[Spoilers] Defining the phrase "€˜Hung Like a Horse"€™: Pb & the Kuriotates

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 36:

Starting with Vanilla Ice, he’s still alive, tail intact, and running from the lizardmen.
He keeps on finding wonderful city locations, none of which I’m ever going to have, and is currently sitting in a tundra forest.

I can either leave him there to heal (needs 3 turns), or take one final risky movement and move S-SW onto that forested hill.

He’s still too close to the ruins in my opinion, the hill it is.
Operation: Defog coastline still going strong.



Over at Kwythellar, no sign of any lions in the bush, worker has 2 turns left to finish the incense plantation.

Clicking end turn produces a second warrior and Kwythellar grows to size 4.
I’m now working two unimproved gl forest tiles, the blame for which I lay solidly at Conan’s feet (in the figurative sense of course, Kwythellar now does a storming trade in barbarian head-on-a-pike toy models).
The delay he caused me in getting my first worker out is costing some serious commerce.



I may end up switching one of the gl forest tiles to the glh forest, getting the next warrior out faster at the same growth rate. (Food box is currently 0/18, food overflow 15-8 = 7, switching to glh forest means 14-8=6, still 3 turn growth).


Demographics:

Where to start?
Let’s start with me.

My crop yield is now looking like Mt. Kilamanjaro, and along with Sareln’s, ought to be scaring Bob and Selrahc witless. Good good.
On the other hand, my power graph looks anemic and has a big ‘kick me’ sign on it. Not so good.
Mfg Goods is starting to creep up due to the forested tiles, while GNP is middle of the pack and will take another turn or two to finally start busting out.

Best cities screen: Selrahc is still at 5 pop, Sareln and I are now at 4, Bob is at 3.
Meanwhile Cull and Archduke are still at 2 pop.
Ordinarily I’d say that’s fine, they grew one population to allow them to respond to emergency barbs faster *cough*, and are now building a worker to catch up.
But something I missed last turn was the the worst crop yield went from it’s usual 7 down to 2…
It’s back up now, but a crop yield of 2 with a city size of 2 means 2-4=-2 ie starving at 2 pop? The worst GNP went from 12 to 11 for a turn also.

I’m pretty sure this trailer is Archduke. He seems to be having a torrid time, having lost his starting scout, taking a -1 pop event in the face, and now I guess struggling with some barbs.

I’ve also just realised I can assign a warrior built this turn to Archduke, which explains the starving tile yield. Thus the unexplained warrior build on T35 is very likely to be Cull.
I’m getting that from the Rival worst stats, the soldier count for which increased from 7k (1k pop + 2x 3k warrior) to 10k (+1 warrior). I know that’s not Sareln, who courtesy of his pop 4 is 11k power, and Archduke fits.
Be nice if I could find Cull to confirm though.

Other stuff:

• Rival best GNP: 22. Deal with that below.
  
• Rival average GNP: 16
  Assuming Archduke is the worst at 12 and using everyone else’s GNP from the graphs tells me Cull is around GNP 15 (still).
  
• Rival Av soldier count: 11.6k
  Increase of 0.8k courtesy of Archduke’s warrior (0.6k = 3k/5) and Sareln increasing in pop (0.2k = 1k/5).
  It just took me 5 minutes to realise my pop increase doesn’t count in the rival av soldier count.
  
• Bob’s tile yields settled down to the usual 3 x 3f/1c.
  No warrior produced so guess it was just barb activity.
  

And last but definitely not least, let’s deal with Selrahc:

Last turn I was confused about a GNP rising to 18. Graphs show it was him, this turn someone (him) has risen to 22.
It’s not hard once you remember his Pacifism switch after Mysticism, (Sage Councils, enables hiring of one scientist).
{8c (palace) + 2c (worked tiles) + 2b (sage council) + 3b (sci spec)} * 1.2 = 18, + 4cp = 22 GNP.

It’s a good move, slightly surprised he didn’t do it earlier though, considering he got Mysticism on T25, and could have built the 40h Sage Council in 4 turns.
Pacifism is understandable, but still yucky. It gives +50% GPP yield for a -20% military unit production penalty, and extra war weariness.
A scientist gives 3 gpp/turn, so with pacifism he’s getting 4.5 rounded down to 4 gpp/turn.
First GP comes at 67 gpp, so in 17 turns from now (T52).

