Enlightened Sidar

[Ichabod]

Assuming you get to Hyborem what happens then? Is it a win button or a fun button?

Interesting question.

I'm pretty sure I'll have more chances of winning with Hyborem than I'd have with the Sidar, but would these chances be good? Usually, the problem with Hyb in MP is that he gets killed before he can settle and consolidate for a bit. He has to spawn in non-claimed terrain, so, in games that develop quickly, with good terrain, and without a direct Hyb rush plan from the start, you usually spawn near some pretty developed Civ. And, before you can react, you are eliminated. Due to this happening all the time, I have no idea about how strong the Infernals can get in MP, if given a bit of time to consolidate.

I actually was in the only Hyb victory in a MP game that I can remember. I was the Khazad, when Selrahc rushed for the Infernals on PBEM VI. But that game had a custom made map with no grassland whatsoever, lots and lots of desert and tundra, almost no food resources (less than my revealed land here), almost no happiness resources; it wasn't a game that works for comparison sake (it heavily favored the Infernals, despite delaying the initial rush). I conceded the game for Selrahc (I was top of the score and his mais opposition for most of the game) because I thought I had no chance of winning in the long run: I had a lot of problems with hell terrain and burning sands and Hyb cities start with Obsidian Gates, that work as airports in FFH: you can teleport units between cities with them. So he could always defend against my attacks, with powerful units from an "oracled" Maleficent Designs tech. Besides, as the Khazad, there was no victory condition I could reach before him (I’d never get all the needed mana for tower, having no access to mages and dispel and with almost no mana nodes; it’d take a millennia to get all the GPROs for Altar; I couldn’t conquer Hyb with Obsidian Gates defense). Finally, we had a turn pace of a turn per week and I couldn't stand that game anymore due to it and, when deciding to kill the game, I felt it was fairer to concede.

But I don't remember a game where we saw Hyb actually developing after the buff he received in EitB, with more starting units and better cities (I need to test a Hyb game, just to see how these bonuses work in practice). Ah, and that reminds me, after I build the ToV in this game, I think I need to try and finish a settler, just so Hyb gets more bonuses when it spawns (it's based on number of cities from the opponents).

So, theoretically: The Infernals don't use food, so they don't care about the bad terrain of the map. Obsidian Gates in each city is very, very powerful, if I get time to actually get some units and cities. Finally, cities that start at size 6, even if I don't get manes to grow them, are pretty nice in a city spam strategy (perhaps this will actually turn out to be a bit overpowered, after testing). We'll see. Infernal cities also start, according to the manual, with: Ashen Veil Religion, Elder Council, Training Yard, Obsidian Gate, Forge, Mage Guild. That's quite a lot of instant bonuses for a recently settled city.

I'm pretty sure I have a shot in this game with the Infernals if I spawn near the Sidar. I'll take the PoR, which enables a steady rise in the Armageddon Counter, and also the AV holy city. I'll get manes from killing the billion warriors I'll order the Sidar to build in queue. And, I'll be on a sort of isolated peninsula, while I can manage to finish the basic worker and economic techs that I missed while rushing. On the other hand, if I start near one of the strong Civs, I can have a bad time, even getting eliminated instantly.

Another plus for Hyb is that we have at least two warmonger leaders (Tasunke and Averax), that need to kill people to win (hence, giving us manes) and only one Good civ (and, considering Commodore is a beginner in FFH, I think he’ll end up with a neutral/evil religion, which are usually better when you are not already sick about using them).

I guess the short answer, then, is: we have more chances of winning with Hyb than with the Sidar, but the actual chances are pretty reliant on a good spawning point. If we have time to develop, I think we can make it. Otherwise, we try to go out with a bang and take as many enemy units to the other side as we can.

[Ichabod]

Turn 17


Professional screenshoter here! Taking the picture before moving the unit...

The bear ran away from our mighty The Wanderer and our mighty The Wanderer ran away from a mightier lizardman. Someone was not as diligent as the Sidar when cleaning his lairs, apparently, so we have this annoying buggers running around. Very suboptimal move from the scout, but all the other tiles could be reached by the lizardman or would lead to a trapped-between-bear-and-lizard scenario. So, south it is! We could back-track to the Capital, but that would be boring (take that, reason and intellect).

