[spoilers] coldrain is trapped within Hunter's Dream

[coldrain]

Here we go again! Need to think of a naming scheme.

Buffer zone for misclicks:

















...

[RefSteel]

Congrats again on the convincing win in LVIII! Here's the start for this one:

I think the fog should actually be accurate here, including the hint of coast, though there might be one or two small changes if everyone takes a long time to make their picks. Speaking of which, here's your first set of options; you can reroll up to twice if you don't like them:

Flauros (Creative/Financial) of the Calabim, with Cartography OR Fishing OR Hunting
or
Ethne the White (Creative, Organized) of the Elohim, with Mysticism
or
Tasunke (Aggressive, Raiders) of the Hippus, with Animal Husbandry OR Calendar

[coldrain]

Thanks Ref!

Well that's a lot of food available at start for sure. If starting technology would decide my choice, then hunting (Flauros?) would be a very powerful pick. But I'm not sure if I want to take the vampires again (I chose the same leader in EitB LVII). I mean I have nothing against them, but maybe I want to take something different this time around. Commerce looks like to be the weak link for this start, so mining tech at start for the gems wouldn't be horrible either? That would need a reroll of civ choices. What else could work? Calendar or mysticism should work too. I'll do some tests for different starting tech options to see how things balance out.

Otherwise I'm not entirely thrilled about the civ choices I got. Nothing lighted a spark so to speak. Although now that mobility has been restricted a bit with the balancing patch, horselord and commando promotions of Tasunke would make me unmatched in speed with mounted units? That could be fun to try. On the other hand, I've had some itch to play with Sidar or Balseraphs for a while now... Okay I'll test some openings and see if things become clearer.

[coldrain]

I didn't have time to do proper sims today, but I arrived to the conclusion that I don't want to take any of the three potential civs of the first round. So my decision is: Reroll civ selection.

Didn't feel like picking the vampires again (maybe the best option of the three) or Tasunke (could have been interesting to do a horseman gambit). Ethne just seems a bit bland, and the palace of Elohim is awful. So reroll it is. Hoping for more spicy options.

[coldrain]

While we wait for round 1 picks (presumably someone is still undecided?), can I get a clarification of my start -> is the corn tile irrigated? Wheat for sure is with the visible oasis.

Planning to do some sims during the weekend. And are there any dedlurkers hanging around?

[RefSteel]

While we wait for round 1 picks (presumably someone is still undecided?), can I get a clarification of my start -> is the corn tile irrigated? Wheat for sure is with the visible oasis.

Yup, we're waiting for someone to make a final decision. Good question on the grains: The corn is dry, just as it seems; you're of course correct about the wheat.

[RefSteel]

Okay, in the interest of starting sooner, I figured out a way to roll second-round choices before all the first-round choices are in, with at least a good chance I could actually post them: I rolled from a pool of all the civs, excluding (all and only) those that have been already chosen or were already rejected by the player for whom I'm rerolling. If any of the results were among the first-round civs between which another player was still deciding, I would have held off on posting the second-round choices until that player makes a decision: If they chose a rolled civ, I'd reroll (only) that civ. If they didn't (including if they choose to reroll all three choices) then the originally-rolled civ would be included.

As it turned out, none of the still-being-decided-between civs were rolled, so I was able to save time after all! Thus, here are your second-round options:

Decius (Organized, Raiders) of the Bannor, with Cartography OR Fishing OR Hunting
or
Jonas Endain (Spiritual/Expansive) of the Clan of Embers, with no additional tech
or
Shekinah (Creative, Arcane) of the Sidar, with Mysticism

And of course if you don't like any of these, you can still reroll these and get a final choice between three other civs!

[coldrain]

Sidar was one of the options I was hoping for! On the other hand, the Orcs would be a potential curveball option with a lot of potential. Starting without an additional tech and BAR research penalty just slows everything down in the beginning... And lazy orcish workers won't help with this issue at all.

I made some quick tests with the Sidar, I will write about that soon. In the meantime I confirm my final choice as Shekinah of Sidar with Mysticism.

[coldrain]

Some players have received their starting turns, still waiting for mine (I’m last in turn order). There are a couple of things I want to talk about before looking at the choices the competition took, namely why I took Sidar and what I discovered during single-player tests for the opening.
 
First, the civ. Paraphrasing from my analysis in EitB LVI (my first game here, Bing played as Sidar): The main special ability of SIdar is to turn highly experienced units (lvl 5 = 17 xp) into shades. Shades can wane in cities, creating a great specialist (sage, bard, merchant or engineer), but this action consumes the unit permanently. If there are enough barbarians on the map, Sidar can level up warriors etc. and wane them to have a super specialist city. This is further boosted by all specialists gaining +1 of their main yield, so for example a sage is +4 beakers and great sage is +1 prod and +7 beakers. Theoretically adepts or mages with accumulated xp can also be waned, but sacrificing the best offensive units at that stage of the game could be counterproductive. Regardless, hunting barbarians for xp will give a great return of investment if done right.
 
