[Spoilers] Hidden in the mist - gtAngel plays Shekinah of the Sidar

[Molach]

Thanks for taking over for gtAngel and updating! I also like the flavortext.

Yeah gonna be a challenge, but it's kinda fun to, see what I can do.

I do know a lot about the others, but by the time I'm ready to use that knowledge it'll be outdated, so I don't think it hurts. If I were leading score, maybe get an unspoilt guy to take over but not so much now.

I played a SP game where I did the same thing gtAngel did with the Civics here - had decent amount of food, was in Aristo/Agranism, and decided I needed more units, so I think "conquest, build units with food, nice". And kind of forgot that it cancels agranism. So I could build with food - only there wasn't really food anymore. I did think about going for god king, but capital had little hammers anyway, and since maitenance is so low there wasn't any gold-harvesting either, so it would have been a waste. Slightly less food from farms, but I'll keep the techs rolling in. Plan now is to play PvE against the barbs for a while, hopefully get a couple of warrior wanes from this - then grab a tech for defense. Or possibly just go with hunters, send them all over the world to scout and build experience. Horseback riding could work, as could bronze working. Bronze will give a bit of a economic boost, will allow me to clear that resource-rich jungle area. However for now there's plenty to do. Need more workers, then settlers and push my creative borders back.

Some tech musings:
Finishing RoK, will be a bit of a gold-boost...hopefully I land the religion for extra +gold and possible shrine.
Fishing-sailing - to settle backline islands.
Knowledge of the ether - start some potent adepts, will also give me economy because of spirit mana in palace.
Bronze working - better warriors, can build axemen, can clear jungle
Horseback riding - mobility, stables for trade routes (hah) and horsemen
...
something else?

Warlike me, I'm leaning towards bronze working now...better warriors, decent tier 2 unit, happiness in capital and can settle good resources in the jungle. RoK-gold will keep my science at 100% for a while, going through academy, so tech won't be utterly hopeless. I hope.

I declare war on barbs:

Taken before end of turn. Just to show my odds vs. lion. That was my 23 exp guy, wanna keep him alive a tiny bit longer. However, the hill giant moved due west instead of attacking. The middle warrior popped lair for 1 xp so he can promote now. Also found supplies. The lion moved NE, no attack. My norther warrior is in trouble, he can avoid hill giant by moving NE, but there is a lion there. He is combat I, but hurt and not on a hill, so I think he will bite it. Unless...this is a named hill giant, will it attack? Or was it pre-placed in the game with no attack order? Hm. Just wonder why he didn't hit a warrior standing on flatlands last turn.

The North.

In the city is a C2 shock warrior, will send him to slay warriors, but needed as MP. Guerilla unit will kill that warrior easy, bear I think might be tougher. A divided soul up here would be good - level up off a bear, then get animal capture and start thinning out the animal kingdom. Lions and bears, oh my. But high priority to get the graveyard before Ellimist does. I'll send 2 experienced warriors once the warrior in city completes. City will grow, obviously, as will capital when silk and later camp completes (jungle, but I can still build the camp...)

My foreign minister has been ordered to appease everyone, and building up a bit so that we'll be costly to attack...so costly that it will slow down whoever attacks me and leave them open to attack by their rival.

Clowns are to my southeast somewhere, and vampires to the northeast. They can reach each other with water walking or seafaring units, so whoever mounts an offensive against me must be sure to guard their backlines.

[Merovech]

Not sure if I should answer that question.

[Molach]

I guess I am asking "Is it possible to set a mob (like, a named barbarian mob) to have a certain AI-acting-script-thing? For instance no attack?

I know mapmakers usually make guardian-type mobs "held"...but I haven't heard of making roaming units that don't attack. But elephants don't attack, so it is definately a possible way for AIs to act...

(Technical stuff is beyond me...)

[Ichabod]

I guess I am asking "Is it possible to set a mob (like, a named barbarian mob) to have a certain AI-acting-script-thing? For instance no attack?

