[SPOILERS] PB1- Mardoc buys a can of paint for Thoth and Ellimist

[Thoth]

I do believe Ellimist was referring to the tech, not the gameplan .

oops.

[Mardoc]

Been thinking about this, I'd like to suggest a change.

t109: We finish Hunting with Elohim Beakers. Trigger Calabim GA. Tech Archery.
T110: Philosophy
t111: Military Strategy
T112: We do Kote (Calabim + Elohim if needed)
t113: start Fued at full bore
t116: start Smelting at full bore
t118: start IW at full bore

So t120/121 IW and Vamps.

Then we backfill Animal Handling and head to Mithril asap while building/drafting Orgres/Vamps/Moroi.



And we aim to do some killin' by t125 latest. Sooner preferred.

Why? Well, because I really do believe that Command Posts will pay for themselves, in time to matter. It takes 400 hammers run through a Command Post to pay for itself, if you neglect the value of the XP. From T116 to T125 is probably long enough to run 400 hammers through most Calabim cities. That does two things: first, with this many vamps, we're not going to be able to Feast them all, so the 3 XP extra makes a big difference. Second - it makes the run up a lot more sudden. Command Posts won't inflate our Power like early Vamps will. At the moment, they're talking dogpile, but I don't honestly think they're altering plans. They still think they have time. Command Posts first will make our Power spike even more sudden. Every turn we don't have Feudalism is a turn that they aren't panicking yet.

Going for Command Posts first will mean that we knock out our pile of vamps, about the same number, with 3 more XP each and in 10 turns instead of 12. But then every reinforcement comes a little bit earlier, every non-vamp has one more promotion (Mob II Hunters, for example, instead of Mob I).

And, well, it makes it possible for us to have a decent shot at the free Great Commander, too. Which means that Elohim can contribute more than just some drafted Ogres. Also gives us Heroic Epics as a build option, which pay even better than Command Posts.

The only downside I see is that it slightly delays the first vamps. But unless we were going to trickle them onto the front, that doesn't hurt us much. It's the last vamps that matter, not the first ones. It gives us slightly less time to Feast, too, but I think the 3XP/unit will make up for that. Plus I think the Feasting limit will likely be population growth rate, not happiness, so all at the end vs a steady stream makes no real difference.

[Thoth]

And we aim to do some killin' by t125 latest. Sooner preferred.

Why? Well, because I really do believe that Command Posts will pay for themselves, in time to matter. It takes 400 hammers run through a Command Post to pay for itself, if you neglect the value of the XP. From T116 to T125 is probably long enough to run 400 hammers through most Calabim cities. That does two things: first, with this many vamps, we're not going to be able to Feast them all, so the 3 XP extra makes a big difference. Second - it makes the run up a lot more sudden. Command Posts won't inflate our Power like early Vamps will. At the moment, they're talking dogpile, but I don't honestly think they're altering plans. They still think they have time. Command Posts first will make our Power spike even more sudden. Every turn we don't have Feudalism is a turn that they aren't panicking yet.

Going for Command Posts first will mean that we knock out our pile of vamps, about the same number, with 3 more XP each and in 10 turns instead of 12. But then every reinforcement comes a little bit earlier, every non-vamp has one more promotion (Mob II Hunters, for example, instead of Mob I).

And, well, it makes it possible for us to have a decent shot at the free Great Commander, too. Which means that Elohim can contribute more than just some drafted Ogres. Also gives us Heroic Epics as a build option, which pay even better than Command Posts.
The only downside I see is that it slightly delays the first vamps. But unless we were going to trickle them onto the front, that doesn't hurt us much. It's the last vamps that matter, not the first ones. It gives us slightly less time to Feast, too, but I think the 3XP/unit will make up for that. Plus I think the Feasting limit will likely be population growth rate, not happiness, so all at the end vs a steady stream makes no real difference.

Command posts would be awesome to have (HEs even better....speaking of which: the Orcs should cancel the Marble to the Elohim trade. We'll have 1t of Marble boosted GA Hammers to throw into the Orc HE in NBA t111 (last turn of GA). HE done eot 112. 113: Gift Marble to Calabim. I'm not sure how many hammers Zin will be making at that point, but we'll either 1t or 2t the Calabim HE.

5xp mob 2 Raider Hunters will make excellent Hawk carriers. And Hasted Mob II Commando Chariots with Hawk intel opens up some backline city razing opportunities if we can force access to their road net. (Speaking of which: We *really* want 2-3 real units defending Tequilla and Reisling at the very least. )

I'd like to build the orc NE in KIPA. Blue would make a better candidtate, but we need that city on worker duty for awhile yet. We can some serious catching up to do wrt to our military road net.

If we go for Secret Codes as the first UC resolution (assuming we get councilorship instead of a hung council) we can pop a second GA for both the Orcs and the Calabim so long as we can generate a non-GS GP for both. Vamps can do it (at a non zero chance) during GA (we'll want to fire a Sage btw. ) so they don't need an NE.
Orcs have no GPP invested outside of Blue, but we can build a fast NE in KIPA and run 2 merchants and two priests to push out a GP in time to pair with the SC GS circa t123? I'm not 100% when the votes are, t113/123 I thinks. Might be a turn or two earlier.

That synchs up very well for a massive hammer and gold push from the orcs around the same time as IW. Cash rushing hammers that get doubled by Warrens gives an excellent Gold:Hammer ratio.

The Calabim Gems city has a bunch of mixed GPP collected and is our easiest spot to farm a GS from (Chardonay also has GPP collected and fewer GS points, but needs happy to run specs.)


Once KotE is in, I'd like enough Shamans to set up Haste waypoints every 4t along least time paths to each military zone. Plus a couple with Spirit 1 to buff up our Medics and a couple with Law 1 (Loyalty sucks, but it's the buff we've got ) and at least two with Shadow 1 per stack.


So, yeah I'm sold on MS before Kote Feud.

We won't have Marble for the Elohim HE for awhile, we can settle that area in the next few turns if we use the Westbound settler (currently earmarked for a hopeful 4th Island city for the Orcs to the West). But Vodka still needs time to grow and finish up Warrens and TY so the HE can wait a bit. )

We've currently got two axe pairs queued in KIPA which will finish eot 109/eot110. So we'll have one turn of GA production to put in plus we still have 3? 4? Forested grass we can chop for 26h apiece post Arch (with Marble). I don't have any worker turns allocated right now, but I can make them available in time to finish up the NE by t112.....so long as we decide soon. Getting the workers in place in time is easier if I know ahead of time it needs to be done.

[Thoth]

so we made an Orc civic swap.

And triggered the Calabim GA.

The Orcs are at +162 gpt at eot.

The Clalabim and Elohim are both gold positive at eot at 100% tech.

We finished up Hunting and Archery this turn.

And we'll have two Snowfall Archmages to deal with shortly from the Clowns.

[Mardoc]

And, because I'm in a holiday mood :hat:, have some pictures:

First up, the economic engine of our empire. Doesn't look like much, does it? Yet, it's responsible for at least 100 commerce/turn through the trade routes, and these cities aren't too shabby themselves.

For example, Red Cap is, at size 1, already producing 30 gpt! This is mostly trade routes, of course - it's got five of the suckers, only the last one is as small as 2 gpt.

Would you believe none of the other teams have even researched Sailing yet? Team Reddit doesn't even have Fishing .

Sailing has paid awesomely for us - not only the trade routes, and the cities, but also Pearls for everyone and shortly Whales for everyone too.

We've slowed the pace of expanding to the sea, partly cause we've slowed the pace of expansion in general, but we'll still be building more of these. Given how fast they pay off, it's still an easy choice. Next goal is to try the island (we think) to the NW of Red Cap. It's in a logical place for some form of goodies to be placed by the mapmaker, and we're pretty sure it's an actual island. The barb we can see is fortified, which suggests he can't find anywhere to go that wouldn't require swimming.

Next up, our border with Team wizard. We aimed to stand up this city extremely quickly, because it's on the border, but it seems they've decided not to challenge us for it. Waterloo Dark has been there about 4-5 turns now, and the only military we've seen was a Fawn covering workers. Better safe than sorry - it's going to get an Archery Range, and Walls, and archers on garrison. And for the time being it's merely got a large garrison of warriors and axes and wolf riders. But they leave us alone, we'll leave them alone.

Err, mostly . You can see to the north of WD, a sign for Griffon Ale. That's our next city in the area. It would be scheduled for next turn, but an inconsiderate elephant had to park himself on the tile we wanted to occupy. And Str 8 on a forested hill would cost a bit more to shift than we're willing to spend. So instead we're waiting around, hoping he moves (in the correct direction) next turn.


To the east, we're working on standing up our border cities as well. You can see we're being rather more paranoid over here; we're pretty sure the cities are out of sight of Team Golem, and we intend to keep it that way for a while. Most of our new troops are heading this way, for a combination of harassment and defense.

Although we'd dearly like to put a city on the 'pull back' signed tile, to be a focal point on a hill, Team Golem is probably too strong to be able to pull that off. Plus they've shown us a Mobility II chariot, which can already hit Absinthe from inside their borders, potentially - no point in giving them a free fork from inside their own territory.

We killed a Mud Golem over this way this turn; think it was just overlooked, because they had the power in the area to cover him. Still, gotta punish mistakes like that . Plus of course we want to encourage them to keep thinking defense.


To the north, we've recently grabbed a couple more city sites, and have at least one more in queue. These cities are all Elohim, and on the chokepoint, to allow us at least one safe front with Sanctuary. We're close to Team 4 here, have spotted their borders, but for the time being at least we don't want to pick a fight. This area has a good deal of hammers and sufficient food, so should be pretty good Elohim armory cities. As of this turn, anyway, when the deer and furs became improvable tiles. Plus, of course, it's also going to be our source of said resources .



Finally, our own little barb city, Dirage, has finally gotten its act together and produced a kill team. We're looking forward to converting that into XP - we could really use a 2nd Mobility II spider, after all . That'll probably be the last kill team from here, once we have vampires we ought to be able to afford to take it and incorporate it into our empire. Much as I like XP, I think we'll get a little more from it by making it into a Feast city than by killing 4 warriors every 30 turns.




I'd show you the cores, but frankly they're buried under signs . Well, maybe one city:


Yeah. 83 hammers next turn; admittedly a lot of that is overflow, but still

Not even done improving this city! It's still growing like a weed, even before we get the Breeding Pit in here. The only reason we might not hit size 30 is that we're only a few turns out from starting to Feast .

Anyway, we're flying through the techs, and we're slightly slowing our breakneck expansion pace, in favor of getting infra put up instead. Very soon, we'll see just how close to vertical we can make the Power graph look, and then we'll see if we can't win this sucker.

[Thoth]

For Mardoc and Ellimist's consideration:

AFAIKT, Saltus is ours t113.

[Thoth]

make that t114.

We won't have the combat workers and Adepts in place until then.

[Thoth]

Orc cities (part 1):

KIPA:

Our first expansion city (settled t 22? t23?). Has all the infra it will ever need. Axes will go to cover our north cities and we'll throw down the NE PDQ and push another orc GP out of the city for another Orc GAge. In the meantime, *axes until IW. Then *Ogres.

Waterloo Dark:

Recently founded hilltop fortress city on the Western Front. Builds: Archery range, 2x G1 Archer, maybe walls. And then more bodies.



Steeler:

Built a 1t Market t109 thanks to a Sok. It'll finish up the SW and then *catapult.
Maybe swap to *chariot later if we can spare 4 soks to rush Warrens. Otherwise *cats.

Straub Special Dark:

Finishing up a pair of Soks to rush it's own TY. Hammer city. Future builds: *Axe followed by *Ogre.


Shiner Bock:

Recently founded. Still growing to size 12. Second line of defense in the SW. Warrens, Archery Range and a slew of Archers to help thicken up our defenses on the cheap. TY timed to complete around IW. Then *Ogres.

Samuel Adams:

Our first port city, now getting close to being all grown up. Not much hammer potential here (the PHM is borrowed from Bud) but we can push out a decent pile of gold on the cheap from this city. No point in warrens here, so we'll probably just dribble out a bit more Navy from here once the Harbour is done.

[Thoth]

Orc cities: (part 2)

Red Cap:

Our third island city. We used the pillage gold from the Clown/Gnome front to cash rush the Whaleboat. More for the happies than for the tile yeild, but netted whales are teh sexy in a GA so we got a nice local boost as well. We'll build culturre here on the last two turns of GA and the first turn out of GA for exactly 5 culch to pop borders. Then finish the WB and net the Crabs to grow a bit more. The Harbour might or might not finish before the game ends.

Old Speckled Hen:

This city has produced most of our settlers. Currently building another pair of WRs while growing to happy cap and then building more settlers.

Newcastle Brown Ale:

Our Orc Capital (note the deluxe infra )

Future home of the Orc HE. Currently building a pair of Soks for infra elsewhere. 2nd pair of Soks rush TY. Build HE when available. *axes followed by *Ogres.

Lakeport Honey:

Decent little port town. Not much downstream hammer potential but does have a bunch of banked lumber hammers. Probably just another gold town. Can slow build a few galleys eventually.

Guinness:

Middle of the road town. Has Warrens. Will skip the second SoK pair and TY for now in favour of 3-6 Shaman pairs.
Then TY and *Ogres. Or just keep building Shamans.

Fat Tire:

Worthless as a hammer city so no warrens. Solid Commerce town so we cottage it and build Brewery, bathhouse (to work more cotts) and eventually (maybe) sok rush the Bazzar of Mammon here. Ooodles of lovely gold. SFA for hammers.

[Thoth]

Orc cities: (part 3)

Wildcat:

Claims two Pearls. Has had some heavy chopping done to bang out three wbs. Decent hammer town eventually, but has no food spec for fast growth. So we skip warrens and make it a gold town ftm. Work food first, then either pearls or hammers as needed.


Budweiser:

Another manky hybrid city. Will grow onto some hammers (and steal back the ph mine) soon. TY and *axes/*Ogres.


Blue:

Swap build to Shaman t110, then cash rush t111 to enable Saltus capture. After that, we need to build some workers here to complete some badly needed military roads. Then other stuff. It's central so either AR/*Archers or TY/*Axe works. Or *Shaman.

I think I've missed a city somewhere.