Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Gaspar]

*talks like crazy person to self in formerly crowded room*

Okay - so Rawkking and Nicolae appear willing to give us what we want, at least to a reasonable extent, so I'm inclined to agree to both deals, even if I don't love the Nicolae map trade. The better question here is... does anybody have a plan? I certainly have been prodding for someone to hit the clowns before its too late, but it appears that Kyan quite literally bullied everyone but me by now. Nicolae directly mentioned this earlier and RG finally confirmed this last email. The allusion to a water mana trade from Brian - one wonders if he was bullied or just stupid? (No offense, Brian, but there's no reason to help the clowns, especially when you're the one with the broken defensive world-spell.) I wonder why he never tried bullying me? I'd never have agreed a long NAP with him, I'd take my chances on his attack, but I guess I have the benefit of Geography.

So what are these guys hoping for, really? Its T109. Kyan has at least 30 turns of Golden Age left. By that time he'll easily have all the key Arcane techs. I dunno - help me out here guys. Does anyone have a tactical plan for a combined effort on T150 for an opponent with vastly superior tech and production? MotT will do nothing against him, he's too far away. I expect the best units I'll be able to field at that point to be a collection of priests and maybe Rangers if we head in that direction. I'll assume Rawkking gets himself an assortment of Chariots and HAs to warcry, along with Cultists. And Nicolae still has the ubiquitous PZ, perhaps in 30T the first few mages rolling off the line? That doesn't sound like a winning effort.

Assassins, which would normally be my unit of choice to handle an Arcane army, will just get bogged down in puppets, no?

I'd really like to make a suggestion in my return emails, so I'm hoping someone has an idea. Because I don't like our odds of completing the tower in 30T.

[Man Behind the Mask]

*talks like crazy person to self in formerly crowded room*

Gaspar, do you want walls of text or someone to do your dirty work like sandboxes and C&D? Most of this was written before your latest post, so doesn’t touch on the issues you’ve raised, I’m afraid.

Oh! I knew there was a piece of news left! MBTM has sharpened up his sandbox to the point where he believes it ready as it will ever be.

I think I’d say it’s done to the limits of my time and skill. There were some issues with using this as a “starting position” which someone more skilled in Worldbuilder might be able to fix, and there were some odd things like resources not seeming to connect. Hopefully Gaspar can iron these out. Given that the intention is to get a general sense of timing and relativity, I don’t think it needs to be perfect. We just need to get a general idea of the quickest win condition, whether it’s a minimum of 50 or 100 turns away, and then the sandbox might help refine the quickest way to get there.

Trade ought to be fairly accessible from Writing, I think we need only HBR or Sailing to unlock it, both of which are good eventually. Now that we've got foreign trade, an extra trade route/city will be worth at least 14 gpt - more if we decide to run Foreign Trade instead of Agrarianism (probably not worth it, but it is an option). More than that - this is a bonus that doesn't require any hammers, unlike taking advantage of AV.

On this line of thinking, Sanitation is another tech which has a payoff without requiring any hammers. We can go there directly, or via masonry-construction.

If Kyan goes for skeleton spam - well, we know Nicolae already has an Adept, maybe he'll make it to Mages in time - in which case I don't see a downside to offering him a Life loan, too. It's not like we'll be running many/any undead ourselves against the Sheaim.

Quick reminder of the bad news. Azoth discovered upthread that Destroy Undead has no effect on skeletons that have been summoned by a puppet.

We really need those fast priests, so I plan to stay in God King a bit longer. Right now, switching to City States would save us 5 GPT in civic maintenance, plus I'm sure some more in distance maintenance.

I had a look at this the turn before last (so we’ve added a city since then). The Chronic is actually such a commerce powerhouse (and our breakeven rate falling) that the gold bonus from God King and the maintenance savings from City States just about evened out. I suspect from a purely monetary perspective, leaving God King will really pay off once we take the barb city.

Stream of consciousness thoughts on the sudden diplo rush:

- I have to say kudos to Kyan for the forward thinking to include mana loans in his original extortion. He really did have this game sewn up very early!

- The idea of the Elohim and Grigori fighting (particularly with Sanctuary in play) is absurd. It also suggests one or both have NAPs with the Clowns. Maybe Nicolae is suddenly keen on a dogpile because he’s worked out that he’s first on the Balseraph’s list?

- I’d wondered where all the Pyre Zombies wandered off to, so it’s interesting to see Nicolae is going to nab another barb city. If he is serious about attacking Kyan, then the experience on his units will be handy. It’s now worth zooming in on his cities occasionally looking for Planar Gates since he has KotE. I presume AV is in his plans soon to pump up the Counter.

- My one paranoid thought is their sudden interest in a dogpile might not be directed towards the Clowns (if they actually both have a NAP) and that this is just subterfuge. They’re asking about map trades to see our lands, and Nicolae is fishing about our readiness by questioning Priest production. RG is even asking for info about coastal cities that he can then hit with Cultists. I should probably go catch up with the Werewolf game where this kind of over-thinking would be an asset.

So the turn itself is here, and we're welcomed by the birth of our first Priest of Leaves, Hulk Oaken.

And finally, I’ve got a couple more! Pear-y Saturn, Rey Wisteria Jr..

[Gaspar]

Okay, took a look over it and made a couple tweaks. Tried everything I could to get Tebryn to trade us wine, but he's just not having it. G'luck if someone else can figure it out. Nonetheless, I believe I resolved the resource issue. So here it is - can everyone still do the test they signed up for? And hopefully take decent notes, particularly on tech path.

Sandbox

[Azoth]

Hey, everyone. I'm sorry I haven't been around much recently.
Once the summer ends, I get real busy.
I'll take a look at the sandbox this weekend.
(I think I volunteered to try Culture Victory by slider.)

As for military tactics, the one right path to victory in FFH is to hit your opponent before he hits you. No matter the relative technology and production level, if you can isolate an enemy stack, fire away with your collateral, send in the disposable summons, then clean up with your remaining units, you win. That is what we should aim for. We should build a few Ritualists and as many Priests of Leaves as possible, for disposable Tiger summons. Rawwking should build a few Cultists and Body I adepts, along wiht as many Horse Archers as possible, for a highly mobile clean up crew. And Nicolae should build as many Mobility promoted Pyre Zombies as possible, as our main source of collateral damage. Destroy Undead only works within a two tile radius, so as long at the Zombies are kept at least three tiles away, they should be safe. Ritualists can do the first ~40% damage and Pyre Zombies can take care of the rest. If we fight in friendly territory with a solid road network, we should have the mobility advantage; and with enough Zombies, we can destroy entire stacks outright.

[Gaspar]

Just a quick report as the turn came in early:

Kyan has built Gibbon already. REALLY hide the women and children though. I agreed OB with Rawkking, I think we should detour quickly for Sailing first and THEN grab Masonry for the Marble. Won't have the Library's built for GL anyway, even if we do want to try for it. When Paradise City grows next turn, I'll hire a scientist to speed up the next GP. AV spread in Rainy Day Women already - its just so damned easy to spread that religion. Hoping the soon to be trade routes results in a couple AV spreads to Rawkking as well. Going to be a real beaker maker when the Shrine gets up.

[NobleHelium]

Cultural victory sucks ass in general and is ridiculously hard in FFH. That is all.

Oh and you really should tech AV regardless. Need faster teching ability, and adepts could potentially Spring those desert tiles if we can get water from the Elohim (although researching Elementalism wouldn't cost much I don't think).

Oh and for the sandbox if you want to simulate having wine just put it in one of our nonworkable tiles and put a winery/road on it. No need to try to get it from the AI.

[Mardoc]

Oh and you really should tech AV regardless. Need faster teching ability, and adepts could potentially Spring those desert tiles if we can get water from the Elohim (although researching Elementalism wouldn't cost much I don't think).

Agreed - I just don't think so yet. We don't get anything from AV until we can spare hammers.

Sailing's probably a good idea, we've already maxxed our trade with Nicolae. Masonry - well, I suppose it's cheap. And if we go Culture we'll want it, anyway. Personally I'd delay it a tad bit.

On PoL - make sure to get our western cities Bloomed! Those are the ones that really need the bonus food, and the sooner we start the sooner that can happen.

If Kyan has water mana - maybe it's not for springing. Maybe it's for Gibbon. Water elementals out the wazoo. I think Azoth's right, though, as long as you can hit first you can win, almost regardless of what you're fighting. Which means, suggest horse archer and assassins anyway, I think. Kill Kyan's cities, or Gibbon's puppets, and the whole edifice crumbles.

[Gaspar]

This came in overnight. I'm inclined to do the map trade, but I figured I'd give a few for objections:

Sup Gaspar,

Gibbon is out for Kyan. It should have more than enough xp for the summon spam of choice, probably water elementals. I hope this scares you as much as it scares me.

I also made a map trade request because I'm not receiving any trade income from you, because I lack vision of any of your cities. I'm basically squeezing out any spare cent of income to crawl towards sorcery, so anything that helps me helps you take down the clowns.

Cheers,
Nic

[Man Behind the Mask]

Now we have open borders, I’m very much looking forward to a Hawk’s eye view of the world. Am I right in saying that our neighbours both seem to have basically agreed that scouting is ok, without being very explicit about what we can and can’t do? It sounds like Nic is really desperate for that map. Given what he can see from our border, I don't think it will tell him much he can't already surmise, apart from how many forests we actually have.

Does anyone have a tactical plan for a combined effort on T150 for an opponent with vastly superior tech and production?

I personally feel that any battle with the Balseraphs in 40 turn’s time is going to be like a fish arm-wrestling a bear. In fact, they landed Esus, so make that a fish arm-wrestling an invisible bear. The fish has to do it’s best to be slippery, but will lose if things come down to serious grappling. There’s been some good examples on RB of prosecuting effective wars in FFH, and all of them have revolved around magical collateral and high mobility. Azoth has it right that he who hits first will normally win.

I think we should detour quickly for Sailing first and THEN grab Masonry for the Marble.

I get the impression that we’ve lost a bit of focus in our tech plan, although I’m not sure if I can help to resolve that. I think I’ve seen four choices for the near term being mentioned:
- Trade, for economy (614 beakers just taking Sailing, or 850 for three if we throw in Horseback Riding for the double discount)
- Sanitation for improved farms, and the things that masonry-construction offer along the way (870 adjusted beakers)
- Ashen Veil, for some more research power, Ritualist collateral and the benefits of the pre-req techs (1276 beakers)
- Currency, again for economy (970 beakers)

All of these deliver some benefits at the cost of relatively few hammers while we are still engaged in other building projects. I’m inclined to think that Trade Via Sailing might be best, if nothing else than because it’s quickest. Masonry will be a one-turn tech when we want it – if we’re not going to work the tile or build anything that needs marble, then we should take other benefits first.

[Gaspar]

As always, MBTM brings us back to reason.

Yeah, Trade via Sailing makes most sense. Might as well take HBR because we'll want access to the Mobility promo. So Sailing -> HBR -> Trade next and the reassess. We're not going to be in any wars anytime soon, so let's just see how far we can get the old economy before the Clowns take over the world.

I've just had a fairly lengthy chat with Kyan that I'll repost here - its mostly me just buttering him up in the hopes he looks elsewhere.