This Time for Sure: Mardoc reprises the Lanun

[Thoth]

Damn, but that's some tasty looking land.

Getting a bunch o settlers built before we lose Expansive (even if we can't settle the cities for a bit) is looking like a plan, Stan.

[Mardoc]

Comments on the dotmap proposal:

1 is the strongest overall site, but has the Cotton in it's second ring so won't provide an instant happy boost.

Alt 1 (south) grabs the Cotton and Rice in it's inner ring and keeps the Cows, but has no hills in the inner circle.

Alt 1 (north) loses the cows, but gains a grass hill in it's inner ring and a PH in it's outer ring.

I think all in all I still like site 1. The alternates overlap a bit too much with the capital for my taste. Yes, losing the cotton will hurt, but for the time being we're going to be focused on settlers and workers, anyway, so we wouldn't have too many opportunities to grow.

Despite the discovery of gems/deer, I don't see much reason to move it east. The only site that tempts me is actually 1E of the rice, to get the early cotton, but that seems to be a bit too much distance, we'd waste some of that lovely river grass if we spread out that far.

2 is a very nice site. Fish (which can be netted with a WB from the Capital, Pigs, a Forested Grass hill and a plains hill in the inner cross, 3 Coves (assuming the tile south of the Mana is coast). Fast early growth, hammers to build a cheap Sea Haven and a Monument and very strong long term potential. Possible Heron Throne site.

Minor detail that it doesn't get 3 coves, it's only likely to get us two assuming that coast you're also assuming. Still, I agree that this is a very strong site, strong enough to tempt me to make it number 2. I don't think it's quite worth settling it before the cows, but agreed it should happen soon.

3 Gets us offshore trade routes, has Fish + two forested hills in it's inner ring. Another 3 Cove site. Alternative Heron Throne site.

This one looks likely to actually be a 3 cove site. Or if we're really lucky with the west, maybe even a 4-cove site. We'd have to go Sailing fairly early to get this, can't get it without a galley. Would probably be the perfect Heron Throne site and island-settler-builder, though, with all those hammers. I just don't want to make the perfect the enemy of the good enough.

I'm also aware that we're in a settling race with everyone; I'm biased toward grabbing extra mainland cities, I think, over racing to fill the islands. Not sure if I should be, though - maybe a 'fair share' of the mainland but all the islands for ourselves would indeed be the best goal.

Filler: Build this later to fill out our offshore trade routes. It'll have shite for production (until we rushbuy a Naval Yard) but will be a solid commerce city. Build later. I really hope you weren't planning on building the Heron Throne here Mardoc, 'cause it'll never be built here unless there's either Horses or Copper on one of those two grass tiles and we find and hook up some Marble.

Yeah, don't want to repeat the PBEM3 debacle . This will eventually still be a decent site, between (maybe) coves and all the water boosters, and trade, but you're right to classify it as a filler.

City 4: Another coastal site, gets Rice in it's inner ring. Can borrow a hill and/or the Pigs from the Capital. Only one cove, but it's in the inner ring. Not a great city, but it's still worthwhile.

I'm tempted to move this one 1NW, for a stronger long-term site, but also to delay it in the settling order because that does gimp it, pre-culture. I really ought to send the new scout N/NE to fill in this area a bit, and see if that's a viable move.

Getting a bunch o settlers built before we lose Expansive (even if we can't settle the cities for a bit) is looking like a plan, Stan.

Yes. Lots and lots of lush land. We want it all! We want it all! We want it all...and we want it now![/QUEEN]

[SIZE="3"]On another topic: Octopus Overlords? [/SIZE] I like the early culture, and a watery empire like we're planning would benefit. But can we afford the hammers for it? Has it been nerfed too much? I lean toward no, let's go for Drama instead. Maybe pick up OO later on to supplement things, but I don't want to make it a pillar of our strategy. On the other hand, Cultists are still good, early culture is always good, and Saverous might be a route to Form of the Titan that could actually compete with Gilden.

And a third topic, perennial - T70 switch? Thoth made a convincing case in chat for Organized, actually. Why? Well, insta-mages, for one - Conquest + Command Post + Apprenticeship = 8XP = Cha mage. And that's a benefit that we'd keep after the T145 swap, assuming we built enough Command Posts. That'd also mean 3-promo anything else, of course, but mages are the important one. And cheap lighthouses/courthouses would be handy about then, as we start to get past the all-REX phase of the game and want to put up infrastructure.

I think Org beats Arcane hands-down, as a result. Insta-mages are going to be much more useful than Potent Adepts - and for that matter, Cha makes archmages plausible without potency as well.

Other things that might still be viable are Spiritual, or keeping Expansive. I don't see much purpose to the war-only traits, this is a builder game and I suspect we'll not want to fight until after T145. And although this is a lush map, it does argue a bit against Expansive - most of our settler production looks like it'll be done with food, it appears.

I don't like Philo for this game, we're going to want to expand horizontally rather than vertically. The grass/sparse hammers also suggests Ind isn't really going to be that useful. And new Fin isn't really that useful, in my opinion.

[Mardoc]

Thinking about this further - I like the idea of a mage-heavy gameplan rather than an religious one. For one thing, apparently you can put a Floating Eye on a ship (which you can't do with Hawks). Combine that with sufficient Fireballs, Boarding Parties, and a navy that's +1 Lanun movement, +1 Circumnav movement (hopefully), +1 Fair Winds movement - we ought to be able to run rings around any waterwalking cultists .

The main advantage, though, is that going for Org at T70 lets us remain flexible. If the world is so huge that we don't want to fight yet (possible, it is approximately what we requested after all), then it saves us a lot of lighthouse/courthouse hammers, and as long as we put down Command Posts somewhere in those 75 turns, we can use that Cha synergy later anytime we want. To knock out a bunch of insta-mages for either a land or a sea war, or to strengthen a conventional army, or even to combine with a swap to Spiritual at T145 and strengthen an OO march of insane doom.

Going Org would let us keep the tech path focused on econ for the time being, as well. Command Posts require no tech to use, just a booming econ that can spare 120 hammers (or equivalent)/city (hammers that still give a +20% military production bonus, I might add).

Whereas if we go Spiritual right away, we're going to feel the need to pick up a lot of religions and start manufacturing Priests of various sorts. I just think T70-145 is early for that in a game that was explicitly requested as a builder map.

[Mardoc]

More goodies:



I think I'm going to loop the scout to the north or south, now that we've got another coast. Probably the south, the new scout is headed northward.

[Thoth]

Comments on the dotmap proposal:


I think all in all I still like site 1. The alternates overlap a bit too much with the capital for my taste. Yes, losing the cotton will hurt, but for the time being we're going to be focused on settlers and workers, anyway, so we wouldn't have too many opportunities to grow.

Site 1 is my favourite as well. Not so much as for the overlap (which really doesn't matter until the late game) as for the fact that it's a very strong city even without a border pop (River Rice, Cows, two grass hills and 3 river grass tiles.....nothing wrong with any of that)

Despite the discovery of gems/deer, I don't see much reason to move it east. The only site that tempts me is actually 1E of the rice, to get the early cotton, but that seems to be a bit too much distance, we'd waste some of that lovely river grass if we spread out that far.

It'll also cost us an extra turn or two to move to the site, plus we'll lose the freshwater bonus (not a big deal yet, but it will be down the road)

Minor detail that it doesn't get 3 coves, it's only likely to get us two assuming that coast you're also assuming. Still, I agree that this is a very strong site, strong enough to tempt me to make it number 2. I don't think it's quite worth settling it before the cows, but agreed it should happen soon.

I've probably misjudged the coves a bit....but Fish/Pigs/Grass hill in 1st ring is nothing to sneeze at even without any coves.

This one looks likely to actually be a 3 cove site. Or if we're really lucky with the west, maybe even a 4-cove site. We'd have to go Sailing fairly early to get this, can't get it without a galley. Would probably be the perfect Heron Throne site and island-settler-builder, though, with all those hammers. I just don't want to make the perfect the enemy of the good enough.

+s for this site: Offshore trade routes (we'll want lots of these to keep our base commerce high, especially once we get to Trade for Foreign Trade), a few forests for a bit of a hammer boost, hills for mines, lots of water tiles.

-s: Offshore means we need Sailing plus a boat to settle it. (can't think of any other minuses here....it's a solid site but getting Sailing means delaying something else....like Bronze. )

I'm also aware that we're in a settling race with everyone; I'm biased toward grabbing extra mainland cities, I think, over racing to fill the islands. Not sure if I should be, though - maybe a 'fair share' of the mainland but all the islands for ourselves would indeed be the best goal.

With a Large land mass, we're not in as much of a land grab race as usual. Land can be taken via other means than settlers.

Yeah, don't want to repeat the PBEM3 debacle .

??? I got some decent use out of the HT before you burnt that city to the ground.

This will eventually still be a decent site, between (maybe) coves and all the water boosters, and trade, but you're right to classify it as a filler.

It'll pay for it's self due to offshore trade routes and plain coast tiles (plus some Coves) but it's not a high priority.

I'm tempted to move this one 1NW, for a stronger long-term site, but also to delay it in the settling order because that does gimp it, pre-culture. I really ought to send the new scout N/NE to fill in this area a bit, and see if that's a viable move.

More scouting will OFC refine our dot map plans.

Especially for cities 4-X.

Thinking about said dot maps ahead of time is a good idea imo, (plus it's fun )

Yes. Lots and lots of lush land. We want it all! We want it all! We want it all...and we want it now!

Attaboy. :hat:

[SIZE="3"]On another topic: Octopus Overlords? [/SIZE] I like the early culture, and a watery empire like we're planning would benefit. But can we afford the hammers for it? Has it been nerfed too much? I lean toward no, let's go for Drama instead. Maybe pick up OO later on to supplement things, but I don't want to make it a pillar of our strategy. On the other hand, Cultists are still good, early culture is always good, and Saverous might be a route to Form of the Titan that could actually compete with Gilden.

Main reason I was thinking early OO is twofold:

1) Easy Culture, making Drama a low priority.

2) It's not far off our tech path to other stuff. We'll already have Fishing and Myst is (or should be) on our early "want" list.

3) Even without "OP Water Walking" (can someone PLEASE explain to me why WW is so fucking OP that the whole damn religion needs to be nerfed?) Cultists and Drowns are handy. With Stygians nerfed by getting pushed back to MD, they won't figure in our early plans.

And a third topic, perennial - T70 switch? Thoth made a convincing case in chat for Organized, actually. Why? Well, insta-mages, for one - Conquest + Command Post + Apprenticeship = 8XP = Cha mage. And that's a benefit that we'd keep after the T145 swap, assuming we built enough Command Posts. That'd also mean 3-promo anything else, of course, but mages are the important one. And cheap lighthouses/courthouses would be handy about then, as we start to get past the all-REX phase of the game and want to put up infrastructure.

I think Org beats Arcane hands-down, as a result. Insta-mages are going to be much more useful than Potent Adepts - and for that matter, Cha makes archmages plausible without potency as well.

Other things that might still be viable are Spiritual, or keeping Expansive. I don't see much purpose to the war-only traits, this is a builder game and I suspect we'll not want to fight until after T145. And although this is a lush map, it does argue a bit against Expansive - most of our settler production looks like it'll be done with food, it appears.

I don't like Philo for this game, we're going to want to expand horizontally rather than vertically. The grass/sparse hammers also suggests Ind isn't really going to be that useful. And new Fin isn't really that useful, in my opinion.

