[Spoilers] Biggus Decius and the Sucking Vampires (Bobchillingworth / Calabim)

[DaveV]

Since settlers take forever to build, my lonely worker should have enough time to finish his roads and perhaps a farm or two before it completes.

... but the settler will be built *much* faster if you irrigate your floodplains. Since you have very few hammers, building settlers and workers with food is probably the most efficient thing for your capital to do.

Working cotton plantation + 3 unimproved floodplains + 2 forests: 7 extra food/hammers, so it will take 12 turns to build a settler (with 4 overflow).

With agrarianism but not aristocracy, working cotton plantation + 3 farmed floodplains + 2 farmed river grassland: 15 extra food, so it will take 6 turns to build a settler (with 10 overflow). You also get two extra commerce, huge when you have no commerce specials (cotton doesn't really count).

No argument about needing lots of bloodpets to protect the workers and settlers; in fact, I like to send four bloodpets as escorts.

[DaveV]

Assassins have proven incredibly annoying in my SP FFH games. What is the best defense? Lots of low-strength units? That "guardsman" promo?

Going way back to point out something Darrel and Bob didn't: if you run the Aristocracy civic, you can build four Royal Guards, who are born with the Guardsman promotion, and have very good defense. Not to mention they can cast a spell that gives +4 culture per turn while they sit in a city. Aristocracy + Agrarianism is already overpowered, but these guys are the icing on the cake.

[Bobchillingworth]

A few significant developments over the past few turns:


First, lots of barbs have been coming in:





That was the scene a couple turns ago. The lizardman has since suicided himself against Prespur's garrison, netting me only one exp. My worker was delayed for a couple turns, alas (couldn't move him too close, so ended up building a mostly useless road 1S of Prespur... should have started a farm instead).


Big news of this turn, which you may have already garnered from my insightful tech thread post:


IT IS TIME!


Before:






I'm not size 6 yet, nor have I gotten my plantation built, but now that I have 4 bloodpets (at the end of my turn), I think I'll take the advice of my Lurker ( ) and build another worker, which the extra pop will help with. Also this turn was the first that the demos showed that everyone had a size three city, so hopefully I've inflicted maximum damage.


And after:





Knocking down the research time for crafting was also really nice, I want mining as quickly as possible and it's a pricey tech. The remaining barbs should all off themselves within the next turn or two.

[tscharlii]

The Shiny Button has been hit.
The description of River of Blood probably misses these lines:
- Increases postcount in Calabim threads
- Heavily increases postcount in non-Calabim threads

[DaveV]

I'm not size 6 yet, nor have I gotten my plantation built, but now that I have 4 bloodpets (at the end of my turn), I think I'll take the advice of my Lurker ( ) and build another worker

Nicely played. The first worker puts a plantation on the cotton while the second is building, then you grow while building bloodpets. But beware of wandering lizardmen: there are several fogged tiles within range of the cotton, and it would really be bad if you lose a worker, so I'd still recommend stacking two bloodpets on the cotton while you build the plantation.

I want mining as quickly as possible and it's a pricey tech

5/3 the cost of Crafting, so 15-16 turns at your current rate. My advice for next tech after Mining: beeline to Code of Laws, which picks up Ancient Chants for a monument and the reagents (a nice tile with extra food and commerce).

Beware of Spullla syndrome: you are now #1 in score, which will probably only get worse for a while, and everyone is mad at you for killing two of their citizens. You can't beat everyone at once (yet:dervish.

[Bobchillingworth]

Forgot to post this last turn, when my borders expanded:






The land to the south is predictably a frozen mess, and isn't a high priority, although a second deer is nice. The land to the East shows more fertile terrain- I'll make scouting in that direction a priority. The big reveal of course is the Mana Node- I was wondering when I would finally find one of those!


I've also finally managed to clear all the barbs from my land, and have begun to construct a plantation on the cotton. Three of my four bloodpets have Combat I. I could have promoted one of them Guerrilla for the 40% hills bonus, but they're pretty much invincible when fortified in a city on a hill even with just the standard 20% Combat I bonus, which is more useful as I'm going to be defending workers in the field, on flat terrain. You can't see in the screen cap because of the resource indicator icon, but I have two combat I bloodpets guarding the worker on the cotton.


Also circled in red is a Bear Den. It might not seem like it initially, but this is a real boon. Once I get the lair under my cultural borders, the bears will continue to spawn but won't leave to attack anything, allowing me to farm them with hunters. A captured bear is one of the best animals around... capable in combat, and if you merge it with a city you get a Dancing Bear improvement which grants one happiness and 3 (!) culture per turn. Ideally I'll be able to equip several border towns with dancin' bears to get them off to a swift start.

[Profane]

Ideally I'll be able to equip several border towns with dancin' bears to get them off to a swift start.

IIRC you need a Carnival to settle Bears.

[darrelljs]

That's true for several of the cages but not the bear.

Speaking of which, I finally built the Grand Menagerie in my last game.

Darrell

[scooter]

IIRC you need a Carnival to settle Bears.

You know, the sad thing is the FFH noob in me had to think for about 10 seconds to determine if this was a joke or not.

[Krill]

Also circled in red is a Bear Den. It might not seem like it initially, but this is a real boon. Once I get the lair under my cultural borders, the bears will continue to spawn but won't leave to attack anything, allowing me to farm them with hunters. A captured bear is one of the best animals around... capable in combat, and if you merge it with a city you get a Dancing Bear improvement which grants one happiness and 3 (!) culture per turn. Ideally I'll be able to equip several border towns with dancin' bears to get them off to a swift start.

WTF, really? This game is just awesome...