Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Gaspar]

Maybe what we really need is to change our thinking around, and plan to go north/west into the Hippus instead of south into Nicolae's jungle. Blooming is much easier than chopping then blooming . At least, it appears that Nicolae might become an ally if we're lucky/good with diplo, while RG is probably already lost. At least this suggests Nicolae's talking with Selrahc, so he'll be well aware of what the Elves can do on defense...and presumably also what the Clowns can do if not stopped cold early.

Yeah, I'm just mostly worried that he already sees his game as lost, and that we're easier targets than the Clowns. Which is probably the truth in both cases.

The answer to Cultists is Cultists. We've already got 1 coastal city...soon to add at least one more in the north; we'll need a defense against OO anyway. We've got Priesthood already in the works, and Message from the Deep is cheap. I'd say go ahead with the on-the-coast plan. Also bear in mind - he's mentioned Drowns, which would ignore a chokepoint, although be much less scary than Cultists. I can't see us being afraid of Drowns coming from the Hippus, mind you, not compared to everything else he could field (and especially not when we've got 2 Life mana to play with...), but don't forget about the possibility.

Drowns could be a pain, but yeah, much rather see them than HAs.

Honestly, if anything we should be looking to turn OO around on RG, sooner or later. *We're* the spiritual boys in town, he's the one apparently tied to the coast without being Lanun to make up for it, we shouldn't have that much trouble outproducing him therefore, and Cultists can be born anywhere and still be effective.

No doubt that Cultists we would train being 2 movers vs his 1 movers is a distinct advantage.

Frankly, of all the potential terrain to have on the border between us and the scary fast-moving Hippus - this is what the doctor ordered! Forested hills make us at least as fast as they are, and they don't even get defensive bonuses to make up for it.

Providing we get that city settled and establish that as the border, of course.

No need to build the fort west of the Remnants, can do it 1NW which is a tile that isn't usable by any city.

I believe the tile 1W of the Remnants also can't be worked by any city.

Quick thoughts, in no particular order.

Leaves in paradise city is actually not bad long term. It was always going to be a commerce city, with the gold, so shrine there is in some ways better than hash pipe.

It does make it more important to defend it, though. Warriors will lose fortify bonus, but (it looks from here) you can cover both cities from same tile with double forest move.

Big decison needed on if we go for ”border agreement” or race for that city. Maybe asking the question will provide some more info on relations with Hippus?

Still don't know answer on priests vs bronze. Leaves in paradise maybe points more to latter?

Leave it our own maskeddetective to come up with a good reason not to be angry. Mostly its just that Hash Pipe is infinitely more defensible than Paradise City. We won't get a buffer city to the south anytime soon.

Next post will have thoughts on tech path vis-a-vis our rivals.

[Gaspar]

So basically we have 4 possible scenarios involving our neighbors. Let's review:

1. The Sheaim attack when our NAP is up, the Hippus remain "friendly."
   
2. The Hippus attack somewhere in the next 30 turns, the Sheaim are convinced to be friendly.
   
3. The Hippus and Sheaim both decide to remain "friendly."
   
4. The Sheaim and Hippus coordinate an attack, through Kyan, around T100.
   

Of those options, I'd rank them 4,2,1,3 in order of likeliness. Basically because I feel if given enough of a chance I maybe can talk some sense into Nicolae, while in most situations, it actually makes plenty of sense for Rawkking to attack us. I think we've talked about each situation individually, but while I think Priests with Tiger Spam can maybe hold us against one opponent, we're going to need the sheer volume of numbers of Bronze Warriors against two. Or you know...





Anyway, I think the Hippus front needs to be defended by us settling that city on the hill, planting Gilden in there backed up by a half dozen Bronze Warriors. The Sheaim front, honestly, if they attack at the same time as Rawkking, I'm inclined to just pop the world spell once his stack is in range, destroy the whole thing, then take his cities. But I don't see how we can get enough Tigers down to stop the Horse rush.

Here's what I'd imagine is a logical tech path:

Crafting -> Mining -> Archery -> Bronze Working
Festivals
Philosophy -> Priesthood
Message from the Deep
Knowledge of the Ether -> Way of the Wicked -> Corruption of Spirit

Then we move on. But probably up to MftD, that's all stuff we need to fight a multi-front war. After that we can do things like pursue Rangers/Baron/Naturey good stuff and start working on really ramping the economy with stuff like Currency and Taxation.

Ultimately, I don't think I can make the diplo dance well enough to call them both off, and if they both come, we just need the cheapness of bronze warriors. Also, Mining is pretty essential anyway to get our production levels up, we'll get further on Priests by taking that route anyway. Not to mention, Crafting/Mining are pretty cheap techs, so we can pause and reassess after we see where copper is.

I'm going to do 100% tax next turn, so you still have another turn to talk me out of it.

[Gaspar]

Turn 76 greets us with the news that we're finally proper Elves.



Also got this useless constellation event:



Decided to run the hawk flight S this time, some interesting stuff there. Next turn I'll rebase to The Chronic and run it south from there. Interestingly, we can tell that Nicolae is a conservative as well, as if we didn't know it from his love of the Left Behind novels. How do I know this? Only conservatives ever talk about George Soros. I'll save my political commentary for the pointy-stick variety.



For the record, that's a pain in the ass to do. I don't know how Nyk stayed motivated to put one of those together every turn for like 15 turns. Additionally, I don't know how people ever war without hawks, they're unbelievably good.

Back on the home front, it appears the barbs have chose Paradise City as the target. I'm going to not use the Disciple of Leaves to spread religion just yet, I'll keep it there as another unit to defend. Unfortunately, MBTM's map reading is wrong, since that's one of those bullshit pre-placed New Forests SW of Paradise City, which doesn't give double movement. I moved the warrior just completed this turn towards PC, but it won't get there fast enough to do anything other than help clean up. I also decide to wait on founding AV until we see what happens over there. Y'know, if they raze that city this turn, we won't ever be able to spread the Fellowship without help from someone else researching WotF. Unfortunately at this point, there's really nothing else we can do, so I resumed building the Settler at Hash Pipe. If we need more warriors, it can get 1T warriors into perpetuity.



And... I just realized I forgot to promote one of the warriors at Paradise City.

[Mardoc]

No further comments from me on the tech path question. You've seen my arguments, and are apparently unswayed. I'll just keep my fingers crossed for Bronze (and realistically, also for 20 extra turns before our war).

Decided to run the hawk flight S this time, some interesting stuff there. Next turn I'll rebase to The Chronic and run it south from there.

Huh. It appears that March of the Trees might actually work, against Babylon anyway. I can see, on a cursory reading, at least 2 forests within 4 turns of Babylon that could therefore hit it. New York's a slightly harder question without being 100% sure on its location, but it appears to be hittable as well.

Back on the home front, it appears the barbs have chose Paradise City as the target. I'm going to not use the Disciple of Leaves to spread religion just yet, I'll keep it there as another unit to defend. Unfortunately, MBTM's map reading is wrong, since that's one of those bullshit pre-placed New Forests SW of Paradise City, which doesn't give double movement. I moved the warrior just completed this turn towards PC, but it won't get there fast enough to do anything other than help clean up.
And... I just realized I forgot to promote one of the warriors at Paradise City.

Maybe we'll be lucky despite our recent RNG frustration, and the barbs will do that 'wait for one turn' thing.

[Azoth]

I am still in favour of Priesthood first.
Priests will give us an endless supply of Tigers: that is, disposable Bronze Warriors.
Priests will also increase our food and production yields; and possibly give us a few more Treants if we pop the Worldspell.
Moreover, Priesthood first will let us respond in kind to any Rawwking Tsunami.

Note, further, that Horsemen have an inherent +40% bonus against Archery units, so Archery gets us nothing more than Gilden.
And I'm not sure how many Mines we want to build; we can build Cottages on Grassland Hills, which just might be the better investment.
Our Ancient Forests will help us catch up to others in food and production, but we will always be behind in commerce unless we prioritize cottages.

That's my argument. The decision is yours.
But you need to make it this turn, not next.
The overflow from Way of the Forests has to go somewhere.

[Gaspar]

Well, I already dumped the overflow into Crafting. Its not a huge investment at 2T, so even if you guys talk me back into going the priest path, we'll want both Crafting and Mining before long for various other reasons. Like I said it really boils down to whether or not Nicolae decides he wants to cooperate. I really do believe its in his best interest to do so because 1) 3/4 and 4/5 fighting each other is stupid and 2) Our worldspell will really put a hurt on him given how close we are. If he wants to cooperate, then the need for a large number of spammable troops is less, and we can consider the economic benefits of going the priest path. But if he doesn't, we just can't get as many priests done as we can warriors, and we don't have to wait until we have the applicable technology to start building them. A 2-front war requires lots of bodies, and the worldspell isn't going to do anything against the Hippus in time.

As far as Archery, yeah, that's pretty much solely teched for Gilden. I doubt I'll even build an Archery Range, but Gilden on a hill isn't going down without a lot of warriorpults and/or real collateral. And if he has real collateral, we're screwed anyway, since PoL provide tigerpults, not collateral. Given the lack of Spiritual, I don't forsee loads of Cultists showing up, and even if they do, the only city they can really hurt is the as yet unfounded one at the hill. The likelihood of them making it all the way around to Paradise City is virtually nil, and if they do, we're dead at that point anyway. Maybe I'm overstating the RG threat, but I doubt it.

Anyway, yeah, I certainly hope they do that wait around for 1T thing. If not promoting that warrior costs us the FoL holy city with the free Disciple in it at a point where it hasn't spread anywhere yet, I'll be kicking myself til doomsday. I suppose at that point we get Bronze Warriors up and beeline Veil (I assume we can still grow Ancient Forests so long as the Fellowship is state religion?) If there's some other problem, so be it. I haven't had a chance, but if someone wants to run Sareln's combat calculator and tell me what the odds are of holding that city, that would be something I'd be interested in.

[Mardoc]

I haven't had a chance, but if someone wants to run Sareln's combat calculator and tell me what the odds are of holding that city, that would be something I'd be interested in.

Ah, now we're run into the limit to the calculator. It can do one vs one, or many vs. one, but it can't do many vs. many.

[Gaspar]

Got this from my pal Nicolae:

Hey Gaspar,

Congrats on your 3rd city and landing Fellowship of Leaves, I can't imagine anyone else would beeline hunting and the elven worldspell. I'd be interested in hearing out any proposals with regards to the Clowns, I agree something must be done about their ridiculous demonumbers.

Also to let you know, I'll be following up with a 3rd city of my own next. It's going to close to your territory, 5 tiles south of Hash pipe, but there are no BFC overlaps, and it's choked by jungle. The appeal to me is that it's one of the few city sites around with fresh water, so I can get some food-positive tile improvements up. I'd appreciate it greatly if you didn't spam cheap monuments in Hash pipe, though I'd understand if you wanted to build temples for the happiness. I'll do my best to keep up and keep the first ring. Say hello to the servant of the apocalypse Barack Obama, who personally vanquished the short-sighted accelerationist petite-anarchist Orthus. Unfortunately he had to make concessions with the committee and had to concede his spoils to someone else, but luckily he gained some valuable political capital within the Sheaim congress. His duty now is guarding a pair of workers who will be chopping the jungle.

Cheers,
Nic

[Mardoc]

Got this from my pal Nicolae:

Huh. Well...maybe this will work out. He's at least moved on from the generalities into specifics, even if they're small yet. I can't see him objecting to a monument if he expected Hash Pipe to be burning soon, either.

I suppose it's time for the famed Gaspar werewolf skills to go on display and see if he's genuine about this .

[Azoth]

Diplo:

[COLOR="Lime"]All right, I've found out the solution to make the deal work for both of us. I'm ready to trade the Wine now, so feel free to make the offer and I'll accept it.

Iskender[/COLOR]

So let’s get this straight:

T145 – Financial Pb gets told to piss off.
T146 – Raiders Pb gets told “Sure! Anything you want Sir!”.

I think I could get used to this!

The fact that Nicolae became our friend the same turn we founded Fellowship of Leaves makes me suspicious.
You think maybe he realizes we can send 15-20 Treants his way if we so choose?
(They may not reach New York and Babylon; but they can definitely hit City #3 and the barbarian city.)

Ah well, we're desperate for friends at the moment.
Even those who come grovelling in fear.