Green as they come: Hiding Kneel plays the Ljosalfar [SPOILERS]

[HidingKneel]

I'm pretty sure great people from events and lairs don't show up in the log. Not sure what happens with the "first to" great people. Anyways, not too important; it's not like we're likely to land any of those anyhow .

Turn 52 is in. Not much to report. The gold is mined but not yet connected.
All four cities grew at EOT, bringing Eaca and Evermore into unhappiness:



We also got an archer built, and almost finished a pagan temple in Evermore. In retrospect, that's the wrong build; as long as I'm just throwing hammers into something, it might as well be the Deruptus.

Here are some demographics for you:



Not too bad, actually. The good news is that working that gold, we're second in GNP (of course, that's inflated by the creative trait. But Weezel is similarly inflated). The bad news is that first place is almost twice as high. Maybe it is time to start seeing Kyan as a bigger worry than Ellimist.

Another point of interest: upkeep costs are starting to be painful. We've got 7 farms now, and should have 3 more soon. What do you think about code of laws after WotF, Commodore?

[Commodore]

Not too bad, actually. The good news is that working that gold, we're second in GNP (of course, that's inflated by the creative trait. But Weezel is similarly inflated). The bad news is that first place is almost twice as high. Maybe it is time to start seeing Kyan as a bigger worry than Ellimist.

Another point of interest: upkeep costs are starting to be painful. We've got 7 farms now, and should have 3 more soon. What do you think about code of laws after WotF, Commodore?

Good stats, actually, particularly given the extremely lazy elf workers. I would see Kyan as a bigger long-term worry than Elimist, zero doubt of that. As for the CoL thing...I guess it depends. There is an opportunity cost for any tech...after WotF you'd probably be a decent bet for snagging AV, and it would be a great tech for more offensive priest action. But CoL would pay for itself there. Any consideration of City States instead? On a toroid like this distance costs will be horrific. I like Aristofarms, but that food might be better used to make more workers/settlers.

[HidingKneel]

There is an opportunity cost for any tech...after WotF you'd probably be a decent bet for snagging AV, and it would be a great tech for more offensive priest action. But CoL would pay for itself there. Any consideration of City States instead? On a toroid like this distance costs will be horrific. I like Aristofarms, but that food might be better used to make more workers/settlers.

Yeah, now that I think about it more, I think city states is the way to go. I should really think of aristocracy as "+20 gold for -10 food" instead of just "+20 gold". If I value that at roughly +10 gold, it'll take a long time to pay for itself. Cartography's a cheaper tech that'll be worth more in the long run, given how much space there is to expand on this map.

So, played another turn. Not much to report. Connected gold, built another cottage. Finished an elder council in Bruti and a pagan temple in Evermore, with enough overflow to get a settler out in 6 turns. Screenshot from EOT:



Next up: farming the wheat by Yonna to let it grow.

Mechanics question for the lurkers: can I still build a camp on the elephant, even though it's on a desert tile right now? (If not, I'll send that worker team south next turn.)

[HidingKneel]

Turn 54 is in. The log shows that a great prophet was born in a far away land. Not much to say about Ljosalfaria. We're saving gold for a turn before finishing hunting. Meanwhile, Gilden is out exploring the world:



He's a little bit ahead of his escort, so I promoted him to C1 just in case there's a promoted spider or something like that wandering around.

Meanwhile, we've got barbarians menacing Evermore from the south:



Nothing to worry about, with two warriors in the city and another one on its way.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, another two turns played. Not much going on in elven lands.
Gilden and his buddy are out exploring, taking the scenic route to that treasure chest.



In other news, Ellimist converted to RoK. If we're not careful, Weezel might win a religious victory . Speaking of Weezel, he's really been shooting up the scoreboard lately, and is now ahead of Kyan.

We've got eight workers now, and hunting came in at EOT. Next up is WotF.
Six turns at 100% science, but we'll need to save gold for a turn to make it there.

Speaking of gold, I've noticed that Ellimist has gold for trade. So I might be able to buy cities from him now. My question is, what do you think a fair price would be? I'm not sure how to price settlers, when they're 145 hammers for me and ~40 hammers for him. Also, I'm not sure what a good ratio of hammers to gold is. My instinct is that I don't want to buy at the moment; the priority should be reaching key techs, like WotF and later priesthood.

