The Kuriotates: A Tale of Centaurs, Hubris, and Unbridled Enthusiasm

[HidingKneel]

Actually, on further thought, this isn't quite as suboptimal as I first thought. We could go to Divine Essence via Theology, for our High Priests anyway, and it also enables Immortals, Valkyries, and the Blood of the Phoenix ritual, in addition to Eurabatres.

I'm really liking this idea. So much so that I think I'd almost prefer a prophet to a merchant. We could make this our next beeline, after picking up a few economic techs: Orders from Heaven -> KotE -> divination. Then start building the first tower while teching religious law (that's the only prereq we're missing for theology, right?). Shouldn't even take too long.

An alternative is to forget theology and go instead for Commune with Nature, which we apparently have the prereqs for already. A quick trip to OO would bring us to neutral, and we could build druids.

Anyways, I think I'll run a priest and a merchant to get our GP out next turn. If we don't get a merchant, Commodore can make his civic swaps immediately to avoid the turn of anarchy. If we do, it's probably worth it to wait a turn to add consumption to the mix (wish I'd thought of this earlier).

I'll announce, certainly. Smelting is great, no doubt, but Construction -> Sanitation might be best, particularly given how much growing I'll need to do. Currency is obviously going to be needed once Killswitch has grown into something that can (with God King) make a dent as a funder. If I'm going to be running 100% gold 100% of the time, GK will be worthwhile longer than usual, although on a toroid like this Cartography will be needed eventually.

I don't think sanitation should be an immediate priority. IIRC there's only one farm by Killswitch.

As for the God-King question: distance maintenance was a killer for us on this map even before God King (we were paying something like 8gp from turn 0). As soon as it's safe to do so, Naggarond is going to start cranking settlers for you. I'd expect them to take 2-3 turns each. So I think it might be worth swapping to city states immediately. Your call: but decide fast, so I know whether to tech cartography this coming turn (for the potential to avoid anarchy).

One interesting FFH wrinkle is that I'm going to be a funder then I'll be making markets/money-changers pretty much exclusively, so I'll actually probably then select some tech we dislike to sink those negative beakers into.

I say Corruption of Spirit .

[Commodore]

Hum. Well, killing Bob is the first priority, obviously. I was thinking that in the current constrained environment, GK was going to be needed anyway to get Killswitch producing my own Paladins, temple, stables, etc ASAP. The hammer bonus means quite easily getting up in the 30-40 hpt range for rapid contribution. You can always settle for free, improve a bit, and then toss it to me once the emergency is over.

[Mardoc]

If I'm going to be running 100% gold 100% of the time

Come to think of it, this probably isn't actually true. Until you grow past Kurio expenses, yes, there's no way Basium can match our +85% bonus to science. But you'll be growing a lot faster than Kurio expenses will be. Eventually we'll run out of things to spend your gold on, I bet. Main question is whether that happens before or after we win.

teching religious law (that's the only prereq we're missing for theology, right?

Yes.

Commune with Nature, which we apparently have the prereqs for already. A quick trip to OO would bring us to neutral, and we could build druids.

Ooh, I like this refinement. I hadn't realized that Fanaticism is a prereq for it now, thought we needed Arete. Druids can be made by upgrading from Priests, and they get High Priest spells if you do so. Plus Entangle and move through impassible terrain, and the potential to learn Nature III. And they don't abandon us if we change religions on them, or require us to get Priests to level 6.

Going via OO would allow waterwalking/Tsunami on druids, or new-built paladins, too . Not that we know of any islands in need of conquest So basically, druids could be our collateral, a lot sooner and more flexible than the High Priest route.

According to Bob/Ellimist, it's even possible to upgrade your units to druid/paladin in allies' lands, so we could end up with both Kurios and Angels with a full set of each.

The only thing we miss from Religious Law is actually an economic benefit: Basilicas. An additional 40% off our maintenance bill would be quite handy. But handy enough to be worth 2400 beakers? Probably not, at least not yet.

[Commodore]

Speaking of OO, do we have an estimate for when Thoth will be walking Saverous out of lakeland?

[Mardoc]

Speaking of OO, do we have an estimate for when Thoth will be walking Saverous out of lakeland?

Never, technically. Saverous doesn't water walk. But he's got Sailing, so can build Galleys and hit anywhere on his pond, so the technicality doesn't really matter.

800 beakers for Mind Stapling for Thoth looks like 6-8 turns, potentially started two turns ago, then 120 hammers for Saverous could be just 2 turns, if he's got the population built up to be whipped. Unless he goes to Priesthood first, for Cultists.

And of course we could see Drowns any time now, although they're not terribly threatening to our current military.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 81 is in.

The bad news is that there are more mistforms lurking around:



Lost another two workers, bringing us to 5 .

Bob has mobilized. He moved three beasts two tiles south of Cauldron Lake, in a position to hit the Alan Wake stack. I'd prefer he didn't, so I moved those to a hill in our territory (where hopefully it will be a tempting mistform target).
Three beasts is just about at the upper limit of what we could handle with our old military... I imagine we could kill them with centaurs, but we'd lose at least half our army. But we'll have a few paladins by the time they arrive, so we should be able to handle them easily, even without the Mercurian worldspell.

Decided to stick with smelting, due at the end of next turn.

That's about it. Pretty uneventful.

I just have this feeling I'm forgetting something.

Well, here's the save file right before EOT:

[ATTACH]2585[/ATTACH]

(Posted here because I can't figure out how to send files to T-hawk in a PM.)

[Mardoc]

I just have this feeling I'm forgetting something.

Wasn't one of the cottages supposed to upgrade to a hamlet this turn?

[Mardoc]

Three beasts is just about at the upper limit of what we could handle with our old military... I imagine we could kill them with centaurs, but we'd lose at least half our army. But we'll have a few paladins by the time they arrive, so we should be able to handle them easily, even without the Mercurian worldspell.

Oh, also agreed here. I'm confident we can handle this invasion, the main question is how little we can spend to do so. I'm guessing we'll end up with two Paladins in range, who can each get a kill at good odds, then we'll have to throw in some centaurs to weaken the last beast. If possible, we'd like Basium to get that kill, since he gains the Immortal promotion each time he kills a demon or undead. But I don't think he's likely to have good enough odds right away, without throwing in some centaurs first.

Since it'll take a couple turns to get Basium's palace built and iron gifted to the Kurios, I'd suggest being sure to put the Stonewardens in the city Bob's attacking, once we figure out which one that is . Units can only upgrade if they have all their movement left, and upgrading consumes it. Plus, of course, we want to save the upgrade for the last possible moment to squeeze all the free XP we can get.

I've got another two techs to add to our list of 'why can't we research everything at once?': Hunting and Animal Mastery, so we can have some Hawks.

[T-hawk]

I see it, I'll get to it tonight. I was thinking email to send the file, but I'll get it here.

Got your civ password in the PM.

I'll send it back to you at gmail, so that you can push it to your tracker properly.

[Commodore]

Excellent. Thanks T-Hawk!

HK, just let me know when you want me to announce.