Everyone else is doing it, so why can't we? A Story of Vampires

[Gaspar]

Will our Civ's theme be 1990's rock bands who haven't really held up over time?



In that vein...

[Gaspar]

Finally...

The Ljosalfar High Council...

Has come back...

to a RBFFH2PBEM!



Oops.

Wrong theme.



Better?

(Disclaimer: I'm not married to this theme in any way shape or form. But it did make sense for the thread title. Note the distinct lack of Keebler flavor in the FFH7 version.)

[Gaspar]

And one more picture spammy post before getting to the real content:

Introducing Team Calabim:

FFH7




FFH17



[SIZE="3"]Man Behind the Mask[/SIZE]

FFH7



FFH17



[SIZE="3"]Mardoc[/SIZE]

FFH7



FFH17



[SIZE="3"]Gaspar[/SIZE]

[SIZE="1"]*Say a prayer for the FFH7'ers who've found something better to do than spam up a thread with us - Noblehelium and Azoth[/SIZE]

[Gaspar]

[Mardoc]

I don't think I have any objection to this theme...if you post some youtube links so I can sing along .

After that start I'm almost reluctant to start in on the serious stuff.

...almost.

Let's start with the map, what we know of it:

There will be 3 hills
Each of the hills will be placed in an equal travel distance for all players
One of the hills will be overseas and require ocean travel capacity
There will be zero potential for early conflict ( unless someone feels like putting a bunch of warriors on ships, good luck with that )
There will be no copper on the map
You can expect uncontested space for 6-9 cities each
Difficulty will be Prince with cylindrical wrap
Barbarians will be though and will scale with your progress.

Not sure about all the implications here. We could catch up to Jkaen if we managed to circumnavigate first, although it probably shouldn't be a priority. Still, a navy would be a good thing, for security if nothing else. No copper is going to make defense a b*tch. Not sure what Barbs tough and scaling means - maybe they all have channelling and/or Hero? Or maybe it's that each hill (and mountain pass?) is guarded more than the one before it.

Also, remember that Mist has his quirks. Look at the PBEMX map for examples of this. He likes to throw in the non-grass/plains tiles, doesn't like large stretches of predictable terrain, especially not floodplains. I bet aristograrianism will be more difficult than usual to pull off.

[SIZE="5"]The Foes[/SIZE]
[COLOR="Red"]
Gaspar and Co. as Flauros of the Calabim[/COLOR][COLOR="Lime"]
Commodore as Rohanna of the Hippus[/COLOR][COLOR="SandyBrown"]
Amelia as Kandros Fir of the Khazad[/COLOR][COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]
Jkaen as Hannah the Irinn of the Launun[/COLOR][COLOR="Magenta"]
Ravus as Dain the Caswallan of the Amurites[/COLOR]

Well. No one's obviously a loser here, everyone's a threat. On the other hand...everyone's played PBEMs before, and seems to be pretty good about turnplaying. And we have a very nice spread of timezones, so odds are good that we'll actually have a reliable turnpace. Really, on balance I'm happy about this lineup, it bodes well for a good game, even if we may/may not win.

I don't quite see what Amelia is going for with the Khazad, unless it's a thought that 6-9 cities is a reasonable number to fill vaults for. But other than that...take a melee-focused civ with no copper? Still, a game that ought to go long ought to give him plenty of time to get full value from the vaults, Trebs might give him an early Hill (or early kill, even!), and of course he can go for Kilmorph and the Mines to make up the metal shortfall. And there's always the chance of earth mana popping him a copper . Plus, honestly - dwarves can't do arcane, but they're just as good at the religious stuff as anyone else. We need to be careful not to get locked into expecting Kilmorph, it's only flavor, not really synergy.

