[Eitb spoilers] Miguelito's fortune hangs on a thread

[RefSteel]

Do barbs like this one enter borders?

Yes, Spectres can enter borders, regardless of the turn or the number of cities on the map. They don't spawn on the map like animals or barb orcs do though; as far as I know, there are only two ways they can appear:
1) When (anyone's) unit explores a dungeon, lair, or graveyard, barb units might appear, which might be or include one or more spectres (among other possibilities).
2) A skeleton (which can be created by a barrow or appear when a dungeon or lair is explored or a graveyard robbed, similarly to a spectre) can sometimes upgrade to a spectre spontaneously. I believe a barbarian skeleton needs to reach level 3 (i.e. combat 1 + 2) to become a spectre, but I'm not 100% sure.

At least in the current form of EitB, I believe (after a bit of testing) that barb Spectres only turn into an even-scarier unit upon achieving level 6(!) - e.g. all the combat promotions up to combat 5! If one ever gets that far, it'll turn into a Wraith, which is legitimately terrifying. I think the horrors of which Jabah was thinking are Mistforms, which are much less likely to appear in versions of EitB beyond ... I think something like v9? ... than in previous versions of FfH.

[Ginger*]

Miguelito, the summary of the early game is very appreciated, but I'm far more lacking in a basic understanding of the units and combat system, like what makes some units scary or not
Also Idk what any of the spells do

[Jabah]

Yes I had wandering mistfform(s) from specter graveyard entering my borders in a (pre.v9 version) game. That game didn't last long after

[Erasmas]

Last game Brian lost his capital to the barbs, which was one of the reason the game did not last long for the rest either (apart from you doing a far too good job of resisting Q). So yeah, no farmers gambit, better build some units.

[Miguelito]

They don't spawn on the map like animals or barb orcs do though; as far as I know, there are only two ways they can appear:
1) When (anyone's) unit explores a dungeon, lair, or graveyard, barb units might appear, which might be or include one or more spectres (among other possibilities).
2) A skeleton (which can be created by a barrow or appear when a dungeon or lair is explored or a graveyard robbed, similarly to a spectre) can sometimes upgrade to a spectre spontaneously.  I believe a barbarian skeleton needs to reach level 3 (i.e. combat 1 + 2) to become a spectre, but I'm not 100% sure.

or a mischievious mapmaker could just have placed a few here and there ? But yeah, with the combat 2 promition it sure looks like option 2), second sentence, the question then is just how did the skeleton get the XP?

Last game Brian lost his capital to the barbs, which was one of the reason the game did not last long for the rest either (apart from you doing a far too good job of resisting Q). So yeah, no farmers gambit, better build some units.

No, farmers gambit! Better build! Some units?



fingers crossed. I took the suboptimal Guerilla promotion on the warrior, who will still be wounded, but also fortified with 10%. I think a flawless loss is unlikely. 

Now if what we have right now is enough to found a city with that settler is another question.

also next skellie coming in already. We're getting great XP!

Miguelito, the summary of the early game is very appreciated, but I'm far more lacking in a basic understanding of the units and combat system, like what makes some units scary or not
Also Idk what any of the spells do

I'll write something about the early-ish unit system. Again, I'm sure others have done so better, but it will serve for Dave to point out my errors if nothing else.

For starters, this spectre  is scary because it's a 2mover with +40% strength and defense boni on top (good news is that at least in my sims it would just attack the capital), Generally with first and second column techs we have just 2 units available, the scout (str 2, 2 moves) and the warrior (str 3). Warriors can easily encounter barbarians that are stronger than them, and sacrificing warriors to soften a stack / big monster is a traditional tactic, so in old threads you'll find the word warriorpult often.
We'll be stuck with just workers and scouts for a good time to come, so there's a good argument that the 2 warriors I pretend to own at the moment of founding city 2 will be too little, moreso as the scout is at high risk of ending up in a spider's stomach or something.

[Erasmas]

Ah you decoded my message. Good. All or nothing! If you don't win you lose! (I'm back to proper lurker behaviour)

[Ginger*]

That oasis/wheat/gold/incense/cow site looks bonkers. I suppose that without slavery being a relevant factor hills and nat prod sources become more important 
(like Civ6, where the whole game is who rolled more hills in their start   )

[DaveV]

Further explanations of game mechanics, with some advice for Miguelito scattered in:

One of the key things Miguelito has implied, but not mentioned explicitly, is that promotions are twice as strong as in BtS, and XP accumulates about twice as fast. You get 6 XP by winning a coin flip warrior-vs-warrior battle in the early game, which lets you take Combat I (+20%) and Shock (+40% vs melee) promotions; after your unit heals, it will have 96% odds in future battles against barb warriors. So the swingy early game combat is even more swingy.

