[SPOILERS] Sleets of Gold, the Illian Revelation

[Ilios]

Thanks for the update!

I imagine the Workers will be building beautiful roads...

[Ravus Sol]

Thanks for the update!

I imagine the Workers will be building beautiful roads...

I'm going to try and catch up today.

The workers have indeed been making numerous pretty roads. I am now counting down the turns till they can do something more productive.

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Turn 20 [/SIZE]

This is the summery of the turns up to the Mini Blitz that we did.

Mysticism Splash Screen

Finally the second part of the plan comes through. With Mysticism the Ice People can build elder councils and temples of the hand.

I'm going to try to go straight to Philosophy. I want those Winter Priests so bad i can taste them. Elder Councils get built ASAP. Then the cities can also run elders to increase the tech rate even more.

I won't allow a city to get a Great Person from elders as i want a Great Priest first.

Civics

Definatly change to God-King, I also changed to Pacifism as i don't need any more troops.

-

With the loss of ability to explore as much the begining isn't as entertaining... Well it might be for others, the free rein of the orcs may be fun.

There are no animals to tame and hardly any dungeons to explore from what i've seen. Just button clicking 'end turn'.

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Turn 26[/SIZE]

Post Mini-Blitz Summery

The little blitz session didn't yield much domestically but I did finally meet some elves. Scouts died. Barbarians started rushing.

-

Now don't get me wrong. I expected the barbarians to start advancing in waves eventually. But it annoys myself and the Illian leaders to see these brutes walking across our lands like they have the right too. Soon enough their cities will burn and the Orcs be enslaved to the Winter People! Only a few more turns till the priests can start their empowerment ritual.

These are only minor nuisances... The Defence has the advantage when the attacker has no collateral. The tricky part will be the fact that if timed badly each enemy cities assault force could arrive simultaneously. My road between the cities should thankfully make redeployment easy enough to be able to deal with 8 or maybe even 12 Orc Barbarians.

Valhalla is still slowly building it's elder council to add to the tech surplus. I need to sort out that surplus now as it will take a hit once the Capital is retooled to production after Philosophy.

Haven is building the second worker as something to fill the gap. I've nearly reached the limit of troops i can support before having to pay extra. A worker needs to be finished now, then a few filler builds while waiting... i may start the Sanheim ritual in the capital with it's greater production power while waiting for Philosophy and snap of the rituals one after the other.

-

Meeting the Atheist Elves

The culture of the Ice Cities is wonderful to behold and today they paid off. What should they spy over yonder sea but a Dark Elvish Warrior on a hill! This occured on the last turn of the blitz so myself and Dantski traded a few words before starting up a email correspondence.

In the initial chat we mentioned the Dragon City which i believe i spied up north before my scout got eaten.

Diplo to come...

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Elvish Diplomacy[/SIZE]

Ravus the Grey of the Illians to Dantski of the Atheist Elves.

As you can tell from the message i was quite glad to finally meet someone. Anyone. I tried to let that enthusiasm flow in the words along with offering some free information on the world and my actions. This is hoping that the other feels obligated to pass along their own revelations of self.

[COLOR="Cyan"]Greetings from the Sunny Ice God-Kingdom to the Atheist Dark Elves

Ruled over by a triumvirate of Varn Gosan, Auric Ulvil and Ravus Sol we intend to make our mark on the world!

To start of though let me just express how thankful we are to FINALLY meet someone. I thought some evil quirk of fate had left us abandoned on a island in the middle of nowhere. The Numerous barbarian cities have all just hit the mark where they are now spitting out raiding parties. If you want a POW i'm sure the warriors can capture one for you.

You expressed interest in the location of the fabled Red Dragon city, by our navigators reckoning it should be around 16 acres north of your scouts position on the hill where we first spotted you. We know this because there is only one clear passage of our landmass, guarded by a city with an azer, After traversing that and feeling happy our warrior Ice stumbled upon the Dragon a moment later and was promptly eaten.

