Green as they come: Hiding Kneel plays the Ljosalfar [SPOILERS]

[HidingKneel]

Yes, you're probably right that those outlandish schemes are ill-advised. My present tech rate isn't going to win any races. Going AV will boost my tech rate and my military, and it will do so whether I get there first or not.

Making use of the savant->mage upgrade path is something worth looking into. But not something we need to think about immediately: sorcery is a long way off.

Anyways, I played two more turns. First, let's check in with Gilden and company. Last we heard from them, they were about to open a treasure chest!



Wow. That was... underwhelming. Oh well. I sent Gilden and the archer further south next turn, aiming to get a look at that barbarian city:



Well, they'll get there eventually.

Meanwhile, I thinking about where my next city should go. Evermore's going to finish the Deruptus in a few turns. I've already got corn and wheat connected, but it might be nice to grab this rice:



How best to do that? I could grab rice and incense by planting on the plains hill. Not the healthiest spot, though: next to desert, no fresh water, little food aside from the rice.

In other news: lots of goodies came through at the end of turn 63. First of all, we finished teching Way of the Forests . Now we can really get started on that "elven economy" thing I've heard so much about. Planted a new city (I think it got named Hyll by default; I'll change that next turn).
Evermore also produced our first sage, who I'll use for an academy next turn. And Bruti finished a hunting lodge, so we'll have hawks speedy-quick.



Finally, I send the following reply to Ellimist:

Chief Urag,

We have now had some time to consider your proposals.

First, let me say that we would very much like to cooperate with you. An alliance between the Malakim and the Hippus bodes ill for both our people. If you don't like Weezel's GNP now, just think what we'll be dealing with once he switches to financial! You need not worry about the possibility of our joining the Hippus in some action against you, if that is your concern. Our strength is of a defensive nature, and our goal (for the foreseeable future) is to peacefully expand.

Which brings us to your proposals. As you will soon learn, we have finished researching Way of the Forests, and will adopt the religion next turn. Our next research goal is cartography, after which we would like to add several more cities. So your offer to settle those cities for us comes at an opportune moment. We will buy two settlers for starters, likely many more in the future.

Which leaves the matter of haggling over price. You know how expensive those settlers are for me, and I know how cheap they are for you. We propose to offer 60gp per settler, plus whatever extra maintanence costs you incur on the turn of the founding.

As for your other proposal: you are correct that we presently know little of the world outside our borders. However, we will build our first hawk next turn. So our map knowledge, at least of our immediate surroundings, should dramatically improve in the near future. Given this, and the sorry state of our finances, we must decline your offer to buy maps from you (unless you were to offer them for a pittance).

Finally, some other points on which we might cooperate. A mirrored map means we have the same resources available to us, so we have little to offer you in the way of resource trades. I assume that the orcs have learned to brew their own beer? If not, we will soon have ale available for trade.

There is also the matter of mana trades. I suspect that you have little interest in our palace mana. However, in the medium-term future, we will likely be developing some additional nodes. Perhaps it would make sense to coordinate our efforts with yours? For example, if your lands look like ours, then you could probably benefit from having a spring adept or two. But there's little sense in both of us devoting the resources to obtain water mana. Would you be interested in a temporary exchange of Water for Body at some point? (Alternatively, if you're planning to build your own Water node, would you be interested in trading Water for some other type of mana that we might obtain?)

We await your reply.

HK, advisor to the Queen

60gp per settler is pretty stingy, but let's see what he comes back with.

[HidingKneel]

Two more turns played. Lots to tell, so this'll be a big update.

First of all, we found religion!



We've now converted to Fellowship of Leaves. I used the free disciple to spread it to Evermore, and we've already gotten one ancient forest growth on a cottage tile .

We also built an academy in Evermore. We're now pulling in a hundred beakers per turn while running 100% science. Still not great, compared to some other civs in the game, but definitely an improvement.

The really big news was diplomacy with Ellimist. Let's start with his response to my offer:

Hi,

"60 gold plus expenses" isn't quite what I was hoping for. I'd rather just use a solid price and not keep track of unit supply expenses and city maintenance. In FFH-V, the Ljosalfar(Sareln) bought settlers from the Clan(Ravus) for 100 gold each. There's also an event that allows you to purchase a settler for 100 gold. For now, I'm willing to sell you settlers at a flat rate of 80 gold. I also reserve the right to veto any city site to be settled by Orc settlers. (I think we each have room for one more city between our current borders.)

I do have a settler currently available that I can start sending down to you. I'm coming to the end of a long-term plan, though, so things are a little less flexible right now than they normally would be. I can escort it with an archer, but are you able to provide a faster escort?

