Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Gaspar]

Yeah, unfortunately I haven't been able to read much of most of the threads. Not much time and not much interest. I read your thread for a good stretch, not reading it anymore really for obvious reasons.

I'm not reading it anymore either.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Well that turn was a lot more exciting than some we’ve had recently! That means more quote boxes….

Yeah, it really makes no sense, especially given that the Lizard only wandered 1 tile off the Ruins, as though it moved and then suddenly was like "Oh crap! I'm not supposed to do that!"

I have a bizarre vision of the lizard heading off with his new friend, but sheepishly returning to the ruins when he realises his error (or sees his comrade slaughtered). However, he finds his parents have cleaned out his room to use for their hobbies, and left him stuck in the dangerous wilderness.

Maybe we can pop it soon, right Azoth?

No popping without more defences in place! At least wait until we have a Hawk to find the Mistforms.

…the founding of the newest Ljosalfar outpost, Paradise City

Very pleased that the new city hasn’t had too much impact on our costs. We can definitely press ahead with at least a couple more cities with no real fears for our economy. I’m especially positive as Paradise City is going to grow quickly, and be able to use good tiles soon.

This settling, combined with various cottage and city growths has us up to the 50 bpt mark. Exciting.

Good to see that we’re back up to 3rd in GNP, and with lots of potential for improvement as cottages upgrade. Similarly, since adopting Agrarianism and with all-out growth (or food for settler), we’ve actually moved up to 2nd in crop yield.

The question is does City 5 go SW of Hash Pipe, NW of Hash Pipe, or the "filler" in between Hash Pipe and The Chronic? The other two northern locations are much more marginal, so I'm inclined to wait until we get a strike team to take down the Barb city up there before planting those two.

Another tricky one. The filler city is the most marginal in terms of productivity, but also the most integrated into what we already have – probably the “easy option”. I think Hawk flights of the west will help decide if one of the other two are preferable. The answer will also depend on which of our neighbours we want to wind up more. On that note, any diplo to report following the Clowns’ GNP jump? Did we ever tell the Hippus and Sheaim we’d met Kyan in-game?


Time for the (increasingly tricky) C&D weekend catchup. I’m basically now working on the hope that if I find a combination of explanations that works, then that is the right answer, as the number of variables continues to climb.
- Balseraphs gained two pop (capital to size 9), but then lost one in a different city (went size 4 to 3).
- It seems that both the Sheaim and Grigori points are for a classical tech, so they’re both likely to adopt Aristocracy when convenient.
- Hippus got some landpoints, and then got a pop increase in all three of their non-capital cities.

On both those last points, it’s worth remembering the advantages we’re getting from our leader, and that they’ll start to add up. Three other civs have had to put hammers into something that popped their borders, while we’ve been blissfully building infrastructure and military at our expansion sites. Our increased culture has also let us get so far ahead on improvements for Paradise City. Similarly, we just hopped into Agrarianism because it fitted with the tiles we’re currently working, but it will cost them anarchy to improve their yields with a new civic.

[Mardoc]

The question is does City 5 go SW of Hash Pipe, NW of Hash Pipe, or the "filler" in between Hash Pipe and The Chronic? The other two northern locations are much more marginal, so I'm inclined to wait until we get a strike team to take down the Barb city up there before planting those two.

I think MBTM has a point on it depending on diplo and space. That said, I think our focus still needs to be on grabbing the best site, not land grabbing, blocking people off, etc. And on that note:

We will have Way of the Forests but not Priesthood (and certainly not PoL) by the time we're looking for city 5, at least per my understanding of our relative rates - so honestly, I would prefer whichever site has the most workable forest tiles; with a bunch of those, we'll have ancient forests to work pronto, and if we throw down cottages or mines onto them, we'll have some quite valuable tiles. In 5 turns, when Leaves comes in, is when we'll finally have the elven economy at lift off - focus the site on *that* consideration. Especially now that the most juicy resources are unavailable, at least until we can take the northern barb city.

