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

[HidingKneel]

Played turn 90. Not too much to report.

First, we are no longer running #2 in soldiers:



Let's hope that massive power spike costs Ellimist a bundle in upkeep.

Still no response from Weezel. So I sent him a third message, this time using the in-game diplomacy screen:



Maybe he's got some information which I can use in my quixotic quest to build the menagerie.

Now that the gorilla has been captured, my hunter-hawk pair are free to go exploring:



Sending them east, towards Tholal. That's the area where Ellimist's map is spottiest, so who knows what I'll find?

Time to get back to teching. I gave it some thought, and decided to go with writing. I'll want to go the KotE -> CoS route eventually. But founding AV isn't a big deal: I'll be able to build veil temples and ritualists whether I get there first or not. And building the AV shrine is incompatible with my stated goal of building the altar, anyway. Besides which: I don't expect to be fighting a war soon. Kyan's distant, Tholal is backwards, Weezel's in pacifism, and I have a NAP with Ellimist. What I really need is to get this economy in gear. Which means finding a way to turn hammers (which I've got lots of) into beakers (which I need more of). So: first, writing for libraries.
Then there are lots of places I could go from there:

HBR -> trade for extra trade routes, and maybe the foreign trade civic
(and maybe on to Esus, if it looks like I have a shot at it)

bronze working -> warfare -> masonry (unlock military state and the National epic)

Code of Laws -> Currency (enable consumption, extra trade routes, set myself up for a run at Taxation later).

Unfortunate that I've sunk the beakers into KotE already... but it looks like only about a turn of research, so not the end of the world.

[HidingKneel]

Another turn in. Not much to report.

Got a reply from Weezel:



Also a message from Ellimist (for context: I asked him about lions, too):

Killed one angel, pillaged 3 cottages, and razed 1 city this turn(producing one more angel). I'm also becoming more confident each turn that Weezel has flipped sides, as he offered to provide recon but hasn't responded to my messages. I haven't said anything to him yet, it's possible I may be wrong or can give him misleading information that he passes on to Kyan.

My explorers have killed a few lions in the past, and also one lion pride, but none recently. I don't remember exactly where I saw them, either. Once I have my own hawks active, I'll let you know if I spot one.

Ellimist

PS: If you don't mind, please send me something in-game along with your emails, so that I don't accidentally fail to respond. With the pace of the game we've had lately, there has often been a long delay between when I read something and when I'm allowed to respond.

Could Weezel be helping Kyan, after handing 750 gold to Ellimist to buy wolves? Sounds kind of crazy. Maybe that has something to do with his lack of response to my messages, though? Anyways, I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Back home, there's not much to report. Lost an archer to that goblin crew last turn, then another warrior when I tried to take revenge . Well, at least that'll save us a bit on upkeep.

Sent this reply to Ellimist in game:



Writing came in at end of turn. Think I'll take a break from building priests in Evermore, and get myself a library. We should also finish a rice farm next turn, for a nice commerce boost.

Hey, check this out:



With Ellimist paying huge upkeep costs and Kyan getting his cities razed, it looks like we've managed to get ourselves to second place in GNP. Need to get that higher; we've got a lot of catching up to do, tech-wise.

I think I'm going to go HBR -> trade next. Getting more trade routes will be good for the economy, and then I'll be able to see what techs Ellimist and Weezel have, to judge if I've got a shot at the Nox Noctis.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, new turn in.

We got a tech:



So I queued up a few libraries. The one in Evermore should give quite a boost.

I was all set to get started on HBR->trade this turn, but then I saw this:



Not good, not good. Ellimist only researched HBR a few turns ago, so it can't be him. And Tholal's way too far behind. So either Weezel or Kyan. If it's Kyan, I think it's game over. A great prophet was born at the same time... if that's Kyan too, we could be looking at instant Nox Noctis. And Ellimist says his invasion is already going badly:

I'm not sure how much additional progress I can expect at this point. I'll be able to attack the Mercurian capital next turn, but they now have two more cities and I'll have to fight through the Hippus empire to get to them. Depending on how things play out, are you able to provide additional gold for another wave of riders? I'm already producing some from my cities, but they will take more time to arrive.

Please send your priest to Malacath.

Do I want to throw good money after bad? Well, it depends on two things: first, does it have a chance of working? (If Kyan has the Noctis in place, I'm guessing the answer to that is no.) Second, are the others contributing? Given that Weezel isn't replying to Ellimist's messages, I'm guessing the answer is a likely "no".

