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Enlightened Sidar
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Quote:Turn started with an event. Even the second option would be a good boost, because it could make a Agri -> Myst plan more viable. But such is the life of a Neutral Civ in FFH. I wonder, is there any advantage to being Neutral in FFH/EitB? Is there any special event tied to it? From what I remember, all you get is druids. There could easily be an event, but I don't recall what. The better advantage to Neutral in FFH is lack of exclusion. Good leaders can't go Slavery, or Undercouncil, and Evil leaders can't go Overcouncil, and so on, where Neutral leaders are uninhibited. But yeah, nothing much. Certainly an advantage to pick a side.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Turn 6
 Last night, I approached the group whose presence I was aware of since a couple of nights back, feeling the disturbance they were causing in the wilderness. Upon approaching with the traditional nomad gesture of peaceful intentions, the open hand raised high, a man with features that gave a vague hint of a canine ancestry greeted me, speaking in the old guttural dialect common amongst the people in this northern region. We struggled to understand each other, but it was obvious from the start that he meant me no harm. Apparently, their clan had survived the winter living as gatherers and hunters in the tundra nearby (an impressive feat), but they were now determined to find the figure they known as “Senderphenn”, which the tribe shaman has seen visions of in the rituals of the Wolf Hunt Fire. It wasn’t the first time I heard such a story of visions of Sandalphon’s presence; it seems the ethereal call of our Leader is indeed being felt by spirit guides all over the land. Since a few weeks ago, after a long time of searching (they didn’t seem to have precise ways to measure time, so how long this search lasted is difficult to determine), they decided to settle camp on the hill that I found them. Once again according to their shaman, by staying here they would receive the needed guidance. I gave the man the directions to Celo, as best as I could, but I refused to meet their shaman, when he invited me to. He showed me a carriage, full of what appeared to be animal tusks and pelts that they were bringing with them. He asked if such a gift would be enough to secure them refuge “in the safety of the fiery presence of Senderphenn” (I did not understand what he meant by that, probably something related to their traditions and apparent worship of fire). I answered that they should direct these questions to the governor of the city of Celo or to Sandalphon himself, and that I was not one capable of delving in such affairs. When I was getting my things ready to depart the next morning, the man approached me once again and tried to convince me to accompany them in the journey back to Celo. I guess he could not understand why someone would want to venture even deeper into the unknown parts of the lost continent (I briefly mentioned to him my next destination in the talk we had in the previous night). I refused his invitation and he did not suggest it again. I guess he figured I am bound to some sort of vow to Sandalphon, one that obliges me to keep moving forward. By custom, these nomads still keep a very strictly enforced honor code, so it is likely that he would turn back to this notion when thinking about my motives But there’s no such thing as honor involved. Sandalphon never forbid me to go back, he did not even ordered me to go in the first place. There is no reason, no grand motive behind my steps. There is only something in front of my steps, the next one and then the following.  By the way, the governor of the city of Celo (me!) is not happy with such a meager gift!   Another quick update today. Got a bit carried away with the "roleplay stuff" and the "actual gameplay stuff" was left behind a bit. Hopefully I can give some more news in the next updates.
Turn 7
I’ve been doing a bit of soul searching concerning this game and I’d like if you guys could chime in regarding my conclusions. To put it bluntly, I don’t think I can win this game, not under our current conditions. You guys can see the map, so you know what I’m talking about. I’m not complaining about it, let that be perfectly clear, I asked for such a map and I’m satisfied with it. But it’s obvious that I got the short end of the stick here: not only my Capital sucks, but the land surrounding it is also pretty bad. That’d be fine if my opponents had similar land, but I’m pretty sure someone out there has Yggdrasil on his Capital (what with a 7 crop yield with a size 1 city) and someone could very well have Remnants of Patria or something nearly as good (minimum crop yield was 3, while highest MFG was 6, that requires a 3 hammers city plant or a >4 yield tile to work). My opponents are good players, and there’s no way I can think of to overcome this early deficit (bulbing Drama/Sanitation is cool and all, but even the optimal outcome of this gambit wouldn’t give me a very good position). So, after thinking a lot, I think my best bet is to summon Hyborem and change to him. We have six players and some pretty military leaders, I think the map is large enough to give me some breathing room after summoning (if I spawned near the Sidar, I’d be set); the conditions for a Hyborem play are decent, I think. It’s a big gamble and it certainly wasn’t my plan from the start… But it’s the only thing I can think of, if I’m to win this game. Now, I did some preliminary testing, and I managed to summon Hyborem on turn 88. I think I can improve this a bit, take some turns here and there, but not by much. If I’m willing to gamble, it can go a bit faster (I need to think about which risks are worth it, requires more testing), but I doubt that it’d be by much. Take into account a likely Stasis, and I think we are looking at a turn 100 Hyborem. I’m not sure if that’s very good… FFH Hyborem rush data doesn’t