[Spoilers] Plako loses the thread

[plako]

Just opening the thread. I'm pretty clueless about Mastery era so basically just gonna be picking something and hopeing that it ends up being the right choice. When most of the tech tree has already been covered there are plenty of cool toys for pretty much every nation+religion so this should be fast and furious game.

Bob seems to be higly supporting infernarls/mercurians in the games so I guess he has a plan involving either of them. Maybe I should check their specialitis a bit closer.

[Mardoc]

Your start will be this or a rotation or mirror of this. Fog lies.

[plako]

Alright we've a starting map and picking order. I've even given a little thought about this game. I like my position last in the order so I can somehow get synergy with leader pick and religion.

Map does not seem to have visible mana nodes or the herb that looks like spices in base game that is needed to upgrade to Archmages. I guess both should be around to claim i.e. investing Magic is worth considering.

I've a gut feeling CoE will be superior pick here. Warrens are available right from the gate, powerful melee units, Barbarian research malus is insignificant and very useful world spell to give some headaches for far away nations. I don't have high hopes I'll get as the last one to pick, but they feel like my 1st pick, if available.

I also would like to give another shot at Sheaim assuming Ashen Veil is around to raise the AC. They would be massively slow starters so not really sure I wanna play yet another game behind the pack position.

So concerning other fast starters there are some Expansive leaders and then Vampires whose world spell is pretty good here allowing 2 size 3 cities to start with + Governor's Manor speeding up things after that.

[plako]

In the end decided to try Valledia+OO. This new format provides numerous uncharted alternatives so in the end had to pick just something.

My goal is to try, if Warrior->Firebow upgrade can compete. Scheme is simple enough so that I can play this hopefully without much thought. OO was picked just to get Hemah. I also considered Empyrean since Chalid would have been better than Hemah, but in the end I valued the lower cost of Hemah more + maybe I can also do something including water.

In the beginning I'll go for economic civics i.e. Undercouncil - Agrarianism - slavery - Consumption - Aristocracy and accumulate as big pile of gold as possible while expanding. Hopefully only military units I need to build are Adepts and Heroes i.e. the ones gaining passively experience. Then when switching gears seems nescessary I'll convert to something providing at minimum 5 experience to warriors. I'll have more freedom in my civics, if I build command posts or manage to claim Form of The Titan. Both seem unlikely at this point since I'm again slow starter and forced to focus on expansion to get as many cities as possible to spam those warriors.

[plako]

Played a little test game and Govannon is great. I didn't know he could teach even settlers, workers and Great persons. Seems a bit silly. It probably does not give much value since e.g. Skeleton spam is lot less effective, when everyone will get access to Life Mana easily enough.

[plako]

Eventually changed my and decided to go with Empyrean. Overall it provides more useful stuff than OO assuming the water won't be too dominant

[Aurorarcher]

What's your plan with Empyrean?

[plako]

Religion isn't centerpiece i.e. Has mainly a supportive role. Chalid will be most important part of it, but I'm sure I'll find some use to both Radiant guards or Rathas. As I said my units to spam will be Firebows. At some point I considered drafting Radiant guards and upgrading to Rathas, but Amurites have better upgrade value in firebows and drafting comes with a severe happiness penalty so some other ingenious leader would be better for this.

Edit. Also Revelation might end up being useful.

[plako]

Concerning other picks the obvious winner candidate is Bob. Jonas of CoE is just massive in claiming land and building armies with big numbers. I'm happy that I switched to Empyrean and left OO for Bob. Hemah will be easier to deal with than Chalid + masses of blinding light units. Bob is average concerning FFH skills. Has solid understanding and knowledge of the FFH, but execution and perception are lacking. This should give at least little room for winning for the rest of us.

Q is khazad running AV. No advanced magic. He probably starts accumulating gold to fill up vaults and speed up production. Not quite sure, if AV is a good match for khazad. It provides means for magic based collateral, but beakers it generates might end up being wasted. I probably would have just taken the obvious RoK to accumulate gold faster and enable running Arete for even more hammers and then use the non-magic based collateral. Q's obvivously knows the game very well being the main developer of EitB, but has not faired too well in the games.

Dreylin is Bannor running Order. I've never played Bannor. It has always felt boring. I guess Crusade will be the thing he'll focus on and spamming demagogs that have a very nice upside of not requiring to pay any upkeep. I also do not know very well about Order's specialities. Spreading it apparently generates free units. Not really sure how good that is. Skillwise also average that is pretty much the category I would put myself too so initially good lineup for the game. Now just hoping on good game whose outcome is not totally evident from T0.

[plako]

Game on. 1st turn as used to scout with settlers and anarchy (Aristocracy-Consumption-Apprenticeship-Agrarianism-Undercouncil). 2nd turn settled the cities. Next turn I'll found Empyrean to 2nd city and probably won't immediately convert. Gonna purchase workers settlers and whatever needed as soon as there is sufficient gold for that. There seems to islands in the south so need to get also a boat and settlers there to fill up overseas trade routes. GLH should be also seriously considered although I probably won't have time for that. Map is really Huge. 3200 land tiles. Haven't spotted any mana nodes .

Also already got a minor event giving 25 gold.