Screenshot from EOT:

[HidingKneel]

Another turn played. Gilden and company continue their epic journey:



That's some pretty nice land for us. Far away for the moment, but I'm thinking we should start expanding to the east.

Since hunting is in, I started a hunting lodge in Bruti. I'm probably only going to build one of those, and I don't want to waste Evermore's production capabilities on hawks. Hunters... well, I'm not so keen on building hunters. Because of problems like this (screenshot from EOT):



All these forests make excellent defensive terrain for pests of various sort. But in five or six turns, I'll be able to start building fawns. More expensive,
but they get a free woodsman promotion, and later upgrade to (awesome) satyrs.

Ellimist said that the map was mirrored. I wonder how mirrored? Surely not everyone has as many forests as we do? If they do... well, that's a nice break for us.

[HidingKneel]

Played another turn. Gilden's explorations reveal a little more map:



Also, Gilden had a little tussle with a goblin this turn, but came out not too worse for the wear.

In other news, I've spotted my first barbarian city:



I don't yet know exactly how it's connected to the landmass, but it doesn't look like it's in a very good spot for conquering, at least at the moment. That's no problem, though: it can still make itself worthwhile by spitting out warriors for my fawns to kill.

Connected ivory this turn, boosting the happy cap. Unfortunately, there's a lizardman menacing that worker team, so I had to turn out Eaca's garrison to defend it, bringing us a little unhappiness in Eaca.

[HidingKneel]

Two more turns played. There's been some activity in the event log:



Bone Palace wasn't Ellimist, or I'd see he's in a golden age. So one of the other three. Maybe Kyan, since he doesn't have a religion yet and has the economy to be gunning for one of the late religions. I'm worried he's going for deception to build the Nox Noctis...

Speaking of paranoia, what do you think the chances are that this guy belong to a player?



I'll have to keep my workers out of poaching distance, or give them some protectors.

Finished a settler in Evermore. I've decided not to settle my 5th city to the south. I want to start cashing in on that nice land to the east. So I'm thinking here:



Also picks up furs. No fresh water, but surrounded by forests so health should be fine. And shares a floodplains farm with Bruti, so it can start growing immediately (Bruti's just about done growing).

Building the Deruptus now in Evermore while it grows to the happy cap. Sure wish I had sunk three turns into that earlier, rather than that pagan temple . I'll start another settler in Eaca next turn.

We've got the lowest GNP in the world right now. But! We're due for a sage in two more turns, and Way of the Forest will come in the turn after that.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 61 is in.

Diplomacy from Ellimist:

HidingKneel and Commodore,

I have not sent any messages like this to anyone else, and don't expect to. I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm being paranoid, but I'm basically the "big bad" of this game, or at least some of the others see it that way.

I confronted Kyan a few turns back about something, and I'm reasonably sure he's planning something soon with myself as the target and that one or both of the others is also involved. I'm not sure whether to trust Weezel, but his GNP is pretty scary right now and it seems like he's at least communicating frequently with Kyan. I'm not that worried about Tholal because I don't think his strategy of filling his vaults is likely to pay off on a map this large.

From the foreign advisor screen, I can see that you haven't met anybody else yet. At the very least, this tells me you don't have that very much map knowledge yet, and that you aren't communicating with anybody else. Are you interested in cooperating more extensively with each other? At the very least, you've seemed open to the idea in the past. At this point, I think you've improved your defensive prospects sufficiently(#2 in power rating) that you can answer me honestly without the implied threat of an archer choke hanging over you. Furthermore, your spoiler thread is one of the most consistently updated, which (I think) indicates a high level of engagement and makes you a more valuable ally.

On my part, I believe I've been fair to you so far. My initial aggressive posture was primarily to determine what sort of player I was dealing with and to "convince" you to invest in additional defenses. Afterwards, I moved my units peacefully through your territory as promised, without extorting any form of tribute or bribe. I've had access to the Way of the Forests technology for a long time, and have not founded the religion. Anyway, we're basically at the end of what I consider to be the early game, and more advanced forms of cooperation are now available to us.

