Fall with Fleme

[Jarrema]

I think that we should go for it and pop that lair

EDIT: nd something about longer-term development. I personally would prefer to go deeply for religion line. First step toward that would be funding a religion. The first one we choose does not have to be a final one.
For a first one, I will prefer RoK (hills!) or FoL (easy to get, close to recon path). For a final one, I would rather go for CoE or OO (both because of archmage heroes). My favourite ones for our situation are FoL and Essus (love that guys)

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Well I've never tried Esus as a primary religion, so I would like to see how they work.

 

[Old_Lion]

Wow guys, I did not check yesterday and we have 40 new posts...

I'm fine with everything so far, except I would not pop lair before having 3 warriors.
Choosing to restart on bad result sounds like cheating to me.

scout->warrior/worker/scout/warrior looks like a good idea. I feel like scouting alot.

As for religion, I think we shouldhave a look at neighboors and neighboorood first, but starting with RoK sounds fine. I'm with JArrema for a religion intensive game. (Since it will probably give more flavor with our GM interventions)

 

[Jarrema]

Old Lion, with Austrin I believe that it is not necessarry to have 3 warriors, it would rather be like 1 warrior and 3 rogues or something like that...

 

[lymond]

Yeah, I think we need to build more rogues than warriors early. Austrin have buffed recon units. We want to explore with the rogues but bring them back for Explorer upgrades.

I'm more than fine with religions. However, I think FoL is very strong and our early explorer tech path is in line for getting FoL early. I'm not sure what RoK requires. I hate to make a decision on RoK just because we see hills in the immediate area. Those ancient forests really rock later with cottages or lumbermills if you can get them down before they change. Esus does sound cool later.

Okay....seems like we want to get a couple of units out before the first worker. I think 1 more warrior will help for better city defense, so how bout this start:

rogue>warrior>worker>rogue>rogue

Techs: Ag>Cart>Hunting>Tracking (however, we may want Elder Councils up sooner than later)

I'd like to start the first turnset tomorrow, so let me know if there are any glaring issues with the plan.

Question: Is 10 turns too short or should we say 15 turns - unless we hit a quest?

 

[Brian Shanahan]

FfH and FF are longer than normal, so I'm happy lymond if you want to take even a few more, say 20 or 25 as often happens with the starting set in a normal game.

I'm not sure of the speed though.

 

[lymond]

Game speed is Epic and map is Large so we probably want somewhat longer turnsets. Fleme mentioned something about stopping when you run into a quest and then passing the game on. Not sure how that works exactly - Fleme can chime in on that again. However, if we stop at every quest it may make for some short turnsets, so I suggest the current player keep playing that turnset to completion, even though we stop and post the save for Fleme's manipulation.

My issue with early techs on FFH/FF, is that I often want to go for the shinies and neglect some of the early worker ...let's say enhancing...techs. That is, workers can build just about every improvement at the start in FF, but some techs increase the speed of said improvements dramatically. Others here may have more experience with what works best. Do we go for Harmatt and Explorers asap or do we get some of these techs like Crafting as well as Myst for God King.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

At the moment we've got a decent Ag tech (irrigated corn), a iffy AH tech (plains cow) and 2 all-right Hunting techs. Seeing as your path expedites 3 of the four resources it looks pretty good for the moment. Of course we won't be seeing metals early, but we'll have enoungh defense for the random barbs, and any concerted stack would kill us anyway early doors.

After that I'd probably go crafting>mining for the hills, and then get the beaker techs.

 

[AntiTwelve]

1) Close to us it may be better to leave them until 2-3 warriors in the cap. That's why I suggested parking a unit on the ruins.

2) Kill the more common animals (Lions, Wolves) if we can, but if we see e.g. an ape don't kill as they are a bit rare.

3-4 warriors in cap before popping the ruins, for certain. But we shall eventually pop it. Like a polo collar.

Also, unless I'm mistaken, Dienekes is now known as AntiTwelve.

The poster originally known as Dienekes.

I've never really seen reason to make an attempt with Esus, so after founding a religion or two I'd be partial to attempting play as a CoE state. (The key is stay Neutral. For Druids. And Druidia.)

