[Spoilers] What's Sheaim to do? Irgy controlling Tebryn

[Irgy]

Contact! Yay! With the Bannor. I'd been told they were in the area, and we made contact during his most recent turn. I nonetheless got in first with a greeting message.

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]Hello!

I'm obviously more excited about contact than you, since you found me on your turn but I'm sending the first email. I chalk that up to the fact that so far I have met only one other player so far. Mostly because our empire is basically completely hemmed in by Mr Unrushable with his 20 turns of can't-touch-this. I've heard there are elves to the northeast, but the explorer I sent that way was eaten by a spider. We had a scout that found a vast desert, but it died not far from the Pyre of the Seraphic. There was also a named hill giant in the area, you don't happen to know where it might have come from?

I am eager to hear any news of the rest of the world. Who else have you met? I'm happy to share what little information I have at least.

Just so you know, passage beyond the mountain the pass south of your scout, where my pyre zombie currently stands, is blocked by a recently added city. You're welcome to look around, as long as I can be assured you won't hassle the workers in the area, but you won't be able to get through to anywhere. I have no idea what you'll find to the east.

Best Wishes,
Irgy Arbandi[/COLOR]

[Irgy]

Also, more chat with WarriorKnight. The short version? He hasn't allowed me to claim the mana node location, but has agreed to provide me with 1 free mana, which I can switch around as I choose. I'd rather have control of it myself, but at the end of the day I don't really have much claim to the site, so his offer of free mana for nothing is quite generous really. Assuming he's genuinely intending to follow through with it it's a good sign of his willingness for future co-operation.

I've left it out, but he also helped me get in contact with the Bannor.

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]
Having only one mana node is rather unfortunate. However, the spot that you're referring to is rather close to my core, and I'm not sure how I'd feel about giving that site away.

How about this: Instead of you settling that spot, I'll give you a free mana resource. If your not interested in one of my palace mana then I'll convert that mana node into what you want and then send it to you. I'm not going to be researching KotE in the near future but as far as I understand it your lack of mana is only a long term problem. Therefore it shouldn't be too much of a diversion for me to research the basic arcane techs when you want to use the mana.
[/COLOR][COLOR="DarkOrchid"]
Would this offer extend to me changing which mana I am loaning over time? I'm assuming that I can dispel mana nodes in your territory. It's an intriguing and generous offer. There is a lot of flexibility in having access to the node directly though.
[/COLOR][COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]
Of course you can change the mana that I'm loaning to you over time.

After some worldbuilder testing it seems you can dispel mana nodes in my territory but you can't build new ones. Fortunately I should be able to get most of the techs required for node building when mana starts to become important so that shouldn't be a problem (except metamagic since it's later than all the others but since you want to dispel I assume you have it covered).
[/COLOR][COLOR="DarkOrchid"]
Ok, great, in that case it sounds good to me.

Sorry, I didn't mean to ask just to make you do a worldbuilder test, I could have done one myself too. I feel like a lazy-bum now.

The metamagic is not really covered as such, but I'm going to have to work something out either way really. Worst case I guess I'll save the one node I have until I can get it.

Assuming I can still claim the area with the other dyes further to the south of LF, that makes our borders pretty much agreed on then - except in the northeast where I currently have no map revealed anyway. I'm guessing you don't yet there either, although given you appear to have a hawk already I could easily be wrong.
[/COLOR][COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]
I have some of the NE revealed but not all of it. Sorting out that border can probably wait until we have complete map info of that area.
[/color]

[Heisenberg]

Grats on finally meeting someone else!~ Hopefully the Bannor would be able to shed light on what is actually happening in the wilderness beyond the Elohim...

At this rate, summoning Hybbie early on wouldn't seem like such a bad idea after all. Been staring at your map abit, and it doesnt look like he has much space to appear next to you after all--so no worries on the hell terrain.

Further expansion is hindered by the Elohim by now, so you're pretty much stuck in here.
Guessing a rush with PZs wouldn't work either, since the Elohim have their "Thou Shalt Not Pass~" worldspell. Even if you did manage to force him to trigger it, by the time the Iron Curtain :neenernee comes down, he could possibly have Gandalf..** I mean Corlindale to repeat the same phrase to you. And... by then, I wouldn't be surprised if he would have gotten Life II casters to counter you. (Corlindale himself could practically decimate your PZ stack)

So Hyborem could... hopefully... introduce some chaos outside, leading to distraction of the Elohim attention away from you, and hopefully even force him to use his spell.
Frankly for your position right now its pretty much YOU vs the Elohim.

And with the mess outside from Hyborem it could possibly buy you enough time for you to get your gates up. IMO Sheaim pretty much peaks early with their PZs, then tapers off as its counter appears... before coming back slightly when you finally do get a decent sized gated army, or outtech the rest to archmages etc, since you can afford to save a few hammers on military and instead build economically useful planar buildings. Since early rushing is out, you might just want to settle down for the long haul.

[Irgy]

Some more conversation, with Mr Yellow:

[COLOR="Cyan"](Reason why i didn't contact you first was due to finding out what to say and figure out the mail you're using, which is stupid now that i think about it since i already had that adress the whole time!)
[/COLOR][COLOR="DarkOrchid"]
No worries, wasn't meant to be a complaint, just an excuse to comment on how desperate I was for more contact.
[/COLOR][COLOR="Cyan"]
With you in the box, i've managed to reach to every civilization out there!
[/COLOR][COLOR="DarkOrchid"]
Yes, I saw the announcement in the tech thread too. Congratulations!
[/COLOR][COLOR="Cyan"]
You're the kind of guys i've been fearing the whole time, though the situation is quite different now.
[/COLOR][COLOR="DarkOrchid"]
Us? No, we're soft and cuddly. You're the one with a hero who regains his ability by killing the sorts of units that only I produce. I dare say if we were closer we could have tried to rush you before you got to him, but no need to for you to worry about that now right? I'm happy filling in the land I've got, no need to go racing off across the map with movement 1 units.
[/COLOR][COLOR="Cyan"]
Speaking of the desert, it's covering the entire northern and western part of the continent and has been annoying me the entire game.
Anyway, i'm located on the north part, surrounded by that cursed sand and with the Malakim to the west and the elves to the east, the pirates are apparently directly west of you. Oh and the named Hill Giant (Dagan-Gannd) was released from the pyre by the nomads. Me and the nomads are located pretty close to the pyre right now.
[/COLOR][COLOR="DarkOrchid"]
Thanks for the info. I did notice that desert seemed darned huge. I don't really have much to add with regards to the land around here. I have a little corner to myself SE of the Elohim, it's green and jungly. I explored as far as the Pyre before Dagan-Gannd chased me into a scorpion.
[/COLOR][COLOR="Cyan"]
Anyway war is approaching. Thoths been turning his production to max on military and have by far the largest army currently. All attention is focused on west now and expect either me or Mardoc to be attacked pretty soon.
[/COLOR][COLOR="DarkOrchid"]
A fairly early war then. Do you think you can hold out? Hopefully you can, we don't need someone running away with it this early. I would have to assume that WarriorKnight, being the other score leader at the moment, would want to step in before the Malakim ran completely out of control. But he's reluctant to say so out loud. I'd offer some assistance, but I suspect I'm too far away to be of great use. Depends how long unti the attack though I guess.
[/COLOR]

Also had an on-and-off chat with WarriorKnight, in which I continued to hint at him that the Malakim are looking like potential runaways. He continued to agree, without making any specific suggestion. On the whole I'm actually a little afraid of an Elohim-Malakim war. It would be great if it dragged on, but if one of them actually wins it we're all doomed.

A turn update is on the way soon, sorry I'm a bit behind.

[Irgy]

So, what's been happening? Here's some snapshots.

My units have gained bronze weapons. Quite a boost to their power.


We've researched Code of Laws, and revolted to Slavery, Aristocracy, and Religion. Religion was because it was free (still only 1 turn anarchy), and we don't get much out of nationalism. 10% production yes, but no happiness from training grounds since we don't build them. Since I'm beelining the Ashen Veil now, I'm going to get some use out of religion soon:



And, my first whip:


I'm whipping the temple first, to whip from 6 to 3 pop and then whip the monument from 4 to 2 pop the next turn. Although I'd rather the monument first, if I whip the other way I have to wait to grow in between.

[Irgy]

By the way, you might ask why I'm building a temple Tongurstad anyway. The key reason is that this city is going to generate the great person to build Nox Noctis.

My current planned tech path is:
* Knowledge of the Ether -> Corruption of Spirit
a quick detour to
* Festivals, Writing, maybe Masonry->Construction, and possibly even Sanitation.
followed by
* Horseback Riding -> Trade -> Deception

Hopefully that will be enough to found both religions. Then Necromancy to start building the Tower of Necromancy without using a single mana node to do it (2 from the capital, 2 from shrines).

So, I need to generate either a great priest or a great merchant somewhere, and I've decided Tongurstad, with all its extra food, is the place to do it. Once I have a market I'll work a merchant as well. Other cities can work scientists (and maybe priests as well) to get the sage/scientist for Stigmata of the Unborn. I plan to work at least 2 scientists in a few cities if I can get away with it, as I want as many scientists as I can get for bulbing through Arcane Lore. I'm tempted to even hold off on Stigmata of the Unborn in order to get Arcane Lore faster, and then build it with the free scientist that you get from being first to the tech. I just don't know though whether I want to wait that long for the entropy mana I need for the Tower of Necromancy. I'll see how the timing works out.

[Irgy]

An interesting choice from an event:


Of those, the food is objectively the best. It just seems a little naieve to me for them to give the same values for all of them. As a rule of thumb, 2 food is worth easily 3 hammers, and 3 hammers is worth 4-5 gold or beakers. For the most part, 2 food means 1 extra specialist, who can provide 3 gold or beakers or 2 hammers, and gpp on top. The health is a joke, it's at best +1 food and at worst useless, 3 health would at least be an interesting trade-off between food all the time and food when unhealthy. At least the culture is increased to 6, making it a reasonable option.

However, I picked the gold anyway. My reasoning is that this particular city has an excess of food, to the point where I will be tempted to work less farms and more mines or I'll just grow past the happy cap anyway (even over and beyond what I can control with whipping, again thanks to happiness issues). If there was happiness as an option I'd have considered it. It was probably the wrong choice anyway, especially considering I have 4 happiness resources coming in the near future (gold, silk, dyes, and one other unexpected one that you'll discover soon).

On the whole, despite the imbalance of the options, it's a nice sort of event. It's a bonus, but not game breaking, and provides a choice, and is triggered by the player's actions (building a monument).

[Irgy]

Some demographics graphs:

And overall demographics and cities:

Dear oh dear, last in food and production. I did just whip twice, but still. The incoming happiness resources for vertical growth and the new pre-improved city will hopefully help a little. I'm 4 cities, which is as many as anyone else I've met at least, but one of those is stuck on 1 pop and the other whipped down to 2.

[Irgy]

I've been building roads, hoping to connect myself and WarriorKnight for trade routes, but it happened faster than I expected. If you look at where that river goes, it nearly connects the two cities already, just needed one road north of Graelingvig. In fact, we could have been connected a while ago at Tongurstad if I'd roaded any of the floodplains, but it never occurred to me.


WarriorKnight noticed it first, while checking how many cities I had, and offered the following (asking about it by email first, not just dumping me in the trade screen).


And so we have another happiness resource. Can't use it yet as such because the capital is building a settler for 2 more turns and Grottiburg is building a worker for 2 more turns, but we'll get our value out of it before long even with the other two new resources coming.

[Heisenberg]

Nice~ still more or less keeping up with the others in GNP and such.

From your diplo with Mr Yellow, and from the demographics, it seems as though he is -already- at war.
(look at the sharp drop in army count).
I wouldn't be surprised if he had lost a stack there.
Yay~ finally a good mess outside that hopefully the Elohim will get drawn into.

Your army count is just above that of Mr Yellow though (who sits at the lowest with 40k). Guess nothing terribly much to worry about, the Elohim hasn't been exactly building up too large a military either compared to the military leaders (there's someone with double your military =o)