Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Azoth]

Love the photos, Gaspar.
And here's hoping Hurricane Irene passes you by, Mardoc.
Living in Ontario, I won't be much affected by the hurricane.
But I was under a severe tornado alert on Wednesday night;
and, in fact, a tornado and several funnel clouds were reported in the area.
We're having some crazy weather this summer!

Back to the game:

1. If you can set up the sandbox, Gaspar, I'll be happy to try the Culture via Slider approach. A Tower Victory will be more difficult to model, since we will be forced into war for that fourth mana node. P.S. May we completely disregard Nicolae's request not to build a Monument or excessive culture in Hash Pipe?

2. I, for one, am worried about the 5 Pyre Zombies and 5 Bronze Warriors that Nicolae has stationed near our border less than 10 turns before our NAP is due to expire. I would hate to waste our Worldspell on such a paltry force but we may have no choice. Nicolae could bait us with a half-hearted invasion attempt and force our hand.

3. I still think we should build fewer Disciples. For one thing, we should take advantage of a free spread of Leaves or Veil into City #5. I assume we want to maximize our culture output in this city as well, by starting with a Monument?

[Mardoc]

Brrr, tornados scare me a heck of a lot more than hurricanes. At least hurricanes like this one, which is supposed to be only category 1 by the time it arrives here.

[Gaspar]

*cracks knuckles* Looks like we have ourselves a turn. What exciting wonders await?

Nothing event log worthy happened between turns, so that's a plus, I guess. No additional settlements from our opponents as well.

I turn back research on for Festivals, due in 2T with a good bit of overflow. I suspect everyone is okay with Priesthood next, yes? I don't think we can delay PoL any longer, particularly with the Hippus and Sheaim in contact and liable to be feisty. Nicolae no doubt has a large stack, which is still clearly not interested in Domir. If this lasts to the era of priests we'll just have to raze it ourselves. Still, I'm definitely getting nervous - I'd really prefer not to have to use the worldspell on defense against Nicolae - its either going to be needed on offense there, or against a warcry push.

On that note - I really think we need to get the western cities settled. The ultimate issue here is that Hash Pipe is too important to the empire to be right on the border.

The hawk shot also indicates Nicolae's culture has gone 3rd ring in the south, so there's no hope to get a hunter far enough south to get eyes on Kyan. Given that, I decided to veto the hunter in Hash Pipe for a Temple of Kilmorph. This will also give us the freedom to spread it in the future should we so desire. Ultimately, why devote all those turns to research if we're not going to spread it.



In the north I brought the bear and Terra into our borders. Terra took C2 and will heal in Cypress Hill before heading off to capture the northern bear and see if the spider is still around. Speaking of Cypress Hill, I queued up a Settler there. Its still working unimproved tiles, so it seemed like the best place to stymie growth for the time being. Probably will bang out the next one from Paradise City after this Disciple, but that's certainly debatable.

Where It's At was settled where discussed. It borrows the farm from The Chronic to grow. I set its initial build to a Warrior, because I'm not quite ready to antagonize Nicolae - a T100 war is certainly something we are NOT prepared for. Once we have a NAP in hand, its a different story. On that topic, I'm sending this to Nicolae tonight unless someone objects:

Hey Nicolae,

I haven't heard back from you with our latest message so I just wanted to touch base. Rawkking's Drown made his way towards you, so hopefully your initial contact has been as fruitful.

Primarily I just wanted to address the idea of a NAP extension you broached. I still believe that war between our two empires would only serve to embolden our enemies. How do you feel about a 20T extension, followed by a rolling NAP with a 7T cooldown (i.e. it could be invoked on the earliest T113, and then the NAP would expire at the earliest T120.) This way we can further cement cooperation, without going through a nervous period everytime the NAP starts winding down? I meant to suggest this early, but got distracted with my vacation.

Still keen to hear any thoughts about a future Balseraph coalition. Maybe you can make some headway with RG that we haven't been able to - I don't think he appreciates just how badly Kyan is curbstomping us.

Regards,
Gaspar

Here's the new city:



And your regularly scheduled demographics, etc:

[Mardoc]

Absolutely Philo -> Priesthood after Festivals. We've put it off long enough. The only thing that makes me happy there is RG's army is even worse than ours . But especially given that we're pushing out of the forest, it's time.

I think, maybe, Nicolae will attack Domir this turn. He's got a road that will allow him to hit it in one turn, anyway. I still don't understand why he waited so long, but - well, I think that Banana is as good as ours . Decent odds of owning the elephant, too, especially if we build up a number of temples.

I approve of a Temple to Kilmorph It'll definitely be good to start getting our benefits. Although, I do agree with Azoth, at this point we ought to be letting each new city acquire a first religion on its own and saving the 40 hammers, at least as long as we can stand to do so. With at least three religions worth spreading to each city - even as the elves we want to conserve hammers here .

I'm not 100% sure I agree on building settlers because we're lacking in improved tiles ...but I can see the point about claiming the land. I know you have the sheep city marked as #6 - but I'd push for the copper instead, if land grab is the point. Or else for the rice/mana buried in jungle, or one of the aggressive clam plants in the west. None of our remaining sites is really that strong, so if the point is claiming land - well, we should be really claiming a lot of land.

But seriously - those are bad sites, even when you can count on eventual Ancient Forest food to buff them. Do you really think Rawkking or Nicolae is going to be rushing to grab them? The only ones I'd worry about at all are the rices by Nicolae in east and west.

[Gaspar]

Any comment on the diplo message?

And yeah, after I queued the Settler I was thinking we really need more workers first. Damned lazy elves.

EDIT: By the by, where in Ontario are you, Azoth? I'm from Buffalo so I've been there quite a bit - though admittedly, mostly visiting the "ballet" in Niagara Falls or Fort Erie in my younger days.

[Mardoc]

Any comment on the diplo message?

Seems pretty decent. About the only thing that concerns me - Nicolae already seems kinda nervous about war, I'm not sure that saying Kyan's 'curbstombing' will really help . But I'm not sure what else to say, it really is a concern and we really do want his help here.

[Gaspar]

I sent the message with only a subtle clarification to the 'curbstomping.'

Mostly I want to see if he stalls/replies at all. That will give us a heads up as to whether or not we can expect an invasion. We won't be able to field priests immediately, but we should then be able to back up the worldspell if necessary sooner if we're expecting it.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Hope all goes ok in the storms, guys.

Will be very interested to see how quick Nicolae responds to that message. Should we get the one off to RG as well, to see if he also gives us the cold shoulder?

I’d tend to agree that the solution to unimproved tiles is more workers, not more settlers. That’s especially true when none of the sites we’d be heading to have that much to recommend them.

The screenshot shows Where It’s At making zero hammers because of the rounddown after the 10% deduction for Apprenticeship. We should probably set something else going there.

[NobleHelium]

How is that barb city still not gone yet? If they wait long enough we'll culturally flip it before they can conquer it.

[Mardoc]

How is that barb city still not gone yet? If they wait long enough we'll culturally flip it before they can conquer it.

I'd be fine with flipping it after the conquest .