Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Ravus Sol]

Loving the detailed views into the other nations!

I vote going back towards the coast! You know that's secretly where Mr Inland wanted to be in the first place :neenernee

[Mardoc]

Anyway, I see three potential spots for City 1, circled above. My Current inclination is the tile the Scout is on, as it doesn't get a bunch of crappy peak tiles like the alternatives, but Yellow and Red Circles get 2 food.

I'll open this to the peanut gallery before I make a final decision.

Hmm, interesting. One factor to consider; moving to yellow still lets us found this turn. On the other hand, orange gives us Tomb of Sucellus in the BFC, which would give our capital +1 Happy. That would really help our initial turns, and having an ancient forest ready to go would also be a nice bonus; not as good as a resource, but maybe as good as half of one. A con to orange is that it's a really poor defensive site, no hill but bordered by them. I figure that mostly just means we have to make sure we aren't invaded

Plus, if we go with orange, that leaves room eventually for a coastal city to pick up the pigs/cotton/gold.

I think I'm agreeing with you, orange is probably our strongest choice for a quick start. Not necessarily the strongest site in the longest term with only one food resource, but a quick start is probably more important. And most of my reasoning here is for the ancient forest Sucellus.

And maybe there's wheat and rice still in the fog . Ravus, we love you now!

In terms of tech, it'll depend on whether you're going worker-first, but Agriculture seems quite a strong first option. And don't forget to swap our civics, I think we start in Religion, and we probably would rather be in Nationalism at the moment. Not that it's as important to swap while the settler moves as a Spiritual civ, but might as well work on good habits.

Finally, there's still the chance that purple's the right answer, depending on what's in the fog. Doesn't seem likely, but there is that chance.

[Mardoc]

Also, I just saw Rawkking's post that Hippus and Elohim had their starting techs swapped. Maybe do a quick survey that we have what we're supposed to (or something better).

[Gaspar]

Thanks for the kind words, Ravus. Good to know all the work is entertaining someone.

My main motivation for going Orange over Yellow is as you said, it lets us found another city along to coast for Pigs/Gold/Cotton which will be stronger later. There could also be another decent pig city in the north once we've explored that some more. The downsides are twofold, as you said, Yellow lets us found right away, and its a killer city down the line with Corn/2xPigs/Cotton. Honestly though, there's no need for that much food at the capital, not when all those tiles are eventually going to give 3 food anyway.

I did check the techs - we sadly did start with Exploration and not something better. Right now my inclination is Agriculture -> Ancient Chants -> Education. I think I'll go Worker -> Warrior -> Worker -> Warrior unless I get talked out of it. And I'll revolt to Nationalism as well. Just going to wait about 30 minutes to see if either someone else talks me into yellow over orange, or if I talk myself into it. Otherwise we'll move to orange and pass the turn on.

The other note is if we don't grab the Tomb with the capital, it looks like lots of Jungle underneath us, so we might not settle that way again anytime soon. Might give thought to the Sheaim being beneath us, I think they're the most likely Civ to start near jungle.

[Mardoc]

That's true, we probably do need extra workers since we're elves. I think I agree with that tech path, Education or Mysticism for an early God King swap. Depends on if we're hurting more for hammers or beakers, I suppose.

With two sources of Life mana, we're going to be extra efficient at handling Hell terrain, and if we can be good/lucky enough to get Mages in time, at Destroying Undead Pyre Zombies, too .

[Mardoc]

Honestly though, there's no need for that much food at the capital, not when all those tiles are eventually going to give 3 food anyway.

Not sure I agree with this sentence, though. Eventually's a long ways away. And the hills will only be worth 2 food each, anyway. Extra food would help us spit out workers and settlers like nobody's business, which helps now, today.

It's just that on balance I think growing a God King capital to size 6 (soon 7) makes up for the lack of excess food.

[Gaspar]

Alright, I did as we discussed and moved the turn on. No other picture since nothing else happened, but in lieu of that, have the settings. I'll try and comment later, in addition to my Sheaim post and an overall summary.

[Gaspar]

Well, when I said moved the turn on, I meant sat the turn in stasis till we hear from the Grigori.

