[SPOILERS] Q's duels where the fool loses

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We all know the drill. Don't post or read (or do, I honestly don't care that much about this game ).

Edit: For those viewing this later, the lack of images is because dropbox changed their functionality. This is a common problem across the fora.

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I didn't intend to start this thread or report these games at all, but this situation with OL made me want to:

LION SPOILERS:

Why yes, that is our capitals under 10 tiles apart! Fortunately, I'm in a position where I should be able to take advantage of this - as Lanun, I was going to be building warriors for the first dozen turns anyway, whereas they're going to be significantly behind in their normal growth curve. Already, looking at the power growth/stats, he;s grown a size (peculiar choice, tbh) and built nothing, whilst I'm up two warriors. Besides, whilst Lanun are a bit low on rush options, Sidar aren't any better, so I think between the (hopeful) choke, the faster tech rate, the better-early traits, and the unpillagable improvements, and I think I'm in good stead.

Not to mention...this is my capital:




<3

I think that's the best Lanun cap I've ever seen! 3 ports, two of them lakes, fish, plainshill start, forest-plainshill to help build boats, and a plains gold to boot! I could've got 4 ports, too, if I'd settled one north, but I didn't think it worth the extra lost turn + lost pfh. Almost would've been worth it for the cuteness factor, though

Demos:




Mainly just cause I'm used to capping them. Funny thing, really, to look at them Lion has all the traditional advantages of the early game - high food/pop/land, lower GNP/MFG - but I'd say he's strongly behind in truth.

@Lurkers: I strongly think the mapsize of my duel with Lion is ludicrously small, emphasises rushes waaaay too much, and shouldn't be an option. Should I raise this in the map thread before or after the game finishes?

Picking "strategy":

GENERAL SPOILERS

To say I have a strategy here is a massive exaggeration. In case it's not clear enough already, I'm not really taking this "league" seriously at all - which makes Kragroth's regimented administration endlessly amusing - so I'm basically just picking for what I find fun/want to experiment with.

Still, there be some small method to this madness.

Lion: Falamar of the Lanun (vs. Sandalphon of Sidar). I don't know anything about Lion, but he's an old CFC MP player based on his account information. That doesn't really tell me much about his skill, so I chose a vaguely middling combo for this setup, especially after seeing his proposal (which, IIRC, led me to believe there'd be a sight more water then there is, but no matter). I was very content once I saw his pick, too - Sidar are on the middling-to-low in FFH, IMO, and are nerfed pretty hard by this setup. Anyway, straying off-topic.

Tasunke: Rhoanna of Hippus (vs. Volanna of Svartalfar). Honestly, I just wanted the fun of playing Hippus vs. Tasunke But no, there was a bit more than that - I didn't want him getting Hippus for a rush, I respect him enough that I wanted a pretty powerful combo to fight him. And then he proposed Mirrorland - which produce quite large maps, as I've expanded in '39, so I thought Rhoanna would be the better leader.

I have duels against, IIRC:

TBS
Mardoc
Auroracher
Dreylin

Ordered in vague order of scariness. What leaders/civs do I want to try?

Grigori - I've played them vs. Bob recently, and they were a bit of fun, but I'd like to see them in a land duel for evaluations (for EitB).
Dovellio (Charadon) - I've never really been able to play/tried playing them, and don't have a grip on their playstyle, so I'd like to see how it goes
Khazad (Kandros Fir) - AGG, defensive palace, boosted considerably by v11, hill movement - all fun things to use, but a bit awkward in a standard PBEM. In this context though, considerably more relevant.
Clan (Sheelba, probably) - uhh. I know she's technically amazing, but I'll confess to being a sight bored of Clan after so many games. Still, Sheelba does play differently, so I'll keep it open.
Svartalfar (Volanna) - fun, plays awesomely, good for a rush/choke and late economy. What's not to love? Besides, I've never played her before. Definitely bringing out this tourney.
Calabim (Alexis) - AGG Moroi. Say nothing more. Calabim have been nerfed badly, but are still pretty damn good.
Kuriotates - fast start, choke/kill at an early HBR. Probably never expand past one city, tbh.
Illians - blah blah blah. The same awesome they always are, but with a lot of their mechanics much more powerful in a zero-sum setting. Extra points with All Unique features, too
Luchuirp (Beeri Brawl) - all about the super-fast start.
Sheaim (Averax the Cambion) - A stealth change in many ways, it's easy to forget that Averax is now AGG/EXP/BAR. Quite possibly the best rusher in the game, and fantastic traits on this setting.

