Green as they come: Hiding Kneel plays the Ljosalfar [SPOILERS]

[DaveV]

Thanks for an entertaining read, HK. You did a very good job of presenting the "big picture" along with status updates. I'd say your end of game analysis is pretty much spot on.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Agreed. Despite me constantly calling out your play, I think it's great!

[Tasunke]

what is the consensus on the shades?

I still think merchant is (one of) the best choices ... but, perhaps in this game, engineer would have been better? Is this the consensus?

[HidingKneel]

what is the consensus on the shades?

I still think merchant is (one of) the best choices ... but, perhaps in this game, engineer would have been better? Is this the consensus?

I don't know about consensus, but I definitely disagree. Bard is obviously terrible, so it's a choice between merchant, sage, and engineer. Of those, I think the merchant is the weakest. Extra gold is eventually as useful as extra science, but not in the early game. Unlocking the early worker techs is very important, especially in this game where we started with a worker. As for engineer vs. sage, it's a tougher call. I think Commodore had it right: it depends on the situation. My capital started with five nice tiles to work which gave no production (three floodplains and two dyes), so I think engineer was probably the way to go.

I guess I could also imagine situations where the merchant was best, due to the bonus food. Say, if you started somewhere that you couldn't farm, and with nothing but two-food tiles.