[SPOILERS] Lurkers Lurk Thirty-Three Fools

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No Players.

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Firstly, what leaders would people choose?
I would have gone with

Decius of the Calabim. Seriously 1f is very little difference in any start and certainly not enough to weaken him, while -1c is a complete joke. All these handicaps really mean is they get mirrored starts. After that I would go for either Falamar of the Lanun or Volanna of the Svartalfar. Falamar because this is a crazy map for the Lanun (in real terms I would have changed the map entirely if someone had picked them first, I probably should've suggested a ban tbh), or Volanna for raw power -> rush. These are also, funnily enough, Bob's choices.

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Players Choices:

DaveV:
1) Mahala of Doviello
2) Averax of Sheaim
3) Kandros Fir of Khazad
4) Alexis of Calabim
5) Thessalonica of Elohim

TBS:
1) Charadon of the Doviello
2) Falamar of the Lanun
3) Cassiel of the Grigori

RNG picked TBS.

Bob:
1) Decius of Calabim
2) Volanna
3) Falamar

Superjim:
1) Dain of Amurites
2) Shekinah of Sidar
3) Thessolonica of Elohim

Tholal:
1) Rivanna
2) Thessalonica
3) Volanna

First draft of the map is below. Balancing is not finished yet, and no flavor is started, but the base terrain will remain as shown.

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Map attached below.

There is still some work to be done, both with balancing and flavor, but this is suffecient to warrant a proper update for the (non-existent) lurkers listening in.

Firstly the starts. This is the picture they got:




These are the locations they're going to get:

What has been done to them? Firstly they have each recieved their mirrored starts, handicapped as they desired.
Next each has been checked for two possible second city areas, the first picking up a strong food resource, base 6f and often sharing a commerce resource (not all have this), the second sharing food and picking up another commerce resource, generally incense. There are variations on this, but they are small and hopefully not enough to have a large effect.
Next I scatter some late-game metals over their area. These are done very loosely as I believe that these should be guaranteed.
After that I add copper and horse, generally rather far from the starting area but close enough that they should be definitely in their zone of interest. Both resources have duplicates in different directions so no player can be easily screwed.
Next they get a close mana, which is all but guaranteed to be theirs. Beyond that there are 3-4 mana tiles that are placed roughly equidistant between players giving them a sum total of 2.5-3 mana tiles that each can expect to grab. This ensures that a mana based strategem is not overpowering and real effort has to go into them. No player will be able to win by tower unless they are firmly ahead. I am considering whether this is too few, however, and whether I should add another (typed) mana to be accessible post-socery. Feedback in this are would be greatly appreciated.
Still to come is ensuring each player has reagants (arch-mages), incense (high priests), placing marble in a contestable manner, removing certain happy resources and re-distributing them within zones to facilitate trade, as well as certain overseas that would be a stretch to grab, repopulating certain food resources that have been removed, considering ease of expansion and land available to players and balancing as a result, considering food/commerce resources in the area, I can't think of anything else but I'm sure it's there.

Now on to flavor. The flavor for this map is that the players have corrupted the land with evil to the point that Junil could bear it no longer, descending on the land to cleanse it of evil. The first thing that is clearly obvious is the hell terrain surronding the players, as the reign of hell has been drawn back from all but this stronghold. This is a change that has no real effect on the game. It will strengthen Hyborem if/when he is summoned, but by very little especially in the grand scheme of things.
The second is the two peaks, the Wrath of Heaven and the Eye of Heaven:


That is a Angel of Death with promotions C1-5, Flying, Held, Loyalty, Staff of Souls and Vile Touch, astride a peak with an Ancient Forest. This is a factor that I doubt will have any effect on the game, but if a player does manage to reach a appropriate unit and kill it, it will a) be extremely hard, that is a Defense 12 +100% Strength and immune to first strikes unit only reachable by flying units and b) it will reward the successful player with a Staff of Souls, a +3 Death strength +1 Death Affinity item. It is a small questing item, that I doubt will have any relevance but is a nice touch IMO. Does anyone see anything wrong with this? Should the unit be buffed? Should the reward be changed?



Here is a place where a change may be required. This is a Seraph placed on burning sands and a mirror of heaven with the following promotions: Combat 1-5, Drill 1-4, Air 1-2, Earth 1-2, Channeling 2, Flying, Held, Spirit 1-2, Life 1-2, Heroic Defense 1-2, Loyalty and a Golden Hammer. Basically the only relevant spells are Maelstorm. I considered giving it a summon, but Law and Fire are too strong and Death 1 is too unthematic. But I wonder if even this might be too strong and have to great an effect of the game.
The basic effect of this is to add a minor annoyance to the skies, slightly damaging units in the area, and eventually serving as another questing item in the mid-game, offering a Golden Hammer (for reference a Golden Hammer can be settled as an engineer in any city or used as an item with +1 attack strength) to anyone who can summon the life and water mana to attack it. While the modifiers may seem prohibitive, bear in mind that a Seraph's base defense is only 2. My only worry is whether its maelstorm is too much.

There are also a variety of themed barbs scattered across the map. The only one of note is the Heralds, which are placed on every equidistant tile:


Each herald has the promotions Drill 1-4, Command 1-4, Held, Loyalty, Law II, Diseased, Plagued, Withered and Weak. This also gives an impression of what I'm looking for in my barbs, as initially a Herald with Command 1-4 and Drill 1-4 seems ridiculous, but with all the negative promotions its base strength is only 6, which is perfectly defeatable in the axe era, even with drill. The idea is that it will be attacked in this era and require a few sacrificial units to take down but be ultimately defeatable, after capturing a few. The captured units are largely thematic, as captured units come at very low health. The bit I'm unsure about and, in reflection will probably cut, is the Law II promotion, which would let them summons hosts to hurt anyone who comes nearby. The problem is that Law II is very powerful in the early game and would kill scouting in these areas. There is also a village beneath to allow for fun pillaging.

The map will be finished off tomorrow, so any comments, criticisms or any sort of feedback really needs to happen soon

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I was pretty terrified when I ran into that guy, but it looks like Q didn't put Hidden Nationality on him after all, so Lucian is safe. I assume he has the animal AI but he is still more powerful than any bear and move 2, the non-barb players might not be too happy. Additionally, animals don't spawn until turn 5, after that I want Lucian on defensive terrain until he gets some promos, so other players could still be moving on turn 4 expecting themselves to be safe. I don't think it's the end of the world once everyone knows that these guys could be roaming around but that will probably cost them a unit to find out.

Oh damn....
Forget HN, that guy is supposed to have held. I don't think its a horrible situation, as any units captured will be pathetic and it is only s6, but its still unintentional and will hurt the non barb players. I just hope this mistake is isolated...

[Merovech]

Reload?

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Unfortunately I'm not at the proper computer, nor will be for a week, and I forgot to upload the final version to this thread before I left. I'm pretty sure I gave them all animal AI anyway, so I'll leave it for now.

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Turn 34: Well I certainly wasn't expecting to see this guy enter my borders!



He could have attacked the Worker this past turn but didnt. Not sure what that means, but it's a bit disconcerting! Especially since he's lurking around my city site!

Oh fuck. I'm not sure quite how to handle this, I can't tell what AI he has but it is probably UNITAI_MAGE (previous draft gave them Law 2, but I reconsidered for balances sake. That (probably) matches with the no worker kill, but I honestly don't know enough about this AI to know what other actions it is willing or unwilling to take. Regardless, it will have a big effect on the game even if it simply means that he has to build more of a garrison.

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TBS should definitely have burnt Bobs city. I mean, he settled three tiles from one of his cities and built culture right off the bat, all in full view of TBS massive army. There's never going to be a peaceful border with a neighbor who does that, so just hit it and raze, then fall back and offer peace with a token gift to reassure him. Especially seeing as he doesn't have any immediate plans for that army elsewhere and Bob has low power and no bronze weapons.

[Molach]

The Black Sword triumphs again.

Impressive game.