Let's narrow that down:
- Volanna
- Averax
- Charadon
That's three leaders. Huh. And I want to try them all, so I suppose that's a bunch locked down. The last will likely be some combo of Grigori/Kuriotates/Calabim/Khazad/Illians, in roughly that order.

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Lion:

So I found his capital. Had a 1 in 5 chance at taking it, but decided not to. I don't have any other games, chance of losing is too high, and I think I have better odds if I just hang around to take it. Instead, headed north and found a lair above his starting point

Popped it for an ogre, who killed my warrior the next turn.

I waited eagerly, expecting the brute to head for his capital and crush his capital beneath its fists, until I noted a horrible mistake on my part...I'd been standing on his lair when I was killed. So like a dutiful idiot, the ogre was fortifying to protect the lair Hopefully when the next skele comes out he'll march, but I doubt it...

In better news, my other warrior came across his scout wandering around, and whacked it for 5xp Whilst healing, he came across a skeleton, and took him out, for a cool C2 shock warrior Currently he's camped outside their gates, making sure they don't build any improvements, and healing.

Meanwhile the cap keeps chugging along. We're up to 2 (lake) ports now and a fish.

[Old_Lion]

OK, I can open the thread but I can read naught

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Huh, thought I'd updated the Lion one at some point. Guess not.

Lion:

So the Ogre didn't kill Lion, but it might as well have. Between my choke plus the ogre (which, IIRC, he told me he killed on defense), his economy is now waaaaay behind. As in, I'm not sure if he has any improved tiles, or if so they're only barely so.

The demos say it all, really:




Twice rival GDP! Four times rival MFG! Twice rival food! Equal power, and higher in every other category save land (I'm the Lanun, duh) and Approval (because my cap is size 6 to his 4). Previously he had a much more respectable MFG, but only because he was working very little food (I feel like between turns he finally hooked up his wheat, or something, and that's why it took such a jump).

This is me:




Second city founded in two turns (to an instant 6f tile - fish - and hooked port to start flourishing). Worker comes out next turn as well, and will start mining the plainshill to the north (which can be shared). After that I think I'll go one more worker, and then another super fast settler (this time with chops!) to found somewhere, idk where - maybe in the City? sign to the SE. It doesn't get any ports, unfortunately (because that section is all lakes), but it does bring in wines, wheat (eventually - tempting to found 1E simply for that), shares a capital port, and lake tiles are no slouches either, this early in the game. Besides which, who knows? There might turn out to be a pearls somewhere in that long lake, which would let me set up ports anyway.

Whilst it sucks to have to found a city that doesn't fit with the Lanun advantages, it's important to remember that they don't lose anything by founding land cities - and it's not like there are any better cities around. I'm not willing to found further north for logistical reasons, especially with so many lairs around, and the only other option is on the eastern side of the lake - which has a long travel time, is very indefensible pre-galleys and requires tons of worker support - or at the nearby clams location, which I don't want to found without 2-3 warriors to defend it, and is a pretty bad location economy-wise anyway.

Plan is to found OO and bulb priesthood, and then use Cultists to murder his (coastal) capital. He shouldn't be able to get to something to defend against that in time because a) nothing defends against Cultist-on-a-lake except other OO units and b) I have a much stronger economy, at least atm.

I don't think there's much chance I lose at this point, tbh. His only real chance is to use Divided Souls to murder me (especially deadly across lakes), but that's quite an expensive tech, I intend on having strong garrisons starting very soon and am watching his power. I may divert to bronze working, too, if I see copper nearby(/change where city 3 goes based on it).

I circumnavigated the world too, btw, which was fun, even if it doesn't mean anything beyond 4-move workboats.

Actually, as you can see in my minimap, this is quite a large map vertically, so I could almost certainly eco- my way to a dominant victory in 150t if I so chose. I'm not going to do so, because I've already got another buildfest and don't really have the time to basically waste on a game already decided, but this is not a game where I win or die on the rush.

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Lion:

No pics, but copper landed in the best possible place, SW of the planned City? location!

