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

[Mardoc]

Oh, and here's something weird: the AC dropped from 34 to 30. I'm guessing that means Bob is rebuilding his beasts so they can start with two promotions.

Nope, that would be the birth of Valin Phanuel.

Anyway, I can't see a way to slaughter Bob just yet, either. And he doesn't even need an Imp, Mardero starts with Rust. Although granted, Rust is sometimes resisted, I'd still rather lead with a screen of sacrificial angel axes/horsemen. Make Bob choose between giving up his fortification bonuses and taking damage, or letting us hit him first.

That said, as soon as we can, we should.

[Mardoc]

Ok, I lie, I see one way we could manage to handle Bob, assuming he doesn't come out with yet another surprise by the time we had it built. The trouble is, I'm not convinced it's worth the cost.

But...if we researched Masonry -> Construction, then came up with 1870 gold and a Confessor plus Iron, we'd have 22 well-promoted Str 8/6 Centaur Chargers. Put them four or five tiles from Bob (several squares in our territory would work), along with some combat workers, then pop Basium's WS, build roads in neutral territory, and charge, with Sprinting. Add in Basium and Valin to the party, and we could probably wipe Bob's stack in Cauldron Lake. Str 16 units, when damaged to Str 8, lose pretty badly to Str 8 base units. Especially if we led off with Basium to crush whichever unit was the luckiest.

Cleaning up the rest of Bob's stuff would be straightforward after we kill his super units.

We could manage that in about 10-12 turns. So as long as Bob doesn't research anything nasty in the next ten turns and we're fine with stagnating in order to kill him, we could do it. But is it worth delaying Eurabatres by 10 turns in order to gain 3 cities for Basium? Probably not. Not when we can keep Bob penned away from us by watching him with Paladins.

The only reason to consider it is that Ilios is getting awfully strong. We might have more than one reason to want a horde of Str 8/6 chargers around . Except, again, that it doesn't compare to collateral or a dragon.

[NobleHelium]

Well, entangle is also a pretty fantastic spell. But I guess that can be the job for Commodore's druids.

Also: the FFH wiki is out of date. Temples of the Empyrean give +10% science, rather than +10% military production. Now I like it this idea even better. Because we need to tech faster! Faster!

Also: social order is apparently available at Orders from Heaven now. So no need to tech religious law if we want those royal guards. Though I agree with Mardoc: we probably don't need them.

The FFH wiki is for FFH, not for EitB.

[HidingKneel]

Well, Empyrean temples give +10% science in FFH, too :neenernee.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, another turn in. Let's have a look.

We got a new tech:



Kwythellar is full-steam ahead on the tower of divination plan. First step: mage guild. Also, Commodore spread Order to Kwythellar. Which isn't where we need it: need to get that in a city with a free build queue. So I sent an in-game reminder:



If I convert to Order and Commodore spreads to one of my cities, do I get the free units? If so, we should make sure I convert beforehand. I'd like to produce one last stonewarden first, destined for druid-hood.

What else? As you can see from the above screenshot, we've founded a new city for Commodore. I chose the default name; you can change it next turn.



Looks like we're running right up against Ilios's borders. And Commodore conquered Deluoc, bringing us right up against Plako:



Okay, at this point we have more territory than we're able to defend. Fortunately, Commmodore finished a training yard in Kilmorph's Kith this turn, which is ready to start turning out 1-turn axemen. Unfortunately, that training yard doesn't let me promote my warriors to axemen. I guess I'll need to build my own training yard for that. Not a top priority, but something to get to at some point. (Will Commodore be able to promote to druids using my grove? If not, he'll need his own, plus an alignment switch... not sure it's worth it.)

I teched cartography this turn at 40% science, bringing a nice bundle of gold. My proposal: swap civics next turn, and I'll use my turn to hand you ~250 gold. The turn after, you can cash-rush that forge and start working an engineer. That'll get the great engineer out on turn 107, so we'll be ready to build the second tower any time after that. It'll take a little longer to get the first tower built, but I might cash-rush part of that too.

Question is: which civics to swap? City states/consumption/military state, for sure. But should we also change agrarianism to conquest? The ability to take a free promotion right away is very useful (usually for mobility). And conquest would make some otherwise mediocre cities into production powerhouses (Junil's Justice has a food surplus of 21 right now! Of course, that'll go down to 18 if we swap out of agrarianism). Downside of course is that it forces us to choose between growing and pumping units, when we'd like to be doing both. But at this point: I think we really, really need more units. Lots, lots more units.

