The Black Sword's Tale: For the Kurious

[Merovech]

Organized does not affect city maintenance except in making courthouses cheaper.

Yup, that's what I meant.

Ah, sorry.

[The Black Sword]

So, HidingKneel took the Khazad and I'm left with the Kuriotates. New plan time!

At least I should have a bit more insight into the Khazad plans, they'll be first in opponents analysis. Jalapeno's world spell is the first thing to watch out for, but I have a feeling he'll fire it T1 and I won't have to worry about it. I'm assuming everyone has similar starts and working the deer, oasis and corn, or equivalents seems like a very good argument for a T1 River of Blood.

In either case, I'll be going worker first opening, teching towards Calendar and I'll probably risk it and send the starting two units off exploring. Seeing as I can pop a warrior in two turn if necessary, I should be safe enough. I'm pretty certain I'll turn the shade to an engineer, I think a lot of the arguments for the Sage are lost as the Kurios.

I'm debating whether to go for a second worker quickly. It will probably depend on the Calabim world spell. If they haven't fired it then I'll go worker-> warrior -> worker. If they have then worker -> warriors as I grow -> build another worker when I'm about to run out of improved tiles.

When I hit Calendar I will want to revolt to agrianariasm and out of pacifism. I was debating whether I should delay agrianariasm to double revolt with God King as the Khazad but getting out of pacifism with the Kuriotates pushes it over the top.I am tempted to delay warrior spam until I'm out of pacifism, we'll see.

Given that I have such a high early happy cap and early agro farms, I think I will grow too quick for my worker and will need a second one way or another.

I had a slight debate on the tech plan after that, but I think Mysticism is far superior to mining. I can farm over the gems tile in the meantime. Mining would be worth 5g per turn, 1 happiness and maybe some hammers. Mysticism is cheaper, it also gets me 5g per turn, with elder council+sage and God King should easily make up the hammers difference. The deal breaker is Academy that pops out 12t later.

After that my thinking is a bit more hazy. If I can scout good enough positions I'd hope to push 2 settlers out quickly and pop my world spell. Short term techs I want at that stage:
Education -> apprenticeship, get started on commerce
Hunting -> I'd like Hunters to be my early military after warriors. They can serve a building purpose as well as a military purpose by capturing animals. I think that trade off vs Centaurs extra speed and withdrawal chance is worth it. Plus Ratmen! (oh and the deer tile).
Crafting -> Mining -> WoTE -> And I would like to beat competing teams here if possible, but I'm not sure its worth slowing down elsewhere. Kilmorph appears to be the best religion for settlement spreading. Sacrafice a priest for a temple(+2) and the religion spread(+1), hire a merchant(+3), adding in the shrine makes +7gpt. Ashen Veil is also a good choice for this but it takes a lot longer to get.

I think I may have a bit too much hammers at the start, when my expensive stuff, settlers and elder councils, are at +100% so I may want to put extra work to good use. Crafting giving access to Deruptus and Tailors is an option here.

I should have a very strong start here with the Kuriotates, but I'm still thinking about how I want to play the later game, where I'll probably have more trouble.

[The Black Sword]

Turn 0 played. I was right that Jalapeno went with Rivers of Blood straight away, should make things a lot easier to plan.
I scouted along the river with rat and warrior, settled the shade as an engineer and began building a worker while working the oasis.

According to the demos, top rival production was 4h, so I guess the others have all gone scientist with their shade. I briefly considered switching to scientist to get calendar sooner and double revolt out of pacifism quicker but I still think the engineer is a good trade off and that the Kurios have more hammer issues than commerce.

I didn't touch on the effect of pacifism much in my previous post, with the engineer it's going to cost me 2 hammers per turn while building a warrior. It also means that I can't 2t a warrior quickly in case of danger like I thought. I don't see the point in revolting out of pacifism until I build my first worker at least, and then I'm only 4 turns from calendar(spending 1 turn working the oasis instead of a possible corn farm to get it a turn sooner). I'm trying to decide whether its better to build another worker in those turns to mitigate pacifism or grow anyway and just accept the hammer loss.

I do have some screenshots, hopefully I should be able to put them up tomorrow when I have more time.

In the meanwhile here's some opponent analysis I've been writing up over the last few days.

[The Black Sword]

I don’t really know the players personalities so I’ll just be commenting on the civs. I’m sure I’ll be repeating a lot of things everyone already knows, but hopefully it will help me order my thoughts.

