Mr. Cairo's Memory of Trees [spoilers]

[Mr. Cairo]

Those are all good Enya songs but I’m surprised you haven’t founded Orinoco Flow yet.

Not enough cities yet, and besides, that's an obvious one   Everyone knows Orinoco Flow

I used the same naming scheme in my first pitboss, 32, and I had a lot more cities in that game than I'll ever (probably) get in this one. I had to go pretty deep to name them all

[Mr. Cairo]

Turn 85, Barb city capture.

I took the barb city this turn, softened the Archers with Lions, and then killed them with the Priests (to give them more xp).

I then used a Disciple of Leaves to get it out of resistance right away. In retrospect, probably not worth it, I just wanted it to contribute immediately. It cost me 5 gold/turn I think in additional maintenance costs, 4 once its trade route gets online. So my economy can handle it. With my cap having 24 base hammers God King is still worthwhile.

Next turn I'll settle another spot down towards Dave.

I got Bronze Working a little while ago and am getting into all that jungle, but I need more and more workers, so 3 of my 5 cities are building them right now. I'm getting Cartography next, and then maybe Archery, to get Gilden Silveric, and probably some Archers as well. Then I want to go straight for Warfare -> Military Strategy. I think at least a few civs already have Warfare, but idk how many have Philosophy (Mil Strat's pre-req), no other religions have been founded and three of my four rivals are at war, so there's a good chance I can get the free Great Commander. Even if I don't, Military State is a great civic.

The empire:

I'll settle the X to the south by the Rice and Wheat next turn.
You can also see where Dave burned one of mack's cities, although I don't think the war is going well for Dave anymore (see graphs below).

My cities:

Health is an issue, but I'll get getting Rice and Wheat soon, so that'll help. Duruptus will only end up providing 20% commerce since there doesn't appear to be Corn on this map, but I think its still worthwhile to build. That Gorilla was the first animal my Hunter captured, they've since got an Elephant and a Giant Spider. It needs to heal after beating the Giant Spider, but hopefully there'll still be plenty of animals to grab out in the jungle. More Spiders would be very nice indeed.


Second city, not a lot of hammers, but that'll change once I get forests on all these tiles. I know that the forests take a commerce away from the riverside tiles, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for an extra hammer and eventual extra food. Plus the health, and better Worldspell.


I'm going to run 2 Priests here, and possible swap to Pacifism for a bit, to get another Great Prophet for my shrine.


With not a lot of improved tiles to work, I've been keeping this city's pop down a bit building workers. But once I get rid of all that Jungle I should be able to get it to grow like a weed. Fishing would also help this city a lot, there's Crabs in that lake.


Just conquered barb city. Three pop is great, and this has so much food. Three floodplains, Wheat, and Bananas (1S of the city centre), plus all that jungled grassland to the West. It's somewhat balanced out by the desert to the east, but that desert and the peaks make for a good natural border between me and whoever eventually expands there (Auro or superjm). Although I doubt the map will fill up to that extent before the game ends. But I can only hope

Demos:

Solidly ahead in Food, Land Area, and Population, and I've been staying in 2nd in the other categories for most of the game too, although Dave has been catching up in GNP. Except for Soldiers. I know that mack and Auro are ahead of me, but since I still haven't met Auro I don't know who's in first.

Graphs:

Here you can see that Dave's attack hasn't gone so well, I imagine he was hoping Auro was keeping enough of mack's power tied down that he wouldn't have enough to defend against Dave as well, and to be fair he did burn a city. But I don't think mack defended it since there were no dips in power the turn it burned. I really wish I could see Auro's graphs, so I could have idea of how that war is going.


Mack's GNP does finally appear to be suffering from this long war, although it's still ridiculously high. Me and Dave will catch up eventually. I have no idea what superjm is up to.


Here is where I'm really starting to catch up with mack, and I'll only get better in this category as I expand and bloom forests everywhere, whereas mack appears stuck thanks to this war.


I suppose here is where superjm is competitive, but I think with my recent city acquisition and next turn's city founding, I should take a pretty good lead here. Food isn't as important a resource when whipping isn't a thing, but it's still indicative of growth, and since this game doesn't look like it'll end soon, I like what this graph indicates about my long-term chances.