Also, I notice that Commodore is building workers in some of the new cities. I know we need more workers, but I don't think slow-building them in new acquisitions is a good idea. Need to get those cities growing. I'll start pumping workers in Naggarond once it finishes a stonewarden (so send that acolyte to Avelorn!)

[Commodore]

Next!

[Commodore]

Question is: which civics to swap? City states/consumption/military state, for sure. But should we also change agrarianism to conquest? The ability to take a free promotion right away is very useful (usually for mobility). And conquest would make some otherwise mediocre cities into production powerhouses (Junil's Justice has a food surplus of 21 right now! Of course, that'll go down to 18 if we swap out of agrarianism). Downside of course is that it forces us to choose between growing and pumping units, when we'd like to be doing both. But at this point: I think we really, really need more units. Lots, lots more units.

Also, I notice that Commodore is building workers in some of the new cities. I know we need more workers, but I don't think slow-building them in new acquisitions is a good idea. Need to get those cities growing. I'll start pumping workers in Naggarond once it finishes a stonewarden (so send that acolyte to Avelorn!)

The workers are largely placeholders as the barbarians come out of revolt up there. Not sure if SS is about to get smooshed by Plako anyway, if so it's okay. I like Conquest as a swap, I gotta say...Military State is great for rushing and support (forge cost above) but I miss XP. We need the units badly, no doubt.

Also, you have that crusader inbound right now, HK, the acolyte wasn't going to be able to get there any faster. Sorry about forgetting it last turn, I had on auto-route like a noob.

[HidingKneel]

Yeah, I think conquest is the right move.

Another thought: Plako's claimed Selrahc's mana node. This makes sorcery a lot less appealing (at least prior to fighting Plako off). Which means that
hunting / animal handling should be back on the table. I'd feel a lot safer with better recon.

[Mardoc]

Yeah, I think conquest is the right move.

Thirded. We've plenty of infrastructure for angels to build while growing, if need be. And we can pick up Festivals any turn now, whenever we don't have something more urgent on our plate, to add to that.

Another thought: Plako's claimed Selrahc's mana node. This makes sorcery a lot less appealing (at least prior to fighting Plako off). Which means that
hunting / animal handling should be back on the table. I'd feel a lot safer with better recon.

Hunting would give us a few more resources, as well. At least furs and ivory, I think there may be a deer hiding somewhere. And one of those is able to act as a bonus prereq for Stirrups, IIRC.

So, in general I approve. The main question is where in our priority list to slide them in. After Divination, at the earliest. It'll be competing with Taxation/Engineering/MftD for priorities, right? I think I'd actually put it first among those; Hawks will be a dramatic boost to our security and knowledge for plans, and at this point it's only a three-turn research project.

And...Hawks won't cost many hammers to exploit. And having some Hunters around might make Ilios play more carefully with his big cats. And we might even be able to get ourselves a spider to harass Bob some more.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, new turn. We got a tech:



Divination next. Then I'm thinking hunting/animal handling, before going for Honor. We're going to want to spend a little time in Order (probably exactly five turns) before Empyrean, anyway. Hawks will add a lot of security.
In the meanwhile, we need to do our scouting using centaurs.

Our new mobility guy got a look at Bob:



All the heavy-hitters are in Cauldron Lake. But there's fewer units there than there used to be: they must be garrisoning his new city. Doesn't look like he's massing for an immediate strike. So I spread out our paladins a bit more... moved one of them up to Amatheon's Alms. Because we've got trouble on other fronts. Have a look at Ilios:



And that's not even all of it: his work crew is being guarded by two priests of leaves and a bunch of tigers. If he comes for our new city, we won't be able to defend it.

Meanwhile, Plako is building himself a road towards Deluoc:



The culture graph shows a huge spike by Plako recently. I think he must have culture-bombed that area to stop us from grabbing Selrahc's mana node. He also must have had a puppet next to us between turns, because one of my centaurs was charmed. I pillaged the road segment leading to the city, but he'll be able to rebuild it soon enough. Then... who knows? The forces I saw aren't a big threat, but he can probably muster more. We should be safe as long as Basium's in the city. But Basium may soon be needed elsewhere.

Offered Commodore some gold for that forge:



Only, that was before I saw this:



How are you bringing in 5 GPP there, Commodore? You're not in pacifism or a golden age, and I don't see any other sources besides the Code of Junil.
Whatever it is, if it persists, we won't need that forge after all. So we can use that gold for more Kuriotate research.

I have a feeling that this game is about to get very bloody...