I know mapmakers usually make guardian-type mobs "held"...but I haven't heard of making roaming units that don't attack. But elephants don't attack, so it is definately a possible way for AIs to act...

(Technical stuff is beyond me...)

I think, though I'm not sure, that elephants have that same promo that scouts have at BTS, that makes them unable to attack.

[Molach]

This is true, it's a unit ability, can only defend.

But a test at least showed that a barbarian hill giant with "UnitAIWORKER" would not attack - he walk up to my civs borders, probably looking for something to improve, poor thing.

[Yell0w]

This is true, it's a unit ability, can only defend.

But a test at least showed that a barbarian hill giant with "UnitAIWORKER" would not attack - he walk up to my civs borders, probably looking for something to improve, poor thing.

Hill Giants won't enter your border, so if you haven't tested it in the field don't be too sure about it.

[Merovech]

Hill giants won't normally enter borders because they normally have UNIT_AI_ANIMAL or whatever the actual name of that AI pattern is. Unrelated to that, they actually are treated as animals by the game itself, including for the recon line's boost against animals.

[Molach]

Yellow: I tested outside borders, yup. 3 juicy targets to flatten, but he just stood there, confused what use a 20-foot club is to a worker unit...However I think I've confirmed my enemy hill giant he does not have that script - he is walking around like they normally do, the worker-mind didn't.

Current situation - supplies and two warriors running for their lives. Hill Giant in pursuit. No worry.

Supplies for training yard. However, as capital already has hunting lodge, perhaps build it in the new city is better. Or - can supplies perhaps build the temple of Kill Morph?

Gonna hit barb warrior in the forest with C2 shock warrior - 95% odds. More exp for him. If he loses my guerilla warrior gets home in time to defend. And I get to speak in tongues a little while.

However, we have contact with the Ellimist of the vampires. Have had for a while, but I just now figured I could actually speak to him.
He went like

Greetings, and welcome to Erebus!

I've offered you my spare resources in game. Feel free to accept these with no obligation on your part, as I'm hoping that they can help you to become relevant in the game. It's also pretty nice that the turns are coming in faster now. In the medium and long term, I am very interested in working with you and have some ideas for mutual cooperation, but I was reluctant to propose anything significant.

Feel free to ask any questions that come to mind. I was going to try and give you a lot of overview information, but I'm not sure where to start and you said you were partially spoiled anyway. I know gtAngel barely updated her thread at all, so feel free to log into the tracker email address and download any of gtAngel's earlier saves if it helps you figure stuff out. The password is tracker25.

I am curious about two things, myself. I've been paying attention to C&D information this game, and am 90% sure that you received the Bard from the harpy event, but didn't use it to claim the Drama bard. With your second city stuck at size one as a result, saving it for a golden age seems like a waste when you could have had drama and sanitation instead.

Second, Have you managed to clear the Lizardman ruins to the east of your lands yet? Lizards have been going north and west from there against both of us, but mostly twoard you. I located them and gtAngel was sending a stack of warriors in that direction, but my unit in the area was killed so I'm not sure how that turned out. If your warriors couldn't handle the task, I'll try to send some Moroi down soon to take care of it.

Good luck!

Then I'm like

Hail Ellimist.

Yep, I've been forgetting we have contact in game. And as new High Shadow of the Sidarese empire I am in charge of diplomacy here.

Thanks for resources, Mardoc's been hogging the save for 2 hours now so I haven't seen it yet. It will be welcome.

Main problems with my civ are, as you know, I have half cities at half-or-less size than my enemi...opponents. I revolted out of conquest as I had hardly any surplus food, kept CoL over God King because capital is very weak on hammers and no maintenance means no incentive for me to generate gold. I see from stats that Sidar has killed 12 lizardmen(!). I cleared out and popped the lizard ruin, so that threat is gone.

City two got the great bard, which was used to research a technology. City is ready to grow - getting some luxes online. Only one worker has been built, so I need to expand, badly. Hopefully barbarian invasion is done, but got means to fight more effectively now.

