[Eitb spoilers] Miguelito's fortune hangs on a thread

[Miguelito]

first round of scouting is done:


2 S of cow is looking like a pretty awesome 2nd city. We'll reveal copper yet before the settler comes out, so that might change. It's off coast, but we could plant a filler SW of the reagents eventually that would share the two food ressources.
The one bad thing that can be said about the south is that it's sealed off by mountains, so a plant in that direction doesn't claim anything. But for a 2nd city that's ok imo.
NE is looking less tasty. Forestless PH deer is not worth researching Hunting for (ivory happy might be though). We might actually settle on top of that deer ?

[DaveV]

The problem with E of rice is that it really needs a border pop, and those are pretty hard to come by. I'd be more inclined to settle 1S of rice, even though it has two mountains in the inner ring and a bunch more in the outer ring. You lose the shared cow, but have three bonus tiles and three other decent tiles in the inner ring. This location requires spending two turns in the wilderness, so you'd potentially need a stronger escort. Alternatively, you could settle 1N of the rice and pick up a bunch of coast and ocean tiles instead of mountains, although mountains can be nice for visibility. Rivered reagents are worth three foodhammers and four commerce once improved, so it would be a shame to leave them unworked for a long time.

In the north, I'd lean toward the plain forest nestled between the wine, deer, and incense. The deer at least give you +1 food on a mine; are they on a plains hill? It looks like the incense is on a desert hill but that's still a very good commerce tile once you have Calendar.

[Jabah]

How bad would be settle ON the rice ?
Especially considering the mountain range south...

[Miguelito]

hm yes, maybe I'm underestimating the border pop issue. Not going to have a religion anytime soon. Libraries only give %religiion, not base points right? I will consider S of rice, or SE maybe, enabling the later coast filler but losing the first ring reagents. I wouldn't mind being able to look over that mountain ridge, assuming it isn't 2 tiles wide (can try foggazing).

N of rice would permanently orphan the pig unless we settle on top of it or beyond the mountains. On the rice doesn't get the first ring pig, so the city would have no independent food source, would have to permanently steal the cow and still have just +4 food (ok, it's FFH, so might not be so bad...). We might want a port not too late though, to be able to sail around, and that might be the only way to do that.

Do standard fog busting rules apply? I have to look up what those were, afaik no barbs born on a tile you can see nor an adjacent one, or am I making that second part up? (+ none within 2 tiles of a unit, that I'm pretty certain of?)

But we can wait for copper before a decision.

In the north the deer is a plains hill yes. Settling on it loses the option for a 1/4/0 mine, but gives a 2h city tile plus defense bonus, which I would assume is better. But much depends on what's in the fog still of course.

[Tarkeel]

Do standard fog busting rules apply? I have to look up what those were, afaik no barbs born on a tile you can see nor an adjacent one, or am I making that second part up? (+ none within 2 tiles of a unit, that I'm pretty certain of?)

No barbs can spawn on a tile visible to a player, or a tile within 2 squares of an exisiting unit (including barbs). Not sure if they apply to FFH though. (Spoilers contain an exampe from PB62)

The axe SE of Nurburgring blocks the three fogged tiles, while still being available if something wanders from the (far) west. Vision from Paul Ricard allows the chariot to stay a tile further south than it otherwise would, nicely sealing of the rest of the screen. It's only the far east tiles where barbs can spawn, in a game where barbs were a huge nuissance.

[RefSteel]

Normal barb spawn (including animals, but note terrifying things like giant spiders and hill giants count as "animals" in FfH) follows the same rules as BtS, yes but note that barb cities, when those eventually appear, don't follow the 2-tile rule, and there's no rule against barbs spawning three tiles away on a fogged tile adjacent to a tile you can see. However, lairs (including bear dens, skeleton barrows, lizard ruins, and goblin forts) and random events - and in some cases, barb combat victories, e.g. by giant spiders spawning baby spiders - can spawn barbs anywhere, even inside a city's borders. Likewise, depending on the die roll, barbs can appear when someone explores a graveyard/dungeon/etc. regardless of where it is, as long as there's at least one legal tile adjacent or diagonal to the dungeon that has no player's units on it.

[DaveV]

Note that animals will prevent two-legged barbs from spawning, and animals don't disappear over time like in BtS. A couple animals wandering around on a dead-end peninsula can keep barb warriors from spawning in your back lines.

Libraries don't give any culture at all. Caves of Ancestors give a 10% bonus and Carnivals give +20%, but you need something to generate the base culture, and it takes a very long time and a bunch of hammers to build a monument or carnival. Drama and religion are significant detours from your desired tech path, and Spirit II is in the distant future.

