DaveV and Keelyn: even though you broke my heart and killed me

[DaveV]

A good metaphor for the overstuffed Balseraph civ.

[DaveV]

My picks:

1. Alexis - I like the vampires. Sue me.
2. Keelyn - the queen of fiddly micro. Creative is great for expansion.
3. Ethne - Creative + Organized + free March promotion.
4. Shekinah - fun with Severed Souls.
5. Mahala - Expansive and Ingenuity to make up for the lack of a starting tech.

Actual assignments:

Plako: Mahala of the Doviello - Expansive is good on a big map. Mahala is good at killing people; so is plako.

Dave: Keelyn of the Balseraphs - Needs a lot of tech to be dangerous.

Auro: Alexis of the Calabim - Stole the precious from us. We hates him forever.

Mardoc: Thessa of the Ljo - Very slow starter, but a very strong endgame if he can get there.

Jale: Garrim of the Luchiurp - Has a lot of strong points, but the slow golems are a handicap.

[DaveV]

The password is Clown.

[DaveV]

My naming theme:

[Qgqqqqq]

Many small things may change, but the critical things will stay the same.

[DaveV]

Initial reaction: yuck! Water sucks.

After some thought: but there are a bunch of good land tiles available, and there is probably a reason we've been put on the coast. It's possible to move 1W and trade some ocean tiles for land tiles, but that gives up on Deruptus in the capital.

Meta thoughts: reminds me of Ichabod's pizza map, where each player had his own wedge, sealed off by mountains and immobile hill giants. That was a very big map where the Lanun won easily, which is presumably why they're banned here.

[Qgqqqqq]

The Start:

[DaveV]

I ignored the prodding of the mapmakers and went my own way. It doesn't quite show up on Q's screenshot, but the unit defogging tiles to the west of the settler is a scout with the Weak promotion, who was sitting on a portal. Bob does love his portals.

I suspect I was supposed to send the weak scout through the portal to explore the other side, but I'd rather use him to explore my starting environment.

Water still sucks, and the offshore incense and desert hill look very much as though they're on an island and won't be workable for ~100 turns, so I moved the settler SW:




The unit in the upper right corner of the minimap is a strong one, but is held in place and will be sitting there till I delete it (which will probably be at about the time it starts costing maintenance).




Settings screen:




I didn't get a shot of it, but the score mouseover shows about 1150 land tiles, which is right on Aurorarcher's requested value of ~225 tiles per player. The problem is that you have to subtract off the land in the ice region/quest zone, so I won't have room for a huge number of cities. Since there are a total of 3648 tiles, the map is about 2/3 water. There's a good chance that we're all isolated on our own islands. Octopus Overlords for the win.

[DaveV]

Turn 2. Three out of the other four guys settled on their first turn; the exception was Aurorarcher.




More exploration doesn't reveal anything shocking.

Demos:



Which is the occasion for my first map gripes. Everyone else has the same commerce I do (after you subtract out my +2 culture) but I would be -1 commerce if I'd settled in place since I would be working the corn. WHICH DOESN'T HAVE ANY FREAKING COMMERCE. Also, someone else settled on the first turn and had no water tiles in his inner ring, meaning he didn't have to spend a turn moving away from the stupid water .

Everyone who settled first turn is getting 3 hammers and 5 food, which means they probably all have a two-hammer city tile and a three-food tile in their first ring. The average is 5 tiles, which means the other two guys have somewhere in the range of 11 to 14 first ring land tiles combined.

[DaveV]

Turn 3. More exploration.







Demos:



And it's time to walk back my map complaints from the last post . New theory: everyone had exactly the same start. The dwarf guy moved to the same spot as Aurorarcher and me, but was able to settle first turn because of racial ability. One of Mardoc and plako settled in place, the other moved to the riverside grassland tile.

Aurorarcher has used his worldspell, and is working three zero-hammer tiles. He must be emphasizing commerce, which is usually a good idea.