It's a Barb World Outside, Let's Keep It That Way: Jonas Endain of the Clan of Embers

[Ichabod]

We did a blitz session this sunday. We played 7 turns. I discovered Calendar, met the Starvaltar, connected the cities and collected 50 gold for the prophet event.

I'll do a detailed report later!

[Ichabod]

Turn 20-27 (blitz session):


So, we did a blitz session this sunday, managing to play 8 turns.


First turn, I got the thir border expansion from my capital, together with an useless event:

This border pop, together with the worker finishing roading the second city to the river, connected my two cities, even though I haven't roaded the capital to the river.

Discovered calendar:

Revolted to Agrarianism (thanks spiritual) an went AC to get mysticism. The workers are plantationing the cotton and the dye, which will be ready in 3 turns, if I'm not mistaken. I already finished a farm in the rice and a pasture in the horses in capital.


Demographics:

Someone has a nice gnp... I wonder if anyone got a free GP... Can't tell for sure, since I'm not doing any reading of C&D.


Diplomacy:

Met Dantski when he popped his borders. He has 3 cities already. I had a small chat with him, which I'll post with an analysis later.



Exploration:

Found Acheron's city. I'm guessing that it's in the center of the map. All good world features are there, Yggdrasil, Remnants of the Patria, Dragon Bones...

The Guardians of the Pristine Pass are there too... I woke them up, since they won't attack me... Now there are three str8 gargoyles roaming the wasteland


Other Stuff:

I have exactly 50 gold now for the prophet event. I'll ask you guys to cross your fingers again, since it worked last time. I'd love to bulb Way of the Earthmother using the prophet...

When the plantations are ready, I'm hoping that getting to mysticism will be fast. With my improved happy cap, I'll be able to run specialists in both cities, which will be nice.

Ah, this set showed a bit of the benefits of spiritual. I changed to agrarianism without worries and I'll change to pacifism + god king in a few turns too. This three changes would mean 2 turns of revolt at least without spiritual. It's a trait that adds a lot of flexibility...

After BW, I'll probably go with Education to cottage the capital. I will be using aristofarms in most cities, but since I'll be relying in conquest to make units fast (which is in the same civic line than agrarianism), It will be nice to have a solid research city even if I'm not using aristocracy (aristocracy doesn't sinergize well with conquest).

I'll be using spiritual to switch from aristocracy to conquest, depending on the needs of the situation.

Any questions?

[Square Leg]

Thanks for the update!

Looks like you had a good blitz session. How long until Rantine will be built do you imagine?

[Thoth]

Another interesting thing about the last screenshot: why does the barb warrior have the combat 1 promotion? It seems to have been created by the barb city, but I don't know how to explain the promotion...

Emperor level AIs get a free promotion (I'm not sure if it's a free promotion or 2 xp). This doesn't apply to fog/lair spawned barbs, but any units the barbs build in their cities will have a promotion.

[Ichabod]

Thanks for the update!

Looks like you had a good blitz session. How long until Rantine will be built do you imagine?

No problem, glad that you're reading them.

About Rantine, I don't know for sure. When I get the save again, I'll take a look into it and give a more informed guess.

It'll be delayed a bit because I'm getting mysticism first, but I still think it's a good call. My economic situation will be way better when I reach him and I'll quickly add 3 cities to the empire (otherwise, maintenance might had been a problem). I'll probably start preroading to these cities when my workers finish the needed improvements...

Emperor level AIs get a free promotion (I'm not sure if it's a free promotion or 2 xp). This doesn't apply to fog/lair spawned barbs, but any units the barbs build in their cities will have a promotion.

Thanks, that explains it. Good for me, of course!

[Ichabod]

Ok, I decided to make a brief overview with what I think about my opponents, based on what I've seen so far.

I have 4 opponents: selrahc, playing the Sheaim, Ravus Sol, playing the illians, Dantski, playing the Svartalfar and Sciz, playing the Grigori.


So, let's start with Ravus Sol:

I already told you that I wanted to play this game as the Illians. They seemed to be the best pick based on our settings. So, when Ravus first picked them, an alert sign popped in my head.

After that, he picked Varn Gosam as his leader, choosing Spi/Fin as his traits. Even scarier, since that was the leader I wanted to pick (and the trait I was going to choose) if I managed to pick the Illians.

So, from the start, I was very scared of the perspective of having the Illians as my neighbours. Even playing the Clan, there's probably no way for me to survive against a PoW (with spiritual boosts) rush, boosted by financial...

Well, Ravus doesn't seem to be anywhere close to me in this game. Also, he is currently last in score. That doesn't mean much, but it means something. I was lucky with huts, that's why I'm in front of him in score, so I can conclude that he hasn't had much luck with huts, which is nice.

Another thing is that he doesn't seem to be much interested in the game. He doesn't upload his thread constantly and he takes quite some time to play the turns from time to time. But that could be because he's in a very different time area from the rest of us.

Recently, I found out the game Ravus is playing together with Whosit in PBEM 12, I think. He made some diplomatic analysis there which made me go "wow, this guy is very intelligent". That's a bad thing, since I don't want intelligent players against me

He seemed to try very hard to get input about his opponents in that game, even searching in other games for information. So, I can make this piece of knowledge ina weapon against him. All my interactions with players since the start of the game tried to give the impression that I'm a gullible, naive, unexperienced brazilian boy. Well, that's not exactly true. I don't have experience with multiplayer civ, but I'm a fast learner and I'm not naive (at least I don't think so... maybe I'm too naive to see I'm naive ).

