Well, Elli's being more paranoid than I expected. Not that I really mind, as it means he's not hurting me yet, but it probably also means he'll get to the mountain range uninhibited, if he wants. Maybe I'll be lucky and the barb griff will win a low-odds chance at him.
I turned the Sage back on in Ringmaster, as it drops a turn from Education. I'm debating how long to let it run - I do want that Bard...
Well, in Bard news, we have a Freak perfect for a Show:
Yeah...somehow he was Mutated and picked up exactly zero promotions.
So...do we put him up in Trapeze, or in Ringmaster? I'm currently thinking Trapeze - have it build a Carnival next, plus the Freak show GPP, ought to be a fairly high odds Bard. So long as we fire the Ringmaster Sage in time, we can get Trapeze's GP out first.
I haven't checked this in a while sorry.
Agree with Trapezee.
I get the feeling that Elliminst just wants to snoop/act worrisome and disrupting, without jeopardizing any future relations.
Also, maybe he's to our west which is why he's covering that area?
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
I'm back! And...there's not a lot new in the empire . Played two turns so far, in which we built a Freak Show, half a Carnival, and finished settler #4. Our Great Bard odds in Trapeze are now up to ~20% - of course that'll keep climbing now that the Freak Show is built and again once we start working a Bard. I'm giving serious thought to abandoning the Inspiration here to improve the odds further, but I don't think we can turn down free beakers, not at this point in the game. We're bound to start getting artists sooner or later, now that I'm building Freak Shows - and a Great Sage wouldn't be tragic.
Ellimist's Griffon is now onto the peaks, via the lake - I'd forgotten how good he is at fog gazing. Nothing much we can do about it until either Fireballs or Harlequins - or, I suppose, capturing a griffon of our own, or him making a mistake. On the other hand, only the gold is currently blocked from improvement, and we probably can do even that with a 2 warrior cover + nearby backup.
Next up - need another worker or two to put up our soon-unlocked cottages in the core cities from Ringmaster, and probably to allow it to grow once or twice onto said cottages, then back to more settlers. This is a quite lush map, really, which means settlers are uber important.
Need to decide on the upcoming tech path. Given where Elli is, Fishing/Sailing can wait a bit longer - I probably want Hunting, but it'd be nice to wait until I'm 100% certain that at least HK will be giving us a known-tech bonus. I suppose the logical alternative is Knowledge of the Ether. It'd be nice to get some Mage Guilds and adepts built while we're still Arcane (Turn 72 and our traits haven't swapped even once!). And Inspiration everywhere/freeing up Loki would also be a plus.
Although, frankly, if we lose Arcane, that ought to make adept-building more urgent, not less . If there's one thing that's clear about the Clowns, it's that puppet summoning Mages can win a game, and puppet summoning adepts can mostly just delay.
I think the next couple cities need to continue east/northeast - that's where the best resources are, and a core shading toward ex-Selrahcia is probably a good thing regardless. Which means Hunting and Animal Husbandry are still not urgent. Therefore KotE.
In other news, HK continues talking without saying much. We responded likewise .
HK Wrote:The elven court sends its greeting to the Circus folk.
The latest reports on Calabim technological progress are somewhat alarming. How fares your griffon hunt?
Have you made contact with the Sidar? I believe that their territory lies between yours and the Calabim, though we have not visited them ourselves.
HK
Mardoc Wrote:Welcome back to the Show! Have some peanuts, take a seat!
Calabim are indeed concerning; high demographics and still they have yet to establish their Governors. It is unlikely that the Circus can address this issue anytime soon.
They have chosen the long term approach with their griffon, however, keeping to water and peaks, and preventing Circus activities by threat rather than by blood. Despite Perpentach's best motivating efforts, our warriors refuse to enter such terrain, even to laugh at such a freakish beast.
Now that the Circus employs the world's best military, we're working on new tricks to handle such impassible terrain, but no one has any short term solutions.
Still haven't met the Sidar, but it's only a matter of time.
Well, I still don't think I have much interesting to report, but I have time, so I'll report anyway .
First up, next turn we join the ranks of the 4-city-owning civs. Which is already HidingKneel (several turns) and Ellimist (1-2 turns) - it's amazing how much a griffon who's just hanging out can still slow the growth of a civ.
Which means it's time, of course, to decide where the next city is to go. I'm debating between these two spots, and the one in the west:
I think I'm leaning toward the original, the site closer to the rest of our civ; slightly less worker labor required, similar quality site, potential to borrow the rice, doesn't orphan the wines. Not quite the best possible - that's likely on top of the dungeon. Do I want to take a risk and start exploring that now, so that we can put a city there in 8-10 turns?
Probably I do!
The western city - well, it requires at least Fishing, but with Fishing it's got the potential to be a very nice commerce city. Add in Animal Husbandry and Sailing and it can be quite food positive, as well.
Downsides - would determine our near-term tech path, and it's potentially an expensive city to found and keep as long as Elli's in the area. Flatland, within easy striking range of a lake - I'd need at least two warrior cover for both the city and any workers at all times, and even then it'd be easy for Elli to collect some low-risk kills for yet more XP on that griff. I think it'll keep waiting.
In other news - Education can't come soon enough! Our beaker rate has been steadily slipping, as we add units and population (higher maintenance). We just finished a worker in Ringmaster, and should finish a second next turn, who will be able to slap up cottages galore for us. I'm starting to consider building a market in a few spots - we'll want to run a merchant for Nox, and the extra cash for the slider would really help our GNP.
I'm still thinking Knowledge of the Ether next, though. Freeing up Loki to scout will be worth a bunch, and so will being able to run 4+ Inspirations. And there's a valuable looking barb city up to the north, which ought to be conquerable with puppet spam and Freakish Swordsmen.
Agree, thanks for the report!
The skeleton is a tile feature, but it is placed on a single tile even though it is viable on more then one. This means it spills over to more tiles and disappears if it isn't there - a disorienting affect I'm not too fond of.
Why are great artists better then GS?
If the Griffin is having such a disproportionate effect, is it worth trapping it? For maybe a worker or two?
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Quote:The skeleton is a tile feature, but it is placed on a single tile even though it is viable on more then one. This means it spills over to more tiles and disappears if it isn't there - a disorienting affect I'm not too fond of.
Yeah, Q's got it.
To clarify the 'if it isn't there' bit - the tile containing the feature must be on screen (even if in the fog) for any piece of the skeleton to show up, even those pieces on far-removed tiles.
I like the idea of things bigger than a tile, but this implementation does lead to disorientation, yes .
Quote:Why are great artists better then GS?
They aren't, on average. Most times I'd rather the Sage. But in this case, I want an Artist, because:
We already have an Academy in our highest commerce city, and our slider is already fairly low
We don't have a good second Academy candidate - ideally that would have nice commerce specials and also a lot of cottagable grass. High Wire has Incense/Gold, but the desert will keep it from also having a lot of cottages. Our greener sites don't seem to have a lot of native commerce.
Great Sage doesn't bulb anything particularly nice at this point in the tech tree - I think it would give us Animal Husbandry IIRC. Useful, but not really many beakers.
Great Bard bulbs at the moment are very nice - bulbs Drama I believe, which gives a free Great Bard, which then bulbs Sanitation. Two for the price of one - admittedly Drama isn't a lot of use for Creative Balseraphs, but Sanitation is, and we can lose Creative any turn.
We want to deny the free Great Bard to others.
We can get a Bard without spending excessively. Freak Show + Creative Carnival is only 80 hammers, and also gives +2 happy. And Trapeze is big enough that there aren't any super-duper tiles we'd give up working for the Artist.
I won't cry if we get a Sage, he can still become a Golden Age, or (most likely) settle in the Academy city for +9 bpt. Now that we're building Freak Shows, we're bound to get another GBard sooner or later for my free Sanitation - I just want it early. But at the moment our best bonus would be the free Drama/Sanitation combo.
Quote:If the Griffin is having such a disproportionate effect, is it worth trapping it? For maybe a worker or two?
No.
The effect of the griffon is entirely due to diverting resources to military instead of growth. We can't solve that by diverting more.
At some point we'll want to kill it or capture it. It's having a small but real effect on my decisions, and it's requiring more troops kept around than I'd really prefer.
But the longer we wait, the smaller fraction of our resources will be required to do that. Now, we'd need bait workers (50 hammer/ea), and a bunch of warriorpults (16 hammers/ea), out of only three mature(ish) cities. Near term, we might be able to use puppets or skeletons instead of warriorpults, and we'll have more cities. Further out, a single Harlequin ought to manage (Str 6, +50% vs animal, Taunt, perhaps a promo for Subdue), or else fireballs for free.
Or, it's possible at some point Elli decides he's done all he can (possibly he sees that we're close to one of those cheap killing methods) and offers peace. It's not AW, and we're no longer his #1 threat; he might try to mend his bridges instead of burning them. Or we could luck out, and a barb kills the griff.
In any case, building up a force to kill the griff, with current tech and demos, would cost too much right now. As long as Elli stays mostly away, it's not worth the cost.
Anyway, we had a turn this morning. Some highlights:
I had to pick between running a Sage in Ringmaster for a 2t worker and 1t Education, or not running it and a 1t worker/2t Edu. Went for Edu, but next turn I plan to fire the Sage again. Still, the whole point of that worker build is cottages, so there wasn't a lot of purpose in doing it the other way around.
