Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Azoth]

I’m starting to think Azoth and I would play very different games .

No doubt.

I’m with Gaspar that we should go close to all-out production at Cypress Hill. If we’re going to win this game, then we need to find an edge somewhere. Having a city that can turn over rapid Wonders, or supply all our military needs feels valuable in that context.

Here's the thing: for most civilizations, having at least one major production site is very important, because an Aristocracy-Agrarianism economy yields very few hammers on its own. By contrast, our Ancient Forest-Cottages economy yields 20 hammers/city at minimum, just from the Forests on every tile. That's why I'm torn between cottages and mines at Cypress Hill. We don't need a city that can produce 1 priest/turn if we have 4 cities that can each produce 1 priest/3 turns. Is the extra production really worth foregoing 5 commerce/Town?

I’d like to aim for 1 turn Priests to make best use of quick Spiritual switches – that means 40 hpt with the Heroic Epic. That total also gives 1 turn Stygians or Fyrdwell, and 1 turn rangers would need an extra 10hpt. With 14(?) hill tiles to play with, we’ll certainly need a few mines. If every other city is cottaged to the max, then can we set this one aside?

Let's try to quantify this. Cypress Hills has:
11 grassland hill tiles = 22 base hammers with Forests
4 grassland tiles = 4 base hammers with Forests
5 peaks = 0 base hammers
1 copper mine = 4 hammers (+1 from Copper, +3 from Mine)

That's 30 base hammers already. With the Heroic Epic, it's 60 hammers/turn, or 3 priests every 4 turns. Now, is it really necessary to build 5 additional Mines to bring that total to 80 hammers/turn, and thereby lose up to 25 commerce/turn from 5 Taxation Towns? Particularly when The Chronic and Hash Pipe can also build Priests? I don't think so.

Another aspect of this choice is Drowns vs Diseased Corpses. This is a more one-sided battle, as (cured) Corpses are pretty good units. I think that means I’m with Mardoc on Veil first, unless you have a strong desire for waterwalking.

I think we're looking at this the wrong way. Once we have Priests of Leaves available, we won't want to build anything else. Which would you prefer:

Strength 5, 80 hammers, free Mobility and Potency, can summon 1 Tiger/turn, can Bloom forests;
Strength 3, 60 hammers, +1 Unholy, +1 Bronze Weapons, Water Walking, cannot be Hasted, vulnerable to fire; or
Strength 3, 60 hammers, +3 Death, +1 Bronze Weapons, cannot be Hasted, vulnerable to Destroy Undead

I can't imagine we'll build anything but Priests (and Warriors and Adepts) until we have access to other Tier 3 units, such as Rangers and Stygian Guard. So it's really a question of Cultists vs. Ritualists. Both units have their drawbacks. Tsunami can destroy improvements adjacent to coast; fortunately, we don't have too many of those. Ring of Flames can start fires in any adjacent forest tiles, destroying improvements in the process. So we certainly can't use Ritualists on the defense.

Whether yet more military techs are superior to a run through some economic assistance is a different decision .

In the end, I prefer something along these lines:
Festivals-Philosophy-Priesthood-Message from the Deep-Writing-Trade-Masonry-Knowledge of the Ether-Way of the Wicked-Corruption of Spirit

Festivals first, because we'll never have the time to build Markets and Carnivals once Priests are available. But we will have time while we research Priesthood.
Message from the Deep after Priesthood, because it's cheap, and a few Cultists in the lake should take care of anything Rawkking might send our way.
Then, some economy techs. And finally Ashen Veil. We already have the Holy City and its Priests will only be useful on offense, so it can wait.

I suspect he’ll look to farm XP off the first killteam and then move in when only two Archers defend the city. However, Nicolae isn’t going to know our feelings on this if we don’t get a message to him. On a similar note, did we ever get back to RG after his brief request for “news”?

So let me ask you this: have we sent a message to Nicolae yet?

