[SPOILER] Yell0w - Rhoanna, Hippus

[Yell0w]

So we need 3 turns to heal our MM's, which is longer than I'd like, but nothing I can do about that. I like the idea of using a MM to scout out the Hill tile, I might hire one just to do that. We also have a Scout there so maybe I can reach the tile with him in a reasonable time frame.

I think we'll be riding towards Suttree with 11 MM's. My hope is that he focused his defenses on his eastern borders, since there is nothing to his south. I want to creep as far as I can without being in visibility range and then attack and take a city right away if at all possible.

He has only 5 cities so there will be some resistance. I think we can overcome it though. I'd like to hire more MM's in the first city we capture, but I think we shouldn't keep the cities to be honest, just raze them.

Another thing to decide is what to build in a couple of our cities. Some can't really benefit from anything right now, or can't reach it in a reasonable time frame. So I might just build Siege Workshops there to be able to eventually build Chariots. I don't love this though, right now Math would be nice to have, for Gambling houses and the ability to put hammers into gold directly.

On that front as soon as AtM finishes it's Bath House I'll swap some tiles around and start GP points with two Merchant Specialists in Conrond Mor. I started a Bath House there for lack of a better thing to build, it will take 14 turns to complete though. I'd like to turn it into a GP farm but we don't have enough hammers there to get the buildings to hire Specialists.

[Yell0w]

I'm sometimes baffled at how people here get the informations about game mechanics. In any other game a google search usually does the trick but in FFH/EitB I rarely get the information I'm looking for.
For example:
I was looking into how the recruit spell from a Great Commander actually works, and I couldn't find any good information.
I was looking for how many bakers I get for a bulb with a GP. I know it's not the 1500 + 3* total pop like it is in civ 4. But I couldn't find the numbers for FFH/EitB.

[Mafro]

I'm sometimes baffled at how people here get the informations about game mechanics. In any other game a google search usually does the trick but in FFH/EitB I rarely get the information I'm looking for.
For example:
I was looking into how the recruit spell from a Great Commander actually works, and I couldn't find any good information.
I was looking for how many bakers I get for a bulb with a GP. I know it's not the 1500 + 3* total pop like it is in civ 4. But I couldn't find the numbers for FFH/EitB.

Yeah, I totally agree. I think a lot of them are opening up config files and reviewing code. The lack of a comprehensive and up-to-date wiki is certainly a barrier to entry for prospective players....

[Mafro]

Molach finally made contact with Suttree. That means he'll be able to see when we go to war with him. That increases the risk of our plan, as Molach might choose to invade once he realizes we're committed elsewhere. In fact, I'm sure that's what he'd do - it's exactly what we were planning to do to Suttree.

With this news, on top of peace between Mardoc and Suttree, I think we should rethink things and go after Molach first. He's our most immediate threat, and with vampires on the horizon that threat will only get greater. While I don't think we could quickly defeat him decisively, which would be ideal, I think we could grind him down, replacing any losses we incur with pillage gold while at the same time steadily weakening him. We only have a short time where we could do this without much fear of getting hit by another opponent, as everyone is either still too far away or reeling from other threats (like Mardoc).

If we save gold for the next 6 turns we should be able to buy 10 more MMs when peace wears off. I say we build a road in the jungle next to Acaia, as we were doing before, and then recruit all our MMs from the new Wine city and attack his southern underbelly (I can see a red border directly west of Maurosbane...not sure how far south it goes). He will hopefully be terribly out of position, busy defending Acaia, and we can gobble up his weakly defended southern cities while he scrambles. We could probably even hold these cities, as they won't be too far from our capital.

Specifically, I would start by sending one MM to the Pigs tile SW of Acaia. If it's full of troops, as I suspect it will be, that MM will use his two remaining moves to pillage the pasture and cut the road on that tile. Assuming Molach hasn't built more roads (we can't see any), that would effectively isolate his army from the rest of his empire, or at least slow it down quite a bit. If there are more roads, then the MM pillages any choke point or just retreats to high ground if there's no better opportunity. It'd be a suicide mission, but the payoff could be huge.

