Has this game already started?

Oh those are some interesting thoughts you shared there Hiliadan. I never thought Necro looses steam in big games, if at all I always thought it gets better because I always think it has a slow start but gets the production, gold and mana bonus from the necromancy research. If there is a class that suffers in long big games I always thought that to be rogues. Stalkers are awesome, but somewhat easily countered, unlike Juggernauts or Manticores. Also I never considered partisan too good for rogue, maybe this has changed as partisan got an upgrade on some spells in the pbem patch. But I always felt that a lot of partisans spells are useless for many rogue units since they already have concealments (though invisible crows are awesome, no doubt).

There are some good class/race combinations and some worse ones but most are viable and it's more about your playstyle, what strategy you want to play for that specific game, what you expect from your opponents and in the case of a team game, how to synergize with the rest of the team.
Warlord and Dread are much better in Large maps than in Tournament size or smaller maps so you should not rule them out. Also as I said, Warlords are very good in team games because of Authority of the Sword. Conversely, Necro is weaker in Large maps because it can run out of steam (i.e. sites to clear) before the end of the game, and then become much weaker. I haven't yet seen a well played Necro in action in a Large map though, so not sure how it plays out. I don't know what map size the Rrrrrookie Bowl III was played but Tussel played Necro and lost to Ezekiel's Rogue in the end (6 players FFA) and Tussel is not a newbie Necro player.

I sent a team message to my team to discuss actual class/race choices.

So nobody to host?

Dreamon seems inactive. @Dreamon: please give us a sign, otherwise, we'll have to look for replacement

First of all thank you very mucho Marcus and Hiliadan for your very interesting insights !

So if I try to summarize each team would need to have a Theo and a Rogue, with one the two being on the surface and the other UG. Based on the recommended class+race combination we could have :

- Frostling or Human or Orc or Halfling Theo (Surface) + Goblin or Tigran Rogue (UG)
or
- Halfling Rogue (surface) + Dwarf Theo (UG)

Now if we want to add a summon based class on both the surface and the UG, we can have :

- Frostling or Draconian Sorcerer (surface) + Tigran Druid (UG)
or
- High Elf Druid (surface) + Goblin Sorcerer (UG)

Warlord and Dreadnough are not listed because they are production classes with less efficient scouts than the Theo and the Rogue.

Necro are not listed because they are just too strong : I for one would prefer to play this game without any Necro at all ! Otherwise they could be considered a better alternative to both the Druid and the Sorcerer and we would have a very Necro oriented game with Human or Draconian Necro on the surface and Dwarf or Tigran Necro UG.

Guys, if you want to share your class and race for feedback, please do it within the team so we can discuss it. Don't send it to me and Hiliadan both! It's not a big problem, but it might effect the other captains feedback, involuntary, to his team.

This message was first intended for the team only, but then I realise I mention almost all available combos so I change it so all can see!

Hiliadans advice to have 2 guys in the UG and 2 on the surface is good. I would like to add another idea: of the 2 guys UG, 1 should be a production based (Theocrat, Rogue, Warlord, Dreadnought) and 1 should be a summon based (Druid, Sorcerer and Necromancer to some extent with Control Undead and Ghoul strike as well). The reasoning behind this is that if one player is aggressive and stray further away from the base in the beginning, the other player with production based units will be able to help out if there is any danger.

The races that are best suited for UG is Dwarf and Goblin, also Tigrans (with Night vision and barrens running) are OK. Goblin Rogue, Goblin Sorceror and Goblin Warlord is all good combos. Dwarf Theo, Dreadnought or Necromancer is all very strong combos. Tigran Rogue, Warlord, Necromancer or Druid is some of my favourite classes.

If we move to the Surface, we have Frostling, Humans, Haflings and High Elf which all dislike the UG! This can be neutralised with the spell "Domain of Earth" so if you dont want to restrict yourself from a settlement UG this can be a good, "safe" specialisation to choose. Also Destruction Adept have "Domain of Corruption" which neutralise blighted terrain. As a Frostling I always go for Fire Adept which give you "Domain of the sun" which neutralise Tropical and Volcanic terrain.

Good combos for the Surface could be High Elf Druid/Dreadnought, Frostling Sorceror/Theocrat/Warlord, Human Warlord/Dreadnought/Necromancer/Theocrat, Draconian Sorceror/Necromancer, Orc Theocrat/Warlord and Hafling Rogue/Theocrat/Dreadnought (party robots!)

@Hiliadan, please extend or give feedback on my information and add yours!

