The Black Sword's Tale: For the Kurious

[The Black Sword]

Golden age time!
I'd been waiting 4 days to press that bright yellow button and then I didn't even have time to show the pretty pictures.

Kwythellar:

I built the inn there last turn, for the happiness and 3 commerce trade route to go through my multipliers. This turn it's the command post and I might finally get some extra troops out. Also note the sexy sprung oasis and my first lumbermill in the top right. I couldn't bring myself to work those 2 cottages unfortunately, cottage growth will probably have to wait until the golden age is over and I'm in foreign trade. Instead I'm working those 2 Scientists, netting me a 5t GP. The second scientist shaved 2t off that time and each turn is worth roughly 50 beakers in an Avelorn Academy. The third scientist would only take 1t off which I didn't think worth it.

Avelorn:

I don't think I worked all those coast tiles last turn, but then I completed the Harbour for another +1c and decided they won out. You can see that an Inn here will be great value, for 4x4c trade routes instead. I thought the half price courthouse won out though. Then there's also the smokehouse giving me roughly 8f every two turns and eventually the pearls to hook up.

Naggarond:

I think the Inn here might be a mistake, since I only have 1 extra spare trade route from the Khazad which should be given to Avelorn. Actually, come to think of it, with foreign trade coming in soon, it wasn't a great move anywhere. But I had already started one here last turn without thinking, so might as well finish. I might delay the Avelorn one after all. Then hopefully I can get some infrastructure for troop building out before I make it to Smelting because I feel like I'm teching too fast. Need more hammers here and in Avelorn.

Event log and some southern exploration:

Possibly another scouting war declaration. Another dungeon to explore in the south and a bear which will make a fine addition to the upcoming Kwythellar carnival. Karai's latest results come next turn btw. I'm going to try leave Venus to play zone defence, not taking subdue animal and send Michelangelo hunting as well.

Power graph where my scary mage puts me ahead of jalapeno:


And, my golden age demos:

I told you that gnp would look impressive. It's a very small hammer advantage for a golden age though. I've felt I've emphasised food hammers a lot over gnp this game, but I wonder if I should be pushing that harder. I also have a really nice trade figure there as HK still has to complete his side of the road. Tbh, I'm not sure how long I can hold onto these trade routes for, I don't think I'd offer them if I was in his position.

Finally, some pictures of the Khazad land from the map trade:

The legendary and reclusive elves.

The untamed west.

The core south.

Note he has 1 warrior in Callisto Spring, looking at his power graph and the size of his empire I don't think he can have much more sitting around. I expect jalapeno's large empire(he added a new city btw) has a similar problem, though his power is slightly higher. Food for thought.

[The Black Sword]

Took my time trying to figure out what I was doing before the break. Fortunately, that's a bit easier with the Kurios.

I started a Smokehouse before the Inn in Avelorn, though I'll probably come back to that anyway. Kwythellar got out another mage, this one will probably get C2 to start off and try to farm xp off goblins. Naggarond completed it's Command Post.

The first sight I was greeted by when I loaded up the save was Karai's unending dungeon exploration:

I got a new result, this time she found a strange apple. Better than snow white's anyway. She'll be a useful unit once I heal that diseased and upgrade her. Next turn she goes in again, provided Yell0w isn't an obstacle. Seems he's settling a city up here, which is a bit annoying. So long as I get a settlement where the dungeon is now, for the crabs and mana node, I'm ok with him taking the second node and blocking land off from the Calabim.

There's a lot more dungeons in my future though:


Also Lions and Bears; nice. Raphael is going to stay in the south here to protect the wildlife and maybe Karai too.

EOT I also founded Order in Avelorn.

[The Black Sword]

My tech pace is crazy atm. I decided to delay Stirrups to 1t each of BW, Smelting, Sanitation. Guess that army will have to wait.
The scary thing is that I don't think my tech will drop much after the golden age. I'll put up another academy in Avelorn and switch to a lot of cottages. So, I decided to figure out how far through the tech tree I want to go and come up with a vague plan for winning this game. I'll probably unveil it slowly, as more details get worked out, feel free to guess in the meantime.