I had forgotten just how much of the sheep site was mountains. Even though it has no resources, I think I come back to the filler/linking city as our next best option.

Here's the thing: the Linking City actually has more resources than the NW city. Even if Nicolae doesn't raze Domir, the Linking City will claim Bananas and Ivory, and has an outside chance at the Pyre of the Seraphic. The NW city just has Sheep, and a Mana Node for later. Not to mention, we will lose the Linking City if we don't claim it immediately. (Maybe we should have a Settler ready.)

[Azoth]

Let me take advantage of this accidental double post to suggest some alternate sites for the Far West city.
We could move 1SE (that is, 3SW of Hash Pipe) for an inland city with a fair bit of overlap with Babylon.
Or we could move 2S (that is, 4SW of Hash Pipe) for a coastal hill city that trades the Clams for some Rice; and has six fewer coast tiles.
Unfortunately, Nicolae will probably get there first.

[Gaspar]

I have to say, I think we're quite fortunate to have a pair of teammates with such reasonable but disparate thoughts as the two of you. Really helps flesh out a plan...

On that, I think I've been a bit derelict in my duty here as the leader of this team. Part of the reason we keep dancing around is because we're lacking a sort of coherent plan. So we need to settle on something and then start directing ourselves towards it, rather than debating every micro decision in a vacuum. The relative gameplan for these first X turns has been to get the elven economy up and running while maintaining a reasonable expectation of defending ourselves. Given that we now have our world spell, are a few turns from spammable bronze warriors, are generating our first few Ancient Forests, have lots of cottages down and an Academy at the capital, I'd say we were reasonably successful in executing that plan. So where do we go from here?



I think we've reasonably decided a Tower victory is the most reasonable approach in terms of both using our economic/manufacturing advantages, as well as the implausibility of taking over enough land for another option. So, what do we need to get there? Or more accurately, what are the short term needs and the long term needs?

Short term, we need to continue to discourage attack/survive an impending attack while getting the economic snowball rolling. Long term, we'll need more land as well as obviously all the requisite techs to build the tower.

Anyway, I just wanted to get the ball rolling here. But there's been a decided lack of focus I think and I'm going to work to resolve that. So if there's an idea you want on the list, now's a great time to start.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I actually don’t think Azoth and I are too far away from eachother, but it’s more productive to discuss areas of disagreement, so we look like we’re occasionally “arguing”. For example, from Azoth’s most recent posts, I agree:

• With the techs in the plan. Given that we’re confident in our defence post-Priests, we want to go full-on economic mode. My only queries would be: 1. The order, for example confirming we have hammers for Carnivals which justify delaying our first Priest by 3+ turns; and 2. A need to slip some techs in which provide new civics (certainly one of CoL or Cartography, and possibly Warfare).

• That the religious melee units are probably a red-herring, especially when we don’t intend to fight. There are still some economic benefits to AV that we won’t get from OO, but we can have this discussion again closer to the time, which could be a while away if we go Writing & CoL before our next religion.

• That we’re likely to lose the most westerly area to Nicolae. I’d actually prefer this to losing the rice (see later).

• With the general consensus that the linking city should be next. We can get it up and running the most easily and culture on the ground sooner should be important. The big downside is the need to keep it well garrisoned (or extend the NAP) as it will be a target on turn 2 or 3 of a Sheaim offensive.

• That we need to get that message to Nicolae. I’m guessing Gaspar must be busy, so here’s a firm-but-fair first draft. The key question – if he razes, do we offer to settle on the new spot out of goodwill, or go back to where we previously wanted? My message sort of implies the former.

Hey Nicolae,

We’ve noticed your flaming horde assembling at Domir. That area of the map between our capitals was always going to be the point where our empires met, so we wanted to let you know our feelings.

The barb city interferes with what we had previously set out as our ideal dotmap. We have to settle something close by, as not doing so wastes a huge number of tiles in our core. We may have no choice but to move a little to give you some more space in the area, but will not be able to settle more than three tiles north of Domir. That plant will already overlap two tiles with our capital BFC, so we believe it is actually quite generous to you if we are forced to pick that spot.

Obviously, we would prefer to avoid a culture war in the area, as I’m sure would you. We therefore think it would be in both our best interests if you could raze Domir, rather than capture it.

I haven’t got much other news, I’m afraid. Kyan has sneaked a Griffon into the far north, and makes the expected (although fruitless) agitations in his diplomacy. RG is still outpacing us in city count and tech. He’s yet to make contact in the west as far as we know.

Regards,
Gaspar

I think we've reasonably decided a Tower victory is the most reasonable approach in terms of both using our economic/manufacturing advantages, as well as the implausibility of taking over enough land for another option. So, what do we need to get there? Or more accurately, what are the short term needs and the long term needs?

If that is the plan, then the rice site in the SE moves up in importance. If we want the Tower, then mana nodes become our most important resources. I think Nicolae has a pretty understandable claim to land in that vicinity, but I’m hoping the jungle and lack of irrigation put him off for a while.


Let’s finish with the more challenging issue at hand.

Here's the thing: for most civilizations, having at least one major production site is very important, because an Aristocracy-Agrarianism economy yields very few hammers on its own. By contrast, our Ancient Forest-Cottages economy yields 20 hammers/city at minimum, just from the Forests on every tile. That's why I'm torn between cottages and mines at Cypress Hill. We don't need a city that can produce 1 priest/turn if we have 4 cities that can each produce 1 priest/3 turns. Is the extra production really worth foregoing 5 commerce/Town?

Let's try to quantify this. Cypress Hills has:
11 grassland hill tiles = 22 base hammers with Forests
4 grassland tiles = 4 base hammers with Forests
5 peaks = 0 base hammers
1 copper mine = 4 hammers (+1 from Copper, +3 from Mine)

That's 30 base hammers already. With the Heroic Epic, it's 60 hammers/turn, or 3 priests every 4 turns. Now, is it really necessary to build 5 additional Mines to bring that total to 80 hammers/turn, and thereby lose up to 25 commerce/turn from 5 Taxation Towns? Particularly when The Chronic and Hash Pipe can also build Priests? I don't think so.

There are some very good points in here, but I’m going to be contrary. It’s true that our “natural” production will be higher than other civs, but then so will our commerce once our towns outgrow their farms. It’s true that each city, Cypress Hill in particular, can produce a lot once all the tiles are worked, but how soon will we have a happy cap of 20, let alone the 15 needed to work the available tiles at CH? I can’t argue at all that trading 2 hammers for ultimately 5 commerce (with latter often easier to multiply) does not look like a good exchange. However, I’m not sure who your analysis proves is more right:
• I’m sorry, but in an 8 turn Spiritual religion switch, I would rather have 8 Priests than 6. The extra 10 base hammers put us two Priests ahead from Turn 5 of the swap.
• Given the potential aim of a Tower Victory, the advantage of the extra hammers from more mines is even more significant. Being able to dust off a Tower within 10 turns of a mana loan is pretty important, and we’ll need more than 50 hammers per turn for that, with only forges likely to help.
• I’m not advocating zero cottages, which is why I suggested a bar of one turn Priests, rather than just maximum hammers. The flatland tiles are available for commerce when we are not full speed on a build, and it looks like we can cottage a few hills as well based on those numbers.
• If we don’t have population, or land area, or military, then we do need one thing that we possess that is “better” than everybody else possesses. If that one thing is a super-production city, then I think it could be pretty valuable.

Looking forward to these brave assertions being challenged. I hope that was reasonable enough for Gaspar (reread that post!).

[Mardoc]

Regarding details:

I can agree with Azoth's proposed tech path. It is most likely that we'll have the spare hammers for carnivals/markets during our Priesthood research. We'll want to build temples of the deep for both enabling Cultists and for the Religion happiness; I'm torn between spreading it with Disciples or Cultists; they're hammer-equal, but disciples have a failure chance, but Cultists would tend to come from cities we've got better developed.

I agree we won't want to build Drowns. There's a faint chance of wanting to Drown warriors, but I suspect usually we'll spare the hammers more easily than the gold.

Perhaps for the time being we can compromise on building cottages first at Cypress Hill? Those are the ones that need to be planted first anyway, while mines can wait, and we won't have a happy cap capable of working every tile for a while in any event. Later on, when we decide if a unit pump/wonder spammer or more commerce is the important bit, we can either pave over mines with homes (yay Superfund!) or demolish towns for the minerals beneath (hooray for urban redevelopment).

I tend to think that commerce is more important than production once you're past a certain threshold production, myself, so would come down on Azoth's side of the question for now. Wonders will go to the one who gets the tech first almost always. I would usually prefer fewer hammers worth of a later tech than a swarm of weak fighters.

We'll have the option for Slavery and cash-rushing as well, soon enough.

Regarding the overall plan:
I think we need to plan on taking out Nicolae, honestly. Not soon; pyre zombies are too dominant until at least the disposable Tiger age. And heck, we can't even handle the barb city yet. Plus that minor detail of an NAP with him

But you're right, we'll need more land. There don't appear to be any handy islands we could claim. Expanding west through the Hippus would be more difficult, remove a counterweight to Kyan, and get us less useful land - plains and coast, while Nicolae's land looks to mostly be grassland, probably with the jungle removed for us.

The Pyre is another important ingredient in an elven army, giving us the ability to bombard, which we'll likely only get by taking out Nicolae first.

Plus, honestly, Sheaim are a natural enemy to the Ljo. Worldbreak, lots of ways to set fires, potential Hell terrain - these are all things that hurt everyone, but hurt the tree-dependent Ljo the most.

[Azoth]

Gaspar, I think your analysis is spot on.
Part of the reason we keep debating micro decisions is that we lack a coherent game plan.
Or, rather, we each have a slightly different plan in mind, and we argue over the means to reach our different ends.

I think it's time for another edition in our latest series:



[SIZE="4"]Where Do We Go From Here?[/SIZE]

[SIZE="3"]Tower of Mastery, Part I[/SIZE]

In FFH, there are two kinds of Tower victories:
(1) The leading economic and military power opts to build the Tower as the quickest path to victory.
(2) A lesser economic and military power rushes to build the Tower before others invade or fulfill another victory condition.

Uberfish accomplished (1) in PBEM II.
I suspect our future lies closer to (2).

So, in this post, I want to discuss our tech goals.
Which techs must we research at minimum? Which techs are optional?
The purpose is not to set a firm tech path for the next 150 turns.
Rather, the purpose is to determine which branches we may never explore
if we are seriously pursuing a Tower Victory, and plan accordingly.


[SIZE="3"]Required[/SIZE]
Knowledge of the Ether-Divination-Alteration-Elementalism-Necromancy
Sorcery-Arcane Lore-(Strength of Will)

These are the only required techs for a Tower Victory.
In theory, we could drop everything and head straight up the Arcane branch.
We wouldn't get very far, of course; we need some other military and economic techs.
Note that we should only research Sorcery once we have all four prerequisites, since we'll need them all eventually.
And we will most certainly take Strength of Will for free with the Tower of Divination.
If we have any Great Scientists to spare, they should bulb towards Arcane Lore.


[SIZE="3"]Recommended[/SIZE]
Writing-Sailing-Trade (Libraries, Lighthouses, +1 trade route, Foreign Trade)
Masonry (Marble)
Code of Laws-Currency (Aristocracy, +1 trade route, Money Changer, Guild of the Nine)
Mathematics-Taxation (Gambling Houses, Tax Offices, Caste System, +1 commerce Villages/Towns, Pillar of Chains)
Message from the Deep (Cultists)
Way of the Wicked-Corruption of Spirit (Ritualists)
Animal Handling (Rangers, Satyrs)

These are the basic economic and military techs to complement our Arcane focus.
Cultists and Ritualists, combined with Mages and Rangers, should give us enough firepower on defense.
Gambling Houses, Money Changers, Tax Offices, and the Village/Town commerce boost are important because an optimal Tower Victory involves raising the slider to 100% gold and purchasing the last few Towers outright.


[SIZE="3"]Optional[/SIZE]
Construction-Sanitation (Public Baths, +1 food farms)
Engineering (Guild of Hammers, +1 move roads)
Way of the Earthmother-Arete (Temple of Kilmorph, Arete)
Horsebackriding (Mobility promotion)
Deception (Undercouncil Great Scientist)
Infernal Pact (Infernal Grimoire)
Feudalism (Royal Guard)

When I say these techs are optional, I do not mean that we can skip all of them. We will doubtless research some and leave aside others; and we can debate their merits on an individual basis. Let me just say that Rune of Kilmorph may well be the best religion for a peaceful end game. +3 gold/city with religion and cheap temples is a nice bonus; and Arete is a fine end game civic for that category. We will not need Fellowship of Leaves once all our Ancient Forests have matured; we may well lose Chalid to another player, invalidating Empyrean; we may not want to remain in Ashen Veil, especially if Hyborem has spawned; and we will only spread Octopus Overlords to a few cities, for the military benefits. I'm not saying Runes is best; I'm saying we should seriously consider it.


[SIZE="3"]Not Recommended[/SIZE]
Warfare-Military Strategy
Stirrups
Drama
Way of the Wise-Honor-Religious Law
Poisons
Smelting+
Fanaticism+
Feral Bond+
Optics+

We need to draw the line somewhere. Here is where I would draw it.
We do not need Conquest, Military State, or the Heroic Epic if we do not plan to war often.
And we should not try for Chalid unless we are sure to get him.


Note that this plan assumes an offensive war against Nicolae but no one else.
(Strictly speaking, we do not need to go to war. We have enough mana sources within our own territory.
However, our long borders will become a liability in the late game, so if we can strike soon,
and manage the diplomatic fallout, we should.)

Whew, that was a long post. Well, what do you think?

[Gaspar]

For the team's amusement:

LewwynRB: anyway I can also confirm that Kyans a dick
like super dick
well not to me at least
just you
me: lol
LewwynRB: I think he joined your FFh game just so that he could make sure you didn't win
me: seriously?
LewwynRB: like specifically joined to stop you
me: rofl
LewwynRB: you pissed him off in your 12 thread
and so
me: I know that
LewwynRB: but he's carrying it around
me: but he really just joined this game to make sure I couldn't win?
where'd you hear that?
TT?
LewwynRB: yeah thats pretty much what he said
From him
me: kyan told you this?
LewwynRB: anyway I have no clue if its true or not
but he was like "yeah gaspar hates me"
me: whered you have this convo w/Kyan?
LewwynRB: in tinychat before an MP game
TT was looking for another player said he'd find you
me: ah
LewwynRB: but you weren't on
Kyan said you hate him
me: this was recently?
I actually thought we had talked it out
LewwynRB: was recent
but
like I said dunno about truth
alot of it was tonguein cheek
like he changed his tinychat nick to "Gasparhatesme"
me: lol
weird
I was MUCH nastier to LP
and he didnt even mind running a 2v2 with me
LewwynRB: XD
me: I'm kind of a prick I guess lol

[Gaspar]

Back to more serious topics. Really appreciate the thoughts, Azoth, and yeah, this is the sort of gameplanning I was aiming for with the earlier post. There's really two issues we need to add to the table here, before I dive into the rest of it.

1. When do we attack Nicolae? (Assuming that we think Nicolae's is the only territory we can realistically add to the empire and defend in any reasonable way.)
2. How do we defend against the Clown attack which becomes inevitable once we take Nicolae's territory?

and I guess, if someone thinks Rawkking is a more reasonable target given that Nicolae is a more realistic potential ally, then answering these questions with him in mind is an exercise worth exploring.

In FFH, there are two kinds of Tower victories:
(1) The leading economic and military power opts to build the Tower as the quickest path to victory.
(2) A lesser economic and military power rushes to build the Tower before others invade or fulfill another victory condition.

Uberfish accomplished (1) in PBEM II.
I suspect our future lies closer to (2).

Clearly, this is the case. While I think we'll be powerful in the late game if left unmolested, I think it goes without saying that the Clowns are far enough ahead and will probably be able to take several pieces of the pie beyond their own before all is said and done.

[SIZE="3"]Recommended[/SIZE]
Writing-Sailing-Trade (Libraries, Lighthouses, +1 trade route, Foreign Trade)
Masonry (Marble)
Code of Laws-Currency (Aristocracy, +1 trade route, Money Changer, Guild of the Nine)
Mathematics-Taxation (Gambling Houses, Tax Offices, Caste System, +1 commerce Villages/Towns, Pillar of Chains)
Message from the Deep (Cultists)
Way of the Wicked-Corruption of Spirit (Ritualists)
Animal Handling (Rangers, Satyrs)

These are the basic economic and military techs to complement our Arcane focus.
Cultists and Ritualists, combined with Mages and Rangers, should give us enough firepower on defense.
Gambling Houses, Money Changers, Tax Offices, and the Village/Town commerce boost are important because an optimal Tower Victory involves raising the slider to 100% gold and purchasing the last few Towers outright.

I'd agree we will want all of these eventually.

[SIZE="3"]Optional[/SIZE]
Construction-Sanitation (Public Baths, +1 food farms)
Engineering (Guild of Hammers, +1 move roads)
Way of the Earthmother-Arete (Temple of Kilmorph, Arete)
Horsebackriding (Mobility promotion)
Deception (Undercouncil Great Scientist)
Infernal Pact (Infernal Grimoire)
Feudalism (Royal Guard)

I'll touch of WotE/Arete here - I don't see this as strictly necessary. Assuming we've done the rest of the game right, a few extra gold here and there shouldn't make a ton of difference - we should have gold coming out of our ears by endgame. Engineering is debatable as well - guild of hammers is nice, but is also the sort of tech I expect we'll get beaten to. Feudalism is only really worth it if we end up with a few important units to protect, if we don't, I don't know that its worth the beakers. The other stuff I think is important for the reasons you say it is, though I am not even dreaming of researching Infernal Pact until there's no reasonable place for him to settle near us. I don't want to deal with Hybie on my borders when my best defense is PoLs.

[SIZE="3"]Not Recommended[/SIZE]
Warfare-Military Strategy
Stirrups
Drama
Way of the Wise-Honor-Religious Law
Poisons
Smelting+
Fanaticism+
Feral Bond+
Optics+

I agree with a good bit of this, but I think that Empy is still the best endgame religion for us, and if we want it, we can have it. I also, think we shouldn't eliminate the Feral Bond option, since we're near it anyway, and Baron is pretty badass. And Poisons, for assassins.

I guess the thing is, how much of this is optional - perhaps this is a good time to take a look at how many beakers we're likely to have to devote to research and how many we can realistically earn before a tower victory. Sounds like a job for the C&D department.

[Gaspar]

As I make a drunkards walk through another turnless night...

• That we need to get that message to Nicolae. I’m guessing Gaspar must be busy, so here’s a firm-but-fair first draft. The key question – if he razes, do we offer to settle on the new spot out of goodwill, or go back to where we previously wanted? My message sort of implies the former.

Agree with everything above this as well. Here's a slight edit to your message to Nicolae that I'll send off if everyone else agrees:

Hey Nicolae,

Can't remember precisely whose turn it is, I believe you were going to talk to Selrahc and then get back to me, but I wanted to touch base on another topic, while I wait to hear something from you re: Kyan. Not to mention we're 15T from the end of our NAP, so it'd be nice to know whether or not I should be getting ready to strike up the band or whether we can be friends.

We’ve noticed your flaming horde assembling at Domir. That area of the map between our capitals was always going to be the point where our empires met, so we wanted to let you know our feelings.

The barb city interferes with what we had previously set out as our ideal dotmap. We have to settle something close by, as not doing so wastes a huge number of tiles in our core. We're willing to move a little to give you some more space in the area, but anything we plant is going to be in a cultural battle with Domir. The most conservative plant we can come up with will already overlap two tiles with our capital BFC, so we believe it is actually quite generous to you if we are forced to pick that spot.

Obviously, I think we would prefer to avoid a culture war in the area, so we therefore think it would be in both our best interests if you could raze Domir, rather than capture it. You could then plant something maybe SSE of Domir and we'd establish a relatively fair border, or at least as fair as can be as close as we are.

I haven’t got much other news, I’m afraid. Kyan snuck a Griffon into the far north, and makes the expected (although fruitless) agitations in his diplomacy. RG is still outpacing us in city count and tech. He’s yet to make contact in the west as far as we know.

Anything else interesting in the south? And any progress on the original topic?

Regards,
Gaspar

If that is the plan, then the rice site in the SE moves up in importance. If we want the Tower, then mana nodes become our most important resources. I think Nicolae has a pretty understandable claim to land in that vicinity, but I’m hoping the jungle and lack of irrigation put him off for a while.


Let’s finish with the more challenging issue at hand.

There are some very good points in here, but I’m going to be contrary. It’s true that our “natural” production will be higher than other civs, but then so will our commerce once our towns outgrow their farms. It’s true that each city, Cypress Hill in particular, can produce a lot once all the tiles are worked, but how soon will we have a happy cap of 20, let alone the 15 needed to work the available tiles at CH? I can’t argue at all that trading 2 hammers for ultimately 5 commerce (with latter often easier to multiply) does not look like a good exchange. However, I’m not sure who your analysis proves is more right:
• I’m sorry, but in an 8 turn Spiritual religion switch, I would rather have 8 Priests than 6. The extra 10 base hammers put us two Priests ahead from Turn 5 of the swap.
• Given the potential aim of a Tower Victory, the advantage of the extra hammers from more mines is even more significant. Being able to dust off a Tower within 10 turns of a mana loan is pretty important, and we’ll need more than 50 hammers per turn for that, with only forges likely to help.
• I’m not advocating zero cottages, which is why I suggested a bar of one turn Priests, rather than just maximum hammers. The flatland tiles are available for commerce when we are not full speed on a build, and it looks like we can cottage a few hills as well based on those numbers.
• If we don’t have population, or land area, or military, then we do need one thing that we possess that is “better” than everybody else possesses. If that one thing is a super-production city, then I think it could be pretty valuable.

Looking forward to these brave assertions being challenged. I hope that was reasonable enough for Gaspar (reread that post!).

I'm torn on Cypress Hill, but some sort of hybrid approach is probably best. I'll get the copper mine up first, followed by a few cottages, but at least until we grow larger, I'd also like some mines for the option.

And when I said reasonable, I meant only that you guys can disagree without getting heated, which I appreciate. I've said it to some others in chat, but I can't thank all of you enough for how much more fun a game this has been to play with all the chatter.

[Mardoc]

Looks like a good message.

Regarding Azoth's tech thoughts - I mostly agree. Therefore, of course, I'm going to bring up my disagreements:

I think I would swap Warfare for Way of the earthmother/arete. MilState still gives us a cash rush for a lot fewer beakers, and doesn't tempt us with building yet more temples. Maybe if we had Gems, or were certain to get the Holy city and enough prophets.