If there are yet any who have not played a game on their own as the Austrin then I'd advise you remedy this. IMHO, they are one of the top 3 civs in FF. Serious business.

 

[Fleme]

I'm fine with whatever turnset length you wish although short(er) is better for me at start because I'd like to develop your early hero so that they're useful for you in the game. Basically, the length you choose is dependant on how often you wish for me to update you on quests and wish to have my added content to occur.

If you wish, I can spread them around a little thinner than I might have planned initially so you have time to actually play and not pay too much attention to them which is just as fine for me.

Alternatively I could just add content into spoilers which you can go check when you reach markers and go from there but if it was me looking at spoilers, I wouldn't be able to keep myself from looking at them so once again the choice here is yours. Just give me feedback on how you want my part to go down and I'll adjust to it - I really don't want to get in the way of fluent gameplay.

Anyhow, lymond, the way I thought of the first swap to go down is when you run into a quest marker because then I could set you up for your first hero (basically the first recon unit to run into a quest marker spawns an extra no-maintenance unit which becomes your first budding hero to run quests and keep your regular units doing what they do) which is the type of your choice. Basically, you could already start discussing on the first hero type - I've laid out the classes in one of my previous posts. And no, the first hero won't be powerful at start either. They're much like your average warriors/rogues are with a little extra that starts developing as they go questing. You don't need to go into specifics of the hero type - just the base class and then the hero starts developing from there based on the choices made and events they face.

But yea, ultimately I'd like to hear your input on how much emphasis you want on the extra content and how you'd like to see it go down as well. Am I making sense?

 

[Jarrema]

1. I want A LOT of 'estras' and a lot of emphasis on it. It is why I play this game in the first place
2. As for tech, I would like to go for WoF after Hunting (I do not remember tech tree exactly now, do we need tracking for WoF?). I am affraid that if there are any elves in the game we can be beaten in the race to FoL, and it is always better to have holy city than to not have.
Ag>Cart>Hunting>Way of Forests (??)
3. Essus as a religion is cool. IF you have some priests of other faiths (main disadvantage of Essus is lack of healing units)
4. I prefer shorter turnsets, so 10-15 would be good for me. And I want high speed of quests
5. As for a hero, I would like to have ranger (warden or guardian) as out first hero. It would be useful and fits thematically to our civ.

 

[lymond]

I definitely agree about the hero, Jarrema. Ranger type. However, let's ask Fleme if having a ranger first would conflict with Harmatt

I think once you get Hunting you need to get to Mysticism before WoF, which is good anyway for God King. However, I believe we need Tracking for Harmatt. (Again, I note that I think the tech requirements they put up for Harmatt in FF are quite steep for a hero recon unit that starts just a tad stronger than a scout and basically becomes somewhat obsolete not too long after the tech you need for him. Maybe....ahem Fleme....with having the first hero unit as a ranger type we can just ignore Harmatt or actually get Harmatt as this hero.)

Honestly, I find with any turnset length and I'm all for the Flemesh gameplay here. However, keep in mind that this game is Epic speed so 10 turns does not get you very far at all. I'm used to playing 15 turn turnsets on Normal speed.

 

[Fleme]

I don't see a conflict. While you are free to use Harmatt for questing as well as the heroes I provide you, the quests will begin before he is in and will be tailored for heroes who do not immediately start with the "Hero" promotion and are in fact weaker than Harmatt. All the ranger choices are viable in my opinion, as they all differ from the role Harmatt plays in (more of a thief/ranger mix) but in turn will not realize as fast.

I'm actually fine making Harmatt into the "Ranger" hero for you guys if you prefer. However, since the base model of Harmatt is not ranged, he'd be either a warder or a guardian and I'm thinking he'd lean more towards Guardian. Alternatively, he could just be himself with extras thrown in. Either way, if you opt for this approach, you'd have 2 early heroes for questing which would undoubtedly make it easier for you. Heck, I was actually hoping I would get to use the base of Harmatt as a custom hero because of his low starting strength and air affinity plus all the other extras. Well, I'm getting really out of my way here and even with just 1 early hero, you are free to use a couple of stock units to assist him so it's not like you need an additional custom hero unless you feel like it. Well, this is just an idea that came to me thanks to you lymond(!) and the ball is in your park for you to decide and I guess I'm already influencing you too much for someone who should just be the dungeon master. So if you can, ignore as much of my influences as possible, the game is already in constant motion and will change whimsically without me getting any extra ideas.