Commodore's pick of the Hippus makes sense, I suspect he was pushed there by DaveV. Hippus are of course strong, we considered them ourselves, and they're straightforward, which makes them a good fit for a newb. A serious threat in the horseman era when we don't have bronze warriors to defend with. And after that - Hippus are still scary, and Commodore ought to be getting the hang of FFH by then. Hopefully your good relationship with him from other games will carry over to this one. And no-copper is a serious boost to his threat level, since he doesn't want copper units anyway but most of the rest of us do. On the other hand - vamps ought to do very well against the Hippus, once we make it that far. Mobility Vamps + Haste + spell extension spectres can keep up, and spectre guards can shut down his counterattacks hard. Yeah, if you're Pocketbeetle, you can use horse archers to kill vamps, but Commodore a) isn't Pocketbeetle and b) isn't Raiders.

Jkaen and the Lanun - well, yeah, we've got a partial ban on the use of OO, an overseas Hill, a suggestion that water is going to be the primary isolation device...I think his gameplan is obvious. Grow like a weed, rule the seas, take the overseas Hill and hope that no one seriously challenges for it. He might also go for a landlocked Hill, or simply harass everyone's coastlines if he gets far enough ahead due to coves. On the other hand...there's a good chance he falls into the same trap I did in PBEM3 - builds coastal cities in preference to landlocked ones, fails to develop enough hammers, and therefore can't exploit his GNP. Remember - aristofarms are better than coast, even before taking into account other bonuses. And we're playing without the EitB changes that try to make coastal cities decent. With OO nerfed by the Tsunami ban, his only real advantage at sea is the +1 move and the fact he'll have more and better coastal cities to produce ships from. [SIZE="1"]ok, and Raging Seas. Once.[/SIZE] If we're not busy elsewhere, I bet we could crush his navy with Ring of Flames. We'll have fewer coastal cities, but Governor's Manors mean that they'll be good producers. Sadly - I think we're likely to be busy elsewhere.

And Ravus - Ravus is a serious threat. We've seen his silver tongue in diplomacy twice now, and of course Amurites are the ultimate late-game civ. I think we're going to have all we can do to keep him from organizing a dogpile on us, let alone to hit him early as the Amurites deserve. Plus his worldspell nerfs Vamps' best abilities for 14 turns. On the other hand, Ravus knows that allies are important, and seems to be willing to stick by you if you're his ally. So maybe it'd be worth trying to form an alliance of the late bloomers vs everyone else? Something that we could gain - as far as I can tell, Govannon can teach Vamps, too. If we could somehow persuade Ravus to give away his main benefit like that, then all of a sudden our vamps would be full-blown mages, only with lots of strength too. We do have one advantage - Ravus is the only non-Financial civ here.

So, we've got threats throughout the game - first the Hippus and Khazad, then Lanun, then finally Amurites. Our gameplan seems straightforward as well - tech to Vampires, kill everyone. Or at least take the Hills and withstand a dogpile. The trick is going to be surviving, in good shape, to Vampires. And not being tied down diplomatically at that point ;-).

In terms of the other players' threat levels: I think we can probably mostly ignore Amelia. I haven't seen him take the initiative once in these games, and Khazad aren't exactly designed for that anyway. Commodore will be a serious threat, depending on the geography - but he is a FFH noob. He might get caught out by things like Spectre fear, Armageddon Counter, Raiders. Jkaen knows what he's doing, and I suspect he's the dark horse here. He's very quiet, and of course had his bad luck in VI, but I think he's a good player. Definitely if I'm interpreting Mist's plans for the map correctly, he's the one who's best fit to it. And Ravus - again, it mostly comes down to diplo. Fortunately for us, this is a group of independent-minded folk. Amurites are very weak early, and ramp up as the game goes on, so the trick is making sure that his diplo doesn't save him from his weakness.

[Mardoc]

What do we have going for us, as Calabim?

The obvious one, Vampires, available at Feudalism. Easy to level, Haste + Regen + Skellies + Spectres, available easier than either Mages or Champions, Draftable. I think the manual is wrong, that they don't start with Channelling I - but if they do, then they can learn other spells as well. Moroi are good, although we've less reason to go for Bronze Working this game. Governor's Manors are the bomb - spend 60 hammers, get +1 hammer for every unhappy! It's like being an elf, only without having to wait for FoL and PoL and treeplanting time and and and. And of course the Manors are our training building for Vamps, and give maintenance reduction and WW reduction. Finally, Breeding Pits are the icing on the cake, giving us extra food and food retention.

The Calabim econ really calls for Aristograrianism - Code of Laws being a production tech in addition to the GNP boost from aristocracy helps a lot. And it's en route to Vamps. And between drafting and feasting the Vamps, we'll want all the food we can muster, so farms everywhere! Similarly, Ashen Veil is the obvious religion - Sacrifice the Weak is extra awesome for a civ that uses food for everything, and with no Arcane/Chm/Spi, Ring of Flames is really the only option for fast collateral. Oh, yes, and the last detail - we're a target until Feudalism, after which we're a predator. So the aristograrian pattern of lots of early commerce, that doesn't improve as well at the endgame - is exactly what we need.

Sure, the vamps have some late game toys, too - Brujahs and Vampire Lords are nice units, and of course they're vampires too, so we can treat them as simply vamps with higher base strength if we want. But they're much less vital than getting to Vampires with big, food-rich cities.

We've got an unconventional tech path. But good news for MBTM - it's actually a pretty focused one. We want Feudalism, and Ashen Veil, and the prereqs for those. That's it, really, in broad strokes. Exceptions? We might want to challenge for Mines of Gal-Dur, which would call for Kilmorph and Arete as well. We might want to pick up Archery and/or BW for a 'waiting on vamps' defense force. And of course we need to make sure we make it to Warfare so we can draft our Vamps rather than build them. We want some econ techs, but less than most - don't need Taxation in an aristograrian econ, for instance, while Sanitation is vital for us. More than most, though, we can specialize - we can ignore all religions except for AV and maybe Kilmorph, ignore the arcane tree, ignore the metal tree. We probably can't ignore Hunting, Hawks are too good, but we can ignore the rest of the recon tree. Later on, if we want, we can pick out something for a bonus - probably either the Arcane tree or an attempt at Vamp Lords/Brujahs/Losha. But as a contrast from the Elves - we're very good at one thing. Let's go there and do that .

Mana: Body (very strong, but we'll have it out the wazoo from the Vamps), Law (utility nice, Einherjar are a decent alternative if someone manages Destroy Undead), Shadow (situational - Blur + Shadowwalk is very good for attacking cities though). Let's just say, it doesn't hurt us much to mostly ignore the Arcane branch

World spell: Nice. Also the most urgent decision we face. River of Blood grants us 2 pop/city, costs our foes 2 pop/city. There's a couple schools of thought on when to use it - T0 for a size 3 capital to get a running start, ~t15 to cut everyone else back to size 1, or after Vamps to grab some nice feastable population. I lean toward the T0 use - best to save ourselves time rather than try to hinder everyone else. If there's a compelling argument against it, then a size 3 use is next best. Later in the game, people have improved tiles to use for their regrowth anyway, and for that matter so do we; +/- 2 pop means a lot more early. I think the best example here is in darrell's PBEM2 game - he got to a point near the end where his overflow food was literally more than he could use; every city grew every turn, and the overflow just kept increasing. What's the point of River of Blood then?

[Gaspar]

Okay, all nonsensical thread spam aside let's lay a few ground rules for the thread.

1. There will be not one mention of anything in anyway related to Stephenie Meyer in this thread after the previous.
2. No seriously, don't mention that stuff.
3. I'm really not kidding about point 1.
4. I'd prefer any other teenaged vampire novel references to be avoided. For those unaware I run a bookstore for a living and there's an excellent chance I'll fly into a blind rage at any mention of them.

