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

[HidingKneel]

Excellent. Thanks T-Hawk!

HK, just let me know when you want me to announce.

Whenever you're ready. We don't want to keep the other players in suspense .

[HidingKneel]

Units can only upgrade if they have all their movement left, and upgrading consumes it.

Ooh, they need all their movement? That's bad news if Bob goes after Naggarond. But they don't need to be in a city to promote, right? So one strategy is to "scramble" our stonewardens on turn 82, putting them three tiles from both Kwythellar and Naggarond, promote them on turn 83. Then on turn 84 they can travel three tiles to wherever the action is, pick up their iron weapons, and still have half a movement point left to attack out of the relevant city.

[Mardoc]

Ooh, they need all their movement? That's bad news if Bob goes after Naggarond. But they don't need to be in a city to promote, right?

Right, just in the worked tiles of a city with the relevant building. Which in this case is any city, but might matter when we get around to building Druids, say.

What you suggest should work, if Bob isn't blatant enough.

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="Silver"]kilmorph loves me, this i know,
for the tablets tell me so,
little ones to her belong,
they are weak but she is strong.

yes, kilmorph loves me....
yes, kilmorph loves me...
yes, kilmorph loves me...
the tablets tell me so.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[NobleHelium]

Wrong, units can upgrade as long as they have any amount of movement left, not all.

[Mardoc]

Wrong, units can upgrade as long as they have any amount of movement left, not all.

Are you 100% sure on that? I could have sworn that's messed with my plans in the past.

Also, I see that something goaded Bob to post, after being one of the more neglected threads. I wonder what that could be?

[Commodore]

Also, I see that something goaded Bob to post, after being one of the more neglected threads. I wonder what that could be?

I certainly hope it was one of his famous unspeakably foul rants.

[T-hawk]

Done and I sent the save by email, let me know if it doesn't get there.

Bob probably noticed me posting, along with a delay in the turn pace, and knew that could only mean one thing.

[HidingKneel]

Appropriately epic introduction, Commodore .

So, time for me to check in as a dedlurker for the Mercurians. Suggestions for the immediate future:

0) Resist the urge to claim Naggarond for the Mercurians

1) civic swaps (God-King/apprenticeship/agrarianism). Overcouncil also if it doesn't push you into two turns of revolt. Otherwise hold off until the next revolt (turn 90ish?) into city states/consumption.

2) You get six angels to start, right? Sending one or two towards Killswitch might be a good idea. If I was one of the other players now, I'd be trying to guess where the Mercurian capital is, and hoping to blitz it before you have a chance to settle in. (Once we're out of immediate danger, I'll garrison a lot of centaurs in Naggarond, so they can reinforce any of our holdings in one turn).

3) Maybe use another angel as a settler escort, and get started towards a second city. The land east of Killswitch looks pretty nice: I think you can three corns and a gold, IIRC.

4) Basium we'll want on the front lines, with whatever angels you can spare. Don't want to risk him on battles where you don't get overwhelming odds (say 95%) until he gets his immortal promotion. Probably keep him in Naggarond for the time being, unless it seems obvious that Bob is heading for Kwythellar.

5) Worldspell I think should be a "don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" thing. Unless we're about to lose a supercity, or we have a chance to kill Hyborem, it's not worth it.

6) Religion: I think you can't switch to anything yet: Kilmorph hasn't spread to Killswitch. I'll build a temple for you there as soon as we're sure that Bob isn't going to kill us. But I'd hold off on adopting a state religion until we found Order. The Mercurians should build Valin, I think, since the Kuriotates are more likely to be religion-hopping later. Plus a mounted hero will synergize well with your raiders trait.

Question: how does religion founding work if you're a team? Will Order be founded by whichever of us finishes it on our turn? Anyways, I think that should be the Kurios. Looks like we got a prophet at the end of turn 81 (unless T-hawk generated another random seed), so we can build the Code of Junil as soon as Order lands.

7) Stables for horsemen and training yard for iron axes are both appealing.
I think the training yard is probably a better first build: you'll be doing a lot of expanding and will want garrison troops that receive defensive bonuses.

[HidingKneel]

So, tech plans:

I think we can hold off on additional mounted techs for the time being. 8 paladins should be enough to hold the line, in combination with our centaur swarm, priests, and the iron axes that Commodore can build.

Here are the techs I see in our immediate future:

Smelting (due at the end of turn 82). Enables all sorts of awesome things for us. And reveals iron.

Sanitation: not too expensive now, will help Basium grow, and will help us grow. Enables some useful buildings, when we can spare the hammers for them.

Orders from Heaven: Unlocks lots of useful units, a religion for Basium (and for the Kuriotates), a religious hero for Basium, lets us build the code of Junil, and get further benefit from our spiritual traits.

Currency: Useful economic tech, unlocks consumption for Basium to switch too.

Cartography: unlocks city states for Basium.

Not sure what order they should go in, except that smelting will be first (we're already almost there) and cartography won't be needed until at least turn 90 (the earliest Commodore can get his second swap).

I'm not sold on the masonry->construction path to sanitation. That'll only save beakers if we're sure we want construction at some point, and I'm not sure we do. Can't chain farm on this map, and I think that if we can survive the next few turns, centaur archers are a better long-term upgrade option than centaur chargers.

Once those techs are in, I think we should start setting up the tower of divination path to complete domination of the game. KotE -> Divination -> Fishing -> MftD won't take long at all. Then we can grab Commune with Nature for druids, turn the mana over to Basium, and get ourselves that pet dragon we've always wanted .

[Mardoc]

Basium thoughts:

First turn, we need to set up a bunch of trades. Most will go to Basium, but a few need to come back.

We want to be much more careful with the Angels than with the living ones, but they do need to fight. We'll need angels of varying levels to upgrade, once we get to the various capstone techs. Which means getting them XP, but keeping them alive.

Conversely, living Basium units can afford to be reckless. If they win, they get mucho XP, if they lose, we get Angels.

Ah...Basium should also be almost totally war focused. The traits are awesome for it, getting to use units twice is nice,

Tech priorities, in my mind:

First, we start with those that require no hammers to benefit from. We've got at least the paladins to prepare, plus workers to replace, a bunch of settlers to build, plus probably military. And forges and jewelers, now. That doesn't leave a lot of spare for more projects just yet.

That would be Currency and Orders from Heaven, as first priorities. Order give a free missionary every time it spreads, and I think free Crusaders as well, so it doesn't really cost hammers. Plus it'll be needed to get Basium culture. But...it can wait a smidgen longer. Currency gets us to every other tech sooner, so I'd do it first.

Longer term goals: once we have the divination tech path, there's no reason to stop there. We can, and probably should, continue to grab Hawks, then up to Warhorses for Herne, Centaur Lancers, and Ophanim.

We also, in about 20-30 turns when we have Towns and Enclaves instead of cottages/hamlets, want to pick up Taxation and revolt into Republic. Obviously this can't be hurried.

At this point, the main reason I think we should research Construction, despite the lack of economic benefit, isn't really the Centaur Chargers, although I do think they'd be useful. I want access to catapults, though! We're still a long way off from any sort of collateral, and we can't rely on a technological edge forever. We can handle Bob, but when we run into plako or Ilios, we'll need something more.