So, I'll keep this profile for some time, while Ravus is still in his oppinion forming stage. After that, deception will start

Ah, and Ravus doesn't play the turns in PBEM 12 as far as I can tell, so I can't judge his empire management and micro ability. I'll give a better look at it later, trying to get more information. But I'm leaning towards thinking that he's not that good at it... Even though this is just a hunch...

EDIT: Quite a bit of diplo possibilities with Ravus regarding the Letuum Frigus and the combination of our World Spells.


Analysis will continue later!

[Ichabod]

Sciz:

For starters, very strange picks...

The grigori are a good civ, but they don't have nothing too special, while having the considerable set back of not being able to use religion. He picked a philosophical leader for fast adventurers, which is clever, but it's important to remember that getting adventurers make it more difficult to get other GPs. And adventurers aren't that good anyway...

I'm guessing that he's the top GNP guy, having beelined mysticism, built 2 Elder councils and running scientists, but I could be wrong... Maybe someone popped a GP (interesting to notice that only me and Ravus can get the Prophet event, since the other guys are neutral)...

Sciz seems to be a very cautious guy from the chats we had during the blitz session (not about the game). I'm guessing that it won't be easy to have much diplomatic interactions with him.

Spoiler from FfH PBEM II game:

I haven't read all his thread in FfH PBEM II, but from what I've seen, he doesn't have much experience with the Mod. Probably started to play after the FfH hype that followed PBEM I. That can be an advantage, since I'm guessing he may fall into some of the game's traps.

On the other hand, he seems to be a dedicated player, having done a lot of simulations to find the better way to follow. But he won't have the time to do it with a lot of effort, since he's playing two games now. It's good that he's having to divide his attention, so let's hope he keeps his interest in PBEM II, even though he's almost out of the game.

Speaking of which, he made a very big mistake fighting the Doviello in PBEM II. HE survived the rush, but he's out of the game. Even considering the fact that he kinda took Mist with him (since Mist didn't get much for all his effort), it'll be pretty tough to climb back from the hole in which he is now.

Sciz haven't updated in quite some time, so that could mean that he has lost some of his interest in the game or that he haven't found the time to play it properly. That's a good thing, since he'll be more likely to make mistakes and each mistake he makes will further hurt his will.

That's why they say: do few things, but do them well...

EDIT: Sciz is also playing the FfH PBEM III, so he defintely has enough on his hands rights now. I think he'll give more attention to the game where he's doing better, which is PBEM III, IMO.

Another thing, found this quote in Ilion FFH PBEM II thread:

"Sciz: Also a Prince level player, with Selrahc as dedicated lurker (see "The Great White Pride")" -> If he's a prince level player, even better for me!

[Ichabod]

Selrahc:

Selrahc seems to be a major fan of Fall from Heaven. He's playing in PBEM I, helping Sciz in PBEM II and playing PBEM IV.

He knows a lot about the mod and all its possibilities, but he doesn't seem to be a very good civ player, IMO. I would guess that he's a Monarch level player.

Spoiler FfH PBEM I:

While his rush worked in PBEM I he spent something like >50 turns without a single worker. He went straight for philosophy, while starting with exploration, which means no farms/plantations/mines/cottages for a very, very long time. This is just madness.

After that, when he succesfully got sareln's land, his game continued to be subpar. He had a lot of room to expand unharmed and noone dared to attack him. But, again, bad empire management led to a very bad GNP rating and underdeveloped cities (too few workers and heavy use of the nerfed slavery civic in FfH). So, this lead me to believe that he doesn't have much CIV IV experience, since these are common problems with players not used to the higher difficulties.

Playing FfH in single player is very easy, even in the higher difficulties. I bet he is a deity player in FfH, but that doesn't mean much.

Also, his played very cowardly in PBEM I. He had a 9 strenght PoW (orthus axe + great commander), heavily promoted, while the others had warriors and axes (only PB had better options). He could have attacked them, but instead he chose to wait for god knows what.

I have to say that the PoW rush was creative, but his techpath after that wasn't good. Going mages was not a good idea. He should have gone for Iron Working, IMO.

His civ + leader choice was nice. It smells like PZ rush + going to mages again. It's obvious, but effective, even though going mages after the PZs will be making the same mistake from PBEM I. Mages take too long to get experience and can't be used as expendable troops.

Anyways, I'm happy to be far from the agressive PZs, especially since financial will make them hit sooner... Let's hope that selrahc went straight for BW, without getting calendar, education or mysticism :neenernee

The amount of movement in his thread scares me a bit. Maybe that's because he has 2 dedicated lurkers (3 players team). But I remember that he told us during the blitz session that he found something interesting to do during this boring early stages of the game. Let's hope that it's not planning my doom... But he also said that a combat 3 spectre was giving him a hard time, so maybe its not that big of a deal.

[Irgy]

...the nerfed slavery civic in FfH...

Just out of curiosity why do you say nerfed? Good civs can't use it, but that's only a problem for good civs. Otherwise it's strictly better than BTS surely, thanks to Agrarianism and Sanitation providing a stack of food, as well as the minor benefit of capturing the occasional slave in battle. Only negative is that it's further back in the tech tree, is that what you meant?

[Mist]

In comparison to BtS:

• Granaries are weaker ( only 40% of food box ),
  
• Granaries come later ( two techs in AH and Calendar for much more breakers than BtS Pottery )
  
• Granaries are split into two buildings.
  
• All buildings cost much more hammers to build while whip gives the same amount as in BtS
  
• Slavery is much deeper into the tree
  

Overall increase in food availability doesn't offset the need for more hammers ( unless you run sacrifice the weak ). What's more whipping is an awkward fit to most of the working economic models ( aristocracy cuts food, SE doesn't allow whipping, cottages take space required for farms ). So yes, I'd also say it's nerfed and highly situational.