Our borders are increasingly likely to be defined by war, not settler spam, it seems, unless you had more time for diplo than it seems from the outside. Which means that our city selection needs to be defined by whatever boosts our economy the most, so we can win the war(s).

I can't look at the pictures here at work, but if I'm remembering correctly, it was the filler site that will gain the most forest, out of our options. That would have a secondary advantage - getting forests within our borders, closer to the Sheaim. I still like the March rush, if we can pull it off. Supposing we can, that would dramatically pull us back into the game, I think, getting a few cities for free.

If anything, the location of Babylon is promising, in that it's built somewhat in our direction and hence maybe within Treant range. As soon as you have a Hawk scouting the south, we're going to have to sit down with a map and see if we can pull off a successful March.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I wanted to look at the latest “BIG DECISION”… the next choice of tech. However, I’ve ended up going a bit wider, for one main reason. A large amount of the logic was predicated on the assumption that we are still preparing for a war with the Sheaim on T100. Given our respective positions in the game, one side would need to win this decisively. Any slightly inconclusive conflict risks both of us wiping out any chance whatsoever of actually having significance in the game. I hope what comes next provides some more context for that statement, and also stimulates some thinking about what we should be doing in a few turns time. As always, the assumptions are as much open to query as the conclusions.



So, Way of the Forests will make us a religious civilization in 5 turns. That leaves us 25 Turns before Turn 100 to do some more teching and produce enough units to convincingly battle the zombie horde. What can we achieve in that time?

[SIZE="3"]Research:[/SIZE]

Current beaker production at 100% research is 50bpt at a loss of 4gpt. So, our breakeven rate has reached 46bpt and is climbing. If we assume we can improve that by 1 every three turns through new citizens, cottage growth, etc, then our total research output over those 25 turns will be around about 1300 beakers. I think that assumption might be a little conservative, but it might be best to be cautious, and we may not choose to focus exclusively on commerce for the whole period.

Tech costs quoted below are based on the pre-req arrow adjustment I used earlier (i.e. normally reducing the tech cost by the 1.2 factor that would be attributed to the beaker output in-game).

There are two possible paths that Gaspar has suggested our research could take:

Philosophy (239) -> Priesthood (638)

Philosophy gets us very little at the current time. Priesthood provides a better military unit, that can summon further units that are as strong as the best we have available now, and also work to improve our economy by putting forests on tiles where there are none.

Crafting (114) -> Mining (159) -> Bronze Working (319)

At the moment, Crafting gets us not much more than the ability to build an expensive Brewing House which could help with our poor happy cap. Mining, however, will significantly increase our production capacity if we can spare the worker turns to lay down some mines on our hills. Bronzeworking provides the ability to finally cut back the jungle (releasing our gold resource), and will also instantly improve the jobber brigade with weaponry.

There are also two further techs that we might want to slip in somewhere.

Archery (239 or 205) – this provides us a strong defensive unit and our civilization’s hero.

Festivals (143) – for an economic boost in both happiness and coins. The big problem with Festivals is that we may well not have the production capacity to gain any benefits from the newly available buildings in the near term.

The mathematically astute will have spotted that the whole of the second path costs less than the second tech on the first path. Indeed, even adding Archery after Mining still brings the total cost to about 100 beakers less for twice as many technologies. Priesthood is expensive!

Based on the beaker production described earlier, we can expect to have Priests available in the region of Turns 90 to 92 with that beeline, leaving a few turns for builds/upgrades. As an alternative example, Archery could be complete by Turn 85, and Bronze Working is only really required for the Warriors at the last moment before they leave cities to move to the front. We would need our research output to step up significantly quicker than I have allowed if we want BOTH Priests and Bronze Working before Turn 100 (need to average 60bpt breakeven), and would have to skip Archers.

I think the two main options have both economic and military benefits, and we will need all of the techs at some point (if not making them our next seven techs in some order). What to go to first is a straight up on-or-the-other decision. However, things get a little more complicated when you look at what we can build during this mobilisation period.


