So ... I guess I need a player thread, though I'm not too sure what to put in it right now.
First thing is to decide my civ I suppose, I was originally thinking of waiting to see the start but I've never really played that way and would prefer to have a firm choice beforehand. Of course if my land is really synergistic with something I may still be persuaded to switch.
My aim for the game is just to enjoy my first PBEM, but of course games are usually more fun when you win.
Analysis of my opponents will probably wait until after I've seen their civ choices.
And actually before all that, I better go have a look at EITB and see what changes there are from Tholal's mod.
Finally, I will most certainly need some pictures!
(April 8th, 2013, 15:14)BRickAstley Wrote: And welcome to RB by the way!
What brought you here to our part of the internet?
Thanks. I saw a link to PB's FFH 1 thread over on civfanatics while browsing there. Started reading and it has been one long cursory glance .
I've been shortlisting civs and I'm down to 4 I'd like to play I think:
Luichurp
Clan
Khazad
Kuriotate
I don't want to play anything too bland(which is admittedly hard in FFH), nor anything I've played too recently in SP and I prefer to stay away from obvious cookie-cutter stuff like the Calabim. I still need to look at EITB which may sway my decision, need to think about leaders also, but I'm leaning toward the stumpies at the minute.
I had a chance to test out EITB today, though I realised that isn't going to be the biggest change I feel. I pretty much always play normal speed, everything was flying by with quick! The techs also seemed to have had a cost reduction in places I think, which also helped to throw me off.
As I mentioned in the last post, I think I want to play as the Khazad(well, I may have left it slightly ambiguous ).
Managing the dwarven vaults sounds like a fun task, though unfortunately they don't scale with quick speed. I'm aware they are mostly a nerf in the early game but if I time Motherlode well after my first few cities are settled to maximise my mines it seems quite easy to get up to 200g per city for 10%hammers and 2 happiness. Having the money available for events or emergency upgrading is handy too.
The other problem I thought the dwarves would have is victory condition. I think you should always have a backup peaceful condition to go for, if only because it's often a lot easier to defend than attack, especially for mage-less dwarves. Tower is out though, religion is nigh on impossible in MP, leaving culture and Altar. I was thinking about a culture victory, since I don't think I've done it before in FFH, but after checking the EITB tech tree, dwarves look tailor made for an Altar victory. Tech to arete, then probably ToD Commune with Nature for Dwarvish Druids to make up for my lack of collaterel and I'm only 1 tech away from the final level of the Altar.
Building the Altar slowly and broadcasting your intentions might not be the best idea, but in the event I do that, there are quite a few units who could benefit from the xp. First, Paramanders are disciple units and I think they are rather good for tech cost, considering I will want arete anyway for my mines. Then I will probably need a source of collatrel in between trebuchets and druids, so hopefully I can switch into AV for a while, maybe during a golden age, and pick up some ritualists. Another idea is to switch to Empyrean and grab some rathas, though they aren't disciples. Arete(the civic) will be the main thing tying me to kilmorph late game though, I will have to think about whether that is worth it, if not I could go Empyrean for good for Rathas and Chalid.
As you might guess from the picture, I'm thinking of Arthurus rather than Kandros as leader. Organised and Industrious just seem like more interesting traits to try and leverage than aggressive and financial, which are fairly flat bonuses. Organised is great in FFH, with being able to build command posts, I'm not too sure about Industrious, since I'll probably be a bit behind in tech due to the vaults, getting to wonders first might be difficult. Even the fail-gold might be very handy though for changing the dwarven production into the harder to get commerce. There's also a bit of worker spam before I cast Motherlode, when I'll want to mine everything that's inside my borders, even if I can't work it, so it can help a bit there too.
One thing I'm not sure about, is if I go for arete, is it worth building the Mines of Gal-dur or will I want to go for iron working anyway. With Maros, Dwarven forges and champions up the melee tree, I'd probably be going there quite soon if I didn't pick them up. Maybe if I could guarantee Guild of Hammers also I might ignore it, but I'd expect a lot of competetion for that and it isn't up a tech path I'll be going quickly anyway. Plus I have double production forges and a likely smaller city density also with forges...
