Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Mardoc]

I would like to point out that in PBEM 2, I had exactly four floodplains to play around with.

Edit: And only two at my capital...

But you make such a good boogeyman!

My only other comment, if you’ve not pressed send, is I’m wary about directly referencing previous games. In particular, the logical response to any Ilios comparison is “Yes, we have seen this before. The others fight and then the Elves win.”

To some extent, this is going to be in people's minds anyway; and we need to compare the snowball to *something* if we want people to believe in the threat. I figure the next step to that dance is 'sure, if the elves get Grand Menagerie and a Great Scientist from a lair...'.

I guess my point is, I understand and it is an issue, but I don't really see how to avoid the subject. It's more a hazard of playing the elves than anything else, just like people are going to be wary of Calabim and Keelyn. Hopefully eventually every civ is played in a game where they have a good player and luck breaks their way, so the reputation effect starts to dissipate and people focus on the actual state of the game.

In other news...time to start hoping for a turn and crossing our fingers for Kilmorph. On that subject - it ought to be worth starting to run a priest specialist somewhere; we know we can use at least two Great Prophets already. Obviously we'd prefer they be Kilmorph and AV, but I could live with a Leaves shrine . And, um, making sure we have the cash on hand to buy a prophet should that event come up .

[Gaspar]

Finally, a turn.

Great Bard BIADL. Certainly that's the clowns researching Drama. No cities settled by folks we have contact with. Runes has not yet fallen.

Really uneventful stuff beyond that. Rawkking moved his Drown in my general direction - one can only assume eventually with the intent of using water walking to gain contact with Nicolae. I can guess what the first subject on the docket might be.

Hawk flights showed nothing interesting, so I'll skip pasting them here. We successfully spread FoL in Hash Pipe, so it will get started on a Temple once we finish this worker. That site desperately needs PoL. Copper Mine finished at Cypress Hill, so after a quick road, we'll have copper shortly. Cypress Hill completed a Warrior, and started another, to serve as garrison at the new site. By the by, we're opening up for lurker (dedicated or otherwise) suggestions for cities 5 and 6. Best I have off the top of my head for city 5 is Afro Man, but I'm pretty sure we can do better than that.

I really don't have a good place to run specialists right now. We can start running them in either the capital or Paradise City soonish I guess - PC might be a better choice, because I think I'd rather work as many cottages as possible at the cap, whereas Paradise City will have a bunch of coast I'm not especially interested in.

In lieu of something interesting to show you - here's an overview shot:


And here's your perfunctory Power/Demos shots:

They speak the truth, we're in 3rd.

[Gaspar]

Sent the message to Nicolae with the suggested edits. Would like to see the Hippus one go through one more iteration, but I'll fire it off tomorrow if nobody else has any other comments.

[Gaspar]

I would like to point out that in PBEM 2, I had exactly four floodplains to play around with.

Edit: And only two at my capital...

Try not to think of yourself as Ilios, real person and Civ player, valued member of the RB community.

Instead, think of yourself as Ilios, convenient strawman.

[Man Behind the Mask]

So the most important news of the turn is… POST IN THE LURKER THREAD!! (Hi, Mist!)

I really don't have a good place to run specialists right now. We can start running them in either the capital or Paradise City soonish I guess - PC might be a better choice, because I think I'd rather work as many cottages as possible at the cap, whereas Paradise City will have a bunch of coast I'm not especially interested in.

I probably wouldn’t do this right, but I’ll tell you my thoughts anyway. The sad thing is that, even with two specialists, it’s still a lot of turns to a great person.

I’d be tempted to run Priest and Sage in the Chronic after the settler finishes and we grow one more pop with the Gold happy face. With the Ancient Forest spread, we’ll have difficulty stopping growth any other way while we finish Dereptus (or build units/Rok Temple). Coming off the Corn and using the new citizen for those slots, we’d still be at 2 food surplus. The sage actually outputs better science than our undeveloped cottages, and Stigmata might be a better longterm investment than cottage growth.

For similar reasons, I’d begin running a Priest at Paradise as well. We definitely need more improved tiles, and it’s got too much food to do anything other than specialists or build workers if we have to halt growth. Even if we miss Kilmorph, a Priest would be useful for the Leaves shrine, or even bulbing, so we might as well start building up the GPP while we lack better tiles.