So, some in-game diplomacy:



Looks like Weezel didn't get my emails:



Also, it sounds like he's mistrustful of Ellimist, and overly optimistic about the war on Kyan. It's possible that Weezel's the one who founded Esus. Fingers crossed.

Domestically, what's going on? Not much. Getting in position to capture a bear. Sending Gilden south towards another barbarian city, one that's essentially in Weezel's territory. Encountered one of Weezel's hunters on the way. We'll have to negotiate settling rights later... first, I want to see how some of the chips fall.

So, what to do now? Esus has fallen, so the HBR->trade tech path has lost some of its lustre (the extra trade routes would be handy, but they'd take over fifty turns to pay for the techs). I decided to go the
bronze working -> warfare route. Military state should really help the economy, the national epic will be a good build for my GPP farm in Evermore, and giving all my warriors bronze weapons is just icing. Plus, the whole path is reasonably cheap: six turns to finish those techs plus masonry (for marble, for the national epic).

[HidingKneel]

Another turn in. Looks like there has been a seismic shift in the dynamics of the game:

The Mercurians have been eliminated.

I hired a total of 46 wolf riders. You three together contributed a total of 1900, and I paid the rest.

Success was looking less likely than I would have liked, so I negotiated a deal with them to eliminate the Mercurians and disband the hired riders.

Thanks for making it possible!

And, in the tech thread, it sounds like Kyan is turning control of the Hippus over to Ichabod. So, what to expect now? I think a lot will depend on who controls the Nox Noctis. Still, that isn't nearly as worrisome to me as the Mercurians. The Nox Noctis is an excellent defense, but I'm not planning on trying to invade anyone.

So, congrulations were in order:



Looks like Ellimist is keeping Bourne the Gleaming? Could that be the Esus holy city? (Hard to think of any other reason to hang on to it; surely it'll be a huge drag on his economy. And of course razing cities raises the AC, which hurts everyone else a lot more than it hurts him.)

Meanwhile, what does Weezel think?



Weezel's worried, and rightly so. Well, I like him that way. Let's see him invest in an army!

My reply:



Domestically, not a lot to report. I lost a C1/subdue animal fawn, trying to capture a bear . Now that bear will promote and be even harder to catch. I should really be using hunters for this, but my only hunter is out looking for Tholal. Guess it's time to build some more units.

Oh, I've sent Gilden this way:



Size 6 barbarian city, which really belongs more to Weezel than it does to me. I'll try to capture it, and maybe cut some kind of a deal with him afterwards. It's on very nice land, but might take a while to become profitable given that I have no workers in the area (and none to spare, anyway). Then again, a size six city might be able to build its own workers... we'll see.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 94 in. Lots to report.

First, the council of Esus is unmasked:



That treacherous Varn Gosam! Once a Svartalfar, always a Svartalfar. My reply:



Plotting against the Malakim isn't looking like such a bad idea now. The Hippus are still in the game, still financial, and I believe still have their worldspell. So it wouldn't be a matter of Ellimist killing Weezel, and then turning immediately on us (hopefully). And the Malakim are close to us, so we could actually benefit from conquering a few cities.

That's not going to stop me from playing both sides, of course:





Our eastern hawk finally spotted the Khazad:



So I send Tholal this message:



He only has five cities! I guess I don't have to worry about him blocking my east-west expansion.

What else? Gilden arrived at his target:



Maybe not at the best moment. Looks like a kill team was just produced, and there's also a bear in the city. Still, I think he's safe. C5 on forest is an effective strength of 13.5. Add 2-3 first strikes, and I think those warriors will bounce right off him (though the bear might make a dent, if it attacks first). And if he dies... well, shrine of the champion gives great prophet GPP .

That city ought to be an easy conquest, by the way. Not on a hill, so Gilden ought to cut right through those weak archer defenders.

Bronze working came in at EOT. Next up: Warfare. I think I can get that out in two turns, and military state should really help the economy.

So, now that we've got a new contact, let's take a look at some graphs.
Here's GNP:



We're basically neck-and-neck with Ellimist, with Tholal lagging behind, and Weezel way ahead.

Production looks better:



Again we're neck-and-neck with Ellimist, with Weezel lagging significantly behind. The dwarves have recently made substantial improvements. I'll bet those vaults are well-stocked.

Crop yield:



Ellimist has pulled ahead recently, with 14 cities now. (Looks like he doesn't have Bourne the Gleaming anymore.)

Military strength looks kind of funny:



You can see the huge up-and-down as Ellimist hired the huge crew, then disbanded it. He's still substantially in the lead, with us running second place. Our position's actually a little better than that, though, since our priest of leaves will let us conjure up plenty of tigers whenever we need them.

Finally, the demos:

[Mardoc]

Speaking of Priests of Leaves - how's your terraforming coming along? Many unplanted tiles? Lots of Ancient Forests? Somewhere in between?

[HidingKneel]

Turn 95 in.

I think I'm now starting to understand why people want to play these games with diplomacy off. Three contacts now means that composing diplo messages adds a hefty chunk to the turn-time. (But I'm enjoying it nonetheless.)

First we have Weezel:



That's not quite the story I got from Ellimist:

Due to the diplo restrictions on this game, there was an implied 1 turn deadline for them to accept the offer. I had to make the proposal sufficiently tempting for the Hippus if I wanted them to accept it. So I promised to disband all the riders, give them back Bourne, not raze/pillage anything else, and a long NAP. In exchange, they gave all but one mercurian city back to the hippus and emptied that city.

My bluff was probably the only way to succeed. The sims I ran were pretty darn bad. The biggest problem was the Basium unit, but there were plenty of additional challenges in addition to him. My odds of destroying him were very much in doubt, and each angel would probably destroy 1-3 riders as well before I could kill it. Add the Hippus worldspell on top of that, and the fact that he was building scouts and upgrading them to horsemen... well... I had to hope that Kyan and Ichabod hadn't run any sims and/or weren't willing to slug things out.

I haven't played the turn yet, I may send something else when I'm done.

Ellimist

I wouldn't call a 10-turn NAP "long". Maybe he's bluffing Weezel to try and get him to feel more secure? Anyway, playing along seems as good a way as any to avoid committing to any actions against Ellimist:



As for Ellimist, he also had this to say:



I don't want to commit to that, either. I'll just wait and stall them both for now. A decisive victory for any of the frontrunners is not in the best interests of the Ljosalfar.

Finally, there's Tholal, who doesn't seem to have joined in on the scheming:



So I gave him my standard line:



What else? I got myself a cool new toy:



Too late in the game for it to be terribly useful. Still, I'll keep HN on it, let it heal up in my lands, and then maybe send it out for mischief.

What about our hero, Gilden Silveric? Well, that barbarian kill team apparently left the city in a different direction, leaving him unscathed. The bear didn't attack either (it's still in the city). I was feeling reckless, so I attacked the city and killed one of its archer defenders:



Gilden got a little scraped up. I suppose it's possible that bear might kill him, but I think the odds are definitely against that. Anyway, I'll be a lot safer after promo-healing to drill 3 next turn. I've also got a PoL en route to provide support.

Speaking of Priests of Leaves - how's your terraforming coming along? Many unplanted tiles? Lots of Ancient Forests? Somewhere in between?

Yes and yes. My core is pretty well-planted by now (though most of the bloomed forests are still "new"). But there's a lot of work to be done in the newer territories:



Note the city in that screenshot: it's probably got the most growth potential of anything in my empire, and could eventually get bigger than Evermore.
Is it worth building the altar/national epic there, instead? Not sure... it means waiting quite a while for the national epic (which we'll have the tech for in two turns), since that needs a library and the city is only bringing in five hammers at the moment.

Warfare due at the end of next turn.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, another two turns played. Much is afoot.

First, Ellimist raised the price of settlers from 80gp to 110gp. Is it because he knows I'm more able to pay? Or maybe he's worried that I'm becoming a legitimate rival to him? Either way, I don't think it's a good deal anymore. We've got the highest production in the world, along with one of the lowest GNPs. We need to tech more than we need to expand right now. So I started a 5-turn settler in Eaca.

Tholal hasn't seen any lions. But with the ice broken, I thought I'd ask for his taken on the politics of Erebus. His response was entertaining, though perhaps not entirely informative:



My guess: he doesn't see a road to victory in this game, but is still having fun managing his civilization/filling his vaults (I've felt like that myself in this game, though not so much recently). So I'm not sure that appeals like "we need to act now or player X is going to run away with the game" are going to be so helpful. From his point of view, we've all run away from the game.
Still, it won't hurt to be on his good side. Maybe he'd be willing to loan me earth mana once we've got a road network?

At the end of turn 96, we finally got another passive FoL spread:



Warfare also came in. I revolted to military state on turn 97. It's only saving me 10gp per turn at this point, but that should increase as I expand. Also, going from +0% military production to +25% military production should be fairly noticable. Missing out on that free promotion will hurt, especially when I'm going to be units that need upgrades, like adept and fawns. But I see myself building a lot of divine units from now on, which get passive xp at a speedy clip.

Turn 97 got some elf-on-bear action. Lost my first fawn attacking a bear at 73% odds, and didn't want to lose a second. So I got a priest into position, and summoned a tiger to give the bear a little love-tap:



After that, it was just mopping up.



But that's just a fun minigame. The real story is this message from Ellimist:

I declared on the Malakim this turn. They're looking pretty soft...

Not good, I'm thinking. I sent Weezel a somewhat unhelpful missive:



So, what to do? It seems like I've got three options:

1) Stay out of it. Let Ellimist and Weezel weaken each other, and keep the Ljosalfar empire growing.

2) Deactivate my NAP with Ellimist, and (after a slight delay) join the war on Weezel's side.

3) Join Ellimist, and try to grab a chunk of the Malakim territory for myself.

A lot depends on just how soft a target the Malakim are. Weezel switched from pacifism to consumption last turn, so his position isn't as bad as it was (though he's still losing 10% from the apprenticeship civic). He hasn't built the Nox Noctis yet, but maybe that's a matter of getting a prophet to the right place? Of course, if he doesn't have enough units to defend with, the Nox Noctis isn't going to do him a lot of good.

If Weezel's able to put up a good fight, then 1) sounds like a good option. If he isn't able ot fight at all, then I guess I should go with 3). Letting Ellimist capture the Esus holy city would be disasterous. Taking it for myself would be awesome.

Anyway, even if I stay out of it, I'm thinking war doesn't look so distant anymore. Ellimist said he has a "long NAP" with Ichabod. So it's definitely possible that Ellimist comes for me next.

I teched masonry this turn to connect marble, though perhaps that was silly. Next turn I think I'll get back on the track to Ashen Veil. Ritualists would dramatically increase my security, and also make me quite dangerous on the offense.

We're climbing up the scoreboard as our new cities grow and techs come in at a good pace. And the demos don't look so bad, either:

[HidingKneel]

Alright, internet's back. Let's see what's going on in this game.

It sounds like Weezel's getting crushed by the Clan. Here's the last few turns of diplomacy as I try to put together some kind of anti-orc alliance. First Weezel:









and then Tholal:







I have open borders with both of them now (Tholal also wanted to trade maps, but that would violate my earlier agreement with Ellimist, so I declined). I've based hawks in both their territories and had a look. Some thoughts:

Weezel's position looks hopeless. He's defending with a handful of warriors (some of which have bronze, others not: looks like Ellimist cut him off), and couple of stonewardens. The Esus holy city has no defenders at all. Ellimist has already claimed the Kilmorph holy cit and a bunch of others.

Defensively, Tholal's position is better. He recently completed the mines of Galdur, so he's got iron, and a smattering of axemen. His production is pretty high, so I'd imagine he can increase their numbers. But those won't do him much good when Ellimist comes calling. I assume he doesn't have HBR yet, so his axemen are 1-movers. Ellimist could just stream into his territory and pillage everything with his wolf-riders.

Only, why would Ellimist come for the Khazad next? They're at the bottom of the scoreboard. Next target will probably be whoever's in second place. Poor schmucks.



That's us! So, time to start gearing up for war. I've researched KotE and Way of the Wicked, and am teching towards Corruption of Spirit. Priests of Leaves are good, but ritualists will make us a lot more dangerous. After that, I think I'm going to chase some high-end military in the tech tree. The dream would be

animal handling -> infernal pact (swap into conquest/sacrifice the weak) -> tech feral bond while building grimoire -> commune with nature (via Grimoire).

That's a lot of beakers. But our economy's been improving, and right now we've got the world's highest GNP:



The main question is whether I should slip Alteration in there, to give myself some haste adepts. Need to counter Ellimist's mobility advantage. HBR would be good for that too, but is less essential since my army will be mostly priests, who get mobility I for free.

For now to build myself some more hawks (so I see him coming from a ways off) and more priests of Leaves (huge tiger stacks!). And next turn I hope I'll be able to make contact with Ichabod with a hawk from Tholal's southern city. I doubt that Weezel or Tholal will be of much use in the coming fight, but the Hippus are a different story altogether. They've got a mobile military, advanced tech, and they've still got their amazing worldspell. Also, the Hippus founded Empyrean recently. They've already got fanaticism, so I'll bet they're on a beeline for Chalid. Unfortunately they have a NAP with the orcs, but maybe I can find out how long that'll last and coordinate so that our own NAP expires at the same time. Or maybe I can get them to send a few of their horsemen to raze the Esus holy city, before Ellimist claims it for himself (it's at the opposite end of the Malakim empire from me, so there's no way I can do that myself).

What else is going on? Got a mostly-useless event:



Chose the monument; who knows, maybe I'll get the monument event.

Also, Gilden conquered another barbarian city:



A few turns back, I was worried that Weezel would see this as a bit aggressive. Now he's got much bigger worries. I'm not sure it was such a good idea, though. I've got three workers building a road out there, but I'm concerned that I'll be fighting a war before that city really contributes anything. And it's too far from my territory to be something I really defend.

So... the situation is bad. Ellimist has close to twenty cities, the biggest army in the world. He's sitting on tons of gold which he can use to hire wolf-riders. But I think it's not hopeless. I believe Ellimist is running 100% gold, so we might soon have a tech edge on him. His cities are spread out all over the (toroidal) map and he's running aristocracy, so the maintenance will be a killer. He's got lots of mobility, but we've got forests to slow him down, and our main units are all 2-movers to begin with (3 if I get myself some haste adepts). And, of course, I've still got time to prepare. He hasn't deactivated our arrangement yet. When he does, I'll still have 13 turns to get ready. And I've got a GP coming in a few turns. Was going to get started on the altar, but I think the situation calls for a golden age. That'll be a huge boost, since almost every single tile I'm working yields both commerce and production.
Who knows? Maybe he'll be fighting the Hippus next. I certainly intend to make myself a very prickly-looking target.

And, of course, I still have the worldspell. I've got a settler out next turn. Was going to fill in the gap between Zholub and Ultigar, but now I'm thinking I'll send it north, and try to plant some more forests between myself and Ellimist.

[HidingKneel]

Another turn in. Mostly quiet.

The Malakim are again putting out a call for aid:



I've got a PoL in the neighborhood, and I really wish I could help.
But I've got that NAP with Ellimist. Weezel's going to die anyway, so there's no point in starting the countdown prematurely. So I sent a quick reply:



Does this violate the terms of my agreement with Ellimist? I don't think so: we said we would not pass on information from each other to the other players. I'm not passing on information from him, I'm passing on information from what my units can see. Anyways, I doubt it will matter much. The wolf I saw (promoted to C5/shock I) is just going to tear right through Weezel, whether he knows it's coming or not. The wolf even had odds on Gilden (at least while Gilden was wounded).

What else? Time to decide what to do with that settler. I decided not to sent it north. There are only two sensible sites to the north: the one due north that gets no food, and the one that I already consulted Ellimist about. The first one will just be a drag on my economy. The second is worth settling, but I don't want to agitate Ellimist prematurely. I'll just keep producing settlers. When Ellimist starts the countdown, I'll settle that spot. Should give me enough time to get a ring of culture, which will mean a few treants in striking range of the southern tip of his empire if it comes to that.

Also, I got contact with the Hippus. It happened during their turn, but I got no message from them. I sent them this:



From the graphs, it looks like they're pretty low on military (about even with Weezel and Tholal). But they've got twelve cities and plenty of production, so that could change in a hurry. They're by no means out of the game. If they get iron from the Khazad, they could really put the hurt on Ellimist with 4-moving iron chariots. Plus, you know, Chalid.

If I was Ellimist, I'd probably see the elves as a little less threatening than the Hippus, and also quite a bit softer. So maybe we've got more time than I thought.

How much time do we need? I had a look at the tech screen. Here's the breakdown at our present tech rate:

Corruption of Spirit: 2 more turns
Animal Handling: 8 turns
Infernal Pact: 7 turns
Feral Bond: 12 turns

Of course, our "present rate" is ever-increasing, so shave a few turns off of that. Plus, in three more turns, we'll be firing a golden age, which ought to help quite a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if we could get this done in just over twenty turns.

That's assuming that we don't have competition for the Grimoire. Looks like Ellimist has turned tech back on. He mentioned earlier that he was planning to go AV, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's his present goal. We've got a substantial lead in GNP, though, so I suspect we'll beat him to that. But if he beelines infernal pact, he can probably get to the Grimoire before we can unlock all of the other techs on our checklist.