Fires of Bhall. Some orcs just want to watch the world burn. [SPOILERS]

[Ellimist]

Yeah. It's out of my hands at least. I'll just keep popping huts and if I get barbs, I'll let the other players deal with it. I should be able to grab one or more huts per turn for the next four turns, but the exact numbers will depend on which huts have already been claimed by others.

I'll post pictures when I get back home, but turn 10 is now done. The only tech popped this turn was Ancient Chants.

I know I'm not in control of my tech path right now, but the best techs to get next are going to be Mysticism, Mining, and Masonry. Of these three, I'd rather get Mining before Masonry so I can actually construct the warrens faster. Mysticism is probably the biggest priority, though, because I need to start working priest specialists ASAP.

Yell0w's scout took the [strike]bait[/strike] hut with his scout, giving my archer a chance to earn 6 exp. I have 2 archers and a goblin to his east and more units to his north and south. I took a risk last turn by not declaring war, he could have used his worldspell to push me away from his second city. Luckily, he didn't use his WS and he did take the hut, which is actually what I wanted him to do (because the experience was more valuable for me right now anyway.) Two promotions could be decisive in the capture of his capital.

As for the rest of my units, I'm thinking I'll use the threat of a choke to try to grab concessions from people before deleting units. I'll keep moving them around to try to find more huts and uncover more of the map, and probably bring some home to serve as garrisons.

Here's some of the recent diplo stuff. I'm trying to remember to screenshot every time I send/receive something.

HidingKneel/Ljosalfar:

Kyan/Hippus:

Tholal/Khazad:

[Ellimist]

I'm filling in the map pretty well. Here's what I have so far when I take all the mirroring into account:

Most of this map is based on observed terrain, but there are some tiles I filled in by fog reading.

The locations I marked for everybody's capital city are based on the assumption that they planted in the same place I did. So far I've only confirmed the locations of two foreign cities, one from yell0w and one from Tholal.



Hut results from this turn:

Kurioate news:
On turn 9, I moved an archer toward a newly discovered hut, and found a Kurioate scout instead:

As expected, the scout moved to grab the hut, (and apparently got Cartography from it, based on the event log.)

His fate:

I also moved in toward a Kurioate city, which revealed its garrison:

Is there any way for me to send a message to yell0w while we're at war? The diplo screen wouldn't let me send him a chat without offering a cease fire.

[Ellimist]

Turn 11. Finished the first plantation at the capital, bringing me almost to breakeven.

I'm giving yell0w a chance to bribe me before I take his second city:

Only two huts this turn, but neither gave anything worthwhile.

A map to Weezel's second city and experience on a unit that's about to die.

Event log since the worldspell:

[Ellimist]

T113 in. Popped hunting this turn, which is an expensive tech I wasn't planning to get for at least a hundred turns. Hawks will be useful, I suppose. FoL is available too if I want it for some reason.

My map knowledge is very good now, and in a few turns I'll start to work on reducing my unit upkeep costs. I have a few miscellaneous objectives I want to achieve with these units, such as making contact with everybody(only Weezel remains to be met,) and putting some pressure on Kyan and yell0w. I don't really want to choke/kill Kyan, but I may be able to pressure him into bribing me or using his worldspell.

I can reach yell0w's capital on turn 17, but I haven't decided yet what to do with him. I did send him a message offering to discuss peace terms, because I definitely don't want to make the same mistake I did in FFH-9(Innsmouth). For one thing, he planted his capital 1E of where I put mine, which is a bad spot for a non-sprawling civ. It may be better for me if I can force yell0w to provide me with Kurioate resources and palace mana on favorable terms. Also, if I eliminate him before another civ's score rises, I'll lose barbarian peace. That may be inevitable anyway, but maybe not.

