Rise of the (siege) Machines: HidingKneel reprises the Khazad [Spoilers]

[HidingKneel]

Here be spoilers.

[HidingKneel]

Preliminary thoughts:

1) This change to Summoner is ridiculous. It's like +50% research at the start of the game. Peters off after that, but you know... snowball. It's good enough that I suspect any of the Summoner leaders are now better than any of the non-Summoner leaders.

2) There's one other Summoner in the field: Tebryn, played by Whosit/Yell0w. Who is now a fantastic leader: Summoner gives a huge economic boost and has huge synergy with Arcane. That team is definitely the one to beat. Need to do something before they reach Sorcery or I'll be in trouble.

3) Keelyn's been nerfed heavily so that puppets no longer synergize with Summoner. However, there's still the twincast/puppet synergy, which will be doubled by Summoner. So if I can get myself an archmage hero, he'll eventually be able to summon 8 elementals at once. Should consider a beeline for Gibbon.

4) Tebryn might have a better arcane gameplan than I do, but I should have the stronger economy. Starting with Agriculture is always good (though less important when you can research it at 150% speed anyway)... I think the Sheaim start with Chants? I've got two economic traits (Creative isn't awesome, but it's something) to his one and a much better worldspell.

5) Between the research boost from Summoner and the worldspell, I ought to have no problem grabbing the Drama bard or the GC at Military Strategy, if I want them. Drama doesn't have much appeal to a Creative civ, but a great person is a great person and it has some value just for denial. Though those techs aren't exactly on a beeline to Gibbon.

6) Q obviously has very different opinions about game balance than I do. I think the setup for this game is a bit crazy: Volanna is still really strong, but the summoners will be even better. My expectation is that his pick will be completely overshadowed, though perhaps he'll prove me wrong. The fact that the Summoner change wasn't mentioned in the changelog is a bit worrisome, though... Varn Gosam will start looking like a much better choice if the Malakim +1 commerce on floodplains got boosted to, say, +10 commerce on floodplains.

[Lord Parkin]

Your start:

[HidingKneel]

More initial thoughts:

1) Settle in place is the One Right Choice. The best tile to work unimproved is the forested deer (3 food, 1 hammer), the best tile to work improved is farmed corn, the only tile that'll give a commerce boost is the cotton, and the only city center that will get all three is the tile I start on. In addition it's a riverside plains hill with marble, which'll add an extra hammer to the city if I settle on it but won't be able to improve for quite some time if I don't.

2) Marble plains hill = 3 base hammers in city. +1 from palace makes 4. First two turns I'll work a floodplains (+3 food) and then I'll work the forested deer (+3 food +1 hammer). 7 foodhammers in the first two turns and 8 thereafter gets a worker done in 7 turns with an overflow of 4.

3) First stop is definitely Calendar to boost my farms. Farming corn, 2 floodplains, the pig (Animal Husbandry will most likely come late) will give me a +16 food surplus in a size 4 capital... combined with 4 hammers from the capital, can manage a worker/settler pair in 10 turns.

4) Madness theme for the map makes the Balseraphs an appropriate choice! Too bad I'm playing them already in XXXIV, but that game is mostly likely dead at this point anyway.

5) The initial position has tons of food but not a lot in the way of commerce. This'll make the Summoner bonus more relevant.

6) Summoner also increases the value of new cities: early on, they'll more than pay for themselves immediately. Goal should be to add some ASAP. There are good sites N, S, E, and W along rivers which can share food with the capital for quick growth. Should plant them close: flat per city bonuses reward ICS.

7) At that point the capital will need some new tiles to work... either riverside grasslands farms (after clearing some forests) or riverside grassland mined hills. Either way, I'll need Mining.

8) Aside from the Cotton, no visible happy resources. Capital might be stuck at size 6 for a while. Another incentive for ICS.

9) Immediate access to Marble means I should probably aim to grab the Bone Palace. Synergizes with a play for the GC at Military Strategy. Might want to use the worldspell to guarantee that I land these.

Preliminary tech path thoughts (for beeline to the Bone Palace): Calendar -> Crafting -> Mining -> Education -> Festivals -> Code of Laws (fire worldspell) -> Mysticism -> Philosophy -> Masonry

[HidingKneel]

Exploration should probably be in there too... maybe before Crafting.

[HidingKneel]

First turn played. Not much to report. Settled in place, started Calendar.

A few things:

1) Having played around in sandbox for a bit, I think the situation definitely calls for a worker/worker opening.

2) Was wrong about cotton being the only visible happy resource. There's also Furs. Though I won't be able to improve those for a while.

3) Instead of beelining for Gibbon, what if I beeline Hyborem? Note that he's also a Summoner, and that Q has boosted him in this version. Not sure if it's a strong play, but it'll be something fun that I haven't tried yet. Also summoning demons is thematic for Keelyn... and she'd be good at it, with her Summoner research boost. It'd give me a good excuse to burn my worldspell early, too.

What would a Hyborem rush look like? Pure focus on commerce I guess, together with trying to generate some great Prophets. Probably worth grabbing Code of Laws, and definitely Festivals for the worldspell. Tech path of maybe

Calendar -> Exploration -> Crafting -> Festivals -> Chants -> Education -> Code of Laws (worldspell, convert to Pacifism/Aristocracy) -> Mysticism (build Pagan temples) -> Philosophy (build Bone Palace) -> Masonry -> KotE -> Corruption of Spirit -> Infernal Pact.

I'll have to see what kind of timeframe that works out to be in a sandbox.

[HidingKneel]

Alright... this post is just to collate all of the map knowledge gathered before the restart, in case I want to make a sandbox.

The east:



The south:



The west:



As for the restart, fingers crossed that I get my hands on Kandros. My previous Khazad game was great fun, and they've gotten a substantial boost in this version.

[HidingKneel]

Very good! Glad I got the Khazad... they were already fun, and now they should be both fun and strong (Khazad means strong, right? Think I read that somewhere, but I forget what language it's in.)

Chose the wrong dwarf for this map, though. If I'm going to start on top of Marble, Ind/Org would have great synergy with semi-beelining for Military Strategy, trying to grab Bone Palace/epics/Great Library and unlock Command Posts. But, Ind/Org's been done. Fin/Agg!

Preliminary thoughts on mistakes that were made in XXVIII:

1) Don't sign NAPs with the Kuriotates. Not an issue: no Kuriotates in this game, and I assume diplomacy is off (though I'm not sure anyone ever mentioned this explicitly).

2) Make sure to get the Drama bard this time.

3) Don't beeline Kilmorph. It would be nice to get there first, but isn't super-important. And the early benefits are minor (even more so now that empty vaults are only -1 happy face, and we start with Enchantment Mana; we're on par with anyone else, happiness-wise).

4) Beeline Drama instead, get the bard.

5) Don't burn Merchants on Trade Missions. Also not really an issue in a no-diplo game.

6) Seriously, I need the Drama bard.

What are my chances of getting the Drama bard, assuming we work for it? Well, what's my competition?

Qg/Bob as Os-Gabella. Spiritual has economic benefits but they don't come until later in the game. Summoner now has no economic benefits. Spiritual rewards heading for an early religion, making Drama lower priority for him. Starts with Chants instead of a worker tech. I'm not expecting them to be competition.

Autorarcher as Sheelba: -10% research penalty and no starting tech. I'm not worried.

Kredom as Volanna: elves will want to beeline Way of the Forests, which takes care of their culture for them. Drama would be a distraction.

Yell0w/Whosit as Flauros: He's got two economic traits (Fin/Cre) to my one, and a worldspell that gives him a massive snowball. Fortunately, one of those economic traits means that Drama has no value to him. Being the Calabim, he's virtually guaranteed to head for Code of Laws (to unlock Mansions) beforehand. He could beat me there if he wanted, but hopefully he won't want to.

HK as Kandros: Heading for Drama via Festivals synergies with Fin trait for early markets. Ing trait means 50 gold to start with, which will translate to a few turns ahead in research. Player has expressed strong interest in grabbing the bard.

So I think my chances are decent. Unless somebody gets an early Harpy event.

[Mardoc]

Hey, we knew Kilmorph early was suboptimal when we did it!

[HidingKneel]

Hey, we knew Kilmorph early was suboptimal when we did it!

True enough. This time, I'm thinking of ignoring Kilmorph until I want Arete. Something like Way of the Earthmother -> Start GA -> Convert to Kilmorph -> Research Arete -> Swap to Arete before GA ends.

Anyway, here's some new map knowledge from T1 (without a scout I couldn't reproduce my previous moves even if I wanted to!):





Lord Parkin sure didn't skimp on the food resources...