Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Man Behind the Mask]

This is getting tricky now, because the first messages had more of a “Gaspar” feel to them, and I don’t want them to lose sincerity because we’re taking away your voice.

Having said that, I think little tweaks to the Sheaim message make it pretty good. I’d say “I really had no option though, given our shocking proximity…” to emphasise that you were terrified rather than originally intending to be threatening. It’s worth remembering that his scout had a shot at our undefended capital one turn later, so it was definitely the right play (for us ).

The Hippus message is distinctly different from the first try, but I hope a gentler approach might be more productive. If we don’t get much back from this, then it probably is time to go in all guns blazing. I suspect some of the last paragraph is a hint that you’d like him to tell you something of the Elohim or Grigori. Maybe you could ask directly and provide a little info in return on the Sheaim (civics, lucky Academy etc)?

[Mardoc]

These are looking much more likely to get the results we want. I think we're to a point where promptness is more important than further tweaking.

A slightly nasty thought I had - suppose we offer, as one of our cooperation deals, to spread Leaves to them, as an excuse to mention that we're 5 turns from Leaves and hence (unstated) March of the Trees?

[Gaspar]

Messages sent, essentially as is.

[Gaspar]

Got a reply from Rawkking:

The roleplaying is definitely making things too difficult for me, I have no idea what I’d do to find a “lady of the lake” picture. I’ve kinda mentally filed RP messages as “fun things to do when I have the time” so let's avoid discussing anything important in RP messages from now on.

Yeah, the clowns are definitely a clear runaway at this point. Even with an estimated 20-25 more GNP than myself actually being culture (I see a market in his capital, so he's got festivals and thus freak shows everywhere on top of creative) he’s still running around 100 GNP, and is of course still leading by a wide margin in crop yield and MFG. He’s obviously got better land, both the previously mentioned batch of floodplains and probably generous commerce resources I can’t see elsewhere. Maybe the intent of the mapmaker was to give him a benefit from being in the middle, though on the same line of thought it seems that the Hippus are being nerfed by being forced to settle a lot of coastal sites and having very small rivers and many, many hills…due to map luck or my traits, I don’t know. I’m at least about to found overlords and thus cut off one source of a hero archmage, though as you say there’s still Gibbon.

Mages are a threat I didn’t wage nearly as high as archmages, but I suppose you’re right. What types of summons are we looking at from level 2 spells? Death 2 spectres and I think entropy pit beasts? Need to check that out in the Civlopedia the next time I play. I wonder if passing along the Grigori spirit mana is an option for the spectres at least.

Cartography is never on anyone’s plan: I might be able to get it from a lucky hut or lair pop but it doesn’t seem that likely. Still, with the best GNP aside from the runaways I'm resigned to having to take the bullet on researching that at some point.

To give you an update on what’s going on over here, I’m trying to break out of an animal/barbarian stranglehold and get in contact with the other civs on the map before deciding what to do next. Getting close to meeting the Elohim (if the damn bears don’t get me) and after that hopefully the Grigori. I’m willing to forward messages from you if I succeed. The southern path to get to the Sheaim I described earlier is bunk, the sea cuts it off and the only way through is the clown capital’s culture, of all things. Maybe a drown can cross the sea and meet the Sheaim.
- - Rawkking

TL;DR: Yeah, better get your defenses up, champ. And Einherjars and Fireballs are unpleasant options on mages as well.

Nothing yet back from Nicolae, but we do have a turn! With our first event in ages!



Screw you, nobody ever runs Order!

Only score increases was 5 for a pop growth from Nicolae.

So with such a quiet turn I was sitting on that lair thinking, hmm...

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How much do you guys hate me? Ok, how much would you hate me if I popped that lair and a Lich or something popped out? We're do some hut/lair luck though, aren't we? Spirit guide is about the best we've done so far that lasted, yeah? I mean, Kyan got like the Grand Menagerie from a lair. And Nicolae got a free academy. We're due, right? Wouldn't a GProphet be fantastic at this point? And commonplace lairs give better results based on level, and we have a level 5 unit sitting on the lair. For the record, I've stated before that I write these as I play, so I haven't actually done anything yet. The temptation is killing me though. We're probably going to lose anyway, after Nicolae and Rawkking gangbang us with zombies and horsies. So why not have a little fun? Yeah, gonna do it.

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If I were to offer you the Veil holy city in the Capital, would that be something you might be interested in?

(Also note the Lizardman heading back towards us in the shot above. Those Lizards really have no rhyme or reason to their behavior.)

Oh. Right. Something else interesting this turn. How would you all feel about a barbarian kill team? Less excited or more excited than the Veil holy city?



