The Kuriotates: A Tale of Centaurs, Hubris, and Unbridled Enthusiasm

[HidingKneel]

One comment about Education, I know it's a bit early to cottage (alas, we'll be charred husks all before enclaves), but with all the Patrias, how much of a hammer boost would Education yield?

Good point. Kwythellar has one, which would add +3 after multiplying in the god-king bonus. Avelorn has one for another +2 (it also has a second one, but in the third ring). So that's +5 hammers for each turn we have education.
Animal husbandry's a cheap tech, though, so I think we're talking about +15 hammers total.

Played turn 39. In a bit of good news for Kuriotate morale (and bad news for our maintenance costs), our scout survived the griffon attack last turn. I decided to send him off again immediately, without stopping to heal, and immediately ran into another griffon:



I promoted him to flanking to give him some slight odds of survival.

In other news, all our cities are connected now. We're on schedule to have the gold mined in two turns, as soon as it comes in to our culture. We've also connected cotton, and should have silk and dyes connected in the near future. Mysticism came in at EOT. Next turn I'll fire off the golden age and we can really get started.

Breakeven science rate: Just over 40%.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 40 is in. A big turn for us. For openers, mysticism is in:



The logs have some interesting news:



As expected, our scout was eaten. Also, the Balseraphs have fired their worldspell for a golden age. Well, two can play at that game. I used the engineer for a golden age, and swapped into god-king (I hope I switched into pacifism as well, but actually I can't remember right now ).

Immediately, things started to look a little better. Beakers per turn at breakeven science rate went from around 30 to around 75. Next tech is set to animal husbandry, which should come in at the end of next turn.

Let's have a closer look around our empire. Here's Avelorn:



Borders popped at end of turn. As you can see, we've got a team of workers poised to mine the gold next turn. We'll also produce an elder council next turn, and a tailor the turn after. After that we'll have lots more hammers to burn.

Over here we have Naggarond:



Will finish an elder council next turn. I think I'll spend most of the golden-age boosted production there building a tailor. We should get a great sage around then, which I'll use for an academy in Naggarond. At that point, it'll be a pretty respectable commerce city.

Note also a barbarian troublemaker there in the north. It dawdled a bit too much, and didn't get a chance to pillage anything before our warriors were on the job.

Here's Kwythellar:



Finished an elder council at EOT, and we'll have a tailor in two more. We've got a worker team which will hook up silks next turn, then head south to mine the bronze. Meanwhile, a warrior has mobilized to take care of that goblin pest.

With all these tailors about to be build, it'll be good to hook up some dyes as well. Fortunately, that's not far away:



Four workers on the job, there. Should have those dyes connected on turn 43, after which there's plenty more work to be done around Naggarond.

The extra commerce from god-king and the golden age is helping us a lot more than I expected. With all the extra commerce we'll be bringing in soon, it looks like we might even get HBR in before turn 50. That's a good target date, since that's when we'll be able to switch civics again.

Finally, let's have a look at some demos:

[Mardoc]

Looking good

And to think I wanted to settle that engineer

That's a good target date, since that's when we'll be able to switch civics again.

I'm 90% sure that the civic swap period is adjusted by speed, so we'll be able to swap in 6 or 7 turns. If we make it to Edu by then, we ought to be able to avoid a 2nd turn of anarchy thanks to the GA.

[DaveV]

I'm 90% sure that the civic swap period is adjusted by speed, so we'll be able to swap in 6 or 7 turns. If we make it to Edu by then, we ought to be able to avoid a 2nd turn of anarchy thanks to the GA.

Nope, 10 turns between civic swaps even at quick speed, so only one per golden age.

[Mardoc]

Nope, 10 turns between civic swaps even at quick speed, so only one per golden age.

Dang. I must have gotten that confused with religion swaps.

[HidingKneel]

Another turn played. Not too much to report. One of our warriors attacked a barbarian at 73% odds and survived, earning a promotion. Workers mined the gold near Avelorn and connected the silks by Kwythellar. At EOT, we finished two elder councils, and animal husbandry came in, revealing horses. Turns out there are four of those within reach:



Two of those are by Naggarond. That'll be a decent production boost, once we've pastured them. We've also got one by Avelorn. Kwythellar was founded on top of the fourth . Well, we can't expect everything to break our way, I guess.

Next tech: education. Two tailors will be completed next turn. What should we build in Kwythellar and Avelorn then? Pump out some more workers? Smokehouses? Pagan temple in Kwythellar to work another specialist?

Breakeven science rate: just under 70%.

[Mardoc]

Yes, I think once we have our commerce needs met, the next priority is health. It'll help us grow faster, and it'll be hammers once Conquest is in play. Plus, even if we're really fast, I have to think we'll eventually be hit by Blight.

I think, although Avelorn needs a lot of worker love, that our current force is getting on top of things and should be sufficient. We're working mostly improved tiles and our growth rates have slowed. Obviously we want to be able to start working cottages, but I think the current force will be able to handle that.

Because of Blight - I'm going to recommend not only Smokehouses, but also Herbalists. Herbalists are one of the few buildings that directly reduce the cost of Blight, because they produce health directly rather than boosting a resource.

Finally, we're getting close enough to start plotting a tech path after HBR, I think. Personally, I think we'll need more military, more than anything else. We'll either be looking to land the knockout blow on Selrahc, or need to be gearing up for Horsemen...plus there's always the threat of Hyborem in the backs of our minds.

What's the easiest path to significant strength increase for us, as Kurios? Something like Masonry -> Construction -> Bronze Working, to enable Bronze Centaur Chargers. Those don't need a building either, and Str 6 on the attack starts to get pretty reasonable. Maybe go for Knowledge of the Ether after that, so we can get Courage onto our units: useful against anyone, vital against Horsemen.

Whenever we do feel comfortable that we can handle armageddon + Hyborem, then we'll want to pick up Trade, for libraries and Foreign Trade to grow our cottages. And Sanitation for all its goodies. But I think we'll need to push directly for military techs first, at least until we have Selrahc suppressed and an idea on how bad Bob's going to be.

[HidingKneel]

Another turn played. Everything is playing out according to plan. Here's a screenshot of EOT:



Our breakeven science rate is now 70% while we're in the golden age, bringing us 100 beakers per turn. No question, we'll finish education and HBR before we're able to switch civics.

But that number isn't going to climb much higher in the near future. Next turn, we'll connect dyes and squeeze a little more value out of our tailors. But that's about it. It's now mostly about improving and connecting food and health resources.

Regarding tech path: I guess there's a larger question we want to play the game from here on out. Try to win fast, or try to win slow?

Win fast: Kill everyone with centaurs. On turn 71, we switch our trait to raiders. Meanwhile, we use our economic and technological edge to build an unstoppable army of centaurs. Tech paths:

Archery -> Stirrups for centaur archers. Except I guess these are more expensive in EitB?

Masonry -> Construction for centaur chargers (add bronze for extra oomph).
These are cheaper hammerwise, cheaper techwise, and the techs themselves have other uses.

Win slow: we kill Selrahc with regular centaurs. Then we pursue longer-term strategies to deal with other players. On turn 71, we switch to spiritual.

Techs to consider:

Cheap econ techs: writing would be great to get while we're still philosophical. Libraries will pay for themselves quickly. Festivals is dirt cheap and lets us build markets/work merchants.

Religion: We've got the prereqs for Kilmorph, and it would be reasonably cheap to research. We don't need immediately, but maybe worth having at turn 71 for the swap.

Trade: something I'd also like to have at turn 71, to swap out conquest for foreign trade.

KotE: This is a must-have if we're going to be dealing with horsemen. Also, Hyborem can take a promotion to cause fear, right? So also useful in dealing with Bob. Only I'll bet we're not going to be seeing horsemen.

The road to Basium: philosophy, priesthood, fanaticism. Philosophy is cheap. Priesthood is less so (maybe we could try to bulb it?). Fanaticism is very expensive. But these pay off big if the game's going to go on for a while. Right now we have a huge lead, mostly because of a combination of good luck with great people, and our sprawling trait. But sprawling is soon going to turn into a disadvantage. Already I think Ilios has four cities. If we're not going to conquer in the short-term, bringing Basium in to the picture is a good way to keep up.

[Mardoc]

No matter what, Ilios has Sanctuary to delay a quick conquest. And we can't go for him first, because if we do then Selrahc brings Armageddon anyway, and Bob brings Hyborem.

Also...no matter what we do to Bob, we're not killing him until we have Airships. Might manage to convince him to concede, but we can't get a real victory if he holds out.

I think we probably have to plan for the long game anyway, therefore. But I'd still go military first, because I think we'll be seeing Hyborem, unless we manage to raze the AV Holy City on the exact turn we need to.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 43 is played. According to the log, someone produced a great sage. In Kuriotate lands, we continued doing our thing. Connected up the dyes, netting ourselves a little commerce boost. Screenshot from EOT:



Naggarond's building a tailor, which should keep it busy until it's time to start producing centaurs. Kwythellar will 1.5-turn some quick buildings (smokehouse, herbalism, pagan temple), then probably build a settler to claim the seven pines. Avelorn's building a smokehouse.

Gave some more thought to the tech situation. I'm not convinced about the utility of centaur chargers. Hammer-wise, they're twice the cost of ordinary centaurs. What are the reasons for preferring one charger to two ordinary centaurs? They're worse on defense, even with bronze (since they don't get defensive bonuses). For an assault on Dis, they're not much better than ordinary centaurs, because they don't get the +40% vs. archer units that ordinary centaurs get. One unit is less upkeep than two, but upkeep costs alone don't justify the ~1000 beakers we'd need for them.

I can see an argument against econ techs next, too: when turn 50 rolls around, we're going to want to be full steam ahead on the centaur production, so we won't have time to build markets and libraries. On the other hand, Naggarond and Avelorn will have plenty of growing to do, so it might be nice to have something useful we can put in our build queues in case we want to let them grow during conquest.