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

[Maksim]

First of all, thank you for a wonderful thread. You really give us lurkers something to think and talk about. Your last post is very interesting - just wanted to highlight a few items there.

For Hill Giants, you consider them pretty useless:

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.

Personally, I view them as quite good artillery (can they get move 2 with Mobility promotion?) to destroy cultural defenses, which means that Catapults can be avoided for a while. Do you disagree, or do you just not see yourself in offensive warfare mode this game? If Selrahc is not going for a Priest rush, can you see yourself changing your tech path due to having these as mobile defense?

The same Cull whose activity has had everyone grumbling at some point in this PBEM...

Could you elaborate? Was this simply hogging the turn, or something different?

Even so, initial estimates put me at completing the Pact of Nilhorn around T87, a full 18 turns (minimum) after Selrahc.

Can you share how you arrived at that figure? I'm curious as to what you were aiming to do, and in what order. Particularly, which turn you get Cartography and whether you begin Pact of Nilhorn straight away.

Finally, how are you going to approach diplomacy? Are you keeping under the radar for now, or trying to build up trust?

Thanks!

[Adlain]

The same Cull whose activity has had everyone grumbling at some point in this PBEM...

Could you elaborate? Was this simply hogging the turn, or something different?

to be fair to cull he has been bushwhaked by illness and that stopes him from playing, but he has gotten athlete to cover for him now so atleast your game is moving (unlike in pbem4 where we seem to attract problems) but agreed any delay can throw you off your momentum and knock your plans for 6.

[scooter]

Awesome post PB - I don't think I've seen anyone here at RB express their thoughts on the state of the game quite so well, and that's saying a lot because we have some darn good ones here. I couldn't stop reading it - keep em coming!

[tscharlii]

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 downloaded the full installer from that page when I installed the mod a few weeks ago, and got the file 2009_05_16_FallfromHeaven2041n.exe.
I assumed that already includes the latest patch n, so I don't have to apply it seperately. Still, For the Horde granted my friend Sons of the Inferno. Am I wrong about this?

Hmm, maybe I should ask that in another than your PBEM thread. If the answer is short, I'll be glad to hear it, but don't mind to do extra research on it, please. I'll ask myself in a tech support forum then.

[Krill]

That was a fantastic post PB keep up the great work

[pocketbeetle]

Thankyou all for the kind comments, I'm glad you guys liked it. =)

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

As I understand his post: yes

No sorry, my fault for being unclear.
Obviously if I contact Selrahc right after researching Cartography, it would be rather transparent that I’m exaggerating.
All he’d have to do is make a quick check at the score or last turn's save.

It'll depend on what the situation is like at the time. Ideally I'd like to wait 5-10 turns after Cartography.
Considering however that time is the one thing I don’t have, I'll probably have to contact him before that.

Even if I only wait 3-4 turns, that's still enough of a gap to claim I've put a decent amount of chops into it, with more to come.
Both Selrahc and Sareln seems to be heavy on forests around their capital, so there's no reason why he wouldn't believe I am too.

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!!!! [img]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Kevin/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif[/img]

Completely agree.
It does exactly what a mod should do: brings variety and new options to a game which one may be tired of/finding stale.

I downloaded the full installer from that page when I installed the mod a few weeks ago, and got the file 2009_05_16_FallfromHeaven2041n.exe.
I assumed that already includes the latest patch n, so I don't have to apply it seperately. Still, For the Horde granted my friend Sons of the Inferno. Am I wrong about this?

Hmm, maybe I should ask that in another than your PBEM thread. If the answer is short, I'll be glad to hear it, but don't mind to do extra research on it, please. I'll ask myself in a tech support forum then.

I can understand your confusion, and I don’t know if that means your download was automatically patched to n.

However I just loaded up a quick testgame and tried it out, looks like I was wrong, patch n does still allow them to be convertible using For the Horde.

I've asked a question over at CFC, but no response yet, and beyond that I’m not sure I can help.
Get an early Archmage like Hemah and use Dominate to steal those mages off him?
Just one of those quirky balance issues I guess.

For Hill Giants, you consider them pretty useless:

Personally, I view them as quite good artillery (can they get move 2 with Mobility promotion?) to destroy cultural defenses, which means that Catapults can be avoided for a while. Do you disagree, or do you just not see yourself in offensive warfare mode this game? If Selrahc is not going for a Priest rush, can you see yourself changing your tech path due to having these as mobile defense?

That’s a very good point about the mobility promotion.
I had noted they can bombard, and had considered the offensive potential vs Selrahc if I were trying to come to Sareln’s aid, but didn’t follow that line of thought too far.
Priests can fortify, and the level 1 Ice spell Slow would reduce the Hill Giant's movement to 0, ie unable to attack, just bombard.
Mobility promotions are only enabled around HBR, which is a little way off yet.

In truth I’ve only built the Hill Giants once, maybe twice. I’ve always regarded them as a ‘lolwonder’, or at best emergency defense (like now).
And obviously, the AI has never put me in this sort of position before.

So, to try and answer the questions:

• I definitely don’t disagree that they could be useful catapult substitutes.
  
• I’m 100% not ruling out going on the offensive, but it’s worth noting (I’ve mentioned it before somewhere) that the Kuriotates have less reason to go on the offensive once they’ve got their megacities down. Captured cities are of little value beyond claiming resources, and military production can be more limited than other civs.
  It’s an option, but I’m just as happy to tech ahead. Certainly I’d prefer to have a military edge first, for which a couple of catapult substitutes just don’t cut it.
  
• I don’t regard the Hill Giants as an effective solution to my defense beyond this one situation.
  Sure they may also be able to help clean up a couple of barbs, but they come way too late for Orthus and still have an absolute maximum movement of 3.
  Remember what I’ve said before about the Kuriotates having a problem with defending their widely spaced cities. 1-2 movement Hill Giants are not a solution, and I won’t start feeling secure until I have the Kuriotate’s bread and butter unit, Centaur Archers, up and running around.
  

Could you elaborate? Was this simply hogging the turn, or something different?

to be fair to cull he has been bushwhaked by illness and that stopes him from playing,

I’ve been trying to make a point of not grumbling or ranting about other players in this game, and I will try to keep to that despite the occasional slip.

Suffice it to say that the two slowest players so far have been Archduke and Cull, for entirely different reasons.
Archduke is very regular and reliable in the times he checks for the save, typically morning and afternoon, but has been the reason for 3 out of the 4 scheduled blitz sessions failing, and in each case he’s left all of us hanging around wondering if he will arrive, when a short post could have saved everyone a wasted hour.

On the other hand, Cull has been great with the blitz sessions, making them all despite having one of the more extreme times, yet in terms of playing the save at best he seems to check once a day. When he changed timezone to move to China, things were actually going much more smoothly, the overlap between players meshed better, until as Adlain rightly points out, he got ill.

Overall I’m a touch more sympathetic to Cull. When I wrote that he was a student at the start of this thread, I thought he was in University, whereas now I realise he’s younger. I can remember what it was like when parents suddenly override your schedule just because they’ve decided to visit something horrific, like the opera or ballet, and you get dragged along too (oooh bad memories! ).

So in short, I appreciate everyone has their own schedule, and that PBEMs are more relaxed, but we could have avoided spending a month in stasis with a touch more application. Even I’m not blameless though, having taken a week off at one point.
However I’m really glad that Cull was willing to seek help, and Athlete willing to give it, and I’ve told that to them both in emails.

Can you share how you arrived at that figure? I'm curious as to what you were aiming to do, and in what order. Particularly, which turn you get Cartography and whether you begin Pact of Nilhorn straight away.

