1. Bigger the Voyeur was lynched on Day 2
   
2. Catwalk
   
3. Commodore the Tracking Black Werewolf was lynched on Day 3
   
4. Gaspar
   
5. Ichabod the Liar was killed on Night 3
   
6. Injera
   
7. Jkaen
   
8. Lewwyn
   
9. Mardoc the Follower was lynched on Day 4
   
10. Meiz the Western Neighbor was killed on Night 5
    
11. Molach
    
12. Mr. Nice Guy the Announcing White Werewolf was lynched on Day 1
    
13. novice
    
14. pindicator the Killblocking Black Werewolf was lynched on Day 5
    
15. pling the Killblocking White Werewolf was killed on Night 4
    
16. Rowain the Voteblocker was killed on Night 2
    
17. Sareln
    
18. Serdoa
    
19. Tasunke
    
20. uberfish the Hunter was killed on Night 1
    
21. zakalwe the Announcing Black Werewolf was lynched on Day 6
    

So with the recent uptick in interest in Civilization 5 I thought I would renew my quest to finally make my $60 not essentially lit on fire and pick up the game again. Unfortunately, every time I try to play the game I get somewhere between 50 and 80 turns in, get frustrated and a bit lost and put it down. I've thought about trying the new Adventure, but I think the same thing will happen there without a commitment. I've thought about proposing another PBEM, but 1. I'm not sure I want another PBEM regardless of the game and 2. I don't want that level of commitment to a game I'm not sold on. I checked out CFC but...



Not exactly a burgeoning community there.

Anyway, I like you guys better (for the most part.) So I was hoping to run a fairly basic SG, basically as an introduction game. Most of my experience is back in the "Horizontal Victory" days, so it'd really be great if one of the more experienced Civ5'ers (Dave, Seven, Rowain leap to mind just from lurking the PBEM) wanted to join for educational purposes, though I suppose just popping in and pointing out the will suffice. I'd like to keep it to a relatively small group as well, just to hopefully get the turns rolling.

Suggested Settings:
Difficulty: King
Map: Fractal/Standard
Civ: Japan
City States: On, standard number
Speed: Normal.

Variant Rules: No gold/gpt trades involving the AI except in Peace Treaty negotiations.

Turns: Standard 24/48 - The only requirement I'd ask is relatively thorough reporting so we have something to talk about.

Other than that, I'd suggest going full on no-variant for a first game. Then if we have a reasonable amount of fun we do another more "RB-style" game. I'd also like to leave the thread fully open to adult discussion of the game and its positives and negatives. I don't want any fanboy cheerleading or hipster bashing, but I also want to hear people's thoughts - I'm doing this selfishly to decide if I want to give the game another chance. Hopefully enough others feel the same way that we can fill this up, have intelligent discussion and have a good time.

Oh - and like a giant ass I have DLC - so someone else will need to actually roll the start as I understand it.

So, is anyone interested? I already recruited NobleHelium. If I've missed anything important, feel free to mention it, I'm not really married to anything as pretty much all of understanding of the game bears little to no relation to the current setup.

Signups:

Team USA
T-hawk
Gaspar
Sareln
NobleHelium

Team Europe

Yuris125
Rowain
TheArchduke
pling

25/15/10/10 - Teams start own thread when launching.

I'm buying a new computer (current one is 6 yrs old) and I have some questions ...

1. Windows 7 Prof or Windows 7 Ultimate
   
2. Video card - AMD Radeon HD 6770 or 6870
   
3. Are soundblaster cards worth it?
   

Anyone here also play this game? I just got an invite and had a look at it, and would appreciate any advice people have...

Well I enjoyed that very much. I think the main lesson of this game is to go hard for the things you want. Mackoti did that the best. We did it reasonably well, but cut several things too close - marble city, jungle city, MoM, Taj... and therefore lost them to Mackoti who really sacrificed to get them. The competition for those things in this game was intense - I really thought we were turning it up a notch but Mack turned it up three notches. NobleGasket really got hit by this the worst, missing a lot of wonders that frankly they could have landed in other games.

Meanwhile... Lewwyn, I would say you wanted the wrong things. Didn't miss much of what he tried for but that didn't help him.

The other lesson is about traits. I think I misevaluated them quite a bit at the start of the game, though I don't remember how much of that is related to not knowing the map yet. I think I didn't know we'd all want lighthouses and courthouses in every city. Anyway, organized is better than I thought when the game began. Industrious too, and here's why: in these small PBEMs there are a lot of good wonders available per player. You can see how IND gave Mackoti first pick pretty much. We tried to disrupt that with forge engineers but we still couldn't get the best ones.