[SIZE="3"]Production:[/SIZE]

Paradise City is not an especially hammer-rich location, and will be mostly focussed on its own infrastructure, or contributing a small number of warriors. Cypress Hill, to be settled c. T80, will be growing and immature for most of this period, although has a lot of hammer potential. Any possible further city will contribute very little to a war effort. Therefore there is a need to investigate how much we can actually get out of our two large cities. I think this is another area where there is a significant difference in our capabilities from what you might expect in a parallel situation in BTS. We can’t just build no military until we decide we need to, and then less than 10 turns later use whip and draft to muster a significant force.

For the sake of clarity, here are the hammer costs of available relevant builds:
Hunting Lodge - 67
Archery Range - 67
Training Yard – 67
Temple of Leaves - 80
Dereptus Brewery - 160

Hawk - 13
Warrior - 16
Disciple of Leaves - 40
Hunter - 40
Archer - 40
Swordsman - 40
Fawn - 60
Priest of Leaves - 80
Gilden Silveric - 80

At size 7, the Chronic at max hammers can currently produce 16 hammers (including God King bonus). This is a pretty good number, because it means that a Temple or Priest is exactly a 5 turn build and warriors are one turn. With 25 turns to play with, total hammer output from will be 400 hammers. This can rise with mines but is more likely to be reduced by the need for more commerce. However, the city is already committed to building a settler past T75, and will be lacking a Lodge, so is clearly limited on the amount of military it can produce.

The story is actually a tiny bit better at Hash Pipe, where it looks like we will be building most of our soldiers. At size 8, it can now provide up to 18 hpt with no growth. However, looking at actual builds shows how challenging it will be to outnumber the enemy. We need a Temple (80, 5t), a second Hunter (120, +2t), two Hawks (146, +2t), probably three Disciples to spread Leaves or upgrade to Priest (266, +8t), and then, for example if Priesthood comes in a little bit ahead of schedule, two Priests are ordered (426, +9t) to take us through to the deadline. That creates a fighting force of a Hawk for scouting, just two Priests plus their Tiger summons, any Disciples that have been upgraded (for 85 gold), plus whatever we can get from elsewhere. The two Hunter-Hawk pairs are planned for exploration, unless they get called back.

That doesn’t look like an especially terrifying army, and we are clearly somewhat hammer-limited in addition to being tech constrained. Although we could swap an Archery range and 3.5 Archers for the two Priests and a Disciple, that doesn’t significantly improve the numbers. Having “better” units doesn’t necessarily help when collateral damage can act as a significant force-multiplier.

The good news is that at this point we have more population than our potential opponent, an additional city already growing, and the benefits of our Elven forest improvements. We should be able to generate more hammers than he can. However, he already has the tech for the unit we know he’s going to build, and he also has mining to improve his hammer output.

**

The intention was to consider what tech we need to move onto next after Way of the Forests completes. What I hope I’ve also highlighted is that, whatever we pick, we really need to start thinking about a fighting force sooner rather than later if we want to successfully battle the Sheaim menace in 30 turns.

[Mardoc]

Good summary, MBTM. I think the main takeaway from your summary here is that we might not be able to go for city 5, regardless, unless an NAP extension is in the works, or at least recon tells us that Nicolae isn't preparing for war.

The real problem, though, is that we *can't* fight a climatic battle against Zombies; any stack that comes into contact with a sufficiently large zombie stack will die. This is the main reason I think we've got to leave Priesthood as our primary focus. If need be, we can shut off research at the end and upgrade a couple disciples, for a force of ~4 PoL, but more importantly, 4 Tigers/turn. And then, if Chronic swaps to Temple of Leaves and Priests after the current settler, we could probably count on it for the temple and 2 more PoL; 6 Tigers/turn ought to have a much better chance against Nicolae. And equally importantly, if we make Priests the mainstay of our army, then we're in position to spam out reinforcements every 5 turns.

In contrast, Nicolae is, to the best of our knowledge, only hammer limited, with a required spending of 40 hammers/zombie. Unfortunately, they don't require Training Yards; on the other hand, he hasn't started yet to the best of our knowledge. And, although he can add in some mines, he doesn't have the free hammer/tile that we do. I recall him mentioning something along the lines of 'no tiles with better than 3 food', so he can't even go too far in a hammer focus.

