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

[Sciz]

[COLOR="Orange"]Hey Sciz,

I am still trying to reach the Lanun but other then that I have all contacts. Loki does help quite a bit with that. Though I did have a bad starting position, in terms of land as well as in terms of reaching others. Without Loki I probably would have been stuck in Ilios borders to my west and Mists to the east.

As for Ilios: He probably will fire his worldspell soon to go for me. Nothing you can do right now of course, you need to defend against Mahala and stuff but maybe if you hear anything from him in regards to a war against me, you could let me know? I have nothing I can really offer in exchange unfortunately, except for that I will keep Ilios occupied for quite some time, so that at least you should have a possibility to grow outwards again when you have come to peace with the Doviello.

Kind regards,
Serdoa[/COLOR]

[Selrahc]

Interesting... I've never thought of using the Malakim worldspell as a rush aid. Let's hope a hot war does break out on that front then, to stop Ilios's settling. I would generally back Balseraphs over Malakim in any early conflict, but obviously it depends on both Freak and trait luck.

[Selrahc]

Interesting... I've never thought of using the Malakim worldspell as a rush aid.

So with a little investigation, I found out why I've never thought of it that way. The Malakim worldspell requires priesthood, which pretty much takes it outside of rush territory.

Serdoa shouldn't be in any danger of Ilios firing his worldspell for a little while yet. I'm not sure if you want to tell him that or not though.

[Sciz]

Nah I won't bother telling him. Let him find out on his own I guess.

[Sciz]

Well, one good thing and one bad thing. They can both be found in this screenshot:



Good thing is that Cotton Valley has been retaken. 3 turns of revolt, and it'll start on a sculptor's studio for the culture. I also switched production in Mutanbo and Ithralia to a 2t warrior each, because Ilios is taking back his copper in two turns, so I just wanted to make two more just in case, since I won't be able to get 4 str warriors for a long time after that probably.

Bad thing is that the remaining sons of asena is fleeing south with the pieces of Barnaxus. I couldn't take the pieces last turn because I had one warrior too little that could kill the remaining sons and pick up the pieces. I moved the stack of two warriors to the Cotton tile east of Cotton Valley, and the stack of three warriors to the Cotton tile S-SW of Ithralia.

I sent Mist a mail saying he'll get white peace if he gives me the pieces. I don't accept him to accept, but it's worth a shot. I also sent uberfish a mail asking if he could intercept him somehow. Maybe he has a hidden nationality bear or something.

In the meantime i'm prolly gonna follow him with three warriors. I really need those pieces. I hope a spider kills the sons of asena or something.

[Sciz]

Also, the sons of asena can't heal while moving right? Because if not I should easily be able to take him and the wolf with three str 4 warriors. Might add one of the combat 1 shock 1 warriors to the chase too though just in case.

[Selrahc]

Also, the sons of asena can't heal while moving right? Because if not I should easily be able to take him and the wolf with three str 4 warriors. Might add one of the combat 1 shock 1 warriors to the chase too though just in case.

No. No healing while moving.

I would say we've got a good chance of eventually running him down. The dwarven hill movement bonus will come in handy.

This is just irritating though. Every turn he runs will be worth 2, because we can't resurrect Barnaxus until we get him back to a city.

If he runs for 20 turns, we won't have access to Barnaxus again until well after T100. And even then, he won't have any promotions and will take another dozen turns levelling up. It will be well past T150 before we get him back to the point that he would've been at right now without Mists intervention.

If it takes a bribe to get the pieces back promptly, do it. To Uberfish or Mist. Without the empower promotions Golems are pretty much just worse than regular troops.

[Sciz]

Hopefully he goes past a hill so I can hit him soon. Anyways Mist responded negatively to my suggestion of a white peace for Barnaxus, which was expected. However now he's saying that i'll need to give him a big compensation to end the war, a proposal that I laughed at.

I mean really now, I already know that I've lost this game, why on earth would I pay him a big compensation to end the war? Especially now that i've mostly killed off his stack and retaken the city he took from me. He's even said that he's happy with the progress of the war, and that "he's growing on it", which to me is ridiculous. He's managed to do pretty much nothing against me. He took a city from me that he couldn't hold, and he pillaged some farms and mines. For what? He's just paid a lot of unit upkeep, wasted his world spell, wasted hammers on building lots of units and gold on upgrading them that he could have used to build more cities or research faster. He has three cities, same as I do even though I've been ravaged by war and he's had no hostilities in his territory. I also have a settler on hand. If I were the Doviello I definitely would not be happy with the way the war progressed.

He's also hinting that he's going to attack me with a stack again soon, but the power graph shows no big gain for him, so i'm not too worried yet. Of course if he took all his units and attacked me he'd win, but he needs garrison and stuff back at home, so for now he shouldn't be able to field a much bigger army than I.

Here's the power graph:



After ending the turn I got a boost of power, building my final two 4 str warriors before the copper goes back to Ilios.

Mist doesn't really have the infrastructure to build up an army now either. We have pretty much equal production, His crop yield is just a bit higher than mine, way below all the others, and his GNP is much worse than the others too, of course still higher than mine but he's definitely not gained anything from the war with me.

[Sciz]

Next turn Cotton Valley will get out of revolt and i'll post an overview picture of our country.

Meanwhile, I will discuss the tech path a bit.

When CV is mine again, our GNP will be a bit higher again, and the first thing I'll try to tech towards is Festivals. When I get it, I will build markets in Mutanbo and Ithralia and try to build one in CV with its awful production. It'll help me with my upkeep costs. At the same time my two mud golems (3t left for my second one) will farm the hell out of Ithralia again, and rebuild two cotton plantations. Ithralia and Mutanbo will grow to their happy caps, which is 3 sizes away thanks to the wine I just got from Ilios for a Cotton i'll be trading them when CV is back up. When happy cap is reached, I will revolt to aristocracy, because I need to get my tech pace going again.

Anyways, tech path is something like this:

Festivals -> Warfare -> Bronze Working -> Mysticism -> KotE -> techs I need for engineering -> Engineering

Basically festivals for the markets so I get my money situation going again. Warfare for Military State which I will double revolt to with aristocracy. The only two civics I have available in that line is Apprenticeship and Military State, and I definitely don't need Apprenticeship since most of my units from now on will be golems. Military State has only one drawback, the -20% culture, but it will help me much with my unit upkeep, so that will be good. It's also a pretty cheap tech. BW because I have already researched half of it, and when I can chop jungles I can expand south. Mysticism and KotE so I can get my golem repairing mages up, and also enchanted blades for my warriors, both will help me against Mist, if he hasn't killed me by then. Then straight on to Engineering for the guild of hammers and gargoyles. Hopefully I can still get the Guild of Hammers.

At some point here I should cast my world spell. I want to settle that NE spot near Yggdrasil as mentioned earlier, but my Mutanbo defenses are not so great right now, so I'm waiting for my warriors to come up from south before settling it. Then i'll have 4 cities, could be enough for a world spell. First I need to ask Uberfish or Ilios if they want to do the city gift thing. I think i'll try Uberfish first, because I don't want Ilios to run away even more. I'll probably offer him half the hammers he generates for himself, and the other half for me. So if he has 4 cities except his cap, he gets 2, and I get 2, netting me 6 if I have 4 cities then. Should be decent. We'll see if anyone accepts though, and if it's even possible to do this.

[Selrahc]

I like the tech plan. Looks nice. No big unnecessary diversions, which is something a lot of people seem to do. Golden hammers thing seems good too.

I was doing a little more out of the box thinking.
Loki could be a very very handy thing.
He summons puppets. Puppets are ridiculously easy to kill. If we need to level up troops quick and easy that could be a very nice way to do it.
And we're hopefully soon going to be returning a certain unlucky Golem back to active duty. And he'll need some quick and easy levelling.
It could also be a stepping stone into better relations with the Balseraphs.

Worth considering?