Jkaen and the Mistform Defense League

[Jkaen]

Here are the 3 hills you can see as dots on the minimap

Alpha (top left)

Bravo(top right)

Charlie (bottom)

[Jkaen]

So Alpha and bravo are the mainland ones, and charlie the offshore one.

Alpha and Bravo have:

Monument
Mines of Galdur
Inn
Some treehouse looking thing?
Pagan Temple? (the stepped pyramid)

Charlie has:
Monument
Eyes and Ears
Inn
Treehouse
Pagan Temple


Am I right that any units defending them wouldn't show in the fog?

[Serdoa]

You are right, defending units wouldn't show up.

Have you checked the map for height, width and if it is toroidal? If there is a circumnavigation bonus in FFH available (is there?) we should make sure to get it, to make our own ships stronger and the ships of others weaker.

Also according to the tech-thread Tsunami and Waterwalking is banned - but not OO itself. Not that I think it is worthwhile to go for it - especially with our boats being the fastest. And I think you can cast while the unit is on a boat? If so that could be pretty devastating for everyone who dares to settle coastal cities - I did understand it right that points are only subtracted if the civ you are attacking does not hold a hill right? Do they apply if you hold a hill?

Lastly, I can do some C&D, but I don't think it does make sense if we can't attack each other early on. Their are no early wonders I am aware of, so I don't see anything to race too. And later on (like after 30-40 turns) C&D gets really complicated and is often not reliable enough - at least from my experience.

[Jkaen]

No early wonders, as long as I cen get a rough idea of what they are doing thats fine. From what I can gather off that the 3 others who have settled have no water tiles.

Havent checked for wrap, would be shocked it if wraps vertically, horizontal may be possible and infact looking at the map layout now would make much more sense to me. will look to get circumnav which I think still does exist. +2 move ships would be very nice.

Current thinking on the map is:

[Jkaen]

Just seen how much posting there has been in Gaspar's thread already, especially from Thoth!

Anyway for the sake of global lurkers, and the ded lurkers who were not in the others conversation, here are some chat dumps:

Jkaen & Serdoa:

3:07 PM me: Thanks again for running those numbers for me in the FFH game, was worried I was getting distracted by all the shinies
3:08 PM Assuming I settle SW, would you still look at 2nd city 3N1E rather than 3N2E?
Serdoa: np. I am still not sure tbh, there are just soo many possibilities. We could have gone Agri -> Calendar first for stronger farms and faster growth as well.
But I think ultimately coves are the better tile to get into play.
3:09 PM me: yup, did wonder about agri-craft-mine tech path
3:10 PM any thought on macro plan, should I be looking at lanun / lanun + angels / devils?
Serdoa: As for the second city, yes, I would settle 1E of the gold. Its not a plains hill, but it can share deer with the cap which is a good tile to get going
me: leaning towards not devils atm
3:11 PM I guess for a second city a plains hill plant is less important thinking about it
Serdoa: I am not sure. I think we need to see more of the map. For now, just get your cities going imo. That needs enough tech that you have at least a month or 2 to think about where to head after that
me: true
3:13 PM Serdoa: only thing I would like to do is getting another workboat soon after the settler to see if we can contact others, for known tech bonus.
3:14 PM me: cant seem to get on the forum atm. but if you look at the mini map you will see the hill sites
still trying to work out how mist has laid things out for 5 players though
3:15 PM current guess is:
3:16 PM x-x
gah cant asci draw in chat
Serdoa: tbh, I'd like not to engage in map dicussions I have not seen the whole map but I have seen the starts of the others. I'm happy to hear what you have to say but better we get SL to comment on it
me: basically 5 columns with an opening up top towards the cities
ahh osrry forgot, will drop it
3:17 PM Serdoa: no problem
3:20 PM me: any thoughts on the opposition civs / players?
3:22 PM Serdoa: yes. Gaspar is good and straightforward in his play, Amelia is ... well, Amelia and probably will hunt again for all different shinies instead of concentrate for the goal. Commodore reminds me on Gaspar but easier upset and Ravus is great in diplo, be aware of that when you talk with him
Is diplo on for this game or have you decided on only AI-diplo or some such?
me: full diplo
3:26 PM Serdoa: well, then depending on what we find and where we find them, we need to get a NAP with the vampires for really long (Tier3 long - T150+) or hit them early. The others don't scare me really. Hippus a little bit, but without Raiders they are not really all that scary imo. Amelias dwarfs... well, are dwarfs. They don't play a role probably. And Ravus and his Amurites might become a factor but probably to late. One can have gotten a victory condition finished at the time they get their Hero...
3:30 PM me: Their world spell could be really annoying but other than that I am tempted to agree. If us and the vampires are on opposite sides of the map and can agree to leave the far hill alone it would be handy. stillfancy I have a good shout at the one across the ocean (which should have the eyes and ears network i hope)
7 minutes
3:37 PM Serdoa: sorry, try to not get attacked from everyone in PBEM25 right now - and I agree eyes and ears would be great. Might even be a reason to go for OO. Cultists by T70 or so are probably doable with your research potential and having them defending that hill with tsunami probably makes it untakeable for quite some time
3:39 PM me: OO is banned (or water walking and tsunami part of it for sure)
3:40 PM Serdoa: ah, what a pity
me: ...or was that just mardocs game I am ded lurking...
tracking too many games atm, but think it was banned for us too
3:42 PM with my ships and access to water mana though, I should still be in good shape
Serdoa: yeah you should. though I scrolled through the tech-thread, couldn't find anything about OO ban
3:44 PM me: hmm maybe its not banned then, not sure if thats goo dfor us or not
Serdoa: can't find it. I will ask for a complete rules-post in the tech-thread without mentioning OO specifically.
3:49 PM OO would be better if banned btw I think, because it makes it easier for us to rule the sea. But I think we have the faster ships anyway? If so we should be able to rule the seas nonetheless, just have to bring some cultists with us
3:50 PM me: yes all our ships are +1 move

