Finnish Flash - Hitting with the speed of a hurricane

[Aurorarcher]

Turn 66.

So worst things first. The griffon I spoke earlier was really owned by one of my enemies.




My warrior guarding Utsjoki was defeated by the griffon. As you can see it's still hidden nationality (can't take cities if not declared btw) but I have a good guess who owns it. First of all looking at power graph Kredom (svarts) have the highest power and also some noticeable spikes there.

Power graph below tell us something.




This could indicate that the griffon is Kredom's. Svarts have good reason to grab Animal Husbandry early, and get Hunting as well. Other possibility is HK, I don't see his power graph so it's possible but not that likely.

It's either one of these two guys, I suspect Kredom with 90% accuracy. Kredom is also running this game with a VERY low GNP at this stage.

GNP statistics (Kredom is that 12 there):




This is either a very bad play or then all those units are already costing him bunch of money. Either way I'm a little bit worried now that he has found me with his griffon.

Overall there's not much I can do about that griffon. After killing my warrior it's down to 2.1/4.0 health but it probably earned a promotion. Even without promohealing it has a high enough strenght to kill my scout in Utsjoki. So my only real choice here is to keep building scouts in Utsjoki and hope that the Griffon gets hurt enough so it has to spend some time healing. Lucky me here that the Clan can build scouts with 10 hammers otherwise that city would be burned down by now.

In other news my lonely scout-warrior found this:




I'm pretty confident that I can win this (hopefully no Giant Spider nearby, this was the case in the mirrored spot north from my territory). According to combat calculator I have 88.46% chance to win this battle, unofortunately that's worth only 1 xp.

And I also decided to get Cartocraphy first. 2 new cities are gonna be settled within next 5 turns.

[Aurorarcher]

Turn 67.

The griffon near Utsjoki took out another scout and is now down to 0.9 health. It can most likely promoheal next turn and be around 2.5 health (62 hp if I did my math right). I moved my warrior (see pic below) to guard Utsjoki so I was able to get that worker out finally. My warrior should have a little better odds to win than lose, according to combat calculator I can win with a probability of 56% and lose with 44%. I doubt it will attack though, odds are too weak for a risk.




And like one griffon wouldn't have been enough to deal with... well, guess what our brave orcs see near our northern borders...




... Oh well, this is a bit easier to deal with as it can't attack Sodankylä from sea. There's always a chance that this is a barbarian one but I'm almost certain that this is a player owned griffon. I hope it comes inland so I can lay a small trap for it.

Also my scouting warrior earned 2xp after deafeating a tiger (I was wrong again, looks like 88% odds to win while defending give 2xp).




I promoted it to CIII, takes 4 turns to heal.

I also noticed this taking a look in the log:




So Kredom is in war with Qqqqqqq. I wonder if that war has a real purpose or if it's just for stealing worker or something similar.

[Aurorarcher]

Turn 68.

The griffon near Utsjoki did like I predicted and didn't risk it in 50-50 combat.




Also, for now, the griffon in the north is nowhere to be seen by my orcish people. It's still nearby most likely so I have to be careful with my upcoming settling parties, that 2-mover bird can appear out of nowhere and do a lot of damage.

I also took a look at the Calabim cities which I've seen on the map so far. Looking at one their cities I found this:




A question to any lurkers reading this: What is that bluish building in middle of the city of Acaia? (Yes, I know the answer already)

Demos look so-so. I'm average in most of them, lead in production but only slightly. I really need to find HK because he is pretty much running the show here. He has more than double GNP over me, he also leads in food and is right behind me in production.

[DaveV]

A question to any lurkers reading this: What is that bluish building in middle of the city of Acaia? (Yes, I know the answer already)

It's a Market, apparently the only bright spot in the gloomy vampire town. Get your crosses! Get your garlic! Wooden stakes, bargain prices! Holy water, right here!

On the other hand, maybe vampires like to shelter from the sun under those striped awnings?

[Aurorarcher]

Yeah, that could be it. They want to keep it dark!

Turn 70.

Ok, finally I can switch to City States and Apprenticeship.




Here are some pictures to tell how these changes affected me.

Before switch:




And after:




In the after picture I've lost 2 commerce because I moved warrior out of capital before ending the turn making it go over the happy cap (lacking military protection).

Next turn I have to run 100% gold but after that I'll probably get AH next. There's a lot of sheep, pig and cows nearby which could be improved. Mysticism is another option, still debating if I should get it first.

My first settling party is ready for new city. The other settler is on its way to east.

[Aurorarcher]

Turn 71.

Settled my 6th city Savukoski!




See the griffon in the picture as well (3N2E from Savukoski). Wonder what that barbarian bear will do... I've seen animals stand still (at least in base FFH2) if they're caught inside your border. Anyone have better info what they'll do here? Probably just move outside my border next turn? For sure I know they can't attack though.

[DaveV]

Animals will eventually move out of your territory, as long as there's a neutral tile for them to move into. Sometimes they're lazy and it takes a few turns for them to move. If they're surrounded by your territory, they despair and will sit there forever.

[Aurorarcher]

Animals will eventually move out of your territory, as long as there's a neutral tile for them to move into. Sometimes they're lazy and it takes a few turns for them to move. If they're surrounded by your territory, they despair and will sit there forever.

Yeah, it moved out right away. It's actually pretty funny if you get one of those events that spawn either Giant Spider or Giant inside your borders and they can't move away/attack your units. Spider even more funny because it still let's your city to work the tile it spawned on.

Turn 72.

Looks like Kredom also switchd to City States. He also took Conquest, it's interesting to see how that pays off for him.




All the players I have met (Calabim, Sheaim, Svartalfar and myself) are running different civics at the moment.




Settled my 7th city Ivalo! I'm now the only one with 7 cities (HK could have that but I don't see info about him yet).

I'm now even closer to Yell0w's empire. Only 5 land tiles between our territories. I'm wondering if he's trying to grab Bone Balace though as he picked up Philosophy early. With Marble that's not gonna take more than say 10 turns. If he really builds it; well, it makes attacking Calabim even more favourable for me.




Demos before ending the turn:




I'm about average in demos overall. My GNP slowly improving after switching to City States though.

[Aurorarcher]

As today's turn isn't here yet I guess I have some time to update.

Turn 73.

Looking at log at the beginning of the turn I found that someone got a great bard.




Notice that my warrior defeated a giant spider before the bard was born which means couple of things:

1) The bard can't be Yell0w's because he is first to play new turn (and acts right after barbs)
2) It's not from an event because it doesn't show in log (can any lurker ensure this?)

I'm guessing it's HK who got it from Drama. He got huge point increase last turn (36 points), I'm guessing Drama is around 30 points. He maybe got first bard from an event and then used it to bulb Drama. Hard to see him or anyone else selfteching Drama.

Now I also met HK finally (you can see his warrior in the previous picture if you look at top right corner).

Time for some graphs now that I have contact with all my rivals.






















City counts on turn 73:

Vampires: 6 cities
Orcs: 7 cities
Dwarfs: 8 cities
Zombies: 5 cities
Dark elves: 5 cities

So it seems like HK is leading pretty much both in tech and city count and he has pretty good snowball going already compared to others (and it's only T73). I wonder what elves and zombies are doing still with only 5 cities. Elves might be going for eary FoL though.

Top cities in the world:




Svarts have grown their capital to 10 (without Agrarianism!). I wonder if the city is actually under happy cap, they could've captured some animals to boost their happiness for sure.

Turn 74.

Nothing interesting happened so no pictures.

Turn 75.




Time to pasture all those cows, pigs, etc. I'm also planning to capture some bears roaming around in north (good thing dancing bear doesn't require carnival). There's also horse 1S from my capital.

Demos after ending the turn:




I'm not too unhappy with my situation anymore. At least I'm not last in anything .

[Aurorarcher]

Time for some update. Been very busy lately, haven't had time to update properly.

Turn 81.

Found where Sheaim is, now the only civilization that I haven't found is Khazad. But looking at map I can pretty much figure out where his land is.




This warrior is going to head back to my land, no reason to go further into Sheaim's land.

Turn 83.

Orcs have a religion! Ok, not quite yet, I didn't bother revolting to it just yet because I have it only in one city. I plan to spam thanes/SoK in near future.




Also this turn I settled 2 new cities.







I have 9 cities now, HK is still leading with 10 cities. All others are quite a far behind in city count. Yell0w has 7 cities, Qgqqqqq 5 cities and Kredom also 5 cities.

There's still quite a lot nice land to settle on, especially as Qgqqqqq and Kredom have been expanding slowly.

Demos before ending the turn:




I'm pretty happy with my situation overall in demos. Note that 20 GNP (Kredom), I wonder what he is doing. He's not building cities or economy. HK is still number #1 in most categories, most notably in Food. I'm pretty sure he used the bard to grab Sanitation, so now he can spread those 4F aristofarms everywhere! This also means that Khazad has acces Trebuchets already (not that I'm afraid of it just yet).