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

[HidingKneel]

Turn 85 played. It opened with a miniature disaster:



Bob's tearing up my land! I didn't know beast units could pillage. The hamlet's no big deal, but he destroyed one of our two silk plantations. Since our other silk is traded to Basium (with a deal that can't be broken for a bunch of turns), that means we're losing the 10% commerce boost from our tailors (~20 beakers per turn, after multipliers). Also, losing the resource itself sent Naggarond into unhappiness.

Anyways, I think we need to get silk back online ASAP, so I sent my workforce in that direction (incidentally, one of our "workers" is a slave we captured from Selrahc, after he captured it from us. Hence a centaur, which can sprint ). Should be able to get silks back online on turn 87.

So, naturally, our paladins were rather angry with Bob:



Problem solved, for the moment at least. And each paladin earned another promotion.

What's this?



Commodore's settler is in danger! (Not really; Commodore gets to move before the barbarians do.) Fortunately, we know how to deal with barbarians riffraff:



Now that we seem to be mistform-free and beast of Agares-free, it's time to move some units around. I sent all of my warriors towards Killswitch, where the Mercurians can give them the training they'll need to pursue their epic destinies. Also got our great prophet moving (with centaur escort, just in case). All cities are now garrisoned by a small team of centaurs. Including cities-yet-to-be:

Played, still not much going on though. Interesting to note, the angels in my city are copper-equipped, but the angels in Kurioville still lack iron.

Yeah, send the angels to Killswitch. They're not going to do any good against Bob while they're strength five. Basium's a tougher call. I say, give him a mobility promotion next turn, run him there quickly for the bronze upgrade, and be ready to run him back if he's needed.

Orders from Heaven; can it be micro'd to within ~15 beakers for me to finish it? It's a tall order to figure out, but maybe worthwhile. We need to consider it, at least, because if so I ought to hold off on founding a second city to allow the Holy City and Code my God King capital.

Sure, shouldn't be hard to do that at all. But I wouldn't hold off on founding any cities. With all the nice places to expand to on this map, you're not going to want to stay in God-King very long anyhow.

Finally, rejoice:



Our first town. Soon we'll be swimming in enclaves .

[Mardoc]

Sure, shouldn't be hard to do that at all. But I wouldn't hold off on founding any cities. With all the nice places to expand to on this map, you're not going to want to stay in God-King very long anyhow.

100% agreed. On a map this lush, with the basic econ tech already done...Commodore, we want you to do the mother of all REX's. After all, we don't just want gold from you, we also want you to be the flaming sword of vengeance. And that requires hammers.

Ah, speaking of that REX: it seems obvious to me that Kurios should be providing all the Angelic settlers Commodore can handle, we're Expansive after all. Any time that angelic workers and/or garrisons start to relax, we should be settling another Mercurian town.

Finally, rejoice:

Our first town. Soon we'll be swimming in enclaves .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76RrdwElnTU

[Commodore]

Oh sweet holy crap, you did not just tell me to run 100% gold at all times and REX unto the ground, did you? I crashed an economy on a Prince-level Flat map. I can totally REX this sucker. But we do have two foes who have no chance of winning whatsoever and a reason to want us to suffer. So we need to kill first.

[Mardoc]

Oh sweet holy crap, you did not just tell me to run 100% gold at all times and REX unto the ground, did you? I crashed an economy on a Prince-level Flat map. I can totally REX this sucker. But we do have two foes who have no chance of winning whatsoever and a reason to want us to suffer. So we need to kill first.

I do believe I did . I don't honestly think there's enough empty land remaining for you to crash our combined econ, not when we're on the verge of 3 TR/city and City States. Even on high level Toroidal.

But yes, I agree, we must kill Bob, and would benefit from killing Thoth. Pointy-stick REX still counts, right?

I guess there's a more fundamental question at the moment. Do we believe Bob, that a Mercurian WS plus our current army could finish him? I really don't want to burn the WS until we can deliver the coup de grace...but at the same time I don't want to crack an egg with a sledgehammer . If we can kill him now, let's kill him now.

[HidingKneel]

I guess there's a more fundamental question at the moment. Do we believe Bob, that a Mercurian WS plus our current army could finish him?

What counts as our current army? Say we promote 2 more stonewardens, Show up on Bob's door with 20 some centaurs, 4 paladins, and Basium, and fire the worldspell? I'd want to sandbox it first, but I'm guessing we win.

Only... who's garrisoning our cities? I'm pretty nervous about Plako and Ilios right now. I know in their shoes, I'd be hoping to throw something at us now, before Basium has a chance to get comfortable.

Hmm.. Plako adopted undercouncil recently. Think he's going for Esus? He's got sorcery, so he could come at us with Gibbon. Does loyalty block domination? If so, we want to get our hands on it pretty soon.

[Commodore]

Hum. Well, I think that Plako and Ilios would be willing to take a 10-turn NAP (AKA a Peace Treaty) if you're really worried. Mostly, though, I just think it's worth the risk. Banter aside, those Beasts are going to keep hemorrhaging efforts and hammers. I'd want to push quickly, if we can.

