[SPOILERS] DaveV is not clowning around. Well, maybe a little bit...

[DaveV]

Filler for misclicks:
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[DaveV]

Pasword is "Clown".

Player analysis:

1. DaveV as Keelyn (Creative, Summoner, Ingenuity) of the Balseraphs: the Balseraphs can do a lot of different stuff; too much stuff if you don't play a focused game. I think my best move is to go for early adepts, since that will maximize Keelyn's strengths.
Turns 1-50: 2/5. Freaks are better than warriors only after researching Bronze Working and connecting copper. Creative will give cities a little extra defense against barbs, but I don't really want to cower in my cities while the barbs rip up my improvements.
Turns 51-125: 3/5. Puppets are useful for suicide attacks to knock a few HP off stronger units. Dance of blades is a decent combat boost, and Inspiration can help with research a bit. Fair Winds is pretty situational.
Turns 126-200: 4/5. Keelyn the summoner is at her best (surprise!) when she's summoning stuff. I might be able to make a detour to enable Taskmasters: with humans, dwarves, and (barbarian) orcs in the game, I have the potential to turn slaves into three out of the four types of slave pens.
Turns 201+: 5/5. The Balseraphs have excellent late game options.
Predicted finish: 4th. I don't have a lot of extra time to spend on this game, and won't be simming or doing any deep strategic analysis. That's not the path to a winning game.

2. BING_XI_LAO as Cassiel (Philosophical, Industrious, Adaptive) of the Grigori: the Grigori are about building hero units. It's a pretty straightforward mechanic, but heroes don't do nearly as well against humans as they do against AIs in single player.
Turns 1-50: 2/5. The first hero unit should arrive turn 33, no other special early game strength.
Turns 51-125: 3/5. More heroes give the potential for much better combat capability. Adaptive allows a switch to a more useful trait.
Turns 126-200: 3/5. Hero production rolls off as great person thresholds keep increasing.
Turns 201+: 2/5. Swarms of units can take down heroes. Lack of religion is a real handicap.
Predicted finish: 6th. Bing seems to have fun with his game, and knows the mechanics, but tends to make bad decisions.

3. xist10 as Alexis (Philosophical, Aggressive) of the Calabim: I love the Calabim: they are very much my preferred choice for single player, and I've won a couple PBEMs with them. They've definitely been hit pretty hard with the nerf bat, but still have a lot of potential. I prefer Flauros (Creative, Financial) as leader, but this might be a good game setup for Alexis.
Turns 1-50: 4/5. Aggressive seems like an ideal trait for this map. I expect lots of combat with the barbs, and Alexis will get better odds than anyone else.
Turns 51-125: 5/5. Moroi are the best axemen, and there's a good chance xist can have vampires or adepts on the board by the end of this time period.
Turns 126-200: 4/5. Other civs start to catch up with their own level 2 casters. It's hard to overcome the production of a vampire empire with Governor's Manors everywhere, though.
Turns 201+: 4/5. Calabim stay strong into the late game, mostly because of their huge production advantage.
Predicted finish: 2nd. I think this is the strongest pick in the game. Calabim are well suited to a big map where there's lots of time to tech and build. xist is a competent player, and apparently knows the mod pretty well if he's producing his own updates to it.

4. Aurorarcher as Cardith Lorda (Philosophical, Expansive, Adaptive) of the Kuriotates: I'll be interested in how Aurorarcher handles this civ. I consider him the best player in this game, and am always impressed by his creativity and knowledge of the mod. The Kurios have a lot of strengths, but a glaring weakness in their very limited number of production queues.
Turns 1-50: 3/5. If he picks Animal Husbandry as his bonus tech, he can go straight to Horseback Riding and have Centaurs on the board early. A mounted unit that gets terrain bonuses on defense is a very strong unit against the barbs. Nothing special before that, though.
Turns 51-125: 4/5. His cities will be extremely productive, and his worldspell lets him grab a lot of territory. Adaptive lets him make a useful trait change.
Turns 126-200: 3/5. Here's where I expect the limited number of cities to start to really hurt.
Turns 200+: 2/5. I don't see how he keeps from fading in the late game, but I won't be surprised if he proves me wrong.
Predicted finish: 1st. If there's anything I've learned from playing in and lurking these games, it's not to underestimate Aurorarcher.