As a hint, I'm thinking roughly 50t to win. After figuring that out, I thought it sounded quite quick and had some thoughts about securing NAPs to that point. 50t is definietly do-able if I don't have to build any defensive stuff. Anyway, I decided against that, even if I could get the NAPs. At the very least I shall have a heroic last stand!

As for the turn:

It was eventful. Poor Yell0w there, I wonder what he's going to do, I sent him a message letting him know I wanted a settlement on the dungeon and asking what his plans were. Would definitely have preferred he settle here than the Calabim though.

Anyway, with a single warrior defending his settler, I figured Karai was safe to go back into the dungeon this turn. In addition, Donatello and Michelangelo started exploring their respective dungeons, both still healing. Michelangelo is in clear view of WK's borders, I hope some adventurers don't come and take exception.

In my cities, I'm trying to get maximum overflow into the Forges when Smelting comes out:

The problem in Kwythellar is actually far too much overflow. I get 50hpt in this format, the adept brings me up to 50h overflow, probably Herbalist next turn. Pigs will be hooked next turn for +2h, I was planning on revolting to Social Order next turn to deal with the unhappy, but it might be best to delay that a bit longer and stay in Agrarianism a bit longer.


Naggarond's also working the cottages this turn, instead of max hammers, to get the Centaur to 39/40.


Avelorn on the other hand was pretty easy, I'll just build the WB for the pearls next turn. Set up to be 1f from growth to get benefit of the Smokehouse.

[The Black Sword]

Talk with Yell0w:

Hi Yell0w,

My warrior Karai saw your settling party to your NW last turn. I just wanted to check what your intentions were in the area? It's been a goal of mine for a while now to put a settlement 1W of Karai's hill. Unfortunately there is a dungeon on the spot which I am exploring first.(It seems to be unusually deep, multiple previous digs have resulted in Karai's rather ... unusual look). I'm fine with losing one of the mana nodes, but I really don't want to give up them both.

Nice to see the game moving again.

TBS.

RB Yell0w
12:56 (8 hours ago)

to me
You'll keep one of the mana nodes with your planed city location.

Not sure if he knew about jalapeno's city or not at that stage.

I spent most of T81 deciding whether to revolt or not. It costs me quite a bit of food to leave Agri, in return I get about 20 gpt, which I don't really need more of right now, and a happy Kwythellar. I decided I wanted to emphasise hammers anyway to get the forges in quickly so I can spend a turn off the farms. I worked 10 farms in the end this turn.

Avelorn built the WB as planned and should be able to 3t the forge now.
Naggarond finished the Centaur, and should be another 3t forge.
Kwythellar built a Settler, seemed a good time to pause without the farms and the best choice for overflow anyway. 1t forge here. The settler will go lay claim to the south, despite me not having roads ready down there.

Michelangelo is beset in his dungeon trawling:


EOT smelting came in and I have some nicely placed Iron:


From my map knowledge, the dwarves and Elohim also have a source each inside their borders.

[The Black Sword]

I wasn't too clear what civics I changed into last turn:


God King is pretty clear, though I plan to switch to republic eventually. Social Order is a must for the moment, not sure what I might switch into later, probably consumption for more multipliers.

Military State vs Apprenticeship was the only difficult choice. I already have Command Posts, so the extra 2xp does nothing for most units. I'm beginning to wonder if Apprenticeship was worth it for the mages alone though. Maelstrom is one of my two main collateral plans but none of my adepts have gained any xp passively yet. Still, I hope to use Bless for them to farm xp, we'll see if this works out. Military State adds more production multipliers to my cities, with a forge Avelorn will have a 60% modifier on military units, 110% for Kwythellar and 160% for Naggarond. Should be enough to 1t units pretty easily while still working a lot of cottages.

Agri vs Foreign Trade is also a difficult choice tbh, it's just that I've been planning on FT for a while. That was before I realised the game could end so quickly though and I might not get much use out of enclaves. Ideally I should stay in 5f agri farms for a bit longer as I grow into the 30s before switching to foreign trade. I needed the Social Order happiness though. Still I think delaying the revolt until the last golden age turn would also have been good play.

As it is, I 1 turned Sanitation to get back to 4f farms and everything grew EOT. Next up I'm actually able to 1t Stirrups with the Overflow. I'm beginning to get worried about a dogpile tbh, which is another reason why collateral soon is very important. I'm tempted to get a few catapults to tide me over for a while.

My EOT demos, not on a tech remember:


Kwythellar did indeed 1 turn the forge. I'm going to chop one of the 2 non-ancient forests in Naggarond's BFC to 2t it there. It could have managed naturally but at the expense of growth. Avelorn will have to satisfy itself with 3t.

The goblin was apparently afraid of Michelangelo, so he has another turn healing before that attack. Next turn I get 3 dungeon results.

In the East, I'm going to ask HK if my Centaur can go meet the elves:

I don't want to push my good will much farther here, because our OB are a great deal for me. I was going to circle through the southern jungle but he just settled a new city there. Now the only route to the elves is through someone's borders.

Speaking of new cities, Yell0w settled his last turn, on that hill we saw. The Calabim borders must have been third ring. That makes sense because I was wondering how jalapeno could have settled first when I saw Yell0w's settler in place and he is before jalapeno in the turn order.

I also showed jalapeno my poisonous shock hunter, about time.


I got this great commander at about 10% odds I think, which is a bit annoying. Might be useful for my adepts though, S5 with bless.

[The Black Sword]

The turn of dungeon crawling ...



Actually quite happy with that result, hoping it would throw me somewhere near the elves. Unfortunately Karai landed about 10 tiles south of that lake and the lair is STILL THERE!


Not great, but denying my opponents the Veil holy city is worth something. I'll probably found in a settlement after I've spread order there. If the settlement needs to revolt a bit to figure out which side they like, go right ahead.


Oh, oh ... I'm not really afraid of that Azer myself, and I'd quite like to capture a gryphon, but its more likely the Azer goes after the Grigori which could be a bit of a diplo hit. Michelangelo also found something interesting when he ran away:



I really could use a captured gryphon.

Other events:

Yell0w was going for Order too, makes me glad I picked it up when I did. I built Valin this turn in Kwythellar to deny him(got my free Crusader too ). I doubt I'll stay in Order myself, but Valin should be handy until my next golden age. I had some debate about great people there as well because this Great Commander has messed up my plans. I had my eyes one some first to GP bonuses, I wanted to combine one of those with my next GP. Now though, I'm not sure what to do, I think by the time I generate another, an Academy in Avelorn will be of limited use. In the end I decided to run the maximum number of specialists, 3 scientists and an engineer, for the last 3 golden age turns, partly to reduce the Great commander probabilities so I don't get a second. I can figure out a plan when I find out what my next GP is. One idea I had is to use the commander to recruit, getting 1 unit for every 3 pop. I've never done that before but Kwythellar will be at least size 30, 10 centaur archers is 800 hammers, that sounds like quite a nice deal. Does anyone know the mechanics of what units get chosen?

The Khazad sent me this:

TBS,

Our new "Junior Vice President" can't get enough of Kwythellar. It doesn't sound to me like he's interested in coming home any time soon, which suits me just fine. So you have my gratitude (and a Temple on the way in the near future).

But I thought we should touch base on a matter of mutual concern. The Khazad Mining Corporation has recently put in place a global trade network much like your own, which gives us a sense of what our neighbors are up to. Now, the Calabim don't have such a network yet. But they're reading books and riding horses, so it's only a matter of time. And after that... well, they've got the strongest economy on Erebus right now outside of your own, and a powerful manufacturing sector to boot. I figure we've got eight or nine turns left before they figure out a Feudal system, and soon after this place will be crawling with Vampires.

So the question is, does this possibility worry you as much as it does the Khazad? If so, maybe we could do a bit of brainstorming to arrive at a solution...

Flintheart Glomgold, Chairman and CFO of the Khazad Mining Corporation

to which I replied:

Flintheart,

Glad to hear the lad is enjoying himself, we've thrown an extra few festivals recently to coincide with his arrival.

