[SPOILERS] Weezel unleashes the power of sunburn!

[Weezel]

Well, guess I should put some random stuff in here to start up the thread!

As everyone knows, the two things the Malakim have going for them are an abundance of sand, and the power of killing their enemies with a nasty bit of sunburn! Truely fearsome stuff...

Since this is my first showing in a PBEM game here or otherwise, be prepared for some moments, and a general inability to figure out exactly whats going on during the early turns. Fun times to follow....

[Weezel]

May as well do a bit of pre-game analysis while the map is being sorted out. Here are my opponents choices;

Kyan Rhoanna / Hippus
The Hippus always seem to get a good deal of "rush fear" associated with their worldspell+horsemen early in the game, though i don't think i've seen this actually happen in a game here yet (please correct me if i'm wrong on that). That being said, if i do end up within striking distance of Kyan i'll be keeping a close eye on his power demographic. He has chosen the non-raider flavour for this game, which i personally think is a stronger choice, so i think he'll be more likely to tech up and build a large military rather than early rushing.

Hidingkeel Arendel / Ljosalfar
Very solid combination which does take a while to get going, but post-education once cottages start going down the elves do really take off. I'd expect them to be relying almost entirely on Priests of Leaves through the mid-game as military. Probably an ideal neighbour since i am not planning on any early aggression.

Yell0w Cardith Lorda / Kuriotates
Another solid builder civ with a lot of potential for different victory types. I'm actually hoping not to be stuck with these guys as a neighbour, purely for the fact that it forces me to plan out my road network to account for them being able to swap to Raiders in the later game! On the plus side the Kurio empire only "needs" a limited amount of room for their megacities.

Tholal Arturus Thorne / Khazad
The dwarves are the one pick for this game i would rate as an underdog. While i do actually really like playing these guys in SP, i'm not sure how Tholal will combat the nessessity to either maintain a very high treasury or keep cities at lower sizes due to vault unhappiness. Since i plan on making an early run at the RoK shrine these guys could either be a big help (by fueling the shrine) or a real pain (by teching it before me!).

Ellimist Jonas Endain / Clan of Embers
Can be a military powerhouse throughout the early and midgame, with the chance of very early upgraded goblins into Wolf Riders for chokes, free archers from their worldspell. Once warrens are up the potential for explosive expansion is huge, which is another reason i'll be gunning for the RoK shrine - it's one of the easiest ways for Ellimist to counter the cost of rapid expansion and will help fuel my economy in turn. Of course, as soon as these guys tech up to OO or AV for collatoral they can churn out masses of priests very quickly.




So... overall I would definately rate the Clan and Hippus as the biggest military threats once we get into the mid-game (keeping in mind with an advanced start that will be a bit quicker than normal). The Clan for it's warrens-doubled production of units, and the Hippus for it's tactical advantages. I would expect Kyan to tech Empy for Ratha's Blinding Light before going on the warpath.

The Kurio and Ljos definately have potential to be military threats as well, though due to the way those civs play (usually) i'd expect them to be more interested in playing builder and just having whatever military is required for defence. To be honest, i've really no idea how the Khazad will play out, but i view them as slow expanders with no significant military advantages overall, so they would be ideal neighbours

[Weezel]

And of course - my pick!

Varn Gosem / Malakim

Until recently i had only played around with the Malakim briefly, but i thought i might try out the "instant mages" strategy in a few SP games to see how it plays out, and i liked it a lot! Needless to say, that will be my focus - get the pieces in place for 10xp lightbringers, churn them out and upgrade them into mages.

Of course, it does take a while to get everything setup for this, including getting through all the early-game tech then through to Sorcery.

Now, this could easily change depending on how the starting area of the map looks, but i am looking at something like agri > myst > crafting > mining > WotE as a starting beeline for the religion. If I have any decent calender resources i'll tech that after agriculture. Then repair my economy after that with exploration and festivals. Festivals should time close enough to t.75 for a swap to financial via the adaptive trait for cheap markets everywhere. Then straight on to aristofarms.

