The Sinister Six: A Competitive EitB SG

[Bobchillingworth]

Any map feature you have the option of exploring with a unit, which will then roll on a random table of results. Dungeons, Ruins, Barrows, Ship Wrecks, etc. Actually, I forgot to count the score increase for Shallow due to his Skeleton popping the graveyard- will update my report.

[shallow_thought]

Any map feature you have the option of exploring with a unit, which will then roll on a random table of results.  Dungeons, Ruins, Barrows, Ship Wrecks, etc.  Actually, I forgot to count the score increase for Shallow due to his Skeleton popping the graveyard- will update my report.

Skelly for the win!  

I can't believe our hut luck in that first turnset, BTW.

[Miguelito]

Tension was rising. The band's commander, Bob, seemed to care only for finding secrets from the past in dusty ruins, and his confused orders had left some of the mercenaries in an uneasy position for the first time, facing a poisonous fiend on terrain without cover, and a mountain tiger hungrily eyeing them behind:


The mercenaries decided to leave Bob to his gravedigging, and the command was given to Miguelito, who would lead exploration of the continent and the defense against the beginning onslaught of bandits.

With new determination, not only was the beast defeated, but after it was bound, the hunter-mouse Aurorarcher whispered into its eight ears (I'm sure spiders have these?) and subdued it to the will of the mercenaries. Seeing that, the tiger hid in the jungles.



Meanwhile, Bob had gone one step too far underground:


That seems pretty bad. Might give an incentive to Bob to support researching towards priests though, so good news for Dave? I have seen no Pool of Tears so far. Withered gives -50% combat experience, that's unfortunate for this setup  

On the battlefield in the northeast, there was an onslaught of scouts of all imaginable denominations. All were no more than a training exercise for the mercenaries, even the less inclined to close combat.




that thing can spawn gargoyles, right? It hasn't so far, do I have to stay close to it for it to happen?




Auror went off to the south, where he captured a griffin and a bear (no shots). Brian, his weasel twin, wandered into the  forests and jungles to the north, hoping to find beasts to tame there, to match his brothers fame. He got the tiger, who somehow had 8 XP available (pobably had a belly full of scouts already), that would come in handy later.

Then a more serious threat materialized:


The dirtiest among the bandit scum! (how are there two Lucians ?)  Miguelito, who had been approaching a dungeon in the east that was luring him with promises of power (no lesson learned from Bob), turned around at the notice, to lead the forces against the invasion.

The battle took place on the final set of the turn.
The tiger could promo heal so he got 57% odds on the first beastman:



Good boy won.

Then it was up to the mercenaries themselves. Bob and Brian were on the frontline, and took on two more beastmen (sorry, not all shots got through, but all battles were won)



From the city, Dave and Miguelito had been racing to help their brothers in arms. When the first of the bandits' leaders could no longer hide himself from battle, it was Miguelito's duty to take the fight, which he did without hesitation (but not without having studied some more flight maneuvres before - took Flanking II)


and the mighty bandit fell:


(note that I was in a stack with Dave only, while the others were 1 tile advanced, so I didn't break the first to attack rule)


Dave was hesitant. One in ten was the chance that the second bandit lord would be victorious. But his comrades were wounded, and he was not going to bear with the guilt if something happened to them (because that would be Dave's set ). Went...


  got it.

After this brilliant victory, Miguelito decided that the nickname which he had borne since he could think was no longer befitting of a strategic genius and fierce warrior of his proportions. Something more reflective of his tremendousness was in order:


power crazed as he was, his comrades started to mumble of slowing down his ambition and elect a more enlightened leader...


Scoring:

• Bob got one lair (t 11)
  
• DaveV and Miguelito both killed a Lucian hero (again, why were there 2?)
  

I've also set up a simple google spreadsheet for scoring, to have a better overview, do you like that and do we want to use it?

General thoughts: I still think that we really want some cottages, but with the cow and corn mine I haven't been able to put more than 2 turns into one (there's a sign). If Bob suggests that we don't even want conquest, as we'll one turn units anyways, then what would we want the food surplus for? Which we will have plenty of, with Yggdrasil, the wet corn, the cow and the FP, even if they're cottages. Currently we're losing gold at 0% (because we have so many units. Dave can decide if he wants to delete some animals or whatever), and Ennios is researching very slowly. So I can't really see the value of farms, and I feel the commerce is badly needed. But it's up to the next players to decide that.