After all this theory now, I really hope we're not given a hill-less start and force me to consider something else. Probably good to come up with a second choice anyway.
So, I was going to try think about choice No.2 but instead I have more Khazad musings:
Thinking about the early game, my first choice is what to do with my shade.
Great Merchant: Khazad are probably the best civ to benefit from a merchant but even then, his benefits are far too long term to choose him. All gold will do to my vault in the early game is affect happiness levels, which in itself is a long term thing given that I start at size 1 and something that is manageable also, especially with the 'lush start' we're getting.
So then the choice is between engineer and scientist. Originally I was thinking Scientist, because I find techs to be the bottleneck in the early game, but after my test on quick speed EITB, that wasn't the case. Anyway, trading 3 beakers for 2 hammers sounds like a good trade to me. Engineer will benefit more from God King also. Finally, this 'lush' start generally means more commerce available rather than hammers, so we can make up the beakers more economically elsewhere.
First build will be worker and tech agriculture. I'll be on 5h base from the engineer and base tile, if I can get up to 8 via some form of plains hill, then industrious will make that 10h giving me a 5 turn worker.
He should finish just in time to improve the wines in my BFC before agriculture comes in for farms. After that I will want Calendar, mining and Mysticism, I'm leaning toward that order though I will need to see the land before I decide. Meanwhile I while spam warriors(I think I can get 4 out) until I'm just under the happy cap for my first settler. Just under the happy because the vault will go down with the second city. I'm hoping for some happy resources to be connected to the capital via a river also though. Once I get God King I can turn the slider back and fill the vaults as required.
After that, I'll be needing to think about the order of grabbing the following techs:
Exploration
Bronze working
WoTE
Arete
Philosophy(I'd like to put a good run at the Bone Palace, being one of the few early wonders I want to make use of Industrious)
Construction
Education leading to
Warfare
Military Strategy
and of course Code of Laws.
I'm planning on switching to Aristo-farms eventually, but I want to stay in God-King for a while I think. I need to try keep a good economy in the meanwhile though.
Given the lack of culture from RoK, and the fact that I want to pop borders quickly to maximise Motherlode, I'm thinking some God King boosted SoK to get my monuments in could be a good idea
Your start in spoilers below. Small things may change, like the "way" your start is facing. Nothing major in the BFC, though (maybe just a few hills/forests more or less). Any doubts, ask away.
Well, initial thoughts, it does indeed look lush. Lots of food and gold available but nice hammers too, with the plains hill plant, deer and basic forested plains hill could be useful too.
No wine though, which I had been hoping for. What's the point of getting my initial worker out so early when he can't do anything with crafting?
So, what are my options? I'll need to check some figures, but I could switch back to Kandros and not worry about Industrious. Seems a bit of a petty reason though and the worker will still probably come out too early with that awesome forested deer tile.
Switching from Engineer to Sage actually seems like the best option, that sounds like it should time the worker and agriculture nicely. I still think the Engineer is better long term though, but getting working a few terms earlier is probably pretty important for snowballing. It would annoyingly put me at 7 hammers, only 1 short of an extra 1 from Industrious.
With the Engineer, I could work the oasis for a bit to even the timing up. Due to Industrious that is a 2h for 2c trade though, which doesn't sound great in the early game.
Moving away is obviously a bad move, nothing I could find would match such a nice edited start probably. I guess I'll need to mull it over and check the figures.
On the bonus side, gems makes Kilmorph an even nicer idea now. I have been reconsidering it a bit. I'd actually prefer if it gave culture instead of gold for early border pops. I'd also like to get two border pops quickly to get as many hills as possible for motherlode. I don't think it's worth the detours for OO or FoL though, whereas RoK is right in my path and has a couple of other synergy's with the dwarves. I'm thinking maybe about using Sons of Kilmorph to get early monuments for a similar effect, hopefully from a hammer boosted God-King capital to make up for the inefficiency.
