I love going God-King in the early game. I'm pretty sure I'm the first to it as well since the Amurites start with ancient chants . I start in on an elder council and rejigger the capital for maximum hammers with no rounding errors. This comes out to 10 base hammers +5 from the 50% bonus for a total of 15 hammers. I'm also generating 15 beakers, which are going towards crafting.
Note that this means that when I'm building a unit, I can get 16 hammers / turn --> 1 Warrior / Turn.
The lizardmen have come even closer to the capital now, so I lose another worker turn bunkering down. The two warriors outside the capital are forced to fortify in the jungle. The C2 warrior in the jungle and the warriors in the capital have the same modifier, so hopefully the lizardmen will try for the cap.
My scout actually wasn't killed, but the screenshot didn't take apparently that's annoying. Just getting a good look at the southern part of the lake which splits Iskender and Squareleg.
One of the lizardman made an attempt on the capital, failing. The other moved into the jungle adjacent to the fortified warriors. My scout continued on, moving past a goblin fort. Now I might lose my scout to a poison goblin instead (the fort has just spawned one it looks like.) If not, onwards to Sheaim lands!
My worker, having nothing better to do, farms the tile adjacent to the capital while moving towards the plantation site. Whoo! I also re-micro'd the capital to be more commerce focused, driving the time to crafting down to 7. The lizardman which attempted the capital walked across the plantation, hence why the scouting pictures show TTC as 11.
I need to talk to Tredje & Mardoc about a settling deal and/or NAP, and followup with Iskender about the settling deal and NAP.
Capital:
Scout1:
Scout2:
P.S.
This is my 1000th post on Realms Beyond. Good times.
Sorry for keeping you waiting in suspense regarding that NAP. When I wrote that it would benefit you more I had my world spell in mind. An NAP between us shields you from its effects and forces me to to use it either against the Clan (foolhardy) or the Dwarves (got Construction already). I appreciate your generous land division and your not opening the Pyre, but there's one more thing I'd like to ask for:
I'd like you to throw fireballs at me.
I plan to eventually have some Shades but getting units to 26xp takes a lot of time. If I'm correct it takes arcane and divine units about 70 turns on average to naturally reach 26xp. It's way too long, so I'm looking for any means to speed it up. Succesfully defending vs a fireball gives unit one experience point and that's where you would come in. You would dedicate a few of your future Firebows (could be even city garrison) and throw fireballs at my troops every turn, which they would gracefully dodge.
That's my plan. If you want to get Sorcery before Bowyers we could do the same with summons instead of fireballs, ie. with skeleton training dummies. In this variant I could also summon dummies to be devastated by your units, so both sides would benefit the same - I'd get my Shades and you'd get super-experienced units. Regardless of which variant you'd choose I'd make up for your effort ie. by delivering resources or gc.
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Certainly unorthodox. If we want to be super-fast about getting this set up, we'd do it with skeletons, since they're a Lv. 1 summon. I'm certainly open to it, and he does have the pyre of the Seraphic near his borders, which I'd certainly like for it's fire mana...
Problems: Can't trade & throw fireballs at the same time...
As to threatening with his worldspell I start with metamagic, and I'm going Empyrean. I only need KotE and then I have floating eyes. I *think* those see everything. Am I wrong?
SquareLeg Wrote:[COLOR="Sienna"]Hey Sareln,
Sounds nasty having lizardmen crawling around... I have a warrior who fortunately keeps finding hills to run over to escape lizards!
I think most people, if not all are pressed up against the sea and so they are likely to spread inland. That happens to be in the direction of the clan by default for most seeing as they are in the centre in the south. While I agree with what Bob was saying - I don't see that it will make any difference until people start settling their 3rd and 4th cities. I always believe that your 2nd city should always go in the best location possible for you - not to try and knee-cap someone else.
Did your scout manage to survive near my borders? I have lost visibility on Walgna the Scorpion - must on her way to visit someone else!
I don't suppose you have talked to Iskender about his worldspell and his intentions? An invisible attack would be pretty nasty. Also - If you didn't know already - the Clan have a wolf rider on the prowl somewhere...
