[Spoilers] The Golem Factory: Beeri Bawl of the Luchuirp

[Sciz]

So far after two tries the best i'm managing is 7 wood golems, 4 catapults and an adept on turn 102... Barnaxus promotion is irrelevant since the number of barbarians and whatnot will vary. I actually got almost the same result in both my two first tries. 4 cities, 80% steady research, same amount of military (as mentioned above), teched Ancient Charts, Mysticism, Education, Code of Laws, Knowledge of the Ether, Festivals, Writing, Mathematics.

My main problem is that my production sucks. Ithralia has good production, and so does city #3. The other two are both awful at it. Had to create my 4th settler in Ithralia, took 8 turns, which set me back 2 catas or 2 wood golems. Placed the four engineers in city #3 and it did 2-3 turn WGs during the end. Happy cap in Ithralia also hurts me, with a sculptor's studio it's 8, so i have to keep it at that size for a considerable time, can't see any happy resources close enough.

As said though, the production is the limit here. Cotton Valley can't produce anything to save its ass. I had to go with a 13 turn mud golem as its contribution, settler was like 25 turns or something equally ridiculous. City #4 also has bad production, and since it's new it's even worse than Cotton Valley. Barely got up a sculptor's studio and then a warrior between turn 78 and 102. I gotta try to found it faster maybe. After Barnaxus go straight for the settler, then do the sculptor's studio. Also maybe I should get Archery right after CoL, so I can lumbermill forests, that will definitely help my production in city #4 at least.

Edit: Actually the Mud Golem in Cotton Valley actually takes like 20 turns!

[Sciz]

Okay, got a better result this time! This is probably the best I can squeeze out of it, and of course the outcome will vary anyways, depending on barbs and events.

9 Wood Golems, 4 catapults, 2 adepts at turn 102. Only big difference negatively is that mathematics is not done, 6 turns from completion. Instead I went with archery early on.

Two factors made this one better than the last two:

1. Made city #4 settler directly after Barnaxus in Ithralia. Founded city #4 at around turn 70 instead of around 80. This enabled me to cast the world spell earlier, got me the settled engineers earlier, which made production in city #3 better, plus the earlier settling of city #4 made production there better as well. I also got my 2nd great engineer from city #3 on turn 96.
2. Got archery right after CoL. Enabled me to build lumbermills around city #4, improving its production A LOT. Also more hammers from chopping saved me a few turns here and there i'd bet.

Speaking of those great engineers, I can complete the Guild of Hammers on turn 120 if I do it like this. After getting mathematics, I can use the two GEs to shave off over 20 turns on Engineering, making it a 12 turn tech instead of 33 turns. Coincidentally my 3rd Great Engineer arrives exactly 12 turns after that as well, which is on turn 120. Turn 120 = Engineering done and 3rd GE arrives, use him to hurry Guild of Hammers, and it's done.

[Selrahc]

So far after two tries the best i'm managing is 7 wood golems, 4 catapults and an adept on turn 102.

Sounds workable, and would certainly crush an AI. Lets think it through against a human...

What could Ilios have to defend? We'd have to assume that at some time he'll discover our intentions. I'm assuming though that he won't have enough data by T70 to pick something like aggressive to really help him out.

We're relying on powerful troops. Ilios probably wouldn't have time to build the buildings after he notices our attack. I would assume then that the most likely military force for him to possess is Bronze Warriors.

Assuming he has 20 Bronze Warriors available, I think we still have the edge. We'll be getting odds against his cities, and repairing our units. We'd have to box clever... but it could definitely work.

However, lets think some more about optimizing the creation of forces.

City #4 also has bad production, and since it's new it's even worse than Cotton Valley. Barely got up a sculptor's studio and then a warrior between turn 78 and 102. I gotta try to found it faster maybe. After Barnaxus go straight for the settler, then do the sculptor's studio. Also maybe I should get Archery right after CoL, so I can lumbermill forests, that will definitely help my production in city #4 at least.

It sounds like City 4 isn't adding much to the rush. Maybe we should cut it out of the plan entirely.

The main reason for the city is to get a 4th Golden Hammer, but maybe that hammer isn't paying for itself in the timeframe. If we don't build it, we'll have two options. Either popping 3 hammers as soon as the third city hits the ground, settling them in Ithralia and getting on with things sooner. I imagine that this option will work out fastest of all. Or not using the hammers at all, until we've conquered Ilios's empire and have around 8 cities. This will probably be better long term(assuming the attack doesn't fail), but doesn't help us short term at all.

I'd say, try out a three city game. See what kind of numbers that puts out. If this attack pays off it will more than catch us up in territory.

[Sciz]

Good idea, i'll try both of them out

[Sciz]

Response from Uberfish:

[COLOR="Lime"]Hi Sciz,

The fire mana? That used to be a world feature (pyre of the seraphic), I explored it. It's also 4 tiles away from my capital, so I actually consider it part of my natural territory and was planning to settle around that area myself. I don't have much vision north of the equator so I don't know what's up there, but there's a valuable cluster of Calendar resources S/SE of your capital including the Standing Stones world feature and Gold to your E too, whereas the Gems around there represent the best tile visible to me for quite a long way. So I think my claim to the site is a reasonable one. I really appreciate you being upfront about your settling plans to avoid conflict, though. Hopefully we can work something out that doesn't step on each others' toes. To be honest, if Ilios or someone else settled not just 1 but 2 cities aggressively towards me with no communication I would be inclined towards just attacking them personally...

Also I can confirm that your analysis of civ locations matches up with what I've heard from other players.[/COLOR]

Didn't expect him to be THAT close, I won't take that gems/fire mana spot then. He mentioned the standing stones and calendar resources to my southish, guessing it's near the sugar that I see to the south, that's a viable city location then, but only after the war with Ilios. He also did mention that he explored the pyre of the seraphic, which is scary, but luckily nothing bad happened so it's okay. And it's also good that he "would be inclined towards just attacking them" concerning Ilios since that means he'll be okay with me attacking him. Definitely not mentioning any plans on attacking Ilios though, never know if Uberfish might leak it.

Gonna keep it as quiet as I can until Ilios inevitably comes asking me why my power is so high

[Sciz]

Did the 3-city thing.

First, without the world spell, I had

8 WGs, 4 catas, 2 adepts and Barnaxus at turn 102.

With the world spell, I had

13 WGs, 4 catas, 2 adepts and Barnaxus at turn 104 (or 12 WGs at turn 102)

Also as a side, with the world spell at turn 90 I had

6 WGs, 4 catas, Barnaxus and an adept finishing the next turn.

Let's just compare all three different ways:

4 cities with World Spell Turn 102: 9 Wood Golems, 4 catapults, 2 adepts, Barnaxus
3 Cities without World Spell Turn 102: 8 Wood Golems, 4 catapults, 2 adepts, Barnaxus
3 Cities with World Spell Turn 104: 13 Wood Golems, 4 catapults, 2 adepts, Barnaxus

So yeah 3 cities with world spell is much stronger than 4. But i dunno if I want to fire off the world spell with only three cities! Kinda seems like a waste in some ways, even though it will help us a lot in the Ilios war. It's very short term. Maybe I could pull it off with 3 cities and no world spell. It's only one WG less than four cities with the world spell, and saved up the world spell for later use, hopefully when I've taken cities from Ilios.

[Selrahc]

It's only one WG less than four cities with the world spell, and saved up the world spell for later use, hopefully when I've taken cities from Ilios.

I quite liked your modified plan for 4 cities from an economic/technological viewpoint though. It gets us engineering and the Guild of Hammers on T120, which is pretty decently fast. And once we start getting Gargoyles built in significant numbers we become very very difficult to invade. Incidentally... you noticed any of the resources which increase the build speed of Gargoyles lying around? I'm guessing not, but it would be good if we had some.

A problem I'd note is that by researching Archery we take away a lot of the future bulbing potential of Great Engineers. With Archery researched they like to Lightbulb the nearly useless Bowyers technology. Without Archery they research the far more interesting Smelting and Iron Working.

Ultimately, I think you've got enough data here to make the decision. Whatever happens, Ilios is certainly going to be having an interesting time of things when the stack meets him.

I would definitely try to stay on the good side of Uberfish. If he wants the gem site, and it is so close to his capital, let him have it. We're going to want a good neighbour.

[Sciz]

Yep, I gave him the site, really want to have good relations with him so we don't get hit from behind. Uberfish sent me a response:

Thanks for the understanding. Yeah the Stones are near there. I have no plans to research either cartography or grab that site in the immediate future, though. Sorry to hear about your scouting problems, I do have hunting now though and plan to tame some of the local wildlife soon, which should probably help you out some.

Then Ilios sent me a message

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hi,


I realised yesterday that because you're last in the play order, you probably saw where Orthus spawned.

Do I need to be worried?


Regards,


Ilios[/COLOR]

First I had no idea what he was talking about, but then I realized that maybe only the last player in the turn gets to see where Orthus spawns? So I told him truthfully that Orthus spawned far to the southeast, pretty far away from him. Don't want to make him suspicious by not answering, and besides he might be lax on troop production if he knows that Orthus is no threat to him.

In other news production started on Barnaxus now, done in 7 or 8 turns, I forgot. City #3 will be settled next turn. Gotta decide what way to play this now. I'm leaning towards 4 cities + world spell. I'm gonna try once more without archery, but if it doesn't work out im gonna do it with archery as I don't really think it's a huge deal to miss out on bulbing smelting and iron working, i'm just gonna have to deal with researching them normally.

[Selrahc]

Has it given you any insights for either game in both playing, and planning a military campaign against, the Malakim?

[Sciz]

Not really, since pbem3 hasnt gone so far yet, havent had time to think out a good strategy for that game, got thrown into it quite unexpectedly after all. It has made me wonder though, there's really not much Ilios feasibly can respond with in this timeframe. Bronze warriors like you said is the most likely, though he has to get lucky with popping copper, which I haven't been, so maybe he hasn't either.

I have some other thoughts but I can't really post them here because I don't want to spoil my PBEM3 game

On another note, there is no marble (faster production of gargoyles) in my immediate area, which is a shame.

On a third note, I did two more tests of this build up, and got this result on my second try, with four cities and the world spell, and without archery:

T102: 10 WGs, 5 catas, 2 adepts, Barnaxus.

Seems decent enough. Two big changes were made in this one compared to the previous, aside from not using archery of course.

First of all I did not make a training yard in Ithralia. Previously I have been doing so even though I haven't created a single wood golem from Ithralia, I've only made it for the happiness so I can grow to size 8 and work more tiles. But by not building it I gained several turns and was able to make one extra catapult. I lost some commerce through this, maybe a turn of research, because I had to stop working my cotton to have enough food to avoid starvation, but it was probably worth it.

Second of all, I did a small detour in the tech tree, which will admittedly slow down Engineering with maybe 5-10 turns. After KotE, I went with Bronze Working and Warfare, to revolt to Military State, giving me +15% military production, which together with nationhood makes +25%. Helped me get out probably two extra wood golems. Hell now that I think about it I could probably delay both Mysticism and KotE until after Bronze Working / Warfare, and maybe get one or two more out in time for T100ish. I'll try this out later, it's not really an immediate concern.