Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Ilios]

Which player has 640K soldiers?

[Gaspar]

Which player has 640K soldiers?

Kyan. He's no idiot, which is why I've considered this game unwinnable for a long time.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Here come the quotes, but first something to honour Gaspar’s recent activities and our latest tech: game.

Would definitely like to see you play a turn sometime soon, so let me know when you're able.

Experience would suggest I can probably find time to “play a turn” about four nights out of five (RG’s timing permitting). What I’d really struggle to do is ever provide a timely report, as most of my posting is actually drafted on the train coming in to work. I’d definitely play some things a little differently to you, for example I would have bloomed the cottages south of Hash Pipe as a priority. I do also think there are advantages to having a “team leader” to coordinate things, such as linking starting the Mage Guild and hitting up Brian with the idea of a Water Mana loan.

I'm hoping Brian accepting OB will help the increase by upping foreign trade routes. The reason I think [the civic swap is] a little disappointing is just how better developed The Chronic is than all other cities. Remember that we got off to a slow start on expansion. But as time goes on, that will be less of an issue.

Chronic has also had the advantage of a 50% hammer bonus for most of the game, so has been throwing up more infrastructure. Still, we’ve now only got one Trade Route that isn’t international, and the OB’s with Brian will give us a ringside seat for the fighting. Given that we’re not worried about angering Acolastas, should we offer to sell Brian recon data?

Regardless, I don't think a lot of mages are going to make the cut for us. A sprinkling of adepts and a mage or two. The military strength will come from Priests.

While I agree in general, and Mardoc also makes some very good points, I think there are a couple of things to consider here. If we’re planning to use Ritualists anywhere near our own territory, then we need more Water Adepts to put out fires. If we’re planning to go for the Tower, then we definitely do need Mages with Dispel. Perhaps most importantly, if Kyan is planning to bring massed Spectre summons (as his current mana configuration suggests), then we can completely dominate his stacks with enough Destroy Undead Mages.

I did find the previous analysis (it was actually Irgy in PBEM3). He showed that a unit with “20%” rate of XP gain (Channelling1 or Potency) has an even chance of actually gaining the necessary experience from 2XP to 10XP during 56 turns! That is a long time to wait (on average), as Gaspar quite rightly observed in the EitB “paring” thread. There’s a very good reason why concocting some way to get insta-mages is valuable.

Archery comes in @EOT - we can two turn Math, which is nice. I'm thinking CoL -> Currency -> Math -> Taxation unless anyone has any strenuous objections? At this point, given we pretty much already have access to any units we'd be adding to future dogpiles we should feel pretty secure to go whole hog on the economy. Probably want to get ourselves into a rushbuy Civic sometime in the near future - Military State?

Happy with that tech path. Another 1 turn with good overflow might see us whiz through currency before needing to save gold again. I’m really pleased with how quickly the economic snowball has started to roll. Our breakeven bpt has really jumped since before we got to Trade. Adding a Shrine, more routes, and the Veil Temples will only improve things before we get to Money Changers, Harbours, Courthouses and Lighthouses.

I haven't looked in a while - how's the Bloom campaign coming along? Are we getting close to the point where we can send all the PoL to Nicolae or RG's border? Are any of the New Forests growing up to a point where we'd regret turns out of Leaves?

Gaspar’s been doing a sterling job of planting trees, although they haven’t been overly kind in upgrading. There are only a couple of unforested tiles in the East, but the Priests still have a lot to do in the cleared jungle of the South. We really need some more Ancient Forests at Hash Pipe now we’ve left Agrarianism, but that’s in the hands of the RNG.

do we have Reagents?... I wonder if there's anything we can sell for incense and gems?

We got nothing. We’re trading our spare Ale for Wines, and I think the only duplicates we have are Life Mana, Corn and Pigs. Brian seems even more upset with the map than we were – aside from lacking resources, at least our land is mostly green.

The only real question is this: is it worth considering an Infernal Pact to try to destroy the Clowns' floodplains? And/or build ourselves an Infernal Grimoire with which to grab a tech? I think we could likely manage to get there first if we aimed for it, but I'm not sure what tech would be worth buying with the Grimoire. I suppose we could unlock Sorcery fairly easily.

We touched on this a while ago. Only Nicolae and Kyan are likely to consider competing for the Grimoire, so we should keep an eye on them teching Corruption of the Spirit. If we do dip into AV, then the potential return on the Grimoire is attractive – it would be great to get Arcane Lore or Commune with Nature, but Sorcery or Feral Bond will be much more achievable. The question of a human player running Hyborem was never resolved…

[Mardoc]

then we can completely dominate his stacks with enough Destroy Undead Mages

...except for that minor detail of puppet spectres/skellies being Puppets, not Undead

Otherwise I agree with your assessment. And I think we ought to make sure to pick up Warfare, therefore, so that we have the option of dipping into Apprenticeship/Conquest for a brief period of intense adept/savant spam. Saving 4 XP off that annoying upgrade time would help a lot with the quest for mages.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Oops! I spent a load of time testing that too!!

Adding another 2XP at the start does shave a little over 10 turns off that expected value. I’d have no trouble with getting Warfare in the tech plan. Conquest won’t be a terrible option when/if we do want to go unit crazy, Adepts or not, and it would also be good to get a National Epic up and running now we’ve unlocked more specialist slots.

[Gaspar]

Here come the quotes, but first something to honour Gaspar’s recent activities and our latest tech: game.

Experience would suggest I can probably find time to “play a turn” about four nights out of five (RG’s timing permitting). What I’d really struggle to do is ever provide a timely report, as most of my posting is actually drafted on the train coming in to work. I’d definitely play some things a little differently to you, for example I would have bloomed the cottages south of Hash Pipe as a priority. I do also think there are advantages to having a “team leader” to coordinate things, such as linking starting the Mage Guild and hitting up Brian with the idea of a Water Mana loan.

Well, in general I think that's what makes the conversation work when we're having it - hopefully collectively we think of everything. I probably should have bloomed the cottages south of Hash Pipe as a priority - I just focused on the spots I could get up sooner, silly since most of the Priests were being built in the more fertile spots.

Chronic has also had the advantage of a 50% hammer bonus for most of the game, so has been throwing up more infrastructure. Still, we’ve now only got one Trade Route that isn’t international, and the OB’s with Brian will give us a ringside seat for the fighting. Given that we’re not worried about angering Acolastas, should we offer to sell Brian recon data?

This is a good idea, though Kyan might already be supplying the hawk support for their war.

While I agree in general, and Mardoc also makes some very good points, I think there are a couple of things to consider here. If we’re planning to use Ritualists anywhere near our own territory, then we need more Water Adepts to put out fires. If we’re planning to go for the Tower, then we definitely do need Mages with Dispel. Perhaps most importantly, if Kyan is planning to bring massed Spectre summons (as his current mana configuration suggests), then we can completely dominate his stacks with enough Destroy Undead Mages.

I did find the previous analysis (it was actually Irgy in PBEM3). He showed that a unit with “20%” rate of XP gain (Channelling1 or Potency) has an even chance of actually gaining the necessary experience from 2XP to 10XP during 56 turns! That is a long time to wait (on average), as Gaspar quite rightly observed in the EitB “paring” thread. There’s a very good reason why concocting some way to get insta-mages is valuable.

The slowness of mages is the primary reason I prefer Arendel to Thessa, and also why other than Balseraphs (with their billion toys) or Amurites (with their many tools to get many and faster mages) I think mages are more of a distraction than a something to base your empire off of. I've had several little chats with Nicolae where he mentions things along getting to Sorcery and getting mages where as we got the backbone of our army techwise 20T ago. Even as we augment with higher tier stuff, if we got declared on this turn, we can turn around and defend. What's he going to do with Adepts?

Happy with that tech path. Another 1 turn with good overflow might see us whiz through currency before needing to save gold again. I’m really pleased with how quickly the economic snowball has started to roll. Our breakeven bpt has really jumped since before we got to Trade. Adding a Shrine, more routes, and the Veil Temples will only improve things before we get to Money Changers, Harbours, Courthouses and Lighthouses.

Yeah, if we didn't have the big, bad Balseraphs over there we'd probably start to look intimidating ourselves right about now.

We got nothing. We’re trading our spare Ale for Wines, and I think the only duplicates we have are Life Mana, Corn and Pigs. Brian seems even more upset with the map than we were – aside from lacking resources, at least our land is mostly green.

This is the most annoying part of our relative lack of expansion. There's just no resources. No high priests, no archmages, no temple bonus on incense. No real prospect for getting any, either. By the by, next time I start talking about not settling that Horse site, remind we need them if we pick up Empy for Rathas, who can't ride deer.

We touched on this a while ago. Only Nicolae and Kyan are likely to consider competing for the Grimoire, so we should keep an eye on them teching Corruption of the Spirit. If we do dip into AV, then the potential return on the Grimoire is attractive – it would be great to get Arcane Lore or Commune with Nature, but Sorcery or Feral Bond will be much more achievable. The question of a human player running Hyborem was never resolved…

Yeah, when we take our first jaunt into Veil, its something to consider. Also worth debating if we want to do a Slavery/StW thing to get some stuff built.

Otherwise I agree with your assessment. And I think we ought to make sure to pick up Warfare, therefore, so that we have the option of dipping into Apprenticeship/Conquest for a brief period of intense adept/savant spam. Saving 4 XP off that annoying upgrade time would help a lot with the quest for mages.

Slipping Warfare in soon makes good sense, agreed.

Oops! I spent a load of time testing that too!!

Adding another 2XP at the start does shave a little over 10 turns off that expected value. I’d have no trouble with getting Warfare in the tech plan. Conquest won’t be a terrible option when/if we do want to go unit crazy, Adepts or not, and it would also be good to get a National Epic up and running now we’ve unlocked more specialist slots.

National Epic is another good though, as is Heroic Epic. HE in Cypress Hill I'd think. Where would we put NE - the capital? Bazaar of Mammon is another question - capital makes sense for mature cottages, Paradise City if we build the Leaves shring. Love to hear some thoughts on these since they're coming soonish.

[Mardoc]

On a different note - Mist wants feedback on the (FFH) PBEM14 map; the more and sooner he gets it, the easier it will be to get our capture the flag game moving. I've given him some comments already, but I'm sure that more eyes would help.

Not that I want to give up here...well, ok, maybe I do .

[Gaspar]

Back on topic *cough* we received two relatively meaningless messages in the AM:

I congratulated Acalostas on the Great Library and got this response:

Thanks.

Step one of my Master plan to take over the world completed!

Step 1: Create Great Library
Step 2: Become most advanced civilization
Step 3: Get Massacred by Evil Clowns
Step 4: Profit!!!

...

...wait... Hold on a sec...

At least he has a sense of humor.

More disconcertingly, from Brian:

I sent it in-turn, just I may need it back before the ten turns, to satisfy my obligations. Any deficit off ten will be made up after.

Brian

The only way he can end the trade before 10 turns is by declaring war, which would cost us on the trade routes. I don't quite have the stomach to talk him into/out of anything at the moment, but I'll send something along later. Man I hate diplo sometimes.

[Mardoc]

Back on topic *cough*

Oh, all right...

National Epic is another good though, as is Heroic Epic. HE in Cypress Hill I'd think. Where would we put NE - the capital? Bazaar of Mammon is another question - capital makes sense for mature cottages, Paradise City if we build the Leaves shring. Love to hear some thoughts on these since they're coming soonish.

Agreed, Cypress Hill HE makes a lot of sense. We built it as a hammer city, it should continue to be a hammer city. That does require one more tech, note: Military Strategy.

National Epic...um. I think I'd lean toward Paradise City for this, actually. There's a reason it's already been our specialists' location - it's got a decently good food supply without a lot of tiles worth working. And it's been around long enough to have the infrastructure for the slots.

If the game were to go on a lot longer, I'd say put NE in a city with maximum total surplus, probably the capital, but I don't think we've got enough turns left to try to maximize it, and cap wants to be working ancient forest towns instead of specialists.

Mammon - you're right that it probably depends on which shrine we get. If we don't have the Leaves shrine soon (and maybe even if we do, I'm not sure how often we're running 100% cash), then I think I'd go for the capital. It'd multiply with Dereptus that way, in addition to the most grown up cottages.

[Thoth]

Minor game mechanics note: Fires cannot spread to or be started on tiles with improvements (not sure about roads, but mines, farms, cottages and lumber mills all prevent the forest from catching fire)