Abusing Spectres to the Maximum - Sheaim Succession Game

[Aurorarcher]

This is a Sheaim Succession Game for EitB v11 (version v11.1, the updated one). Here's a copy from the settings and setup of the game:

Goals of the game:

• Armageddon![/i]
  
• Conquest.
  
• Spawn at least one every planar gate unit. (optional)
  

Game rules:

• Only allowed to attack our enemies with planar gate units.
  
• Can build max 2 warriors per city (workers/settlers) unlimited.
  
• Can build workboats to improve tiles (no scouting). Other ships not allowed.
  
• Warriors are allowed to attack also (this is mostly for avoiding the death to barbs).
  
• Captured units can be kept but do not use them for fighting.
  
• Religion units are allowed as missionaries but not as fighters.
  
• Building Abashi is allowed.
  
  

Settings:

• Map: ErebusContinent, EitB v11.
  
• Difficulty: Emperor
  
• Game speed: Normal
  
• No tech trading, Wildlands, Living World, All Unique Features.
  
• Lairs, Tribal Villages, Orhus and Acheron all are ON.
  
  

Also our opponents are:

Bannor, Elohim, Kuriotates, Ljosalfar, Luchuirp, Malakim. In addition to the Good leaders I also added Lanun, Clan and Calabim.

[Aurorarcher]

Playing order is the following:

1. Aurorarcher
   
2. Mardoc
   
3. Brick
   
4. Jale
   
5. Dave
   

I played the first turns (0-20) already. Do we want to keep our reports in spoilers or open? I'm not sure what's the usual way to go. I guess as we're just playing for fun so we should keep them open? If we keep them open we probably want to keep discussing some decisions - but I don't think we want to go too much into details of each players' turns. Maybe more like some general decision, settling plans, tech plans, tactics etc. should be discussed but not every detail of micro for example (that would drive us away from the goal of the game IMO)? What do you guys think?

I'll put my report here shortly (in spoilers first incase none has responded by then).

[Aurorarcher]

Here's the save for Mardoc!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7tur8tr984ttqv...dSave?dl=0

[DaveV]

I thought we were going with this:

I don't want to do another Perpentach game, though; I like the discussion as much as the actual play.

from the setup thread. So, no spoilers. I agree with Aurorarcher that players shouldn't start out with explicit instructions and a turn-by-turn micro plan, but I think we should discuss tech goals, dot maps, military plans, etc.

[Aurorarcher]

Wops, I guess I missed that. So we agreed on that already, my bad then!

[Mardoc]

Yeah, I definitely want to see your report and people's general strategic thoughts before I play.

[Aurorarcher]

Okay, here's the report.

Settled on this spot (orginially started 1W):




Grabs wet Corn and Wet Cow for quick early growth. The land around looks absolutely dry when it comes to resources (especially happy/commerce), except for the Wines. That hut provided me with a lousy map.

Found one of our rivals on T4 . Notice that I put warrior back to capital because I saw lair spawn skeleton... then on T15 I remembered that we're Bar .




Not sure whether that is Lanun or Elohim. Both have base colour of blue, does it go by the alphabetical order; so Elohim gets blue? No contact though as there seem to be bunch of Peaks... even thought I reduced them while generating the map.

Then I got this event:




Pretty awesome for it to be the city square tile for us!

I scouted south more with the scout and found more huts:







Map again...

Well, at least it showed us another hut to go for. So let's go get that before someone else does, shall we?




.

Well... Looks like the Spider didn't think I was worthy enough to be a meal:




That hut gave me 36g, at least better than a map!

Here's a overview of the known world and some future sites I marked with X:







I'm thinking 2nd city for the wines (grap crafting for happy + commerce).

Techwise I went Agriculture (nobrainer), then I thought a little while if Mysticism with GK would make sense before Calendar - I thought it didn't, not enough hammers near cap to make it work so I went for Calendar. We need food rather than hammers to produce settlers and workers quickly. Though, while I played I had totally forgotten one thing - we're EXP so GK surely could make sense to produce settlers with hammers.

How about Calendar -> Mysticism -> Crafting? Could've also gone Myst before Calendar, but it's too late for that now as I've already invested some turns to Calendar, so sorry about that if I quite didn't put the thought into it what I should've.

[jalepeno]

I agree with wines city next - but I think that means we should grab crafting after calendar, as I think the 2nd city should be pretty quick to go up. Depends on the timing of course (i don't play any normal speed these days). Crafting's also cheaper, and will boost our tech rate quite a bit.

[Tasunke]

Why no navies??

None of the Planar Gate units are naval units .... so I don't rly get it ... u can't 'win' conquest with a navy, so I don't rly understand (except maybe Limiting the number of Arcane Barges ... but still).

Imho, only Naval unit you should ban is Arcane Barge.

[jalepeno]

Why no navies??

None of the Planar Gate units are naval units .... so I don't rly get it ... u can't 'win' conquest with a navy, so I don't rly understand (except maybe Limiting the number of Arcane Barges ... but still).

Imho, only Naval unit you should ban is Arcane Barge.

Water-walking mobius witches! admittedly, if an AI has major holdings overseas, it could be tough, but that's the point of a crazy variant SG!

*edit: adding new turn order for my reference

Yeah, that's a great idea. So the new turn order is then:

1. Auro
2. Jale
3. Mardoc
4. Brick
5. Dave