Alright so I am going to give this a go. I am pretty execited for this. I haven't played any multiplayer civ before, and my single player is Okay. I have messed around with eitb but I still have some hazy mechanic things. Ill try to keep this thingy updated. Anyways I am ready to give this a go, I will hopefully find out soon who I am playing.
The Sidar only really have two benefits: Their specialists/great people are stronger, and their recon line has additional mobility. They can also turn level 6 units into settled great people, but that's a minor bonus most of the time, considering how difficult it is to get a level 6 unit and how unwilling most players are to part with such a powerful unit.
Economically, the Sidar are absolute masters of an aristofarm economy. Food is more important for the Sidar than for any other civilization, so the fact that one of the two monster economies is heavily farm based is amazing to them. Late in the game they may even choose to remove Aristocracy, considering that a half a specialist is worth more than 2 commerce if they can afford it.
In terms of military the Sidar have divide soul for their recon units - effectively this gives Sidar recon units an additional two tiles of influence. In addition, this can be used to pass over obstructed terrain, so this can mean more than two more tiles of influence depending on terrain. Finally, this can be used to move while healing, albeit only two tiles a turn.
The Sidar can actually run any type of military they want though - divide soul is powerful, but not so much that it is automatically more powerful than anything else. The normal detriments to recon units apply - less powerful in a fight compared to a melee unit, and less powerful when fighting cities. This also means that Sidar who go for recon units normally need a second form a military - whether it be archery, melee, mounted, arcane, religious, or naval. Recon units are never enough alone to conquer someone, so a second area of power is usually gathered. Siege is strangely placed for Sidar - the construction tech allows for more farms (and thus more specialists), but catapults are very slow. So Sidar likes the tech, but not the unit. However, the niche of siege is only filled by fire/air mages and AV/OO priests for most of the game, so catapults might be grabbed for war.
In terms of useful tech, wonders, and civics, the real benefits come from great person benefits and anything that allows you to afford more great people. This means agrarianism, aristrocracy, mercantilism, caste system, happiness, healthiness, Guild of Hammers, Hall of Kings, Theatre of Dreams, The Great Library, guilds, liberty, philosophy, national epic, and scholarship are all very powerful for the Sidar (with culture boosters mainly good for a cultural victory.)
Religions are always an option, and all of them have some benefit. OO is generally good on water maps with and here is no different, AV brings powerful early collateral on units that can be hasted and given mobility, Empyrean gets very strong once you have Crown of Brilliance and Chalid, Order gives a lot of benefit to having lots of cities and works well as a secondary tech, Esus synergizes with recon units and has an archmage, Runes has very strong passives for early game and good early units.
The two leaders play similarly, and just excel at different areas. Sandalphon builds a little stronger, with his ability to churn out wonders and great people. Shekinah can snowball earlier with creative, and has the more powerful arcane branch, and so can be more aggressive but can also build very well.
So anyway, I decided to ded-lurk you because the Sidar are awesome, you look lonely over here, and I'm playing Sidar in the EitB PBEM XXV, so I think it makes sense to stick with a the Sidar in the EitB PBEM XXVI. I'll be posting some more thoughts in a moment, but I just want to get this down now.
The Sheaim are a scary rush civ. They maximize in power right around Pyre Zombies and stay scary for quite a while thanks to Tebryn's powerful arcane traits and strong palace mana.
Sheaim are very scary indeed, and are a huge threat if they are nearby. The greatest strength the Sidar have against Pyre Zombie/Adept spam is the powerful recon line. Any two mover is really really good against Pyre Zombies, because the danger isn't the zombie itself, but the explosion. The divide soul ability is also very nice, since it gives you even more ability to escape the deadly explosion. Finally, ghosts can be used to fight off the adept spam, really disruptiing their mid game plan.
If the Sheaim are nearby I strongly recommend very quickly focusing on either Bronze Axemen or fast Hunters. Axemen would struggle to avoid the collateral and would therefore be limited by terrain and roads, but are stronger and more efficient hammer wise. Hunters would be slightly weaker, but more versatile and could be used offensively, while axemen could not. The other benefit to hunters is that Assassins are a good next step because they counter the Sheaim's next step, while Bronze Workiing doesn't lead anywhere that fast.
Overall, the Sheaim are one of the scariest civs in this game because you have to prepare for them or you just die, and you still might just die. I would try your hardest to avoid them. It would be worth allying them though, because you should in theory be able to scale better than them and even a small amount of extra time should make you very safe against them. The ideal situation would actually be allying with them against the Elves, who should be your largest rival.
Molach - Rhoanna of the Hippus
Another aggressive Civ, woo! This time though it's tempered by economy, so it's less likely for a full rush to happen from the Hippus. More likely is that Molach will threaten the rush to buy space for all of those expansive settlers. If you go for recon units you will stay competitive in mobility, which is very useful because it allows you to play zone control. What's very nice is that Ghosts are even with non-war cry Horse Archers and Rangers beat any horse archer any day.
If you decide to go down another tech path you need to use conventional defenses, which is always a tricky act. Archers and melee line units would have an extremely rough time, because you would have absolutely no ability to defend everything they can threaten. Arcane and religious units could threaten the Horse Archers if they stack up in a bad location, which would be effective as well. At the very least though, I would recommend grabbing some Ghosts. They stack up even with HAs, come out much earlier, and can really catch him out of position with their invisibility. Don't underestimate that invisibility - Hippus have no easy methods of detection, so your Ghosts would essentially be untouchable death sentences for his units. They would also defend against Horseman, or other early mounted shenanigans, making them extremely potent.
Overall though, I wouldn't recommend worrying too much about the Hippus though. The units you want to build most likely (Ghosts) are good against the Hippus, and the Hippus rush isn't so fast that you will really be caught with your pants down. Overall, I wouldn't think too much about them too be honest. You aren't terribly scared of them because you scale harder than them and you can defend their rush really well. I wouldn't even ally them if you're given a decent alternative because they aren't a threat and they can't help you against the real competition (Elves) because their mobility advantage is shredded to pieces against the Elves.
Whosit - Perpentach of the Balseraphs
The crazy clowns, jacks of all and masters of none,
Perpy the mad, king of clowns just here for some fun.
Revelry, Freaks, Puppets, and traits, they've got everything,
Carnivals, Slaves, Mimics and clowns, even a crazy king!
Okay that's enough rhyming. Anyway, the Balseraphs are one of the larger x factors in any game they're in. It's not that the clowns are really that scary - they're smack dab in the upper middle in terms of power - it's that they are very hard to pin down. They have advantages everywhere and no real focus, so it's basically impossible to predict off of that alone. If that weren't enough, Perpy's lack of stable traits makes it hard to even know what kind of game he's going to play.
The biggest thing you need to do is watch him and try to figure out his tech paths. He's almost certainly going for early Festivals, but what comes next is a mystery. He could try to grab an early Drama and bulb sanitation, he could go straight down a military line, or he could go down the econ branch. It's really hard to tell with the Balseraphs.
One thing that sucks is that your Ghosts are fairly weak if he decides to go for arcane units. Puppets take the hits before his spellcasters, so you need a lot of Ghosts to do any damage at all if you go down that route. And of course, when you see Loki getting too close you should declare war first and ask questions later. Overall though, nothing is terribly scary so just play well and you should survive. On the other hand, you are never safe from Perpentach, so don't ever write him off.
He isn't terribly important in terms of diplomacy or overall game plan. Fit him in based on the circumstances rather than any pre-game plan. That's really the takeaway here - you can't really plan for Perpy, so just work with what he gives you.
Sian - Arendal Phaedra of the Ljosalfar
If the Sheaim are the Civ to survive, then the Elves are the Civ to beat. They are a large problem for you because they are one of the strongest builder Civs. That and their perplexing love of movement reducing clumps of trees is rather annoying for a civilization focused on building and mobility. One benefit you have is that it will probably take them a while to have any form of detection. They can't really afford Empyrean unless they're terrified of you, they won't have metamagic for quite some time, and I don't think anything else can reveal hidden units. So abuse your ghost and world spell. It might be worth saving Into the Mist until you want to invade the elves. Being able to position exactly where they are weakest is absolutely huge.
Your shining light, at least in my opinion, is that Arendal is one of the weakest Elven leaders. Creative isn't terribly strong of a trait, especially when you have access to expansive from another leader and your beeline tech gives free culture in cities. Spiritual is decent, but I don't think it compares to expansive at all.
