The Forestal's 101 - Amelanchier and Ljosalfar

[Mist]

[Mist]

So I've got the elves...

Eh, how to put it...

Let's do a good news / bad news format.

Good news :
*I have a clear idea for the naming theme
*It's not Charadon

Bad news :
*I have no clear and sensible idea how to play this one out.

Why? Well, elves - improvements on forests, no health cap of any importance and some fluff down the archery line. No siege ( collateral ). The general way around this is to go FoL - Priests of Leaves and smother your opposition to death under teh kittens. Or if you insist on being odd cookie and pick Thessa do the standard 'Look at my Battleship / Carrier mage flotilla'.
But I got Mr. A. Raiders / Dexterous / Defender. Both my mages and my priests suck. To have any use of the traits I should go cavalry with archers to hold ground. Meh.

So what to do? I need to sleep on this some more ( I did already, it didn't help ). I will probably cave in and go with the traits. I'm only Raider in game so flanking promoted Frydwell ( Horse Archers ) for mainstay of the forces should be effective on the attack. I'll try to use longbows ( possibly drafted ) to hold the ground. I'll march someone to death with the trees. I'll go for Deception as my religion of choice using FoL only to convert forests into Ancient ones.

It sucks. But it should do for a plan.

[Mist]

[SIZE="5"]A word on opposition[/SIZE]

I will not describe the civs here, it's 9th PBEM and every single one of them has been done to death by now. I'll do say on the other hand how I'd play them and how do I expect them to be played. In order of threat.

[SIZE="4"]Ichabod and Alexis[/SIZE]



Now, is anyone surprised? Honestly?

Ichabod is the top player in the field who happened to be drawn the top civ in contention. While I do expect him to eventually finish up with vampires, I think he'll get them by using Losha instead of traditional Feudalism beeline. He might try to go RoK and steal Mines from Arthurus, he'll definitely try to cause general mayhem with Moroi, because well... They are ridiculously strong with Alexis and Iron.

How I'd play this? Somewhat similar. Go after Moroi to hurt people. Get RoK and pop GMerchants as often as possible to bulb my way most of the way up to Feudalism while teching stuff that hurts people in the usual way. Why not GProphet and up to Fanaticism for Losha? Because building giving early merchant slots are cheaper and more useful.

[SIZE="4"]Arthurus and Sareln[/SIZE]



I actually like Arthurus. He doesn't see a lot of limelight in the shadow of Kandros ( because Financial should never be in the game in current form ), but he's the only leader that can effortlessly expand to the point of crashing his economy, only to turn that dying, sprawling empire into strong hammer powerhouse with one button. He should not be a threat early on, but mid game after the worldspell gets fired he'll be very, very dangerous with trebs and axes/champions.

How I'd play him? Grow like weed ignoring vaults penalties while mining every hill in sight. Once growth hits the limits by not having any more space and every hill is mined - push the button and enjoy your overflowing vaults.

[SIZE="4"]Bob and Falamar[/SIZE]



Or maybe I should say Bob and Hyborem?

With other player I'd put Falamar at #2. But Bob made it clear in few places that he doesn't rate him highly, therefore I expect he'll do his trademark escaping act and go for the devil. Launun, regardless of who leads them tech fast, so unmolested he might just get there. It's still lame :neenernee

How I'd play it? Grow like weed. Grow like the weediest weed of them all. Use OO ( drowns, later drowns and priests ) to defend myself and then Stygians, Mages and OO Priests to attack everyone enjoying my tech edge.

[SIZE="4"]Ellimist and Charadon[/SIZE]



Ehh. The problem with ranking Charadon boils down to 'will Lucian get eaten by a bear or spider before he kills enough other animals to get C2/S?'

Because if Lucian gets eaten, Charadon becomes a very slowly teching Barbarian with no toys to play with. If Lucian does not get eaten he'll be strong enough to singlehandedly dispatch any civ he'll find this side of t50.

How to play it? Probably 'the Lucian's roulette' + 'warrior choke on everyone found' + 'extreme farmers gambit at home'. And a lot of prayers to RNG for good events and huts.

[Mardoc]

Your start:

[Mist]

Mardoc, I know mapmakers are evil and stuff, but if you keep doing things like this

to me, there shall be revenge

I'll wait with definite dot till the scouts move, but this spot looks most promising so far.

[Mardoc]

Mardoc, I know mapmakers are evil and stuff, but if you keep doing things like this

I'll wait with definite dot till the scouts move, but this spot looks most promising so far.

Spoiler for PBEM 8 (except for Mist)

I keep giving you food, and you keep ignoring it!

[Mist]

Settled where I thought I would.