The lizardman tries the warrior in the jungle, loses taking that warrior to 8 XP. Elder council will finish on this turn and then we turn to maxing out production for our warriors and settlers. Whilst running a settler. I'm also starting in on my 2nd plantation, which when finished will help enormously in the commerce dept.
In scouting news, the clan throws down their first expansion north of their capital, at the dragon bones, pretty much as expected. The site captures 3 grassland sugar tiles, so the clan will definitely have some for trade later. I should be able to grab two sources for myself in the territory between us.
My scout also spots a C1 bear, which has clearly been snacking on scouts.
Answer Squareleg first since it's just talking at this point, as opposed to Iskender where I think we are definitely in bid & counter-bid mode now.
Sareln Wrote:[COLOR="Magenta"]Squareleg,
I did find a better spot for my 2nd city, though it is right next to a goblin fort. That means that at the end of the day, Bob will be the only one to have settled his first city towards the Clan. I guess I'm okay with that.
The scout got munched on by a spider, but the scout who was scoping the south is now moving past the northern reaches of Clan territory. Is there an easy way to Serdoa or one of his scouts? For reference, my scout is rather close to the Dragon Bones (Now in Clan Territory).
The Clan settled north of their capital on one of the two chokepoints separating Iskender/Me from You/Bob/Serdoa. The site isn't too shabby, Dragon Bones + 3 grassland sugars (2 of them jungled iirc, I don't have my maps in front of me). The wolfrider was pointed out by Bob in chat a couple of days ago off-hand, apparently it's something like C3 or C4 by now, which is pretty terrifying all things considered.
Iskender and I have talked a bit, though he just now mentioned his worldspell. To be honest, I'm not terribly worried. I've got metamagic palace mana so all I need are adepts to spot his invisible units - and well, I'm playing Amurites. Adepts are definitely in the cards .
Dissecting the missive and my thoughts, then composing a response.
Iskender Wrote:[Color="Gray"]Hey Sareln,
Sorry for keeping you waiting in suspense regarding that NAP. When I wrote that it would benefit you more I had my world spell in mind. An NAP between us shields you from its effects and forces me to to use it either against the Clan (foolhardy) or the Dwarves (got Construction already).
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I am not afraid of his worldspell. I have metamagic palace-mana and 100% boost to building my mage guilds. I'll be able to build metamagic adepts before he can build copper warriors with which to attempt anything IMO
More seriously, there's no reason to use it so early. Bob took foooooorever to get his own source of eyes in PBEM1, who's to say that someone else won't make a similar mistake later on?
Iskender Wrote:[COLOR="Gray"]
I appreciate your generous land division and your not opening the Pyre, but there's one more thing I'd like to ask for:
I'd like you to throw fireballs at me.
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Keep talking like that and I'll do it for free :neenernee
Iskender Wrote:[COLOR="Gray"]
I plan to eventually have some Shades but getting units to 26xp takes a lot of time. If I'm correct it takes arcane and divine units about 70 turns on average to naturally reach 26xp. It's way too long, so I'm looking for any means to speed it up. Succesfully defending vs a fireball gives unit one experience point and that's where you would come in. You would dedicate a few of your future Firebows (could be even city garrison) and throw fireballs at my troops every turn, which they would gracefully dodge.
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Like I said before, it's unorthodox and kinda cheesy IMO. Though my buy-in cost is very, very low for it.
Iskender Wrote:[COLOR="Gray"]
That's my plan. If you want to get Sorcery before Bowyers we could do the same with summons instead of fireballs, ie. with skeleton training dummies. In this variant I could also summon dummies to be devastated by your units, so both sides would benefit the same - I'd get my Shades and you'd get super-experienced units. Regardless of which variant you'd choose I'd make up for your effort ie. by delivering resources or gc.
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We have to be at war for me to throw fireballs at you, and when we're at war, you can't be shipping me resources! I don't know how he plans to make this work.
With all that said, he's got one thing that I really do want - the Fire Mana from the Pyre of the Seraphic, and I want to be able to worry only about the Clan in the early game. So I want to deal, but probably not of the permanent sort unless I'm really pleased with how the original deal is working out. Here's why.
Light blue seas denote spots I have gained vision on, dark blue shading denotes areas I have only heard about 2nd hand.
Iskender and the Clan are sitting on some rather awesome chokepoints to our lands, which would end up encompassing the Pyre of the Seraphic, Tomb of Succellus, and Mirror of Heaven if I could successfully fight my way to those points on the map. I would be relatively secure having seized those chokes. This is a case of not wanting to put myself in untenable territorial positions, penned in behind Clan and Sidar, with the Sidar being the squishier of the two after I get my eyes. That said, The Clan would be easier to out-tech if they don't come for me in the early game.
My CIV is stronger the longer the game goes on without me being crippled. Therefore, I want a deal with Iskender. He is also being more responsive than Tredje and Mardoc right now, which is ominous in and of itself.
That's an interesting deal you propose there. For starters though, have you considered the idea that your worldspell might have use beyond the early game? I know that in PBEM1 Bob did not get his own source of detection for a very long time, and I could see someone in this game making a similar error. Invisible units pillaging lands is nothing to be scoffed at, but I'll admit I'm not too worried. [STRIKE] With GodKing in force now, I'm only one tech off adepts and can build the mage-guild with a +150% hammer modifier. Combined with metamagic palace mana, [/STRIKE] I'm not that long off from having detection available and ready for use in the field.
I'm curious how we would work out a compensation plan for me to throw fireballs at you for training when we're at war, since we won't be able to do trades without forcing in a 10-turn minimum peace treaty each time we pause. Have you thought up a way around that yet? I am most certainly interested in the fire mana that you'll be gaining from the Pyre of the Seraphic, and water mana if you can come up with it somehow.
It's an interesting idea, and I'd certainly be interested if we can flesh out a few of these details.
The Clan settled North, just south of the Dragon Bones, btw. It's a nice site which grabs something like 3 sugars as well as the Ivory from the bones. It also cuts off the particular chokepoint. I'm hoping to find another landbridge further south, but we'll see how the map turns out I guess.
NAP Terms: NAP until T100 with notice to begin renewal discussions on or around T85.
Settling Agreement:
I want the rights to the following city sites, which will establish the Northern Border of the Amurite kingdom with regard to the Sidar.
Site 1 (Red): Directly to the left of the mountain south of the rice. I think you have vision on it from your visit to the Mirror of Heaven. The BFC of this city does not interfere with your flood plain designs, I'm pretty sure.
Site 2 (Blue): Two tiles to the left of the Mirror itself. The BFC's of these two cities will not interfere with your planned southern city's flood plains.
Site 3 (Green): I might want to add a city on the plains hill where there is currently a lizardman lair eventually, later in the game.
See the attached picture for these three sites explicitly laid out. I reserve the right to change the left/right positioning of these cities, but not to move them any further north without prior agreement from the Sidar. The orange dot is where the Clan planted their first city.
In return, you will not plant cities which do not overlap the BFC's of these sites, and kindly to refrain from settling great artists or culture bombing along the border .
That's an interesting deal you propose there. For starters though, have you considered the idea that your worldspell might have use beyond the early game? I know that in PBEM1 Bob did not get his own source of detection for a very long time, and I could see someone in this game making a similar error. Invisible units pillaging lands is nothing to be scoffed at, but I'll admit I'm not too worried. I'm not that long off from having detection available and ready for use in the field.
I'm curious how we would work out a compensation plan for me to throw fireballs at you for training when we're at war, since we won't be able to do trades without forcing in a 10-turn minimum peace treaty each time we pause. Have you thought up a way around that yet? I am most certainly interested in the fire mana that you'll be gaining from the Pyre of the Seraphic, and water mana if you can come up with it somehow.
It's an interesting idea, and I'd certainly be interested if we can flesh out a few of those details.
The Clan settled North, just south of the Dragon Bones, btw. It's a nice site which grabs something like 3 sugars as well as the Ivory from the bones. It also cuts off the particular chokepoint. I'm hoping to find another landbridge further south, but we'll see how the map turns out I guess.
Here are the terms of the NAP and Settling agreement I drafted up. Are these alright?
NAP Terms: NAP until T100 with notice to begin renewal discussions on or around T85.
Settling Agreement:
I want the rights to the following city sites, which will establish the Northern Border of the Amurite kingdom with regard to the Sidar.
