[SPOILERS] Who's a Good Boy? Bob Plays the Great Dain

[Bobchillingworth]

Traditional first post space filler:

[Bobchillingworth]

Quick overview of the players:  


Aurorarcher (Shekinah of the Sidar)

An interesting pick; Auro will obviously want to stockpile as many Adepts as quickly as possible; if he can't use them to take out an opponent, they'll at least eventually accumulate enough exp to wane and fuel his economy.  His recon units have the nasty ability to teleport around, and his hero gives a rather nice +2 sword for his summons to trade off.  The Sidar tend to take a while to develop though, and he may have hefty beaker requirements depending on what he's going for.  


Dave V (Capria of the Bannor)

I personally don't care for Capria much, as I think the other two Bannor leaders are better at cracking heads, but she does have strong economic traits to help make up for her civ wanting both substantial land and beakers to really get its perpetual war machine going.  I imagine he'll want the Veil, in order to avoid most of the post-KotE arcane techs.  


Bobchillingworth (Dain of the Amurites)

Gameplan is fairly obvious:  Get basic labor and economic techs, bulb my way to Sorcery, perpetually build Adepts & promote to Wizards.  Money may be an issue, as Wizard upgrades will start to get expensive.  The Amurities have a lot of really neat late-game toys, mostly involving Govannon, but I'm not even considering those until I've got Wizards unlocked.  Amurities do well with most religions, but they'll be low on the priority list; of the various options, I'm particularly partial to Esus for the Archmage hero and potentially Nightwatch (although they're pricey).  Firebows aren't on the menu, too much of a beakers & hammer investment.  


Mr. Cairo (Averax of the Sheaim)

Cairo did pledge to play a more aggressive game, and he certainly picked the right leader for it.  Averax has top-tier traits and an excellent civ which EitB has handed buffs to like candy,  but it's very easy to over-expand with him, and this map looks like it's not exactly swimming in commerce.  On the plus side for Cairo, my scouting so far has revealed on a single mana node (so at least one each per player); if we're on a mana-poor map his Mobius Witches could be quite powerful.  


mackoti (Ethne of the Elohim)

I really don't care for Ethne much, mostly because everything about her is boring, but I have no doubt that Mack has a variety of cunning plans to inevitably dominate the game, despite his transparent attempts to convince everyone that he's some sort of clueless FFH neophyte (for the record, this isn't his first game, which he won).  My best guess is he'll look to use the combination of his WS and Creative to force a neighbor to play a difficult defense; Org comes in to play mainly to help immediately offset the costs of devouring a neighbor.  Game is probably over if he can score a kill, as in addition to having the benefit of conquered land Tolerant will grant him some powerful UU and/or UB (well, not from the Bannor, but everyone else). This includes Hyborem, whose palace provides insane bonuses.




In terms of skill, I suppose Mack is at the top, Cairo and I are at the bottom, and Dave and Auro are somewhere in between.

[Bobchillingworth]

Here's my capital, and the extent of my scouting:











Scout near the mana node has reached a mirror of my 5th of the map.

[Bobchillingworth]

First expansion down:





Both my Scouts died, but they managed to uncover one mana node each and a couple Giant Spiders, so it was worth the minor hammer investment. Looks like I'll need to settle the southwest first, as that's where the majority of pre-Hunting luxuries appear to be located.

There's an odd menagerie of creatures parading to the south of my territory, including two Elephants, a Wolf, and three or four Bears. Getting a Hunter online would require investing hundreds of beakers and a decent amount of hammers, but it'll be worth it eventually for the captures, plus everyone has easy access to all of the Hunting resources.

[Bobchillingworth]

Third city down:





Things are going fairly well, I think, despite being last in score. Autumn's Rise is 4t away from producing a Great Sage, and will produce a Warrior, Worker, Mage's Guild, and my first Adept. I'll place my next city at the seafood lake spot just south of my capital, which only claims a few tiles but will be quick to establish as an Adept pump, allowing the other cities to focus on expansion. My food count is way behind most of the competition, due in part to working a Sage specialist, but with my limited happy cap I can't grow cities particularly large yet anyway.


Hyborem would be difficult to deal with, if Mack actually beelines the Infernal Pact. Best counter I can come up with currently would be to have a stack of hasted Swordsmen ready to go, or if I can get Sorcery early enough having enough Fire II Wizards to power through the demonic fire resistance and collateral his troops to death.

[Ellimist]

So how long do you expect to go until you abandon all your plans and summon Hyborem yourself?

[Bobchillingworth]

It's actually really tempting to now, since the difficulty I'd face with a Hyborem spawn would presumably apply to most of the other players as well (Mack would be safe with his WS). I think I'll stick with the Amurites though, I want to try something different (for me).

[Bobchillingworth]

City four:





Slotting in some more Worker builds; this will delay my first Adept by about 5 turns, but I can't get by with only three workers for four cities.


There's also an obnoxiously close barbarian city at the "keep" sign. I've reworked my dotmap to accommodate it, but the archers on a hill will be tough to crack. Around seven enchanted blade Warriors with bronze weapons will be sufficient.

[Bobchillingworth]

Clearly Dave is feeling poorly about his chances, if his posts in the "EitB v13" thread are any indication.


I think Mack used a Great Prophet to bulb FoL. I guess he's going to try overwhelming the competition with Tigers? Perhaps he read the Qg post in the strat thread about what wonderful units PoL are. Using Tigers as disposable summons + the "bonus" war weariness from the Elohim Palace is a recipe for self-inflicted pain, although if he scored a kill he could just build a different Palace.

[RefSteel]

Bob and the Amurites.... Brings back memories of the Perpentach Succession PBeM - some of my favorite turn reports of any game ever. And yeah, I guess you never got to use our Wizards for anything that game. I hope you have fun with them in this one!