[SPOILERS] DaveV plays Furia: What, me worry?

[DaveV]

Players, begone!

This is my spoiler thread for the losers PBEM game, where we are not allowed to pick any of the leader/civ combinations that have won the previous PBEMs. My pick is Furia the Mad of the Balseraphs. Make that Furia the



Hmmm, a theme suggests itself.

[DaveV]

Players (in predicted order of finish):

Ellimist: Auric of the Illians - even without the completely over-the-top handicap of a worker and tech, this is a power pick. The priests of winter will be the strongest units on the board for quite a while, and Auric has the perfect combo of traits to pump out lots of Snowfall mages. Ellimist is a very good player who has won several of these contests.

HidingKneel: Rhoanna of the Hippus - the "builder" Hippus leader can still do warfare. She's less attractive now that Financial is a so-so trait instead of super. Expansive is a nice boost in cranking out settlers; the big problem will be protecting all those cities. HK is a recently joined but very good player.

DaveV: Furia of the Balseraphs - all the Clown toys with no barb interference. DaveV is, um, a dilligent reporter.

Brian: Averax of the Sheaim - another Barbarian leader, with Aggressive to boot. Brian can either race to Apprenticeship and crank out instant Subdue Animal recon units, or go with the old, tired Zombie rush. Brian is a decent player but I don't think his micro matches that of the top two.

Tholal: Mahala of the Doviello - Mahala wasn't even on my radar for this game. Maybe Tholal will be able to surprise me. Based on his performance in EitB 14, I think he'll make some bad decisions and fall behind early.

[DaveV]

The password is (whispered) "Alfred".

[DaveV]

To answer WarriorKnight's critique in the EitB wishlist thread:

BAR really sucks, if it weren't a necessary nerf for the Clan I'd suggest removing it. It's a good thing to put onto Averax and other rushers, but there's a reason Charadon has only been played in the dregs game. RAI doesn't work well for any of the Bals unique recon units (Taskmaster makes slaves? how are you going to escort them home deep in enemy territory?, and Harlequin is more like a mage then a ranger thanks to Taunt anyway). CHA is kinda ok but none of the other Bals mechanics really work around promoting units (Mutate isn't affected by CHA).

I'm not really sure what to do about her though. I mean Perpy can do pretty much anything Furia could do aside from SUM (which Keelyn is already doing, as we all know) and BAR. But BAR is terrible, as has been established. TBH I'd suggest removing her, she doesn't anything to the Bals they don't already have in a normal game, unless you want to keep her around for wacky variants with Last Days or a barb heavy game, but I think that's a but too focused for a leader (although Charadon is kinda in the same boat...).

The Barbarian trait has some big advantages to go with its 10% research penalty. Not having to protect cities and improvements from barb incursions means I should be able to expand more quickly than my competitors, and a smaller army means less maintenance. As Bobchillingworth pointed out, Loki can use Disrupt to grab barbarian cities for free (and turn their garrisons loose to terrorize the neighbors). The Raiders trait may not help a lot with recon, but it would be huge for adepts. Imagine a mage who can move onto a road, then summon a puppet who can move four road tiles and in turn summon a Spectre who moves three road tiles and attacks or pillages. One of the Balseraphs' big advantages is the extra mobility that puppets give them, and Raiders is a nice boost to mobility.

[DaveV]

Reserved

[WarriorKnight]

The Barbarian trait has some big advantages to go with its 10% research penalty. Not having to protect cities and improvements from barb incursions means I should be able to expand more quickly than my competitors, and a smaller army means less maintenance. As Bobchillingworth pointed out, Loki can use Disrupt to grab barbarian cities for free (and turn their garrisons loose to terrorize the neighbors). The Raiders trait may not help a lot with recon, but it would be huge for adepts. Imagine a mage who can move onto a road, then summon a puppet who can move four road tiles and in turn summon a Spectre who moves three road tiles and attacks or pillages. One of the Balseraphs' big advantages is the extra mobility that puppets give them, and Raiders is a nice boost to mobility.

Interesting.

I'm not sure if I agree with all that, but I look forward to you proving me wrong.

[Qgqqqqq]

Hang on, you have Auric a worker and tech

Agree on Furia, especially the RAI part. Barb is better on a big map too.

[DaveV]

Hang on, you have Auric a worker and tech

I don't think so. The settings in this game are somewhat less than clear cut.

Agree on Furia, especially the RAI part. Barb is better on a big map too.

This is close to the ideal setup for a barbarian civ, which is why they were my first two picks. Big map, guarded lairs. Lizardmen are the spawn of the devil. If the difficulty level were higher, it would be perfect.

[Qgqqqqq]

have=gave, sorry.
If not that, what's he starting with?

Higher difficulty means more expensive techs...which is not necessarily a bad thing I suppose.

[Mardoc]

Here's your start. Let me know if you spot any errors.