Q's Quietly Quitting Q Puns

[Qgqqqqq]

This time for sure: having promised not to repeatedly, this time I'm just going to have fun and not mess around with sims to try and eliminate a player.

Hold me to it!

[xist10]

And is eliminating a player not fun ?

[Qgqqqqq]

Point is the sims, not the eliminations - I promised not to try hard last time, and ended up obsessing over it for ~50t (while making dumb decisions).

[shallow_thought]

So, this is finally happening . Ded-lurking this thread, at least for the moment. My brain is all over the place, still re-charging from COVID (my first bout, and mild overall, but has left me absolutely drained), but I can make supportive comments, day-in, day-out.

I dunno that your decisions were that dumb last time out. How close were you to outright conquest of the Malakim (IIRC they were the target of the Ent-rush)? If that had gone a touch better and Brian hadn't had such bad barb / Samhain luck and left such a vacuum for the Svarts to fill, could have been a different game. Erebus is a tricky place.

[Qgqqqqq]

Hurrah! Happy to have you on board.

I don't think the early game was bad (apart from making a hunting lodge and no hunters). I could also have eliminated Malakim if I'd stopped Mig from chopping a forest, by advancing earlier with warriors - I didn't because I didn't want to give warning. But I think I screwed up later, beelining foreign trade and spamming settlers that never paid off. As you say though, it's difficult to imagine myself winning no matter how I played once the early stages were done.

[RefSteel]

Welcome back!  Good luck with whatever the future holds, of course including this game - especially the part about keeping it casual and fun and free of spreadsheeting!  And it's great to see you again, shallow_thought - I'm glad to hear your bout with COVID is in the rear-view mirror; I hope the recovery goes quickly and well!  And without further ado...

Here's your starting screenshot:

And your first set of civ+leader choices:
Arturus Thorne (Industrious/Organized/Ingenuity) of the Khazad (Mining OR Masonry)
Keelyn (Creative/Summoner/Ingenuity) of the Balseraphs (Animal Husbandry OR Calendar)
Alexis (Philosophical/Aggressive/Ingenuity) of the Calabim (Cartography OR Fishing OR Hunting)

Please post here in your thread which of these three combinations you want OR post here that you'd like to throw them all back and get a new set of three.  Once you've made a selection,  please also post here which of that combo's possible free techs you want to start with if there's a choice to be made.  The civ + leader choices will all be posted in the tech thread once everybody has selected one (so maybe not until after "round 3") but the tech choice won't be made public.

[Qgqqqqq]

Thanks! Looks like an interesting start, need to think about this one.

Khazad->Mining for a quick RoK is tempting (especially with the gold), but I hate the traits. I've just played a SP game of Calabim in MNAI, and they're fun (albeit nerfed), but I hate Alexis. Keelyn? Eh - strong later on, but not much to get you there.

Going to have to think about this one, but leaning to throwing these back.

[Qgqqqqq]

We start with a worker, right? What are the best techs?

Assuming we start with nothing, our research path will be Mining-Mysticism, which gives a big leg up to those.

Agriculture gives Animal husbandry. Calendar is the traditional tech, but here AH gives a resource to improve after the rice, reveals horses, and gives a shot at promoting for animal capturing if we get lucky. Still, not the best outcome - PH sheep is meh. Calendar would let us improve other tiles for greater immediate impact, so perhaps is more competitive than I thought.

Exploration gives Hunting or Fishing. Fishing is tempting, giving us something to produce right away, and a strong extra tile. Hunting let's us go straight into a Hunting Lodge and a Hunter, though they can't capture units until AH. Still, it's an expensive tech.

[Qgqqqqq]

There are 19 civilisations:

Agriculture:

• Balseraphs
  
• Hippus
  
• Kuriotates
  
• Svartalfar
  

Exploration:
[*]

• Bannor
  
• Illians
  
• Calabim
  
• Lanun
  
• Ljosalfar
  

Ancient Chants:

• Amurites
  
• Elohim
  
• Malakim
  
• Sidar
  
• Sheaim
  

Crafting:
[*]

• Khazad
  
• Grigori
  
• Luchuirp
  

No tech:

• Clan of Embers
  
• Doviello
  

That means for each slot I have a 2/19 chance of no technology, 3/19 chance of Crafting, 5/19 chance of Exploration, 5/19 chance of Ancient Chants, and 4/19 chance of Agriculture.

If Mining is a A+ tech, Mysticism is a A- tech, AH/Calendar are B-, and Hunting/Fishing is a C+ (except for Lanun, which it's a A+). No tech is an F (though Clan are always stronger with extra tech). So 8/19 each (with replacement, and I'm uninterested in mathing that out) of a good option.

Who would I be happy to play? Not Dovellio, Grigori (I'm bad with great people), Ljolsofar (too soon), or Bannor (boring).

Maybe Kuriotates (I could enjoy them, and this is a good start, but I struggle with limited cities), Balseraphs, Hippus, Calabim, Amurites (I'd really like to see how they feel), Khazad, Sidar (I've always wanted to know if they're broken at level 5, but I don't enjoy a lot of the ways they push), Illians (I love them, but I might feel forced to rush), or Luchuirp.

Definitely Clan, Malakim, Elohim, Sheaim, Lanun, or Svartalfar.

That's 6/19 I'm happy with, and 15/19 I'd be okay with. Interesting that there's so few crafting civs, and none of which I'm over the moon about. Most of my definitely are tribes I think are strong (Svart, Clan, Lanun) and the rest I think could be interesting (Sheaim, Elohim). Malakim have the strong traits for a early religion, though with no desert perhaps I should discard them - they're definitely the most vanilla here.

[Jabah]

Would you play Lanun with this start, you can fit only 1 cove without moving (and moving -for more coast- seems to be a bad idea) ?