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

[pocketbeetle]

I know I was frustrated playing the Illians when I realized my ice elementals (is that what they're called?) couldn't even attack a city that was built on desert.
Definitely enumerate these other reasons!

Hi Rev, =)

You’ve pretty much hit upon the main reason, but to quickly list it all out, deserts:

• Cost 2 movement to enter, therefore are excellent at slowing down any non-Malakim army.
  
• Have a -25% defense penalty, so hitting an army once it’s bogged down on a desert tile is pretty much the right thing to do.
  Other than having the Malakim ‘Nomad’ trait, there is no way to negate this penalty, ie no Guerilla/Woodsman equivalent.
  
• As noted, Ice Elementals cannot enter desert tiles, be it trying to summon them whilst standing on a desert tile, trying to move them into a desert tile, or trying to attack into a desert tile (including cities).
  

For all the reasons above, deserts can make great boundary dividers with other civs, and to an even greater extent with the Priest-loving Illians.
The area I’ve got my eye of is a nice band of desert East of Avelorn and Diso:



Lacking any resources or reasons to settle, that area seems ideal to separate Selrahc and myself, because as Profane points out...

Ah, using deserts to foil an Ice Elemental invasion is interesting...
So that Sun Mana will have a use even on Adepts after all!

...it’s possible to terraform tiles down to desert very easily.

The level 1 Sun mana spell, Scorch, reduces grassland -> plains, plains -> desert, or ice -> tundra.
The yellow dots indicate tiles that should be Scorched, I may also create a second line behind it too. Remember that I care not at all about the tile yields around settlements such as Diso etc, and that those desert tiles will need to be under my cultural control to stop Selrahc terraforming them up.


The above may all end up being a pipe dream, but it's something I'm keeping in mind.


As a final note: it’s an entirely valid tactic to Scorch the central tile of a city down to desert in order to keep the Ice Elementals away, and then after the battle Spring it back up to plains.
By happy coincidence, the Kurios are the only ones that can manage this from their Palace mana (Sun & Water).
Hope I don’t end up having to do it however.

Terraforming is one aspect of FfH that I really enjoy - I just love to work all those Plains Oasis tiles.

Yeah me too.
Flood plains are even more fun, it's just a shame they need Vitalise.

One question though, do you lose a Cottage when you Scorch a Plains tile that it sits on?

Good question, don't know.
I suspect the cottage stays.

Regarding the unnamed Centaur Archer, after giving it some more thought, I think you should not name it Priapus, nor Mutunus Tutunus or Biggus Dickus after all, because those names are better saved up for when you acquire access to Centaur Lancers later on.

Too late, Priapus has already been assigned!
If you somehow manage to remember this post though, however long down the line it takes to reach Warhorses, definitely remind me.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 122:

Received the save with the following note from Selrahc:

Keeping on cranking out cities.. I may have a spare source of sugar lined up at some point in the next 20 turns. You interested in trade?

Not if I’ve got anything to do with it my son.

So now we’re officially in a settling race, despite the fact the bastard has half a continent to settle in his back lines.
Not a problem, I don’t intend to lose this one.
The newly produced settler in Avelorn runs along the freshly built Kuriotates’ Desert Highway: “Bringing civilisation to the masses”.



Over at Kar Karond, a forest chop goes into and virtually completes the Market there.
Iskender has brought an unpromoted 2 move (warcry) warrior up to check out the area.
The resident Hill Giant is watching with a beady eye for any mischief.



In the far North, Cloverleaf moves NE to check out the Bear den, finds a mating pair resident there, moves back quickly.



Sorry, couldn’t guarantee to Griselda that you’re all over 18.

While in the far-flung South, Conception, the little boat that could, continues to explore, coming across a rather strange and nasty looking animal this turn.



At this rate we may yet reach Cull!

Clicking end turn completes a second Hawk and CA, while Caledor and Kar Karond grew.




Demographics:

Iskender probably gained an 11pt tech.
Selrahc whipped at least one pop this turn.

Cull gained a 22pt tech!
Going by the scientific method of assigning tech names to pieces of paper and then throwing them in the air, I have determined that it’s likely he researched either Writing or BW. Checking back now to see the power graph, there’s a definite small jump which makes me 100% positively certain it’s BW.
Maybe.


Please note:
I consider that owl picture above a stroke of genius (says a lot I know), and will probably be reusing it many times.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 123:

Quick update this one, next two will be bigger.

Up in the North, one of the mating Bears moved out of the Den to chase, and an exploring Cloverleaf found more than she bargained for:



While in the East, magical blue borders have suddenly appeared:



Kes, now stationed with Vanilla Ice, takes a look:



That’ll be Selrahc’s eighth city.
Notice that the settlement markers have been rearranged, as Sleigh Ride’s placement prevents me from founding on the hill anymore.
I’ve spent more time than is probably advisable trying to decide where to found settlements in that area.

There are lots of factors in play: I need to claim that area asap, particularly given the Illian expansion rate, which prevents me getting too cutesy with optimum placements.
Founding on the Copper makes sense from a pillaging point of view, but that tile is horrible from a spacing viewpoint, as I can’t place any more settlements between it, Selrahc, and Diso. Moving the Copper settlement 1E means that it will have a horrible hill right next to it, perfect for Selrahc to attack from, as well as directly challenging Sleigh Ride’s borders from the moment of founding.
I’m don’t want to do that yet, hence the current marker locations.

c8’s placement is because I’m not prepared to give up that mana node without a protest.
If I do settle c8, controlling the hill 2SW of Sleigh Ride becomes absolutely crucial: Fort and a bunch of CAs on there asap.

I like c4: on a hill and nearly claiming all three Sugars, just a shame it’s so close to Iskender’s borders. May have to smooth ruffled feathers.



Clicking end turn completes a Market in Kar Karond. Borders also expand thanks to the (double) Monument.
You’ll notice Iskender’s warrior down there, now pointlessly promoted to Combat I (showing some signs of nervousness?).
We’ve been playing a little game of chess, with the Giant moving W last turn to prevent the warrior from having any chance of skipping around to the undefended Kar Karond.
Now the CA has arrived that’s no longer a concern and I moved the Giant E again, to stop Iskender getting line of sight into Kar Karond (+ the CA & GArt there).

I think by now you should have figured out that I prefer not to give away information too freely.
To my knowledge, no-one yet knows I’ve got Centaur Archers, so why clue them in?
They’ll find out soon enough.


Demographics:

I also made a screw-up this turn.
You’ll notice Drama still had two turns to go in most screenshots, I decided that I’d waited long enough and went full blast research.
On the plus side, Caledor is now producing 100b on its own:

On the downside, I forgot to ‘deselect’ the next tech.
Doing so would have meant I had no tech queued up, which would have meant no tech prereq bonuses factored in at the end of the turn and hence would have disguised by maximum tech rate (overflow is still preserved).

Long story short, Drama came in, got the free GArt (yay!), but there’s a huge great whacking spike in GNP that’s probably going to freak out a few players.
I jumped to 2x the second place guy and roughly 4x the average GNP.
Oops.

[Maksim]

This is one jaw-droppingly amazing research rate.

I've been doing some analysis of various civ's research rates (rpt) in the lurker thread, and had the feeling you were sandbagging your research and concentrating on production for a while now, dropping from circa 120 rpt to 80 rpt.

None the less, jumping to +186 rpt is unexpected... and very impressive. Your GNP is not much less than the rest of the players combined, judging from the screenshot.

[pocketbeetle]

This is one jaw-droppingly amazing research rate.

I've been doing some analysis of various civ's research rates (rpt) in the lurker thread, and had the feeling you were sandbagging your research and concentrating on production for a while now, dropping from circa 120 rpt to 80 rpt.

None the less, jumping to +186 rpt is unexpected... and very impressive. Your GNP is not much less than the rest of the players combined, judging from the screenshot.

Hi Maksim,

I have been running 50% science since researching Stirrups, and I did emphasise Production over Commerce during the free GA.
But while I'd like to pretend this is me sandbagging my research, the honest truth is that maintenance costs are hurting.

You were right when you posted a little while back: my break-even research rate is 65% (~133b) and while switching capital will help a little bit (guessing ~20gpt), those figures are not going to improve until Priesthood.
So much so, that I'm wondering if I should move that tech up above Masonry & Construction.
Anyway, the foundations were laid when I popped that second GSci. Twin Academies for the Kuriotates are nice.

While on the subject of GScis: to my knowledge, neither the Calabim, Khazad nor Svartalfar have popped a GP yet.
The latter is understandable, but the former ie Bob/DaveV, is less so.
I would hope they realise that a tech path to Writing, running a scientist for a GSci Academy (worst case scenario ~17t for a single sci spec), and then teching to Feud/Fana is faster than ignoring Libraries altogether?
I first had them teching a 22pt tech (turns out it was BW) on T94. If that had been Writing, they could have built an Academy by now.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 124:

Drama splashscreen greets me on loading the save.



