Learning Capria FFH SG

[Brian Shanahan]

OK the report:

Turn 149.
Reassign tiles and hire specialists. We're on +3gpt @ 50%. I kill science as the money saved is stronger than money lost at 100%. 5 turns no science.
Promote the scout to a Hunter.
Convert into Kilimorph
Paris is let grow.
Oxford goes to building Thanes.

Turn 150
Hunter vs Bear (96.3%):

Flawless victory.

Our hawk takes a visit to the Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons:

Turn 151
Bologna Settler>Axes
Paris gets Kilimorph from the Thane.

T152
Salamanca Hunter>Warriors (2 or 3 I forget which)
Stupid AI is stupid:

I kill them all for no losses.
Move Bologna settler and escort from Oxford south, later decide not to settle and move them back.

T153
Deruptus gets +3gpt at 0%. Paris Deruptus>ToK
Os gets prophet. Somebody gets Bambur and Mines, I miss mines:

T154
Without realising I've lost I turn on science and go all out Arete push..
The warrior watching Spilan beats off the challenge of a skelly.

T155
Capture the gorilla. His escort in the last pic left him in the open scratching his testicles. Move five axes to cover the 7 warriors adjacent to the tile. They sit there IBT.

T156
Os loses another 3 warriors. I use the Axes with 90%+ odds. No losses. No screenshot

T157
Salamanca Warrior>EC. Too many units being produced atm

T158
Panicked by this:

As you can see I abandon the bear 2S of Oxford to save the Axe and Thane covering. IBT he loses but redlines a hunter.

T159
Revenge the bear with an Axe.
I use a warrior to weaken a fawn, which didn't work, then attack with an Axe at 70%, which does.
And the Coimbra connection is lost.

T160
Set Bologna to another axe.
No moves made.

Thoughts
I'm sorry on Arete. We should abandon fortwith. Kjn's path is good for our purposes.

We should be able to whittle down Grottiburg slowly with our axe stack. Kill her off and take our anger on my weed out on Amelanchier.

Save is above

[kjn]

Just going through the screenshots. The mines went the same turn as Bambur.

Yes, I noted that when I was playing the turn, and finished off Arete. Anyway, we lost that wonder lots of turns ago, when we choose a wide teching approach and to focus on horizontal expansion.

Anyway, we're up to turn 164 now, liberated Prague and its famous Discussion Society for Mandatory Self-Improvement (aka the Empyrean Holy City) from the vile Sheaim. I'm currently teching towards Warfare, and plan to get Military Strategy after that. Currently mainly building horsemen in Bologna, and archers in Oxford - we have a strong core of highly promoted and developing axes that should suffice to take Tongurstad. With a bit of luck, I might be able to take it before my turnset ends.

Once Warfare is in, my sight is set on Form of the Titan. We have several level 6 units now, copper, and are IND.

[Brian Shanahan]

At least we've Empy, some nice units for Paladinhood &c. and a growing empire anyways.

I think we should have this one won already, even missing the wonders.

[Hart]

Indeed. We have a huge chunk of continent we can keep for ourselves, with no competition once we eliminate the pesky elves.

What Victory Conditions were you thinking of aiming for? Do we want to just "win" the game, or do we want to really learn something new...

1) Tower of Mastery - Probably the easiest seeing as we're IND, but I'm not sure that we have enough mana nodes at hand... Correction, just checked and we have 3. If we can trade for one of the other mana types its a possibility.

2) Altar of the Luonotar - I've never ever used this, but since we get cheap temples, its an option? But not being PHI might be problematic...

And I guess that leaves Domnination or Conquest... which will be amazingly tedious unless we go for a couple of the WIN-BUTTON heroes - Chalid + the Baron?

[haphazard1]

Nice work on dealing with your unwanted neighbors, the Sheaim and Ljosalfar.

Is the game essentially over at this point? What do the demos look like? Jonas Endain was looking pretty formidable earlier, and someone somewhere has Bambur and the Mines for iron. Or will the amount of available land guarantee you become far more powerful over time? How good is the FFH AI at expanding and claiming available land? In a middling/upper difficulty level BtS game I would expect the AIs to have grabbed a ton of land while I was busy warring with the neighbors, but I don't have enough FFH experience to know for sure.

[Hart]

Is the game essentially over at this point?

Pretty much decided, but far from over. Barring someone else getting a Tower or Altar win, we can basically dominate anyone else in the game. Given time, we could out-tech Jonas to a military victory - we're already doing better than him in GNP, and with more cities it'll only improve. We also have the benefit of marginally useful land in between him and us, and a nice solid mountain range with only a few pathways into our culture. If we can succeed in getting rid of the Ljos properly - we should have no problems with winning the game outright.

[kjn]

One question for the team:

I'm about to send our settler south, to claim the rice. But where to place the city?

1W of Old Bruti? Gets sheep, on a hill. 7 coast. Needs a border expansion (bear or monument) to claim rice. Claims 7 new tiles.

On Old Bruti? Gets sheep. 3 coast. Claims 11 new tiles. Some vulnerability to sea attack.

1S of Old Bruti? Misses sheep (baaah). 5 coast. Claims 11 new tiles. Good defensibility.

1SE of Old Bruti? Misses sheep. Not coastal, but 1 coast in BFC. Some vulnerability to sea attack. Claims 13 new tiles (several of them riverside and otherwise unrclaimable).

I think I favour founding south of the river. From a pure land-use and dot-mapping view, 1SE is probably superior, but I think 1S has better defensibility in both the short and long run (despite being coastal).

[Hart]

I agree with your assessment. Unless you've eliminated both Amelanchier and Os-G then I think you should go 1S.

[haphazard1]

Had to hunt back a couple pages for a screenshot of the (former) Bruti area. Unfortunate to lose the sheep, but you would have an unhappy amount of overlap with Oxford to keep them. Between 1S and 1SE I would take 1SE for the dotmapping and future tile usage reasons, although if you want a port city than 1S would of course be better.

I don't really understand the defensibility question? 1S is just a bit further from both Amelanchier and Os-G, but only a bit. Is 1S a hill and 1SE flat -- I can't tell from the screenshot. It looks like 1S would wipe out a jungle while 1SE levels a forest, but that shouldn't affect defensibility.

[kjn]

Turn played, up to turn 170. Os-Gabella is still alive, but we should be able to take Tongurstad this turn or the next.

Off to write a report now.