#172 - New Player Primeval with Mentor

[Ry Vor]

This is the thread to post about the happenings and questions regarding #172 - New Player Primeval with Warlock Mentor.

The game is won in one of two ways:  either one of the corner positions wins by controlling 4 regions, or the Mentor wins if the game goes to Turn 24, the final turn in a primeval game.

Welcome our three new players in their first game:  Sinestro, Benedict, and Baconfat.  Here is the roster in this five player game:

Sinestro - DW
Benedict - EL
Lothar - GN
HeadHoncho - WA
Baconfat - BL

Avail yourself of the mentor.  Good hunting!

[HeadHoncho]

Greetings!  First, I encourage you all to ask questions here on the forum, so we can have a common area for community learning.  I will do my best to respond promptly.  If there's a confidential question you need to ask, please feel free to e-mail me at thewestdm2 at yahoo dot com, although I might not respond quite as quickly there as I will here.

Second, just to lay out my own position in this game for the benefit of clarity, my intention is to take the entirety of the region of Amberland (R5), and then unless I'm attacked, no other pop center outside of R5.  I believe one of you will probably start with one village in Amberland, and if so, I will compensate that person with my own likely starting village in Arcania (R8).  Again, unless I'm attacked, I have no other territorial ambitions at all, and except for my other likely starting town in Synisvania (R9) -- which I would like to keep but I'm open to negotiation if you want to purchase that town from me -- you probably shouldn't see me owning any pop centers outside of R5.

I will never take a hostile action (whether politically, magically, covertly, etc.) against any of you of my own volition, again, unless I'm attacked.  HOWEVER, I will be available to ALL of you via e-mail for certain confidential mercenary actions against any third party, as follows:

King, military, and political emissaries: not for hire

Agent actions: 1,500 gold per level, plus the same amount the next turn if my agent dies on mission, and I have the right to refuse if success chances are low

High council vote (default is never bid, always abstain): 7,500 gold

High Priestess divination: 15,000 gold (pricing includes influence cost and chances of death)

P2 wizard: 7,000 gold (e.g. Ward, Sleep, Strengthen Walls*)
P3 wizard: 10,000 gold (e.g. Fertile Fields*, Hidden Ore*, Dispel Storm at Sea*, Dispel Regional Effect*, Locate Character or Group)
P4 wizard: 14,000 gold (e.g. Reveal King’s Influence, Curse, Raise Population Center Census*, Blinding Light*)
P5 wizard: 19,000 gold (e.g. Ward Population Center*, Dispel Dome of Invulnerability*, Storm at Sea*)
P6 wizard: 25,000 gold (e.g. Dome of Invulnerability*, Destroy Village*, Conjure Scandal, Infuriate Populace*, Conjure Prestige, Demonic Visions*)
P7 wizard: 32,000 gold (e.g. Summon Death*, Destroy Town*, Enhance King’s Aura*, Unveil Population Centers*, Unveil Group Locations*, Plague*, Raise Regional Census*)
P8 wizard: 40,000 gold (e.g. Damage City*, Cold Darkness*, Famine*, Bounty*, Summon Demon)

An asterisk designates a spell that requires at least one turn of advance notice so the Wizard can be positioned in the proper place.  I start with a P3 wizard, and as I advance, I will let you know what's available.  The complete WA spell list through P8 is attached to this post, for your review.

For the first six turns, mercenary actions are first-come, first-served, starting immediately after the turn results process.  Starting with turn seven, any competing requests made during the first 24 hours after the turn results process will be filled in reverse order of Kingdom status points, from lowest to highest.

I will accept unusual sighting locations as payment (worth 20,000 gold, but only 10,000 gold for "free" difficulty unusual sightings) as well as artifacts (generally worth 40,000 gold, but only 20,000 gold for palantirs, rings of protection, artifacts that need to be stationed at a pop center to work, Ancient Annihilator, and Demon Dagger). I will also accept an Ally declaration from you as payment, worth 7,000 gold, as this will save me orders in future transactions.

Please note, my goal is to be here for you, as a helper and advisor, and to provide ready access to higher-level spells and resources for all of you (this may be of extra importance to the DW Kingdom, who has a lower magic research limit than the rest of you).  Other than that, I intend to be completely neutral, and if one of you starts to threaten to win the game, it will be up to the rest of you to stop that person... I will only intervene to the extent that I'm hired to do so.

In short, you can kind of consider me to be like a neutral computer AI.  Although again, I will respond with hostility if I'm attacked, with the right to go after any or all of my attacker's resources.

My next post will outline some initial Kingdom thoughts for each of you.

[Ry Vor]

Wow.  I think I would like Head Honcho to have the first crack at the Halflings - a trading kingdom - in The Choosing.

[HeadHoncho]

Thanks.

So first, you should review this thread for the basics.

http://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/showt...p?tid=9730

Some additional general thoughts for Primeval games.

1) Everyone should be using the Resurgent map with borders (there is a separate link to it in the thread above), it will be very helpful toward the goal of taking your region, which should be your first priority!

2) Keep in mind that every Kingdom will eventually get on the High Council, so the base value of an HC seat is effectively 1 gold... but if you can get on early, you can probably sneak an extra point of influence or two from it by winning the first HC issue or two, so it might be worth bidding up to your perceived value for that. My guess is that 15,000 gold would be a self-imposed upper limit for even an early bid, but you never know how it might go.

3) In some games, you can try messing with your neighbors by sending a political emissary into the neighbor's city to status quo (310) in an effort to slow them down. Particularly in a learning game like this one, however (and I would also argue it's probably less common in 12-Kingdom games), you might all want to consider making a friendly agreement not to do that, because it can really make a person's game more difficult, and if you don't want it done to you, you might want to avoid doing it to others.

4) If you're really feeling saucy, you might want to consider starting to expand into an expansion region right away. This is especially an option for EL, DW, GN, since they start Friendly in their home regions and can therefore use a King order to enamor (470) the expansion region right away, while also sending a high-ranking political emissary to the city in that expansion region, along with a recon. I leave it up to you, there's a risk you divert focus and thus miss control of your own region by T3 or T4, but it could also pay off in spades and get you a head start on an expansion region. And even though this is not as easy of a strategy for BL, he shouldn't feel too badly, because with his fast troops and 565 ability, he has certain other advantages in this game that no other Kingdom has.

For specific Kingdoms, here are some thoughts, based on quite recent setup info (there is a chance some of this may have changed, however).

EL: You start with 13 influence, excellent emissaries, and Friendly in R1. You also start Suspicious in R2, and Tolerant in R4, as you consider expansion areas. With your extra orders, you can consider raising your influence (480), sending an adept or two through Rite of the Magi (800) since you get Ward at P1, training some extra agents (500), or bidding for an HC seat (210) and issue (410). You have a powerful starting position, and should focus on increasing your influence quickly so you can best utilize your political power.

DW: You start with 13 influence, solid emissaries, and Friendly in R3. You also start Tolerant in R2, and Tolerant in R6, as you consider expansion areas. With your extra orders, you can consider raising your influence (480), training some extra agents (500), or bidding for an HC seat (210) and issue (410). Make sure you send a strong group of leaders toward the Axe of Farin location that you receive in your setup, it might be worth it to 699 your three DW brigades and a P1 into 4DW, and send the resulting 1DW patrol (force marching as necessary, since patrols force march for free) toward the Axe, but if you do this, plan your movement so you maximize the number of squares that your 1DW patrol passes through in R3.

GN: You start with 12 influence, solid emissaries, great starting agents, and Friendly in R7. You also start Tolerant in R4, and Tolerant in R8, as you consider expansion areas. With your extra orders, you can consider raising your influence (480), raising one or more P1's to P2's (799) since you get Hidden Ore at P2, training some extra agents (500), or bidding for an HC seat (210) and issue (410). Make sure to use your Agent 4 right away for a 976 order to search for population centers in R7.

BL: You start with 12 influence, solid emissaries, the best movement rates of the entire board, and Tolerant in R7. You also start Suspicious in R8, and Tolerant in R9, as you consider expansion areas. With your extra orders, you can consider training some extra agents (500), or bidding for an HC seat (210) and issue (410). Make sure you enamor (470) R10, and use every single group (including the creation of a patrol in 4BL) to cover as much of R10 as you can. You also probably start with one group outside of R10, and you might want to send that into R10 as quickly as possible.

Hope this helps! Please ask questions (and there is no such thing as a bad or stupid question) if you have them, I know it's a lot to digest, but I'm here to help.

[Ry Vor]

Nicely done.

[unclemike]

Reading Head Honcho's post above about charging gold for just about everything in the game did make me laugh. Isn't the mentor in these games supposed to help the newbies learn the game, not rob them blind? Talking about stealing candy from the baby

Going to be an unusual experience for them 'cause helping others is usually free in this game (by like everyone). Looking forward to seeing future posts by the gold hungry warlock...

[HeadHoncho]

All rules and tactics help is free.

But most orders in Alamaze cost you something, and it is good practice to get used to spending resources in order to obtain benefits. Besides, in a Primeval game, gold isn't exactly going to be scarce.

It is also a fairness issue when you have four players. It's the classic free rider problem. If you charge no resources for real benefits, everyone is going to be clamoring for them, and then how are you going to decide who to help? It introduces a question of potential bias when you make the call without using some consistent metric, and so it's far better for me to stay neutral, not take anything outside of R5 while they duke it out, and work on behalf of any comer who wants to pay.

Finally, in order to expose them to the higher level spells, WA will need gold, and it's tougher to raise wizards to the higher levels with only one region over 24 turns. Plus it's more fun for me, and even though I have zero desire to "win" this game, I do want to have fun.

[VballMichael]

Damn, where was HH as a mentor when I came back to the game? Oh wait, he did help me in at least one game .

[Lothar]

As the Gnome player, I'd like to introduce myself.  In my first game of Alamaze as BL everyone left me alone, I did quite well considering, and I thought I was pretty smart.  Then in my second game I was quickly crushed like a bug and decided I needed this sort of format.  Thank you HH for taking on the mentor job.  And if anyone wants to contact me, my email is tomhabermann @yahoo.com

First dumb question - its turn 0 and mid summer.  So on the next turn results I'll get the reduced summer production, but on the turn after it'll be full values.  Right?   I know the "sell your food" trick and I think I only need to save enough to survive this first set of orders.  


 

[Ry Vor]

No dumb questions, almost always multiple players are helped by each question, that's especially why we ask for them in Primeval games.
Yes, selling food is a very common turn 1 order.