Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Mardoc]

Thanks, Mardoc. I would have had no chance of playing until tomorrow, let alone that quickly! Let’s hope Acolastas and Nicolae can get it back to the Euros in timely fashion.

It was a happy coincidence - I have every other Friday off, and this happened to be one of my off Fridays. Grabbing the turn quickly before getting back to packing for the weekend was quite doable. I'll be essentially incommunicado until Tuesday, though.

You're probably right about grabbing the rice quickly. I guess we're still thinking the rice/mana, the sheep/mana, the copper, and the clams are our priorities, it's just a question of which are high and which are low priority. On that note - now that RG's scouted with a workboat, if we go straight for the copper site he'll know that's what we did. If good relations are important to us (and I'm really not sure on RG), then we ought to grab the sheep site first. Of course that makes it at least 3-4 cities we want yesterday, along with a bunch of infrastructure and half a million workers, so there's no good way to get from here to there.

I think, assuming our workers catch up to our population growth, that I would settle the rice city next. Well, either that or be bold and grab something in this area, Aggressive City or C or the Drown sign.



My reasoning? Primarily, that once the jungle's been cleared and the area Bloomed, both of which are going to be plausible in the near future, these are both darn good sites, with lots of grassland base. Settling toward RG, on the other hand, is mainly for strategic reasons, as all those sites are mainly ocean and peaks, with a thin layer of forest in between. I still think we'll do better strategically to grab the best land, and trust in that to provide the military we need, than to grab less nice areas so that when we lose, we lose more slowly . Really, although tactics/positioning matter, what matters most in war is the tech and size of your army. And that still calls for grabbing the best sites, in my book.

Also - if we were to, say, plant on the Drown sign - in addition to the pigs and rice, there's a good chance we could steal Nicolae's mana

[Gaspar]

Thanks, Mardoc, for picking the save up. It unfortunately did not accelerate the turn pace but that can't be helped.

Its T100, so I'll give you a solid report later, but first your usual turn report with little commentary.

The Chronic finished its Market, and will bang out a 2T Disciple to grow one more size before banging out a few foodhammer units. There's really not a lot of useful stuff for it to build at the moment.

Loki's been killed, I assumed intentionally so they could build Shrine of the Champion. I moved Hash Pipe off the Remnants while its building 1T warriors for garrison to grow. Its still going to take 6T to hit the next size, but seems the quickest way to grow. Nothing really interesting on the hawk flights - I'll rebase one to the hunter next turn to get better eyes on Hippus territory. He'll have a brawl with a bear next turn.



1T of saving gold before going for Priesthood, which will take 5T, so T106 for priests. Seems a little slow to be honest - really shouldn't have detoured for RoK. I'll give a bit of a review of what I thought we did well and what I thought we did poorly in the T100 report. Other than that, not a lot going on. Need to get a few more cities up just for production capacity, really.

[Gaspar]

In fine Ljosalfar tradition its time for a one-off series:



So how are we doing? As an introduction, I'd say we're doing alright. We're certainly no experts with the mod, so some mistakes have been made in that right, but I think we've learned a lot along the way which ultimately was the reason for this game in the first place. The game's turned out to be not much of a spectacle based pretty purely on how well the Clowns have done but I could have predicted that right from the start considering the caliber of player. But I've had a lot of fun, I hope the rest of the team has had fun (maybe save NH, who generally seems perpetually annoyed with all of us ) and I think we've been entertaining for the lurkers. Anyway, onto the usual T100 report stuff (for what its worth - this is my 4th T100 report at RB and the 1st time I felt I was so far behind I could only win by gimmick. Given I've played against Kyan's awesome start in 12 and the LP juggernaut in PB4, this should tell you how improbable a non-Balseraph victory in this game truly would be.)

Cities:

The glorious capital - currently building a semi-useful Disciple and working some farms to accelerate growth. Happy cap is already 14 with only 1 temple. I think its safe to say its the jewel of the empire and that we made the right decision to move T0.



Hash Pipe - a strong 2nd site with the Remnants. Our only Kilmorphian locale. It is a bit growth challenged with few forests and the 2 (hopefully) temporary desert tiles. Our first PoLs will need to head here first as no site would benefit from a few Ancient Forest growths more than this one. Long term its likely to be one of our best hammer producers and as such, will probably build a lot of our future military.



The Leaves holy city and quite strong at a start. Unfortunately overlap with the capital and lots of pretty useless coast mean its not likely to get much better with age. If we had the spare hammers it would be a decent shout for Heron Throne since its the city most likely to grow onto lots of coast.



Cypress Hill is a location I think we've mismanaged/overdebated a bit. Its underdeveloped because of worker shortage and the fact that it requires longer to improve forested hills. Right now I think I'm intending to settle on a hybrid configuration - there are two more cottages in progress, then mining the remainder of the hills. But there's still time to think about that, since it takes forever to improve those.



Where It's At is our newest burg and it will take a while to develop, in addition to being in constant battle for cultural control of its tiles. It will be fine for what it is - a city to seal the zombie border.

Advisors:

Not enough workers. Not enough priests.




Lesson 1: The FFH tech tree is not well laid out. Lesson 2: There are a ton of distractions there. Anyway, other than the detour for RoK I think everything we went after was necessary. After Priests, I think we should grab Writing before a Corruption of Spirit run. Seems silly to have Veil in most of our cities but not be able to build the Temples. But we haven't discussed it at length yet. Regardless, I think we've done alright, but not great.

Demographics:

Lastly, an overview shot of the known world. Really wish there was an island over there, a la Teldrassil in FFH3. :P



And finally...

[Gaspar]

One last thing I should mention - with nearly 20k thread views, we're the most viewed active FFH thread! So we're winning something!

[NobleHelium]

But I've had a lot of fun, I hope the rest of the team has had fun (maybe save NH, who generally seems perpetually annoyed with all of us ) and I think we've been entertaining for the lurkers.

I think there is a big tendency to over-debate everything and a general lack of getting to the point. And there is too much damn text to read.

[Gaspar]

I think there is a big tendency to over-debate everything and a general lack of getting to the point. And there is too much damn text to read.

Is there anything you actually enjoy in here?

[NobleHelium]

I enjoy the fact that we're not dead yet, despite 80 or so pages of the thread being about how we're about to be attacked.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Thanks very much for doing such a good review, Gaspar. It’s a shame that the turns have suddenly started slowing down so much that you’ve got time for report cards rather than playing the game. I’m pulling together my own report on the C&D analysis, which will hopefully be done soon. Just checking that I haven’t made any glaring errors!

I’m inclined to think we’ve done ok. To only be behind financial/expansive Hippus and a juggernaut Balseraphs at this stage of the game is no real shame. We suffered from a sad lack of commerce resources, dangerous neighbours, relatively poor hut/lair luck (even the Savant is yet to provide anything tangible) and are running a late-game civ, so our time to shine will hopefully still come. I think if I had two regrets for the first 100 turns then they would be:
- Missing the ideal front city against the Hippus. If I remember rightly, then we could have settled it before Cypress Hill. However, that would have been pretty tough on our finances and possibly antagonised RG, so I don’t think we made a “bad” decision even if the outcome was disappointing
- Trying to land Runes of Kilmorph. Again, we went through the thought process and did what seemed to be the right thing, so it’s only in retrospect that this seems like a mistake. If it turns out it really was a lucky Thane, then our thinking definitely gets a thumbs-up even with the poor result.

Back onto more current details…

You seem a bit worried about Cypress Hill. I myself was a little surprised to see it building a settler at the moment with so much room under the happy cap. I thought you had indicated it would go Market and then maybe a Temple of Leaves so that it could grow and contribute to Priest production in six turns. I think you did conclude earlier that a hybrid approach was best for the tile improvements - post 769 had no subsequent objections. I suggested 4 cottages and 7 mines for the hills getting production up to a very good level but not overdoing the hammers. Time moves pretty slowly, so it’s worth remembering that we settled it less than 20 turns ago and it’s regularly harassed by barbarians.

I think there is a big tendency to over-debate everything and a general lack of getting to the point. And there is too much damn text to read.

I touched on a similar sentiment a little while ago, although I disagree with the suggestion that we fail to come to conclusions. I think we’ve been very good at always resolving any decision. What I’m more worried about is two things: that those decisions are overtaken by other events in the game, and therefore we’ve wasted time (but at least we’ve generated more views ); or worse still, we lose track of those decisions and remake them, or head off on a different track despite the thought and analysis that has taken place.