Great Bard BIADL. Certainly that's the clowns researching Drama. No cities settled by folks we have contact with. Runes has not yet fallen.

A few thoughts on the C&D front. If anybody has any specific questions, then I can do my best to answer them (making no promises).
• The Clowns, Hippus and Grigori all got techs this turn. I suspect Gaspar is right that it was the Balseraphs who snatched the Great Bard, but there is some doubt.
• The good news on that front is that it seems more unlikely that either of the first two, or the Sheaim for that matter (now struggling with higher unit costs and finished a tech last turn), will be taking RoK before us. All eyes on the Elohim!
• The drop you can see in our power graph is using the Supplies (a unit with zero combat strength) to create a Training Yard (which enables T2 units). The FFH Power ratings make so much sense that the Supplies were apparently more dangerous than our civ’s hero ! We’ll see another odd fall from our deadly Disciple spreading Leaves.
• Should have mentioned there have been exports/imports showing on the demos since T81, so somebody has got Cartography. The Grigori are most likely – they got an ancient tech on T80.
• Our third-placed position in the demos is confirmed by other measures like population points (where the Clowns now have more than the 4th and 5th placed teams added together).

[Mist]

So the most important news of the turn is… POST IN THE LURKER THREAD!! (Hi, Mist!)

Two posts actually. You missed one by Ilios somewhat earlier

[Man Behind the Mask]

Two posts actually. You missed one by Ilios somewhat earlier

OMG! That sounds dangerously close to a discussion!

Had a look at the Hippus message as requested. Not much to change, I don’t think, but some small suggestions to tidy up and massage the tone. I don’t think overall they make much difference, so feel free to reverse.

Hey Rawwking,

I've been thinking of ways to work to our mutual benefit, and it occurred to me that we're getting close to the age of magic. Would you be interested in taking a page from the PBEM3 book and setting up alternating loans of Air and Nature mana, so that all of our adepts get free Air I/Nature I promotions? Perhaps you'd be open to a trade of Water mana for Life mana, once you build the Necronomicon?

Of course one of us will have to get Cartography to enable trade. Since your GNP is better than mine, and you've got more potential trading partners, I hoped that you could do the honors, but I'm open to arguments here. In non-mana related trade discussions, I'm not sure I'm going to have any spare happiness resources. If you needed something health or strategic, I could probably exchange something there, as I’d like to build some foundations for long term cooperation.

You asked about the Sheaim and AV - we were actually the ones who landed it - lucky lair pop. Perhaps it balances out the command spectre and oh so friendly Ogre that Kyan released between us and our neighbour.

Finally, a message with me wouldn't be complete without mentioning: Kyan's running away, what can I do to help you fix that? I sort of assume you're tied to some sort of a NAP with him - if it’s to the T150 range, we might as well just concede the game now and start on the next one. I think we've seen 2 runaways like Kyan in these games - both flood plain starters, no less. Ilios was dogpiled and slowed down sufficiently that the other civs eventually stood a chance. Thoth was left alone and allowed to stagger NAP after NAP, and eviscerated the others one by one. I know which outcome sounds more appealing to me.

I see that you’ve got a drown that might be moving over the water towards the Sheaim. We talked up the quality of your opening diplo to Nicolae, so I hope that Arthur’s Knights have something fun planned as an introduction to the Armageddon cult. No pressure!

Regards,
Gaspar

[Gaspar]

So the most important news of the turn is… POST IN THE LURKER THREAD!! (Hi, Mist!)

Aye. I figure they're either taking odds on how long until we call the game in the Clowns favor, or commenting on Rawkking's awesome plan to take Paradise City with drowns.

I probably wouldn’t do this right, but I’ll tell you my thoughts anyway. The sad thing is that, even with two specialists, it’s still a lot of turns to a great person.

I’d be tempted to run Priest and Sage in the Chronic after the settler finishes and we grow one more pop with the Gold happy face. With the Ancient Forest spread, we’ll have difficulty stopping growth any other way while we finish Dereptus (or build units/Rok Temple). Coming off the Corn and using the new citizen for those slots, we’d still be at 2 food surplus. The sage actually outputs better science than our undeveloped cottages, and Stigmata might be a better longterm investment than cottage growth.