I have set production to a second worker at size three, which I think is correct, as after the corn farm we'll grow like a weed. There are 16 hammers into a warrior, but I'd be hesitant to finish that, because of the costs. Actually was considering growing on a herbalist instead. Of course the warriors are not needed as much as normally.
An interesting key tech mid/long term would be Animal Handling, as it opens techs to upgrade 4 of our avatars (sorry, mageys). Little idea on short term tech goals, God King seems important for obvious reasons, and we want roads, chops, and plantations I suppose?

DaveV - up!
Brian Shanahan - on deck!

[Bobchillingworth]

Nice set! Who needs arms, anyway? Certainly not an Archer! Here's hoping we receive the healing event...


We have some pretty buff Avatars now; between those and the beasts, Dave might be able to eliminate Rivanna and score us some raze gold, plus maybe a Worker or two.


Pristine Pass will spawn Gargoyles, but there's a grace period before you can trigger it. Not sure how long it lasts, but the clock is probably just about up.


No idea why there are two Lucians, nor for that matter why Alzheimer Einon started with an Elephant, but it's these sorts of charming bugs which constitute the spice of life.


Score tracker is a good idea.

[DaveV]

Got it!

I'm thinking Mining->Calendar is the logical research path, giving us two five commerce tiles (and +10% gold and another probably unnecessary happy with a Tailor).

[shallow_thought]

Nice work Miguelto.

I think that cottages make sense - we want to push to get bronze working priesthood animal mastery sorcery, right ?

[Miguelito]

the game evidently is won through Stirrups

some more thoughts that didn't make it into the report:
- I kept on promoting poor Shallow Thought on the combat line, for his skellie to make a greaterimpact, and also to maybe pick off some warriors and scouts. But I've noticed that healing can be pretty sluggish, so maybe it would be good to promote to Spirit I next, so all our heroes can muster some courage? A more outlandish idea would be to promote to Sun I after that and start scorching some tiles where we expect enemies incoming. Deserts give -25% defense, right? At least it would give him something to do besides watching out on that tower.

- The save I loaded up had the same form as the one I received, i.e. eot 20, with units moved, but it's up to the next player to hit enter. I think that's good in principle, but there's potential for abuse there, as I could move one of the other avatars into a bad position, but the loss would count towards the other player's score, without him being able to do anything about it. Can we agree that a player loss during the first interturn counts towards the previous player's score?

- There are two lairs left that I didn't touch, a barrows at the Elohim, and a dungeon to Rivanna's south. I was about to enter the dungeon with my avatar when the Lucians came about, which promised more glory.

- There are at least another bear and a lion to the south for Auror to catch, but I'm not sure we want actually, as it would also drive up costs again. Also an orc warrior has come from the south already, so we'll have to cover the worker, and later the farm, somehow. Right now Auror is healing in range.

[RefSteel]

DaveV and Miguelito both killed a Lucian hero (again, why were there 2?)

I can't be sure, but I think this was because of the way the map was created:

1) I rolled a random Pangaea. Lucien was created for the Doviello at game start as usual.
2) I entered worldbuilder, saved the WBSave, and used a text editor to add the appropriate units and names.
3) I started the game as a scenario from that WBSave. My guess is that the game didn't then check to see if Lucien existed; as far as it knew, this was just a regular new game - so it created Lucien for the Doviello at game start as usual.

If I'm right, this bug shouldn't affect any other civs or units. It's just a weird artifact of the way Lucien shows up on the map.

I don't know why the AI-with-an-elephant thing happens; it's not the first time I've seen it, and it has to be a bug, but I don't remember exactly what or why. (Maybe an unintended consequence of v12 changing the cost of building Elephants from "-1" to "the same as War Elephants" to enable cheaper upgrades once you have Animal Handling? I'm not sure.)

[DaveV]

The same way we've ended up with a stack of Brigits on the Ring of Carcer in past games, and a stack of scorpion clan archers in goblin forts. Each exit from WorldBuilder places another copy of the starting unit.

[shallow_thought]

the game evidently is won through Stirrups

- I kept on promoting poor Shallow Thought on the combat line, for his skellie to make a greaterimpact, and also to maybe pick off some warriors and scouts. But I've noticed that healing can be pretty sluggish, so maybe it would be good to promote to Spirit I next, so all our heroes can muster some courage? A more outlandish idea would be to promote to Sun I after that and start scorching some tiles where we expect enemies incoming. Deserts give -25% defense, right? At least it would give him something to do besides watching out on that tower.

I knew I'd forgotten one of the tech lines. And I'm happy with any promotion that increases my survivability - and that includes my utility to the rest of the team ...