FFH - A Shadow Introduction

[Morganknight]

I would suggest building our initial city on the hill 1 SE. The city will be more defendable. Guerilla promotion (Hill defense) is an easy early promotion with no tech requirement. I concur on researching Agriculture early followed by Mysticism, maybe even Mysticism first...our initial growth will be fine with the floodlplains. The earlier we build an Elder Council, the earlier we can get a Great Sage to build an Academy. The God King Civic enabled by Mysticism will also help a lot and go a long way in the early game.

I have never played a succession game before but have always wanted to. Is there a good thread I can read that will give me a better idea of what to expect?

 

[Ozbenno]

I have never played a succession game before but have always wanted to. Is there a good thread I can read that will give me a better idea of what to expect?

Just read any thread in the SG forum (try the ones with 5 stars). Expect it to be fun but don't expect to agree with the choices everyone makes . Here's the list of SG guidlines we'll loosely follow.

Spoiler :

Taken from DM SG EG (Etiquette Guidelines)
Alpha: The quality of your report outweighs the quality of your play. We’re here to have fun, and, of course, winning is fun, but losing in style is preferable to a boring win. Remember, your report should be a new reply to alert other players.

Bravo: Reports should be detailed, with plenty of screen shots and player commentary, explanations, musings, etc; an auto-log dump will not suffice. Shots of the F9 screens and overview shots of the empire are nice too, once in a while.

Charlie: Punctuality rocks! “24/48” means post a "got it" within 24 hours of when the last save was posted, and play within 48 hours of that ‘got it.’ Waiting 47 hours to ask for a skip is lame. Punk out two times in a row, and you’ll be dropped from the roster. Skips and swaps are fine, but try to let us know sooner, rather than later.

Delta: Major game decisions (war/peace declarations, religion swaps, city placement, etc) should be arrived at via group consensus.
1. If the team disagrees with you, either argue your case better, or do it their way. Do NOT just blow them off and do it your way because it's your turn.
2. However, if there’s no consensus and you’re up, do it your way and explain why. Conversely, if someone else is up, don't whine when they do it their way.
3. Similarly, overruling techs or city builds is rude and should be done via consensus, barring an emergency.
4. In extraordinary situations, sometimes an opportunity presents itself that the group didn't foresee. If the consequences of it are great, players should stop, and refer the question to the group.

Echo: Being a better player does not give you the right to belittle anyone else or their play. Other people are going to disagree with you on major decisions; get used to the idea, and play nice. If not, take your ball and go home.

Foxtrot: Thread spam is good. Trash talking, poking fun, gentle ribbing, virtual noogies, and generally horsing around are all encouraged, but don’t be rude.

Golf: Automate sparingly.
1. Workers should almost never be automated, except perhaps late-game or building a trade network. However, if you have to, set your game options to “disallow automated worker forest chopping” and “keep previous improvements.”
2. Use of the “Emphasis” buttons is fine, but let the group know and explain your reasoning (specialization is a major game decision). If you prevent growth in a city, let the group know and remind them to take it off. Do NOT let the governor select build orders.
3. Sending units on go-to routes that last beyond your set is acceptable only if they’re heading for a rally point or if you otherwise inform your teammates. NEVER fortify Great People.

Hotel: NEVER fortify Great People. Just press enter for 15 turns. Is that so hard?

India: Sign spamming is rude. Signs can be helpful reminders, but too many signs makes them easily ignored. Once a sign is no longer valid, delete it.

Good point, Morganknight about the Elder Council, enabled by Mysticism. An early building that allows a sage to be employed (read scientist) is a good kickstart if we have the food, speaking of which...

I realised I didn't have patch "g" installed (downloaded it but forgot to install ) , so here's a new start (not as good but not bad).



The logical move would seem to be move 1E to bring the sheep into BFC and keep the northern hills. Research maybe Agriculture, Mysticism, Animal Handling and build warrior/warrior/worker (at size 2).

 

[cabert]

too bad for the previous start

This one is all about the food.
I would settle in place, because you already have so much food!

 

[ruff_hi]

Hotel: There is no guideline Hotel!

This stuff spreads like wild-fire. I just added this guideline the other day and ... bingo ... it is popping up everywhere. Too funny.

