[Spoilers] Peace and Purity - Einion Logos of the Elohim

[WarriorKnight]

I seem to be rapidly catching up to Thoth in food, primarily due to Sanitation farms rapidly growing my cities. Sadly that can't last as I'm last in approval rate (I'm closest to my happy cap) and no-one else has Sanitation yet. I should be getting 2 new cities reasonably soon, City 8 is the barb city and City 9 will be the border city with Irgy which picks up dyes (settler finishes in 5 turns or so). I'm low on workers (I have 12 for 7 cities, but even 3 workers in my newest cities can't keep up with Sanitation farms, although they almost can) and I'm working on that too but there's so much other stuff I want to build too. (workers, settlers, monks, confessors, my UB's etc.)

I'm currently focusing on increasing my production, since there's so much stuff to build and I almost want to go to war with Thoth when our NAP expires. Whether I will or not is still questionable though.

[WarriorKnight]

Things are getting interesting. nyktorion, Irgy and I have decided to work together to try and fix the Thoth problem, which has evolved into sorting out our mana trades with the 3 of us. Since we're all good friends as well I've suggested that we try a 3 way mana deal with Entropy, Enchantment and Body mana. I'm not sure if it'll work or not but there's a good chance it will, plus getting all three while costing only one node would be really helpful.

Here's a couple of messages:

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Hi there,

sorry for not responding earlier; T116 was another turn I played rather late at night (though not at 4am, like T112 ), so didn't deal with diplomacy at that time anymore.

Yes, Thoth is quite strong right now. I think he's not at the point of being a runaway yet, but he'll be in the long-term if we don't do anything about. So even though I was on Thoth's side in the Bannor war, I definitely want to do something against Thoth running away now. Due to WarriorKnight sanctuary and Irgy's distance to myself, it should also be clear that I have no motivation to just try absorbing you (like Mr. Yellow) in order to get better chances relative to Thoth

For your convenience, here is some concrete information I have about Thoth:

- according to what I see in the tech trading screen, he currently has a total of 12 ancient era techs, and he got his 15th classical era tech this turn: Construction
- sorry, I am currently not building any wonder, so I won't have any realistic chance at contesting his Great Library and Bone Palace
- Thoth has a city right on top of his marble source; it's Golden Yurt (formerly: Tentatio-onis, Mr. Yellow's border city to Thoth, and the first city to fall in the war)
- from city-zooming, I can see Thoth already has the heroic epic, and a command post (certainly from the Military Strategy great commander) in the same city; that city is Golden Shack, his border city to Mr. Yellow before the war
- besides the cultists, there are two Malakim my hawks have spotted that we should be particularly aware of: first, there's General Martok, the slayer of Orthus, currently a swordsman with Combat V, Drill I, Mobility I, Bronze Weapons, Orthus' Axe, and Shield of Faith; second, there's an adventurer, currently a warrior with Bronze Weapons, Mobility I, and Combat II
- my hawks have spotted both of these hero-like units in the area around the Remnants of Patria; I can also see 5 cultists exploring in various directions; based on that, I believe that an attack on Mardoc is not imminent yet

In order to stop Thoth's rise, I think that we have to do a military strike against him at some point. However, I don't believe that this point is right now; while my hero, archeres and tiger priests sufficed to take Pink Dot and F.Destination, I doubt they could do serious damage to Thoth at this point. In my opinion, a better time would be when Irgy and I get mages for specters and fireball/maelstrom, respectively, and WarriorKnight's hero has collected some levels. Another good opportunity would be the time when Thoth decides to hit Mardoc. The perfect scenario would be if those two times coincide

Another point I'd like to raise here are our trading relations. I have had negotiations about mana trades with both WarriorKnight and Irgy now; it seems that all three of us would like to use magic in the near future (WarriorKnight on the adept level, and Irgy and myself at the mage level). What do you think of sharing these negotiations in our circle of three instead of doing them bilaterally? I think this would ease our cooperation here.

Last, I'd like to ask Irgy: what are your plans concerning Ashen Veil? First, are you planning to get the Stigmata of the Unborn in the near future? The availability of the entropy mana from this shrine might affect the above mentioned mana trades. Similarly, I would be interested in whether you plan to switch to Hyborem once you summon him; in that case, we should remember to keep mana deals involving you to be rather short-term (and maybe already start considering future deals with Hyborem, instead?), as I'm unsure how much your successor would feel bound by such deals.

best regards,
Nyktorion[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Purple"]Thanks for that info Nyktorion.

I certainly agree that mages are a better time to go after the Malakim, but I
have my doubts that we'd be ready before he goes after Mardoc. We'll see I
guess. Either way the best thing for me to be doing now is to continue
expanding and trying to catch up in population to everyone else. So that when
something start's to happen I can actually contribute significantly. I'll at
least have Rosier soon though.

As for three way mana trading, I'm happy to do it that way, but I'm not
convinced it will be any less complicated.

I will indeed build the AV shrine, I want entropy mana as much as anyone else.
The required great sage will take a while though yet, unfortunately. I won't
research Infernal Pact for a good while, and there's no way I'm switching to
Hyborem when I do in any case.

Irgy Arbandi[/COLOR]

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Well, if an earlier attack occurs against Mardoc, we'll have to see whether he is committed to that attack enough to leave him open for a non-mage strike. At least, I still have my victorious troops from the Bannor, maybe those can discourage him from going at Mardoc's throat too quickly and too all-out.

My plan is to take some more low-hanging economic fruit for now, and then go for sorcery. I estimate I'll get Sorcery between turns 135 and 140, and I'll have to see when my adepts start hitting the 10XP mark after that.

Concerning our trades, it's good to hear that one of us three will have entropy mana available in the medium term. The actual reason I wanted to do our mana trades among all three is to have some coordination concerning our raw mana nodes. Actually, my negotiations with WarriorKnight might determine what mana kind I will get for one of my nodes, that's why I wanted to extend those negotiations to all three of us. What I also wanted to do for that very reason (but unfortunately, I didn't manage to reflect that in my last message) is to share my current state of mana tarde negotiations between WarriorKnight and myself with Irgy, and vice versa. Would that be okay for everyone?

best regards,
Nyktorion[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Purple"]Ok, I understand you now. WarriorKnight's (very indirectly) already
effectively said they're not confidential, so I think I can tell you without
waiting for him to wake up. We have two deals so far, both made partly in
relation to border agreements:
* An agreement to share the ice mana.
* An agreement for WarriorKnight to loan me one mana of my choice. This was
previously water, will be nature at some point, but otherwise death once it's
available.

I plan to leave one of my nodes unimproved until Sorcery, so as to get
metamagic. Once I have metamagic I plan to be very fluid with the use of my
mana nodes. I can at that stage make short term loans of any type of mana I
have the technology for, which I plan to be necromancy and alteration at least
in the short term. Until then, I'll have one node I can improve earlier, and I
could be talked into a few different things. I won't have the technologies for
a few turns yet though as I also plan to pick up some missing economy techs first.

Irgy Arbandi[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Sorry for the delay, I was busy last night and unable to civ, let alone do diplo.

Mardoc has a NAP with Thoth until T140. Whether or not anything will actually happen then is unknown at the moment, but it's probably for the best if we assume the worst case scenario that Thoth will invade then. It sounds like nyktorion will have just have reached sorcery by that time, but whether you'll have a decent number of mages by then is unknown. Since I won't be relying on arcane units, I should have a decent force ready by then. While waiting longer for more mages is an option, although we have to remember that waiting will only inevitably help Thoth since he's the leader right now, plus if he gets to sorcery all of his mages can summon Sand Lions (6 strength, 3 move summons that gets +60% desert strength) which with the amount of desert he has will be very scary. Therefore I propose that we pencil in T140 for now, although as I don't know how ready the two of you will be by then I'm open to other suggestions.