Ground rules laid down - why did I (and I'm probably more responsible for this than my teammates, they had more interesting suggestions I think) decide to take such a hackneyed choice? Well - 2 thinks really. One, I like y'know, winning games and the Calabim offer an excellent avenue for that. Two, Flauros actually has only featured twice in non-duel PBEMs - Darrell & sunrise089's turn in FFH2 and Mardoc as half of a team with Jkaen in FFH10. The other vampire appearances (FFH1 - Bob/Decius, FFH8 - mackoti/Decius, FFH9 - Ichabod/Alexis) have had mixed success but while mackoti has an excellent chance in 8, they've actually won nowt so far unless one counts Irgy's Duel victories over Lord Parkin and Bob, which I'm sure we can all agree are a different kettle of fish entirely.



Why is that? They're generally considered one of the most broken options in base FFH, right there with Keelyn of the Clowns for sterling reasons for us all to be playing Sareln's mod so if so why have they not managed to win? Well, but for Darrell's unfortunate Raging Seas/Four Horseman adventure they might have won FFH2, but even so I think they have two factors that play against them in our particular version of MP:

1. They start out pretty slow. No Elder Councils means no early Great Sages for an Academy or quick bulb and it also reduces early game beaker production. Additionally, they're so likely to focus on an early Code of Laws that they're quite literally limping out of the gate. Once they reach Agristocracy, they're quite strong economically, but there's definitely an early window where they're likely to be behind the leaders, even with broken-ass FFH FIN. So they're very unlikely in most games to be the early game runaway.

2. Their reputation works against them. With everyone dreading spectre spamming Vampires with loads of death nodes there's a high likelihood that A: they're rushed and/or dogpiled prior to vampires and B: their opponents are planning counters - Life Mages, Spirit Adepts and the like. Being the likely focus of most opponents game plans means you have to play a pretty impeccable game to win and I think that combined with the idea that they're an easy mark makes them less likely to be picked and even get the chance to win. Look at the list above, this is the first time they've been chosen in the last 7 games.

There are other drawbacks as well. Flauros might be the ideal Vampire leader because of the power of Fin and the utility of Org to power cheap Governor's Manors, but neither of those are early game traits. Org doesn't really come into its own until you start slapping down Command Posts and with Feasting, there's less of a reason to need high out of the box XP, so Command Posts aren't as great for the Calabim as they are for say, a mage-centric Civ. Generally in the early game I'd much rather have Cre, Exp or Spi. So I fully expect to get off to a slow start. The other major issue the Vamps have is the want too much stuff all over the tree. You want CoL and Calendar for your economy, Sanitation to push the population with all those farms you're going to lay down, Feudalism for the Vamps themselves, IW to power them up, and ideally Infernal Pact for Sacrifice the Weak to really juice the feasting. That's a LOT of tech to get going.

Of course, this is ideal game for it with the rules encouraging a late game push. More on the game rules and how they'll impact play later.



(Cross-posted with Mardoc but I'll throw this up as is anyway)

[Mardoc]

Okay, all nonsensical thread spam aside let's lay a few ground rules for the thread.

1. There will be not one mention of anything in anyway related to Stephenie Meyer in this thread after the previous.
2. No seriously, don't mention that stuff.
3. I'm really not kidding about point 1.
4. I'd prefer any other teenaged vampire novel references to be avoided. For those unaware I run a bookstore for a living and there's an excellent chance I'll fly into a blind rage at any mention of them.

Got it, no *ahem* references, until we need to push you over the edge .

Uh...is Dresden Files ok? Anne Rice? What about Dracula?

The other major issue the Vamps have is the want too much stuff all over the tree. You want CoL and Calendar for your economy, Sanitation to push the population with all those farms you're going to lay down, Feudalism for the Vamps themselves, IW to power them up, and ideally Infernal Pact for Sacrifice the Weak to really juice the feasting. That's a LOT of tech to get going.

