Grave Errors: The Bobchillingworth Experience

[Bobchillingworth]

All hail Nilfgaard!





[Dean Geralt: "Viiiiper schoooool! "]



Witcher theme, take two. Thank goodness Dave's No Lairs policy is here to save me from myself!

[Bobchillingworth]

So, game thoughts, blah blah.




Well, I'm reprising the Calabim after a looong absence. To be honest I wouldn't have joined this game had I not been particularly unlucky barb chow in XXXII- no lairs or huts really isn't my style, consequences be damned. I won't have dungeons and all their assorted wonders to keep me occupied, but Immortal difficulty at least means plenty of barbarian warriors to play with.



Why Decius? Org to help with maintenance costs, EZ-Bake economy, totally sweet UUs. I initially actually wanted Falamar, since Torusland is very friendly for the Lanun economically, but Falamar's comparative lack of a military edge means he really ought to stick to larger maps, team games and Hyborem Summoning- Decius isn't all that much worse from a builder standpoint anyway, thanks to cheapo Manors. Then I kept wavering between Volanna and Decius- Volanna can fill a... map... very nicely, benefits from the Elven Economy, and Aggressive Sinister Rangers are darn nice units to have. She also wouldn't have been as big a risk on a low-mana map (as we are apparently playing on). But she's got units all over the freaking place, probably the worst access to collateral of any leader (really uninspired arcane game, no catapults, loses a lot if she isn't in Leaves) and frankly I think I would find her more boring (albeit not nearly as bad as a lot of leaders- it's more that I've already won before with the whole Elves thing). Plus I didn't particularly feel like another go with the Svarts after XXXII.



Concerning our dumb starting bonus / malus variant, I paid it no heed when considering my picks. So I lose a little bit of food in a food-heavy start and an incredibly minor amount of commerce, please. If we had a single rice or something for food and the malus stuck it on dry tundra, or if the choice was between plains cotton or riverside grassland incense, that might have had more of an impact on my decision. As it stands anyone who selected their leader solely or even principally on the basis of the capital resources has terrible priorities.



Regarding my opponents, it looks like I'm playing in a mostly mid-level skill game, although Dave at least has won a PBEM before (and recently, at that). I wish Dave had won his coin toss against TBS, so I'd be facing all builder leaders- instead there's two really nasty neighbors, and Barb to boot for extra AI warrior harassment fun. I'm guessing TBS at least might not be the strongest of foes since I suspect he was lured to Charadon by his exclusive access to +1 food and commerce, but a Charadon rush is rough even in the hands of someone who doesn't have a path to ultimate victory. I'm a little surprised that Dave had Averax so high on his leader list as well, since I doubt he can kill off more than one opponent with PZ on a 40 x 48 map with only five players, and no lairs means he can't hire an army of Wolf Riders, Ellimist-style. Sadly odds are I'm going to share a border with at least one of these guys. At least Tholal didn't get Thessalonica, whose WS would have directed a rush into a different neighbor. I want to beeline CoL for obvious reasons, but getting Moroi online is going to be a priority immediately afterwards, sooner if one (or both!) of these lunatics starts close to me.

[Qgqqqqq]

Concerning our dumb starting bonus / malus variant, I paid it no heed when considering my picks. So I lose a little bit of food in a food-heavy start and an incredibly minor amount of commerce, please. If we had a single rice or something for food and the malus stuck it on dry tundra, or if the choice was between plains cotton or riverside grassland incense, that might have had more of an impact on my decision.

The whole reason this is a two food start is the handicaps demand it. As they are supposed to be able to receive +1 or -1c, that requires two food resources, one on and one off the river. I also considered using tundra/desert, but decided against it as what was asked for is only a change in food and tundra changes the hook speed. The rest of it was obviously out of my hands.

[Bobchillingworth]

The whole reason this is a two food start is the handicaps demand it. As they are supposed to be able to receive +1 or -1c, that requires two food resources, one on and one off the river. I also considered using tundra/desert, but decided against it as what was asked for is only a change in food and tundra changes the hook speed. The rest of it was obviously out of my hands.

Yeah, not your fault, Dave made the handicaps / bonuses too mild.

[Bobchillingworth]

First turn:






Well. Um.


I certainly can't say I expected that. The Hell Terrain doesn't mean anything now, but once Hyborem is in the game (and he *will* be in the game) I'm going to lose all of my food. That... is not ideal, and I'm a little bit annoyed about it, since it wasn't in my starting screenshot. I suspect I'm also the only person with it, or at least that it isn't universal, since my starting name was "Hyborem", and if it is the Elves are totally fucked. Hmm. Qg, you are certainly tempting me to ask for a restart- I think I will, if my perennial lurker Ellimist suggests it and the Hell land is indeed universal. Because yeah, this shit is going to wipe most of my food everywhere (since I'm going to adopt Veil almost for certain, and it will spread through all of my lands once I'm evil), and I kind of doubt you gave me Marble to make up for it. Of course I have no way of knowing if the Hell is universal or not, so either someone is going to have to give me spoilers (if Ellimist concurs with restarting), or I'll just ask for them from the other players in the tech thread. I realize that I could just tech life 1 adepts before summoning Hyborem, but I have kind of no use for a life node otherwise- yeah, life 2 mages kill PZ, but those are far off and there are a lot of things I could use instead to kill Dave if we border.


Sorry for bitching Qg, after all the bad map experiences I've had it has just sort of become second nature



Moving on, I settled and popped the WS:





The extra pop is only giving me +1 commerce right now (suck it, starting bonuses!), but it'll mean I can work the two rice tiles and forest "plains" hill once the borders expand.






Oh, and I have this guy. Who is completely useless, since he's defended by a ridiculous super unit I won't be killing for like a billion turns. He isn't even a good sentry, since held gives him -1 sight. Unless I can figure a way out to cheese him off that hill without fighting anything, he's getting deleted as soon as I start incurring unit costs. Wait, do the Barb leaders get these guys too? I hope their defending angels have HN... (and that the barbs don't cast it away). Sadly I'm pretty sure there's no way I can get any invisible units anytime soon to free the shade- earliest would be a Giant Spider, which would require a lot of luck and Hunting, which I have no intention of researching for a long time.


Edit- also, I have two bloodpets for some reason. Well, that's fine, there are no lairs to rush for with scouts, and the warriors are nice in case of a rush, assuming I have them close by.

[Qgqqqqq]

I checked another pbem and it showed two bloodpets, sorry It just saved time on rolling another game and writing it down.

That is not how hell terrain works. Each tile has a counter which determines if it is truly "hell" or not, which affects resources, forests, and so on. This may not be affected in worldbuilder, and is why hell resources switch back if placed in worldbuilder. Please pause before you complain about the map, as there may be a legitimate reason to do so and complaining without cause undermines these. I cannot reveal what other people might or might not have (although you should consider the balance ethos of the map and the flavor text posted in the tech thread) but you should consider that a held unit may not cast any spells or use any abilities.
-----Qgqqqqq, the harassed Assistant Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Map-Making ™

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, my understanding of how Hyborem affected WB Hell terrain was incorrect- apology posted in the Tech Thread (and now here).


I'm pretty sure held units can use one ability though- "load" (as in, onto a ship). Irrelevant here though, Airships not being an option. You can also move them via culture, but that's not applicable here either. I suspect taunt and fear from the Timor Mask would work as well, again all being pointless in this scenario.

[Bobchillingworth]

Some nice land to my immediate north:







Obviously I'll settle my first expansion to claim wheat + incense.


Meta node is a mixed bag- I can't complain about floating eye adepts, but it's still one less node for Death affinity or Enchanted Blades.

I'm going to try to remember to keep both Bloodpets close to home- this looks like a promising start, and I don't want to get eliminated early again.

[Bobchillingworth]

Nothing really happening, I've uncovered a couple more food resources for what appears to be some awfully fertile land, but I'm bringing the Bloodpets back home since I don't need to do any more scouting for the next 20 or so turns and have no interest in meeting any of my neighbors right now.


In completely unrelated news, I felt the urge to create a new MP map just for fun. It's a roughly standard-sized map made for four players & completely hand-drawn. Hopefully a new FFH PBEM launches soon and I can offer it up. If anyone is interested in seeing it (and ideally providing feedback) and is definitely not going to be playing in any more games for the next few months (so I won't be losing a potential player), post here (to inflate my count!) and I'll PM you a copy.


Actually, I additionally created a different map a couple weeks ago. I couldn't figure out a satisfactory player balance with the design I had in mind, but you can download it here if you want to give it a shot in SP and/or tinker around yourself. Note that the map isn't as polished as something I'd submit for an actual game. Oh, and the civs are just whatever random stuff the game assigned during the initial creation.

[Qgqqqqq]

In completely unrelated news, I felt the urge to create a new MP map just for fun. It's a roughly standard-sized map made for four players & completely hand-drawn. Hopefully a new FFH PBEM launches soon and I can offer it up. If anyone is interested in seeing it (and ideally providing feedback) and is definitely not going to be playing in any more games for the next few months (so I won't be losing a potential player), post here (to inflate my count!) and I'll PM you a copy.

I won't be playing in any for a while