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

[HidingKneel]

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.

Forgot about sanctuary. Not to mention Plako's in a golden age now too, and his will last twice as long as ours. I'd imagine he'll be pretty strong coming out of that. So we should definitely plan for the long game.

Can't we take out the Lanun capital with cultists?

[Mardoc]

I didn't much consider hammer efficiency; I think you're probably right for near future. And without any water, that makes the secondary effects of Construction rather less important.

But I'll point out that Kwythellar will soon be sustainably above 40 hpt, not counting Conquest hammers, and Avelorn has the potential to eventually follow. Even Naggarond, in the far future, will make it above 40 hpt when we're in Republic with a bunch of towns. We're still limited to one unit/turn/city, no matter how many hammers we're putting that way. So eventually we need to upgrade.

Well, ok, there is one benefit to Chargers, they're much less likely to die in action, and thus be able to rack up a lot more XP. But we can mostly accomplish that by building half our Centaurs with Flanking instead of Combat/Shock, anyway, or just by picking on the Goblins first.

Can't we take out the Lanun capital with cultists?

[SIZE="3"]
...PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN![/SIZE]

Yeah, that should work, eventually.

I'll definitely agree with your economic tech suggestions, if we're going to stick with regular Centaurs. In particular, it'd be nice to get Libraries up while we're still Philo, and to swap to Foreign Trade once we have enough of an army built to leave Conquest behind.

Except one thing: I'm not convinced of the utility of Kilmorph, in this situation. Only three real cities to boost economy with, and 80 hammers for 2 gpt from a settlement is fairly painful. Wouldn't we rather have something like Order? All sorts of Demon-slaying units, Holy Strength, -AC. Or, well, OO to take out the Lanun?

[HidingKneel]

My thoughts on religion: priesthood is on our Basium path, and it would be silly to tech priesthood without the ability to build some priests. I was thinking Kilmorph just because it's the cheapest. Just as a filler until we can spare the beakers to research something better. Order sounds good (and most thematic).
I doubt we'll need OO: once we take out the second Lanun city, whoever's sitting in the first one (be it Bob, an AI, or someone who volunteered for a takeover) will be completely irrelevant, and I suspect will be happy to concede.

Another possibility, which Commodore raised earlier, is FoL. I don't normally think that's a good choice for non-elves. But some forests (and leaves temples) could improve our health situation (looks like the sizes of our cities are going to be capped by health, rather than happiness).

[Mardoc]

Leaves would be handy, granted. Although, I will point out that a Republic Enclave is better than a lumbermilled Ancient Forest, ignoring that health. My bigger worry is just that it's a lot of research to make units that can't become Angels and units as strong as Centaurs but less likely to retreat (tigers).

I guess personally I'd put Leaves off until later. It's good, just not quite as good as other options for those beakers - similar to your point on Chargers, I suppose.

Edit: Actually, the more I think about this, the more I like Leaves after all. Leaves temple itself is good for health, forests are good for health, and hammers are always good to have, too. We don't have to go all-out elven econ to get a serious benefit from the religion. And it's not really any more expensive than Order is, even counting in Hunting.

[HidingKneel]

I see a case for FoL. But if our goal is to get Basium out as soon as possible,
I still like Kilmorph. Not only is it the cheapest, but it'll let us stockpile SoKs. With enough of those, we can build the gate as soon as fanaticism comes in. Right now I'm thinking of a post-HBR tech path of something like:

writing -> festivals -> trade (maybe swap to foreign trade) -> WotE
-> philosophy -> priesthood (maybe bulb this) -> fanaticism.

(Actually maybe WotE first makes more sense, so we've got a better shot of grabbing the holy city. Holy cities are nice, and we could get quicker access to our third ring if it lands in Avelorn.)

[Mardoc]

But if our goal...

This is really the fundamental question. What is the goal, here? Short term it's obvious, kill Selrahc.

Mid term, it's a lot fuzzier. Are we putting the razing of Bob's AV Holy city as a priority? Getting to Basium quick? Building a Kurio army that's the terror of the world? Adding economic power?

What you've laid out is a hybrid. Some econ, mixed in with bringing in Basium with a lot of units who can become Angels...eventually. Which is fine, if we can pull off some of the other details to give us time. If we're up against the clock, I'd prefer more focus. But which clock?

If I were to pare your plan to the essentials for an early Basium, I'd do something like Writing -> Philo -> Priesthood -> Fanaticism. Libraries are the only thing in that path I expect to pay for itself anytime soon.

Why those? Trade is wonderful...once we're done spamming Centaurs. My gut says that won't be for a while. 3 gpt isn't enough reason to research it, not until we can take Foreign Trade. So pick it up later. Festivals - I really don't think it'll pay for itself. We can spend 120 hammers and ~2-300 beakers for net 6 gpt; that pays off in something like 50 turns. We can add in 240 hammers for some happiness, but health is our limit. Maybe post-Basium, and/or post-FoL, it would be worth doing.

Way of the Earthmother is a trickier question. I don't expect it to pay for itself cash-wise, not as the Kurios. But gaining healing, that +10% strength boost, and a state religion that lets our units become Angels, that's worth something; something hard to quantify. I dislike the idea of putting many resources into SoK, we lose too much hammer efficiency when we need to be spending hammers on military, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to have the option.

In any event, a couple random thoughts I've had, for whenever we have the resources (not urgent):

• We want military roads built, in addition to economic ones. Especially one to Bob's border and one toward Selrahc.
  
• We want a settlement built for 7 pines. And maybe settlements for other resources - anything we're missing.
  

[HidingKneel]

Mid term, it's a lot fuzzier. Are we putting the razing of Bob's AV Holy city as a priority? Getting to Basium quick? Building a Kurio army that's the terror of the world? Adding economic power?

I'd say the main priority is getting to Basium quick. What fun is an armageddon game without the angels? I see what you're saying about the SoK hammer inefficiency. But the gate is a hefty build (I think 402 hammers on quick?), and we can't build it in the capital. Without SoKs or some luck in landing another engineer, that could take close to twenty turns in Avelorn.

I'm agreed with you on festivals; let's strike that out of the plan. Also, I'd like to put WotE first. If we land it first, we'll either make Avelorn the holy city, or Naggarond the holy city and we can trade the thane for some culture by Avelorn. Either way we get the third ring quicker, and the third ring brings five hammers from the RoP, along with other goodies.

Not sure I'm agreed on delaying trade. Unless we're going to revolt into Kilmorph before the swap to spiritual, philosophy and priesthood don't give us anything pre-swap. But trade has some immediate (albeit minor) benefits. 3gpt from trade routes, and another 2gpt from the dragon bones. And the ability to keep an eye on the nefarious plans of our neighbors I doubt that we'll be able to get to fanaticism before turn 71, even if we do bulb priesthood. And I think by then, we'll be ready to turn the war machine down a notch.

So how about:

WotE -> writing -> trade -> philosophy -> priesthood (bulb?) -> fanaticism

If we do end up "prebuilding" the gate with SoKs, I could see us landing Basium by turn 80.

[Mardoc]

Forgot about the Dragon Bones boost. I'll have to look at numbers, I think, before I decide if you've convinced me or not; will try to do that tonight. I suppose we might be able to get a small bonus from Overcouncil, too.

[Mardoc]

Forgot about the Dragon Bones boost. I'll have to look at numbers, I think, before I decide if you've convinced me or not; will try to do that tonight. I suppose we might be able to get a small bonus from Overcouncil, too.

So, Trade would be worth directly 5 base commerce/turn, 1 in each city, +2 for the Dragon Bones. All of that commerce passes through a Tailor, and about half through an Academy afterward, boosting to ~8bpt in effect. Add another 20% for prereq bonus, and we're looking at about 10 bpt. It costs 450 beakers, so payback takes 45 turns.

If we adopt Overcouncil, that's an additional 10% saved in maintenance, 2 gpt, although also probably 1 gpt in civic costs. Then there's the +10% in science, or ~5-10 bpt, although at the cost of a turn of anarchy. Unless we do it at the same time as Conquest/Apprenticeship/Nationhood, of course. So with Overcouncil, we're probably looking at something more like 15-20 bpt net bonus, or a 30 turn payback. Given that the path to Basium is looking like 20-30 turns, it starts to look like a wash.

Also, if we have extra hammers, we can build Inns, for an additional ~ 3 base commerce/turn (and happiness, but I don't think we're in risk of hitting our happy caps).

So taking everything into account, I'm not sure that Trade will be a net positive, but even if it isn't, it'll be darn close. Go for it.

[HidingKneel]

Yeah, I doubt that trade will pay for itself in our pre-Basium timeframe. But I think it's worth a few turns of research to be able to swap conquest for foreign trade on turn 71.

One tech that I didn't realize also needs to be in that chain: code of laws (another prereq for fanaticism). No big deal, as it's fairly cheap. Kind of wish I had it now, since a courthouse would be a decent build in Avelorn.

New turn is in. Connected cows and wheat, and built a smokehouse in Kwythellar. We're actually healthy in all three cities right now. Unfortunately, that's about it for easily-accessible health resources. I'll hook up the tomb of Succulus in a few turns for some life mana (+1 health), and there's a sheep I can grab with with a settlement. Haven't seen pigs or rice on the map; presumably there's some seafood to be had on that lake.

Screenshot from EOT:



Education is in. Next stop: Horseback riding and world domination.