This Time for Sure: Mardoc reprises the Lanun

[Selrahc]

Sorry Gaspar, but hell no. What's faster to stand up - a land city that can borrow workers from other already improved cities or a coastal city that needs to push a lighthouse, harbor and two workboats with no bloody mines because you prioritized water techs first and spent hammers on building said workboats instead of workers?

The Lanun don't need a lighthouse as a priority for coastal cities. Or a harbor realllllly.

2-0-2 tiles, along with two pirate ports and a seafood resource of some sort (4/5-0-3) is sufficient for the early leg of the game where the happy cap is only 6 or 7. Production is actually fairly good on a developed pirate port as well, and that will help in building the double speed harbors pushing into the midgame.

And given that the workboats can come from 1t builds in the Godking capital it's actually really really easy to stand up new water cities. Particularly since the workboats are moving faster due to seafaring.

[Amelia]

I'm going to say go coastal first. All you need are 2 freaking ports, and you beat any land city out there. The only time land is better than sea is after you get education for cottages, OR agristrocracy for super farms (and enough happiness to work them all, say 8 happy). Early on, ports slaughter every resource out there, and since you prob only have size 4-5 cities, 2 ports = half of your workers. Really efficient.

And yes, screw the harbor/lighthouse at the beginning. Ports. That's all you need.

[Selrahc]

Monument is a higher priority build than harbor or lighthouse, so you can extend cultural radius enough to be able to place two ports.

[Gaspar]

For grins I just played an SP game with Lanun. I settled my first 3 cities along the coast and then moved inland. I didn't build Lighthouses/Sea Havens anywhere early other than in the God King capital and basically beelined Trade. Then I took Spi at the first trait switch and went Veil -> Empy. Worked pretty well, in terms of development curve.

What does that teach us for MP Lanun? Pretty much nothing. But I think Lanun might be more different from base FFH in EitB than anybody else. Really, I think the way to go is Coastal -> Land -> Coastal. Basically coastal stuff really early to jump the commerce, lots of land production sites in the middle and then spam all over the coast once you have IW and a Cash Rush civic. That Shipyard change is no joke, and IW is a much earlier tech now. Foreign Trade is a great SP Civic, but its probably not a long-term answer in MP. Get in it to grow cottages and late ports, then move to something production oriented - probably Conquest. In MP everyone's not going to give you the OB you need to really make it worth it economically.

There's a bunch of ways to go, I'm a self-professed noob here but Lanun seem a lot more interesting to play here than in base FFH. Unfortunately, they still don't have any good units. :P

[Man Behind the Mask]

Hardcore game mechanics arguments already? In a modmod that I’ve barely played at all? I’d better bring some frivolity to the pirate proceedings!

So let’s have a look at the population of this thread. We have:

Captain Mardoc


Ably assisted by his dedlurking motley crew:
Gaspar


Mist


Jkaen


And Man Behind the Mask


ARR!

Actual content post to follow later…

[Mardoc]

Monument is a higher priority build than harbor or lighthouse, so you can extend cultural radius enough to be able to place two ports.

This! This is the main reason I'm going to be hesitant to build early coastal cities, unless there's significant outside support or awesome production in the first ring. Without cash rushing or an outside source of missionaries, it's very difficult to expand borders. And most of the time, in order to fit in two pirate ports, they both need to go in the 2nd ring, which means neither of them is helping put up the culture.

In PBEM3, my cities were essentially dormant for the first 20+ turns of their existence, just trying to pop borders. That changed when I finally got to OO, and stepped up again when I made it to Slavery. But a land city can be placed to have its most valuable tiles in the first ring, which makes everything less painful going forward.

What does a land city need, to get started? A settler, a garrison, and ~2 workers. All of which can easily come from other cities. A source of culture's nice, but can be alleviated by making sure the good tiles are first ring.