Our own IMP and PHI were... eh, PHI did not seem great. A large portion of our GPP were produced under 300-500% modifiers so that +100% really wasn't as big of a bonus as it looks. The cheap Seowons were nice and did give us a brief tech lead, but other traits would have been so much better. IMP is good but not great. My opinion there didn't change.

It seems like I overestimated EXP/PRO. I said at the start that I thought this was the best leader/civ. Though, keep in mind that this was with Brennus instead of Justinian. Mostly I underestimated ORG by quite a lot.

Justinian's IMP/SPI was strong. I thought it was better than our own IMP/PHI when it was given out and now I'm even more confident of that. SPI would have been amazing.

Mackoti and Lewwyn both say they think the other had a better leader. I'm still not sure what I think about that. I suspect I'd rather have Roosevelt on this map.

Yes, the title does remind you of porn site pop-ups. Its appropriate - as I was gang-raped by multiple AIs!

I fired up this adventure thinking that I had played enough Civ2-Civ3 (and a little vanilla Civ4) to have half a clue. Unfortunately, that notion was quickly put to rest. I had a few misclicks too as I re-acquainted myself to the UI. Even dropping my capital once due to a misclick

No fancy pictures. Maybe #52.

4000 BC Athens founded on start position! Moves scout N to explore the fertile river lands
3640 BC We discover Agriculture and start to look into the secrets of Mysticism
3600 BC Hammurabi shows his ugly face to the southwest and shortly thereafter find Suliman hiding south of the mountains
t15 Threatened by a roaming hord of warriors, our work on a boat was abandoned in panic!
2440 BC Sparta Founded!

Lost the great race to Stonehenge by 2!

1400 BC Accidentally traversed the borders of the evil hated Spanish. We did not stay in their lands.
900 BC Lost Sparta to a Arabian raiding party!
800 BC Lost a work party to Spain!
400 BC Misclicked a phalanx out of the capital, and therefore lost it to suliman, but gained it back the next turn
100 BC A huge stack of 8 units comes out from Sparta to retake my former capital. We defend with minimal losses. The AI in Always war is surprisingly tough!
50 BC Imagine our surprise as a huge stone wall is erected arround our previous settlement of sparta.
250 AD In the midst of war, Thebes is settled to get access to pigs and horses by which we will ride down our enemies as they flee before us (ride the horses, not the pigs)
350 AD Japan arrives late to the party with 2 stacks that threaten to take our starting location He seems to have walked unscathed through Arabian lands
400 AD Argos founded, but we care spare nothing to defend it
500 AD Spain sends a mutltipurpose force and hits Corinth - luckily we had a cat just in time to damage his stack before it hit. Argos razed by Arabia (1 turn late in defending it)
640 AD We are getting hammered! The second great general arrived and promises to deliver the secrets of Morale, Tactics. Instead we choose Healing as we need all the help we can get.
780 AD After a combined assault by Ramses, Hammurabi, and Suleman, we are left with a William the Conquerer and a half-strength archer in Athens. This does not look good.
800 AD Athens falls, Wilheim the Conquerer had 20+ XP, but couldnt stand another round of combined attacks.
840 AD We get horses supplied to our sick and unhappy capital. Too bad we do not know how to ride them. Perhaps the pigs will have to do!
940 AD The assault on Corinth begins! Spain suicides a huge stack on it, but Arabia is coming up with reinforcements. Our source of copper is now in Arab hands, we have only chariots and archers.
1010 AD Another great general appears on the too little too late bandwagon tour.
1020 AD Corinth falls. A chariot was able to escape - only to wander into the outskirts of a newly founded Basra and was promptly destroyed by longbowmen.
1110 AD Thebes falls under a barrage of collateral damage.

This was a lot harder than I remember - I underestimated the AI for sure - I also did not realize they would all be able to hit me at once I thought they would not be allied.



Anyway - thanks for hosting this game, C. ALso thanks for the great reports, everyone.

After getting so involved in RBPBEM 31 before we won a concession, I simply had to play. Although I was familiar with the core map, Ceiliazul revealed that to new players, so I doubt I had any special advantage, other than having thought about the starting moves rather a lot.

Full report is here.

Score summary:

• Fastest Victory: Turn 203, 1430AD.
  
• Most Elite Unit: 70XP.
  
• Earliest Great General: Turn 93, 550BC.
  
• Completing Stonehenge: Yes, on turn 35.