[Miguelito]

Pyre of the Seraphic in the fog. The terrain we have to cross is pretty rough, so we may not claim it very soon. It also gives fire mana which we already have. Now getting free fire I on all our adepts wouldn't be the worst thing, or we could try to trade it away, but it still makes it less of a priority.
I also think Ref said that these additional mana sources were rather in contested areas, so this might be roughly the midline to someone. Which feels pretty close.

[Miguelito]

FFH barbs are no joke:


note the promotions!

I still was too curious to just pull the scout back, and he did find interesting stuff:


fingers crossed we can keep him alive.
Do barbs like this one enter borders?

As you see, we're growing to size 5 this turn, and will now start the settler, while working a scientist sage for lovely GPP, FPH for God King hammers, and eventually the gold mine. Before the worker we built the Elder Council for 40 hammers, giving us +2 beakers and the sage slot.

I never really got into playing FFH or EitB in singleplayer, so I just dont have a good idea of what's good.
Unlike base civ where I have a sort of passive understanding of the tempo rates and combat trade expectations, I have absolutely nothing to offer this team, but I'm lurking and reading :D

So I know a good number ofpeople are still familiarizing themselves with the mod, and I'll try to explain during the different stages of the game what they're about. This has surely been done many times, by more qualified players and better writers, but this is happening now. So, have my musings on EitB early game, and those who knwo better feel welcome to add your comments.

As you see, the early ressources around us are all familiar. The good news are that the yields are also the same, and you need the same techs to unlock improvements.
You still get a worker first (we got gifted one) and start improving your ressources. Now I see three main factors which make everything different:

1. Build costs. At quick speed, the settler is 145, a worker 50, and a warrior or scout  16 hammers. Also chops give just 8. That shifts dynamics, but not as much as the other two which are.
   
2. techs and
   
3. civics, in particular the lack of slavery.
   

Techs


Here's the early tech tree. We started with all the first column techs plus Mysticism. While the techs required to improve ressources are the same as in BTS, they are placed wildly differently. Most impactful imo is early calendar* and the significantly costly Mining and Hunting, in the same column with AH and Education. Note also the lack of a tech giving early military like BTS BW or AH would, so you're stuck with warriors for now.

*

Because this mod is about realism. BTS's calendar at high classical age always struck me as particularly silly, it's like the first thing that comes with agriculture, certainly before writing. My other pet peeve is Fishing and Hunting being techs at all, that's just what people do before civilization happens. Why not have a berry picking tech? Oh good, here they are second column

Now imagine we started with just Ancient Chants, as a normal start would. We'd spend eternities with our settler having nothing to do but to farm. So this faster start greatly benefits us, even though we still end up laying 3 roads before Mining comes in. The alternative would have been a grassland farm, which would not be as bad as it might sound at first, for reasons we'll get to when talking

civics

• God King from the start is another boon of the faster start, and of course it's huge. City states is available rather early, but it's about reducing distance maintenance, so you want to switch to it at a later point, at maybe 10 cities?
  
• The 3 cultural values options are all unlocked without tech. Nationhood is the go to with +10% military unit hammers, even though that often loses overflow hammers without much gain. 
  
• But it synergizes with Apprenticeship, which is unlocked by Education and gives +2 XP at the cost of -10% military unit hammers, so that cancels out nicely. We are running pacifism because we are pursuing a bulb strategy, but I absolutely see us running Nationhood/Apprenticeship from the early midgame on. Slavery as you see exists, but it sits on a quite expensive tech with Philosophy, and I believe the hammers are also less than in base? In any case it doesn't qualify as early, and people rarely run it at all.
  
• Together with God King the arguably most impactful early civic is Agrarianism, available at Calendar and giving +1f, -1h on farms - which is why early grassland farms are quite popular, even though I decided that with ressources and animals we'll have enough food for now, especially as the capital with GK rather likes hammers. Also no plantation ressources in the cap, so we don't want Calendar immediately.
  

Hope this is helpful? Next time I'll try to explain in layman's terms our bigger picture strategy for this game. Luckily it's quite simple.

Dave, from discussing civics I have two questions - do you think what we've seen so far has us going for Agrarianism soon, and Aristocracy later on? I mean the capital and south look decent for it, N/E not so much? I generally prefer cottages, but we are Org, so should probably go for early CoL anyways?(before Necro, if we want Necro? Well probably jus twhen mainteinance starts to bite noticeably)

[Jabah]

I do have lost SP games to wandering specters which AFAIK enter border and worst could promote to nasty invisible 6 power monsters after a few victories. With already 2 promotions you would better try to slay it ASAP in 1 go and don't miss.
(But please double check since i5 was a while ago and I was not playing with this latest version.