[Spoiler] Sian actually updates a game *Gasp*

[Mardoc]

BobCW is Faeyrl Viconia of the Svartalfar

Bob is a solid player. He knows the mod inside and out, and in several categories I'd describe him as decent but not stellar: micromanagement, macro, metagaming. No obvious weakness, mind. Where he really excels is in finding creative off the wall plans - 80% of them turn out to be silly nothing, but that 20% that works, are going to hit you from a direction you never saw coming. He'll come up with a very clever combination of spells, or a unit special ability that seemed worthless, or go recruit units from the barbs. That's why I'm going to aim to cover his leader and civ in more detail than the rest of these guys - so that when he surprises us, we can at least figure out afterward what he did .

Faeryl (Arcane, Raider) is probably middling-low power overall, say about 30th percentile of all possible leaders. The main reason for this is that she doesn't have any economic traits at all, merely war traits.

The fundamental bit about the Svartalfar is that they're elves. Which means they can place improvements of any type on top of forests, although the time to place it is not shortened - if it would take you 7 turns to mine + chop, it takes them 7 turns to mine + leave forest. Well, actually, their workers are lazy, with a -20% workrate, so it'll probably take them 8 or 9 turns. In practice, this means:

• Their start will be slower than average. Slow workers means tiles get improved later
  
• Mid-game, he'll start to have more hammers than a normal civ, as his forest tiles give their normal yield +1 h
  
• He's almost certain to go for Fellowship of Leaves. That'll let his forests improve to Ancient (+1 f, on top of the free hammer), and plant new forests. It also unlocks the Guardian of Nature civic, which gives +1 happy/forest.
  
• His cities will therefore have the potential, no matter where they are, to grow to ridiculous sizes, working lots of improved tiles that all have +1f/+1h.
  

Why do I consider them a mid-low leader, with that potential?

The above process is *slow*. The civ starts slowly, with lazy workers and no econ traits to help out. On top, he'll likely spend a bunch of worker turns on forest tiles that we won't. Even pushing hard, he's likely not into Fellowship of Leaves until T60, and doesn't have a Priest of Leaves out to plant forests until T80. Then PoL take three turns to improve one tile, and then he has to wait for each tile to improve. It's something like 3% odds per tile per turn to improve from New to normal forest, and the same to improve from normal to Ancient. He'll likely get some Ancient forests right away upon revolt, but not many. And then he'll have to painfully wait for the rest to improve.

On top, he's unlikely to go for Aristocracy, since that nullifies the main advantage of building on forests in the first place. But Aristo is the best economy in FFH - lots of gold, right away, for not much investment. Sure, he can eventually have size 30 cities, working every tile for bonus hammers and 10 specialists on top. But you can have, right away, twice as many cities at size 10, with bonus hammers from the Manors.

So...don't let Bob get to late game. He'll be awesome if he does. Fortunately, everyone else can see that too

Other Svart features:
Arcane means he builds mage guilds at half price, and more importantly his casters gain passive XP much faster than normal - fast enough that he can count on mages as a significant part of his army. He's likely to have mages as the bulwark of his force. That said...Svart are Illusionists. That means all their summons are Illusions rather than the base type. Illusions can't kill. In trade, when they win a fight against a living opponent, they heal to full. That means he can't go 100% mages, he's got to mix in, at the very least, enough units to kill the illusion-wounded targets. Usually you'd prefer non-illusions. A note for a possible detour: Illusions can be straight-up killed by the Empyrean Priest spell or by Dispel Magic. I don't think we'll want either Mages or Empyrean, but it's an option if Bob gives us more trouble than I expect.

Raiders means he can use everyone's roads. Nasty, nasty, makes it easy for him to hit anything weak in your empire near his army. Ideally, never build a road that he can reach.

But...nothing in there to help teching, nothing to help build infrastructure. So again, slow to get started.

The Svart have Sinister, which makes their Recon units have +1 Attack str. Which puts them up even with melee units. The only time I've seen that really matter is when using Scouts to choke someone, early. But even there, build some roads and you can kill the scouts off.

Elven also means their units double move in forests and have +10% to attack into them. This is fine, if you pay attention, but it can mess with tactics if you're not careful. Before you assume you're safe near Bob, look for forests and roads he can use.

A little thing: Kidnap. Svart recon units can kidnap settled Great Specialists from opponents' cities. Don't settle GP, or don't allow him into your cities, and you'll be fine.

Their worldspell is basically useless in multiplayer. Turns all their units Hidden Nationality. I suspect that if you're suddenly attacked by a lot of Barbarian Elven Hunters, that you can put 2 and 2 together and realize you're actually at war, unlike the AI.

Mind, Shadow, and Nature mana are ok mana. Only Mind mana is really all that good, though, until Archmages are available. It can give bonus beakers and GPP with adepts, making your military contribute to your economy a bit. The others give minor situational combat bonuses. I'm more worried about the mana he makes than the mana he starts with.

And, they have a strong hero with the best equipment in the game. Alazkan is a hero assassin. He comes with the Black Mirror, which lets the holder (he can pass it to other units) create an Illusionary copy of themself. So either he can give it to a strong stack defender, to take advantage of Illusion healing, or he can give it to a strong attacker and let them attack without fear, by using their duplicate instead. Or he can use it himself to weaken a unit before killing it personally.

Still - the only thing about the Svartalfar that's exciting is the elven economy. Everything else is a nice trick, but fundamentally unexciting and shouldn't swing a game. Pay attention to what Bob's doing, and we should be fine. I have a little bit of fear that he's seen an opportunity to use one of those tricks for a significant effect, but I'm not very worried.

Edit: Oh, yeah, something I forgot. I give Bob a 60% chance to end the game as Hyborem, not as Faeryl. Bailing to the demon prince is his favorite move whenever things don't go as planned. Most of the other 40% is the chance that someone else summons Hyborem before Bob can .

[Mardoc]

Dantski has Rhoanna of Hippus

I don't really know Dantski very well. My top of the head impression is that he's so-so at the game, but that could be totally wrong.

Rhoanna (Financial, Expansive) of the Hippus is an easy one to describe, because the Hippus don't get many bonuses.

Financial is of course an excellent trait. Particularly if combined with Aristograrianism. Straightforward to use.

Expansive is particularly good in FFH - it doubles settler production. FFH settlers are expensive! So he ought to be able to found cities more quickly than most anyone else, and afford to do so thanks to Financial. If the Hippus aren't the game's biggest civ early, he's doing it wrong. But he needs to push the snowball hard, otherwise civs who can get more from their cities (like you, for instance) will catch up and surpass him.

Hippus Palace mana is good: Air, something minor (I think nature?) and horses. That's right, they're guaranteed horse access from T0! Air gives one of the better damage spells at mage level - and mages are basically the only collateral that can have a speed close to horse units. So there's a decent chance he goes for mages, if he goes for any support units.

All of their mounted units get +1 move, +10% withdrawal. It's quite possible for them to make units with 85% chance to withdraw, and with careful upgrading they can make horse archers with a 95% withdrawal chance. Who needs catapults when you can use horses instead? This is the main reason he might not bother with mages.

If they hire mercenaries, they get the Mounted version instead of normal. I've seen a lot of people try this strategy, but I've never seen it work - usually by the time you can get to either the wonder or hero that enable mercenary recruiting, plus enough gold to recruit a substantial number, the game's been decided.

They have a nice worldspell, too. Warcry gives all units a promotion for +1 Str, +1 move, blitz, small (5%?) chance to wear off every turn. Warcry can be a good rush spell, since +1 Str means a lot more in the early game, but it's a solid boost to any war, and takes a surprisingly long time to wear off. Since he didn't take Tasunke I don't expect to see a rush, but don't give him a temptation to change his mind.

