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

[Mardoc]

Some questions: Do we want to trigger before blight, or let blight hit and trigger a bit later for more AC reduction? I'm thinking before blight. Blight is going to hit us hard, and we need to build as much military as we can before that happens.

Yes, before Blight, for that exact reason. I'm pretty sure we need a unit on the Pines to activate them; don't forget to take that into account.

If we hit the Pines at AC 28 or so, then all we have to do to get AC back to zero is kill the Ragnarok units.

Might it be worth staying in agrarianism? We're running huge food surpluses right now in all three cities (well, huge in Naggarond and Avelorn, moderate in Kwythellar), so we might be able to ride it out better. I'm also thinking no; we need to hit Selrahc very hard, very quickly. Which means shock-promoted centaurs and lots of them.

Also agreed. And it's looking like Selrahc may occupy us long enough for Bob to make it to Hyborem - at which point we'll need a lot of well promoted Centaurs for him too.

Ah - after we have a few shock Centaurs, enough to kill all the warriors we face, it'll be worth making a few either Combat II, or Flanking II, to start preparing for Hyborem. They'll be more effective against goblins that way, too. And I can't see Selrahc making warriors with 9 hpt or less, he's doomed unless Armageddon saves him.

I can't quite see how to make it work, or I'd suggest razing Bob's holy city before marching on Selrahc. But I think that would delay our army too much.

I guess the only thing left is to wish you good RNG luck! Some well timed expiry of Fatigued, not too much damage on the first attacks against the orcs, and this can still work out.

[HidingKneel]

Yes, before Blight, for that exact reason. I'm pretty sure we need a unit on the Pines to activate them; don't forget to take that into account.

Got two warriors already en-route.

Also agreed. And it's looking like Selrahc may occupy us long enough for Bob to make it to Hyborem - at which point we'll need a lot of well promoted Centaurs for him too.

Probably an agrarianism swap is in order at the tail-end of blight. No point in working food tiles at all while we're starving, but we'll want to get our population out of free-fall and back to growing at the first opportunity.

And I can't see Selrahc making warriors with 9 hpt or less, he's doomed unless Armageddon saves him.

I think he's doomed in any case. Unless Stephanos decides to garrison his city for him, we'll be able to take him out. It's just a question of how high he'll be able to get the AC before it starts coming down. Blight seems inevitable and Stephanos a serious possibility. But I'll bet we can take him out before Buboes.

The big question, I think, is where Hyborem will land. If he spawns next to us at an inopportune moment, we're in trouble.

Also, it would be good to know what Plako and Ilios are up to. They're not going to be lightweights: Ilios has five cities now, and Plako will probably pull ahead in GNP now that our golden age is over. Neither will suffer nearly as much from the blight. Once Selrahc's out of the picture, either one might decide to make a move on us.

[HidingKneel]

Incidentally, anybody know how much unhealthiness you get during blight?

[Mardoc]

Incidentally, anybody know how much unhealthiness you get during blight?

10 + City population - Health directly from buildings (herbalist counts, granary doesn't).

So as of T48, if Blight hit,
Kwythellar would gain 23 unhealth (size 15 + 10 - 1(herbalist) - 1 (Kurio Palace))
Naggarond would gain 21 unhealth (size 12 + 10 - 1 (Kurio Palace))
and Avelorn would gain 18 unhealth (size 10 + 10 - 1 (herbalist) - 1 (Kurio Palace)).

If we had all the time in the world to prepare, I'd recommend getting to Sanitation for Aqueducts and Aquae Sucellus, and Medicine for Infirmaries. As it is, though, we're probably going to have to just grin and bear it. We need Centaurs and Angels more than we need to minimize Blight's effects.

Blight unhealth decreases at a rate of 1/turn.

[DaveV]

Incidentally, anybody know how much unhealthiness you get during blight?

10 + city population - health from buildings + random 0-15

Where health from buildings only includes buildings with a direct bonus to health (not stables or granary). All living units also receive about 0-50% death damage, which can kill them if they're already injured.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, that's not too bad. So let's say blight lands on turn 57 (sounds about right). I then start ignoring food tiles, letting my cities starve a bit (Avelorn might not need to starve much at all, if the RNG is kind). Production falls off a bit because I'm no longer building centaurs with extra food, but Kwythellar should still be able to do almost a centaur a turn. Around turn 63 or so (depending on the RNG) I swap to agrarianism, just in time to stop losing population in Kwythellar. At that point I start working food again and production drops off a lot, but I ought to have over twenty centaurs and can ease up on the military.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 49 is in. Time to start cranking up the Kuriotate war machine. I revolted into nationalism, apprenticeship, and conquest, and set all three cities to building centaurs. Let's have a look.

