The Black Sword's Tale: For the Kurious

[The Black Sword]

Well, maybe the goblin wasn't perfect, he only gave me 1xp again. I think I should be able to meet them in the field and get some more xp from now on.

Rather uneventful turn. No score or demographic changes. The worker was able to complete the farm unmolested so now he'll have a friend join him for next turn. The two of them should be able to keep up with my growth for a bit. Exploration in the south revealed a lot of hills, not much resources, heroic epic down their might be a possibility. Plains hill 1S of deer seems like a good long term city spot but first ring isn't too good for 2nd city, plenty of tiles yet to be revealed though. I'm pretty confident I'll have a good location by the time I reach size 8.

[The Black Sword]

Beautiful spot eh?


Almost as good as my capital, though everything isn't so neatly arranged. Unfortunately I can either have the gold or the dry wheat and wines. I think the gold is probably going to win that one, food isn't usally so hard to get in FFH. So then the options are the hill the warriors on, 1E of it or even 2E of it on the furs. I'm leaning toward the hill for the defense, I will have to check the furs tile yield though.

I have also been reconsidering the usefulness of hunting recently but those furs rather seal the deal, 2 happy+health in the capital with the hunting lodge.

Now I just need to find me some tailor resources for city 3, there's been a conspicuous absence of those nearby.

With the worker finished, I'm building a 3t warrior in the capital, and should grow twice in that time. I was debating a scout but it just feels too late for that. The scout wouldn't survive any of these goblin encounters and the only person I need to meet quickly for the pre-req bonuses would be Jalapeno. The other two are going Mysticism first like me I think.

[The Black Sword]

I was rather hoping that river to the right would continue into another fertile valley, perfect for my third city. It turns out I was right.

Unfortunately it already has some unpleasant residents. We haven't met in game yet. I'll want to do that after I finish Mysticism to get the pre-req bonuses on either exploration or crafting, so I could delay it for 3 turns until then. On the other hand I don't really see any advantage to doing so. There's not enough room between us for city 3, and no resources either that I'd want to grab with a settlement. That also means it's probably a low priority site for him. Seems like there are some food plains in the tile bleed south but he's welcome to them. Really, all I want is a buffer settlement there at some stage, but no rush.

The other hope for city 3, in the north is looked to be heavily forested/jungled so not ideal either. Exploration of the south-east is going to start now in the hope of a spot there. If it comes to it, the spot 1W of the mana node in the jungle could work, though I'd like to avoid the 6 tile overlap with the capital if possible.

Lots of things to think about now, it might be time for a longer term plan.

Here's my currently unimpressive demos:

I imagine I'm the only one besides Jalapeno with 2 workers now though and I'm about to shoot up to a size 8 god king capital very quickly so I'm expecting a big turn-around over the following turns. A couple of points:
-Top soldier count is the grigori adventurer.
I'm surprised people's soldier count is keeping up with mine, means my extra engineer hammers are going into more important things.
-Land area can't just be the creative elves, the average is too high. This goes along with the score increases this turn.

[The Black Sword]

I've realised there might be some mistakes made previously but I need to get back to my civ computer first to test some of these score increases first. Anyway, here's what I have so far, mostly so I don't have to write it out again when I get back to it.


Those score increases this turn must be our second ring land points, since I went up by 12 also. I have to think this all through again. Subtract all those out and I'm left with:

Yell0w: by 7
Sian: by 7

So, I was saying that was a tech before but the land area point must still stand, someone has settled city 2. That 5 point increase has been explained, so this 7pt is the only unexplained one left.

In previous demos, Sian's elves had 35k land area, indicating 2 water tiles. He could then have planted city 2 with 6/9 tiles already in his culture, 1 tile coast to give the increase to top land area 37k. That seems to explain it. Going back to try sort everything out for him:
T6: +8, a tech, agriculture
T10: +8, a tech, chants
T16: +4, growth
T17: +4, growth
T19: +5, growth
T20: +12, land points, +7 city?

Could he really have fitted in worker -> settler so quickly? 4+ turns to build a city in his 3rd ring seems a long time too.

37k land Sian, 30k Jalapeno, 30k Yell0w, 21k WK, 21K HK = 27,800 average land area, still 2k down.

[The Black Sword]

Heh, so much work over nothing.
Checking back, it seems the first tech I started with, Agriculture was worth 7, so all those increases definitely are techs, just some rounding again.

How to explain the land area then? A combination of religion and events I guess. The 10% from religion doesn't seem enough on it's own.
T13: Elves borders pop, top land area is 35, 2 water tiles in outer ring.
T19: Top land area is 37, average is 27. Someone's border has popped with no water in 3rd ring.
T20: Average goes up to 29,800, 2,800x5=14000, again someone's border popped with 2 water tiles in outer ring.

And for confirmation:

You can see some minor increases in the Khazad's graph here that must correspond to religion increments and one big jump for some event.

I must have looked quite paranoid there .
I told myself at the start that I wasn't interested in doing much of this stuff besides keeping an idea of their tech path but I guess I just can't resist a puzzle.

To summarise everyone's situation then, since I've already done the work:

Sian: exploration, agriculture(T6), chants(T10), mysticism(T20), currently size 4. Looks like he might have went with 2 workers at the start, makes sense given they're slower. Creative borders popped T13.

Jalapeno: exploration, agriculture(T6), calendar(T12), crafting(T17), size 5. Also probably went 2 workers start with RoB, will get graphs next turn.

Yell0w: chants, agriculture(T6), Calendar(T13), mysticism(T20), size 5.

HK: crafting, agriculture(T6), Calendar(T13), teching towards mining, size 5. Border popped T20.

WK: crafting, agriculture(T6), mining(T16), size 4. Has himself an adventurer. Probably teching to Calendar.

Ok, back to planning my own civ.

[The Black Sword]

This spot just keeps getting better and better.

I imagine there must be someone, elves or Elohim to the south of me, I'm hoping that I won't have much competition for the spot since I haven't met them yet. I'm certainly rushing for that hill though. It's also quite possible I'll lose those 3rd ring resources, but nothing much I can do.

By my calculations I should be able to get a settler by T30, with another warrior and elder council completed as I grow to size 8. Research is also going towards exploration next and my workers can finish a road down there by the time the settler finishes and then they can start the corn farm. For the next while I expect worker turns and hammers to be the bottleneck instead of techs.

Overview shot of the north:


There's a goblin coming from around the dungeon in the south as well as that guy in the screenshot. I figure I'll need the 3 warriors to keep them at bay and not disrupt my workers. Meanwhile shredder, who met Jalapeno this turn will loop through the rainforest and see what it holds. Karai in the south will move East and see if there's any better city spot there.

Increases:
HK and his Dwarves: a tech, mining(T21).
Sian: a weird 17. For 9 land tiles we got 12pts so for 12 land tiles 16-17 about makes sense. With Creative his 2nd ring would have popped a turn earlier than ours.

WK has paused at size 4 for a bit, implying either Settler or Worker. I'm not sure which, I'd probably go worker and grow to size 6 thanks to his gems before settler while your workers can get mines up/pre-improve your next site.

[The Black Sword]

This turn made me think a bit:

I spent quite some time considering it, but I could never quite get the cost up to the 600b of drama. Still it didn't seem worth it to me, in 3 turns I'll be size 8 God King. I could get my second city just about the same time with the 5 unhappiness but everything after that is delayed. Given how cramped the map is looking I really want to claim as much land as I can ASAP. Apart from the great bard, drama doesn't do much for me and requires festivals which I had been planning on ignoring for a while(until I wanted to run at drama). Then once I get the second bard I need to research bronze working before I can bulb sanitation. That is on my to-do list, but by taking the bard my research will slow down to a crawl and no early academy for me either. The pay-off just seems too far in the future. So, despite Cardith's dream of an all-inclusive society, I insisted on killing her.

Other than that, things are proceeding to plan. You can just about see the warrior in the north with a promotion pending after the goblin attacked him. That leaves the two warriors in my capital to deal with the other incoming goblin. In the south Karai is facing off against a lion.

Score:
Sian: pop to size 5.
Everyone else: 17pts land tiles for second ring.
WK:+7, a tech, guessing Calendar(T22)

The event log also register an event for the Dwarves, they have found a witch and are threatening to kill her, I think that means some happiness for them, which could be useful.

In other news I sent a hello message to Jalapeno and notified both the dwarves and the Grigori that I had met them. I don't think I actually agreed anything with the dwarves but I don't see a problem with being friendly at this stage.

Jalapeno replied that he doesn't have any other contacts yet, I tried to play up the dangers of the wilds a bit, but he can see from my power graph that I've only lost my original scout. He also seemed to think that we had water choke points on the map, I said it was probably just some sort of lakes script and I hadn't seen anything to suggest that. I probably gave him more info than I got, but friendliness and all that.

