You Really Got to Lurk it Out: [LURKER THREAD]

[Bobchillingworth]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an6A-Wu6-B4&ob=av3e



Players, keep out- this thread is full of lurks

[Bobchillingworth]

Apologies if someone else was supposed to make this thread or there was as particular plan for it. If that's the case, T-hawk has my blessing to delete it.



Anyway, what combos would you, the Lurker, pick?



I chatted briefly with Selrahc about options a few days ago. I liked the idea of a silly Armageddon combo. Something like the Clan, Sheaim, and Luchiurp. The Clan try to get Ragnarock up as quickly as possible to raise the AC- Luchiurp try to get to a stage where they can produce Gargoyles, and the Sheaim build three of those crazy expensive Planar Gates, plus the associated secondary structures necessary to get good spawns.

Then once the AC hits 100 and most living units die, they strike. Golems, immune to the various horrors of the Apocalypse (and really awesome vs. Riders, should one regrettably decide to menace the team) smash the crippled remains of the other team's armies. The Sheaim release their hordes of similarly-immune PZ and cool Gate stuff like Succubi. The Clan exploit warrens to rapidly build up an army of Wolf Riders and/or Chariots to swarm the opposition. Everyone cackles madly all the while.


Would that plan work? Hell no! It's awful. But I bet it'd be fun, bending heaven and earth to introduce a little flavorful chaos into the game =)




Regarding realistic plans, all teams playing in this game need to recognize the extreme importance of Fanatacism. As far as I (and Ellimist) were able to discern from EitB PBEM XVIII, players with Fanatacism can upgrade their T3 priests positioned in allied cities to Paladins / Eidolon based on their ally's alignment as opposed to their own. What this means is that an Evil player can produce both Eidolon and at the same time upgrade some priests into an additional four Paladins, provided they have a Good teammate whose cities they can camp in for a turn. Having eight powerful T4 units per player is very significant. This should also work for Druids, assuming teams can obtain the much more expensive Commune with Nature tech (& Groves).

[Tatan]

Anyway, what combos would you, the Lurker, pick?

One combination I would be very interested in seeing would be Valledia of the Amurites and Amelanchier of the Ljosalfar working in concert with an expansive civ like the Clan or the Kuriotates. The expansive civ would plop down a whole bunch of cities while the other two teched Bowyers; then, the Ljosalfar could draft an army of longbows out while the Amurites built archers and upgraded them to firebows with gold gifted by the other two. The economy would be wildly unsustainable, but it would be very easy to get 50+ units within 10 or so turns, which probably win over any T4 units that could have been teched in the meantime. Especially given that firebows would probably have access to 3-movement via haste and mobility, and the longbows would be frigging commandos.

Or at least, that's how it should work in theoryland.

Regarding realistic plans, all teams playing in this game need to recognize the extreme importance of Fanatacism. As far as I (and Ellimist) were able to discern from EitB PBEM XVIII, players with Fanatacism can upgrade their T3 priests positioned in allied cities to Paladins / Eidolon based on their ally's alignment as opposed to their own. What this means is that an Evil player can produce both Eidolon and at the same time upgrade some priests into an additional four Paladins, provided they have a Good teammate whose cities they can camp in for a turn. Having eight powerful T4 units per player is very significant. This should also work for Druids, assuming teams can obtain the much more expensive Commune with Nature tech (& Groves).

That seems a little close to the borderline of cheese to me... but if it's allowed, there's no reason for the players not to do that because it sounds pretty powerful.

[Bobchillingworth]

That seems a little close to the borderline of cheese to me... but if it's allowed, there's no reason for the players not to do that because it sounds pretty powerful.

Cheese- certainly. But maybe not exploitative enough to be banned? I don't know. I had always felt that doing stuff like popping the Luchiurp WS with multiple cities and then deleting warriors to move the Golden Hammers around to merge into a single city was too cheap a tactic to ever use, but the community here seems to be overwhelmingly cool with it. I really don't see the upgrade trick to be any worse, especially since it only works for a small group of units under very particular conditions requiring a niche tech.

[Commodore]

One combination I would be very interested in seeing would be Valledia of the Amurites and Amelanchier of the Ljosalfar working in concert with an expansive civ like the Clan or the Kuriotates. The expansive civ would plop down a whole bunch of cities while the other two teched Bowyers; then, the Ljosalfar could draft an army of longbows out while the Amurites built archers and upgraded them to firebows with gold gifted by the other two. The economy would be wildly unsustainable, but it would be very easy to get 50+ units within 10 or so turns, which probably win over any T4 units that could have been teched in the meantime. Especially given that firebows would probably have access to 3-movement via haste and mobility, and the longbows would be frigging commandos.

Why not have the Exp be Mahalla? She can do archer/longbow upgrades as dirt cheap as melee lines, right?

[Bobchillingworth]

A LB rush strategy would be neat- were someone to pursue it, I think they'd really want someone around who could get the Mines of Gardul produced quickly. Otherwise they've got to research Iron Working and Smelting to get +1 strength on their LB (which makes a significant difference). Someone who starts with Enchantment mana for quickly taking Enchantment II on Mages for another +1 LB strength would also be keen. In that regard, I don't think you could do better than Sandy.

