Alright so first order of business. This really should've been done a while ago.
The blight has passed and we're swimming in happiness, so there's no reason at all to stay in Guardian of Nature. It'll also greatly speed up all the commerce improvements we've got strewn about.
Naturally, our science jumps by about 33%. We almost could just ignore the Tower of Divination entirely and hard tech to Divine Essence, but nah.
Gonna experiment with something I possibly found out in a recent SP game I played...
I decide to finish Iron Working just in case we do get into trouble with Kandros. If we're gonna do the tower I need to find another way to get a mana node anyway, so it's best to be prepared.
Sheaim takes back Gridmok, for what it's worth.
I've been trying to find where Kandros's main stack is but no to avail. Closest I've seen is something right here. Maybe it dispersed? Or maybe Sheaim is starting to make gains again?
Oh. Well never mind then. Not sure how I missed that?
Honestly fighting Kandros would be a really tall task now. he's got tons of good defense units strewn about and unlike the Sheaim we can't just Destroy Undead our way through his hordes of units. I'll try to maintain a military buildup for the next couple players, but I am all-in on getting the Altar by now.
Also 847 GPT. Quite a far cry from the -130 or so it was when we first switched. 37 turns makes a heck of a difference
Aha. Just as I thought.
I don't fully understand how the per-tile culture from a city works, except that in some fashion the closer a tile is to a city relative to its outer borders the more culture gets pumped into it, and this is a not-insignificant component to the whole formula. For some reason, popping a disciple in the city does, despite being a paltry amount of culture numerically, pump the culture of our borders in a way that's more significant then that makes that appear. If I can build and pop a couple more disciples into the city we should be able to claim our entire BFC back, including the body node.
Does building a Planar Gate as the Elohim spawn us units? Just asking.
I uh... what? I have no idea what any of this actually does. Were we in Esus all along? How does that even work?
I put open borders because why not I guess.
Huh, well that's a thing. Kandros is friendly with us but I don't know if that actually deters war in FFH2. I station a unit on Seven Pines just in case.
We have control of our node, and just in time too.
16 turns. Long, but we'll get that down. Don't you worry. 3 more turns to a GP by the way, let's hope we get the coinflip.
Wait, hold on, is this actually a thing? Does this mean if we have a Lanun city and build the palace there that we'll get extra food on all our water tiles?
Oh hey it turns out Commune with Nature gives Yggdrasil more food. Looks like even more hammers in Glens!
Well you took your sweet time with that Lanun.
Running the slider at breakeven gets us Divine Essence in 13 turns, while the tower will be done long before that. Good since we can divert our money and beakers to other thing.
Man, I didn't think the 5 or so disciples I made this way would help our borders to this extent.
Son of a submariner!
Well guess that means no golden age for us
Oh well, I do the next best thing and settle both great people in Glens, which is about good for half what the GA would have given us anyway.
Still, shifting back to priest specialists helps a lot.
Honestly, we could probably just pop Sanctuary and win the game from here just sitting for 30 turns, but I imagine that won't be pretty fun. Assuming we build the Altar straight up this should be my last turnset of the Succession Game. If the rest of you want to have some fun fighting the dwarves or zombies or horseguy or whatever, be my guest. Just don't touch the mana nodes until the tower is done obviously
of course I still have one more trick up my sleeve.
One instant palace coming up! I switch to God King next turn.
Oof, that's a big hit to our gold production. Fortunately we're in the driver's seat, so it doesn't really matter. Also shaved a turn off the tower and will be able to build the Altar significantly quicker, especially as more production improvements come online.
I decide to hurry the last bit of the tower to get a head start on the Altar. Please don't do something silly and pick Bowyers by accident or something
So, for building the altar, here are the main points:
- Upon finishing the tower, the sun node will immediately be replaced by a farm, which should be worked.
- After that, ALL of the lumbermills must be replaced by their respective production improvement immediately. Not only will this squeeze out more base hammers for Glens, it'll also chop all seven(!) ancient forests surrounding the city. With modifiers, that's 367 hammers just sitting there, for free. That's almost 1/5th of the Altar's price.
- Food will become an issue once the forests are chopped down. Just switch to Agrarianism and eat the starvation if we have to.
- Research is on Blasting Powder for improved mines. We might barely finish it before the Altar, but I'm not holding my breath. Tech choice after that is whatever amuses you.
- Aside from that, you all do what you want to do before victory
Alright haphazard1, take us home.