Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Gaspar]

Wow, it got busy in here! Did I miss the cookies?

Good call!

Cloak and Dagger, mostly some catch-up/confirmation on yesterday’s thoughts:
• I’m pretty confident on the Clown cities, as the land area numbers suggest some borders have popped this turn.
• Grigori 28 points the previous turn continues to baffle – they got the “expected” value for the next set of pop points this turn. My best guess is actually Ancient Tech (11) plus a Wonder (17), i.e. Dereptus since otherwise it would show up in the log. This would fit with the Average Approval Rate improving last turn with no pop changes, so someone hooked up a happy source, but not with the change in GNP. By the by, their capital should now show as a second Size 8 city on the Top City Screen.
• That Sheaim power graph does look like the expected rise for Bronze Working. They get 1k for a pop increase Turn 56, then 2k for the tech which takes them back up with the level they had before losing two 3k warriors (only one replaced). Our Hunting tech moves us above them again this turn to 4th on the soldiers’ demo.

Shows you how I can't read demos. Well, we knew they were coming. Good thing we have that NAP.

I agree that our first few Hunters should definitely be out getting us intel and capturing animals, not sitting in cities. I’m looking forward to Gaspar finding creative ways to get their second promotion without wasting the wildlife.

Well, one though is to try and dislodge that Lizardman for the first promo. No way to do that with a C1 Hunter without maybe using a jobber to soften him up first. Hopefully I can find a warrior free somewhere rather than wasting an animal.

In terms of production, I believe your second thought actually points more strongly to the first conclusion. Since the capital is more productive and has a good deal of food, it should be building a settler before its Lodge. On that point, I’ll suggest an alternative of going warrior-settler-warrior to get the site down a turn or two sooner. Capital can easily switch over to the extra warrior if there are barbs hanging around, and the sites are close enough and mostly within our culture to cover both with three warriors for all of a couple of turns.

How about just Settler then? We already have 3 warriors in the capital? Is that too risky? I heard somewhere that Fortune Favors the Bold®.

So this scene played out in my head and it was amusing. I thought if we were giving you a hard time about diplo I could help share the work. Feel free to disregard, as I’m not sure it’s up to the previous standards, and the “PS” might be a bit too ridiculous. I’ve left the important bit for you

Brilliant. I'll get to work on the meat of the message shortly.

And a final thought prompted by Commodore. I have never bothered to check the map wrap. Are we assuming the usual flat Erebus Continent, or could it be that this is actually cylindrical and we can get to the Elohim and Grigori across the ocean?

I'm pretty sure I checked and its flat, but I'm not positive. I'll check today for certain.

I'm glad we've finally made it to Hunting, and that AH is in the queue. We should be primed for some explosive growth in soldiers, happiness, city count, etc... .

Until another Ogre shows up. Not sure if I mentioned it, by the by, but Orthus was killed 2 turns ago. Never found out by whom.

The trouble is, we've been on track for a while, there's no obvious confusion or things to worry about at the moment. What would you like to know? Maybe happiness would be a good topic?

Sure! And to say we've been on track for a while is perhaps overstating.

I'll put something together for the groups approval re: Hippus in a little bit.

[Mardoc]

Sure! And to say we've been on track for a while is perhaps overstating.

But, it's been dozens of posts since the Ogre incident! Sure, it's only been a couple-few turns, sure it's neither the first nor last worry, but peace out, man...

I guess really what I mean is that there haven't been (m)any decisions needing made recently that require additional information. Really the last one was the Ogre, everything since has been normal operation. And the turns still aren't moving fast enough for my taste - or at least the flow of new information isn't. I suppose that will change shortly as our Hunters/Hawks start to gather real, significant info, we found city 3, etc.

If Nicolae's really got BW - well, let's hope both that our NAP holds and that he gets an itchy trigger finger, to go wandering off west . And I'm extremely glad to see him still on only one city; it suggests that we won't have to worry about hordes of zombies, just a few.

[Gaspar]

A Page approaches you in the throne room of Camelot.

“I have a message from our emissary with the Elves”, he says. “It’s a little more flowery than we’re used to."

There is an odour that has soaked into the parchment, but you suspect it’s not flowers. There are a couple of extra items attached, but the message from the Ambassador reads:

“Dear High Horseness,

The Elves have been making me most welcome and comfortable in their fair capital. Their philosophical approach to the natural world has given me an even greater appreciation for the achievements of the humble swallow.

That is not to say that their cultural values have not come as something of a shock, and I describe the following scene to give you an idea of the goings on within the Elven High Council.

I had been called to the chambers of Highest Councillor Gaspar to receive the diplomatic missive which you will find included with this note. Our audience was disturbed by the dishevelled arrival of the one they call the C&Dfather. Seemingly unaware of my presence as he juggled charts, books and a large cylinder with a pipe on the bottom, he addressed his lord.

“Duude…. I think the crazy clowns settled two new cities a little while ago. Their population count increased from 475 to 477. That’s, like, 475 plus one, plus another one!”

Gaspar looked displeased, and asked “Why was I not informed of this worrying development straight away?”

“Dude! Were you not listening? Do you know how many fingers and toes there are in 475?” The junior elf attempted to demonstrate, spilling his notes and equipment across the room. He giggled.

Gaspar sighed, and failed to hide the impatience in his voice as he responded “I think I have a very good idea. Are you sure about these calculations?”

“Well… no. If only there were someone we could ask to confirm this kind of stuff.”

Gaspar shooed his associate away, and politely requested that I put the request for information to you directly, as he had already completed his message.

Best regards,

The Ambassador to the Elves"

PS One of the younger and more excitable members of the Elven Court insisted that I send the attached elf/horse porn. He has requested a picture of the Lady of the Lake in return.

**

Attached to the covering note and rather dubious art is the following message from the Elves:

Dear Rawk-king,

Mostly just wanted to send along a short missive to keep the lines of communication open between our two civilizations. I must confess, I think your Ambassador has quite taken to life in The Chronic, though he seems to have put on quite a few pounds. Apparently the Hippus diet is a bit leaner than the Cheetos and Cola regimen he's been enjoying here. Last word I had from my ambassador sounded like he was having no less fun in Camelot, though I must say I believe there was some discussion of floating churches that really threw him for a loop. Nonetheless, nice to see our people adapting so well to one another.

Information wise, I still haven't heard anything about whom the slayer of Orthus may have been, though in fairness, Nicolae still hasn't gotten back to me, he tends to be a bit slow in responding, what with plotting the end of the world all the time. We've taken to calling him "The Brain" around the palace, same thing every night, you know.

By the by, I don't think I managed to properly congratulate you on the founding of Pramalot, nor your early adopting of your elite farmer economy. Well played, sir. The most interesting foreign news is that the C&DFather tells us the clowns have sped out to 5 settlements already, can you confirm this? If this is indeed the case, I think we're all in a heaping load of trouble already.

Not a lot else to tell from the world of Ljosalfar. We recently had our borders beseiged by a fearsome Ogre named Kont-Check, apparently released from the Pyre of the Seraphic by none other than the feral army of the painted-faces. Fortunately, our jobbers were to the task, 1-2-3 Kid putting Kont-Check down for the count with nary a scratch. The Barbarians are becoming more persistent around here, they seem to have settled a pair of advanced camps in the area. Have you noticed such behavior in your part of the world?

We'll leave you with another sampling of the fine Ljosalfar herbs. If there is anything you need of the Elvish people, don't hesitate to ask. We'll get back to you as soon as I can make them stop giggling.

Regards,
Gaspar, Highest Councillor of the Ljosalfar

Thoughts? Do I give enough info? Too much? Is there anything else I should ask? Enough humor?

[Man Behind the Mask]

All looks good. Only one comment, on the assumption that we want to work together with the Hippus:

The most interesting foreign news is that the C&DFather tells us the clowns have sped out to 5 settlements already, can you confirm this? If this is indeed the case, I think we're all in a heaping load of trouble already.

I think this bit is a bit repetitive/superfluous following on from my ill-conceived sketch which basically asks the same question. However, I can see that you want to make the additional point about this being a bad thing. Perhaps rephrase to something like:

“It must be frustrating to find yourselves behind the Balseraph position despite a strong start. We were wondering if you had any thoughts on closer cooperation to enable the other civilizations of Erebus to catch up?”

At this stage of the game, I believe direct questions in diplo are good. It encourages response and the way people answer gives you a chance to interpret their intentions.

**


Here is my crazy thought for the day, while we’re pondering our neighbours.

The Sheaim have gone for Bronze Working exclusively to cut the jungle. They are not really interested in attacking us at all, but do feel nervous about us launching an assault so are happy to have zombies on the defensive.

However, they are sufficiently far behind and unimpressed with their start that they are planning to leave their cramped corner of the world to the AI and restart with a different civ. Their lucky break with an Academy will help them tech, even if they don’t have much else going for them. That might explain why they seem so reluctant to expand, as actually they’d just be leaving those cities behind for somebody else to conquer.

I can actually see a few reasons for putting this thought in their mind, even if it’s not there already. However, it is definitely crazy. With us, the Grigori and Elohim in play, there just isn’t the likelihood that they’ll generate enough manes unless they absolutely spam Savants in the last few turns before the Pact for us or the Clowns to murder. They’ll need to action this plan quickly, or have an ally in place, if they want Hyborem to be relevant.

[Gaspar]

Message sent with your modifications added, MBTM. Let's see what we get from this round of diplomacy. Hopefully, they don't shoot the messenger...

BANG

[Gaspar]

Got this reply from Rawkking. Not entirely sure what it means, to be honest.

The Rawkking-king looks at the sealed envelope promising "elf/horse porn" with apprehension. "Perhaps...the lurkers might enjoy it?" The Rawkking-king sighs, wondering whether to open it and leaving it closed for the the time being.

He personally writes the reply.

"Indeed, the clowns continue to multiply on their fertile lands. We were alarmed to discover that they founded two new cities in the same year, bringing their city count to five. We thought "more bad news, what else is new" and decided to keep trooping on. Thinking about it I misjudged how important such information is to your C&Dfather, as we have yet to give Sir Bedevere the funds to start his own such operation. We'll get around to it tomorrow...or the day after...or maybe later."

Obviously, we didn't really need confirmation on the clown settling, so erm... yeah. Anyway, it came along with a turn, so that's good news at least.

Score increases: <redacted> 22, Grigori 19, Hippus 16, Elohim 26, Zombies 5

No surprise here, but it was long enough coming that its worth a screenshot:


I dial up a Settler in the Chronic, due in 9T, as well as a Hunting Lodge in Hash Pipe, also due in 9T. I could speed both up slightly with different configurations, but I feel like there's really nothing more important for us to do right now other than work cottages, so I disavowed any alternatives that didn't include working a cottage. We're up to working 5 cottages as an empire right now. Here's the inside of The Chronic's current configuration:



No new barb issues this turn, shockingly. Also no sign of much else. Nobody has founded a religion yet, I suppose a consequence of RoK, which is usually the first one down, not being all that appealing for anyone in this game. Maybe Elohim, but who knows what they're doing over there. No additional great people born, no wonders built. I feel so very isolated. Unfortunately, even the hawk will have limited ability right now to change that, as without Cartography we can't get open borders to rebase him in foreign cities and get a look-see there. Nonetheless, it'll be something. I suspect if we follow the northern coast, a hawk-hunter pair can get a good bit of exploring done, as well as hopefully capture a fair few units for an army. Problem with the animal army is always that they take so damned long to heal. Ah well, so it goes.

GNP is legitimately improving. That rival best CY number is ridiculous. Flood Plains are a blight on humanity. Where are my scorch adepts when I need them? :P

[pling]

Didn't want this to go unnoticed, really appreciate everyone letting us know they're still reading, certainly keeps me motivated to continue the hijinks.

Chiming in to say I'm still reading, and only this thread from this game - nothing to say tho, coz everything I know about FFH I learnt here You can collectively credit yourselves with getting me interested in the FFH PBEM's tho (and with providing lots of entertaining reading in this thread)

Good call!

I'm, er, a little intimidated by Grasshopper cookies tho ... I've got a Monty Python sketch playing in my brain now

[Man Behind the Mask]

coz everything I know about FFH I learnt here

Oh dear. Poor, poor, pling

Got this reply from Rawkking. Not entirely sure what it means, to be honest.

I agree with “erm…yeah… anyway”. I really hope that is just a holding response with the save, rather than all he has to say. Looks like the last time I offer to help with the diplo if that’s the result. The first para is explainable if you didn’t re-link to the random picture I found with “elf horse” as a google image search. My interpretation of the message is “I’m not that bothered with C&D or the fact there’s only going to be one winner.”

I dial up a Settler in the Chronic, due in 9T, as well as a Hunting Lodge in Hash Pipe, also due in 9T. I could speed both up slightly with different configurations, but I feel like there's really nothing more important for us to do right now other than work cottages, so I disavowed any alternatives that didn't include working a cottage.

Happy with limited escort for settler as our super-expanded borders mean that the city site is actually already in Elfland and they also give us great advanced warning on any approaching nasties.

However, I disagree with swapping straight to the Lodge, especially if you’re most worried about commerce. The Elder Council should only take a couple of turns to finish and will pay off by shaving at least a turn off WotF if completed now rather than in 10+ turns time.

Score increases: <redacted> 22, Grigori 19, Hippus 16, Elohim 26, Zombies 5

<snip>

GNP is legitimately improving. That rival best CY number is ridiculous. Flood Plains are a blight on humanity.

Everything is becoming increasingly difficult to piece together, and I think this is the first time all six civs have gained points on the same turn!

• <redacted> points are an ancient tech and two pop rises in their newest cities.
  
• Sheaim have settled their second city at long last, gaining the full nine inner-ring tiles.
  
• There are about 26-28 land area points to dish out between the other 3 civs this turn, for 17 new tiles. I’ll start by assuming that the Hippus didn’t pop borders 20 turns ago, giving a fairly reasonable conclusion that the new Grigori and Elohim cities had 8 and 9 tiles in some combination.
  [INDENT]
• That means the Hippus rise is Ancient Tech (11) and a pop (5, which fits with the sequence)
  
• Land points for Elohim would be 15 or 13 for 9/8. We’ll give them the 9 tiles and an Ancient Tech, for their 26 point rise.
  
• Land points for Grigori would be 14/13. They can have 8 tiles and a pop point.[/indent]
  
• The scores all add up now! EDIT: Thought I had this nailed, but now rethinking.

I hope that is enough new information for Mardoc!

[Gaspar]

Chiming in to say I'm still reading, and only this thread from this game - nothing to say tho, coz everything I know about FFH I learnt here You can collectively credit yourselves with getting me interested in the FFH PBEM's tho (and with providing lots of entertaining reading in this thread)


I'm, er, a little intimidated by Grasshopper cookies tho ... I've got a Monty Python sketch playing in my brain now

Don't admit to only reading this, I might sneak you into a diplo skit.

On the subject of diplo, Nicolae caught me for a chat. I don't really buy much into this, but its good to see someone else seeing the clown menace for what it is.

Nicolae: sup gaspar
Gaspar: hey
Nicolae: finally settled 2nd city, stupid orthus. has ogre been taken care of yet?
Gaspar: Yeah. grats on the 2nd city. Orthus pop right where you were headed?
Nicolae: sort of, i couldn't budge troops else id get forked by a barb
Gaspar: yeah, barbs have been about in a bit more force of late
Nicolae: any ideas of how to deal with kyan? he tried to grab me a few days ago, but i had to run, im interested in potential counterpropositions *run to work
Gaspar: well, he clearly is running away with this thing. hes on 5 cities already
Nicolae: he was on 3 last i checked the diplo screen
Gaspar: the hippus have somewhat suggested that hes bullied them a bit as well. hippus confirmed my c&d of 5. he settled 2 last turn
Nicolae: oh man and i was happy with having 2 cities at all
Gaspar: yeah, tell me about it
[COLOR="purple"]Nicolae: thats completely nuts, and his gnp cant all be culture
his bpt must be pretty high[/COLOR]
Gaspar: well according to rawkking, his homelands are lots of flood plains
Nicolae: is he anywhere near aristofarms?
Gaspar: rg will probably be most able to keep up, as he has aristofarms already
Nicolae: SHIT
Gaspar: yeah
Nicolae: oh right rg has aristofarms, not kyan. scared me fora sec
Gaspar: i think the land in the middle is much nicer than the jungled crap we've got in my mind, the best bet we have is too coordinate a bit of a dogpile as soon as possible if we let him sit in peace to mages, the games over. of course, i dont even precisely know where he is, only vaguely
Nicolae: to my west, i believe
Gaspar: and I certainly won't have anything worth anything militarily for another 20 turns minimum. i have enough to defend myself, but if i were to attack id want at least a good dozen priests + some hunter support. figure hunters should be good against him because im guessing animals make up a decent bit of his military. but this is all theory, im not really sure how we could actually pull something off
Nicolae: ah, you've had word from rg regarding that
Gaspar: yeah, we haven't talked a lot, but hes been keen to let me know kyan is scary lol
Nicolae: know if he's pushing against happy cap? also, is rg's scout also in the area? i think a roundtable discussion is necessary
Gaspar: not really. I assume that hes one of the size 8 caps
Nicolae: jesus, i really havent been paying attention to c&d
Gaspar: there was no way thru for RGs scout without either of us having OB. He's got an alternative route hes pursuing to you, he told me he'd let me know if he got near the area so I could alert you. i never really pay this much attention to the c&d, but one of my lurkers is really into it
Nicolae: lucky, thats what you get for slamming down weed jokes continuously
Gaspar: haha. weed, junk food and wrestling. thats about 90% of the thread. the other 10% is me bitching about kyans luck
Nicolae: me im too lazy and discouraged to pull off any cool micro tricks or elaborate diplomatic plans or lurker post bait
Gaspar: I'm pretty good about updating threads regardless, but I'm quite discouraged about this game. if I didn't have a cadre of lurkers i'm sure I'd be posting nothing but blah turn reports by now.
Nicolae: definitely, kyan pointed out the map was made to look pretty but not balanced. im feeling the effect of it, a good chunk of my good tiles are marshes, and i have a freaking volcano in the vicinity
Gaspar: yeah, my start area is wretched - I've got all of two commerce resources anywhere near me at all - crappy cotton and jungled gold. if I got this start in SP, I'd reroll, not to mention, I'm the "slow" civ.
Nicolae: mine is kinda the opposite, i dont have a single tile that gives more than 3 food pre-agrarianism
Gaspar: and my 2 neighbors are the Hippus and Sheaim
Nicolae: well you extorted a freaking nap so feel proud okay
Gaspar: lol. hey, you'd have done the same in my position. If I hadn't I'd have PZs bearing down on me in about 5 turns
Nicolae: face it diplomacy is your forte mine is sperging out and squeezing out microplans
Gaspar: heh. I dunno if I'd say diplomacy is my forte, I piss a lot of people off
Nicolae: dont worry i never get angry
Gaspar: can happen
<snipped for spoilers>
Gaspar: Yeah, its np. Anyway, about this game - do you think some sort of coordinated action against Kyan is a reasonable possibility for you? I think we'd have to hit no later than T120 - anything after that and he'll have mages. The sooner the better, really
Nicolae: i think the key thing wrt kyan is how faithful he has been about our deals
i did specifically ask him not to touch any lairs, i didnt touch the lairs, rg didnt touch them, you prob didnt
Gaspar: I definitely didn't. I don't actually even have the pyre defogged yet, I can just see the sign from tile bleed and I don't want any lairs popped without sufficient force in the area, even if we didn't have a deal, for fear of something like, I dunno, almost losing my 2nd city to an ogre couldnt have been rg either, his scout didnt get anywhere near that far
Nicolae: and someone lurking me did state that opening an epic lair 2 tiles from someone without warning or permission is a pretty clear NAP violation
Gaspar: Well, I consider it to be such
Nicolae: the big question is, can i justify it as casus belli to everyone else?
Gaspar: well, I think its a matter of who everyone else is but I think when you sign a nap, you also don't explicitly say you won't declare war on each other, its just assumed for the duration of the action that no overtly hostile military actions will be taken
Nicolae: ah, the magic question, what constitutes an aggressive act?
Gaspar: in FFH2, popping a lair on your border is a hostile military action. if that Ogre beelined your cap instead of my city and orthus showed up at the same time
theres a chance you could be out of the game right now. well, I don't know what you have
but if the situation was reversed, theres a chance I could be out of the game right now
im not trying to egg you on, obviously it benefits me to ahve you against kyan, but id feel the same way regardless of who the players were
Nicolae: well, part of the reason why ive been floating the idea of a dogpile in my head is because i dont want to feel how you currently do in pb4
Gaspar: playing out the string you mean?
Nicolae: never heard that metaphor before
Gaspar: baseball metaphor i think. refers to the season already being decided but you have to play the rest of the games on your schedule
Nicolae: sorta fits it
Gaspar: works for any sport really, just baseballs season is extra long, so its more apt there
Nicolae: im kinda resigned to being irrelevant in the long term, sheaim get nasty toys but no guarantee of even reaching them
Gaspar: anyway, yeah, not for nothing but by the time you're thinking about getting Eaters up
Kyan will already have munched on you with puppet spammed mages to me thats the key problem here - basically we have until say T130-140, after that, he's pretty much unstoppable
Nicolae: that and he can prob pump out twice the adepts
Gaspar: yeah, head start + arguably broken mechanic = win
Nicolae: i mean, i get mages faster but his get doubled
Gaspar: right
Nicolae: has rg contacted acal and brian?
Gaspar: no, not yet. kyan has contact with everyone but me though
Nicolae: cant imagine they have real tensions
Gaspar: i wonder how many other favorable naps hes bullied
Nicolae: damn, that gives him time to make friends
Gaspar: yep, and hes the best diplomat at RB I think
Nicolae: kyan was nice enough to offer to help make contact with the others, but i still havent used it yet and im pretty sure he'd start placing strings on it if i call it in now
Gaspar: there's always strings with kyan lol. I'll have hunters out shortly, so hopefully i can use hunter/hawk pairs to meet a few folks
Nicolae: i have been pretty isolationist recently, what with squeezing out my city and orthus and whatnot
Gaspar: both my scouts were dead by T20. I haven't really pushed any effort to make contacts since then
Nicolae: yeah, early exploration push and then consolidation to get your workers/settler out
Gaspar: yeah. I have to build more workers than average, due to lazy elven workers + more time to build improvements in forests. the elvish start is just slow, no two ways about it
I think we've played pretty well and we're way behind kyan and RG
Nicolae: well i got lucky with the academy, id be crawling towards aristofarms without it
Gaspar: Are you going to try and take that barb city between us?
Nicolae: yep, it has rivers for aristofarms
Gaspar: i was sort of hoping you'd raze and replace :P
Nicolae: my capital has no tiles that give more than 4 yield, i cant afford any workers or settlers
Gaspar: sounds like you got the elven start. lots of commerce low food. i have a decent bit of food, but i dont need it. absolutely no commerce though
Nicolae: yeah, cotton barely counts
Gaspar: its a 2/0/3 tile. worthless. hopefully i can get enough cottages up to compensate
Nicolae: shame no elves are financial, and forest cottages dont get river bonus
Gaspar: yeah, like I said, its an excruciatingly slow start
Nicolae: at least elder councils help a teeny bit
Gaspar: well, they got me my academy. im teching ok now, between that and getting some cottages down. it was a painful limp to education though. if I play another one of these I'm just taking a boring aristofarms leaders though :P
Nicolae: im sure you're glad you went edu --> hunting instead of other way around
Gaspar: aye. economy always has to come first
Nicolae: always been the mantra of civ, i did that in my pbem18 game, ioan tried to rush with metal, and he fell behind because of that
Gaspar: yeah
well, unless you're charadon
Nicolae: lol that game was weird as hell
<snipped for spoilers>
Gaspar: yeah, I'm catch some sleep. Let me know if you decide you want to coordinate more closely re: clowns.
Nicolae: will do. cheers, gonna eat dinner. dont want kyan to win 3/3 noob games
Gaspar: lol indeed, see ya round

[Man Behind the Mask]

I hope that’s a pretty positive chat from a long-term standpoint. Nicolae is gonna play his own position down, but it sounds like he is even worse off then we are – marshes . Maybe the elves and demons rampage across the world together after all? .

What other nuggets can we pick out…. Sounds like he got Orthus and the Axe, which is especially unpleasant with blitz-suicide-zombie-splash-damage (Is that the name of a metal band? ). Looks like he has a NAP with <redacted>. There’s no mention of expiry date, but he’s thinking it’s already been breached anyway. He wants the barb city, and he can actually cut the jungle to make it productive. I think we can still get something reasonable to the north, and use our creative bonus to take all the tiles we need, but that’s going to cause tensions.

If he is genuinely interested in getting back in the game as the Sheaim, then we should encourage him that attacking us isn’t the way to do it.

**

Thanks for the C&D compliments during the chat, Gaspar, but I think the ref has started his countout on the C&DFather. I thought I’d worked out this turn, but apparently there’s still a puzzle. In case anyone else is interested, cares, or fancies offering help, here are the relevant facts:
1. There are some pop scores we know for certain: <redacted>=Rival Best 487k (+10k from last turn), Elohim=Rival Worst 96k (unchanged), Sheaim=151k (Size 6 capital, plus brand new city)
2. Only one of the Hippus and Grigori has a score bigger than 171k, since we’re 3rd in the category (this also proves the Sheaim pop rise this turn is a new city without checking the game).
3. Last turn, everything added up correctly with Grigori at size 8 and 5 (337k+90k), and Hippus at 5, 4 and 1 (90k+48k+1k) to give a total population of 1289k, average 257.8k.
4. However, this turn there is a 55k increase in rest of the world population not accounted for, AND score changes for the Hippus and Grigori that look like they include population rises.
5. It’s extremely likely only the one new, Sheaim, city got settled last turn, since the total land area increased by exactly the 9 tiles that the Rival Worst area rose by. I can’t see RG or Brian settling cities entirely within their culture.
6. Based on points 2 and 5 together, the only increase therefore available for the Hippus without taking them past our score is a 5k rise for their third city reaching size 2 (logical after 4 turns growth).
7. However, there is then no way that the Grigori can account for the other 50k move in population. And this is how we get to

The big problem with C&D is that, once you’re off track it gets very difficult to fill in the next gaps going forward. I should have a chance to look at the save tonight to see if there are further clues. Otherwise, I might soon have to put things down to FFH tricks and find another new gimmick