Also, impressive headscratcher. Two tiles which call for Water mana, three which demand fire, no particularly good way to relocate the capital, at least not that I see so far.
If I were to go with the Lanun, I see a couple good spots...three turns delayed! Or I could settle in place and give up on the idea of coves until second city. Or go 1SE and trade a springable oasis and dyes in exchange for weak seafood and 2 coves. Sure, I only need Agri/Fishing to begin with, but that's probably a weaker capital.
If I were to go with the Sidar...I can't help but notice all the rough terrain which makes it tricky to attack out into the barbs.
Clan - do have a lot of food and hammers and free Fire. I don't see a lot of aristofarm territory, nor commerce resources, so economy is likely to limit them.
Hmm. Actually, economy does seem like the biggest limiter here for most civs. Immortal difficulty doesn't help. Without large aristofarm tracts, it's going to have to be cottages, specialists, or Other. So I think I'm still stuck on Lanun and Sidar. With all the visible forests and potential forests, and semi-mandatory cottage econ, I think Elves are promoted to viable.
Which Sidar? Well...if I stick with Mind mana, which I really should, I've only got four early must-work tiles. Maybe add in the hills post Mining for six. That makes Cha less useful. Except, heh, good thing I looked at the changelogs. Shekinah is Arc/Cre, not Cha/Cre. I think that tilts it even more in Sandalphon's favor, spamming adepts is boring and raging barbs ought to give us wanables anyway.
Lanun still needs to be Falamar. Without coves til second city probably, we need Expansive.
Elves. Elves want both mind and fire mana, which calls for the Svart preferably. Volanna is still probably the stronger choice given raging barbs, so let's lock her in.
Elves Mk. 2: let's stick with Arendel of the Ljo, the only elf with two econ traits.
and a runner up...let's go with Beeri Bawl of the Luch. Water makes sense, he needs the extra hammers for mud golems.
So my final selection, which I expect to secondguess three seconds after I commit :
1. Sandalphon of the Sidar, Mind mana
2. Falamar of the Lanun, Death mana
3. Volanna of the Svartalfar, Fire mana
4. Beeri Bawl of the Luchiurp, Water mana
5. Arendel of the Ljosalfar, Fire mana
Jalepeno obviously picked my second choice, the one I was debating back and forth on. I suspect he has the same general gameplan in mind. Air, Water, Chaos - his adept might be fire, death, meta or mind. All kinds of things work well with the Lanun.
Molach picked for general power as well, plus probably for Mind mana. He can Inspire two cities, with care, while the rest of us only get one. Mind, Chaos, Air...his adept should probably have been a Water adept, but I could imagine him going other routes.
DaveV...is a bit harder to say. Impressed by the power of the Sheaim in our succession game? Planning to kill someone with skeletons? Maybe just wanted the palace mana? Death, Fire, Chaos, that's half the spells I wanted, all for free. But, well, Arcane/Summoner...that doesn't give him much in the way of economic tools. Just got to make sure he's not able to pump the AC in peace, and take advantage of the extraordinarily long setup time for the civ.
And Aurorarcher...Dain. He is thinking of the long game. It wouldn't surprise me to find he picked Ice mana, although Mind could make sense from the perspective of bulbing up the arcane tree (and Phi on Dain goes along with that). It's the duty of the rest of us to ensure he doesn't *make* it to archmages, because if he does, we're screwed. Meta, Fire, Body - all darn good adept spells.
First couple dozen turns should be pretty straightforward. Probably founding in place, starting Inspiration immediately, researching Agri-Calendar. After that, I'll have to pick between Mining and Mysticism - Sidar + Phi makes Elder councils significantly better than average. As soon as possible, the adept starts enchanting weapons, which hopefully gives warriors odds to kill barbs out in the wild.
First Sage becomes an Academy, first Wane becomes a Sage. Later on, I'll probably follow Iskender's inspiration and mostly Wane merchants, because they can be multiplied higher.
(September 24th, 2015, 16:25)Mardoc Wrote: First, and foremost - anyone want to come along for the ride? I'm usually on the ball about reporting, and explaining my thought processes, and I even sometimes listen to advice!
For instance: I haven't actually got any particular preferences in mind for this game. Always wanted to see a particular civ get their day in the sun? I might be willing to oblige!
Hmmm....yes, let's. I wouldn't have without this post, so there's one (questionable) benefit to starting a thread early.
Have low expectations, though. Except on v12 stuff, I'm generally on the ball there.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Quote:EitB balance changes:
The list of changes in v12 is long...but most of them are tweaking. The only one that seems significant enough to change civ ranking is planar gates cut to 100h. Everything else is a little buff here, a little nerf there; probably puts the civs closer together than before, but not huge.
v11 and v10 were more significant, both the Luch and the Sheaim got significant buffs. But...I still don't think Sheaim are really viable in MP, and the Luch buffs were almost all to the golem line, which still isn't what makes them strong. Gut, not analysis, and I could well be wrong.
Probably right, but sadness. Boost to Foreign Trade in v12 is worth noting, as it's quite powerful (enough to be nerfed as soon as I get around to fixing it) which pushes in favor of cottages/seafaring.
And yes, Torusland is very water-heavy even on default.
DaveV probably wants to rerun the game where TBS crushed with Charadon (33?).
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
(September 27th, 2015, 02:40)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Hmmm....yes, let's. I wouldn't have without this post, so there's one (questionable) benefit to starting a thread early.
Yay!
