[Spoilers] The Golem Factory: Beeri Bawl of the Luchuirp

[Sciz]

It shall be done! Next turn though, since this was turn 49.

One annoying thing happened this turn, though it wasn't a big deal. Lizardman sat himself on one of my farmed floodplain tiles, so I couldn't work that tile. I still was able to complete both the settler and construction at the end of this turn though, so no big deal. He then proceeded to suicide against Leonardo da Vinci after realizing how futile his efforts at slowing me down were.

So yeah next turn construction and my new settler both arrive. I'm gonna throw out two 1-turn warriors before starting on barnaxus though, i want my cities to be safe, since I only have three warriors in Ithralia atm, and i'm gonna walk away at least two of them with the settler.

So yeah bigger update nex turn.

[Sciz]

Oh yeah and ljosalfar just founded their second city. Not in my direction though, so the hope of me getting the city site south of cotton valley still lives!

[Selrahc]

Next tech priority is Aristocracy, right?

[Sciz]

Yes indeed. ancient charts, possible mysticism inbetween, then education and code of laws.

[Sciz]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 50[/SIZE]

Turn 50. A milestone. And lots of stuff going on right now, I must say!

First things first, construction is obtained at the start of this turn:



Ugly paint copy&pasting aside, we get three integral things with Construction. One of our most important techs indeed. First of all our hero Barnaxus, who is vital to all our military endeavors, since every combat promotion he gets empowers created golems. He does not gain exp like a normal hero though, as it would be much too easy then. We will have to level him up the normal way, against random barbarians hopefully.

Then we have the sculptor's studio, which is the Luchuirp training yard. It is needed to create most golems (Iron Golem is a noticable exception, it needs a forge, which is one reason the Guild of Hammers is so important to us), but it also gives +1 culture! No need for monuments for our new cities now Instead we throw one of these up and it gives us a training yard as well. Sure the culture gain is lower, but still good enough. This building's arrival is timely because Ithralia is currently at its happy cap, so when we build it we can grow to size 8.

Finally we get the Wood Golem with this tech, our first military golem. Base 6 strength is great, and it will be even stronger with Barnaxus levelled up. 60 hammers is a bit expensive, the same amount of hammers as the building we need to create them (sculptor's studio), but worth it. 4 turns for a wood golem in our capital at the moment.



Next, we start research on Ancient Charts, a 2 turn tech. A settler has been completed in Ithralia, so I start on a warrior, which are just one-turn builds. A bit of a delay for Barnaxus, but I need to bring along all three warriors to the new city site just in case. Will build just this one warrior to begin with, and then start work on Barnaxus. I can easily switch to another warrior if I feel I need to, like if a barb starts coming closer, since warriors only take one turn to complete it should be okay with just having one there for now. After Barnaxus it's a sculptor's studio, followed by a mud golem probably, and then wood golems or a settler inbetween. Our only current mud golem clay has just finished creating all cotton plantations and will move up north to the new city.

So after all this, I check around in the diplo screen of Ilios and Uberfish to see if anything new has happened. And see that... Ilios has founded a new city. Right away I get a baaaaad feeling about this, and my fears are confirmed when I see



Really? REALLY? God.Damnit. Yeah fair enough, I was going to claim that spot without asking him too, but that was AFTER I found out he had already claimed a very close city to me without asking me. It was only fair for me to grab the other "disputed" city spot. But now he takes this one too, and I was just a few moments too late. Well... You know what this means right? and , respectively. I am an angry, angry dwarf, and this act of insolence shall not go unpunished! He dares to hinder our capitalist ventures? He dares come between a dwarf and his money? No. This will not do. This will not do at all. Retribution is needed.

But first a bit of an overview of our expanding corporation!



Our GNP is shit, but it will get better when we get to Aristocracy. Someone is going crazy on the hammers, and it's not Ilios or Uberfish. Ilios definitely is the leader of food though, which is not surprising considering he probably has a bunch of flood plains.

Here is our second city, Cotton Valley:



Working a grassland farm and two cotton plantations, the third one just completed. Will probably switch from the farm to the plantation for one turn, to get ancient charts done, and then switch back to the farm and let it grow to size 4. When we switch to aristocracy it's gonna be hard for this city to grow much more, but that's okay.

Next, our glorious capitalist paradise of Ithralia!



It has been calculated that Ithralia is in fact mathematically the center of the world. Some few rumors of dissenting scholars have been flying around, but oddly enough every one of these scholars seem to disappear shortly after revealing their doubts. They probably get so ashamed of their wrongness that they don't dare show their faces in public again, I'm sure. Nothing malicious going on here, no sir. Anyways it's going pretty well in the capital. Not sure why the plains hill forest is being worked instead of the ivory, but that will be corrected next turn.

Here's a screen shot of this:



That was that. I just noticed that a warrior is done in 2 turns in Cotton Valley. It will move to Ithralia, so I won't need to make any more warriors there, sweet.

Finally here's a fun popup:



Got some good power. 2nd only after the Doviello perhaps? And my power will only be getting higher when I start making Wood Golems and Barnaxus. Also Loki was created this turn. And yeah Orthus as you can see. He's somewhere to the southeast. Probably close to the Lanun.

What techs I have? Agriculture, Calendar, Crafting, Mining, Masonry, Construction. Soon ancient charts. Decent luck with goodie huts. Only got like two or three. One was agriculture (after having researched it for a while, but I still saved 4-5 turns or so), the others were gold.