help, because in this version of EitB, it costs something like 700 beakers more to reach Infernal pact, which is very significant in a rush attempt. I made some back of the envelope calculations, the beakers required to reach Infernal Pact (divided by the prereq bonuses when applicable), divided by the number of turns I needed to reach the final tech and it showed I was making 37 beakers per turn in this run, which feels pretty decent for such an early period of the game… So, how do we do this? Interestingly enough, even though I didn’t plan for it, our traits actually help a lot to reach this goal. I made turn 88 Hyb by generating 4 Great Prophets, 2 to bulb Corruption of Spirit, 2 to bulb Infernal Pact (only one city). The needed GPPs for this come from priests specialists from the Pagan Temple, the Prophecy of Ragnarok Wonder (1 priest slot + 2 GPP per turn), using IND trait, and, after CoS, from a Temple of the Veil. My current bottlenecks for this attempt come from: the bit of science we need to finish CoS after I use two Great Prophets to bulb it (which delays the Temple of Veil and the third priest specialist) and, mostly, from the last Great Prophet I need to generate (so, I think I can speed things by some turns by risking a low odds scientist). Perhaps getting Philosophy a bit earlier could also help, because I could get the Prophecy of Ragnarok done earlier (and I’m still trying to figure out the best way to cascade overflow into the PoR and the ToV, which could cut some turns too). Truthfully speaking, it’s a very interesting micro puzzle and I’m sure a lot of people can do it better than me. What really worries me is if the general strategy of 4 GPros isn’t the best one… I tried attempts going for cottages; early settled GSci + 3 GPros; 2 cities; but I’m not seeing those work (worth noting that the GPP thresholds in FFH are different than from BTS; in quick speed, it goes 67, 167, 268, 368, not like BTS’ 67, 134, 201… If it was the same, I could think of a lot more strategies that might work using PHI). We’ll see, I’d have a good amount of time to plan things if we go for this plan, the first turns seem pretty straightforward. The big question is: should we do this? I feel a bit bad about leaving the Sidar and I’m not very confident that going for Hyborem is a good idea (and I’m terrified by the possibility that Ellimist wants to do the same thing, though I think he’d think of a better way to do it than with Hannah, the Irin). But I really want a chance of winning this and I don’t think I have one with this start. What do you guys think? I’d like to hear some opinions about this. If we are going to do this, I’d start it next turn by exploring this lair with the scout (if no lizards are born in the interturn):  I usually don’t like to take risks like this, but when playing safe means losing, I guess we have no other option. Going for Hyborem is a pretty big risk, so let’s go full-risky!  I really need to backtrack the warrior o Celo safely, otherwise things could end up very early, considering my planned build order for the Hyborem rush…  I was going to role-play my decision to go for Hyborem for a while before letting you guys now (hence the mention of fiery Sandalphon in the turn 6 report), but I rather ask about what you guys think of this now (and it’d be very obvious that I was doing something fishy with my planned builds for the next turns). So, any opinions about this? Should we stick with contemplative Sandalphon or go for the big bad Hyborem?
Obviously not dedicated lurker, so I can't comment.
I'll say three things though - firstly, I strongly recommend testing Hyborem in a MP or faux-MP setting. I've just come out of a Hyborem run that failed because of some interaction problem, which I believe to be the Human Hyborem/Basium settings which I'm pretty sure but not certain, that I deliberately turned those off for this game. So I would test those out (it's something I've meant to do for a while, but haven't because of various things. Secondly, Hyborem has been massively boosted in EitB, which you may or may not be aware of. Again, in the game which I attempted to summon there were reports that some units didn't spawn correctly, so you should definitely test. (By the by, it is very easy to test in PBEM. Just set up the necessary conditions in SP, and then save in WB and load as a PBEM scenario, and play out the necessary turns for all players. For things that might have an effect/be causing the issue, I would be careful to set-up the correct turn order, game settings, and rough number of cities per player.) Finally, small micro note that a Academy generally is more productive than a settled great scientist - might not be true for Sidar/low commerce, but remember the palace commerce is a major effect.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
I know global lurkers have their hands tied when commenting gameplay options, I was mostly asking if you guys think it'll be interesting/fun to do the Hyb rush.
 Which is probably also beyond the possibility of lurker comments... I guess I'm just looking for some encouragement, since I'm not usually the most confident guy around... No matter, though, since I'm pretty set at this point.Thanks for the advice, Q. The settings show that Human Takeover isn't on, so I'll test to see if things work under this settings. My sims showed no problem with Hyb spawning, he had the needed units, as far as I could tell.  Interesting to notice. If we pop Education from a hut/lair/whatever, our plans are majorly screwed!
I would enjoy watching a Hyborem attempt, and it'd be nice to get some info on how the EitB changes have affected his viability. It's just a subset of the general lurker bloodthirstiness, really
 Whether it would work? Or help your position? Not for a general lurker to comment 
EitB 25 - Perpentach
Occasional mapmaker |
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Are you, in fact, a pregnant lady who lives in the apartment next door to Superdeath's parents? - Commodore |