Here's Kwythellar:



Our powerhouse production center. Will be putting out 41 hammers per turn. That's one centaur, plus a hammer of overflow. Which probably gets rounded away, but nevermind. Note that we're working all our improvements, both our specialists, and have one population left over working a plains tile. I've started a cottage there, will finish next turn. Workers don't have much else to do around Kwythellar (well, I guess I could hook up the standing stones for some earth mana, but that doesn't seem very pressing). I'll build another cottage so we can stop working that forest tile, and then maybe get started on those military roads Mardoc suggested.

Naggarond:



Right now, Naggarond can bring in 29 hammers per turn, while working a sage. Can trade the sage for 3 more hammers, or 5 hammers once we construct another farm. Aside from connecting the ivory (which isn't necessary, we're running a huge happiness surplus everywhere) that's the only bit of work to finish around here. No point in building cottages right now; we already don't have the population to work all our improved tiles.

Avelorn:



Twenty seven hammers per turn, which will go up to twenty-nine when I finish farming the wheat next turn, and can go up more if we stop working a sage. After that, those workers will be free until the third ring comes in (at which point Avelorn can work another remnants of Patria for a hefty hammer boost).

So, until blight lands, we're looking at roughly 10 centaurs every four turns.

Armageddon counter: 20/122 = 16%.

[Mardoc]

Aside from connecting the ivory (which isn't necessary,

It's also not possible . We can put a road on the tile, but it won't give us anything until we research Hunting.

Avelorn could really use a mine on that open grass hill.

There's a debate on what to do with the workers now you're mostly caught up - on the one hand, we want cottages in place to work during Blight, and once we switch to Foreign Trade/resume growth. On the other hand, military mobility might allow us to prevent or at least delay Blight!

Other than that, things look good. Now to see if the centaurs can save the world!

[HidingKneel]

It's also not possible . We can put a road on the tile, but it won't give us anything until we research Hunting.

Oops! In that case, several of our workers have been [STRIKE]wasting their time[/STRIKE] building essential strategically placed roads leading in Selrahc's direction.

Avelorn could really use a mine on that open grass hill.

Hmm... would we rather have a mine to work than a cottage?

There's a debate on what to do with the workers now you're mostly caught up - on the one hand, we want cottages in place to work during Blight, and once we switch to Foreign Trade/resume growth. On the other hand, military mobility might allow us to prevent or at least delay Blight!

Good point about cottages during blight. I should build several near each city. I think it's probably too late to get much out of roading towards Selrahc. To save a full turn we'd need what, 6-8 tiles of road? And roading outside of my culture is risky; there are probably still spiders and griffons out there.

[Mardoc]

Hmm... would we rather have a mine to work than a cottage?

Depends on what we're doing at the moment . We're now to the point of having extra worker turns; I don't see a problem with giving ourselves the flexibility to swap configurations turn-to-turn. I don't think there's an answer to your question that'll be always true.

In any case, I'm sure we'd rather work a mine than an unimproved forest. Especially if we also have earth mana connected.

If you meant for the hill in particular - yes, I'd build a mine there, now anyway. Also build some cottages on the flatland. But at this point you want the ability to emphasize hammers, or food, or commerce, and that means pushing tiles to extremes.

In the super long run, when we switch to Republic we'll want almost every single tile to be an enclave, hills and forests and even probably most of our resources. There's no point in trying to get there overnight, though.

To save a full turn we'd need what, 6-8 tiles of road?

Oh, you're not going to save time for the first centaur to hit Selrahc. If you can figure out a good way to escort the workers, though, you might save time on centaurs 3 and 4, and you'll certainly save time on the return trip.

Mostly what I'm trying to do is point out things that would be nice to have. If I've given the impression that they're equal priority - well, I apologize, because they're clearly not. But now that the cities are working almost all improved tiles and not growing for a while, we can afford to divert to some of the less urgent tasks.

I'm certainly not going to argue we should build roads in preference to everything, just that there are still handy things to do and that's one of them. I'm certain that improving the wheat and the corn as you did was higher priority