The Haunted Forest: Mardoc puts the Sidar to the test.

[Mardoc]

Note that he has some highly promoted units (heavy on the Shock promos). His power graph doesn't accurately reflect his actual combat power. He's significantly more combat capable than the demos show.

We're going to have some tough choices about how to spend our exp. Wanes are great, but we'll want some well promoted troops to defend them.

Check out the garrison in Conrad Mor......OMFG.

This one?


Yes. Hopefully well promoted troops, a tier ahead of him .

Playing it safe was the right call I think.

And I don't understand the barbs, but I sure can exploit them! Turns out the previous ones just stood there, while the new guys moved up. And, apparently 95.6% battles are worth 3XP

Can't Wane the warrior until we promote him, apparently. So...next turn, we get our first Wane! The other warrior is to 16/17 XP, with warriors around and goblins incoming. I don't want him to fight until he heals - so likely we're looking at CIII warrior vs goblin for the 'climatic' battle .

Note that we'll want the Wheat improved and connected ASAP (which may be awhile given the barbs) to boost the Brewery (we'll be needing the health soon as well)

Yes . I've got one worker turn into a road on the desert tile, as a first step. I really want to find the time to sneak out a bunch more warriors to go barb pounding and give the workers uninterrupted time to prepare our cities. But I also want Dereptus, and a Hunting Lodge, and and and...

I'm thinking we complete the Granary after the Worker. We can finish it in 1-2 turns depending on tile configuration and it will speed our growth up to size 9 by a turn or two. Once WotEM is in our happy cap will grow to 11 with RoK spread and 12 with a temple. Pacman is tight for food, any extra we can get would be good.

Ok.
Techpath after WotEM?

I think AH followed by either Bronze (if we have Copper) or Archery (if we don't) so that we can get some real units into production.

After that....dunno. Writing for cheap libs, Festivals for Markets and Carnivals, Bronze/Archery (whichever one we didn't grab as our military tech), HBR (mobility, possibly Horsemen) are all appealing.

What we grab will depend on what things are looking like WRT resources and the diplo situation.

Yeah, sounds about right. Our soon-to-be Great Merchant and almost-certainly soon-to-be-GEngineer oughta help make the choices easier.

[Thoth]

This one?
[

Yes. Hopefully well promoted troops, a tier ahead of him .

Yeah, that's the one.

Those are some mighty powerful units.

And I don't understand the barbs, but I sure can exploit them! Turns out the previous ones just stood there, while the new guys moved up. And, apparently 95.6% battles are worth 3XP

Can't Wane the warrior until we promote him, apparently. So...next turn, we get our first Wane! The other warrior is to 16/17 XP, with warriors around and goblins incoming. I don't want him to fight until he heals - so likely we're looking at CIII warrior vs goblin for the 'climatic' battle .

Yeah, need level 5 not just 17 xp.

But still, W00T! and

Yes . I've got one worker turn into a road on the desert tile, as a first step. I really want to find the time to sneak out a bunch more warriors to go barb pounding and give the workers uninterrupted time to prepare our cities. But I also want Dereptus, and a Hunting Lodge, and and and...

Yeah, lots of stuff we want and need. After the Brewery, Asteroids can push out a few warriors (built mainly with food I suspect) to help with protecting tile improvements. If we can manage it, I'd like to grow Pacman to size 9 before starting in on Hunters/warriors (plus another worker or two to get those hills mined )

Ok.
Techpath after WotEM?



Yeah, sounds about right. Our soon-to-be Great Merchant and almost-certainly soon-to-be-GEngineer oughta help make the choices easier.

Don't know about easier, but we'll be teching/building stuff a lot faster soon so we'll have more options in terms of tech order/choices.

Any diplo response from Serdoa yet?

It occurs to me that he may be taking a run at RoK. He swapped to Religion, presumably the same turn he adopted GK. Possibly for the +1 happy from a Pagan Temple, but a PT build also fits with a plan to bulb RoK. I think we can beat him to it in either case.

His Culture graph took a bit of a spike last turn, not sure if it's due to a monument in CM or a PT in ATM or both (F8 Victory screen will tell us for sure....I forgot to check the culture when I looked at it)

We're currently at 25% of world pop (not sure if this includes any barb cities that may have popped up or not) with Serdoa at 16%.

[Mardoc]

Any diplo response from Serdoa yet?

Maybe if I'd actually sent that, I'd have a response .

Haven't heard anything from him, but I think I'll go ahead and shoot it off anyway.

[Thoth]

Maybe if I'd actually sent that, I'd have a response .

Oops.

Yeah, it sounds like a decent opening greeting. Might as well get the diplo nonsense started.

[Thoth]

And I note that we've passed the Tech thread in post count.

[Mardoc]

Yeah, lots of stuff we want and need. After the Brewery, Asteroids can push out a few warriors (built mainly with food I suspect) to help with protecting tile improvements. If we can manage it, I'd like to grow Pacman to size 9 before starting in on Hunters/warriors (plus another worker or two to get those hills mined )

Sounds like a plan. I'm not sure we need yet more workers - we just need to clear a space for them to work! We've four developed tiles, and at the moment only need maybe 12-13 more...that'll go like hotcakes if they're not staying indoors all the time. But I definitely agree with trying to keep the cities at max size, and Asteroids will be in better position to build military for the moment. Plus, it'll have an Engineer in 3-4 turns, right? That'll help .

It occurs to me that he may be taking a run at RoK. He swapped to Religion, presumably the same turn he adopted GK. Possibly for the +1 happy from a Pagan Temple, but a PT build also fits with a plan to bulb RoK. I think we can beat him to it in either case.

It's possible, I guess. He doesn't have as much to gain from RoK as the rest of us, though, with his incentives to go mounted.

We're currently at 25% of world pop (not sure if this includes any barb cities that may have popped up or not) with Serdoa at 16%.

Hmm. Unless someone got the settler event, I think it's got to include barb cities. We've two of the top 5 cities - we'd know if someone was bigger than us. So that's a good sign, barb cities must be starting to appear. We just need to find them .

I suppose backtracking kill teams will be the easiest way.

Finally, a question for you - any idea on the exact mechanics of Shades? When I push the Wane button - does the Shade have movement? Can it immediately settle? I'm wondering if we can save a turn by moving, Waning, then moving again, or if the level 5 warrior ought to remain a warrior until he's safe in Pacman, or what.

Also, a thought - I want to chop the forest 1N of Pacman, to hopefully provide a killing field. Reasonable?

[Thoth]

Sounds like a plan. I'm not sure we need yet more workers - we just need to clear a space for them to work! We've four developed tiles, and at the moment only need maybe 12-13 more...that'll go like hotcakes if they're not staying indoors all the time. But I definitely agree with trying to keep the cities at max size, and Asteroids will be in better position to build military for the moment. Plus, it'll have an Engineer in 3-4 turns, right? That'll help .

With all the "running away from barbs" that we'll need to include in our worker micro plans, a few extra workers would be nice. So long as we can protect them.

Our happy caps will be rising significantly in the not too distant future, so some high yield tiles for those citizens to work would be nice.

But we also need some more military for anti-barb defence/Waning/protection against Aggressive/Raider types.

It's possible, I guess. He doesn't have as much to gain from RoK as the rest of us, though, with his incentives to go mounted.

He's already got HBR and a Stable in place....right now he needs gold to pay for his unit upkeep. RoK gets him that gold.

He may not be going for it (and I'm pretty certain we can beat him to it even if he is going for the bulb approach) but it isn't a bad choice for him.

Hmm. Unless someone got the settler event, I think it's got to include barb cities. We've two of the top 5 cities - we'd know if someone was bigger than us. So that's a good sign, barb cities must be starting to appear. We just need to find them .

I suppose backtracking kill teams will be the easiest way.

We should get visibility on any barb cities (or at least their culture) that spawn in lands we've explored.

We're not going to be taking barb cities any time soon....we'll want Bronze Warriors (preferably Bronze Axes) and/or Horsemen to do the job. Non-Bronze warriors will have a very high attrition rate vs Deity barb cities.

Finally, a question for you - any idea on the exact mechanics of Shades? When I push the Wane button - does the Shade have movement? Can it immediately settle? I'm wondering if we can save a turn by moving, Waning, then moving again, or if the level 5 warrior ought to remain a warrior until he's safe in Pacman, or what.

Hrm. I *think* Waning counts as a spell (it definitely uses up all remaining movement points) so we're probably best Waning him enroute to Pacman (assuming there aren't any hostiles within range)

Also, a thought - I want to chop the forest 1N of Pacman, to hopefully provide a killing field. Reasonable?

Killing field good.

Chopping that forest = bad. We'll want those hammers (esp with a Lumbermill) plus the temporary health boost (the forest on the Mana will need to come down eventually, but it can remain for the moment). If barbs step onto that tile, we can simply hold in the city for them to suicide. If a human is occupying that tile, we're probably fucked anyway.

We may want to consider a semi-permanent garrison on the pigs (Archer(s) + Axe(s) with GII. We'll need to road the Plains forest and the Pigs to connect the Pigs once we actually have AH. Protecting the entrance to our road net strikes me as a good idea.

An attacker can take down (or bypass) anything we place on that tile, but we can make it expensive to take for a minimal investment in hammers/unit upkeep.

[Mardoc]

His Culture graph took a bit of a spike last turn, not sure if it's due to a monument in CM or a PT in ATM or both (F8 Victory screen will tell us for sure....I forgot to check the culture when I looked at it)

Seeing as his borders have now popped - I think the culprit is the monument:



Also, I had my questions on Waning answered - press the button, get Has Cast, Cannot Move (1). Fortunately I'd moved first, so we didn't loose anything. In 2 turns we'll have our GMerch settled in at Pacman


Awww...look at his cute little crown...

[Mardoc]

Not much to report this turn; the barbs are spread out enough that I decided not to risk a battle with the to-be-shaded one; there's enough new barbs coming in that another opportunity ought to present itself. I just couldn't figure out how to have him fight and not die IBT. Which therefore is why I agree, Asteroids will bang out a few warriors once Dereptus comes in; that should give us many more opportunities.

Meanwhile, we did manage to finish another cottage and put two worker turns into a third. And Pacman keeps trucking away, with a granary and a growth, and now working on the Hunting Lodge again. I think I might pop out a warrior or two here, as well. On reflection, I agree with you that we can leave that forest - we just have to go a few tiles out of the BFC to have a naturally occurring killing field anyway . Once we've got a military that can meet the barbs in the field, we'll want to, so you're right that there's no purpose in arranging for easy battles under the city walls.



In demographics news, someone's got a GSage of their own, and someone's well ahead of us in GNP. I suspect they're the same someone Probably Bob; I think Serdoa's got no chance of a GNP spike that intense, and of course Selrahc can't build Elder Councils.

In any event, that ought to flip around next turn when the Shade settles down.

[Mardoc]

Next turn we find out of 'Cannot move (1)' prevents settling a Shade. And settle the Merchant .

We've got plenty of incoming chunks of XP, too - including at least 6 poison goblins. Asteroids will definitely swap to warriors for a while once Dereptus is in, to take advantage of the opportunity and clear space for the workers to work.

It won't hurt to have a little extra security, too - Rum is up to drill IV, but poison goblins might actually be able to wear him down if we're not careful.