Even taking into account the cost of a SC, I’ve still got (warrior last built T18 ) roughly 146 hammers of unaccounted for production. (7t*8h + 10t*13h = 186h, -40h =146h).
Either he’s got a worker running around as we speak, he’s building a settler, or he’s building Samhain (frostling ritual). Or, he’s doing something really weird.
I’ve been discounting Samhain because I don’t expect him to build it, the frostlings and Mokka are uncontrollable and just as likely to negatively impact Selrahc.
But then, I didn’t expect him to fire Stasis so soon either.

Clearly he has little intention of building warriors anytime soon though, and the PoW deadline just decreased to T69.
Yay.

[Rowain]

Thanks for all the work you put into your posts
I really enjoy reading your C&D work.

[The Reverend Doctor]

Turn 36:Clearly he has little intention of building warriors anytime soon though, and the PoW deadline just decreased to T69.
Yay.

Hopefully that doesn't decrease any further!

[tscharlii]

Hello,

wow, this thread has been a long and interesting read. I'm glad Conan got his priorities wrong. Keep up the excellent work.

My friend and I play a game of civ 4 once in a while, and recently, we stumbled across the FfH 2 mod. Since I enjoy playing elven races in fantasy games, I chose Faeryl Viconia of the Svartalfar (looking for some strategy hints I found Sarelns thread first, followed by this entire subforum), while my friend went with the Clan of Embers.

He did it a few times now. He waits for Acheron to appear, who tends to choose a barb city a few turns after Orthus entered the world. He waits another few turns, so Acheron's fire mages spawn and calls For the Horde to get his hands on some of those and conquer the early world, leaving me clueless how to counter that.

I think you are facing a similar or even worse situation, since you expect to see Priests of Winter by turn 69.

Could you please point out some of your ideas, what you are going to do if worse comes to worst, and Selrahc chooses to make friends with the elves and send those priests your way?

[pocketbeetle]

Oooh lurker posts!

Thanks for all the work you put into your posts
I really enjoy reading your C&D work.

Thankyou for the kind words.

Hopefully that doesn't decrease any further!

100% agreed.
I've been trying to think of ways to slow him down short of a suicidal warrior war.
The only thing I can think of is finding Bob and convincing him to cast his world spell River of Blood.
The -2 pop effect would hit Selrahc hardest with his unimproved capital, probably forcing him to stop running the scientist while growing back to 4 or 5 pop.
Obviously it would affect me also, but like Sareln I could easily ride it out with my nice 6 food tile.

However it's looking less and less likely that Bob is going to do this without me making contact and bribing him.
He would need us all to be at 3 pop to have maximum effect (3->1 pop hurts most), and has already missed the chance to catch Sareln and myself at this level.
That leaves only Cull and Archduke yet to reach 3 pop, and why use your worldspell to weaken the players who are already trailing?
Surely it's better to knock the leaders down?

So it's not looking likely, I guess he's saving it either for mid/lategame, or for boosting his second city instantly up to 3 pop.

Hello,
My friend and I play a game of civ 4 once in a while, and recently, we stumbled across the FfH 2 mod. Since I enjoy playing elven races in fantasy games, I chose Faeryl Viconia of the Svartalfar (looking for some strategy hints I found Sarelns thread first, followed by this entire subforum), while my friend went with the Clan of Embers.

He did it a few times now. He waits for Acheron to appear, who tends to choose a barb city a few turns after Orthus entered the world. He waits another few turns, so Acheron's fire mages spawn and calls For the Horde to get his hands on some of those and conquer the early world, leaving me clueless how to counter that.

Hi tscharlii and welcome to Realms Beyond. =)

Call me evil, but I'm hoping there were zero strategy hints in Sareln's thread, and he's just flailing around wildly.
But I suspect not. ^^

Regarding the fire mages/Sons of the Inferno, I completely agree that they're horribly hard to counter if stolen using For the Horde.
It's one of the reasons why I was keen for Acheron to be disabled in this game, although Orthus will still be a hassle.
One tactic you could (sneakily) use to try and beat your friend, would be for both of you to update to the latest patch n (here).
They specifically added Loyalty to the fire mages to stop them being attained via For the Horde.

I think you are facing a similar or even worse situation, since you expect to see Priests of Winter by turn 69.

Could you please point out some of your ideas, what you are going to do if worse comes to worst, and Selrahc chooses to make friends with the elves and send those priests your way?

I'm absolutely intending to do this very soon, however I'm still struggling to get things sorted in my own head.
I think I have a couple of half options, but all of them are going to slow me down from my intended path.

