Azoth Wrote:Sorry to hear you have to step back from the game, Irgy, though obviously, real life comes first. Unfortunately, I can't offer to fill in as the future Mercurian player because I recently switched to a Mac: no more FFH for me! (It's one of the reasons I started lurking the games here, actually.) While it means you might have to abandon the Mercurian rush plan, the more I look at this map, the more I feel it might be for the best. In a low-food environment, the strongest play is always Ashen Veil for Sacrifice the Weak. And since you have to tech KotE soon anyway, you might as well go all out: release Hyborem, punish everyone with Blight, bulb something expensive with the Grimoire, and crush the survivors with Ritualists+Centaurs+whatever. (It's not the most original plan, but it works.) Apart from Jkaen, who looks to be in serious trouble, no one has a particularly strong late game anyway.
Hmm, that sounds appropriate. I'll have to think on it a tad, but StW would let us run all cottages, all the time, still have decent production. As long as I can find sources for enough happiness, I agree StW will be godly. It would synergize nicely with our KoTE-anyway path. We'd just want to get ourselves some form of Life adept - maybe a deal with Dantski could work out. Or, well, just use a mana node for Life.
The trouble with the original gameplan is that most of what would make Basium OP is human control. Well, that and that there really isn't decent land to make into an angelic empire. So we might as well push for what will be most effective barring that.
Quote:Back to the present: That plains hill site Irgy mentioned (1S2E of the elephants) is probably your best bet for Megacity #2. The other viable option I see is the desert hill 1N of the elephants, which trades the gold and a fair few desert-river tiles for a second oasis and more (immediately cottage-able) plains tiles. It's definitely a more production- than commerce-oriented city long-term, but can get off the ground fast. (I can't say I care too much for the alternate sites you proposed, Mardoc.) That last site also has a plains forest hill in the first ring for a quick monument if you're not planning to fire your worldspell right away.
I think I'll stick with Irgy's suggestion - the other possible sites are more production heavy, but frankly, production is not going to be a problem on this map, particularly after KoTE. I agree all in all that my suggestions aren't really that good, they're the result of optimizing just for food instead of food+.
Mardoc Wrote:We'd just want to get ourselves some form of Life adept - maybe a deal with Dantski could work out. Or, well, just use a mana node for Life.
I'm assuming that's Life for sanctify, considering you're discussing unleashing Hyborem and hell terrain?
Ranamar Wrote:I'm assuming that's Life for sanctify, considering you're discussing unleashing Hyborem and hell terrain?
Right. Otherwise half the world will turn to impassible Flames.
Although...that might not be such a bad thing, Spring would still let us move around and who cares if everything outside our borders is impassible and ruined? Just have to Spring our workable tiles before Hyborem comes to play.
Mardoc Wrote:Right. Otherwise half the world will turn to impassible Flames.
Although...that might not be such a bad thing, Spring would still let us move around and who cares if everything outside our borders is impassible and ruined? Just have to Spring our workable tiles before Hyborem comes to play.
That's quite clever, actually. The main problem with Hell terrain is that it destroys flood plains and grain resources. Well, there don't appear to be any flood plains on this map; and no grains apart from a few Wheat. The Desert --> Burning Sands can actually work to your advantage. Consider this: You plop a settlement next to a desert gold in the middle of nowhere, build a mine and roads, then use the palace Sun mana to Scorch all the plains around it. When Hyborem spawns, the whole area turns to flames, and the settlement is completely inaccessible during wartime to armies without the right mana! It's a pity both the Elohim and the Lanun are in this game; maybe in 50 turns time you should sound them out about a global embargo on Water Mana. No need to trade away that kind of advantage.
Edit: Better yet, the cows at the capital will turn to Nightmares: that's +1 strength to all centaurs. I think you'll get by without Life mana just fine.
Azoth Wrote:That's quite clever, actually. The main problem with Hell terrain is that it destroys flood plains and grain resources. Well, there don't appear to be any flood plains on this map; and no grains apart from a few Wheat. The Desert --> Burning Sands can actually work to your advantage. Consider this: You plop a settlement next to a desert gold in the middle of nowhere, build a mine and roads, then use the palace Sun mana to Scorch all the plains around it. When Hyborem spawns, the whole area turns to flames, and the settlement is completely inaccessible during wartime to armies without the right mana! It's a pity both the Elohim and the Lanun are in this game; maybe in 50 turns time you should sound them out about a global embargo on Water Mana. No need to trade away that kind of advantage.
Edit: Better yet, the cows at the capital will turn to Nightmares: that's +1 strength to all centaurs. I think you'll get by without Life mana just fine.
