[SPOILERS] The Peaceful Centaur: a Study in Possibility

[Mardoc]

I hadn't looked at this aspect before, but both Valin and Sphener are fast movers. Priests we can count on getting enough XP for Mobility. So really only Crusaders would slow down the Kurio army at all.

Yes, I think I'm good with making the Kurios Order. It might also give a distraction to people as to why we're heading for Fanaticism; clearly it's just for the Crusaders, right? I'm ok with sticking to just Centaurs for a while, as well, just so long as we have something. Besides, one nice advantage to an Order/Priesthood beeline is that Bless spell; as long as we're careful, they could always be effectively Str 5 once we have a Priest. And you're right that we can sacrifice the Empyrean shrine relatively easily. Especially since we already have Sun mana.

I'm ok with giving up on Kilmorph, but not on leaving Mining completely by the wayside. There will be times we want to focus completely on production. That said, I'm ok with leaving it to the very end of the econ techs, unless we happen to stumble across a gold/gems/silver city site .

[Mardoc]

Decided to go ahead and play. There's two score increases, Ichabod up by 11 and Jkaen up by 12. That translates to a tech for Ichabod; Agriculture, Exploration, or Ancient Chants are the only ones he could have gotten to already. I'm going to put him down for Agriculture.

Jkaen must not have started a worker yet, which is a good sign for outexpanding him.

I'm curious about the river too, so I headed S-SE. There's Gold in them thar hills! Definitely a good spot for at least a settlement. We'll have to explore more before we can make any conclusions about its worth as a city. This is definitely a sign, though, that we can't really assume anything about the map.


And...I'm starting to consider the worth of throwing in Knowledge of the Ether as an econ tech .

[Azoth]

Hey y'all.
I just noticed that this PBEM got started - and I haven't had the discipline to do this before now, but I'd like to be a dedicated lurker. And I've picked your thread.
Based on the title alone, though I'm intrigued by your Mercurian Ally game plan.
I haven't finished reading the thread yet, and I might post some comments later, but for now I'll just say... what a desolate world you've got. Plains, desert, and tundra? Yuck.
And, uh, good luck!

[Mardoc]

Azoth, welcome aboard!

It's surprisingly difficult at first to train yourself out of automatically clicking on any unread thread, but it's worth it to be able to talk freely, in my opinion. It'll be good to have another opinion on things, and another set of eyes to question our assumptions.

[Mardoc]

Well, since I haven't grabbed the save in a while, and Irgy's not posting updates :neenernee, I figured I'd go ahead and play one.

First things first, the worker finishes, and we start on a granary. I was tempted to warrior despite our earlier discussion, but since we haven't seen any foes yet, I resisted. The worker went directly to the wheat, of course



Some score changes from before - Jkaen has gotten a tech, and Dantski...has grown? That makes two competitors who are not worker-first. I think tentatively we can assume they'll be the lower tier of this game.

And, off the the west I see a sign: 'c?'. Which I interpret as a possible city site number two, so I decide to explore around it. Find several interesting things:



First, that's the saddest city site I've ever seriously considered! I mean, it does have two animal husbandry resources, gold, an Oasis, and a lot of riverside tiles, good for both farms and Enclaves. If we get a spring Adept early, the Oasis can still exist on a plain - this could be a decent site. Plus maybe even something good still in the fog. And in fact, this is the best site we've seen so far, in any event. Which is really saying something for Maksim's map!

If we do go for a city here, Knowledge of the Ether would have to become a priority; all that desert simply won't do in a serious city site.

Look what you've reduced us to, Maksim! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?

Second, there's borders to the south, I think that's Dantski's color. Next turn we should try to meet him, then continue scouting this potential yet horrible second city site.

[Irgy]

... and Irgy's not posting updates :neenernee

I'm getting there... I skipped T8 intentionally as nothing happened (not even new visible tiles from the scout), but T9 was just a little delayed due to family dramas.

So, out of order now but that's ok. What happened on T9? Well, we got Ancient Chants, and switched to Mysticism:


The scout explored, and found gold, but you can see all that in the T10 screenshot so I'll skip it. The 'c' is a potential city site - and yes, in the middle of the desert! I don't think it's worth it, aside from being a dodgy site it's right in the middle of our two neighbours. Maybe we'll put a settlement next to the gold though.

Demographics:


A quick analysis from the scores:
* Jkaen and Ichabod have a tech. It could be Ancient Chants or Exploration, I expect Ancient Chants in both cases.
* Jkaen and Dantski have both grown, and therefore have gone warrior first. Note also that these two players declined a plains hill start by settling first turn. I'm with Mardoc here, I very much doubt they've made the right choice on both counts.

And from the demographics, we also know:
* Everyone appears to have a very similar start, working a 2f1h1c tile, and now those who have grown are working another such tile.
* Someone has only 2 food and is therefore working a plains hill, anyone's guess as to whether it's forested but you'd think it would be if they're working it.
* We're ahead of 2 people in production. One of them is Ichabod, who's the only one we're ahead of in the ranking tie-breaker. The other is probably Selrahc, who's the likely candidate for the minimum 3 production, as everyone else either settled a plains hill or has grown.
* Dantski is researching Mysticism. I know that because he's the only one who could have GNP 16. The base GNP is 12, and he has 2 extra from creative and 2 extra from a tech with a prerequisite - which could only be Mysticism.

On the whole, the Mysticism start is looking rather popular. That makes me happy, because I'm sure I'm not giving too much away when I say I went Mysticism first in FFHPBEM3, and it looks like it's become the popular choice (not that I was exactly the first to ever do it or anything mind you).