I had a favour to ask you, before it slips my mind. You might have seen our latest courier, on the edge of your borders last turn. We had hoped to send him to meet the reclusive elves (and take part in the rumoured 'banter') but with the settlement of your latest city in the southern jungle there is no path to them that doesn't go through occupied lands. According to our open borders deal, we would not move units through your lands, but I was hoping you could make an exception in this case? We would obviously follow any path you set out and I assure you it would not take long, this courier is rather fleet of hoof. Cardith is also open to some form of compensation.

With regard to the Calabim, I must say they have been nothing if not friendly so far. That said, their former citizens in Avelorn paint a more bloody picture for us than their own officials. We are worried about their increasing standing army and our reports concur with yours that future units will have more bite. Our commanders are setting some mobilisation plans in place at the minute. We would be interested in a more effective solution but worry that the Kuriotates would take the brunt of the risk in any such endeavour.

TBS.

Checking the trade screen, the Calabim discovered Trade this turn and can research Feudalism(incidentally, so did the Khazad). These two are my main rivals that I'll have to deal with in any end game for a victory condition, so teaming up with one to take out the other would be great in theory. Unfortunately, while both of them rub against my borders, there's still a lot of wilderness between them. I'm not sure how it could work without one of them just sitting back and letting me do all the heavy lifting. Maybe I should think about a 50t NAP included ...

That said, I do have a preference for attacking the Calabim. Though vampires seem quite expensive, they scare me a bit more. Additionally, part of my vague plan is to Esus stab the Khazad in the future if HK isn't on his game. Esus is a good end game choice for me, mostly for Gibbon, my other collateral plan. They also have a few other really nice features though, with Shadowriders, hireable Nightwatch(who upgrade to assassins for 5g) as an alternative to the Guild of the Nine and I've tested extort on Kuriotate cities, it can give a lot(~300) of gold.

[The Black Sword]

I got some really nice info on the recruit function. Most importantly, if you have an order temple in the city the number of recruits is doubled! Um, 20 units, I’m tempted to build the temple throw the switch now and go kill someone. I actually wish I’d saved my old commander instead of a GA.

Regarding what units I'd get:
16% Hunter/Ranger
16% Hunter/Assassin
16% Horse/Horse Archer
16% Horse/Chariot
16% Sword/Champion
16% Archer/Longbow

You just need the tech to unlock the later units, not the buildings. Iron working is probably next on my tech path, mostly for a shipyard to Avelorn. Given that my hunters have poisoned weapons, that means only a 16% chance of a rather less useful archer. I might go Bowyers and Poisons much later if I want to recruit Nightwatch, which means the ranger is the only unit not unlocked. Anyway, I can delay any attack plans till Iron Workings then and try to get the last infrastructure up, particularly Jewellers everywhere and the Heroic Epic in Naggarond. Meanwhile Kwythellar can slow build the next GP from its wonders to throw the 2 person golden age.

The Khazad replied with good news:

TBS,

Your envoy is welcome to pass through Khazad lands. He'll want to take the road through Goosetown, turn right at The Money Bin, and then head NW along the road to St. Canard. The Ljosalfar have just planted a new city in that vicinity (a little too close for comfort, if you ask me).

Regarding the ongoing "technical" discussion: as you might have surmised, our Board has recently been debating the merits and demerits of adopting some of Esus's business practices. The general feeling is that this is probably not worthwhile, but that calculus might change if we were to find another like-minded civilization. So, do you see yourself joining the Undercouncil any time soon, or were you joking? (I would guess the latter, since you've made a number of recent changes already?) If this is something that might interest you at a later time, perhaps we should coordinate: can't have much of a council with just one member, after all.

Regarding the Calabim: they may seem peaceful now, but I'll bet my beard that their military buildup isn't going to sit idle for long. They've now researched Trade, so Feudalism is likely next. I'm interested in discussing this further, but first I'd like some assurances that this will just be between us: wouldn't want the vampires to get wind of it, especially if I'm going to be disclosing present and future dwarven military capabilities (and of course, we would offer you the same assurance).

Might as well here them out, would be nice to have a target for all these units.

[The Black Sword]

Incidentally, I will get Centaur Chargers for having trade, not construction; I guess the recruit function was never changed in EitB.

Thinking about it, I might also add Precision to my list of techs, bet you’ve never seen anyone research that before! If I’m lucky I will get to upgrade a single marksman in Karai, but the tech cost is 1670 adjusted beakers and the free Great Commander, assuming size 36 Kwythellar at the time, will be worth ~80*24=1920h in units. I’d take that exchange with a normal civ and the Kurios get a lot more beaker multipliers than normal. I need to pick up Bowyers as well though, making the cost ~2800b. That’s still worth it and means I can save another 335h on GotN.

I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here though. The next tech is Priesthood for Order Priests with Bless. Hopefully, combined with the GC, I might manage to get some mages in a reasonable time frame, which is my biggest worry at the minute. After that I think the choice is between Iron workings, for the shipyard, iron weapons and ability to build/draft/recruit champions or Maths/Currency -> Taxation. The first two are pretty useless atm. My breakeven research is at 90% right now, so I don’t need any gold multipliers unless I build GotN, which should certainly be delayed until I know whether I’m going Esus or not. Taxation though is a stellar tech, with foreign trade, all my cottages should mature to villages quite quickly to get +1c. Then we have the Pillar of Chains to be built in God King Kwythellar. I will eventually move to Republic as well in my next golden age, but before that Kwythellar will build all the wonders I want. This line is about twice the cost of Iron workings, but I think I’ll go with it. Avelorn has a number of possible buildings to get through, so the Shipyard can wait a bit, Kwythellar does not.

I’m quite worried at the minute that jalapeno, and to a lesser extent HK, could soon get to the stage of just turning tech off and throw out military the rest of the game. I could get to that stage too with gold multipliers and mercenaries but as I wouldn't get any economic benefit out of more land, that doesn’t seem a sound strategy for me. So I really need to make sure I’m getting a good return on my beakers, either through efficiently advancing my military output or moving towards a victory condition.

Everyone is going on a settling spree at the minute, I think they all got new cities last turn(or maybe I forgot to check the previous turn.) Yell0w, at least, is being a bit reckless:


I think that's the spot he wants to settle, so I'll just be kicked out of his borders when he does. I could have declared war and tried to extort something, guess I'm just too nice.

The grigori are also settling toward my mana nodes:

That's a bit close for comfort, I'll probably have to alpha strike it in the first turn of a war. My settler is going to this spot next, I think it's the only one I risk losing.

The Azer moved toward the Grigori btw, he wasn't too happy:

Hi WK,

I wanted to give you a quick heads up before you played the save. You probably saw Michelangelo exploring a dungeon to your north recently. Unfortunately the denizens aren't very friendly; a stoneskin Azer and 2 gryphons. I'm not sure if they will head towards my borders or yours, but an extra turn of preparation could be handy.

TBS.

Seems like you lucked out, as the Azer is heading in my direction.

Thanks for the warning I guess, although if you think that's going to be enough for me to overlook this incident then your sadly mistaken. Hopefully I won't lose anything important, but I doubt it.

WK

I fail to see how 1 Azer can be that big of a deal tbh, suicide a warrior to get rid of stoneskin and then clean up with one of your adventurers. He's right to be annoyed but he's not making himself sound very threatening.

Meanwhile, we hunt gryphons:


My Centaur(Need a naming scheme here) on his way to the elves:

It seems they got a hero last turn as well. Here's what Valin did to my power graph.


Kwythellar and Naggarond 1 turned a Jeweller each this turn. Naggarond at the expense of another chop and working an engineer over the silks. Avelorn completed it's forge. Also, EOT I got a free Order spread in my settlement Karond Kar, essentially giving me a free Acolyte. Nice .