 

[Ozbenno]

I just copied yours as I couldn't be assed getting it from DM. Proper Hotel rule added.

 

[stuge]

I'd go with Cabert's suggestion of settling in place. There's no shortage of food here and we'd lose some hills by moving 1E.

 

[darrelljs]

Just read any thread in the SG forum (try the ones with 5 stars). Expect it to be fun but don't expect to agree with the choices everyone makes . Here's the list of SG guidlines we'll loosely follow.

I'd suggest sorting by # of views and then picking any SG piloted by Sulla or Sirian. The top one, Cuban Isolationists, is a great read but probably NOT a good one if you want to get a feel for how a typical SG will go. I'd say the best choice would be RB19 - True Cultural Challenge. Acid 04 is also a good one to read.

Darrell

 

[darrelljs]

I'd also settle in place, for the reasons above. Those Sheep can be used for a second city.

Darrell

 

[Morganknight]

I abhor settling on floodplains as a matter of principal (the penalty for defending in deserts sucks), but must concur that settling in place is probably a good move. Let's try timing a Worker to coincide with finishing researching Agriculture. Farm the Rice and the floodplains, combined with the Agriculture civic, we will be able to pump out a few Settlers very quickly. I'm not keen on researching Animal Handling so early, especially if we settle in place.

I would suggest Agriculture>Mysticism>Crafting>Mining>Education>Writing and then beelining for Ashen Veil Religion: Knowledge of the Ether>Philosophy>Way of the Wicked(Slavery)>Corruption of Spirit. When it becomes relevant, we will want to take a short segue for Exploration.

Eventually, we will want to cottage all of our floodplains. Midgame, when we get "Sacrifice the Weak" civic, food will be much, much less important. Getting a couple of cottages started early will make that transition seamless...

Mining will reveal copper which might help us determine where to place one of our early cities, and let us start making better use of those lovely hills.

Thats it from me for now...looking forward to getting started.

 

[darrelljs]

I've been doing quite a bit of reading, and from what I can tell the real critical early tech for the Sheaim is Knowledge of the Ether for Planar Gates. Is Education -> Writing really more important? I see that you get a Great Sage (which so far as I can tell is just a Great Scientist) for being first to Writing, is that the reason?

Darrell

 

[uberfish]

Wow Shadow runs slowly. Hope it's still playable on my computer by late game.

For the rerolled start I'd just settle in place, with all those hills we can make this city a production powerhouse early on. Not too bothered about the sheep when floodplain farms are 5/0/1 anyway. We can build some other city to pick up the sheep and work plains cottages later.

 

[Morganknight]

Education>Writing...

The Great Sage is a nice bonus for us if we get it, especially since it denies it from the AI as well, but the real bonus is being able to build Librarys>Great Library(maybe) to accelerate our Science further. Our Holy City wonder "Stgmata on the Unborn" is buildable by a Great Sage or Great Prophet. The Great Library's free sage specialists are almost "fire and forget" for GP generation, insuring we have a steady stream of Great Sages coming in...

Planar Gates are great, but expensive to build. At 450 hammers each, they are each the equivalent of a mini-Wonder in terms of time and production. We will want them, for sure, but maybe not too early...

 

[Conroe]

I took the opportunity to play a few turns in some games, in an effort to familiarize myself with the mod. Not sure if it is coincidence or just dumb luck, but the AI did not seem to prioritize religion in my games. I also noticed that the AI seemed content with strength 3 Warriors defending their cities. Hardly a scientific sampling, I realize, but what about going after BW and building an old fashioned army? No clue if my observations are even valid ... but given how expensive the Settlers are to build, it seems to me that it is faster to expand via a bronze sword.

 

[Ozbenno]

Settle in place seems a popular move. In which case of course we don't need Animal Husbandry. Agriculture, Mysticism, Crafting and Mining seem the first techs needed. I'll play tonight and we'll see how we're going.

 

[reverend oats]

I'll lurk and would like to be the new reservest if that's fine with His Evilness Ozbenno.

