The Black Sword's Tale: For the Kurious

[The Black Sword]

Much better. Normally I'd be ecstatic to learn social media is no more...

This isn't the end of peace talks on my side, but further razings will naturally make me less willing to work with you (that's a broad hint to your galley in the south sea). I'm not sure how much I buy my attack on Yell0w as a motivation; the border city was the only one of his I kept (razed the rest), and it's not as if he couldn't stop me at any time. I fully expected him to pop sanctuary, or at least reinforce his cities in easy striking distance. I certainly didn't plan to take so much out of Yell0w, and I wasn't in any position to hold any of that land regardless. I think this was a purely opportunistic strike; nicely executed, but a few razed Yell0w cities didn't put you in danger of losing your place as the front-runner in this game.

After your fake-out with the discussion of health trades, I'll believe you're interested in peace when I get a real proposal back from you. I'm willing to agree to a much shorter NAP (5-10 turns) if you prefer, but this is a limited time offer.

Regards,
Jalepeno

That's a good point about the Elohim worldspell, I had actually forgotten about that. Still, the other points in favour of invading him still hold. It is rather unfortunate that I'm the Kurios though, he's running the least farmers gambit out of everyone, there's no way I'd attack him as another civ that actually wanted land. Anyway, I need to think about what I'd want for peace now. I think I'd prefer to get some collateral on my side before I provoke him into throwing his civ at me.

That is, if he'll accept peace after another raze, and I'm not talking about tiny On-Shoring either:

I sent my Centaur out to scout, I had to decide between scouting his capital or this city. I figured there was no way he'd leave his capital vulneruble, so this spot was the best bet. And all he has is 1 unpromoted bloodpet! Btw, the plan, assuming this city was adequately defended was to retreat to the jungle hill with the horse archers for cover.

Instead, lets send in our Centaur archers

Retreat and the Centaur tidies up.

There'll be no Quick wins around here. The city only had a Hunting Lodge upon capture, which is actually really good if it was his only 1 for building hawks. I could analyse the cities on the map to see what buildings they had before capture, but I'm not really bothered. I was planning this to be a suicide mission, but because the archer retreated instead of won, he could cast Haste and retreat to the jungle, where I covered them with my remaining 2 Centaur archers.

Unfortunately, I didn't realise that pillaging meant losing Bless, but still, he needs 6 movers from the capital to hit them.

Valin and the others retreated to be Blessed and healed again, and for some newly built Centaurs to catch up.


His defense in size 3 On Shoring was much tougher:

He left that worker on the Ancient forest for some reason so I decide to take him instead. Donatello also hopped on the galley to get properly blessed for combat. Next turn I can reload the galley with better units or just join up the stacks.



Some other news of the turn:

Nobody seems to have researched Veil though.


I had the worker turns to spare there.


I guess this is the gryphon from the tech thread.


Kwythellar getting 50 base hammers overflow, out of a possible 54 into the Pillar of Chains. Probably a 3 turn build.


EOT demos with no tech on. Was killing the no 2 player and emphasising my superiority such a good idea..

His soldier numbers shot up though, I did some estimates, I'm thinking roughly 24 units EOT 90, the majority bloodpets and a further 9 built last turn, mostly Moroi.

WK is annoying me, not sure why I felt the need to justify this to him.

It seems that I may have to take back the last statement I made. Can I get a reasonable explanation why the Kuriotate's have settled Caledor where it is? Because as far as I can see, such a location is miles away from any existing Kuriotate expansion and to say it's an aggressive plant on your behalf in my direction is putting it mildly.

Regards,
WK

I settled Caledor for access to the mana node, I had already decided to do so before you settled your nearby city and it didn't change my mind. Despite being an expansive leader with very good demographics and military, I am 4th in land area. Clearly I don't need as much as the Kuriotates, but you can't expect me to just give it up. Instead I've prioritised sites that are useful to me, which generally means mana nodes.

In addition I hope to settle the site 4N of Caledor and 2NE of the dungeon. I could probably be persuaded to push the latter city back to have the sheep in the second ring.

I will also point out that despite our capitals being so close, I haven't settled a single first ring city towards you and that your latest city along my northern border invalidates my preferred spot for settling the mana node there.

