Fires of Bhall. Some orcs just want to watch the world burn. [SPOILERS]

[Ellimist]

HK says, "Offer a counterproposal, then."

My reply:

HidingKneel

Okay, I want to give you some background info so that my motivations aren't completely confusing to you. Feel free to believe or disbelieve any of this, but you can confirm a lot of it with the information you have available in game.

I was able to conquer yell0w because a good chunk of my worldspell units were near him. I hope it will help me out in the long run... but unfortunately it's a drag in the short run. If you check the culture graph, you can confirm that the great specialist I captured was a bard. The map is toroidal, which tends to increase maintenance, and the city is costing me 10 gpt even in aristocracy.

Right now, I see myself in the sort of position plako was in for pitboss 4. He got an early game advantage and everybody focused on him, while Parkin enjoyed a less obvious advance and ended up winning. Right now, Kyan has just as many(4) cities as me. His food is 51 to my 43. His GNP is 71 to my 56. My GNP number includes the +12 culture from the great bard that yell0w settled(nobody is gaining culture faster than me right now. Plus the best tiles at yell0w's capital are in the third ring.) The only player with a GNP even close to Kyan's is Weezel, and he's creative so it's inflated somewhat.

You may think that this sounds like I'm downplaying my position, or the typical "my land sucks" BS. My land doesn't suck. My land is just as good as everybody else's is and my current position is definitely very good. The problem is... Kyan's position is better and I don't have enough units near him to slow him down. He's financial while I get -10% to research and can never build libraries. He adopted aristocracy at the same time I adopted city states.

Your civ tends to expand vertically(better cities) while mine expands horizontally(more cities.) I don't know which of those strategies will work best in this game, but toroidal maintenance will definitely have an impact. If I use the typical Clan of Embers expansion strategy, the toroidal maintenance is going to force me back into city states(and Kyan will pull even further ahead.)

Truthfully, I'm not likely to invade you or choke you in the near term regardless of what you say, but I wanted you to see that I could have. I see no point in choking you because slowing you down isn't going to help me stop Kyan. If I do attack, it will be to capture your territory and will involve a stack of units from the local goblin fort. That will cost me a few hundred gold just to get started, and if all goes well I increase my maintenance bill even more. (See FFH-9 for an example of what goblin fort units can do vs elven archers + gilden. BTW I'm not sure wtf has been boosting your power rating from turn zero onward; it doesn't add up right to be the dwarves vs lizardman lair event. I'm tempted to invade just to solve the mystery.)

Anyway, I have some ideas for cooperation with you, but I don't want to share them unless you agree to keep things confidential between us.

I won't try to tell you that my position is bad. It's not.

I won't say that I'll put your interests ahead of my own. I won't.

What I will say, though, is that I can't beat Kyan on my own. He's pulling ahead of the pack in beakers and food with strong military units and a dangerous worldspell right around the corner.


Ellimist
aka Urag gro-Shub

[Ellimist]

Sorry for the lack of updates. We're up to T44 now.

I'm trying to develop a partnership with the the Elves. I've given him some useful info (that everybody else probably knows by now) regarding the map being mirrored and the relative positions of everybody.

I'm trying to be courteous as well as dropping the aggressive posture. Well, mostly dropped. I want open borders to move my archers through his territory to come home. He's hinting that he wants a NAP before he gives me open borders, and I hate those damn things so it's not happening. I told him if he doesn't grant OB this turn, I'm declaring war to move my units home but I'll try not to break anything.

Meanwhile, I've confirmed that Kyan's "sexy jim" warrior that killed the archer received enough exp from it to unlock form of the titan. If we want it, we'll probably have to prioritize the warfare tech. I've sent him a few minor messages lately with no response, but I haven't sent any followup emails to confirm whether he got them. I'm probably going to cancel open borders with him soon, he has a unit near Hircine that's already seen enough to deter a horse rush.

A few turns ago, I got the "suspected slavery ring" event at Hircine. That city could really benefit from two slaves, so I spent the 20 gold. The following turn, I got two slaves at Malacath, where they aren't as helpful. I'll probably use them to hurry production soon to reduce upkeep.

I settled Peryite at site C this turn. Site B will be settled next turn. Way of the earthmother finishes at the end of next turn, and Malacath will probably start religious builds after the current worker(s).

[Ellimist]

Okay, time for some overdue pictures.

I've gotten a couple of minor events lately.

First, the guard captain of Hircine asked for a pay raise.

This somehow caused the guard captain of Malacath to provide me with slaves.

The captain of Hircine found mushrooms instead.

Recent world events up to T48:

GNP and culture graphs show that Weezel used the sage for an academy.

In addition to Urzoga, there are some pretty dangerous units out there.

Somebody must have had the dwarf vs lizard event go badly for them. The power chart suggests that the most likely person was Tholal. He also still has only two cities, so I suspect the other two axemen are causing him troubles.

This guy seems to be moving toward the Hippus to challenge Sexy Jim. Mr. Sexy achieved his current rank when he defeated some intoxicated archers.

We're doing well in demographics. Nobody else has more than 4 cities(kyan and weezel) while we have 6.

Score info:

The core cities on turn 48:

[Ellimist]

[SIZE="4"]Malacath:[/SIZE]

Philosophy will increase the happy cap when it comes in, so I'm focusing this city on food for a few turns to take advantage of it. Malacath will go back to working hammers once it reaches the new happy cap.