Diplomacy-wise..our goal is to be friendly to other civs. We gain nothing by aggression - apart from against the barbarians. Since we are dead last we may hope that we are too insignificant to attack...no need to slow down, and at the same time we will make ourselves costly to conquer, so the civ that kills us are killed by main rivals.

I know too much about the other civs and what they've been up to. Low-flying griffons and that jazz...excellent use of that starting scout, if I may say so. I guess I'll be playing PvE for a while now, set up some cities and make stuff happening. I do not know what arrangement you and gtAngel had, but for our part we will accept a NAP with our powerful and dangerous Vampire neighbours if you offer one. And we'd be interested in hearing what further plans for our mutual cooperation we may consider.

Till the next time.

Respectfully,
Molach of the Hip....Sidar.

And he's all

To Molach, the renowned horse-shadow,

That's good to hear about the lizards. While we hadn't encountered as many as you did, they tended to show up at inconvenient times. The Calabim and Sidar have no arrangements from prior to your arrival, but we had communicated a bit. Some of our nobles were lobbying for a PYFT war, and it would have been unwise for me to oppose them too strongly.

As far as "outside the box" ways to help each other... well, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Sidar, but I recommend trying them out in single player a bit. They have a lot of little tricks and specialties and can be pretty powerful later on. I'm thinking that Calabim are well positioned to help you achieve wanes here, either through cooperative summons or "rogue" Moroi (which would avoid the necessity of declaring war). The Calabim also have an incentive to achieve 26 exp units, so we may have some nice opportunities to help each other. I'm also hoping to trade mana with you once I have adepts, in particular enchantment and spirit mana.

I'm not really interested in a NAP with anybody, but I don't currently have any plans to attack you, so if it would help you feel more secure I'm willing to discuss it.

This is the first time I can remember getting two saves in one day, btw. Thanks for that.

Ellimist

Hm, what use has vampires for 26 xp units? FotT is already built in this game...

[Molach]

Killed barb for 3 xp and 2 turns' damage. Another incoming from the north, and a bear does not want me to approach the graveyard.

From east my supplis caravan with guards is coming in, escorted by 2 warriors. A skeleton is on the move, but I won't hammer him just yet as the hill giant could be nearby just out of view. I'll soon have my first wane. And supplies can of course build a temple of kilmorph, so that is what it's gonna do. In secondary city, no doubt.

Capital - ran a scientist for a turn so I would get RoK next turn, otherwise an extra turn wait. Extra gold and free thane is worth a little effort. And I really, really have forgotten who is researching what, so don't know if it is a race or not.


Aaaand demos. Tech - okay. Rest - need improvement. Gonna finish worker in capital, then right into settler. That divided soul will just have to wait a bit.



Techs...
Arete - build the mines of Dol-Goldur. (shows 15 turns but this is without prereq bonus...I'd guess 11 turns)
Fishing-Sailing - build nice, safe, island cities for trade routes.(? didn't check, not gonna do this just yet)
Bronze working - improve my warriors/Soldiers of Kilmorph, clear jungle from quite a few useful resources.(7 turns)
Knowledge of the ether - I realize that I confused spirit and mind mana, mind is the +research one. Spirit + enchantment is a pretty decent unit-buff package, but Sidar are doing okay with units for now. (7 turns)

If I ever go back to a specialist-heavy thing, Arete+Pacifism gives me +70% GPP. Arete +1 hammer from mines cancels out the -20% unit production somewhat. Could even go for rush-buying.

I'm 99,6% sure I'll grab bronze working first, improve warrior a fair bit and be able to clear some resources. My main aim just now is to be fertile and multiply. Better warriors means I need less of them, can build more settlers. Resources mean I get more commerce and happiness. I also do not have spare hammers to put into Dol Goldur anyway. I think KotE can wait a bit, since I'm arcane my adepts will level up fast enough so I don't need to start building them just yet.

[Merovech]

Oh, and I forgot to mention when we were talking about unit AI, elephants have normal animal AI, the unit itself can just not physically attack, like a BTS scout. Even an elephant in human hands can't attack.