What does a coastal city need? A settler, a garrison, ~1 workers, 2-3workboats, and a source of culture. What would it like on top? A Lighthouse, a Harbor, and a Shipyard. Given all that, the 3/1/3 tiles and 5/3/7 ports will start to produce about as much as, well - a land city with strong worker support and a couple resources. Now...once we've got the tech for some form of rushing (I'm leaning MilState, although Arete or Slavery are possible) and culture from something from the outside, a coastal city will stand up a heck of a lot faster than a land city - settle the city and missionary turn 1, rush lighthouse turn 2, start coves turn 3, rush harbor turn 4, rush shipyard turn 6, and it's basically done.

Or - if there's a way to place a coastal city with its valuable tiles in the 1st ring culture. Coastal copper, say, or borrowing culture from a neighbor, or an oddly shaped coast that allows only one cove.

Plus, what's the main goal of your first couple cities? More cities, right? 2/0/2 tiles are going to have a devil of a time knocking out settlers.

So, when do I think coastal cities become viable? After either a culture religion or Drama, after they can get outside support for early workboats, and ideally after they have access to either cash rushing or the whip to get that basic infrastructure up. Which isn't the first three cities. It might be the capital, actually, if we don't have to move too far, since it has free culture, and cove commerce will be especially valuable in a God King/Academy cap.

Basically, I'm thinking what makes sense is to go inland, or maybe the capital on the coast and inland for the other early ones. Drive for a rush civic and a culture source (along with whatever military and land techs we need). Once we have those, then we can spam along the coast.

I'm currently thinking Drama makes sense as the culture source, and we want to be in Foreign Trade/MilState during the spam phase of the game. I can be talked out of this, particularly if you spot something relevant in the changelog.

[Mardoc]

Anyway, what else. The foes!

Darrell: Krill and Ilios both like to make fun of his micro skills. On the other hand - he only makes enough errors for them to comment on, not enough to drive them away. He's got a good sense of overall strategic goals, too. I think he's a solid player.

He's got the Ljo, so I can expect the standard elf strategy. I may be able to provoke a March of the Trees in a bad time, if I'm careful. And playing Arendel, he'll want to chase all over the tech tree.

The good news: If I think he's making a mistake, particularly with something little like tactics, he probably is actually making that mistake, it's not a cunning plan.
The bad news: My best weapon, Raging Seas, will be burned into his memory thanks to a certain lurker

Ilios: Solid. There's a reason he was dogpiled in 2, and I think I believe him when he says it was his play, not his land. Can't dogpile him here, with no diplo.

He's got Capria (spi/fin) of the Bannor, so I'd expect a Crusade focus, backed up with priests. Crusade is generally stronger due to the boosts to towns - although that also means he has to sacrifice some econ to use it.

The good news: Um. Maybe he'll be overconfident? He's just off a crushing victory in XIII...
Actually, the main good news is that he's very much a builder type, given his druthers. If someone can hit him before he knows what's coming, he might well fold. And pillage gold is improved, and he'll have tons of towns to loot.
The bad news: He's solid, both in micro and macromanagement. He held out against a series of dogpiles in 2, quite successfully, until numbers finally told the story. Even then, uber/darrell took more casualties and more time to finish him than they expected.

Uberfish: Another solid player. More prone to the tricky approach, in my view. He won PBEM2 (although that was largely his excellent diplo, he did have the might to be a serious negotiator. And the tactical skill to back it up).

He has Os-Gabiella (Summoner/Spiritual, now) of the Sheaim, but in a builder game; I'd expect more of a gate/AV focus than a pyre zombie rush.

The good news: no diplo! Also, no econ traits! (well, ok, Spi is somewhat economic)
The bad news: Sheaim have some interesting tricks. Uber's good at using tricks. We'll have to study them with care.

Tatan: Hard to say. He hasn't played a RB MP FFH game. He seemed solid in BtS PBEM 11. He might have more BtS MP experience. He claims a lot of SP experience.

He has Valledia (Org/Arc/Ing) of the Amurites. They're definitely a late game civ, but can be quite strong once they get there. Org/Arc, combined with Amurites, means he ought to be able to manage insta-mages.

