[SPOILER] Yell0w - Rhoanna, Hippus

[Yell0w]

Yeah the boar sucks, if he wasn't there we'd be up another city... Don't worry about our expansion that much, we are about to get 2 more cities, I'll start another settler in two turns.

The reason not to farm the sheep tile is that now we got better tiles to work/farm.

Yep, when I saw the village last turn I thought the same thing, it will allow us to finish Drama on time.

I think we are fine with finishing DBH without further chopping. How exactly does growing into unhappiness help us though?

[Mafro]

I think we are fine with finishing DBH without further chopping. How exactly does growing into unhappiness help us though?

It doesn't help us directly. It's just a side-effect of continuing to build DBH without swapping tiles. If we swap to the plains hills then we lose 2 or 3 commerce (and starve the city a bit, which is no big deal). I think the negative of allowing growth (which is increased maintenance) is less than the negative of swapping tiles (losing commerce).

So, growth into unhappiness (that will last 4 turns) seems the lesser of two evils.

[Mafro]

...you know, I never actually used that Avoid Growth button before....I always assumed it was a hint for tile selection, like the emphasize food or whatever.... Oops.

Anyway, you were right - we got the Drama bard - brilliant! So, now what? It appears we can bulb Writing, but I seem to recall you wanting to use the GB to bulb Sanitation. I guess to do that we need to either get Bronze Working, or Masonry and then Construction? With that sweet pile of pillage gold you got, we could research BW in 5 turns or the other two in 7 (or 8...looks like we might run out of gold at the end). If researching BW will allow us to bulb Sanitation, I'd say we go that route and plant a city on the Bronze to our east.

Looks like we also found the Calabim borders, and boy are they close! Still, if we manage to keep at peace with them, it looks like the making of a reasonable border. That said, they are Creative, so we might have to watch culture creep over time. Speaking of which, we can now build culture so we can defer the monument in...just noticed the name!...Murousbane. Boy, that'll get to him...especially because he spells it Mauros...LOL!

By the way, did you notice Molach/Mauros has bronze warriors? And Mardoc got the PoWs last turn? Hopefully the two of them slug it out (and it's a slow, grueling affair...unlikely with PoWs)...but I gotta say I'm feeling kinda exposed here. If Molach's warrior heads two south he should be able to catch site of Feiss Mabdon before we can pop the borders of Murousbane. We might want to empty it of warriors so he doesn't realize we don't have bronze warriors ourselves.

Looks like next turn we pop a Great Merchant at Conrond and use it to bulb Currency. Then we start the GotN...335 hammers, and our best hammer city only produces 17hpt. If we mine the hill just north of Altheriol-ta-Mealthiel (say that 5 times fast) we can get that up to 21hpt, which is still 16 turns of building, probably not done before T90. And that's if we skip a half-price Money Changer in our capitol, which would add another 4 or 5 turns.

Yay for Deruptus next turn! That should add 4 active population to our civilization in short order as well as 5 commerce just from the capitol...probably another 10+ commerce in all. Once we pop Murousbane's borders and farm the Wheat there, we'll end up with another 2 or 3 commerce as well. We're currently leading the GNP race, with 78 versus 69 (rival best)...so we have a good chance of keeping the pressure on.

Can we trade the next warrior or two for a scout? I'd love to see what's to our west and south. Well, at least our south...those two bears make exploring west pretty unlikely....

[Mafro]

A few questions:

1. Any reason Murousbane isn't building culture? Is there a reason to wait on popping borders?
2. Did you notice the wine just west of Radonnor? Mmmm...wine....
3. What's the thinking behind building granaries versus carnivals? Seems like granaries, while cheap, don't offer us a whole lot, whereas carnivals could allow us to put more people to work.

A little strategy:
a. It looks like Mardoc is definitely looking to put those PoWs to use. His power spike looks like 3ish warriors were built turn before last. If that keeps happening, then it's almost certainly an invasion force. Not sure what we can do other than hope he doesn't come for us. He hasn't seen our territory yet, I don't think, so hopefully he's looking at a target closer to home.
b. What do you think about actively building roads towards Molach's territory? Perhaps he would notice and reciprocate, allowing us a more peaceful relationship and, hopefully, some trade routes. Given Mardoc's power, I think we want to offer whatever clandestine support we can to Molach if the two of them go at it, and trade routes fit the bill.

[Yell0w]

The big turn 75 Report

The Empire:

We are up to 5 cities right now. On par with Mardoc and probably in front or on par with everyone else. Next turn we'll get our 6th city down and in the next 10-12 turns another two, just following the dot map I did. Our 5th city, Murousbane, revealed close Calabim borders to our North.
The Deruptus Brewing House finished giving us +1 all over our empire, which is great, but we still need a lot more

Cities in chronological order:

Looking good in my opinion, almost all tiles in the first ring have roads and on the ones that don't we can build road in case of emergency.
Radonnor will be able to grow when we go for AH and Fishing which I'll research after BW.

Graphs from Mardoc (Auric) and Molach (Flauros); and of course us:

Civics, Top 5 Cities and Demographics

I don't want to adopt Consumption yet. Mardoc just got his PoW and I'd have to switch out of Apprenticeship or suffer -10% hammers on military unit production. I also need to run gold to finish BW cause PoW 'n' stuff. Running gold without Consumption is kinda stupid, but I guess I got no choise, I'll get some turns of gold in there before switching to Consumption.

We also got the Drama Great Bard:

1. Any reason Murousbane isn't building culture? Is there a reason to wait on popping borders?

I read all you wrote and thought about it, BW definitely the right call, but building culture in Murousbane isn't a good option.
I dodged the boar a couple turns ago and settled Murousbane. I started a Monument there cause we border Molach, thats why I want a permanent culture source. As you said we have to watch culture creep from creative. Also I was mistaken with how building culture works. I thought it works like in civ where you get 100% hammers go into culture if you complete it in 1 turn it'll go as overflow in the next build. In EitB it's 50% hammers and no overflow so it costs 10 hammers to get culture. Since I want a permanent culture source I'll just build the monument. We need to clear the forests facing Flauros anyways.


I thought a lot about what to do about the potential PoW threat.
First of all I put a warrior on a hill where it can see any advance on us from Mardoc, he however scouted that warrior out with a scouting warrior of his own. Still he needs to take a way longer way if he wants to attack without alarming me beforehand.
I thought about going AH -> HBR but by the time we'd have researched that and would have built stables Guild of the Nine would have finished at about the same time. So BW and GotN is the way to go.

Can we trade the next warrior or two for a scout? I'd love to see what's to our west and south. Well, at least our south...those two bears make exploring west pretty unlikely....

Yep. I just ran out Scout I just build in Conrond Mor right into the Giant Spider I knew was there though. But hey we'll get another scout and maybe even a third.

2. Did you notice the wine just west of Radonnor? Mmmm...wine....

Nope, I didn't. Looks like a promising location. I wish I'd be able to get vision there.

3. What's the thinking behind building granaries versus carnivals? Seems like granaries, while cheap, don't offer us a whole lot, whereas carnivals could allow us to put more people to work.

I might want to or have to chop all forests around Altheriol-ta-Mealthiel and I don't want to go into unhealthiness. Also I wanted to build something which took two turns, since we'll be building the Guild of the Nine for the next ~19 turns.

What do you think about actively building roads towards Molach's territory? Perhaps he would notice and reciprocate, allowing us a more peaceful relationship and, hopefully, some trade routes. Given Mardoc's power, I think we want to offer whatever clandestine support we can to Molach if the two of them go at it, and trade routes fit the bill.

I don't want to do that right now. I'd have to protect my workers with warriors I don't have and then offer him resources he might or might not accept. Certainly worth while later. Maybe when he is bludgeoned from Mardoc - I really hope he'll take revenge, they are still at war! - if we can spare some time we can build roads up there and exploit him. We'll have BW done soon and he should see that we got BW.

Looks like next turn we pop a Great Merchant at Conrond and use it to bulb Currency. Then we start the GotN...335 hammers, and our best hammer city only produces 17hpt. If we mine the hill just north of Altheriol-ta-Mealthiel (say that 5 times fast) we can get that up to 21hpt, which is still 16 turns of building, probably not done before T90. And that's if we skip a half-price Money Changer in our capitol, which would add another 4 or 5 turns.

Yeah 20 turns ain't that long though, the more I think about it. All other ways to get stronger units out in the field will take the same amount of time. And we'll produce gold for at least 5 turns of these 20 so not that much time to research a lot more stuff anyways. We can chop two forests and if the burnt forest finally regenerates we can chop that one as well and get another mine up.

[Mafro]

Great update! I agree that things appear to be progressing as well as can be expected, and if in 20 turns we have GotN and a healthy influx of coin then we'll be in a solid position. I think you've done a masterful job in getting us as far as we have gotten...especially the timing on the Great Merchant and nabbing the Great Bard...the +3 from Bath Houses alone could be huge for us.

