Learning Capria FFH SG

[kjn]

Auric declaring and popping Stasis...wonderful. The guy's ego is so big he thinks he should be a god, but I think we can handle him. He can't conquer us in 20 turns, and we will crush him after that. One big worry is diplo: is Auric likely to be able to convince anyone else to join his war against us? If Jonas joins Auric we will be in very serious trouble.

I doubt the AIs will do anything while in stasis, and I think we can manage to take the war to Auric.

Exactly what is and is not affected by Stasis? I am assuming that existing units can move and act as normal, but no city produces anything -- culture, beakers, gold, hammers, GPP, etc. Am I correct that cities do not grow or starve -- their food situation is frozen? What about barbs -- do fresh barbs continue to spawn during Stasis?

I think the following can be done:

• Disciples can spread religions, and Order disciples can spawn due to religious spreads
  
• Units can be upgraded
  
• Diplo deals (tech trade, OBs et c) can be done and cancelled
  
• Units can move and act normally
  
• Chops will be queued up in the city, and don't decay
  

No idea how the barbs will act. Not that there's much room for barbs around our lands.

Plans for my turnset: well, play defense is about it. I guess I can try to make some progress with workers and continue caravel exploration, just have to keep them safe. Otherwise there is not much I can do.

Actually, I think with good force management that you can take the fight to Auric, and take Sopor. But we need to concentrate our forces to St Andrews and Paris.

How much of an army does Auric have? I presume he still has Larry, Curly, and Moe somewhere. Quite a few javelin throwers last time I looked, but mostly assigned as garrisons so most of them should not be coming after us. Does he have the Priests of Winter? Or adepts? I will keep an eye on the south and other areas -- since we had OB Auric had moved units through our territory so they could pop back from several directions.

Get a hawk to Heidelberg, and you should get a pretty good look. F5 and select Auric will give you a list of his known units, and will help you locate them on the map.

Has cancellation of OB with Auric cut trade connections with Jonas, Flauros, etc.?

No.

Can we change civics during Stasis? No immediate effect, but if we have a different set of civics we would like to be in once Stasis is over there is no reason not to make a change early enough for the 10 turn delay to finish.

Yes. You should probably go to war civics, and maybe even leave RoK.

I will aim to play the full period of Stasis unless it looks like we will have problems holding our cities, or if someone else joins the war.

Agreed. Be careful out there, and do it to them before they do it to you!

[Brian Shanahan]

Ok. Some notes on what we should do next:

Cancel all worker orders, and note progression. We need to (a) keep them alive, (b) have them available for roading for our forces, © clear jungle once it's safe.

There is an Illian hunter down south, between Uppsala and Torro, that must be killed, so our workers can get to connect our cities and clear jungle.

We have two Stonewardens in Coimbra. One of them should heal our withered hunter in Praha ASAP. The other one should probably go north.

Switch forces north towards Auric. Send both privateers to control the waters between Santo Domingo and Gostai. One of the Stonewardens in Coimbra should go north. We can probably shift 2 or 3 axemen north too, from Oxford, Wien, and Coimbra. The two hunters on the borders to Jonas should get to St Andrews ASAP.

That means we can skip the monument in Vallus, and use a disciple instead, once we come out from stasis. Whatever religion we will use next works. Monuments, ECs, or Markets aren't that hot builds anymore.

The peninsula north of Domir has a wolf and oodles of bears! That means we are only a PoL away from the Grand Menagerie in Oxford, but we will need to get a hunter there (probably by chopping a galley in Domir), and hawk support from Domir, since the peninsula looks quite cramped with units.

Get the hawks to Heidelberg (to scout out Auric) and Domir (to check the peninsula to its north).

Look at upgrading at least one of our mammoths to a War Elephant. The C2 one is probably the best option.

Salamanca should build a courthouse instead of the market.

We can probably take Sopor with the forces we have available, if we can get them reasonably concentrated.

Pity you didn't switch to Order or Empy, and managed to get one or more priests out. Having even a single Confessor would be very handy right now. Ditto for Stirrups before Mathematics. But we should manage. Auric has no counter to our veteran iron axes with Stonewarden support.

Pretty much this. I never saw the withered hunter. I just sent the Kili priest north as Coimbra was the best place for him defensively, every other defensive point either being strongly held, easily reinforcable or a production point for army anyways.

As regards the religions, I was suprised by the war dec. The AI is wary about unequal war usually in the game, and I was caught out. We don't really have the temples yet to get going on Order Priests (should have built one in Bologna) but the switch would have been nice for future work towards this.

[kjn]

Pretty much this. I never saw the withered hunter. I just sent the Kili priest north as Coimbra was the best place for him defensively, every other defensive point either being strongly held, easily reinforcable or a production point for army anyways.

As regards the religions, I was suprised by the war dec. The AI is wary about unequal war usually in the game, and I was caught out. We don't really have the temples yet to get going on Order Priests (should have built one in Bologna) but the switch would have been nice for future work towards this.

Yeah, but Auric has stasis, so it might make him a bit more aggressive. As long as we only have to deal with Auric, we will probably be fine.

Anyway, since you got the settler out of Bologna, I doubt we could have gotten both the temple and the Confessor out during your turnset. I was just looking at the Aquae Sucullus progress.

Haphazard: do you know how to re-assign hawks and double-use Great Commanders? You will have to use both quite extensively if we are to take the fight to Auric and don't be blindsided anymore.

[DaveV]

One more thing I haven't seen anyone mention about stasis: watch your cash. On the first and last turns of stasis, you'll experience full costs and no income, so it's pretty easy to lose some units to strikes as you're emerging from stasis.

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the cash flow tip, DaveV!

Haphazard: do you know how to re-assign hawks and double-use Great Commanders? You will have to use both quite extensively if we are to take the fight to Auric and don't be blindsided anymore.

Attaching or detaching a great commander acts as a spell cast, correct? So a unit with great commander can attack, then detach, followed by another unit attaching and attacking. I think I have this right. Of course, there is the issue of the unit dying....

Hawks can be rebased to a city and then fly a recon on the same turn. I am not sure about rebasing to a hunter -- I think you have to wait until the next turn to run a recon after that? You can also shift a hawk between hunters if you have more than one in a stack.

If we are to switch civics, which ones do we want to end up in? Since we are in Stasis the changes will not take effect until later, but we can switch within the first 9 turns and be in new civics with ability to switch again as soon as Stasis ends. But which ones do we want?

Religion...what do we want to switch to? Order?

I will move the priests and see to curing our withered hunter, as suggested. Privateers also. Since we have met Ethne, do we want to continue exploring with our caravel or shift it back for defense? (I am not sure exactly where our ships are at the moment, have not had a chance to open the save yet.)

On Sopor, do we actually want the city? This is essentially the same situation we had before with the barb city there -- the land is just so terrible that I am not sure it is worth keeping. Assuming we carry the war forward and wipe out Auric, our culture should cover most of that area to prevent barb spawns. Maybe just raze the city?

[kjn]

Attaching or detaching a great commander acts as a spell cast, correct? So a unit with great commander can attack, then detach, followed by another unit attaching and attacking. I think I have this right. Of course, there is the issue of the unit dying....

Yes. I checked, and our HotS axe (cover+CR1) has a 93% chance against the top defender in Sopor right now. Add the Great commander, and it should be in the 97+ range.

We also have two, so even losing one won't be too bad a blow.

Hawks can be rebased to a city and then fly a recon on the same turn. I am not sure about rebasing to a hunter -- I think you have to wait until the next turn to run a recon after that? You can also shift a hawk between hunters if you have more than one in a stack.

Correct. Normally, I prefer to keep the hawks in cities, so you can shift them quickly where they are needed.

If we are to switch civics, which ones do we want to end up in? Since we are in Stasis the changes will not take effect until later, but we can switch within the first 9 turns and be in new civics with ability to switch again as soon as Stasis ends. But which ones do we want?

Given Dave's info, we should probably go for low-cost and XP-boost.

Eg City States-Apprenticeship/Military state-Conquest. But I doubt it'd matter much, since we probably won't get any units out.

Religion...what do we want to switch to? Order?

Or we can stay in RoK for the diplo bonus with Ethne for now. But I think we should be ready to switch out once we leave stasis.

I will move the priests and see to curing our withered hunter, as suggested. Privateers also. Since we have met Ethne, do we want to continue exploring with our caravel or shift it back for defense? (I am not sure exactly where our ships are at the moment, have not had a chance to open the save yet.)

We have a scouting caravel and a hunter far to the west. I'm not sure they'll do much good against Auric, though they might manage to pull a surprise from the north, but that will take a while.

On Sopor, do we actually want the city? This is essentially the same situation we had before with the barb city there -- the land is just so terrible that I am not sure it is worth keeping. Assuming we carry the war forward and wipe out Auric, our culture should cover most of that area to prevent barb spawns. Maybe just raze the city?

Sopor has Order, so I believe razing the city will increase the AC a fair bit. We can probably fix it at least partly with Sanctify, but we don't have any adepts yet.

[Brian Shanahan]

One more thing I haven't seen anyone mention about stasis: watch your cash. On the first and last turns of stasis, you'll experience full costs and no income, so it's pretty easy to lose some units to strikes as you're emerging from stasis.

Didn't mention this because we got an infusion of cash during the set from an Emoish backer. We have well enough money to carry on.

[haphazard1]

OK, thanks for the suggestions everyone. I am aiming to play in a couple hours. (Need dinner first -- a hungry player is a distracted player. )

[haphazard1]

OK, 20 turns played to get us to the end of Stasis.

The war against Auric is going well. Other areas...well, not too much changed for obvious reasons. Diplo is a bit of an issue, as you will see.

Turn 239 (inherited)

- While checking the state of our empire I notice a barb city has spawned southeast of Basel, below the alt-Red site.
- Shuffle units around, etc.
- Pop the wreck with the caravel, get 155 gold.

Turn 240

- Evermore takes over the tiles directly north of Coimbra, including the sheep and the Tomb of Sucellus. We lose our life mana.
- An Ilian scout appears south of Yggy city.
- Our GC axe kills the stray javelin thrower near St Andrews, with 0.7/7.0 health left. But a win is a win.
- Jonas has a settler south of Tlatelolco. If he settles where he is now, we will overlap on the grass cottage tile.
- Amelanchier has lunatics, and also Saverous. If he declares on us we will be in very serious trouble.
- Hmmm, Jonas showing a large drop in power? (More later on this.)

Turn 241

- Empyrean spreads in Vallus (the second island city by Santo Domingo).
- A volcano erupted by Evermore. Forests are burning. Poor elves.
- Building of Aquae Sucellus is halted in Bologna due to loss of life mana. I set the city to a stonewarden as a placeholder.
- Jonas founds Ator as expected.

Turn 242

- A Clan galley appears off the coast by Basel! How did it get over here? Is the map cylindrical?
- Our caravel finds an sizable island WSW of the Calabim. It also finds a griffon there.
- I upgrade the C2 elephant to war elephant. Not much has happened so far militarily, as I move the hunters and other forces into place for an attack on Sopor.

Turn 243

- Ethne asks for Warfare. Declined, to avoid offending Jonas who regards Ethne as his worst enemy.
- Hawk recon of that bit of land northwest of Santo Domingo reveals whales, and three tiles of frosty junk land.
- Our caravel survives the griffon attack. It also finds Maenalus. It then pops the wreck again, and we get a treasure chest on the whale island we just discovered. We will need to get a ship and unit up there.
- I destroy an Ilian workboat with the galley from Santo Domingo, which I have been moving north around the Ilian civ to get it to Domir so we can hit the barb area north of Letum Frigus.

Turn 244

- Auric moves a trio of javelin throwers into our territory north of St Andrews. Hawk recon also spots an adept in Garduk.
- An axe kills the Ilian scout south of Yggy. Now to chase down that hunter....
- Hawk recon of Acheron reveals a stack of highly promoted disciples, and also a Son of the Inferno. Nasty.
- Our caravel explores the same wreck a third time, and it turns into a clam tile. This island is a long ways from us, but has pigs, sugar, and now clams plus a couple unknown interior tiles. There is room for a couple cities. I don't know if the AI will expand to it or not, is it good at that kind of thing?

Turn 245

- Our hunter in Ethne's lands is killed by a barb axe.
- The Clan city of Renegade Hill has a talented carnival performer.
- The Calabim are the world leaders in tin production.
- Our galley pillages Garduk's fish as it sails by.
- Our scorpion kills a Clan fawn, and gains enough XP to promote for Mobility.
- I kill 2 of Auric's trio of javelin throwers, using the war elephant (earning a promotion), an axe that forces a withdrawal, and then a warrior for cleanup (earning a promotion).
- Hawk recon southeast of Basel reveals the barb city of Dirage, 1S of the alt-Red site. It misses the copper, so I recommend we burn it and settle the alt-Red site. I have placed signs on the map. The city also contains a Clan disciple of Leaves, probably dropped by that galley that came by.

Turn 246

- Furs are hooked up at Domir. A road has been completed to Yggy-city (whatever we choose to call it, Torrelorial just doesn't feel right).
- A GC axe kills the third roaming javelin thrower by St Andrews.

Turn 247

- Jonas adopts Aristocracy and Guardian of Nature.
- Our galley pillages Tolero's fish as it sails by.
- Auric moves Larry, Curly, and Moe into our territory near Paris. Our top hunter responds and kills Larry. I move up additional forces in support.
- Our axe south of Yggy kills the Ilian hunter. The area is secure for the moment.
- I have been moving our Stonewardens around, casting Shield of Faith on every garrison and unit. I think I have reached everyone at this point.
- Upgrade the other two elephants to war elephant so they can participate in the upcoming attack on Sopol.
- Our scorpion is being chased by 4 Clan archers and a Clan fawn. This must be quite a sight, fleeing across the desert.
- Amelanchier has swords in his stacks.

Turn 248

- Curly and Moe retreat towards Sopol. Our forces follow.
- An Ilian hunter enters our territory near St Andrews. An axe forces a withdrawal, and a newly harnessed war elephant finishes it off to earn a promotion.
- Hawk recon shows Auric has built another adept in Garduk.

Turn 249

- Move units into position to attack Sopol next turn.
- Our caravel pops Maenalus, and we get a friendly sea serpent. Strong unit, but very very slow and it is a long way from any place useful. Oh well, could have been much worse.

Turn 250

- Sopor increases to 20% defense this turn.
- Attack!

GC axe kills javelin thrower.
WE kills javelin thrower. (Auric has promoted a lot of javelin throwers with shock, giving our axes poorer odds.)
WE kills javelin thrower, earns a promo.
Flanking 3 horse withdraws but damages a hunter.
WE withdraws but damages a javelin thrower.
GC axe kills Curly.
Axe kills Moe.
Horseman kills warrior, earns a promo.
GC stonewarden kills javelin thrower.
GC hunter kills hunter and captures the city!

We get 130 gold and capture a worker. Not a great city, but it has Empyrean and can borrow a couple farms from Heidelberg to become something respectable down the road. Overall this fight went even better than I hoped. Most battles were at very good odds, but I expected to lose a couple units and instead we take the city without losses.

Turn 251

- Amelanchier cancels our sheep for 2 gpt deal, since he now controls Coimbra's sheep.
- We get the list of Most Advanced civs: us, Jonas, Ethne, Flauros, Amelanchier, and Auric in dead last.
- Auric is building more adepts, and not just in Garduk now.
- I move the two hunters with GCs attached toward Domir, where they will board our galley to try to capture that wolf for our Grand Menagerie in the making. This will be dangerous, as hawk recon reveals two Pristin gargoyles, about 10 bears, a barb archer, and some lizardmen moving around up there.

Turn 252

- Evermore has a miracle performed at the city wall, bringing OO pilgrims to the city.
- Our caravel finds a pair of 1 tile islands west of the Elohim, each with a fish. One has a barrow and 2 skellies.

Turn 253

- Empyrean spreads to Yggy-city.
- I have sailed one of our privateers around the south and up the east coast, heading for Ilian territory. Along the way it sinks Jonas' galley.
- Our intrepid hunters make an amphibious landing and capture the wolf! One GC is attached to an accompanying axe for defense, as two Pristin gargoyles and a bear threaten the expedition.
- Auric is willing to talk. But I don't see any reason to do so. By declaring war on us he has chosen unwisely! Besides, popping Stasis is a capital offense.

Turn 254

- GC axe defends and kills a gargoyle, while the unwounded hunter defends and captures a bear. Sopor needs some culture, one dancing bear coming right up!
- Well, maybe. The other gargoyle plus a barb archer and another bear threaten the expedition. And the axe and hunters are all wounded. I retreat everyone but the bear onto the galley (filling all cargo slots), and move the bear west in the hope that it can survive until the boat returns. If not, there are a dozen other bears up here.

Turn 255

- Jonas asks for Open Borders, refused.
- Flauros asks for KotE, refused.
- The bear survives and escapes onto the returned galley.
- Our scorpion defends and kills a Clan fawn.

Turn 256

- Flauros adopts Aristocracy and Religion. We get some favorite civic diplo bonus.
- Auric now has Enchanted Blade on some of his units.
- Barb galleys appear near Domir and the future Blue site.

Turn 257

- Auric adopts Agrarianism.
- A barb trireme appears west of Yggy. Strength 7 against our privateer's 8, not great odds. I run the privateer north, if it can reach a city it can shift crews for +1 strength.

Turn 258

- I have been moving our forces north towards Tolero and have brought the hunters up to join them with the GCs. Auric has been moving units back and forth between Tolero and Garduk, and this turn there are only 5 javelin throwers and an adept in the city. Seizing the moment, I attack!

GC axe kills javelin thrower.
GC war elephant kills javelin thrower, earns promo.
GC axe kills javelin thrower.
War elephant dies.
Horseman kills javelin thrower, earns promo.
Flanking 3 horseman withdraws against an adept, doing no damage at all.
Axe kills javelin thrower.
Stonewarden kills adept and takes the city!

We get 114 gold. The city is junk -- pop 2, no buildings, no food since I pillaged the fish. With Auric having a ton of units nearby I don't think we can defend it anyway, so I burn Tolero to the ground!

Turn 259

- Stasis finally ends and the world returns to something resembling normal.
- Flauros offers 230 gold for KotE. Tempting, but I refuse. We can probably get the deal if desired.
- Jonas demands we cancel deals with Ethne. I hate to do it, but I agree: Jonas has a lot of units and we are not in a position to fight him right now. We lose the iron and get a negative with Ethne. Not a good choice either way on this one, sadly.
- Our galley by Domir (which I shifted to a combat crew) defends against the barb galley and kills it. But it is heavily damaged, and now a barb trireme appears. I recommend hiding in the city, and we will probably lose the crabs.
- Our wolf reaches Oxford and is added to the carnival. Only a tiger cage left to go, and we can build the Grand Menagerie.

I have not moved units this turn or adjusted cities -- a lot of things need to be changed as workers have improved many tiles, borders have changed, etc. Everything will need to be checked, builds and tiles adjusted, etc. We may want to change civics as well -- we probably want to build more military to continue the war against Auric, maybe to conquer Amelanchier, and to deter Jonas.

Jonas has 12 gold per turn available -- trade him fish or deer for his money.

Watch out for the two barb triremes -- one near Domir, the other by our privateer south of Tlatelolco.

The northeast privateer had a sea serpent 2S of it last turn -- we are fast enough to run away from it.

An item of interest is the power graph:



Note the big drops by Jonas, Amelanchier, and (to a smaller degree) Ethne. I think the cost hits from Stasis did cause strikes and disbanding for them. Every little bit helps us.

The war went well, but that last decision on cancelling deals with Ethne...I am not sure I made the right choice there. Maybe we can make a new trade? Although that may just get another demand from Jonas....

Good luck!

The Save - Turn 259

[kjn]

Good job against Auric and catching that wolf!

Did you move the privateers from the south bay north to use against Auric?

That Clan galley was nosing around near Sushi during Brian's turnset. Wonder where it's going?

Diplo-wise, yes, I think you played it exactly backwards. Ethne is no threat to us winning the game, and instead was poised to become a solid ally. Jonas is our main rival, and we can't win without fighting him, and now we've lost one of our major advantages against him with the loss of iron.