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

[HidingKneel]

Here's an idea: Commodore, what do you think about building a forge in Junil's Justice, instead of an Order temple? When that's done, you can run an engineer specialist to speed up the great engineer. Even if it takes twenty turns to build the forge (and you can probably get it out faster than that), we ought to be able to shave five turns or more off of our second Tower. Plus the forge (and extra production from the engineer) will eventually pay for the production you're investing in it now. It's only twice as expensive as an Order temple (I think if you want those, the quickest way is to spread Order to the Kuriotates, have us build a confessor, and send the confessor where you want the temple).

[Mardoc]

At our current bpt and hpt, both of which I expect to improve, we could have Engineering researched in ~12 turns, and the Guild of Hammers built in Kwythellar 9 turns afterward.

I'd rather consider that sole 368 hammer investment than plan to build a lot of 167 hammer forges all over the place. Especially when we'll want Mathematics anyway sooner or later, so the only changes to our plan would be Masonry/Construction (~700 beakers) and Engineering itself.

[Commodore]

Only question about Guild of Hammers is if Ind Plako or Ilios would get there first. If we think it's a worthwhile path to take (Air power rests at the apex of the first triad of victory, combining Mobility, Flexibility, and Initiative), then by all means let us chase the Guild.

[Mardoc]

Only question about Guild of Hammers is if Ind Plako or Ilios would get there first. If we think it's a worthwhile path to take (Air power rests at the apex of the first triad of victory, combining Mobility, Flexibility, and Initiative), then by all means let us chase the Guild.

Neither currently has either Masonry or Mathematics researched, so they'd be starting from the same place we are. And the research is more than half of the ETA. So, if we go directly toward it, I'm confident we can get it.

My bigger personal debate is the opportunity cost of delaying our druids; we can't go full bore toward both Engineering and Divination at the same time.

And, well - Ilios is probably tops in actual power (discounting palaces) at the moment. At some point he's going to mess up someone's day.

[HidingKneel]

At our current bpt and hpt, both of which I expect to improve, we could have Engineering researched in ~12 turns, and the Guild of Hammers built in Kwythellar 9 turns afterward.

I'd rather consider that sole 368 hammer investment than plan to build a lot of 167 hammer forges all over the place. Especially when we'll want Mathematics anyway sooner or later, so the only changes to our plan would be Masonry/Construction (~700 beakers) and Engineering itself.

Sounds like a possible goal after we finish the techs we'll need for the ToD plan (KotE/Divination/cartography/honor/fishing/message from the deep). But I wasn't thinking of building forges everywhere, just one in Junil's Justice, to get us that great engineer (and, by extension, Eurabatres) 5-10 turns earlier.

That aside, this engineering plan has a lot to recommend it, since it takes us places we want to go anyway: construction for centaur chargers and rathas, mathematics on the way to taxation. But that means putting sorcery on hold...

[Commodore]

Hrmph. I disagree. I will start spending my massive 2 beakers per turn towards Engineering now!

That actually reminds me, what's your -gpt at 100%? I guess I could open your save to check. Anyway, I think I can start sending money if that's bottlenecking tech.

[HidingKneel]

Not sure exactly (it goes up a little each turn). But I think it's somewhere around 450. Right now we're making money at 80%. Could probably raise that to 90% with the money you're bringing in. But I say keep it for paladin upgrades. As-is, the techs are coming in as fast as we can take advantage of them. And Kwythellar can't build the Guild of Hammers and a Tower of Divination at the same time (though I suppose we could build one in Kwythellar and one in Avelorn). And we'll also have to fit a grove in there, too.

By the way, we're sure that the Guild of Hammers benefits the Mercurians if the Kuriotates build it?

[Mardoc]

As of T94, Kurio expenses at 100% science are -55 gpt. And at the moment, it looks like Mercurian upgrades will cost us 59*4 or 236 gold to upgrade four confessors into four Paladins. Since Commodore has 231 in his warchest last screenie I saw, he can probably start funding Kurio science, yes.

Sounds like a possible goal after we finish the techs we'll need for the ToD plan (KotE/Divination/cartography/honor/fishing/message from the deep).

We can delay at least Fishing/MftD, and possibly Honor as well, without affecting the ETA on druids. No point in swapping alignment until the ToD is built and the Grove is built as well. Although it would be useful to get Empy priests built and gaining XP soon. Carto...carto might well pay for itself even in the Engineering timeframe, if Commodore is funding us. He's already up to something like 15 gpt maintenance costs.

Before we commit either way, one of us should run a WB test and confirm that the Guild benefits allies . I'm pretty sure it does, but I was pretty sure about Pillar of Fire as well.

[HidingKneel]

As of T94, Kurio expenses at 100% science are -55 gpt. And at the moment, it looks like Mercurian upgrades will cost us 59*4 or 236 gold to upgrade four confessors into four Paladins. Since Commodore has 231 in his warchest last screenie I saw, he can probably start funding Kurio science, yes.

Well, we don't just want to have enough for those upgrades. At the very least he'll want an event fund left over (if the RNG is kind, we might get that engineer for free). And in case of an emergency, we want to have the option of upgrading less expensive units to paladins. So I say keep saving, at least for the time being.

We can delay at least Fishing/MftD, and possibly Honor as well, without affecting the ETA on druids. No point in swapping alignment until the ToD is built and the Grove is built as well. Although it would be useful to get Empy priests built and gaining XP soon. Carto...carto might well pay for itself even in the Engineering timeframe, if Commodore is funding us. He's already up to something like 15 gpt maintenance costs.

Agreed on delaying Fishing/MftD. Don't want to delay Honor: even aside from the benefit of getting xp on our vicars and the ability to build radiant guards, we'll want to get our (half-price!) Empyrean temples up as soon as possible for the science boost. As for cartography: I say we research it exactly one turn before Commodore wants to swap civics, whenever that is. As long as that's at least 4 turns away, because I want to get started building that first tower.

On the other hand: the techs along the road to engineering don't offer us much. So unless we're planning to put off fishing/MftD until after we get there (which might work; ToD is over 500 hammers, and the grove will be another 200 hammers on top of that), it might not matter much.

Another option to consider: what about replacing fishing/MftD by Deception? Esus hasn't been founded yet, so we might be able to grab ourselves another holy city (for whatever that's worth; I guess Nox Noctis isn't very strong in EitB?) It's a bigger beaker investment, but it might be worthwhile to be in Esus later once we research warhorses. On the other hand, we'll want fishing at some point anyway, so we can extract seafood and pearls from our conquest of Thoth.

[Mardoc]

Checked further on Carto: current angelic expenses expected to be saved by Carto are 6.5 gold, current GK benefit is 8 gpt/9hpt. So it's not worth that swap for a while yet, not until the angels expand some more. Which, granted, we intend to do quickly, but it means Carto can wait. Actually, the bigger opportunity cost is delaying Consumption/MilState swaps.

Checked in WB on the Guild, it does benefit teammates, not just the owner.

On the subject of emergencies - well, that's a large part of why I don't want the angels dumping 167 hammers into a forge right now . Especially in a city that's not particularly hammer heavy, so will take a long time to pay back. That'll buy a temple and a Confessor and have some left over. Or it would buy the rest of the training yard and three and a half axemen. Hammers spent on military will reassure me a lot more than gold sitting in a treasury.

On the subject of the southern barb city you found: it's only very slightly further from the Mercurian capital than Deluoc is. I think it's yet another city we should take as soon as it grows and we have forces in the area. Especially since we pay no maintenance on it until it comes out of revolt, by which point there's good odds of being in City States anyway.