Also please note a word of warning... I'm not sure if you have allready spotted them but a barbarian raiding party has just set of from a barbarian city Seroe Vakas. It was 2 acres west of your scout just over the mountain range and is guarded by a elephant of all things. I hope you manage to step quickly and avoid a bloody fate from these orc devils. Vakas is also the city with the Broken Squelcher.

Does your own scout or nation have any tales of interest? You are the first nation we have met and are thus the hot topic back in the Capital.

- Ravus the Grey[/COLOR]

Note sent by a strangely intelligent winter penguin as a carrier bird, The Ice nation eventually received this in response. Not exactly the greeting we were hoping for. More left unsaid then said. Myself, Auric and Varn marked down Dantski and his elves as "cordial relations".

Dantski the Backstabber to Ravus

[COLOR="Gray"]Hi Ravus

Nice greeting! It's always good to hear from your average neighbourly Sunny Ice God kingdom.

The barbarians are indeed starting to clump some warriors together to form 'armies', fortunately the honourable back stabbers (me and my compadres) have more than enough firepower to deal with these pests. We shall assume for now that the Illians are well capable of taking care of themselves too.

Thankyou for indulging my interest on Acheron, our explorers could use some dragon skin coats and will get their hunting spears out ASAP.

As for Svartalfar tales of interest, we have little to compare with your tale of a dragon but good ol' Willy the Warrior did have to get his club dirty dealing with a meddlesome Hill Giant who reamined unnamed. We also have recent reports of Organized orc's under an orange banner being sighted to the east of our lands, little contact besides the baring of bottoms on their part has taken place thus far.

-Dantski[/COLOR]

Afterthoughts
Well he said he had no stories but his communication section clearly shows he has three cities. He must have counter attacked a weak barbarian city once all it's warriors left on a raid. Makes sense as later on his units will be focused on the reacon line while the barbarians get stronger in the metal. Attacking now is a good option for him.

It's more the fact he doesn't mention it, although his hints at the Dragon and hunting could mean he truely desires to capture that beast... hmmm more information is needed but not much else to say. I suppose i can drop hints about stasis seeing as that would be worthwhile information he would want to know about and i am planning to pop it in around... 25 turns.

Best not to push too much. Cordial responses have been exchanged and his reply has no unresolved questions he seeks answers too. Considering the sea in the way we probably won't see each other on the map again for ages. I'll try raising conversation again when something interesting comes up.

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Turn 27 and the Elvish Assessment [/SIZE]

Turn 27

Well the Elvish warrior moved on. Doubt we will be seeing their pale white asses any time soon what with the barbarian forces starting to move more openly. I did warn Dantski about those warriors so maybe he managed to avoid them... maybe not. I hope he's not too close to that city. It's still very tempting to shuttle a winter priest over and take it later on but i don't want a lone city in contested territory. Really really need more Recon information.

I think I vastly over estimated the threat level of the barbarians but it's always better to err on the side of caution in FFH. Bad things DO happen. A Lot.

Atheist Elf Assessment
The elves have a higher score. Most likely helped along by them having a third city. My GNP is actually more then double theirs... I assume they are trying to get cottages up before mysticism and Way of the Forest, which means an initial lower output for the GNP.

They beat me out production wise, most likely from starting in a forest area. They kick my pants food wise... i'm sure that isn't all from the extra city.

Power wise we are about equal. You can see where i lost my warrior that was scouting. Dantski had a similar loss, I assume when he made an assault on a barbarian city to take it.

Power

Food

Production

GNP

Score

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Turn 31 - 33[/SIZE]

We continue to advance technologically in a boring way. At least with cheaper techs you unlock new things to do. This waiting around is the worst part. The Barbarians continue to advance and the workers have to step quickly to avoid them... They continue to make pretty pretty roads. Maybe i should give them pretty names as well.