I’ve made a sandbox testsave of my current start.
I built 2 settlers and 4 workers, 2 for the new cities and 2 for Kwythellar to get it’s mines up asap.
No other distractions however, no workboats or extra buildings, Carto came in around T61.

In general my estimations will tend to be on the pessimistic side, as the figures for my civ will be tested and realistic, while the other party’s numbers will be idealised. So in Selrahc’s case I’ve been using the absolute minimum time, if he beelines for the White Hand ritual with no distractions.

Finally, how are you going to approach diplomacy? Are you keeping under the radar for now, or trying to build up trust?

Both!
In the end I have only met two civs. One of which I’m resigned to letting die, and the other the aggressor. Not exactly a tempting selection. ^^

I would like to stay under the radar, particularly in terms of not racing out to be number 1 in score etc (assuming I actually can?), but there’s so much that can happen before then, eg Orthus, that I can’t make solid plans.

One thing that has surprised me is the response to my posts in the tech thread.
They’re meant to be a blatant joke: I picked the worst thing I could be building (Herbalist) and then the absolute worst tech to be researching (Masonry).
Sareln seemed to get it, but Bob and Archduke appeared to partly believe me???

I mean, I know I want to come across as a bit of a noob, but please give me a touch of credit.
I just hope they don’t totally believe it and then think I’m a lying sumabitch!



One last thought:

It’s occurred to me that there was an option I didn’t consider.
To put it simply:

• Tell Selrahc I’m building the Hill Giants (after researching Cartography).
  
• Warn Sareln about the likelihood of a PoW rush, and get him to actually build the Pact of Nilhorn.
  
• Result: Splatted Priests while I tech happily along.
  

Now that would be a really really devious masterplan!
But I’m not confident in pulling it off, and if it failed Selrahc would know, putting the two of us on a crash collision course.

And finally, I’m evil, but not evil enough for that… yet.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 37:

Vanilla Ice moved onto the forested hill without incident.
He’ll now sit there for 3 turns to heal up, before moving either SW-SW onto the forest or SW-SE to the hill, haven’t decided.




Over at Kwythellar, the new warrior (Beefy!) moves up to join Clogz.

Armed with a plentiful supply of bovine death-dealing weaponry, they’re going to bravely explore the ‘Red Square’.




Meanwhile Bob the worker completed the incense plantation this turn.

The Kuriotates have no clue how to use the resource (requires Philosophy and a temple for +1 happy), but they’re canny enough to know it’s worth a lot of moolah.
Incense is also required to enable the Tier 3 High Priests, just as Reagents (spices) enable Tier 3 Archmages.




Demographics:

First of all, thanks to the incense, my GNP is now joint #1 with Selrahc, and qualitatively is better than his.

I was then going to note all sorts of things, stuff like Selrahc appeared to have configured himself for growth (note massive drop in Mfg goods), and that Cull and Archduke had both grown to size 3 with a corresponding score increase.

Then I just noticed this post in the tech thread:

I think we can all agree that, no matter what the cause, losing population early in the game really sucks.


Or does it bite?

For some reason I'm getting that "Rivers of Blood" feeling...

Now reread my second-to-last sentence again. Cull and Archduke grew to size 3.
Guess I was wrong again.

If he has used it, then it’s a big mistake by him.
He should have smacked Sareln and myself while we were gathering steam, not the two trailers.
Because Bob delayed, I’m sitting pretty with a partially filled food box, while with 2 pop I have a surplus of +8 food per turn. At worst it’ll take 2 turns to regrow to 3 pop, at which point I can happily work the incense again.

I sure as hell am not complaining if he has used his worldspell however.
I’ve got no idea what it would do to Selrahc, but it really can’t be good.
Feel really sorry for Archduke and Cull though. Hope they’ve built or are close to building a worker soon, or it’s going to be hell for them.

One thing that has to be said about these games: human players are anything but predictable.


