Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Gaspar]

BRAWLER WINS!! (there’s apparently not even a Youtube video which really fits this very rare occasion)

I’m going to make the brave assumption that drama is all over with, since Mardoc’s shown that is seemingly mathematically likely . In which case… :dancing5:

The Ljosalfar thread, a.k.a Public Service Panicking! We’re revealing code to the world, calculating likely rush timings, demonstrating how to execute early game extortion, and all at the simple cost of Gaspar’s mental health.

Azoth does have something of a point regarding our next action with the barrow. We’re top in score, last time we looked we were researching the fastest, and our short term goal is to settle one of the “Big 3” unique features. We’re probably not in a position where we need to take unnecessary risks. However, that sage would be nice.

If we’re waiting for later, I’m not sure whether it’s best to stay put to block any spawns, just leave it for the time being, or put a warrior (or two) on the adjacent hills to farm experience when the barrow does drop its second unit. The problem with the latter options is the 75% defence bonus on the fortified forest-hill skeleton when we do come to clear it. On the other hand, we’d definitely get the next adventurer home if we pop it in a couple of turns.

Is Leaping Lanny heading south, or circling back to defog the route to the Remnants?

Agree on most of this. I think we're semi #1 right now, but I'm still sure Grigori got 2 hut techs and that someone is sitting on 42k soldier points. I think that's partly why I wanted to pop these lairs - everyone else is having a good time with it. I didn't post demos this turn, but we're #1 in both GNP and Production, and the only reason we're not #1 CY is because I micro'd not to grow. I wonder if everyone's capital sucks. But discretion is the better part of valor, I suppose. We're in pretty good position and just dodged a bullet, I'll leave Brawler there to heal, and unless I get a rush of blood to the head (always a possibility) I'll park him on a forested hill nearby and farm xp off the barrow until we have at least hunters, if not priests. Might go take a stab at the ruins over by Remnants, however. Its further from the cap, so we have more time to prepare a defense, and Lizardmen are a lot more annoying than skeletons. We have time to make that decision, however.

Just to reiterate, I'm not promising I won't pop it, just saying I agree with the general logic in the thread at this point. I am a bit impetuous.

As far as Leaping Lanny, he's going to be part of the Remnants escort, so yeah, he's gonna circle back. I just figured I'd clear a couple tiles of fog south of the cap to see if there was anything else interesting near the gold to impact dotmapping. Since we can see there isn't, the original coastal version of the pigs/cotton/gold city still looks the best option. I know there's a spider in the general vicinity, so he'll retreat to our borders shortly before circling through to defog the path to Remnants a bit. The rest of the south will have to wait until Hawks. I am definitely doing Hunting after Education, however. There are too many things we need from it to delay it any longer.

[Gaspar]

By the by, might be a bit longer on the fluff post. Further I get into it, cornier its turning out. I think I'll try and do a more serious episodic post later tonight to make up for the lack of it, while I burn this and try to come up with something else.

[darrelljs]

You need to pop it again for sure. Its a classic no lose scenario, either you get a goody, or the lurkers get more comedy .

Darrell

[Jkaen]

I agree, death or glory is my thought

[pling]

Yeah, I only caught up to present day now so the cliffhanger was already resolved ... where's the fun in that? :neenernee

[Gaspar]

So... the people invested in the game are all telling me NOT to pop the dungeon, while the people only reading the game for entertainment are telling me TO pop the dungeon.

Seems pretty obvious I should then pop the dungeon, right?

[Gaspar]

No nonsense today, but still have a turn to play. Little busy over the next few, might take til Monday/Tuesday until I have time to get something beyond the mundane turn reports up. I'll do my best to flesh out the rest of a T100 plan somewhere along there, however.

Score increases: Kyan (19 - land points for 3rd ring?) No others.

Leaping Lanny took one more stride south, onto the grass hill to see if there was anything there. Lonely grass hill in the middle of jungle, with only a gold resource anywhere remotely close - anyone care to wager on copper being there?



And... well... I got itchy. Sorry guys, I just well, felt like we'd spent a little too much time on this to just rest and let it pass us by...



Harmlessly, the Brawler gets his 5th xp and nothing happens. I realize that was intensely stupid and I'm crazy lucky, but eh... too much had been invested in that pop, I just couldn't resist. Anyway, no harm no foul. I'll start swinging the Brawler over towards the RoP site to defog after he finishes healing and go from there.

Here's the demos, since I haven't posted them in a few turns:



We're in great shape there, since we're currently intentionally reducing our crop yield, we could easily be #1 in all categories. Also, someone is up to 50k soldier points now. Its not Nicolae, so I'd be sweating if I was one of the Western Civs.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I realize that was intensely stupid and I'm crazy lucky, but eh... too much had been invested in that pop, I just couldn't resist. Anyway, no harm no foul.

Crazy lucky would have been a great person. This just qualifies as courageously uneventful. You know that darrelljs IS the devil, right? He might not be the best person to listen to for advice.

Looking at the Approval Rates, somebody has a happy cap of 7 (4/7=57%), and somebody else is at 8 (5/8=62%). Unless they’ve got temporary events, we’re going to have to push out that second city to keep up in the population numbers. I’m surprised our research rate is keeping up if people do have commerce/happy tiles available.

Not much to say, as I’m not sure it’s worth a string of posts about the Brawler’s second promotion.

[Gaspar]

Crazy lucky would have been a great person. This just qualifies as courageously uneventful. You know that darrelljs IS the devil, right? He might not be the best person to listen to for advice.

Looking at the Approval Rates, somebody has a happy cap of 7 (4/7=57%), and somebody else is at 8 (5/8=62%). Unless they’ve got temporary events, we’re going to have to push out that second city to keep up in the population numbers. I’m surprised our research rate is keeping up if people do have commerce/happy tiles available.

Not much to say, as I’m not sure it’s worth a string of posts about the Brawler’s second promotion.

I suppose context is everything. After the great Mistform scare, anything that didn't result in our untimely demise felt like luck, even though it indeed was just mundane. I was more commenting on the fact that I knew popping it was stupid. I suppose some combination of Mardoc's Bayesian probabilities and my own personal experience of not getting two "big bad" results in a row from the same lair is what really drove the decision, plus it being late and me being tired. Fortunately, the only remaining lair close enough to be really dangerous is the Pyre, which I am absolutely not dreaming of popping anytime soon.

Nice work on the happy caps. The starts are definitely not balanced, and I'm pretty sure some folks have commerce resources, including Nicolae and his wines. In fairness we've built 2T of a settler and only 1 worker, most folks probably are onto a 2nd worker already, if not already having one completed. Given our early tech path, building a 2nd worker early didn't make much sense, so we didn't do it. My current inclination is to basically go Settler -> Worker -> Worker -> Settler in the capital after the Elder Council, so as to get city 3 up much quicker. City 2 can make use of the RoP and push out the next batch of disposable warriors to defend the new site while it grows. But I'll get a bit more specific over the next few days.

[Man Behind the Mask]

It is, of course, my duty as a dedlurker to remind you that two warriors per city is NOT enough, especially if one city has two lairs in the BFC and Orthus might be bearing down on us in the next twenty turns. But you already knew all that.

***

Anyway, I’m aware that the eyes of the lurking world may be upon us (thanks, Mist). If we can’t bring the drama, then we’d better up the content.

Gaspar is promising a longer term plan, so to help him in his deliberations, it’s time for some more….



The topic for today is, once again, tech costs. If we’re working towards an attack or defence at T100, then we need an army to do the fighting. However, we need to lay our hands on some technological progress to get that army, and in time to produce some units before the deadline.

Here’s a picture of the tech tree that I’ve stolen from SareIn. The techs are colour-coded for cost so you can get an idea of the different tiers in the tree. The state of Elven knowledge at the end of our current plan is blocked out by the black lines. The coloured boxes represent grouped techs that achieve a specific goal.



In elven green, we have our key religious techs, Hunting and Way of the Forests. Total cost (using my usual imperfect adjustment for pre-req arrows to show how many beakers we have to put in) is 686 (367+319). That’s much more for two techs than we’ll have made by Turn 43 or so when Education comes in. Good job we’re going to build some cottages!

To turn that religion into an army, we need the techs boxed in red, Philosophy and Priesthood. Total cost for that beeline is 878 (239+638). So, for a tiger-priest assault force to begin preparations at Turn 90, we need 1564 beakers, or an average of just over 33bpt for the whole period between the end of Education and the start of our war preparations. That seems like a lot now, but a capital with only four hamlets, an Elder Council and an Academy can generate 30bpt on its own.

It therefore looks like a Hunter army with Tiger-Priest support is achievable with a focussed beeline. If we want a reasonable number of priests, then we are either upgrading with cash in the last couple of turns, or we need to head there with few distractions to get them built in time.

Highlighted in blue are the two basic economy techs that could help us along the way. Animal Husbandry will have value for the Remnants site and pigs/cotton city near the coast. Calendar will up the happy cap, kickstart commerce at that fourth(?) city and give us Agrarianism if we fancy it. Total cost there is a measly 271 beakers (143+128).

Finally, in pink are the two nice-to-haves. Festivals would continue to help our economic situation and Archery could make a significant difference in war (not least because it unlocks our hero). They’re both relatively inexpensive compared to the priests beeline (143 & 239).

PBEM2&3 Spoilers (sorry Mardoc)

Our best elven RB history comparator is always going to be Nyktorian because of the way Uberfish got a very early great scientist. Nyk got an army together for Turn 105, but didn’t hit Priesthood until Turn 101 and slaved out a few priests at the last minute – not possible for our goody-two-shoes elves. His tech path did include Archery, Way of the Wicked, and Festivals, so there was some padding. On the one hand, he started with Calendar for two silks which also gave him Agrarianism, but on the other didn’t get an Academy until Turn 96 (we could be over 30 turns earlier).

Of course, Nyktorian was building an army to jump on an already battered opponent, not charge enthusiastically into hordes of flaming, copper-equipped, zombies. He also had the significant advantage of 5 more turns to prepare and slavery for a last minute spike in soldiers, so I’d say our position is a bit tougher than his well-timed and very profitable war.

I’d suggest that if we really expect to fight the Sheaim, then the focus of the plan has to still be on getting enough commerce together to get the military techs we need. A God King capital, and the high hammer site we’ve already picked out should be all we need to produce the units, once we’ve met the prerequisites. A natural break to assess our progress will be after the expensive Hunting, when we should have a better idea of how many turns it will take to get to Priests.