[EitB 55] Miguelito's and Ginger's thread is where the magic happens

[Miguelito]

FFH is love, but after 2 years I have once more forgotten most of it. Luckily
a) everybody is rusty, although some folks seem to play SP, and
b) we get a draw from 3 random leaders, so don't have to consider all the option which would be overwhelming.

From what I remember from 54 basic civ skills were still pretty useful especially early. And I felt that we could keep up well enough with Mr Cairo and Aurorarcher. Just at some point everything (well, mackoti) got super fast and we couldn't defend at all. Like, 6-7 range units. So let's try to become super fast ourselves.

[Ginger*]

We should check in and learn map size/ tiles per player before picking, but I have a sneaking suspicion that rusty play will mean early vulnerabilities, so picking and gearing for an early-ish rush of some kind (think BtS Horchers) would be able to exploit our opponents better than our beloved wonder-whoring

[Miguelito]

Miguelito:
Varn Gosam of the Malakim
Garrim Gyr of the Luchuirp
Flauros of the Calabim

Brian:
Arturus Thorne of the Khazad
Enion Logos of the Elohim
Mahala of the Dovellio

Q:
Arendal Phaedra of the Ljolsofar
Jonas Endain of the Clan
Rhoanna of the Hippus

Auro:
Faeryl Viconia of the Svartalfar
Falamar of the Lanun
Averax the Cambion of the Sheaim

Bing:
Auric Ulvin of the Illians
Shekinah of the Sidar
Dain the Caswallawn of the Amurites

[Miguelito]

Varn (Spi/Cre/Adaptive) Gosam of the Malakim
Spi: No anarchy, Mobility 1 + Favored on Disciples, +100% on Temples and Desert Shrines
Cre: +2 culture/city, +100% on Carnival, Public Baths, Monument
Ada: replace Cre after 50 turns with another trait of choice, repeat every 50 turns
Civ: bonuses seem minor to medium, but they synergize very well with Spi. They can build a str 2 sentry disciple unit from the start, the Desert Shrine gives XP on disciples, and the world spell gives a priest for every city with state religion, which all in all is no too strong but fits well together. Game is about disciples, so we should make a plan before the game for which religion we go. Desert tiles get an exra coin but are still bad (FP valleys are better)
---> The leader is amazing, the civ not so much but it synergizes. I suppose it's my favourite. But I don't know which religion to go for. Veil?

Garrim Gyr (Fin/Arcane) of the Luchuirp
Fin: +25% gold, +100% on Market, Money Changer
Arc: Mobility 1 + Potency on arcane units, free mage guild.
Civ: mackoti demonstrated last game that the way to go is to ignore the golems and exploit the superamazing world spell and delve ino magic.
-----> Arcane evidently is great for that, and Fin helps to get there. Otoh I feel like the best we could do would be a worse repetition of mack's PBEM54, or do you have a better plan? Otoh going full magic also sounds fun.

Flauros (Cre/Fin) of the Calabim
Cre: +2 culture/city, +100% on Carnival, Public Baths, Monument
Fin: +25% gold, +100% on Market, Money Changer
Civ: Eh well, vampires... I am not quite up to date how nerfed or unnerfed they will be. They get the Governor's Manor with +1h per red face which is of course crazy strong. Are Moroi significantly better than regular axes? Vampires sound fun, but come laaaaate. World spell is pretty good I guess, both to speed up own growth and to annoy everybody.
I know they are hugely popular, and probably very strong, but I never felt like playing them even in SP. Afaik the nerfs were mostly about pushing their uniques further away in the tech tree? With the accelerated start maybe that can be handled better?
---> the Traits don't sound very exciting, although solid probably? The civ I probably don't really understand yet.

[Amicalola]

Governor's manor governor's manor governor's manor!

[Ginger*]

Luchiurp word spell is ridiculous, great engineers for days

I wonder if there’s some sneaky bulb path that gets Vampire toys sooner? Not that we’re PHI, but maybe there’s an unknown opening to exploit.

