Black Charadon brings Heaven to heel

[The Black Sword]

Pics of the cool looking map to come when I get access to them again.

For now, some thoughts on Charadon's advantages, and the first of what will probably be many wolf pictures.



1.Lucian
Instead of a starting tech, the Doviello get a free axe to start. For Mahala, this is a reasonable trade since Lucian can defend vs the barbs. Charadon is a barbarian leader though, so this is unnecessary. Instead I hope to send Lucian one way and my scout the other to try land circumnavigation. In addition, I’m hoping Lucian+Charismatic will give a lock on the Form of the Titan.

2. The Wild Hunt
The Doviello’s world spell summons a wolf for each military unit I have on the field. That’s a pretty strong spell and could quite possibly win me a war. It does scale with unit strength but it’s still strongest early. All the wolves can move after being summoned, which could surprise some people. Might allow an early worker steal too, though I’m not sure if that’s worth my worldspell.

3. Beastmen +20% city attack
Warriors are the most cost efficient unit in the game and mine have a bonus to city attack. Perfect warrior-pults.

4. Shamans
Doviello shamans don’t require mage guilds and can start with some handy lvl1 spells, most importantly haste. I should keep the possibility of researching BW and bulbing KotE in mind if I get an opportunity for an early attack.

5. No need for Training yards
Should save me a fair amount of hammers. In addition it means every city will be able to draft axeman without any hammer cost. I need to double check that axes are ahead of javelins in the draft order.

6. Upgrade abilities
I know the Doviello have some abilities to upgrade units outside their borders, I need to test which ones. I imagine it’s those units that don’t have building requirements, which is quite a lot for the Doviello. Allows some easy reinforcements of armies.

7. Aggressive
Very handy in FFH where promos are more important and it’s hard to get past the first promo with newly built units. In the short term, I plan to combine it with Barbarian to allow to me build a lot of early subdue animal scouts. Additionally it gives half priced Siege Workshops, and catapults could be important collateral in the early game. I’m pretty happy to give up an econ trait for it.

8. Charismatic
Char is very much a mage trait in FFH. You can sort of use it to get an extra promo like Aggressive but you have to work and usually give something up for the extra 2xp. Still, I’m thinking of taking Charadon down the mage line here. If Charismatic Lucian can land me the Form of the Titan then my shamans will start with at least 4xp and only 4xp left to mages. I need to target some later era military after Sons of Asena/Catapults and ideally it doesn’t cost too much research around the tree, given the Doviello’s weaknesses. I can bulb my way through most of Sorcery, which makes it fairly cheap in slider research.

9. Barbarian
-10% Research and Peace with the Barbarians. I’m not sure whether Barbarian will be a positive or a negative this game. Peace with the barbs should be very handy, allowing me to underbuild military for a while and get off to a good start. I can’t afford to go too light though in case I meet other players and all my other advantages tend to point towards relatively early war. One point I’m wondering about, is that Q mentioned some flavour units with hidden nationality and animal AI, which could be a bit of a nerf to the proposed subdue animal scout strategy. Another setting that really affects the trait is lairs off. For one thing, I feel that barbs, even on immortal are pretty easy to handle without lizard lairs to annoy you. The other is that we lose goblin forts, which give IMO the biggest benefit from the barb trait, the amazingly cheap scorpion clan wolf riders and chariots. At least others can’t enter lairs in compensation, but on reflection, it might not have been the best game to go with a barb leader. Still, while the barbs may not cause much problem on their own, I might be able to use some to help my own attacks.

10. Javelins
Ok, these guys will be pretty much a non-factor. I can’t see much reason to build one over a copper beastman. Still, I’ll probably pick up archery for lumbermills at some stage, so I might build 1-2 since they don’t require archery ranges.

The main weakness is pretty clear, they don’t like technology. No access to libraries or alchemy labs, in addition to the 10% penalty. So, the exact opposite of my Kurios in 28, a focused research path is pretty important and try to ignore non-essential techs. The other weakness is that they don’t really have a stand out strength like many other civs do. Need to exploit all the little bonuses as much as we can in addition to our better start to make up for toys like governor manors and ancestral caves.

[Mardoc]

6. Upgrade abilities
I know the Doviello have some abilities to upgrade units outside their borders, I need to test which ones. I imagine it’s those units that don’t have building requirements, which is quite a lot for the Doviello. Allows some easy reinforcements of armies.

I believe it's workers -> Beastmen -> melee line. You can test, but I'm pretty sure it's only the melee units that can upgrade.

But it's more than just upgrade possible anywhere. It's also cheaper than normal - I don't remember the exact cost but it was something ridiculous like 5 or 10g to upgrade a Beastman to an axe equivalent, and similar for further steps. If you weren't already anxious for cash, you might never build anything but a beastman, but Barb and no boosts makes it an actual choice.

The ability to upgrade workers is less awesome since they're pricey to begin with, but I can imagine niche uses for that ability. There was one game where a player rushed with workers, upgrading on his opponent's border, with the idea of keeping his power graph suppressed until the last second. He didn't win, but it was interesting to watch.

