[SPOILERS] Commodore, Mist and the Weed. A Farce in three acts.

[Commodore]

Commodore + Byzantium = slightly delayed hordes... but I'll set my alarm clock for the discovery of guilds! :duel:

Delayed, but hopefully not too much. I owe everyone another general strat post, but that's no yet happening, alas. Meanwhile, the Victorian Byzantine empire is ticking along at a fine pace.



On the borders, first of all to the east we have Brian poking around with his scout, it's no big deal and if he decides to get really annoying it can be boxed and trapped, otherwise flit about little scoutling. I certainly don't want to touch off a silly negative-sum grudge match.



Meanwhile, our warrior is nosing about Serdoa's soon-to-expand borders. This is a little bit scary, actually, Serdoa is playing an absolute blinder of a game here.



Here's the configuration I was looking at this turn in the capital. We're about to send all hands into hammer mode, but first the bulb has to come in. The GM gets born at the earliest in four turns, but really he's not needed for five (sixth turn bulb+Oracle finishes at EoT).



So, why not let's save a few trees and delay the merchant by one turn by working the floodplain for two turns...which gets citizen #5 in a turn faster, which nets us just enough hammers to get us the Oracle without having to chop the forest preserve as well.



Micro humming along well, now we just have to ensure the macro is sound too.

[Commodore]

So, trying to report less micro, more macro, but not a lot happening at the moment. Serdoa chased off our warrior, the warrior itself isn't that scary, but in the age of hooked-up-copper, I'd rather have eyes on him than kill his warrior and get axed in turn.



At home things just hum along. Six workers now for five cities, so finally back to a sane ratio. Although four of these workers are about to be chopping the Oracle, so I'm still building another worker before another settler.



Three more turns until forges, open Machinery, and possibly the Colossus. With the building of Stonehenge it looks like Serdoa did settle his GM, which isn't at all a bad play for Phi. Costs are getting high. The Oracle is four turns out.



Brian is pestering but not badly. If he moves onto the copper mine I'll pop the scout like the festering green pimple on the grey face of our empire that it is.



Speaking of getting rid of green, we're going to be in the middle of chopping five forests. Here's to those hammers not being missed once we get Maths, assuming we ever do get Mathematics this game.



Someone ask a metagame question please.

[Ceiliazul]

Serdoa did settle his GM, which isn't at all a bad play for Phi.
...
Someone ask a metagame question please.

I'm not sure that PHI has anything to do with how you use GPs (except that you might have more to spread around.)

Macro question: How severely will you beeline guilds?

[Mist]

I'm not sure that PHI has anything to do with how you use GPs (except that you might have more to spread around.)

Macro question: How severely will you beeline guilds?

Does "we're skipping maths to bulb guilds with a GEng" answer that question? Very severely, strict beeline if game conditions allow us.

[Commodore]

I'm not sure that PHI has anything to do with how you use GPs (except that you might have more to spread around.)

Macro question: How severely will you beeline guilds?

I guess that's what I meant, his GMs are "cheaper", so an early one settled to enable better REXing and the Stonehenge play makes sense. We're next going IW, Archery (x-bows!), Monarchy, Feaudalism, HBR, Guilds, with maybe Writing in there. No sign of an econo-crash yet, so here we go onward. Right now we're in a growth cycle, more whips incoming next turn and the turn after.



End of next turn will get us our MC bulber, and the 4(!) chops come in too. We're sandbagging the crap out of Oracle here, but if it pays off with Machinery slingshot we deserve nothing but mockery if we lose to anything less than a dogpile.



First to five cities, with six and soon eight workers, plenty of improved tiles, and clear borders (scouts aside). Life is pretty good in Byzantium right now. Votes for which city to settle next, volk? Dostoyevsky isn't all that great but chopping a forge and the Colossus would make us very very happy campers.



Guilds beeline? Heckya.

[Commodore]

So we've been slacking on the metagame side of these things, mea cupla on that. Let's liven things up with another episode of:


So, we're nearing the era of the cataphract at a dismaying pace. I say dismaying, because as lush as this map is, even though everyone is going to crash their economies with the traits of Imp or "being Lewwyn", the recovery process will be fairly speedy and then the tech pace will just zoom along. The window is going to be narrower than prefered for a joyous romp of cataphractery, and that means that Military Tradition/Rifling will probably be needed in the end. Still, we're going to have a nice moment in the sun...and let's talk about the first part of the preparation/planning: XP.

The really power of cataphracts is due to their massive base strength. Obviously, a high base strength delights in +% modifiers, particularly shock for pike-slaughtering. To get shock, though, we need +5xp.


Our first source of XP is the humble barracks. Relatively cheap (33 quick hammers), the barracks gives +3xp to each land unit produced in the city. The barracks is for all land units, so more or less every single city is getting one before the bloody whips start flashing post-Guilds. These things aren't a big deal, but we need to be careful to ensure everywhere has a barracks once we make it to Guilds.


The traditional way to get shock on a horse is to build it with a stable and barracks. Stables are a nice +2xp for horses, so we ought to have them everywhere too. Unfortunately, weighing in at a hefty 40 quick hammers, stables are a two-pop whip that coul go into most of a cataphract. In some places we'll make stables, but most of our boys won't have ever grown up in stable homes.


However, all of them will grow up vassals. Vassalage is the +2xp, +unit support civic unlocked at Feudalism, which just happens to be on the Guilds path. Yeah, I'm seeing something here. Most cataphracts will be at 5xp then, from barracks + vassalage, with a handful of them at +7xp from stables added into the mix.

There is a special plan for the 7xp cataphracts. As choked and hilly as this land is, two-movers are going to get bogged down and intelligent defenders like our rivals can be expected to take advantage of that. However, up the flanking line there is a lovely little promotion called "mobility" which enables 10xp Flanking II cataphracts to ignore those hills...six or seven 'phracts with the GG treatment will be a nasty surpirse for the unprepared.


One side possibility later on in the era is a swap from relying on vassalage to theocracy, unlocked at Theology. Eventually, the loss of extra science from Bureaucracy may outweigh the unit cost savings, and in that case we'll rely on the violent theocratic Buddhists for our training. This might never be a point we reach, though.

Now let's all cross our fingers and hope to be able to sandbag The Oracle three more turns, eh?

[TheMusicMan]

i like your reporting style. i hope you have more luck in this one and can show off your kickass horses. the pictures are a bit blurry but still, its nice to see you more upbeat!

[Ceiliazul]

most of our boys won't have ever grown up in stable homes.

Aw, yeah... I missed your turn reports. During 31 I was going into withdrawals without my smart-ass fix. No joke, I turned to Fark.com as a substitute.

It was unsatisfying, and made me feel cheap.

[Ilios]

Since you're going for a compact empire, have you considered moving Melville closer to Verne to be able to share the wet Corn?

[Commodore]

Since you're going for a compact empire, have you considered moving Melville closer to Verne to be able to share the wet Corn?

It's a good thought and one we originally considered, but two issues; one, it makes the whales darned hard to hook up, and two, the corn is one of the few tiles the capital is almost always going to want to work.

For all that, Melville is a bit weak in the food department. Maybe instead settle in between fish and horses south and for clams north?

Finally, Mist, metagame question (FFH XIV spoiler)

Is Lewwyn mad at you or Elimist more? Are we going to get incoming rage-units because you're killing him with ice mobs?