The Black Sword's Tale: For the Kurious

[The Black Sword]

I'm trying to set up me email to forward the saves on to you. I think it's sent a confirmation email to you and I need a code from that email to complete the process. Can you send me the code?

Or if anyone knows how to set up a forwarding email on gmail without this that would be handy.

[Merovech]

Confirmed. All that was needed was for me to accept the forwarding.

[The Black Sword]

Yup, seems to work on this end, should be set up now. Thanks again and enjoy the turns(if they ever come in ).

[The Black Sword]

Gah, sorry password is 'splinter'.

[The Black Sword]

Thanks for the stepping up there Merovech. Even if we didn't get any turns played, the gesture is appreciated.

Feels like I haven't updated in ages, actually only 2 turns but means you get a big T48 update now. I hope we can get back to the turn a day for next week.

Here's my cities, Avelorn:

Growing nicely, but going to fall a bit behind on improved tiles when my workers take time to connect the dyes.

Naggarond:

Slight excess of improvements here, with pigs and the scientist being available soon. Maybe a bit of mismanagement but it will also slow down to connect the silks.

Kwythellar:

Got another ancient forest growth. Unfortunately that goblin is standing on my reagents, interrupting my plan here. I could have got the hunter out this turn but that would mean no growth next turn. The food surplus in this city is going to be mind boggling; corn, doubles cows, sheep, Flooded oasis, deer, reagents, plus potential ancient forests and enclaves. The other two cities also have very nice surpluses, but more hills and plains to deal with them. I'm vaguely considering putting the national epic here and moving the capital elsewhere. I'd also need some way to deal with the happiness because I want to work most of my 36 base tiles too.

My first Hunter, Donatello, following in the ways of his master Shredder, was born in Kwythellar and set about dealing with the goblin menace:

I got some nice directions of Jalapeno to find the Elohim and elves, so I'm not sure if I should delay for the xp here. 78% ctk vs the goblin on flat.

In the south Karai continues his march towards the dungeon, making some nice discoveries along the way:


A backup supply of cotton is nice. I put in signs for a preliminary settlement dot-map.
South:

I'm a bit worried about the forking possibilities of the 2 settlements in the middle here. But ultimately, these aren't positions I have to hold in the case of war. Their aim is to pick up resources, neither of which is essential, crab or backup cotton and to stop people settling up to my border and taking tiles from my supercities. I can flood the flood plain when it gets changed to desert, so I don't have to worry about that malus.

East:

I really like the hill settle in the north. Doesn't leave jalapeno anywhere nice to settle past that lake and gives me a very nice buffer zone. It's a reasonably high priority. I don't really like the options in the south though. I would like a settlement there so they can't push into Avelorns borders and in an ideal world I'd love to steal that mana node from Jalapeno but a settlement that does either is too close to him. We'll both be in easy range to hit each, though he'd probably need vamps before he can do so and it'd likely lead to a military buildup that would only hurt both of us.
So, what I'm thinking of doing is pointing this out to jalapeno and asking him not to settle on the labelled row. That'll leave a sizeable gap between our cities while ensuring I can keep my third ring. I think he might go for it, I'm trying to decide should I settle the north settlement first or not though, which he probably won't like.

North:

Nothing set in stone up here. Aim is to ensure I hold the mana node, the rice and the ivory, backup banana would be nice too. The main problem with this setup is someone settling on the hill 1E of the gems, I'd like to cover that tile somehow. I might put another settlement into the jungle there. The ivory settlement is also very ambitious I think, I wouldn't mind pushing that back a bit. Forking opportunities are high up here as well, but again, the only thing I really need to hold is the mana node.

West:

I've been thinking about another settlement here but I might wait to see what the dwarves do first. If they do settle up on my border then I can put a settlement 1E of the wines and the only tile they can steal from Naggarond is the hill 1E of the pigs. There's also the fact that they've gone for kilmorph, so I'm less worried about their culture output. I could try to talk to them about this aswell but I think they might realise themselves that settlements right on my borders will be difficult and people don't like being told what to do so close to their capital.

I should also explain why I switched back to writing instead of philosophy. Mostly it was having to do out a detailed plan for the next few turns so I couldn't delay any decisions. The Bone Palace just isn't worth the hammers yet in my opinion. I'd be very lucky to get to 40pop by the time it was completed. However a lot of those pop would still be food tiles because I'd still be growth mode. Along with saving a turn of anarchy, I'd get some positive return over the 470 hammers. But the outlay would be over roughly 9 turns and the payback over the next 9 turns. I need to grow more and get more multipliers before the Bone Palace hits breakeven. Unfortunately that point will come quicker for Industrious civs, but oh well.
So if I'm not building the bone palace, there's no point going philosophy straight away. I realised just how long its going to take to connect the rice and wheat for 160h Deruptus compared to 45h library with a similar effect. I think I'll still beat WK to Military strategy anyway. Writing will improve my research rate by at least 17%, so it won't slow me down that much. He's Philosophical as well, only he don't have an Academy already, so Writing is even more important for him. I think he'll get it first also. Apart from that I'm doing almost a total beeline. He'll have to pick up a military tech too, so Hunting can be written off. Then the only extra techs I'll be getting are Fishing and Animal Husbrandry, both quite cheap. Finally, here's the GNP graph:

Actually, given that GNP, probably the lowest apart from the elves, WK might well decide he doesn't have a shot at the Great Commander. Still, I expect the others all to have other priorities so he's my main competition.

Finally, here's two pictures to make me feel good.

That GNP is with saving gold for the turn.

Nicely done Naggarond .

[The Black Sword]

Shredder seems to have disappeared, either his ninja skills are really good or ...

they're really bad. Donatello is not impressed.


Man, they were the same strength but Shredder had a 70% modifer, C1 + forested hill. I would have bet my capital on that roll earlier in the game, in fact I think I did do something close to it. A mere 1xp for Donatello cleaning up as well. He's poisoned and at 3.4health now, so I'll use him to kill that other goblin and hopefully get close to animal capture. The next Hunter can go meet Yell0w.

With that the Foot Clan's Influence is probably at an end in Kuriotatia, here's what's likely their last recruit:

I'm tempted to name him Shredder again since the guy does seem to get reborn a lot, but he's likely just to be military police for the rest of the game, xp will be aimed at Hunters, Karai and Tatsu.

Of possibly more importance in the first picture is jalapeno's revolt to aristocracy. So, he's essentially got CoL, BW over me vs Mysticism, Hunting and Animal Husbandry. Maybe he's got more but I don't think he could be so far ahead of me since I've had the GNP advantage for the last while. It's also possible he doesn't have/burned his event fund to reach Aristo quickly. I am resigned to the fact that some of the points increases I'm seeing are land points or maybe even Deruptus. I would have expected him to get out city 4 by now, so he must be using that production for something. So I'm just not keeping track anymore.

Since he's got CoL already, and he is organised, going for the commander at military strategy may be an option for him. He might even be faster than WK. I'm slightly ahead already, thanks to my turn into Philosophy already, I just have to make sure my sidetracks to Writing and fishing don't cost me.

I have been thinking I might be paying too much attention to jalapeno recently, his advantages so far might just be traced back to RoB and the others still have their world spells. But now with aristo and governor's manors going up ... it's hard to see how vamps can not have an effect on a game.

I've decided not to talk to him about the south for the moment. I'm keeping an eye on his power graph(partly for Moroi who could possibly Burning Blood rush Avelorn) and so long as he doesn't have an army, there's no way he can settle on my doorstep down there. Even if he does have an army, it'll be a huge drain for him, defending potential attacks from my Centaurs.

[The Black Sword]

Donatello vs the goblins; Take two.

He's up to 4xp now. There's an orc warrior coming in the west now, so I'll try get him the last xp there. Just defending should do fine and he'll have animal capture. Meanwhile Raphael finished his training in Kwythellar and is being sent NW to find Yell0w. There doesn't seem to be any immediate need for a 3rd Hunter so


I figured I might as well get the workers early. I also departed from the plan in Naggarond


With the excess of improved tiles, building another worker seems unnecessary atm. Next turn I can switch off a farm for the scientist and still grow. I'll probably be able to go Granary -> Worker -> Library here.

[The Black Sword]

Hmm, T50 update, wasn't that thorough. T48 was pretty good though and I've shown lots of shots of the individual cities, so I'll just post an overview at T51 and some graphs to compare.
This was my problem for the turn:

I could have covered the worker on the pigs with Tatsu but still a 12% chance of dying to the goblin and losing the worker, so I've lost a worker turn instead, might lose some more dealing with him. You can see the orc warrior coming in from the west as well. Donatello is still too injured to help deal with these reliably, so I got the third Hunter from Kwythellar this turn in case I need help.
Here's my cities in a nutshell:


Demos and graphs:






Expenses screen:

Aristocracy will save a pretty penny here for Jalapeno also. He settled his 4th city last turn, I reckon he's all set up to rex like crazy now, despite the map. Not that I'm unhappy with my God King though. Demos obviously look very good for me, rival best GNP seems to have made quite a jump up to 82 this turn(my figure is with research turned on btw) I'm going to hope that is somebody with a double pre-req. My GNP advantage is pretty much entirely my academy, which is worth 20b when researching. I still have plenty of vertical growth to go, so I don't think the others will be catching up to me for a while.

Regarding the power graph: I sort of wish I had gone with Centaurs instead of Hunters right now to call some of these farmers gambits. I could have 5 centaurs instead of the Hunting lodge and 3 Hunters. They could 1 move a lot of cities and I doubt anyone is defending with more than 2 warriors per city. Given that no-one else's graph is moving I guess they believe it must be Hunters/Fawns also due to FoL. If this is still going on after I get Military Strategy then I'm going to pick on someone, unfortunately that's still a while away.

[Ichabod]

Regarding settlements, as far as I remember, they can be used to grow cottages turns, even if they don't produce any commerce/production. Not sure if you are taking that into consideration already, when you plan where to put them. Though I'd test this first before commiting to such strategy, because I'm not 100% certain that it works that way.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, they can be used to grow cottages and I've tried to make sure all my settlements have some they can grow. The two troublemakers are the ivory in the north and cotton in the south, if I want them first ring, I can't give them any cottage tiles. Well, I could give the cotton settlement some flood plain cottages but that's not happening .

That's one of the reasons I'm not too bothered about Kilmorph, working a merchant isn't all that great compared to growing a cottage. The temple costs 80h, say about 40 for the +2g and 40 for the merchant, it's not a deal you have to take.