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

[Thoth]

I'm still getting the screenies together for this report...


Wait for it.

[Caustic Soda]

Now that is a *lot* of screenshots. Niceness Your dotmap looks pretty good to me, although I don't really see the point of the "POS backfill" city. Line of sight is all you need to prevent barbs from spawning, isn't it? That could be achieved just as well by putting a unit on one of the hills there.

Yellow Dot doesn't look all that bad to me. No it'll never get any hammers, but it can have around 6 farms, which is a decent amoint of commerce. It doesn't hold up to floodplains or food resources + hills, but then what does.

May I ask you why you put Hunting so relatively late on your list? Judging from PBEM 1, having hawks is a rather significant advantage. Being able to see most of your neighbors territory near you should certainly make it harder for Mr. Yellow to build up forces unnoticed, if he ever decides to go on the offensive. Granted the desert between you south of the mountains and the hills of Purple Dot already impede attacks in your direction, but advance warning can't hurt.

[Thoth]

Now that is a *lot* of screenshots. Niceness Your dotmap looks pretty good to me, although I don't really see the point of the "POS backfill" city. Line of sight is all you need to prevent barbs from spawning, isn't it? That could be achieved just as well by putting a unit on one of the hills there.

POS is aptly named. I'll found it later if at all. It may have some usefulness WRT religion spread, otherwise it is just a backfill city.

Yellow Dot doesn't look all that bad to me. No it'll never get any hammers, but it can have around 6 farms, which is a decent amoint of commerce. It doesn't hold up to floodplains or food resources + hills, but then what does.

Yellow blob isn't horrible, but it's main value it the whale tile. I want that city , but it isn't a priority.

May I ask you why you put Hunting so relatively late on your list? Judging from PBEM 1, having hawks is a rather significant advantage. Being able to see most of your neighbors territory near you should certainly make it harder for Mr. Yellow to build up forces unnoticed, if he ever decides to go on the offensive. Granted the desert between you south of the mountains and the hills of Purple Dot already impede attacks in your direction, but advance warning can't hurt.

Sentry 1 disciple units.

[Thoth]

Checking the odds:

Not good.

One copper mine later....

The odds got a whole lot better.

The result?

Since Mr. Yellow has visibility on the desert hill shown above, I indulged in a bit of misdirection:

Since Redshirt 2 was produced before I had copper hooked up, he doesn't have the bronze weapons promotion. I moved him to the desert hill tile in the hope that Mr. Yellow will think I don't have bronze working yet. (it is possible to get the Bronze weapons promotion from lair pops). The fact that I revolted to Apprenticeship last turn while picking up a score increase should help with the deception.


GLT has been microed to grow to size 9 in two turns, coinciding with the construction of my 1st Temple of Klimorph. The 32 hammers per turn are a result of 13 base hammers getting +100% for Spiritual and +50% for the God King civic.

Once GLT has grown to size 9, I'll work the forested hill for an extra 2 hammers/turn and convert one of the floodplain farmers into a Sage while I build a pair of Lightbringers. The sage will be turned back into a farmer once I finish the LBs and start building settlers.

The floodplain on the left side of the above screenie has my first cottage on it, the other un-farmed floodplain will be getting my second cottage (complete on t77)




1st to size 8:

[Thoth]

Since I'm about to finish my 1st temple, this would be a good time to blather on about how temples and religion work in FFH.

Unlike BTS temples, FFH temples don't produce any happiness directly. They provide extra happy with a resource (gems for ToK, reagents for Ashen Veil temples, incense for all the rest). They also provide +1 happy for civs that are running the Religion civic.

Having a state religion present in a city provides +1 happy as in BTS, but it can be further increased via civics. The Religion and Theocracy civics provides +1 happy (each) for having your state religion present in a city, thus making your state religion potentially worth +3 happy.

Gaining access to a religion is easier in FFH than in BTS. Everyone who researches a religion-founding tech gets a missionary unit of that religion, so you don't need to actually found a religion to gain it's benefits.

[Thoth]

@Square Leg:

I'm going to be unavailable to play my turn on Saturday (I'll be out from ~20:00 GMT Saturday until about the same time Sunday). If the turn arrives before I head out on Saturday I can play it but if it doesn't, are you availalble Saturday evening to play the turn?

I'll post up some detailed micro instructions if you can play the save for me.

[Thoth]

Oodles of diplo correspondance with Mr. Yellow....

details later...

[Square Leg]

Hey Thoth,

I don't think I will be able to on Saturday night but I can play on Sunday morning if you want to leave me instructions.

[Thoth]

Thanks Square Leg.

[Thoth]

Swapped a few emails back and forth with Mr. Yellow last night:

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Saw a Ogre rampaging around on the hill near you last turn. Considering that an injured warrior is there now with the axe, i believe you've cleared the problem. No sight of the Combat V promoted one though.

However, all this means you've popped the pyre. While i knew of the relics location many turns ago, i didn't know you really had the guts to excavate it!
Now it seemed you had it under control here, but i'd rather you stayed away from it now (If it's still there). Seriously, i don't want one of those things on my doorstep!

- Sir Yellow

[/COLOR]

I was wondering if he knew about the Pyre yet.

[COLOR="Yellow"]Yeah, the RNG gods were not smiling on me with the pop. The Ogre is quite thoroughly dead.

AFAIK, you don't need to worry about nasties heading your way. The barbs will simply head for the nearest civilization's borders, and my borders are closer than yours. Sciz tried popping the Pyre early and got some very nasty barbs incoming that forced him to relocate our second city away from the gold.

Sorry for not getting back to you during the blitz. Things got a little dicey for me with the barbs and I was spending my between turns time plotting troop movement. (and having a couple too many beers).

I have a proposal to make that I think will benefit both of us.

I could help you out with some of the road connections we'll need to trade resources and get all of our foreign trade routes. Once we have open borders, I can send a worker into your territory to road the desert tile SW of your marble city, the hill tile to the East and the plains tile east of that. You would save 8 worker turns getting that road up. It will cost me about 9 worker turns (7 turns of actual work + around 2-3 extra for movement). You would also gain a foreign trade route in your marble city ~turn 82. This would mean making an exception to the "no troops in each other's territory" clause, but I wouldn't be picking up any information that I can't gain through other means.

I would be able to start roading the desert tile on turn 80 with the work finishing by turn 87.

In exchange, I would like to borrow the marble from turn 100-110.

Does that sound reasonable?

Of course, that would be dependent on us actually signing an Open Borders agreement.

Thoth[/COLOR]

(no I'm not going to tell you if my uber unit is still alive or not )

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Honestly i'm not THAT in a hurry to get trade up. Although your assistance is apprechiated and i would like to see it get roaded up.

However, there's something else as well i'd like you to do.
It's easy to see that you want the Bone Palace, so i'd like to throw in an extra requirement. The wonder i am looking to get is the Form of the Titan, so if you promise to not pursue it then i'll let you have the marble for those turns. However i don't have Masonry yet (Yes i need the tech to actually get marble), but if you agree to this then i'll take a detour to make sure i have it ready before turn 100.

Once we get a road up i'll offer a special deal. [/COLOR]

Bone Palace? I hadn't even considered building it.

[COLOR="Yellow"]
Actually I was more interested in getting my National Epic up and running than building the Bone Palace. I'm not willing to cede building rights on the Form of the Titan as I have plans to build it myself.

I'll have a road to the edge of your territory complete ~t79 (make take an extra turn or two if I have to fend off some barb warriors from the barb Pyre city. I've already intercepted one warrior and an skeleton from that direction, and I expect more incoming.)

Is there something else I could offer you in exchange for the marble loan?[/COLOR]

Er, no. I'm not going to give up on the Form of the Titan. (I want the marble for the National and Heroic epics, but no need to tip him off to the fact that I'm making a run at Military Strategy. )

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Actually no, the Form of the Titan is all that i want. So what if i offer something else in addition?

I'm actually close to Elementalism now and access to water mana. What if i throw in a loan of that as well?

[/COLOR]

Hmmm. Early run at mages?