Last but not least, Bob gained a tech this turn.
Will have to revisit when he last researched something, but vague memory says it should be a level 2 tech like Calendar/AH/Education/Mysticism.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 38:

Let’s start with Vanilla Ice.

A Lizardman came into view this turn (knew it was still too close to those damn ruins), and like the situation with the wolf a couple of turns ago, he’s visible on a hill and guaranteed to be attacked.
At 1.5 health, survival chances are low, so it’s back to running again.

Moved SW then, unable to reach the forested plains hill until next turn, decided to move SE onto the hill, and I’m -very- glad I did.



Hello Cull!
Kinda funny that I would have stayed fortified 1 move away from his borders for quite a while without a helping nudge from the barbs.

Moving back to Kwythellar to survey the carnage, Bob did indeed cast his worldspell River of Blood this turn.
I was wrong about the +8 food surplus, it’s only +7, but the city will regrow to size 3 with a healthy overflow in two turns.
Minor speedbump in other words.
Looking at city sizes, Sareln has already regrown to size 3.

Beefy moved NE towards Clogz, while Bob the worker moves NW and will add another two turns of farming to that plains tile.
After that, Kwythellar’s borders will expand (46/50 culture) and he’ll move to farm the grassland tile 1E.




Demographics:

I’m not even going to try and analyse the crop and mfg yields until the graphs have had a turn to settle down and update.
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to see.

The HUGE stat to notice this turn is the rival best land area: It’s gone up from 37k to 46k.
That’s 9k difference, ie a newly planted city.

Two candidates:

• The obvious one is Selrahc.
  He’s got 14 turns on us all thanks to Stasis, and I’ve got a serious amount of hammers by him that are unaccounted for.
  
  
• The less obvious one is Bob.
  He’s been running a considerable crop surplus for quite a while, without any growth.
  I realise now he was waiting to fire off his worldspell. Without checking I’d guess his happy cap is 5, ie his current pop.
  It’s possible that he’s pulled off a double whammy, hitting everyone once they were size 3 and also at the same time planting a city and gaining +2 pop in both cities.
  If so I’d take my hat off to him, but sadly (or happily), that’s not it.
  

Because the other stats tell me differently:

• Score:
  Archduke, Cull and myself take a 10-11 score hit for losing 2 pop. I’m guessing the actual figure for each pop point is 5.5 and the variance is rounding errors?
  Anyway, Sareln takes only a 6 point hit due to already regrowing to size 3.
  Bob gains 11 points from a 2 pop boost.
  Which just leaves Selrahc, who went from size 5->3 as expected, yet only took a 6 point hit.
  
  
• Rival Av Soldier count rose 0.2k to 11.8k
  Popwise, it should have lost (-0.2 * 3 (Archduke, Cull, Sareln) + 0.2 (Bob) = -0.4k), with Selrahc remaining neutral (size 3 city + size 1 city = 4 pop).
  So by actually rising 0.2k that means we gained 0.6k overall, which is a warrior.
  I’m not too sure who this is at this moment.
  I’ve noticed the power graph shows Bob building a warrior on T36, which I mistakenly assigned to Archduke. I think what’s happened is that Cull built a warrior this turn, while Archduke is still the rival worst power at 9k.
  But truth be told, I knew I’d start to lose my grip on the power numbers at some point, and now seems as good a time as any to let them go. I’ll still include the occasional eyeballing of Selrahc’s and Sareln’s power graphs and rough estimations, but no more trying to track exact army compositions.
  

So, it’s Selrahc who planted the first 2nd city in this PBEM.
Not surprising given Stasis, but fair play to him.

I realise now I made a slight mistake in a previous comment:

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.

That should have read: or has built a settler.
I calculated 146 hammers of unaccounted production, but forgot to take into account the reduced hammer cost from quick speed.
Care to guess what a settler costs on quick?
Yup, 145.