Here’s a question for the more knowledgeable lurkers: do lizardmen dream of invisible scouts? Oh, I mean, what’s the barb behavior when you have an invisible unit (like an Into the Misted scout)? Can they attack me or would they just occupy the same tile, like when you move a warrior on top of a Giant Spider? And do lizardmen see invisible scouts or do they just see invisible animals? If becoming invisible would make our scout safe from barbs, I might very well cast my WS now. The warrior could later be used to explore the west, in that case, with the safety of invisibility.



Same logic as with the grass farm, we’ll improve the plains tile before the floodplain… Or will we? I just realize that might be a mistake. Thing is, the grass forest gives the same food + hammer yield than the finished plains farm, so we could run that instead of the farm: we get less commerce, but going for the floodplain improvement now might give more food in the long run (and I seem to remember being only one food off from growing to size 5 or 6). Heck, I need to sim it! To the Sand Box, Robin!

[Qgqqqqq]

would they just occupy the same tile,

[Old Harry]

Given that it'll be the key factor do you have any idea how the spawn mechanic works for Hyborem? And is there anything you can do to influence it?

[Ichabod]

would they just occupy the same tile,

Nice to know. Another side benefit of castin Into the Mist now is that I can scare my opponents into thinking I'm coming for them with invisible dudes.

Given that it'll be the key factor do you have any idea how the spawn mechanic works for Hyborem? And is there anything you can do to influence it?

I can influence the number of spawned units, though not by much. The formula is this, according to the changelog:

The Infernal now have their spawning units changed to the following: Number of (2*Manes), Axes, Workers and Settlers is equal to the average number of enemy cities divided by two. (They get more units than this, but the others are fixed, not dependable on number of cities).

So, by settling a second city, perhaps I can make this average number go up to 2 (I doubt we can average 3). Circa turn 85 is pretty soon for 4 cities for every player, I guess, but who knows?

But the big deal, the spawning place, I don't think I can influence in any way. Hyb can spawn even in currently unfogged land by any of the players, so I can't influence it by leaving vast areas of unfogged land near Celo (or trying to unfog near opponents). The best thing I can do, I think, is to leave a lot of land without culture near my Civ, allowing Hyb to spawn there (as far as I know, Hyb can't spawn inside cultured tiles). But, again, on turn 85, there'll probably be a lot of unsettled land still, considering the random map.

Oh, and I can cross my fingers too. Perhaps that'll help.

[Ichabod]

And, now that I think of it, perhaps the inner workings of the mod could give some more information about how Hyb chooses his place to spawn. But I don't know how to read this information, so I'm limited to finger-crossing thing, really.

[Dreylin]

Soooo, summoned any incarnations of Evil yet?

[Ichabod]

Soooo, summoned any incarnations of Evil yet?

Getting ready for it.

Sorry for going silent so suddenly, but work + other activities + being sick for some days has taken most of my free time. My head is just too tired to write a decent report once I have time for it, so I end up just playing some hearthstone matches while my brain goes numb.

[Dreylin]

Heh.

Well I guess there's not a whole lot going on really since you're on such a tight beeline. Since everyone else pretty-much stopped posting as well, can you give a us an xx/85t? update on progression?

[Ichabod]

We are 1/4 of the way there, my friends!




I used the trick I told you about before, boosting the GNP generation in the last turn, so I could get all the overflow into a GPro. Not that big of a deal, but it's a tiny bit safer than doing it otherwise. There was a risk of generating a GSci because of this, even though I only ran a scientist for 1 turn.




We got lucky, though! Or rather, we didn't get unlucky. Only need 3 more Great Prophets now...

You can see I pre-built some things to overflow into the PoR. I haven't simmed that much to find out the perfect way to do this, but it seemed that what matters is finishing Philo as soon as possibole, rather than building a lot of overflow. So, instead of working high hammer tiles, I'm working high commerce tiles. Of course, it'll change after Philo is teched.