Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Mardoc]

Honestly, I think I would swap Education and Mysticism in your tech path. Mysticism has only two pieces that are any good in the early game - God King for hammers, and Elder Council for beakers/running a sage. Remember, God King boosts Gold production, not commerce - as long as we're running a high science percentage, it does nothing for us. Besides, once we get cottages running, that should dramatically help all our future tech plans.

We should be in good shape when it comes to hammers, with all our trees, but in worse shape than average on commerce, due to all our trees. If we discover the Elohim and Balseraphs to be our neighbors, then we can afford to keep shoving BW down the line, and still get Mysticism in fairly early, but what makes all the decisions easier is getting that GNP going strong. And for that, we need Education.

I wouldn't worry too much about the Barrow, skeletons are pretty weak and should for the most part convert into XP smoothly. Even unpromoted Warriors, as long as they have a terrain or fortified advantage, have good odds.

[Gaspar]

Probably I am being too paranoid. Not going to be able to post much tonight, so I'll give you a quick turn report and then I'll add some more thoughts later. I do want to say again how much I appreciate how active and engaged you guys are, really helps a lot.

For the time being, I decided to pop neither ruins/barrow. I'll skirt one scout south along the coast. I reserve the right to erratically decide to pop either at any time, however. The scouts revealed absolutely nothing except a pair of plains hills near Chong in the north, so no pretty pictures this turn.

Elohim gained 6 points to 39 from a pop increase, so they're apparently going warrior first as well. No other score increases. Nothing in the event log either. Here are the EOT demos:



Have at it, lads.

By the by, MBTM, your beaker calculations are indeed precisely correct.

[Man Behind the Mask]

So Gaspar started the thread with Raven. I think it’s time we heard from his arch-nemesis...



The OTHER arch-nemesis!



That’s good, but one little tweak....



THERE WE ARE!

That slightly frivolous start leads us to the somewhat academic nature of our new series:



The point of these posts is to try to put some facts and figures around the “gut feel”, which really isn’t quite as keenly honed for FFH as it is for BTS.

***

Gaspar apparently lies awake at night terrified of flaming zombie horses, or some such nonsense. He keeps muttering about a mysterious “Turn 60” and is petrified that life as we know it will be over shortly after. Some of us are a little less convinced, but we need some evidence to alleviate his paranoia.

I’ve tried to put together some analysis which sets out possible tech paths and timings. Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to play some test games, but I can’t do that at work, and the answers could be scarily conclusive (there’s no fun in that!). So get ready for wild assumptions, illogical deductions, and more than a little theory-crafting. The best thing is that, since this is RB, some helpful person will at least turn up and politely tell me if I’m completely wrong.

I’ve done a big review of the previous PBEM games to look at early research potential and tech progress. PBEM1 is basically unusable because of Stasis. However, PBEM2 has great info thanks to Maksim, and I’ve used that and the relevant updates in 3 and 5. Despite the diverse range of civs, leaders, starts and tactics, Turn 50 generally sees three camps: good techers have a breakeven rate of over 30bpt, with a high around 36 in the three games; middling outcomes are in the 20-30 range (this is most popular, with half the sample of 18 in here); and then there are the unsurprising poor relations.

With the fairly heroic assumption of a relatively smooth progression to that level of output (mostly achieved by adding population and infrastructure gradually), that means we can expect to see our opponents generate between 750 and a bit over 1000 beakers in the first 50 turns. On the negative side, the financial Hippus should be at the top end of that range. However, looking at the positive, we got the equivalent of 15% from one hut!

But what would you’re 1000 beakers buy you? Let’s start with Gaspar’s current plan. I have to say I currently also disagree with this, not least because it leaves our worker with nothing to do but road and farm while he waits for 4 techs to be discovered. Even Elvish workers aren’t that slow. Here is the path with the costs added – these are adjusted from the ones shown in game by any prerequisite arrows (not strictly the mechanic, but you can’t have everything :neenernee ).

Agriculture (76) -> Ancient Chants (76) -> Mysticism (159) -> Crafting (114) -> Mining (159) -> Bronze Working (319) -> Education (223) -> Animal Husbandry (143) -> Hunting (367) -> Way of the Forests (383)

That is a whopping total of just over 2000 beakers. We are NOT going to have a worldspell by turn 50 in this event!

Do we need one, though? Let’s have a look at a reasonable rushing beeline for the Sheaim, who start with Ancient Chants. If they’ve lucked out and have wines in the BFC, and can work an unimproved food for growth, they could reasonably go straight for the zombies:

Crafting (114) -> Mining (159) -> Bronze Working (319)

That is still nearly 600 research, and would leave them behind if the rush doesn’t work. Even with a wines to pump up commerce, it will be tough to get all this done before Turn 40. We should be able to spot this coming as well, because there will be big gaps between discoveries as they go deeper in the tree. A less aggressive alternative would see a detour to Agriculture and Mysticsm at some point, with the latter helping to produce an army. They could manage this total of about 830 research by Turn 50 but it’s unlikely with the minimal commerce focus. Time to build and move an army would still be needed. They’d be lacking cottages and agristofarms when they move out, and will hopefully be delayed by the desire to settle a second city for copper.

Turning to the Hippus, they are in the better position of starting with Agriculture. Their lightning rush is just two techs:

Animal Husbandry (143) -> Horseback Riding (287)

It’s conceivable they could get these 430 beakers in just over 30 turns. However, they’d be lacking anything to help them produce a stables and horsemen with any great speed. Maybe Gaspar is right to be paranoid after all?

However, my review of the previous games also looked at hammer output where that information was available (second cities are almost all negligible at Turn 50). Average output of the capital was 12 hammers (also the most popular result), with an outlier high of 19. The Hippus need at the very least 200 hammers to produce an attack force (stable plus four horses) and can’t use any upgrade tricks. That means we’re still looking at almost Turn 50 for an attack, and that’s one which is likely to stall if they suffer any unexpected losses or we are prepared with a large physical number of defenders.

To try to reach a conclusion…. It looks like the gut feel of Turn 60 could be about right for a very early rush, IF our opponents’ are completely committed to it, have no calls for diversions, and have a start that generates a pretty good amount of commerce. However, the good news is that we should get plenty of warning because there is no way they can generate enough commerce to discover the relevant “rush tech” with any speed. If there is a big gap, and then a high point tech at the end, then we better start spamming defences.

As previously stated, of course, all this paranoia could go away if Gaspar manages to do a decent job in his diplomacy!

***

Next in the series, we deal with another topic where we actually have some facts available. What can we do with that capital BFC?

Addendum: I had a further look at research rates in the other PBEM games. This time, I actually took what techs they discovered, rather than just the commerce (it needed some additional fiddling because of the difficulty level difference). It looks like 1000 beakers is close to the absolute maximum, so it must take a little longer for commerce to ramp up towards the T50 levels than I had allowed above. Something close to 800 research looks a reasonable expectation, although in FFH there are all kinds of events and encounters that can swing the experience away from an average expectation.

It should be noted that Selrach’s PoW rush, which ignored worker techs completely and had a fairly heavily forested start, saw him tech about 500 beakers in 50 turns.

[Mardoc]

Nice post, MBTM. It really helps to get some numbers in here!

So, the connected question, in my mind, is what happens if we cut out some of those steps from Gaspar's current plan? Suppose we convert
Agriculture (76) -> Ancient Chants (76) -> Mysticism (159) -> Crafting (114) -> Mining (159) -> Bronze Working (319) -> Education (223) -> Animal Husbandry (143) -> Hunting (367) -> Way of the Forests (383) into

Agriculture (76) -> Ancient Chants (76) -> Education (223) -> Animal Husbandry (143) -> Hunting (367) -> Way of the Forests (383)
That's only 1268 beakers. Admittedly, it's still a pretty high bar compared to ~600 or ~430 beakers. On the other hand, if we're relying on the worldspell to survive a rush, then we don't need to produce an army, just have the research done and our timing right. We can use the aftermath, while our foes rebuild the armies we crush, to head for Bronze or Priesthood, then.

Alternately, if we leave the plan as is - then we're at Mining to find our copper by a 600 beaker investment, and BW to use it by the 900 beaker mark.

If we have our 1000 beakers at T50, and are making 30/turn, then we're looking at 1300 and being safe by T60. If we're slower off the mark, then, well, not so much. How fast we are to get started - well, that'll depend on the placement of Education in our plan, primarily.

[Gaspar]

I'll have more to say when I get the turn, but just want to throw three things out there:

1. That's fantastic stuff MBTM. Really a big help and helps crystallize a plan for us. I also appreciate you sticking to the episodic scheme. Anyone lurking the other threads is missing out.

2. We should get MBTM access to the save. Makes it easier for the C&D type stuff, and you're certainly a full partner in my eyes.

3. I think the point made by all the paranoia stuff (and I still have to get a barb threat one done) is that paranoia keeps you alert. The difference between FFH and BTS to me, is that you can't do everything. In BTS, you can farmers gambit, because the key military techs early are also worker/econ techs, so as long as you've teched BW, you can slave an army pretty quickly and survive. In FFH the Barbs are much scarier, but moreso, if we went a purely economic/growth start, we'd be completely screwed if we got rushed. What I think we'll eventually fall on is a plan that emphasizes economy and growth, but leaves flexibility to get an army together if need be. The difference between this, and say my ideal plan, is we have to slip Crafting/Mining in early-ish, so we can find copper and are only 1 tech away from upgrading. I agree that if we go the full paranoia research plan, we'll stunt growth too much. More to say on that later, however.

[Mardoc]

2. We should get MBTM access to the save. Makes it easier for the C&D type stuff, and you're certainly a full partner in my eyes.

A fringe benefit of having volunteered to maintain the tracker - I just need his preferred e-mail address and ~5 minutes, and that can be arranged.

I also appreciate you sticking to the episodic scheme. Anyone lurking the other threads is missing out.

Ah, man, now I've got to find something funny as well.

[Gaspar]

Stoners, Keebler Elves and Wrestling. Not to mention non-stop shoddy analysis from a noob player. What's better than the Ljosalfar thread in PBEM VII?



Nothing.

[Gaspar]

Turn 8...

First things first, no additional score increases, so nothing to sort out there. Scouting is dull right now as well, as the terrain is sort of insisting we move 1 tile per turn. Nothing revealed in the north, though we did find this in the south.



In addition to the now skeleton protected barrow, we can see that there appears to be coast beneath that jungled tile 1S of the barrow, so I'll move Cheech SE next turn. I'm sure there's going to be a civ below that jungle, but I doubt there are two. The civ in the S is going to be pretty isolated from anyone but us, if there were 2 down there, the southernmost Civ would be really isolated from anyone else. This has sort of been Irgy's situation in PBEM3 (not a spoiler, since all civs in the game know the general map layout now.) That jungle is going to be a pain in the ass for quite some time, between the baddies it will spawn and the degree to which we will all be prevented from colonizing it. As an Elf, jungle to forest conversion will take some serious time.

[Gaspar]

Thoughts on tech path. After MBTM's convincing analysis, I'm thinking we will have to delay something. If copper warriors are going to be our defensive goal:

Agriculture (76) -> Ancient Chants (76) -> Education (223) -> Crafting (114) -> Mining (159) -> Bronze Working (319) -> Animal Husbandry (143) -> Mysticism (159) -> Hunting (367) -> Way of the Forests (383)

Might be the way to go. The key part there is the first 5. We can grab Education as our next worker tech, and allow our lazy workers to throw down cottages to improve ye olde tech rate. This will be largely sufficient for the Capital, though every other location we're thinking about settling will require more advanced worker techs. This also allows us to react to the in-game situation. If we complete Mining and believe we are in no danger of a rush, we can just skip Bronze Working until we need it, and move onto more economically useful things.

Perhaps it would be illustrative to put together what I think would be the ideal tech path if we didn't care about the early rush:

Agriculture (76) -> Ancient Chants (76) -> Education (223) -> Animal Husbandry (143) -> Mysticism (159) -> Hunting (367) -> Way of the Forests (383) -> Crafting (114) -> Mining (159) -> Bronze Working (319)

Particularly as Crafting accomplishes precisely nothing we need early on - can't afford to spend the hammers on Dereptus, and there are no wines to be seen. Honestly, if I really believed in safety, I'd push it back even farther and rely on a no metal army, going for Hunters, Archers and Tiger Priests is probably sufficient to defend in whatever fashion we require, then we could push towards Rangers for real punch. I just don't think with who is potentially around us in this game, can we afford such a danger, particularly as Priesthood is a lot of beakers this early.

Regardless, I think we'll be dialing up Ancient Chants next unless someone has a compelling argument otherwise. I'd like to keep hashing out this tech plan stuff, however, its the most important decision for the early game and it will greatly impact all other decisions, particularly what the second city to settle will be. Neither the ROP site nor the Cotton/Pigs/Gold site will be worth very much anytime soon on our current tech path, so we'll virtually have to settle the Pigs/Corn site north of the capital.

[Mardoc]

I don't disagree with anything you've said recently. Which is problematic, as it leaves me being boring. . Well, ok, I disagree with you on the jungle - having a nice natural border like that is golden as a late game civ. Anytime there's a chance that barbs will take a bite out of a rush stack, is another reason the rush might not come off. For that matter, any extra reason for the rush troops to stay home and defend instead, is a reason it might not happen. We can handle barbs when they come piecemeal, a lot better than we can handle an army.

So...if I don't have anything directly relevant to talk about, I suppose it's time to start my promised series on Civics and You. Since we're Spiritual, it's going to matter soon enough.

And like any good Civics class, we'll start off with Government!




At the moment, we only have one choice: Despotism. Unsurprisingly, this is one of the worse civics to be in, with very limited exceptions. Yep, + maintenance, with no real compensation, except if we manage to get into a grinding foreign war. At least it's low Upkeep.


Probably the next one we'll acquire is God King. This civic dominates the early game, to the point of nearly being the One Right Choice. Available at Mysticism - just 225 beakers from the start of the tree. Obviously it's an expensive choice, but as long as the capital is dominating our production and gold, +50% is huge. The important thing to note here is that it only boosts Gold production, NOT commerce.

Once we outgrow God King, however, we're very unlikely to want to come back. Maybe temporarily to rush a wonder.


After God King, it's a toss-up which of the next two we'll have access to first.
With Cartography (just 159 beakers from where we are now), we can get to City States. City States is pretty clearly designed for one thing only - maintenance minimization. If you don't want any of the other bonuses, it's a solid choice. Cartography is unfortunately often delayed - it leads nowhere, and its primary benefits of Map Trading and Open Borders only require one civ in each partnership to have researched it. If it weren't for the next option, City States would be more often chosen, I think.

This is a pretty decent option for us to run at some point, assuming we get most of our food from Ancient forests instead of farms. Not until we have outgrown God King.


However, it's overshadowed by Aristocracy. Nearly every civ, nearly every opportunity, is going to want to be in Aristocracy. What's not to like? Code of Laws is relatively accessible, and importantly - on the path everyone will want to take anyway, only one tech removed from Education. Low upkeep, maintenance reduction, and the biggie - turning your farms into gold generating machines! It's just enough a bonus for Financial civs to get their extra +1, and the -food doesn't hurt as bad as you would think, with FFH providing several options to boost farms in relatively accessible spots. And it grants access to Royal Guard, in case you didn't have enough nice things A typical riverside aristofarm is a 4-5/0/3 tile (non-Financial) and you can spam these ad nauseum. Compare to a riverside cottage, which starts at 2/0/2, and takes a long while to get superior to aristofarms. A cottage economy will eventually surpass an aristofarm economy, but a lot can happen to you while you're waiting for eventually.

As the elves, we're one of the few civs that has to think about Aristocracy instead of automatically going here and staying here. The maintenance savings is significant still, and Royal Guard are always nice. The forests knock down the value of Aristofarms, though, both by providing food and by removing the natural riverside commerce. Aristocracy is nice enough, though, that we'll almost certainly want to run it sometimes.


Finally, we have the late-game options.


Theocracy is handy when preparing for war, and importantly - when going for the Altar! Unlimited Priests are quite nice. Medium upkeep is somewhat compensated by the extra happiness, and the XP is nice when defending against the dogpile. Religious Law is an awfully late and expensive tech, though, so Theocracy will be unimportant for a while. I don't expect us to want to run it much, but hey, we're Spiritual, so we're likely eventually to unlock it, have religions spread, and getting XP on a temporary basis can be quite nice.


And, we have Republic. Again, Taxation is a fairly late tech, although not as bad as Religious Law. Since we're going to be running a largely cottage economy, we'll want Taxation sooner or later. Republic is a nice utility civic - a significant happiness benefit, a happiness malus to penalize all the Aristocracy choosers, and a modest benefit to GPP points. It takes away the nice maintenance reducers from the earlier civics, although by the time it comes in, we ought to have enough income to eat the hit. Decent chance we'll end up here as our utility civic, but again, doesn't matter now or for the next 100-200 turns.


So, what's the takeaway here? We're likely to want to switch to God King ASAP, subject to our tech path constraints. From there, once we grow, both Aristocracy and City States are reasonable options, depending on how many farms we have, if we're at war, and how many cities we have. Eventually, we'll have Theocracy and Republic available - Theocracy for military build times and/or Great Prophet pushes, Republic in case our happiness caps aren't high enough yet . All four of Aristocracy/City States/Theocracy/Republic are reasonable places to be late game, depending mainly on the details of our empire.