[SPOILERS] Cassiel of the ???

[Dantski]

Hey so I'm pretty infamous for my thread updating in Pitboss 2 + 3 so may as well get a headstart on the others with creating a thread! :neenernee

Obviously I have to type a lot of rubbish here incase one of the other players mouses over my thread.

So I'll just ramble a bit.

I first got started with FFH like many I suspect, playing the FFH scenario "Age of Ice" that came with BTS or something. It was a lot different to regular civ and had a lot of potential to be totally awesome. There were certainly some less praiseworthy aspects of the scenario but it presented fun new concepts such as magic, buffed promotions and so forth. The scenario itself was somewhat lacking after the first 100 turns as it was rather slow and took a long time to finish. That may be a reason why I never had much interest in it past that.

Then RBFFH2PBEM1 (rolls off the tongue doesn't it?) appeared and I figured I'd try it out and its' been pretty fun.

Anyway next post will be a bit about Civ's/Leader's

[Dantski]

WARNING! WALL OF TEXT!

So we had the first FFH2 snakepick with the following rules

1. Ancient start
2. Barb world
3. No settlers (But starting with two settlers)
4. Raging barbs
5. Wildlands
6. Unrestricted leaders snakepick
7. Living World
8. Acheron Pre-placed.
9. Human takeover of Mercurians + Infernals
10. Emperor difficulty
11. Kuriotates banned
12. Adaptive leaders banned?* (Have to stick with one trait)
13. Unrestricted leaders
14. Quick speed
15. No tech trading
16. No vassals
17. Lairs + huts on as normal
18. Orthus + Duin on
19. Map script - totally upto mapmaker

There was also a little discussion over the placement of unique features, nothing was decided however so we just have to wait to see what SL gives us!

Did I ever say how much I like and admire you SL? No? Deaf git!

Anyhoo Snake pick is about halfway through (4/10 picks) and I have time on my hands right now to think a bit about it.

Snakepick order was...

Ravus
Dantski (hey thats me!)
Sciz
Selrahc
Ichabod

Ravus picked Illians first. Anyone who wants more information on the Illians abilities can go look at Selrahc's excellent RBFFH2PBEM1 thread (ok I'll stop saying that). I'd expect Ravus to try and replicate Selrahc's PoW rush and I'd expect everyone else to think that too.

So what techs does he need to rush? Well he needs Philosophy to build the White Hand ritual and Ancient Chants + Mysticism before that. Once he has all those he has to complete a 268 hammer ritual. I'm estimating the techs will take 40-50 turns if he beelines it and the ritual around 15-20 turns, probably longer since he won't have very good production. So I reckon he could be ready T60 or so. PoW can get combat 1 from the aggressive trait too, I wasn't sure but I just checked, so I'm assuming he will pick an aggressive leader to ensure success. This could be a mistake to assume though, as he could easily take a Spiritual leader for the free Potency promotion on his PoW. Frankly I'm not sure there's any counter to 3 PoW with 7 strength and 6 Ice Elementals with...5(?) before T75.

There's also the possibility he may just use them to grab some barb cities and try to be peaceful towards the other players, however to play that way I think he'll need to pick some economic traits on a leader.


Onto my pick!

I definitely got some stick for my Pitboss 2 pick of Imp/Org Mali and perhaps rightfully so. Regular civ was never something I felt competitive at so for that game I went for something unusual which clearly didn't work. The least fun part of that game was having to put up with weak traits for hundreds of turns so I was pretty set on picking leader first this game.

Let's have a quick look at the traits that matter in regards to this game.


Aggressive (AGG)

Raging Barbs + Barb World + Living World + No Settlers means each player will be having large numbers of barbs to deal with this game. With the settler restriction, roads won't be all over the map either so AGG is definitely the warmongers choice over (RAI) raiders this time.

It's a solid choice and was under consideration.

Creative (CRE)

The extra 2 culture will be utterly worthless. You only have to expand one citiies borders this game to work tiles. The faster monument is again worthless and double speed Carnival is not a big deal. Typically I like playing creative leaders because I don't like building monuments, but this game I'd be surprised if anyone thinks "hey I think creative would be a good pick!"

Charismatic (CHA)

Hey I don't have an alphabetical list to refer to so shaddup!

This isn't a high priority for anyone.

Defender (DEF)

In normal games it's not worth thinking about, but this game screams at the player "BARBARIANS WILL STEAL YOUR WOMEN AND RAPE YOUR HORSES". Double speed archery range is nothing to sniff at but the doubling on Palisades and Walls are less....wow.

The extra 10% strength + withdrawal in your own borders isn't special but its not awful either.

Nevertheless since I'll be leader picking 2nd, I think I'll avoid it.

Expansive (EXP)

The no settlers option is obviously making this trait less desirable. An extra 3 health and double speed granary + harbour (if anyone plants a coastal city) is better than some traits on its own though. If anyone takes the Lanun this game, I wouldn't be shocked if they took an expansive leader.

Again though it's not a priority for me.

Financial (FIN)

Ahhh big bad financial. Always the prime trait for teching for the tile bonus. Double speed markets are cool too.

Was my #1 choice

Industrious IND

Definitely an interesting one. The usual 50% towards wonders and fast forges.

Low priority but with the right economic traits I can guarantee myself some wonders.

Philosophical (PHI)

So we only have 2 cities basic, PHI is a no brainer if you want to tech well. Double speed Elder councils is a bit meh.. since they are only 40 hammers anyway. But hey if it gives you an edge early on...

High priority pick.

Spiritual SPI

No anarchy, 2 free promotions on Disciple units and double speed Pagan + Religious temples. SPI is pretty nice to have, definitely on PoW...

Middle of the road pick, not something to priortize.


The other traits were't worthy of consideration IMO.

So who can get FIN + PHI?

1. Cardith Lords - using their adaptive trait anyway. They also get EXP
2. Cassiel - using adaptive, also gets IND

Well I think EXP is good and all, probably better than IND, but this game I'm going with Cassiel!

[Dantski]

Next pick was Sciz who took Grigori.

Underwhelming pick, the palace is nice with the 2 GPP and 15% GPP rate although the mana is pretty bad. The main reason I see to take the Grigori is adventurers. I've never played them myself but from what I've read they work the same as great people. After a quick look ingame, with Philosophical + Pacifism they can produce an adventurer in 14 turns. They need currency to unlock adventurer's guilds which is a very nice building.

Hmm perhaps this wasn't such a bad pick, expect lots of great people and adventurers!

After that Selrahc took Sheaim, man he really likes the wreck the world civs doesn't he? The thing about Pyre Zombies however is that they only blow up when attacked, not when attacking. The Sheaim were on my shortlist to play but not all too disappointed to se someone take them.

Then Ichabod got the double pick and took Jonas and CoE. Expected someone to take CoE. The only thing thats going to hurt you is animals so Ich is free (or more free than everyone else) to explore the map. You can expect them to war, but the question is when. He can get Warrens with 2 techs and outproduce anyones military for the rest of the game. He can also train shamans without needing a building. Late game he gets Ogre's which are more powerful champions, a city can produce 2 of them every turn. This is a scary military threat pick but not one that will compete economically.

And oh yeah he also has Rantine who can just grab him barbarian cities for free providing he has the highest combat strength in the city. I believe he can do this as many times as he likes too! Hopefully barb archers with poison are considered stronger.

All this makes CoE a difficult target for a PoW rush.

[Dantski]

Selrahc then took Kandros Fir to go with Sheaim. Yay combat 1 Zombies out the gate. This is a pick that covers both the fighting and economic bases, but doesn't do either job as well as it could. Well he at least has 50 starting gold to help with events.

Sciz combined his Grigori pick with Dain. It's a strange pick to be sure, getting a philosophical leader was obvious but getting Arcane with it? I think there were a lot of better choices out there.

And umm... its my turn again to pick a Civ.

So what Civ's am I considering?


Svartalfar

Played them in the 1st FFH adventure. The sinister trait gives my recon units +1 attack strength. I'd start with Agriculture which is always a plus. Alazkan isn't a hero I like much and I'm not a fan of their worldspell in this type of game. They get no UU's or UB's. The palace gives mind mana and lowers war weariness by 10%, not that good. Also no siege weapons are available.

But 5 attack strength hunters sound really good right now.

Also my hunters can 'steal' great people from other peoples cities.

Khazad

Cities will be fewer than normal so keeping the Dwarven vault stocked should be easier. Unfortunately starting with 2 cities will mean you start with -2 happiness, 1 of those is countered by starting with gold. The palace also gives earth mana which is excellent for a civ on defence

The hero is Maros, he's lategame and defensive, exactly what you don't want. The dwarves also cannot build arcane units past adepts, archery units past slingers (archers) and rangers. On the plus side they have awesome trebuchets, trebs are one of the best UU's in FFH. They are considerably stronger than catapults, they cause 20% more collateral and they bombard faster.

There's also the Calabim + Ljosalfar but we've seen plenty of the first and I'm lurking the 2nd in another game.

So Svart or Khaz, Khaz or Svart hmm. I think I'm going with Svart to see if I can yoink some great people and because of the hunters + agriculture.

[Dantski]

So someone posted about adaptive in the main thread.

If a leader is Spi/Ind/Adaptive do they indeed start as Spi/Ind then at T60 or whatever they switch out the last listed trait industrious in this case for the trait that they wish?

I haven't played an adaptive leader but I thought I was picking a Phi/Ind/Fin leader

[Irgy]

The thing about Pyre Zombies however is that they only blow up when attacked, not when attacking.

Um, no. From the manual: "If Death happens while Attacking, Effect is centered on the Tile attacked from". You might be confused by a bug in patch 'o' which stopped them exploding. There's a fix here which everyone should be using.

[Irgy]

I haven't played an adaptive leader but I thought I was picking a Phi/Ind/Fin leader

Sorry to be the harbinger of bad news, but you've picked a Phi/Ind leader who will become Phi/Fin on T60.

[Dantski]

that's cool I guess, I'd rather drop the Ind over the others.

The pyre zombie behaviour was from patch 'n' as I recall, I was testing zombies for the FFH pitboss game and zombies weren't damaging anything upon death when attacking, but a few games earlier when I attacked vs zombies, they did explode.

Thanks for the link, I'll make sure that they do work as you say

[Dantski]

So Ravus picked Varn Gosam to go with the Illians, smart pick there. The creative trait will at least get his 2nd cities borders out fast.

Mobility I + Potency free promotions on PoW is nasty. The extra mobility will speed up his ETA on rushing by 3-4 turns minimum.


Oh and if you hadn't noticed, I'm REALLY scared of both this pick and the CoEmbers pick. Selrahc is a major threat once he has bronze working, Sciz...well I don't rate his picks that highly and is probably a good ally as he seems more likely to go down a builders path.

In a perfect world, Ravus PoW rushes Ichabod and razes a city but loses 2 or more PoW in doing so. Exploding zombies will not be nice setting fire to my pretty forests but they seem less of an immediate threat.

[Maksim]

In normal game, Cassiel + Grigori cannot research any religious techs, or adopt a religion. Do you know whether this comes from the Grigori civilization part of the equation, or from Cassiel's leader traits?