One problem is that I can't put a figure on the likelihood of Selrahc attacking me.
I don't think he knows where I am yet, and so my half-plan of putting a settlement right next to his capital and then casting my world spell to bump borders must sound really really stupid.
Right?

[pocketbeetle]

Coping with nasty neighbours:

Otherwise known as: ‘wtf am I going to do about those Priests?’

I get the feeling I’ve bored you now by going on about them.
But I’m still going to repeat why the PoW are stupidly strong earlygame, and why I’m was right to be paying such close attention to Selrahc’s opening moves.

I’ve estimated that Selrahc can get his Priests online by T69 at the earliest.
If I continue on my current techplan, I could easily end up with warriors (str 3) facing 3x strength 7 Priests.
Priests which:

• have a chance of gaining free xp each turn, simply from being a spellcasting unit.
  
• will gain +20% strength (+1.4 str) for every promotion down the Combat line that they take.
  
• can take the Shock promotion to get +40% vs any melee units (like warriors).
  
• can take the Ice II promotion to enable the summoning of a str 5 throwaway unit (Ice elemental).
  
• are led by a Charismatic Leader = more promotions for less xp.
  

This is not a good combination, not by a long shot.

To combat it, I need a stronger unit, preferably one that can’t be countered by specific promotions.
There are four potential solutions that are roughly attainable for me within the timeframe.

1. Centaurs
   Requiring AH and HBR, Centaurs are highly mobile str 4 mounted units.
   Positives:
   • Higher base str.
     Fortified (+25%) and with cultural bonus (+30%) they reach 6.2 str on defense.
     
   • Harder to take counter promotions.
     Formation gives +40% vs mounted units, but requires Combat II. (Compare to Shock and Cover which only require Combat I).
     
   
   Negatives:
   • We’re still dead.
     
2. Hunters
   Requiring Exploration and Hunting, Hunters are 2 move str 4 recon units.
   Positives:
   • As with Centaurs, higher strength.
     
   • Not counterable.
     There is no ‘+40% vs Recon units’ promotion. Recon units get a malus to attack vs a city, but defend without penalty.
     
   
   Negatives:
   • Hunting expensive tech. Not sure I could get it in time.
     
   • We’ll probably still die.
     
3. Archers
   Requiring either Exploration/Hunting/Archery or Crafting/Mining/Archery (preferred), Archers are 1 move str 3/5 (5 on defense) ranged units, with an innate +25% city defense, +25% hill defense, +1 first strike chance.
   Positives:
   • Strong defense.
     Fortified (+25%), with cultural bonus (+30%) and innate city (+25%) they reach 9 str on defense, rising to 11.5 if the city is on a hill.
     
   • If I could reach and build multiple units in time, could possibly live.
     
   
   Negatives:
   • Similar beaker cost to Hunters, similar doubt if I can reach in time.
     
   • Cover (+40% vs ranged) available at Combat I.
     
4. Hill Giants
   World Project: Pact of the Nilhorn.
   As with wonders, can only be built once by one player, however unlike wonders cannot be rushed by gold, GEs, or the whip.
   Requiring Exploration and Cartography, completing the project gives you 3x Hill Giants, (humorously named Moe, Larry, Curly after the Three Stooges) which are str 7 beast units.
   Positives:
   • Equal strength to Priests.
     
   • Cannot be countered using promotions in the earlygame.
     There is an endgame promotion giving +25% vs beast units and allowing them to be captured, but obviously that’s not a concern here.
     
   • Lowest tech requirement of all the options listed here.
     Exploration has to be taken early as it allows road building, Cartography allows Open borders and map trading.
     
   • Hill Giants have a bombard ability (-15%), allowing the player to lower city defenses before catapults.
     
   
   Negatives:
   • Do not receive defensive bonuses, so can’t just fortify them in a city.
     
   • Huge hammer requirement: 335 on quick speed.
     Means I’ll be spending more production than Selrahc for his PoWs, and receiving inferior units in return.
     I’ll also be starting to build them later than Selrahc.
     
   • If Selrahc chooses not to attack me, or if for some stupid reason I’m wrong about all of this (I don’t think I am, but it wouldn’t be the first time), I’ll have wasted a shedload of hammers on three pretty useless units that will sit around costing maintenance for most of the game.
     
   
   

I think it’s pretty clear that only the last two options are workable.
Has to be said, I certainly didn’t enter this game even vaguely considering that I might build the Hill Giants.
But hey… it’s a case of adapt and overcome, or die.