Staying in place would mean stunning dry Corn, jungled Bananas, Cows and whole one river Dye for commerce. That said, the place I moved to is not the best option to settle. Settling on the Barrow tile would be most preferable, but there is, you know a Barrow there So there shall be vengeance, be afraid Mardoc

Now Settling place pretty much dictates my build queue ( two warriors, then worker ) and tech patch ( Calendar, Archery via Mining, Mysticism, Education, Way of the Forest ). Since exploring unit level does not influence outcome from unique dungeon ( it's always a coinflip between the very good and very bad ) Sepulcher will have to be popped soon. Barrow will be left alone till Gilden is lvl 6+ and I'll be farming xp of it in the meantime.

[Mardoc]

Just an FYI - the land around your start changed slightly, as I fixed a pair of things I'd intended to do and never got around to (you can confirm in the lurker thread after the game, if you like). You might play turn 0 with care, therefore.

[Mist]

First three turn after restart out of the way.

[SIZE="4"]Turn 0[/SIZE]

Settled on the former barrow tile. Queued Agriculture and a Worker. Sent both scouts out to explore.

[SIZE="4"]Turn 1[/SIZE]

Got Cartography from a hut. Looks like the game wants me to build the Pact.

[SIZE="4"]Turn 2[/SIZE]

If I survive that long of course. This :

is so close it's not even funny. Avoided contact. Warrior pushed in front of worker in the build queue. Depending which way Sareln went scouting I might be dead pretty soon.

On the flip side I found Ygdrassil and it's pretty close.

Hut south of capital will pop EOT and give me a map of the south.

[Mist]

[SIZE="4"]Turns up to 8[/SIZE]

Sareln found me. He had good odds at taking me out if he went straight for my capital, my scouts were too far away and warrior would not finish in time. Fortunately he didn't know that. He also decided that popping the Sepulcher is more important.

Mist,

We have met in-game.

Based on what I've seen so far of the map, I think that all the
players may be situated around this central desert/floodplain setup.

I have also met Ichabod of the Calabim so far.

Looking forward to the future, the Khazad would be quite happy to play
host to the FoL and would be happy to return the favor with RoK
spreads.

Sincerely,

Sareln

[COLOR="YellowGreen"]
Heh, and here I hoped you went scouting the other way :P

Right, to business then. I expect you'd be wanting to pop the
Sepulcher. I would anyhow. Can't really stop you, but I'd really,
*really* appreciate if you held out till I get more than one warrior
in the capital :P Apart from that I expect to leave you alone to your
own devices and work for common good. By making sure there's no
vampire plague in the world for example :] I myself am on the lookout
for the devil ( did I say devil? I meant pirate ) called Bob.

I'm happy to welcome RoK religion. I'm happy to sign open borders, we
can do that next turn. I'm open to signing NAP with you if you'd like
one. Do not expect FoL from me any time soon though, I've got other
plans.

Mist
[/COLOR]

Mist,

I'm sorry but I won't hold out on popping the Broken Sepulcher. Given
the way the mechanics work and the way the map is setup, I don't think
either of us will be able to prevent a 3rd party from swooping in and
hitting the Sepulcher. Given how much time it would take us to
properly garrison our capitals for the big-bad results from Lairs (1
leader and 4 minions or something like that) the amount of time
waiting would leave us wide open to other explorers. Better for the
both of us to just pull the trigger with the gun to our heads and see
how it goes. To be frank, I really dislike having lairs so close to
starting positions, too much call for luck, and you know how mine has
been lately...

With that said, if we're both still alive in a little bit, open
borders, mutual cooperation, and expansion sound good. I've not much
use for mana beyond the basic adept spells for dwarves (Haste,
Enchanted Blades/Repair, etc) and would be quite happy to loan palace
and special feature resources I may acquire. If your plan isn't FoL,
I don't particularly mind, I just put that in my opening because Elves
have some affinity for it. For first initial cooperation, Ichabod
theorizes that we all have unique happiness resources (2 copies). I
would like to offer a swap of my happy resource for yours.

There are a series of goblin forts in the central map that have a ton
of goblin archers on them. There will be some barb presence then
coming from that direction. One of Calabim's unique features is the
Pool of Tears. Here's hoping Patria and Dragon bones aren't somewhere
other than the middle of the map.

Sincerely,

Sareln

So he did stop and pop it. The result?

Just a Scorpion. Sadly the lair is still there.

Also, Doviello south of Vampires. I expect Bob to be somewhere in your south.

-Sareln-


I'll wait till it kills your warrior and have a go at popping it
myself. It's only fair we get a try each In the meantime allow me
to pray for no Mistform escorts that could go choke me out of the game
:]


Seems fair enough to me . If my unit survives the scorpion, I will
sign NAP until T100 if you don't kill him but instead straight up pop
the BS.

-Sareln-

His warrior got eaten. Scorpion at half health made for 70% odds for my scout. Which would be the best shot I was going to get for a long while. So I went for it. And won. Sepulcher was popped with remaining move.

NAP till 100 it is. I proposed open borders in game, Sepulcher is gone.

What did I get?

I'd say it's karma I'll probably settle him.