None of these scream super fun to me, also we should probably wait for the starting location before thinking too hard

[Miguelito]

Lots of GEs into supercharged mages sounds rather fun to me, and pretty strong ? Makes us an evident rush target though.

I also really like the idea of switching between religions with Spi, getting different priests. Also GPs are harder to get so less GAs door revolts, and I think there are many interesting civics. And then there is all kinds of fun stuff we could do with a second adjustable trait. Malakim civ is a bit lacklustre but as said synergizes well with Spi.
If that's still not fun for you I think there should be a bulb paths with prophets to summon the infernals?

[Ginger*]

I really don’t understand the warfare system in this game and what beats what, I remember there being specific types that require commitment and that the tech tree disincentivizes diversification

Like I’m not sure what the magic system does and how necessary it is? Is it indispensable like collateral? I genuinely don’t know

Malakim and Dwarves both sound fun, I have a slight preference for dwarves because the toys are fun, and also I’ve been doing a lot of religious themed Civ games as of late (not that there’s a direct crossover between BtS but the ennui is there for SPI). Still have to revisit Gandhi at some point, remember? :P
So Dwarves seem a little more fun, but Varn seems like a very good leader lol
Should see starting screenshot

[Miguelito]

Good questions, making me consider what it even is we are going to do here.

In my limited experience, what wins battles is reach. There are far reaching options for collateral and heavy hitters, meaning a first strike will win most of the time. A mounted unit can get 6 movement points with 2 promotions and a cheap spell. A mage can have 3, then summon a spectre or a fireball with 3 or later 4 - the spectre being expendable and available for resummoning every turn, the fireball doing collateral. Mages can also send fireballs from ships. That was how mackoti killed me in 54 for what it's worth.

As I understand it, arcane magic (from adepts/mages/archmages) provides near everything that you could wish for - collateral that hits every unit in a stack, the aforementioned far reaching fireballs and summons, bonus movement for living units and ships, combat boni for your other units, even some mild economic boni. The downside is that it is slow to set up:
Adepts are relatively easily available but they can only play an (often crucial) supporting role. Sorcery for mages is a very costly tech, and only adepts with 10XP can upgrade to mages. This can be controlled by several options which give XP to new units. Adepts gain XP passively, but slowly.  Also the Potency promotion from the arcane trait speeds that up, so arcane leaders have an easier time setting up mages in time.
Garrim Gyr would be our option for that game. My objections are that it makes us a very obvious rush target, and that mackoti won the last game this way, just with the other Luchuirp leader. But really the first one.

There is also divine magic, which would be the path for Varn for obvious reasons. Priesthood is much cheaper than Sorcery, and you can build priests right away or upgrade them from cheap disciple units without an XP requirement.  However, the priests come with just one spell each, depending on their religion. From my faulty (memory):

• Runes of Kilmorph -> Stoneskin, which to me doesn't make a lot of sense, as priests are generally no very good fighters (they are better than mages and good at mop up, but no good top stack defenders or attackers)
  
• Fellowship of Leaves -> summon tiger. The tiger has str 4 which isn't very much, but afair 2 moves, and is living so can be made strogner by several spells. It isa permanent summon which can attack only the turn after and pays maintenance. Being permanent of course has some advantages as well. The one I can identify is that you have 1 tiger allowed per leaves priest, so your frontline priests can summon tigers for the ones at home, if that makes sense. They can also plant forests.
  
• Octopus Overlord -> I think it is tsunami, which is an AoE on all tiles around the priest? But he has to be standing next to a lake or coast, so it's very situational. They can also waterwalk
  
• Empyrean -> something to reveal hidden/invisible units. Most of the time that's useless, but it might be a lifesaver, especially against Sidar
  
• Order -> Blessing, afair it gives +1 str to all livingunits in the stack?
  
• Veil -> Ring of Fire, which I believe is an AoE with fire in a ring around the caster . Never used it but seems pretty strong?
  

