[Spoilers] Sheaims to please- Osseous Gabella's Death Metal.

[Qgqqqqq]

Spoilers if I ever report.

Edit: For those viewing this later, the lack of images is because dropbox changed their functionality. This is a common problem across the fora.

[Bobchillingworth]

C-Checking in!

[Lord Parkin]

Your start:

[Bobchillingworth]

Oh man, that's lush

[Bobchillingworth]

Okay, not Qg's first pick (he really wanted to try out buffed Summoner and Planar Gates), but certainly not a weak one.


Initial thoughts on the start:

Settle-in-place for sure. Could get an extra grain in the north or south with a plains hill plant, but that means giving up an extra hammer and +1 FP gold for a few turns. Tons of food, makes cottages very viable, but that sort of economic stuff shouldn't matter before Qg can take over.


Regarding the civ:

I think Thoth's Malakim gameplan remains one of the best. The Malakim haven't seen a lot of EitB use, and I think a lot of that has to do with the concurrent trend toward banning OO, or at least Cultists. We don't have any bans for this game, so a Cultist rush is totally doable, and given that it looks like there's a fair amount of water, likely very viable. I intend to emphasize early scouting so that Qg can make an educated decision about whether to beeline OO or not once he takes over. Thoth picked his faiths in PBEM III well- Runes and Veil remain the other two religions I would emphasize, for the same reasons, economy and collateral / insta-mages, respectively. Of interest: Paramanders are buffed quite heavily in EitB, and for 80 quick speed hammers w/ Spiritual are 6/8 strength, 2-move discipline units with easy access to March. And ours get at least one free promo, thanks to our Desert Shrine UB. Excellent stack & city defenders, and not too shabby on the attack to boot.

[Qgqqqqq]

Wow, nice start. I agree with everything Bob said. Of particular note is the veil mage route, which hasn't actually been changed.

[Lord Parkin]

Okay, not Qg's first pick (he really wanted to try out buffed Summoner and Planar Gates), but certainly not a weak one.

Sorry about that Q - blame random.org.

[Bobchillingworth]

I think Volanna is still very strong indeed, but Kredom isn't the most experienced player in this pool so I'm quite fine with it.

Hah, funny thing that. Did some research into Mr. Kredom as part of my standard pre-game routine for XXXVI. Seems he's been playing competitive FFH MP since before RB even had a PBEM section, if some posts on Civfanatics are anything to go by. We're a tough community, but I expect that he's very knowledgeable about the mod- as best I can tell, he has a couple years of experience over even the first of us to discover FFH.


That reminds me, I suppose I ought to rank the threats / players in this game, from most to least dangerous:


#1. HidingKneel (Keelyn of Balseraphs)

HK has won multiple games, Keelyn is scary (puppet spam has been nerfed, but Summoner got a serious boost), Balz are a top-tier civ in general. If he's a neighbor your best bet is likely going to be strangling him quickly, before he can really get his arcane game rolling- his Adepts will thankfully take a long time to mature. If you end up going into the end-game with him, try to counter his mobility advantage with a switch to Raiders, Cultist attacks (if possible) and/or Ratha (or Sun II Instamages).


#2. You

I'd rank you a fairly solid second. I've won a game & you'll likely end up with a victory as well, provided XXXI manages to ever end :P Varn is a really nice leader- tons of flexibility. Perhaps a little lacking in offensive "power units", but only in the sense that he isn't packing any really strong UU. Altar win has nice leader synergy, with the additional advantage that the various Altar stages are still useful if you end up cashing in a military win instead.


#3. Whosit/Yell0w (Tebryn Arbandi of Sheaim)

Yell0w has won a game, albeit one that was still reasonably competitive at the end. Whosit isn't very good (sorry man ), but I don't think he'll be in the driver's seat. Tebryn got a major boost, but I wonder how well they'll handle the competing priorities of Gates, PZ and Mages. It kind of sucks that you can't build Assassins, they'd likely be useful here. Plenty of other ways to deal with arcane stacks though. Beware a Skeleton rush.


#4(???). Kredom (Volanna of Svartalfar)

I don't want to rank Kredom above people who have actually played & won games here, but I'd be really wary of him. Volanna is top-tier for sure, and like I said above Kredom seems to have a lot of experience with the mod. His English might be what you'd expect from a 12-year-old, but so's Mackotti's. He has been fairly open about his desire to fight people in his tech thread posts, so I'd be on watch for a Hunter / Fawn rush. Maybe even Scouts.


#5. Aurorarcher (Sheelba of Clan of Embers)

Aurorarcher's position is mostly a function of my not knowing much about him. He certainly has SP experience- seems he has participated in a number of Adventure-esque FFH challenges on Civfanatics. When signing up for this game on Civfanatics he professed inexperience with MP, which if true would make him the "greenest" of the players here. That said, Sheelba is still extremely dangerous, provided he knows how to play her without crashing his economy.



In all, it's a pretty tough field. Everyone here save Keelyn has the tools to attempt a really nasty rush, and Keelyn has a lot of mid & late-game potential. Kind of a baptism-by-fire for your first real MP game

[Qgqqqqq]

My dedlurker is awesome!
...but we already knew that, didn't we?

I'd be cautious about ranking us ahead of Yell0w - whilst I agree that the gates should offer easy distraction, I think Yell0w is a very good player at this point. I will say that I think Tebryn looks better then he actually is, having all his eggs in one basket and the other whole death-by-mage still requires a lot of setup, I would be more scared of Os.

Inspired by your work I looked up Kredom, and afaict, he hasn't posted since 2006, and he only had 3 posts then. So it might nor even be the same one, and I'm not overly concerned about his experience - it could be good with the recent versions, but I'm inclined to doubt it.

[Bobchillingworth]

Sure, I don't want to make Kredom out to be some Ultimate Badass or something when we hardly know anything about him. Just don't underestimate him either, since he may have several years of experience with the mod.