[NobleHelium]

I didn't mean to say that there aren't conclusions generated. I just think it takes far too long to come to one.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Before I get going on the big report, two specific comments:
- On T100, the “Rival Best GNP”, presumably reflecting a Balseraph Golden Age position, went crazy spiking up to 297. Bearing in mind there are 3 civs who barely ever break 70GNP, there’s yet more evidence that the world will soon be wearing painted faces.
- The Hippus have had a sudden rise in Manufacturing, coupled with a bit of a jump in the Power graph. Time for some diplo?

This is probably the last time you’ll see this header, unless Gaspar doesn’t fancy working out the tech situation once people get Trade.



We started a bit late with our C&D tracking, but managed to catch up with all of the early news as best we could. I’ve sorted out the spreadsheet I’ve used to keep an eye on things so that it’s vaguely fit for public consumption and Gaspar’s hosted it in his dropbox, here.

One sheet keeps track of the scores and includes an explanation for any movements where possible. Where I had a pretty good idea of the tech (e.g. immediate civic change or almost all of the Clowns early techs given the prerequisites for Military Strategy), I’ve filled in the best guess.

The second sheet contains all of the demographic information copied across from the screenshots. After every block of demos, I’ve included a stat for “global change” which lets you see how much of any movement between turns is down to the leader/laggard or changes elsewhere. At the bottom of the sheet are a few lines tracking the population counts on a per-city basis, and then the total land area for each of our opponents.

As you can see, everything seems to add up until T92. I make no promises that it’s all correct at this point - indeed it’s likely that it isn’t as I can’t get T93 to work. Here is the rundown of where people stood at the point in time where I last know their position with confidence:

Balseraphs. Leading the game with by far the biggest population, more cities, more tech and more military. I agree with Gaspar’s assessment in the tech thread that they will shortly be turning this advantage into a decisive win. Despite meeting them a while ago, we’ve had relatively little diplo contact.
At Turn 94: Techs= 20, including 8 classical. We basically know all the techs they had at T80 due to the prerequisites for a Military Strategy beeline (assuming the one missing tech is Exploration for roads). Since then, there’s been 3 more ancient techs (one probably Hunting) and 3 classical (one probably Drama). City Sizes= 11,9,8,7,6,4,4,1, Total of 48. Wonders= 3 (Palace, Dereptus Brewery(?), Form of the Titan)

Hippus. A very solid second place position for the Horselords, making full use of their leader’s strong traits to perform well in pushing cities out and teching. Cagey in diplo, and we’ve had difficulty building a working relationship.
At Turn 92: Techs=17, including 4 classical. The only one of the three civs we know to have adopted a religion, and we also know they have Horseback Riding. City Sizes= 8,8,6,5,4,3, Total of 34. Wonders=2 (Palace, Dereptus. Possibly another national wonder on T93)

Sheaim. Slow start for the Armageddon Cult, as they were hindered by barbs, but a lucky Sage discovery meant an Academy that has helped their teching. They are also poorly blessed with happy resources, and have not really found a solution to help grow their cities. We luckily got a NAP from the start of the game, and have cooperated reasonably well since.
At Turn 93: Techs=12, including Bronze Working, Code of Laws and Sanitation as their 3 classical. City Sizes=8,6,4, Total of 17 but subsequently added a few more. Wonders=1

Grigori. Difficult to assess from the far corner of the world. They’ve got three Adventurers to form the backbone of a military that could be quite large, but from what I can tell their GNP has been consistently poor. They seemed to get a couple of hut techs and grew well to start with, but have subsequently fallen back a little.
At Turn 92: Techs=12, including 2 classical. City Sizes= 10,9,5,2, Total of 26. Wonders=2

Elohim. Kept pace with the Grigori in number of cities, but have generally been behind on population. Very little to glean on them beyond the score increases.
At Turn 93: Techs=13, including 2 classical. City Sizes= 8,7,4,1, Total of 20. Wonders=1

I’ve quite enjoyed working through the “puzzle” of the information. I believe it has helped me to think more closely about the game and the actions and decisions of the other players. I also feel it can be very useful in diplomatic interactions if you have a better understanding of what’s going on without people needing to tell you. It would definitely have been better if I’d started right at the beginning and kept a closer track of likely techs and the more tricky information (like breaking down averages into all the component parts). Overall, though, given our diplomatic isolation and the information provided in the graphs, I’m not sure how much value we’ve really got out of tracking the C&D. Something to think about if there is a next time.