[SPOILERS] ARRR Ye Scurvy Dogs! Hannah the Irin

[DaveV]

. Good game, sorry I wasn't more help to you.

[Selrahc]

Soon I can read Thoth's thread and figure out how he grew so far so fast.

Key points IMO.

1. GMerchant from a lair on about T8.
2. One of the better opening locations.(Although I think you had a pretty competitive location as well). Lots of floodplains for a Malakim is very nice.
3. Good play to take maximum advantage of 1 and 2.

[Mardoc]

Key points IMO.

1. GMerchant from a lair on about T8.

I was right, it was the Malakim!

2. One of the better opening locations.(Although I think you had a pretty competitive location as well). Lots of floodplains for a Malakim is very nice.

Yeah - it took me a while to realize this - but a floodplain in aristocracy is strictly better than a Lanun coast. More food, more commerce, doesn't require an expensive building to take advantage of. Adding Malakim to that is just the icing on the cake.

But there's no arguing that this wasn't the dominant factor:

3. Good play to take maximum advantage of 1 and 2.

Thoth keeps pulling out little surprises that make significant differences. There were too many situations in the game where Thoth got into position just a couple turns before someone could deal with it:

• His 2 turn Guild of Hammers
  
• Heron Throne
  
• His timing on taking out Mr. Yellow (and invading while Mr. Yellow was in the process of hooking up copper)
  
• Breaking Nyktorion just before I could intervene
  

And these are just the ones that messed with me and are on the top of my head - I can just imagine what he did to beat everyone else in the game to things they wanted. Each and every time he managed one of these by the skin of his teeth, he got a little bit further ahead.

[Amelia]

Heh, you realized what i realized as well. Lanun coasts, while strong, simply can't make up for Aristocracy Farms. Lanun are good in getting the early/middle techs first, but once it reaches late game, they're screwed unless they have a secondary economy going.

Also i can't help but realize the irony of jumping ship from a lanun..

[Thoth]

You might be right, it might be too much to give up. I will say one thing - if measured from Captain Crunch's borders, the site I want is 13 tiles away; 16 from the city tile. So Thoth does have a point about it being a stretch, and going on proximity alone, it would rightly belong to him.

That said, for all that he's complained about pushy land demands from Mr. Yellow, I view this as more of the same. Is it my fault that he's decided to ramp up for a war instead of expanding to his backyard? Is a third gold really worth that much to him? I think the main impetus behind me agreeing is that I want that NAP as much as he does, and this seems to be the best approach for getting it. Otherwise, I'd make no deal and just settle the site anyway.

I definitely need to get culture to Mindphasr ASAP to make sure I own those reagents.

I don't think giving up Pearls was too high a price. I expect to have enough Pearls for everyone once I finish filling out my land, and frankly, an extra city seems like a fair trade for a single happy. Maybe I'm judging it based on what I'm giving up (a spare Pearl) and not what he's getting, though (a happy he couldn't have any other way).

Plus, well, I want to play dumb so that if/when I do hit him, he'll have underestimated me. That's why I made the comment about Golden Shanty's borders (and not the borders I see across the desert), why I claimed pearls was my only reason for settling here, why I was careful to say 'I have no desire to settle past this line', not 'no desire to own land past this line'. It's just that ultimately, I don't think I can war effectively in the near term, and I think he can. I'm expecting to neuter many of his strategic advantages by T140.

The only reason why I allowed you to settle in this area at all was that I was already in a hot war. If you look at the map, the region in dispute was clearly in my sphere of influence.

Had you proved to be "pushy" in your demands for land in this area, you would have had to fight for it. I didn't want a two front war, but I was willing to fight one if necessary.

Ok, it's not just the state of the game anymore that requires a war:



You 'decline my request for settling privileges', huh? All the land in the world belongs to you, except that which you choose to dole out, huh? For future reference, Thoth - I was likely to declare war on you anyway, depending on the game situation (if Irgy turns out to be just a hop skip and jump across the ocean, then I might have gone after him instead), but this message is where I decided that you have to be taken down for my own emotional wellbeing. Your tone is insufferable, and I don't intend to suffer it forever.

The irony here is that I had already been leaning in the direction of ceding the Remnants area from a strategic standpoint, and if you'd just phrased it differently, you could perhaps have had a secure backlines while you attacked the rest of the world. I like my peaceful builder game too much! Something along the lines of 'well, that's really not fair, since you've got all that empty land to your east (the island)....'

I acknowledge that my military power is significantly less than Thoth's, and likely to remain that way for a while. And peaceful expansion really is easier, and should be pursued first. But now my gameplan has changed from growing as much as possible, then aiming for a victory, to finding the best way to take Thoth down a peg, then aiming for a victory.