Where possible I act in the interests of your civ, because I value a peaceful border and a friendly relationship, but I cannot ignore my own.

TBS.

And I told the Dwarves all this was fine:

TBS,

After having our lawyers look over the agreement, there's a few clarifications we'd like to make:

First, that the "no aid to third parties" clause is restricted to future business, and does not affect existing deals. Now, we haven't done any business with the Calabim, and we don't intend to start. But if your war were to spill over to, say, the Ljosalfar, we'd like to keep our trade routes with them open (while agreeing not to enter into any new agreements, such as supplying copper).

Second, we'd like to clarify that "exploring dungeons along our border" is aggressive act, and therefore prohibited under our agreement.

Are these points acceptable to you?

Regarding the war: it will still be some time before we're able to offer direct assistance. But our trade routes with the Elohim are still open (perhaps because we are not at war with the Calabim ourselves), so we offered them copper this turn.

[The Black Sword]

Ok, I've been thinking this over, I'd be willing to accept peace along these lines:

Continuous NAP with 5t cooldown. This means
-no war declarations
-no aggression with hidden nationality units
-no aid to third parties at war or intending war with the signatories of this agreement
-right of first strike to whoever does not deactivate the agreement.

In addition:
-I had plans for a settlement near On Shoring and Proactive, where the dungeon was. You won't compete for this spot. I assume your culture will take over the clams here, in which case you gift them to me.

-A ten turn mana loan

-Your world map

I don't see the need to include peace with Yell0w in this deal. As you say, he can use his worldspell if he feels it necessary, it was the combination of factors that led me to declare. Full disclosure: you'll see that the city of Quick Wins has also been razed.

I hope your vampires don't feel too vengeful in the future!

TBS.

Er yes, I'll give the bear two small pokes to make him angry, then give him just enough time to regroup before he comes to kill me.

Tbh, I feel any more gains are going to cost me. I might force him to abandon On Shoring or Proactive to hold his centre, but they're small fry really. He just needs to hold his capital and his Front city, and then he only has 1 more city a few tiles behind that can be forked I think. He should have enough units to defend all that and without collateral I'm always going to be trading units to take cities. Those units will be worth more inside my borders with appropriate support later. Also, it's probably 2-3 turns before I can put another threat on his cities.

So, what will I have gained from this endeavour:

-knocked jalapeno down a bit
-2 staggered rolling NAPs with my main competitors. In the case of a dogpile I'll now have 5t and the first strike to deal with one of them.
-1 vengeful enemy.

It is possibly that jalapeno could just come back in a couple of turns full of vampires and Moroi. I'm not too scared of vampires compared to 4 moroi tbh, it's the full production of the governor's manors turned into military units that scares me. Still, I should aim to have updated my own military in the meantime. Guild of The Nine and the Bazaar of Mammon, built quickly with the Pillar of Chains will allow me to turn my GNP directly into military units, and I should aim to have some floating eyes and collateral at least too.

[The Black Sword]

His counter

I'm willing to accept this deal this turn, with a couple amendments. 1. You won't place any settlements interfering with my resettling Social Media and Quick Wins within the next 10 turns (this does not apply to razing them if - God forbid - hostilities were to break out again shortly). 2. No pillaging improvements or sniping workers in that area (until after the full 5t cooldown) 3. No mana loan. Razing Quick Wins has essentially robbed me of a mana node, and your dungeon settlement will steal another. You already have one mana loan from me, and every bit of mana is precious (especially to me with spectres).

If this is acceptable to you, offer a cease fire and request my map on your turn. I've also added some language in italics clarifying the "right of first strike" below. If peace is happening it has to be this turn. I finished feudalism EOT, and if I start spending all of my cash on upgrades, I need to get something out of it.

Regards,
Jalepeno


Ok, I've been thinking this over, I'd be willing to accept peace along these lines:

Continuous NAP with 5t cooldown. This means
-no war declarations
-no aggression with hidden nationality units
-no aid to third parties at war or intending war with the signatories of this agreement
-right of first strike to whoever does not deactivate the agreement. (For example, if the cooldown is initiated on turn 100, on turn 105 war can be declared, but only by the person who did not deactivate the agreement. On turn 106, either party can declare and/or perform other acts of aggression.)