The good news: If he's new to MP, he'll likely underestimate collateral and mobility. He's only got a partial econ trait, in Org.
The bad news: Amurites. Man! Can shut down my magic, and apply an absolute storm of magic on his end.

The conclusion? I'm on the weaker end of the field. Hopefully the mighty crew will make me look stronger than I am. But there's no obvious target players, no one I'll feel safe about bordering. And although it's a bunch of builder personalities, it's also a map designed for building, so the military solution is much less useful here. I'm going to have to bring my 'A' game.

[Mardoc]

What do we know about the map?

I'm still working out the concept in my head, but right now it's looking like a very large continent, fairly wide-spaced starts (going off the request for a more builder-oriented game), and probably a few islands of some variety just because I like them (also trade routes). I might ban OO if the map thread consensus is that they'd be too powerful (darrell said I could).

I'll pre-add some barbs, but none that should be able to eliminate anyone- that's no fun. They won't be special Orcs if the Clan are in the game, so don't get any ideas

In addition, OO was banned, pearls are present, and Bob doesn't think Lanun have an overwhelming advantage.

What's that mean for us? Well - I'm not convinced circumnavigation will be possible. Also, we'll want to aim to grab our share or more of the main continent, plus most (all?) of the islands. We're the only expansive civ, Charismatic ought to also help with early production, coves ought to let us finance a large empire. It means, also, like it or not there will be a lot of inland expansion to do. And - it means we'll want Ritualists/Mages on boats. If OO is overpowered, then even the cheap version ought to be strong.

What do we know about Bob? He likes maps that make you think outside the box. Maybe via monsters/held creatures, maybe via tactical terrain (more possibilities here than BtS, too). It's likely that water mana will be useful, to change some of his awkward choices into things we like better. We might very well need to build forts, canal cities, etc. We probably can't deduce anything about the map beyond what we can see, unless we spot a theme.

Also - he likes lush maps. Production may end up being a challenge.

This assumes that Bob stuck with his original plan, of course.

[Mardoc]

Hardcore game mechanics arguments already? In a modmod that I’ve barely played at all? I’d better bring some frivolity to the pirate proceedings!

Much obliged

[Man Behind the Mask]

Mardoc covered a load of my intended content with his summation on the coast vs. inland debate. I’ll add two general comments, and try to pick up on his other good work at a later point.

1. I think that, maybe more than any other civ, the Lanun starting position is going to shape their game. A nicely formed coastal site with a couple of forest hills for hammers and we’re off to a flying start with fishing/coves. A river-less landlocked start with Cows/Sheep for food means the game looks very different, and the Lanun “advantages” need some work before they come into play. From his energetic chasing of DaveV for a screen, I think Mardoc knows this .

2. My one caveat against the logic for “inland first” is related to the above and comes down to tech. For a cove-based city to positively contribute, you need fishing. For anything land-based, you need some combination of Agriculture, Calendar and Animal Husbandry, followed by Education and Code of Laws. The coastal focus lets you skip straight to things like mines and religion, while the other civs are gathering the same things you need to use resources/tiles in any inland cities.

I’ll also take the opportunity to say a little about the “new” Falamar. As LP demonstrated for BTS in PB4, Charismatic is not necessarily a dreadful trait for a builder game. The extra happy face will help us with what we hope will be a fast start, as long as we make use of it with good tiles. Expansive as a first Adaptive trait is, in my mind, a bit of a pain. You’re unlikely to be using any of the discounts for the first third (or more) of the time, and to get the full benefit you need to adjust from conventional build orders in cities, and tech mining to get a decent bonus on your settlers by building them with something other than food. Just as Expansive really starts to help, you’re looking at a switch away!

I need to do some proper analysis of the EitB tech tree changes. Something I’m really interested in is how quickly we can get to Slavery – a massive slaving spree of Settlers and Harbors about Turn 70 seems like it could save us a lot of hammers before we move to an economic trait/civic to take advantage of the newly claimed territory.