If he moves his stack towards Maurosbane, then he's given up on defending himself, which would be great. We just ply our pillage gold into MMs to defend it and sit tight. With its current garrison of 7 Warriors plus 45% defense bonus, it'd be a tough nut to crack.

I think this simpler plan is the right military move for us given the change in circumstances.

[Yell0w]

I tend to agree with you, this battle will be bloody though. Since Suttree has only 5 cities I hope he'll fall hopelessly behind over the course of time. Cause after we dealt with Molach we'll have to turn our attention towards HK, or he'll finish peacefully.

I'll do a big turn report next turn (turn 100)

For now I'm trying to get xp on MM's, though I'm not taking any battles below 80% odds. I also hired 3 MM's this turn, one for scouting out Mardocs city in the north to get trade routes going (which I doubt he'll accept, but it doesn't hurt trying).
one for scouting out our south quickly. And one to potentially get xp on it next turn in our west, where a barb warrior showed up.

We made peace with Molach on turn 106. That means we can and probably will attack on t 107.

I thought about shifting all our warriors defending Maurosbane towards AtM to upgrade them to axemen, but considering that they lose 25% fortify and 25% city defense, I deemed it not worth it.

[Qgqqqqq]

Great Commander is 1 unit for every 3 pop, the units chosen randomly from the highest value units you can train (which I *believe* doesn't include catapults, priests or any units that must be promoted towards, like mages).

I believe the bulbing mechanics remain unchanged (remember it is counting the pop of the entire civilization), however, I could easily be wrong.

I find most of these things out by checking the forums, along with the occasional test.

[DaveV]

Yeah, I think code diving is the only way to get answers to some questions. Recruit spell gives :

1/6 chance of scout, hunter, ranger
1/6 chance of scout, hunter, assassin
1/6 chance of scout, horseman, horse archer
1/6 chance of scout, horseman, chariot
1/6 chance of warrior, axeman, champion
1/6 chance of warrior, archer, longbowman

Which unit is selected from each group is based purely on whether you've researched the enabling tech, not on whether the enabling building is present in the city. You roll N times on this table, where N is Population/3 + 1, *2 if there's a Temple of the Order in the city.

For bulbing, remember that it's scaled for game speed, so at Quick the value for a Sage is 1005 + pop*3 beakers; for other great people, the value is 670 + pop*2 beakers.

[Qgqqqqq]

I find most of these things out by checking the forums, along with the occasional test or by waiting for DaveV to pop up and answer[.

To clarify, if you've researched all the way up to iron working but haven't got any of the archery techs, do you still have a 1/6 chance of getting a warrior?

[DaveV]

To clarify, if you've researched all the way up to iron working but haven't got any of the archery techs, do you still have a 1/6 chance of getting a warrior?

Yes.

[Mafro]

Opened the save to a very interesting decision - cripple a city in order to get a golden age? It's the harpy being raised as a citizen event...do we cripple Clar Marrachir in order to get a Great Bard (and presumably the accompanying Golden Age)? I'm not sure, but I'm leaning towards "yes". It's not the best city, and not even working all improved tiles. We'll hook up Gold in the next couple turns, and maybe get some trades as well...so we might be able to mitigate the crippling unhappiness, at least somewhat. Anyway, tough choice.

Speaking of trades, I was looking at the map and realized we should be able to reveal trade routes with Mardoc this turn. All we have to do is move our lone Scout to the ice hills 2 tiles NW of Mardoc's city due north of Ultigar (not to be confused with his city NE of Ultigar). That SHOULD reveal the city. We may still need to reveal ocean tiles, but the MM in Ultigar should be able to do that this turn by moving to the plains tile 2N of the Gold after the road to the Gold is completed.

If that works, we might want to remove those troops before asking for Open Borders, just so Mardoc doesn't think we're going to take the opportunity to scout his lands (which most likely would be seen as hostile). Speaking of timing, if you get the GB we might also want to wait on popping the Golden Age until we get trade routes and maybe trades...otherwise we'll look even stronger and the chance of those offers being declined is probably greater.

Not sure how best to negotiate these diplomatic issues when there's no diplomacy...guess that's the challenge!