If you are like me (and if you aren't, why not), you occasionally find yourself wishing that you had more options when it comes to leader selections in FFH. Sure, the current crop covers a range of playing styles and combinations, but some traits in EitB are alarmingly rare (cough, IND), and a few civs really lack for diversity unless you play with Unrestricted Leaders.



Thankfully there is a ready solution at hand. Base FFH comes with a number of "minor" civilization leaders, who mostly crop up only in the official Scenarios. One, Minister Koun, appears with some regularity in normal games, while I believe that some of the others can be spawned using colonies (I've never tested this though).



What I propose is bringing a number of these leaders into EitB, to add some additional trait combinations and flavor to the game. Since most of them currently possess only one playable trait, I have amended their combos, or in some cases devised entirely new ones.


Sareln has told me that he would consider adding some new leaders to the game provided that they meet the following criteria:


1. They must use new trait combinations not held by any current leader

2. They cannot have any traits which are overpowered with their civs

3. No civ can have too many leaders total- so I won't be suggesting any new leaders for civs that already have three.



With those guidelines in mind, here are the leaders & traits I have to suggest [leaderhead images taken from Xienwolf's game manual]:



[SIZE="4"]Leader: Thessalonica

Civilization: Elohim

Alignment: Neutral

Traits: IND, SPI [/SIZE]





Purpose: Thessalonica would add a few new things to the mod. The Elohim presently have a distinct emphasis on the spiritual line thanks to Monks, but lack any leaders to take advantage of it. IND is presently under-represented in EitB, and could synergize with SPI as part of a Mercurian-beeline, as Fanatacism is also necessary for higher-tier Discipline units. I suggest Neutral both for flavor purposes & so that Thess cannot get an early event prophet and spiral out of control using SPI & Altar stages.





[SIZE="4"]Leader: Volanna

Civilization: Svartalfar

Alignment: Evil

Traits: AGG, EXP [/SIZE]





Purpose: The intent behind Volanna is for there to be a Svart leader who can expand quickly, has a health bonus to make abandoning the Leaves for something like Esus significantly more palatable, and who has Aggressive for an emphasis on more straight-up combat, as opposed to Faeryl's "hit-and-run" commando approach. Volanna's leaderhead has absolutely no bearing on why she should be in the game [/SINCERITY]





[SIZE="4"]Leader: Rivanna the Wraith Lord

Civilization: Svartalfar

Alignment: Evil

Traits: ORG, SUM [/SIZE]





Purpose: Rivanna's role for the Svarts would be to serve as their dual economic-Illusionist leader of choice. Right now the Svarts really have no economic traits, which is a shame for an Elven civ, and it can make it difficult to justify picking them when all three Ljo leaders can take better advantage of their Elfy economies. ORG certainly isn't the greatest economic trait ever devised, but it is something that no other Elven leader has, gives Rivanna a niche as a great leader for spread-out and/or large Elven civs, and Command Posts nicely accommodate any of the diverse Svart unit line options. Summoner should pair very nicely with Illusionists, but is kept in check somewhat by the absence of Arcane.


The Svart's don't necessarily need both Volanna and Rivanna, although I think each brings a unique quality to the civ. I certainly think that they deserve more options than just Faeryl however.





[SIZE="4"]Leader: Tya Kiri

Civilization: Amurities

Alignment: Good

Traits: SPI, PHI [/SIZE]





Purpose: Spiritual is the main reasons to pick Tya, whose purpose is to allow the Amurities to truly take advantage of using Govannon to teach arcane spells to T3 & T4 priests. Dain and Valedia can already do it, but pursing such a strategy can mean wasting their Arcane traits. EDIT: Removed due to already having suggested the SPI/IND combo for Thess. IND is just a filler trait, and is replaceable; at present, it gives her a unique combination, isn't overpowering in conjunction with SPI, and helps IND gain a wider representation among leaders.

PHI actually pairs rather well with SPI, thanks to the synergy of getting more Prophets & more quickly, which in turn means faster Altar stages for boosting Discipline units. A possible alternative is AGG instead, but I fear that Aggressive Firebows & Govannon-taught Discipline units might be too powerful.





[SIZE="4"]Leader: Averax the Cambion

Civilization: Sheaim

Alignment: Evil

Traits: AGG, CRE, BAR [/SIZE]





Purpose: Sheaim Pyre Zombie specialist. CRE abets a PZ rush via helping get Bronze more quickly, and saves hammers that might otherwise be spent on monuments. AGG + PZ is a def. power combo, but should be held in check by the Sheaim's lack of a melee line past T2- like Tasunke, this guy will live or die by the early-to-midgame rush. Without Summoner, his arcane line is hardly better than anyone else's, and CRE will lose power as the game goes on. AGG will keep him at least nominally competitive though, since it still works perfectly well with mounted, recon and discipline units after players have developed counters to PZ. I considered suggesting PHI instead of CRE, but that seemed awfully powerful.