As for the diplo situation, I've only got contact with Uberfish and Ilios. Had pretty good relations with both, at least officially. But as said earlier i'm not liking Ilios' city placements, they are a hindrance to our great capitalist expansion plans, so they must be stopped! I'm gonna start chatting more with Uberfish now, get on his good side. I've already got amiable relations with him, but it doesn't hurt to get even better. Gonna ask him if I can place a city south of Cotton Valley (near the gems and fire mana) so we don't get the same situation as with Ilios. Need a secure flank there if (when) I attack Ilios.

I guess lurkers are having a laugh over my worrying about the ruin spot for a long time now, and seeing Ilios place it just last turn. He probably mentioned it in beforehand in his thread as well. I am going to attack him, but not really sure how soon. I should be quite stronger than him soon, when I get Wood Golems up and rolling. Not sure what he can have at this point. If I wait too long he'll get different priests and stuff, which I won't like to face. It feels like he has currently focused on stuff not military, and he maybe only has warriors and some lightbringers. They would be easily killed by my Wood Golems, especially if I get some Barnaxus promotions first.

Question is how much this will hinder me. Don't want my economy to go down the drain . On the other hand I only have two targets. Main one is the ruins site of course, where I'll use city #3 as the setup spot for that attack. If it goes really well I'll probably try to move down and raze the dyes spot as well, and set my next settler on the previously mentioned spot west of the gold. Don't really want his city placement, it feels a bit too far away. Well we'll see how the next 10 turns or so go, will have to monitor our power ratings. If I get a noticable lead over him when I start producing wood golems, i'll go for it. Won't even give any warning. Just hit him hard and fast. Or as fast as I can with the slow moving golems anyways

[Sciz]

Sent a mail to Uberfish:

Hey, how's it going in the burgeoning elven empire? I saw you founded your second city, congrats!

I think I found your borders to the southwest of me (partially obscured by unexplored blackness, so i'm not completely sure if it's your borders or not), so there is a question I've gotta ask. If they are indeed your borders, you should have some weird fire mana to the northeast of you. Any idea how that came to be? You normally don't see specific element nodes on the map, at least not without unique feature stuff. Anyways, that's not the point, the main point is me asking you if you have any problems with me settling near that spot? Two tiles east of the fire node I was thinking, if you indeed can see the fire node at all. Just wanted to ask because I want to have good relations with you, and not cause any potential disputes Don't want to end up like Ilios who has settled TWO cities aggressively towards me without asking at all and it seems like he is trying to box me in, i'm not liking that at all. Hopefully we can be more open about city placements and not go behind each other's backs like he is doing to me.

In other news, i'm pretty sure I know where all the civs are now. Perpentach is east of Ilios, and the Lanun are south/southeast of Ilios, so somewhere a bit to the east of you if you haven't found them yet. Just thought you wanted to know

Cheers,
Sciz, CEO of Global Golems Inc.

I exaggerated Ilios' actions a bit I guess

[Sciz]

Also trying to decide if I should raze the ruins city or not, if I get the opportunity. On one hand it's one tile east of what I ideally want, but on the other hand it saves me a settler. it's not THAT far away, not like the dyes city which is like 3 or 4 tiles too far away. Probably gonna keep the ruins city if I get the chance. Maybe I'll end up losing my city instead. That would be hilarious

Speaking of the potential war, I might go and get festivals sometime before Aristocracy. It's a 5 turn tech, and the reason for this is markets. Markets will really help me keep my economy afloat when I get these new cities. +3 gold/turn in each city adds up.

[Selrahc]

Blargh on the ruin site steal! Alright. Lets get focussed on killing Ilios.

Here are my "Factory floor" proposals.

1. Get a fourth city ASAP. Would building it from cotton valley get it out quicker?
2. Trigger hammers from just four cities. Get the military production super city ready.
3. Barnaxus from next turn. 2 warriors, with a 3rd capable of being built in a single turn is plenty.
4. The 3 satellite cities work on producing wood golems.
5. The capital builds a siege workshop, then grinds out catapults very fast.
6. While doing this, we tech towards Knowledge of the Ether(after aristocracy). The attack should come once we get out our first adept.

I'm not sure whether you want to go for a war of annihilation or a war of opportunity. There are pluses and minuses to both. Since we're going to be aiming at burning down 2 out of Illios's 3 current cities though... Annihilation starts to look pretty good.

Either way, combined stack of Wood Golems, Catapults, Barnaxus and Repair Adepts(Which work on siege weapons as well as Golems), striking at around T90 sounds pretty good to me. If we want a more limited war, I'm sure we can be ready to strike around T75 with just wood golems and Barnaxus.

We're not a bad civ to be doing this sort of early-mid game rush. If we do it right, I wouldn't give Ilios much of a chance.

I would also hold off on researching markets until the war is actually declared. You won't be feeling the burden of the conquered cities until after they come out of resistance.

[Sciz]

Great stuff!

I forgot about adepts repairing, that will definitely help us, so KotE after code of laws it is. Just gotta figure out a good spot for city #4 and then we're good to go. We could just go straight north and put it between city #3 and the cap, it grabs lots of riverside tiles and the sheep. We'll see though. if Uberfish responds favorably to us putting a city south of Cotton Valley I might do that instead. Though there's tons of jungle there, and we won't be researching bronze working for a while, so maybe not.

Good call on the worldspell, should probably do it with 4 cities as you say. Gotta think on where to place em though. Ithralia is the obvious choice because it already has great production capacity. On the other hand city #3 will be a bit closer to the action. Or at least a bit closer to the ruins city, Ithralia should still be closer to the dyes city.

Gonna mixture with all this right now in worldbuilder and see what happens.

[Square Leg]

Would you consider taking one to war with you? Infact - can wood golems use them?