Quote:Probably right, but sadness.
Eh? Isn't that what you'd expect from a balance mod? The further it goes, the less changes required? Personally I'd be rather irritated with you if the speed of change was increasing over time.
Quote:Boost to Foreign Trade in v12 is worth noting, as it's quite powerful (enough to be nerfed as soon as I get around to fixing it) which pushes in favor of cottages/seafaring.
Good thing I was planning a cottage/specialist/wane econ, then, and Jalepeno will demonstrate the Lanun version this game. Should be useful perspective for you.
Quote:DaveV probably wants to rerun the game where TBS crushed with Charadon (33?).
So you'd expect to see him at skellies or Pyre Zombies, at the latest? I'd have thought he'd go for Averax if that was his plan. But, I dunno, I think the main relevant factor that game was TBS...
Anyway, as one might expect from a game with PYFT as the major recruitment theme, the turn is already in my hands.
Not married to the theme if anyone comes up with a better one...but for now I'm going to use song titles. Whatever song comes to mind when I see the new city - not necessarily related to the terrain, although the first one is:
As planned, our first Great Person is due by T33, before any non-Mind people can realistically even have Mysticism researched. Note that we're losing the Pacifism benefit due to rounding: once we get an Elder council in place and run a sage, our GPP rate should increase to 4 *2.5 = 10 GPP/turn! Or else we can dump Pacifism when Agrarianism comes in.
Minor balance note: for symmetry, Great Prophets settled should also get +1 gold, no? Not that I'm likely to generate many GPro's, and if I do, the Altar will be an ever-present temptation.
Demographics are hard to interpret. Clearly not everyone went Mind. But I don't see how 16 is possible without it - even if they settled for first-ring Oasis and are researching a pre-req tech. Well, perhaps if they are also Creative, the math would work out. If top GNP jumps to 18 next turn (when theoretical Perpentach Molach finishes his springing and starts running Inspiration) then we'll know what happened.
Quote:Eh? Isn't that what you'd expect from a balance mod? The further it goes, the less changes required? Personally I'd be rather irritated with you if the speed of change was increasing over time.
Sadness that the Sheaim and Luchuirp bonuses aren't making them viable for MP in those areas.
Great Prophets not getting boosted is deliberate. The Sidar theme is specialism, and the prophets are very much a compromise of yields. Besides, they already benefit greatly from the Altar, which pushes them enough - or perhaps too much - towards the Divine line.
How would you feel about a CHA/CRE Shekinah instead of the current, btw? I've never been too fond of her current niche, and I feel the "sitting around with adepts isn't really Sidar" mindset is prevalent.
Good opening moves. Definitely leave Pacifism with Agrarianism - you can always jump back in with Godking, after all.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
(September 27th, 2015, 14:30)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Sadness that the Sheaim and Luchuirp bonuses aren't making them viable for MP in those areas.
Heh - wait and see how they actually perform before listening to the biased turnplayer
Quote:Great Prophets not getting boosted is deliberate. The Sidar theme is specialism, and the prophets are very much a compromise of yields. Besides, they already benefit greatly from the Altar, which pushes them enough - or perhaps too much - towards the Divine line.
Huh, ok. Seems weird that that's literally the only specialist not boosted, is all.
Quote:How would you feel about a CHA/CRE Shekinah instead of the current, btw? I've never been too fond of her current niche, and I feel the "sitting around with adepts isn't really Sidar" mindset is prevalent.
I think that would make her a better counterpoint to Sandalphon - he'd be all about the boosted specialists, while she boosts Wanes. I do wonder if 13XP for a Wane might be a little cheap, though - that starts to approach the realm where 2 battles is all it takes to make a Wanable. It helps that you've moved Conquest back away from Edu, granted.
Honestly, you could give her Agg (although then change Cre too to not step on Volanna's toes) to emphasize the 'go out and fight' role. More likely to win battles ought to make you more willing to fight, no?
Quote:Good opening moves. Definitely leave Pacifism with Agrarianism - you can always jump back in with Godking, after all.
Good point. We do want to get some Enchanted Blade warriors out into the world to start slaughtering wildlife and the natives
Honestly, the priest specialist was a concession, IMO. The Sidar are like a step away from Agnostic in the Illian sense. They've got enough to do that way.
Quote:I think that would make her a better counterpoint to Sandalphon - he'd be all about the boosted specialists, while she boosts Wanes. I do wonder if 13XP for a Wane might be a little cheap, though - that starts to approach the realm where 2 battles is all it takes to make a Wanable. It helps that you've moved Conquest back away from Edu, granted.
Honestly, you could give her Agg (although then change Cre too to not step on Volanna's toes) to emphasize the 'go out and fight' role. More likely to win battles ought to make you more willing to fight, no?
True, true, I'd forgotten the Level 5 changes. Don't really want to give them AGG, though, as it doesn't gel well with the Sidar image. Hum hum hum.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
(September 27th, 2015, 18:40)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Honestly, the priest specialist was a concession, IMO. The Sidar are like a step away from Agnostic in the Illian sense. They've got enough to do that way.
I don't understand what you're saying here. Something about mechanics vs. lore? You know lore can change, right?
Quote:True, true, I'd forgotten the Level 5 changes. Don't really want to give them AGG, though, as it doesn't gel well with the Sidar image. Hum hum hum.
Sidar image? What does being good at combat have to do with that? If the trait had another name, like Defender, but did the same thing (made your defenders more effective at their job) would you object?
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