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

[Ellimist]

If an Elohim(clan) city produces a settler, the new cities are "true" Elohim, right?

What if the Clan/Vamps capture a city and immediately gift it to the Elohim? Is it still the original nationality?

[Mardoc]

If an Elohim(clan) city produces a settler, the new cities are "true" Elohim, right?

I think so.

...and tested, yes, the new cities are Elohim base. The settler is Orcish, but the city is Elohim. Can build a Reliquary, for instance.

What if the Clan/Vamps capture a city and immediately gift it to the Elohim? Is it still the original nationality?

I assume so, because the Clan city that was owned by Vamps temporarily in my test came though as Clan, not Calabim.

[Thoth]

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

Guess it's turn 0 RoB then.

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?

We could....but we'll want at least 4 commerce monsters with Elohim libraries and probably a production city or two for building Elohim UUs.

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

Plus Cha for a slight happy boost and fast leveling units (which combines very well with Reliquary + Conquest/Apprenticeship.

Anyone know if Bannor owned, Calabim built cities can build Command Posts once we unlock them?

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.

They all start with Exploration as their start tech. The two teams that have finished picking have Ag, Crafting and AC. The other team has Ag/Crafting + final pick. We're going to be behind the curve even with two starting techs, starting with one would likely be suicide.

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.

Ljos start with Exploration.....so they're out IMO.

Svarts start with Ag....possible, but I'm liking Einon better and better the more I think about him. Good traits, good civ, decent Palace Mana (esp if there is desert about ), neat UB, starts with Ancient Chants which opens up a Myst first while growing opening. If we wind up with Diety, Raging then warrior, warrior pretty much has to be our opening builds....which fits in with a Myst opening.

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...

Dwarven Druids would be nice, but Priests that upgrade to Druids get access to level 3 spells. 12 mini-Chalids anyone? :hat:

[Mardoc]

We could....but we'll want at least 4 commerce monsters with Elohim libraries and probably a production city or two for building Elohim UUs.

Commerce monsters can still be ex-Calabim, in my opinion. All we lose is the ability to build Elder Councils, and 2 bpt either way is minor. Obviously this excludes the National Epic home.

Anyone know if Bannor owned, Calabim built cities can build Command Posts once we unlock them?

I assume you mean Elohim owned? I didn't test this exact scenario - but I did discover that an Einion-owned Clan built city builds its Elder Council at 2x speed, so I presume all the leader traits work.

Svarts start with Ag....possible, but I'm liking Einon better and better the more I think about him. Good traits, good civ, decent Palace Mana (esp if there is desert about ), neat UB, starts with Ancient Chants which opens up a Myst first while growing opening. If we wind up with Diety, Raging then warrior, warrior pretty much has to be our opening builds....which fits in with a Myst opening.

The main fear I have is that we wouldn't get to use most of the civ uniques, unless we give up on the idea of having Jonas build all the settlers. And Myst first is kinda annoying with a Calabim teammate .

Still, maybe I'm just not being creative enough, and there's ways to make Tolerant our friend.

Actually, chatting with Ellimist last night, he had one creative idea already: Take Ethne, and a Clan-built city, any Clan-built city. Build a Warrens, then a Command Post, then enter Military State, and build Soldiers of Kilmorph. We'd have +35% hammers into the SoK. So we'd need 60 final hammers, which is 45 base hammers, which turn into 60 hammers worth of buildings somewhere else. Even better if we apply Forge and/or Heroic Epic to the SoK spam.

[Thoth]

Commerce monsters can still be ex-Calabim, in my opinion. All we lose is the ability to build Elder Councils, and 2 bpt either way is minor. Obviously this excludes the National Epic home.


I assume you mean Elohim owned? I didn't test this exact scenario - but I did discover that an Einion-owned Clan built city builds its Elder Council at 2x speed, so I presume all the leader traits work.

Right...leader traits still work. Not worried about the loss of ECs. We'll want some early, but even Philo ECs aren't very good unless the map is extremely hammer heavy.

The main fear I have is that we wouldn't get to use most of the civ uniques, unless we give up on the idea of having Jonas build all the settlers. And Myst first is kinda annoying with a Calabim teammate .

Jonas will be building a *lot* of our settlers, but by no means will he be building all of them.

Actually, chatting with Ellimist last night, he had one creative idea already: Take Ethne, and a Clan-built city, any Clan-built city. Build a Warrens, then a Command Post, then enter Military State, and build Soldiers of Kilmorph. We'd have +35% hammers into the SoK. So we'd need 60 final hammers, which is 45 base hammers, which turn into 60 hammers worth of buildings somewhere else. Even better if we apply Forge and/or Heroic Epic to the SoK spam.

I like the idea, but Creative is a bit of a weak trait and we're highly unlikely to found RoK so I'm not sure how viable it would actually be.

[Mardoc]

Jonas will be building a *lot* of our settlers, but by no means will he be building all of them.

Well, true. He'll build all of his own, and as many Calabim settlers as we can get, and any Elohim cities that we want Warrens in - that could still be easily 3/4 of them without losing civ uniques. Especially early, there won't be better things to build in many cities but settlers; Jonas won't take over until we're past that phase.

Anyway, I'm coming around, I could be happy with Einion. And moderately pleased with Ethne, although you're right that Cre is somewhat underwhelming

[Mardoc]

I suppose the fundamental question, which I did bring up in chat last night to Ellimist, is what do we see our gameplan becoming?

We have now a Spiritual leader, with excellent Iron Working units, plus lots of benefit from religions, in particular Kilmorph, an Organized leader with excellent Feudalism units. What else fits?