The more I think about this, the more I like the idea. There's another couple pieces that matter that come to mind:
First - who am I most nervous about, long term and short term? Ichabod! Who's already admitted that he's hoping to go the game without ever researching Knowledge of the Ether. At the least, this would force him to detour from his optimal tech path. At the most, it would give us a very nice moat. His mounted units are pretty poor, too (and I haven't seen any pigs on the map yet), so he's unlikely to research Horseback Riding anytime early; so even if he does acquire some Adepts, they'll be slow ones, or yet another tech diversion that he doesn't want. If I can talk him into ceding mana nodes in his territory to my settlements, then he might end up with great difficulty getting Water mana, even after he's detoured his tech.
Second - Who am I next most worried about? Sciz. Who doesn't have Water mana either. He's more likely to research KoTE anyway, but still, slowing him down and forcing him to find Water mana would be a very good thing.
What else...there's very little health on this map or extra food, so Blight would hit extra hard, but StW combined with all the health buildings would probably make that not hurt so bad. And Temple of the Veil is a decent choice to stick into my settlements - pump the AC, get some science from them (along with Kilmorphian gold, hopefully)
I do still probably want a Life adept or three for keeping Cotton, Silk, and Wheat as the normal versions, for Dereptus and Tailors. But that's a fairly minor cost for the disruption it could cause everyone else.
Azoth Wrote:Edit: Better yet, the cows at the capital will turn to Nightmares: that's +1 strength to all centaurs. I think you'll get by without Life mana just fine.
Correction: Horses turn to Nightmares; Cows turn into Sheut Stone. Sheut Stone gives a promotion that gives +1 death damage, +25% death resistance, and -10% holy resistance.
On the other hand, hell terrain loses any food offered by the non-hell version.
Ranamar Wrote:Correction: Horses turn to Nightmares; Cows turn into Sheut Stone. Sheut Stone gives a promotion that gives +1 death damage, +25% death resistance, and -10% holy resistance.
On the other hand, hell terrain loses any food offered by the non-hell version.
Hmmm, I'm not sure that's right. If I recall correctly, Cows and Horses turn to Nightmares; it's Marble that turns to Sheut Stone. Which means settling Marble should be a priority: first, to build the Great Library to power those Veil temple scientists, then for the bonus death damage. I wonder if there's any around?
Mardoc Wrote:I still plan City3 to probably be Jkaen's capital, assuming the situation hasn't changed dramatically by the time we get to Centaurs. Any thoughts on what it'll take to be confident in killing a Mistform? Do we just need to stack enough units and wait for the 1% failure on attack?
Meanwhile, this strikes me as very risky. Mistforms are strength 6 units. If one is in fact hanging around Jkaen's capital, it's probably picked up a few kills by now; by the time the Centaurs are ready, I wouldn't be surprised if it hits 10 or even 17 experience. That would be Combat III or IV, for an extra 60-80% strength. Waiting for that 1% failure on attack could take a loooong time and cost a lot of hammers in dead warriors. In the meantime, the city would be stuck working only those tiles Jkaen managed to improve before the Mistform hit. Basically, if we take Jkean's capital, then the Mistform becomes our problem. Do we really want that?
It seems to me that the only safe way to kill a Mistform is to reveal it first. But I don't know what that would involve. I have a sneaking suspicion that Hawks can't see Mistforms; after all, I don't think Scouts/Hunters can, even though they can see hidden animals like Giant Spiders. So I think you might want to leave Jkean alone for now; that Misform means he's unlikely to be a threat anytime soon. Then there's also a case to be made for razing Jkean's capital, putting him out of his misery, and hoping the Mistform goes and troubles someone else. But unless I'm missing something, it seems downright dangerous to plan to keep the Amurite capital as Megacity #3. Even living in the desert is better than having a Mistform for a neighbour.
I dont know if anyone from FfH II comes thorugh here but better safe then sorry
DaveV Wrote:Amelia may well be accelerating her demise with her "spider disguised as mistform" scheme. Darrell's hawks would be able to see a mistform, so I suspect he'll figure out pretty quickly that he needs to build a hunter.
You can see them with a hawk so I would guess a scout would work aswell.
Azoth Wrote:Hmmm, I'm not sure that's right. If I recall correctly, Cows and Horses turn to Nightmares; it's Marble that turns to Sheut Stone. Which means settling Marble should be a priority: first, to build the Great Library to power those Veil temple scientists, then for the bonus death damage. I wonder if there's any around?
You might be right... the FFH wiki has been known to be unreliable and that makes a *lot* more sense. (I'm away from the actual game, ATM.)