5. coldrain as Garrim Gyr (Financial, Arcane) of the Luchuirp: the Luchuirp are another civ, like the Balseraphs, that can go in a lot of different directions. I expect coldrain to be focused enough to pick a goal and stick to it.
Turns 1-50: 4/5. Like Aurorarcher, coldrain can pick Masonry as his free tech and start right in on Construction, letting him build Barnaxus to fight the barbs and Sculptor's Studios to pop borders and produce wood golems. Before that, dwarven movement should help a little in defending against barbs. He may well have the best economy with the Financial bonus.
Turns 51-125: 4/5. With an arcane leader, I expect coldrain to concentrate on enabling adepts as soon as he can. Enchanted blade is a nice boost; wall of stone and sanctify are meh.
Turns 126-200: 4/5. Once he can start fielding mages, he'll be pretty tough.
Turns 201+: 4/5. No late game falloff.
Predicted finish: 3rd. coldrain is a good player with a pretty strong civ.

6. Brian Shanahan as Auric Ulvin (Charismatic, Arcane, Agnostic) of the Illians: it's ironic that the guy that campaigned to outlaw Samhain ended up playing as the Illians. The Illians can be played as a troll civ, annoying other players with their rituals. I think their best bet is to ignore all those rituals and just play to their Arcane strength.
Turns 1-50: 4/5. Another civ that can beeline a very good anti-barb unit (pick Hunting as free tech, research Archery). Javelin throwers are a strength 4 unit with a first strike that don't need any buildings or resources, and can be built for a mere 30 hammers.
Turns 51-125: 4/5. Enchanted blade is nice, Slow is really strong. Loyalty is meh. Priests of winter are basically a three-headed hero unit.
Turns 126-200: 4/5. Ice elementals and Einherjars are both good summons. Priests of winter should be very strong if he can keep them alive.
Turns 201+: 5/5. Snowfall: best AoE spell in the game. Who cares if you can't have a religion?
Predicted finish: 5th. This is potentially one of the strongest civs in the game, but I expect Brian to be distracted by Auric Ascended and dragons and stuff.

[DaveV]

Even without Perpentach as a leader, playing the Balseraphs is all about embracing randomness.

Possible mutation promtions:

Amphibious (no penalty for attacking from Sea or across a river)
Blitz (can attack multiple times per turn)
Cannibalize (heals +10% after combat)
Cold Resistance (+50% resistance to cold damage)
Combat I (+20% strength; +5 to spell damage; grants the Empower I promotion to summoned units)
Diseased (heals extra -10% damage/turn; -30% strength; passes the Diseased promotion to enemies in combat)
Empower I (+10% strength)
Fire Resistance (+50% resistance to fire damage)
Heavy (+1 terrain movement cost; +30% strength)
Heroic Defense I (+1 defense strength)
Heroic Strength I (+1 attack strength)
Immune to Disease (immune to Diseased and Plagued promotions)
Light (+1 movement; +10% withdrawal chance; -20% strength)
Lightning Resistance (+50% resistance to lightning damage)
Mobility I (+1 movement)
Poison Resistance (+50% resistance to poison damage)
Regeneration (can heal while moving; heals extra +10% damage/turn; removed when the unit is fully healed)
Sentry (+1 visibility range)
Stoneskin (+3 first strikes; +50% resistance to cold, death, fire, holy, lightning, poison, and unholy damage; removed after combat)
Strong (+1 strength)
Vulnerable to Fire (-50% resistance to fire)
Weak (-1 strength)
Withered (heals extra -20% damage/turn; -10% strength; gains -50% XP from combat; -1 defense strength)

Each promotion has an 8% chance of being added to a new Freak, or a (living) unit that has the Mutation spell cast on it. Any unit built with Chaos mana accessible has a small (2%?) chance of being born mutated. The latter chance includes non-living units, e.g. settlers and workers.

14% chance of no mutations
29% chance of exactly one mutation
28% chance of exactly two mutations
17% chance of exactly three mutations
7% chance of exactly four mutations
2% chance of exactly five mutations
1% chance of exactly six mutations

That doesn't add up to 100% because of rounding, but the chance for higher numbers becomes vanishingly small in a hurry.

