Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[NobleHelium]

All right well I don't really know how long it would take for Nicolae or Rawkking to build an army to attack us, but the longer that power graph stays flat the more you should temper your paranoia. Power graphs like that aren't going to break through March of the Trees, 2v1 or not.

[Mardoc]

No additional ancient forests this turn. Settler completes in The Chronic this turn. Provided that the Disciple successfully spreads Leaves next turn, we'll start on a Temple in the capital while it grows. Hash Pipe grows to max pre-religion happy next turn, and will start working the Remnants. After the Hunter, we'll debate building the next Settler for the blocking site or another Hunter/Hawk pair first.

I think this will depend on the results of diplo with Nicolae. If he's on board with an immediate Clown strike, we'll want to send along at least 2-3 Hunters and a Hawk or two. Heck, just the animals might be a sufficient proft - especially if we take a pre-menagerie from Kyan and get to build it ourselves.

If Nicolae's not on board with an immediate strike - well, the fact he built a third city is very reassuring, that took away a significant portion of a potential invasion army toward us at T100 - more if he also builds a garrison and worker support. If there's no invasions on the horizon, then we certainly should look to keep expanding at breakneck pace. And even if they are, I'll admit the primary advantage to BW-first (since we're committed at this point) is reaction speed to a threat, so we can mostly keep farmer's gambitting away.

I almost want to skip the temple in The Chronic, but at only 40 hammers, in God King - it'll be what, 3 turns? That's worth doing.

Anything else anyone might like to know?

Well, if we're going to Mining - when do we think it makes sense to chop the preplaced New forests, to let them eventually grow up? Do we wait for our first Priest? Personally, my inclination is to chop any tile we're not using immediately - there's always a chance of a natural spread, and the sooner the better. If we are using the tile, probably don't chop it until we can immediately Bloom it afterward.

Also - if you have extra worker turns, it'd be worth laying a road to our Gold, so we can have it as soon as possible post-BW. It's one of the reasons for going that route, so we should acquire our benefit ASAP.

And on a totally different subject - what do people think about putting Cartography and Dereptus high on the priority list? We could potentially open borders with Nicolae, trade Ale for Wine, and get a net +2 city size and foreign trade routes out of the deal. On the other hand, that's not progress toward either grabbing land or defensive techs. Personally...I think we should aim to do that at the same point as we run out of expansion room in the north.

[Mardoc]

If we start another game, and I can convince the team from FFH7 to join me, I'd probably be interested.

Yes, if you sign up for 13 (if 13 happens), I'd be a dedlurker instead of an opponent. Just because I *think* that my games are likely to be ending doesn't mean they actually are - I could get lucky and Thoth and Selrahc both die. It wouldn't kill me to shrink my commitments for a while, either. [SIZE="1"]I could get back to painting my Warhammer armies...[/SIZE]

And given the number of times you've mentioned future games to a rousing chorus of 'sure, we'll come along' - I figure your real goal needs to be getting killed off in WW6 and Diplo2, and then signing up.

Which leaves the real question to be simple: What would you want to play? I can think of a bunch of power combos, I'm sure, and the rest of the group can come up with others, it mainly depends on what playstyle you're looking for here.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I’ve finally got a little more time, although everything seems to have been progressing well without my input.

Hash Pipe grows to max pre-religion happy next turn, and will start working the Remnants. After the Hunter, we'll debate building the next Settler for the blocking site or another Hunter/Hawk pair first.

I’d like one Hawk to stay home first, even if we don’t turn out a second Hunter. It looks like we’ll actually need open borders from either RG or Kyan if we want to make any headway on contacting the western civs (more on that in response to Mardoc). That suggests a second Hunter would mostly be hanging around for a while, with only the few animals left in the wild for amusement. Settler therefore seems like a reasonable move, but we need the garrison and worker support from somewhere, and we also might want a city to work on Gilden if we’ve got Archery in a few turns time.

And on a totally different subject - what do people think about putting Cartography and Dereptus high on the priority list? We could potentially open borders with Nicolae, trade Ale for Wine, and get a net +2 city size and foreign trade routes out of the deal. On the other hand, that's not progress toward either grabbing land or defensive techs. Personally...I think we should aim to do that at the same point as we run out of expansion room in the north.

I’d also had some thoughts about Cartography, but for completely different reasons. I’d actually been pondering the possibility of swapping out God King for City States. No doubt the bonus loss at the capital will hurt, but the maintenance on the proposed western blocking city is going to be fairly steep. Open borders will help for exploration (or even maps) as well as trade routes. I’m also not saying we should make the tech a priority, but it has now reached the stage where it has quite a few merits, rather than just being a dead end.

Dereptus, I’m not so sure about. If we had more than one grain, I’d probably be keen. There are a lot of other things we could use the hammers on at the moment, but upping our low happy cap is obviously a significant positive and getting some trade with the Sheaim might help to cement a possible growing friendliness. On that point – we should probably get back to them with something soon.

I think we’ve solidly moved into third place on the scoreboard, and a couple more quick techs will actually have us challenging the Hippus. That will make the diplo a little more difficult, as we’re still at a stage where it would be nice to be under the radar. Hopefully the big blimp at the top of the board will command enough attention that we can keep on flying low until our snowball really starts to roll.


I will have missed a good 10 turns of C&D by the time I can think about catching up. Does anyone actually care, though? I suspect it would be different if I had been carefully tracking techs, but we started a little late for that. Even stuff like city sizes isn’t that helpful when the MFG graph tells you how productive the other civs are. One thing I should chip in, unless I’ve missed Gaspar pointing it out, is that Cassiel’s Adaptive switch was the predictable move to Financial.


P.S. I’ve got no idea what you lot have been going on about in the tech thread!? Any Warhammer interest I’ve had has always been of the ultraviolent sporting flavour.

[Gaspar]

Yes, if you sign up for 13 (if 13 happens), I'd be a dedlurker instead of an opponent. Just because I *think* that my games are likely to be ending doesn't mean they actually are - I could get lucky and Thoth and Selrahc both die. It wouldn't kill me to shrink my commitments for a while, either. [SIZE="1"]I could get back to painting my Warhammer armies...[/SIZE]

And given the number of times you've mentioned future games to a rousing chorus of 'sure, we'll come along' - I figure your real goal needs to be getting killed off in WW6 and Diplo2, and then signing up.

Which leaves the real question to be simple: What would you want to play? I can think of a bunch of power combos, I'm sure, and the rest of the group can come up with others, it mainly depends on what playstyle you're looking for here.

Diplo2 doesn't really count anymore, so WW6 is filling its spot. I expect to be out of that game soon as well, so I can fill the game #3 spot with something now, not to mention PBEM14 is probably in the home stretch as well.

Anyway, I think I'd like something a little less "wait and see." Maybe Hippus, maybe Dwarves (either flavor) maybe... dunno. Would really love to execute a Basium rush, since we've yet to see him here, but that's even more wait and see than we are. As far as a leader, if we do unrestricted, then I'd mostly tailor that to whichever Civ we pick. I think Civ is more important than leader in FFH... and anyway, wouldn't Varn or Cardith Lorda be the best choice is almost every situation?

[Mardoc]

@MBTM - City States could work. Aristocracy is another option, but Feudalism comes with a lot fewer side benefits than Cartography. Maybe this is worth slotting in toward the end of our current tech path, somewhere after Priesthood?

For Dereptus, I do acknowledge it's a lot less powerful with only corn, it would mostly be for the Ale. Which is why I didn't think it was worth doing until we can also trade away Ale #2.

Anyway, I think I'd like something a little less "wait and see." Maybe Hippus, maybe Dwarves (either flavor) maybe... dunno. Would really love to execute a Basium rush, since we've yet to see him here, but that's even more wait and see than we are.

Hippus are obvious. I think Malakim can be good early. Balseraphs, of course, have a large bag of tricks. We could even try Calabim or Clan. I'm not sure I like the dwarves, but maybe that's just the particular examples. Or, well, even the Illians could be nasty, doubly so if they're not led by an Agnostic.

I kinda wonder - just how messed up could we get the Clan to be if we took, say, Tebryn (Arc/Summon)? Or for that matter, Varn and the Clan.

If we consider Basium - assuming the rules permit, we could certainly end up playing both civs; I have enough time to commit to turnplaying either the angels or the summoners. I think Kurios are one of the better choices there, actually: overcome the city limit, exploit Kurio-only buildings, etc. And they're quick off the ground, so the early stuff wouldn't be as painful.

But really, I'm happy to assist with whatever.

As far as a leader, if we do unrestricted, then I'd mostly tailor that to whichever Civ we pick. I think Civ is more important than leader in FFH... and anyway, wouldn't Varn or Cardith Lorda be the best choice is almost every situation?

Well, yes. Top Tier leaders in my book include those two, Rhoanna, Hannah...um...maybe Flauros; there's enough Financial + other leaders around that you can go for civ first.

[Gaspar]

Missed maskeddetective's post as we cross-posted. Just wanted to say I think the C&D is still quite valuable, but don't do work if its not fun for you.

I think I'm inclined to go Settler in Hash Pipe shortish as well, though it will probably have to bang out a warrior or two first, as we'll want the garrison there ahead of time. Definitely leaving one hawk at home as well. I would like a Hunter exploring North and South each eventually, even if the animals are sadly almost all gone. Looks like we have a few dancing bear candidates, at the very least.

I think Dereptus is not in our near future, because we need those hammers elsewhere. Cartography I could be talked into, but after Mining -> BW -> Archery at a minimum, and probably after Festivals/Philo/Priesthood. Its got its uses, but as long as we're at 1 TR/city, its really not worth the trouble. And I think Aristocracy is an all around better civic than City States in most cases.

On the next PBEM game, I'd like confirmation from everyone else they're interested, then I'd like to stop discussing picks in this thread, as potential opponents could well be lurking. No reason to give insight to our future plans.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Mostly agree with that whole post, which basically echoes my thoughts, although I expressed them a little differently.

As said before, I'm happy to help out in a second game. Will put my thinking cap on if it looks like there's sufficient numbers.

[Gaspar]

T79.

Crafting in, onto Mining, due in 2T. After that, we'll spend a turn @0% before moving forward. No additional Ancient Forest spread. The Lizard stays on the marble, no promises he'll ever attack actually at this point. If he doesn't die on the IT, the Hunter will be in, and hopefully he'll get a chance at XP so we can go subdue this:



I flew the hawk flight west, to see if we could see if Rawkking settled his latest city towards us. Fortunately not, but there is a Balseraph griffon on the border there, not sure what its up to, but I guarantee no good. Unfortunate we don't have hammers to spare, the whole Animal capturing game would be more expedited with a Medic unit.

In Domestic matters, FoL spread successfully at the capital, and the Settler completed. I'd love to skip the temple and bang out a worker or two, actually, but we need the happy cap as high as possible if we're going to take advantage of God King much longer. Definitely need at least one more worker pair, particularly as we expand the happy caps, 5 for 4 cities soon isn't going to cut it, especially as Elves.

[Gaspar]

Gotten quiet suddenly.

I sent the message to Nicolae basically as is. I think we need a follow-up shortly re: the barb city. Given the location of San Francisco, I think it needs to be razed, and we can split the area.