[The Black Sword]

I believe it's workers -> Beastmen -> melee line. You can test, but I'm pretty sure it's only the melee units that can upgrade.

Thanks, looks like you're right. 13g to upgrade worker or slave to Beastman. 26g for Beastman -> Son of Asena. 26g isn't great for Charadon, usually cost would be 33g but it's hardly a bad thing. However Son of Asena -> Battlemaster is a mere 53g, instead of the usual 105g cost! Maybe IW would be worth it after all. I assume Mahala halves everything again, which really would be ridiculously cheap. There's no way this 1c is going to make up for Charadon over her .

Anyway here's my start:



The most immediate decision was to settle for wines or dyes. The wines are the better tile, trading 1h for 1c and also being immediately connected up due to water inside my culture. I went for the dyes though because I expect to go straight Agriculture -> Calendar and they'll be connected up first. A wine + shared corn might be a pretty good second city.

The other unique decision for the Doviello was whether to rush someone straight away. I could send all 3 units out wandering in the same direction, which, combined with my world spell would be a pretty sure kill on the first person I ran into. Alternatively Lucian + unit would still have pretty good odds and be safer vs any wandering enemy scouts. This is Torusland though, almost everyone will be able to pick up extra land from the early elimination, so it wouldn't help me in particular and it would cost me my worldspell. Even if their capital grew past size 2 and I kept it, it would probably be really expensive to maintain. So, while I'm definitely not ruling out the possibility of messing with someone if I run into them, I don't think I'll base my strategy on that. Instead, I'll send Lucian and the scout in opposite directions as I mentioned and keep the Beastman at home.

Q has left some pretty cool barbs lying around. Good thing they're held.

[The Black Sword]

I was pretty terrified when I ran into that guy, but it looks like Q didn't put Hidden Nationality on him after all, so Lucian is safe. I assume he has the animal AI but he is still more powerful than any bear and move 2, the non-barb players might not be too happy. Additionally, animals don't spawn until turn 5, after that I want Lucian on defensive terrain until he gets some promos, so other players could still be moving on turn 4 expecting themselves to be safe. I don't think it's the end of the world once everyone knows that these guys could be roaming around but that will probably cost them a unit to find out.

Additionally, that spot west of the corn seems to be ideal for city 2. It does require me to research Exploration for roads but I really need to be picking up some commerce with my second city, maintenance looks like it's going to be terrible. So, initial tech path looks like Agriculture -> Calendar -> Exploration. After that it's still up in the air, whether I can find someone worth conquering and go for an early rush or get commerce online first. And if I do go for commerce I'm not sure which of Aristo, God King or even City States I should be going for.

The scout seems to have run into a dead end in the East:

[The Black Sword]

Ran into DaveV in the north, too bad this didn't go the other way around, I would have liked to kill his scout to give Lucian the xp. I'm still working on some opponent analysis but Dave isn't a great neighbour to have, I doubt that Averax will be rushable. At the least I'll need the tech advantage of KotE for haste if I'm to put up a fight against his PZs. He might make a good trade partner though as we both go kill someone else. Still would have liked to kill his scout.

Here's the area my scout has defogged.



The 3 blank spaces in the fog will be de-fogged by the third ring border pop. Of course it's easy enough to fog-read the base tiles, but with torusland you never know what resource might be underneath.

Still, incense, corn, wine is definitely looking like city no.2. It seems this sea to the East cuts off all of the land, though there is a possibility of a land bridge behind the angel. So, I should try to expand West and seal off this land for potential backfill later. It helps that no city spots really jump out at me there either.

The first worker and agriculture finish this turn. Micro plan is to grow to size 3 while getting out scout/beastman. Build another worker at size 3 then grow to 6 getting another scout/beastman. Settler at size 6. All the numbers work out really nice IMO. Of the two units, I need 1 Beastman to garrison city 2 and 1 scout who I'd like to send to meet up with Lucian for cover if he gets injured. Haven't decided the order yet though.

[HidingKneel]

The ability to upgrade workers is less awesome since they're pricey to begin with, but I can imagine niche uses for that ability.

"Workers" includes slaves, IIRC. So that ability has pretty good synergy with Slavery/Undercouncil.
At least against the AI at high difficulties, when you're swatting down massive stacks.

[The Black Sword]

Stalking some animals for xp at the minute.



I gave the gryphon similar odds earlier(10%) and he ran away, we'll see this time.



My scout killed a wolf on the offense. Looks like the sea cuts off the south too.



Can't cover the worker properly or I can't defend the city, but I can threaten retaliation.

[The Black Sword]

Here's what the world looks like after the blitz:





Lucian de-fogged most of the north, I was hoping this land would join up with that south of it, but no such luck it seems. I think I might have to turn Lucian around to get back home in a reasonable time frame. His main objective at the moment is just to farm xp of course.