[DaveV]

Notes for accelerated start:

Civs that start with Ancient Chants:
Malakim
Elohim
Sidar
Amurites
Sheaim

These civs can only choose Mysticism (base cost 200, allows Elder Council, Pagan Temple, God King) as their bonus tech.


Civs that start with Agriculture:

Kuriotates
Hippus
Balseraphs
Svartalfar

These civs can choose Calendar (base cost 160, allows Plantation, Agrarianism) or Animal Husbandry (base cost 180, allows Smokehouse, Pasture, reveals Horse) as their bonus tech.


Civs that start with Crafting:

Mercurians
Luchuirp
Khazad
Grigori
Infernal

These civs can choose Mining (base cost 200, allows Mines, Forest Chops, reveals Copper) or Masonry (base cost 140, allows Dungeon, Walls, Quarry, Fort) as their bonus tech.


Civs that start with Exploration:

Bannor
Ljosalfar
Lanun (Plus Seafaring)
Calabim
Illian

These civs can choose Fishing (base cost 160, allows Work Boat, Heron Throne, Harbor, Fishing Nets, trade over rivers, population can work water tiles), Cartography (base cost 200, allows Map Trading, Open Borders, City States, Pact of the Nilhorn), or Hunting (base cost 300, allows Hunter, Hunting Lodge, Camp) as their bonus tech.


Analysis:

All other things being equal (which of course they never are), it's best to choose the most expensive tech. With this being set up as a very large map, with lairs, I'm expecting barbarians to be a big problem early on.

[RefSteel]

Here's your starting screenshot, taken in Bare Map Mode. The barbarian sign is just a randomized identifier for which start is which, but the tile it's on is the one where your units will start. Note the fog may or may not be reliable, depending on whether I make any further changes for balance or aesthetics nearby.




And your first set of choices:

Keelyn (Creative, Summoner, Ingenuity) of the Balseraphs, with Animal Husbandry OR Calendar
...or...
Shekinah (Creative, Arcane) of the Sidar, with Mysticism
...or...
Arturus Thorne (Industrious, Organized, Ingenuity) of the Khazad, with Mining OR Masonry
...or ask to roll three different leaders and civs (up to twice).

[DaveV]

Thanks, Ref. This is just to let you know I've seen this and will reply in full later. 90% chance of Keelyn, though.

[DaveV]

I'm locking in Keeylyn. Creative is probably my favorite trait, and I like the Balseraphs. I may regret the lack of an economic trait, but that's for future me to worry about.

I'm not a big fan of the Sidar: the idea of removing your best units from the board to make them into super great people always seemed flawed to me. You can do a lot of cute things with severed souls, but ditto for puppets.

I'm also not a big fan of the Khazad, their racial trait means they either have to have a huge cash reserve or have extra unhappiness. Commerce that could have been spent on tech is instead sitting under their figurative matress.

I was going to complain bitterly about the Freak's cost (40 hammers vs. 33 for a swordsman, which is +1 strength), but realized that the other units with no building requirement (e.g. diseased corpse, drown, fawn, soldier of Kilmorph, radiant guard, etc.) are mostly more expensive than comparable units. Since the swordsman is a numerically better unit than the Freak, I think there's still an argument to be made for a Freak price reduction.

[Qgqqqqq]

Hmm, i think you're right. One of a number of things that need amendment with the mod.

[RefSteel]

I see you picked Keelyn - should be fun! But I missed whether you chose Animal Husbandry or Calendar. Or are you still deciding between them?

[DaveV]

Oops, sorry, I forgot I had to make a second choice. It's a tough one: Calendar gives instant Agrarianism, +1 happy and +2 commerce from the cotton, and the ability to research Festivals and unlock Freaks. On the other hand, Animal Husbandry gives a six food-hammer cow and a five food-hammer, one commerce sheep. Since the early game will be about cranking out settlers, workers, and warriors, Animal Husbandry has a slight edge there (and is also slightly more beakers, for whatever that's worth). On the other hand, I've always said that the early game (and the whole game, for that matter) should emphasize commerce at the expense of food-hammers. The three farmable tiles are all riverside, and while cotton is one of the weakest commerce tiles, it's still four more than the cow and three more than the sheep. I'll make up the 20-beaker (times map scale factor) difference in tech cost pretty quickly.

Final answer: Calendar.