[spoilers] Dragon Slayers and Warrior Knights, Oh my!

[Ranamar]

You can get mobility for free from Arcane, but it's really only worthwhile if you go all-in for casters. With a civ like the Grigori, it's probably not worth it, though. CHA is a better trait overall, between +1 happy and providing a bonus to all the rest of your units in the form of quicker promotions.

[teleh]

Okayy, looks like a start might be coming soonish!

So.. I started my second FfH game as Cassiel and after.. not a huge amount of turns, a couple of Adventurers have already spawned. I can see they're upgradable to Warrior and I think Scout, but am guessing they 'lose their unique' if that gets done and the best bet is to hold off until better upgrades and more XP is available?

Also.. All things being equal what would you think your first few builds would be?

[WarriorKnight]

You can get mobility for free from Arcane, but it's really only worthwhile if you go all-in for casters. With a civ like the Grigori, it's probably not worth it, though. CHA is a better trait overall, between +1 happy and providing a bonus to all the rest of your units in the form of quicker promotions.

Indeed, CHA benefits my whole army, and ARC doesn't really help hero casters that much. I'm also considering RAI since that would be fairly awesome to do, but that's a long way down the road.

Okayy, looks like a start might be coming soonish!

So.. I started my second FfH game as Cassiel and after.. not a huge amount of turns, a couple of Adventurers have already spawned. I can see they're upgradable to Warrior and I think Scout, but am guessing they 'lose their unique' if that gets done and the best bet is to hold off until better upgrades and more XP is available?

Also.. All things being equal what would you think your first few builds would be?

Promoted adventurers keep the hero promotion, so you don't need to worry about losing the free experience. You can hold off upgrading depending on what you want your adventurer to eventually become.

What to build first? Well that's a vague question. Most of the time it would be roughly worker first -> grow to decent pop working worked tiles building warriors -> warrior -> settler. Since I'm Grigori though, it might be worthwhile to grab Mysticism ASAP and work a sage so the 2nd GP might be a sage instead of an adventurer. The combination of a free t0 shade and 1 of each type of resource at the capital might make that decision hard to make.

[teleh]

Promoted adventurers keep the hero promotion, so you don't need to worry about losing the free experience. You can hold off upgrading depending on what you want your adventurer to eventually become.

Lovely - ah yes I can see my firstborn dubious 1-move 2-strength Adventurer already has 34XP at turn 47. She will be useful then

What to build first? Well that's a vague question. Most of the time it would be roughly worker first -> grow to decent pop working worked tiles building warriors -> warrior -> settler. Since I'm Grigori though, it might be worthwhile to grab Mysticism ASAP and work a sage so the 2nd GP might be a sage instead of an adventurer. The combination of a free t0 shade and 1 of each type of resource at the capital might make that decision hard to make.

The question had a couple of reasons which aren't really apparent in the sentence
Firstly I wondered if the worker-first strategy was viable with Lizards all too likely to be saying hello very early. Another reason was I didn't see all that much for a worker to do first off until some tech or another was researched. Nor all that much to build, actually!

And I have to live up to my knewb questions quota too, especially when times are quiet

[WarriorKnight]

Firstly I wondered if the worker-first strategy was viable with Lizards all too likely to be saying hello very early.

Lairs are going to be off near the starting location, so there should be no immediate threat of lizards/skeletons etc. Animals will appear, although none of them can enter borders. My starting warrior will defend the capital to avoid risk of any early elimination via opponents units and other barbs. If my scout dies early so be it, I'll build another one at some point for scouting.

Another reason was I didn't see all that much for a worker to do first off until some tech or another was researched. Nor all that much to build, actually!

Grigori start with Crafting, which is IMO the 2nd best starting tech since it allows wines to be improved immediately when you get a worker, and allows the possibility of Mining first. You should be able to get your 1st tech around the time your worker is completed (especially if you start with a shade, which I believe is something we'll be doing), and along with Mining the other candidate is Agriculture. Either tech allows you to do useful things with your worker, and both should give plenty to workers to do.

Once the worker is done, build a decent number of warriors (3-4) while growing, you'll need them for sure.

And I have to live up to my knewb questions quota too, especially when times are quiet

Much appreciated, spam posts are always useful for keeping the others paranoid.

[Ichabod]

Your start in spoilers below. Small things may change, like the "way" your start is facing. Nothing major in the BFC, though (maybe just a few hills/forests more or less). Any doubts, ask away.

[WarriorKnight]

Yippee, starting screenshot.

OK first thing, do we start with a free shade or not? It came up when we were discussing ways to speed up the early game, even though I don't think a decision was ever reached (half voted yes, other half didn't respond).

This is a very good capital, I think I have to start improving it immediately. Agri is first, then either Calendar or Mining. If the map is standard then that means quite a bit of room? OTOH Emporer/Torodial though will make new cities expensive. I know I said that I'll choose Cassiel, and I probably still will, but I wonder what the best civs on this map would be?

Whatever, I'm still going with my choices of:

1-Cassiel
2-Arturus
3-Perpentach

[teleh]

Sure (never mind the fact that I'm last and therefore guaranteed first choice )

HA! I doubt there would be objections to this... So the floor's yours, WK! No more Ifs Buts or Maybes, looks like the choice and strategy is all yours. Last minute change hrmmm? (steepling fingers) Do tell...

PS I finally finished reading the archive thread you mentioned and recommended a long time ago, regarding a faint model for cultural victory... They lost! Huh? The evil guys won!

[WarriorKnight]

Sure (never mind the fact that I'm last and therefore guaranteed first choice )

HA! I doubt there would be objections to this... So the floor's yours, WK! No more Ifs Buts or Maybes, looks like the choice and strategy is all yours. Last minute change hrmmm? (steepling fingers) Do tell...

PS I finally finished reading the archive thread you mentioned and recommended a long time ago, regarding a faint model for cultural victory... They lost! Huh? The evil guys won!

Nah, I'll stick with Grigori. Don't want to write another civ overview.

I'm pretty happy about last in the turn order actually. Losing all same turn races will suck, but I doubt it'll be a factor plus I get to see the barbs move, it'll be useful if someone wants to use hidden nationality units against me.

Yeah, the actual culture plan didn't work out for Mist in VII, but the original model remains sound in theory. I will consider it if it's viable but with Toroidal wrap I doubt that is the case.

I don't think I'll have enough time this week to do anymore pregame analysis, but we'll see how things turn out.

[teleh]

Yeah, the actual culture plan didn't work out for Mist in VII, but the original model remains sound in theory. I will consider it if it's viable but with Toroidal wrap I doubt that is the case.

Sound in theory eh. I'll have to take your word for it, as I'm still trying to piece together from other threads, just what the heck happened after Krill spawned as Hypercube or whatever its name is. (It was VIII by the way :P)

I don't think I'll have enough time this week to do anymore pregame analysis, but we'll see how things turn out.

No worries. Starting spot and strategization so far looks great & perhaps your more expert lurkers are better off commenting further at this stage than I am. Very enthused to see a start though.