All classes indeed have some scout units that can do the job but Rogue and Theocrat's are way superior in my opinion and that can make a big difference. They both fly, unlike all others (except Gryphon but you need luck to get it and it's much more expensive so harder to use it to scout in the middle of enemy territory and then disband it), so they get 5 hexes vision range. They have Night Vision unlike Wisps and Spy Drones, which make both of the latter pretty useless UG. Dreadnought is kind of blind UG and that's a big handicap (that somehow compensates the strength of Dwarf Dread). UG, Cherubs and Crows have a massive 6 hexes vision range.
Then, their flying means they can outrace all other scouts and many units. Crows are the best with their 10 hexes movement but Cherubs' 9 hexes movement is very good too. This long movement also means you can more easily move close to the enemy, gather intel then retreat somewhere you can't be seen.
And then Crows have First Strike.
Other classes' scouts have other advantages (as you said Lost Scouts are pretty powerful, especially with Life Steal, and especially when in groups of 3 or more) but these advantages make them better at other roles, not really at purely gathering intel.

The scout guys (Theo and Rogue then, for me) have a strong incentive to take Partisan, which will make their scouts concealed on Mountain, Wetland and Forest, and will also make them more efficient at using Inns in enemy's territory to recruit armies (-25% cost).

I'm proposing the following teams based on the playtime reported, let me know if you think we should modify them (Fluksen could be on Marcus' team too but I figured I could provide some advice on the class he wants to play):
- team 1:

• Hiliadan


• Saunatonttu


• Fluksen


• Imperium

- team 2:

• Marcuspers


• Zytozid


• Dreamon


• Elysian

Please try to discuss as much as possible on the general game blog, not on specific discussions for your team. That way, there is more shared with everyone and more I can put on the guide for people outside the BF. I'm going to compile what we have shared this far into the guide ASAP.

Also, as part of the training, is there anyone who have never hosted here and who'd like to host?

I sent my race/class details to Hiliadan and you. I think i can trust the "game leaders" not to start tuning their team because they know 1 race/class of 1 opponent... I'm just quite busy for the next week so if you want to decide the teams I thought it handy for you to know which role I could play in the team and put me in a team where that role is still needed.

Of course a Rogue or a Theocrat is good for scouting, but most classes have good scouts! The wisp from sorceror is not bad, and the spy drone (also just 30CP which is the cheapest summon available) from dreadnought is filling its purpose, Necromancer with Lost souls, which can actually be very useful even in battles for the first 25-30 turns, especially with life steal. While Warlord and Druid don't have any floating/flying scouts, the scouts that are produced in warlord cities at least have swimming/mounteneering and same for AD many units have swimming as well so they should be able to do a good job! And once you have T2 animal summons you have a good chance of getting a Gryphon (36MP, first strike) so it will win most scout battles.

I agree with Hiliadan that a Rogue in a 4v4 is probably the best option to harass your opponents cities and economy. Funny thing I recently learned is that a rogue army of (lesser) stalkers is not bad when led by a Sorceror hero, the stalkers have inherent blight and frost protection and the sorceror offers spirit protection, +1 res, +1 lightning dmg and can heal them via mend magical being (and Harmonizing Energy when the need is urgent!).

Fluksen sent me his class/race already for feedback! So I guess he better be in the same team as me

A timer of 48h don't mean you will have a turn every 48h though! More likely every 4-5 days.

48 hours timer sounds fine with me I'll be away now until the 16th, but since that was the games estimated starting time (at least within the 48 hours rang) I think it should be ok.

@Fluksen: I thought you were an experienced live MP players? So I'm not sure if you want to learn PBEM or? Your participation to the game is up to you in terms of your objectives. But even though, as I said, we can take our time to play, it would be great if we could at least have a 48 hours turn timer and avoid dragging the game for too long as 8 players game are already quite long.

@all:
It's good to discuss class, race and specs now with everyone and not limit to team discussions, as we can learn more from it. There is a lot to say about it in general, without saying specifically what class or race you'll pick for that specific game.
Something I forgot to say in my previous posts: scouting is very important in general and I believe there should be at least two good scouting classes in a team game, namely Theocrat (Cherub) and Rogue (Crow).
So a good line-up for me would be something like: Theocrat (scouting, gold through strategic spells), Rogue (scouting, concealment, weakening enemies with strategic spells), Warlord (Authority of the Sword) and a 4th class, Sorcerer being quite a good option (it can uses the mana from the others and can build its army on the field as it goes, whereas the other will struggle to do that, so the Sorcerer can reinforce the attacking army). Arch Druid and Necro can also summon stuff so are good alternatives. Dreadnought would not be a very good option as 4th class but could replace Warlord, they both have strong late game and nice strategic spells for their allies (Mana Fuel Cell).

Good points from Marcus regarding some good combos. I'll comment on that later, I'll also try to make a table showing the most popular combinations based on the meta stats for PBEM from the BF.