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

[Mattimeo]

Flaming Zombie Centaurs - HidingKneel plays the Sheai... er... Kuriotates

or something along those lines, I don't recall specifics

[Commodore]

Flaming Zombie Centaurs - HidingKneel plays the Sheai... er... Kuriotates

or something along those lines, I don't recall specifics

Right on, and it was awesome.

Not a lot to report. I opted for hammers over commerce at the capital.



Also, HK, mind covering Basium here?



Although I guess if I do get killed it's okay post-immortality.

[Mardoc]

So I did a little of that. First of all, there's that dungeon Bob wanted to explore, before he turned into a giant red monster:

Sounds good . Let's get some value from our centaurs, if we're going to pay maintenance on them.

I do suspect Thoth has one of his new cities down there! Maybe it's time to push him back to the island, if it wouldn't take too much force. Anyway, I started exploring that dungeon, and moved another centaur into position (out of Thoth's vision) to defend it.

If we go soon, it'll probably be cheap, as he doesn't yet have Priesthood. And his power rating is very low.

The trouble is - once he gets Cultists, which could be any turn now, we can't possibly hold anything on the coast. And I don't really want to raze his cities and give Bob more Manes, either.

I dunno, I guess it depends on just how much his cities have grown. Might be worth removing a size 10 Lanun city to give Bob one Mane.

Also visible in this screenshot: another barbarian city has popped up, just north of the first. That's essentially on top of Selrahc's old territory. So the world's getting blanketed in barbarian cities at exactly the right time for us to take advantage of it.

Awesome!

Commodore's building a farm there already, plus it can work the cows that Kilmorph's Kith is using now. By the time it's grown into those, the remnants of our old workforce should be on the scene (I'll stop to build one cottage for Kwythellar on the way; that ought to hold us for a long while, since we'll be growing at a snail's pace until we tech sanitation).

Yeah...I guess that's my point. He's almost able to keep up with one city, with the current workforce (KK doesn't count, it's pre-improved). Which makes me skeptical about us being able to keep up with the next two, simultaneously, with 2.5 workers.

Although I suppose if you're right about Kwythellar's growth rate, it'll just barely work out for us.

Maybe the real trouble is that we have different definitions for 'soon'. I suppose that if we're adding more workers immediately after the current builds, it'll work just fine.

Orders from Heaven due next turn. Looks like I'll have to turn the science slider down to avoid finishing it myself. We can use the surplus gold to pay for the remaining paladin upgrades (both stonewardens now have two promotions worth of passive xp ).

Sounds good. Next question...does Bob give us time to go for three?




In other news...I'm starting to think about when it'll be worth researching Taxation and swapping to Republic.

Some numbers:
I'm assuming Currency researched regardless, and Mathematics not researched until the Tax push. That puts the beaker cost at 1302+2194 beakers. Subtract the prereq bonus, and that means a total base beaker cost of 2914 beakers.

Benefits:
Access to Bazaar of Mammon, Gambling House, Tax Office, Pillar of Chains. Generally hard to quantify the value of these. Although if Commodore's going to be at 0% science for the foreseeable future, they all have more value than normal. Plus the extremely hard to quantify benefit of being en route to Guilds, which enables Angels of Death. Count these as zero for now, we don't have the free hammers.

• All village+ tiles gain +1 commerce
  

At EOT 87, we have 12 villages and 2 towns.
So we'd gain 14 commerce, run through Tailor + Jeweler is 21 commerce, through science buildings is 38bpt. Payback period of 75 turns.

• Option to switch from God King to Republic.
  

Costs 12 hpt and 12 gpt from Kwythellar, grants 2 commerce and 2 hammers from towns, 3 happiness to all our megacities, a small benefit from decreased maintenance costs and civic costs. Currently negative value here.

I'm sure you're shocked to discover that it's not currently worth the research . In fact, looking at the numbers - what will probably make it worth doing is Mercurian growth. It looks like even with all of our cottages grown up, it will still be iffy on the commerce benefit alone. So what's required to make this worthwhile is the demand for Gambling Houses' +10 happy in Mercurian cities, Tax Offices/Bazaar in selected cities, etc. But all that's irrelevant at the moment.

I'll aim to revisit the question in 10 or 20 turns, but for now I'm happy to leave these off the research queue.

[Commodore]

Problem! 10% of the Kurio GNP is considerably more than 15 beakers. Which is about what I can manage. You'll definitely need to time things closely.

Lugus' Light is a good one. Amatheon's Aegis is sadly one character too long.

[HidingKneel]

Ded-lurking (didn't post before as I didn't known this was active)

Welcome aboard!

Also, HK, mind covering Basium here?

Not a problem (though I doubt you're in any danger; you're close to Bob but he's bunkered down in Cauldron Lake).

It does occur to me that the mirror of heaven has probably given Bob vision on Commodore's border. So his stack might head that way next. Anyway, we've got more territory to defend now, so we'll have to be smart in where we position the paladins (and Basium).

Problem! 10% of the Kurio GNP is considerably more than 15 beakers. Which is about what I can manage. You'll definitely need to time things closely.

Not a worry; there are tons of little things to fiddle with, so I'll get it down to a couple of beakers for you.

The trouble is - once he gets Cultists, which could be any turn now, we can't possibly hold anything on the coast. And I don't really want to raze his cities and give Bob more Manes, either.

I dunno, I guess it depends on just how much his cities have grown. Might be worth removing a size 10 Lanun city to give Bob one Mane.

Razing size ten cities sounds like an invitation for blight (I doubt his western city has AV in it). We didn't want it before, and we want it even less now .

I'm sure you're shocked to discover that it's not currently worth the research .

Agreed (except for counting the Pillar of Chains as worth zero: that'll be a fantastic wonder for us).

I'm thinking we should probably put KotE a bit earlier in the chain. It'll take a bit of time (and hammers) to build mage guild, build adept, and get adept to the mind node: not long, but longer than it'll take to research Divination. Plus, the earlier we build adepts, the sooner they get enough xp to turn into mages (KotE also offer the minor passive benefit of extra health from our herbalists.)

So my present plan is:

Orders from Heaven -> Currency -> KotE -> Sanitation -> Warfare -> Cartography -> Divination -> Sorcery -> Fishing -> Message from the Deep -> Mathematics -> Taxation. By the time we get through the rest of the chain, I'm pretty sure taxation/republic will be ready to pay off. Maybe also throw in festivals before mathematics; it should only add a turn.

[Commodore]

Hum, need to stop bothering with a training yard in JJ now that I think about it. Order Temple -> Confessors for Paladins probably will be first order of business.

[GreyWolf]

NWM.

[HidingKneel]

Hum, need to stop bothering with a training yard in JJ now that I think about it. Order Temple -> Confessors for Paladins probably will be first order of business.

Alternatively: figure how long it'll take a 1-move acolyte to reach Kwythellar, three turns for Kwythellar to build a temple and a confessor, and how long it'll take a 2-move confessor to get back to Mercurian lands (note that our workers will be roading that path, too). If that's quicker than building the temple yourself (80h), then maybe that's the way we should go.

And if we end up needing those paladins in a hurry, having the option to build them as axemen might be useful.

[Mardoc]

Orders from Heaven -> Currency -> KotE -> Sanitation -> Warfare -> Cartography -> Divination -> Sorcery -> Fishing -> Message from the Deep -> Mathematics -> Taxation. By the time we get through the rest of the chain, I'm pretty sure taxation/republic will be ready to pay off. Maybe also throw in festivals before mathematics; it should only add a turn.

Generally sounds good. And of course we can revise it as we get closer to the end. If we find we want to delay Taxation more, we might consider either Archery -> Stirrups or Construction -> Engineering. Or even Iron Working, so we can stop playing hot potato with the iron.

Hum, need to stop bothering with a training yard in JJ now that I think about it. Order Temple -> Confessors for Paladins probably will be first order of business.

It would be nice to give them time to gain XP before we give your iron back, yes. Although we'll want a Training Yard too, and building hammers take forever to decay, so what you've done so far is still useful.

Alternatively: figure how long it'll take a 1-move acolyte to reach Kwythellar, three turns for Kwythellar to build a temple and a confessor, and how long it'll take a 2-move confessor to get back to Mercurian lands (note that our workers will be roading that path, too). If that's quicker than building the temple yourself (80h), then maybe that's the way we should go.

And if we end up needing those paladins in a hurry, having the option to build them as axemen might be useful.

11 total turns, assuming the roads existed now for the shortest path. Which they don't, so probably more like 12-13 turns. I suspect it'll be easier to scrape up the hammers. Especially once the borders pop and we get the copper and plains cow improved.

[Commodore]

Engineering still gives 3-move roads in EitB right? That alone would probably let me get away with about 15% fewer workers, plus the massive advantage of moving defensive forces along more quickly, and offensive forces too actually. Combat roads are great.