This makes sense. I'm loathe to give up cottage growth, but I think we need to at least get the Stigmata done, its too valuable a Shrine to pass on.

For similar reasons, I’d begin running a Priest at Paradise as well. We definitely need more improved tiles, and it’s got too much food to do anything other than specialists or build workers if we have to halt growth. Even if we miss Kilmorph, a Priest would be useful for the Leaves shrine, or even bulbing, so we might as well start building up the GPP while we lack better tiles.

Also agree. For the same reason, we'll want to get an EC/Multiple temples up in Paradise City - I think we'll always be over the useful tile limit there, even if we decided to try and squeeze out a Lighthouse and Heron Throne or something.

A few thoughts on the C&D front. If anybody has any specific questions, then I can do my best to answer them (making no promises).
• The Clowns, Hippus and Grigori all got techs this turn. I suspect Gaspar is right that it was the Balseraphs who snatched the Great Bard, but there is some doubt.
• The good news on that front is that it seems more unlikely that either of the first two, or the Sheaim for that matter (now struggling with higher unit costs and finished a tech last turn), will be taking RoK before us. All eyes on the Elohim!
• The drop you can see in our power graph is using the Supplies (a unit with zero combat strength) to create a Training Yard (which enables T2 units). The FFH Power ratings make so much sense that the Supplies were apparently more dangerous than our civ’s hero ! We’ll see another odd fall from our deadly Disciple spreading Leaves.
• Should have mentioned there have been exports/imports showing on the demos since T81, so somebody has got Cartography. The Grigori are most likely – they got an ancient tech on T80.
• Our third-placed position in the demos is confirmed by other measures like population points (where the Clowns now have more than the 4th and 5th placed teams added together).

Thanks for continuing to update this. I had forgotten to mention several times the import/export change - I assumed as well we were looking at Grigori. Who's the likely trading partner, though? Balseraphs? Elohim? Normally, I'd say 3rd isn't a terrible spot to be, but its much more so when 1st is so far ahead and has a NAP with 2nd.

OMG! That sounds dangerously close to a discussion!

Had a look at the Hippus message as requested. Not much to change, I don’t think, but some small suggestions to tidy up and massage the tone. I don’t think overall they make much difference, so feel free to reverse.

Looks pretty good, MBTM. I'll let the other chime in if they wish and otherwise fire it off when I get home tonight, hopefully with a turn to play. (As both of my games have slowed to 1T/2 days or worse, I feel like I'm just playing one wildly disparate game. I keep wanting to pop my worldspell to fight off scooter. )

[Mardoc]

We successfully spread FoL in Hash Pipe

Which is news because we got a free spread of AV, it looks like Now for it to make the jump to foreign lands...

I do agree that Paradise City would be a better place to run specialists, as it's nearly out of worthwhile land tiles (we'll add the gold, and...that's about it). But it takes so long that we really ought to *start*, somewhere - if that has to be The Chronic, so be it. I hadn't considered it, but MBTM's suggestion of simultaneous Priest/Sage is a great idea, at least for the first one - if it's a Sage it can be the Stigmata, if it's a Priest it can hopefully be the Tablets. And in either case there, it'll happen earlier.

No further comments from me, everything looks good. Except that I doubt str 9 Treants will do a whole lot to cataphracts

[Gaspar]

Pretty mundane turn and I'm drained a bit from my other turn today, so let's just give this bullets:

• Nobody discovered WotE yet.
  
• Barb kill team has moved out of Domir. They're either moving on San Francisco or Hash Pipe. If its the latter, we'll be fine with 3 Bronze Warriors by the time they get there.
  
• Bronze is connected this turn.
  
• Rawkking moved his scout out of his city. He also moved the drown down in the water. And I noticed it has the mobility promo, so he definitely has HBR at this point.
  
• Kabhalg now has a kill team's worth of warriors. I suspect they'll start to move on Cypress Hill next turn.
  
• No new cities settled by our rivals.
  
• No Ancient Forests grown this turn.
  

Demos/Power: