Freezing the World below Absolute Zero - Illians Succession Game

[DaveV]

Now would be a perfect time to give your thoughts of the next techs we should grab, before I use my own autocracy with it. I do like Mardoc's Festival idea more than going for Carto, anyone else have an opinion (other than Jale/Mardoc)?

Festivals is probably as good a choice as any.

Good luck with the delivery. It happens with no complications all the time, but it's still a little nerve wracking when it's your wife in the stirrups.

[Qgqqqqq]

Festivals sounds fine. We'll want Carto in the next 25t, though.

Good luck!

[Aurorarcher]

Thanks for the support guys, the baby (it's a girl!) was born healthy last night!

Now for my set. Some good things happened, some bad.

First I took the 80% chance of winning with our super Shock II Javelin Thrower:




And lost.

I should've probably waited for PoWs because only three turns later:




Notice the city ruins next to it; that's where the Ljosfalsar had their city I believe.

Few turns later Mahala sent a stack to recapture Dendrom:




I was hoping for the to step on flatland and they did:




After Ice Elementals:




Then I took 94% combat with one of our PoWs:




And I lost again!

I managed to clear the remaining stack later, sucks still.

Then I met Thessa:




I did OB with her and am also trying to road towards her borders.

Power graphs:




Our economy:




At 100% gold we're getting 0 gpt!

Festivals is about 4 turns away if we run 100% science but it'd cost around 55-65 gpt (= total of 220-260 gold). If we capture another Mahala's city we might be able to speed Festivals a lot.

Some other pics:




Somone is killing it with growing. Look at that 20 size capital!




Here we can see that Mahala was indeed war with Thessa earlier, but they have peace treaty currently.

Here's an odd picture. Look at that city ruins tile, apparently the tile had been in a control of quite many civs (even the barbs).




I also managed to settle new city in the north that revealed fish further away in NW. Also new settler is out too, not sure where to go with that, new cities are rather exepensive to our economy at the moment. Markets should help some though.

[DaveV]

Congratulations on the baby!

[Mardoc]

Congratulations indeed!

[Dreylin]

Congrats! How many is that you have now?

[Qgqqqqq]

Congrats! How many is that you have now?

That's our fifth city, now.

Great set Auro! Do you think we can push further into Dovellio land?

[Aurorarcher]

Thanks guys!

Congrats! How many is that you have now?

She's our second now.

Great set Auro! Do you think we can push further into Dovellio land?

I think we can. Using slow we can freeze Mahala's units and find the weakest targets. I'd recommend bringing at least the PoWs + 5-6 Javelin Throwers when moving deeper. Our SE empire is pretty poorly defended right now but most of Mahala's army seem to be around Mortensholm so it should be okay. Also pillaging around could be worthwhile to speed up getting Festivals if we can't capture any more cities right away.

EDIT: Here's the link to save that I forgot to add:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b8n5umvre2d5iu...dSave?dl=0

[Mardoc]

I took a quick glance at the save, and I don't see any magic bullets lying around for the economy. This seems to be a hole we have to climb out of with a lot of small steps:

• Build more elder councils
  
• Build more cottages
  
• Grow our cities onto the new cottages
  
• Give our current cottages time to grow
  
• Markets, once we can
  
• Kill off more of our army and/or grow pop to increase our unit support limit
  
• Get control of the incense and work it
  
• Finish Dereptus
  
• Get our foreign trade going
  

Even most of our maintenance costs are # of cities, not distance - which means the only way to attack them really is with courthouses. Which we don't yet have unlocked.

On the bright side: even though our econ-boosting options are all small (1 gpt here, 2 there), we do have a lot of them available. It's going to be mostly a question of focus, because of course we also need to kill Mahala before she techs to a game-changer herself.

[DaveV]

I checked off a few items on Mardoc's list, plus added one not on the list. But, to start from the beginning:



True, true .

Aurorarcher had set me up with a slave in Thessa's territory. As I moved through it, I met Varn and Falamar. Both agreed to open borders.




One big happy family:




Falamar is the one with the big cities, and looks very strong on the graphs.




I got a peek inside Evermore on the way by. Lanun and Malakim borders are visible on the far left.




Later, Varn stopped by with an offer of sheep for silk. I asked him to sweeten the pot, and:




Unfortunately, we don't have any units that can use iron. But, someday...

Thessa made me nervous with this stack. Mahala was her worst enemy, and Thessa was showing too much on her hands against Mahala, but you never know when the AI is going to do something crazy.




But it turned out it was just a hunting party to capture the scorpion.

Workboat exploration:




A crowded log file on turn 180:




Also, failgold jackpot! And, less encouragingly, war civics for Mahala.

I don't think we can count on Thessa to put much of a hurt on Mahala. Mahala can produce units quicker than we can kill them; we probably need to beg for peace. Early in my set, I checked, and she would give peace for the return of Dendrom. That would cost us all our foreign trade routes unless she'll give us open borders, but I don't see how we can fight through all of this: