Aurorarcher leads Khazad out of their cavernous homes

[Aurorarcher]

So the lizzards ruined my settling plans quite a bit by standing on my Corn instead of attacking ... Ended up getting 2nd city on T31. Ignoring growing the city to happy cap gave me first 2nd city (unless I have done some terrible mistake while readings with the scores).




Demos after ending T34:




Jalepeno (Amurites) settled his 2nd city on T34, others have only one city still.

Techwise the situation is the following (not in research order):

Calabim: 6; Agri, Calendar, Exploration, AC (?), Crafting (?), Mining (?)
Me: 5; Agri, Exploration, Crafting, Mining, AH
Amurites, Kurios and Svarts: 4.

Notice that most of this is just guessing as I haven't met anyone yet actually. The number of techs I know for sure - but not what they're exactly. Most of my guesses are based on the turns it took them to get a new tech.

[Aurorarcher]

Also this post seems rather odd in the tech thread:

If you'd stick with one city like the rest of us, it wouldn't be so complicated

Is Dave thinking that Calabim has 2 cities? Is this supposed to be a joke? But in every joke there's a seed of truth?

But for mostly what makes me wonder is...

Why'd he post this in tech thread? Is this appropriate, even if it's a joke?

All in all, it doesn't matter much - just an odd post that I don't seem to understand (in the right way?) .

[Aurorarcher]

Found Ventessel on T36. His cap is roughly eight tiles east from the ruin where I popped the GS. Also Dreylin settled his 2nd city on the same turn.

[Aurorarcher]

I took a peek at Vent's capital and also killed 2 warriors and one worke that he left nearby. He must've forgotten that I can double move on hills. I'm not going to go for his cap (2 warriors left), don't want to slow him down too much (or waste too many scouting turns), he's the only one without 2nd city.

Also found Dave couple turns ago, he is south from me. I can see his borders but he hasn't spotted my unit yet as I'm having a vision from very far away - I wonder if he even noticed that we have contact. He also settled his 2nd city on T42.

I'm getting my 3rd city settled on T44 (revolting to Agri T43).

[Aurorarcher]

As the turn is stuck somewhere between Dreylin/Ventessel I decided to do a small opponent analysis:


DaveV: Probably the most experienced player in this game (at least in FFH). Seem to know ins and outs of Civ/FFH mechancics in general, which should help. Not that aggressive as a player and plays pretty safe in general.

Volanna of Svarts: Strong leader civ and leader. Creative will help for REXing and Aggressive will help defend against early barbs. I'm a little bit scared of the recon units in general (Jalepeno kept smacking me with them in our duel ). As I know Dave is a close neighbour of mine, I might try to rush him with Trebs/Axes before he can manage to get AFC economy running.





Dreylin: Has been around for a long time, played bunch of PB/PBEM games with BtS. He knows how to play and plan ahead. He also single-handedly raped me in our duel game, for what that is worth. Pretty newish to FFH but seems to learn quickly.

Decius of Calabim: My #1 pick. Has one of the best early mid-game unit (Moroi) and of course the great units in Vampires later. Probably the civ I'm most worried about. Have to be careful with my roads, those 3-move Morois can be very deadly if I'm not paying enough attention. ORG is not that great of a trait early on but it'll be saving a lot of gpt later.




Jalepeno: Has been around a while, and also played one FFH PBEM game long ago (and he did pretty well there).

Dain of Amurites: Not scared of this civ in the early-mid-game. But if he survives till FBs or especially Mages/Govannon he becomes deadly (and probably unstoppable). PHI helps him to get fast GPs, maybe bulbing some magical techs using GSs or Bowyers (with GE IIRC), if he so wants.





Ventessel: I don't know anything about this guy. Seems newish to FFH but who knows, at least according to responses to his thread. I am assuming he is making some basic mechanical questions to lurkers .

Cardith of Kuriotates: Can only build three real cities with this map. But these cities will grow very very big. I'm not too worried about this civ, centaurs are nice but I don't see them as an early threat. I assume he'll try to get to 3 cities ASAP then fire his worldspell and play peacefully. They could try to head for altar/tower victory, but I don't think the game will last that long.





Aurorarcher: I'm also pretty new player here (happy to win my first PBEM game here though ). I feel like I can micro decently, but I'm sure I could improve there as well. What I am lacking in general is analysing my position in the game, making plans for short-term I can manage but mid/long-term plannings are my other issue. I also have a habit to not find the right techs but instead waste beakers on useless ones. This might not be issue with Khazad as they can pretty much ignore the arcane line.

Kandros of Khazad: I like the civ, thematically they're superfun. AGG/FIN is not a bad civ combo, especially if I plan some early attacks. Khazad's power is around midgame when you can have a strong collateral force with Trebs. This civ doesn't have much in the endgame, except the awesome Dwarwen Druids but I need to pop that tech either with ToD or Grimoire. Going Veil go could be interesting play.

[Aurorarcher]

Can any lurker confirm the following: Hidden nationality unit (like Griffon) heals faster after declaring nationality.

It had felt so before (I tested this in SP mode), no idea why it so or am I wrong?

[The Black Sword]

I don't know for certain either way. But you have a different healing rate in cities, your own territory, neutral territory and enemy territory so it could make some sense that a hidden nationality unit would heal slower in certain situations.

[Aurorarcher]

Yeah. In cities healing rate is 20% of base strength per turn, own territory 15%, neutral 10% and enemy is 5% IIRC. Hidden nationality didn't effect healing rates in cities or own territory - however in neutral or enemy territory the the healing rate was cut to half of the original. Meaning that in neutral it's 5% and enemy 2,5%. It makes some sense but it's a bit weird nevertheless IMO.

Pic of the test in neutral territory, before:




after:




Griffons are especially annoying as you can't see the number of turns to heal due to the graphics in bot left blocking the view.

[Aurorarcher]

I'm now also in war with Jale because I wanted to go through his border while scouting... I was going to offer peace immediately after getting through.




It turns out that I cannot offer peace just yet, as there weren't quite as much land as I hoped... I must now go thorugh his border again. I'm little worried that I'm making too many angry enemies already with my moves. Oh well... I'm probably moving diagonally SE next turn.

I am currently at 4 cities, here's a little overview of my empire and future city sites.




5th city spot going for Wine, Horse, Crab site:




6th city probably going for Fish, Clam, Cow site:




Then there's also very promising looking land SW from capital. Dragon Bones on plainhill is an awesome tile on it's own. I want that marble for Bone Palace later, that's for sure:




Needs more scouting though.

Barb city spawned NW of Granite.




Not a bad spot at all... Only problem is that if I keep it I can't settle any more cities in that corner; otherwise I could put 2 cities there. I'll miss at least the Fish if I keep that barb city. Hard decision... Keeping the city feels like the right decision right now to me. I won't be capturing it just yet, though. I have a lot of hammers so I could put those hammers into warriorpults to take those archers down.




Demowise things are looking very good. Only being beat by Dave's GNP; but he's been in Aristocracy for a few turns now. I'm pretty confident I'll land the GB on T60. After that I'll start popping some borders easily. I'll probably pick Fishing, CoL (revolt to Aristocracy + Apprenticeship), BW and then bulb Sanitation with the bard. After that I'm picking up Masonry, Construction and Warfare in some order. If I want to get FoT I should probably go for it after CoL; otherwise I might be too late.

Also a city count of T58:

Me: 4
Jale: 4
Dave: 3
Dreylin: 3 or 4.
Ventessel: 1 .

Sorry if I slowed your start Vent, didn't mean it to be this bad for you(when you read this later)! Maybe he's having some barb trouble as well, don't know. He also starved his cap to size 6, then grew back to size 8.

Techwise I'm in the lead (at least in beakers), Dave and Dreylin right behind me. I have 9 techs, Dreylin has also 9, Dave 8, Jale 7 and Vent 5. Only Dave and Dreylin (excluding myself) have at least one Discovery tech.




Vent's Conquest + Apprenticeship pairing seems odd to me, especially at this point of the game. Jale's GK explains the high MFG of his.

[Aurorarcher]

And I landed Drama!