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

[Bobchillingworth]

My first priority is to secure the gold resource north of my capital, for the commerce boost and happiness. Second objective is to claim the copper, which also serves the dual purpose of expanding (slightly) toward my opponents (in this case The Archduke). I'll probably place two cities to accomplish that, first the marked location at the corn followed soon afterwards by "green dot". After that whether I found the 2X gold or northern incense locations first depends on a few factors, including what my scout finds, how well I'm teching, and how many workers I can spare (the gold site will require more).

[Bobchillingworth]

Got this strange event at the start of turn 62:






I've had this one several times before in SP games, and I'm still not sure what exactly it does besides add "flavor". I've tried looting graves on the same turn, but there never seems to be any impact.


In other news, all of the nasty lizardmen in my lands have died, leaving only two skeletons who will either suicide themselves on Prespur's garrison, or move on to flatland to be annihilated by my combat II shock bloodpet.


Ancient chants research finished at the EoT, 15 turns to Education ugh...


Finished my final FP farm this turn as well. I'll now use the workers to mine my sole grassland hill, and then road to my second city site. I also finish my settler in 2T, next builds I think should be worker (4t) -> worker, followed by another batch of bloodpets for a 3rd city garrison, then a settler. I'll probably follow a similar path of 2X workers -> garrison of 2 or 3 bloodpets -> settler for the foreseeable future at Prespur, since it has so much food and is unsuited to build anything more hammer-intensive than a bloodpet.



I also found a second copper a few tiles east of the 2X gold site- I'll post picture in a turn or two after I reveal a little more of the land in that area. So far I think that scout has proven to be a solid build

[Adlain]

A few question if i may:
What sort of xp are your current units packing now??
What promotions are you/ have you been prioitzing??
That was quite the steady stream of Barbs you had, any plans regarding them in the future??

[Bobchillingworth]

Questions are always welcome, they give me a reason to update this thread =)




My answers, in order:


* Off the top of my head, two bloodpets are not promoted and each have 1 exp, one blood pet is Guerrilla I (40% bonus on hills) with 3/5 exp, one is Combat I (20% strength bonus) with 3/5 exp, one is Combat I with 6/5 exp (I'm saving the second promotion as a situational contingency), and the sixth and final bloodpet has Combat II (+40% strength) and Shock (40% bonus vs. melee units), with 12/whatever exp. My scout has no exp.

* Without any exp-granting buildings or civics, I've just been promoting units as the situation demands following combat. I gave guerrilla for one bloodpet because I intend for him to serve as the garrison for my first expansion (to be founded on hill). The rest have the "generalist" promotion of combat I, with one shock bloodpet to clean up skeletons or orcs (which I surprisingly haven't seen yet) who step onto flat land. I haven't been able to "farm" exp, lately by having barbs attack my unskilled bloodpets on defensively advantageous ground, because of the sheer numbers of barbarians I've had to deal with, so my shock trooper (hehe) is getting the lion's share of kills.

Once I do get one of the civics that gives my new units 2 free exp, I'll probably promote one bloodpet / moroi to guerrilla for every hill town, and then leave the rest unprompted, most likely to go for combat I if threatened. The combat line of promotions is really powerful in FFH, and since barbs don't (usually) spawn with exp, even Combat I gives you like 75% odds or so in what would otherwise be an even fight with the same base strength. If I build any more scouts, they'll get flanking I, which gives them a 20% withdrawal chance on both offense and defense- since they'll lose almost any fight in the wild even with combat, flanking at least gives them a chance to make a run for it. Hunters of course should promote for "capture animal", but I won't have any of them anytime soon.


* As for the barbs, I'm basically going to default to the basic counter-barb strategy from just about every civ game ever. I'll defend in high-defense zones (forest hills, city squares, across rivers, etc.) when I'm weak or outnumbered, fight them openly when I have great odds or can shrug off potential losses, fog-bust where I don't want to invest in a strong garrison (back-line cities, for one), and farm them for experience points once I have definitively surpassed them in tech.

