[SPOILERS] PB1- Mardoc buys a can of paint for Thoth and Ellimist

[Selrahc]

Maybe lurkers have a better idea? Preferably an idea that comes in a set of three?

I'm running with Elf/Dwarf/Human as a stand in for civ names.

Alcohol theme: Dwarves Beers, Elves Wines, Humans Spirits.
Mythology Theme: Dwarves Norse, Elves Greek, Humans Egyptian(or whatever pantheon most fits the themes of the human civ).
Star Trek theme: Dwarves Klingon, Elves Romulan/Vulcan, Humans Federation.
Sciences theme: Dwarves Chemistry, Elves Biology, Humans Physics.
Animals theme: Dwarves Reptiles, Elves Birds, Humans Mammals.
20 Questions theme: Dwarves Minerals, Elves Vegetables, Humans Animals.

[Mardoc]

Hmm, I like a lot of those suggestions, Selrahc.

I think I'd go with Alcohols > Animals > Sciences if my teammates don't weigh in here :neenernee. I do look forward to founding Cabernet in a clearly cabernet-inspired location But it could also be fun to name our death mana site Hippopotamus.

[darrelljs]

I highly recommend the Clan in a team game :-) .

Darrell

[Mardoc]

Darrell, just because you're winning with them doesn't mean they're strong :neenernee

So, we're #2 in the pick order. Dave/Kyan/plako pick before us, the other teams after us.

Pretty decent, actually. I think we can guarantee we get either the Clan or the Kurios. I'm still on the fence as to which of them; presumably Kyan et al will make that decision for us.

Ellimist has been advocating the Amurites in first round, instead, on chat. His argument is pretty straightforward, at the core: Amurites get a heck of a lot of useful bonuses. Govannon, in particular, but also firebows and the WS. And between Org and Cave of Ancestors, it's downright easy to get insta-mages. With potentially three Towers of Divination, it's fairly straightforward to actually get to Govannon and archmages, too. There's a lot of fun corner cases for the Amurites, as well - Govannon-taught priests or druids or heroes.

On balance, though, I think I want to save them for a later round. Here's why:

We can substitute someone else for them and change our gameplan accordingly. It's true that I want an arcane plan and the Amurites are the best for that. But, if we have to, we can instead take a divine approach, or the vamps, or a slightly inferior arcane plan. Or even a straight up mundane approach, like, say, Mithril Chariots .

We can't, however, substitute a different gameplan for the need to build a lot of settlers. No matter what we do, we need a solid economic base to do it from, and that ultimately calls for a lot of cities, a lot of workers, straight-up building. Look at the history here, and you'll find an awful lot of winners with strong economies, and not a whole lot of them with wartoys/traits that overwhelmed economy. Granted, Ellimist's Charadon game was a strong counterexample. But in general, economy >>> anything else.

[Thoth]

If we have the chance to grab Jonas of the Clan as our first pick.....DO IT!

If not, Cardith as our first pick is excellent.

Amurites.....if we can grab them as our 2nd pick....should we?

With Orcs that gives us Ancient Chants + whatever our third pick winds up being

With Kurios we'd have Agriculture + Ancient Chants which sets us up for a Calendar/Myst opening for Agrarian Food and God King Hammers (+ Philo Elder councils/Sages).

If we don't get Orcs and can grab Amurites then which leader do we want?
Both have Arcane so it comes down to Phil vs Org. Cardith gets us philo for the first 70 turns but it's going to be very tough to get 5 cities down for the Kurios + 5 libs before t70, so having a backup philo leader isn't horrible. We can fill out our leader roster with Fin or Org on our third pick.

If the Amurites aren't available on 2nd pick.....damnfino. Depends what we get with pick 1 and what the other teams take inbetween.





As far as who plays as which civ.....I'd suggest we rotate every turn for the first 50 turns or so. That should make all of us familiar with all of the civs for when we have to cover for each other, plus it should help to reduce the temptation to think of the civ I am playing as "MY civ" rather than "The Civ I am playing turns for, for the benefit of the team"

We'll need to co-ordinate unit move plans and worker actions, but we'll want to do that anyway.

[Thoth]

Also: Note that Govannon can only teach spells to Amurite units. He's still handy to have around but he isn't a game breaker in a Team game.

[Mardoc]

As far as who plays as which civ.....I'd suggest we rotate every turn for the first 50 turns or so. That should make all of us familiar with all of the civs for when we have to cover for each other, plus it should help to reduce the temptation to think of the civ I am playing as "MY civ" rather than "The Civ I am playing turns for, for the benefit of the team"

We'll need to co-ordinate unit move plans and worker actions, but we'll want to do that anyway.

No sitting back in the corner, letting you do all the work?



Sure, that seems reasonable. Maybe we need to name the civs Eeeny, Meeny, and Miney .

I *am* a bit disappointed we can't use Govannon to teach a bunch of orcish Stonewardens how to cast fireballs But I still in the end agree with Clan first, if possible.

And Amurites second seems reasonable. Given that we should have extra-bonus mana, we probably don't need Org to make insta-mages, CoA will be enough. So let's go with the Philo leader, Whatshisname. Econ FTW!

Third...well, we could go for Fin/Org, and take Arturus . Nah, here we really just have to wait and see. Too many choices will be gone by the time we're up a third time.

[pling]

Maybe we need to name the civs Eeeny, Meeny, and Miney .

That would certainly amuse this lurker Aren't you talking of an alcohols theme too? Which would tie in with confusion & picking a civ up at random

Bonus points for naming units "Where's Mo?", "Anyone Seen Mo?", "Did Mo say he'd be back?", "It's Mo's round!" etc etc

[Mardoc]

It won't affect to our pick so we start with:
Beeri of the Luchuirp

Were they buffed more than I realized? Barnaxus, Wood Golems, are a bit cheaper, Gargoyles have move 2...doesn't sound like something worth a first pick. Mud Golems are a lot cheaper - but at 50h, that's still not really better than a worker.

Well - I suppose they do get that 150% workrate. Maybe Kyan's thinking they're the new India? And Beeri is new Ind, so it's really only 40 hammers for them to scrape up.

Still - I'd think we can build three workers in the time it takes for him to build two...oh, wait, hold on. That's 50 hammers, base, which I was comparing to 50 foodhammers quick. Kyan's got to come up with 28 hammers/Mud Golem on quick, and each one is worth ~1.5 worker, while we need 50 foodhammers/worker.

Ok, now I see what's up with this. I think he's thinking BtS, though - 1-2 workers/city still leaves the main cost as the settlers, not the workers. Unless you've got someone like Jonas on your side . Plus, 150% workrate only helps on some of your tasks - a lot of the time he'll end up losing to rounding, like roads and...well, roads.

Unless I hear an objection in the next few hours, I'll put us in for Jonas of the Clan.

[Mardoc]

In fact, the more I think about this - suddenly I understand Ilios' role in the darrellios juggernaut, and I'm tempted to imitate him by grabbing some dwarven workers of our own...later. It was already tempting to take Arturus as the Fin civ, more so when considering 125% workrate double hill movement dwarven workers.

And, who am I kidding. Thoth is firmly in favor of Clan, Ellimist brought them to the table, and I'm firmly in favor as well. We're not going to get more consensus than that, and it's not worth waiting for secondguessing . I'll go claim them, then we can start thinking about pick two: Dain, Arturus, other? We'll be acquiring more info as we wait, too.