The Kuriotates: A Tale of Centaurs, Hubris, and Unbridled Enthusiasm

[Commodore]

Any thoughts on binary/event fund gold saving? I realize you're on the clock incredibly tightly, so I understand if it's just petal to the metal. Any idea when a centaur stack could get poised to pop the AV holy city in Lanunland? I guess we might also hope for a horseman to help.

[Mardoc]

I would have agreed with you, but it seems the question is now moot. I was wrong about the AI, and the assassin has marched on Kwythellar:

It could be a close fight. Our C2 warrior should defend with +170% odds, for a strength of 8.1. The assassin will be only slightly weaker even if it doesn't stop to heal. If it does, it can overpower our defenders. But Kwythellar can turn out 1-turn warriors with overflow, so there's not much risk of losing the city.

I actually think this is good news, albeit potentially short term costly. Incense is a very good tile to work, and we might get another bonus something from the ruins.

Barbs effectively get March for free, to make up for their AI. So it'll be healing regardless. But that -50% strength will be pretty huge, over the course of a couple of turns. If it wins the first fight, it's likely to be badly damaged and hence killable. And surely the RNG has to give in eventually.

[HidingKneel]

Any thoughts on binary/event fund gold saving? I realize you're on the clock incredibly tightly, so I understand if it's just petal to the metal. Any idea when a centaur stack could get poised to pop the AV holy city in Lanunland? I guess we might also hope for a horseman to help.

So, my present plan is to keep the science slider as high as possible while teching chants -> exploration -> education -> animal husbandry -> HBR -> mysticism. All three cities will focus on economy (workers, tailors, granaries, ...) until HBR comes in, at which point all three will switch to producing centaurs. When mysticism comes in, I'll revolt to God King/apprenticeship/conquest (probably we won't get more than a couple of centaurs out before we're in those civics), and switch to 100% gold for a few turns.

Timetable is hard to predict, with all the time we keep losing to barbarian shenanigans. I suspect we'll be too late to stop Bob from swapping to AV, but we can always hope. And maybe Plako and Ilios are on the job, too.

I actually think this is good news, albeit potentially short term costly. Incense is a very good tile to work, and we might get another bonus something from the ruins.

Like bonus mistforms ! Only one way to find out.

[HidingKneel]

Another turn in. Not too much to report. The assassin attacked Kwythellar and killed our promoted warrior. It's now C4 and badly wounded. Unfortunately, we can't kill it because it's being protected by another barb warrior on defensive terrain (and we only have two defenders in the city):



Let's see... a C4 assassin attacks at strength 10.8. An unfortified, unpromoted warrior in Kwythellar will defend (against an assassin) at strength 6.9. I don't like those odds; hopefully I'll get a chance to take a shot at it while it's wounded. In the meanwhile, there's nothing to do but keep 1-turning warriors in Kwythellar.

Naggarond is also besieged by barbarians:



That lizardman hasn't budged, and is still preventing my workers from mining the gems. Hopefully it will break itself on my walls this turn, and we get the mine completed next turn.

Breakeven science rate: 40%.

[Mardoc]

Another turn in. Not too much to report. The assassin attacked Kwythellar and killed our promoted warrior. It's now C4 and badly wounded. Unfortunately, we can't kill it because it's being protected by another barb warrior on defensive terrain (and we only have two defenders in the city):

Let's see... a C4 assassin attacks at strength 10.8. An unfortified, unpromoted warrior in Kwythellar will defend (against an assassin) at strength 6.9. I don't like those odds; hopefully I'll get a chance to take a shot at it while it's wounded. In the meanwhile, there's nothing to do but keep 1-turning warriors in Kwythellar.

At this rate, we might not need Armageddon.

Here's hoping the lizard attacks while wounded.

[HidingKneel]

New turn is in. Good news all around.

First of all, Kwythellar was attacked by a barbarian warrior. This left that pesky assassin undefended. It was badly wounded enough that our unpromoted warriors got something like 60% odds. So I took it out:



No casualties, and we've got another C2 warrior. He and another warrior from Kwythellar are now en-route to clear out the barrows.

In other news, the lizardman who was choking Naggarond got itself killed, which freed our workers up to finish the second gem mine. The demographics were duly grateful. We've been trailing everyone but Selrahc in GNP for the whole game, but this turn we pulled ahead of Ilios (we're leading in every other category, though).

Ancient chants came in at end of turn. We also finished a granary in Kwythellar, and all three cities grew a size. Naggarond is now at the happy cap, at least until we get some happiness resources hooked up:



I'll finish that warrior there next turn (there are three more barbarian warriors coming in from the north, and I'd like to try to meet some of them "in the field"), then start on a worker. Kwythellar will start a worker next turn, and Avelorn on its monument.

Breakeven science rate: Just under 50%.

[HidingKneel]

I've been thinking, and what do you think about going mysticism next? Not for god-king, but for the elder councils? Our cities have a decent amount of production and population to spare. With a half-price elder council in each city, we could run three sages, which would add a total of 15 beakers per turn. I haven't run the numbers, but I'd bet that would actually speed up the trek to HBR. Not to mention that we really ought to take advantage of our philosophical trait while we've got it. There's still plenty of work for our workers to do, so we don't need exploration immediately.

[Mardoc]

I've been thinking, and what do you think about going mysticism next? Not for god-king, but for the elder councils? Our cities have a decent amount of production and population to spare. With a half-price elder council in each city, we could run three sages, which would add a total of 15 beakers per turn. I haven't run the numbers, but I'd bet that would actually speed up the trek to HBR. Not to mention that we really ought to take advantage of our philosophical trait while we've got it. There's still plenty of work for our workers to do, so we don't need exploration immediately.

Thing is, exploration gives us 3 gpt from trade, and turns tailors into +30% commerce buildings, and adds dramatically to our health and happy caps. And increases our worker efficiency, since they can do a lot of half-roads, or later on move further in a turn, and finally makes Naggarond part of the empire instead of an afterthought.

And it's only 3 turns of research! That's the key - Exploration is only a third of the cost of Mysticism. That's the main piece in my mind - it's not that Mysticism is a bad tech, by any means, it's just that it's expensive compared to the next best option.

I don't remember what the tech path looked like next, though. I could see the argument for going Exploration -> Mysticism -> Education, sure. Being size 13 doesn't help us a whole lot when the best tile to work is a plains, while it's quite useful when the next thing to work is a Sage.

[HidingKneel]

And increases our worker efficiency, since they can do a lot of half-roads, or later on move further in a turn.

I think you've sold me on this angle. One of our next important worker "projects" is mining the gold near Avelorn, as soon as it comes within our culture (8 turns or so?). Exploration will give our eastern worker team something useful to do in the meanwhile (building a road from Naggarond to Avelorn), which will have them in the right place when we need them.

I'm thinking mysticism next, though. According to the back of my envelope, we'll be getting HBR around turn 55 or so. If we put mysticism after exploration and start working sages as soon as we can, we can have a great sage coming out right about then. We can then burn that on a golden age to make the god-king/apprenticeship/conquest swap without anarchy, and to get our centaur rush started on the right foot. We ought to generate another sage during the golden age, which we can use for a second academy.

[Mardoc]

Hmm, I'm not sure that's the best use for a GSage, but we have time to debate.

On the other hand, I can firmly get behind an early Mysticism. Normally the debate is between Edu giving more, and Mysticism giving its goodies early. We're under a heavy deadline here, though; if we don't have something ready early, we're gonna die. Better to have 3 beakers from a sage than 1-2 from a cottage/hamlet; the GSage(s) are just icing on the cake.

So what's the plan for getting the incense accessible? Surely it'll work one of these times...