Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Gaspar]

This came in from Nic today after I refused his a life mana trade. Can't trade units in FFH, correct? Not that I'd necessarily do it anyway - if we go tower eventually, we need that mana node.

Hey Gaspar,

No problem, I expected that you'd be capping out there. I've got rice online already, so there's no point going there.

Another thing, I just landed a great sage. I could settle him in my capital or build a second academy, but he could potentially prove useful for building the Ashen Veil shrine. I think he would be a good trade for the city of rainy day women, as another source of death mana would get me strength 8 spectres. That could be just the edge.

Let me know if you're interested.

Cheers,
Nic

[Mardoc]

Can't trade units, no. There's a chance he can use the 'found shrine' button in our city, like you can found a temple in his with a Priest.

But I also agree, don't trade away RDW, that's a good city in 20 turns, and losing it would move Tower from the possible to the impossible category. Heck, give it maybe 10 turns and I expect RDW to be worth more beakers than the shrine, and a mana node is worth more than the entropy source. Even ignoring the rice for Dereptus, it's a bum deal

Anything lesser he might want? We could offer to spread AV temples in his lands, perhaps, once we make it to Corruption of Spirit.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I’ve gone back and edited in something more appropriate for post 1000.

As good as the AV shrine would be, I don’t think speeding it up by a relatively small number of turns will be worth what we get from a whole city in the intervening period, let alone for the rest of the game. If we get a metamagic mage sorted, then we can obviously consider loaning him Death mana at the right time for maximum strength spectres, as that will be in our interests.

If Nic’s unlikely to get another one soon, what do you think about suggesting that he considers using the Great Sage for a Golden Age 10 turns before he suspects the Clowns will attack? Could be helpful in turning out enough troops and picking up any extra military techs he might need. Mardoc’s temple suggestion is good, but I’m unsure how we decide on the right number – maybe as Temple beakers as he would otherwise be getting from settling? I'd prefer not to have to give up the hammers, though.

[Mardoc]

I’ve gone back and edited in something more appropriate for post 1000.

Very nice.

As good as the AV shrine would be, I don’t think speeding it up by a relatively small number of turns will be worth what we get from a whole city in the intervening period, let alone for the rest of the game.

Yeah, Nic's offer seems to be along the lines of 'here, I'll give you *two* nice shiny new quarters for that dirty $20 bill you have. You get two for one!'

Even ignoring the benefit of keeping him land-hungry while NAP'd with us and not Kyan .

Trading away temples, on the other hand - well, first that would benefit us too by charging up the shrine. But second, it's a much more equitable deal, if we get the ratio right. And I would like to have the shrine now, just not at that cost. It's more than just speeding up the shrine, it's more like getting a second shrine, the Leaves one. But it's still not worth a city, especially that one.

[Gaspar]

In a hurry, but 2 quick comments.

1. Briliiant "Short History of the Ljosalfar" MBTM! Need to re-up the fun quotient around here anyway.

2. I would definitely not trade a city for a great person in an empire that is land-starved. There are trades I might make for that shrine, but ultimately we're still struggling for hammers more than we're struggling for beakers right now. Almost every city still has several buildings I would build in it if there were room in the production queue, for example.

[Gaspar]

So 2 pieces of interesting information this turn. First, Kyan allowed his GA to end rather than popping revelry/birthing more GPs and with it switched Civics. I also believe he's the founder of Order in addition to being the obvious builder of the noob Wonder, Catacomb Libralus. Full Parkin mode, I see.



In other news, we've met the Elohim and Grigori officially. Rudely, neither sent us a message. I'll draft up some hellos and send them off. But uh, yeah. The west, erm, sucks.

Elohim trade screen:

Grigori trade screen: (note the conspicious lack of Water mana - they must be the culprit)

Guys - build some cities.

Otherwise, just a typical builder turn. Where It's At is certainly turning into a nice little burg:



Hawk flights revealed nothing especially interesting, I'll paste again next turn.

Figured its worth posting the full set of demos, now that we have everyone's graphs:

[Gaspar]

Meaningless nothing message sent to the Grigori:

Hey Acalostas,

Well its nice after 114 turns of sending you the save that we can finally officially chat. I guess my hawk spied your scout last turn, so I still don't have a great idea of your geography, other than that I'm aware you're next to Brian in the far west. I had gone through fun RP greeting the first few times I did this, but at this point I can hardly muster the energy - some combination of a long day and the crushing inevitability of a Balseraph victory. Is there anything interesting going on in your part of the world? Or any questions I might be able to answer for you? I'm certainly happy for any type of cooperation we might be able to manage - we're far too far away from one another to ever have any real conflict, so no good reason we shouldn't be friends. Our spiritual peoples will even look past the fact that your people are a bunch of godless heathens.

Not a lot to say over here. We're the meat in a Horselord/Zombielord sandwich which I can't imagine would taste very good and we've just been building cottages and temples and minding our own business. If there's anything you might be curious about just holler.

Regards,
Gaspar

Likewise, to the Elohim:

Greetings Brian,

The first few times I had some elaborate roleplay greeting to accompany meeting but its T114, the Clowns have already won, and I'm kinda tired, so I apologize, but you just get a regular old hey. Hey.

How are things in Elohim lands? I haven't heard a lot about you before my hawk spied your horseman other than I've been told your land is pretty terrible. Anything else noteworthy from the first 114 turns of the game? Over in Elvishlands we've mostly just been doing our Elf thing. Got squeezed a bit by both of our neighbors but so it goes. Nonetheless, I fully expect to come in second by virtue of being the hardest of the other players for Kyan to kill due to being furthest away from him.

Hopefully we'll get some ability for future cooperation as we're so far away from one another that I can't possibly see why we'd ever have conflict. Plus I like old Einion Logos, he was my 3rd choice for this game. If there's anything you're curious about, just fire away.

Regards,
Gaspar

[NobleHelium]

I'm sure shrines are left as the default BTS shrines, so they cannot be founded by other people's GP. Building temples and the like works because that's a spell.

I don't see how you can say Catacomb Libralus is a noob wonder for Keelyn of the Balseraphs...

[Mardoc]

Looking good. Keep on keepin' on.

Edit: Ok, I can see one circumstance where Catacomb Libralus might make sense. Suppose...you had the largest empire in the game, by a fair margin, well over the 5 cities you'd need to break even...you had summoner and puppets and therefore planned to build essentially your whole army out of adepts/mages instead of just building them as support...had NAP's until the end of time and hence no rush to get your adepts started...

I'm still not convinced it's a smart move, and certainly usually it won't be - but Kyan's might be the one situation where it's ok.

[Sciz]

I'm sure shrines are left as the default BTS shrines, so they cannot be founded by other people's GP. Building temples and the like works because that's a spell.

I don't see how you can say Catacomb Libralus is a noob wonder for Keelyn of the Balseraphs...

Maybe this is different, but in a team game I built my team member's shrine with a great person I owned. Could be different in regular games of course, i'm not sure.