[SPOILERS] Tres Equis: Mardoc plays the Most Interesting Civ in the World

[Azarius]

Fears realized :/ If only he had used the worldspell, would be easily worth it. At least you made him dump a bunch of hammers into military. How do the hammers from his dead units compare to the ritual?

Very glad to hear tech for mages is not far off. How does the power graph look atm? Molach's war could have been fake, or just wanting to go through territory maybe. Or he invaded and didn't like what he saw. Did either of them lose a noticeable chunk of power?

[Mardoc]

I think Suttree actually spent fewer hammers on the units he lost than we did on ours. Something like 208 for him, 268 for us. Guess if we wanted to use the PoW like that, we had to rush them a lot sooner. If we'd hit him before he got Bronze, it would have been a very different story.

Looks like Yell0w lost a fair amount of power, but I wasn't paying close enough attention to see if he lost any cities or anything like that.

Suttree really wants to builder, at least for now - he offered me Ale for Rice . Well, my next target's going to have to be someone without a WS that crushes me anyway, so sure, we'll be friendly for a while.

Adept training is coming along well, at least.

[Azarius]

Ya, once people have things like paramanders the PoW are a lot less scary. It is what it is. Just need some time to get the mages going and we'll have a nice stick again. I wonder if that offer from Suttree is more "Let's be friends now I'd like to build in peace" or "Please stay away until I have firebows"?

Since you mentioned cities, what do the city counts look like currently?

[Mardoc]

Feeling lazy, so I'll let you count cities yourself.

After you take a look at mage-eligible adept #1, that is!

[Mardoc]

Bah! Finished Alteration last turn, this turn the Sage would bulb...Divination. I could have sworn that Sareln changed the bulb order in EitB so that Sorcery was preferred, but apparently not.

Haven't decided what to do, except that I'm going to research Code of Laws first. I still have excess hammers to convert to cash, Courthouses are a good way to do that. Maybe go for Writing or Trade as well, I dunno. If bulbs won't bail me out, then I need to think longer term.

But, after that...I do have a second Great Sage due shortly. So I have options.

I could research the rest of the mana techs myself, I could bulb two of them and hand research Sorcery with a good multiplier, I could finally build the Academy or settle the Sage or both. Right now leaning toward bulbing two mana techs and researching Sorcery, but I need to stew on it for a while.

[Azarius]

I've always been a sucker for academies if you can build it in a nice commerce heavy city, but right now I think you have to use them for bulbs. You've got twotorqued off neighbors now, and until you get to sorcery they both have a big military advantage over you. I'm not sure how the beakers will work out, how much of sorcery will one sage do? Maybe bulb one mana tech, hand research the rest then bulb into sorcery and research the rest. If it's half, save both sages for that? Without the numbers I can't be sure, but I would suggest doing whichever gets you mages the quickest, even if it isn't as nice longterm. If we have paramanders and/or moroi running around our lands before mages come online, there won't be a long term.

[Mardoc]

I forgot something: Sorcery requires Writing. Going to research that next, and then see if I can bulb what I want to bulb...

Suttree still wants peace. He invaded with one warrior for the sole purpose of offering a peace treaty. Which I took. Not sure on Molach - maybe I try for him again next.

Yell0w declared on HK, who promptly hit Sanctuary. Yell0w also asked for and received open borders with us, and he made a road.

I think we're in that position of 'scary looking, not a threat to win, and oh yeah, half the land is worthless because it's ice'. No one wants to fight us just now, they're all afraid of each other. Which is good, just get to Mages and then our Reign of Terror Shall Commence!

[Azarius]

Writing will help the whole turning hammers into beakers thing. I had honestly forgotten that your winter wonderland would make the opponents look elsewhere for land acquisitions, there may yet be time .

[Mardoc]

Writing came in, and now my Great Sages would bulb Sorcery. Phew, it worked as it should.

Course, a Sage is worth only 1096 beakers, while Sorcery is 1800ish beakers. But I have two. So I think next turn I'll bulb Sorcery, turn to 100% cash, and start researching more mana techs. And upgrading adepts. Possibly add a diversion to Bronze Working.

Then I'll need to pick a target. The logical enemy given the geopolitical state is probably the Amurites again, but that freaking worldspell would shut me down hard. Maybe join Yell0w and pile on the Calabim again.

Sorry for the abbreviated update, but I still have no home internet. Will try again in a few days assuming that gets fixed.

[Mardoc]

Been upgrading ~2 adepts/turn into mages. And debating what to do with them.

- HK is winning. But I don't border him, and he popped his worldspell/been building massive armies
- Molach is losing. Looks like Yell0w took a big bite out of him
- Yell0w is 2nd best, but he's the only one being friendly to me, including open borders and a fairly demilitarized border
- Suttree might be beatable. But he has Wizards now and still has his worldspell - so he's not beatable by a mage-based army.

I think I might try to finish off Molach. He's close enough that I could actually claim the land, and he doesn't seem to have anything that could resist hordes of elementals. Plus that means no one else gets his land.