High priests have further spells but we are unlikely to get that far in the tech tree (although we could devise some bulb strategy) . And also some (religious) heroes have spells.
Religions also give specific civics, particularly the one of the Veil seems pretty strong - it makes citizens eat just 1 food instead of 2 (but it gives you a bunch of unhealthiness to compensate). So more fun for Spi. Although benefitting from multiple religions also means a lot of techs to research, so maybe it isn't that realistic after all?

[mackoti]

Good questions, making me consider what it even is we are going to do here.

In my limited experience, what wins battles is reach. There are far reaching options for collateral and heavy hitters, meaning a first strike will win most of the time. A mounted unit can get 6 movement points with 2 promotions and a cheap spell. A mage can have 3, then summon a spectre or a fireball with 3 or later 4 - the spectre being expendable and available for resummoning every turn, the fireball doing collateral. Mages can also send fireballs from ships. That was how mackoti killed me in 54 for what it's worth.

As I understand it, arcane magic (from adepts/mages/archmages) provides near everything that you could wish for - collateral that hits every unit in a stack, the aforementioned far reaching fireballs and summons, bonus movement for living units and ships, combat boni for your other units, even some mild economic boni. The downside is that it is slow to set up:
Adepts are relatively easily available but they can only play an (often crucial) supporting role. Sorcery for mages is a very costly tech, and only adepts with 10XP can upgrade to mages. This can be controlled by several options which give XP to new units. Adepts gain XP passively, but slowly.  Also the Potency promotion from the arcane trait speeds that up, so arcane leaders have an easier time setting up mages in time.
Garrim Gyr would be our option for that game. My objections are that it makes us a very obvious rush target, and that mackoti won the last game this way, just with the other Luchuirp leader. But really the first one.

There is also divine magic, which would be the path for Varn for obvious reasons. Priesthood is much cheaper than Sorcery, and you can build priests right away or upgrade them from cheap disciple units without an XP requirement.  However, the priests come with just one spell each, depending on their religion. From my faulty (memory):

• Runes of Kilmorph -> Stoneskin, which to me doesn't make a lot of sense, as priests are generally no very good fighters (they are better than mages and good at mop up, but no good top stack defenders or attackers)
  
• Fellowship of Leaves -> summon tiger. The tiger has str 4 which isn't very much, but afair 2 moves, and is living so can be made strogner by several spells. It isa permanent summon which can attack only the turn after and pays maintenance. Being permanent of course has some advantages as well. The one I can identify is that you have 1 tiger allowed per leaves priest, so your frontline priests can summon tigers for the ones at home, if that makes sense. They can also plant forests.
  
• Octopus Overlord -> I think it is tsunami, which is an AoE on all tiles around the priest? But he has to be standing next to a lake or coast, so it's very situational. They can also waterwalk
  
• Empyrean -> something to reveal hidden/invisible units. Most of the time that's useless, but it might be a lifesaver, especially against Sidar
  
• Order -> Blessing, afair it gives +1 str to all livingunits in the stack?
  
• Veil -> Ring of Fire, which I believe is an AoE with fire in a ring around the caster . Never used it but seems pretty strong?
  

High priests have further spells but we are unlikely to get that far in the tech tree (although we could devise some bulb strategy) . And also some (religious) heroes have spells.
Religions also give specific civics, particularly the one of the Veil seems pretty strong - it makes citizens eat just 1 food instead of 2 (but it gives you a bunch of unhealthiness to compensate). So more fun for Spi. Although benefitting from multiple religions also means a lot of techs to research, so maybe it isn't that realistic after all?

You got 3 good choises here. 
As i see Calabim is the safest as  moroi are very strong  units and you have them very fast and the spell to cure them from burning blood is as well very close. 
Luchuirpi is the strongest long term but early is very weak with  wariour not having cooper weapons so you need to rely on hunter evenualy on boar riders for defence not good at all so until you manage to get your game going if someone came calling you are cripled if not dead.
Varn is the best leader and his civ can build everithing , and even have  super spel for spi.