Babylon will be negligible in contributing to the war. New York is what, size 6? Even if he started now, and can make 13 hammers/turn (God King makes that possible, maybe, depending on his land), that gives a total threat of 8 zombies. The longer he waits, the better for us. Still, 8 zombies, with a march of 4 turns, that's something that we can handle with 4 PoL, I think. And that would require Nicolae to be training exclusively from now until then. It would be easy to slip to just 15 turns of preparation, particularly if we're still working on infra for the moment and hence keep a low power graph, which would mean our 4ish Priests have only 5 Zombies to handle.

Long story short, we have a lot more hammers to play with than he will. Rather than speculate, I look forward to regular Hawk flights. If it should turn out that he waits, perhaps to build a third city, then we're golden. If he starts immediately on spamming zombies, then we can shift focus at The Chronic to also contributing Priests, and we can still probably handle him.

One other detail - a 40 hammer Carnival, plus our first Priest, ought to be worth 2 happiness. Maybe 3 if the Hunters are lucky. 2 more working citizens ought to be able to repay the hammer cost of the Carnival, even if they work simple cottaged forests for only 20 turns (13 turns at the Chronic). Equally importantly, that lets us trade hammers now for hammers available after Priesthood comes in. Carnivals, at least, are worth building anywhere we hit the happiness cap.

I think this means my vote is to go Festivals next, then straight to Priesthood. We can likely manage our scouts, carnivals, and 4-6 Priests in time for the war, while I'm convinced Nicolae can't top 8-10 Zombies, even starting now. We'll always have our panic button, too, in case I'm wrong.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I agree that we will be able to out-produce Nicolae after we get to Priesthood, in no small part because we produce more than one “unit” every time we churn out a Priest. However, I’m not sure five Priests is enough for an invasion. If we’re happy to wait then we should get safer and safer in our lands (until he has his own summons to pad out his numbers). What we really don’t want is a stalemate where we have to build units for 50 turns with Pyre Zombies in our territory, or a cold war where we get the downsides of unit costs but not the benefits of taking territory.

Babylon will be negligible in contributing to the war. New York is what, size 6?

His cities are size 7 and 3 at the moment, by my reckoning, and it doesn’t look like he’s popped borders at Babylon. I completely agree that graph-watching and Hawks should give us ample warning if he starts gearing up for attack.

The real problem, though, is that we *can't* fight a climatic battle against Zombies; any stack that comes into contact with a sufficiently large zombie stack will die.

<snip>

Still, 8 zombies, with a march of 4 turns, that's something that we can handle with 4 PoL, I think.

I’m sorry, but I think you might have contradicted yourself a little. I personally feel it is very difficult to avoid losing to zombie splash damage unless you significantly outnumber them or can use mobility to avoid being hit. Strength 4 tigers (with no defensive bonus) will die to S5 Pyre Zombies even before the fire collateral gets involved. It will be a very tricky, tactical battle if we want to take out a stack with equal or lower numbers.

One other detail - a 40 hammer Carnival, plus our first Priest, ought to be worth 2 happiness. Maybe 3 if the Hunters are lucky. 2 more working citizens ought to be able to repay the hammer cost of the Carnival, even if they work simple cottaged forests for only 20 turns (13 turns at the Chronic). Equally importantly, that lets us trade hammers now for hammers available after Priesthood comes in. Carnivals, at least, are worth building anywhere we hit the happiness cap.

I think this means my vote is to go Festivals next, then straight to Priesthood. We can likely manage our scouts, carnivals, and 4-6 Priests in time for the war, while I'm convinced Nicolae can't top 8-10 Zombies, even starting now. We'll always have our panic button, too, in case I'm wrong.

I’m also, sadly, not convinced by this. We’re probably not going to have time to slip a Carnival in at Hash Pipe, unless we get lucky with religion spreading to the capital (by the way, we’re in big trouble if FoL pops in Paradise City and then doesn’t spread!). I agree that the Chronic can go Settler -> Carnival, then still have time for Temple -> Priests. The extra citizen(s) will indeed repay the hammer cost of the Carnival quite quickly.