...course, that's for a certain definition of best - it means he has it at his capital, and definitely means I need to go Bronze-working next/soon, because he could field bronze-warriors before a second city - but it fits with my micro, advantages warriors over his preferred recon line so I'd say it's overall a big plus.

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Lion:

Let's start with some mail, to save time:

Errm, are you okay with banning religious victories? I forgot they were left on in the Vic options.

I can work around it if you're not, though...

Erm.
I'm not sure what it implies and how we can remove those.

I'm losing, (and I'm ok with that, I'm aware I'm not a top notch player), but if you thik removing religious victory makes the game more interesting, ok. I have no problem with that.

Okay, lets lay cards on the table.

Religious victory means someone wins if they own the holy city of a religion that has 70% of the world following that religion (which is kinda complicated, but is done based off pop).

I'm saying can we ignore that, and pretend that when one of us wins via that that it's not a real victory, because normally I'd disable that wincon in duels (and its about to get patch-changed soon, as well).

I'm saying that because I'm currently researching OO, and know that I'll have to alter my research (and, potentially my entire gameplan) if we count religious victories. I can do that - it just makes the game a lot harder for me, because as you've no doubt noticed, OO uber alles, and there's basically no realistic way of combating it without OO units of your own.

In all honesty, the only thing that makes me think I'm fine with leaving them on is what you said - I am winning, and it would make the game more interesting.

So...I honestly don't mind too much. Leaving them on makes it a lot more challenging for me, but I think I can work around that.

Your choice.

He responded before I sent that last saying to leave things as are, which I decided whilst writing it that I'm okay with.

Why am I okay with that, on a map where the only counter to OO is OO and all my cities are coastal? Well...


Yeah - this game is won, if all else remains equal. I have bronze warriors, 3 cities (with another founded in 2-3 turns) to his 1 + settler, over twice his pop, and all the intimidating stats you see there. I'm at a place where I can either happily trundle to a decisive victory, or still have a pretty good chance accounting for religious.

Here's his capital:


And my capital:


Plan is to defend with bronze warriors and tech RoK -> OO -> Philosophy -> (bulb) Priesthood. Great Prophet comes out in 22 turns, so Priesthood will come in then, and I might as well turn off tech then, and just put everything into upgrading cultists.


Challenge, of course, is going to be regulating things such that RoK hits enough of my population that he doesn't win by religious in the meantime, but I think I can manage that. This just delays things.

[Ellimist]

Lion:

Don't religious victories require the shrine as well?

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Lion:

No.

They ought to, and I think are even supposed to, but they don't. That's a change planned for v12, btw.

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Spoilers (Kragroth):

I started writing this in the main thread, and then i realized who i was writing too. Now let's be clear - I stand entirely by this, and I'd happily say it to Kragroths face IRL, but I've done my time arguing with him. If one of the other competitors wants to bring this up in the main thread - which, tbh, I recommend - go for it. But considering I have only one start left where this has an effect (me vs. TBS, who's going to beat me anyway so I doubt he resorts to such a cheesy and, honestly, shameful tactic, I don't care enough to argue with Krag.

So Equal Islands, a script that I've never even heard of and has never been used on this site ever before, is a default mapscript, despite the fact that in EitB the only viable naval civilization is the Lanun? There's a reason we have never played a FFH map on this site with naval as a strong focus (well, several reasons, but let's not discuss that here) but even in BTS no game has been played with all players on separate islands.

Kragroth, you've clearly set this entire match up in a gamey, hyper-competitive, and, IMO, assholish way. You start on seperate islands, in a lush map with Lanun! Clearly there's only one outcome to that overly-rigged map, and you know it. Whilst your behaviour is technically appropriate I find it repulsive in the extreme.

Maybe that's just that my attitude to this game is less than you. I don't give two hoots whether I'm crowned "Master of FFH" or not. I care considerably more about playing fun and - largely - equitable duels. Its okay for, say, me to choose a small map with the plan to rush, because the other player can counter. On an islands map, though? There's no way any player fighting the Lanun is going to have a chance. I'd happily bet on myself over Ellimist in such a duel - hell, I'd have a fighting chance vs. him with Deity-AI bonuses.

I don't think I'll ever want to play a game with Kragroth in again.