Hill Giants vs Archers:

The tech path to archers (Crafting -> Mining -> Archery) costs 667 beakers, which sounds expensive compared to (Exploration -> Cartography) 300b, but I need to bear in mind that I’m going to be researching Mining (prereq Crafting) anyway to unlock production. So all that the archer path is really costing me is the extra 100b that Archery is worth over Cartography (323b vs 215b).

Once archery is in, I’d need to produce a 67h archery range in Kwythellar, then archers after that at 40h each, remembering I’d get a +10% production boost from the current Nationhood civic towards each unit.
Hammerwise, that works out as 1 archery range + 7 archers when compared to the Pact of Nilhorn at 335h.
I’ve tried sandboxing it, and rough estimates are that I can get the Giants in by T87, or an archery range and 5 archers by the same date.

Really what the decision comes down to however is this:
The Hill Giants are a proactive solution, the Archers are a reactive solution.

If I go archers, I can only huddle in my cities. I can never attack the Priests (archers 3 attack, same as warriors) and Selrahc would be free to pillage and/or maneuver around to backline cities. I’m not even sure if I’d have enough archers.
Whereas with the Giants, I have the option to attack and kill.

Good enough for me.


A closer look at the Hill Giants:

They’re no good on defense.
If I stick them in a city and try to defend, Selrahc will just summon his throwaway units, damage them down, then finish off with his Priests.
I’ll be much better served keeping them on a road behind the city under attack. If I wait until he moves the Priests up, then hit them with some suicide warriors, bringing in the Giants should hopefully finish 1 or 2 priests off.
I’d probably try and gain a couple of combat promotions off barbarians before he arrives, but no idea if I’d have the time.

In terms of hammer cost, there’s a slight dilemna.
I’m playing catch up in production, while my basic production around Kwythellar is unimpressive.
Therefore as mentioned, I’d have to leverage my worker first advantage by getting Mining as soon as possible, preferably straight after Cartography, then throwing up mines boosted by God-King to get the Pact finished.

Even so, initial estimates put me at completing the Pact of Nilhorn around T87, a full 18 turns (minimum) after Selrahc.
Given that I’m what…18(?) tiles away from Selrahc’s capital, that may not seem so bad.
But remember that by T87 I’ll almost certainly have at least a second city, and given the map layout that city will have to be closer to Selrahc.


So I need to buy time.
How do I buy time and what does it cost?
Answer: Easily, and it costs nothing.
I’ve just got to lie, or as poker players say: bluff.


Selrahc can independently confirm I have Cartography via the diplomacy screen. Cartography enables Map trading and Open Borders, so when one player has it, those options appear. It’s unlikely however, that he’ll be checking the diplomacy screen every turn.
If I contact him right after researching Cartography, I could tell him I’m building the Giants. I could say that I have been for a while, that I have a decent amount of hammers invested and intend to stick several chops into it before the end.
Even if he checks previous saves to find out exactly when I researched the tech, I still think there’s a good chance he’ll believe me.

Selrahc will then know that attacking me will pit 3x str 7 units vs another 3x str 7 units.
He’ll probably know his are superior, but on the flipside I’ll have home court advantage, and losing a Hill Giant is a lot less painful to me long term than losing a Priest is to him. (Remember they’re irreplaceable, and the only divine casters Selrahc will ever get.)

Will that be enough to dissuade him? Will the threat of being attacked by the Giants be enough to protect Sareln also? Do I want to include him in this protection?
Yes, no, yes are the answers to those I think.

I want to work with Sareln, I think he’d be less of a threat to me overall, and I’m well aware of the risks of allying with someone who has clearly entered this game with a warmongering agenda.
But, the gulf between how much I’d prefer to ally with Sareln over Selrahc has narrowed, mainly due to Selrahc’s actions.

Both are militaristic civs in a no tech-trading game (Selrahc: Charismatic, Defender; Sareln: Raiders, Arcane), however Selrahc has weakened himself with his early use of Stasis, his unusual start and a failure to gain the Letum Frigus bonus.
Meanwhile Sareln has made a decent start and for all I know, could already be in bed with either of his neighbours (don’t think I didn’t notice that Sareln’s request in the tech thread, to be able to share screenshots pre-Cartography, was seconded by Cull literally 2 minutes later. The same Cull whose activity has had everyone grumbling at some point in this PBEM). Factor in the Illian Agnostic trait also, and suddenly Selrahc isn’t looking quite so threatening.
Obviously, the ideal situation for me would be Selrahc attacks Sareln, and Sareln somehow magically holds Selrahc to a stalemate, while I happily expand.
But I don’t seriously think Sareln is on top of the demographics to the same extent, and if I get the Giants then he’s left with archers and a much closer position to Selrahc.