However, what won’t be repaid quickly is the beaker cost of Festivals. It’s already looking quite tight to get Priesthood with 10 turns to build a couple of Priests (no way around needing that time). If we have to delay for 3 turns to pick up another tech, then that might mean the last two Priests are a little late to the barbeque. The timing really is everything, which is why I brought it up early to get ideas for bringing the time down, or spot where I’m mistaken so we can rest easy.

Again, all of this assumes maximum force on T100. If that isn’t required, then the economic route will be superior for later in the game. There are also lots of other ifs and buts (e.g. analysis looks at MAX hammers, and both cities might want to grow with a religion in; I’ve not factored in Nationhood/Apprenticeship bonus/malus; etc).

[Gaspar]

Lots to digest here, so I'll give a cursory summation and then we can continue to discuss later. I don't say enough, but you are an absolute dream to have as a teammate, MBTM.

I think the priorities will have to be a bit fluid really in the medium-term. In the short term, its pretty straightforward. Buildwise, we get the Lodge finished at Hash Pipe while growing to the happy cap, then follow it up with a pair of Hawks and Hunters. The only thing I'd disrupt that for is if we needed jobberpults in the immediate area faster than we could get them there from somewhere else. The capital will finish its warrior, build the settler for City 4, and then we'll reassess. Paradise City will build a warrior or three and then move on to economic buildings, such as they are. If we need a spare worker, Paradise City is also a candidate there, as it has a decent food surplus but low production. Techwise we finish Way of the Forests.

The above brings us to T75 in terms of research and T80 or so in terms of production. So we have 25 turns of research and 20 turns of production. I think what MBTM's analysis hammers home is that we're just not going to be able to field an effective attack force on T100. In a best case scenario, 4 PoL plus recon support isn't going to take down anything unless Nicolae is on crack, and I haven't seen any indication he has that sort of addicition (Though the 420 at the end of his email seems to indicate he might not mind joining our merry band of elves.) This leaves us with the following questions to answer:

1. Can we direct Nicolae's attention elsewhere so we can start any hostilities on our schedule rather than his?

Frankly, given the relative strengths of the two middle civs, I'm not entirely sure we should be fighting at all - it might be wiser to push west for both of us, to stop the imminent threats there. Still, I get the distinct impression when I've chatted with Nicolae that he still smarts from being bullied into our NAP and particularly enjoys the possibility of smashing my head with a Coconut or something similar. Perhaps I should lay out the situation more directly. Anyway, if we could buy 10-15T, we could probably have something more like the 10 PoL army supported by Archers/Bronze Warriors that we probably really need to take him down. Or hell, if he actually made headway against the Clowns, we could keep working together longer term.

2. What do we need for defense against possible invasions from either the Sheaim or Hippus?

I think Tiger summons would be pretty invaluable against Sheaim, even 4/5 PoL might be able to do the job in this situation, as the main threat is evaded by forcing them to explode away from you. Add in the likelihood that only one side of the war will have hawk support, and I'd bet we'd need less than we originally think. This isn't BTS, he can't generate a 20 PZ army on T100, its just not feasible in terms of production.

The Hippus are a dicier situation, their mobility is always likely to be greater than ours. Assuming the best they can do is Horsemen and not Horse Archers in the short term, then probably the answer is just to summon mounds of jobbers to hurl at their stacks with Hunters/PoL as clean-up options.

3. What's the opportunity cost of using March of the Trees?

I think the things that's apparent is nobody is going to have the production to muster a giant army this early. So I feel fairly comfortable our worldspell would annihilate an invasion from either party. I also feel comfortable that our worldspell could put a hurting on Nicolae offensively, while the Hippus are simply too far away for that to be an option, given the decided lack of forests in the west. The real question is how much would using the worldspell hurt long term? Sure, 25T we're unlikely to lose tons and tons of Ancient Forests, but burning the worldspell early has two consequences: First, we'd have to stay in the Fellowship for a good while after using to regrow our economy, rather than making planned switches to the Veil/OO/Empy to properly abuse our Spiritual trait. Second, we'd lose a huge hammer in negotiations, as folks are unlikely to want to invade until they have an army that can deal with a boatload of Ents. Is this worth the cost?

