[SPOILER] Yell0w - Rhoanna, Hippus

[Yell0w]

I'd rather save the overflow in case I decide another tech would be more worthwhile. If thats not possible your way is the way to go though.
But maybe just barely finishing Cartography would be better then, not producing overflow in the first place.

[Mafro]

Does not picking a tech save the overflow? I dunno...I'm sure someone on this board does though....

[Yell0w]

Does not picking a tech save the overflow? I dunno...I'm sure someone on this board does though....

Now that I think of it... probably not.

The thing about the whole mage route though...
It's not like I can't live with pillaging every tile and taking every weak defended city leaving whomever with a absolutely crippled empire. If I manage to do that they will concede, I'm sure of that, and even not we'll have an advantage so big that we can just come back later and finished what we started.
I kinda like the idea of slowly teching up towards War Horses getting a lot of economic techs in the process. Well, I'll have to decide tonight.

[Yell0w]

Gah. I should have went for Hunting -> Archery -> Cartography
Getting a couple more turns into a Money Changer in Maurosbane and then switch to a Archery Range instead of Walls. Archery Range, the cheaper walls for your cities. I think with the 50% chop bonus that would have been worth it. Well, learned for the next game.

[Mafro]

So, I was intrigued by your idea of teching to Warhorses and scoped it out. I think it would end up looking something like the following, though individual techs could be researched in different order depending on priorities.

Note: I'm using our current level of commerce to guide completion times, as I did when mapping out the arcane road map...obviously we should be able to trim some turns here and there as we grow, get foreign trade routes, etc.

1. Start Cartography now, complete it T98
   
2. Horde recruiting gold until T104 to get our 15 MMs (send 7 or 8 MMs to invade immediately after healing from Ultigar, recruit the others in Suttree's first city)
   
3. Start Sailing T104, complete it T106 (for Pearls)
   
4. Start Archery T106, complete it T108 (for Archery Ranges)
   
5. Start Writing T108, complete it T111 (for Libraries)
   
6. Start Trade T111, complete it T115 (for Inns and more trade routes)
   
7. Start Horseback Riding T115, complete it T118 (for Mobility, maybe some Stables for trade routes?)
   
8. Start Mysticism T118, complete it T119
   
9. Start Philosophy T119, complete it T121
   
10. Start Warfare T121, complete it T123
    
11. Start Military Strategy T123, complete it T127
    
12. Start Feudalism T127, complete it T135
    
13. Start Stirrups T135, complete it T142
    
14. Start Warhorses T142, complete it T156
    

At 7,161 beakers (taking into account the 66 beakers we've already put into Sailing), I'm having a hard time seeing us getting through Warhorses before the end of the game. I'm also not finding most of the techs along the way all that great, with Sailing, Archery, and Trade as possible exceptions (thus they are prioritized). We also wouldn't have much of a force for the next 60 turns. Lastly, this assumes 100% research, which means we'd need to invest something like 3,250 pillage gold to keep the mad scientists maniacally laughing.

I think I'd go with the "buy masses of MMs and cripple everybody into concession" strategy before going this route.

Speaking of which, one point in favor of that strategy is the mobility of our army. With a 4-mover army we should be able to fork at least a couple cities at the end of our turns, forcing our opponents to either spread their defenses or leave one open to attack. However, we'll also need to hold back a move or two in order to get back to defensive terrain, lest the counterattack wipe out our force.

Also, as we wouldn't be destroying our opponents' armies, at least those holed up, we'd need to raze any cities we take as we won't be able to hold them ourselves. We will also be vulnerable to invasions of our homeland by those undefeated armies. We may have an enemy that sees he can't win and decides to take us down with him, forcing us to call off our offensive to avoid losing our own lands (that's how I'd counter this strategy - I wouldn't win, but I'd make sure you wouldn't either).

All that said, I still believe building a combined arms force that includes adepts and ultimately mages gives us our best chance of winning, and that'd be my vote if this were a democracy. However, the civics screen says "dictatorship", so the choice is yours.

[Mafro]

BTW, opened the latest save and noticed that Suttree got Bambur. That means those Firebows are going to have Flaming Arrows, Strength 6, which is brutal. If he has Bronze, which he might, then they could even be stronger. We definitely need to take him down hard and as soon as possible, lest he get completely out of control.

Thankfully it appears he still hasn't taken any of Mardoc's cities, and Mardoc's power has rebounded. However, Suttree now appears to be #1 in power. I hope they're documenting the struggle - I'm guessing there's some pretty good tactical maneuvering going on between Priests of Winter and Firebows, Ice Elementals and Fireballs. Either that or Suttree is just using Fireballs to wear down his icy defenses until they crack.

