[SPOILERS] Rhoanna's horse is actually a Trojan

[DaveV]

Spoiler thread for EitB 50. Other players, stay out!

[DaveV]

My picks:

Garrim Gyr
Rhoanna
Averax
Flauros

The cast of characters:

Superjim:  Thessalonica of the Elohim

I've never been a big fan of the Elohim, and if I were forced to play them I'd prefer Ethne (CRE/ORG) to Thessalonica (SPI/IND). The Elohim do have a great world spell, cheap monuments, and assassins that can cast Destroy Undead. Presumably superjm will follow a religious path to take advantage of his traits. superjm played a slow game last time; I remember how far behind I was when I started playing MP, and I think he's still retooling his game to compete.

Mr. Cairo:  Beeri Bawl of the Luchuirp

Garrim Gyr was my first pick. I like FIN/ARC better than FIN/IND. The received wisdom is that IND gives you a 25% boost in building your first Mud Golem and you're off the the races. But even without the boost, the first golem appears about the time you finish Agriculture, so what's the hurry? You won't have to build as many mud golems as the other guys have to build workers, so the trait is diminished again. ARC is a really good late game trait, and Repair adepts can keep a golem/catapult stack at full health. The downside to golems: they are slow, can't be hasted, and can't take Mobility promotions. Speed is really important in MP, which makes half the Luchuirp units not very useful. The Luchuirp have enough other advantages that they can still do well without golems. Their hero unit (Barnaxus) is available relatively early and can be helpful in the barb battles. Mr. Cairo is a competent player and I expect him to do well if he stays away from the temptation of FIREBALL GOLEMS!!!

DaveV: Rhoanna of the Hippus

Was I just talking about mobility? No one can do it like the Hippus, although Tasunke is better at it because of his RAI trait. But I just saw last game how much EXP helps on a big map, and FIN is a nice complement to keep the economy from crashing. My second choice, but a strong civ and leader that's won before.

Aurorarcher:  Perpentach of the Balseraphs

Playing Perpentach requires embracing the random. Insane gives you a shot at any trait, but you have to be flexible enough to exploit it while it lasts. Freaks can have some really useful mutations or be absolute garbage. We've seen Perpentach come out on top of several games, and Aurorarcher is a good enough player to lead him to another win.

[DaveV]

The password is "Code".

See what I did there?

[DaveV]

Reserved..

[DaveV]

Reserved...

[DaveV]

The first turn arrives, and the map looks pretty barren.



There is exactly one agriculture food resource tile visible, and no early happiness (or commerce) resources. I debated for a while whether to settle in place or move NE, and decided on staying in the start position. It's vulnerable to Cultists, but a better long-term site.

Here are the demographics:



Mr. Cairo is certainly the other one working a low food, high hammer tile. He should be able to push out his mud golem in 10 turns, exactly matching my pace. I'm tied with Aurorarcher for top GNP, if you subtract off his Creative bonus. Two players have no water in their inner ring; the fourth has two water tiles. Someone must have a bunch of forests to match my +3 EXP health bonus. And Mr. Cairo and Aurorarcher both have an extra happy face, from Enchantment mana and CHA trait respectively.

[haphazard1]

Will be following this one with interest. Good luck!

[DaveV]

Here's the situation after a couple turns of exploration:



Still a dearth of food and commerce.

I sent both explorers south because that looked like the most promising direction. Not so much any more.

[DaveV]

My explorers are going to turn around next turn, after not finding much of anything. The first few cities will just steal food from the capital.

[DaveV]

The Mushrooms event gave me an extra food on my capital tile. Yay!



Also, I have a few coins jingling in my pocket from an earlier constellation event.