Those dang sneaky dark elves 
So after two game where I sorta re-acclimated myself to EITB and experimented with strategies and a civ I never tried before, it's time to back up and go slightly more conventional. And by conventional, I mean OP super scouts of course.
Volanna used to be utterly busted, boasting a ridiculous combo of AGG/EXP traits, Sinister which grants +1 attack strength to all recon units, and Elven's natural abilities on forest (including forest improvements) which granted her a bevy of early bonuses that allowed her to expand very quickly and very safely without too much investment and then parlay that expansion into massive Elven economy nonsense. She was my pick for best all-around leader in the game at that time as she could do pretty much anything she wanted.
In this version of EITB she loses the extremely powerful EXP for the less-powerful-but-still-solid CRE. This is a substantial nerf as Volanna was by far the civ most suited to utilizing EXP's settler bonus to snowball the early game and so she is slowed down quite a bit. Nonetheless, the combination of AGG and Sinister is a potent one and she's still an elf, which means economy is still king as usual. CRE isn't at all bad either, as culture is pretty hard to come by without significant investment in new cities, so city placements can be a lot more liberal when grabbing resources and border wars will favor me the whole game against non-CRE civs, of which there are two.
As for my opponents:
Bobchillingworth as Garrim Gyr of the Luchiurp (FIN/ARC) - The Dwarves again. Great civ with a lot of nice bonuses and crazy worker replacement, but their lack of mobility hurts a lot. Trading out IND for ARC will alleviate this though as it incentivizes pursuing the magic path to gain Mobility mages and in the process get the nice bonus buildings for his golems. FIN is whatever, more gold means better economy and cheap markets are a plus, nothing else to say here really.
Mr. Cairo as Flauros of the Calabim - Ah, vampires. One of my favorite civs to play around with and their cities can get seriously out of control if left alone for too long. The nerf to governor's manors is pretty oof though. No longer replacing courthouses and needing the moderately expensive Mathematics is a major blow, but I understand the change. Having a 3 pop capital from T0 is a pretty big boost as well though there's always the inferior option of holding the WS to cripple us later on. I fully expect to see it popped when I get the save next turn though
Auroracher as Auric Ulvin of the Illians - Man I was hoping I wouldn't have to see these guys. Going against Auric is a royal pain in the neck. Priests of Winter are insanely busted, as is ice mana, and their ability to make any terrain lush enough (for them) to be useful is nice too. Oh right and Statis literally stops the game cold (heh) for (8? 12?) turns. Not looking forward to Ice II mages running around while being unable to build anything.
Since my reporting the last two games has been difficult and not really sustainable, I'm taking a suggestion from the recent thread in Civ General (thanks Krill/plako!) and going 1 image and 1 sentence per turn. Maybe a more in-depth summary at key points but I'll try to see if this lets me report on the game in a consistent fashion rather than trying to make these huge in-depth posts detailing every element of my strategy.
So, the start:
Note that this map is mirrored so what we see is what everyone else sees too.
Insane capital surrounded by a whole lot of nothing much. Good river system though. Fortunately, as the elves those vast swaths of forest are a welcome sight rather than a malice. 1st ring deer tile means everyone gets their worker in 8 turns, thanks Dave! Oh wait, right, Bob has to wait a little longer for his crazy worker unit. Not that that'll hurt him much
So instead of writing more, let's just get this started.
So after two game where I sorta re-acclimated myself to EITB and experimented with strategies and a civ I never tried before, it's time to back up and go slightly more conventional. And by conventional, I mean OP super scouts of course.
Volanna used to be utterly busted, boasting a ridiculous combo of AGG/EXP traits, Sinister which grants +1 attack strength to all recon units, and Elven's natural abilities on forest (including forest improvements) which granted her a bevy of early bonuses that allowed her to expand very quickly and very safely without too much investment and then parlay that expansion into massive Elven economy nonsense. She was my pick for best all-around leader in the game at that time as she could do pretty much anything she wanted.
In this version of EITB she loses the extremely powerful EXP for the less-powerful-but-still-solid CRE. This is a substantial nerf as Volanna was by far the civ most suited to utilizing EXP's settler bonus to snowball the early game and so she is slowed down quite a bit. Nonetheless, the combination of AGG and Sinister is a potent one and she's still an elf, which means economy is still king as usual. CRE isn't at all bad either, as culture is pretty hard to come by without significant investment in new cities, so city placements can be a lot more liberal when grabbing resources and border wars will favor me the whole game against non-CRE civs, of which there are two.
As for my opponents:
Bobchillingworth as Garrim Gyr of the Luchiurp (FIN/ARC) - The Dwarves again. Great civ with a lot of nice bonuses and crazy worker replacement, but their lack of mobility hurts a lot. Trading out IND for ARC will alleviate this though as it incentivizes pursuing the magic path to gain Mobility mages and in the process get the nice bonus buildings for his golems. FIN is whatever, more gold means better economy and cheap markets are a plus, nothing else to say here really.
Mr. Cairo as Flauros of the Calabim - Ah, vampires. One of my favorite civs to play around with and their cities can get seriously out of control if left alone for too long. The nerf to governor's manors is pretty oof though. No longer replacing courthouses and needing the moderately expensive Mathematics is a major blow, but I understand the change. Having a 3 pop capital from T0 is a pretty big boost as well though there's always the inferior option of holding the WS to cripple us later on. I fully expect to see it popped when I get the save next turn though
Auroracher as Auric Ulvin of the Illians - Man I was hoping I wouldn't have to see these guys. Going against Auric is a royal pain in the neck. Priests of Winter are insanely busted, as is ice mana, and their ability to make any terrain lush enough (for them) to be useful is nice too. Oh right and Statis literally stops the game cold (heh) for (8? 12?) turns. Not looking forward to Ice II mages running around while being unable to build anything.
Since my reporting the last two games has been difficult and not really sustainable, I'm taking a suggestion from the recent thread in Civ General (thanks Krill/plako!) and going 1 image and 1 sentence per turn. Maybe a more in-depth summary at key points but I'll try to see if this lets me report on the game in a consistent fashion rather than trying to make these huge in-depth posts detailing every element of my strategy.
So, the start:
Note that this map is mirrored so what we see is what everyone else sees too.
Insane capital surrounded by a whole lot of nothing much. Good river system though. Fortunately, as the elves those vast swaths of forest are a welcome sight rather than a malice. 1st ring deer tile means everyone gets their worker in 8 turns, thanks Dave! Oh wait, right, Bob has to wait a little longer for his crazy worker unit. Not that that'll hurt him much
So instead of writing more, let's just get this started.
