[SPOILERS] DaveV: Seriously, Capria?

[DaveV]

EitB 52 players, begone!



In the game's back story, the Bannor civ spent a long time in Hell, finally fighting their way out and back to the physical world. They are, as a consequence, not big fans of demons.

[DaveV]

Password: Bannor

My picks:
1. Os-Gabella of Sheaim
2. Valledia the Even of Amurites
3. Capria of Bannor
4. Einion Logos of Elohim
5. Cassiel of Grigori

The reason for the thread title is that I regretted making Capria my third choice as soon as I found out I'd lost the coin flip for my first two choices. The Bannor are essentially a blank civ, without anything special until Feudalism, a very late tech (something like America in BtS). On the plus side, Capria has two very good traits, Spiritual and Financial. On a random map at Immortal difficulty, commerce is going to be hard to acquire and expenses will be very high.

Also on the plus side, I'm not wedded to any particular strategy. With many of the civs, the game becomes a bed of Procrustes, where instead of playing the terrain and circumstances, you squeeze the game into the designated path for your civ. So, yay for flexibility.

[DaveV]

Mackoti: Ethne the White of the Elohim
Mr. Cairo: Averax the Cambion of the Sheaim
DaveV: Capria of the Bannor
Aurorarcher: Shekinah of Sidar
Bobchillingworth: Dain of the Amurites

Ethne is CRE/ORG, a nice combination. Neither trait is, strictly speaking, an economic one, but both have indirect economic benefits. CRE is nerfed a little by not getting double production on the Elohim monument replacement, the Reliquary. The Elohim have a great world spell, which Mackoti will probably put to good use. Getting March on all their units is also a nice advantage.

The Sheaim have a choice of two paths: huge stacks of pyre zombies, or adepts and mobius witches. Averax is more suited to the former, and zombies have the advantage of being useful during Arcane Lacuna. Their world spell sounds better than it is, in my experience. Averax is AGG/EXP/BAR. AGG would be useful against the barbs if he weren't already at peace with them. It's cool for animal capture, but the hunting line is way off his optimal tech path. The research penalty for BAR is going to be a real problem for Mr. Cairo. I expect him to expand into bankruptcy and then struggle.

With CRE/ARC, Aurorarcher is obviously going for a magic game again. Arcane Lacuna can throw a wrench in that scheme, but I'm sure he has a backup plan. The lack of an economic trait may be a problem for him.

Bob picked the PHI/ARC leader, instead of my choice of ORG/ARC/ING. It's a close call, and he can zoom along the arcane path if he can pop a bunch of great sages. Again, he lacks a strictly economic trait.

[DaveV]

A five player mirrorland script consists of five identical strips of land, each 8 tiles wide and 40 high and laid out next to each other horizontally (giving a 40x40 square map). The strips are offset with one another vertically; imagine one of those combination locks that consists of several wheels that each have the numbers 0-9 on them. Now imagine one of those locks with five dials, set as follows: 04826. So my strip is fairly closely (but not exactly) aligned with the players who aren't directly adjacent to me, and substantially offset from my neighbors.

[DaveV]

The world as we know it:



Interestingly, Aurorarcher didn't settle. Blue circles were south of the elephants and west of the incense. I was happy to settle for wet rice, incense, and five forest-free riverside grasslands.

[DaveV]

Southern exploration:

[DaveV]

After 18 turns, I had my first random event, and it was one of the annoying ones.



This event temporarily changes some tiles from grassland to plains, or plains to desert. This is a problem if you're running agrarianism, since farmed plains are three food instead of four. And deserts slow down movement and can't be improved at all until they change back. Fortunately, no tiles appear to have been affected. I'd still rather have a bag of cash, though.

Edit: that's the sign of Bhall that scorches terrain. Camulos apparently just gives a -1 to diplomacy checks, so irrelevant to a multiplayer game. I'd still rather have the bag of cash.

Here's an overview of my city and its surroundings:



I'm behind Bob and Cairo on growth, but I've been working the incense tile to speed up Calendar. That tech will mean a bunch of food and commerce.

Here are the demographics:



As usual, I moved my starting units back inside my border to avoid animals. Obviously, a couple of the other players didn't. I'm happy with my exploration so far; I think I have my first three cities planned: in a straight line toward the wine/corn site (picking up cotton and sugar with the first two cities). My neighbor on that side may not be pleased with the wine/corn city, but it will be on a hill and should be defensible.

[DaveV]

Here's why I'll never be an elite player:



Two beakers short. I'm sure one of the superstars would have been able to wring out those two beakers somehow. Persuading the governor to place the new citizen on a bare riverside grassland instead of a grass forest would have been enough.

The scores indicate that Bob and Cairo are still a turn ahead of me in growth. And Auro is a turn behind in land points because he didn't settle on turn 1.

[DaveV]

Slightly better micro on my fifth warrior, but I'm not working that farm I just finished.

[DaveV]

Third ring borders finally popped (earlier than the non-creative players, since I've been running Religion all game for 2.2 culture/turn instead of 2), meaning my scout could pop out onto the cows and take a peek across the water to see if there's anything good up there.



No, there isn't. This makes it more likely that I can reach for the wines, since I doubt my left-hand opponent will settle north.

Here are the demographics:



I can tell from the scores that Bob is the other player at size five. Aurorarcher has to be the one with 17 food, since he's the only one with whom I can win a tie.

I'm guessing Cairo is the one with 6000 soldier points, since he won't need to defend against barbs.

I'm almost certainly tied with Mack and Auro (the creative guys) on land area, winning the tiebreak with Auro and losing it to Mack. The fact that land area is so consistent says to me that everyone has identical capitals.

I was worried about being so far behind on GNP, but I think Bob, Cairo, and Mack are all still researching Calendar and receiving a 20% bonus. I'm apparently ahead of or tied with the creative Auro at the moment.

I'm going to improve the incense next, then put down my fourth farm. This will delay my settler, but commerce first.