Pay no attention to the completely undefended city with no cultural defense built up. Can't decide whether I should move Taka out of the city and try and find a defensible choke or just wait for them to come suicide on the city.

In purely domestic news, a cottage completes at both the capital and Hash Pipe. Hash Pipe grows at EOT and completes the Lodge, we'll start on a hawk right after.

[NobleHelium]

All lair results get boosted by the level of the explorer. It randomizes from 1-100 and then adds the level, and checks the number against the results thresholds. Then it randomizes within that threshold for an actual result.

Anyway, that savant is huge. The AV shrine gives beakers...it also makes you a more attractive target for the Sheaim. I like the Hippus response a lot, by the way.

[Azoth]

A savant!

Maybe I should explore lairs more often.

Though I will point out that your reasoning, this time, was sound.
You knew we were trailing the leading civs and needed to take risks to get ahead.
Well, our next Great Person should absolutely build the Stigmata on the Unborn for the free Entropy mana and the Academy-Ashen Veil shrine synergy.
And cue a mollifying email to Nicolae.

As for that barbarian kill team... meh, we've faced worse.
After a Mistform scare and a rampaging Ogre it's hard to get excited over a few Warriors.
But we are, uh, building some more Warriors of our own, right?
I'd rather have them attack us on a Forest Hill somewhere; we wouldn't want any cottages pillaged.

And I'm happy to see a positive reply from Rawkking.
I can't say much for his OO denial strategy, though.
The only way you can prevent the clowns from building Hemah is to beat them to Arcane Lore.
Anyone can switch to OO if they research Message from the Deep.
The clowns are probably going for Gibbon, anyway.
And I can't help but think there are better religions for Hippus to adopt.
Ah well, maybe we can trade for Water mana with them?

P.S. Not that I expect the Savant to get there in time, but we should totally delay founding Ashen Veil until we found Fellowship of Leaves. It might (a) create some confusion as to who actually found the religion, at least for a few turns, but more importantly (b) prevent Ashen Veil from spreading to Hash Pipe, and forcing Fellowship of Leaves to be founded elsewhere.

[Gaspar]

A savant!

Maybe I should explore lairs more often.

Though I will point out that your reasoning, this time, was sound.
You knew we were trailing the leading civs and needed to take risks to get ahead.
Well, our next Great Person should absolutely build the Stigmata on the Unborn for the free Entropy mana and the Academy-Ashen Veil shrine synergy.
And cue a mollifying email to Nicolae.

As for that barbarian kill team... meh, we've faced worse.
After a Mistform scare and a rampaging Ogre it's hard to get excited over a few Warriors.
But we are, uh, building some more Warriors of our own, right?
I'd rather have them attack us on a Forest Hill somewhere; we wouldn't want any cottages pillaged.

And I'm happy to see a positive reply from Rawkking.
I can't say much for his OO denial strategy, though.
The only way you can prevent the clowns from building Hemah is to beat them to Arcane Lore.
Anyone can switch to OO if they research Message from the Deep.
The clowns are probably going for Gibbon, anyway.
And I can't help but think there are better religions for Hippus to adopt.
Ah well, maybe we can trade for Water mana with them?

P.S. Not that I expect the Savant to get there in time, but we should totally delay founding Ashen Veil until we found Fellowship of Leaves. It might (a) create some confusion as to who actually found the religion, at least for a few turns, but more importantly (b) prevent Ashen Veil from spreading to Hash Pipe, and forcing Fellowship of Leaves to be founded elsewhere.

You must have posted this from a phone, it looks a bit like a lyric poem.

But yeah, I had the same thought from RG's email - Hemah is by far the less scary of the two Archmage heroes, simply because of how much later he gets into play, and if the Clowns are outteching you, doesn't matter, since as you said, anyone can switch to OO and get the heroes. Being first is only nice since it nets you the shrine.

And absolutely, positively going to wait for Leaves to be founded before burning the Savant. There's no way anyone else is close to founding the Veil naturally, and I definitely want Hash Pipe and not Paradise City as the Leaves holy city.

The question is if this development makes it worth running a sage again in the capital for the Shrine. Would slow down our foodhammer production, but the Stigmata is probably the second best shrine after Nox Noctis, so its definitely worth building. Only downside is it spreads like wildfire, and if we're running Leaves primarily, we're going to want that in new cities first, but considering its a freebie for a religion we were always going to research anyway, I'm not going to complain.

Mechanics question - can we build Savants before researching Corruption of Spirit if we have the religion in a city? Because it might be worthwhile to ice a few for future mages if possible.

[Man Behind the Mask]

If I were to offer you the Veil holy city in the Capital, would that be something you might be interested in?

Hooray for the itchy trigger finger! I agree with Azoth’s delay strategy. I’d found before any spreading of FoL, though, because we don’t want to burn the Savant for nothing on an unlucky spread roll (although I’m pretty sure the chances of it failing are toned down from BTS).

My understanding is that you can only build the Temple and the Units with the tech, I’m afraid. A question of my own in return: I’m not entirely clear on the “founded in a distant land” mechanics. If nobody has seen the Chronic city tile, will AV show up as FIDL even though we have contact? I’m not suggesting lying about this would be a good idea, but I’m now curious.

Time to work a Sage is probably after the Settler is finished. You’ll need to come off the Corn to avoid the city growing as you build Carnival, Temple etc. I agree that soon would be good, so that our first Adepts can take Rust, and the Shrine also gives a free promotion to units.

As for that barbarian kill team... meh, we've faced worse.
After a Mistform scare and a rampaging Ogre it's hard to get excited over a few Warriors.
But we are, uh, building some more Warriors of our own, right?

I’m also with Azoth on the slight surprise that you’ve not switched the capital for an extra one turn warrior (swapping the farms for forested hills). I’d question even more the wisdom of not moving the one completed recently back towards a defensive position (if I’m reading the last screenshot right). Since the killsquad all have C1, I’d think we need at least a three warrior stack to ensure we are safe from unlucky rolls. Taka only has Drill and a promotion pending, right?

But yeah, I had the same thought from RG's email - Hemah is by far the less scary of the two Archmage heroes, simply because of how much later he gets into play, and if the Clowns are outteching you, doesn't matter, since as you said, anyone can switch to OO and get the heroes. Being first is only nice since it nets you the shrine.

If the Hippus have got lots of coast, then OO makes sense for that reason. However, he is completely wrong about doing it to deny the Clowns an Archmage. The Balz will go Esus, and be stuck with it until somebody kills Gibbon. What is noticeable from the message is that RG distinctly does not say that he isn’t planning to attack us.

In a few turns we’ll hopefully have two Holy Cities. You might as well change your leader name to “Please Stomp Me!”. On that front, it’s time to start watching the Power graph. I think the Hippus are a couple of warriors ahead of us – garrison for their extra city. However, the important news is what the graph shows Nicolae probably trained last turn.

The running score looks to be… Zombies: 1, Horsies: 0, Elves:

[Mardoc]

RG's only worried about Balseraphs if they get an archmage? Hasn't he seen PBEM5, where 4 archmagi, a large stack of warriors and axes and PoL and tigers were only barely enough to handle Balseraphs with only adepts? He thinks the main threat of spectres is their *fear*, not the fact that each mage can hit him each turn with 2 quickly moving, Death affinity (and hence guaranteed Str 4 minimum) units every turn?

What is noticeable from the message is that RG distinctly does not say that he isn’t planning to attack us.

. I suppose he's thinking that if he's behind, he needs to acquire more land/cities to catch up. And he underestimates us - if he was going to do that, the time to hit us was 30 turns ago. Not now that we're almost to the March, close to Priests, etc.

And, , apparently not that far from Ritualists/Savants, either . I agree with Azoth, this was a good move, mostly because the situation is looking dire. And not just because I like the result .

My understanding is that you can only build the Temple and the Units with the tech, I’m afraid. A question of my own in return: I’m not entirely clear on the “founded in a distant land” mechanics. If nobody has seen the Chronic city tile, will AV show up as FIDL even though we have contact? I’m not suggesting lying about this would be a good idea, but I’m now curious.

Yes, that's how it works. Or at least how it worked in other games I've played - I saw 'X is founded in a distant land' followed immediately by 'Hey, look, so and so is suddenly running X with a little star on it'.

Time to work a Sage is probably after the Settler is finished. You’ll need to come off the Corn to avoid the city growing as you build Carnival, Temple etc. I agree that soon would be good, so that our first Adepts can take Rust, and the Shrine also gives a free promotion to units.

Sounds about right to me. In the event we can get Rust in time for a potential PZ war, that would dramatically help. It might not do as much to Hippus, though, but the free beakers will be gold. And, well - founding AV this early, as, I think, the 2nd religion in the world, after Leaves - just about everyone and their mother will be AV.

Which...hmm. That'll push the AC. Keelyn's most likely committed to being Evil, with reputedly mostly floodplains. I could see a case for Hyborem here . Not to switch to, just to mess with the Balseraphs. How much would you bet that Kyan sees no need to pick up Life mana when he could instead just kill zombies with summons? How loud do you think he'd scream when all his floodplains become deserts, and the only way to survive that is to swap to AV and lose Gibbon?

[Commodore]

So question: Is Hyborem slated to be a person, or just a useless AI? Although Uberfish showed the value of being elves and having the massive evil powerhouse nearby be slowed by horsemen and hell terrain.