Honestly, at this point, I don't think Arcane fits anymore. Neither Clan nor Calabim can follow along that well, and there's the Lacuna to worry about on top of everything. We'll likely want KotE at least for a million Clan haste Adepts, but not a whole lot of reason to go deeper. Maybe go as far as Divination for our three free techs?

We could focus on the Vampire path and use the others for support. Or we could focus on religious paths and use the Calabim as support. We do have the advantage that, up until Feudalism itself, every tech on the Vamp line has economic benefits; Trade, Writing, etc. The other techs the Vamps really want are Sanitation, Code of Laws, and perhaps Infernal Pact.

Religiously, we really want Kilmorph, but aside from that - maybe a mixture? Priesthood itself would be nice (particularly if we take Elohim), other than that? Maybe this is the game we test out Order? Ashen Veil is also very nice on a Spiritual civ or spread around with cheap Priests for the income.

I dunno, I'm pretty much brainstorming at this point. I feel we've chosen two civs for their individual strengths, but don't have much synergy. We need the third civ to be someone not too far from a path we might take anyway, and Elohim/Bannor both fit the bill. That's my main objection to Svarts/Illians, at this point - they each add another temptation tech-wise, when we already have incentive to cover a huge portion of the tech tree from our other civs.

[Thoth]

I'm pretty much sold on the Elohim. They'll be very good for us. Bannor would cripple our early game....one starting tech (Exploration) instead of the 3 that our rivals have? I don't think the Bannor bring enough to the table vs the Elohim to warrant that kind of early game handicap.

I agree we really want Kilmorph.....but it's Always War so unless we're the founder we'll have "we will not fight with our brothers and sisters of the faith" unhappiness in any city with Kilmorph if we aren't the founder.

And we're down Crafting (the most expensive starting tech), Agriculture and Ancient Chants on the two teams who benefit most from Kilmorph (other than us).

TBH, even with a near beeline and a bulb our chances of founding Kilmorph are slim. It's possible with a Myst opening (Spiritual Orcish GP circa t44 depending on start locations, barbs, HMS Random Factor ect) but a bulb isn't enough to complete the tech on Immortal/Huge.....and the current sentiment in the setup thread is towards Diety/Huge. So we'll need some base beakers to go with the bulb as well.

OTOH, if we're on Diety/Huge/Raging Barbs a Myst/unit first start works in our favour vs the worker firsties.

Maybe we *should* start pusing Diety/Raging in the tech thread.....

[Mardoc]

Alright, I'm pretty sure I was the holdout for the Elohim, so I put us in for them.

Now, to turn these bags of tricks into an imposing edifice...without info!

[Mardoc]

So, opponent analysis time. I'll leave DaveV/Kyan/plako/jkaen? until after they've made their final pick.

Team Reddit:
Well, obviously they're newcomers. They seem to have their heads on straight, though. Fantasic Sid earned his name with code diving to make Pitboss possible, Hart certainly talks a good game. I think they know FFH pretty well, therefore And they joined as a team who'd played together in the past, so should have pretty decent teamwork going.

Main question is what they've figured out about MP warfare. They might perhaps underestimate mobility/collateral like most newbies do. Or they could know everything and teach us a few tricks too.

They picked:
Kandros (Fin, Agg) of Khazad
Tasunke (Agg, Rai) of Hippus
Sandalphon (Ind, Phi) of Sidar

A fairly powerful set, if they get their toys on the board. An Industrious leader for workers (and potential dramatic econ boost from Wanes), we've seen the power of a Tasunke Warcry, and dwarves for either gold or production, dwarven druids are an option here too. Trebs go well with a Warcry, potentially. And, well, there's some synergy here. HBR/Construction is enough tech for them for a while, leaves room for either trying to boost Sidar, or to head for one nice bonus somewhere else.

However: No Expansive, a desire to stack up tons of gold, and mundane units are their cool uniques. They need a small map or other early-game dominance. No expansive, in particular, will hurt, as will the lack of fast collateral. If they're going to win, they're going to do it with Horsemen/Trebs/Divided Souls, not with something later. I expect them to ruin someone's day, then fade into irrelevance. Unless the map favors them or they get underestimated, in which case they'll be a threat. In any case, we'll have to keep a wary eye their direction.

nabaxo/Amelia/WarriorKnight
I'm not hugely impressed with nabaxo's performance in XIX

Took forever and a day to research Calendar, not enough workers

Amelia is erratic. Flashes of brilliance, can get locked into a plan even if it's not a good one, doesn't have the micro to back it up. Still, stick your hand into a bad spot and he'll bite it off.
WarriorKnight, though...his Elohim were pretty strong in PBEM3. Although he underestimated Thoth like everyone else, I don't expect that to repeat.

These three - it depends on how they mesh as a team. If WK ends up doing the micro for Amelia's flash of brilliance, with nabaxo helping tweak, then they'll be formidable. If nabaxo does the micro while Amelia gets stubborn about a silly plan and WK goes off and does something else, not so much. I think they're in different parts of the world, to add insult to injury.

Cardith of Kuriotates
Varn of Malakim
Valledia of Amurites

This is a power trio. They have a nice mixture of econ/other, and Kurios are excellent for a teamer, of course. I would be happy to play this trio ourselves, actually. The one thing they're a bit lacking is hammers, but of course that might be compensated by the land or a cash rush civic.

But - they're powerful in three different directions. There's not a tech on the tree they can safely ignore. I expect this to hurt their team dynamics, and potentially cause them to ride madly off in all directions. If they can decide on one to emphasize, with the others as support, then we might need to worry about them. Particularly if they end up emphasizing the Amurites. If they try to research Stirrups, Priesthood, every religion, and Sorcery all at once, then we can safely build past them and crush them at leisure.

To sum up? Flip a coin. They have all the ingredients to win, the question is whether they have the skill to execute.