 

[Ozbenno]

I took the opportunity to play a few turns in some games, in an effort to familiarize myself with the mod. Not sure if it is coincidence or just dumb luck, but the AI did not seem to prioritize religion in my games. :

Some leaders will prioritise different religions (the ljosafar will head straight fpor fellowship of leaves, the khazad for runes of kilmorph) and others will not at all. Luck of the draw.

I also noticed that the AI seemed content with strength 3 Warriors defending their cities. Hardly a scientific sampling, I realize, but what about going after BW and building an old fashioned army? No clue if my observations are even valid ... but given how expensive the Settlers are to build, it seems to me that it is faster to expand via a bronze sword.

It's actually not quite that simple. Once we have access to copper, we will be able to build Pyre Zombies (strength 3 (4 with bronze weapons)), this is our equivalent of a sword (+10% city attack), however without access to probably the City Raider promotion (which requires the Warfare tech) they won't beat a fortified warrior. We will be better of founding Ashen Veil and getting the religious hero Rosier the Fallen before we want to do any attacking.

Will be playing very soon.

 

[Ozbenno]

In the beginning there was Galveholm.



In the end, hopefully there will be nothing.

Research is set to Agriculture and production to Warrior.

Friendly villagers give us a map of the region to the north and east of us but it is patchy and not much can be made out, excepting that we are at the northern end of the world, there being tundra to our north.



The shores of a mighty sea are found not far to our south-east.



Our scout destroys a barrow on our doorstep before any beasties can emerge.



The first encounter with an animal. Luckily, local villagers told us the elephants never attack.



Unfortunately, the wolves do. We will need a new scout (the odds must have been hugely in my favour there ).



An event of noteworthyness.



An event of weirdness (a free carnival, yep I'll take that, seems unbalanced).



Agriculture is achieved.



I'll leave it there, as I assume we want Mysticism but happier for everyone to stop at a logical talking point rather than stick to set turn sets.

Strange that I haven't met any neighbours yet.

Here's a look at the world, not obvious great sites but there are decent ones about.



Our warrior is due in 2, I think he should stay and hold the fort (or maybe explore south) while we either build a scout (if the warrior is staying home - my prefernce) or another warrior (if the warrior is exploring) and then a worker.



uberfish is UP (probably play until Mysticism comes in)

Roster
Ozbenno
uberfish - UP
stuge - on deck
darrelljs
Conroe
Morganknight

 

[cabert]

no workers?
a good old FP farm, under agriculture civic would be nice, don't you think?

 

[Morganknight]

Well, please remember that this is all new to me. I saw some folks doing dotmaps in all of the SG's you had me look through. Browsing and browsing, I finally figured out how it was being done, and thought I would try my hand at one for our current position. I may have gotten a little carried away. Also, I'm not exactly sure how to make the image bigger, but I have an idea to try for the next time. We don't have any Luxury resources visible, and none of our most prized resource, Reagants. We must continue our search. Hooking up Reagants should stay at the top of our list of priorities. Initially, because it will allow us to eventually build our Ashen Veil priest units "Ritualists" and ultimately to be able to upgrade our mages and conjurors into all-powerful archmages and "Eaters of Dreams" - the Sheaim national unit that replaces Summoners. Of course, actually finding Reagants will be the first step, lol.



Looking at the hand we have been dealt though, we already have rice and both corn and wheat are nearby as well. Add to that the multiple rivers, and we have very effective breweries, adding three happiness for each river city that builds one. We still have a lot of black space near our capitol, but unless they conceal something earth shattering, I am thinking our first city should be the light green. We hook up the Corn and push our eastern border out considerably. Follow that up with the blue city and we hook in the wheat...Of course that could all change if we discover copper nearby. While copper is not essential for us, it would provide a very nice boost to our melee units...

Best of luck!

 

[Ozbenno]

no workers?
a good old FP farm, under agriculture civic would be nice, don't you think?

I always like to have some protection before a worker but GP farm under agriculture seems like a good idea. After the worker (which is after a warrior) we should build a elders council and employ a sage.

I like the dot map Morganknight (I'm terrible at it, so always leave it to my betters). There is no opportunities to get more than one resource so I think your suggestions are good. White and blue dot are good as it will "seal off" the eastern side of the map from barbarians but I imagine yellow should be next.