Miguelito gets tricked by magicians, but Bob isn't fooled. Kaiser rules from behind.

[Miguelito]

password is SVol

Roster:

    DaveV
    Kuriotates-Cardith Lorda (Phi (Adaptive) / Exp; Sun/Spirit/Water) 

    mackoti
    Luchuirp-Beeri Bawl (Ind / Fin; Enchantment/Life/Earth)

    Miguelito
    Svartalfar-Volanna (Agg / Cre; Shadow/Mind/Nature)

    Aurorarcher
    Khazad-Arturus Thorne (Ind / Org / Ing; Enchantment/Law/Earth)

    Mr. Cairo
    Sidar-Shekinah (Cre / Arc; Shadow/Enchantment/Spirit)

Micro spreadsheet

Ok I feel like I don't know how any of this works .

The hope is that with the last game so long ago, everybody else is rusty. mackoti still wins. We have fun meanwhile.

So, what do I know about FFH?

• the start takes forever and you build lots of warriors
  
• Are we playing without huts? Because normally you get a few techs from there and lairs (which Dave already commented are disabled), so it's not that slow, but I'll assume we don't have that.
  
• you still start worker first
  
• barbs are serious business
  
• summons are very powerful. I'm pretty unexperienced in that regard and have never used spectres or skeletons in SP (or at least can't remember), being a good guy at heart   
  
• civs are very different. Lanun is the strongest but I'm not too interested even if they were not banned.
  
• everything moves super fast. Mobility promo + haste spell > everything. There are even leaders that get commando on all units, wtf
  
• people say that cottages are bad, and there is that word aristofarming, but how do you get there without cottages?
  
• games usually are decided with tier 2 (axes, horsemen, adepts, ships) or tier 3 (chariots, mages, ?) units. Don't plan a game around archmages.
  

How does the pick work? I think we send our top 5 to the mapmaker, who makes sure there are no doubles?

[Bobchillingworth]

Hey Miguel, checking in.


Sounds like you've got a handle on the basics Some feedback on your notes:


the start takes forever and you build lots of warriors

Yup, and in my experience you're doing reasonably well if you have 10 cities by T100 (as opposed to maybe 15 for BTS). Things start to accelerate very quickly once your empire is established though and you're in a position to start pumping combat units (or upgrading Warriors, depending on your civ/leader). Just don't get hung up on building infra, FFH / EitB has tons of random buildings that aren't worth bothering with even in SP, to say nothing of MP games. Granaries / Smokehouses in particular are often wastes of time for the vast majority of cities.


you still start worker first

Usually. The Ljo start with two Scouts instead of a Scout + Warrior combo (or two Warriors for the Khazad), so depending on bold you're feeling you might want to go Warrior first with them. The Lanun sometimes want to immediately start researching Fishing (such as being used as a springboard for an Infernals swap and rush ), and an early Worker won't have much to do besides building random roads (which can be suicidal if you have a neighbor with the Raiders trait).


barbs are serious business

Very much so, though without lairs they're neutered a bit. You're going to want two Warrior garrisons minimum in any city exposed to barb attacks though.


summons are very powerful. I'm pretty unexperienced in that regard and have never used spectres or skeletons in SP (or at least can't remember), being a good guy at heart


Summons are so strong there's an entire trait which exists to boost them! The tricky part is getting enough Mages (or Mage equivalents) out so that you can use them before your opponents have counters or can run you over first. I've never been particularly good at that part, but some civs can start making use of summons when other players are just starting to tool around with T2 units, if you beeline them. Skeletons aren't particularly good though, they cost maintenance, can't move the turn you summon them, and can't pillage, though they do have some uses.


civs are very different. Lanun is the strongest but I'm not too interested even if they were not banned.

I don't think the Lanun are necessarily the strongest civ (it's highly map dependent), but they are usually powerful since RB mapmakers love to create maps with lots of jagged coastlines and lakes you can fill with coves. There's lots of fun options out there though- share some thoughts on what aspects of the game you'd like to explore or attempt, and I'm happy to offer suggestions.


everything moves super fast. Mobility promo + haste spell > everything. There are even leaders that get commando on all units, wtf

Don't forget the incredible speed of naval mobility too; boats are fast in FFH, and units can disembark and then haste or promote to mobility to immediately attack. Also there's plenty of ground units which can cross normally impassible terrain, including ocean tiles, flames, and mountains.


people say that cottages are bad, and there is that word aristofarming, but how do you get there without cottages?