[Mardoc]

For the question on garrisoning our cities, etc - this is the fundamental advantage of centaurs. Killing Bob would be a 2-3 turn one way trip, with him that close. Assuming most of our army lives, they could go kill him and return probably before anyone could react. Especially if we send along some combat workers to integrate our new conquests into our road network ASAP.

But the bigger problem is, this won't get any better by waiting. We're not on top of the demos anymore, plako and Ilios become more of a threat every day. Yeah, we'll pull ahead compared to Bob, and presumably not need as large a fraction of our forces, but simultaneously our defense against the Clown Monks needs to get heftier the longer we wait.

Suppose we build a couple extra Stonewardens? Worst case, we disband the ones attacking Bob and upgrade the homefront Stonewardens; our borders are far enough out that we can have Paladin garrisons in place before anyone attacks us.

Also, it'd be useful to run that test. Obviously the whole debate is for naught if our current force can't kill Bob quickly.

Hmm.. Plako adopted undercouncil recently. Think he's going for Esus? He's got sorcery, so he could come at us with Gibbon. Does loyalty block domination? If so, we want to get our hands on it pretty soon.

Seems likely, archmagi are powerful even without puppets. Although Gibbon does have that annoying Illusion thing going, perhaps plako would aim for Hemah instead?

Loyalty's always supposed to block Domination, but I know in base FFH it didn't. Also that Sareln's fixed that, so it does. The only bit I'm not certain of is which version he fixed it in. I think that was a v7 fix, so we should be good to go with Order + KotE.

[HidingKneel]

The first crew of beasts wasn't that much trouble (aside from pillaging our silk plantation ), and we were just barely ready for them. If Bob comes again we can probably meet him in the field and take him out before he can do any damage at all.

Not that I'm opposed to eliminating him, mind you. He's forcing us to keep our best forces around to deal with him, and capturing the Gela + hell terrain resources for ourselves will be fantastic. I just think we should hold off a bit: 4 paladins and 20 centaurs could probably do it, but I think we'd lose a lot of centaurs. But 8 paladins? Backed by confessor support? I think they'd mop up with minimal losses, and we could leave most of the centaurs at home (and maybe bring some iron-equipped angels instead).

Maybe we don't want to wait that long, though. Best way to get Basium his paladins would be to promote them from acolytes/confessors, but it's hard to see Killswitch having a temple of Order before turn 100.

[Mardoc]

That's pretty much what I figured, we're all on the same page regarding goals, just need to agree on the best method to accomplish said goals. And I do have to admit, your previous sim isn't strictly applicable, seeing as Bob's relevant units are all fortified in Cauldron Lake on Hell Terrain, giving them something on the order of +80% Str compared to your sim of fighting them in our lands. Plus the heroes have picked up more XP. And the worst possible thing would be to invade and fail, giving Bob XP and a window to invade us again.

[HidingKneel]

And I do have to admit, your previous sim isn't strictly applicable, seeing as Bob's relevant units are all fortified in Cauldron Lake on Hell Terrain, giving them something on the order of +80% Str compared to your sim of fighting them in our lands. Plus the heroes have picked up more XP. And the worst possible thing would be to invade and fail, giving Bob XP and a window to invade us again.

True. But my previous sim was using just centaurs, and most of our losses were taken when Bob had units that weren't hit very hard by the Mercurian worldspell. If we use Basium/paladins to pick those off first, things ought to look better. (Also, the beasts in my sim had C1, which they won't have in the game.)

Though we should also figure that more units will be involved. I think last I checked, he had two longbows and two diseased corpses in the city. And if he has any sense, he'll build another rust imp: paladins/Basium look a lot weaker without their metal weapons.

But the bigger problem is, this won't get any better by waiting. We're not on top of the demos anymore, plako and Ilios become more of a threat every day. Yeah, we'll pull ahead compared to Bob, and presumably not need as large a fraction of our forces, but simultaneously our defense against the Clown Monks needs to get heftier the longer we wait.

I'm inclined to think the opposite. Once Plako and Ilios are out of their golden ages, our jewelers are finished, and Commodore's picking up the tab for our expenses, I think we'll be teching faster than anyone (even with the research penalty). In manufacturing, the Kuriotates will never catch up to Ilios and his ten cities. But the Kuriotate/Mercurian team very well might. Especially considering that most of our builds from now on give two units for the price of one. We're also the only civ that will be able to pull off this tower of divination trick, and we get to do it twice. That'll give us the earliest access to top-tier units, and we get to build twice as many of them as anyone else.
The whole game up to this point has been a race against the clock. But I'd say now everyone else is up against the clock. If they don't manage to kill us before we unlock druids, we'll grind them into dust with religious collateral.

So I say build. We'll finish our jewelers this turn. I'm thinking Kwythellar can start a forge, one of our other cities can rebuild our workforce, and the other can get started building settlers. We ought to be able to get a Mercurian city out every two or three turns, and enough improvements to make them instantly productive. I think the best use of our centaurs will be as a mobile, flexible garrison for the new holdings.

Question: how do golden ages work on a team? Do we share them?

Also: as an alternative to hunting/animal handling for hawks, how about
sorcery -> build metamagic node in Selrahc's land (after we unlock the ToDs) for floating eyes? Seems like it unlocks a lot more for us. And later we can dispel our mind node and replace it with something having more military applications, like body or enchantment.