Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Man Behind the Mask]

We are all indeed doomed.

I'm a bit disappointed with our application of the grief cycle. Mardoc began well with denial, but Gaspar seems to have gone straight for despair. I think anger probably would have been more entertaining. I'm going to focus on bargaining, which we've also skipped.

Plan of Action
Firstly, get on to Kyan and see what he has to say for himself. With a bit of flattery, and an approach of two people playing a game together, rather than two deadly rivals, he must just spill the beans.

Second, we need some more info, principally three things: what NAPs are in place; have the Clowns got access to death mana; have the Hippus got contact in the west. I hope the others have noticed the spike as well.

If we can get responses, then that will tell us a lot about the future of this game.

During the day today is NOT good for me. I might be able to go into some other stuff later.

[Azoth]

I’m looking forward to our four coppers as compensation!

I'm guessing that huge spike was him researching 100%. We are all indeed doomed.

With our luck, we'll probably settle on top of our Copper well before we discover it.

[Mardoc]

I'm a bit disappointed with our application of the grief cycle. Mardoc began well with denial, but Gaspar seems to have gone straight for despair. I think anger probably would have been more entertaining.

Well, the way I see it, we've at least got this much consolation - if the game is this well and truly in the bag before we're able to do anything, it's clearly not our fault :neenernee. Some combination of map imbalance and lair/event luck seems to be the reason here. And possibly the Balseraph neighbors' decision to let them grow in peace.

That means, first, any successes we have we can take credit for, while our failures were clearly just the result of the situation. Second, we ought to get into a second game so we can demonstrate that . Gaspar, aren't you dead yet in PB4? What's it gonna take to clear your schedule enough to slip in another game?

Also - the general RB spirit is that we press on regardless, aiming to accomplish what we can. There's still a chance for us to at least pull an Amelia and impress everyone before we go. One possibility - if someone does manage to declare war on the Balseraphs in the skeleton spam era, that will well and truly crash the Clown economy. We need to be poised to pass them if that happens. Sure, we're now to the point of only being able to win if everyone else does the right thing, but at least we can have more fun along the way.

So - for a while anyway, I'm going to focus on just those things we *can* control - our civ's growth and possible conflict with the Hippus or Sheaim. Those parts are fun.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I’m in complete agreement that there is still some fun to be had. At the very least, I have naming themes that have already made me smile and we’re miles away from the needed tech . I also think there is still a window where the Clowns’ neighbours are much stronger militarily than they are. Those neighbours do need to be stirred into action before it’s too late.

There are lots of ways we could look at our future positively. For example, if the Kuriotates are a force with only four cities, then we ought to be able to come up with something pretty powerful if we can settle the 10 or so we have mapped out. We’re the furthest civ from the Balseraph menace, so we should be able to get somewhere in the tech tree before they come calling, and getting to us through war with someone else is going to slow down their economy. And so on…

Looking at the mathematics, I think I can pretty much confirm that the 109 GNP is the Clowns’ 100% science rate. If I assume they have a reasonable amount of culture (10 for cities, 2 for palace, and a few excess for carnivals, freakshows, animals or an Academy), then that means a research rate about 90. They just picked up another (ancient) tech, so GNP at the moment shows without any pre-req or known tech bonus. Losing a 1.3 bonus from 90 and adding back in about 20 culture leaves a GNP around their current level of 88. He’d need to shift to a few more commerce tiles from the GNP of 56 prior to the spike (presumably collecting gold, so no multiplier/bonus), but I think the jump in crop yield at the same time confirms that (61 to 75).

Even more frustratingly, it doesn’t even look that ridiculous when you ponder the detail. You can get to the postulated 68 commerce in the following way, without any multipliers like an Academy: Five cities at 1c for the center, plus 8 for the palace=+13; 15 citizens working 3c Aristofarms =+45; 3 citizens working commerce tiles (and maybe an Elder Council or two) to make up the missing +10. The Clowns still have five worked tiles left over for production. The only positive with this breakdown is they will obviously have to move away from working farms when they hit happy caps, which will have an adverse impact on their teching. The simple fact is that they really do have so much more population than anyone else.

By the way, I’m really not looking forward to the end of the game and discovering how wrong all my pondering on the outside world has actually been. I imagine a more active lurker thread would be collecting quotes by now to chuckle at.

So - for a while anyway, I'm going to focus on just those things we *can* control - our civ's growth and possible conflict with the Hippus or Sheaim.

In this vein, back to the matter in hand.

I'm not entirely sure what our short term plan is, but I really think it should mostly involving getting cities settled until we can no longer possibly afford it. I'm not an experienced FFH player, but FFH is still Civ, and if I were behind like this in BTS I'd take a big risky farmer's gambit. Go ahead more reasonable council members, talk me out of it.

My one concern with an economy-breaking farmer’s gambit is that there isn’t the same “recovery tech” potential in FFH. In BTS, you can limp to Code of Laws through Currency, whip some markets/courthouses (where slavery came with your 2nd or 3rd tech), and everything gets better quickly. A little bit later on, you can crash again, but struggle to Printing Press and suddenly your cottage economy improves. At any point, the easy availability of libraries means you can use specialists and multipliers to keep on teching. None of those things really apply in the same way in FFH. I’m not saying we can’t/shouldn’t push some REX, but I’m not so sure how to fix the collapse.

We can also only do this if we know we’re not going to be at war, or still think we will be sufficiently prepared. I’m pretty sure flaming zombies would set the farmer’s fields alight, no matter how many pitchforks he waves.

[Mardoc]

My one concern with an economy-breaking farmer’s gambit is that there isn’t the same “recovery tech” potential in FFH. In BTS, you can limp to Code of Laws through Currency, whip some markets/courthouses (where slavery came with your 2nd or 3rd tech), and everything gets better quickly. A little bit later on, you can crash again, but struggle to Printing Press and suddenly your cottage economy improves. At any point, the easy availability of libraries means you can use specialists and multipliers to keep on teching. None of those things really apply in the same way in FFH. I’m not saying we can’t/shouldn’t push some REX, but I’m not so sure how to fix the collapse.

We can also only do this if we know we’re not going to be at war, or still think we will be sufficiently prepared. I’m pretty sure flaming zombies would set the farmer’s fields alight, no matter how many pitchforks they wave.

Frankly, I don't think we have enough land to grow past what we can afford. Especially when there are Markets and Elder Councils to help bail us out. And we'll need Priests of Leaves/Way of the Forest anyway to improve the land we claim, which will give us a small piece of security.

Therefore, I'd say go for it. Grab land, grab land, grab barb cities. With what we have now, plus Fellowship of Leaves and priests, we can turn anything but jungle into a profitable city.

[Gaspar]

I'm a bit disappointed with our application of the grief cycle. Mardoc began well with denial, but Gaspar seems to have gone straight for despair. I think anger probably would have been more entertaining. I'm going to focus on bargaining, which we've also skipped.

Let's be frank - I'm here, we'll get more than our fair share of anger before this dance is done.

Plan of Action
Firstly, get on to Kyan and see what he has to say for himself. With a bit of flattery, and an approach of two people playing a game together, rather than two deadly rivals, he must just spill the beans.

Second, we need some more info, principally three things: what NAPs are in place; have the Clowns got access to death mana; have the Hippus got contact in the west. I hope the others have noticed the spike as well.

If we can get responses, then that will tell us a lot about the future of this game.

I'm a little frustrated at how hard its been to get any sort of decent response in diplo. But yeah, I suppose its time to dial up Rawkking again, as well as push Nicolae to break that NAP on account of the lair exploration.

With our luck, we'll probably settle on top of our Copper well before we discover it.

Yeah, that's a fairly reasonable conclusion. Thanks for jinxing it!

Well, the way I see it, we've at least got this much consolation - if the game is this well and truly in the bag before we're able to do anything, it's clearly not our fault :neenernee. Some combination of map imbalance and lair/event luck seems to be the reason here. And possibly the Balseraph neighbors' decision to let them grow in peace.

As I said before, the one nice thing about FFH is as long as you have enough of the right kinds of collateral, you can get around most anything. So we can probably survive for a good long time if nothing else.

That means, first, any successes we have we can take credit for, while our failures were clearly just the result of the situation. Second, we ought to get into a second game so we can demonstrate that . Gaspar, aren't you dead yet in PB4? What's it gonna take to clear your schedule enough to slip in another game?

The end of Diplomacy and PB4, and you guys to play with me.

Also - the general RB spirit is that we press on regardless, aiming to accomplish what we can. There's still a chance for us to at least pull an Amelia and impress everyone before we go. One possibility - if someone does manage to declare war on the Balseraphs in the skeleton spam era, that will well and truly crash the Clown economy. We need to be poised to pass them if that happens. Sure, we're now to the point of only being able to win if everyone else does the right thing, but at least we can have more fun along the way.

So - for a while anyway, I'm going to focus on just those things we *can* control - our civ's growth and possible conflict with the Hippus or Sheaim. Those parts are fun.

Agreed 100%.

Good stuff

I got a chance to talk to Kyan, and I'll post the log later, but he basically confirmed your C&D work.

My one concern with an economy-breaking farmer’s gambit is that there isn’t the same “recovery tech” potential in FFH. In BTS, you can limp to Code of Laws through Currency, whip some markets/courthouses (where slavery came with your 2nd or 3rd tech), and everything gets better quickly. A little bit later on, you can crash again, but struggle to Printing Press and suddenly your cottage economy improves. At any point, the easy availability of libraries means you can use specialists and multipliers to keep on teching. None of those things really apply in the same way in FFH. I’m not saying we can’t/shouldn’t push some REX, but I’m not so sure how to fix the collapse.

We can also only do this if we know we’re not going to be at war, or still think we will be sufficiently prepared. I’m pretty sure flaming zombies would set the farmer’s fields alight, no matter how many pitchforks they wave.

Well, actually, this biggest factor in breaking out of the economy crash is growing your cottages IMO, and we can still do that. But no question, there is less room for that sort of thing in FFH. And obviously we still need to build military, perhaps City Spam is a better idea of what I'm thinking that a farmer's gambit, which FFH doesn't allow, at least not the way BTS does.

Frankly, I don't think we have enough land to grow past what we can afford. Especially when there are Markets and Elder Councils to help bail us out. And we'll need Priests of Leaves/Way of the Forest anyway to improve the land we claim, which will give us a small piece of security.

Therefore, I'd say go for it. Grab land, grab land, grab barb cities. With what we have now, plus Fellowship of Leaves and priests, we can turn anything but jungle into a profitable city.

Or just at Mardoc, who pretty much said the same thing here.

[Mardoc]

The end of Diplomacy and PB4, and you guys to play with me.

Hmm. Well, PB4 is at least on an inexorable turn timer. Maybe I'll have to look in that forum and see what the latest drama/complaints/arguments are about, to get a sense for how close that is to the end.

Diplomacy2 - well, so long as you don't keep extending the turns ad nauseum it ought to get over pretty quickly, I would think. A year a week lets the game be over pretty quickly when there's only 10ish years until game end.

So maybe sometime in August we can start talking about what civ to try out next . Who knows? Maybe PBEM3 or 5 will be winding down by then, too, and I'll be bored stiff. I suppose we do also have to wait for a critical mass of FFH players with time on their hands.

[Gaspar]

Hmm. Well, PB4 is at least on an inexorable turn timer. Maybe I'll have to look in that forum and see what the latest drama/complaints/arguments are about, to get a sense for how close that is to the end.

Diplomacy2 - well, so long as you don't keep extending the turns ad nauseum it ought to get over pretty quickly, I would think. A year a week lets the game be over pretty quickly when there's only 10ish years until game end.

So maybe sometime in August we can start talking about what civ to try out next . Who knows? Maybe PBEM3 or 5 will be winding down by then, too, and I'll be bored stiff. I suppose we do also have to wait for a critical mass of FFH players with time on their hands.

I'm actually doing quite poorly in both games. I suspect we'll be out of PB4 within a month. Diplo2, eh. Hard to say. And I still haven't heard a commitment from anyone but you to a new game - I'd like to bring the WHOLE crew to a new game.

Anyway, that's all off in the future, there's a turn in the present, which we'll cover in just a moment.

[Gaspar]

T67:

GSage BIAFL.

Score increases: Hippus 12, Grigori 11, Elohim 6

The news of this turn involves Lizards. Our ruins at Hash Pipe finally spawned a 2nd Lizardman, and Kyan's lizard captured the tiger that's been bounding around.



I moved Lanny back into the city, and the worker stack 1W of the city where they built a road for no reason. Only the Grigori can ever take Raiders this game, so no reason to be super conservative about the roads. Back at the capital, Farm and Cottage for City 3 completed, one worker is on the Cotton ready to plantation next turn. Sadly, still 3T until the city gets settled since we have no roads. I'll build a quick warrior in the capital to take advantage of the new happy cap, then onto the next Settler I think, especially since after the Pigs and Cotton are done, City 3 already has all the improved tiles it will need for a while, so the workers can start moving north and getting the Pigs city ready. I'd really like to get the blocking city at the choke between us and the Hippus down soon, but that's going to have to wait until we have a hunter or two out.

We get 2 more hamlets next turn, and then our first village the turn after that. WotF is due in 9T, though I'm going to guess we can trim it to 7 or 8T by the time all is said and done. After WotF, its a debate between beelining PoL or going back and getting economic and worker techs. Also, at least 40% of me wants to beeline Esus. I understand we can't but I just felt you should know.

[Gaspar]

I owe you guys that conversation with Kyan, eh?

[COLOR="Orange"]Kyan: Hey Gaspar, do you have 2 minutes?
promise it wont take longer than that, just want to know if my lizard can get round your borders to the north or not[/COLOR]
Gaspar: hey
There's no current path that would get you through to the north without a wardec - my culture goes from the east edge of the continent to that inland sea.
[COLOR="orange"]Kyan: ah ok
bugger, ok, ill go back the way i come[/COLOR]
Gaspar: Not to mention just that, but there's also an obnoxious mountain range which means you have to pick exactly the right spot to hit the north coast.
[COLOR="orange"]Kyan: yeah, those are a recurring theme
guess chokepoints were the idea of the day[/COLOR]
Gaspar: Be a good choke if I wasn't choking myself
[COLOR="orange"]Kyan: ha
ok, cheers for the advice
you guys are far more conservative on our side of the world
*your
in regards to lairs/dungeons[/COLOR]
Gaspar: well, its mostly due to not keeping anything alive in the blasted jungle
I've popped everything in my backyard
[COLOR="orange"]Kyan: ah right
theres a dungeon and pyre between you and sheaim
oh and a barb city there also[/COLOR]
Gaspar: Yeah, inconveniently placed I might add :P
[COLOR="orange"]Kyan: free settler maybe though?
and it secures pyre for fire mana to deal with jungle[/COLOR]
Gaspar: Yeah, we've debated it quite a bit in the thread, actually. I'm pretty sure Nicolae will get there first, we're still a few turns away from anything that would qualify as a city stomping force
Kyan: gilden could likely wreck anything the barbs put out
Gaspar: Yeah, once we get a few archers/T2 units in play should be okay. Would help if we had something approximating your tech rate.
[COLOR="orange"]Kyan: ha, my culture rate?
check my culture graph compared to others
my tech rate is worse than the hippus[/COLOR]
Gaspar: Hmm.
Might have to fire my C&D dept. He's pretty convinced that 108 spike was something more from researching something @100% with a good known tech bonus
[COLOR="orange"]Kyan: well, boht are true
that was 100% tech (which is obviously not sustainable) on a pre-req tech
but i also am creative, have 5 cities and many culture producing buildings[/COLOR]
Gaspar: Yeah, that sounds about right. Its just frustrating watching you and the Hippus as I have the slow-starter econ
[COLOR="orange"]Kyan: well, with greatest respect, elves were never going to fly out the blocks
look at uberfish. everyone thought ilios had it wrapped up
he had a large gnp lead
but he was in the middle of the map
the elves sat back and did their elven economy thing
late game, they were dominant[/COLOR]
Gaspar: Yeah, don't get me wrong, I know what I signed up for
But its sometimes hard to watch
And uber got a GSage on like T4 which made the early doors stuff a little easier to take
Kyan: that is true
Gaspar: Don't get me wrong, you guys are just an interesting conversation peace at this point. My worries are my own expansion first and foremost, and my neighbors after that
Kyan: yeah, early turns can be dull otherwise
Gaspar: yup
[COLOR="orange"]Kyan: gonna shoot
take care[/COLOR]