Cottages aren't bad, they're not changed too much from BTS and therefore about as good. They're just not the only game in town. I'm probably not the best person to give advice on this front, as I've never been very good at managing the FFH economy, but the kind you want to run is going to be heavily dependent on your civ and the map. Ignoring specialized economies like the Lanun's supercoasts, I'd say the three basic ones are the standard cottage economy (reliable but slow to develop, vulnerable to pillaging), artistofarms + workshops (good mix of food, commerce, and production, and easy to mindlessly spread around your empire, but doesn't excel at anything and starts to eventually lag economically) and one which heavily emphasizes specialists (some civs, such as the Sidar and Infernal, are much better at this for various reasons than others, and you'll almost certainly need to start out with a cottage economy to get the civics required to make this work).


games usually are decided with tier 2 (axes, horsemen, adepts, ships) or tier 3 (chariots, mages, ?) units. Don't plan a game around archmages.

I reckon most games conclude with T3 units, with T1 and T2 units playing a major supporting role. Chariots and Mages, as you note, are the most common game-enders, but certain T3 priests (particularly Octopus Overlords Cultists), Horse Archers, and various religious T3 units can all shine. Champions and Longbows are excellent T3 units, but beaker-intensive to unlock compared with alternatives, so games are usually over by the time they're available. T4 units do occasionally appear, but aren't worth developing a game around.



We do usually send 5 ranked picks to the mapmaker to who then rolls to determine who ends up with what.

[Kaiser]

I hope you are planning to report extensively as I am really curious about EitB and will ded-lurk you to learn more about the game.

Curse your good reporting in other games :D

Is there any CIV/Leader you feel like picking?
Will there be screenshots available before picking CIV (does not sound like)?
Is there a strategy you would like to pursue?

[Miguelito]

Thanks Bob, good input, and I'll reread it once we get started.
Dave is talking about random pool picking, which would make the job easier. I'm a bit wary of getting picking something quirky that then might never get to shine because we get run over with axes before, like a magic focused pick.

I think I'll focus more on the upcoming big CtH PB (if it comes together, but it's looking good, so sign up ), as I think the chance of just falling behind quickly here, or getting caught and overrun by the aforementioned quick movers here is pretty high, and anyways mackoti will still obliterate everything (I'm trying to draw him into the PB as well, but there I have reasonable hope of not starting next to him ).
Anyways, in my other games I have been as least as obsessive about reporting as about gaming, so I'll likely still post quite a bit here.

[civac2]

How did the consensus about mackoti's invincibility come to be? One would think Civ games have too much variance for that kind of domination.

[Bobchillingworth]

One would think! Mack's clearly skilled at civ, but there's also good reason to believe that he's won so many games through cheating, specifically reading spoiler threads and likely reloading certain combat results in PBEMs.


I wouldn't have joined a game with him; this is all just my opinion, though.

[Miguelito]

As far as this game goes, we have 3 players who have played in almost all EitB games in the past few years I think (Dave/Auror/Cairo). mack showed up 2 or 3 games ago, stating that he loved FFH but did not really have a grasp of the mod, then proceeded to dominate those games throughout .

For the complete story you'd better ask somebody who has been around longer. What I know is that he has arguably been the most successful MP player on the site (admittedly I did not see the golden days of Seven/novice/?). I don't remember lurking a single game where he participated that he did not at least tie for the win, although I'll assume those exist. A few players (TBS, OH, Rusten?, ?) can compete with him on a good day. What is precisely his secret I don't know, he does not report in so much detail as for me at least to understand. Although his threads can be pretty entertaining at times.
Bob is not the only one to allege shady stuff, but I for myself don't know enough to argue in that direction, and will play the game in good faith, not expecting to win anyways but in for the fun of it.


Bob, Dave wants to play on Immortal, what good does that do? Seems like it would draw out the already slow teching at the start for even longer, and without huts and lairs for free techs that seems pretty boring? Do you understand what he wants to accomplish with it? Mind I could of course ask him in the tech thread, but I don't want to look stupid

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, Immortal will make the game slower, and also make the City States civic much more powerful (and Godking essentially suicidal past the early game, or if playing as the Kuriotates). It will also make the barbarians pretty tough- they'll start with 2 free promotions for units built in their cities, and they'll spawn in large numbers.


The early game will be painful, but the upsides are that the game will probably last a bit longer overall (giving slower-developing civs a better shot), and a greater array of traits will be viable; Org and Aggressive in particular will be boosted (though Aggressive is already quite strong in FFH). Creative too, in that culture will be otherwise fairly painful to acquire for a while.

[Bobchillingworth]

stating that he loved FFH but did not really have a grasp of the mod, then proceeded to dominate those games throughout .

Hah! That was a blatant lie, though I don't think anyone was fooled; Mack had played in at least one FFH game a few years ago, which he of course won as well.



Seriously though, even if you are ambivalent on whether or not he's going to engage in fair play (which is fine; I at least don't have hard evidence that he's a cheater), don't trust a thing the guy says, either in the tech thread or non-verbally in game via resource diplomacy or the like.

[Miguelito]

Hm, I think Dave is habitually very careful about barbs, so that pays in his favour. Sneaky...
But your point about traits makes it sound good to me, I was already interested in Cre and Org. Now let's see what the RNG brings up...