Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[NobleHelium]

Remember to cover the workers since a new lizard may spawn at the Ruins at any time.

[Gaspar]

Remember to cover the workers since a new lizard may spawn at the Ruins at any time.

I thought Ruins wouldn't spawn new Lizards when its covered in your culture? Am I wrong here?

[NobleHelium]

I'm pretty sure I've seen Barrows spawn new skeletons when covered by culture. I assume Ruins are analogous. I'm not certain though.

[Mist]

I thought Ruins wouldn't spawn new Lizards when its covered in your culture? Am I wrong here?

You're wrong. The only two things that stop ruins spawning are :
-hostile unit on top ( so anything not barbarian or with HN )
-amount of barbarian units on the map at the upper cap

[Gaspar]

You're wrong. The only two things that stop ruins spawning are :
-hostile unit on top ( so anything not barbarian or with HN )
-amount of barbarian units on the map at the upper cap

Thanks. In that case, indeed, I'd better cover those workers.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Take the Fall

Tons of good stuff in there, Mardoc. I’m pretty sure there are no other threads around where you’ll get 2000+ words of detailed analysis in a day.

Regarding puppet vs illusion… there are some trade-offs. Puppets can kill, but have an inherent 20% strength malus. Illusions benefit from immunity to poison and death damage. So your Gibbon-illusions will be stronger, but won’t finish the job.

What does it add up to? Killing the Balseraphs in the cradle is a chance that's been missed, and we're probably not the civ to do it, anyway. We need either a way to affect a whole stack at once, preferably a lethal way but immobilization will do, or we need a way to make the stack irrelevant while we go about our business, or we need a way to preferentially target the spellcasters who, after all, tend to be relatively weak. And who tend to require time to create, and gold, and hammers.

This is a good summary of the key issues. The only obvious thing missing is that if he’s spammed a massive stack in one place, then he is more likely to be vulnerable somewhere else. Waterwalking, invisibility and allies all help create a second point of attack.

Azoth’s Comments

Generally in agreement where I’ve not commented.

Actually, with a good road network, Loki can Inspire three cities

I realised the potential for Loki to “triple-inspiration” when I was doing my last bit of testing, but forgot to go back and edit it in to what I’d written before. Good catch.

If true, then we can probably trade with either the Elohim or the Grigori over coast. (I seem to remember our C&D department said that one of those players founded their capital on the coast.)

Elohim moved for a turn and then founded with a water tile in their inner ring.

Kyan Chat

The slow pace of these games makes is easy to overanalyse. At a high level, that’s just two rivals talking in a cordial fashion about a game. He did lay a couple of traps, which I think you dodged effectively, but helpfully also provided us with a load of information.

There is obviously no way to confirm he has “additional animals that give no power”, but it seems likely. I’d still like to see him squirming about the Ogre incident.

Don’t forget to let the Hippus and Sheaim know that we’ve met the Clowns in-game. It might be worth reminding them they should check with us on anything that Kyan claims we’ve said to him. Bear this in mind when communicating with the Balz and we can quote verbatim what we actually said rather than his paraphrasing. He’s already had a few turns to build up relationships, and we want them as our friends (until we stab them) .

Turn Time

I switched back to the Elder Council in Hash Pipe.

Sorry for taking over your game Just thought that was the better move for economy, rather than leave the turns we’ve put in just hanging until who-knows-when.

Sadly, these are still largely mash enter turns.

Maybe it is finally time to start building some roads, they complete much quicker so should give you more to do.

And the C&D machine is back in action.
• Big mistake a couple of turns ago was corrected by discovery that Clowns were in Aristocracy/Agrarianism/Apprenticeship. That means that the “Tech+Pop” I had given them was actually Classical tech (and explains why the soldier count hadn’t risen ). The 487 leader of the pop score was actually Grigori (337+150) and not Balseraphs (337+90+48+6?+6?).
• Clown points this turn were land points for their third city and a pop rise in one of their latest cities.
• Sheaim score increase is for first pop growth in city 2.
• Possible news from the other side of the world. The Rival Worst soldiers built a warrior last turn and then immediately lost it. Maybe barb troubles?

[Mardoc]

Tons of good stuff in there, Mardoc. I’m pretty sure there are no other threads around where you’ll get 2000+ words of detailed analysis in a day.

The sad part is, I don't even contribute that much to the threads for my own games. I think it's because it's harder to tell if I have an audience - or maybe you guys are just more fun.

I only really have one comment at the moment - why aren't we growing Hash Pipe? Is that last hammer really more important than getting a food surplus again? Personally, I would want to be stacking up population here like nobody's business, it's got at least 4 more pop to grow, assuming we can get there before we find another happiness source.

I have no objection to working the Remnants, it's frankly an awesome tile, just to not working either of the farms to let us grow despite that.

[Gaspar]

Little short on time, but I just wanted to respond to a couple things here.

Firstly, I certainly consider you guys full partners in this, so don't worry about "taking over my game." You've put at least as much time into it as I have. And if I strongly disagree, I won't listen anyway.

Secondly, I'm still mulling the Balseraph situation, which is why I haven't commented on the excellent posts yesterday on the topic. I think some combination of the suggestions offered is where we have to go. I think we're maybe just going to have to accept that they might take down a neighbor or two before we can do anything about it. One more reason to focus on getting Sheaim lands quickly if we can't talk him into sending PZ's Kyan's way.

Re: Hash Pipe - I honestly have no idea what to do with that city right now. Its quality tiles are the cottages and the Remnants. That's why its working those. I could probably make an argument for going maximum growth and ignoring the Remnants until its size 5 and can work both farms, both cottages, the cows and the Remnants, but then we're waiting a bit to see the buildings complete. If someone has a solid idea for it, I'm all ears. Its just a weird city.

[Mardoc]

Re: Hash Pipe - I honestly have no idea what to do with that city right now. Its quality tiles are the cottages and the Remnants. That's why its working those. I could probably make an argument for going maximum growth and ignoring the Remnants until its size 5 and can work both farms, both cottages, the cows and the Remnants, but then we're waiting a bit to see the buildings complete. If someone has a solid idea for it, I'm all ears. Its just a weird city.

It's not an easy choice by any means. My instinct is compromise - work the remnants, one farm, and one cottage, but that's probably the worst of all worlds, getting us both slow growth and slow progress on buildings. Certainly once we can improve the cow, we should work it, since that's both food surplus and a good hammer tile.

Maybe what makes sense is to stick with what you're doing for now, at least until we get the Elder Council finished, and maybe also until we have our first Hunter, then switch to full growth?

[Gaspar]

T62: 17 pts for Balseraphs, 6 for Hippus.

Grigori birthed another Adventurer, their second.

I decided to push growth a bit at Hash Pipe, by working the two farms plus the Remnants. Elder Council will complete next turn, then I think I'll swap the Remnants for a cottage until it grows again.

The Chronic, however, is finally working the desired configuration of the Corn tile + 5 cottages. Here, enjoy all its future commercey goodness:



Here's the demos at EOT, after the Elder Council completes: