Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Gaspar]

As it turns out, clearly asking for the sub was the elixir to get the save to show up. So I can play while I wait for the narcotics to kick in. If I do something really let's blame the vicodin, shall we?

T28:

Score increases: Nicolae 17 (pop + tech) ; Hippus 11 (tech)

I switched the tile configuration for the Settler, but I had to keep working one 1/1/1 tile to ensure Mysticism shows up in 2 rather than 3. Costs us 1H/turn on the settler, but God King sooner will pay that back quickly.



The barrow, amazingly, is still unguarded. The Brawler can and will pop next turn, unless an animal shows up who could snipe a possible great person pop. So everyone cross their fingers for that one. Can't help but feel like we're due a mistform or some such.

The new warrior, christened Leaping Lanny Poffo, is not destined for scouting duty. However, since we're no longer building the Road to Nowhere, I decided to move him in such a direction so he could defog the area immediately around the Gold tile. Figure that to be important info for future dotmapping. After that, he'll head back home for future settler escort duty.



By the by, when I've SP'd Ljosalfar, I usually just build 2 workers anytime I want one, and have them always work in stacks of 2. Not sure if that's practical here however, but I could see 1 stack of 2 per city, plus an additional 2 stack roving for every 2 cities. Thoughts?

[Mardoc]

As it turns out, clearly asking for the sub was the elixir to get the save to show up. So I can play while I wait for the narcotics to kick in. If I do something really let's blame the vicodin, shall we?

Blame the vicodin when we could instead blame the civ's theme? You're not serious!?!

The barrow, amazingly, is still unguarded. The Brawler can and will pop next turn, unless an animal shows up who could snipe a possible great person pop. So everyone cross their fingers for that one. Can't help but feel like we're due a mistform or some such.

Probably. Either that or Hunting .

By the by, when I've SP'd Ljosalfar, I usually just build 2 workers anytime I want one, and have them always work in stacks of 2. Not sure if that's practical here however, but I could see 1 stack of 2 per city, plus an additional 2 stack roving for every 2 cities. Thoughts?

That seems like a generally valid strategy, except when you run into situations like 7 turns for a farm, at the end of that time we either split the stack temporarily or waste worker turns. But overall I like the idea, it'd get tiles online faster than every elf for himself.

[NobleHelium]

Can't get techs from lairs, unfortunately. A GS would be nice though.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I had to have emergency oral surgery

Ouch! Hope you recover quickly. I sent you some flowers!


Saves tend to arrive while I’m sleeping, but there’s a small chance I can get to them before work on some mornings if you’re ever in desperate need.

In the absence of anything else to comment on, I’m practicing that mysterious C&D business. Here’s a quick run through Nicolae’s score increases (starting with the same 33 as we did)
• Turn 13 (+11, 44) – Tech, almost undoubtedly Crafting for 114 beakers at 9 bpt.
• Turn 20 (+14, 58) – Land Points for first ring
• Turn 21 (+6, 64) – Pop, grows to size 2
• Turn 22 (+17, 81) – Pretty sure this should be land points for second ring (RG gets a bump the same turn and Cassiel one turn later)
• Turn 26 (+5, 86) – Pop, grows to size 3
• Turn 28 (+17, 103) – can only really be Pop to size 4 + a tech (pop growth is quite quick, but might be checkable on top cities screen)
So that’s a 15 turn gap between discovering the techs. He told us he had wines, and we can see from his GNP graph that he’s been getting 13+ bpt for most of that period. 13*15 turns is 195 beakers, which could be either Mining or Mysticsm (191). If there’s no sign of God King, then it looks like he has stuck to the beeline for flaming zombies.

Good luck with the scouting and popping for the next turn.

[Gaspar]

Appreciate the kind thoughts, gents. I am heavily medicated at the moment, so if any of this makes no sense, you know why.

That seems like a generally valid strategy, except when you run into situations like 7 turns for a farm, at the end of that time we either split the stack temporarily or waste worker turns. But overall I like the idea, it'd get tiles online faster than every elf for himself.

I just checked in WB, and it takes 6 turns for a forest cottage on quick. So stacking workers should give us 3T improvements, and seems to be worth it. The reason I've usually stacked (admittedly, my Ljosalfar games add up to maybe 1 game "finished" and 3-4 stub games since I picked up the mod, so usually is pushing it) is because you're generally not growing fast to need lots of tiles improved, more that you need the ones you need quickly. I'm open to conversation on this topic, however, we still have a bit of time to decided. I'm not fussed about the farms, outside of this period, I'd be surprised if we built any additional forest farms.

Can't get techs from lairs, unfortunately. A GS would be nice though.

A GS would be much. much better than a tech. We'd have to redo the gameplan, but that's a sacrifice I'm quite willing to make. Far more likely is an assassin and 7 wolf stack, but you only live once. :P

Ouch! Hope you recover quickly. I sent you some flowers!


Saves tend to arrive while I’m sleeping, but there’s a small chance I can get to them before work on some mornings if you’re ever in desperate need.

In the absence of anything else to comment on, I’m practicing that mysterious C&D business. Here’s a quick run through Nicolae’s score increases (starting with the same 33 as we did)
• Turn 13 (+11, 44) – Tech, almost undoubtedly Crafting for 114 beakers at 9 bpt.
• Turn 20 (+14, 58) – Land Points for first ring
• Turn 21 (+6, 64) – Pop, grows to size 2
• Turn 22 (+17, 81) – Pretty sure this should be land points for second ring (RG gets a bump the same turn and Cassiel one turn later)
• Turn 26 (+5, 86) – Pop, grows to size 3
• Turn 28 (+17, 103) – can only really be Pop to size 4 + a tech (pop growth is quite quick, but might be checkable on top cities screen)
So that’s a 15 turn gap between discovering the techs. He told us he had wines, and we can see from his GNP graph that he’s been getting 13+ bpt for most of that period. 13*15 turns is 195 beakers, which could be either Mining or Mysticsm (191). If there’s no sign of God King, then it looks like he has stuck to the beeline for flaming zombies.

Good luck with the scouting and popping for the next turn.

Great work on the C&D, MBTM! New York, the Sheaim capital, is indeed size 4 this turn, I checked it but didn't detail it in the report. Should get in the habit of detailing everything, you never know when something will come in handy (like this.) I'd say its pretty much a lead pipe cinch that Nicolae is still on the PZ beeline. Since we're the only reasonable target, early PZs = many PZs on T100. (Nicolae and I agreed to inform each other of any contacts, so its safe to say he hasn't had any luck getting west either.) On this note, I think my current inclination for tech is Education -> Hunting -> Animal Husbandry -> WotF, then move ahead for Priests. Reason being, we desperately need scouting. A Hunter/Hawk pair or two will be quite critical for for getting a good lay of the land between us and the zombies, and by researching Hunting before AH, we can start building a lodge immediately, then by the time we actually get the Hunter out, we'll have unlocked subdue animal. Grand Menagerie would be nice, but nothing I'm going to plan on, I'm more interested in the opportunity to pick up a Spider or Griffon, both of which would be quite valuable in any forthcoming military action.

As an aside, since we have 3 themes running through the thread as our Civ theme: , Keebler, and wrestling. It actually kind of works, since sitting around watching wrestling while eating cookies sounds quite like a pot smoking activity. So since I've seemingly decided on jobbers as names for our disposable warriors, perhaps we should name the workers after Keebler elves? Or Keebler products? I can't say I could name a Keebler character beyond Ernie, but I vaguely recall them existing. I also have a quite lengthy post in the hopper explaining how the <name redacted to build suspense> came to be in charge of the Ljosalfar civilization. Dental issues permitting, I'll get it up tomorrow.

[Man Behind the Mask]

On this note, I think my current inclination for tech is Education -> Hunting -> Animal Husbandry -> WotF, then move ahead for Priests.

Interesting thinking on Hunting before AH. It did strike me that a dancing bear in a “Pyre” city would pretty much destroy any chance of Nicolae winning a culture battle. A hunter or two could help clear lairs near the Remnants to get their early XP without “wasting” animals. I can get behind that plan, but I am worried that Hunting is a very expensive tech while our cottages are immature.

I'm more interested in the opportunity to pick up a Spider or Griffon, both of which would be quite valuable in any forthcoming military action.

We know there is a spider south/southwest of the capital (Nicolae said one ate his scout), and a location for the scout/Bahemet consumer (who’ll be well promoted). I’d be interested to hear your views on how invisible hidden-nationality units fit into the “aggression” aspect of NAPs? In an actual war scenario, sacrificing an invisible blocker a tile in front of our stack to protect from splash damage would be fun!

[Mardoc]

That's a good point that just because we have Hunting doesn't mean we have Hunters. Especially given that they're be in competition with settler/worker/warrior builds as we try to expand. Really, once we've got Education and WoTF, we've got the basics. Everything after that is a supplement.

Another possibility for Spiders - you can eventually settle them for Silk! Given how poor our happiness cap looks to be otherwise, I'd be strongly inclined to settle at least one. I don't expect them to be all that much use in war, except before our target gets Hunting. Which, come to think of it, may be a while, particularly if he's going BW straight up. Oh, *cough*, I mean, any hypothetical target *cough* *cough* .

[Azoth]

Great work on the C&D, MBTM! New York, the Sheaim capital, is indeed size 4 this turn, I checked it but didn't detail it in the report. Should get in the habit of detailing everything, you never know when something will come in handy (like this.) I'd say its pretty much a lead pipe cinch that Nicolae is still on the PZ beeline. Since we're the only reasonable target, early PZs = many PZs on T100. (Nicolae and I agreed to inform each other of any contacts, so its safe to say he hasn't had any luck getting west either.) On this note, I think my current inclination for tech is Education -> Hunting -> Animal Husbandry -> WotF, then move ahead for Priests. Reason being, we desperately need scouting. A Hunter/Hawk pair or two will be quite critical for for getting a good lay of the land between us and the zombies, and by researching Hunting before AH, we can start building a lodge immediately, then by the time we actually get the Hunter out, we'll have unlocked subdue animal. Grand Menagerie would be nice, but nothing I'm going to plan on, I'm more interested in the opportunity to pick up a Spider or Griffon, both of which would be quite valuable in any forthcoming military action.

Yikes! If Nicolae is beelining zombies (and it certainly looks like it!) then you need to take the safest, most direct route to FoL possible. Hunting --> AH --> WotF makes sense to me. I'd still argue that you should pick up Calendar/Festivals and maybe Crafting/Mining before Priesthood, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

[Mardoc]

Yikes! If Nicolae is beelining zombies (and it certainly looks like it!) then you need to take the safest, most direct route to FoL possible. Hunting --> AH --> WotF makes sense to me. I'd still argue that you should pick up Calendar/Festivals and maybe Crafting/Mining before Priesthood, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Well, we do have a T100 NAP with him. I think we can even trust him to keep it, he's no Kyan.

[Azoth]

Well, we do have a T100 NAP with him. I think we can even trust him to keep it, he's no Kyan.

Oh, I agree. But Crafting --> Mining is a very aggressive Sheaim opening. Crafting makes sense for Wines. But Mining before Mysticism or Agriculture? That means trouble: we'll want Hunters/Hawks in the field ASAP. Though now that I think of it, slipping Calendar/Festivals after Animal Husbandry might work, so long as we get WotF before T100. Gaspar, I think your intuition here was correct. IF we plan to use March of the Trees around T100, then it makes sense to delay WotF in favour of other techs because any early Ancient Forest growth will be lost, whereas an early Market (say) will keep making money.