[SPOILERS] ARRR Ye Scurvy Dogs! Hannah the Irin

[Mardoc]

I turn research back on, and writing appears at the end of the turn; trade should take a turn after that. Not much newsworthy in the empire aside from that; I'm still hanging out in 2nd place for GNP, production, etc, but the gap with Thoth stubbornly refuses to close.

And, Irgy/Krill combined sent quite a chill down my spine; I thought there was good odds of Krill showing up next turn, on my borders or island, with some massive str iron-boosted units. Slightly calmed down now, but landgrab is still going to be quite important to hopefully divert Hyborem to somewhere he can't kill me or wreck my lands.

So, have some diplo with Thoth.

[COLOR="Yellow"]Those floodplains would be nice to have, but WarriorKnight is a lot closer to them than I am.....and he's already settled them.

I'm currently clearing the area around the Remnants of the gargoyles and giants that previously infested that land and I expect to be settling that area in a few turns. Hopefully before Irgy summons Hyborem.....I *really* don't want the Infernals to spawn right on my borders. Having to deal with Hyborem with tier 1 and 2 units would be unpleasant to say the least.

If you've been looking at your trade advisor you'll see I'm currently trading wheat for rice with WK. That was a mistake on my part. The turn arrived at midnight on Sunday just as I was heading off to bed and I was way too tired to be playing. I actually thought I had your trade screen open, not his.

Since I'll be connecting a source of rice of my own in the near future, it looks like I won't be needing to trade for yours. [/COLOR]

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Oh, that would explain why you won't be going there. My information must be out of date. I do have to agree on Hyborem, especially a human hyborem. There's all kinds of places that he could really mess up if he arrived there. I have to admit, my island comes to mind. All right, best of luck on the Remnants, and I won't challenge you for the area. Keeping my fingers crossed Hyborem shows up somewhere on Irgy's borders so he gets the Hell terrain bonus to running AV.

The loss of the wheat trade isn't a huge problem for me, although I do appreciate the explanation. I'll have to come up with something else to trade, then. Once I settle the island, I expect to have an extra Fish, for instance, if you're interested in sushi.

On another subject, you should see a significant increase in my Power graph in the next few turns; the presence of a neighbor with the world's largest army, a history of exploiting weakness, and an expiring NAP is my primary reason for this . I would be willing to discuss an extension to our NAP, if you're interested, but will be building an army regardless to ... mitigate temptation.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Yellow"]
Actually I have the world's second largest army. Nyktorion is slightly ahead of me on the power graph at the moment. My own power graph will be spiking over the next 10 turns or so as Mage guilds and Adepts come on line. I'm also going to be undertaking a "modernisation program" for some of my elite units.

Our current NAP runs until EOT 140 which is still some time away. I am willing to discuss an extension as well as certain other possibilities. Before I mention any of those possibilities I would like an agreement from you to keep those discussions confidential.

Fish I already have access to, but I could trade you Ale for a luxury (Sugar or Ivory perhaps?) until you get your own brewery up and running at which time I could substitute Wheat for Ale.

Right now it looks like we may have a few more turns than I had originally feared before Hyborem gets summoned. Irgy teched sanitation after founing AV and is still missing Priesthood and Fanaticism. (they're not required to tech Infernal Pact but he may well grab them first with the intent to take Malevolent Designs with the Grimoire).[/COLOR]

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Consider my lips sealed. I won't commit to anything without hearing what you have in mind, but I won't let it slip. (I assume talking it over with my dedlurker counts as confidential?).

I'm surprised Nyktorion managed to get ahead of you, without that handy worldspell for the boost. He must have really been focused on military might!

And, I'm glad to have just a little bit more time to probably prepare for Hyborem with. I have to admit, the thought of Krill with Iron-boosted units on my border now sent a few shivers down my spine.[/COLOR]

So...what does Thoth intend? And should I help him, or try to get on the other side of the war? On the one hand, it would be awfully nice to be able to keep expanding quickly. And with all my cities needing 20ish turns to grow coves, population, put up infrastructure, etc, I do think I have a lot of latent growth potential that Thoth may not have, short of war. With the island and the desert site, I should be up to 17 cities, all of which will need time to mature. If I add in markets/elder councils/sea havens/lighthouses/Great Lighthouse effects/library/money changer/etc, I might be in a very good production position, but all of that will take a while to build from here. Still, I can imagine 15 of my 17 cities with 6 trade routes each worth 4-5 commerce; that's plenty of room to grow even without a war. (6 trade routes comes from 1 natural, 1 from Trade, 1 from Currency, 1 from lighthouse, 2 from Great Lighthouse).

On the other hand, Thoth's ahead. And looks to be staying there, unless someone does something about it. I'm someone. I'm even in 2nd place on most metrics, and am Raiders, so am probably best positioned to do something of anyone here.

I guess it comes down to the question of, given peace, can I outgrow him? I have been, the past couple turns, and I do believe I still have more good land available to me than he has available to him. The Lanun bonuses are significant, while the Malakim bonuses are pretty much already accounted for. On the other hand, the snowball is in his favor, and he's demonstrated himself to be no slouch at war, either. Maybe he can gain Ljosalfar/Elohim lands faster than I can settle and develop mine.

[Mardoc]

[COLOR="Yellow"]
Of course posts in your lurker thread and talking things over with your ded lurker are ok.

Nyktorion and I are neck and neck as far as power rating goes. He's been whipping his cities pretty hard to produce archers and priests of leaves. While our past relations have been cordial, I'm expecting to be attacked once our current NAP runs out and am preparing accordingly. He finished teching Necromancy this turn so I'm expecting to be up against Death II mages. I'll have a surprise or two waiting for him if he is thinking conquest.


As far as my thoughts go, you and I are in the lead in terms of GNP and Production with WK in third and Irgy and Nyktorion far behind the pack. Once Hyborem appears, someone is going to get screwed. The two most likely candidates (based on the location of unclaimed land) are you and I.

In an ideal world we would launch an attack on Irgy using Cultists/drowns/stygians and eliminate him before he can summon Hyborem. I don't think this is possible due to the distances involved and his lack of coastal cities (I think he only has one).

Failing that, would you be interested in an agreement where we come to each others aid in the event that Hyborem spawns on either of our borders or on your island? If he spawns in a coastal location we can make short work of him with a few tsunamis + water walking units. If he spawns inland things would be a bit more difficult (unless he spawns on desert) but with two empires worth of military we should be able to take him down.

I think I managed to put the kaibosh to the notion of Krill playing the Infernals (AFAIT he's been reading my spoiler thread for awhile) but Iron equipped Infernals on either of our borders would be a bad thing. At the moment, you are my best resource trading partner. Having your lands ravaged by the Infernals would not be in my best interests. [/COLOR]

Hmm. This so far, anyway, I'm definitely willing to agree with, unless Dave sees a problem I'm not anticipating. I'm not sure that I'd want to ally with Thoth against Nyktorion, but against Hyborem, I'm willing.

Anyone out there know what governs Hyborem's spawn location? Is it anywhere unclaimed? Does fog matter? Exploration? Essentially, is there any way for me to control his spawn short of putting land inside my borders?

[DaveV]

Hmm. This so far, anyway, I'm definitely willing to agree with, unless Dave sees a problem I'm not anticipating. I'm not sure that I'd want to ally with Thoth against Nyktorion, but against Hyborem, I'm willing.

Yeah, I agree with your earlier post that you're better off continuing to put down cities and improve your existing ones. Thoth should be aware of your relatively low power, and may just be looking for you to refrain from sticking a knife in his back while he's busy with Nyktorion.

Anyone out there know what governs Hyborem's spawn location? Is it anywhere unclaimed? Does fog matter? Exploration? Essentially, is there any way for me to control his spawn short of putting land inside my borders?

I checked the code, and, without knowing all the variables and functions, here's what appears to be happening:

The game checks for a land plot which does not contain a city nor a unit, favoring unowned plots over those owned by the summoning player, which are favored over those owned by other players. A plot with more tiles, and with more unowned tiles, is favored. There's also a very large random factor, so the bottom line is that Hybo can pop up just about anywhere. Explored/unexplored and visible/not visible status appears to make no difference.

[Mardoc]

Inside your borders, even!?!? Wow. So the only possible counter is to carpet the world with warriors, or to keep your fingers crossed that he shows up somewhere else.

Ok, signed up with Thoth for demon hunting. Having an interesting chat with him, although not a huge amount of content. We're diverging into FFH design philosophy and such, for instance. He says the Heron Throne was payback for the Mr. Yellow copper loan, and that pretty much clears the slate there.

Also

Mr. Yellow's second city was 10 tiles from his cap and less than 8 from Nyktorion's....His copper city was his fifth. Not a good idea when you want border concessions from your other neighbour.

If that's true - well, first, Mr. Yellow was pretty aggressive. But second, that suggests the northeast of the world is much more cramped than the west.

And, he's offered to arrange a meeting between Nyktorion and me, if we can work out the details.

[Selrahc]

Inside your borders, even!?!?

If inside borders, he can't settle. If the world is literally full then Hyborem will go nomadic.