Anyway, settings are basically as discussed. Standard size, Monarch difficulty, probably toroidal wrap, so we're going to be looking at retarded maintenance. Not at all sure why we did that, actually. Standard size with 6 civs means there's probably going to be a few extra bits of land out there for everyone, which I suppose is good for us. Anything that deters early aggression is good for us, with our slow elven early game. Acheron was pre-placed, his birth was noted in the event log, as was Brigit's. Looking forward to forts with 245246 goblin archers in them as well. Living World means more events, and is pretty standard for FFH, definitely will want to generate a nest egg of event cash, hopefully we can get that from huts. The one nice thing about the Elven double scout start is you can maybe get an extra hut or two before you inevitably get killed by the local fauna. I'll primarily focus exploration on clearing enough fog to get a reasonable dotmap done, however.

That's pretty much the sum total of what can be gleaned from the settings.

[Gaspar]

Finally, its time for the conclusion of our epic series...



The series finishes with an analysis of everyone's favorite apocalypse cult, Nicolae Carpathia and the Sheaim:



The Sheaim also have 2 leaders to choose from - Tebryn Arbandi and Os-Gabella. Nicolae chose Tebryn, who is quite focused. Both leaders have the Summoner trait, but Tebryn pairs that with Arcane, while Os-Gabella pairs it with Industrious. Let's be frank, while Arc/Sum is the pinnacle of magical dominance, all the Sheaim leader options suck, as there's not an economic bonus in the whole package.



As noted, Tebryn has Arcane, for potent mages and Summoner for more versatile summons. Typically, the use of those Mages would be for better Spectres, but certainly, Nicolae has more options than that. Anyway, Tebryn's about as one-trick a pony as you'll find.

How about the Sheaim. I'll tease by saying this tooltip only really scratches the surface of what they can do, I'll also say I'm not going to spend 67 pages on the Sheaim, we all know what they can do.



Starting Tech: Ancient Chants.

Civ Trait: Sundered. All summons start with the Sundered trait meaning they get a +25% against Unholy and gain benefit from Stigmata, meaning they gain strength as the Armageddon Counter increases. This will be a recurring theme.

Hero: Abashi the Black Dragon. Or as I like to call him, Abashi the Never Gonna Get Built, as it requires Divine Essence, which requires you to finish both the metals and religious lines to research. So yeah, won't be losing any sleep here.

World Spell: Worldbreak. Messes up everyone else's land based on the AC. Basically the bad guy version of Genesis.

Unique Units: Eater of Dreams, Pyre Zombie. Plus Chaos Marauders, Mobius Witches, Revelers, Manticores, Succubi, Minotaurs and Tar Demons. Yeah, lots of stuff in here. I'm not going to go through it all, here's what I'll say. Pyre Zombies are broken, and you don't want to see them before you have mounted and/or Destroy Undead. If a stack of PZ's lands at our gates on T75 or so, we're in for a world of hurt, not least because the backlash will burn our precious forests. The only saving grace is that even by the Sheaim, we don't make an inviting rush target, as MotT treants will kill PZs without any difficulty. Still, if I were playing Sheaim, I might do it anyway, to get the Elf to burn his worldspell before I got around to following up down the road with my death magic shenanigans. Eaters of Dreams are basically Archmages with innate spellstaff that they can only use in their own cities, so they're pretty badass. Most of the planar gate units are pains in the ass and this isn't the Sheaim thread so I'm not going to go through them in detail here.

Blocked Units: Melee after Pyre Zombies. Because really, once you have Zombies on fire, why would you need anything else?

Unique Buildings: Planar Gate. This allows the Sheaim to get those units referenced in the UU section beyond the Archmage and PZ replacements. They're hammer intensive, but you can basically get an army for free if you get these up soon enough and the game lasts long enough. The Higher the AC, the more often this proc's for them.

Blocked Buildings: Training Yard. Nothing after PZ means no need for a place to train them.

Palace Mana: Death, Chaos, Fire. If that's not the "go to war with mages" toolkit, I don't know what is. Chaos is the only passive benefit in there, giving a limited chance for units to come out with Mutations. Otherwise, you're talking about availing Rust, Spectres and Fireballs. Nasty stuff indeed.