Summary:

I'm leaning towards aiming for a defensive army at T100 and an attack force by T115. If Nicolae does invade and gets spent, he's not easily replacing those hammers with his small empire. Remember, Babylon was founded several turns after Hash Pipe, and its borders haven't even popped. Realistically, as of T70, he has 1 city that can contribute to a war effort, and if its focused on military, he won't have a 3rd city anytime soon. Each time we see him settle a new city, that's basically 2 PZs he decided not to build.

Tech path in my head right now: Way of the Forest -> Festivals -> Philosophy -> Priesthood -> Crafting -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> (Head for the Veil)

Festivals is less important, because there's a strong likelihood we won't have hammers to spare for Carnivals. The best reason to grab it is for Markets as a first build in new outposts, which help defray the maintenance cost of settlement. Unfortunately, keep in mind, God King starts to get expensive. So we might need to get CoL or Cartography in there just for a lower-cost civic.

Buildwise, I'm pretty well committed to getting City 5 down. I don't think we can neglect expansion and have any hope in the later game.

EDIT: Crossposted with MBTM above. Unless FFH uses a different formula than BTS, the Fellowship is pretty well guaranteed to be founded in Hash Pipe, and the free Acolyte will head to The Chronic. Paradise City can get religion later, as its less crucial to the empire. Holy City's default to the largest religion-less non-capital city, unless I'm sorely mistaken.

[Azoth]

Great discussion, everyone.

1. In particular, great review, Man Behind the Mask. The point about a more extensive wartime buildup and preparation phase in FFH, as compared to BtS, is well taken. One minor quibble: Temples of Leaves will cost 40 hammers, not 80, thanks to our Spiritual trait.

2. I have a similar take on the military situation as Gaspar: if Nicolae starts training Pyre Zombies en masse, we will not be ready for an offensive war by T100. If we prioritize military, we should be able to defend ourselves without resorting to March of the Trees, but we will not be able to break through 8 Pyre Zombies, especially if they are all assembled at one point.

3. The reason? Priests of Leaves are less impressive than they appear. Tiger summons can't move on the turn they are summoned. Furthermore, they cannot double move through Forests like the rest of our units; and only Treants can double move through Jungle. That makes Tigers fine on defense but particularly vulnerable to Zombie counter-attack in the field. In any case, we'll need favourable terrain to capture a Sheaim city. Hawks reports will give us a better idea of what we can hope to accomplish.

4. Bottom line: We should consider the Sheaim a target of opportunity. If Nicolae is running light defenses on T100, we should go in for the kill. If he has 8 Pyre Zombies between his 2 cities, we should reconsider. Maybe we should start making noises about a NAP extension? If Nicolae is planning for war, he'll simply refuse. If he isn't planning to attack on T100, he might refuse anyway; but he might build less military, on the assumption that we also want peace. (I don't know if you've brought this up in your chats yet, Gaspar.)

5. I agree with Carnivals --> Philosophy --> Priesthood ------> Bronze Working. I also don't think we'll need a new Government civic anytime soon. God-King is expensive; but it also provides +50% gold in the capital. As long as The Chronic is the source of most of our commerce, it will bring in more gold than we lose to city maintenance.

6. If we are committed to city #5, I would suggest either the northern Corn city or the eastern Clam/Horses city as candidates: anything without jungle, basically. These cities will get off the ground fast and be less of a liability in a potential Sheaim war than cities in the jungle belt. On a related note, if we are planting an Clam city NE of Hash Pipe, then we should move the Pigs city SE of Hash Pipe off the coast. Coast can't be Bloomed so we should avoid it as much as possible, especially if all the relevant resources are already claimed by another city.

[Mardoc]

I've got to start out by thanking you, MBTM, for providing a framework to our discussion, and for getting some hard numbers in here; that makes it much easier to discuss than going based on intuition. As evidenced, I think, by everyone suddenly being able to weigh in .

3. What's the opportunity cost of using March of the Trees?

That's quite true. I will point out, we can grow up our New Forests into normal forests without running Leaves (except those placed in WB, which we still need to chop eventually). So recovering from Marching the Trees is partially possible without being Leafy. And similarly, as long as we're growing like weeds, we'll probably want to spend time in leaves to get our new cities going quickly.

That doesn't help any with losing the diplo hammer, though.

Each time we see him settle a new city, that's basically 2 PZs he decided not to build.

More like 3 PZs. Plus a requirement to leave something behind for garrison. 145 Foodhammers ~ 3*40 hammers

[EDIT: Crossposted with MBTM above. Unless FFH uses a different formula than BTS, the Fellowship is pretty well guaranteed to be founded in Hash Pipe, and the free Acolyte will head to The Chronic. Paradise City can get religion later, as its less crucial to the empire.

I think it's likely, but not guaranteed. At least, in PBEM 5,

CoE spawned in what I think was Bob's smallest city, although admittedly I'm unsure whether his other cities were religion-less.

Tech path in my head right now: Way of the Forest -> Festivals -> Philosophy -> Priesthood -> Crafting -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> (Head for the Veil)

That fits what I'm thinking, essentially. Depending on how things are going, we might drop in some econ techs somewhere after Priesthood - Drama for the Great Artist/Leaves shrine, say, or up to Sanitation, or Writing so we can get Library/Great Library built.

One minor quibble: Temples of Leaves will cost 40 hammers, not 80, thanks to our Spiritual trait.

Ah, yes, thanks for the reminder. That makes all the math easier, assuming a Priest route.

3. The reason? Priests of Leaves are less impressive than they appear.

I'll admit, I was considering a defensive action; the PoL stay 2 tiles ahead of the zombie horde; tigers 1 tile from the zombies attack and likely die, PoL summon new ones and move, etc. That's likely to achieve our goals so long as we prepare for the zombies and stay ahead of them. You're right that it's much less useful on offense, until we achieve critical mass.

Where PoL would be useful on offense, ironically enough, is vs the Hippus. They'd let us build up a nasty stack of doom, complete with self-healing and tigers - a stack that they can hit and retreat and it turn out not to much matter. But of course we're pretty sure the Hippus are too far for us to want to hit them.

[Gaspar]

More good thoughts guys... I'll get back to them later (probably tomorrow morning actually) but I have a turn report first. After that I want to float a diplo message to Rawkking, because I had a thought while thinking about your guys posts. I was hearkening back to the last conversation I had with Nicolae, here's the key part:

[COLOR="Purple"]Nicolae: any ideas of how to deal with kyan?
he tried to grab me a few days ago, but i had to run, im interested in potential counterpropositions

*run to work[/COLOR]

Counterpropositions... meaning Kyan had already thrown a proposition at him. Now Kyan can't realistically fight us right now, but Rawkking can... Normally I'd think the possibility of a dogpile on the 4th place Civ is highly unlikely, but we are talking about Kyan here. I don't think we have any chance of fighting off a coordinated attack without the worldspell, and even in that case, its pretty scary. Regardless, more and more I think I'd like to try and cozy up to Nicolae, since Rawkking doesn't seem to respond to my emails. That's a classic pre-war guilt assuaging technique. Anyway, thoughts?

Back to the turn. Scores first - Kyan 46, Grigori 5

It appears this is the final episode of...



[SIZE="5"]WEIRD LIZARD BEHAVIOR[/SIZE]

This turn, the ruins guardian suicided on Hash Pipe, giving 1-2-3 Kid level 4 xp and leaving the ruins unguarded. I moved 1-2-3 to cover it until we can get another unit or two in the area to pop it.



Capital completed its warrior, onto a Settler. Warrior heads towards the future Cypress Hill. Workers at Hash Pipe resume cottaging, Worker at Chronic begin cottaging the hill there, Eclair continues pasturing in solitude. Here's an overview shot, since I feel like owe one:



And demos: