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

[Mardoc]

Also, Vamps cannot Feast in ally cities.

But, Sanctuary does not kick out allies.

[Mardoc]

Well, that didn't take long! Guess there's no hope of the Calseraphs of Embers in this game.

Not really surprising, now we just cross our fingers for the last round to be something we like. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for Amurites, but maybe we ought to just go straight for something economic, like Einion.

[Thoth]

Well, the Amurites are off the table.

My next two picks would be one of:

Einon Logos (Cha/Phi, Ancient Chants, Corlindale, Sanctuary, Reliquaries, Water, Nature, Air Mana from palace, Tolerant).

Depending on the start terrain a Mysticism first while growing out to size 4 and building gobos, scouts and warriors before spitting out 2/3 workers per civ at size 4 under God King. That would give us time (and extra scouts) to possibly make contact with some (all) of the other teams to start slipstreaming their techs. This would also give us the ability to push out a Great Prophet circa t44 to bulb towards WotE. We'll need to add some conventional beakers (around 200-300) in order to fully bulb WotE but this gives us our best shot of founding RoK and by using an Orcish bulb to finish off the tech we stack the odds in favour of founding the religion in our Banker civ.

Overall I think I like Einon better than...

the other option I see is the Svartlar. We'd pick up Ag as our starting tech allowing a worker/Calendar opening. We'd pretty much have to give up on founding RoK as we wouldn't be able to generate a GP in time to bulb (assuming Immortal/Huge map). But Svarts with Leaves can build Sinister 40 h Fawns. Back those up with some Tigers/PoLs and we've got the basis of a decent early army. Main problem here is no chariots, but those hammers can be sunk into Fawns, PoLs, Assassins, Adepts ect instead. Palace mana: Shadow, Nature and Mind. Gives us doubles in Nature, Shadow and Body (which we already have doubled from Orcs/Calabim). That's a pretty good lot of level 1 spells to get on all of our Adepts/Shamans.

[Thoth]

I think we hold off on both the Calabim and the Orc world spells for awhile.

The odds are very good that we'll either get nothing from the Clan worldspell (if we use it very early) or we don't get to use it at all (if we delay using it and meet a barb.....does anyone know if HN barbs (ie Animals) will trigger war with the Barbs?). I'm guessing somewhere around turn 5-15 depending on barb settings/how many scouts we have out. Diety Raging....hit it on turn 5 maybe 6. Immortal with Wildlands....delay it a bit.


River of Blood.....current practice is to burn it on turn 1 for the extra pop boost. Solid play with a one civ empire, but I think we can do better with it by delaying until around t16-20 (t16 is the earliest a worker first can get to size 3). If we pull the trigger on RoB at the same time our opponents grow to size 3 we'll gain a very nice little edge. They'll each have 1 size 1 city (which will regrow quickly, but it still slows down their snowballs by 4/5 turns to regrow their pop), in the meantime we have two cities at either size 3 or 4 depending on our opening moves/the start terrain and one at size 5 or 6. That translates out to a very nice short term production and growth boost for us compared to our foes.

If we go with the Elohim, Sanctuary can either be used defensively to protect one of our civs or offensively to enable our attack forces to keep moving without having to provide garrisons for new conquests.

I can't see any use for the Svartlar worldspell in an AW MP game. Creative ideas would be welcome.

[Mardoc]

River of Blood.....current practice is to burn it on turn 1 for the extra pop boost. Solid play with a one civ empire, but I think we can do better with it by delaying until around t16-20 (t16 is the earliest a worker first can get to size 3). If we pull the trigger on RoB at the same time our opponents grow to size 3 we'll gain a very nice little edge. They'll each have 1 size 1 city (which will regrow quickly, but it still slows down their snowballs by 4/5 turns to regrow their pop), in the meantime we have two cities at either size 3 or 4 depending on our opening moves/the start terrain and one at size 5 or 6. That translates out to a very nice short term production and growth boost for us compared to our foes.

We have to be very careful if we do it this way - River of Blood eats ally population, too. That's the main reason I wouldn't do it this way, but instead stick with the T0 cast.

Need to think about who I want to advocate for; I think we're up?

[Thoth]

We have to be very careful if we do it this way - River of Blood eats ally population, too. That's the main reason I wouldn't do it this way, but instead stick with the T0 cast.

Are you sure about that? I haven't tested in game (yet). If that is the case, then t0 is probably best use.

Need to think about who I want to advocate for; I think we're up?

We are indeed, up to pick.

[Ellimist]

I'm at work, so I'll post later. For now I'll just summarize:

Team 1: Jonas of Clan, Decius of Calabim
Team 2: Kandros of Khazad, Tasunke of Hippus, Sandalphon of Sidar
Team 3: Beeri of Luchuirp, Keelyn of Balseraphs
Team 4: Cardith of Kuriotates, Varn of Malakim, Valledia of Amurites

1- Luichirp
2- Clan of Embers
3- Kurioates
4- Khazad
4- Hippus
3- Malakim
2- Calabim
1- Balseraphs
4- Sidar
3- Amurites
2- ???
1- ???

Still available:

Bannor
Elohim
Illians
Lanun
Ljosalfar
Svartalfar

[Selrahc]

Still available:
Bannor
Elohim
Illians
Lanun
Ljosalfar
Svartalfar

Mentally editing out the Doviello?

[Ellimist]

Mentally editing out the Doviello?

Yeah. I was working off Mardoc's list earlier in the thread and he left out three civs he didn't want.

[Mardoc]

Are you sure about that? I haven't tested in game (yet). If that is the case, then t0 is probably best use.

Yes, 100%. Tested it at the start of X, tested again yesterday, Vamps eat allies with the WS.

We are indeed, up to pick.

Y'know, I was all set to make a big pros and cons post, but I decided to test Tolerant. And discovered something very cool: Elohim cities gifted from the Clan, can build Warrens! OTOH, they cannot build Libraries, while homebuilt cities can do so. It appears that passing the city via Calabim doesn't help, it still is a (Clan of Embers) city.

Still - we could potentially have almost every Elohim city with either a Governor's Manor or a Warrens, right?

And Einion would be our Philo leader, for both great people and cheap libraries (in non-Clan gifted cities).

Other civs:
Illians: Priests of Winter and Ice mana. Good, but not great. Auric is still fairly unimpressive even with Arcane.
Bannor: Crusade goes well with Iron for Vamps, good stopgap when the Lacuna hits, otherwise kinda meh
Lanun: Great techers. Very dry map promised, including no water at capitals. Pass.

Elves: I like the elven econ, hate the elven workers. They're slow, and their primary bonus is to hammers. Which will be important, but I really want some tech too Amelanchier's the only Philo leader.

I think I'm down to either Elohim, Ljo, or Bannor as my preferences. I could elaborate, if need be. The fundamental question is: how do we value Tolerant, in a game where the Clan will be founding and giving away most cities? Warrens are awesome! Another civ that can't build Libraries, though, hurts.

Oh, and also, in a conquest game, what tricks do we want to steal from our neighbors? Wanna play with dwarven druids? We probably could...