Need for Speed: Ichabod & Ravus chasing the Dream

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="6"]Starting Hippus Capital[/SIZE]

Here is the Starting Capital Location of the Hippus for the Lurkers, and for myself to look at away from the save.



The Hippus Capital has the awesome elvish cottage in the initial borders that Ichabod is working straight away. It also has 2 wheats that can be improved once our initial workers are out. By then we will also be able to revolt to Agrarianism making them even more productive.

The passage between Drendos and the Stones seems a perfect place to thread a road between our two capitals.

Note: Our workers can improve each others cities if they run out of things to do. This can be important later on once all of the Hippus Cities have been improved.

[SIZE="6"]Starting Kuriotate Capital[/SIZE]

I managed to get into position to found second turn. I was very tempted to use the world spell instantly so the Capital could start working the best tiles straight away but I held back. I plan to do a massive expansion once we have everything in position and the worldspell will do the most good then.



I have the Corn and the Dye to improve initially. Need to get mining before I can clear the Bannana and Cotton. The Main tile i want is the Obsidean Field. I don't remember seeing it normally during gameplay. But at the moment it is a 4 food, 1 production, 1 commerce tile. If i can also build a cottage on it then it is the best tile in the game. But for now it will help get out my worker a lot faster.

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="6"]Information: Knowing is half the battle[/SIZE]

[SIZE="4"]Event Log[/SIZE]

Because information is so important here is the screen shot of the event log. We can also see the scores in the bottom right.



From the scores I would assume that everyone else started with two different starting technologies, unlike our own one. (Agriculture)

The Vampires extra score boost is from population growth.

Apart from that Nothing extra to report.

[SIZE="4"]Demographs[/SIZE]

The Demographs are a bit more diverse then for a usual first turn game. We have tied for number #1 in GNP. So we seem to have gotten lucky that no-one else founded next to a fully developed town.



The High Population and Production can be asigned to the now size 3 Vampire City. While the High power/soldier score is due to the crafty Orcs.

[Ravus Sol]

Next turn played! Not much going on, next turn my scout should pop a Hut so lets see how lucky we get.

*Fingers Crossed*

[Ichabod]

*Fingers crossed for the hut*

I played turn 2. I'll update tomorrow, I promise!

We should start discussing our next tech and future plans, since it'll be difficult to coordinate in a timely fashion. So we need to start it soon.

I think we can survive a long time with Agri + Calendar as economy techs, especially with your increased happy cap + calendar resources. I'll build farms, go to agrarianism and try to expand quickly. AH -> Horseback Riding is an option, but I go worried about delaying education for too long.

But the obvious reason to go AH -> HR is to protect against the Orcs, so it might be necessary. The orcs now how to get to us, since the map layout is obvious from the get go. Do you think the orcs will separate the troops and try to harass all enemies or do you think they'll pile up the troops and try to get a kill? I think option number 1 is more likely, since option number two would benefit their other rivals more (they'll get one less enemy team and a crippled orc team due to high maintenance).

Killing Orc archers is definetely priority number 1. Let's hope we luck out with the huts to get things like crafting, mining and exploration :neenernee.

This is just some quick thoughts. I'll try to elaborate more tomorrow or thursday (wednesdays are pretty busy for me, unfortunately).

[Ravus Sol]

*Fingers crossed for the hut*

I played turn 2. I'll update tomorrow, I promise!

We should start discussing our next tech and future plans, since it'll be difficult to coordinate in a timely fashion. So we need to start it soon.

I think we can survive a long time with Agri + Calendar as economy techs, especially with your increased happy cap + calendar resources. I'll build farms, go to agrarianism and try to expand quickly. AH -> Horseback Riding is an option, but I go worried about delaying education for too long.

But the obvious reason to go AH -> HR is to protect against the Orcs, so it might be necessary. The orcs now how to get to us, since the map layout is obvious from the get go. Do you think the orcs will separate the troops and try to harass all enemies or do you think they'll pile up the troops and try to get a kill? I think option number 1 is more likely, since option number two would benefit their other rivals more (they'll get one less enemy team and a crippled orc team due to high maintenance).

Killing Orc archers is definetely priority number 1. Let's hope we luck out with the huts to get things like crafting, mining and exploration :neenernee.

This is just some quick thoughts. I'll try to elaborate more tomorrow or thursday (wednesdays are pretty busy for me, unfortunately).

I'm also worried about delaying the better economic techs but I don't see that we have a choice. The preset cottages and towns should keep us going untill we get to Horseback Riding. Then after that we will just have to push for economy and expansion.

We'll know more once I circle the scout around to the centre of the map. I feel confident that we can assume all the Orc Troops were 1 movers, no Wolf Riders. So we have some time to have a peak at them before they come knocking.

Military Concerns
If it was me i'd try to send equal amounts to each corner and just harass. That way they can get very good recon of where all of us are and choose their future targets.

But they could just regroup and send out scouts to each corner to find a easy or threatening target. The Easy target would be the Whoopass team. They have nothing threat worthy. The Blight team have the highly productive Vamp city which can pump out defenders. But we have Horsemen... They must suspect we will now rush for Riders and that they can kill Archers. We could be a tempting Rush option due to our threat level. Take us out early and the rest of the teams have time to build up.

Best to plan for the worst and hope for the best. Assume they are coming hard and fast and prepare. Hopefully we will have eyes on the centre as Calender comes in. With such slow movers they will have to beeline their target. No fancy shuffles to curve around. They can't waste the turns. So if they are coming for us I should see them by turn 6-8 and we can make further military plans. For now it's worker first them pump Warriors.

Huts
The Tech i'm actually most hoping for is exploration. Getting a Road between us will do wonders both for military and for trading resources quickly.

Worst Case Scenario
We get rushed hard and barley manage to turtle up and limp to horseback riding

Best Case Scenario
We get 2 or more choker archers. We manage to build around them and use them to gain exp for our initial Raider Team for a future counter attack.

Note: If the Hippus get 4 highly promoted horsemen early we have to name them Death, War, Famine & Pestilance and send them out to Raid everyone. Snipe workers and raid one by one.

[Brian Shanahan]

Note: If the Hippus get 4 highly promoted horsemen early we have to name them Death, War, Famine & Pestilance and send them out to Raid everyone. Snipe workers and raid one by one.

Better yet:

The Four Horsemen of Panic
Misinformation
Rumour
Gossip
Denial

From Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett.

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="7"]We interupt this tete-a-tete on horselord names to bring you these shocking two announcements;[/SIZE]

[SIZE="6"]BOW DOWN BEFORE OUR LUCK[/SIZE]


[SIZE="6"]5 Turns for new worker[/SIZE]

[Ichabod]

I LOVE YOU, RAVUS!!!



Luck, I bow before you!

[Ravus Sol]

We laugh in the face of Orc Horde Rushes. LAUGH!

[Ravus Sol]

Your turn Ichabod! You do realise you now have to try and do better with luck and pop us Horseback Riding from a hut