That said, it'll be much more effective if I can get at least strategic surprise. So I'm debating how to respond. I'm inclined toward something like this:

See my spoiler thread for my initial reaction.

Oooh! Well, except for one, minor method - crush the cities and pull my borders away from my units.

Regardless, I'm starting to think grabbing CoE may have been the smartest move I made all game .

Sareln? This is being addressed in your paring mod, right? It's ridiculously unbalanced if it's not.



Yep, hence why I had to get Enchantment from Thoth (or WK, but he doesn't seem to have it at the moment). The trouble is I didn't quite leave myself enough time between Hemah born and 7 promotions later (Ice 3, Enchantment 3, Mobility), let alone 13 promotions (+ Combat 5, + Haste). So he'll likely be growing in effectiveness as the war goes on. Even if he gains 2 XP a turn, I think I'll have to choose at first between Spellstaff and Mobility. Oh well, at least I have Body mana and adepts who can grant me some of that speed.

Agreed 100% on Nox Noctis. It's the most overpowered shrine/wonder in the game. AFAIKT NOTHING works against it. Trying to co-ordinate a defense or an offence vs invisible units is virtually impossible.

I was right, it was the Malakim!


Yeah - it took me a while to realize this - but a floodplain in aristocracy is strictly better than a Lanun coast. More food, more commerce, doesn't require an expensive building to take advantage of. Adding Malakim to that is just the icing on the cake.

But there's no arguing that this wasn't the dominant factor:


Thoth keeps pulling out little surprises that make significant differences. There were too many situations in the game where Thoth got into position just a couple turns before someone could deal with it:

• His 2 turn Guild of Hammers
  
• Heron Throne
  
• His timing on taking out Mr. Yellow (and invading while Mr. Yellow was in the process of hooking up copper)
  
• Breaking Nyktorion just before I could intervene
  

And these are just the ones that messed with me and are on the top of my head - I can just imagine what he did to beat everyone else in the game to things they wanted. Each and every time he managed one of these by the skin of his teeth, he got a little bit further ahead.

GoH was actually 3 turns....I put a turn into it, then cash rushed the PoC (which was partially completed), allowed the overflow to be put into GoH, then cash rushed GoH.

Heron Throne was your own fault for leaving it so late. :neenernee

[Sciz]

And to think that I almost bungled up Thoth's game after some reckless exploring of ruins and epic lairs

[Thoth]

And to think that I almost bungled up Thoth's game after some reckless exploring of ruins and epic lairs

Those lair pops weren't quite as bad as they first appeared. Your Giant helped kill off a couple of scouting parties which helped to delay contact between Mardoc and the Eastern Bloc which helped to slow down the dogpile talks a bit. (although not as much as it should have given that WK was forwarding messages from Irgy to Mardoc and vice versa)

[Mardoc]

See my spoiler thread for my initial reaction.

*That's* where your capital was? Much is explained. I thought you were a good city or so further north, so Remnants would have been 2nd ring for both of us.

Those lair pops weren't quite as bad as they first appeared. Your Giant helped kill off a couple of scouting parties which helped to delay contact between Mardoc and the Eastern Bloc which helped to slow down the dogpile talks a bit. (although not as much as it should have given that WK was forwarding messages from Irgy to Mardoc and vice versa)

Definitely! Not only did I lose both my initial scouts to your animals, but that demoralised me and kept me from training replacements.

It didn't help any that I picked the exact worst direction to explore first if I wanted to find people.

[Thoth]

*That's* where your capital was? Much is explained. I thought you were a good city or so further north, so Remnants would have been 2nd ring for both of us.

That area was roughly equidistant from our caps, but there was no way I was going to let you settle that area and get easy land access to my core. I was nervous enough about my southern border as it was.

That, plus I'd already put in the effort to kill off the nasties in the area: 3 Gargoyles (deliberately popped my me to help impede contact), 2 hill giants, plus assorted gobbos, skellies, scorpions and such like.

I had the promoted troops to clear the area with minimal casualties (IIRC it cost me a couple of warriorpults and a l2 sword in total), which also meant I had the military force to back up my claim to the area. You were still running a paper military.

Definitely! Not only did I lose both my initial scouts to your animals, but that demoralised me and kept me from training replacements.

It didn't help any that I picked the exact worst direction to explore first if I wanted to find people.

That whole Remnants area was a giant deathtrap for non-Nomads. All desert plus the Guardians two gobbo forts and a couple of barrows. It shocked the hell out of me when Irgy's warrior suddenly appeared on the West side of the Badlands. (turns out it got the Portal result from a lair pop )

Even without Sciz's Giant, early contact with the Easterners would have been very tough for you.