I was happy enough accepting this. I had a look around first though.
First I wanted to see what was in his capital, he had these 2 moroi in the way


I figured I shouldn't attack if we're having peace, so I just continued onto the capital:


5 Moroi and 2 more on the road East. That's what I was afraid off, could be tough to get through these numbers. Then I sent a Centaur to check his front city near Avelorn:


I could have razed Best Practices pretty much any time. Only 3 Moroi in Collaboration is a bit iffy though, with my huge force of swords and hunters coming in. And here's what he has in On Shoring:


In the end I offered peace and retreated my forces. I regret it now though. Best Practices is his newest city, with no buildings, but I still should have razed it. 3 pop and a settler isn't cheap. I probably would have done it if I'd moved this Centaur first. I could have picked off a Moroi and his worker in the north, pillaged the social media site and moved to threaten Collaboration. I don't buy his peace has to be this turn stuff. He'd still want peace after I'd have done that, because he's right that it will just turn into a bloody stalemate when he gets enough troops out. I'm not sure what I was thinking tbh.

Still, this has allowed me to start the Pillar of Chains in Kwythellar and a Herbalist in Avelorn. I need to get the rest of my infrastructure up and settlements out. I think this diversion was useful though. Btw , I think I lost 2 units and Kwythellar already had 2 unhappy from war weariness. That's what worries me about an end of game dogpile. Either I need 100% culture or 100% gold with Gambling houses if I leave Order I think.

[The Black Sword]

I took pretty crap pictures this turn. Important news:

and you should see HK's graphs explode(I'll show them next turn). Looking at jalapeno's world map, I think I've put HK ahead of him now.

I've accepted peace and offered the map. May the peace be long and prosperous for us both!

I'm willing to entertain OB offers should you find that another opponent is focusing too much on economy and not enough on defense...

I really should do this, if only I hadn't agreed to a pesky NAP. I knew there was a reason I wasn't agreeing to those things. But the one thing I can't let happen is both of them attack me at the same time.

TBS,

Rumor has it you've cut some kind of deal with the Calabim? We certainly can't fault you for that, and you did them a good bit of damage as promised. Still, they've got vampires now, and though we've got a temporary production edge in our Golden Age they'll easily outpace us both with their Governor's Mansions when that's done. Would you be interested in revisiting the problem once the Khazad Mining Corporation is able to offer some proper support?

In other news, we'll soon be ready to construct that temple that you contracted from us. Where would you like us to put it?

Tbh, I doubt I'll go to war offensively again, but I should keep my options open for both sides open. If one of them were willing to match my forces to go against the other then I might go for it. Jalapeno would probably do that now, but I don't want Hk to have 10 turns of GA production to get an army up, so I think it's quite unlikely.

So, what am I trying to do?

A Tower Victory. I really wanted to try culture, combining culture modifiers+commerce modifiers you can get some insane cultural output. Kurios should be the best set up for a culture victory but the Tower is just too easy I think. Points against culture victory:
-I still need to let my cottages grow for a bit before I can start
-Lets say my culture modifier is twice my gold modifier and I generate 5,000 raw culture per city, leaving 20,000 per city to come from commerce. That's still 30,000 gold I could do something with.
-In comparison, I still want to build the ToD, Silvien's Lyre is about as much as another Tower, so we're talking maybe 2,500h for the Tower victory. And I can only build 1 unit per turn with hammers in Kwythellar anyway.
-I need to defend 3 cities instead of 1.

I'm hoping my Naps will tie up my main worry for the Tower win, which is people pillaging the mana on me.

The other problem is that I need metamagic mages ASAP. The goblin forts have stopped spewing out goblins for some reason, but the two near my territory each have an archer and a goblin in them. I'll clear out the archer then take 70-80% shots with C1/C2 Blessed adepts to get my current 5xp adepts up to 10xp. The AI was kind enough to promote them to C1 when I had auto-upgrade on so I might as well use that. Then I'll put two nodes to metamagic and 2 to air before upgrading my mages, hopefully solving the collateral problem as well as the metamagic.

