[Spoiler]Capria Crusadin' Crew - Bannor

[Mist]

[SIZE="5"]My Esteemed Opposition[/SIZE]

[SIZE="4"]Tome IV, Sareln, who shall not be rushed this time. Probably.[/SIZE]

Represented by lovely Thessa



Thessa is

Expansive - +3 Health per city, double speed Settler, Granary and Harbour.
Arcane - Potency promotion for Adepts, half price Mage Guilds.

Which makes her a sort of weed, she's green, grows fast and can show you all kinds of wondrous stuff. ( )

The big shiny button is March of the Trees. It makes forests inside elven border uproot for 5 turns and go bash people. Each forest makes one strength 10 treant. Which makes the host pretty unappetising as a target. It does come lateish, at Way of the Forests though ( over 1000 breakers worth of techs ), so if someone is determined, there's just about enough time ( c.a. 20 turns of rush window ) to wreck his game. Yet again.

Other shinies

Can build improvements on forests - Which translates to 1 extra food per tile and no health problems in cities. The downside is that improving tiles takes longer, and forest improved this way tend to eat extra river commerce.

Gilden Silveric - early hero, at Archery, who usually packs enough punch to easily take and defend cities. He tails off as the game progresses, but is nothing to sneeze at.

Important drawbacks

Can't build Siege Workshops - so no Catapults, Chariots or Rathas.

Horse Archers use Deer - deer is usually harder to find than horse.

What do I think is their gameplan? Get Fol. Expand like weed while turtling. Go for the Tower victory.

About Sareln - the unluckiest guy on these forums, rushed twice in two games played. Apart from that knowledgeable, experienced and inventive. Good micromanagement and C&D.

[Mist]

[SIZE="5"]My Esteemed Opposition[/SIZE]

Tome V, Magic Girl Amelia

Who confusingly plays a man, one Dain with the Hard to Write Correctly Suffix.



Dain is

Philosophical - +100% to Great Person Points generation, half price Library and Elder Council
Arcane - Potency promotion on Adepts, half price Mage Guilds

Which makes him very good at what he's supposed to do - get a boatload of early Great Sages and bulb up the arcane branch of the Tech Tree.

The big shiny button is Arcane Lacuna. It disables spellcasting for all other players for 15 turns and grants one time experience boost to all Amurite arcane units depending on number of improved mana nodes.

Other shinies, they all come late, but we might just see some of them

Firebows - strength 5 longbow that can use Iron *and* throw Fireballs. It's draftable, which makes it a high late game threat. Fortunately it's outside preferred Amurite tech patch and tends to show up more under Valedia.

Govannon - hero Archmage granting known level 1 spells to newly produced Adepts for free. Comes at Arcane Lore.

Cave of Ancestors - cheap building at Sorcery granting 1xp to produced arcane units for each controlled mana type.

Wizard - Mage replacement, starts with Spellstaff.

Now all this looks impressive, and is actually pretty slick when you're on the attack, but without Firebows is very soft on defense. An all mage army also has the drawback of taking ages to set up. I expect Amelia to go for the Tower victory and push for Great Library hard. Depending on how willing will she be to diversify, she'll be either a wildcard or completely irrelevant.

On Amelia - in the games played thus far displayed somewhat erratic decision making and penchant for flamboyant, if inefficient, plays. Does know her FFH though.

[NobleHelium]

Actually, I believe Govannon gives level 1 spells to any unit. The ability grants the target Channeling I as well as any level 1 spell spheres. Firebows become full-fledged mages of those respective spheres (without the passive experience gain), and I believe even workers can, say, haste themselves.

[Mist]

NobleHelium was right about the unfogged map bits. Three islands, each has one of the three big specials, a mana node and some food. The one closest to us has Bones and three Corn ( two wet ), which makes it arguably the strongest of the three. The one in the south is Ygdrassil and three bananas, the one in the north Ruins and three seafood ( two fish + clams ).

I will probably not make a play for either of them, Sailing is a very low priority tech and I don't expect to contest the seas.

And besides, it looks like there's a catch



This is not usual on turn 0. Epic guardians anyone?

A peek at settings reveals



No Orthus. This one was kind of fuzzy and I think we ultimately left it to Mardoc's discretion. So no distractions around turn 50 and no flaming axe wielding horsemen either. Every little helps.

Points table says 2406 land tiles. Subtract 20 for goodie islands, and maybe 80 for peaks to get a round number and you end up with 2300. Divide by 6 and you get almost 400 tiles per player, that's enough room for 20! nicely spaced cities. This map is huge Therefore :

*) There will be barbs. Oh boy, there will be barbs. This amount of tiles makes a cap for over 70 hostile unit roaming the wild.
*) If we're evenly spaced, it's likely we're far away from each other.
*) It sucks to be a rusher in this game.

C&D trivia. 1 pop is worth 3 points.

C&D trivia, both Mackoti and Sareln settled. One is working a food source for a crop yield of 5, other is going for a hammer heavy start with MFG of 4. Neither is working river commerce special, so... I'm top in GNP by a point


Everything else on the picture

[NobleHelium]

Oh, I didn't notice there was clams on that spot. And looking at the old screenshot, it is visible to the settler before planting. Well, that's kind of annoying, the wheat spot is considerably better with the knowledge of the clams there for a coastal dye plant. Clearly you need to pick up City of a Thousand Slums now so that you can use the clams.

[Mist]

Oh, I didn't notice there was clams on that spot. And looking at the old screenshot, it is visible to the settler before planting. Well, that's kind of annoying, the wheat spot is considerably better with the knowledge of the clams there for a coastal dye plant.

Still arguable. Note that planting coastal 1N of the Clams misses the dry Dye for a rather uninspired city with only grass hill for production.

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, I figured you'd pick up the dry dye with another city to the west. Coastal cities are much worse in FFH though.

[Mist]

I actually had a look for that as well, but my fog-gazers say it's not an option. Have a look :



Only tiles to the west that could pick the dye are the plains hill marked 'Sucks' and two tiles below it ( plains hill forest and plains ). Two of three are minimum possible location to capital site and have 7 tiles overlap + at least two peaks and some worthless sea. Third ( the southernmost ) is half ocean and third peaks, which doesn't even qualify it as a decent filler.

[Mist]

[SIZE="5"]Turn 1[/SIZE]

I got an event !



Which came only some 150 turns to early. But it's the thought that counts and I decided to believe it's a sign RNG likes me

Everyone settled. Mackoti choose Neutral.



A glance at demogs shows that
*I'm still top in GNP, so noone else works a river commerce special
*Worst food is 4, noone works plains forest or other hammer heavy tile.
*Worst hammer is 2, so someone else works a no hammer tile, probably the same person that has top food.
*Someone else has health reducing tiles in the BFC ( so either floodplains or jungles, I hope it's the latter )
*Everyone settled inland

Apart from that.. units move :zzz:

[Rawkking Goodguy]

Decius gets to pick his alignment at game start? I never knew that!

Gotta say I am fairly disappointed that this game is just a turn or two away from being correctly setup to allow Krill the demon onto these lands, judging by what you've said in the tech thread in PBEM III :P