In a way, I'm lucky that most barbs attacking me have been lizardmen and skeletons. Lizardmen are recon class units and skeletons are permanent summons, and therefore neither of them can pillage. If the barbs had been swarms of orcs, then I might have been fighting a tough battle to preserve my existing improvements, let alone place new ones. Now that I have potentially two shock bloodpets though, I should be able to take any orc in a fight once they step onto a farm.

[DaveV]

Now that I have potentially two shock bloodpets though, I should be able to take any orc in a fight once they step onto a farm.

It would make it a lot easier to defend your eastern floodplain if you build a road on one of the two forests to the east of your capital (I didn't see that mentioned in your worker plans).

[Bobchillingworth]

Good idea, there. I'll probably have my next wave of workers make that one of the first priorities. With the 40% cultural borders I can see spot orcs in time to move into place already, though, thanks to my road 1S of Prespur. That does require me to waste a couple turns in transit, however.

[Bobchillingworth]

Forgot to post an update from a couple turns ago:






I met one of Sareln's scouts outside of Prespur. We exchanged a few pleasantries and basic information about geography and huts (he's about 13 tiles north of me, with a jungle between us, and has apparently only managed to pop a couple huts). I didn't take a screencap, but his power is slightly under mine, so I assume he has a couple scouts wandering about and about four warriors for a garrison.



The barbarians continue to supply me with free experience:





Although I don't have the road Dave suggested in place yet, I was able to get my two shock bloodpets into place, who this turn (64) attacked and easily wiped out two of the skeletons. My settler also finished today, so I'll (very carefully) move him with a three bloodpet escort to the expansion site, while roading there. Unfortunately the ruins north of Prespur spawned yet another lizardman, who will be able to threaten my workers and settler on flat ground- I might sacrifice a bloodpet so that he doesn't delay my expansion.

[Bobchillingworth]

So between last turn and tonight's I was literally shitting bricks, except no not really because that would be horrible and gross.


Why?



This was the situation at the end of turn 67:





As seen here, my settler, 2X workers, and four bloodpets are about to be eaten by three bears and a gryphon. How did this unfortunate situation come about? Well, I first moved the settler unescorted to the hill because I'm an idiot. I then recoiled in horror once the fog cleared and revealed that I had fallen into the barbarian animal's fiendish trap. I then moved the four bloodpets to cover, figuring that even if the bears all won, I'd still have a bloodpet left- except that I didn't notice the gryphon. And I moved the workers with them because I accidentally had them grouped for some reason. Whoops!


So, how did it turn out...?




Hah! Only two of them attacked, and I managed to win both fights- gaining two free promotions.


I planted the city, revealing the following:




This partially explains all the lizardmen- they have two lairs almost on top of each other! I also found another ruins to the east, with my scout. I'll post an image when I remember...


Also the barbarians finally sent over a Scorpion Clan goblin, presumably from the goblin fort I uncovered far to my east. I'm not particularly worried.

[DaveV]

Wow, that would have been game over if you'd lost the stack. It seems you've had very good luck against the barbs so far: have you lost any bloodpets? Anyway, yay for more commerce and happiness!

For medium term strategy, I think you should go for bronze working after code of laws, and plant the city by the copper as your third city. That will give your bloodpets enough strength to take on the the lizards at pretty much even odds. It would also help you against the Hippus: I'm worried about them. Their new player is apparently an experienced one, and he has the best rush civ in the game. Experienced players also tend to play a strategy of wiping out the vampires before they become a problem.

[sunrise089]

Wow, that would have been game over if you'd lost the stack. It seems you've had very good luck against the barbs so far: have you lost any bloodpets? Anyway, yay for more commerce and happiness!

For medium term strategy, I think you should go for bronze working after code of laws, and plant the city by the copper as your third city. That will give your bloodpets enough strength to take on the the lizards at pretty much even odds. It would also help you against the Hippus: I'm worried about them. Their new player is apparently an experienced one, and he has the best rush civ in the game. Experienced players also tend to play a strategy of wiping out the vampires before they become a problem.

In SP or MP? I ask because I'm inproving my FFH SP skills and so far hitting the vampires early doesn't seem too vital. The most important things IMHO are:

1) Making the Elohim trigger their worldspell before you need to invade.
2) Making the good elves trigger their worldspell before you need to invade.
3) Making the Amurites trigger their worldspell before you need to invade.