Looking at the map again, there is still a fairly large black spot between the dwarves and the vamps, easily big enough for 2 more civs. So I don't think I need worry too much about the south spot. If anything I'd say the Grigori are probably closest due to the world wrap.

[The Black Sword]

The people weren't too happy about killing the Harpy. Some wanted to follow her wonderous voice to the afterlife.

So I decided we might as well up the coffin tax. Brought in a sweet 41g too, a lot more productive than those silly mines .

Mysticism also came in so I went ahead and revolted into God King. Meanwhile with the northern goblin threat gone the two warriors move out to face the southern one. I'm probably due to lose one of these ~80% battles, Karai won another vs the lion in the south last turn, lots of C1 to go around.



I think Shredder is enough to defog the northern jungle for the moment. Then I can pull Kun back to defend Kwythellar and I have 4 more warriors to defog SE and defend the route to city 2.

I really hope I can grab a good spot in the SE, that jungle is looking really dense, perfect for my settlements to grab resources while others focus on more useful sites but a lot of work to bring a super city up to size. There some advantages to the jungle though. Long term it looks good and with the number of tiles available in my super-BFC, I might be able to get by short term. Pre-improving the sugar is also nice.

I was briefly the score leader after I ended turn 22, but Jalapeno has jumped ahead of me again with a tech, lets say Mining(T23). His GNP was 34 for a bit, dropped to 30 now now, combined with overflow from Crafting, should work out about 6 turns is correct.

WK is still size 4, his MFG has just sky-rocketed and food plummeted. He has mining but not calendar so whatever he's been building, I'd guess settler at this stage, he's really pushed to shave a turn off and finish this turn. I'll take some graph shots next turn, I don't think I've shown Jalapeno's yet either.

[The Black Sword]

Karai has almost finished healing the in south when more xp comes into sight:


Meanwhile Shredder has discovered the location of the first goblin fort in the north, along with some other nice resources in the jungle.

There's a goblin archer and a normal goblin on that fort but I assume the archer won't attack so Shredder should be fine. Unfortunately this will push back exploration of both areas when I'd really like to decide on my third city location ASAP. Here's my capital:

Growing to size 8 and completing the elder council this turn, then warr-> settler. After that it depends if I decide on my 3rd location or not. I probably want to go warr -> settler when I do, but at least 1, maybe 2 workers first, lots of worker actions here, especially if I'm going to that jungle. I'm working the oasis over a farm this turn because I reckon I won't be growing for a few turns now.

The goblins are already messing with my roading plan, probably I'll have to cover the 2 workers on the forested hill with Kun next turn.

Score Increases last turn:
Dwarves: +8, a tech, and must be either Ancient Chants or Exploration given how quickly he got it. I'd go with exploration(T24) at this stage. Though it's possible he uses the river trade connections and goes Ancient Chants instead.
WK: +4, pop to size 5, the turn after finishing the settler.

This Turn:
Yell0w: +8, a tech. Last tech was T20 so this one took a while, I'm guessing Crafting(T25), Animal Husbandry might just be possible with overflow also but I doubt it.
Decius: +8, a tech ... or not. Paradigm, his capital has increased to size 6 on the top cities screen, so that's +4 and another city founded for 1 pop and another +4. A quick glance at the demos and this looks correct. Too early for another tech for him anyway.

Here's the demos:

I was size 6 and 150k pop last turn, so top rival is a bit above that this turn. Average fits with 4x90k + that top figure. So no one else has settled yet. Increase in land area occured on T24 as well, I assume that's also due to 3rd ring pops for some people, about the right time if you're in religion. I'm not bothered to try figure it out any further. Other demos look pretty good for me I think, though that's what you need at this stage with the Kurios. I'm curious who's down on that 23. The others all started with scientists, so that means they haven't got one of the 7c tiles hooked up. Despite the fact that everyone has the tech to do so. Might just be annoying barbs I suppose.

Here's all the graphs I promised:

I think I've done a pretty good job of detailing this so far.





Obviously I'm a bit lower on commerce, higher on production due to the engineer. The grigori food and hammer spikes are the most curious thing I think. His power didn't change, so it must be settler or worker, and it must have been completed that turn since he grows on the next. I guess we'll see which soon. I had some talks with HidingKneel though and he seems quite confident of getting that dyes spot between their capitals, I wonder if there's a race there.

[Merovech]

That free bard event is always a tough decision early game.