and I just noticed we're only 4 (make that 3) posts behind HidingKneel et al in the thread spam competition. way behind on views but not much we can do about that (no way I can match his story telling). anyways, if only I had time to do some proper opponent analysis, maybe pull us even...
any kind lurkers wanna lend a helping hand, maybe copy paste some details on the other leaders...?
Heh, I considered editing those posts together actually, but spam is good too.
You thinking BW before or after CoL?
Religion is a good civic early on because it gives +1 happy for free (public baths always feel a bit expensive, so I never really seem to build them, but free is really good for pushing the cap), and the other two civics have negatives (pacifism OBVsuck move along, nationalism loses hammers to rounding when overflowing out of military). I think we should probably revolt into religion when we go into agrarianism, and consider re-revolting or no when we get CoL/Education.
IIRC I actually had a 4th warrior half finished for after the settler so we should be sweet there.
Yeah its only a turn for the initial worker, but that means 6 food lost to the improvement being later, and the tech (especially for calender) comes later, and it puts us two pop down for when we start the second worker, and means we need to grow further before the settler. And then when we do settle it we either have to delay it further or jump the capital past the happy cap. And like I said, people anti meta it.
All in all, pretty sure its not worth it.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Just noticed that your name doesn't have an ñ. Any reason why?
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
(April 26th, 2013, 16:14)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Heh, I considered editing those posts together actually, but spam is good too.
You thinking BW before or after CoL?
Religion is a good civic early on because it gives +1 happy for free (public baths always feel a bit expensive, so I never really seem to build them, but free is really good for pushing the cap), and the other two civics have negatives (pacifism OBVsuck move along, nationalism loses hammers to rounding when overflowing out of military). I think we should probably revolt into religion when we go into agrarianism, and consider re-revolting or no when we get CoL/Education.
IIRC I actually had a 4th warrior half finished for after the settler so we should be sweet there.
Yeah its only a turn for the initial worker, but that means 6 food lost to the improvement being later, and the tech (especially for calender) comes later, and it puts us two pop down for when we start the second worker, and means we need to grow further before the settler. And then when we do settle it we either have to delay it further or jump the capital past the happy cap. And like I said, people anti meta it.
All in all, pretty sure its not worth it.
BW will probably be the first tech after COL. with the fast start, we'll be getting COL around T43; shouldn't need bronze defenses or jungle chopping before then. that also opens up sanitation which we want for the farms if not for the public baths, which I normally only build with calabim. once a city has a GM, it should be able to handle building a public bath. hopefully we'll have enough happy resources nearby to make it a moot point. anyways, tech plans after COL are BW, sanitation, masonry + construction (if irrigating needed or want to try for chariots) in some order, then onto vamp beeline (writing, AH, HBR, trade, feudalism) with potential stopovers for warfare, [philosophy] military strategy. Although, I feel like command posts are a bit of a waste for vampires; the XP isn't worth much, and you have to be building at least 5 vamps to make the +20% worth anything. I'd rather start building/feasting them X turns faster than tech to and build 'posts. Decius' organized = faster GMs, nothing more (could you really ask for more?)
IIRC, religion civic only gives happy from religion and temples, so we'd have to tech mysticism and build a pagan temple (or tech a religion and revolt), i.e. not so free. The +10% culture could be helpful though as that would get us to the 3rd ring border pop a few turns earlier; might be helpful for 2nd/3rd city placement. at COL I usually go aristo, nationalism, apprenticeship, agrarianism.
anyways, I just got back to Germany from the US and am jet-lagging hard. Hopefully will get around to going through all the sandboxing today.
(April 26th, 2013, 20:13)Merovech Wrote: Just noticed that your name doesn't have an ñ. Any reason why?
it also mistakenly replaces an "a" with an "e". no good reason unfortunately; I just couldn't spell when I got my handle in the 7th grade. I never bothered changing it because, hey, it's the internet, it doesn't matter (and I'd rather have it the same everywhere than try to remember different ones for each website).
Anyways, yay for the spread tham! uh, thread spam (wow, jet lag does bad things to me; if we get the turn today, I'll probably just settle on the corn)
(April 26th, 2013, 20:13)Merovech Wrote: Just noticed that your name doesn't have an ñ. Any reason why?
it also mistakenly replaces an "a" with an "e". no good reason unfortunately; I just couldn't spell when I got my handle in the 7th grade. I never bothered changing it because, hey, it's the internet, it doesn't matter (and I'd rather have it the same everywhere than try to remember different ones for each website).
Heh, I didn't even notice the vowel switch.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
And while I'm sitting here at work, having to make it through another 7.5 hours before I can go home and crash, let's take a look at opponent picks. Very happy not to see any early rushers. multiple adaptive leaders means I might not get to keep my monopoly on raiders
(April 25th, 2013, 08:15)Ichabod Wrote: Picks and Turn Order:
Sian - Arendel Phaedra of Ljosalfar
Yell0w - Thessalonica of Elohim
jalepeno - Decius of Calabim
The Black Sword - Cardith Lorda of Kuriotates
HidingKneel - Arthurus Thorne of Khazad
WarriorKnight - Cassiel of Grigori
Sian - Arendel Phaedra (Spi, Cre) of Ljosalfar
Great leader, but not the best comparative start. Elves usually want to skip mining and only grab edu before heading for WoTF. Lack of plains forests (could be changed) makes that weaker, so he might need to go off the beeline, but delaying WoTF really sucks. be wary of wordspell; will be fielding a priest army
Goal: be friendly, should easily out-expand him, use mid-game production edge to run him over depending on geography.