But that’s not all we’ve got today. Listen up my lovely readers, because today you graduate to advanced C&D academy! :hat:

We now know why Selrahc took so long to build his Sage Council: he was busy building a settler.
So if we know when Selrahc finished his Sage Council, and backtrack his production, we’ll know when he finished building the settler.
And if we know the turn that he popped the settler, and the turn he founded a new city, we know how far he travelled…
Which means we can take a punt at where his new city is. :dancing5:

Here’s a screenie of the map info we have around him, complete with appropriate dotmap darrell!

My what a wonderful selection of secondary city sites! And I don’t even know what’s to his South.

Capital is marked by the red square, locations are listed in order of likelihood.

1. Natural expansion for a second city.
   Picks up Wheat and an early happiness resource (Cotton), can work some cottages for the capital.
   Could also be founded 1N or 1SE which are similarly decent sites. (1N would simply require the White Temple to terraform tundra -> snow = grassland for Illians).
   
   
2. Riverside location, splits off Corn from capital and picks up Sheep.
   
   
3. Sheep, Deer and Letum Frigus.
   Based on only the food resources I would rate this lower (Sheep = AH, Deer = expensive Hunting), but the unique feature raises it’s value to Selrahc.
   
   
4. Pigs, Marble, Mana, and importantly towards the Svartalfar, both grabbing land and acting as a possible staging post if he’s intending to attack them.
   Sareln’s borders are literally 1SE of the marble.
   
   
5. Least likely, based on the difficulty of seeing the Rice (no hills overlooking it, peaks surrounding it) and my belief that the bloodpet he sent in my direction did not go that far South.
   

If Selrahc has settled 2 or 5, I’ll be upset. I’m currently eyeing up that sheep and thinking it looks very attractive (Welsh grandparents, don’t ask).
The others don’t bother me one bit, 4 would make me happy.
So, back to figures again.

He completed a Sage Council on T35.
40 hammers at 13h/turn is 3-4 turns depending on overflow.
Apparently he had at least 1h overflow from the settler, so let’s say it took 3 turns.
Therefore settler completed T32, first started moving T33.
Founded city T38, therefore 6 turns of movement, 6-12 tiles travelled (keeping in mind lack of roads, heavy forests and possible (likely?) warrior escort.)

Therefore:

1. Site 1 and 1SE of site 1 are out of the running.
   1N is still possible though, assuming 1 tile movement each turn and taking into account the forest on the tile. But it’s risky, being right next to the skeleton barrow.
   
   
2. Ruled out, only takes 4 turns to reach, unless there is a food resource I don’t know about in the fog North of the peak.
   
   
3. Easily reachable.
   Would require one or two double movements by the settler, but that’s plausible with a well positioned warrior.
   Also occurs to me that the forest tile 1E of the peak picking up the deer and wheat is a possible site within range.
   
   
4. Out of range.
   Admittedly the site is unrealistic as it’s got a dungeon that would have to be removed first, but even moving it 1W or 1S it’s still out of range.
   
   
5. Also easily reachable. Have to trust in luck here I think.
   

Now there are a couple of very good reasons why the above is probably wrong. He could have waited to gather an escort first, (not build, but just gather a warrior). Plus, I don’t have complete map knowledge, he could have 20 gold resources South of his capital.

But…I think the above does has value, and it makes me feel more confident in saying that Selrahc has likely settled N/E/S rather than West into me.
I may also gain more info next turn, when I find out what tile he’s working with that size 1 city.

I’ll get around to asking him at some point, but not before this Cartography stuff is sorted out.

Note to self, tile yields:
Plains wheat 2f/1h
Gl river cotton 2f/2c
Gl sheep 3f
Glh Pigs 2f/1h
Tun river deer 2f/1c

[darrelljs]

Cyan dot really should be one east :neenernee.

Darrell

[pocketbeetle]

Cyan dot really should be one east :neenernee.

Darrell

Wha?

Doesn't get sheep or fresh water then!