It's trivial for them to have a stack of 5-movers - they don't even need to spend promotions to do it. With promotions and Haste, 8 moves is easy. There might even be something I'm overlooking that adds to their range on top. The only competition for Hippus range is the Balseraphs - you can't defend everything they can hit, you have to instead focus on killing their army. Which is hard, because it's 7 tiles away from yours .

A typical Hippus game is solid expansion, followed by picking a horse unit to spam, spamming it, and going on a rampage. So far I haven't see it actually win, but in theory it ought to. Biggest issue is that without summons, their offensive usually peters out sooner or later. Probably too late for their primary target, but they can't usually conquer the world.

And...that's about it. Solid leader, horse theme, nothing dramatic here.

[Sian]

For defending against horses ... best standard defender or is there a Spearman-analogue that should do it?, or is it attacking his horse stack with Moroi's?

[Mardoc]

For defending against horses ... best standard defender or is there a Spearman-analogue that should do it?, or is it attacking his horse stack with Moroi's?

There is no special counter - if anything, it's the other way around, some units are especially weak. Archers are generally pretty good at defending, but horsemen get bonuses against them. Best standard defender, really.

But...to do that successfully, you have to defend everything within a 5-8 move radius of his stack. Which is probably 3-4 cities. If you can defend that many cities successfully, you ought to be able to just hit him. Realistically, you're better off hitting his stack before it hits you, you only need a stronger army than he has, not a much stronger army. It's hard to get a significant city defense bonus in FFH. Moroi might manage that, with their four moves (and presumably some road help), vampires + spectres can almost certainly manage that.

Or if he surprises me and comes with horsemen despite being Rhoanna, then bronze warriors in cities might work. But that's again the 'best standard defender' for the era.

[Mardoc]

GreyWolf has Varn of Malakim

I don't know GreyWolf at all.

Malakim, and Varn, are especially versatile, and focused on making the most out of FFH religions.

Varn is Spi/Cre(adaptive). Creative is powerful, especially early, and he can swap out of it at T70 for any other trait (odds of Financial: high), right when he's gotten a good replacement for culture, such as a religion to (ab)use with Spiritual. Spiritual is darn good as well - make full use out of FFH civics, and the ability to stack up all kinds of Priests and other religious units. Plus cheap temples, making them a viable approach for things like happiness and commerce. Then, on top, Adaptive isn't required to go Financial. If the Malakim player is doing well for other reasons (or ready for their second switch), there's a good chance of a war civic instead, often Raiders. Varn is probably the best leader in the game, and is certainly top three.

Malakim are desert/religious themed. Desert bits first:

- +1 commerce on desert tiles. Floodplains are great tiles for anyone, but they're especially great for the Malakim. Desert tiles are still worth little.
- +1 move on desert tiles. Helps with exploration, enables clever tactics occasionally
- They get the Summon Sand Lion spell, which all mages can use but only on desert. Creates a pretty good summon (str 6, 3 move, can see invisible units) - but an arcane Malakim is losing track of the best part of the civ.
- Sun, Life, and Mind mana, gives access to pretty good adept spells and very good mage spells. Can turn plaiins into desert, turn hell back to normal, and boost their research rate at the adept level; at mage level they can wipe out undead and have two different disable spells against the living.
- Camel Archer instead of Horse Archer. Doesn't require horse, no other change.
- Citadel of Light: building available at Sorcery, damages all enemies that start their turn within 2 tiles of a Malakim city. In practice, too expensive for the benefit; if you're going this way, build mages instead and defend the whole civ rather than one city.

If that was all they got, Malakim would be still a pretty good civ, but not OP. OP comes when you combine Spiritual with the religious part of their toolkit.

- Desert Shrine instead of Pagan temple. Same thing, except +2XP to disciple units.
- Awesome worldspell. Only available at Priesthood, but it creates a free Priest of your state religion in each of your cities. These priests start with XP equal to the number of your cities. If rushed for, Priests can be an army in themself; if delayed, they're still a very important component of an army. Spiritual means they start with Mobility, on top of all that XP.
- Lightbringer unit. It's not impressive itself, as a scout replacement with Sentry and significantly higher hammer cost. But! It's a disciple unit, so it starts with XP from desert shrines, and it can be upgraded along *any* of the religious paths. Can become a disciple or priest of any religion, or also upgrade past those to a Ranger, Mage, Crusader, Paramander, Stygian Guard, or anything those upgrade to. It keeps its promotions when that happens, too - so you can start most of your units with free Sentry, Mobility, and XP. And you can build them with fewer hammers and spend that sweet financial/desert gold on upgrades, which are a decent price in FFH.

What does a Malakim game look like? Well, it depends on the skill of the player, and as I said, I don't know GreyWolf. At basic performance, they're merely a very quick starter, with a solid economy and some nice boosts, which will lead to a focus on one religion and solid performance with that one. Played with skill, they will have a quick start, solid economy, and *all* of the religions. Stack those various bonuses to give your army +1 Str, +10% Str, and collateral of 40% everywhere, 75% near ocean, and whichever solid religious melee unit is most valuable against the foe. And stunning your stack so it can't do anything, and probably a few bonuses I'm overlooking. The religious section of the manual is 21 pages of options. Most of the time you pick one or two religions and use a subset of those choices. Malakim can grab *all* of them - or at least the majority.

A variant approach would be arcane Malakim. They do get some nice boosts to arcane stuff too, after all, it's just overshadowed by their Religious power.

[Mardoc]

Ellimist has Perpentach of Balseraphs

Ah, Ellimist. Too much to say about you. Extremely good at micro, extremely variable at macro. Sometimes he picks a good goal, optimizes around it, and pulls of a very impressive performance. Like, for instance, his overseas Raider Moroi invasion of me, which won him the game in PBEM25. Or his optimization of landing the Titan in the pitboss.

Sometimes he picks a silly goal, optimizes that, and loses the game as a result. For instance, in the pitboss, he focused on maximum efficiency with warrens, even when we were to the point where a unit today was very much better than two tomorrow.

Sometimes he just drifts, too. His micro is much less impressive when he has no particular goal in mind.

His tactics are usually pretty good, though, and he'll go for your jugular if he can.

His civ, the Balseraphs, can reward any aspect of Ellimist's personality. They've got too much going on, actually, for me to want to list here. If you want details read the manual or the start of my PBEM25 thread when I was the freaky clowns.

They have a lot of small bonuses that need careful management, plus a big one: puppets, that still needs careful management. If he focuses on optimal economy leading to puppets, he's got quite a good chance to win this one. Puppets are strong mainly because of extreme range - mages summon puppets, which move and summon attackers, which move and attack (or pillage, or block). Using that range properly takes tactical skill, though. Allow an opportunity for the foe you've been harassing to attack your mages, and you can lose a lot of investment very quickly, an army you can't recreate overnight.

On the other hand, Balseraphs also have a lot of juicy distractions. Mimics, for example, steal a promotion from every unit they kill. Which can eventually become absurdly cool, but takes too much investment to set up properly. If Ellimist focuses his micro skill on optimizing Mimics, or Harlequins, or he latest trait swap, rather than keeping his eye on the ball of puppet dominance, then he'll be beatable.

[Sian]

had a very interesting idea, which fell a bit flat on FFH's version of it ...

Calabim with OO, trying to use the synergy in Asylum and Governors Manor ... sadly the FFH Asylum might just be a wee bit to weak for the synergizing effects to be worth it ... of cause if we're given a very wet map it might just be what makes OO even better

[Mardoc]

Merovech, don't worry about the whining in the tech thread! I'm sure everyone will much rather that the map be balanced and good, than any particular schedule!

