[Spoiler] Master Auro Has A Living Army

[Aurorarcher]

If you have better suggestions how to make MAHALA from cool words to name the thread, feel free to suggest...  

Thoughts on the pick to follow.

[Aurorarcher]

So why Doviello and why Mahala?

Doviello:
+ can upgrade workers to Beastman = Warrior with 20% city attack
+ no building requirements for units: no Traing Yard, Mage Guild or Archery Range (I don't think I'll ever build a Javelin Thrower though)
=> that leads to some cool stuff: can upgrade units anywhere, for example right after capturing enemy worker inside their borders
+ Lucian
+ WS is useful early
+ palace gives Body and -40 % WW

- no starting techs
- no libraries (might matter) or alchemy labs (doesn't matter, the game is over at this point)

Mahala (EXP/RAI/ING)
+ fast expansions
+ upgrading units is super cheap; worker -> beastman (7g), beastman -> SoA (13g)
+ commando units are just scary

- no traits to help economy directly (more on that later, how to make use of my traits)

So Doviello and Mahala paired up, the plan is to be aggressive:
For example I could:
- upgrade super deadly army of 20 sons from Beastman for just 260g in one turn. Considering Sons (30h) - Beastman (16h) = 14h, which means that I'm pretty much buying one hammer for one gold (not quite 280h -> 260g), that's very cheap, rush buying units with some hammers invested already is usually 1h = 3g, and upgrading without ING is 1h = 2g or so IIRC.
- use adepts to speed my army through enemy roads, even better if I have time to get Mobility I on my units
- pop WS when next to enemy city 20+ wolves

Hopefully my opponents aren't too far away. My WS also works for defense but I don't think any of my opponents have as early aggression plans (considering their picks).

So how to not kill my economy (which it certainly will do when I go to war mode)?

Well here's where my civ's special abilites and EXP come into play:

- When I don't have to build MGs or TYs I can spend those hammers elsewhere (markets/EC)
- EXP saves a lot of hammers that can be used elsewhere
- City States is the way to go, hopefully the land overall is not begging for Aristofarms

What techs I am going to need (not in any order):
- Exploration (76b), Agriculture (76b), AC (76b), Crating (114b), Calendar (152), Mining (191b), Education (268b), BW (383b), Mysticism (191b), KotE (344b), Festivals (172b), AH (172), HBR (373b), Cartography (191b)
=> total of 2779 beakers, if my opponents are close enough I might not need anything else.

If I have mana close enough, I could use GS to pop Alternation for quick Enchantment mana => Enchanted blades for my melee army.

Just some quick thoughts here, a lot depends on map and the distance between civs.

[Aurorarcher]

So my start:


Looks pretty lush. Moved Lucian first 1SE then followed by settler for a good view. I decided to settle there. I probably want my 2nd city next to Dyes for happy so I can share the Corn also from cap. Commerce is vital in FFH early game, especially when you start a tech behind others.



That Lake Crabs is tasty too. AH looks pretty solid with Cows, Sheep and Pigs around. Not something I wanted... Mining is high priority for me because of EXP. The cap at size 5 can work 2 Corn + 3 mines for 31 foodhammers towards settler. Without Mining that would be 25 foodhammers. And 1 Corn + 4 mines would give me also 31 fh when I share cap's Corn.

Probably will sim the start if I find time, hopefully before we'll blitz.

Cairo didn't settle, must be looking for a super city spot as Kurios. Dave has 2 water tiles in his 1st ring and has 16 GNP, that must be Fishing start for him with prereq bonus from Seafaring.

[Aurorarcher]

Also my theme for the game is great mathematicians (I studied maths at uni before I became a teacher), so I feel like the theme suits for me very well.

Images are a bit small I think? I haven't played in a while and dropbox no longer available (for me at least) I had to use imgur but I think I messed up something? Anyway, the cap is named after (I think) the greatest mathematician of all time: Euler.

[Aurorarcher]

Found Cows 1SW of Dyes, that's good.

Also someone has 3f city square; that must be Cairo. Or then he found Yggdrasil...

[Aurorarcher]

After simming the start I think the tech path is the following:

Agri -> Calendar (settle for Dyes on T28 and start improving Dyes on the same turn, will use caps Corn for 1t) -> Exploration -> Animal Husbandry (T40, settle 1E of Pigs on same turn and start pasture). The timing is pretty neat here. I thought Mining earlier would make sense but it doesn't. Picking up useless Crafting early doesn't feel like the right choice. If I had Wines nearby I'd probably do it earlier, but I only really need hammers in cap to push settlers fast - which it already is with forested hills and farms (settler every 6th or 7th turn, with mines it'd be every 5th turn). It's pretty neat that I can share a lot of tiles with cramped cities. Especially those two Corns are shared a lot, also other farms. It makes worker micro a lot simpler and I can keep up with new cities easy. Of course if I were to consider longer game tight cities wouldn't necessary be the way to go... fortunately I'm not planning to play such a game .

T40:



3 cities, 2 workers (3rd in 3 turns), 2 beastman built. 4th city close to Cows SW T49. Carto as next tech is tempting because maintenance will crash my economy quickly, settling is really fast with EXP.

[haphazard1]

Sim game screenshot -- it's like looking into the future!

And I am shocked, shocked that a player who picked the Doviello is not planning to play for a long game.

Thanks for explaining your thinking. I am not good at early (or even semi-early) rushes, so I am hoping to learn something from following this game.

[Aurorarcher]

Yeah, I don't know it'll be a rush actually... well, at least no in the sense it's usually used. Also the distance between caps are likely about 15-20 tiles (according to quick test on Torusland with ~900 land tiles).

Also, we're blitzing! And for some reason superjm grew to size 2 already :noidea. I understand it as Lanun but otherwise it's usually always the wrong start...

[Aurorarcher]

Found Dave, he is actually fairly close to me... This map is super watery, I'm already afraid Lanun will be too powerful.



My C1 warrior is in the upper part of the pic. He got lucky and earned 3 xp winning battle against Griffon. My scout didn't have such luck and got killed by a bear early.

[Aurorarcher]

Dave is saying, don't you dare to do it.



And I wasn't, I would've moved 1N anyway but Phant was there last turn. When I now moved 1N I saw another warrior of Dave's. He's got good garrison at home.