Really though, the problem with the elves is that come late game they will be an absolutely huge threat. The Elven economy is extremely potent and you'll have a rough time comparing. If you can attack them before they finish their economy you will greatly increase your chances of winning, so I strongly recommend trying to get something done in the mid game. This is where an alliance with the Sheaim, or really anyone (but the Sheaim would be best) would come in handy - jointly attack the Elves and cement yourself as the late game victor. The Hippus cannot stop you, the Balseraphs can't really keep up with you past a certain point, and the Sheaim will fall off very quickly.
I would strongly advise against allying with the elves. The only exception would be some very heavy warring, because you benefit the most from being at war (exp -> shades) and they benefit the least (especially if you can coax the enemies into pillaging their cottages.) Be careful though, because a light war would still allow them to bloom forests and grow their cottages safely, so only accept an alliance if you're sure it won't give them a free pass to super elven forest economy.
Finally, watch out for cheesy March of the Trees rushes. It's rare, but possible.
Edit: Auuugh the formatting! I have bbcode within bbcode! It works, but it's a monstrosity.
Thanks gtAngel for ded lurking. I will so my best to post lots of screenshots. I do have to say that I feel a little out of my league since my micro and macro are often both lacking I'm going to try to get a few games of single player to figure out my beginning micro. I was thinking about going into the recon branch after getting agriculture Caldender and mystecsm. Although it is tempting to beeline a religion build the alters to get heavy xp boosted priests and try to make lots of shades that way. I really appreciate the summery of the oppenents. It will really help me out. I was thinking that the problem with the elves is that their world spell will really reduce the sneakiness of an invasion. Although if I am stealthed I could really put some hurt on there economy by pillaging all the cottages. I do need to practice running a specialist economy although hopefully i will get lots of rivers and grassland. It would be a bummer to be forced to get early mining if there is lots of forests. Would going fol be better against elves, or would av.
I would recommend against trying to build shades. It takes way too long to pay off, even with all sorts of experience boosters. Even Shekinah with her Arcane trait isn't any good at massing shades because it still takes around 50 turns for an potency unit to reach level 6, and that just takes too long when you could be building infrastructure or more useful units. I also don't like going for the altar as Sidar because your priests aren't any better than normal, so running priest specialists instead of other specialists is throwing away your advantage.
I think AV would be better against the Elves because ubiquitous collateral is always amazing, and in general I think AV is probably you best bet in terms of collateral and culture. FoL isn't terrible, but you would probably do better with just AV unless you really need the summons or the very early culture. As for other religions, Runes isn't awful but it isn't an important focus because you don't really synergize with anything past the passive bonus and the merchant slot from the temple. OO is probably not that good because AV handles collateral and FoL handles culture.
Some words of warning against the elves: Pillaging removes invisibility, and recon units cannot pillage. So be careful with pillaging the elves, because you don't want to lose your priests or other squishy units because you forgot that they become unstealthed, and don't run in with all of your hunters/assassins expecting to ruin his economy.
Overall, I recommend going for a recon/religion mix. Part of this is definitely my bias: I completely hate the melee unit line, and hate building catapults. However, it synergizes really well with Sandalphon of the Sidar. The recon line is just really good with Divide Soul, and the early game threats (Sheaim Pyre Zombies and Hippus Hore Archers) are countered well by your high mobility recon line. Religion gives you access to more specialist slots, free culture, and collateral damage. If you were playing a more builder friendly game I might recommend going down the arcane line, or trying to skimp on collateral and go for economy, but when you have two rush civs and a late bloomer on a standardish map size it makes sense to try and have some power in the early mid game.
However, that doesn't mean ignore economy. There are a few really good techs for you to grab, and a lot of good uses for Industrious. Writing, Mathematics, Engineering, and Currency all have strong economic benefits for you, and they aren't terribly far away from your core techs anyway. Writing gives you libraries and The Great Library, Mathematics gives you the Bazaar of Mammon and gambling houses, Engineering gives you Guild of Hammers and +1 road movement, and Currency gives you Guild of the Nine. Now you might not get all of these, and depending on how crunched you are you might prefer to just focus on military techs, but definitely consider these techs - all of them are really really good for you in particular because they benefit specialist economies and have other strong benefits. Also, consider trying to grab the Bone Palace from Philosophy. A golden age is always nice, and if you isolate that city for a little while and grab a Great Engineer you can leverage that into another wonder. Even if you don't isolate it you don't have to worry too much - a Great Sage would also be very good.
The best early opener in my opinion is Argiculture->Calender->Mysticism. This gives you access to the best improvements (Farms and Plantations), access to Agrarianism, access to God King, access to a fast Great Sage, and is fairly cheap. After that it depends much more on your land and proximity. Exploration->Hunting is the paranoid safe choice, while Crafting->Mining is good if you have a lot of forest and Dereptus Brewery House if your capitol is on a river. Dereptus is really good for you - you get +50% hammers from God King, +50% hammers from Industrious, and it's a huge benefit to your entire nation if you can build it, plus it doubles as trade fodder so you can often get two happiness for your empire from building it. The super greedy builder approach is probably Philosophy->Bone Palace or (if you're super lucky) Crafting->Masonry (marble)->Bone Palace. I wouldn't do anything greedier than that though, because you're going to need Hunting fairly early.
The mid game plan should probably revolve around Code of Laws, Poisons, Corruption of Spirit, and Priesthood. All of those are very close to your starting plans and all of them offer a very large benefit to your empire. CoL gives you Aristocracy, which is a ton of commerce and a ton of gold through reduced maintenance. It can wait if you're stuck on a small number of cities though, because God King is fairly strong. Poisons unlocks Ghosts and Rathus Denmora, so you don't need to fear anyone at all once you have that up and running. Corruption of Spirit->Priesthood takes the longest to be useful in combat, but it solidifies you as having the Holy City, which is very nice (especially since you will have zero problems getting a Great Sage for the shrine.) At some point you need to grab Horseback Riding for the mobility promotion as well.
After that I really recommend going for Infernal Pact. It unlocks Hyborem (woo, I could join in!), but the real benefit is Sacrifice the Weak (huge food surplus, use for specialists or conquest->build army) and Infernal Grimoire. The Grimoire in particularly makes the tech essentially free, because you can recoup the entire cost of the tech and you're Industrious trait makes the IG really easy to build. After that it just depends on whether you want army (Animal Handling->Feral Bond->Animal Mastery) or Economy (Writing/Mathematics/Currency/Engineering.)
Also, don't worry about feeling overwhelmed. From what it seems your competitors are probably in the same boat. You're also seeing my greatest strength - overall grand strategy. I will have a harder time figuring out exactly what to do when the mid game rolls around, so I'll be working by feeling around at that point too.
Besides, things like tile micro aren't that hard to do fairly well. Hell, I tend to use the AI governer to save time and can easily beat Monarch difficulty AIs. Really good tile micro is nice to have but the largest benefit is just understanding the overall plan. With Sidar it's fairly easy - food. Food turns into commerce (Sages/Merchants) and Units (conquest). hammers are only good for buildings, commerce is only good when you run out of Sages and Merchants. So you build a lot of food, with enough hammers to be safe.
Also, just some more general thoughts: Once again, forget about the altar. It really wastes a lot of Sidar's strengths. AV is really nice in part because it forces you to get Knowledge of the Ether, which unlocks divide soul. If you can capture a Scorpion then do so. It's even good to lose a Divided Soul or two - Scorpions have Poisoned Blade, which buffs recon units. If you can a deal to trade experience is a good way to boost your economy because it gives you shades. If your capitol is a great production city or you get a somewhat early Bazaar of Mammon you might want to stick with God King rather than Aristocracy for the +hammer +gold bonus. The Elven world spell is annoying, but it's not very scary past the early game because you just have to walk away. One trick you can use is to run your Severed Souls through before the rest of your army. Treants can only spawn on tiles that have no enemy units, and Severed Souls (I believe) can never summon a Treant defender. The trick definitely works for Fireballs, so I believe Severed Souls would act the same way.
Not wanting to interefere in the discussion, but gtangel, no matter who summons hyborem, you couldn't join because you've lurkes this thread.
Hyborem has to be unspoiled, basium is on a team so he doesn't.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Okay
I was a little uncertain about that, so oh well. Thanks for letting me know that.
Well change of plans: Get someone who sucks to by Hyborem :P Maybe an AI Hyborem. You could also switch to him if you were getting owned :P
Really though it doesn't change the idea too much, although it does make summoning Hyborem more annoying. Don't let him live very long if you can and he spawns near you, and make sure you are prepared to immediately grab the Grimoire if you do summon him so that he can't steal it away from you.
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