In any case, I agree that a 3 way mana deal would be beneficial to all of us and would avoid confusion since we appear to have several deals between ourselves anyway. Irgy's already mentioned the mana deals between ourselves, and so far I only have one mana trade with nyktorion which is:

*A 10 turn loan of water mana starting around T120 or so in exchange for a future loan of Entropy, Enchantment or Body mana.

Now, nyktorion getting Entropy mana won't be very effective since Irgy will get a source of his own from the AV shrine eventually. Since we'll all probably want spells from those spheres at some point (Body, Enchantment and Entropy), and since we're sharing our mana plans around, how about the three of each acquire a source and trade it to each other for the other types of mana? (so for example I get Enchantment and trade it to Irgy for Entropy and trade it to nyktorion for Body, and the two of you trade Entropy for Body also).

Granted, there will be a few problems to work around (you can only trade a resource to one person at a time and the two of you might have an trade for those mana types already (It doesn't clash with my mana deals with Irgy, nyktorion how would you feel about building a FoL temple or two with a Priest in exchange for water mana?)) but since it will give all of us some very useful spells and save us time I hope that we can work things out. If it doesn't work out and either of you have any alternative suggestions for mana trades between the three of us I'd be happy to hear them.

Regards,
WarriorKnight[/COLOR]

Also Thoth has sent me a message:

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hi WarriorKnight,

It's been awhile since I heard from you, I hope everything is going well in Elohim lands.

I see that we both have sailing now and I think we'll both get trade routes from open borders (if not, I can have a road built to the edge of your territory in about 4/5 turns)

Are you still interested in Open Borders (with a no-scouting clause)?

Also, I would like to borrow your water mana from t120-130. I can offer some of my palace mana in exchange, or is something else interests you I'm open to suggestions. (perhaps a Temple of Kilmorph or two? Obviously that would require an exception to the "no scouting" clause)

Thoth. [/COLOR]

Hmmm, the most difficult part of diplo is when your trying to avoid committing to anything without tipping them off that you have hostile intentions. Here is what I've got so far:

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Hi Thoth

Things are going fairly well for the Elohim. I presume the same can be said about the Malakim?

Originally, we were only going to open borders so your scout could contact the Sheaim, but since you deleted the scout in question I thought that we wouldn't sign OB. Anyway, I'm currently maxed out on trade routes from the Sheaim and elves so unless we remove the no-scouting agreement I wouldn't benefit from Open Borders at all.

I am open to mana trade suggestions though, although sadly I've already agreed to a deal to supply nyktorion with my water mana in your suggested timeframe. If your willing to wait that long, then we can figure something out but since Mardoc also gets water mana from his palace I assume that you would rather try and make a deal with him so you don't have to wait for it?

Regards,
WarrioKnight[/COLOR]

I want to include something about not contacting me first about the Wheat for Rice trade but blaming him would probably only tip him off. OB is useless for me since I get enough routes from everyone else, but I did offer OB with a no scouting agreement ages back and I don't know if I should be difficult and refuse to sign it now. Fortunately the water mana was easy to write as nyktorion did contact me about that first.

Now that I have trade, I should have figured out what techs everyone has but diplo has taken up to much of my time today. Hopefully next turn?

[WarriorKnight]

I'm sure you lurkers have seen this before in either Mardoc's or Thoth's thread, but I'm posting it here anyway. Anyway, here's the tech screen:



And everyone individually:

Irgy:

Down Cartography, Hunting, HBR, Sailing, Writing, Trade, Priesthood, WotWise and Order

Up KotE, WotWicked and AV

Surprisingly has Sanitation already, the only other person beside myself to have it (although since Thoth got Construction last turn he'll be getting it soon enough). However he's the only one lacking Writing and Priesthood so he's behind by quite a bit. He doesn't have any economic traits so unless he makes a big change in his game plan I think he'll be staying behind in tech. Just gotta hope that whatever he does do doesn't involve attacking me, but I think my diplo has been good enough to avoid that.

nyktorion:

Down Cartography, Code of Laws, Crafting, Mining, BW, Masonry, Construction, Sanitation, HBR, Trade, WotWise, Order

Up Fol, Archery, KotE, Necromancy, WotWicked

Doesn't have Crafting or anything behind it yet! True, the elves don't need mining to cut down trees but come on... (likewise doesn't have CoL, but elves don't need it).

Otherwise he's doing a little bit better than Irgy, but still behind. Not really sure why he went for Necromancy so early (he went there to connect the death mana from the broken sepulchar to trade to Irgy, but surely that could have been delayed a bit?)

Mardoc:

Down Hunting, Sanitation, WotWise and Order

Up OO

Much better than the first two due to pirate ports and Financial. Is only a bit behind but honestly we might as well be even in tech. Although teching is what the Lanun do the best by far, so given that I'm ahead of him there suggests that I'm still doing a bit better.

Thoth:

Down Cartography, Hunting, Sanitation, WotWise, Order

Up Archery, KotE, OO, RoK, Warfare, Military Strategy

Tech leader, he's got a couple more techs than me but if we compare beaker to beaker we've got to be fairly close to each other. However, since he has a GNP of around 400 right now (thanks to Malakim floodplain farms, financial and RoK) he's bound to pull ahead tech shortly with 11 cities.

[WarriorKnight]

Lot's of diplomacy going on. The dogpile on Thoth seems to be going ahead, as nyktorion and Irgy have both added a lot to the discussion. First order of buisness is to recruit Mardoc so that another one of Thoth's fronts can be distracted. Sadly, both of them want to wait until after T140 when they'll have a decent number of mages, but I'm not sure I can wait that long due to Sand Lions.

If Thoth gets Sorcery and enough starting experience for lightbringers (any 5 of Form of the Titan, Command Post, Conquest, Apprenticeship, Desert Shrine and Altar layers) , he can instantly promote them to mages who, thanks to the vast desert in his lands, will have no problems summoning 6 strength 3 move sand lions (probably with empower and spell extension promos too). The only realistic counter I can think of against swarms of them are Drill IV heroes. Sphener would be perfect, but I'm not going to be able to get him anytime soon, which just leaves Valin.

True, he won't have 15 mages in 20 turns, but Sand Lions are flat out better than monks thanks to speed, and are more disposable thanks to being summons. Hopefully with several useful adept spells and Corlindale (who I'll probably beeline for next) I can do some damage to him though.

Anyway, in other news I finish KotE and Irgy builds Rosier. The barb city should fall in a few turns giving me my 8th city.

[Bobchillingworth]

With your currently running the Order and considering teching fanaticism soon, any thoughts regarding Basium?

[WarriorKnight]

With your currently running the Order and considering teching fanaticism soon, any thoughts regarding Basium?

I don't have any plans to summon him since I already have too much to build and since I'll need to team up with an AI if I do summon him it's not worth it. I've never had any intention of summoning the Mercurians since I don't really know how to play them, so I'm sticking with my Elohim.

Still trying to convince Mardoc to join us against Thoth. Although while discussing, I've learnt that Thoth has offered to extend his NAP's with nyktorion and Mardoc but not me, so assuming the worst Thoth might try and get me to burn Sanctuary when our NAP expires. I'll probably have enough units to defend against Thoth by then, but I'm still a bit nervous since I've gone this far without using Sanctuary and I'd like to be able to hold onto it long enough to cast it when I want to, not as a last minute defense.

[WarriorKnight]

OK, it's been a while so let's just go with a complete overview:

Mardoc has signed a NAP with Thoth until T170, which puts him out the picture until then. He should have a complete OO army by that time.

Thoth has offered to extend our current NAP until t160, which is great since I can focus on expansion again, although it makes all of our NAP's expire at different times. (nyktorion at t150, me t160, Mardoc t170). After discussion with everyone else I took him up on it though. Now we're all trying to get a decent army up by then.

As for me, well I continue to make some mistakes. Right now, I've fallen behind everyone else in city count, and have the worst health and happy cap. I should get 2 more cities in 2 turns (1 of which is the barb city) and should get another 2 within the next 10 turns to try and make up for this though.

Anyway:



Something interesting for a change. Since the Sheaim are in the game, raising the AC isn't an option, so I destroyed it. I certainly won't be ready for blight anytime soon.



Thoth offered cultist support to take the barb city if I signed the NAP with him. Sadly, since the barbs move in between the two of us, they get a chance to heal before I move, but even without Thoth I probably would be able to take the barb city by myself if I sacrifice some warriors.

Anyway, let's look at the cities:



Obviously need to fix the health here at some point, but I plan to build Corlindale here once Fanaticism comes in. Even if I'm not going to war immediately, an archmage is too useful (for Vitalise if nothing else).




Happy cap is a problem, but I'm going to force a temple here with my next Priest to fix that. Other then that, I'll probably be building adepts here for a while.




With Sanitation, it's finally growing to a decent size. It'll probably build Confessors for all my cities unless something else is needed.




Public Baths should help the happy cap. Next thing is probably workers or monks.








Haven't quite figured out what to do with these cities yet long term. I intended for them to be GP farms, but I can't easily get a decent number of Priest slots for these cities. Additionally, both Garryvoe and Cafes have a lot of hills, so I might just turn them into production cities.




Thoth is first in all the major categories, and would be even if he didn't build the Bone Palace. The Lanun seem to be just beating me in GNP, which was bound to happen eventually with financial pirate ports. My caps are horrendous, but some new cities should help that shortly.

I have no idea yet how to attack someone who has double my MFG, thanks to the switch to Arete and Conquest last turn. You can see from Ballinsloe how much desert is on our border, and once he gets Sand Lions things will turn nasty. Granted, he'll be up against everyone else in the game, but he just has too much land thanks to the Bannor war.

Tech path is Fanaticism, then I might just get Drama as the Great Artist there still hasn't been claimed(!) then Currency and Alteration/Divination. I may get Animal Handling or Poisons after that, or some other filler techs that I'm still missing (like archery, warfare, military strategy etc.).

[Mist]

Haven't quite figured out what to do with these cities yet long term. I intended for them to be GP farms, but I can't easily get a decent number of Priest slots for these cities. Additionally, both Garryvoe and Cafes have a lot of hills, so I might just turn them into production cities.

Cottage over everything ( all hills, every second grassland ) in Garryvoe and go pure commerce? It's backlines city that should not be threatened in forseeable future. Did the Lighthouse fall yet? If not maybe build it here for denial ( Mardoc at peace with Toth *and* having the Lighthouse is not a nice prospect ).
Cafes might end up being the frontline so mines sound right, maybe fit a citadel or two somewhere? They do take time to grow and might help a lot on defense.

[WarriorKnight]

Mardoc got CoE a while back, and it seems he's already started talking with Thoth about the free Sage from the Undercouncil. Being good, I can't get it anyway (which sucks, I mean how is good better than neutral at all aside from a rare prophet event and late game hell terrain?) but Irgy or nyktorion might join in.

I wish the Overcouncil had something decent. The only useful ones are an extra trade route and getting trade routes from people you dont have open borders. The rest are either useless in MP or actively sabotage you (outlawing certain mana types for example). Compared that to a free Sage, quarter price Gambling houses, nightwatches, unrest in overcouncil cities, smuggling rings and slave trades from the Undercouncil.

Anyway, Fanaticism arrives EoT Snowfall Corlindale will be essential during the war, although while I'm at peace I might Vitalise some tiles around (also Poison Blade will be useful too).

[WarriorKnight]

I've got to agree on Thoth - there's been a lot of 'don't want him to get, but I want my copy of it even more' going on - trade, for instance. And happiness resources. and NAPS .

He definitely came fishing about a Coalition of the Willing attempt, I said basically nothing either way. 'Huh? Are you talking about PBEM2?'. Of course the primary difference between the two games is that we don't intend to fail .

- Mardoc

Yep, Thoth knows that there's a dogpile. Bit saddening I guess but oh well.

My next GP should be a prophet, which I'll use to build the Order shrine. It'll be nice to get a wonder for a change (since Thoth now has 4 after the RoK shrine and everyone else has 0). Should be due in around 10 turns or so (about the time I get Corlindale).