[Mardoc]

If inside borders, he can't settle. If the world is literally full then Hyborem will go nomadic.

If he's an AI. If he's Krill, well - all bets are off. Just because he can't settle until he takes one of your cities doesn't mean he really has to move around that much.

[Mardoc]

Had a brief chat with WarriorKnight. Pretty much info sharing, no real deals or requests. He wanted to know about the NAP with Thoth - turns out he's got one until T135. He's building Monks now, which honestly makes sense; they're a good unit. Other than that, we discussed the general layout of the world and our fears of Thoth. I'm apparently #2 in number of cities, and maybe I'll even make it to #1 if I can survive Thoth.

WK has contact with everyone now.

I have the general impression he was looking to feel me out on the subject of Thoth, but to be fair, I was looking to feel him out. I think he'd be willing to go for something aggressive, but didn't ask directly.

All that said, until I have the island settled, I want peace in the west. It looks like I should have a relatively easy time of outgrowing Thoth (I have said that before, though), with the same # of cities and more better land to expand into.

[Mardoc]

Writing comes in at the start of the turn, and Trade at the end. I'm considering maybe going for Great Library, which looks pretty cheap when you take Marble into account, except that I know Thoth also has Marble and is at least a turn ahead to Writing. Plus I feel I really should save my hammers for units at this point. Although a few well placed Libraries would do wonders, in themselves. Another hard choice.

Trade comes in at the end of the turn; next turn I'll have to try to evaluate where everyone is techwise compared to me. I'm expecting it to be pretty sad compared to Thoth and a good situation compared to WK. I'll push straight for Way of the Wicked/Deception, then figure out which of the 'nice to have soon' techs is the next priority. Right now, I'm thinking I may go for Currency next, to further boost GNP and make the rest of the decisions easier. Trade seems to have been worth 24 beakers/turn by itself; currency's got to be similar.

My first new worker is born at Captain Crunch, and I start another. I'm debating between settler after that, and a third worker; maybe I should evaluate based on if my workers seem to be catching up or not. Except Comrade, I've gotten all my cities back onto only improved tiles, but of course I expect Sugar any turn now, and Ale after that, and Ivory in the near future; probably I should stick with a third worker.

[Mardoc]

I'm finally tied for first in city count (yeah, I know, not the most important stat for anything except potential). Still, it's very nice to see a turn 1 city producing 8 gold and only costing 4. It may decrease my research percentage, but it still boosts it in absolute terms.

I'm definitely starting to see the value of Falamar, actually. With half-price settlers, I could have been perhaps done with my settling by now instead of still having 7 more sites in mind, and the difference between a 7 commerce cove and a 6 commerce cove is small compared to the number of coves. Yes, he'd maybe peter out as the game went on and cities grew to the point of working a bunch of 2 commerce coasts instead of 3 commerce coasts, but he's got to be much faster off the ground, and starting the snowball might be more important than an ultimate strength. Looking, I see that I still have more desired cove sites than I do coves! And, well, even with Hannah, I'm mostly working either coves or mines, so losing Financial wouldn't be as big a hit as one might think until nowish in the game, where my cities are finally getting big enough to have to work the sea.

Besides, half price Sea Havens might make up for some of that economy as I start to lean more heavily on trade.



Interestingly enough, I'm already out of foreign trade routes available! Ok, that pushes Currency down the list and Optics up. I'm currently leaning toward something like WoTW -> Deception -> Hunting -> Knowledge of the Ether -> Optics -> Fanaticism for my tech path, then; get Esus, clean up the base of the tree a bit and get my Ivory hooked, a couple scouting Hawks out, and finally start eradicating my desert. Then go for contacts and military.

Trade came in, as planned, and I don't have the time today to decipher the screen, but I'm putting the pictures here in case I want to come back and do it.





At a first glance, though, the situation isn't nearly as bad as I had expected, and mostly tells me stuff I already knew. Thoth had lumbermills, Kilmorph, and the Form of the Titan already, for instance, and WK had Order and scouting Hawks that I knew about. What will be interesting to find out is what I have that they don't. But I'm not out of this yet!

Neither has Way of the Wicked, so probably my only competition for Esus is Irgy *fingers crossed*. I'm very very glad to see that my two GNP competitors are not racing me for Esus, at least.

[Sciz]

holy
shit

i just noticed that the Lanun "theme" in the game is from the song "The Mariner's Revenge Song" by The Decemberists, starting at 4:55. I've listened to the decemberists for a long time and like them a lot but I never noticed until now

how could I have missed it? Mind blown

Uh anyways I posted this in here because you're the only Lanun topic I can post in. Go Lanun and stuff!