He did find Dave's homeland in the north, but I didn't bother him, felt too risky.



The scout de-fogged the scout and he found Tholal:



If I had time to think things through during the blitz I might have tried to ambush his workers when they went to improve the dyes. I would prefer to continue to defog that Eastern coastline with the scout but a Bear got in the way, so I didn't risk it and sent him back up to the capital, shame about circum-nav, though it isn't so important in FFH.

With regards to dot-mapping, second city for corn and incense is unchanged. Corn and dyes in the south looks good for a third city with no tech requirements. Can pick up either pigs or incense in the second ring. Another city I like is the hill 1E of the southern mana node. Seems like a good defensive city to claim that land from Tholal, steals the best tile, the fresh water corn in the area and gems second ring.

In general though, the dotmap seems to be quite a conundrum. In the immediate vicinity of the capital, there is a lot of fresh water grassland, which is the staple of a FFH diet but that is a lot harder to find as you spread out. What grassland there is, is often forested or jungled, requiring more tech to get access to, as do the food resources. And my immediate tech priority is getting some sort of economy up and running, I'd prefer not to have to detour too much from that. So, nice job on the map Q, I really like the puzzle . In addition, I have found various angels and disciples wandering around the place, including another held hidden nationality barb on that mana node cottage.

My scout now has 4xp after killing 2 wolves. My initial Beastman went to explore the area NE of the capital, behind the Eye of Heaven. He was cruelly devoured by a tiger, despite being on a forest. I can't complain too much though, I sent my other Beastman onto the forest hill just outside my borders to keep the area around my second city defogged of animals.



Phew, a GS hanging around there could have been potentially very tricky. The combat was only 5.1 vs 5 too. As a result though, I built another beastman after the second worker instead of a scout.

So, now I'm researching Exploration and my capital looks like this:


and my demos:



I'm going to extend my sandbox and test out a couple of openings now. I'm not sure if Aristocracy is the right choice since I don't see too many grass farms after the first two cities, at least without construction. With a capital full of farms though, GK doesn't look great either. Still, maybe I could cottage over them and run a low slider due to Immortal/toroidal. I don't have a good feel for which is best right now.

[The Black Sword]

The old man may have brought Charadon back but he was a spent force. He could not protect the tribe, he could not even hunt his own food. Worse, he wanted to negotiate with the angels. The Doviello do not 'negotiate'. The Doviello take what they want and burn the rest. When next the Valkyrie strode into the ring of flames, he found the shaman's head on a pike.



Started to pay some unit maintenance this turn, and we couldn't have that! I'm afraid it will take me far too long before I get forces capable of killing that Valkyrie and I need to put out the fires too. I'm not paying 1gpt for the next 100 turns, the potential shade isn't worth it.

Amusingly, a shade has a power rating:



There's no message about Lucian's death in the fog, I wonder what the others will think of it. Lucian met a diseased Amurite scout on the way home btw. As well as a C2 tiger, hasn't had a chance to kill them though.



I founded my second city, had this farm pre-built, the corn will be completed next turn. I'm 2t behind DaveV. I'm tentatively going to go with God King over Aristo, mostly for the focused tech path. Bulb KotE, tech to copper weapons, try to make sure every city can 1 turn Beastmen and rush Tholal. Hey, it's the one thing Charadon is good at!

Minor problem: I mentioned that exact plan to Tholal at the start of his own Doviello game in 29.

[The Black Sword]

Lucian killed a gorilla on the offense, he's been healing up again before pillaging that lovely village. I wonder where the guardian for it went though, I assume it had one similar to the southern village. Unfortunately, there's a C2, now diseased tiger 3N, 1E of him that I had to run from. The odds of getting diseased seem pretty low in tests(does anyone know the exact figure?) but naturally I would prefer Lucian kept himself healthy.

Other bad news in that picture, is the barb city, ruining my dot map. I was thinking of a city 1NW of the cotton. The main thing, is that I need a city in the area to claim the cotton, rather than the cotton at my backfill site. That seemed the best location to me though, with the dyes and gems second ring.

Domestically things seem to be going very well:



(new farm next turn)



I was tempted to fit in the Monument now, which I could complete on the turn of growth to size 7, working the phf, but I restrained myself because it's not really worth it until I get Mining/BW/AH which is a while away yet.



I'm running 90% science btw because that seems to result in the least rounding loss. At 100% research I go above 30 cpt which means I lose 4b from Barbarian instead of 3. Additionally, it hits the 25bpt mark exactly for a further 5bpt from the pre-req on Education.

It's not all rosy though, my third city has been burned!



I want to found this third city to pick up both dyes and incense, since commerce is my biggest worry. Unfortunately my preferred spot is those flames E of the corn. If that doesn't go out(again, anyone know the odds? Problem of playing a game against DaveV, I'm sure he'd have the answer to these ) I will have to found on the grass hill. I'm loathe to lose a riverside grass hill though and I liked working the incense first for the extra hammers for the monument. This rng really does not like my dotmap!