It's the end of the world, and Dave feels fine

[DaveV]

Co-starring Tebryn Arbandi, who wants to bring Armageddon to the world.



So, I guess he's a movie distributor?

[DaveV]

The password is Armageddon.

[DaveV]

For reference:

AC	Spawn Chance (%)	Max units/gate
0-9	5	2
10-29	10	4
30-39	13	8
40-49	17	10
50-59	20	12
60-69	23	14
70-79	27	16
80-89	30	18
90-99	35	20
100	40	25

[Bobchillingworth]

Your start:

[Bobchillingworth]

Just realized your start has an error- shouldn't be a mana 1E of the settler.

[DaveV]

That doesn't change my picks, which were:

1. Dain of Amurites (+Mind)
2. Tebryn of Sheaim (+Mind)
3. Thessalonica of Elohim (+Fire)
4. Hannah of Lanun (+Mind)
5. Perpentach of Balseraphs (+Fire)

The actual lineup:

1. Jalepeno is Falamar of Lanun. My fourth pick, but replacing Hannah with Falamar. My start looks OK but not great for the Lanun, which is why I had them relatively low in my list. I could have moved 2E to replace the Rice with Fish, and Sugar with Cotton. Only one pirate cove, though, and the lakes are laid out awkwardly for pirate cove placement.

The Lanun can pretty easily rule the seas, though, and there's a lot of water on this map. Water mana means they'll be able to spring the oasis, for whatever that's worth. Since jalepeno will probably move to the coast, he won't be able to use Spring to convert the desert hill to plains for a 2-hammer plant. jalepeno is a good player who is still waiting for his breakthrough win. Sorry, but the relative weakness of his civ means this isn't going to be that game.

The Lanun have Chaos mana from the palace, which means jalepeno will have Dance of Blades available for fighting the barbs. Chaos I is the weakest of the barb-fighting spells, because it only lasts one turn, meaning the adept has to be on top of the buffed unit at the start of the turn. Chaos mana also means he has a chance of getting some strong units via Mutation.

The Lanun have a very dangerous worldspell, that can kill units and wash away improvements that are adjacent to water.

My guess for extra sphere: Mind.

2. Auroarcher is Dain of Amurites. My first pick. Philosophical should let Dain generate a great sage on turn 34 (assuming he took Mind mana as his bonus). Meanwhile, he'll be able to explore his environs with floating eyes. The Amurites have a very good worldspell, which means I'll have to have some means of fighting that doesn't involve infinite numbers of fireballs and spectres. Aurorarcher is a very good player, and could be the favorite to win this one.

The Amurites have fire mana from their palace, which means Aurorarcher can burn away his jungles at the cost of a few turns of Inspiration.

The big weakness of the Amurites in this game is that they have no military boost for dealing with the barbs. Aurorarcher could lose several warriors to barbs, but should be able to fight them off once he wins a few battlefield promotions. Body I means he can use Haste to move his promoted warriors to the front quickly.

My guess for extra sphere: Mind.

3. Molach is Perpentach of Balseraphs. My fifth choice. The starting adept can keep Inspiration going in two cities with careful puppet movement. The Balseraphs have a lot of cool toys, and puppets let them pull some nasty tricks without exposing their adepts. Perpentach requires flexibility, while the Balseraphs require focus. It's a hard combination to pull off, but can be very effective. Molach seems to be a good, mid-tier player. I expect him to have a respectable showing, but not contend for the win.

Like the Lanun, the Balseraphs have Chaos mana, so can use Dance of Blades and maybe mutated units against the barbs. Puppets mean it's a lot easier for the Balseraphs to get to the front line and cast Dance of Blades.

The Balseraphs don't have any terraforming mana from their palace, but have a very good worldspell.

My guess for extra sphere: Metamagic.

4. DaveV is Tebryn of Sheaim. My second choice, which was probably a good roll given all the duplicate choices. I suspect Bob had to do a lot of tie-breaking when assigning the civs. The Sheaim have received several buffs in the last couple updates of EitB: Planar Gate units are now buildable, and the cost for Planar Gates has been reduced to a low, low 67 hammers at quick. Pyre Zombies are still an effective unit if deployed in large enough numbers, although their speed is an issue. The big advantage of the Sheaim in this game, I think, is their ability to cast level 2 spells via Mobius Witches after researching Knowledge of the Ether, instead of having to research to Sorcery.

The Sheaim have the by-now-familiar Chaos mana, plus Death mana for skeleton summoning. I'd say I have the least to fear from the barbs.

The Sheaim also have fire mana, and I'll be using that to start burning the jungles at the outset. The effectiveness of their worldspell is directly proportional to the AC.

5. Mardoc is Sandalphon of Sidar. The Sidar were not on my radar. I'm assuming Mardoc is planning to run a great person economy. Sever Soul is a cool ability which has been used to great effect in past games.

The Sidar have Enchantment mana, which lets all their melee units have the combat strength (though not the promotion advantage) of an Aggressive leader. Spirit gives a 10% healing boost, which is situationally useful. Shadow is even more narrowly useful (for attacking barb archers, or other player's Dance of Blades units).

The Sidar worldspell is pretty weak in a game where several players will probably have floating eyes.

No terraforming mana.

My guess for extra sphere: Mind.

[DaveV]

Turn 1. Lacking Metamagic mana, I have to explore the old fashioned way. The fire brigade is already at work.

[DaveV]

Turn 3. Still exploring and burning jungles.

[DaveV]

I met Auroracher on turn 4.




Demos and graphs show him running Inspiration continuously. Not a big surprise there.

[DaveV]

Turn 6, found his borders. That's pretty close.




Meanwhile, my scout is finding a lot of junk to the west.