New and improved Lurker thread - Now taking bribes :]

[Mist]

Players shoo :P

[Mist]

Regarding picks - whatever format for choosing we end up on, I'd appreciate if Malakim and Ilians were not in the final pool. This is not a dealbreaker, but it will make drawing the map easier.

Edit :

Final lineup

DaveV - Alexis of Amurites
Ichabod - Arendel of Bannor
Ilios - Dain of Svartalfar
Llewyn - Falamar of Sidar
Tasunke - Perpentach of Sheaim
Tholal - Thessa of Kuriotates

[Mardoc]

Regarding picks - whatever format for choosing we end up on, I'd appreciate if Malakim and Ilians were not in the final pool. This is not a dealbreaker, but it will make drawing the map easier.

How do you feel about elves and Lanun?

Personally, assuming you're right that all we're doing is creating a pool of restricted leaders for them to pick from, I'd figure we ought to aim for the middle. Strong civs with weak leaders, middling civs, and probably leave the Doviello home. I suppose this would be a good place to start even if the end goal is to assign everyone their civ, having a fair pool to pick from.

Some potentials for that approach:
Perpentach of the Balseraphs
Bannor (any?)
Alexis of the Calabim
Jonas of the Clan
Einion of the Elohim
Cassiel of the Grigori
Tasunke of the Hippus
Kandros of the Khazad
Cardith of the Kurios
Arendel of the Ljo
Hannah or Falamar of the Lanun
Beeri of the Luchiurp
Tebryn of the Sheaim
Sandalphon of the Sidar

I'm of the general opinion that this list avoids (most of) the duds and obvious power combos, while also avoiding the mapmaker's headache civs. Of course the obvious question: what did I miss? Any OP/duds that I left in, or reasonable civs that I left out?

[Mist]

How do you feel about elves and Lanun?

I don't mind either.

The map is both by design and by request land based. There will be some water, but not a lot of it, so whoever picks Launun will get a very... dry experience. For this reason I'd also skip Hannah, she's a very strong and desirable leader and whoever picks her might feel duped into a game he did not expect.

As for elves, there will be very little trees initially. I see no problem in adding some more to their starting area, past that there will be FoL priests and bloom.

Personally, assuming you're right that all we're doing is creating a pool of restricted leaders for them to pick from, I'd figure we ought to aim for the middle. Strong civs with weak leaders, middling civs, and probably leave the Doviello home. I suppose this would be a good place to start even if the end goal is to assign everyone their civ, having a fair pool to pick from.

Some potentials for that approach:

Cardith is probably a top trier pick, Calabim Decius is comparable to Alexis and should make the list.

[Mardoc]

Cardith is probably a top trier pick

Probably, yes. I think he's less obviously top tier than Flauros and Rhoanna, but he is up there.

Calabim Decius is comparable to Alexis and should make the list.

Here I'm not sure. I agree that Raiders and Aggressive are both pretty pointless on vamps. But...Organized synergizes very well with Governor's Manors, while Philosophical is anti-synergy with missing Elder Councils. I think if we're going to include the vamps, they need the absolute weakest leader of the bunch But it might not matter, because apparently we were wrong, they do want actual civs picked.

My inclination would be to grab the more flexible ones from the list, something like Balseraphs, Clan, Elohim, Khazad, Sheaim, Sidar. None of them are tied to a particular approach, although there are obviously some strengths and weaknesses.

But this is also the point where I really want someone else to chime in! So I'll shut up for a while.

[Amelia]

So it's unrestricted? Cool.

Let's start with the basics. List every single civ and leader, then narrow them down through votes or something.

Edit: Decided to open ffh. Let's see.

Civs:

Amurites
Balseraphs
Bannor
Calabim
Clan of Embers
Doviello
Elohim
Grigori
Hippus
Illians
Khazads
Kuriorates
Lanun
Ljosalfar
Luchuirp
Malakim
Sheaim
Sidar
Svartalfar

Leaders:

GOOD

Arendel - Spiritual, Creative

Beeri Bawl - Financial, Industrious

Capria - Spiritual, Industrious

Cardith - Expansive, Philosophical (Adaptive) [i forgot which trait is replaced]

Einion Logos - Defender, Philosophical, Tolerant

Ethne the White - Defender, Creative, Tolerant

Garrim Gyr - Financial, Defender

Sabathiel - Organised, Charismatic

Varn Gosam - Spiritual, [Creative / Adaptive]

NEUTRAL

Amelanchier - Raiders, Defender

Arturus Thorne - Industrious, Organised, Ingenuity

Cassiel - Philosophical, [Industrious/Adaptive]

Dain - Philosophical, Arcane

Decius - Raiders, Organised

Falamar - Charismatic, Expansive

Hannah - Raiders, Financial

Kandros Fir - Aggressive, Financial, Ingenuity

Rhoanna - Financial, Expansive

Sandalphon - Industrious, Defender

Tasunke - Aggressive, Raiders

Thessa - Expansive, Arcane

Valledia - Industrious, Arcane

EVIL

Alexis - Philosophical, Aggressive

Auric - Charismatic, Defender, Agnostic

Charadon - Aggressive, Barbarian

Faeryl - Raiders, Arcane

Flauros - Financial, Organised

Jonas - Expansive, Spiritual, Barbarian

Keelyn - Summoner, Creative

Mahala - Raiders, Ingenuity

Os-Gabella - Industrious, Summoner

Perpentach - Insane (Arcane, Creative, Charismatic)

Sheelba - Aggressive, Organised, Barbarian

Tebyrn - Arcane, Summoner

[Bobchillingworth]

Decius of the Bannor would be neat.

[Mist]

What kind of game do we want to give them? Plenty of bloodsheed ( Agg/Raid/Ing leaders with early civs like doviello/clan ), high magic ( Sum/Arc leaders, civs like Amurites/Sheaim ), run of the mill or something completely insane?

[uberfish]

I doubt Malakim and Illians will be missed by the players at all. Both are annoying. I'd probably take Calabim / Ljosalfar / Lanun off the list too, they get played a lot.

Then we can just use the leaders to balance the remaining civs. I think people would like to see a high magic t3/t4 game so I would try to stay away from the all-in rushers and more towards traits like Charismatic that play well in lategame.

some ideas:

Kuriotates / Faeryl (gives them another direction besides the usual centaur spam, a leader with no econ traits should slow them down a bit too)
Sheaim / Perpentach (for a civ that is never quite sure whether it's a rush or lategame civ, the insane leader seems to fit perfectly)
Sidar / Falamar or Sidar / Capria (trait combos that might make them viable)

[Gaspar]

What kind of game do we want to give them? Plenty of bloodsheed ( Agg/Raid/Ing leaders with early civs like doviello/clan ), high magic ( Sum/Arc leaders, civs like Amurites/Sheaim ), run of the mill or something completely insane?

Could be kind of fun to run as many late game Civs as possible out there - we still haven't really seen the likes of Sheaim, Amurites shine late.

Maybe that's a list - non-crap Civs that we haven't seen the best out of yet:

Sheaim
Amurites
Bannor

Gets a little dicier after that. Other's that we haven't seen full potential from but not precisely late game Civs:

Svartalfar
Elohim

Others we might never see because they're not good enough to have a great late game:

Luchuirp

Is that a game there?