Miguelito gets tricked by magicians, but Bob isn't fooled. Kaiser rules from behind.

[Miguelito]

Apparently this does... nothing? At least what I could gather from googling and the event list.

No scorpion found with near all of the desert uncovered

We found another little friend as a consolation prize though.

My rough idea is for the eastern hunter to ideally kill the giant, while the southern one walks past the barb cities. The sentry scout has to turn back and help at home at some point (also we're busting all possible scorpion spawns ).

I'm starting to get really worried about the economy. Ever since education I have built nothing but cottages, roads and resource improvements, with the exception of a single grassland farm. But our GNP isn't improving, slightly to the contrary actually. And we are building another city in 2 turns, which will still need BW for its gems . The thing is, other players don't seem to have this problem; Auror with less cities (less cost of course as well) is a good bit ahead of us, and somebody has more than thrice (although mack is in GA, but still).

I don't know if it is the missing coins due to the forests, possibly yes? Also, we have a combined 17 scouts and warriors, who, apart from city garrisons (5 of them), are also costing a lot. Of course they are also important as faux collateral against the feared Auror attack. But I've held off on building new scouts, from now on it's all fawns, hunters and then priests, hopefully.

We could of course use the scouts for the barb city in the west (and reduce their number in turn, and get some XP on the hunters), but do I want to pay that maintenance? It is an unforested river paradise though, so mayb just what we need right now?

Eot the borders in Kalocly popped, revealing 3 warriors in Auror's city, without bronze weapons yet thankfully.

Bob, I have a few mechanics questions. If you don't know the quick answers I can sandbox them of course, but first I wanted to ask:

• Do Auror's triboks get the dwarven race, ie do they move twice on hills?
  
• Does the elven movement (and attack) bonus apply to new forests, ie what appears with bloom?
  
• Does that volcano do anything?
  
• (general audience) I can't find an article detailing bulb values, ie beakers generated (not even for BTS). I know that it's a fixed value plus 3*population, but I can't find that value, nor how it gets modified with quick speed and map size.
  

[civac2]

BTS bulb value depends on the type of great person. BTS scientists are 1500 + 3 * pop which should be 1000 + 2 * pop on quick speed. Other GPs bulb 1000 * 2 pop (again * 2/3 for quick speed). You do not get pre-req or known tech modifiers on bulbs.

Edit: Apparently, quick speed is 670 + 1 * pop for non-scientists.

Of course, in FFH it could be whatever.

[Miguelito]

Thanks, seems to check out from a quick WB test, although there is likely something with rounding which makes the beaker yield slightly higher (on the order of 4 beakers).
We currently have 47 pop, which might be 50-55 by the time we get the prophet. Which will give us ~730-740 beakers, while the tech costs 771. So we need to put a turn of 10% or so in before the prophet gets born.

[civac2]

This kind of thing can be checked very efficiently with WorldBuilder, maybe 5 minutes.

Nvm. Misread you last post.

[Miguelito]

Auror has bronze now and has 3 warriors, all Bambur enchanted, and str 7 Bambur  in the border city, together with 3 workers which are likely meant to improve the wheat, so I count those as defensive for now. I expect him to build a the mines and a training yard and upgrade to axes at least before coming at us. Possibly he also wants construction and triboks first.



He also finally built a scout in his eastern seaside city, which revealed our spider . I can retreat it safely, but we lose the vision.


I had entertained the idea of a limited offensive, but I feel like that's most likely a non starter in light of this.


Somebody got a great commander, which has to be Military Strategy research. I feel much behind. We need Philo, BW, Sailing urgently, and none of those are actually economic techs (Sailing maybe, if we manage to uncover a route to Dave). Each of those takes 6-8 turns at current breakeven, ie an eternity.

Bob, I have a few mechanics questions. If you don't know the quick answers I can sandbox them of course, but first I wanted to ask:

• Do Auror's triboks get the dwarven race, ie do they move twice on hills?
  
• Does the elven movement (and attack) bonus apply to new forests, ie what appears with bloom?
  
• Does that volcano do anything?
  
• (general audience) I can't find an article detailing bulb values, ie beakers generated (not even for BTS). I know that it's a fixed value plus 3*population, but I can't find that value, nor how it gets modified with quick speed and map size. (answered, thanks civac )
  

I've got another one: The pedia for Summer and Winter Palace says in the strategy text that they also apply the God King bonus to the city that builds them. Sounds interesting, as we're unlocking Summer Palace next turn. But the mechanics part of the pedia just mentions maintenance reduction in nearby cities. So, does that work?

If it did, the new city (7) could be a good target. It's rather far from the capital (2nd to third ring) and has gems. Would take a while of course. Idris on the eastern coast would also be nice, but it will be on priest duty.

[Kaiser]

I have been looking at the save myself as well right now.

I was wondering about the Scout, maybe he tries to sneak some units by in the E? We can still leave the spider to watch this reagion without fear of loosing it right?
Why is there an Elefant between Idris and Brakkah? Would it not make more sense to bring it down to 10 to fortify there? Alternatively you can send him to the W and Fortify him as a speedbump on the tile E of the Cairo warning peak.
That spot looks like a good defense tile anyway as it has natural 50% defense and it nicely chokes this direction. I wonder if we should start building a counterstack on that tile.

Are the Builders near Kalocly building the 2 missing road segements next or will they improve the Sugar first?

The good thing about Cairo's power spiking is that Auror needs to be very concerned for his flank if he should attack us on the W front. I wonder if we should signal Auror peaceful intentions now that we have consolidated our preferred border situation. Time should remedy our situation when the cottages grow. However Mack seems to be running away with the game with his huge income.

[Miguelito]

• Animals don't get defense boni,  so no use in leaving them on forest hills. I think they still get a river bonus (because that's actually an attack malus), and I'm not sure about fortify but I think it doesn't apply (can't check right now,  but I think you can't fortify knights in BTS either,  right?). The elephant in the east is meant to be able to defend either city.  I also don't want to step out of borders with more units because of upkeep.
  
• The spider will stay in the area, and if Auror tries to chase  it we have promoted warriors to take care of that. But we lose vision on the city,  which was very relaxing to have especially as I'm terrified of galleys
  
• The Cairo power spike sign is a bit outdated, I think it's mostly just warriors.
  
• The workers at Kalocly finished the TR. I'm not sure if it's safe to build the sugar plantation,  but they will be improving that city.  also bringing more workers for the new city and the coastal highway
  
• The huge GNP might well be Dave who has just 3 cities to maintain. The monster GNP most certainly is mack's though, as is the CY top spot.
  
• I don't see how we could send nice signals to Auror since we don't even have a trade connection. I think he also is aware that very soon will be his best opportunity for an attack in this game,  and he doesn't really have a vector into Cairo. for now the best thing we can do is build up power to dissuade him. I will offer resource trades when possible, but that's after sailing (so like 20 turns )
  

[Miguelito]

...come turn 89 and suddenly we can trade resources with Auror.
There are 2 possible explanations for that:

1. After finishing the road to Kalocly on t88 and recalculating trade routes on the turn roll, we can now trade with Auror over coast. Argument against this: When I finished the turn, the TR commerce appeared in the city, but not the trade symbol by Auror's name
   
2. Auror, who got BW on t87, subsequently finished sailing 2 turns later. He can possibly put out the beakers to research it in 2 turns, but he would need to have saved up for both. Maybe he drew from his vaults? Argument in favour: I checked KTB and indeed nobody had sailing t88 and somebody (ie him or Cairo) does t89. With the counterargument to 1. I think this is likely. A nightmare. Galleys can move 4! tiles in EitB :crazyeye: :yikes: :shakehead:  
   

Fake edit: In fact, the pattern on his GNP graph look like he researched 2 techs in 2 turns without a follow up selected:



Question to lurkers, would these cities even be able to trade over coast without sailing? I think they could if they were both ours, but I'm not sure if that even works for foreign trade.



Anyhow, I start on the diplomatic offensive:


Message should be clear.



Let's each keep our bacon! (both border cities have pigs)



This one is real. An uneven trade in his favour, which is my attempt to make peace more attractive to him / guilt trip him into not attacking (I know, hopeless). We'll get a second gems with bronze working (and silk from a spider, in the far future)
Were this vanilla I'd be way more hesitant to offer this, as it would be an additional unit whip in each of his cities. But in FFH that's not as much of an issue. Bigger cities are an advantage for him, sure, but a slower one. It does allow him to spend money from his vaults, eg on axe upgrades, so maybe it's stupid. Still, best way to offer him something that he might value.

To lift the morale, we built a monument to our glorious conquest of Kalocly, in the place itself:



Event log:


My above comment was silly, of course great commanders can be born from combat. Hopefully Dave and mack enjoying themselves, and hopefully Dave with a little more enjoyment.

Speaking of, we're about to meet mackoti:


The island looks supsiciously barren. Maybe all the mithril is hidden there? Not that we'd care. A city would give us 2c trade routes, but it would also cost a lot (more in fact). The recent, closer plant sent the saving rate down by 11 gpt immediately. The new contact will give us sweet 6% KTB, right away on philo, so that's nice.

Power is spiking merrily:


Auor's explosion is probably a good thing. It can't be axes or paramanders yet (but very soon now), so either warriors or Soldiers of Kilmorph, both of which are preferable. I think warrior to axe upgrades are too costly to yield him more than just a few.
To my knowledge, Cairo can build just warriors and adepts*, which would be a bad investment (The warriors, in such numbers). Maybe he's concerned about our spike? Although our worry about Auror should be selfexplanatory. It's also possible that he has hunting and is building Divided Souls?

*As I mentioned, I checked KTB this turn. I found boni on BW (Auror), Festivals (both) KotE (Cairo), Sailing (Auror most likely), RoK (yup...).
Notably, nobody has Masonry (so Auror has some way at least to go for Trebuchets), Writing (Cairo is far away from sorcery yet), HBR, Warfare.

Back to uplifting news, we can claim one top spot in the demos for hte first time:



What to research after Philo?

• Sailing immediately would give us at least a small chance to counter galleys for a while with our own ones, although we would be unable to build triremes without bronze while Auror can, so any advantage will not last.
  
• BW gives us bronze weapons on some highly promoted warriors, and opens the second gems, a banana at Idris, and the dyes at city no. 9. City 9 is an issue though, as it will be very vulnerable to galley strikes. Otoh we need ports with hammers or else we'll be pinned down by his ships forever. hm. That also means that losing Kalocly would hit us harder than I would have expected.
  

It seems that BW still wins pretty clearly.

[Miguelito]

I also decided to stop being lazy and get clarity on these:

Bob, I have a few mechanics questions. If you don't know the quick answers I can sandbox them of course, but first I wanted to ask:

• Do Auror's triboks get the dwarven race, ie do they move twice on hills? They don't, phew. Will be bad enough.
  
• Does the elven movement (and attack) bonus apply to new forests, ie what appears with bloom? It doesn't
  
• Does that volcano do anything? no idea but I think not from what I've seen
  
• (general audience) I can't find an article detailing bulb values, ie beakers generated (not even for BTS). I know that it's a fixed value plus 3*population, but I can't find that value, nor how it gets modified with quick speed and map size. (answered, thanks civac )
  
• The pedia for Summer and Winter Palace says in the strategy text that they also apply the God King bonus to the city that builds them. Sounds interesting, as we're unlocking Summer Palace next turn. But the mechanics part of the pedia just mentions maintenance reduction in nearby cities. So, does that work? nope
  

[Bobchillingworth]

Sorry, I saw the questions just before heading to bed last night, but wasn't able to respond until now.



Volcanoes are purely cosmetic, but the event can set fire to neighboring forests or jungle tiles.