Since I will be going for Arcane Lore anyway, I think I'll stop by Medicine and pick up Mary Morbus as another good collateral source. I was planning on using Gibbon with Wither for the cultural victory, I might change that to Hemah now and ignore Warhorses. It's a quite expensive tech if you include the rather useless Feudalism. With the culture plan I would build the Ride of the Nine Kings in Kwythellar and get out lots of 10xp Centaurs but now that Kwythellar will be taken up by other matters, I think it is probably too expensive to build elsewhere.

I haven't really decided on the order of the Towers yet:

Elements: I'll have air and water, requires 2 nodes earth and fire

Divination: Have Spirit and Sun, need 2 nodes law and mind.

Alteration: Have body and life currently, need 2 nodes enchantment and Nature

Necromancy: get Shadow off jalapeno, 3 nodes to configure for death, chaos and Entropy
-side note: I also want to build Mokka's cauldron in Kwythellar. Every unit that dies there comes back as a demon, doubling my numbers. A lot of FFH in the late game is about hitting first with collateral but that could be useful.

I probably should do alteration first while I have the Life mana from Sian. Then get Necromancy out of the way since that's the hardest. Leave Divination until last to take Strength of Will. I'm sure people will notice I'm doing a Tower run, but getting Strength of Will early would be a dead giveaway.

This turn:
Kwythellar - 1t left to Pillar of Chains, needs some settlers for the mana nodes after
Naggarond - Got itself an order temple, built a confessor for 1 in Avelorn and also enough overflow to 1t a mage guild next turn. Kwythellar will probably have better things to do than build adepts.
Avelorn - A 2t Aqueduct can start a Shipyard when Iron Working comes in afterwards.

[The Black Sword]

The promised graphs:




I should keep in mind that the Calabim golden age is going to be just as scary though. The dwarves appear to have unlocked KoTE, my best guess is they're going for the ToD for Dwarvish Druids. That would be top of my list.

Anyway, lets take my adepts outside of their cosy chambers and put them through boot camp. First of all, this guy is a bit too tough for them:

Withdraw! Hopefully I can get the third adept down here in time to level up on the injured archer. Upon reflection, I really should have taken Flanking, it's 10% lower odds of the Centaur surviving, but the important thing is the xp for the adepts and 65% chance of the archer surviving is much better. Now for the nail biter:


Win! and up to 10xp .

I'm positioning the other adept with some centaurs for a similar operation up north.

The recently levelled Valin goes questing:


and in a dark backwater of Kuriotate metropolis Order is subverted:


Founded the Veil, curiously no rioting in Karond Kar, maybe because it's a settlement?

I saw a gap between the Calabim and Elohim borders so I decided to send some Centaurs through to explore and look for dungeons. Things aren't looking good for Yell0w:

Maybe I should have included him in my peace deal, just to stop jalapeno getting pillage money. He's hardly a competitor anymore I could have left him with his worldspell.

Most importantly though, Kwythellar completed the Pillar of Chains EOT, creating this monster:

I love this city.

Avelorn went on max hammers, ignoring it's farms to get enough overflow to 2t the shipyard when Iron working comes in next turn. Naggarond squeezed out the mage guild.

[The Black Sword]

Quiet turn.
Trying to decide whether I should use my army on WK while I have this advantage or maybe just extort a NAP. Stuff like this is so tempting:


My other worry is that the Khazad will steal the Guild of The Nine from me. Should take them a while though and I can always use Esus instead. So it's not being prioritised.
Popped a gems in Avelorn EOT, which was nice:


Settler from Kwythellar, adept from Naggarond(who love me ).

[The Black Sword]

More goblin farming:

Doing it right this time and I get my withdraw.

The archer is still defending but that's fine. I had a bit of a debate with myself whether to take C2 or save it for another level 2 spell. But I'd need to get to 17xp for that and apart from Air 2 and Meta 2, the only other level 2 spell I really want is Chaos 2 Mutation. I'll try get this on one of the new adepts from Naggarond.
Anyway, C2 for better odds and win! Only got 3xp though, so maybe that was a bad idea after all . Still can't be long before he gets that last xp.

