Whosit Clowns Around in EitB PBEM XXVI [SPOILERS!]

[Whosit]

So, I did some math on what Coombe View might contribute financially once it has full tile improvements:

city: 2f/1p/2c
gold: 0f/1p/8cx2
gems: 1f/1p/7c
wines: 3f/4c
reagents: 1f/3c
dye: 2f/5c
flood farm: 5f/1c

Total: 14f (7 tiles)/4p/38c
w/ Academy: 57 beakers

It ought to produce just enough food to work all major tiles. With an Academy, it alone will produce double my empires current economy. I think when the Monument is done, I'll actually have it build a Granary. Hopefully that will finish before it reaches size 7. The town does not have much in the way of production, so I'm not really sure how I'll get many city improvements built there.

[Whosit]

Well, here's an overview picture.

Mysticism just finished, and I just built my 4th Worker. Decided to go Warrior > Settler for the next Capital builds, and let's hope I don't need more than 2 Warriors to secure my next city site. With a little tile micro, I can get the Warrior in 1 turn and the Settler in 9, though that will necessitate not working one of the Incense tiles for those 8 turns. That will slow Runes research, so if anyone else is gunning for it, I may be in trouble. However, having popped Ancient Chants for free earlier, I may still be in a good spot. I really don't know, though.

Hm, I think the Settler is 10 turns with the current configuration. With that in mind, I think a delay of 1 turn on the Settler is worth it, since not working that 6 commerce will surely make more than a 1 turn delay in Runes. Also, the flood plains farm at our up and coming commerce town finishes next turn, and the first gold mine can start. That will take, what... 4 turns? Quick speed + desert? If that's right, that should finish on Turn 48. If it takes longer, then Turn 49. My verrrry rough estimates suggest that the Gold mine will cut 2 turns from the final time of Runes, so I may have that founded as early as Turn... 56? The Gem mine should be finished and worked partway through, as well, but I don't know if it will finish early enough to have an impact on the final research time. It could cut it by another turn, though, so that'd be nice.

I think I want Runes to found in Coombe View, so I guess I do want the tech to finish before my next city is founded.

I fooled around in SP the other night, and as Perpentach actually ended up with my current trait combo for a while (spiritual, industrious, financial), and let me tell you: That was a great combo for getting Runes of Kilmorph going. Free religion switch, Fast Markets, Fast Temples; I was rolling around in gold in no time! And my starting area in this game is less terrible than the one in the SP game, so maybe I can leverage that into something. Of course, that assumes my traits don't change at the last moment. (Of course, I'm not sure what I'll do once I settle the prime area. Hopefully by then I'll have enough muscle that I can settle north of "The Line" and just dare the Clan to do something--but considering the Clan's current power spikes, we'll see.)

Also, question time:

Since I can't find it in the game's civilopedia, what exactly does Barbarian and Horselord traits do? I know Barbarian means you're at peace with the Barbarians until you attack them, and that you get a -10% to research, but is there anything else? And I don't recall anything about the Horselord trait.

[Mardoc]

Regarding Mind Mana: the 3% is applied to each city after all other multipliers, but since partial beakers add up, it ends up equivalent to adding to your whole-civ rate. So it's 1 bonus bpt for every 33 bpt you produce. Not huge, probably not enough to be worth making Mind nodes for, but a handy little bonus.

Regarding the shrine it's +1gpt for each city with the religion, same as base. Where the money aspect comes in is through the number of cities you have of it when running Kilimorph as a state religion or no religion, +1gpt in each city (instead of culture), and the amount of gold from the Temples when built +2 gpt on each temple (correct me if my numbers are wrong people). Combine that with markets and you need significant city numbers and late game inflation before you start hurting for money.

That sounds right. I tend to think it's worth going for as Spiritual and not if you're not.

Since I can't find it in the game's civilopedia, what exactly does Barbarian and Horselord traits do? I know Barbarian means you're at peace with the Barbarians until you attack them, and that you get a -10% to research, but is there anything else? And I don't recall anything about the Horselord trait.

Barbarian is peace with the barbs until you attack them, hit the declare on barbarians spell, or are 50% higher score than your next highest competitor. The 10% research penalty stays regardless. Doesn't do anything else, no. Whether it's a bonus or penalty depends on circumstances and opinion, really.

Horselord gives Mounted units +1 move and +10% retreat chance. Hippus have it.

[Whosit]

Then the Clan is really close to hitting that 50% mark, though I imagine at this point it really wouldn't matter if they have to fight Barbarians.

And so long as my traits don't change at the last second, I'm still Spiritual, so that should help on the religion front. Thanks for the info!

[Whosit]

I keep forgetting that Coombe View has that fish. Maybe a quick dip to Fishing either before or after Festivals. Probably after. I could probably afford to run a few specialists there with the extra food. Perhaps a couple Merchants to pop the appropriate GP for the Kilmorph shrine?

[Whosit]

Gonna pose a few questions before I go off to bed in the hopes that I will receive answers by the morning.

Regarding Serdoa, my long term plan is to see the Clan of Embers burnt to the ground. Mighty hard task considering his current lead, but hey, dream big. Hopefully I can out-tech him but anyway, how can I go about this?

There are Mages, there are Cowtapults. What else is there for collateral damage? I know my army composition may change based on my traits. As I am not currently Arcane, I'm probably going to go with a non-magic approach for now. Are Bronze Warriors good enough, or would I want Swordsmen? I know I'll have some Freaks in my forces. At least the ones with good promotions. I know I need something better than warriors, and though I am kind of familiar with the early stages of the tech tree, I don't really know what makes sense, especially in MP. Oh, and Recon units. I know there are assassins at some point, but do things like Hunters make sense in an army?

Oh, and what about mounted units? I did say before that having a mounted force would make sense, since my borders will stretch so far.

Finally, I know almost nothing about the Wonders in the game. I don't know if I'll build many, but are there any that are especially good with a Kilmorph economy? (I really hope no one beats me to that.)

[Brian Shanahan]

I keep forgetting that Coombe View has that fish. Maybe a quick dip to Fishing either before or after Festivals. Probably after. I could probably afford to run a few specialists there with the extra food. Perhaps a couple Merchants to pop the appropriate GP for the Kilmorph shrine?

After. Fishing isn't all that strong early, unless you're Lanun.

Re the Kili shrine, run a mix of priests and merchants if you can, pagan temples and religious temples give priest slots too, get the GP that bit quicker.

Gonna pose a few questions before I go off to bed in the hopes that I will receive answers by the morning.

1)Regarding Serdoa, my long term plan is to see the Clan of Embers burnt to the ground. Mighty hard task considering his current lead, but hey, dream big. Hopefully I can out-tech him but anyway, how can I go about this?

There are Mages, there are Cowtapults. What else is there for collateral damage? I know my army composition may change based on my traits. As I am not currently Arcane, I'm probably going to go with a non-magic approach for now. Are Bronze Warriors good enough, or would I want Swordsmen? I know I'll have some Freaks in my forces. At least the ones with good promotions. I know I need something better than warriors, and though I am kind of familiar with the early stages of the tech tree, I don't really know what makes sense, especially in MP. Oh, and Recon units. I know there are assassins at some point, but do things like Hunters make sense in an army?

2)Oh, and what about mounted units? I did say before that having a mounted force would make sense, since my borders will stretch so far.

3)Finally, I know almost nothing about the Wonders in the game. I don't know if I'll build many, but are there any that are especially good with a Kilmorph economy? (I really hope no one beats me to that.)

1) Bronzed warriors are not good enough for a dedicated attack, especially against warrened Clan (two units every build). They can do as substitute collateral, if you have enough around when you attack, and they'll also do the MP duty in captured cities (EitB warriors are much, much better than BtS ones). I hardly ever attack with recon units, their malus on attacking cities is painful. However Bals recon units are somewhat boosted so they may be worthwhile. Catapults again are much better than their BtS equivalent (80% retreat odds), and also you can build chariots with HBR in the city(ies) with Siege Workshops. Even with a mage heavy strategy I tend to bring some along just in case.

2)With mounted units what matters is speed, speed and more speed. Horsemen will stand up to warriors on attack, and Horse Archers and Chariots to Axes. They have no champ equivalent though. Be prepared to lose units on attack (I often promote my first few attacking horses Flanking 1 and 2 just to get a decent chance of withdrawals), but they can really screw with a defenders strategy, esp with Raiders promo.

3)Wonders are not so important as in BtS. The Guild of the Nine [strike]gives free[/strike] allows you to buy Mercs (essential to deny to the Hippus, their UU is tied to the wonder), Guild of Hammers gives free forges everywhere, Tower of Eyes gives free dungeons everywhere (jail equivalents) and the Form of the Titan gives 2 exp on every unit built in your empire. Outside of that you've got the Bone Palace which is the Taj, the Heron Throne which upgrades the Maoi to world wonder status (handy to have not essential unless you go to the seas), and the rest I hardly ever build as they are very situational.

[Qgqqqqq]

Ewww you build Tower of Eyes?

[Whosit]

All that smoke makes me nervous... Partially due to possible fires, but also because in one of my first SP games, a shadow spawned from smoke. That would probably kinda kill me now.

So, lesse... worker plans at Coombe View have changed slightly because I keep forgetting about desert movement costs. It just means I'll make the gold and gem mines separately instead of both Workers working together. New citizen at the city is working a grassland forest, so the city should grow to size 3 in time to work both new tiles. Good.

I meant to ask about God King before, but forgot, so I just changed civics since I'm Spiritual. Of course, I didn't realize the +50% was to gold, not commerce, but I'm not paying civic costs yet, so I think the production bonus at the Capital is still good. And it'll help with the min/max research, anyway. I'm going to run out of gold a few turns before Way of the Earthmother finishes, but hopefully I'll need only one turn of gold to fund the rest of it. So, hopefully that wasn't a terrible move, though it will broadcast to everyone what tech I just did.

Gonna chop that other ancient forest next to the capital with the new worker, 'cuz why not? City 3 will probably get settled before Runes finishes, so that will probably be the Holy City, but... eh? I guess that's no big deal.

Oh, Brian, good idea to get the Pagan temple to run max merchant/priest. I forgot for a second that either GP can make the shrine. There should be enough food to run 4 specialists in the capital, and with the religion and temples and gold and gems, the happy cap should be plenty high, as well. Of course, I am looking to get the Sage first.

Tech wise... I like the Catapult/Chariot combo, though Chariots are really expensive! I'll probably be backing that all up with Swordsmen and Freaks. So here's what I'm thinking....

Way of the Earthmother > Festivals > Animal Husbandry > Bronze Working > Fishing > Masonry > Construction.

Festivals is obviously a very important tech for me, and as I've said before, it will mesh well with Kilmorph and my current traits (I really hope they stick around a bit longer). I decided to de-emphisize Fishing because it's only important for Coombe View right now, and even without the Fish, it can bring in enough commerce with the food it has. I'd rather be able to improve the Cow of city 3, and to see where Horses are. Bronze Working next so I can get Copper and chop jungles to get at my dyes. I'd like to have slightly tougher Warriors, too, and be able to build Swordsmen. Then Fishing, and then teching to Catapults/Chariots. I think this is the best order to go in. I think.

Where to go after that? Probably Education and Code of Laws so I can get my economy started. I'm pretty fortunate to have a lot of high commerce resources nearby (unless everyone else has the same). But I'll want cottages and aristocracy soon enough.

After the Settler, Jubilee should be able to knock out the infrastructure I need: Elder Council, the temples, maybe even a Granary. The production bonus will help with that. Oh, and a bunch of Freaks and a Market with Festivals. Are Carnivals really worth building when I'm not Creative? I think no. I won't need the Happiness bonus right now, and the bonus to culture won't really do much of anything. I don't think I need a Bard, either.

I guess that's pretty much it for this update. I just wish the turns would come faster somehow, so I can see if my plans succeed or fail all the sooner.

[Brian Shanahan]

Ewww you build Tower of Eyes?

I did once. I swear I misclicked.

Well it's actually a wonder where I'm always thinking, "I should build that in twenty turns or so when I complete X axes and kill off the Bannor", and then "Oh, I'll definitely start it in thirty turns when I've rebuilt my economy after absorbing 12 new cities", and finally when the AI builds it, "oh wait I didn't even have the tech. Maybe I should build it via these pointy sticks my champs are holding".

There is one good wonder I missed out on, the Pillar of Chains. It gives you the same effect as the Calabim Manors, i.e. one hammer per unhappy in the city it is built in. It is very good for turning a c.25 hpt city with good irrigation into a powerhouse.