EDIT: Barbarian is also a sensible additional trait. It means that Averax can focus even more singly on getting his PZ out, but at the same time he is hampered in teching to later-game units. Barbarian also means that the Sheaim can summon AC-spawned barbs without necessarily fearing the consequences for their own empires. And seriously, just look at this guy- the trait fits him as snugly as that horrible gimp mask-thing.



[SIZE="4"]Leader: Shekinah

Civilization: Sidar

Alignment: Neutral

Traits: ARC, CRE or CHA, CRE [/SIZE]





Purpose: I can't decide whether Shekinah should have ARC or CHA- either way, the intention is for a leader who possesses the means to get the Sidar wanes more quickly (acceptable with the restored level 6 exp requirement), but sacrifices almost all of Sandalphon's excellent economic builder potential in doing so. CRE is intentionally a terrible trait for pairing with either ARC or CHA, to keep her from being overpowered.





[SIZE="4"]Leader: Furia the Mad

Civilization: Balseraphs

Alignment: Neutral

Traits: RAI, CHA, BAR [/SIZE]





Purpose: Added per Mardoc's suggestion for a Balseraphs leader who can make genuine use out of their three special recon-line units. Perpentarch could theoretically use any of the Balseraphs UU very well, but the presence of Insane makes basing any sort of long-term strategy around his traits is an exercise in futility. Raiders pairs perfectly with Recon units, allowing Furia to move her Harlequins deep into enemy territory to Taunt out garrisons or other entrenched forces. Charismatic is there largely because it is a unique pairing with Raiders which also has some nice synergy. Charismatic also fits along with Barbarian on a thematic level, representing Furia's dual-personalities (which is also the reason I suggest her being Neutral). It might not matter for game-play purposes, but it is nice to have leader's traits make thematic sense, if for no other reason than to preserve flavor for SP games . Barbarian also supplies a few gameplay functions. First, it gives the game another Barbarian leader (which it could really use more of), second, it helps temper the otherwise excellent Raiders / Charismatic combination, and finally it allows the Balseraphs to use Loki as a neat pseudo-Ratine, converting barbarian cities.








So, that's all of them. The game has several other Minor Leaders who could potentially join the main game (including an astounding four other Illian leaders), but most of them didn't seem like they would add any actual depth to the game. For instance, the Hippus have two other leaders, but between Rhoanna & Tasunke, they already seem to have all of their bases covered. Does anyone have any alternative ideas- other leaders (who are already in the game files- no entirely new content please), or suggested alternatives to the trait combinations I have provided? Suggest away!

Alright! I played this pretty chill because my aim was merely to win, without much regard for scoring or anything. The report was written in bits and pieces while plaing the actual game, so it kind of grew in to a large and elaborate monster, but have no fear, I put plenty of pretty pictures everywhere to spice things up!

See bottom for scoring!

---

Always War on Monarch? I'm an Emperor level player on BTS sp normally so this shouldn't be too hard a challenge, right? Right?

Anyway, I settled in place out of laziness:



We already have a lot of the surrounding area legally spoilered to us, so the scout's job should is to find the AIs and CHOKE THEM... er wait we can't enter enemy culture until what? Okay, nevermind, the scout's job is to find the AIs and STARE AT THEM IN A HOSTILE MANNER! That'll teach 'em!

Turn 5, borders pop:



Knife fight time!

Buddhism falls on t16, I get Mining (after Agri) a turn later. Circumnavigated the donut by t24:



I got Bronze Working on t30, and decided to chase the Dragon (try to grab Stonehenge). To my mild amusement I succeeded:



My second city, Hang 'em High, is founded on t51 on the defensive hill spot in the NE:



Blocking off the other pass will be the next priority, but I'll need more units to be able to properly defend it.

Nothing happened for a while after that. My scout tried to make a second lap around the donut, but Suleiman smacked him down. Eventually I got my third city up to block the other pass...



...and my fourth city to settle the floodplains:



My plan at this point is to beeline Construction and then defend with phalanxes and catapults. With no ivory visible on the map, the AI won't have a hard counter until maces.