In the south:

Mage number 3 .

Does anyone know the mechanics behind goblin fort spawning? I'm going to leave this one alive for a while and keep a watch on it, hoping for more xp, the northern one I'll have to pop though or someone will do it for me.

In the other action of the turn:

Jalapeno captured this barb city and my Centaur levelled up killing a Baby spider. I've sent HK a request if I can pop that Dungeon. If not I'll slip south of Dirage to try meet up with 2 other Centaurs I'm sending into this area to farm the barbs.

Kwythellar finished another settler, Naggarond a Mage and Avelorn the Shipyard:

Wait till you see this Moai in a golden age. .

Speaking of which, I popped a Scientist in Kwythellar. I was running Priests and Engineers to try decrease those odds because I assume I'll get the GS from Arcane Lore and I want 5 GP to finish the game with 18 golden age turns. I'm not sure what to do with him. An Academy in Avelorn is worth 70bpt, but I'm not sure how long I'll continue teching. The Great Library gives too much contamination to be sure to avoid more GS in the future.

EOT Demos:

My GNP was 1001 on full burn on Sorcery, I decided to take Masonry instead not to scare anyone and I can finish Sorcery with the Overflow next turn.

[The Black Sword]

Also, HK has Smelting. Dwarven Forges are scary but at least he's building them himself(even if they are double speed). The Guild of the Hammers is just too scary for an empire of his size. If I see someone tech Maths then I probably need to grab Engineering myself for denial. I'd prefer not to waste the resources though.

[The Black Sword]

Not great, but I can hardly complain about 66g. My Centaur dying to a Spider on the other hand is a bit annoying. I knew there was a good chance of one around there after I killed the Baby spider but I figured it'd need C3 at least to get odds. Should have stayed on defensive terrain anyway.

The Calabim resettled their lost cities and I like their names:


The tech screen gives some worrying info:

So, Ritualists for the Calabim, though they still need Priesthood. And a ToD for Dwarven Druids for the Khazad.

Kwythellar built a third Settler this turn, getting enough overflow(think I may have lost a few actually) to 1t either the GoTN or the BoM next turn with a 4th ring Ancient Forest chop. I'll probably go with the Guild to be safe.

Avelorn went on max food again to grow a bit, which left it still 10h short of an 80h unit. So I built a Centaur instead which I can upgrade in the future at my leisure and I can 1t a couple of units with the overflow.

Another adept from Naggarond and I finished off Sorcery.

[The Black Sword]

My Great Sage reached Avelorn and I had to make a decision. Additionally, I had the ability to build research labs, another decision. So I decided to estimate the number of techs I have left:

I finished Medicine with the overflow, so what's left:
Deception(probably)-1k
Bowyers -> precision -3.4k
Construction - 0.4k
Necromancy+Divination - 1.3k
Arcane Lore - 3.4k
WotE - 0.4k

~10k beakers
Divided by 1.2 is 8.3k, I currently make about 700bpt at breakeven which is 12 turns.

That might change a bit, but then my tech rate is going to improve as well. The academy makes ~70bpt, an arcane lore bulb is already 1.2k, so I think it's worth it to save the GS, hope the dice favour me and at worst I can bulb Arcane Lore for similar usefulness. As the for the labs, that's about 40bpt in Kwythellar and Avelorn, 30bpt in Naggarond. 2t it with overflow in both Naggarond and Avelorn seems worth it, needs to make back 240g to hire back the 2 mercenaries I could have built.

That's also made me realise, that I want to get the gold multipliers in if I'm to turn off tech in ~12t. If I can, I might try delay them until the next golden age though, when I'm likely to have excess overflow.


Karai is finally well again after her travails in the dungeon, she'll get upgraded eventually. The Mines for HK has been expected for some time.


Mana settlement, growing a cottage for Kwythellar.


A bit excessive to kill one measly goblin. All those units can hit Sol next turn btw, hope WK isn't worried.


I'm going to try keep off the plains hills and run max. non scientist specialists for a while, roughly 10t I think for another GP and then try generate the final 2 during the GA I suppose. Which would give me 28t to build the ToM.