Squareleg & Jkaen:

11:41 AM SquareLeg: so - capture the flag - seems like the start isn't too bad for us.
me: no looks good, the second oasis should improve on the numbers serdoa posted down too
that inland city when set up should be commerce central
11:42 AM SquareLeg: yup the 2nd oasis is nice - work both oasis at size 2 until fishing is done.
11:43 AM can slap down 2 coves at the capital
11:44 AM me: yes, thats why I went SW not W. should get us moving quite fast with 2 coves and 2 oasis
SquareLeg: 2W and 1E,2S
for the coves
11:45 AM me: agreed
SquareLeg: after fishing i would be sorely tempted to head for mining.
11:46 AM me: crafting gives us wine, mining get gold and gems (mining allows forest chop right?)
SquareLeg: yep
Have you played many SP games as the lanun?
me: the other thing would be hunting for fur/deer/ivory
a few games yes
doing the scenarios atm
SquareLeg: the one thing I always find is that I lack hammers.
11:47 AM having a city inland working farms and mines would be ideal.
me: the capital i think will always suck for hammers
11:48 AM SquareLeg: GK and a couple of mines should give it enough for basic infra
after that... yeah - it will be poor.
what are the random tiles revealed on the mini map??
11:49 AM me: the bunch of land above me I have shown in a SS.
the 3 random tiles are the hills we have to capture
SquareLeg: can you tell which one is the overseas one?
11:50 AM me: thinking atm we are arranged in 5 columns with us being 2nd from left. thing is that makes player 3 near both hills and screws 1 and 5. any other ideas?
I guess the south dot
but cant tell
11:51 AM SquareLeg: can you see the barb cities or just the hill on the actual map? By peering into the city we can tell if it has mogd or the eyes and ears
me: will just boot up the laptop now and have a quick look
11:53 AM been trying to think of some way mist could arrange the avenues of mountains to make everybody the same number of tiles away but cant
11:56 AM will post in thread, but south looks to have the wonder

No real important bits or things worth summarising in there, Gaspar and the vampires identified as the big threat, we are not that worried about the dwarves.

Going to leave it until we have the civ going and base techs settled before we make a decision on devil or angel summoning.

[Serdoa]

Well, if Amurites also don't settle coast, circumnavigation should be doable and not even be too hard. If you are right about the map might even be important, we'll see I guess. Was it said that the Eyes&Ear hill is only to be reached via Ocean-going ships? If not, we could at least try to scout it relatively soon.

As for Crafting and Mining: Yes I know they are really tempting. But getting Hunting gets us a 6 yield tile (+2 happy when we improve fur and ivory, so we will want it anyway sooner or later) which not only gets us the settler a turn earlier (thats just bonus) but more importantly helps us getting the second city started really quickly. And as can be seen by my micro-plan (which by no means is the only correct way but not that bad I think) we won't have a city being able to work gold or gems soon enough to warrant going for Crafting -> Mining before Hunting. The same goes for Myst btw. The capital is at most getting 17 hammers (and thats with a Lumbermill, so rather 16 even after Mining). With GK thats 24.. 8 hammers is probably not worth it. Could be worth for the gold though, capital should make 34 commerce at least. Making it 51 gold / turn if I am not mistaken. Still, 2nd city wants several farms and I count already 15 grassland, 12 riverside. Thats 36 more commerce right there with Aristocracy.

[Serdoa]

Jkaen, if you don't mind, send me the actual turn please. I can go ahead and redo your scouting moves and then start up a sandbox. And check for exact height and width numbers and stuff like that

[Jkaen]

Did that,

Then a bit later got turn 2 and did a bit of scouting.

Anybody know the rules for fallout in FFH?

[Serdoa]

No clue about fallout (not even in BTS). Though I can tell you some things about the map:

1. It is 52 width x 32 height
2. It has 1231 land tiles, 433 water tiles
3. It has only horizontal scroll
4. Charlie Hill has Dragon Bones (or more correctly, a sign stating "Dragon Bones")
5. There are no other signs for unique features. Either they are not on the map or Mist has deleted the signs.

Oh, and I only realized now that the Guardian Vines is our own unit.

[Square Leg]

Remember to DOW someone who tries to move past the Vines otherwise they can just walk by.