Arendal of the Ljosalfar – Sian


-More of a mid-late game civ with a slow early game. Though Creative is a great early game trait to mitigate this(and Spiritual saves quite a few turns also).
-Obviously will want to unlock FoL fairly early for the worldspell and to stay in it for quite some time for ancient forests and PoL.
-Spiitual Military: This opens a lot of mid-game options, I’d imagine Spiritual PoL will be the main military force for quite a while. Probably wouldn’t mind switching into some other religions for support. Ritualists are probably a good bet, some Cultists too if the map has water and Rathas are also very handy. Grabbing a Stonewarden and Confessor would be nice also, depends if has the beakers and turns outside FoL to spare. Probably can't get all of them.
-Early game, I should keep an eye on whether he’s going for archery early, in which case Gilden could be nasty. Also probably the main threat to Grigori for Form of the Titan. Aggressive settling with creative and offensive world spell use should also be kept an eye on.
-Kuriotates should be ahead in the early game though and I need to leverage that into a reasonable lead somehow because late-game the Elvish supercities can come close to matching mine and he’ll have a lot more of them.
-Tower, Culture and Altar victories are all open, though Arendal has less incentive to go down the arcane line.
-Thinking about the Industrious trait in the next section, I realised that the Ljos are probably my main rival for the Pillar of Chains, being another cottage economy. I’ll have to watch that also.

Thessalonica of the Elohim –Yell0w (not bothered getting a smaller pic)


-Compared to the other civs in this game, they’re actually an early-mid game civ.
-Industrious is also probably more of an early game trait for the worker bonus. I was thinking about how to leverage this as Dwarves, as FFH is doesn’t have as many wonders as BTS. Combined with being Spiritual, I’d say there’s a good chance he’ll try to get the Bone Palace. If I don’t have marble then I’ll probably let him. The Dwarves might try race for it though.The only wonder I’d really like is the Pillar of Chains and I think Taxation should be a lot higher priority for me than him. The other nice early(ish) game wonders are Form of the Titan, which they could have problems getting the unit for, The Great Library and the Mines of Gal-Dur.
-Spiritual: Again this opens some nice military options as mentioned above. Spiritual PoL for the summoned tigers are probably the best of these for quite a while. It would be interesting then if he were to race the elves for FoL, he’d quite probably win and they’d still spread FoL giving him the shrine gold. Kilmorph is also the easiest religion to unlock and opens up the Mines of Gal-Dur and spiritual Paramanders which are fairly nice. That would be an interesting route also but again would probably be a race for it.
-Sanctuary: This is probably the best thing about the Elohim. It also possibly means he can go with a military light opening so maybe I won’t need to worry much about rushes here either. I have to keep an eye on how quick he can complete any victory conditions though, don’t want him able to turtle up and me not able to touch him.
-Tolerant: Some interesting options here. My cities are actually very attractive to the Elohim. I don’t think he gets the 3-radius cities but Tailor and Jeweller are very powerful buildings and access to Centaurs is fairly nice also. So I still need to be careful around them. It might also be an opportunity though. Expansive Settlers are very cheap for me with potentially very big rewards for him; I just have to make sure the price is right. Especially if Yell0w doesn’t turn out to be one of the leaders, this is a real option. What about other civs? Elves- Elvish workers in an economy that might want to stay in FoL a while. Dwarves – I’m not sure how the vault would work, but spiritual dwarvish druids are scary. Vampires- well, vampires! Grigori-GP pool would probably already be too diluted for adventurers, Grigori medics are nice though and is it possible to have 4 druids and 4 luonnatar? Lots of interesting stuff here, but it’s very unlikely he can use any of it.

Decius of the Calabim -jalapeno


- Probably the scariest civ of the lot. He doesn’t reach full power until Vampires and larger cities for the governer’s manors to take effect, so not early game either. The lack of elder council can also be quite annoying.
-Rivers of Blood: Unfortunately, this makes him early game. As I said before, I think a T0 cast really makes sense here and that’s what I’m expecting. If not though, I can adapt to it, especially because I really don’t want to build pacifist warriors early on.
-I’m not too sure what religion he’ll go for. No spiritual like the previous two, so no need to emphasise it so much but I’m sure he’ll want one for the happiness if nothing else. He will want to head for Code of Laws early though, so he’ll probably stay out of the race for the early religions. Ashen Veil is the cliché, but most of the religions offer something.
-I need to look at my options for death resistant troops to counter spectre spam. I’m pretty sure Undead are immune, I’m not sure about Angels and demons.
-Organised: Double production governer’s manors is the scariest thing. Maintenace reduction is very nice for a Toroidal map like I said before. Command posts are excellent buildings also, which I’m sure he’ll get a few of, though the xp bonus is not as important for vampires.
-Raiders: Ugh. I was hoping no-one would take this. I have no experience building a road network to counter raiders, it isn’t necessary in SP or BTS. At least I’ll only have 3 cities to defend. It also means he has to go to war, or at least threaten it, to maximise his traits. It would be great if that target is someone else.