[Mardoc]

I'm getting there... I skipped T8 intentionally as nothing happened (not even new visible tiles from the scout), but T9 was just a little delayed due to family dramas.

Just kidding. I hope my tone came through, but just in case it didn't...just kidding.

A quick analysis from the scores:
* Jkaen and Ichabod have a tech. It could be Ancient Chants or Exploration, I expect Ancient Chants in both cases.
* Jkaen and Dantski have both grown, and therefore have gone warrior first. Note also that these two players declined a plains hill start by settling first turn. I'm with Mardoc here, I very much doubt they've made the right choice on both counts.

And from the demographics, we also know:
* Everyone appears to have a very similar start, working a 2f1h1c tile, and now those who have grown are working another such tile.
* We're ahead of 2 people in production. One of them is Ichabod, who's the only one we're ahead of in the ranking tie-breaker. The other is probably Selrahc, who's the likely candidate for the minimum 3 production, as everyone else either settled a plains hill or has grown.
* Dantski is researching Mysticism. I know that because he's the only one who could have GNP 16. The base GNP is 12, and he has 2 extra from creative and 2 extra from a tech with a prerequisite - which could only be Mysticism.

I agree with what you've said here, except your analysis of Ichabod's and Jkaen's tech. First, Ichabod's GNP is the same as ours was pre-Mysticism, so he can't be researching something with a prerequisite currently. And why research Ancient Chants if you're not going for Myst/Edu? In addition, he didn't start with Agriculture, and assuming similar starts, I would put getting wheat irrigated as a high priority. He might be going to Ancient Chants now, though.

In addition - Jkaen starts with Ancient Chants. So I'm guessing Agriculture for him as well, although it could perhaps have been Exploration.

[Irgy]

Just kidding. I hope my tone came through, but just in case it didn't...just kidding.

It did, don't worry about that. I still felt silly for posting T9 after T10. I do need to be a little bit more up to date in this one than I am in the others because you're going to be relying on it. But that's me telling myself that not anything you said.

I agree with what you've said here, except your analysis of Ichabod's and Jkaen's tech. First, Ichabod's GNP is the same as ours was pre-Mysticism, so he can't be researching something with a prerequisite currently. And why research Ancient Chants if you're not going for Myst/Edu? In addition, he didn't start with Agriculture, and assuming similar starts, I would put getting wheat irrigated as a high priority. He might be going to Ancient Chants now, though.

I thought Agriculture cost more beakers than Ancient Chants though? My reasoning was that if they've finished a tech already it must be one of the 79 beaker techs. There's no accurate reference for tech costs on the net though that I can find so I can't check now.

Agriculture certainly makes more sense for Ichabod since he's been going worker first. So if it is the same cost then that would be it.

Jkaen obviously can't be doing Ancient Chants if he has it already then, and he wouldn't have finished Mysticism already. My question then is, why the heck is he researching Agriculture and building a warrior?

My math is all wrong for Dantski too by the way, but the conclusion is still ok.

[Irgy]

Now, my thoughts on T10.

First, what's with this layout? We seem to have two other civs right on our back door. There seems to be a pattern of desert in between the plains making something of a border between us. I'm expecting there to be a fair degree of symmetry in this map, which leaves me wondering a little what the layout is.

There's two main options in my head:
1. The three of us are in a triangle, and the other civs are a bit further away.
2. Everyone has started quite close together.

(1) is made a little less likely by the fact that we'd have to have been fairly lucky to pick the right direction to look and find our two neighbours. Also, the similarity between the oasis+incense desert to our east and the one between ourselves and Ichabod strongly suggests there will be another civ to the east, again pointing towards (2).

If it's (1), then we've done well to meet two civs but picked a bad direction to look for new city sites. We should send the scout SE to meet Dantski, then circle around to the east.

If it's (2), then, well, we should also circle around to the east and meet the other civs. However, I also think we should start looking north the first chance we get as that's the only direction we're likely to find better land. My best guess to a layout in that case is a cylindrical (or toroidal) one that looks something like:

Code:

x x x
x x x

If this is the case, we have a lot of neighbours nearby. Getting to centaurs quickly will be fairly important. It's also kind of bad for us with our late game plans to be in a map this crowded, although at least we have a decent early game as Kuriotates. Really bad for Amurites though. This layout could also explain the 2 move settlers, if we're all so close it could be chaos if one of us went wandering far from where we started - which would be quite likely to happen too with our horrible dry starts.

On thing to note, Selrahc did eventually find water. And not just a little lake. The demographics show his land as 10,000, meaning 11 tiles out of 21 are water. That's genuinely coastal. So I'd expect there's water to be found to the north of us in case (2), and, well it could be anywhere in (1). What puzzles me is that Selrahc isn't that likely to have moved the settler into the tundra in his search for water. If he moved it towards the centre first and then turned it around though it can't be all that far away. Which makes (2) start to look like an *extremely* squashy map at this point.

All just speculation now, the only real conclusion is to keep doing what we were doing for now, and send the scout east after meeting Dantski.


Oh and welcome aboard Azoth! I somehow nearly missed your post there completely, sorry about that. Good work with the title suggestion in that case Mardoc

PS my best guess for layout if it is (1) is similar to (2):

Code:

x x         x
x         x x

[Thoth]

That makes me happy, because I'm sure I'm not giving too much away when I say I went Mysticism first in FFHPBEM3

*frantically re-does his C&D analysis for RBFFHIIPBEMIII*