[Sian]

and we're moving ...



gut feeling says either 1w or SIP ... 1w have faster Wheat, and if my finger counting is correct, slightly more hammers (and at least 1 more grassland river), while SIP have a stronger city square, and better defenses if things get to that (but if they is something went horriblely wrong allready and i doubt that the position of the capital could change that critically)

...

guess 1w is the order of the day ... also think that RoB might just be worthwhile (even without accounting for the pain it deals my opponents) to wait with till just after i've settled my second city, given that there is no great tiles for working unimproved right next to me

Unit shuffling, for starters the warrior is going to check the small eastern ithmus, before going to the capital for defensive duties, meanwhile the scout checks the hill to the south and goes in that direction



Tentative tech path is probably Calender-> Exploration (for roads so i can get health from the wheat) -> Fishing (Fish)-> Ancient Chants (for monument in second city) ... probably followed by Crafting->Mining, after which I'll review and probably go towards Code of Laws

...

Interesting bit of info from Merovech would be that OO units is suggested banned ... which heavily suggest that it is a very waterheavy map ... certainly something to keep in mind.

Password is going to be 'Vecna' (without ' ' )

[Mardoc]

guess 1w is the order of the day ... also think that RoB might just be worthwhile (even without accounting for the pain it deals my opponents) to wait with till just after i've settled my second city, given that there is no great tiles for working unimproved right next to me

I think I would aim to fire it at size 3, after you have a worker and workboat out. Tiles might not be worth working unimproved, but they will be once they're improved.

Hmm. Or go for two workers right away, but still fire it at size 3. That would make it almost certain that your opponents have grown to the point where it can hurt them, and two workers are more likely to be able to keep up on improved tiles.

The problem with waiting for your second city is that you'll probably overgrow your capital if you do that. The spell increases *all* cities of yours, and right now you don't have any way to shrink a city. Won't for a while, either.

Unit shuffling, for starters the warrior is going to check the small eastern ithmus, before going to the capital for defensive duties, meanwhile the scout checks the hill to the south and goes in that direction

Sounds good. The other reasonable option is to have the warrior head off NW and plan to build a replacement warrior for defense. There are no barbs on the map right now, so you can get a lot of scouting done before they start to spawn. It'll be hard to scout later, until you get better military tech.

Tentative tech path is probably Calender-> Exploration (for roads so i can get health from the wheat) -> Fishing (Fish)-> Ancient Chants (for monument in second city) ... probably followed by Crafting->Mining, after which I'll review and probably go towards Code of Laws

I disagree here. You don't need wheat health anytime soon, and your worker is going to be plenty busy just farming. Exploration can wait longer, at least until you need it for trade with your second city.

I'm not sure, but I think maybe even Fishing first, Calendar second. Exploration can be third, probably. Although Calendar is an important tech, and it'll give a lot of food soon too, it's not quite as nice as a Fish tile. Fishing also would give you some early commerce, probably enough to power you to CoL.

You want to settle your second city so it doesn't need a monument. Gotta wait and see what the scouts find, on this one, but delay Ancient Chants as long as possible. Although it's en route to Code of Laws, so it wouldn't be a waste.

Sailing probably needs to go into the list somewhere, as well, although I think you won't have hammers for lighthouses for a while, so it's not urgent. But if there's a ton of coast to work, then you'll want lighthouses. And you're Organized, so you get them half price .

Also, probably move Crafting/Mining back a ways. You only have two hills, you don't have any forests to chop, and most of your early builds will be workers and settlers, anyway. Depends on how your tech rate stacks up against your exploration rate, though, and if you find anything that really needs early hammers.

So with what I know now, I'd say Fishing -> Calendar -> Exploration -> Ancient Chants -> Education -> Code of Laws -> Crafting -> Mining-> Sailing.

But definitely revise it depending on what else you find.

Interesting bit of info from Merovech would be that OO units is suggested banned ... which heavily suggest that it is a very waterheavy map ... certainly something to keep in mind.

That is interesting, indeed. Certainly looks that way so far. Good map to be Financial on! Coast tiles aren't especially good, but it's nice to have the option.