Anyhow, 15 turns is a short bit for Epic but I think it's optimal if you wish to balance out the gameplay with the extra content. Not all quests will be completed in one set, others will require more preparation or leveling up while others are simply out of reach for the time being. Don't hold that 15 turns as something you have to follow to the letter, but around that ballpark give or take 5 turns. Ultimately the questing is up to you and the events I create will be mostly random save for a few things I have planned and those aren't dependant on set lenghts anyways.

I'm all giddy waiting for you to reach the first quest marker and swap.

 

[uberfish]

Fleme: up to you how you want to run it.

Epic speed: Prefer 15 turnsets, a bit longer for the first two where not much tends to happen unless we run into a quest

Austrin have their hunter/explorer units split off into a separate tech line from the Hunting tech. Which is rather annoying. In FF though you can still improve the resources at 1/4 speed though, so we don't HAVE to research it. We'll get plenty of food from FP farms.

I therefore suggest to skip hunting for now and aim for Mysticism for Elder Councils to speed up our research. Takes forever to get anywhere if you're researching just off the palace.

 

[Jarrema]

Yes, I forget about mysticism. We should get it ASAP, for both God King and elder council(s)

IMHO Hamat can wait

 

[lymond]

okay, so it sounds like we leaning towards Myst for God King and ECs:

Tech Path: Ag>Ancient Chants>Myst

Builds: rogue>warrior>worker>rogue>rogue

I'll send the current warrior over to the ruin to sit on it and prevent lizardspawns. Rogues will scout away.

I plan on starting this thing this evening - roughly 9hrs from this post - so the get in your thoughts and suggestions in the interim.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Looks good to me, and I'll add my voice to the chorus of "We want a rogue hero". Play away lymond.

 

[AntiTwelve]

What everyone else said. We're all too competent.

 

[lymond]

Okay...I'll be firing this up soon. Keep your fingers crossed for no mass lizard spam.

 

[lymond]

Okay...here we go! Actually, pretty uneventful 1st turnset.

Our mighty Rogue ventured out into the mist scouting the land and looking for treasures, dungeons and lovely elf maidens. A loud and irksome voice suddenly rang in his head. He could not place the strange accent but visions of snowy fields, icy lakes, and odd blade-like objects attached to feet popped in his mind. The voice said "Head East young man for you will find a grand adventure! ....and elf maidens!"

The young Rogue thought himself mad when this otherworldly voice ringing in his head. Still, he took the call and trekked East until he came upon a small but thriving village by the name of Foxford. The town folk were abuzz with rumors of a strange wolf-man like creature of the night stealing and gobbling up young children of the village. The villagers begged the young man to help rid them of terrible horror. The Austrin felt for the villagers but said that he was only a humble adventurer and not a mighty monster-killer - at least not yet. There was nothing for him here so he moved on.

Foxford:

Spoiler :

After a long journey over green fields, dangerous peaks, and arid desert, the wandering Austrin came upon a strange sight in the desert. On a barren hill appeared a little shop. From a distance he could make out strange contraptions laying about and a sign that said "Fizzik's Workshop". He asked himself "Who is this Fizzik?". He decided to ponder for a bit whether to approach the tiny shop and its inhabitant and maybe ask his fellow Austrin's who this might be.

What appears to be our first quest:

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, he moved off to a lonely hill to camp for the night. However, in the distance he espies a lonely Graveyard. Hmmmm...he thinks...graveyards can be dangerous places but also yield much reward. I must visit this place soon.

Graveyard:

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, another young Austrin adventurer comes of age and decides to head West to lands not yet known to the Austrin people. After many days of travel he stumbles upon a foreboding sight - a goblin fort. Despite his attempts to remain concealed, he is spotted by a goblin archer perched in a tower. The archer fires on the poor young rogue and one arrow sinks into the flesh of his left shoulder. Painful though it is, the scout makes his escape. He will live another day. But yikes! What should jump out of the jungle, but a fearsome tiger! The young man thinks he might rather have chosen a safer profession.

Overview of land:

Spoiler :