Arcane is fine if you are playing one of the leader/civ combos that start with it (Amurites, one of the Ljos, errr not sure if anyone else starts with it). But it's not a good trait unless you have a leader/civ combo that helps it.

New Spi got broken by the changes to Conquest and Command Posts. It's now far too easy to get 10xp Savants on the board (Varn is hugely broken ATM as is Falamar)


Spi is an awesome trait (pre EitB changes) but I think Org suits us better ATM. Level 4 units out of the box (with Education, Conquest, a Command Post and Charismatic) should be enough to pwn the competition before t145. If not we can select something else (Agg perhaps?) to boost our late game troops.

[Mardoc]

but getting Sailing means delaying something else....like Bronze. )

I think it's worth going for early, anyway. We're the Lanun, beakers should not be our main limiting factor . More seriously, this really is a very nice site, and densely packed islands like it appears we have will be perfect for coves. Something you didn't know - last night our scout found that the eastern sea has islands too. Dense islands, presumably, because he spotted one the very first time he was on the coast.

Plus adding overseas trade and mucho coves ought to pay back the tech investment fairly quickly.

One final argument - we haven't found any jungle, nor lairs, it's on Monarch non-Raging, and our opponents aren't close. So BW isn't quite the priority it usually is.

Main reason I was thinking early OO is twofold:

1) Easy Culture, making Drama a low priority.

2) It's not far off our tech path to other stuff. We'll already have Fishing and Myst is (or should be) on our early "want" list.

3) Even without "OP Water Walking" Cultists and Drowns are handy. With Stygians nerfed by getting pushed back to MD, they won't figure in our early plans.

Is its culture really that easy? It's at least 40 hammers/city, same as monuments. That's what I like about Drama, it's only 5 hammers/city.

OTOH, it's true that those hammers can come from already developed cities. And that Cultists/Drowns would be handy. I think we're agreed that everything is legal now, including water walking, actually.

I dunno, I'm going to keep waffling on this one for now. MBTM, Gaspar, any opinion?

(can someone PLEASE explain to me why WW is so fucking OP that the whole damn religion needs to be nerfed?)

I think what people are arguing about WW has two prongs. The one I find less convincing - if you park a WW unit on a lake, there's literally nothing but flying units or other WW units who can kick them back off. Why I don't find it convincing - so you own the lake. That's not the same as actually achieving war aims, unless your opponent really messes up and brings their army to you on your terms. As a mapmaker, I could make some sort of checkerboard pattern to force WW armies, but anything that looks even slightly natural should enable defensive settling. Normally anyone who's not Lanun doesn't want much coast anyway.

2nd, though - envision two identical empires, one with OO one without. The OO empire spends all military hammers on OO units, and is the aggressor. The defender has to pick a ratio between naval units and land units to challenge the aggressor. If they go more navy, then the aggressor hops onshore and those hammers are worthless; if they go more land, the aggressor walks along the coast and makes those hammers less worthwhile.

My main arguments against this? Well, mobility still rules all. OO units are pretty darn slow compared to either opponent; let me get the first strike in with either force, and I can probably kill enough to make up for them having double my numbers. Let me get in the first strike and then retreat afterward, and I certainly can.

And it still assumes you're fighting on the opponents' terms - that your army can't go raze a few of their cities while you fight the naval war, that you give them time and opportunity to pick their perfect invasion route. Frankly if you're fighting on the opponent's terms, you're gonna lose anyway, no matter which type of army they build to come for you.

[Thoth]

I think it's worth going for early, anyway. We're the Lanun, beakers should not be our main limiting factor . More seriously, this really is a very nice site, and densely packed islands like it appears we have will be perfect for coves. Something you didn't know - last night our scout found that the eastern sea has islands too. Dense islands, presumably, because he spotted one the very first time he was on the coast.

Plus adding overseas trade and mucho coves ought to pay back the tech investment fairly quickly.

Yeah, earlyish Sailing is a good idea....not sure we want it before OO though. Do we want to run the risk of it founding in our offshore city?

One final argument - we haven't found any jungle, nor lairs, it's on Monarch non-Raging, and our opponents aren't close. So BW isn't quite the priority it usually is.

No lairs is good. There is Jungle though (on the Gems and stretching north from there)

Is its culture really that easy? It's at least 40 hammers/city, same as monuments. That's what I like about Drama, it's only 5 hammers/city.

OTOH, it's true that those hammers can come from already developed cities. And that Cultists/Drowns would be handy. I think we're agreed that everything is legal now, including water walking, actually.

I dunno, I'm going to keep waffling on this one for now. MBTM, Gaspar, any opinion?

a) We may get some free spreads thanks to the Holy city
b) It takes 10h to pop borders using build Culture
c) Building Culture doesn't produce happiness (+2 with the Religion Civic, which I think we want to be in) or allow the building of Temples or Drowns.
d) Drama is less attractive as the traditional Sanitation slingshot isn't as important to the coast loving Lanun.

I think what people are arguing about WW has two prongs. The one I find less convincing - if you park a WW unit on a lake, there's literally nothing but flying units or other WW units who can kick them back off. Why I don't find it convincing - so you own the lake. That's not the same as actually achieving war aims, unless your opponent really messes up and brings their army to you on your terms. As a mapmaker, I could make some sort of checkerboard pattern to force WW armies, but anything that looks even slightly natural should enable defensive settling. Normally anyone who's not Lanun doesn't want much coast anyway.

2nd, though - envision two identical empires, one with OO one without. The OO empire spends all military hammers on OO units, and is the aggressor. The defender has to pick a ratio between naval units and land units to challenge the aggressor. If they go more navy, then the aggressor hops onshore and those hammers are worthless; if they go more land, the aggressor walks along the coast and makes those hammers less worthwhile.

My main arguments against this? Well, mobility still rules all. OO units are pretty darn slow compared to either opponent; let me get the first strike in with either force, and I can probably kill enough to make up for them having double my numbers. Let me get in the first strike and then retreat afterward, and I certainly can.

And it still assumes you're fighting on the opponents' terms - that your army can't go raze a few of their cities while you fight the naval war, that you give them time and opportunity to pick their perfect invasion route. Frankly if you're fighting on the opponent's terms, you're gonna lose anyway, no matter which type of army they build to come for you.

Yeah, pretty much agreed on that. It still comes down to initiative and tactics. If you avoid a lot of coastal cities the WW bonus (and the Tsunami) become much less useful.

Need to check my chat logs for details, but Illios dialed me up for a chat in the wee small hours of this morning (well it was about 4:00 am my time....with a little more rum on board than I'd planned on) and asked if I wanted to play out a duel on a watery map with me explicitly banned from running OO. Sounds like fun.

[Mardoc]

Need to check my chat logs for details, but Illios dialed me up for a chat in the wee small hours of this morning (well it was about 4:00 am my time....with a little more rum on board than I'd planned on) and asked if I wanted to play out a duel on a watery map with me explicitly banned from running OO. Sounds like fun.

Oooh. You've got to win this one! The future of Octopus Overlords is counting on you!

I'll dedlurk if you think it'll help (if you're willing to report in enough detail, too).

[Thoth]

Oooh. You've got to win this one! The future of Octopus Overlords is counting on you!

I'll dedlurk if you think it'll help (if you're willing to report in enough detail, too).

Sure, you're welcome aboard as a ded-lurker.

I'm thinking of playing Dain as my first choice with an earlyish beeline down the Arcane path via Elementalism to Arcane Lore fueled by a GS bulb or two, followed by a run at Bowyers for some Govanon promoted Firebows. With Water Walking. And fireballs.

(all of which may change depending on the exact map settings that we play on)

:hat:

Should be some fun.

[NobleHelium]

Water walking firebows would definitely be effective...