On a totally different subject, I see you're continuing to build roads in tiles that can be bypassed. I don't really understand that strategy, especially when we have cities like Urgortheth working two unimproved tiles, and settling locations that need roads to them. Typically, I only build roads on resources and the shortest routes between cities, so as to make the most of precious worker turns. If we find ourselves in a position where we're working the best tiles, have the most efficient transportation network, and so on, then I think it would be appropriate to put those extra worker turns into roads. However, until then I see it as a waste of a precious resource, one that could be contributing to accelerating our growth.</nag>

[Yell0w]

So the worker turns...
If I send two workers in a forest I'll lose 1 worker turn in the process, if I send two workers in different forests I'll hook up the resource or farm or whatever 1 turn later, but the next one 1 turn faster, since I don't lose worker turns if I go on a forest or hill tile with a road. Thats my reasoning.
Now, if I don't road at all I'll save more turns I guess, but I like roads ^^
I'm probably overcompensating for not building enough roads previously.
Another situation is where my worker is on a tile and reaching the tile he is supposed to go on will take him two turns, but if I build a road on the tile he stands he'll only take one turn to reach his destination. In that case I also opt to build a road.

The Battle of Ultigar
C2 WC MM vs Archer 94,6% -> WIN
Now I could promote another MM to C1 Cover I but then he'll just target a warrior, so C2 it is.
C2 MM vs Archer 73,3% -> LOSE ZERO damage dealt -.-
WC MM vs Archer 65,9% -> LOSE archer down to 1.2/2.3
WC MM vs C1 Warrior 79,7% -> WIN
WC MM vs C1 Warrior 79,7% -> WIN
WC MM vs D1 Warrior 89,9% -> WIN
MM vs D1 Warrior 75,9% -> WIN
MM vs D1 Warrior 75,9% -> WIN
MM 4.8 vs Archer 2.3 -> 72,8% -> WIN
108 gold pillaged

Well two MM's died, I had hoped for 1, still it could have been worse.


Suttree... somehow when I look at the tech tree... if he has teched towards Firebows and Bambur he had to beeline it. I don't think he'll have many of them, it is the logical choise, no question, but honestly... we don't have that many techs, we had a higher GNP at almost any time in the game and we used our GP to pop the most expensive tech we researched, which is still half of what Bowyers cost, so I'd really like to know how he did that. I don't remember if he got a GP at all tbh.
However I'm going to work under the assumption that he has Firebows, which is why I'll attack him from the south rather than from the east. Considering he got a Firebow defending in a hill city with 20% culture bonus and a Archery Range in it, it is going to be crazy:
str. 5 + copper = str. 6 + 25% hill + 25% hill + 25% city + 20% culture + 25% Archery Range + 25% fortify = 6*145%= 14,7 effective defending str. Yeah, let's hope he hasn't too many of them. And this is without Flaming Arrows, since Bambur got Channeling I. I find it more likely that he has no Firebows yet. Looking at the tech cost.

[Mafro]

I find it more likely that he has no Firebows yet. Looking at the tech cost.

Yeah, I'm finding it pretty incredible myself. I just can't imagine him declaring war on PoWs without them. Note that he hasn't popped his world spell, so he's clearly not feeling any pressure....

BTW, I'm excited about our first conquest! Let's see what trade routes it opens up....

[Mafro]

Very interesting.

Suttree and Mardoc have made peace, but not before a bit of a scuffle.



Our Power dropped from the loss of the two MMs - do you know if capturing the city offset that at all? I don't really know what goes into the Power graph....

Regardless, both Suttree and Mardoc lost more than we did. I'm imagining that a good portion of Mardoc's loss was in the form of Ice Elementals, which will come back next turn, or whenever he next summons them. Suttree's loss should be of a more permanent nature. It doesn't look like any cities exchanged hands, so apparently Suttree's offensive was blunted, but Mardoc didn't feel like he was in a position to launch a counter offensive...similar to us and Molach, though without the loss of any world spells.

I don't think this changes our plans to offer Open Borders and get trade routes from Mardoc. However, it might make him less inclined to accept the offer, as the immediate pressure is off. I almost just want to offer OB to everyone, build roads for trade routes and resources swaps with whomever accepts, and go after whomever doesn't accept. Of course, everyone might reject the offer...not sure. At this point I'm not sure what the downside would be to having OB, though admittedly there's not a whole lot of upside either until we get trade routes in place.

Speaking of which, we might want to send a MM to the hill 2 tiles SE of Mardoc's coastal city, so we can see it and get trade routes with him. Either that or we have to wait until we build a Fishing Boat in Ultigar, which is probably 7 or 8 turns out (though we'll want to build one anyway for the Fish).

I don't like the fact that all our neighbors are at peace and we're leading the scoreboard. The peace that has broken out between Suttree and Mardoc has got me reevaluating our target list. Feels like Suttree is less of an opportunistic target now, though I'd still like to take him out before he becomes too dangerous. Of course, Molach is certainly pursuing Vampires, and vamps on our border would be more of an immediate threat.

Decisions...decisions...they are the curse of those with options....

[Mafro]

Oh, just realized that once we pop Ultigar's borders we should have visibility to Mardoc's city, which should open up trade routes. That looks like it should happen in about 5 or 6 turns if we build Culture.