Abusing Spectres to the Maximum - Sheaim Succession Game

[Dreylin]

Count me in! Spi/cha PoW sounds a bit overly strong. What difficulty are we going to play?

Auro, no worries on the delay auro - I actually thought it was my turn and had been putting it off.

Aha, now I don't feel quite so guilty about our duel.

[Mardoc]

Count me in! Spi/cha PoW sounds a bit overly strong. What difficulty are we going to play?

I was thinking Immortal: 2 up from the Sheaim game. Could maybe even go up to Deity.

I actually thought it was my turn and had been putting it off.

If that's not an argument for declaring victory now, I don't know what is.

[DaveV]

The next turn is going to be tedious, having to deal with a bunch of enraged units (just as my first turn was painful when I had to deal with Hellfire). I'm fine with declaring victory and moving on.

[jalepeno]

I was thinking Immortal: 2 up from the Sheaim game. Could maybe even go up to Deity.

In SP I like to play increasing difficulty, Immortal -> Deity. AI doesn't get ridiculous deity starting boni, but the difficulty still maxes out in the midgame and beyond.

[Mardoc]

In SP I like to play increasing difficulty, Immortal -> Deity. AI doesn't get ridiculous deity starting boni, but the difficulty still maxes out in the midgame and beyond.

I forgot about this option. I like it.

I understand that Spi/Chm is pretty much the best set of traits for the Priests of Winter. I think that won't unbalance the game too much mainly because there's only three of them, against Immortal/Deity AI's. By the time we manage to get the White Hand built (especially with having to do Samhain first), the AI ought to have enough production to make 3 elemental summoners not an insta-win. Or if not the first AI we fight, certainly the second one. They should have enough time to be fun, but they won't be able to straight up win us the game.

I'm open to other leaders if you feel strongly about it, but I want not-Agg (so that searching for Letum Frigus still makes sense), not Arcane, not too powerful overall...it's a harder problem than it appears.

So after that feedback, it sounds like something like this makes the most sense?

Settings:
Erebus Continents
Large
Immortal with Increasing Difficulty Challenge
EitB v. 11.1
No Tech Trading
All Unique Features
All victories enabled except Religious (for everyone else)


Opponents:
Clan
Malakim
Svart
Ljo
Kurios
Lanun
Doviello
Calabim

1. We must cast all six rituals, in order. Samhain - The White Hand - The Deepening - Stir from Slumber - The Draw - Ascension. We may only have two conquests before Ascension - one after the White Hand, and one after Stir from Slumber.
2. We must build a Temple of the Hand in every city unless it already contains >50% tundra/snow/ice tiles. May build them in that case but not required
3. We aim to win by Domination, while thwarting any other victory attempts.
4. We've got to build Wilboman at some point.
5. Play as though we were agnostic - no religions!

Roster:
Aurorarcher
DaveV
Jalepeno
Mardoc
Qgqqqq
Brick?

Any further suggestions?

Strategy thoughts:

It seems to me that the variant will pretty much force us to use a cottage strategy. We'll be obliterating most rivers in our territory, and we'll be playing for a long game. It may be possible to plan a dotmap and Temple builds to preserve a river or two, but not enough to run an economy.

That gives us a lot of options for civics, which should make Spiritual more fun.

Short term tech goals are whatever resources we have at our start, then Calendar, Education. After that we'll have to pick between economy, military, and ritual techs.

If we're all happy with the above - Aurorarcher, do you want to start us off again?

[BRickAstley]

I'm interested but I don't want to make the roster too bloated either, 5 seems like a better number than 6. I can follow close and step in if someone needs a cover or drops out later though?

[jalepeno]

the above looks good to me.

[Aurorarcher]

The next turn is going to be tedious, having to deal with a bunch of enraged units (just as my first turn was painful when I had to deal with Hellfire). I'm fine with declaring victory and moving on.

Yeah. I played 3 turns abd it took a lot of time, like an hour . Not going to continue from there (forgot to save too ).

Short summry of the end:

- 95% of Witches went enraged running everywhere at 90 AC.




See all those red dots... those are all the units that went enraged.

- Hitting 100 AC pretty much killed all the living units in the world. Luckily all the Demons survived. We lost 120 witches there, quite a bit of power drop... It also emptied a lot of enemy cities making it easy to raze many cities.

So that's for that.

Mardoc, all that sound good and I can start us off again today or tomorrow. Few things just to make sure:

- Normal speed?
- Os-Gabella is our leader, right? Do we want to allow the AIs to have unrestricted leaders as well or stick with restricted?

Some other thoughts/comments:
- Ice doesn't destroy +1 commerce next to river, does it?
- Q, if you join this game, start playing our duel too!

[Mardoc]

- Normal speed?

Yes, that seemed to work pretty well for this game

Os-Gabella is our leader, right?

Yes, unless anyone feels strongly that we should try someone else. No comments to that effect so far, though.

Do we want to allow the AIs to have unrestricted leaders as well or stick with restricted?

I'd stick with restricted for them. I'd recommend Falamar for the Lanun, not Hannah.

- Ice doesn't destroy +1 commerce next to river, does it?

No, but Temples of the Hand destroy rivers. I think the criteria is any river with ice on both sides goes away. Also, jungles become forests, floodplains are wiped out (but not oasis), and of course all tiles become Ice.

Q, if you join this game, start playing our duel too!

Oh, has round 2 of the duel league started up already? I'd better figure out what I'm doing there.

[Aurorarcher]

Alright. I won't have time to start the game today (about to sleep in 5 mins), but will do tomorrow.

Regarding the duel tournament, I think people who have been active playing most of their duels (me, Dreylin, maybe someone else?) are pretty much done with round 2 as well. My last game to go is with Q. Certainly the league has kind of... umm.. died? At least since Kragroth went inactive and stopped updating the tables which are very outdated for the moment.