We should probably go ahead and get certain things spelled out and settled. Overall, IMO, these points help you quite a bit more than they help me. That's okay. I intend it as a starting point. Feel free to modify, add to, or reject any portion of this and we'll get it sorted out so that we both agree.

>>I am willing to exchange maps with you for no additional cost, on the condition that you don't share it with another player. We can also routinely exchange maps, simply send a request via the trade screen whenever you want and I'll accept.

>>It will usually be okay with me if you want to base hawks in my cities. If you want to, my conditions are that (a) you request it at least 1 turn ahead of time and (b) they leave if I want them to.

>>Neither of us will pass on information from the other to one of the other players. (We've already agreed to this part.) I'm not sure whether I want other players to think that we're enemies, but I don't want them to know the details of our cooperation.

>>Of course we also won't attack each other. Given our defensive capabilities, I don't think this part is particularly important for either of us. (But we should include it.)

>>This agreement will remain in effect indefinitely but may be cancelled at any time by either player. When the agreement is cancelled, a thirteen (and a half) turn NAP will begin. (The "first strike" timing will be given to the person who didn't cancel.)

Ellimist

Wow. That's pretty much the best I could have asked for. He barely tried to haggle on the settlers: 60gp+expenses went up to 80gp, which I think is a pretty excellent deal for me. (Of course, it's an excellent deal for him too.)
I also get free maps and a NAP? Where do I sign?

Chief Urag,

We accept your proposals. We have offered an exchange of maps this turn, and would like to purchase your settler (at the price of 80gp) at the earliest available opportunity. If you tell us what direction the settler will be arriving from, we can arrange to send an archer in that direction to defend the settler against wild beasts. If your settler travels near a forest, our archer ought to be able to keep up. Our lands are not entirely free of barbarians at the moment, but I imagine those would not trouble an orc.

The exact destination still needs to be determined. We'll decide that soon, based on hawk recon and a look at the new maps. However, it's very likely that we will be looking to plant the new city in the lush forests to our east. In the near future, we should discuss settling rights. However, this should probably wait until we have exchanged maps.

So then we exchanged maps.



It's a real shame that I got the map on the same turn as my first hawk. That hawk is kind of pointless now; Ellimist's already explored just about everything in hawk-distance of my cities. I'll build a hunter at some point to carry it around.

So, what did I learn from these maps? Well, first of all, Ellimist has Kyan's territory pretty well marked out.



On Weezel and Tholal, the picture's a lot hazier. Anyways, the maps also helped me to decide where the next city should go. Right next to the last city (which I think I forgot to show you earlier):



What do you think, Commodore? It'll let me connect furs, can work a gold mine, and can share a farm with Dendrom (that farm hasn't been built yet, but my worker team's on the job).

Anyway, some more communication with Ellimist:

Settler will be at the furs 3S of Meridia next turn.

Grandparents are visiting or I'd write more.

And my response:

Chief Urag,

Having consulted your maps, we have reached a provisional decision on a location for the city: it should be built three tiles to the east, one tile to the north of Dendrom. We will send an escort out from Eaca as soon as possible. Barring unforseen circumstances (the wilds are a dangerous place!) you can expect our escort to arrive on the tile three south, two east of the furs you mention, on turn 69.

Regarding future settlements: having had a look at the map, what you suggested earlier is entirely reasonable. At some point in the future, we would like to settle a city four tiles to the north of Eaca. But we have no desire to settle any further in that direction.

As I mentioned earlier, we are ready to purchase more settlers whenever they become available.

May this mark the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration between our peoples.

HK, advisor to the Queen.

So, what else is going on? Right, Gilden! He found a ruin over here:



What to do about that? Well, I could have noted the location for later reference, and sent him northwest to get a look at that barbarian city. But Gilden's a hero! He's not afraid of barbarian lizards! So I promoted him up to combat IV and took the lizard out at 98% odds:



Now that the heroics are done, time to make camp and heal up for a few turns. Then Gilden will heroically watch as his buddy explores the ruin!

Cartography came in at the end of turn 65. We're at the point where city states will save us some money, but I'm not sure it's quite enough to justify the loss of production in Evermore. I'll definitely make the swap by the time the new city is founded:



Some closing thoughts. I might have been a bit too pessimistic about our prospects recently. But now that I've had a look at the map, I say we've still got a nonzero shot. First of all, our situation's going to see some drastic improvements soon, with ancient forests growing, cottages improving, and Deruptus boosting our commerce.

Second, Erebus is huge! I didn't really appreciate it until I saw the map. Ellimist has probably expanded the most, but his empire looks like a tiny speck of the world. I think the land race is ultimately going to be decided not by who can get the settlers out first, but by who can build the best economy to sustain a giant empire. And mid-late game economy is where the Ljosalfar shine. Especially if we can get Ellimist to help us settle our cities for us.

Third: Earlier I was wondering if the whole map is as densely forested as our territory. It is! That's a huge boon for us. There'll be forests everywhere we go. That'll help new cities become productive quickly, without a huge investment in terraforming needed. It's also important militarily: with fawns and satyrs on board, we'll get a big boost to fighting in forests. Not to mention, our worldspell will be immediately scary wherever we settle.

Finally, our neighbors! We've got a scary expansive civ to our north. But they just offered us a NAP, and are helping us settle cities. The other scary expansive civ doesn't have borders with us. That gives us tons of room to expand. The good land is to our east and west, and our rival for settling that land is Tholal. He's last on the scoreboard, with a civ that's designed to encourage turtling up. I think Ellimist is dead right: that's a losing strategy on a map this size.

So, what's next? Some techs to consider:

Philosophy: allows me to benefit from incense (happy boost in the capital from that useless pagan temple I built), and opens the door to priesthood, which is key.

Festivals: Cheap tech, and markets are cheap, useful buildings.

Animal Husbandry: Cheap tech. Maybe there are still some animals to catch? And I'll need it eventually to claim that pigs site. Maybe that should wait until I have some priests who can bloom, though.

Meanwhile, we need more of everything. Archers to garrison our cities. Fawns to start training up on the barbarians. Workers... more workers everywhere.
And I want to start thinking about setting up Evermore as a GPP farm. The elves are still in this thing!

[Commodore]

Get yourself some bloomin' priests! All else can follow, getting an economy boosting army is incredible. The gold/furs/corn spot looks great for the settler.

[HidingKneel]

That does sound like the way to go. So it's philosophy next, followed by priesthood.

Two more turns played. Not much to report. Got an event this turn:



Chose the gardener, netting Dendrom a temporary extra happy face. That will come in handy if I can manage to grow eight sizes in the next three turns .

What else? Gilden and company were being menaced by a griffon, so I retreated them to a forested hill. They're healing up here:



Evermore finished building the Deruptus. Next up: temple of leaves.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 68 is in! Let's see what's in store for the elves.

First, the event log reports that Kyan got a great engineer:



That must be a lucky result of extra GPP points from the Bone Palace. Surely Kyan can't be actually working engineers at this stage of the game.

In other news, I used my hawk to get a look at that barbarian city:



That's actually not a bad location. Plains hill, gets fresh water, and is adjacent to two food specials (neither of which I presently control). Definitely worth conquering once Gilden heals up. It's slightly risky, though... even weak archers are dangerous when fortified in a hill city (effective strength 8). Might want to hold off until I can get a priest of leaves down there, to throw some disposable tigers at it.

What else? Cottages are growing, forests are getting ancient. Philosophy came it at EOT, priesthood next. I'm running the science slider a little bit below breakeven, to save up for the city I'm buying in a few turns.

Our blossoming empire:

[Mardoc]

How many Ancient Forests do you have? Any of them tiles you were working already?

[HidingKneel]

Five IIRC. One on an unimproved tile (soon to be cottaged), two on cottages being worked, and two on mines being worked by Evermore.

[HidingKneel]

Two more turns played. There have been some rather momentous revelations. Starting with this communique from Ellimist:

Is there any chance that I could receive the 80g payment for this settler in advance?

I'm not sure if I'm in a wonder race, but Kyan just got a great engineer. I'm stockpiling Soldiers of Kilmorph(as shown by my power rating) and it *might* help me get to Fanaticism (Mercurian Gate) before he does. (if he's going for it, that is. I'm getting more paranoid as I get closer.)

And yes, this is the "long term goal" I mentioned earlier that I've been beelining since turn zero.

Ellimist

So much for the idea of building the gate! I'm kind of hoping Kyan does snatch it from him: Ellimist is already far ahead, and I'm worried that building the gate will make him pretty much unstoppable. Basium has pretty good synergy with the clan (Basium can do the researching to avoid the barbarian penalty, the Clan can settle all the cities), and with Ellimist's current position (he can hand over Yell0w's core to Llewyn).

Anyways, I doubt the up-front payment will make a difference either way, and I want to stay in Ellimist's good graces. So I sent this response:

Hey Ellimist,

Played the turn before I got your message. Payment in advance should not be a problem; I will make the offer next turn.

Two other things: you asked earlier when we expect to have priests of leaves. The Ljosalfar are presently researching priesthood, and hope to have our first priests coming out around turn 80.

Also, when do you expect to have more settlers on offer? (I expect that if you're aiming to build the gate, you'll have lots of cities to settle for Basium.)

Cheers,

HK

The next turn, I received this response:

Thanks!

I expect to get the Gate by turn 80 as well. Once the micro is figured out better, I'll know more about when I'll have settlers available.

I declared war and razed one of Kyan's cities this turn. I have wolf riders spread around his borders. I still haven't built any hawks so I don't know if I'll be able to progress further.

Do you have the manpower available to build roads to your preferred city sites?

I sent you a brief message in game along with a map trade. The site you want is the forested plains hill 1N of furs, correct? Midway between gold and corn?

Ellimist

Hmm. Well, Ellimist and Kyan at war is good news. Hopefully they'll bleed each other and I can squeak ahead. Here's my response:

Chief Urag,

Your victory over the horselords is welcome news. Regarding the city: please construct it on the hill north of the furs, and accept our agreed-upon payment of 80 gold pieces.

As for roads, we expect to have a network in place that will lead from the new city to future sites, to the south and east.

You mentioned earlier an interest in exchanging temples. If it is still your with to learn the ways of Cernunnos, we will offer to construct a temple in a city of your choice (in the reasonably near future), in exchange for a temple of Kilmorph in Evermore.

Warm regards,

HK, advisor to the Queen

Similar messages were exchanged in-game:



Of course, there was some actual turn-playing that went on in there, too. Not much to report. Bruti built our first fawn, who I'm dispatching to hunt barbarians. Evermore finished a Temple of Leaves. It's growing like a weed and about to become unhealthy, so I figured it was a good time to build a granary.

It's sounding like Ellimist isn't going to have any more settlers for me in the immediate future, so I'll have to start building my own again. I'm thinking Eaca will be great for that: it's got tons of production but very little extra food, so it's not going to be growing much anyway. That means I'll need to put another city on archer duty, though.

Screenshot from EOT:



Bruti's started a hunter to carry my hawk around. When it's done I'll send it south to go meet Weezel. I really need to open the diplo lines with someone other than Ellimist.

Some other medium-term plans: Gilden's healing up, but in a few turns he'll start trying to capture that barbarian city. Ran 0% science this turn to keep my event fund topped up while giving Ellimist his advanced payment. Priesthood should take seven or eight more turns. After that, I'm planning to back-fill the cheap useful techs that I've neglected (festivals and animal husbandry). Then it's time to get started on the next phase of the gameplan.
If I'm going AV, it'll be time for KotE. But if I think I've got a shot at founding Esus, I might try for that instead.

Oh, check it out: we're no longer in fourth place! Now that Ellimist is up in his business, Kyan has fallen behind the mightly Ljosalfar on the scoreboard.
Of course, this isn't necessarily a good thing... need to have someone to rival Ellimist, and that isn't going to be us in the near future. Weezel might be on the job. And I imagine he'll start looking a lot scarier next turn, when he gets his adaptive switch.

[HidingKneel]

New turn in. Ellimist had this to say:

HidingKneel and Commodore,

Are you able to extend your road network further toward my borders? Any spare workers you can devote to the task would help to speed up future settlers.

I am definitely interested in exchanging temples. Are you only interested in one temple of kilmorph? I'm interested in a few FoL temples.

Ellimist

What do you think, Commodore? I suppose we'll need those roads if we're going to trade resources at some point, and we can benefit from the trade routes. But I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of Ellimist having roads to our territory. The ability to quickly move through these dense forests is one of the few advantages we've got, and it'd be a shame to give it up.

As for the temples... well, Evermore's soon going to be working every available tile, at which point I'll want as many priest specialist slots as I can get my hands on. But I'm not sure a second Kilmorph temple will be worth the hammers to build a PoL. I shot him the following response:

Chief Urag,

One temple of Kilmorph will suffice for the immediate future. However, we will be open to building additional temples for you in exchance for your help in settling cities.

As for the roads, we'll have to see if we can spare the workers for it; developing the land around our new city will be the priority.

HK, advisor to the Queen.

Now, the turn itself. We got our first fawn-on-barbarian action going:



Wish we had animal husbandry... I'd love to give him a subdue animal promotion and go out looking for pets. That'll have to wait a few turns, though.

Oh, something interesting in the event log:



Weezel fired his worldspell. Wonder what prompted that... he's been in Kilmorph for a while now. Does the Malakim worldspell get enabled at priesthood? Maybe he just finished teching that? Or maybe it has to do with the war Ellimist is fighting with Kyan? I really wish I knew what was going on.

Here's a screenshot from EoT:



As you can see, my stint in third place was short-lived. Still, the demographics aren't too bad:



My forest-cottage economy still isn't competitive with financial aristofarms, but I'm doing pretty well in food and production. Anyway... enjoy it while it lasts, that "rival best" GNP is sure to explode next turn .

[NobleHelium]

The Malakim worldspell requires Priesthood, yes.