Boiling the Ocean (Started, needs alternate?)

[Nix]

I think 20 provinces per player just means there's a total amount of 20 x # of players provinces. You start off with one prov but basically have 20 to expand into before you need to seriously deal with your neighbors.

[Sensori]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of until I started overanalyzing things (this is never a good thing) and basically reading between the lines when there was nothing there... And then I started nitpicking in my head that some people might not manage to get 20 because of excessively strong indies next to them and blah blah blah unless they were given 20 at the start, and then, in the end, I managed to totally confuse myself.

And I don't think any nashun is excessively overpowered or anything, all tend to have their ups and downs. Some are really strong at the beginning while others equal and surpass them in other parts of the game. And... Helheim is more overpowered than Vanheim, they have Valkyries in EA! Valkyries own your pants off.

[carlosib]

Ok, no nation trading then, lets keep it random. And I have nothing against Lanka, i've never played them so i'm yet to find their strong and weak points.

[AdmiralZhao]

Ok, sounds good. I played Lanka in my last game, and was kicking myself the entire time for not taking a nature or earth blessing. They have some great holy units.

[DrPraetorious]

Quick Lanka advice:
Lanka is definitely a sacred rush position, so go for the big bless. You get natural 3s in Air, Death, Nature and Blood - so avoid air, death and blood on your God. You really want a nature blessing, and you'd like fire, earth astral and water if you can arrange it. Take Heat-3. You prefer Heat-2, but with Heat-3 a lot of your provinces will still be heat-2 most of the time, and you need the points.

Here are some possibilities:
Imprisoned Great Mother, E9N9, Order 3, Sloth 2, Heat 3, Misfortune 2, Magic 1, Domstr 6. Lankans with this blessing eat basically anything that gets in their way, and earth magic is great when she finally wakes up.

Imprisoned Mother of Rivers, W9N4, Order 3, Sloth 1, Heat 3, Magic 3, Domstr 7. Powerful blessing and great scales.

Dormant Great Enchantress, F4A1W4E3S4D1N4, Order 3, Sloth 1, Heat 3, Magic 1. Blessing is surprisingly effective, and you can summon water mages to *cast* quickness on your stuff. Strong diversifying magic, rapid research, good income. Best choice if you care about the late game more than early expansion.

Hope that was helpful. Anyone else playing a position with which they are not familiar? I've never played EA Vanheim so I can't be much help there.

[seej]

Yes, I agree with keeping it random. No swaps.
Yes, I agree with the changes - do i just append that text into the map file?

[Sensori]

Oh yeah, since you're the maker of the PBEM, seej, just to make it 100% crystal clear for my hazed brain, this IS a 1 province start game, right?

Right?

[Nix]

DrPraetorious said:
Hope that was helpful. Anyone else playing a position with which they are not familiar? I've never played EA Vanheim so I can't be much help there.

I've only played a couple MP games, so I'm unfamiliar with most random nations I get. I've never played Caelum, and I'm glad I ran a couple test SPs before starting this game - otherwise I would never have realized how quick those birdies get knocked down, even by low-level indies.

I do have a question about Orb Lightning. I've had it used against me by some indie Air mages and it looked pretty potent, but it seems to behave somewhat differently when I cast it. The indies threw separate lightning bolts that hit my troops in different spots, but my mage just gets one single batch of bolts that all hit the same area (sometimes even the same unit). It's a bit underwhelming - especially considering those indie mages had something like A2 or A3 and I'm casting it with an A9 pretender.