[COLOR="Yellow"]Getting a loan of water mana is tempting, but it's not worth giving up the Form of the Titan for.

To be honest, I don't think there is anything you can offer that would induce me to give up my efforts to get it. I've already got the level 6 unit needed to unlock the wonder, and I can have it built before turn 100 easily.

I'm sorry that we seem to be at an impasse over this, but I've been planning for the Titan since Sciz took down Ortheus.

Having access to Marble would be handy for me, but so would the worker turns I'd loose helping with your road net. Marble and the wonders it boosts would be nice (though I figure WarriorKnight has the Great Library in the bag if he wants it), but it isn't critical for my gameplan.

Thoth (hoping this won't damage relations too much)[/COLOR]

Turn 89 is before turn 100 isn't it? No need to let him know just how close I am to getting the wonder.

The comment about the worker turns is spot on. 9 worker turns are what I need to get the road to Purple dot into place. I'd need to build another worker to get that road into place in time.

If the marble deal had gone ahead the Great Library was a possibility, but I don't expect to build it.

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Still waiting for an answer. Again, i would like something extra out of the marble deal and wonder if i can have the rights on the barbarian city on the river.

Thing is, land is getting pretty cramped while you got an entire landmass to the south of you to grab. I've been scouting it entire time and i'd say it looks pretty decent.
[/COLOR]

(I was a little slow replying...)

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hi,

I appreciate the info on the southern territory. All I can see right now is a bunch of Giant infested desert. It will be a few turns before my own scouting parties can explore the area to determine it's potential for city sites.

Asking for the barb city in exchange for marble strikes me as a bit expensive from my side. You will have grabbed a decent pile of land from the Great Artist culture in your third city, and that barb city would make a good flank city/crumple zone for me. Marble would save me a few hammers, but isn't critical to me.

I don't know what the land to your east looks like, but based on my current map knowledge you have some very good land directly south of your capital to expand into.

Until I have better map knowledge, I won't bargain away the rights to the barb city between us. From where I sit, that city is in my natural sphere of influence.

The desert to the east of the barb city looks to me to be a good natural border between us, but I'm a bit hampered right now due to a lack of map information. In a few turns I'll be in a much better position to make some informed judgements about where our borders should be.

Thoth (hoping we can work out an equitable solution)[/COLOR]

There are some advantages to letting him have the barb city. I would be able to threaten both it and the marble city in the event of war. OTOH, it would give me a nice bit of commerce.

I'll have my first scouting party out in a couple of turns, I really need to know what the rest of the map looks like.

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Thing is, i get Cartography soon and i'm willing to share what i've found (with pics).

Really, you've got an entire landmass to expand on south and i've found myself pretty much cramped. The borders to the east are clashing with Nyktorion, WK was spotted not far from me southeast, i'm surrounded by desert and when i see an entire landmass south of you ready to be grabbed and you'd like to have the barb city too, then i'd consider you pretty greedy and look somewhere else for partnerships.

I get that city and i'll exchange map info of other places you can settle on.[/COLOR]

Map info for the city? Um, no. I can get that info on my own TYVM.

Close borders with the Elves? Hmmmm. March of the Trees rush?

[COLOR="Yellow"]Your offer is tempting, I'd like a bit of time to think about it before I commit to a binding agreement.

Since we have agreed that neither of us will take that barb city before turn 90, a bit of time to let the situation become more clear for me would be appreciated.

Right now, I'm feeling a bit cramped for decent city sites and am feeling the pinch from a lack of resources. I have very limited expansion capacity to my West and any cities to the south are going to have to contend with the large desert down there and heavy distance maintenance costs.

If needs be, WK to the southeast could be dealt with by a Bannor/Malakim coalition force. If I'm reading the scoreboard/demographics correctly he's had a significant GNP/score lead for awhile now. Some pruning may be in order.

Thoth.[/COLOR]

If the land to my south is as empty as he says I will concede the barb city to him (after I've popped the Pyre I'll need a few more Redshirts to do that safely). I'd like to get the marble loan and a Water mana loan in exchange but I'd be willing to settle for either one.