[EitB PBEM LVII spoilers] coldrain rekindles the flame

[coldrain]

Second attempt at PBEM game. Fun times ahead!

[coldrain]

Players, stay out!












I have some interesting ideas after the previous game. Hoping for a good selection for the civ.

[shallow_thought]

Checking in to ded-lurk as best as I can. Just bear in mind that I have even less experience at EitB MP than you do, so set expectations accordingly!

But as far as advice goes, it's probably worth being very, very scared of Mackoti.

[RefSteel]

A small colony of merfolk in one corner of the bay raises and harvests a rare breed of rock snails in a deep-water grotto, completely inaccessible from the shore. The merfolk have learned the secret of inducing their snails to produce a uniquely vibrant purple dye, oft reserved for royalty, much prized by such merchants as can afford to invest in goods of such beauty and rarity. By learning to keep a calendar of tides, these merchants may meet with the merfolk at the right times of year to get access to the dyes in tradable quantities. Skilled deep-sea fishers, on the other hand, by bringing up delicacies from deeper waters than these bay merfolk can reach, can win more-regular and immediate profits at any time of year through barter with the little mercolony. The care, harvesting, and production of the rock snails and their dyes is a closely-guarded secret among the merfolk, and if raiders were ever to wipe out their colony, production would permanently cease: The occasional rock snail might be caught and crushed for a modicum of dye and a tiny annual profit gained thereby, but nothing on the scale of what could be attained with the help of the merfolk who live there today.

Your start:

   
Murex Grotto is a plantationed Dye resource on a coast tile. It provides Dye if the player who controls it has Calendar, and the tile yield is 1/0/7 with Fishing before building effects. If pillaged, it becomes just a coastal tile with +1 commerce to its yield.

And your first set of options:

Flauros (Creative/Financial) of the Calabim, with Cartography OR Fishing OR Hunting

OR

Arturus Thorne (Industrious/Organized/Ingenuity) of the Khazad, with Masonry OR Mining

OR

Tebryn Arbandi (Arcane/Summoner) of the Sheaim, with Mysticism

(Or you can throw all three back for a different set of three.)

[coldrain]

Checking in to ded-lurk as best as I can. Just bear in mind that I have even less experience at EitB MP than you do, so set expectations accordingly!

But as far as advice goes, it's probably worth being very, very scared of Mackoti.

Welcome aboard! Happy to have more conversation about the mod or the game itself.

[coldrain]

Thanks RefSteel! The start looks very interesting. And again, thank you for volunteering to make the map. It is never an easy task, especially with a complex mod to account for lairs, world features and such (and players throwing in custom settings and requirements ).

At a first glance, Lanun could be very powerful here if the coast continues in both directions. Plus there's already fish and murex (very clever map trick) visible. But I don't have Lanun as a choice and I'm not too enthusiastic about them as of now either. Calendar start (civ with agriculture as default tech) could be very good too with the abundant riverside grassland and banana.

Calabim has been nerferd in EitB, but it is still a powerhouse civ if played correctly with the governor's manors and maybe early morois. Vampires are such a classic FFH2 unit, hard to resist them... Sheaim is potentially one of the scariest military powers in the game, but no economy traits on leader makes for a slow start. Not interested in dwarves a the moment (no mages).

[coldrain]

I tried simulating different starts with Calabim. On further analysis there is a lot of food available even without calendar (agrarianism +1 food to farms). That grassland hill gems is a tasty tile to work, so getting mining early pays off quick. I only tested settle-in-place starts, there is an option to move starting settler to the coastal plains hill too, but I think having the capital inland is better than on coast.

Here are screenshots of Calabim simming start and status on T27:

Picked hunting as starting tech (most expensive option available, reduces the need to go calendar first). Plan is something like this:

• Settle in place, bloodpets first, grow cap to size 3
  
• Set research to mining, which completes EOT 16
  
• Worker farms banana -> farm riverside wheat -> move one tile and invest 1 turn on grassland farm (cancel action) -> move on deer hill -> camp the deer -> road deer -> move on sheep hill -> mine the sheep (mining completes just in time) -> mine grassland hill next to cap
  
• Switch tiles on size 3 to finish bloopet with 0 overflow (to avoid rounding error with nationhood on overflow) -> build second worker at size 3
  
• Second worker moves on grass gems -> build road -> start mine on T17 -> finish gems mine and move to riverside plains hill -> chop and build mine
  
• Set research to mysticism, completes on T26
  
• Capital grows to size 6 while building bloodpets and starts settler
  
• First settler done on T27 and revolt to God-king
  

After this, capital can start another settler immediately or build military if needed. Without further exploration, it is difficult to say where second city should be founded, but on the coast taking the fish + murex is a strong contender. Settling there allows me to share the wheat from capital to boost growth and capital will use God-king boosted mines anyway, so losing the wheat doesn't slow down next settler production. Usually, I'm a big fan of building second worker before first settler and then founding first expand to share tiles with capital. I'm going to test the start for Sheaim as well when I have the time.

[shallow_thought]

My memories says that the Sheaim have had problems in these PBEMs recently. In particular, they are hard-countered by Elohim (and their easy, widespread access to Life2 in EitB), which are quite a popular pick.

RL has taken a bit of a turn which may cut even further into my time (and therefore utility?), but I would be looking very, very hard at Flauros. Even nerfed FIN is OK, and I quite rate the extra border security CRE gives in the early game - it also frees you to focus hard on a push up the mage line, ignoring religion if that's what you want.

[coldrain]

My memories says that the Sheaim have had problems in these PBEMs recently. In particular, they are hard-countered by Elohim (and their easy, widespread access to Life2 in EitB), which are quite a popular pick.

RL has taken a bit of a turn which may cut even further into my time (and therefore utility?), but I would be looking very, very hard at Flauros. Even nerfed FIN is OK, and I quite rate the extra border security CRE gives in the early game - it also frees you to focus hard on a push up the mage line, ignoring religion if that's what you want.

I tried a bit more single player testing with Calabim, and even with the nerfes, governor's manors are still awesome. At this point, I'm pretty much sold on the vampires, although Sheaim could be fun too. Good point about Elohim, they are buffed a lot in EitB and life 2 spell is devastating against demons an undead. Vampires are living units if I remember correctly, but better to double check this at some point.

Totally unerstand if real life reduces available time to lurk around here, I appreciate the company regardless.

[coldrain]

Tried more openings with different technologies earlier today. Couldn’t bother with changing civilization, I just changed the starting tech in world builder. Calabim can’t build elder councils, so I produced something random worth the same production and placed it in the city with world builder. Here are screenshots of mysticism, calendar and mining starts after first settler is finished:

Mysticism start:

 
Calendar start:

 
Mining start:

Observations:

• Both calendar and mysticism starts are a turn faster to first settler compared to hunting start, even with the turn 0 revolts.
  
• Mining start is a turn slower to first settler (if grow capital to size 6 as in other starts) than hunting. Growth to size 6 is slower than other starts.
  
• Mysticism start has second best produced beakers (early elder council)
  
• Mining start has the most amount of produced beakers and also hammers. Some of the hammers are in a bit excess (don’t need 6 or 7 warriors immediately). Extra hammers while growing to size 6 could be invested into Dereptus brewing house and complete it later
  
• Hunting start leads in total beakers, as hunting tech is so expensive and getting it free is quite beneficial in that sense. But the immediate value of hunting is less than calendar/mysticism as there is only one camp resource. Value can be greater a bit later, if more resources are found and if I build hunters to explore and capture animals (difficult to estimate now how critical this is)
  

 
Overall, I think I like the development level in calendar start the best. Mysticism is good too, and hunting is close behind but with potential later benefits. To have calendar as starting tech, I would need Svaltalfar, Kuriotates or Belseraphs. I don’t want to play as elves or Kurios, so that leaves only the clowns as an option to try to get on a reroll of civs. Belseraphs is one of the strongest civs in the game, so I expect someone to pick it on first round.

I would like to reach mages in this game, but picking Calabim pushes me towards code of laws (governor’s manors), trade (chariots + requirement for feudalism) and feudalism (vampires). Vampires can be considered a sort of mage that is limited to body and death promotions, so I guess they suffice. Oh, and just to reiterate: Governor’s manors are awesome, especially if the game goes longer and they have time to return the investment.