Long-term plans, I'm not entirely sure. I might be able to conquer Dave with my Priests and Fawns and stuff, but not very likely, unless he's completely screwed himself with this fight against mack. But assuming one of mack and Auro eventually win, I need something to deal with their units.
Mobius Witches or Ghosts en masse are too good for Fawns and PoL. So I was looking at the tech three thinking of the best paths available to me. One potential is Horsemen, promoted to Mobility and Commando I could possibly threaten a kind of mutually assured destruction, or just launch a surprise attack at their cities.
But even long term, that unit line has its limits. I could go for Mages of my own, but that's really far away, and takes time to get strong at.
I think the easiest path, if not necessarily the best, is to continue along the FoL religious path. Hidden Paths for a start for the Hero there, and to unlock Woodsman 2 and Satyr upgrades for my Fawns.
And then, probably with the help of a Great Prophet bulb (or two), Commune with Nature for Yvain and Druids. Yvain in particular looks like a lot of fun, running around on mountains invulnerable to attack, causing mayhem (likely wishful thinking here, I'll admit).
But the other paths I see, especially the Sorcery one, looks like they'll just be too slow, and I'm already partway down this route, so why not.
Commune With Nature is an expensive tech though, I'll have to do some testing to see how much of it a bulb will complete on Quick.

Unfortunately, I don't know if I'll get the chance to grow enough Forests in my territory for me to be able to use my Worldspell offensively. I really need a lot, and have them close to my target, for the Treants to be used on the attack.

Anyway, for now, I'm getting to develop and build in peace, while the two strongest players duke it out to an apparent stalemate and my closest neighbor is throwing his strength away on what appears to be an unwise attack. So I can't really complain  

[Mr. Cairo]

I've been thinking, even if I don't get sorcery quickly, getting adepts and body mama needs to be a priority. Mobility is so so key in ffh2, even just giving warriors and tigers an extra move for a turn increases their value and ability by a huge amount.

[Mr. Cairo]

Note to self:

Fishing allows trade on Rivers in EitB, not Sailing. I just got fishing and to my surprise suddenly had a trade route to Dave (who I have OB with), mack, and Auro (who I haven't even met yet). That's a decent chunk of commerce I've missed out on, should have got Fishing a while ago.

[Mr. Cairo]

Also, I've been looking around without success to find how to turn on the combat log. I haven't needed it so far, but it would be nice for the future to see odds after defensive battles. Can a kind lurker tell me how?

[tizer]

Also, I've been looking around without success to find how to turn on the combat log. I haven't needed it so far, but it would be nice for the future to see odds after defensive battles. Can a kind lurker tell me how?

from https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/w...og.300086/ 

you can reenable it by setting USE_COMBAT_RESULT_CALLBACK to 1 in the file Pythoncallbackdefines.xml (Assets-XML)

[Mr. Cairo]

Also, I've been looking around without success to find how to turn on the combat log. I haven't needed it so far, but it would be nice for the future to see odds after defensive battles. Can a kind lurker tell me how?

from https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/w...og.300086/ 

you can reenable it by setting USE_COMBAT_RESULT_CALLBACK to 1 in the file Pythoncallbackdefines.xml (Assets-XML)

Thanks, I suppose I should ask in the tech thread about doing this? Idk if it's something that should be left on or off for every player in the game.

[Mr. Cairo]

New turn report:


I'm up to 5 Priests of Leaves and they've been Blooming all over the place. I sure am glad that even New Forests provide the hammer, it's been helping my production. Next turn I I'll start building a Mage Guild in my cap, should only take 2 turns, and then I'll make a few Adepts. Although, I'll probably interrupt that plan to try and build the Bone Palace in my cap, I had kinda forgotten about it, but I have Marble in my borders I can connect and a lot of hammers in my cap, with the Marble it should only take 6 turns, maybe 5 with some overflow. With a Golden Age I should be able to tech Alteration, which will let me get Body Mana for my adepts to cast Haste. Beyond that tech I want to get Construction, Festivals, and HBR, not necessarily in that order, before continuing along the religious tech path. Another

Also, my tame Spider has seen another Spider trapped in my territory, so I'm going to try and grab it with my Hunter, I'll probably need a Tiger to soften it up though, it's on a jungle hill and has C2. That Hunter was going to and contact Auro, but I suppose that'll have to wait for a scouting Fawn to get there the long way around, north of Mack.

My cities:

I swapped out of Religion for Nationalism since I've been building a lot of units, so I've to stop my cap growing beyond 13. I might go back to Religion once I can revolt again. I don't know, it was probably a mistake to swap out in the first place, even if I was losing hammers thanks to Apprenticeship.


Blooming on riverside tiles takes away a commerce, so I'm not going to do it everywhere (and obviously not on farms anywhere, since the hammer is lost thanks to Agrarianism). But here the forests have made a huge difference, this city had pretty much no hammers before. After this Fawn I'm going to build a bunch of Warriors. I need more garrisoning my cities in case Mack decides to try and send Ghosts to burn my cities. I've been relying on his seemingly continuous war with Auro and Dave letting me get away with smaller garrisons, but I don't know if much is still happening on that front, and I don't want to lose a winnable game because I was too lazy.


I think I'll build a Settler here after the Fawn, it'll be at the happy cap and I don't want to waste all that food. Probably a worker first now that I think about it, still got a lot of jungle to chop down around my current cities, and any more I found will have that problem too.


Finished a WB this turn, so next turn it'll have all the more food and continue to grow. I think I'll bloom forests on those riverside tiles and put lumbermills there. 2/2/1 tiles that'll eventually become 3/2/1 tiles seem pretty good, and I could use the hammers. To do that I need Archery, which might actually be the next tech I get. I get a bonus to Archery units and my Hero is at Archery, so it's not that bad of a tech, even if I'll never benefit from the chopping bonus. Or maybe not, see below.


Building a worker after this Warrior because I'm running out of useful tiles here, so instead of growing onto 1/0/0 or 0/1/0 tiles and increasing my expenses I'll just build a worker or two.


In a similar situation to the previous city, but can work those lake tiles and keep growing. Right now I'm chopping that hill so I can put a mine there so this city can start producing Warriors in a decent time. Another city that'll benefit from riverside lumbermills. Unfortunately, I just found out that lumbermills require fully grown forests. So maybe workshops? I could just keep going with the cottages along the rivers, and put workshops on the non-riverside grassland tiles that I can Bloom forests in. That might be the best route to go. Archery would still be a useful tech for the units/Hero though.

Demos:



Graphs:









Mack is still way ahead in GNP, somehow, I don't want to think about his unit costs from that power graph. But in hammers and food I've taken over. If I can keep on developing and expanding, I should take over in GNP eventually. Maybe I'll need to attack mack though, in case he gets too far ahead in tech and starts actually winning his wars, instead of the stalemate he's apparently stuck in now.

[Mr. Cairo]

Finally met Auro, or rather, he met me, as I was bombarded with trade requests from his upon opening the turn. First an OB+World Map trade, which I accepted. Then he asked for my Air mana, which I also accepted, letting all his Witches take Air 2 will surely help in his war with mack (more on that below). I also gave him a spare Wheat. I didn't give him my Life mana that he asked for, I want the health. I also didn't accept a trade of my Wheat+an Incense for his Dye. Idk why he asked for Wheat for free and also asked for it in another trade, but in any case I need it for health and for Duruptus, so I rejected that and just offered to trade my spare Incense for his Dye.

But of most interest, I finally get his power graph:


All those spikes must be summons, he already has a second death mana, so I'm assuming Spectres? It looks like there was a big fight recently, that Auro got the better of according to this graph. But I don't know for sure, because according to the demos I'm now #2 in power, so there must have been even more fighting in the turn that the graph does't show.
But the most important thing is that their war is still raging, so I don't think I have to worry as much about mack trying to sneakily burn my cities with Ghosts any time soon. But unless it looks like mack is going to win that war, I don't see any reason to get directly involved either. And even then I don't really have the capacity, yet.

At home I got Masonry this turn so I can start to quarry the Marble next turn. It'll take a while (damn lazy Elves), so I'll have time to get a couple of Adepts out of my cap. But with some decent overflow, I should be able to get the Bone Palace in just 5 turns once I have the Marble.

Demos:

[Mr. Cairo]

Auro and mack have made peace. Which is really annoying considering the free stuff I'm giving Auro. I wouldn't have accepted those if I knew he was backing out of the war. I expect Dave to make peace as well. Well, time to stuff my cities with Warriors. Or get Archery and put some archers in my cities. With Archers I'd feel a lot more comfortable against mack's Ghosts, they're bad at attacking cities anyway, but Archers are so good at defending cities that I wont need a bunch of them to defend against some kind of alpha-strike. One question, I'm assuming that even invisible units need OB or a war to enter into someone else's territory?

In terms of attacking Mack, I need to wait till Sorcery for that, or go for Honor and Ratha/Radiant Guard, or get to Hidden Paths and build Kithra Kyriel. That last one is probably the easiest, but it only gives me a single unit that can see his invisible stuff.

Here's why Auro made peace:

I get it, it doesn't make me happy, but I get it.