Volcanoes and Demons and Shiii (Saruman's Sheaim)

[Saruman the Foolish]

Hello and Welcome, this is a test post

[Saruman the Foolish]

Early Thoughts:

Alrighty then, that seemed to work. Hello all, I am Saruman of the Sheaim, and this is effectively my first multiplayer game. As such I really have little clue what I'm doing so advice and critiques are very welcome - particularly the critiques. As I am positive I will blunder horribly and often, please do not feel inhibited in expressing utter disdain for my lousy choices. I am also new to this whole thread thing, so if I'm doing it wrong, give a shout out.

I have surfed around one or two game forums here, and what I have learned is basically how much I don't know. I am not strategic enough about city placement. I am not very conscious about tech priorities (typically a beeline for a religion or something that meshes well with my chosen civ) I am not good at resource (worker improvement) management, and while I'm great at warfare against AI, that really doesn't count for much. Perhaps worst of all, I have not played basic FFH in at least 3 years holy shit, scratch that, 6 years?! as I jumped right on the fall further train and presently use ashes of erebus. Which is VERRY different. I have to unlearn a bunch of habits (including for example workers start out able to build everything and the tech just speeds it up). So yeah. I have to step up my game and help would be welcome.

That being said...I love this game. I love this setting. I fell into Erebus as soon as Kael put out this mod and have never looked back. I don't think I can even play vanilla civ again and don't even mention civ 5. So while i am new to mp, I've played this game in different iterations for a while, and many of those games were as the Sheaim. I love love love evil civs, and bringing Armageddon with demons and black dragons and shit is about as evil as you get.

So that explains my pick; I am very aware of the severe limitations to the Sheaim. Their planar gates kinda suck (I think they should be have about double the current chance of getting new creatures) and their late game is weakish (no Immortals/champions). And their early game is weak. Except for Pyre zombies. Those are dope. and kinda cheap. Ive actually always hated them honestly. I'd much prefer a nerfed pyre zombie and a sweetened planar goodie monster system. In anycase, I probably have to abuse the hell out of pyre zombies to really do well in this game. Which I probably won't do very well cause well, i hate sacrificing units I make. stupid? yeah i guess. Sorry.

[Saruman the Foolish]

Pre-game Goals:

So if I'm probably not going to spam PZs too much I am definitely going the whole other undead beings route. Being...Skellies! I love these little 3 power suckers that stick around and I plan to make as many as economically possible. Here are my current goals for this game:

1) Survive! Actually, this is my only goal. Yep, as a newbie (and my opponents certainly know it) I am prime chomping material in their eyes. When I simply looked at authors of some threads/forums/games here I saw the names of my opponents over and over. Veterans through and through; I have now illusions about winning this game. While my civ is dedicated to bringing about the end of the world, I will be meek, taking issue with no one and giving no fault in turn. This will probably be my least aggressive game. That is not to say I will not take out the guy next to me being swallowed by HIS big bad neighbor if I know I am next, or even throwing in with him to help. I just mean to further my goal of surviving, I will be keeping my army preferably within my borders at all times.

So that means I just need to make it as unnatractive as possible to attack me. I will not be piling on the AC points (too quickly anyway) even though it helps my strategy as that will strain my relations especailly come hellfire. I will tech towards AV quickly, but not rushed. Again, Surviving takes precedence to founding a religion. I expect to fall behind in technology fairly quickly even with AVs perks, so my military must be competitive. Which is hard with the Sheaim. Whats not hard is having lots of expendable troops. I want to cover my borders with stupid little skellies just to warn off potential attackers and make quick rushes tough.

[Saruman the Foolish]

Worries and pre-game wrap up

My biggest fear is always the early rush. I don't really have to worry about those single player, but my early game is never strong, and the Sheaim make my early game look pathetic. This means that Kragroth as the Clan, and Northstars alliteration loving little freaks will probably be my biggest threat. What I have gathered about mp is that info is key. I need scouts and skellies are perfect for that, but I may also have to get hunting early which I almost never do just for the hawks. My biggest flaw is always over-expansion without the military to protect it so I need to be cautious expanding. Again: I am not winning this game. But I do intend to survive.

I think thats about all I can say going into this game without seeing anything. Given free time tomorrow, I am going to start a test single player game with our settings to refamiliarize myself with vanilla FFH. I plan to start teching agriculture first and building a worker before snapping up God King asap. Thanks all for reading, and I hope I didn't come off as pessimistic or whatever. Comments are welcome, and I look forward to keeping everybody up to date with my schemes for the domination and destruction of the world (while I don't expect to win, I do have aspirations and I AM evil, afterall).

[Bobchillingworth]

A good start!


Nothing you can do about it currently, but one of the keys to attracting lurker attention is to post screencaps; text is obviously a much better medium for expressing yourself, but pictures make it much easier for readers to understand what you're talking about, get a feel for the game and help make your civ seem more "real".



Without getting into specific strategy territory, the key to understanding FFH MP play is how fast everything can be. I don't necessarily mean how long it takes to build things- the early game is and has always been slow compared with BTS, and high-level AI are faster at producing armies than any human will ever be thanks to their innate bonuses. Rather, I refer to the speed at which units can move, armies can be destroyed, and cities can be lost. I think it took most of us FFH veterans a while to truly comprehend how fearsome unit mobility in FFH can be. Maybe I'm just projecting, though.


Reading archived games is a great idea- they're often entertaining and are where RB's body of competitive knowledge was developed.

[Saruman the Foolish]

Thanks Bob, yeah I don't think youre projecting too much; I got a bit of a feel for how fast armies were when I saw a particularly devastating rush by the Hippus - I honestly thought they were boring to play with in single p but man are they scary fast. Mobility in attacking and the ability to go for multiple cities and therefore dividing the forces of the enemy is huge. Needless to say, I was relieved to see no Hippus in our current game.

[Saruman the Foolish]

Aight...Got it. TURN 0
The Sheaim start in a wonderful location, lush, wooded, river tiled a plenty, with wine, some rice, and a magic node in the near vicinity.

After looking longingly at the coast and debating the perfect spot, I realized I was overthinking things and instructed my people to settle in place. The capital rises:

As a fair amount of lore is taken from the Norse Mythos, I decided that the great Serpent that will bring about the end of the world and cover the sky with poison was vastly appropriate to start our naming scheme.

[GermanJoey]

edit: nm, I had an old tab up, I see you got it under control.

[Mardoc]

I approve of the naming scheme .

[Saruman the Foolish]

TURN 1. Not much new. While the previous numbers were off and the first turn had to be redone, check out the player scores on this turn...

While Tasunkes boost is no doubt a goodie hut, whats up with Kragroth? 0 points? Don't you start with 11? Is it possible he's eliminated? If not, he certainly has moved before settling his capital. Next turn will see I suppose.