My Allayi have no seafaring ability. Two separate games and they can't go even one hex off the coast, let alone more than that. They can't walk on lakes; nada. This is weird. Either I am completely misunderstanding the mechanic, or, when I customize the faction the game subtracted that ability from the list (but I didn't see anything being subtracted).

That must be a bug.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:




No, you walk on the ice shelf. But if it melts, then you automatically embark (factions don't have seafaring just sink).

Thats weird, cause I had a small lake, and there were shelfs, and my units became ships

johnyoga wrote:


Excuse my ignorance: But if that is the case, then why can't my units pick up pearls that are one hex off the coast? Wouldn't I, therefore, need the ice shelf modifier initially?

The Allayi should be able to embark on the sea at turn 1 and get those pearls off the coast.

eXistenZ wrote:
Thats a thing I still dont quite understand: if you have seafaring, you sail through ice shelfs? Thats what it looked like to me when I played the Allayi

No, you walk on the ice shelf. But if it melts, then you automatically embark (factions don't have seafaring just sink).

KnightofPhoenix wrote:




As the Allayi, I have found that you should avoid voting for extending the ice shelf. You are the only faction that starts with shipfaring, and so voting for the ice shelf would remove a strategic advantage that you have. .

Thats a thing I still dont quite understand: if you have seafaring, you sail through ice shelfs? Thats what it looked like to me when I played the Allayi

"As the Allayi, I have found that you should avoid voting for extending the ice shelf. You are the only faction that starts with shipfaring, and so voting for the ice shelf would remove a strategic advantage that you have."



Excuse my ignorance: But if that is the case, then why can't my units pick up pearls that are one hex off the coast? Wouldn't I, therefore, need the ice shelf modifier initially?



Marc

In addition, if I understand things correctly, the effects that are not applied but have received votes, will be saved in the pool and will re-occur with the previous votes still applying. So as Allayi, it might be worth it to not only vote for an effect you want applied now, but to also invest some pearls to vote for another effect that you like so that it might show up again.



I am not exactly sure what the mechanics of winter voting are yet, but it is, in my opinion, one of the most fun, strategic, and dynamic parts of the game.

I don't like the fact, that winning effect isn't removed from the poll for the next vote. I've had same effect chosen twice in 3 winters. Not only this stacking might hurt, it also lists multiple times in winter effects list, instead of showing accumulated value of the effect.



As for the strategy, I find that no amount of pearls worth spending for voting at the end of the summer. You should either vote acceptable amount during first 1-3 summer turns, or accept, that you'll have undesired effect next winter. Pearls are already precious enough as they are without voting.

Unless voting cost for late summer reduced significantly, space for strategy is low there.

If you´re really interested in any of the benefits for the next winter, decide so right after the winter is over (have to always rememeber to check). That way you can spend like 8 pearls on 8 votes making the vote simply unachiavable for anyone else to manipulate it.



Allayi wants all the combat reductions to winter. I would even suggest that these are always available to them, since they´re quite game changing and it´s one of the few things they have going on for them.

Great topic, and seemingly a bit undervalued.



From what I understand, the effects are cumulative. Once voted for, they will be continuously applied for every successive winter. So the impact is quite large.



Some strategies are obvious, for some factions. As Broken Lords, you want to vote for food reduction effects so that everyone suffers but you, while you make sure to avoid dust reducing ones.



As the Allayi, I have found that you should avoid voting for extending the ice shelf. You are the only faction that starts with shipfaring, and so voting for the ice shelf would remove a strategic advantage that you have. I have also found that voting for reduction of effects per pop would hurt you less than it would for other factions, as you rely little on high pop anyways. Inversely, you should avoid general or percentage effect reductions. I would also avoid any food or science reducing ones.

I have found it useful to vote for one reducing luxury resource production but increasing strategics, as I was using my skyfins to harvest the former but using extractors to get the latter. Since high level skyfins already harvest a significant amount of luxuries, I found it marginal for their production to be reduced by one (not to mention that playing tall means less luxuries needed for boosters).