Arthurus Thorne of the Khazad – HidingKneel

-My original choice and probably the weakest civ I think. Also mid-late game thanks to the Dwarvish Vaults. This will mean -1/2 happiness in the early game for quite a while until he pops his worldspell. The earlier he pops it the quicker it goes away but the less he has for further expansion.
-I shouldn’t really have to worry about a dwarven rush at all. Not that they can’t defend themselves if provoked somehow but the opportunity cost for him when he’ll have trouble expanding into the rest of his land is too low.
-They could be quite a nice ally here. I don’t gain much by attacking them, they don’t gain too much by attacking me. They probably won’t be one of the top dogs as the dwarves. All that adds up to something I can work with.
-My tech goal was to ToD dwarven druids and that is definitely something I should worry about. I’m sure he’ll get to Arete anyway so there’s not much to give away, I’ll just need to try keeping an eye on what mana types he has.
-As for the rest of his army, siege and melee are emphasised in the tech path. They are quite slow though. I think chariots are also quite likely to make up for this. If they get the Mines of Gal-Dur then they’d be looking at units that can use Iron weapons.
-Kilmorph is the usual dwarven religion, both for gold and arête. It isn’t too important for them in the early game though I think, it is possible to go with something else. I’ll guess we’ll see. I think I could out-tech them to WoTE, but I’m not so sure about the Elohim. I’m leaning away from needing the shrine atm anyway. I imagine they will switch to some other religion for a bit to complement their military.
-Organised: See above, for the dwarves the command posts are more important than ½ price courthouses though. Command post 20%, vaults 40%, smithy 40% = +100% military production late game, scary if they manage to reach it. I need to make sure I stay ahead in commerce or I’m pretty screwed against that.
-Industrious: Also see above. It’s probably a good thing to have two Industrious civs fighting over their bonus, especially since they shouldn’t challenge for the wonders I want anyway. Faster excellent dwarven workers can go some way toward mitigating the vault problems though. Likelihood is that the Dwarves get the Mines, and the Elohim get the Bone Palace. The Great Library would be reasonably possible to get for someone else who got there early.

Cassiel of the Grigori – WarriorKnight.

-The civ I’m most worried about in the early game. They’re not really a rush civ, but it could be hard to deal with their first 2 adventurers and they don’t have as nice later peaks to aim for as the other civs. I need to keep an eye on their tech path and intentions.
-Early adventurers might as well go up one of the martial paths I think. Heroic Archmages are powerful but even Heroic mages aren’t as scary. So I’d guess the first few will probably go melee. Recon is a bit too risky for such an important unit I think. Though heroic assassins later are also nice.
-Whatever path he does go with his adventurers will likely dictate his further tech path as he will want to upgrade them into better units ASAP. In addition he’ll probably want to get some mage candidates ready to give him some options that he’d usually get from religion.
-Philisophical: This just makes for quicker adventurers really. The adventurers will hopefully nullify the earlier academy strategy that usually goes with philosophical.
-Organised: I'm not sure how useful Organised will be in the first 70t. It is a very nice later trait I think but costs are smaller in the early game and I'm not sure if he can reach command posts to build a few before the switch. Adventurers do make him the favourite for Form of the Titan also, so it could be a good tech path for the Grigori. T70 sounds very early though. He used to be Industrious first I think? That would probably be stronger with the worker bonus.
-Adaptive: This comes into play on T70, another trait change on T145 and after that it is unlikely to matter. I have been thinking a bit about my choices here also. However spiritual, one of my favourites, doesn't hold the same appeal to the Grigori who can't adopt religion. They already have Philisophical, we might be past the stage where expansive settlers are useful and a similar case might be made for creative. It's hard to get a good idea of the economic traits he might go for. Tbh, I think Organised again might be best if that's the aim. However, if he doesn't go for an economic trait, that leaves military options, which isn't good. Especially the thought of more raiders. Thinking about it, Arcane might be the best fit, he doesn't have many other mage alternatives and the timing probably fits nicely. I guess we'll see closer to the date.
-Ardor: More GP and he should be able to time it nicely to ensure some adventurers, a very nice worldspell.

