Black Charadon brings Heaven to heel

[The Black Sword]

Bob finally realised I was extorting him for open borders and accepted. I had to actually put my army in range of his city for that. I decided against attacking him, because even if he has the lowest power in the game, he's the only one with more production than me. He must have the governor's manors up in all of his core cities, which is probably a good idea given how expensive new cities are. So, despite his continued lack of copper, I'm not sure I can make any gains over there. Hopefully he doesn't hold a grudge over the extortion, it probably makes him more money than it does me. We still have a terrible border over here though, why would people settle so damn close in FFH? I probably shouldn't build any cottages here to tempt Raiders Bob.



Anyway, I'll declare war on the barbs instead and take some cities that way. Have to sort the logistics out a bit first. But it looks like I'll take this city, needing roughly 4 Sons:



I'll raze the southern city here so Dave doesn't get it and take the eastern one unless it's a terrible location.



Last turn I snagged circumnavigation. I was getting a bit worried Dave would steal that given his open borders with me and Bob. Bob refusing my initial open borders cost my original circum-nav scout his life and delayed me quite a bit.



Also important; marble! I was enjoying the no marble aspect of this map, made me a lock for the Bone Palace . That looks like an island to me so I guess all the marble is on islands. Dave has pearls, so he has Sailing, I'll have to watch his resources. I don't have a trade route with Jim unfortunately, but his empire is probably to small for the BP anyway.

Currently, I've turned tech on Warfare, hope to finish that next turn. Then I should probably go straight for Fishing -> Sailing and time a settler to coincide with an immediate galley build in the capital. Hopefully we'll find marble on the fogged tile here:



Even if we don't, it's a good site to settle anyway. Probably want to head Writing -> Trade for 2g per city if we settle the island. Then Divination -> Sorcery -> HBR. HBR could be slotted in earlier if necessary, but I doubt I get attacked in the meantime. I just landed my GS this turn btw, 17 more for another GP for the golden age. I definitely messed the timing up, should have went GA now, bulb sorcery with next GS, this guy is going to sit around for ages. There's no point getting Sorcery early though if I don't have shamans to upgrade. Speaking of which, 5t until the Titan is complete. I'll delay my current 3 shamans in the build queues until then. Then I'll probably use the GA to revolt into conquest and make sure I have a bunch of shamans completing that turn too.

[The Black Sword]

Both of my civ saves stalled for the last few days, so I wrote something up about my long term plan. On reflection, I'm not sure if I'll carry through on all of it. There is something to be said for just hitting a key military tech and attacking, rather than building up for the 'perfect' force/economy. I think my figures are pretty conservative too, but they're hard to estimate. Anyway, it still might be interesting:

Neither of my game's saves came in tonight, so I finally got some time to think long term strategy.

First, I decided(last turn) I didn't want my GS sitting around for so long and I threw the golden age. Obviously it would be worth more later but I'm hoping the snowball is worth it. I have the majority of my core already set up, 12 cities, half of them pretty much fully grown, the other half catching up quickly, about half max size. I have only 2 settlers in the queue, due soon and settlers take ~10t to complete. I reckon I might have about 25% more pop in 10t time. Which is quite a delay and not much more of an increase. In addition to that, my breakeven bpt was only 60 before the GA. It felt really slow getting to any of the techs I wanted, even just sailing for that island city. So, instead of waiting 17t for my golden age, I decided to throw it now. That halves the time for the next GP, which I can combine with my Great Commander for another golden age. Hopefully the golden ages ensure I get the Bone Palace for a third and I can clear all my tech in those 27t.

Throwing the golden age increased my breakeven research from 60bpt to 130bpt and my hammers from 101 to 152. So, over 100% increase and a 50% increase respectively, that sort of implies to me that it was the right choice.

My next techs are:

Fishing -> Sailing -> Writing -> Trade = 1200 adjusted beakers

So, about 9 turns research. Lets say 8 turns with known tech bonus and growth.

Then I revolt to Foreign Trade/Military State. Say 15 cities, so 60 extra gpt from 2 trade routes each. Maybe 10 extra from coastal cities. Military state is worth 17gpt right now, lets say +90gpt. That's at least 220bpt. Say we average 250bpt over the next 10t period, again assuming pre-reqs and growth. That's 2500b or 3k beakers with pre-req bonuses. Almost enough for Divination, HBR and Sorcery. That's probably doable, my growth estimate is pretty conservative.

During that period I'll pre-build a load of units and complete them after revolting into Apprenticeship/Conquest. That will lose us 60gpt again, so maybe we are making 200bpt during the last 9t of the GA? So, ~2200 spare beakers(including pre-req). After that I should probably be thinking of shutting research off and funding upgrades.

So, relevant questions:
1.What extra techs to grab?
2. Do I want a religion, if so what one?
3. What civic do I want in the 2nd column?
4. Is there anything worth ToDing?

Starting with 3, the options are Nationhood, Religion, Sac the weak, Social Order and Consumption. The first two are the default obviously. Pre-GA, consumption was worth 26gpt. Social Order seems unnecessary, I'm not that strapped for happy. Sacrifice the Weak ... would be awesome, I'll have a use for all that food with Conquest. It is quite expensive though, 3k beakers.

Hmm, that's outside the tech of my GA, but it's still do-able. For one thing, my NE city will churn out another GP before the GA ends. It's my Titan city, so high odds Scientist for Sorcery bulb, making everything affordable again, or Commander for insta-mages. If I don't roll the GS, I could always blow the ToD/Grimoire on Sorcery and I'd still have a spare 1k beakers.

Ok, this moves towards 2 and the religion analysis.

Veil
-Really expensive(3.1k)
-Sacrifice the Weak
-Grimoire, likely leading to Malevolent Designs for Beasts and Mardero.
-Rosier
-Diseased Corpses
-Ritualists, but I'm not sure I want Priesthood(850b)
-border popping

Esus
-1k
-Gibbon
-Extort, I only have my initial Nightswatch though, because I won't tech Bowyers.
-Undercouncil
-1g per city

Order
-1.1k
- 25(ish) free units
-Valin
-Confessors, I'd be more likely to get Priesthood for this, I'm pretty sure Hosts can take Bless
-border popping
-I just used it last game

Empyrean
-1k
-Overcouncil
-Rathas, though I already have access to BL
-border popping

Kilmorph
-1.1k
-Iron Weapons
-Bambur, note enchant is actually important because I'm not teching Alteration just for it
-1g per city

OO would mostly be for the 2 heros, requiring a ToD for Arcane Lore and Hemah. Without access to Cultists, might as well take Esus for Gibbon instead since it's a bit late for the border popping. FoL is fairly useless when I've cut down so many forests already, despite having a couple of elvish cottages.

Alright, so, moving back to question 1 to see how much beakers I'd have left. Other possibly useful techs:

Smelting -> Iron working(2.6k)
Iron weapons, forges that we mostly won't build and Battlemasters. Bit expensive for my army type.

Hunting(300b)
2 happy from Ivory and fur, should be fitted in somewhere.

Sanitation(650b)
Not so useful for a cottage economy. Still, a quick count gives 22 farms currently being worked and a 4f farm is great with conquest when I don't want to grow new cottages. Nobody wants to turn this down ...

Construction(550b)
Catapults could be important if attacked before I get everything set up. Bridge building and chain irrigation is handy too. I just realised I'll need masonry if that site does hold marble.

Currency(1250b)
-Consumption.

Elementalism(700b)
Mostly Maelstrom, a couple of fireballs might be useful

Priesthood(900b)
If I do go AV, it is only 200b extra over Elementalism, so probably worth it.

Necromancy(700b)
A bit of a luxury, Rust would be nice, as well as some spectre possibilities

Ok, thinking things through, I think Esus and Veil are the only two competitive religious options. Order is a dark horse, but I did it last game and I don't really need to translate beakers to hammers(units), since my strength is the other way around.

With regard to question 4, I'm rather liking the idea of ToDing Sorcery if I can't bulb it, maybe even if I can. I was sort of curious about trying to take Machinery. Research, Engineering, immediately ToD Machinery, use the free engineer for the Guild of Hammers. I might actually have tried it if I didn't need Bowyers as a pre-requisite too. I just can't help up thinking up fancy plans to get my hero . I could ToD Strength of Will as usual, but I think it will be a long time till I generate some archmages. And again, I did that last time. I could take Divine Essence, but only if I went the AV path. The altar is unrealistic at this stage though, the main benefit would be the Phoenix ritual. Also, does anyone know if Sons of Asena can upgrade to Verdandi?

Ok, I think I've convinced myself to go for the AV path(straight after Trade). I'll ToD Sorcery and pick up Hunting and Sanitation. Priesthood and Construction are both possibilities, especially if I feel I need some collateral before Sorcery comes online. If I get a scientist to bulb sorcery and I feel I have the beakers spare, I'll keep the ToD for Divine Essence and the Blood of the Phoenix.