As for the mages, i just need 5 pieces in place that grant +2xp... here's a few;

Conquest Civic
Apprentiship Civic
Desert Shrine
Form of the Titan
Altar of the Luanator
Command Post
more parts of the Altar

Where i've tried this in SP, i usually go with Apprentiship, Command Post, Desert Shrine, and then build the 2nd part of the Altar for the last +4xp. Focusing on expansion and infra early in the game doesn't leave a lot of chances to get a high enough lvl unit to build Form of the Titan in most cases. I'm hoping that nobody puts much priority on Military Strategy so i can get the Great Commander from that, otherwise i might be forced to swap out of aristofarms to Conquest.

On a side note - due to the upgrade process the first 3 promos cannot be spells (have to take combat3 normally), so it's a huge advantage to have 2 nodes (probably fire) so the new mages get a free lvl.1 spell upgrade and i can use the mage "free spell promo" to pick up the lvl.2 of that sphere. So i hope there are a decent amount of nodes around the place!

[Mardoc]

Weezel, here's your land:

[Selrahc]

Conquest Civic
Apprentiship Civic
Desert Shrine
Form of the Titan
Altar of the Luanator
Command Post
more parts of the Altar

Deis Dei
Theocracy Civic
Charismatic to reduce XP needed to 8

[Weezel]

Deis Dei
Theocracy Civic
Charismatic to reduce XP needed to 8

Ah yes I had forgotten about the Deis Dei shrine bonus, certainly a possibility in the later game. Have to get lucky though to found the religion in the city with the altar in it (usually use the early levels of the alter to run extra priests rather than save them up).

[Weezel]

Starting land looks interesting, especially with some flood plains visible as they are nice for early commerce/growth for the Malakim especially. From what i can see it looks like i should be able to fogbust a fair bit with the lightbringer on turn 1 to help work out where to plonk down the first cities.

One thing i do need to look into is what to do with a shade, to be honest i haven't given it much thought just yet.

Ah, and the visible resources look like they fit into a nice simple tech-path, no annoying livestock to be seen yet

[Weezel]

One thing i do need to look into is what to do with a shade, to be honest i haven't given it much thought just yet.

Actually with a quick look it's obviously going to be a sage

[Weezel]

ok, so as it turned out we didn't start with an extra warrior, so my scouting was a little more limited. Moved the lightbringer NW-NW onto the grass hill, and as i hoped the other side was not all forest so i got a good view of that area.

Thought about moving a settler south for the capital to get some more floodplains, but the surrounding terrain looks like a lot of crappy tiles so i decided to settle on the plains hill where the bonus settler started.

So this location gets 2 dyes, it's on a plains hill on a river (for deruptus later), floodplain and a corn to the north.

Since the lightbringer revealed oasis, wheat, and desert gold (keeping in mind desert gold and oasis are both +1 commerce for Malakim) I moved the 2nd settler onto the same tile to found next turn. As you can see there are 2 1-tile lakes roughly between the two cities which will let me put down farms all over the place.

Now... this is my first attempt at plastering screenshots on here so hopefully it works first time around....




Ok good that was nice and easy!

Additionally - as you can see i moved the warrior SW to see if the peaks would continue south and revealed part of the coast. The shade was settled in the capital as a great sage, which brings in agriculture in 5 turns so my worker will have something to do. For the time being i moved him south, and will spend two turns having him explore SE then moving back again. Started on a warrior in the capital, so that i can have one parked on that lair that is right next to the city, and an extra for defnding the two cities for the time being. I'm planning on putting a few turns into a 2nd warrior while growing to size 2, then putting out a couple more workers while the 2nd city gets out a few warriors for defence and random scouting.

*edit - let me know if the screenshots are big enough - looks awefully small with my settings....

[Weezel]

and here is a look at the settings



I noted there will be no unique features, which is probably the best way to balance those from a mapmaking perspective! Pretty much things look as expected - large map, monarch difficulty, living world, etc.

I wont be doing any detailed analysis of the demographics, but i did take a quick look and noticed everything looks pretty even - except for soldier count. Forgot to take a screenshot so i'll look into that next turn