Likely Strategy: Um, rush someone with PZ, jack up the AC, screw everyone else over with all their casters summoning badass spectres, fireballs or otherwise. They can do those two separately or they can do them concurrently, but that's basically what they're after. Might well be the most fearsome Civ in the fact that they're deadly early, middle and late. Most Civ's only shine militarily in one area.

Drawbacks: Enjoy getting all the expensive techs you need to get to Eaters/Liches without any economic traits or bonuses. Everyone hates you, because everything you do good for yourself screws with everyone else (in fairness, a lot of it screws with you as well.)

The player: Nicolae is a bit of an unknown, this is his 2nd game here and his first is 10 turns in. I must confess I dislike him innately a bit, just because his name comes from the utter trash that is the Left Behind series. If I go to war with him, I'm naming all my units Kirk Cameron. Douche. Anyway, Selrahc has been vocal in previous games (PBEM IV I think) about using PZs when available, and he's Nicolae's dedlurker, so I don't suspect Nicolae's Sheaim to be going after a cultural victory.

How they'll affect us: See above. Basically, I believe if you have the chance to kill the Sheaim, you have to take it, because by just chilling out and playing their normal game, they're going to increase the AC and all the bad things that go along with it. PZ especially suck for us, as the explosions burn trees, as does Hell terrain. Fortunately, all our adepts will get free Sanctify, so Hell terrain will only hurt so much. Still - if they're close, we'll have to adapt strategy. There's no way to get mages in time to deal with PZs, so if they're near us, we'll have to prioritize mounted, which is the best way to deal with exploding zombies - don't leave anything nearby to get hit by collateral. Unfortunately, we need deer for Horse Archers. :/ Regardless, we'll definitely want to locate horses quickly if we see we're near Sheaim.

This concludes the Better Know a FFH Opponent series. Coming soon is the "putting it all together" episode, and then your regularly scheduled programming.

[Gaspar]

So what do I expect to see from this game? What of the other players? Who's going to win?



Hell if I know. I think I got about a dozen things wrong in that entire preview series, so I surely don't know what I'm doing. Between that and taking a Civ that doesn't at all fit my usual playstyle, I'm taking it as it comes. I want to win, don't get me wrong, of course I want to win, but mainly I'm after two things this game:

1. Irreverent Fun
   
2. Most Epic Thread Ever
   

I think I'll achieve #1, and I don't think I'll achieve #2, but I'm gonna give it the old college try.

My favorites for the game are Kyan's Balseraphs, Nicolae's Sheaim and Rawkkings Hippus. If you put a gun to my head, I'd say RG is going to win. Our advantage is time. With two strong rushers on the board, the fact that we're a less than appealing target should hopefully make up for the fact that there's strong incentive to snuff us in the cradle. Of all the civs in this game, we're the strongest late game civ, with ridiculous production and generating massive beakers and gold. There are few Civs that can compete with the Elves after say, T200. The trick, of course, is getting there.

I meant what I said about Sheaim - someone has to kill them before they get all their toys. If my scout runs into their borders in the next 10 turns, I'll be sorely tempted to scrap all plans and figure a way to kill them quickly, because the longer they're around, the more they screw with everyone else. The Hippus I have high hopes of allying with, because I'm not an appealing target for them either. The Balseraphs? I'd like to point the Hippus at them. That's my hope for dealing with the other civs in the game.

The other 2 - the Grigori and Elohim? Well, I'm not expecting them to impact us too much.

Religion-wise? While I could see us stopping by Order for Bless, I suspect the Hippus and Elohim will have the market on the good religions. I might stop by OO to grab some Cultists, just as defense since we're near the coast. RoK really does nothing for us, except as denial, but we won't get there first. So I suspect the primary religions of the game to be FoL and AV. I'd like to get AV long enough to generate some upgradable Savants and maybe a few Ritualists for Ring of Fire. Otherwise, GoN is too synergistic with us to do anything else.

Ultimately, I don't suspect this will be a noob game anymore than PBEMI was. Mistakes will be made, but we have the experience of those threads to teach us, and this is a pretty experienced group of players, FFH skill or no. Kyan is a stellar diplomat, so that's a factor as well. I'd like to establish contact early with other Civs, so that I can get my fingers in those pies. Maybe, just maybe, someone will be eliminated by a Mistform, though.

At this point, I'll open the floor to any questions, comments or concerns, and stop talking so much.