Like a hot wind Varn Gosam of the Malakim [SPOILERS]

[Square Leg]

warrior-->axe/archer = 53 g
warrior --> Camel Archer 123 g
Lightbringer --> Ranger 123 g
Lightbringer -->Mage ~ 80 g

They are all really cheap. Consider all the free xp we can get on Lightbringers and those Mages and Rangers are going to be tough cookies! Have you any plans to get a few Great Prophets to build the first couple of stages of the Alter?

[Thoth]

They are all really cheap.

Yep. Upgrading in FFH is cheaper than in BTS it's 5 g + 2g/hammer vs 20 +2g/hammer. Cash rushing costs 3g/hammer. We're going to have a lot of commerce coming in once Golden Shack and the floodplains/incense city are online. Hammers are looking to be a bit scarce.

Consider all the free xp we can get on Lightbringers and those Mages and Rangers are going to be tough cookies! Have you any plans to get a few Great Prophets to build the first couple of stages of the Alter?

It's a possibility.

In order to do the Lightbringer-->Mage upgrade we'll need to be able to build LBers with 10 xp out of the box.

Desert Shrine +2
Command Post +2
Form of the Titan +2
Conquest civic +2
Apprenticeship civic +2

Theocracy would add another 2, but it comes late.
If I manage to bag the Form of the Titan (and we should have an excellent shot at getting it) and the Great Commander from Military Strategy, we don't need to build any of the Altar pieces so long as we run the right civics.

[Thoth]

Our cities:


Golden Lean To:

Currently configured for maximum production. After the settler completes (t70) it will build another pair of workers then a Temple of Klimorph and 3 lightbringers to upgrade to Thanes. With the temple + improved gold I'll be able to grow up to size 9 by turn 76-77. After that, it will go back onto settler/worker duty.


I'm going to send out 2 scouting expeditions consisting of a sentry Thane and a scout. The third Thane will remain at home to act as a medic.

Golden Hovel:

Will build worker (there is a chop coming in next turn so the worker will only take 3 turns), worker, settler (for the incense site). The forests on the hills will get chopped into the settler. The remaining forests will get chopped into the Form of the Titan. With all 4 hills mined + 4 chops FotT should be about a 10 turn build.

Golden Shack:

This will be a very nice little city. It won't get much bigger than size 8/9 without some serious terraforming but....at size 8 working 2x farmed floodplains, 1xcow, 1 grass mine, 1 grass gold mine, 1 plains gold mine, 1 mined plains hill and 1 mined desert hill it will be pushing out a respectable 19 base hammers per turn. This will be my Heroic Epic city. With a command post + heroic epic it will be capable of building a Lightbringer/turn.

It will focus on building warriors for the moment. Once it has grown a bit I'll build a training yard here and upgrade some of my experienced warriors to axes.


Current military:

I need more workers.
And more warriors. I've got 3 warriors tied up with fogbusting in the West (one of them is just starting to move into position) and another 3 on garrison duty. That only leaves 2 for zone defense.


An interesting development after I hit end turn:

This came as a bit of a surprise I wasn't expecting barb cities to start popping up until t70. I'm very glad that I've been fogbusting the westlands.

It's a great development for us. The city is on desert which will make it fairly cheap to take. I'll need to build up a bit of a stack of warriors, but it shouldn't cost more than 3/4 casualties to capture. 4 warriors = 64 hammers vs 145 for a settler. I'll want a stack of 7-8 fresh warriors (3/4 to act as "poor man's catapults" plus a couple for garrison duty. I'll also want a Thane on hand to bring the city out of revolt and pop the borders instantly.

This city will suck for production, but will produce a very nice pile of commerce and serve as a crumple zone in the event of invasion from the east.

Current tech plans:

Bronze-->Code of Laws-->Warfare-->Archery-->Festivals-->Sanitation-->
Writing-->Fishing-->Philosophy-->Military Strategy-->Mathmatics-->
Priesthood-->KotE-->HBR-->Sailing-->Trade-->Stirrups-->Hunting-->
Animal Handling-->Currency-->Alteration-->Elementalism-->Sorcery


Current civics:

God King/Religion/Agrarian

I have apprenticeship available as an option, but I'm going to hold off on switching for the moment.