It is possible the map has more huts that I don't know about yet, but I know of 8 unique(48 total) hut locations. My opponents have claimed at least 7 of these huts, and I've taken 27 myself. That leaves 14 that I know about, but at least some of these are probably already taken(or will be taken before I reach them.)
Details of known huts:
2 huts I can reach next turn(14).
1 hut on turn 16
3 huts on turn 17
1 hut on turn 18
1 hut on turn 19
1 hut on turn 21
5 huts aren't conveniently located, and I plan to ignore them for a very long time.

[Ellimist]

Btw, razed Naggarond last turn. Yell0w still hasn't responded to any of my messages. He did starve Naggarond back down to size one, but of course it didn't auto-raze. I razed it anyway because the maintenance was the deal breaker. It wouldn't have been a bad city, but it would have taken waaaay too long to be useful and it would have forced me into city states (instead of godking.)

Of the four huts this turn, I had 2 hostile, 1 tech, and 1 (useless) map.

It was actually pretty difficult to count the huts for my last post. The toroidal wrap and the mirroring made it tricky to avoid double counting.

Here's what it all worked out to:

Also, I have no idea why Kyan offered me open borders a little while ago, but I did accept. Neither one of us will really benefit from it for a long time. Now that I have hunting, I think I'll send my first hawk over to his cities. (That is, once I actually have hawks, of course.)

[Ellimist]

I'm not looking for spoilers, so if you read something that HK posted that explains it, don't tell me that, but...

Power Graph:

Semi-technical question:

How the heck could a ljosalfar player gain a significant power boost on the first turn? I've been assuming an event or lair was involved, but I'm stumped on the specifics of what it could be.

Demographics on T0:

Demographics on T1:

Demographics on T14:

Power rating info:
http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...php?t=4691


He dropped to 17k power on T3, presumably by settling his shade. That's still a lot left over, a lot more than he'd typically have.

And yes, based on this puzzle, I have avoided moving my units in to bother HK. It's quite possible that there's something obvious I'm missing here, but I can't think of what it would be.

[Ellimist]

The highlight of Turn 14:

My "doomed" goblin apparently won his fight vs the bear a few turns back, and now he's managed to find a more useful animal.

Next turn, I'll try to get open borders from Tholal and send him south toward Kyan. My archer north of Kyan is moving toward him by an indirect route.

[Ravus Sol]

Doing good so far. I think you can afford to keep the units while you pump out some workers and grow the cities to their happy caps. I can see why you brought up the idea of going back to a "normal" clan game-style soon. The rewards have been good but the costs will start to weigh up the longer you stick on the War-footing.

I still think that at this point you are the Big-Bad for the rest of the game so you may as well try and leave the war on a high note of some kind.

[Ravus Sol]

Checked out the save for you, these points to make;

at 100% tech you only lose 18 gold per turn and currently make 19 beakers per turn. Once the incense is up and running that boosts to 25 per turn. You can already hammer out Masonry in 7 turns or mining in 10 turns.

You only need 4 more techs to get your absolute minimum tech up and running, Mining for production, (and religious prerequisite.) Masonry for Warrens, Mysticism for God-King and finally the Runes Religion. After that everything else is just gravy. So you could actually limp to your neccessary techs while on the war footing. Not that i'm encouraging that, it's just something to ponder when you think about how many units you might need to delete.

I see what you mean about Yell0w playing chess defence. He's guarding the passages to his city well. But you have that extra Archer to loop round with. But You do have lots of other units nearby that you could just leg it there with. If you want to make certain you get that city...

All in all my piece of advice stays mainly the same; Embrace the title of Big bad and Knock off one guy to put the fear of God into the other plays and choke those you deem a threat. I'd keep running money until the incense comes online and then limp to Mining and Masonry. If you keep everyone distracted until you have out Warrens you are golden. But you could play nice after knocking off the one guy instead of antagonistic. You'd still have a nice lead. Just be careful with your cities... If the Elves DO have some secret power unit like lizardmen they could stumble upon your cities and they are underdefended...

[Ellimist]

Kyan somehow killed one of my archers without losing a single unit.

At least I got Education from a hut.