Agrarianism is great in a normal game, letting you work lots of 4-food irrigated grasslands to build settlers and workers. On a roomy map (which this one seems to be), you can spam out cities, which build warriors while the grow and then spam out more settlers and workers. To rescue the resulting crashed economy, a revolt to City States greatly reduces city costs, so it's important to time the acquisition of Cartography with hitting the limit on cities. In this special case, though, with God King available from the outset, mines are better tiles than Agrarian grass farms. As long as cities have enough food to grow, and until you find more calendar resources, I don't see Calendar as a high priority.

Ginger is correct that actual hammer production is very important for most cities. Horses, cows, mines, even workshops are key tiles.

A quick primer on magic: it's kind of the typical fantasy game spectrum: buffs for your units, debuffs for enemy units, deal damage to enemy units, summon disposable units to do your fighting for you. One thing to note is that there are several direct damage spells that deal damage to a entire stack, rendering catapults somewhat obsolete, and making it possible to deal with the 100+ unit stacks the AIs will produce at higher difficulty levels in single player.

Economy is tough, since cottages are enabled by Education, a second-tier tech that's lower priority at the start of the game than the techs that actually let you build farms, mines, roads, and plantations. Calendar resources tend to have very good commerce yields, and just working a bunch of riverside tiles can be very helpful. Trade income becomes more and more important as the game goes on, as each city gains more trade routes. In the late game, you can run a very profitable trade economy, with lots of buildings available that give additional trade routes and/or bonuses to your existing trade routes. Island cities are very important if you can't find a reliable trading partner.

In general, though, buildings are not a great investment. They're expensive and mostly not as productive as their counterparts in BtS. The map tends to be swarming with barbarian units early, and you need some units to fight them off and protect your lands from pillaging. Once you meet other people, it's important to have an army to keep them from turning on you.

Which brings me to combat. Mobility is much higher in this mod, with horse units having three moves, and a few early units having two moves. Horseback Riding tech allows a +1 movement promotion for any unit, and the Body I spell gives another +1 temporarily, so even warriors can move three tiles by mid game. This means that much of the defender advantage in BtS goes away; you can often attack your enemy's back lines or pillage away his improvements while he is holed up in his cities. Plus, the existence of whole-stack magical attacks can make it profitable to attack a city without having to bomb away the walls. Ships are also faster than in BtS, and again can take a promotion that gives +1 movement at the expense of -1 combat strength, plus the Air I spell gives another +1 move.

[Miguelito]

Ok, that spectre managed to surprise me. I would have much preferred for it to throw itself into the city, but no. Otoh, moving onto the corn or the forest N of Cevedes would have been worse.
The prospect of it pillaging the corn farm was unacceptable though, so bullet biting time it was:



First warrior lost as expected, but at least got the meanie down to 1.1, allowing for an easy kill. The capital is unhappy now. If the skeleton advances next turn as expected, do we move the warrior N of Cevedes to have it suicide? (that worked out great last time :rolleyes: ) Alternative is MPing the city, then once the new warrior is in the, veteran covers the gold mine and the rookie the city, benefitting from wariror city defense bonus and 10% culture defense. I think I like that one better.

Of course the settler is also set back by 2 turns. Might not be the worst thing because the worker was going to be busy still anyways, but still prettybad. Edit: the delay can be reduced to one turn by working FPH over scientist for a few more turns. Let's wait until Mining comes in and we see copper.

Dave, on Agrarianism - there are not a terrible lot of eligible grassland famr tiles (and no FP), but it's an appreciable amount.
With the God King interaction I can see the capital taking care of military and stuff like Desruptus, and then the training yard and or mage guild, while the dependencies get workers and settlers? Also might be smarter to get the second scientist in a 2nd or 3rd city, because working 2 scientists in cap squanders God King... Elder council and Mage Guild should be manageable even there.
The alternative is of course Education instead of Calendar, and cottage the rivers. Also fine.
I found riverside rice by those cottons, and can see our 4th or 5th city going there, which is of course pretty late (2nd on the deer, 3rd cowgoldwheat, and possibly one in the south depending on copper). The revolt should probably be Agri/Apprenticeship anyways (would give us -30% on military units, huh).

[Tarkeel]

From another FFH newb, thanks for the in-depth summaries. Makes this somewhat easier to follow.