I don't see any reason to change my choice from Dwarves anyway, well apart from a civ with agriculture first, but I think I'm willing to ignore that. I've been thinking Kuriotate for my second choice because playing around with mega-cities is fun. I might check the starting techs and pick an agriculture one for the third choice, though I don't really expect to need to go there.
Ok, on reflection, the wine doesn't matter so much, but it was a good excuse to bring in Father Jack. In my previous tests I hadn't been counting on an extra 2g from the oasis which gave me an extra turn to finish the wines before farming comes in. It is a little annoying that the first bonus I get from Industrious, getting the worker a turn earlier, is useless though. For some reaons I would feel better if that corn had been in the second ring!
Anyway, I decided to stick with my guns and go with Arthurus as my first choice, there will be plenty of other workers and wonders to benefit from Industrious hopefully.
Second choice is Cardith of the Kuriotates. After double-checking in game, he seems like an excellent pairing with this start. Starting tech agriculture. Starts Philisophical for an early academy which is very useful with such a good commerce capital. And of course the usual +3 happy from Sprawling. I thought there would be some easier happiness with a 'lush' start but Ichabod has done a good job of making us work for it while still giving us lots of nice resources.
For third I went with Rivanna of the Svartalfar on a bit of a whim. The reasoning was mostly that cool Deer tile. I'm thinking of going hunting earlyish anyway, even as the dwarves, and Hunters obviously fit well with the Svarts. They also start with Agriculture which is again nice. Volanna is banned, though I'm not too sure why, and out of the other two I much prefer Rivanna. Raiders is a great trait, but it requires offensive action to get the best out of it and I'd prefer not to have all my neighbours looking at me sideways. I much prefer the economic benefits of Organised. Similarly, I think I prefer Summoner over Arcane, command posts will help me get to that 10xp faster anyway.
Of course, I doubt Dwarves are in that much demand that this will matter anyway.
Question for anybody that knows: does Toroidal effect the civic maintenance as well as city maintenance? Of course Organised helps both, which is partly why I wanted it, but it would be nice to know.
I've done some more thinking and some simulations with the Dwarves regarding Engineer vs Scientist and I think I'm just going to have to push the decision back again. From what I can see, they both work out quite close. The first engineer bonus of early worker is lost, which means I have to wait until the first settler, coming out roughly two turns earlier before I really see another benefit to him. On the other hand, the scientist earns quite a few extra early bonuses; extra food with early calendar and extra gold(and a little happiness) from early incense and gems. It will also allow me to build the elder council sooner and so get my Academy a bit earlier also. In the end I think they're even enough, the scientist earning me more beakers and the engineer more hammers.
I think I still prefer the Engineer but I want to see my opponents civ choices first before I make a decision. I need to decide how badly I want the RoK holy city(or maybe even FoL!) and what the competition is going to be like. I will be almost beelining it, but assuming we all have similar capitals I think it could be a common choice of tech path and the Dwarven research is slower in the early game due to the vaults. If the Scientist was the difference between me gaining and losing the holy city then he'll sure have been worth it!
I should also have a glance through my previous posts before new ones I think, seems I'm repeating myself .
Quote:I'm thinking maybe about using Sons of Kilmorph to get early monuments for a similar effect, hopefully from a hammer boosted God-King capital to make up for the inefficiency.
Organized does not affect city maintenance except in making courthouses cheaper.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
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).![[Image: ArturusThorne.jpg]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080508224745/fallfromheaven/images/0/03/ArturusThorne.jpg)
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![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0214.JPG]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21249278/Screens/Civ4ScreenShot0214.JPG)
In my previous tests I hadn't been counting on an extra 2g from the oasis which gave me an extra turn to finish the wines before farming comes in. It is a little annoying that the first bonus I get from Industrious, getting the worker a turn earlier, is useless though. For some reaons I would feel better if that corn had been in the second ring!
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