novice Wrote:Does anybody want to do "a brief history of time" for the benefit of new lurkers (me)?
I'll give that an attempt, but frankly, you've come at a good time. The bulk of the game so far has been growth and city founding, but things are just now starting to heat up. For an excellent summary of the current state of the game, look at Maksim's post on the previous page.
To start with, SevenSpirits built the map, and the general consensus is that the lands are poor, but balanced. Instead of the common approach of giving everyone an extremely lush start, we had the mirror image - no one was happy with their start, but they were pretty much all equally unhappy
. Nearly everyone founded in place despite that, with the notable exception of Uberfish's elves, who moved for at least two turns before settling down.
The map is also relatively cramped; the 2nd and 3rd cities people are founding are already causing friction and accusations of settling aggressively. The general layout is, I believe,
Mist(Doviello) - Sciz (Luchiurp) - Ilios (Malakim) - Serdoa (Balseraphs)
Uberfish (Ljosalfar) - Amelia (Lanun) - Sunrise/Darrell (Calabim)
Brief histories of each civ follow (there hasn't been enough interaction for a more unified approach as yet):
Uberfish and the Ljosalfar. Uberfish moved initially (north, toward his neighbors), and eventually found a spot he was ok with. As he believed he was behind, he explored the Pyre of the Seraphic, and landed a free Great Sage as nearly the first thing he did. Since then, he's been teching toward Way of the Forests while aiming for diplomatic peace with his neighbors; he's since gotten an NAP with the Vampires and has collaborated with Mist's Doviello to plan a rush of his last neighbor, Sciz's Luchiurp. At this point, he appears to be going for long term peace and non-conflict, while getting the elven economy rolling. Any longer term plans are being kept quiet.
Mist and the Doviello. Mist has been planning to rush from turn 1. His somewhat unconventional approach is to leverage the Doviello traits hard - he's going for gold production and building his army out of workers, who will upgrade to axes on the enemy border. He's gone for Markets and then Bronze working, with an unconventional economy with heavy emphasis on getting gold to use with Ingenuity for his upgrades. His goal is to let no one have peace and prosperity, especially not the Big 3 - Malakim, Vampires, and Lanun. Last we heard about tech, he had landed a Great Prophet which he intended to use for Kilmorph; he had believed/does believe that copper is very scarce, so thinks Iron from the Mines could let him dominate. He's very close to being able to launch the first war. Originally, his target was Sciz's Luchiurp, as the greater threat than Uberfish's elves among his next door neighbors, but recently he's talked about skipping Sciz and going for Ilios instead. We'll have to wait and see what target he settles on.
Sciz and the Luchiurp. Sciz has founded a decent city, and has been focusing on expansion and growth. Recently, he's become extremely annoyed by Ilios' expansion toward him, and as he just got Construction for his first golems, is planning to hit Ilios in the next 50 turns or so, aiming for destruction. He'll be popping his worldspell in the next 50 turns, most likely; currently undecided what the optimal moment is, but it won't wait too long. He hasn't had a lot of diplomacy with anyone, so I think Mist will surprise him with the army at the border. Depending on his negotiations, we'll see what happens next.
Ilios and the Malakim. Ilios has focused completely on expansion. Without much barb activity, he's been pretty successful at it as well, enough to annoy Sciz and make Mist nervous. He hasn't talked much about his long term plans, just short term activities.
Serdoa and the Balseraphs. Serdoa's been mostly quiet in terms of plans, but the dominant feature is that he's roleplaying the insane clowns. Most/all of his diplomacy is in poetry, or contains hidden messages, or a streak of insanity, or all of the above. His first Insane trait switch was extremely lucky - turn 23 he got Philosophical/Financial/Expansive. He's pushing his neighbors; recently brought Loki to the vamps borders, and is currently at war as a result, which is what he expected. If they hadn't declared, he'd have attempted to steal their second city.
sunrise/darrell and the Calabim. They've been aiming for mostly expansion, although they've recently considered the idea of a bronze warrior rush to penalize people for running light on military. They're running behind on tech and expansion and know it; haven't placed the blame yet, though. They're beelining Vampires directly, hardly any diversions, and seem to be intending that to be their breakout moment. They haven't used Rivers of Blood yet, which is confusing most of their opponents.
Amelia and the Lanun. Amelia's started pretty isolated, has only found a couple neighbors and hardly anyone's found her. She's going directly for Pirate Cove cities, has founded Octopus Overlords, and eventually plans to get Chalid and conquer all. She's in a pretty good position, largely because her neighbors are leaving her alone to expand. On the other hand, she was one of the last to their 2nd city.