The great prophet will be used to bulb priesthood, but I'm planning to make it seem like I used it to bulb WotE by waiting to adopt RoK.

[SIZE="4"]Hircine:[/SIZE]

I'll finish the mine next turn, so the worker pair will complete the following turn. After that, a settler pair will be produced in 6 turns. I'm going to try to get a snowball going over here, but I'll need the summer palace to make it affordable. (Check out the total cost of "governening" Hircine!)

[SIZE="4"]Meridia:[/SIZE]

This city will get a temple of kilmorph soon and just focus on specialists while occasionally producing units.

[SIZE="4"]Boethiah:[/SIZE]

Focus on hammers and food while producing useful units.

[SIZE="4"]Peryite:[/SIZE]

Still developing this city, but it's going to be pretty strong in all categories.

[SIZE="4"]Mehrunes:[/SIZE]

I'm not sure what I plan to do here in the long run. It shares a lot of tiles with Meridia, so it will probably work a lot of specialists as well.

[Lewwyn]

Just chillin'

Rah Rah!

[Ellimist]

Kyan told Weezel I attacked one of his cities earlier. This isn't even remotely true, and Weezel can verify this pretty easily. It's ludicrous that Kyan would even try to claim such a thing with his demographics.

I've been too passive. I left Kyan alone, then he lies and claims the opposite.

Hopefully, Kyan has just managed to destroy his credibility. I cancelled open borders with him this turn, but I'm not sure whether to tell him why. Unfortunately, I've been moving my units near his territory away for the past several turns.

[Ellimist]

Questions for lurkers who understand the code:

How is the "free units" number calculated for unit upkeep costs? What about the additional free units from military state? I'm pretty sure military state had a bigger impact in FFH-14 than it says it will here.

How is city maintenance calculated? Specifically, how/when do modifiers such as toroidal, law mana or courthouses get included. If I had, say, 4 sources of law mana(-20%), would this apply before, after, or at the same time as the aristocracy modifier(-40% distance costs).

[Tasunke]

Not sure if I can be of much help in this case, as it seems that you are wanting a pretty detailed answer (that I do not know) ...

But I am pretty sure that free units only counts for unit cost, not unit supply (meaning the effect will be better seen when units are within your own borders). And of course, this number is dependent on your population.

As for maintenance, I have no idea

[Mardoc]

For BtS, it's this:

However, the free support in the unit cost section is dependent on the total size of your population (the sum of all of your city sizes) and the difficulty level. If we name the size of your population N and the difficulty level bonus D then the free support for units is [0.24 * N] + D. This difficulty level bonus is 5 at Deity, 6 at Immortal, 7 at Emperor, 8 at Monarch, 10 at Prince, 12 at Noble, 16 at Warlord, 22 at Chieftain and finally 28 at Settler level.
The vassalage civic provides you with an additional free unit support which is again dependent on your population size: [0.1 * N] + 5.

I'm about 90% sure that formula works for normal FFH, and I would expect but haven't confirmed that MilState just steals the vassalage formula.

When it comes to maintenance: I'm certain that toroidal is calculated first - it simply affects the way 'distance' is calculated in distance maintenance. Basically, all distances are normalized by the map dimensions, or map dimension/2 for each direction of wrap.

I can't answer the question of law mana/civics/courthouses, though. I vaguely seem to remember hearing that they all add up and are applied simultaneously, so that it's possible with Basilicas + law mana + courthouses to have no maintenance at all, but this was just stated as fact in one of my threads, not explained or confirmed by code.

[Ellimist]

But I am pretty sure that free units only counts for unit cost, not unit supply (meaning the effect will be better seen when units are within your own borders). And of course, this number is dependent on your population.

Unit upkeep expenses aren't ridiculously expensive yet, but warrens are still being built in most cities.

I'm not very worried about unit supply. Right now I'm only paying 1 gpt for it.

For BtS, it's this:

However, the free support in the unit cost section is dependent on the total size of your population (the sum of all of your city sizes) and the difficulty level. If we name the size of your population N and the difficulty level bonus D then the free support for units is [0.24 * N] + D. This difficulty level bonus is 5 at Deity, 6 at Immortal, 7 at Emperor, 8 at Monarch, 10 at Prince, 12 at Noble, 16 at Warlord, 22 at Chieftain and finally 28 at Settler level.
The vassalage civic provides you with an additional free unit support which is again dependent on your population size: [0.1 * N] + 5.

I'm about 90% sure that formula works for normal FFH, and I would expect but haven't confirmed that MilState just steals the vassalage formula.

The base formula appears to check out. The difficulty is monarch, and right now I have 27 population. That works out to 14.48 free units, and the game is giving me 14.

The vassalage/Milstate part doesn't, though. The civics screen indicates that it will give me +5 free units, total. (It will also increase my civic upkeep from 7 to 9.)

When it comes to maintenance: I'm certain that toroidal is calculated first - it simply affects the way 'distance' is calculated in distance maintenance. Basically, all distances are normalized by the map dimensions, or map dimension/2 for each direction of wrap.

I can't answer the question of law mana/civics/courthouses, though. I vaguely seem to remember hearing that they all add up and are applied simultaneously, so that it's possible with Basilicas + law mana + courthouses to have no maintenance at all, but this was just stated as fact in one of my threads, not explained or confirmed by code.

Yeah, this is the part I want to confirm. It's pretty ambiguous in the game, from what I can tell. I'm pretty sure that discounts from civics are applied before things like courthouses, though.