Oh yes one of the mountains turned out to be a volcano... but as I had no improvements near it nothing happened. Now I just get to chuckle over the fact that Ahepetr (once renamed) was going to be a city I would ice. A volcano ice city is pleasing to my sense of aesthetics.

The first event and it's outcome isn't that good... of course if i had the money it could actually have been very very game changing. The rules of the game stop the ability PRODUCE settlers. But the units themselves still exist as seen in turn 0, so you can gain settlers through lairs or events like these ones.

An extra settler would have been very good but i've been sacrificing any money i have to speed up the tech rate as that is more important then money in the bank at this point.

A few turns later and I have definatly over produced warriors... which at least lets me sit comfortably in the number 1 spot in the demeographs for units. But a 4-Orc squad only does minor damage to one warrior when they attack. I could probably have gotten of with 2 warriors per city.

-

Those who pay attention will have noticed that the score of Kandros Fir dropped a staggering 60 points inbetween turns! That is astounding! And also worrying, fearing the poor evil Sheaim were being rushed i contacted the only source of information i had. Dantski of the Atheist Elves.

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Mild Mannered Communication[/SIZE]

I still haven't figured out how to get Gmail chat to record it's conversations. Which would help immensely. I was also having internet troubles so i didn't even get a chance to make notes *sigh*

But in summery i contacted Dantski about the drop in Selrahc's score. He seemed not that much bothered and had aparantly assumed it was a barbarian assault. He knows the score system better them me and pointed out that score of someone else would have gone up as well as Selrahc's dropping if a rush was taking place.

While chatting he mentioned he had done minimal scouting himself. I consoled him that i would be jealous of his capabilities once he got hawks. If he got hawks. Now here is the kicker. Dantski is apparently convinced that the Red Dragon is immune to capture... meaning he isn't that concerned about the Recon line apart from it's additional strength.

I have no idea how he came to this conclusion. Ten minutes with a test game proved that the Red Dragon was still able to be captured. So unless this is some very foolish attempt at miss-information he has really dropped the ball.

He may have thought this was a glitch as he also mentioned that the sons of Aerchon (the barbarian Archmages in the dragon city) were meant to be un-capturable but that Ichabod believed they could still be claimed by his worldspell. I expected that anyway but the idea of someone getting Archmages so early in the game is allways worrying.

I also brought up his shiny new third city which he hand-waved and quickly changed the subject about. Not feeling the love here Dantski. Not feeling it one bit. This is especially true when the next turn he accidentally sent a blank message an I realised he had named said shiny new city "Absolute Deceit".

Was it accidentally? I'm honestly wondering now if this is all some part of a strategy, but I doubt it.

So in summery:
[COLOR="Gray"]

1. Elves are not exploring
   
2. Elves believe Red Dragon Uncapturable
   
3. Information provided by them make it more likely Selrahc lost a city to barbarians
   
4. Orcs plan to try and get some early Archmages
   
5. Elves hand-wave and don't talk much about expansion and new city
   

[/COLOR]

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Turn 34 - Wise is he that knows not, the power of Philosophy [/SIZE]

After 34 struggling monotonous turns it's here! it's finally here! The Ritual of the White hand shall be mine! But that's not all, today was a day of vast change for the normally static Ice Nation.

My capital is less then i thought it would be and the Ritual will take another 23 turns to complete. That is far too long, but there is more then one way to melt an ice cube. Research quickly switches to Agriculture, to be followed by Calendar.

My cities need to be bigger and some extra health wouldn't go amiss along with the farms. Plantations will net me two happy resources to get my capital even more productive. For now though I take a risk of sorts and stick with the Sanheim Ritual in the capital. It's still low production so i'll get the Sanheim to 1 away from completion then switch to the Winter Priest Ritual.

After switching around my cities specializations i realise that i've lost the number one GNP spot to someone else. That's annoying.

Here is the aforementioned blank Dark Atheist Elf Message.

Well looky what we found here! Our newest attempt at scouting, the warrior Rock has found a Orc huddled under a gargoyle! But this Orc is different... it's not a idiotic barbarian but swears allegiance to a Clan of Embers.

Before i had pondered on a message to send I allready found one waiting for me from a Goblin messenger runner. Not one to be outdone i quickly sent a reply. To which i got a very interesting reply...

-

Diplomacy to come...

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Communications with The Burning Orcs[/SIZE]

Ichabod to Ravus

[COLOR="Orange"]Hey Ravus,

Just met you ingame.

I don't have much time to write right now, so I'll keep it short.

Congrats on the leading GNP!

Ichabod

P.S.: Is it just me or Selrahc lost his capital last turn?[/COLOR]

Simple and effective as an ice breaker. He shows he is using the graph comparisons and also that he too noticed the drop in Selrahc's score. But that he doesn't know for certain, Hinting that he too also has no contact with them.

Ravus of the Council to Ichabod of the Burning Orcs

[COLOR="Cyan"]Well met brave orcs, bearers of the burning embers

I spotted you nestled under the evil gargoyles. This is my next attempt to get out and explore the land. between barbarian hordes, azers, gargoyles and dragons the scouts of the Sunny ice kingdom have not been having too much luck with that.

Nice that you are keeping track of the GNP! i was Happy too before I remembered that my cultural leader skewers it A bit in my favour. I've also just switched over to Largly a production focused economy so i think the title of Leading GNP is now your own so Voila!

I spotted Selrahc loosing 60 or so points as Well. I wondered if it wasn't the barbarians initially and if it was in fact you yourself, or the grigori rushing him to Extinguish a threat... i also didn't know it was the capital of his.

So far the raging Barbarian hordes have been manageable with Excessive amounts of defence but there are currently 8 warriors marching towards the Capital right now so i can understand how it could happen. Not that it would be a problem for you being Friendly with them. I spotted what you meant in the tech thread about this not being the Raging barbarian world we Imagined, the azer and Elephant cities for example curtail your Natural expansion with your hero. You have my commiserations on that. Of course between heroic strength and metals you should still have a good time of it but it's still annoying. What's next a city with a Yeti?

Maybe I should pop of stasis in response to selrahc loosing his capital... I'm not sure if that would help or hinder him, i'm also not sure which i'd prefer. I do like to try to be sporting. But the chance to cut of his ability to produce Defenders while under Siege is tempting if just to eliminate a future rival. Although as ice dwellers we care little about the armageddon counter rises.

Enough about that though, i wish you luck on your travels, not that you will need it, i have yet to spy any animals apart from the city-elephants.

- Ravus the grey of the council of three[/COLOR]

Yes i was in the mood for some sillyness, so lets see if he spots the three hidden messages. I assume he will find one and stop looking but a lurker might point one out. They aren't anything important or special I was just in one of those moods.

There is no point being skimpy with the economic details if a rival is allready diligently checking the graphs. I also wasn't skimpy with any information allready provided to Dantski just in case they had a good working relationship.

I try and mention Stasis again, i should be able to leverage stasis into something here. When i mentioned it to Dantski he was uncaring of my friendly imminent warning saying he was fine. I assume he had ample defence and workers to plod through the un-productive turns.

The Orcs on the other hand can have a lot to gain from forewarned knowledge of stasis. Either from preparation and a rush on their hero to claim cities in the interm. Or to plan for a rush while no-one can build defence. If they timed it they could also pop their world spell and rush with the extra units.

The reply was... interesting. A shame as at a glance i don't see any hidden messages.

Irk'hra Bod Endain to Ravus of the Great White

[COLOR="Orange"]Same to you, people of the great white and the vast grey.

Although we stand in different sides of the elements, I believe we can share a bond of trust, while each one tries to survive in his own ways.

It's nice to have someone to talk to, since the other ones we met are silent and untrustworthy.

I don't know if Selrahc lost his capital. What makes me believe that that's what happened is combining his great fall in score with the Cities Tag in the demographic screen. Last turn, my capital and my second city were in the list of the 5 greatest cities. Since so early in the game I could only expect to see capitals figuring in the list, it led me to the conclusion that it was indeed his capital which got lost.

Regarding exploration, be careful. There are 2 gargoyles walking just a few tiles north of you. Well, the whole area is infested with barbarians, so it won't be a easy task for you. Good luck with it, anyway. Unfortunately, I can't get all my fellow orcs to act with reason (maybe that can change in a couple of turns). (out of character parenthesis:The lack of animals is probably due to the great amount of pre-placed barb units in the game, so the barb unit limit is reached... all the barbs we see roaming now where created in the cities, so they don't use the limit... but I'm guessing, I'm really not sure).

Maybe your production switch is due to the building of a certain ritual... A big white hand... Some barbaric orc tribes near your cities told my scouts about it, but I'm not sure if it's indeed the truth.

On the Selrahc issue, I'll reveal to you that my plan is to use my world spell just after you use yours. That's to avoid the unberable maintenance costs that go along with it... If I get lucky with the conversions, we could turn this into a 4 man game... That is.... tempting, to say the least...

I know that warriors are almost invencible in defense during this phase of the game, but maybe I could get a nice stack of combat warriors and that could be enough...

But you ought to have realized that we have a great number of goblin forts with 4-5 goblin archers... Each of them are strenght 4/6, which means, they are nearly invencible during this part of the game... I won't lie to you about the fact that it's tempting to go on a pillaging spree in my enemies lands and I cannot promise that you would be spared. That is, unless we do some kind of deal about it.

Please, don't think that I'm threatening you just for the sake of it... I'm just telling you the truth...

That being said, I'll probably fire my world spell shortly, when I reach mysticism or just a little later (since I'll be able to tech with specialists while running 100% gold), even if you don't use stasis.

I'll wait anxiously for your thoughts about the matter. Please, don't think that we aren't capable of doing fair deals and that we can't be reasonable. We could even help you use your mighty white priests, if the target you choose is the right one.

Lok'tar Ogar,

Irk'hra Bod Endain, Jonas' brother

(P.S.: Sorry if I make myself difficult to understand, I'm tired and my english might be a bit off. Hope I don't cause any confusion because of it)[/COLOR]

Certainly a lot to think about there.

He wants to use my advantages to his own ends but at least he is honest about it. He mentions "others" and while i know one is the dark elves i don't know who the other one is, assuming he doesn't have contact with the Sheaim process of elimination suggests he met the Grigori.

Definatly more on the ball game mechanics wise. I haven't checked the top 5 cities in awhile and it's logical it could be used as he suggested to check which city had been lost. Loosing a Capital could be game changing this early unless Selrahc retakes it.

I think future exploration is going to have to be by sea. There is no getting through that pass unless you are a Burning Orc friendly with Barbarians.

The Fishing for information on the white hand isn't so much of a shot in the dark. My jump in score and production change over is certain to raise flags in anyone's mind who is paying attention. Considering all the barbarians there is no one to rush so i don't actually see a need to keep it secret.

The, oh, so very tempting offer to time our worldspells to knock out Selrahc could work, but he offers up the fact he would try to pillage me if he could as it is his nature. I do admire the way he puts a time limit on potential negotiations as he plans to pop his worldspell off "shortly". I could certainly survive most assaults in my cities. I won't be able to get the Ritual of the Hand in time... I could tempt him to wait 20 turns but he may be impatient to hit an easy target if he knows the direction Selrahc is in.

But even if he won't wait between Stasis and Sanheim adding in more barbarians I should be able to tempt him in SOME way.

He does know how to deal out the traditional Carrot or Stick option and i find i like that. I'm going to have think about how to word this... I'll probably sleep on it and type up a response in the morning but I'm leaning more to striking a deal.