[SPOILERS] Bobchillingworth Presents: The Six Million Dollar Golem

[NobleHelium]

It probably tries to give the 10 XP before the unit is created or some such.

[Bobchillingworth]

Well, I had wanted to declare on Kuro this turn, but nope:








Not happening. He has too many guys, Bambur (I missed the log notification that he built him last turn), and is finally hooking up his copper. If I charge in now, most of my units won't have odds to win on the attack, and if he gets copper weapons I'll be even odds at best defending. I'm going to write this off as the sad but necessary investment I've had to make to hold Versalife, and play it safe by holding position. My first catapult rolled off the lines this turn, so if he charges in I should be able to mess him up, and at this point I'm fine if he just wants to sit back and spam warriors for forever. He can choke his economy all he wants. I can either move in once I get enough catapults, or I can just wait until I have gargoyles in about 20 turns.


Meanwhile, I'm going to use that Artist for a golden age next turn, switching to Military State on the first turn (saves money, saves hammers, faster catapult production and units to take the northern barb city). Then at the end of the golden age, I'll go finally into aristrocracy. Investing in the Versalife army has set me back a little, but a golden age will make up for a lot of it. Oh, I might as well adopt the Empyrean while I'm at it. Stupid faith refuses to spread anywhere, I guess I either need to actually research the tech (not a priority) or build the shrine (also not a priority).


Really wish I were Kandros. Vaults would have been a real issue for me with maintenance already so high, but man I'd love to have aggressive axes instead of these shitty wood golems right now.

[Krill]

Um, golden ages are 9 turns long on quick, and you need 10 turns between civic swaps.

[Bobchillingworth]

Hmm. I knew it was 9 or 10 for the civics delay. I don't think that it will change anything, though- I'll bite the turn of anarchy if need be. I'm not working enough farms for aristocracy to be worth abandoning God King (my capital gets almost as many hammers as all of the rest of my cities combined).

[Bobchillingworth]

I think Thoth might have this game sewn up- he's apparently eating Selrahc alive. Not that I'm giving up on playing the game, although Kuro actually playing his turns would significantly improve my enthusiasm. I'm really curious just what went on in the Thoth corner of the world- did he just mass-upgrade to axes and smash stuff? How has his score been so high, when until recently he only had four cities? How has he teched so well? I guess mostly bulbing. I also have no idea why the Svarts have fared so poorly.



Anyway, my game has been pretty badly unfocused. I should just be expanding everywhere and building aristofarms, but there's this constant thing with Kuro I've been having to deal with and I had chosen this civ to try out some early war shenanigans. It's incredibly frustrating trying to get enough production to meet my needs. Mud Golems and Wood Golems are just murdering me. Barnaxus too. I've paid hundreds of hammers into building UU over what their generic equivalents would have cost me. That's bad on any map, but on a jungle world with so much green... well, I haven't been able to leave Godking which means no Aristofarms, which means I'm running some sort of gimped lumbermills & cottages & mines economy when I should just be spamming super financial farms. But if I built those farms, I'd have no production, and besides no military that also means no workforce since I can't use food to make Mud Golems. Argh! This civ is not very good

[Krill]

Thinking it needs a redesign in EitB?

[Bobchillingworth]

Def. cheaper units. They don't have to be massively discounted, but to give an example of what I've been moaning about, if I could build axes instead of wood golems and didn't need Barnaxus, I'd have nine axes at hand instead of four wood golems + barney, and my capital could have been building one axe a turn for at least the last dozen turns. That would have been enough to easily wipe out Kuro, in addition to my pile of warriors. With enchanted blades, axes are pretty much equal to wood golems in strength, and even without them they're just as good if not better at taking cities, figuring you have +2 exp from the brewing house or civics or whatever.


Meanwhile, I'd have at least twice the number of workers if I didn't have to bother with Mud Golems- and I could produce worker units in cities which have lots of food, allowing me to free up my production cities to make units and build infra.



There's been a lot of talk about giving the golems extra abilities. I'm less convinced about that, although I do note that Empower is very weak considering how difficult it can be to get more than Empower II on them.


Edit: Allowing the Luchiurp to build both regular axes and wood golems as well as normal workers in addition to mud golems would be very helpful, although I suspect that at least mud golems wouldn't see much use again.

[NobleHelium]

There are some civics that allow converting food to production you know...

[Bobchillingworth]

Oh right, you mean that one that gives exp which my golems can't use?


I don't have such a great food surplus that it would help vastly with unit production at the moment, so I'd need more farms. Farms are useless without Aristocracy. If I wanted to run Conquest with Aristocracy, I'd need Sanitation, which doesn't come cheap. And axes would benefit far more from the civic, thanks to the cheaper costs and ability to actually make use of the bonus exp, which only further cements my point.

[NobleHelium]

Maybe Barnaxus should become a flesh golem of sorts. He permanently has Held, so he can only defend. Then you can combine golems into him, consuming the golems, but upgrading him. Upgrading him gives promotions to other golems, and maybe empire-wide bonuses like bonus production or whatever. And if you want to move him, you can disassemble him and then reassemble him somewhere else.

That gets rid of the stupid "oh Barnaxus got killed at low odds by a barb again" while retaining the singular unit nexus vulnerability.

Or better yet, let him buff a city temporarily (scaled according to his power), for X turns, that remain there even when he's moved. So you create a mechanic where you want to constantly move him around. That might just create an annoying amount of micro though.