Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Man Behind the Mask]

Lots to digest here. If RB had awards, I think you might be dedlurker of the year, MBTM.

You jinxed it. As you might have spotted from the shortest Werewolf career in history, I’m having some computer problems. I’ve been struggling with the machine overheating in general for a little while, and this is the second time in its five-year life that the wireless card on my laptop has fried. I’m going to have a little more difficulty looking at saves and the computer might need to go in to be fixed for a few weeks.

On the tech front, I knew we were behind the Hippus but surprised its by so much.

I rechecked and the beaker total is right, and I was a little surprised as well. There are a couple of further points: I guess this just shows the power of financial – our cottages are only now matching the boosted aristofarms; some of the advantage might come from non-research sources, of course; and we’ll get quite a lot of bang for our beaker catching up, including known tech boni and double discount on both Archery and Sanitation, so the gap isn’t as great as it looks.

1-turned Way of the Wicked, next we can go for Corruption of Spirit, then...I'm not sure. Maybe that'll be the time to pick up our bonus beakers and go up Masonry -> Construction -> Sanitation. Between a Mage Guild and a bunch of Ashen Veil temples, plus all our leftover Markets, Carnivals, Libraries, Kilmorph temples, etc, we'll have a lot of building still to do. Either that, or spend 10 turns and go up to Taxation via Currency - another set of trade routes would help, and we've got an absolute ton of villages/towns that would appreciate the boost. I think I lean Taxation for now.

I agree that we’re now in the world of too much to build. I’d personally be laying down some more mines to alleviate that problem, especially for Paradise City and Where It’s At, but that may not be optimal play. I think I might be with NH on the tech path, especially given how quickly we should charge through them. We’ll soon have our three libraries, so the Sanitation path will also give us the Marble if we want to make a wonder run. I agree that Taxation is a good target after that, but all the way there is nearly as many beakers as two civs have managed so far in the whole game! I’d like to slip in (1T with good overflow) Archery for Gilden as well at some point, given that we feel some kind of conflict is inevitable and it would be nice to have some levels on him.

I think ultimately the logical decision is to do what makes the game fun for you without inordinately ruining the fun of others.

And a final thought on my musings. I guess Gaspar’s hit the nail on the head. Being able to determine what is “not fun” for others is the biggest challenge, but a little bit of empathy should go a long way in making the latter stages of the game more bearable for everybody.

[Mardoc]

My sympathies, MBTM! Hopefully it's not too much pain to straighten out.

On tech path, my main hesitation with taking the route to Sanitation is simply that we've only got 3-4 farms in our whole empire. Although - Public Baths would be very nice, wouldn't they? I could get on board with that.

[Man Behind the Mask]

On tech path, my main hesitation with taking the route to Sanitation is simply that we've only got 3-4 farms in our whole empire. Although - Public Baths would be very nice, wouldn't they? I could get on board with that.

On reflection, you might be right about going all the way through Sanitation. In terms of farms, we have: Chronic=Corn, plus three other farms which are rarely worked (one a mana node); Hash Pipe=2 farms; Paradise City=1 farm; Cypress Hill=No farms; Where It’s At=1 farm (shared but not counted in the Chronic total); Afroman=No farms; Rainy Day Women=Rice; Kaya=Corn. That is indeed a small number! Hash Pipe is the location with a real food problem, but we’re currently sorting that out by attempting to grow Ancient Forests. Elsewhere, it may even be time to pave over some of the farms that we’ve got (cottages or maybe even workshops?).

My good feelings for Sanitation were spurred partly by the need to get Hash Pipe up to size and really kick-start growth at RDW and Kaya. I also wanted to make Aristocracy more viable, as it will come time to leave God King soon. However, we really won’t be seeing a great return, even on an investment that’s heavily discounted. The problem with Public Baths is that they're another demand on scarce hammers.

Maybe we sneak in Masonry for the Marble and to snatch a load of research overflow before heading off for Taxation, then. It would be good to mix in some more military techs like Archery, Warfare, Message from the Deep, and maybe Poisons/Animal Handling along the way, but once we get Taxation we should head straight for the Arcane Techs (unless somebody has proven that Culture Victory is a better option), so we’re closer to a winning position.

[Commodore]

Wait, you guys still don't have Archery? Gillden is pretty much the stack defender of awesomeness.

[Mardoc]

Maybe we sneak in Masonry for the Marble and to snatch a load of research overflow before heading off for Taxation, then. It would be good to mix in some more military techs like Archery, Warfare, Message from the Deep, and maybe Poisons/Animal Handling along the way, but once we get Taxation we should head straight for the Arcane Techs (unless somebody has proven that Culture Victory is a better option), so we’re closer to a winning position.

Makes sense to me. The only caveat I have is that any of those military techs that we can't take advantage of immediately should wait - the sooner we get our econ boosts the better.

Wait, you guys still don't have Archery? Gillden is pretty much the stack defender of awesomeness.

Better still is to never have to defend your stacks. Nothing survives collateral + mobility, not even Gilden.

[Gaspar]

I'm thinking holding off a minute on Sanitation -Public Baths are the main draw and were still building Xarnivals & will have Veil temples to build soon for happy/research. Thinking CoS -> Masonry -> Archery -> Taxation.

It's a deep beeline but it's a huge tech for us that will only get more important.

[Mardoc]

I'm thinking holding off a minute on Sanitation -Public Baths are the main draw and were still building Xarnivals & will have Veil temples to build soon for happy/research. Thinking CoS -> Masonry -> Archery -> Taxation.

It's a deep beeline but it's a huge tech for us that will only get more important.

Seems like we're in agreement, then. TwoNeutronsTwoProtonsTwoElectrons - was that quick enough for you? . We could figure out something to debate for another page if you'd rather.

[Gaspar]

Pretty basic stuff. Need 1 more turn of saving to get Corruption of Spirit in, so dialed down to 0 before heading for it.

Spread Kilmorph to the capital, so going to 1T a Temple before banging out a Settler. Nicolae took away our last location in the south. At this point we'll get the two "crammed in" cities settled and that will be that. Unless we go grab Astronomy or some such to settle the islands.



Need to get a pair of workers back over to Hash Pipe as its working the Remnants right now for lack of better tiles. Another ~4 workers all around would probably suffice our empires needs for the long term.



Kyan and Rawkking also added cities in the last couple turns. Other than that, no especially interesting world news.

A look at the EOT demos. Brian's surged ahead of us in soldiers by virtue of building Valin. Our GNP looks a little soft on 0% slider and researching a no pre-req, "first to" tech. Still a comfortable 3rd. Game is definitely a 2-horse race between Rawkking and us for 2nd. Sadly, I couldn't care less which place I finish in if its not first.

[Man Behind the Mask]

In the absence of exciting turn news to discuss, there are a couple of other things I’d like to mention.

I know we just settled on tech path, but I thought of something else. We should maybe consider researching Deception, if only so that we can get in on Undercouncil resolutions. We’d need to switch alignment at some point too, of course.

Gaspar, can you please keep an eye on the Balseraph’s tech situation? If they are going to go for the Gibbon restart plan, then there is something very useful that they could be doing during the 5 turn swap to an alternative religion. I’d therefore be really interested to know if the Clowns ever research Corruption of the Spirit. A quick dip into AV while they summon Hyborem and then (more importantly) build the Infernal Grimoire would probably fill in that period of alternative religion nicely, and of course put them even further out of sight.

What are our commitments with regard to the expected attack on the Sheaim at T140? Do we still owe them a Priest for culture in the front city? We are looking at quite a long travel time, so any units we send to help will need to be completed in the next dozen turns. It is obviously to our advantage to hold Kyan up at the Sheaim border for as long as possible, and the chokepoint there is the most defensible place available. With our economy focus, we probably won’t be ready if we’re fighting the Clowns on our border before T150, as we’ve got 20 turns of other tech to charge through before we tighten up our defense. That means we really need to slow down the advance.

[Mardoc]

I know we just settled on tech path, but I thought of something else. We should maybe consider researching Deception, if only so that we can get in on Undercouncil resolutions. We’d need to switch alignment at some point too, of course.

That's probably a good idea. We'll switch alignment whenever we take our swap to AV for Ritualist-pumping.

Gaspar, can you please keep an eye on the Balseraph’s tech situation? If they are going to go for the Gibbon restart plan, then there is something very useful that they could be doing during the 5 turn swap to an alternative religion. I’d therefore be really interested to know if the Clowns ever research Corruption of the Spirit. A quick dip into AV while they summon Hyborem and then (more importantly) build the Infernal Grimoire would probably fill in that period of alternative religion nicely, and of course put them even further out of sight.

Alternatively - any chance that we could grab it ourselves? And if we do try, what tech would we want to take? We could hypothetically go up to sorcery in preparation, use the Grimoire for Arcane Lore and Tower of Div for the last tower tech.

What are our commitments with regard to the expected attack on the Sheaim at T140? Do we still owe them a Priest for culture in the front city? We are looking at quite a long travel time, so any units we send to help will need to be completed in the next dozen turns. It is obviously to our advantage to hold Kyan up at the Sheaim border for as long as possible, and the chokepoint there is the most defensible place available. With our economy focus, we probably won’t be ready if we’re fighting the Clowns on our border before T150, as we’ve got 20 turns of other tech to charge through before we tighten up our defense. That means we really need to slow down the advance.

From my perspective, our best gift(s) would be culture, Hawks, and Ritualists - those are all things that won't generate any war weariness on our part. Maybe some supplemental PoL/Tigers. We should check if Nox Noctis has been built yet, as well.