In particular, I wonder if I'm going for the Veil, should I just head straight for ritualists and starting spewing out triple promo units. And I don't seem to want all that many spells from my mages, are they just going to summon Hosts all the time. For the moment I'm happy with the Trade line though, so we'll re-evaluate then.

[Qgqqqqq]

Verdandi are immortals? I think so - they can definitely upgrade to [Bezerker Replacement].

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, Verdandi are immortals. I was a bit confused because the pedia only lists SoA as upgrading to Chariots. But of course I know they upgrade to Battlemasters anyway.

Btw, I landed the Form of the Titan and my GNP is 140bpt breakeven already. I'm not sure I can get enough island cities to fund all the extra Foreign Trade routes in time though. There isn't any marble on that island I showed before, the missing tile is incense, so I guess I just brute force my way through the Bone Palace. Also found a source of pearls in one my lakes.

[The Black Sword]

Man, this game moves so quickly, my first GA has begun and finished since that last update! I'm roughly following that plan though. I spawned my second GP and threw the second golden age. I've revolted into Foreign Trade/Military State. Foreign Trade has been great for my econ but I need to settle a second island city still to get full value. Military State did indeed save me 20gpt. After Trade I picked up Sanitation and am currently going for Corruption of Spirit. Assuming I don't feel the need to detour I'll go straight for Sacrifice the Weak.

Let's go on a tour of Doviello-dom:



New island off East that I'm putting 2 cities on. Potentially 3rd filler too but that's unlikely I think. These pictures are a turn out of date though, I may have made a mistake on the latest turn. My SoA survived one Host and I promoted him but he's still injured. I should have killed the Angel though, for some reason I thought there was just 1 host with 2 moves, rather than him summoning them. So, I might get tag-teamed by Host+Angel next turn and lose my Son.



I'm building 2 SoA to go kill this guy and pillage the village now. I want to keep one Beastman far up this spine as a sentry against the Amurites.



I've got 3 8xp SoA here from killing barbs coming from Sheaim lands. That's 4 Zombies and a warrior Dave has as a garrison btw. After growing to 12, Perrin switched to a settler while Grey Wind will continue to produce units probably.



Some exploration further East. These 6 move galleys are fun. This is part of the Calabim/Amurite mainland so I won't settle it.



My town-filled capital. One of the farms get's bulldozed for a cottage at size 13 and it picks up the river mine again to build the settler, who probably goes East.



Next turn that galley pick up the two Beastmen to defend Lady on the island. I left him beside a Giant Tortoise btw, that's how he got so mauled. I didn't think they would attack. As you can see, Hopper is going to complete the Bone Palace for me. I got visibility for everyone's techs from Trade, which I'll post in a bit, and no-one else even has Philosophy so I'm pretty safe. Hopper and Summer are going to be my two big hammer pumps. One of them needed the HE. Hopper is a slightly better site and more grown but it's currently building the BP. I've decided it will be the wonder pump, moving onto the Grimoire after the Bone Palace, while Summer builds the HE as it grows and is the unit pump. With Sanitation btw, Summer already has excellent food from the plains farms, even before the pigs come into my borders.

The settler from Fenrir is going just SE of my National Epic city, Ghost:





I sent my armies to the deal with the Barb cities in the East first, so this still stands. Part of that is it needs a border pop to be useful but it can't build a monument itself. I have 1 captured Bear making it's way over or I might use a Savant. I killed a lot of the barbs coming out of the city for some useful xp, but I did suffer my one big casualty from losing my barb peace; lost a 96% battle with a 12/13xp Sentry Soa. I'm trying to settle my mana nodes quickly btw, so I can hook them up as soon as I fit in Divination.



Here's my front with Bob. It's quite annoying with his power spiking and keeping all those Moroi that can 1 turn my city. I have a good garrison though, and the city will get a Palisade, Wall of Stone and constant casting of Dance of Blades. The Summer Palace is a bit of a debate but even with -80% distance maintenance, it's still high enough. So, I decided to put it in Nymeria(3.29 dist maintenance currently), in anticipation of settling this area:



Finally my SE States:



I conquered Shaggy Dog from the Barbarians and razed the city south of it just before Dave took it culturally. I had to leave Lucian a bit vulneruble but I was pretty confident he didn't have enough forces close by to take him out. Now the army needs to heal up, take that last barb city and make a decision on who to attack next. Maybe I need to wait for Ritualists for that? Again, that's a mana node I want to settle pretty soon.

Demos:




It's an interesting balance at the minute. You'd think the Amurites are out of the game given they're worst in all the demos but they do have Sorcery and look to be trying to ToD Arcane Lore for Govannon + maybe Hemah. Does he need to attack someone? His Power isn't increasing though. Dave has the best demos, but he just revolted to Foreign Trade/Slavery, which really confuses me. Why play slavery in a cottage economy without even Sanitation farms? And what are you going to build with Slavery anyway? Units won't start off with any xp, and infra isn't great in FFH. Curiously, his food went up and his production down after that revolt. Finally we have Bob, with Feudalism researchable, so on his way to vampires. He seems to have put down a lot of cities recently though and his tech rate has definitely been affected by that. The City State economy of me and Dave seems to be doing a lot better. I'm thinking he might be my next target. I don't think he's a player to just sit back and let me do my thing, if I attack somebody else, he'll try jump in and do something, the chances of that with Dave and Jim are less IMO.

Final point; no-one has Philosophy, so I have no competition for the Veil either ... actually I have no religious competition of any sort. And the Veil is one of the fastest spreading religions in the game. Maybe I should be aiming for religious victory here? I mean, domination/concession is clearly the most likely but a religious one might speed that up a bit, or at least force players to put some resources into stopping it. I already have 36% of the world's population. I tend to think you should always have a backup victory option besides conquest.

[The Black Sword]

Veil founded in Perrin, this will do nicely:



It's a good hammer city for getting the temple up and Savants out. The problem is it also has a massive food surplus but the extra happy from religion/temple should take care of that until we convert to conquest.

The Veil also spread immediately to Shaggy Dog:



Where I really need a border pop. I was debating cash-rushing a monument here if the Veil didn't spawn somewhere close.

The free Savant is going to go toward my NE city Ghost, that needs more specialist slots and it can pump a few savants too.

The island situation:


I did indeed lose my original SoA, but some hasted units out of a boat saved the day and the city was only delayed 1 turn.

I only have 2 8xp shamans btw, so I think I was right to head for the Veil first rather than rush Sorcery.

[The Black Sword]

Short picture driven update:



Once Bob gets HBR, these become a problem.



My empire is a little boring, consisting of lots of fairly homogeneous cities with little infra. I'm not sure if the infra is worth it even here tbh, but I decided to make an exception for my Deruptus capital.



First savant goes somewhere that will build Rosier, then I'm off border popping. I rolled a GS from my NE city btw. I forgot that I could use him for the shrine here. Still, I think I'll save him for the Sorcery bulb. If the next GP is not a commander then he'll become the shrine.




Far too many cities . Only military unit completed is in Hopper for overflow into the Grimoire, quite a number of cities have units almost built for the conquest-apprenticeship-StW switch next turn. Also, I'll try to stop building cottages, they'll take too long to grow and pay off now.



Dave completed the GLH, so I closed borders. I was pretty sure he didn't have the island cities to fund all that and he was at war with Bob earlier, the other person with big city numbers. I lost 4gpt, rival best lost 40gpt.



Might be a bit annoying...

Btw, I'm out of wolf related names for a while now, I've just been getting them off wikipedia, if anyone has some good suggestions I'm open to them.

[Molach]

Impressive demos.

Gere and Freke are Odin/Wotans wolves.

[The Black Sword]

Thanks Molach, Gere is founded, Freke will join soon.

[The Black Sword]

Bob and I have built up quite the forts in Letho and Slayer. Need Ritualists and Mardero to break through that. My choice of Hosts might be a mistake on reflection, both spectres and fireballs would be more useful there.



So, instead, lets hit him somewhere else:


2 ritualists, 3 mages/shaman, 10 Sons of Asena.


10 units, probably 1 ritualist, no. of mages undecided. He's 1 tech from hawks, hope this isn't too late.

As the golden age ended I finished off Sorcery and completed the Grimoire. Non-GA demos:


Regarding the food figure, I have twice Bob's pop to upkeep but then I pay half the upkeep due to Sac the weak, so that's an actual food surplus that is turned into hammers via conquest, actually even better hammers, they are not effected by the -10% from apprenticeship.

Unfortunately, I only make just above 100g at max tax. Too many units to pay:




I should probably stop building shamans for a bit. I still need to pick up construction and hunting and ToD Divine Essence and the Blood of the Phoenix ritual.