Horselover Fat's journal - Iskender and the Hippus

[Adlain]

How ment T till you get your settler out??

[Ilios]

Settler should finish end of next turn.

I think I'll move a pair of warriors a turn ahead of the settler to take position on the grass hil 4E from the Cap. If they don't get smacked down by a Griffon/Spider combo, I'll take the leap and move the settler outside of those safe green borders, and begin the long trek to Archduke's designated site (at least, I think it is the spot).

I'm not looking forward having to move two turns on flatland without cover...

[Ilios]

Settler is done, and the Gobbo has paused this turn, and has been joined by the Skellie. Only two warrior remain in the city, but a third will be finished at the end of the turn, before the barbs can move. I do expect to win both battles, which will hopefully allow one of the defenders to take Shock. (another skellie has appeared on the borders)

Tonight I'll post another screenshot, and explain my dilemma regarding the founding of a new city...

[Adlain]

Fingers crossed for you

[Ilios]

Frickin' barbs decided to veer away from the city and threaten the settler party instead. I redlined a Gobbo with a green warrior from the city, then took him out with a Combat 1 warrior, getting him another promotion.

The red line indicates the path the settler party needs to take to arrive at Archduke's preferred next city site. I've included the worker, since there nothing he can do at the capital, and I can knock our another worker from the capital a turn before Mining comes in.

[TheArchduke]

I agree with your: "Oh my"

I had ridiculous bad luck with my explorers (1 killed to the southeast and the two other ones (one scout and one warrior killed very, very quickly after sending them out. I think the tile you saw (sorry for the short message, you guessed right) is on of the few semi-decent cities around.

[Iskender]

The coup was succesfull and i'm taking over the Hippus. There are some changes to the agenda.

First a quick look on how the civ is doing:



Well, commerce output is terrible, nearly two times lower than the average. With every tile in the BFC being either forest or hills it's not going to get much better soon.


I'm going to chop few riverside grassland forests and build there farms for future agristocracy, in the meantime a sage must do. I'm already 2gc above the free support limit, any further costs with such a low commerce would kill my research. Thus i've put a Palisade as a production filler before army support is lower.





The most important change is the location of the 2nd city. I want to put it right here:



There are three reasons for it:

- it will cost less maintenance
- it will be possible to maintain a shared defense for both cities
- it's built 4 turns earlier

There is a huge drawback though. If that 7 goblin archer stack moves it may accidentally fork both cities and then I'm in trouble.

Plans:
- improve commerce: This will be a challenge. Code of Laws is far away and there are no easy calendar resources.
- expand: settler #3 will be in production shortly after worker #2. I want to grab a luxury resource with the 3rd city, so i'll put it either by the gems in the north or near wine and reagents in the south. I prefer gems, but it requires solving the goblin archers problem first

[Adlain]

Welcome to Realms Beyond Iskender

- expand: settler #3 will be in production shortly after worker #2. I want to grab a luxury resource with the 3rd city, so i'll put it either by the gems in the north or near wine and reagents in the south. I prefer gems, but it requires solving the goblin archers problem first

What are your chances of solving that goblin infestation before you need/ want your 3rd city out??

[Iskender]

I believe the excess archers (6 or 7) will leave the fort eventually. The best scenario is that they'll suicide into the capital. The worst is accidental forking that would force me to split warriors between cities.

If the goblins stay i'll consider settling in the south.

[Ilios]

Thanks again for taking over Iskender!


In SP games the Archers move to Barb cities in the neighbourhood once they appear. However, I have never seen a fort spawn that many Archers. Usually the fort produces STR 2 (+1 poison) goblin spears, which can be easily dealt with. I think the game has coded the archers that they will never attack a city. Could be wrong though...

I agree completely with your proposed second city site. I was considering planting it, but didn't because I felt I needed to follow Archduke's instructions as a simple turnplayer.