[SPOILERS] - Tredje and Mardoc are Sheelba of the Clan of Embers

[Brian Shanahan]

Regarding Fades, remeber it's any GP apart from prophets, and they have to be settled IIRC.

[Krill]

What, Warrens mean you get build 1 settler, get 1 free?

[Tredje]

Do you know anything about Square Leg? Any disagreement with my assessments of other people?

I don't know much more than what I've seen from PBEM1. Iskender and Bob both played well, but they made some big mistakes (Iskender turning down PBs offer and Bob thinking he could waltz into Kuriotates lands.) Serdoa I know only from his shady dealings in PBEM10. I would treat him exactly likely you recommend, rough and to the point.

Actually, my current debate is when we build the Warrens; do we build it everywhere ASAP, or do we want to try to get out a settler first, or what?

As with the Worker-first idea, I would argue that this is also map-dependent. Difficult to say before we know anything about our surroundings. But it is definitely one of the things we need to ponder carefully once the game has begun.

Oh, one piece of calculations I did - average time for an adept/shaman to get to 10XP from 0XP and be upgradable is 67 turns.

That is a substantial amount of time. To me it seems that we should either do an early rush with Axemen or we wait until we have a proper army with collateral damage and everything.

[Tredje]

What, Warrens mean you get build 1 settler, get 1 free?

Aye, you get two for the price of one of every unit you produce except for Hero, National, Naval and Siege Units.

[Mardoc]

Regarding Fades, remeber it's any GP apart from prophets, and they have to be settled IIRC.

Oh, right, he can't get an Academy from a Fade. Perhaps a better comparison would be to a Great Engineer (boosted) at +4 hammers/turn, +3 beakers. I think I'd be willing to spend a bunch of 15 hammer warriors to get one of them early.

What, Warrens mean you get build 1 settler, get 1 free?

Yep! Workers, too. Military production is somewhat balanced by not getting any XP on the free units, but settlers and workers are just half free!

To me it seems that we should either do an early rush with Axemen or we wait until we have a proper army with collateral damage and everything.

There's no reason we can't do both, is there? I doubt one rush will win us the game, after all. Haste, however, is Body I, so Shamans can be useful right away, even during an Axe rush. Given that we don't have to waste hammers on Mage Guilds, we probably should aim to get some Shamans going early anyway, just for Haste.

Gah, I know I want the map to be balanced and perfect, but I also want to start! All this hypothesizing 'well, if there's room, we should, but otherwise we should...is driving me nuts!

Aye, you get two for the price of one of every unit you produce except for Hero, National, Naval and Siege Units.

You know, that's a second reason not to use catapults for collateral. They can't get mobility, they can't get Hasted, and they don't get doubled.

I'm going to have to dive into the magic system next, I can tell. Assuming we get a mana node or two, we'll need to decide how to use them, plus with 3 opponents who are mage-heavy, there's going to be a lot of magic flying around this game. That doesn't even count Iskender, who might unlock mages just for the free XP gain.

[Tredje]

The save has arrived. Unfortunately I am unable to open it. I get a couple of error messages, which I posted in the tech thread. Once that is fixed I will post a screenshot of our starting position in this thread for us to discuss.

[uberfish]

[Mardoc]

Hmm, interesting. At least we're not stuck directly in jungle like some of the Clan starts I've seen. My first thought on what makes sense here is to found 1E of the settler's position - we trade a bunch of coasts for grass forests, which I believe is generally a plus for a civ like us - no intention of getting fishing and sailing anytime soon, no financial to make the coasts worth a change. We do lose one plot of cleared ground, but that's an ok tradeoff.

We don't want to head into the desert or the jungle, so the only other reasonable spot would be somewhere over by Odio's Prison, but I don't see anything as nice as staying put, and that'd cost us early game time, too, which is going to be precious.

The good news is, with a lot of forests, we ought to have good chance of wolves spawning, and we won't miss the 2-move scout as much as we would otherwise.

And probably the first tech should be Agriculture, of course.

[Tredje]

Yeah, as far as FFH2 starts go it isn't half bad

I actually went ahead and played the first turn because I agreed 100% with your assessement. I settled one east to get more land and less water tiles. I sent the Goblin north towards the hut, while I sent the Warrior west. After exploring the hut our Goblin can move to the Ancient Tower to scout our surroundings. The Warrior should be able to scout the area around Odio's Prison before Animals start spawning.

I agree with you that Agriculture is an abvious first tech choice. After that I am thinking Calendar -> Crafting -> Mining. I don't think we need to get AH for some time, since we can just farm the pigs and with Agrarianism it will give 5food. One tech for only +1 food is not worth it. I started work on a Worker in the capital, and Agriculture and the Worker will both finish in 10 turns. After that I suggest we train at least 2 Goblins and try to get us some Wolf Raiders.

As for the area surrounding our capital we have several calendar resources, which should help us establish a decent economy. I am thinking that the land to the south is a small island. Still, with Gold we will want to settle there eventually.

When looking at the screenshot, can you see what appears to be a unique feature hidden in the fog to the north? Just above the pigs.

[Mardoc]

Not in the screenshot, but when I opened up the save to take a look, and zoom way out, I found not just that, but another. First, I think 1W of the northern pig is a unique feature that ends in 'nes'. I think the only one that does that is the Standing Stones. So yay, free Earth mana! (assuming we expand fast enough to grab it). Second, 4 south of the Gems is the Maelstrom. Not nearly as useful, but at least it's info.

Your tech path makes sense to me, except that I would add Masonry, probably at the end. Given that Warrens are cheaper even than a settler, I really want it available soon. And then probably Bronze after that, so we can chop trees and enemies.

Still, that's a ways down the road. For now, grow and explore. If the Warrior sticks to forest, jungle, and hills, he'll actually be relatively safe exploring vs. animals, I think. Especially if we get lucky with a combat or two and he makes it to Woodsman. Keeping my fingers crossed the goblin runs into a wolf, too

Finally, given the general desire for speedy turns, a logistics question - at what point is it safe for me to assume that you won't get to the save on a given day and I should grab it? 24 GMT? This is mostly your game, so I really don't want to grab the save if there's any chance of you playing it, but I also don't want to keep anyone waiting if I can avoid it.