Yell0w - Thessalonica (Spi, Ind) of Elohim
industrious means an early worker; long term heading towards monks (maybe paramanders as well?)? likely have a priest army of some sort. i've never played her, so not real familiar with best strategies. guaranteed archmage is great; don't let them get Letum Frigus if it's around! wordspell is a pain. hopefully he'll be too busy religion collecting to build up too much of a threat.
Goal: keep away from Letum Frigus, force early wordspell pop
jalepeno - Decius (Org, Rai) of Calabim
I really think I got the power leader/civ for this set-up; I'm surprised no-one else wanted him. I guess all the experienced players are tired of using power combos, and want to try out more unconventional [read: weaker] picks. Works for me! I'd love to grab RoK just long enough to get the mines, but guessing the dwarves will beat me to it. some day I'll get to ashen veil in order to run sacrifice the weak. try to grab grimoire for malevolent designs -> whatever tech has vampire lords
Goal: don't screw up; play up my newbness in diplo to prevent fearmongering of the scary vampires
The Black Sword - Cardith Lorda (Exp, Phi/Ada) of Kuriotates
Standard (only 3 cities) sucks for him, but he'll have one heck of a capital. will probably grab RoK early to make settlements profitable and end in Esus for 9 top tier units at warhorses (which isn't that far away in eitb). seeing what trait he picks at turn 75 should reveal some hint of his plans; I usually grab spiritual.
Goal: be friendly until I can field a strong pillaging force; raiders + kurio enclaves... that might fund me to vampire lords
HidingKneel - Arthurus Thorne (Ind, Org, Ing) of Khazad
Early worker from industrious; won't be much behind mine actually (I get +2 FH from RoB, they get +1 H from Ind). I really dislike dealing with the vaults personally; we'll see how they handle expansion. Gems at start is extra good for them, assuming they're going RoK (RoK temples +1 happy gems). Great siege (more mobile now too) means that attacking them will be extremely difficult. For offense, I bet they go for iron chariots.
Goals: be friendly. spread fear of their strong team. get to vampires by the time they get iron chariots.
WarriorKnight - Cassiel (Phi, Org/Ada) of Grigori
Sucks for him that cassiel lost Ind in EITB (is that right?). lack of religion sucks, adventurers don't make up for that, blah, blah, blah. that said, if you build a better economy that all doesn't matter. His traits can be great for building, and late game adventurer archmages are scary. Just have to make sure he doesn't get there...
Goals: be friendly in the early game, but do not allow him to build unhindered through the mid-game
TL;DR version: be friendly until vampires, then kill everything.
Ok, I just spent waaay too much time sandboxing. I'm decently please with the results; we've got some good options.
(April 26th, 2013, 03:26)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Wasn't going to, but since I'd gone that far already thought why not: First 25 turns
Build order as earlier.
The double up of T1 are T0/1, its a EitB error.
At about T17 the worker movements don't matter - they'll change based on second city, but I think I'd actually send A to the tile to the west, so that they do the tile next to gems first.
Doesn't matter for ages of course.
Building on this, I tried switching up the build queue to be worker -> worker -> [revolt agr] BP -> Bp -> settler -> BP. By microing workers for hammers or beakers, I was able to get either the settler or mining done by T24 with the other coming in T25. Downside of this is rather than BP's #2 & 3 coming T7/T10, they come T13/T15. Lizardmen could make me sweat (although we can 2-turn BP's if we have to).
There's a >30 beaker difference here, so I'm leaning towards earlier mining rather than earlier settler. All options include our 4th BP finishing on T26.
You'll notice in the micro sheet there's also an option for doing only 1 worker before the settler. Mining still comes in T25, settler comes T22. Not a huge fan of it though; there isn't much support for the 2nd city.
What I do think we need to seriously consider is waiting on RoB. For my last sandbox of the day, I waited until T18 to blow the worldspell, and still managed to land both mining and the settler on turn 27. So that's only a 2 turn delay, but it should delay our opponents more than that. I'd imagine they'd all have grown to size 3 by then (T18 is pretty late when you've got wet corn + oasis, even if they meta against it). Too lazy at this point to write up the micro.
I see that we're only 1 post out of 2nd place for thread spam, and I figure that I gotta do something to amuse the lurkers while we wait for the save...
way behind on views but not much we can do about that (no way I can match his story telling). 
anyways, if only I had time to do some proper opponent analysis, maybe pull us even...
I never bothered changing it because, hey, it's the internet, it doesn't matter (and I'd rather have it the same everywhere than try to remember different ones for each website).
that might fund me to vampire lords