After turn 70 I'll be swapping Creative for another trait. At the moment I'm leaning strongly in favour of Financial. Taking Fin rather than Philo is going to delay our Academy and cost a pile of extra hammers to get libraries up. OTOH, we will have enough raw commerce from multiple cities to keep up a strong tech pace even without Academy(s).


Diplo:

I sent this off to Mr. Yellow a couple of days ago:

[COLOR="Yellow"]Thanks for the agreement on the marble/floodplains area. I don't know when you are planning on settling that city, but there is some wildlife in the area (a bear and a scorpion) as of turn 63.

I've settled the gold city this turn (1N of the gold as agreed).

I understand about not wanting to tie your hands with a NAP at this point. Perhaps later, once the overall game situation becomes more clear.

Thoth (Grand Vizier to the Malakim Empire)[/COLOR]

Grabbing that barb city is likely going to piss him off. OTOH, he's the one who declared that area as being up for grabs.

[Selrahc]

In order to do the Lightbringer-->Mage upgrade we'll need to be able to build LBers with 10 xp out of the box.

So I take it you're not going to be relying on Charismatic as your trait choice at any point?

[Thoth]

So I take it you're not going to be relying on Charismatic as your trait choice at any point?

Not if I can help it. If I don't get a Great Commander, I may swap to Organized at turn 140 so that I can build Command Posts. The maintenance saving at that point in the game would be nice to have as well.

At turn 140 I would like to take a military trait, Raiders or Aggressive preferably.

If the game isn't over by turn 210, I might consider Charismatic at that point. It really depends on in game conditions at the time.

So far I've only found two mana nodes, so a Tower of Mastery victory isn't possible unless I can find and settle or conquer 2 more nodes. If it is possible, then I might swap to Industrious at turn 210.

We'll see how the game unfolds between now and then.

[Thoth]

General Martok got caught torturing prisoners

Obviously, I took the second choice. This also had the effect of fully healing General Martok.

One road later and...

Which was followed by

Skippy the scout is now at 4 xp, 1 away from being able to take the "subdue animals" promotion. He'll still have lousy odds against a healthy bear or scorpion, but he'll have good odds against a critter that has been damaged by a warriorpult. Getting that 1 xp may be a bit difficult as I don't have much in the way of warriorpults at the moment.


I noticed something very odd:

No barb city. What happened?

The screen shot from last turn was taken after I'd already sent the save on to WarriorKnight. I've been saving the game before hitting end of turn and then loading it back up to grab screenshots. Hitting enter from that save produces a barb city. Yet there is no city.

The city wasn't razed (the AC didn't change) and couldn't have been captured (size 1 cities autoraze). Therefore, it never actually spawned.


AFAIK, barb movement and spawns are controlled by the RNG and should always be the same given the same RNG seed. I haven't got the foggiest notion as to why a city would spawn after hitting enter from my end of turn save and not spawn when the turn was actually played.

[Thoth]

Just finished doing some poking around in my sandbox and based on the distance maintenance we're paying on our cities, the world is flat.

So no circumnavigation bonus and fewer worries about naval invasion from the West.


Interesting.

[Thoth]

A somewhat dull turn.

Moved a few fogbusters out west, healed up Skippy, General Martok took back the Axe.

1 incoming Lizard from the south, and a skelly appeared out east.

and I saw some barb borders appear around the Pyre.

[Thoth]

The blitz is on.

I'll make some proper updates once we've finished up for the night.

Teaser: I'm aiming to pop the Pyre on turn 70

"Oh mighty God of The RNG please smile upon us and grant us cool events, good lair pops and good luck in combat"

[fire&ice]

The RNG god is a fickle bitch.

Lets hope that fickle RNG smiles down on you.