Kandros of the Clan - How many powers of 2 do you need?

[Krill]

Seriously, though, I got a fair few outs. I get a grain start with loads of forests, I can go Agri>Crafting>Masonry, worker first.

I get a grain/plantation res start, I bite the bullet and warrens aren't going to come in time for the first settler and I play a normal start.

I get an animal start, I time a worker to complete once AH is out, and I pump goblins and a few warriors prior to that and try to get out fake hunters and wolf riders.

If I get an animal/plantation res start, it probably gets played out the same as above, but depending on what happens with the units I either head for warrens for rapid expansion if I'm holding out well, or need the warrened units to kill barbs more easily.

As it is, I'm not actually sure if I should plant for an animal res start, I should move the capital to some where nicer. We've seen what happens in poor land maps (VI...rush to Hyborem and kill people) so I doubt Mardoc gives us such a shitty map, and animal only starts are pretty crap considering for the same cost you can generally get agrarianism that turns grassland tiles into decent food tiles in their own right. mixed animal/grain starts are generally starts with multiple 3 food tiles, so I can treat them as flood plains starts and hence I can just rush to Warrens.

[Kyan]

Lots of other potentially scary rush civs in this game. Diplo is gonna get fun.

I think we should vote against making the map bigger in the tech thread.

a) it weakens us and our world spell
b) it demonstrates an aggressive edge which i can utilise in early diplomacy. (makes us look like we'll be rushing). Will certainly help with claiming concessions or making deals etc.
c) we're unlikely to care whatsoever about the inland sea so the less that's there, the better.

[Krill]

Nah, make it bigger.

1. It gives us space to get the snowball up in, so we can claim more land in the mid game which looks to be our strongest part of the game.
   
   
   
2. If we start next to the Illians (the only rush civ I'm not sure how to handle truth be told) they are farther away from us, and techs cost more - takes them longer to get the PoW out, so we in general just get more turns to prepare for them if they are hostile.
   
   
   
3. Our world spell doesn't work without a barb leader, so we can't use it any way.
   
   
   
4. More space for wolves to spawn in.

[Krill]

Mardoc, I'd like it to be a large map if it is going to be inland sea. I don't think it will necessarily favour the Hippus - it will mean we can give up more land as roadless to make it harder for them to attack us. And I very specifically would prefer a higher land/player ratio than dregs...

[Mardoc]

Mardoc, I'd like it to be a large map if it is going to be inland sea. I don't think it will necessarily favour the Hippus - it will mean we can give up more land as roadless to make it harder for them to attack us.

Is that your official vote? Can I get you to sell the others on it in the tech thread, or at least change your abstention to a vote?

I try to punt the decision to the players, and of course I end up with a lot of abstentions as a result

[Krill]

Is that your official vote? Can I get you to sell the others on it in the tech thread, or at least change your abstention to a vote?

I try to punt the decision to the players, and of course I end up with a lot of abstentions as a result

I think it's partly down to the fact that we punted it to you in the first place None of us cared beforehand and we do trust you even though Dregs happened (my view though is that you probably should have used a standard size map in dregs, FFH just needs more land than vanilla civ due to the greater speed of units.)

[Cyneheard]

Checking in as a Ded Lurker. Looks like it should be interesting.

[Krill]

Something I've been thinking about...we probably are the civ that most needs diplomacy to work for us to get through this game in one piece. I think we can stop a PZ rush dead with warren'ed warriors (bronze basically makes it fairly certain, it just depends on what the land looks like), without bronze it's more dangerous, but orcs have fire resistance so they aren't that strong.

A PoW rush OTOH, I can't figure out a way to stop short of choking them into the ground from T0, so Kyan, if we do start next to the Illians, I am prepared to focus the entire game on making a PoW rush as uneconomical as possible. And we can probably do a fairly good job by throwing out a few goblins, getting them to beat wolves down in the tundra and putting on a wolf rider choke/rush on them, provided that we start fairly near to the tundra, which we probably have to on a standard size map. That won't stop a straight beeline to the white hand from doing an horrendous amount of damage, but it will stop them from expanding, improving their land, and frankly doing anything else other than trying to kill us.

Of course, if they agree to a long NAP (t120ish?) then we don't have to worry so much.

As to The Hippus, Sidar, and Grigori, meh, they aren't as one sided in war so that would be a more normal game. The Sheaim might think that they can rush us so we might need to be firm with them, but other than that, we just need to get out a few units to make sure we know exactly who our neighbours are.

[Mardoc]

Your actual start:

[Krill]

Oh come on, you removed the staring settler bonus?