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

[Tasunke]

Yes ... I think building reductions and mana reductions are final absolutes, while civics affect the base maintenance I suppose.

In base FFH2, Courthouse + Basilica + 4 law manas = 0 city maintenance.

But of course you still have civics maintenance (and unit costs I suppose, unless a reasonable Bannor under crusade)

[Ellimist]

So... We're currently at 6 cities, and the next settler pair finishes on turn 56 at Hircine. Kyan, the other EXP leader, now has 5 cities. Weezel and HidingKneel have 4, and Tholal recently settled his third.

Festivals finished this turn. I'm not sure whether to get KotE next, or something like bronze working. I'm also not completely decided yet on whether it's better to invest 1030 beakers + 536 hammers (for the tower of divination) or just research fanaticism directly for 1857 beakers. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to secure the required the mana nodes fast enough to make it the right play, but Fanaticism is currently showing 25 turns at 100% after the priesthood bulb.

I haven't done a very good job of calculating out the next two dozen turns and determining the timing for how things will come together. I should probably see about putting together a sim.

[Ellimist]

Okay, there are a few options on where to go from here.

-> Expand quickly out to more mana nodes while researching KotE and Divination. Use ToD to take Fanaticism.
This was originally my plan, and may still be the way to go. Shamans are good to have, and the divination mana spheres are worth having. There are several downsides, though. First, it uses up the ToD and we could potentially save it for later otherwise. Second, it requires us to prioritize certain city sites that we might otherwise prefer to delay. Third, it costs a lot of hammers, which would prevent us from stockpiling enough SoKs ahead of time for instant completion.

-> Research Fanaticism the usual way.
This is looking more tempting lately. I could probably speed it up with continued expansion, plus (one or two) golden ages. When it comes in, I would likely already have enough SoKs to rush it. The main downside is that it requires a LOT of beakers.

Either way, we need to start figuring out where to put the new Mercurian cities. A hammer heavy site would be ideal for the capital, and commerce in general for other sites. It doesn't really matter where we put the Gate, because the palace can be moved relatively inexpensively.

[Ellimist]

[Mardoc]

Your spoiler tag is empty.

[Lewwyn]

K Looked at the save and a couple thoughts. Will admit my wife interrupted me mid examination so I didn't get enough time with the save, yet.

1) I think I'm in favor of the normal tech way of fanaticism. If we bulb Priest, will the next great prophet bulb Fanaticsim, or at least part of it? I forget the bulb preference list. But expansion and/or GA could definitely speed things up and make it palatable.

2) Cap can probably give back the corn. Work mines instead. We do need to get one of the river grasslands by Pery farmed though. Meridia definitely needs a temple asap.

3) Didn't see the latest turn but I'm in favor of a thane build > settler in the capital. Was thinking about these two sites:



The right one could serve as a Merc cap if we want it that close. 5 grasshills and plenty of food.

Sorry I am being yelled out. GODAMN IT SHUT UP

[Ellimist]

Okay, my wolf rider Lurbuk finally made it to the final (known) hut on the map.

It did not disappoint.

This is a LOT more useful than poisons, cartography, or any of the other stuff I've gotten. I held off converting into consumption for now.

There may be more huts out there, but I'm not aware of any. There are some (small) parts of the map that have yet to be explored, and sometimes huts are difficult to spot. So far, I've located a total of 9 hut locations across 6 copies. I've lost track at this point of how many huts I've managed to claim, but I would estimate 2/3 or 3/4 of the 54.

[Ellimist]

Lewwyn:

1) I overestimated how quickly we would get our next GP. It most likely will not be soon enough to have any impact on our Gate completion date. Fanaticism can not be bulbed by a great prophet unless we research Religious Law first, because it has the same prerequisites as Fanaticism and is higher on the priority list.
As far as increasing our commerce rate through expansion, we do have a few things about to occur that will have an impact. The gold at Boethiah will be hooked up very soon, as well as the gold, incense, and dye near Hircine. The two settlers that just finished at Hircine will also create six extra commerce from new trade routes.
I'm planning on a wider city spacing for the sites around Hircine. Those cities are going to cost a lot maintenance for awhile. Here's where I plan to put the first settler pair:

2) Malacath is now size 8. I'd like to get it to size 9 soon when the gold or furs gets hooked up. That will let it work 5 hills, 2 dye, and 2 farms while Peryite uses the corn.
Two thanes of kilmorph finish next turn at Malacath. My plan right now is for one of them to pop borders at Boethiah(gold), and the other at Peryite. I have to choose, though, whether to have Malacath build a stonewarden(temples), settler, worker, thane, or SoK next. Boethiah will finish a settler pair at eot60, and those will probably be used for the first two Mercurian sites.
I'm tempted to skip the temple at Meridia for now. It's not likely to help us get to the Gate any faster, and I can build SoKs without a temple if the religion is present. I need to start stockpiling those if I can.

3) I like those sites, with one minor adjustment; I would move the Capital 1 east. That puts it on a hill for defense, and puts Marble and two additional hills in the BFC.
Here's a speculative dotmap:

[Ellimist]

Sorry about the lack of updates recently. I'm in the process of leaving my job and finding a new one.

Diplomatically, I've been trying to figure out what Kyan is up to. I went ahead and sent him a probing message. His response seems to confirm what he told Weezel, so I replied with a confrontational message. If he's out there telling people I invaded him already, we're not likely to cooperate anyway.

I'm trying to decide whether it's worthwhile to take a short detour to AH/HBR or BW/warfare or just keep focused on fanaticism. It's hard to predict how long it will take to research Fanaticism, but it will probably finish before I can have enough SoKs to complete the Gate. I don't even have either gold hooked up yet and I'm almost getting 100 bpt at 100% science.

The main reason to hurry is getting the economic/military benefits sooner. I don't think we're likely to be in a race situation for it if we don't delay it for too long. We got a lot of techs (almost) for free, so we could delay a little bit while everybody else catches up.

On the other hand... The Mercurian Gate is the most significant part of my overall strategy for this game. Even if the risk of losing it is very small, the potential consequences are very significant.

[Ellimist]

Turn 59:

Kyan built Bone Palace and started (another) golden age. I can't see him building it this early unless he used an engineer, so that's a pretty good deal for him for 75 gold. I'm glad he didn't use it for the Gate or the Titan. He hasn't responded to my last message, so I'll interpret that as a confession for now. Weezel hasn't replied either, which could mean a few different things. Weezel's GNP has been pretty scary (due to his Academy), he's doing much better than the FIN Hippus right now.

I switched to the consumption civic this turn, and also switched out of apprenticeship. The +2 exp is nice, but not if I have to pay the -10% penalty on SoKs, priests, and thanes. I think I can get to Fanaticism faster if I run a few turns of 100% gold now, and switch back to beakers in a few turns when my commerce is better. For now, I'm hoping to finish the tech in another 15 turns, and after that it will probably take some time to get enough hammers.

Things are coming along well enough domestically. Two more settlers finish at Boethiah next turn, which I'll use for the first two Mercurian sites. Malacath is building temples for Meridia and Boethiah. I think I have to prioritize the Summer Palace over in Kurioate lands. The cities over there are costing a fortune right now, and I'm relying on Aristocracy commerce pretty heavily(just as Ravus said I would).