[The Black Sword]

The first thing I did when I opened the save was search for the gryphons, quite surprising that I couldn't see them anywhere, until I realised this happened:



Nicely done Michelangelo, one of the gryphons is in place to rob WK's graveyard next turn. The other will heal up and go explore Calabim land. I haven't really decided whether I want to go explore that dungeon again. We have a bit of a dilemna at the other dungeon:


Donatello easily has the better of his warrior though. I think I'll just ask him nicely to let me explore it, citing sentimental value(which is true!) and let the threat of Donatello hover in the background.

Obligatory end of golden age pictures:



Food show go well up next turn when I take off all those specialists. It still needs a bit of worker labor, in terms of lumber mills and more cottages, I'll probably be cottaging over grass hill mines too. Next up is 2 Priests of Order, 1 to go around blessing everyone, the other to make a temple in Naggarond. Naggarond will then use the Heroic Epic to build a Priest for a temple for Avelorn. I'll be putting in a herbalist and Aqueduct for 4 extra health, and I should be able to hook up a banana and clams for 2 more. That will get me up to size 31. At that stage I'm probably just going to have to live with the unhealthiness for a while. Other options for health include trading for crabs, an FoL temple, and the rather expensive researching of medicine.



The food surplus is quite low here unfortunately. I'm considering the merits of getting construction and a couple of plains farms since I'm not in Agrarianism anymore. My settlement of Karond Kar is growing the recent river village at the bottom left. This should be mostly pumping unit for the rest of the game, any buildings will probably be 1 turned with overflow.



I'm starting to cottage over the flood plains now that I'm in foreign trade. The food surplus here is excellent and I'm going to pick up those farms again now that the golden age is finished, but there is still a lot of infrastructure to get in place, Jeweller, Command Post, Inn, health buildings. I should also probably put in a training yard for more effective emergency drafting, which is particularly important here.

Demos before ending turn:


I also got messages from both the Calabim and Khazad.

TBS,

It appears that we may have more time than I suspected: according to our reports, the Calabim have delayed their vampiric researches in favor of Mysticism. However, this could make them doubly dangerous: it may be that they intend to study Necromancy, which will enable them to overrun us all with an army of summoned spirits. So while we have some time, I think it would be wise to begin to lay some plans.

First, I propose that we approach the Elohim to join our cause. Though they are not a great military power, I think it should be possible to convince them to help: as the Calabim's closest neighbor, they have the most to lose from Calabim aggression and the most to gain from a successful campaign. And the vampires will be hard-pressed to defend themselves on three fronts.

Finally, let us put your concerns of about shouldering all of the risk to rest. It is true that the Khazad Mining Corporation has, as of this moment, only a token fighting force. However, dwarven engineers are known for their Ingenuity, and with sufficient funding we should be able to quickly raise an army of bronze charioteers. When the time comes, I'm confident that we will be able to pull our weight.

Hey,

It's been awhile since we last touched base. Lot's going on I see (congrats on grabbing Valin). I've just now finally claimed my second ivory and noticed you hadn't picked one up elsewhere. Would you be interested in an ivory-for-fine clothes (or jewelry) trade? Not that you seem to be overly tight on happy for your megacities.

Best,
Jalepeno

I really should have kept more contact with jalapeno, but the stop start nature of the game isn't helpful. Anyway, I'm already getting Ivory from the Khazad so no use there. I need to think about the diplo situation here and make a decision. I'm pretty sure I could blitz away quite a few cities from either side on the first turn of a war with Centaur archers. I feel like I should wait for my collateral before going down that route, but it would be nice to knock someone back a peg. With the trades I've got going the Khazad are valuable to me. I'm not sure I could get similar trades from the grigori and I prefer my setup with the Khazad than the Calabim. I should really be thankful of the chance to dogpile someone else I suppose.

[The Black Sword]

Bit of a diplo dump, I sent out a lot of messages this turn. In general, I'm trying to sort out my health problems by offering lopsided deals to people who are probably out of it.

Saying hello to the elves.

Hi Sian,

Nice to meet you in game at last. Sorry about stealing FoL from under you, I popped a disciple from a dungeon.

I took a look at your resources, would you be interested in a Jewelry for Life Mana trade? I'd also be interested in your Air mana at some stage, is there anything I could give you for that?

TBS.

Reply to WK's old message.

Seems like you lucked out, as the Azer is heading in my direction.

Thanks for the warning I guess, although if you think that's going to be enough for me to overlook this incident then your sadly mistaken. Hopefully I won't lose anything important, but I doubt it.

WK




I hope the Azer hasn't cause too much trouble, perhaps a jewelry for crabs trade make up for it somewhat?

TBS.

Trying to stay friendly with jalapeno while not giving him anything that can actually help much.

Hi jalapeno

We probably should have been in more contact I agree, but the long pause broke the flow of the game a bit. Valin is quite nice, you seem to be doing quite well yourself, even if it doesn't show up so much in the event log .

I'm going to have to decline the ivory offer, the Khazad have already offered a source. Truthfully though, my cities really aren't happiness constrained at the minute, health is a bigger problem. How are you fixed there? I notice you only have a single source of banana, which I would be interested in taking off your hands. We have our own source, but it's under jungle and will take some time to hook up. I could offer fine clothes in exchange for that? Bare in mind we'd only be talking 10 turns though. I'm considering my options for the water resources too at the minute if you come into possession of any, I'm reluctant to give any more deals to HK.

TBS.

Hey,

Sorry, I got called away and clicked send by mistake. There was one other point I wanted to discuss, the dungeon below the southern lake between our borders. This dungeon holds some sentimental value for me, I have lost count of the number of times I've explored it and it remains standing. Last time it teleported my unit away, which is why I didn't have a unit there last turn. I'd appreciate if your bloodpet left it for Donatello.

TBS.

Asking Yell0w for marble, not 100% sure if I had trade routes last turn, guess I shouldn't have started the Heroic Epic.

Hi Yell0w,

Nice religion choice .

I'm currently building my heroic epic(70h left) and I just noticed we got a trade route and you have marble. I was hoping I could buy some off you if you aren't currently using it? I'd offer 75g when I get Currency, which should happen sometime in the next 10t.

TBS.

His reply:

Marble to you for 10t for 85 gold with 5% interest per turn if the gold isn't paid after the marble loan ends. Does this sound fair to you?

Yeah, Order was snatched from me. Nothing I could do really. It sucks since it spreads for free normally, but now I've got to build acolytes. And ofc I won't be able to build the religion hero -.-.

Sounds good to me, shaving a turn off the HE means an extra Centaur Archer, I'm not going to quibble over 10g. I'm not sure he understands the order mechanics properly. Each city you spread it to essentially gives a free crusader, it also costs an acolyte but you get one free. I'm not sure why you'd go Order if you didn't know this though.

Finally I'll send something like this to HK when I get the turn:

Flintheart,
Talking to the Elohim is certainly a good idea. Perhaps you could draft up the first message? We've never had all that great of a relationship and he was probably hoping to recruit Valin himself.

I had a look at possible attack routes this turn. I suspect the Kuriotate military could raze 3 Calabim cities on the first turn of a war. We don't actually know the defenses in these cities, but given the size of the vampire's empire and their power graph I don't think they can be defended heavily enough. To do that though would require us to put more resources into military than we would like at the current time and possibly make us the first targets for any vampire aggression. So we would require similar commitments from our allies before such a plan was approved. It is very very tempting though .

I assume, given the Elohim's access to Monks they should be in position to threaten some cities themselves. How close are you to the Calabim's opposite border? As you say, hitting them from all sides would be ideal, if not perhaps you can help with our efforts. We should be able to get access to haste adepts quite quickly if it increases the attacking options for either of you.

Finally, if we are going ahead with this plan, I think some form of NAP between the involved parties would be prudent and we should agree to negotiate any peace with the Calabim as a collective.

I'll post some pictures of my attack plans as well. Even if I have to do more military lifting I think this is a good deal for me. I'm expecting to get dogpiled when I make a run at a victory condition, so if I can get other people to expend resources taking a big hit out of one of my main competitors now that'd be great. Plus I need to suicide Valin before switching from order.