Sure! I'll put one together tomorrow. Plus first turn report (preview: I found the Yggdrasil 
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[Spoilers] The Bored Identity
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By "tomorrow" I obviously meant "whenever I remembered I said I'd update this 'tomorrow' ".
I was doing opponent analysis with emoticon power ratings and all that jazz way before posers like Commodore made it popular (PLEASE RATE ME), but now it'll seem trite if I bother. So instead I'll rank everyone using the sophisticated scientific device known to man: Commodore, Varn of the Malakim Rating: Explanation: Commodore's a very skilled BTS vet with a penchant for getting lost in a self-constructed narrative and convincing himself of the need to fight self-destructive wars of aggression. Kind of like the Bush administration, if you ignore the "skilled" part [INSERT RIMSHOT HERE]. He's new to FFH (I think?), but he's a smart guy and I doubt he'll get too tripped up making the transition, especially if he takes the time to read any of the dozens of games archived here (assuming he hasn't already). Varn's still a really good leader, but a little bit worse in EitB since you can't give your economy quite so massive a boost by swapping Creative for Financial anymore. Can produce instamages by upgrading Savants, assuming EitB didn't patch that out. Can run pretty much any kind of game really, thanks to only having Assassins banned and Adaptive. Malakim do suffer a little from lacking a killer UU to hang your hat on, to mix metaphors. Generally they're directed toward the Discipline line though, especially with their half-price desert temples unlocking 2 promo disciplines if you take Charismatic, without having to bother with both of the early exp civics. WS can be used for some surprise Cultist nastiness, and indeed that's probably the best use. Also has the potential to produce a rather nasty force of Paramanders supported by Ritualists. I don't think he's a massive threat to win the game though. Too many other veteran players with strong civs. He's also a pretty tasty target; he doesn't have any real early-game advantages, and the Malakim rank pretty high on the scale of civs you want to nip in the bud. HK, Auric of the Illians Rating: Explanation: HK's a long-time FFH vet with at least one win under his belt- I think maybe two or three. I'm a little surprised he wanted another go at Auric; I guess he felt that Mardoc ruined whatever plans he had in XXXV before he had a chance to implement them. HK is fairly aggressive, and I expect he'll run a fairly textbook Illian Mage game, relying on summons and slow. Big question is whether he tries to PoW-rush someone; he didn't in XXXV, and I wonder if he regrets that now. It's a tough rush to pull off though, and with five opponents it's less likely to pay off as well in the long-term. Another thing I'm interested in seeing- whether he goes for Conquest for 2x CHA promotions, Agrarianism + City States for max growth and cottage spam, or Aristofarms. I ran Conquest in XXXVI, but found it really crippled my growth curve, and I wouldn't have had any difficulty producing Mage candidates even without it. HK is a definite threat to win the game; I'd say he's second-most likely. He's a fairly good target; I don't fear his Javelin Throwers, and my units will have the best mobility around. He'll still be able to lock down a melee stack pre-mobility, though, so I can't take Slow lightly. Mages are very vulnerable to mounted units as well. Kragroth, Averax of the Sheaim Rating: Explanation: Kragroth has definitely improved since he first joined RB, and he was a major part of the team which won the game against Qg / REM / Kredom. He has a good grasp on mobility tactics, but a bit too much of a SP mindset; his preoccupation with "barb farming" doesn't do him many favors, and I repeatedly annihilated his offensive sallies in our duel because he didn't bother examining my graphs and didn't consider that I might elect to hold back the better part of my strength out of view. Kragroth's pick is certainly a dangerous one to neighbor. Aggressive PZ are no joke, even if they do cast 10 hammers more than my Axemen. Some of his Gate units are really nasty as well, especially the Succubi. That said, Horsemen counter PZ well, and my own Axes can take his own hammer-efficiently if maneuvered correctly. He's not going to win the game. Too inexperienced and he's in a 6-player game using a leader/civ pairing that favors powerful but slow melee units, which is probably going to make PZ-based world conquest impractical. Big question is whether he makes the game easier or more difficult for someone else to win. As a target he's not optimal, thanks to his also having Aggressive. Doesn't mean I won't attack if given the opportunity, just that his units will be inherently more difficult to chew through than most. Ellimist, Hannah of the Lanun Rating: Explanation: The man to beat. Ellimist's pick actually is less threatening on-face than HK's or even Commodore's, and I suspect he picked Hannah solely for the fun-factor of Insane. Ellimist is a ruthless and enormously talented opponent though- his win record is easily the best of any RB FFH player, and he invests far more time and care into his games than almost all of his competitors. I have no doubt he can do some amazing things with the already generous Lanun economy- actually, I know he can, since he helped managed the Lanun in the Perpy game... come to think of it, that game was probably what gave him the idea to pick Hannah here, since the experience would be about the same. The big issue with the Lanun isn't that they have crappy Champs, especially since Boarding parties have been boosted a bit in EitB, but rather that they lack any really good UU that aren't ships. Hannah can alleviate this problem or make it worse depending on what traits she rolls. Of course those ships aren't just for show, and I expect Ellimist will run a Sirian strategy regardless of what traits he has, provided he has applicable targets. As I said, Ellimist is very likely to win. He's also a really good target- no early game advantages unless he gets lucky and picks up AGG or CHA (post-Education), and he def. tops the "nip in the bud" category. On the downside he has every reason to go warrior-first and maybe warrior-second depending on how much production puts out before Fishing arrives, so he's probably out of warrior-rush territory. Coves also make him more resistant to pillaging. Oh, and he might be attempting a Hyborem gambit to try out the new and massively improved Infernals. Ichabod, Sandalphon of the Sidar Rating: Explanation: I'm really sorry Ichabod, but your review is going to be short because it's getting really late and I've been typing this post for like an hour now. Uh, Ichabod may have played before. Pretty sure he has. Actually I think he might have won a game. Anyway, he hasn't participated in a FFH game in a while at any rate. Sand Dolphin would be much better if we were playing something like No Settlers Raging Deity barbs or with V12; instead he's going to really have to work for his wanes. Recon line is nasty deadly thanks to "Sever Soul" being available to everything above scouts; that said, they're a little expensive to use as main battle units. Not really sure where else his strengths as a leader lie, tbh. Mobility, I guess. But I have that too. Not going to win. Good target. His WS is potent stuff if used correctly. Time to post some screencaps and then hit the sack!
I don't remember how I was going to caption these exactly, but the salient points are:
   
Commodore has played and dedlurked FFH games before, though I don't recall which ones.
Malakim lost the Savant upgrade through a bug.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Forgot about the Last Days game, which is sad since I played in it.
Okay, so a few thoughts on my early game strategy- Aristofarm economy is out. Not enough water, not nearly enough resources to power my way to Construction for farm chaining. Land is pretty awful in general, Ygg excluded. Going to have to go with cottages + Agrarianism farms, I think- doesn't look to be enough food to justify Conquest either, and I'd rather squeeze more food out of what few farms I will have to work more mines. Calendar first would be standard Hippus play for the vast majority of circumstances, but here it'll unlock zero capital resources and only give +1 food to a single capital tile, so I'll go crafting instead to get at least a little extra commerce from the wines. Following Crafting I want Mining and Calendar, probably in that order- first expansion is going to the corn + silk site. Then Exploration to connect my cities and AC -> Education -> Myst to get border expansions, an economy and my civics in order, respectively. Hopefully by that point I'll have met someone and can research AH -> HBR for an attack- if someone is particularly close, I can try slotting those two techs in as early as after Mining. Long-term, I'm not certain yet. Funding a large army of Mounted Mercs might be an issue, since I'm not exactly residing in commerce heaven. Not sure if mounted should comprise my main army or be support units for one with a melee core; +1 moves and an increased withdraw rate is cool and all, but they shouldn't be a straight jacket, especially considering I have access to FFH's full suite of units. In terms of religion, the contenders are Runes, Veil and Leaves. Runes could mean Iron, plus Arete, plus Bambur boosts melee units. Veil is collateral, and much less importantly a slightly better Rosier. Leaves also unlocks a mounted hero, plus ancient forest lumbermills will help alleviate my food issues to some extent- assuming I have many forests left by the time I'll get around to researching it.
I should add RE: religions that Esus is a bit tempting as well, being able to Extort gold to buy Mercs. Mains issues with Esus are:
* When am I going to research Sorcery to unlock Gibbon? Or am I okay with giving up an Archmage hero? * Doubtful I'll ever make it to Warhorses to make use of the Esus knights. * Nightwatch do very little for me. * Making use of Extort presupposes I land the Guild. * Extort works better with larger cities, and mine are likely to be fairly small.
Also, I expect that the next few posts in other's threads for this turn will be some variation of "oh joy, Bob settled the Ygg". Should be obvious to everyone; I wandered for two turns, and only this turn will the crop yield show that someone is getting what under other circumstances would be an impossible amount (barring a super-lucky, super-early GM from a lair, and the top GNP is too low for that).
Hoping I get a turn today (technically a second turn, but I didn't get one last night); scout found a hut, so I get to pop two.
Spamming my own thread because none of you assholes will do it for me (also the only person in the office today), I just realized I should have titled my thread "Whores Lord Bob". Dammit.
Going with Three Kingdoms as my theme btw. Greatest show ever made, perhaps most triumphant artistic endeavor in human history. Lascaux cave paintings can get stuffed. |
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