Trapeze's Carnival is in, so starting next turn we'll be running a bard. I'm not 100% sure what the best next build is - probably Freaks or Settler, but maybe I should put up an EC and/or Market.
Now that Edu's in - I plan to actually go to 0% science for a while, because:
We're a bit overdue on building an event fund
Binary science makes sense in general but especially when I'm uncertain on the best next tech
We won't have God King forever, so this is the best time for event fund regardless.
Suppressing our demos is the best chance to convince Ellimist to go away already, without spending military. This doesn't actually hurt us, but it'll make GNP look worse. Although I despair of it ever looking as bad as it is - we've got oodles of culture.
I'll be spending the Inspiration and EC beakers on Knowledge of the Ether while we pile up gold. I expect the gold rate to be quite slow, actually, at least until the cottage building takes off.
I remembered a second bonus to going Fishing/Sailing, beyond the tiles we could work. We could start establishing some intercontinental traderoutes, and maybe perhaps even foreign trade. I still think KotE is more urgent, but the watery techs will have to happen sooner or later.
We got another interesting Freak built, this time in High Wire: Heroic Defense/Heavy. Once we make him a Swordsman, he'll be our first unit who can have odds on the Griffon in the field.
Lion Tamer is built. It ought to grow pretty darn quick, with a farm on the Deer, cotton plantation already built, plus two workers to help it along. It didn't really hurt our GNP - three gold maintenance, but 3 commerce income already. It'll be very nice once it's working the cottons and some cottages as well. So there's still no rush to get out of God King.
I've got a warrior en route to the dungeon to our northeast. I want to put city 5 on that tile, which requires we clean the dungeon out, and perhaps exploration will be profitable too. Keep your fingers crossed!
After that, our next expansion will hopefully be conquering the northern barb city; I figure we can do that for less than 145 hammers worth of units lost. Want to get Loki up there to prove that one way or the other. It's vaguely possible we can get another city founded while the army travels north, though.
Oh darn, I liked the way it looks and I didn't stop to think that it might be disorienting.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Merovech, it's not a big deal, just an annoyance. And I'm much more annoyed with the civ4 graphics engine than I am with you - it's a cool feature, just would be cooler if it were always there.
Two boring turns have passed. No killing, no teching, only a worker built. Elli even moved his griffon out of sight (though he didn't offer peace).
I took a gamble that he'll stay away long enough to get the gold mined and roaded - theorizing that he wants to explore a bit. We can use the happiness, and it'd be handy to be able to work the tile, too. If he doesn't - we lose some worker turns.
It's surprising how much of our econ is non-slider - we're currently making 9 bpt and 24 gpt. Although maybe this is just a sign of how pathetic our GNP situation really is, with ~35 gpt in expenses - cottages can't come fast enough for me!
We're somewhere around 3rd in GNP, a clear first in crop yield, and about tied for first in MFG. Which, honestly, is about where I want to be this early in the game; I still think foodhammers > everything else. As long as we can get GNP fixed eventually, and I think we can.
We're also building a lot of Freaks - anywhere I want to grow, basically. Except Ringmaster, which started an Arena, so we can start rotating the Freaks through to become swordsmen. We lose a little flexibility, but gain significant strength. After that, it needs one more turn to grow to size 10, then we'll start the settler for the dungeon site. Assuming we can pop it in our first two tries without creating a monster, this'll work fine.
We're getting High Wire close to completely improved - close enough that we ought to be able to send off a couple workers to the city 5 site as soon as it's safe. All we still need here is half a gold mine and a few cottages - at least until after we find some more food here somehow.
My understanding of GPP odds seems to have been flawed - but the error is in our favor. I thought the weighting was 1/source, but it seems to be proportional to the # of GPP points of each type. Trapeze is already up to 50% odds of Great Bard, with still 8 or 9 turns until the GP pops. It looks like we can almost count on having Drama/Sanitation at that time.
A Great Commander was born!?! Someone's already to Warfare, somehow? Didn't check on the tech screen, though, to prove it.
That's about all, really. Currently just executing the previous plan, without anything longer term in mind. I haven't spent the time to figure out city 6, or to confirm a tech path, scout the barb city..all sorts of things that could use more thought, really.
I think that it is proportional to the number of base points per type.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
. Played two turns so far, in which we built a Freak Show, half a Carnival, and finished settler #4. Our Great Bard odds in Trapeze are now up to ~20% - of course that'll keep climbing now that the Freak Show is built and again once we start working a Bard. I'm giving serious thought to abandoning the Inspiration here to improve the odds further, but I don't think we can turn down free beakers, not at this point in the game. We're bound to start getting artists sooner or later, now that I'm building Freak Shows - and a Great Sage wouldn't be tragic.
. If there's one thing that's clear about the Clowns, it's that puppet summoning Mages can win a game, and puppet summoning adepts can mostly just delay.
.
