Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Mardoc]

Now hang on, Kyan can't be simultaneously murdering Sheaim soldiers and sweet talking him into blaming us for it. And...I can't help but think you'd most of all want Kyan to be a bit *closer*, so you could be plotting your first war against him instead of the Sheaim .

I do have to agree, under most circumstances it's not worth single revolting to Agrarianism, Spiritual excepted, which gives hope for our eventual victory over the corpse people. But for now, a mostly farmer's gambit is the order of the day. I don't object to some more warriors, certainly, but don't put off the next Elder Council (and probably Granary, without food surplus and with an expanded happy cap, we'll want it) too long.

[Gaspar]

Now hang on, Kyan can't be simultaneously murdering Sheaim soldiers and sweet talking him into blaming us for it.

Clearly you've never done diplo with Kyan before. In PBEM12 we basically were plotting Kyan's demise from T1, and he still very nearly talked me into allying with him and going on a murderous world tour. Only my affection for Tredje really stopped me. He's like LP without the condescension. If Nicolae isn't in his pocket within 2 chats (another Kyan trick, he always tries to pull you into a chat, where your guard is more likely to be down, rather than an email exchange, where you can carefully craft a response) I'll eat my *pimp* hat.

And...I can't help but think you'd most of all want Kyan to be a bit *closer*, so you could be plotting your first war against him instead of the Sheaim .

Well, the Balseraphs make a more inviting target for early war, but I'd actually much rather share geographical borders with the Grigori or Elohim. I have no interest in fighting before the Elven economy gets going. What I really don't want is both the Sheaim, who must be attacked on offense because PZ's are unstoppable if you sit in cities and the Balseraphs, who have so many toys come mid-late game that they pretty nearly must be snuffed in the cradle nearby. I don't think Kyan is close however, the map as we've seen it makes me believe Nicolae and us are quite isolated. Perhaps everyone is isolated in pairs, I don't know, but I still don't think Kyan is close. Which is probably for the best, given the Sheaim situation.

I do have to agree, under most circumstances it's not worth single revolting to Agrarianism, Spiritual excepted, which gives hope for our eventual victory over the corpse people. But for now, a mostly farmer's gambit is the order of the day. I don't object to some more warriors, certainly, but don't put off the next Elder Council (and probably Granary, without food surplus and with an expanded happy cap, we'll want it) too long.

A lot has to do with what Kyan's exploring unit is and what type of tack he takes. He knows there's no love lost between us, so I doubt he's going to come bearing good tidings. The smart thing for us really is to ally and take out the rest of the world, then battle in the end-game, since we're probably the civs strongest in the endgame, but as I said, given my lack of trust of him to keep his word, that won't be happening here. Nothing wrong with being a pragmatist, except everyone knows you're a pragmatist.

Anyway, I think something like Warrior -> Warrior -> Elder Council -> Worker is probably what I'm thinking for City 2 (I'm tentatively planning on calling it Hash Pipe, after the Weezer song, in the interest of maintaining musical stoner references. Voting is still quite open, however.) But if Kyan comes with a couple of well-promoted Lizards and a Bear or something, its going to be revolt to Nationhood and spam warriorpults for a little bit at both cities.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Lots of chat about the Clown Team. To summarise… you believe Kyan is opportunistic, manipulative, out for himself? Something like this?


So we need our own role model. A natural enemy for Kyan. Preferably someone with a reputation for being bad-tempered. This should do nicely!

Anyway, I think something like Warrior -> Warrior -> Elder Council -> Worker is probably what I'm thinking for City 2 (I'm tentatively planning on calling it Hash Pipe, after the Weezer song, in the interest of maintaining musical stoner references. Voting is still quite open, however.) But if Kyan comes with a couple of well-promoted Lizards and a Bear or something, its going to be revolt to Nationhood and spam warriorpults for a little bit at both cities.

I’d like to point out the impending arrival of an axe-wielding barbarian as another potential issue in your worker-spam plan.

Going back to the turn, and Nicolae’s power loss. Very pleased to see his hammers disappearing like that. I’d guess there’s a fair chance this is a double-warriorpult to take out a barrow/ruin, clearing a plot for the first expansion city. He should just man-up and settle in the lizard’s face!

[Gaspar]

Lots of chat about the Clown Team. To summarise… you believe Kyan is opportunistic, manipulative, out for himself? Something like this?


So we need our own role model. A natural enemy for Kyan. Preferably someone with a reputation for being bad-tempered. This should do nicely!



I’d like to point out the impending arrival of an axe-wielding barbarian as another potential issue in your worker-spam plan.

Going back to the turn, and Nicolae’s power loss. Very pleased to see his hammers disappearing like that. I’d guess there’s a fair chance this is a double-warriorpult to take out a barrow/ruin, clearing a plot for the first expansion city. He should just man-up and settle in the lizard’s face!

Oooh. I sense a definite thread meme being born. Though I think I have something planned which might have to give different roles to myself and Kyan to fit in with the roles I intend to give the rest of the team. Clearly we need a stable. [The long awaited post will arrive eventually, I swear.] Now just to decide whether Nicolae gets this, based on his Civ choice:



Or this, based on what I perceive to be much more realistic to his overall position in the game:



Brilliant work, MBTM.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I’m trying hard to avoid too much wrestling in the thread as I’m pretty sure it might turn a lot of people off, and gives a very false impression of my actual current interest in sports-entertainment. However, for the second time today, I just couldn’t resist….

What do you do when something fails miserably, to the point where it would be embarrassing to carry on? New gimmick!



In the last episode of the series which we’ll never ever refer to again, I floated an issue which would cause even the greatest minds a problem. Now that we’ve got all the demos filled in, I can answer that question, and also confirm some other stuff we know about the world.

Between Turn 32 leaving us and Turn 33 arriving, the Grigori dropped one point in population, from 4 to 3. This should reverse the 6 point score increase they had on Turn 26. However, at the same time their pop was dropping, their score actually improved by 6 points (causing me a lot of confusion ). That means that at Turn 33, they actually picked up their fifth new tech, for a 12 point rise to offset some of the drop. To confirm this, when they got their next pop on Turn 38, it was 6 points. Mystery solved!!

I don’t know if there are pop-for-tech events? It did set them back a bit, though, as they haven’t picked up any more technologies in the 10 subsequent turns, and they’ve only just pulled ahead of us in number of worked tiles.

Resolving that one big issue means I’m in a position to report on the population status for all of our opponents (without appropriate pictures at this time ).
• Balseraphs – Settled a second city on Turn 33 (which gained the full 9 new tiles at first but only 10 for second ring). They just settled a third city, making them the leaders on the population score with cities at size 6, 3 and 1 (172=150+21+1).
• Hippus – Settled their second city on Turn 35, but didn’t add a full allocation of first ring tiles. They now have cities at size 5 and 3.
• Grigori – planted their second city on Turn 40, and now have cities at size 6 and 1.
• Elohim – catching up from their slow start, with a city settled on Turn 40. They have size 4 and 1 settlements.
• Sheaim – Nicolae persists with the single size 5 city.

This also means that at Turn 38 and 39, the Elohim probably did get two techs in two turns. The Grigori continued to cause problems by getting two pop growths for the turn they settled the second city. The Clowns did the same with their third plant last turn (don’t think it’s 3 techs in 5 turns).

I hope that is all much more conclusive and much more correct! It will be easier to track things going forward now we’ve put together some of the past.

[Mardoc]

I don't think there's a pop for tech event, I haven't run into one, but there are certainly straight up minus-pop events. Usually can be countered if you have body mana or life mana, depending on the details.

[Gaspar]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure someone reading this thread thinks I actually watch wrestling, which would be quite incorrect at this point. Still, I'm quite enjoying it, so please do keep up the electrifying work.

The C&D work definitely makes me feel we're behind the curve. Kyan has clearly been able to expand darn near like its BTS here, while we've maybe been overly cautious. I suppose I didn't quite account well enough for difficultly level. Certainly makes me think we'll need to amend some plans and get the 2nd settler out much quicker. Also makes me feel rather annoyed that the terrain means settling city two will take so long. Regardless, good work MBTM.

[Gaspar]

Aggresive persona... check.
Quite willing to screw over a struggling neighbour.. check
Making competitors aware of it... check

Phew. No need for me to do diplo tonight!

Don't follow that link Mardoc or Azoth, its hrom the PBEM6 lurker thread. It was in response to a post I made advocating aggressive behavior in a hypothetical situation.

It appears my grudge with Kyan is not in fact one-sided. I really had to restrain myself from another aggressive response because I wanted to get the input from you guys first. Given we've established Kyan has had a much better open than we have, I'd like to see the situation surrounding our contact before pushing it, but I'm inclined to just go heel on him and be done with it. Lets face it, Kyan and I are highly unlikely to ever be allies.

Won't see the save gir several hours, so if Mardoc us around and wants to pop it open and postulate, I'd be amenable to that.

[Mardoc]

I'd like to see the situation surrounding our contact before pushing it, but I'm inclined to just go heel on him and be done with it. Lets face it, Kyan and I are highly unlikely to ever be allies.

Won't see the save gir several hours, so if Mardoc us around and wants to pop it open and postulate, I'd be amenable to that.

Um...what contact? I open the save, and it looks like another 'press enter' turn, really. Certainly there's still a little ? next to Clown King.

Edit: Maybe he's intending Nicolae to see that post and become aggressive?

[Gaspar]

Um...what contact? I open the save, and it looks like another 'press enter' turn, really. Certainly there's still a little ? next to Clown King.

Edit: Maybe he's intending Nicolae to see that post and become aggressive?

Entirely possible. Regardless, I guess we can get a sense of what diplo with Kyan might be like. I think I'll make a little post over there directing the others in this game to PBEM17 as a tit-for-tat. I wish I were taunting from more of a position of strength, but the clowns start has been fantastic. Kyan is just better at Civ than me, there's little I can do about that, but I think we might want to up the farmer's gambit voltage a little bit. Still have 3T before we have to make the next big decision, and since Hunting doubles as an econ tech for us, I doubt there's a compelling reason for deviating from that. I think we need to get a short-term commerce site settled sooner than our original plan allowed though. I really wish we had a real commerce special at our start though, especially since I'm pretty sure others have one, but nothing can be done about that now. Thoughts?

Score increases this turn: Hippus, 5.

I did the same dances with the jobbers as we've been doing - Brawler moving back towards the city center and Leapin' Lanny dancing between the forested hill and getting vision on the Polar Bear.



Demos - still not pretty.



By the by, there are three size 6 cities now, so either other have Unique Features or others have happiness resources hooked up. I suppose we have to seriously discuss two things - the now to T100 plan, and the long term endgame plan. I'm really going to have to buddy up with either Rawkking or mackoti to have a chance against Kyan, so I really need diplomatic contact yesterday. Brian and Nicolae, I suspect, are a bit overmatched here.