[The Black Sword]

A couple of quick pictures from last turn. Are the sizes ok for people or should I try resize them?
The save I received from Jalapeno is asking for his password so I assume he sent me on the wrong one. I emailed him about it and I'm waiting a reply atm. I need to head off to football now though.

[Ichabod]

It's the turn 0/1 bug. You need to delete the first Turn 1 from your saves folder, before you play the next one (the first and second turns from FfH are considered turn 1). If you don't do it, the save will be overwritten and if that happens it bugs, displaying exactly what you saw: it prompts you to the previous player turn instead of yours. After turn 1, you don't need to do this again.

I think the screenshots are fine. They could be a little bigger.

[Ichabod]

Apologies for being unclear (not exactly unclear, much closer to completely impossible to understand), The Black Sword. You've done nothing wrong with the save. It was jalapeno that didn't delete/rename his turn 1 save, which made you receive a bugged save. He has to replay and send you another one. When you play your next save, after jalapeno replays his, you'll need to delete/rename the first save you've sent to the next turn player, in order to avoid it being overwritten.

If you have any other doubt, just ask away. I'll try to make my explanations understandable from now on.

[The Black Sword]

Heh, thanks anyway, I think I understand the problem now. In my case I think I would have gotten away without renaming because HK and Mardoc changed their name, so the name of the save also changed. I renamed it of course just to be sure.

I'll put up pics again later. The demos showed someone with 7h and 3f, which means they must be working the deer tile. I had a feeling all the first rings would be the same though. I might try examine them in a bit more detail.

Land to the west was fairly nice for a normal city but I found some water over there, so probably not enough room for one of my megacities.

[The Black Sword]

The Land is looking ok, though I really need a better picture before I place my 2 cities. It's a shame that FP in the west is probably hard to get without a lot of overlap or sea. Ivory and Deer available at hunting could be nice.

I'm a bit worried about sending both of units out scouting and having no-one at home until the first warrior pops out after 9 turns. So if someone's capital is under 18 tiles from my mine, its possible a scout could turn up and ruin my day, especially worrying if he reachs the hill NE of the city. Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid here but given a Toroidal world wrap 18 tiles doesn't seem impossible. That's 3-4 cities between our capitals with overlap.

On the other hand, one of the benefits of the engineer is greater early safety and I need to take advantage of the pre-barb period I think.

On T6 I'll have 10hpt from overflow -> 8h due to pacifism working oasis. Suppose someone shows up on the diagonal start of next turn then working the deer tile gives 9->7h = 15/16h necessary for a warrior. So I'm going to get an extra hammer in just in case and shave 2 tiles of the potential scout range. Unfortunately that means two turns working the deer instead of oasis since the first extra overflow hammer will be lost due to pacifism. I could work the deer on T6 but that will mean I take an extra turn to grow, which seems worse than a 4b -> 1h trade that won't affect the arrival of Calendar(because I've decided its better to work corn than oasis anyway, even if it does get calendar in a turn earlier).

Of course, no-one is going to show up now.

[The Black Sword]

So, I started first up my moved my scout into this row of jungles and ...



Ugh, that's a bit closer than even 16 tiles. I'm pretty sure he can see my scout too since those are hill tiles. This means if his scout moved right at all, he'd know I was to the south and probably divert down there and I couldn't get my warrior out in time. Additionally with a toroidal world wrap I think it's quite likely others could be just as close to me. So ... I chickened out. Moved the warrior back towards my capital. Hopefully I can make up the scouting when I start getting more warriors out. I also continued to work the oasis.

I need to decide what sort of greeting message to send to WK. I'm probably going to move onto the diagonal square next turn to keep him honest also. If he's moved both warrior and scout a full 3 moves away from his capital then he wouldn't be able to get back in time. Everyone else has settled scientists also, so there's no way for him to 2t a warrior either I think. From the demos it seems to me that 2 people are working oasis, 2 deer besides the calabim. Also, no-one is researching pre-requisites, that's why I'm keeping up in GNP. So I'd guess everyone is going worker+ Agriculture first.

The grigori is also the one civ I really didn't want to start beside. Remember what I was saying about Adventurer rushes? I don't really don't want to take someone out so early though. I can't even make the best use out of extra land as the Kuriotates. On the other hand, another one of these capital locations for my supercities would be very nice. I think I just can't turn down the possibility if it's open. Surely no-one would hold that against me in diplo. I also don't want to piss him off an be definitely on the end of his Adventurers. I'll probably have to declare war, pop into his borders and check his defences however.

I'm rambling a bit now. Here's some demos while I try figure out what to say:

I think I took it while the city advisor had switched to the deer tile.