which we're lacking, and also reveal (hopefully!) a strategic resource could be invaluable. Mining is gonna be a long time coming but the Sheaim or Hippus might not be (heck, even the elves maybe if we start close) so getting something hooked up quick could be vital.

I can see a hut which i should be able to pop in a couple turns so fingers crossed for a tech!



Lots of floodplains to our north! Also, two mana nodes in range already is certainly promising. One of them is on a floodplains tile which looks bogus to me. If we've had an extra node added in, maybe Ravus was adding some flavour by adding more nodes as a general rule? Certainly good news for us (and the Sheaim) if so.

[Kyan]

Crazy clown number 3 stepping out of the mini.

So...what's the idea? Play so bad everyone laughs to death and we win by default?

Almost! Give the impression that we're doing that, whilst secretly raising an insane magical based army of puppets and destroying everyone.

With the puppet feature and summoner trait (which we have), a heroic archmage can maintain SIXTEEN summons on the field at once...

Just for examples sake, let's use an Earth Elemental as our tier 3 summon and assume that those 2 nodes are all we're getting (seems unlikely but for easier maths).

Earth elementals are strength 11 +1 earth affinity so with two nodes we could have sixteen strength 13 units. Considering also that we don't pay maintenance on those units and that they're disposable. (since a load of them will 'expire' every turn anyway and effectively die to be replaced by new ones, i can throw these particular summons into the most difficult fights since they would disappear end of turn anyway) Furthermore, they're also very resilient to collateral as within 3 turns, they would all be fresh new units anyway... GG Pyre Zombies.

Better yet is that the units would be 'hidden'. My power rating would be very low so people wouldn't suspect an attack, next thing you know magey and his entourage turn up and start summoning stupid amounts of puppets/units and it'll be WAY too late.

[Kyan]

It's probably a compliment! You just seem to fit your leader, is all



Regarding different spells-


Obviously it's too early to actually make any confirmed decisions about what spells you're going to use yet, without knowing the lay of the land or having any idea of who your neighbours are. But don't rule out any options from the very start- while not every spell is useful ("Trust", anyone?) every sphere has at least one situationaly helpful offering. You'll definitely want Courage if your opponents wield spectres themselves (or somehow get a supply of Nightmares). Shadow Walk and Blur are both useful for taking heavily fortified towns, especially if the enemy has a lot of drill and/or archery units. Haste is almost a necessity- an extra movement for every unit in a stack every turn is huge (plus you can use it to double the rate of mana node construction). Regeneration is almost as good, giving free March to every unit in the stack on the tile where it's cast. Every one of the Entropy spells is nice, and at strength 5 pit beasts will make a valid alternative to spectres for you. Scorch turns ice to workable tundra and can build desert barriers to invasion; Spring turns useless deserts into acceptable plains. And Water Elementals are great with Summoner, since you can spam them like nobody's business (each one which dies turns into two weaker mini-water elementals- you can exploit this to create a truly alarming amount of units with just a few casters). And Mutation with Chaos II is one of the coolest and (IMO) best spells in the game.


Conversely, Domination is somewhat overrated- 90% chance of getting rid of a unit is pretty good, but if you're not fighting powerful units then it would be better to wield one of the more dangerous elemental summons. And it has a short range which puts your spell casters at risk, and it wastes Summoner. And it's really easy to counter- Loyalty is only a first-tier spell, after all.


So keep an open mind, is what I'm saying =)

Fair enough and noted. I've been taking a look at the different summons and all seem to be very useful in their own circumstances. We'll have to just see what the map throws out and go with it. I'll rely on diplo to keep us out of too much early game bother with players.

TT- any thoughts? I know you're super busy for now but anything you have would be great.

Also, we need a naming theme!

[DaveV]

Also if you're going for early Godking

I see your point but i probably wouldn't revolt to agrarianism until i have god king also

Bob, didn't we have this argument already? God King is good but not worth delaying better techs. As Kyan noted early, the techs are very expensive in this game, and that will only get worse. The most pressing need in the early game, beyond hammers, is commerce. The other thing required in the early game is focus. There are so many cool things in this game that it's easy to be distracted from your original goal.

Animal Husbandry will give you two hammers and one food, for 17 turns of research. Calendar gives you lots of food and gives you the ability to improve some good commerce tiles. Right now you can get about 10 hammers in max hammer mode; God King will improve that to 15, which is still short of a 1-turn warrior. The best early game strategy usually involves a beeline to one of the power features, and I think the land revealed so far is just crying out for aristograrianism. Forget about animal husbandry and mysticism; research calendar and then go straight to Code of Laws. Build the second city where it can work the incense tile, unless something even better shows up. Once you're running aristofarms everywhere, you'll have enough commerce to knock out the techs you want in a reasonable amount of time.