So, I think the Giants will dissuade Selrahc. I would like to include Sareln in this protection, but realistically I know I can’t.

Selrahc has entered this game with an attacking frame of mind, and has sacrificed his early game to get these uber units. He’s not going to suddenly become a meek kitten and stay at home when threatened by his neighbours on either side.
If I were in his position, I’d smile sweetly then head like a missile for the biggest threat.
Which would be me.

I would then be defending with my inferior Giants.
Assuming Sareln isn’t roleplaying treacherous Elves and so doesn’t make a deal with Selrahc, and assuming Sareln actually does try and mount an assault to help me out vs Selrahc; the question remains: what can he do?

His best attacking units are still going to be strength 3 warriors.
Warrior vs warrior combat is no different in the FFH2 mod to base Civ4, the hometeam always wins, and that’s not even taking into account Selrahc’s Defender (free +10% str) trait.
The best case scenario is that the threat of Sareln attacking makes Selrahc keep 1 Priest home for defense.
I’m still fighting for my life, Sareln ends up the ultimate benefactor.


Finally, one situation I haven’t yet considered is: what if Selrahc’s not even considering attacking me?
It’s entirely possible.

I know the Svartalfar capital is closer to the Illian stronghold, making it a better target of opportunity.
I also strongly suspect that Selrahc doesn’t know where I am. All the evidence points to his scouting bloodpet getting killed before it reached me, and I haven’t seen any other Illian warrior near my borders. There are few (zero?) convenient hills that a unit could use to get sight on my culture without me sighting it in return.
If I had to guess, then based on previous diplo messages I’d say he thinks I’m SouthWest of his capital, in part thanks to Vanilla Ice’s early movement and a touch of deception on my part.

If he has no intention of attacking me, I will have wasted a serious amount of hammers, for units that potentially could sit around being useless for the rest of the game.
On the positive, I’d be solidifying diplo with a neighbour, 3 Giants are a lot cheaper maintenance wise compared to 7+ archers, and the most convincing reason of all: knowing a Priest rush could be coming and doing nothing would be plain stupid.

Finally, I have to keep in mind that I can’t stay off the radar forever. Indeed, not even for very long.
The map layout means I’m going to have to settle into Selrahc, and right now, given the food-poor distribution, that Sheep/Rice river area 5ish tiles West of his capital is looking mighty tempting.
Vanilla Ice saw a couple of nice city sites inbetween the Svartalfar and Illian capitals, and of course there’s Letum Frigus.
If Selrahc’s unblinking eye were distracted to the East, then two hobbits might be able to sneak in through the West gate and accomplish the unthinkable.


Conclusion:

So all in all, I think my best solution is to make damn sure Selrahc is pointed at Sareln, while wringing some concessions for not warning the Svartalfar and guaranteeing the Illian’s safety while they’re occupied.


Summary

• New tech plan: Mysticism -> Exploration -> Cartography -> Crafting -> Mining
  
• After Cartography researched:
  Dial up Selrahc, ask him if he’s going to rush me.
  Point out I’ve got Cartography (he can check via diplomacy screen – Open borders option).
  Bluff by telling him I’ve been building the Pact of Nilhorn for a while.
  
• Demand settling concessions for not warning or aiding his victim, sign short term NAP to guarantee safety.
  
• Use Open Borders to get some trade routes going with Selrahc.
  
• If NAP secured, prioritise Pact of Nilhorn lower, no need to build asap?
  

Final note: If this all goes down as planned, and you end up reading this, then I’m sorry Sareln.

[Ilios]

Fantastic post PB!

So do you plan to dial up Charles right after discovering Cartography?

[Rowain]

Fantastic post PB!

Seconded

So do you plan to dial up Charles right after discovering Cartography?

As I understand his post: yes

[BobRoberts]

Great posting in here, really enjoying the read. Thanks muchly!

[Square Leg]

Excellent stuff PB.

I dabbled with ffh2 a while back but didn't get into it - mainly due to lack of time to learn it! I love the variety that it has - the fact that there are so many solutions to the same problem and the fact that there are so many problems!!!!

Keep up the good work!