In the North, it would appear Cloverleaf is being chased by one of the Bears.
Since we now have extensive experience in dealing with animals of the Bear variety (^^), Cloverleaf moves 1S and Pixiefoot, whilst still not fully healed, moves NW-NE to join her.



Down at Kar Karond, the CA garrison has been renamed to Priapus.
Moe, 1W of the Copper, is currently guarding Settler #1.



I’ve also realised that there is little point in settling the Copper settlement just yet.
It will take another 6ish worker turns to get a road there, and the founding of said settlement could warn Selrahc that we're racing.
So Settler #1 will head to the Sugar instead, Avelorn will complete Settler #2 (who will eventually settle the Copper) at the end of this turn.

Meanwhile Kes goes for another flight, you can see him just N of the Horses.



Nothing unexpected.
[strike]Conrond Mor has Walls so Iskender definitely has Masonry.[/strike] Edit: Actually it’s a Palisade and 20% cultural defense.
Overall it looks like the Hippus are relying on that natural line of hills/peaks to keep the Calabim at bay, with a wide open killing space between them.
Can’t see any Hunters or Hawks in his cities.

The second Hawk flew over Selrahc’s capital to look for the missing Priests, no luck.
More on that in a second.



Clicking end turn completed a Settler in Avelorn and the third CA in Kwythellar.
Caledor grew to size 14; it has a happy cap of 16 now that all the Harpy event unhappiness has disappeared.

Research back to 50%.


Demographics:

Bob gained 50(!) points of score.
Some of that is cultural – Morr’ta’nar was founded 20 turns ago on T104.
But I wish I knew what the rest was.

[pocketbeetle]

More Hawk Brokenness:

Last turn after moving Kes, I had to decide what to do with the Hawk based in Kar Karond.
I intended to relocate it to Avelorn and fly over Selrahc’s capital, so I chose the ‘Rebase’ action (it’s the green icon with a Hawk landing on a Hunter’s shoulder – see in previous turns' screenshots), but before clicking on Avelorn I took another look over the Hippus and Calabim border.

Now with the Rebase option, if the Hawk can land somewhere (City, Hunter/Ranger/Beastmaster with slot free) the pointer turns to a green hatched square, otherwise it’s grey as per usual Civ 4 air unit behaviour.

So imagine my surprise when I noticed fogged unexplored squares were turning green:



That’s where I expect the Hippus capital to be.
The airspace tooltip also tells me there’s no Hawks currently located in that city.

A quick comparison with the Khazad capital:

No joy, because I don’t have Open Borders with the Dwarves yet.

Now, I knew that Hawks could move to the cities of civs with which I have OB – I’ve talked about doing so several times.
But what I didn’t know, is that you can scout out the location of unknown cities in the fog, so long as you have said OB.
A quick recon of the map gave the following:

So now I know that Selrahc’s two missing cities (which I’d incorrectly marked) are here:

I don’t know if this is standard Civ 4 behaviour, or unique to the FFH2 mod (I imagine the late appearance of Air units in base Civ 4 usually means most of the map is explored), but it’s definitely something to keep in mind when signing OB agreements!

The only thing I’m left wondering is… can you locate all of an opponent’s Recon units with OB and Hawks also?

[T-hawk]

That's not an FFH specific problem. Air units in regular Civ 4 can rebase into fogged squares. Sometimes that might happen if you really beeline Physics for airships, or in a modern era start. It also happens in the Final Frontier mod, where air units are available with techs at the second level from game start.

[Square Leg]

Just a shame you can't use the sign tool in the fog to mark where they are!

[pocketbeetle]

That's not an FFH specific problem. Air units in regular Civ 4 can rebase into fogged squares. Sometimes that might happen if you really beeline Physics for airships, or in a modern era start. It also happens in the Final Frontier mod, where air units are available with techs at the second level from game start.

Thanks for the clarification.
Any idea if it's possible to locate opponent's Carriers using OB & Fighters?
Don't worry if you can't remember, I'll either try WBing it in at some point or wait for this game to throw that situation up.

I know Sareln has Hunters, wouldn't be surprising if Bob also does/ is close.
I'm using the Ivory at Sareln's old capital to keep track of whether Selrahc has Hunting, doesn't appear so yet.

Just a shame you can't use the sign tool in the fog to mark where they are!

That's no obstacle to an Adaptive leader like Carditha Lorda!