I was about midway through Construction when I remembered that Stonehenge was going to be giving me a Great Prophet fairly soon, so I set research towards Monotheism in order to line up a Theology slingshot. Then, this happened:



Seriously, Judaism was founded yet?! Awesome, looks like I'll be getting a shrine.

I did not realize events were on:



Crack down on the scum, I sayz! Now get back to work!

Brennus DOWs Ramesses on t91:



I... did not even know that was possible? I guess the marriage event caused it.

A short while later I see the first two mini-stacks approach me, coincidentally on the same turn:




Both of my cities have 4 phalanxes, so I wasn't concerned at all. The east stack I just attacked and killed. I had planned to allow the west stack hurl itself uselessly against Chiron... then Suleiman decided to get lost:



What are you doing? The deathtrap is THAT way! With the help of some whipping, I took care of the stack a few turns later outside of Blood Gulch, and picked up a Great General (Leonides, appropriately). I had him merge with Chiron, my future Heroic Epic city.

Meanwhile Machiavelli took a sudden interest in culture...



...and more cities went up:



Then Hammurabi, who was somehow simultaneously cranking out wonders, sent a far more serious stack:



Not exactly a problem giant masses of shock phalanxes (and a barrage II catapult) can't handle, though. Even with quite a number of coinflip losses. Of course, while I'm distracted, Brennus attacks again:



Yet since he insists on not using axes, at all, whatsoever, I beat the attack off pretty easily. And get another great general.

As snide as I am about these victories, the AI did bring the pain enough to make me focus on building loads of units. Not that I was under any real pressure, but it kept delaying my plans for wonders and settlers.

Demographics on 150 AD (t121):



There was a long period after that of nothing happening. I took the opportunity to expand a bit, and teched up to Monarchy and Theology for their corresponding civics. I also built the Heroic Epic in Chiron. Finally, on t132 Ramesses (who had made peace with Brennus at some point) sent a major stack at Hang 'em High:



Helloooooo, future third GG! :D



Not again! The only two events I've gotten as of t141 are both slave revolts. Weaaaaak.

On the bright side, I get to adopt Vassalage (more for lolz than anything else). That means new units in Chiron get:
+3 exp from Barracks
+4 exp from civics (Theo/Vassalage)
+6 exp from 3 settled GGs
for a total of 13 exp, which under Cha translates to 4 promotions! My unofficial goal when I saw this was to be able to build commando units out of Chiron by the end of the game. This will preclude the use of GG medics, but I can build medic II units out of the gate in Chriron, so who cares? As it turns out, Hang 'em High would quite quickly become in need of a medic:



There are too many units for my garrison to attack and kill for them to have much of a chance to heal, and I do not want to let any stacks walk past the city to where they could do some real damage. With a Medic II chariot that will no longer be a problem.

On t146, I got my first combat 5 unit, and my 4th Great General. :D

Apparently I'm still not very impressive militarily, though:



For a long time I just defended statically like this, while pushing out new settlements on the snaky peninsula. Then this happened:



what is this I don't even

Aw, man! That is the last thing I expected to see. Unfortunate for two reasons: 1) my settler was only two turns away, and 2) now I need to do some scrambling in order to get a military force up there.

In other frustrating news, on 1000 AD (t160), when I'm just 5 turns from the Mauseleum of Mauseleos in Blood Gulch, after working on it FOREVER:



ARRRR- *chokes up on own sputtering rage for several seconds* Bleh.

Empire overview at 1000 AD (t160):



My chariots probe the newly founded city of Murcia, marking the first time ever that Greek units have entered hostile borders:



And a turn later, I get my fifth GG. Check out Chiron TL-34, it's beautiful:



I haven't managed it very well at all, but for some reason I grew very attached to this city over the course of the game. Maybe it has something to do with the insane exp new units get.

Of course, there is a downside to all this exp. Namely, due to some incredibly stupid, poorly thought-out design decision, upgraded units above 10 experience go back down to 10. Why they ever implemented this, no one knows... but it means my phalanxes will never promote again if I upgrade them to maces. Why bother, I suppose. Well, either way, I finally unlocked maces on t163, which will have to last me militarily for a long time (I'm turtling, can you tell? ). Just in time, too, because the east is quickly being over-run:



For some reason, Hammurabi started sending all his troops up this way instead of through the west, so Hang 'em High is facing three nations' worth of troops while Chiron just has to deal with Suleiman.

Completed Moai around this time as well:



Discovered CoL and...



What the hell? Turn 166? Seriously, AIs?

6 turns later, in 1120 AD, I get my 6th Great General. A few turns after that, I researched Philosophy and founded Taoism.