New EitB succession game

[Brian Shanahan]

For some reason I couldn't get to RB earlier this evening (Cloudflare errors), so I've missed my window to play today - and I may not have time to do a complete set tomorrow. But I've got it, and I should have no problem playing Wed evening.

I'll have to look into Infernal Pact - it's been a while since I considered playing this far into the dark side as anything other than the Sheaim. What exactly makes Sacrifice the Weak so strong, on its own or in combination with other civics? Yeah, it's useful when Blight hits or half your food vanishes under a wave of hell terrain, but what positives does it really bring when you're normally happy capped?

At a glance, being Evil is the diplomatically correct choice, and we should be aiming for the Luichirp next despite their power - we share a border and don't want to be focused elsewhere if they decide to get frisky -  but there's more land to fill and some other build-up to be done first ...

Oh, and we should clean-up Volanna at some point.

The biggest impact of Sacrifice of the Weak is that cities eat one food per pop rather than two. That is "balanced" by an extra four unhealth but yeah you're almost doubling your growth on switcheroo. Any one food tile will (almost) sustain itself and sufficient farms will allow rapid growth. You can pair this growth with any strategy you want to make yourself massively stronger, whip production you have the pop, draft units you have the pop, go hammer heavy in hills you have the pop. Yes unhappiness can be a problem but there's actually plenty of happy sources in EitB.

PS Interesting fact about Foxford, it was the birthplace of Guillermo Brown, the father of the Argentine navy.

[DaveV]

Looking good, shallow_thought!

[shallow_thought]

Thanks, but you didn't see the worker micro or the combat units wandering randomly around until I made my mind up .

On a different subject, playing a MNAI game as the mad clown, just rolled SPI/CRE/FIN. If I could only keep those all game ... (it's only t69, so CRE is still very, very, valuable); of course, this happened 2t _after_ I ate a turn of anarchy.

[DaveV]

Yeah, it's funny how the random trait change happens right after you need it (and then again two turns after you roll a good set of traits).

[Qgqqqqq]

Nice set, Brian. Infernal Pact is, indeed, a strong tech (especially since it can provide a free tech). The significant downside is that it means bringing Hyborem into the world and starting the spread of Hell terrain. Most Hell terrains are equivalent to their non-cursed analogs, but losing most of our happy and health resources would hurt. I guess we could build some Devouts to chase around and Sancitfy it, although I don't think that changes the resources back?

It does change the resources back.

I belatedly realise that using an irreplaceable unit to open a dungeon is probably dumb, even if you've got the "spawn" enemy options covered: however, looks like I got away with it - literally nothing happens (a suppressed spawn?), and it's gone now.

Only level 1 units can die from exploring a dungeon. So long as you have priests to heal them, the only risk is if they get Enraged.

[BING_XI_LAO]

-Not sure why several of the barb cities were autorazed on capture, there's five or six cities that can be built on our borders. Some settlers in training.
-Took a city from Vollanna, made another peace with her because she has another far-flung city in the north. Also I got our galley killed, so the troops have to be transported slowly via Trireme.
-We are very far ahead on score, should be fun to try to terror-form the world with our buddy Hyborem.
-Adopted Sacrifice the Weak and Slavery

[shallow_thought]

-Took a city from Vollanna, made another peace with her because she has another far-flung city in the north. Also I got our galley killed, so the troops have to be transported slowly via Trireme.

Oh, that extra city is so annoying; I'm not sure why I didn't realise that she had the extra one - perhaps it was founded early in my set, because I thought I'd checked? Makes my decision to transport half our army across the sea rather than just expanding a bit poor in hindsight.

[Amicalola]

I'm very sorry guys, I think I have to bow out of this one. My second placement started recently and I already have barely had time for the PB game I'm in with it on, let alone this stuff. I'd expected this to end by now when I signed up (partly my fault, I know ). I do hope you enjoy the rest of the game, and intend to follow along when I can.

[shallow_thought]

I'm very sorry guys, I think I have to bow out of this one. My second placement started recently and I already have barely had time for the PB game I'm in with it on, let alone this stuff. I'd expected this to end by now when I signed up (partly my fault, I know ). I do hope you enjoy the rest of the game, and intend to follow along when I can.

RL >> PB > beating up on helpless AI

Seems fair to me. We'll burn the world down in your memory.

[DaveV]

So I guess that means I'm up. Got it, I expect to be able to play sometime today.