[SPOILERS] - Tredje and Mardoc are Sheelba of the Clan of Embers

[Tredje]

Turn 65:

The recent events log shows that the Sheaim have declared war on the Luchuirp:

It will be interesting to see how that develops.

On the Amurite front things are peaceful. For now. Our Archers and Wolf Rider are making their trek towards the Copper.

One of his Warriors in Udenarat is wounded and upgraded to Combat I. Probably due to a Lizardman suiciding on the city. My current plan is to fortify our Archer 1N of the city. If he attempts to mine the Copper we will be in position to harass him.

I also received a mail from Bob this morning:

Heya,



So as of this turn there seems to be a barbarian city 1N of the standing stones. According to the settling arrangement we have, neither of our empires can own it. It also screws up both of our dotmaps (we, at least mine :P ). So, how do you want to handle it? I'm fine with you razing it via Ratine conversion, if you want to get rid of it that way. I don't know if you'll get gold for burning the city with that method or not, though. Otherwise I think I'll use the warriors it produces to grind some exp for my guys, before eventually storming & burning it. If you were to let me keep the city I'd give you something good in return (maybe a mana loan at some future point?), but since its location is 1 tile north of the settling line per our arrangement, I understand if you'd prefer the city were destroyed.


-Bobchillingworth

Wow, what an unexpectedly polite tone from our dear neighbour Apparently a Barbarian city has spawned 1N of the Standing Stones, which by our agreement is inside Clan territory. What do you think about his request Mardoc? I am thinking that we will have to fight Bob sooner or later, and I'm inclined to think that sooner is better than later. With the Sheaim/Luchuirp war Bob will have ample opportunity to expand, and we will not be able to keep up with that. We can't stop him from farming xp off the city, or razing it, but we can let him know that we will not accept him keeping the city. Why give concessions to someone we intend to attack with our Sons?

[Mardoc]

It might make sense for us to fortify on the Copper with an archer, actually. +25%, plus the river crossing and/or warning is probably enough, so long as the wolf stays in the area. I wonder - is it possible to kill that wounded warrior with good odds from the wolf, or is that a risk not worth taking? I want to deny Sareln good units, which means both keeping our foot on his copper supply and on preventing him from having units with XP. The flip side of that of course is that we don't want to fight any battles that we might lose, since there's considerable XP in that too.

And you're right, all sorts of interesting foreign stuff. I'll admit, Pyre Zombies are probably the best choice for handling wood golems; Square Leg may be in for an interesting time.

As for Bob - his tone is always polite, whether or not his actions are. Which I approve of as a general rule, but it doesn't tell us much about his opinion of us in game. I think you're right about not letting him have it - and a justification could be that he's Creative, so would end up taking a lot more land than just 1 tile! But if all he's offering is mana, not even land; yeah, that's not even a deal we'd take if we were planning on the long term. What might be better, though, would be to negotiate for a while before giving up and saying 'you know what, nevermind, raze the stupid thing' - any delay we can induce in him getting promoted is a good thing . Even though I have confidence in the Sons, no point in taking chances.

[Tredje]

Turn 66:

Another uneventful turn on the Amurite front. I decided to move our units as a group, just to be safe. I am being very cautious with moving our Wolf Rider into uncharted territory, for, if he should get hurt, a few turns spent healing may compromise our position.

Now, I have one question. Where is the Worker? I couldn't see it on the beginning of the turn, and I don't see it now. It can't have gone to mine the Copper, because it would be suicide to do so without a proper Warrior escort. I'm thinking he has moved it back towards his capital, but I can't think of any tile he would be safe to put it on. Puzzling.

Let's take a look at the Demographics, shall we? Although seeing our low GNP isn't exactly uplifting, we can see that others are doing far worse:

The person with 5 GNP is Serdoa. It appears that his economy was not strong enough to sustain a military operation of such a scale. If he manages to capture any cities, it might pay off. If not, he will be joining the Amurites and the Clan on the we-are-technologically-backwards-list. (But we have the Sons.) The other number I have highlighted is that someone only has 4 production. That someone is Sareln. His GNP increased as his production decreased, so I think it's safe to say that he is putting all his efforts into getting BW. And he might be building more Workers.

I will be writing Bob a message where I politely refuse him to capture the barb city. I could stall, as you suggested, but I think he will be farming xp off the city before capturing it in any case, so I am just going to be straightforward about our position here.

[Tredje]

Turn 67:

Our Archers moved onto the forested tile 1N of Sareln's second city (which in between turns grew to size 2.)

There is no Worker there, and no sign of one showing up anytime soon either. I therefore decided to send our Wolf Rider back west to see what was going on around the capital. As you can see by the screenshot Sareln has moved his Worker out with an honorary guard 5 Warriors strong. Apparently he wants to improve his Silk again. There are only 2 Warriors in his capital. I decided to moe our Wolf Rider onto the hill next to the capital, since it would give us vision of some previously hidden tiles. There is actually a barb Warrior on the same tile as the Wolf Rider, which could attack Sareln's capital next turn. I don't expect him to cause much damage, but if I were Sareln I wouldn't be comfortable with only 2 Warriors defending my capital.

For the upcoming turns I will try to play a little cat and mouse with the Worker/Warrior stack. I should be able to stay 1 tile away, and pick off a Warrior every other turn.

The capital has finished its Warren. If we focus on production it can actually produce 2 Warriors per turn, but right now we can't afford more upkeep. Instead I decided to start building a Settler. My reasoning is that on its trip to pick up the Sons we can bring a Settler to the Gold island and settle a city. Once we get a Worker over there our income will increase by a significant amount. By the way, does anyone know if a city can be flipped by barbarian culture? The city would experience cultural pressure from the barb city further south.

Here is a picture of the island, and where I'd like to put our cities:

[Mardoc]

Looking good! 3 moves on the Wolf really helps with reaction speed. I definitely approve of the plan to punish Sareln for daring to occupy flat land . Do remember that the wolf gets no terrain bonuses, so the only thing that matters is how many warriors can hit him.

I'm amazed by Serdoa's GNP - I guess he's committed, one way or the other - he has to either conquer or die. Given how bad it is, I'm honestly hoping for him to win, but with massive casualties; Square Leg will definitely be more of a long term threat, assuming we can survive the short term.

I do think that's a good way to divide up the island, and at least the gold makes sense as a high priority site while our commerce is so limited, but I don't think I'd be as anxious to settle the second one while there's still good sites on the mainland.

What do you plan to do with the second settler? I suppose he could just stand around waiting for Galley trip #2, but that's probably a ten turn differential. I would be inclined to send him up by the river. And actually, if it's not too long on the production time, I would probably send both current-build settlers to the river and make another set to finish around the time Sailing comes in. They'll do a lot more good earning money than spending it.

[Tredje]

Turn 68:

On the Amurite front Sareln moved his Worker and all the Warriors back into the city. It strikes me that he may be trying to slowly improve the Silk by moving in and out of the city. The only way for us to stop that is to keep the Wolf Rider close.

As you can see by the screenshot he has upgraded one of his Warriors in Udenarat to Cover, which gives him +40% against Archers. Damn barbarians keep feeding him xp. We really should hold a barbarian convention on the finer points of pillage-&-choke-tactics. Our brethren doesn't seem to have caught on.

I was actually contemplating moving the Archers onto the hill 1N, just to be safe. We are there to prevent him from hooking up the Copper, not to siege the city. But staying where they are does prevent Sareln from moving across the river with Warriors in anticipation of mining the Copper. In the end I figured I would leave them in place. The defensive bonus from the river and forest should stop Sareln from trying anything crazy. If you disagree, please let me know.

Where to go from here?
You are quite right that we could send the first two Settlers to found new cities along the river, and that we probably would have time to get another pair of Settlers built in time for the Galley's arrival. I am, however, inclined to think that we should hold off settling any river cities until Sailing has been completed. At the current point any new cities will be costing more money than they will be bringing in. We have no means of increasing their income until we get Calendar and, further down the road, Aristocracy. Right now I do not intend to actually finish the production of the Settlers until right before the Galley is completed, in order to save on maintenance.

This has lead me to ponder two things: What will be our tech path post Sailing? And what precisely are our plans regarding our Sons?

The answer to the last question is easy: attack someone. My preferred target would be Bob, if we can negotiate a profitable deal with Sareln. Hitting Sareln with them would probably cause a significant delay because of his worldspell. Whoever we chose to target, we need to have a detailed plan. Do we spam Warriors in support of our Sons, and thereby tank our economy even further, or do we rely on a relatively small elite force to accomplish our goals? Do we continue to expand during our military campaign?

This question could have implications on our tech path. If we do decide to build a decent Warrior-escort, do we tech BW after Sailing in order to give them Strength 4? In a war the difference between bronze weapons and non-bronze weapons could be crucial. Or do we say: No, we need to get our economy working again, and head for Calendar/Code of Laws?

Right now I am thinking we ought to head for the economic techs after Sailing. If we don't we could find ourselves locked in a perpetual stone-age, regardless of our war success. I also think we need to settle those river sites as soon as we get Calendar, in order to boost our economy and prepare ourselves for the late game. Besides, with Fireballs and Fire Elementals our Warriors should get decent odds, even without bronze weapons.

I'm thinking this post came out a bit disjointed, but I hope it can at least serve as a starting point for a discussion on our future plans.

[Mardoc]

On Sareln - there's no particular reason we can't pillage off his farms and such, too, right, if the wolf is just hanging around? Just dash in, pillage, dash back out? Every worker turn we take from him is good, plus so is the looted money. At least we've got him reacting to us now instead of vice versa.

I think we absolutely totally must go for economy next; among other reasons, that would give us the option of keeping cities instead of razing everything.

Edit: I don't know what I was thinking, but Education is a prerequisite for Code of Laws, so we don't have a choice there about order of techs. I still think we should go for these first, and finish off with Calendar for Agrarianism, especially if we don't have any Calendar resources settled and ready to hook up (in jungle is definitely unready!).

We need to be able to hold enough garrisons in those cities we keep that Iskender can't do a decapitation strike, which also means we need more econ.

After that, Bronze Working and KoTE are logical next steps; probably Bronze first.

I would like to hit Bob, but didn't you sign a NAP until T110? At the current rate, sailing will complete T86, a galley and the trip will take until T100 or so; well, ok, nevermind, that's timed pretty well if we want all four Sons around for the fight. It's probably worth contacting other players to try to arrange a staggered pattern of NAP's, so that they can't last minute dogpile us; I assume that'll be part of whatever peace deal we offer Sareln?

I did look up one important detail - Sareln can only cast the Lacuna with an arcane unit. If he has no adepts, he can do nothing to stop the Sons of the Inferno, short of what anyone else can do. So actually, I'd be inclined to take him all the way out, right away, while we still think he's got no mages. If we're lucky, he's pushing for Bronze with no more economy than we have, and won't go for Adepts until it's too late. I wish I knew all the little buildings on the main map, we could check his cities for presence of a Mage Guild. I bet if you approach Bob around T90-95 with a comment that Sareln's taking longer than you expected and would he extend the NAP, he'll jump for it!

[Tredje]

I did look up one important detail - Sareln can only cast the Lacuna with an arcane unit.

My goodness Mardoc, what would I do without you?! I assumed they could cast their worldspell at any time, but you are right, they require a caster to do it. That could cause us to alter our plans. Of course, it depends on what Sareln decides to tech after BW; he is only one tech away from KotE, and he should be able to get there somewhere around the time our Sons arrive. But will he head in that direction with a choke in effect? Hard to say. If he does not, or if he has no mages by the time our Sons start arriving, I definitely think we should attempt to finish him off.

I am not 100% convinced about going for Code of Laws before Calendar. I was thinking we would go for Calendar and settle one city next to the Incense, and one next to the Cotton. The incense alone is worth a lot of commerce. We would definitely get a boost in commerce reasonably fast. The question is if it outperforms an earlier Aristocracy, which would take longer to get to. We have about 4-5 farms right now, so the increase in GNP would be higher than what we could expect from Calendar, but not by too much.

If we look at it in terms of beakers Calendar will cost us 166 beakers, while Aristocracy needs Ancient Chants + Education + Code of Laws, which is 83 + 292 +334 = 709 beakers. I think it's safe to say that Calendar will start to pay dividends far earlier than the Aristocracy route will. This doesnt take into consideration that we would get access to Monuments, Cottages etc.

Right now I'm leaning towards Calendar and the settling of two river cities, which are allowed to grow in anticipation of Aristocracy, but I encourage you to argue in favour of Aristocracy first.

[Mardoc]

Right now I'm leaning towards Calendar and the settling of two river cities, which are allowed to grow in anticipation of Aristocracy, but I encourage you to argue in favour of Aristocracy first.

Honestly, that's precisely what it depends on - when and where we put the cities. Under the assumption that cities will be delayed until the Sons are on their way and the Gold is first, Calendar buys us very little, just some Agrarian food at the cost of a revolt. If you're willing to go settle next to the Calendar resources immediately, then yes, doing Calendar first makes sense. In that case, revolting to Agrarianism (and probably Nationalism at the same time) immediately after getting the tech is a good idea as well, to be later followed up by the Aristocracy/Apprenticeship combo revolt.

The main difference I see in the two approaches is that Calendar is by nature a short term boost, while Aristocracy and cottages can sustain us indefinitely.

On the subject of Sareln - don't forget that not only does he need KoTE, but he also needs a Mage Guild and an adept, another 100 hammers for him for the pair. If we can keep the choke on strongly enough, then I wouldn't be surprised if we could make that take another 15-20 turns; a size 5 capital working only unimproved tiles isn't capable of a whole lot, even if he's in God King.

[Gaspar]

That's a brilliant catch Mardoc - though, has someone tested it in game conditions. Both the pedia and manual are inconsistent. I've messed around with the Amurites a bit, but I can't say I specifically recall when their worldspell became available. Definitely want to keep the choke on them, then. Though ultimately, if things go especially well, we could probably take out both the Amurites and Balseraphs with the Sons. Regardless, if their choked to a point where they're restricted to our crappy tech rate and can't use their worldspell to stop us, they're basically just begging to be killed off.

As far as the economic debate - I generally favor the long view over the short one. However, given our lack of GNP-ability, a short term economic boost might be worth it, especially as we've had to detour off the normal path to make the Sons appear. I'd probably go calendar first, then move towards CoL.