It appears that Mardoc is the main threat to that happy future, but I think it's reasonable to expect that he and Molach will be going at it first. My biggest worry is that he slices clean through Molach with those PoWs in the next 10 or 15 turns and then heads south to go after us. Not sure there's a whole lot we can do about that except seek every advantage in hastening GotN and growing commerce.

That said, I still think roading to Molach is not only worth it but should be a high priority for us for the following reasons:

1. A partner. Cooperation in games without diplomacy seems fairly rare. The fact that Molach is at war with Mardoc makes it unlikely he'd start a war on another front, i.e. with us, so we have a great opportunity to exploit the situation and gain that cooperation. If we were to send an unprotected worker to road to his border, I'd bet he'd see that for what it is - an offering of peaceful trade. The worst thing he could do is attack it, which would be really foolish considering the pressure he's got to be feeling from Mardoc. Given our risk is limited to a single worker, I think it's totally worth it.
   
2. Foreign trade routes. These alone could up our GNP a goodly amount, gaining us cash that we can put into research now or convert to mercenaries in 20 turns. The sooner we have these in place, the sooner we start getting more commerce.
   
3. Happy resources. We have extra resources that we could offer in exchange for resources from Molach. Again, given the pressure he's got to be feeling from Mardoc, I think it's likely he'd accept such a trade. That said, we have a real chance to break out of the go-it-alone paradigm (yes, I just used that word), which I'm betting most others are stuck in.
   
4. Unilateral benefits. While trade routes and resource exchanges are by definition bilateral agreements with bilateral benefits, in this case I think it's highly likely that Molach gets squashed by Mardoc in the next 20 to 30 turns. The PoWs are just too powerful and he doesn't have a counter to them. Therefore, for all practical purposes, the benefits only go to us. Even better, whatever benefits he does gain will likely go to blunting the tip of Mardoc's spear (though I'd be surprised if he takes out even one of the PoWs).
   

Anyway, that's my argument...I do think the benefits from trade - especially the prospect of resources - could make the difference for us in the long run.

[Mafro]

Mardoc's up to 7 cities now and his power continues to spike. I like the advanced notice provided by the forward deployment of that one warrior.

We've now got sight of Suttree's borders far to the east. We should be able to make contact next turn. Maybe we can pop our scout in and out of sight and he won't notice. Have you given thought to additional cities out that direction? I think one on the hill 3N4E of Clar Marrachir, or thereabouts, would be good. If we can culturally control the hill on the land bridge heading east that might make for a solid eastern border.

I'm kinda wondering if we want to put a city on the hill north of Clar Marrachir. It's not a great spot with no special resources, but all those river tiles make it reasonable. If Mardoc were to plant a city there...would we care? Maybe...maybe not....

We should probably get a small force ready to meet Mardoc's warrior, which I assume is still heading southwest. If he decides to penetrate our borders just to give us a look, we should make it clear that it'll cost him a warrior. Speaking of which, I noticed last turn he didn't have bronze hooked up, at least the last time his warrior was in a city. Hopefully our lack of bronze doesn't make us look like an easier target than Molach.

Looks like we'll have to pull back on research for a turn, so BW is 3 turns out...still sooner than we can get the copper hooked up...looks like that is at least 8 turns out, even if we use the next settler and immediately start building culture.

[Mafro]

Can anyone point to me information on what makes up the EitB Power score?

Mardoc's power just dropped considerably, from 109K to 89K, and I'm wondering what it could have been. He doesn't appear to have lost any cities, so as far as I know it's got to be a loss in troops. I don't see a corresponding drop in Molach's power, so it's either got to be a loss to barbarians or another civ we don't have contact with. Either that or there's something else that goes into that number that I'm not aware of...hence the request for guidance....

[Mafro]

Can anyone point to me information on what makes up the EitB Power score?

Mardoc's power just dropped considerably, from 109K to 89K, and I'm wondering what it could have been. He doesn't appear to have lost any cities, so as far as I know it's got to be a loss in troops. I don't see a corresponding drop in Molach's power, so it's either got to be a loss to barbarians or another civ we don't have contact with. Either that or there's something else that goes into that number that I'm not aware of...hence the request for guidance....

I just realized what this has to be...ice elementals. He must've summoned them two turns ago and then didn't summon them last turn....

Still, any pointers to info on Demographics would be welcomed...!

[Qgqqqqq]

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