[Spoilers] Noble Intentions: Thessalonica of the Elohim starts her quest!

[Northstar1989]

You are partially correct regarding the score. You have to own land for twenty turns before it adds to your score, so the jump was given based on the original land claimed when you settled your capital.

Your demographics(and screenshots) show that you currently control 33 land tiles, so that's the number that will be a factor in your score twenty turns from now.

Hmmm, that's interesting. So how could the other player's scores have jumped (apparently from land) multiple turns before my own? By running Religion as a Spiritual leader (so +10% culture from the start and no Anarchy) I should have had the fastest-possible rate of border expansion at my capital in the game (unless other players pushed out a Monument early on- which is *highly* unlikely...)


Anyways, so I took another turn, and... EEK! Another Lizardman! :YIKES:



I did found Runes of Kilmorph, though. Hello +4 Gold/turn!



Next turn I'll definitely be making Runes of Kilmorph my state religion, for the occasional random chances to get a Golden Age from a constellation (LURKERS, those events are still in Erebus in the Balance, right?) and the occasional events where having RoK as my religions gives me better options...

I also assigned my Worker to chop another forest. This way, I should be able to cut a turn off the time to finish my first Settler with the extra hammers...








Also, you can catch another view of where I want to found my second city (southwest of the Gold) here. The nicest thing about the location is that early on, I won't need any improvements for a decent growth rate (as I can work the lake tile the city will be founded on the shores of, and later the forested Rice tile...) And there is also plenty of room for improvements in the long run- particularly a nice, shiny GOLD MINE!

The lack of need for improvements to the east allows my Worker to continue focusing on chopping forests for extra hammers (and shorter improvement times later on when I build Farms on these tiles). I'm also continuing to lead the game in beaker production- right now I have "31 Million Gold" as my GNP- due to the beaker overflow from finishing Runes of Kilmorph...



My next goal is to found Octopus Overlords- the extra culture production should be nice, and the Asylums/Sages should definitely help my beaker production... Also, when I eventually build the OO shrine, the free Water Mana will allow me to train Adepts with the "Spring" promotion for free- which should be useful for putting out fires (likely ignited by those darn Amurite wizards and their Fireballs/Blazes, or Clan Ritualists if Q follows his usual path of worshiping the Ashen Veil as Jonas Endain...) and vitalizing the nearby Desert tiles into Plains (particularly the tile hosting that Gold resource...)

I suspect the Amurites were never even going for Runes of Kilmorph in the first place- although I'll have to keep an eye on the religion screen to see if other RoK cities pop up soon... More likely, they're going for Knowledge of the Ether and the Catacomb Libralus. I thought about trying to beat them to it and messing them up (I can actually produce a Mage Guild + Catacomb for fewer hammers than the Amurites, thanks to my Industrious trait), but decided it wouldn't hold enough benefits for me to miss out on the chance to found Octopus Overlords and possible Fellowship of Leaves as well...


As always, I certainly appreciate any advice/insight/strategies from the lurkers. Feel free to talk to me about typical FFH2/EiTB strategies (with which I'm not really familiar) rather than anything specific that could possibly jeopardize your neutrality...


Regards,
Northstar

[Mardoc]

Hmmm, that's interesting. So how could the other player's scores have jumped (apparently from land) multiple turns before my own? By running Religion as a Spiritual leader (so +10% culture from the start and no Anarchy) I should have had the fastest-possible rate of border expansion at my capital in the game (unless other players pushed out a Monument early on- which is *highly* unlikely...)

Score is land, population, tech, and wonders. Had to be one of those four.

for the occasional random chances to get a Golden Age from a constellation (LURKERS, those events are still in Erebus in the Balance, right?)

No, they were replaced with something more minor. I think it's either ~50 free gold or +1 happy in your cities.

[Ellimist]

Beaker overflow has no effect on GNP demographics. The same is true for food and hammer overflow. This has some limited uses for catching people off-guard.

As far as general advice, I would recommend attempting to be the attacker in most of the battles you fight. Unit exp can be pretty important, and defenders get only half the exp that an attacker would get at the same odds. A lot of players just let the barbarians attack into their cities to take advantage of the defensive bonuses, but this isn't very efficient at gaining exp and tends to focus it on only one or two units.

[Mardoc]

Oh, as a general piece of advice: when picking cities, you generally want food first. And you want that food first-ring, where it doesn't need culture to be claimed. Why? Because a city can't grow to its potential without food - everything is faster if you can work more tiles. Including monuments, if necessary.

Occasionally you'll make an exception for a great tactical position, or for a resource you can't get any other way, but usually, food-first, everything else is a bonus.

[Northstar1989]

Oh, as a general piece of advice: when picking cities, you generally want food first. And you want that food first-ring, where it doesn't need culture to be claimed. Why? Because a city can't grow to its potential without food - everything is faster if you can work more tiles. Including monuments, if necessary.

Occasionally you'll make an exception for a great tactical position, or for a resource you can't get any other way, but usually, food-first, everything else is a bonus.

