Aurorarcher is making the world disappear

[Aurorarcher]

So Jale declared war with his scout for a reason I'm not so sure about...

Reason #1: He wanted to look at my capital (that's for sure) and hope that it's undefended? Not likely if he had been reading demos/graphs and would notice I've Mind mana...

Reason #2 EitB 43 spoilers:

he was pissed I razed one of his cities in PBEM 43 recently

So I pretty much had to take this shot:




Which I unfortunately lost.

So I had to clean up with adept. Now I need to hope Dave won't come after me with his scout + skeleton because he could have a shot at eliminating me. I hope he'll play as passive as he usually does . Anyways, here's the full log:




Notice that I used Haste to get back to capital so I wouldn't lose the Inspiration. I also got the turtles event for +1f with the lake tile, not terrible but won't matter until Fishing.

Scouting deeper west:




Demos T10:

[Aurorarcher]

On T11 Mardoc found me.




Only a turn later I found his borders.




He also has a Corn nearby (maybe 2nd assuming he has one in BFC).

Demos. Notice the drop in GNP, it was 19 (assumed it was Molach) but now it's 17 and he hasn't finished Calendar yet. Also Jale has a cap size 2 already and 12 food!

[Aurorarcher]

Not much has happened lately to be honest, pretty much hitting enter. In the west my scout run away from a Lion, trying to stay alive as long as possible. Jale grew to size 4, he must've gotten +1 pop event because otherwise I don't understand how he did it so fast. I was 2nd last to grow to size 2; mostly because those forest are delaying my worker moves and getting Corn up was delayed to T15.

Demos T15:

[Aurorarcher]

Scouting west.




Demos.




Thing worth to mention is that Mardoc's scout died recently, presumably to some animal in the east.

[Aurorarcher]

On T17 I found Molach.




I moved my scout to the same tile. I have now met all my rivals.

Jale keeps growing fast, now capital size 5 while others are hanging around size 3.

[Aurorarcher]

As the turns are pretty boring, and there's not really much to say about them, maybe it's time for a opponent/civ analysis here.

Sheaim, Tebryn(ARC/SUM), Dave:

Let's start with the civ and traits. Great semi-early units in PZs and the earliest mages: Mobius Witches. ARC/SUM combo will work perfectly for the plan to grab KotE early and get Planar Gates up for Witches as fast possible. If Dave can get Witches fast enough those double summoned spectres from it should be a real pain to anyone in his neighbourhood (read: that's me ). However, those traits are also the worst economical traits giving no benefits to faster teching/cheaper buildings. Well, they get half priced Mage Guilds which I guess you could say is something, they even give a sage slot now - so not totally useless, but yeah not much either. The problem with Sheaim is to get to the point when they can start dominating the battlefield with infinite powerful summons. Also Dave has to decide whether he wants to go for PZs early, which I don't think he will with the traits he has chosen. It seems obvious that he'll go for the early mages plan.

What about DaveV then. It'll be intersting to see how he'll play with Sheaim as his reputation suggests that he'll play passive and concervative through the game, and in general he doesn't like to take risks very much. Dave is however a strong player when it comes to making decisions and plans for his civ. I have no doubt that Dave will do pretty good in this game. Good neighbour regarding his usual peaceful playing style. I am looking forward for his civ choice to prove otherwise!

Rank #2



Lanun, Falamar (CHA/EXP), Jale:

Lanun is a great ecomical choice for this map type with tons of lakes and small sneaky seas to put your Pirate Coves in. Jale's opening for this game was a bit weird as he didn't settle on coast which kind of makes me to question his plan with the civ. He sure wanted the water mana to remove the desert from Oasis. Anyway, CHA/EXP is quite good ecomical pairing that'll pay off very early. One extra happy is not super awesome early but the map seems rather dry regarding happiness (at least in my region), but it'll help him to get better units from raging barbs. Falf priced settlers with EXP (only hammers are doubled though) can allow REXing. I have no idea what Jale's plan is with the civ though. Lanun doesn't really have any good UU or obvious strategy to go for. On the other hand with the boosted research from Pirate Coves they can easily go for any religion and make the use of that. That's what Jale is probably going to do. OO is the most obvious choice (and it fits the sea theme) with this kind of map but even early Veil could be possible. Also Drama would probably be easy meat for Lanun if goes for it.

Jale is also pretty good player. He knows how to do detailed microing and can come up with great tactics while preparing or already in war. He's also a lot more aggressive than Dave so I have to keep that in mind when dealing with him.

Rank #3



Sidar, Sandalphon (PHI/IND), Mardoc

My 2nd pick, and I am almost regretting not making them my 1st pick just because their civ is so unique and allows a lot of possible things to go for. Raging barbs should bring quite a lot of 5 level waneable units to him and eventually that'll pay up very big. In the early game IND is helping to get workers out faster, not terrible and half-priced Forges (not that important), but also half-priced wonders. There aren't that many worth to mention but there are some very good: FoT (perfect for wane ecomony), Bone Palace, Depruptus and maybe even GLH with this map. But that's about the wonders I think are worth the effort. The longer Mardoc can stay in the game the stronger his civ becomes, that's the great part of Sidar. And let's not forget about their unique Severed Souls that can be summoned by Recon units after researching KotE.

Mardoc is probably the best player in this group. He has done pretty good in all the games he has taken part of, and I don't think that'll change here. He simply knows how to play his civ from a certain position.

Rank #1



Balseraphs, Perpentach (CRE/CHA/ARC/INS), Molach

My 5th pick . The crazy leader with crazy changing traits randomly. If you'll lucky enough you can use the traits very well because 3 trait is simply better than 2 - unless the 3 are totally worthless to use at certain time. That's obviously the problem and also the main benefit of Perpentach. They also probably have the best worldspell in this game. Balseraphs have some cool units such as Mimics that can steal promotions, which is awesome but sadly the unit come way too late to matter and they also start pretty weak compared to normal champions.

Molach is a bit unknown player to me. I know he has played some FFH in the past but I don't recall him doing that well in them. That is not to say that he couldn't surprise here and win, but I'd rank him below the other of my opponents.

Rank #4.

I'll probably write some thoughts of my own civ later, the obvious plans are Firebows (as mentioned before) or Mages but I might need to figure out how I'll stay alive till then.

Oddly enough the bluish colour for Lanun seems very hard for me to read, hopefully that's not the case with the lurkers.

[Aurorarcher]

I think this might be a bug, but I don't recall seeing it before.




Notice Jale going to Military State on T20 .

Yup, the civics screen prove that to be false.




Anyone else have had that before?

In other news everyone has grown to size 4 (except Jale who is at size 6), and everyone have Calendar. Only me, Molach and Jale have switched to Agrarianism so far. I'd expect to see Dave and Mardoc to join the group during T20 (they play after me).

Demos T20.




Rival best GNP jumped from 19 to 24. I wonder if that's Jale researching a tech with prereq bonus, maybe Mysticism.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, IIRC that bug happens if you save without ending turn in a PBEM and then subsequently load a different game. Or something like that.

[Dreylin]

Lanun, Falamar (CHA/EXP), Jale:
Oddly enough the bluish colour for Lanun seems very hard for me to read, hopefully that's not the case with the lurkers.

Yep pretty impossible for me too - had to highlight it to read it.

I think this might be a bug, but I don't recall seeing it before.

Notice Jale going to Military State on T20 .

Best Sub Evar!

Yup, the civics screen prove that to be false.

Aw.

Yeah, IIRC that bug happens if you save without ending turn in a PBEM and then subsequently load a different game. Or something like that.

Huh, don't think I did anything like that, but you never know.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, IIRC that bug happens if you save without ending turn in a PBEM and then subsequently load a different game. Or something like that.

Huh, don't think I did anything like that, but you never know.

I think you'll still encounter the bug if whoever plays before you does that.