Ok, I suppose my take of 'We've got an unconventional tech path. But good news for MBTM - it's actually a pretty focused one.' needs to be taken as relative to the Pointy Eared Ones. Not as compared to, say, the Hippus.

[Gaspar]

Mardoc did a nice job of covering the opponents in the game but as a lurker of some renown (meaning I have the free time to read too many threads) and the fact that I pretty well disagree with most of Mardoc's assessments of the players means I'll reprise his work here. We'll do it one at a time, starting with:



Commodore as Rohanna of the Hippus (DaveV, New guy whose name I forget)

Commodore is certainly the player I've interacted most with in the game, we chatted quite a bit while playing Diplomacy and we've played against each other in 24 and with each other in 26. I like him a good deal. He's a solid but unspectacular BTS player (which I suppose could also apply to myself.) While I think we can get on well in diplomacy, I don't believe our prior relationship will have any positive bearing on the game. We've butted heads a bit in 24 and I suspect we'll do so more.

Commodore is an passive player at heart who desires to be a more aggressive one I think. In 19 he took part in a few half-assed assaults but never put together his whole military and paid for it. In 24 he clearly built up a force of Keshiks to attack TT then thought the better of it. The Hippus pick makes sense, they're sort of the Civ the Mongols wish to be. I expect they and the Lanun to be most likely to jump out to the early leads as Fin players with faster starting economies. I also expect him to attempt an semi-early assault on another player. The Hippus are a dangerous Civ, and with no metal on the board until IW, they'll be quite scary if they can get to us early.

In diplomacy, Commodore tries hard to be a nice guy, but his in-game actions can be ruthless. He will adhere to any and all in-game agreements. He also thinks he knows me and will try to play on my perceived paranoia. We won't be able to make him dance but as he holds all the early cards and knows it, he'll probably try to make us dance. The faster we get him into a NAP, the better.

I'm not at all concerned about his not understanding the mod with DaveV in his corner. Commodore's a sharp guy.

Overall Ratings - Commodore of the Hippus.

(In all cases, higher number = better.)

Player Skill:
PYFT Rating:
Diplomacy skill:
Civ Scariness Early:
Civ Scariness Late:

[Gaspar]

Next up in our series:



Amelia as Kandros Fir of the Khazad

Amelia is a bit of an enigma. He's pretty much the only guy on these forums with a girl's name, which is odd in and of itself. He has not been a real factor in any of his previous games (PBEM11, FFH2, FFH8 (still TBD of course), FFH12) but he's also not been a pushover in any of them perhaps excepting FFH12. He put together a quite spirited defense against Darrell in FFH2, winning the game for uberfish, so he's not incompetent by any means. But almost everytime you lurk him you want to shake him and tell him to stick to a plan. And a less hare-brained one.

Diplomatically, he tends to be quite NAP-happy and pretty obvious about what he's after. I expect him to be fairly easy to deal with. He and I have had pretty much no interaction on the forums - I think we might have shared one email when Ilios and I took over for Tatan for 5 minutes in PBEM11, but no promises there.

He gained a bit of a reputation for holding the save in both PBEM11 and FFH2. I haven't lurked his subsequent games enough to know if that's cleared up, if not I'd like him to die in a fire as quickly as possible.

The Khazad are a Civ we bandied about in the pregame, but ultimately decided the vault mechanic was too annoying to be worth the trouble despite Kandros being probably a top 3-4 leader (My personal top 3: Varn, Arendel, Kandros.) The Khazad have some innate advantages in the game, with the double hill movement being a great racial and trebs being especially strong against an AI held hill city since the AI is happy to let you walk up to them and attack. No mages sucks in a long-term game though, so expect him to pick a strong religion for collateral, though with Amelia I could see him thinking Order will be great here on T2 and sticking with it despite any and all assurances to the contrary from lurkers.

Overall Ratings - Amelia of Khazad

Player Skill:
PYFT Rating:
Diplomacy skill:
Civ Scariness Early:
Civ Scariness Late: