Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Gaspar]

So rumor has it we're all going to die now. What wonders shall we see when we open up the save?

The Chronic: Temple of the Veil -> Worker (1)
Hash Pipe: Mage Guild -> Adept (4)
Cypress Hill: Settler -> Temple of the Veil (1)
Paradise City: Library -> Worker (4)
Kaya: Work Boat -> Temple of the Veil (10)
Afro Man: Elder Council -> Temple of the Veil (6)

Gotta get the Veil temples up if we're going to get bang for the buck out of a switch to AV for a few turns. Since we still need quite a bit more Ancient Forest growth, I'd like to move over for 5T to coincide with 5-ish Ritualists getting done. By the by - Ritualists = Ministry Members? Were there enough?

Hawks discovered the first bit of Krill's army:



Nothing too terribly exciting, just a few swords, but its something.

I sent the following in-game diplo to Krill: "Jubilee? Coome View? Where's Oliver Klozoff? I.P Freeley? Jacques Strap?"

Settler is en route to the Horse city. Even though the stub city by Kaya would get up and running faster I decided better to get a little culture in there sooner. Plus Rawkking already built us a mine.



And, at 16% odds:

[Gaspar]

One thing to note: While we missed the chance to grab Stigmata on the Unborn anytime soon with this latest minor setback - but still, the AC is at 18 and if Krill is sending out the hounds shortly, there's a good chance we'll see Blight pretty soon. That leads me to two questions: 1. Is it worth picking up Hidden Paths so we can run Guardian of Nature (and its stupidly high upkeep) during Blight? and 2. Is it worth derailing the economic stuff to get Granaries, Smokehouses and the like up shortly?

On the whole, we have more our economy contain in fewer, larger cities than anyone else. As such, we're going to suffer during Blight more than average. No doubt forests on every tile will help, but we're actually relatively close to the health cap in most of the big cities.

Probably nothing to lose sleep over just yet, but worth considering.

[Man Behind the Mask]

And, at 16% odds:

Not the best result, but by no means a disaster. We can put Mammon in Paradise City and the Shrine will be contributing 20+ gold per turn – we also need to remember the tile swapping micro on turns where we run 100% cash. We do now get free Nature1 promos for our adepts, too.

However, that does put more pressure on getting some further great people. Chronic has a few GPP stored and the Veil temple means it can run 3 sages and 3 priests. How quickly would that land us the Veil Shrine (…with National Epic?)? It would be great to then get a second GP out before T150ish so that we can Golden Age if needed.

Hawks discovered the first bit of Krill's army:

Nothing too terribly exciting, just a few swords, but its something.

If Krill has a Freak->Sword army then that sadly makes the Entropy mana from the Veil Shrine more valuable. I’d also suspect the majority of his attack force is to the south, ready to hit Acolastas (in which case that is a pretty formidable Home Guard).

…there's a good chance we'll see Blight pretty soon. That leads me to two questions: 1. Is it worth picking up Hidden Paths so we can run Guardian of Nature (and its stupidly high upkeep) during Blight? and 2. Is it worth derailing the economic stuff to get Granaries, Smokehouses and the like up shortly?

Good question. Speed of AC increase might depend whether Krill is razing or leaving cities for Brian. In terms of response, my preference here might actually be swapping to the Veil, calling forth Hyborem (3T research) and running Sacrifice the Weak until the unhealthiness falls away. We can (hopefully) grab the Grimoire while we are there, too.

We’ve got all four animal resources, so Smokehouse will give us the most health for our hammers. I seem to remember it makes a difference to have the buildings done before Blight, as that reduces the initial hit.

Ritualists = Ministry Members? Were there enough?

Just about enough, I should think. Wikipedia gives me nine.

[Gaspar]

Not the best result, but by no means a disaster. We can put Mammon in Paradise City and the Shrine will be contributing 20+ gold per turn – we also need to remember the tile swapping micro on turns where we run 100% cash. We do now get free Nature1 promos for our adepts, too.

Definitely will move to get the Bazaar in Paradise City, which probably means National Epic in the Capital (only other candidates would be Kaya or maybe Where It's At, but those sites are miles from enough infra to run enough specialists. Only downside is it will take PC ages to build the Epic.

Normally I'd pooh-pooh Treetop Defense, but it should serve useful if we're fighting on home ground. Krill's territory looks quite bereft of forests, though.

However, that does put more pressure on getting some further great people. Chronic has a few GPP stored and the Veil temple means it can run 3 sages and 3 priests. How quickly would that land us the Veil Shrine (…with National Epic?)? It would be great to then get a second GP out before T150ish so that we can Golden Age if needed.

No question we need at least 2 more GPs soonish - one for Stigmata on the Unborn, one for a GA. I think we'll push The Chronic to its happy cap and then overload on Specs. Means we need to get more food up in Hash Pipe even faster to take on some of the production load.

If Krill has a Freak->Sword army then that sadly makes the Entropy mana from the Veil Shrine more valuable. I’d also suspect the majority of his attack force is to the south, ready to hit Acolastas (in which case that is a pretty formidable Home Guard).

Had the same thought. I'm guessing Freaks, Swords and Puppetspam. Ritualists, Entropy adepts or two, and a wing and a prayer. We do need to decide what units will support the Priests by the by. Swords are an option but will need to be scratch built as none of our well-promoted warriors have mobility because of the later HBR. I'd say either Rangers or Fyrdwell unless we can get to Ratha in time. We will be very tough to invade - even if he grabs Commando on a lot of units we've built virtually no roads. I'm a lot less confident in an offensive war.

Good question. Speed of AC increase might depend whether Krill is razing or leaving cities for Brian. In terms of response, my preference here might actually be swapping to the Veil, calling forth Hyborem (3T research) and running Sacrifice the Weak until the unhealthiness falls away. We can (hopefully) grab the Grimoire while we are there, too.

We’ve got all four animal resources, so Smokehouse will give us the most health for our hammers. I seem to remember it makes a difference to have the buildings done before Blight, as that reduces the initial hit.

I think I agree with all of this. I suspect the Blight will ultimately be initiated by us when we eventually build the Stigmata/summon Hybie. Definitely a good idea to get a few Smokehouses up before then, at least in the bigger cities. Probably should have pushed Granary/Smokehouse in Hash Pipe ages ago anyway, given its low food.

Just about enough, I should think. Wikipedia gives me nine.

Let's see... working from memory:

The Undertaker
Bradshaw
Farooq
Minion
Viscera
Paul Bearer (if pushing it)

Who am I missing? Are you counting Corporate Ministry days here?

[Man Behind the Mask]

Let's see... working from memory:

The Undertaker
Bradshaw
Farooq
Minion
Viscera
Paul Bearer (if pushing it)

Who am I missing? Are you counting Corporate Ministry days here?

I did cheat...

Minion is actually Mideon (which I guess was an upgrade from being a pig farmer ).

The other three are apparently the Brood members - Gangrel, Edge and Christian. More fitting for the Calabim, of course

[Gaspar]

Had a short chat with Nicolae. He really doesn't like me. The relevant portion is here, the rest is just whiny.

8:13 AM
Nicolae: haha we so fucked is krill saying anything
8:16 AM
acal sent me a pic of 16 adepts

So, um, yeah. Get the Assassins rolling, RG.

[Mardoc]

That sounds much more like what I was expecting to see. A few swords, even lucky freak swords, are pretty easy to handle - Ring of Fire, send in the Tigers, mop up if necessary. 16 adepts (and Gibbon, presumably still), on the other hand, is a real threat.

Given that Krill seems to be sticking with death mana - please suggest to RG that he get some Stygians on the field! Assassins will just pick off the puppets, but Stygians will target the adepts.

[Gaspar]

For the umpteen-billionth time it appears we will not get a turn in today. This turn pace is massively frustrating.

[Mardoc]

For the umpteen-billionth time it appears we will not get a turn in today. This turn pace is massively frustrating.

Maybe Krill will help with that. Are we *sure* we want to help defend against the Clowns? :neenernee

[Man Behind the Mask]

A bit disappointed that neither Brian or Krill reacted to my million-to-one chance reference .

For the umpteen-billionth time it appears we will not get a turn in today. This turn pace is massively frustrating.

Turn pace up until RG took off on holiday was mostly ok (averaging better than 4 turns in 5 days, including over the summer and with Brian having computer issues). Since then, it has been appalling, and we’re in danger of being overtaken by games which started a long time later.


Had a look at the issues raised by the last turn.

Bazaar in Paradise is actually really good if you give it the big chunk of commerce from the overlap tiles. If we're worried about build time, it'll pay back a cash rush quite fast, or you could make the brand newly built cottage into a mine for the extra hammers (only losing worker turns).

The Chronic can actually turn out a GP in as little as six turns if we go for full sages/priests. There are a few merchant points in the pool, but we couldn't get unlucky twice, could we? :rolleyes:

In terms of our army composition, there’s some further argument for a slightly more extended stay in AV to get together some copper Corpses. They’re not great, but would negate the Death affinity from Spectres.

Two extra thoughts.
- Much as we predicted a very long time ago, about T125 would be the point where we could put a real hurting on Nicolae – we’re seriously pulling away now. He’s actually been a pretty good ally, but it’s a shame the Clown situation meant nobody else has been able to play out their game.
- Brian really needs to declare soon! His 65 GNP really isn’t helping him catch up. Maybe that’s the reason for the overnight delay. He’s struggling to locate the “Declare War!” option .