I'm thinking of building near the Gold partly for the bonus from Odio's Prison (works up to 3 tiles out). I assume that the tile west of the lake and 2 tiles south-southwest of the Gold is outside of that range? Therefore, I gain more in defensive benefits this way than I would if I built closer to the Rice...


Regards,
Northstar

[Northstar1989]

So, I finished chopping the forest, cutting another turn off my Settler production...



Moved my Scout, Warrior, and Thane of Kilmorph... (the last of these is currently acting as backup-defense for my capital)



And then hit End Turn... My next production goal is a Granary in my capital:



This should cut turns off future growth, but more importantly, it should allow my capital to continue to grow while I work on a building rather than a unit...

My Worker will be chopping another forest- so I should be able to finish the Granary before the next city-growth... I'm also holding off on Agrarianism because it would either (a) cause my capital to grow before the Granary is complete or (b) reduce my hammer-overflow into a Settler following the Granary, thus causing my Settler to be done a turn late... The Granary will be completed the same turn as my city-growth, by the way: LURKERS, will that be too late to gain its benefits on that growth?


Oh, and did you guys notice the score listings in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Just in case not, here is another screen to grind in one of the key messages:



The Amurites *WERE* working on a religion- it's just that the religion they were working on was Fellowship of Leaves rather than Runes of Kilmorph!

I guess my rush to RoK was a bit in waste. I probably could have prioritized food production instead ans till founded the religion. Then again, I plan to found 2-3 more religions (OO, and Order and/or Empyrean), so the small early tech lead may pay off there in the long run. Or not. It's hard to say. I guess all I can do is hope+pray...


Regards,
Northstar

[Northstar1989]

OK, so I decided NOT to go with the Granary after reading up on the Granary mechanics in a little more detail, and discovering a Granary will only start storing up food from the end of the first turn *AFTER* it has been built (meaning completing it on the same turn as city-growth is worthless)...



It also appears I was lucky I made this decision, as the Lizardman moved onto the Incense Plantation, causing the turns to growth to jump from 4 to 2 at the end of my turn (so my Granary wouldn't have even been completed on-time anyways). Instead, I decided to go with a Temple of Kilmorph (for the +2 Gold/turn).

Also, it would be quite risky to attack the Lizardman with the current strength-ratio between the Lizardman and my Warrior (even with a Combat I promo and +10% vs. Barbarians it's still a 50/50 toss-up at 3.6 STR vs. 3.6 STR, based on how Civ IV applies combat modifiers to the attacker and defender...)


Regards,
Northstar

[Northstar1989]

OK, so I set mt Worker to chopping another forest...



And me Warrior defeated the Lizardman on the defense. I'm pretty sure I was calculating something wrong about the attack probabilities if I had promoted anyways...



Meanwhile my Scout encountered a monstrous big Elephant! (he actually spotted it at the beginning of my turn- it moved north at turn's end...) Maybe I can subdue it at some point in the future and use it against my rivals...



And I still need to decide for sure where my Settler will found my 2nd city... I've asked this before, and I'm going to ask again- LURKERS: will the city tile still receive the +25% defensive bonus from Odio's Prison if I found immediately to the northeast of the Rice instead of immediately southwest of the Gold?



I'm counting on you LURKERS to get back to me about this before I have to decide. I'm never 100% sure how CivIV actually calculates distance considering it's a grid-based map... Are diagonally-adjacent tiles still considered adjacent when it comes to distance formulae?


Regards,
Norrthstar

[Northstar1989]

OK, so I finished work on the Temple of Kilmorph, grew my capital, and immediately began work on city #3:



Since I have 2 Warriors, a Thane of Kilmorph, and a penninsula to the north where I can build a city without needing to defend it (since barb units will have to pass closer to other cities first to attack it) I should be chaining quite a few Settles in a row now...

Also, my Scout continued to explore to the west:



A look at the Demographics has me slightly unnerved, though. apparently I'm #4 in Soldiers now? Just how are soldier counts calculated, exactly?



One of my rivals has founded his 2nd city in the past couple turns. It looks like I'm not so far behind the game on city-founding, even if my capital is considerably less populous that the Dwarves and Orcs'...



Also, LURKERS, I'm going to keep bugging you guys about this until I get an answer: how is the distance to Odio's Prison calculated? Would a city 2 tiles diagonally from it still count as being within its 3-tile defensive bonus radius? I found my 2nd city next turn, so I *REALLY* need to know!


Regards,
Northstar

[HidingKneel]

Also, LURKERS, I'm going to keep bugging you guys about this until I get an answer: how is the distance to Odio's Prison calculated? Would a city 2 tiles diagonally from it still count as being within its 3-tile defensive bonus radius? I found my 2nd city next turn, so I *REALLY* need to know!

I am not 100% sure, but my recollection is that you get the bonus if and only if Odio's prison is on a tile that can be worked by your city. (When you *REALLY* need to know something like this, your safest bet is to test it with worldbuilder... lurkers sometimes get things wrong )