Right now, I believe I have access to several things that could help you. The first, and most obvious, is settler production. For the right price, I'm willing to produce as many settlers as you could want. The second, and almost as obvious, is my map. I've explored more of the map than any other civ, and I have both cartography and currency. (I am only willing to share it with you on the condition that you agree not to trade it to others. I am also willing to exchange maps now in exchange for payment at a specified later date.) Make me an offer if you're interested, or have other ideas I haven't considered.

Ellimist

My thoughts:

1) Ellimist is worried about a dogpile and wants to make sure I don't join it. He doesn't really need to be worried about that, I'm in no shape to attack anyone, even if I am second in soldier count.

2) The offer of map knowledge would have been a lot more appealing twenty turns ago. We're about to get hawks, at which point we'll have a much better sense of the land around us. Which is all we need, at least for the time being.

3) We sure could use some settlers. Way of the Forest is about to come in. After that, I'm thinking cartography -> philosophy -> priesthood. When we're in city states, we'll want to add some more cities.

But what's a good price? They cost him roughly 40 hammers to produce (assuming some of the production comes from food, so isn't multiplied), and they cost me 145 hammers. Split the difference and we're talking 90 hammers, which is how much gold? Don't really have a sense of that, except that I'm not sure I want to shut down research right now. Maybe I'll make him a lowball offer (60gp?) and see what he comes back with.

4) There's another point where I can imagine us cooperating, and that's on mana trades. His mana is much more valuable than mine, though. But I've got lots of nodes sitting around, and eventually I'll start improving them. If Ellimist is going to be an ally, it would make sense to coordinate so that we don't both go elementalism for water mana, say. (The peaceful builder in me really wants some water mana. Especially if I'm going to be letting ritualists loose in these forests.)

5) I don't know if Ellimist's paranoia is justified. But the best I can hope for is a well-balanced military struggle between Ellimist and Kyan/Weezel that's costly for both sides. Ellimist doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger, based on his soldier count. But he is defending twice as many cities as I am.

I send off this in reply:

Chief Urag,

Your message was received by the summer court, and will be considered by the Queen. Your offer to help expand the Ljosalfar empire is particularly intriguing, and will be given due consideration. Our concern at the present time is that we do not have resources to spare: until the priesthood of Cernunnos is revived, our people will never truly flourish. However, our sages are near a breakthrough, at which point our hands will be more free. You may expect a more complete answer, and perhaps some other proposals, in the near future.

HK, humble messenger of the Queen

Want to get some lurker input before proposing anything more definite.

In other news: Gilden's about to score some swag:



Probably nothing, but there's a minuscule chance of something awesome happening (like free animal handling).

I'm also about to settle a new city. I once again changed my mind about where it should go. I'm now thinking here:



Free trade route, prebuilt farm, and several resources to work (including cotton, which our empire needs).

Screenshot from EOT:



And closing thoughts: I'm losing this game. Last in GNP, second to last in score... I need some kind of plan to become relevant again. The vague idea of "hope the frontrunners are going to weaken each other" doesn't seem too promising. Maybe I could make a bid for some kind of superweapon in the tech tree. The most appealing candidates:

a) Summon the Mercurians. After priesthood, that's just two techs away. And Eaca might have the production capacity to build the gate in a reasonable amount of time.

b) Nox Noctis. It's at the end of a long chain of techs which are generally useful (writing -> animal husbandry -> HBR -> trade -> way of the wicked -> deception).

Neither of these looks terribly realistic, though. They both need lots of beakers, and lots of beakers is what I don't have .

[Commodore]

Meh, stupid work computer ate my long post. Upshot:

-I like the cotton/corn plant.
-Buying cities from Mr. Exp Warrens is probably the only way out of this development hole.
-PoL and Ritualists, backed with the ugly threat of March, is superweapon enough for a long time. Just growing and Altar-ing might be enough given the huge size of this map.
-Any thought to a Spiritual mage-heavy strategy? Potent/Mobility savants are pretty nice candidates.