After unlocking knowledge of the Ether, recon units can “sever soul” to create a temporary ethereal unit that can fly over mountains or water and then call back the caster on the tile. This gives Sidar recon very fast movement and ability to ambush careless victims over mountain ranges or 1-tile wide water obstacles. Or they can escape away from harm the same way. RefSteel, I hope you made the map with a lot of rough terrain and waterways so I can make maximum use of the teleporting! If I go for the recon units, I should have the best mobility of the game, maybe rivalled only by raider leaders.
 
Unique units are Divided soul (originally the only unit available to sever soul) and Ghost (assassin replacement that can hide from normal units and hawks). They still have the downside of recon units being bad at assaulting cities and don’t benefit from metal weapon upgrades. National hero is Rathus Denmora, unlocked at poisons. He is basically a stronger hero assassin, who starts with a special equipment meant to eliminate hostile heroes. Poison tech is therefore a big jump in the military capabilities of the Sidar. I’m most likely going for these toys, even when my leader traits push towards the arcane line. And Ghosts (plus normal assassins) should be better in this patch, as all arcane units have lower defensive strength, making them easier targets.
 
World spell grants magical invisibility (not seen by scouts or hawks?) to all Sidar units, but spell casting and hostile actions brakes it. I’m not sure what the best use of the world spell is. Try to sneak attack someone? Or attack someone first, and then cast the spell to hide from retaliation? Or cast the spell, position invisible workers to pre-build a road between my own and hostile borders for a quick surprise attack? Hmm, maybe I have to also check if Kithra Kyriel sees through the world spell, as she should see through the “normal” invisibility of the Ghosts? That’s why Fellowship of Leaves and Empyrean (radiant units see invisibility) are the arch-nemesis of a Ghost strategy, I think.
 
Finally, the leader is Shekinah (CRE/ARC). Creative is quite useful in placing optimal city sites, plus the added cultural vision + defences are good too in the early game. I might ignore religion this time, since I don’t need the culture for border pops? Let’s see how the surrounding terrain looks like before making any final decisions (Kilmorph would once again be interesting with the added happiness provided by gems, and lack of culture doesn’t bother CRE leader?). Arcane trait can be extremely powerful, as I demonstrated in previous game, but it takes a long time to bring in any substantial bonuses. I have the interesting option to invest in early adepts and wane them into super specialists in the mid-game? Mages are so good that this still seems like a fools play, but I might play a longer single player test game to feel it out.
 
I’m definitely interested in going for Divided Souls and Ghosts, but the question is how fast I should go for them? And when to pivot into magical units? Difficult questions to answer without knowing how the early game plays out. Results of the opening sims in next post.

[coldrain]

Quick addition for civ analysis: I forgot to mention that Sidar palace provides shadow, spirit and enchantment manas. Shadow is a bit meh, but I learned that spirit is quite useful in boosting healing rate. Out of the options, enchantment mana is the most useful, providing +1 happiness and adepts can give a permanent +20% strength buff to melee units.
 
Ok, so maybe I was a bit over enthusiastic about making the simulations. I tried several small optimizations, but the general plan is to go for mining first for the best commerce tile of gems, and start the first settler at happy cap of 7, thanks to enchantment mana and gems happiness. And to make max use of the T0 God-king, mines are needed anyway. First highlighted approach:

As usual, details are listed in the signs in screenshot (starting from top). This was the base line for comparing results, and the advantage here is not wasting any worker turns of the first worker. I quickly noticed that if growing to size 7, a second worker is needed to be built either at size 3 or 4 (gem mine built ASAP and working less unimproved tiles).
Next, I tried improving the wheat farm first after border pop, which means interrupting the first worker before it completes any improvements:

This allows faster growth to size 3 or 4, and rounding with God-king +50% production bonus lines up a bit better. Tech path was mining-> calendar -> education here as placeholder. And finally, similar approach, but building more warriors/scouts before elder council and worker at size 4 instead of 3:

I like this approach the best, even if I have to pay added maintenance for the additional warriors/scouts, which shouldn’t be an issue since usually some of the starting units die to giant spiders/bears/gryphons. Extra units can go hunt barbarians in order to become shades in the long run. All these sims assume that I hire a sage specialist at size 7, to start the accumulation of gp points for an academy. Then if I feel greedy, I could use the tech path of mining -> education -> calendar, so I can build cottages very early and revolt into nationhood + apprenticeship + agrarianism with a single 1-turn revolt around T38. Another option is to get calendar -> (animal husbandry) -> hunting. Anyways, mining is first tech and build warriors until second worker at size 4.