Site 1 (Red): Directly to the left of the mountain south of the rice. I think you have vision on it from your visit to the Mirror of Heaven. The BFC of this city does not interfere with your flood plain designs, I'm pretty sure.
Site 2 (Blue): Two tiles to the left of the Mirror itself. The BFC's of these two cities will not interfere with your planned southern city's flood plains.
Site 3 (Green): I might want to add a city on the plains hill where there is currently a lizardman lair eventually, later in the game.
See the attached picture for these three sites explicitly laid out. I reserve the right to change the left/right positioning of these cities, but not to move them any further north without prior agreement from the Sidar. The orange dot is where the Clan planted their first city.
In return, you will not plant cities which do not overlap the BFC's of these sites, and kindly to refrain from settling great artists or culture bombing along the border .
That's a very nice spot for the Clan. I hope that at least all the sugars are jungled...
I've added my suggested cities' BFCs to your map:
There is one tile of overlap between each pair, but I think it doesn't make any difference if we agree not to push culture in border cities. If you accept the above division I'm ready to sign the NAP.
If we sign the NAP i have a few more offers for you to consider:
Once you settle by that river in your east we could trade Cotton for Silk. Also, we could try to make a joint effort to enhance our defenses - we could share Bronze Weapons, Body Mana and Enchantment Mana to make Hasted-EB-BW Warriors that noone messes with. I'll be getting Mining to grab the Gold, so I could get Bronze Working as well, provided there's Copper somewhere in my lands. If you like the idea we could work out the details.
Going back the training deal: you're right, war would exclude any permanent resource trade. Instead, I could offer the following:
- a lump sum of gc
- short-term resource (ie. mana) offer - it could be terminated after a few turns by declaring war. I think it can done in a cyclic fashion - if we sign a cease fire, without any concessions from either side, we could make a trade and then redeclare without having to wait 10 turns.
- training your own units on my dummies
I'm okay with lending fire mana or any other kind if I can get it, or with paying in gc, but we need to agree how to exchange these for experience points. It's an uncharted territory for both of us so lets just pull some numbers out of a hat and see where it gets us:
1gc = 1xp - you'd be getting 1gc for summoning a fireball and it'd cost me 26gc to get a Shade from scratch. Inflation adjusted, so it'll be more like 1.5gc if we finally manage to pull it off
mana node = 100-300xp depending on the mana. With the above xp/gc rate it makes mana worth 150-450gc with inflation.
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. I start in on an elder council and rejigger the capital for maximum hammers with no rounding errors. This comes out to 10 base hammers +5 from the 50% bonus for a total of 15 hammers. I'm also generating 15 beakers, which are going towards crafting.
that's annoying. Just getting a good look at the southern part of the lake which splits Iskender and Squareleg.![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0499.JPG]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/RBCIV%20FfH%20PBEM5/Civ4ScreenShot0499.JPG)
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0498.JPG]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/RBCIV%20FfH%20PBEM5/Civ4ScreenShot0498.JPG)
I also re-micro'd the capital to be more commerce focused, driving the time to crafting down to 7. The lizardman which attempted the capital walked across the plantation, hence why the scouting pictures show TTC as 11.![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0502.JPG]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/RBCIV%20FfH%20PBEM5/Civ4ScreenShot0502.JPG)
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0500.JPG]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/RBCIV%20FfH%20PBEM5/Civ4ScreenShot0500.JPG)
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0501.JPG]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/RBCIV%20FfH%20PBEM5/Civ4ScreenShot0501.JPG)
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0505.JPG]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/RBCIV%20FfH%20PBEM5/Civ4ScreenShot0505.JPG)
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0504.JPG]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/RBCIV%20FfH%20PBEM5/Civ4ScreenShot0504.JPG)
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![[Image: T40_Freehand.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/RBCIV%20FfH%20PBEM5/T40_Freehand.jpg)
![[Image: T40_Settling_Agreement_with_Iskender.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4995277/RBCIV%20FfH%20PBEM5/T35%20Stitch/T40_Settling_Agreement_with_Iskender.jpg)
![[Image: 2gycdfq.jpg]](http://i55.tinypic.com/2gycdfq.jpg)