[Selrahc]

Would that plan work? Hell no! It's awful.

Not least because the AC is disabled for this game.



One thing I think could have mileage is the new position of Divine Essence.
The tech path Corruption of Spirit->Infernal Pact->Malevolent Designs->Divine Essence is *really* easy to get through, particularly with the Grimoire giving a free tech. And it also unlocks Beasts of Agares and Mardero.

So who works out well from that path? I think the obvious answer is anybody with powerful immortal units and Dragon civs. I think a team of Calabim/Illians/Kurio(/Grigori/Clan as alternates) would work well. Sheaim are kicked out for not getting Immortals.

Illians are a civ nobody likes to mess with early, and as a charismatic civ should be able to get together a team of elite warriors for promo as well as their Dragon(although no Beasts of Agares, which is sad). The Illians are there so the team has early protection.

Kurio get a big scary dragon, and have nifty centaur units as well. Most importantly, they've got the powerful early economy to take the team to the goal line rapidly.

Calabim have hands down the best Immortal unit. By a landslide. Getting them would be top priority for that... even if it means needing to detour via Feudalism for the Vampires. Calabim can act as midgame muscle as well as being good techers.

Clan would be useful for much the same reasons as the Illians. Early muscle. They also get a strong replacement for the Immortal which could be handy. No Dragon, but they do get the Beasts.

Grigori are good because they can easily get 4 candidates for heroic Immortals by the time Divine Essence is cashed in. Although again, it comes at the cost of Beasts of Agares.

[Yell0w]

Cheese- certainly. But maybe not exploitative enough to be banned? I don't know. I had always felt that doing stuff like popping the Luchiurp WS with multiple cities and then deleting warriors to move the Golden Hammers around to merge into a single city was too cheap a tactic to ever use, but the community here seems to be overwhelmingly cool with it. I really don't see the upgrade trick to be any worse, especially since it only works for a small group of units under very particular conditions requiring a niche tech.

Oo why would I pick Lurchips EVER if I couldn't move my Golden Hammers?
They got so many mali, it seems just fair to me.

I think a realistic strong pick would be Cardith. I consider him the strongest techer due to his unique buildings (and no financial anymore!) and enclaves. You would be sure to have all the resources thanks to your teammates. Lanun would be the alternative, I think a lot of players consider them even stronger techers than Kuriotates.

Due to the baning of city gifting elves don't seem that powerful anymore. EDIT: "Biggest benefit is that they can use their workers to improve forest tiles for the entire team." I didn't knew that was possible! So they go up to be the 2nd pick

So my 3rd pick would be Varn Gossam or Khazad/Lurchips for 0% tech gold machine.

btw. can you gift great persons?

3 players pooling GP's for the altar seems viable.

EDIT:
Hmm, seeing that they should work together well I clearly didn't put enough thought in my list. but here is a list of top picks imo:
Lurchip (mud golems are cheap fast worker, and you can gift them to your team)
Kuriotates
Elves
Elohim (WS + tolerant)
Lanun
Balseraphs (anyone remembers Kyan on Keelyn?)
Hippus
(Varn)
Sidar (sooo buffed, also could be combined with some high xp civ which gifts the units to the Sidar player to Wane them and then maybe gift them back, I'd really like to know if you could out tech something like Lanun with this)

[Ichabod]

Enclaves + Foreign Trade =

Why? Well, every team seems to want to do the 100% gold and 100% science thing. Ok, so you need currency for that, which needs writing. That means Trade is a very close tech to this techpath anyway. Getting enclaves in 30 turns is just awesome. Kurios are just incredibly strong techers, even without that. But with that + 3 civs helping with resources...

I don't think elves are worth it due to the elven workers improving forests. Are you seriously going to wait so long for improvements in your city? By the time the elves can really do it, the plus hammers aren't worth it anymore. Besides, you'd need to go FoL with all civs if you really want a good boost. Sounds meh to me. An easy trap.

The Hippus + Kurios combination I did with Ravus on FFH X is though to beat. The civs benefit from the same tech path and can really do a techer/army combination (with tasunke as the hippus leader). Combine this with any other expansion/second techer/gold civ, whatever you want, for a really nice combo.

We are suffering on that game due to being extremely choked early (the map was probably made taking into account the fact that the clan WS wouldn't work in an AW game, which was wrong) and because the map is so freaking huge. If the map allows for more closeness between civs, Hippus + Kurios is hard to beat, in my mind. 4 move, raiders, at least combat 3 (with apprenticeship + conquest) horse archers are just impossible to counter (of course there are counters, but just for the sake of the argument :neenernee). That's too much mobility.

@Yell0w

Altar victory is disabled, other wise it would be too easy. There's no way to gift units in FfH, so the Sidar plan is out.

[Ichabod]

Who is making the map?

I'll heavily advise for a not that defensive, not that huge map. Watching people fill the map without fear of attacks will be boring, not only to watch, but to play. Early contact is advisable.

A competition between who can spit more settlers will just make the teams that pick Kurios and Orcs win.