Need for Speed: Ichabod & Ravus chasing the Dream

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Educational Study for Technologies & Production[/SIZE]

I believe our current Tech path is;
Currency > Archery > Stirrups

Currency for the trade routes and ability to funnel money around, Archery for the lumber mills and Stirrups will let us upgrade the Horse units into the better Mobile Archers for some raiding fun.

I believe our current Production is;
I am building libraries and tailors to help with teching while also using my expansive trait to push out quick settlers when i've grown to max happiness. Military state lets me use money to finish monuments and granaries quickly in my two new cities.

Hippus are getting reader for an expansion push with settlers and workers. The Capital is using God-King to get a stable and some horses built before Stirrups comes in.

[SIZE="4"]Future Production[/SIZE]
First off we need to think about the GUILD OF THE NINE wonder. We need to check if me building it will allow you to recruit mercenaries. I get quite a high production in my capital and if you benifit from it then I could build the sucker now before someone is tempted to steal and deny it us. It's obvious to all of our rivals that you gain the most from it.

Second, I'm in undercouncil and I can build Gibbon. It takes 6 turns and would deny it too Thoth and Mr Yellow. If I built him then Gibbon will not get the raiders promotion and would be stuck in a support position. Personally I don't mind that. If we get him early then I could use him to water the Oasis around the place and also promote up to dispel magic later on to reset all the nodes. If I get Nature Mana off you then I could have him upgrade any tile instead of just deserts. If you build him he would start with Raider and you could upgrade him up the Air line for collateral damage. He could be useful in battle, cracking open harder cities, but could also slow down your other units.

I have Plains City able to build Hunters and Hawks but It's probably best to use my weaker hunters in a defensive capability. If you spec one of your cities for a Hunting Lodge you will get Combat I & Raider Hunters which will be much better aggressively exploring and will free up my Plains city to go full commerce.

[SIZE="4"]Future Technology[/SIZE]
Once we get to Stirrups we have a lot of choices. It only takes me 4 turns to research Stirrups so we should plan it now. We will have our Military unit of choice and be pretty much set for the basic civic and economic technologies. However a few paths spring to mind.

[SIZE="3"]Economic / Strategic boost:[/SIZE]
Part 1 = Mathematics > Taxation
Getting these two would boost the Kuriotate Economy a lot. Now that most of my cottages have grown into Villages and Towns thats around... +25 Commerce? Give or take.

Mathematics also allows cities to produce just Money and opens the Gambling hall building which would be useful for you going +100% money.

Part 2 = Construction > Engineering
Construction would allow us to farm anywhere which would be useful for if you switch back to Aristocracy. It also allows us to build chariots. Which could be useful to help boost our military. Warriors can upgrade to axemen and then Chariots so you could make use of your elite warriors this way

Engineering is tactical tech. Sure it has two wonders and lets you build windmills, but for us we would get it for the +1 movement on roads. Perfect to help repositioning defence and deadly in the hands of your raider units. That boosts your speed from 4(8) to 4(12) and that's before you spend any promotions on mobility. It's that sort of speed that could help win us some battles.

Part 3 = Sailing > Optics > Astronomy
This is one of those longshot tech paths and probably won't be done. For a start it only benifits me and not yourself which is a waste. And all three of these techs are just to unlock one single unit. The Airship.

The reason it's still down as an option is because of how powerful the airship is. Especially on a map with so many lakes and mountain peaks. Each airship can carry 6 units and while Centaur Archers won't be as deadly a threat in terms of taking cities. The ability to threaten everywhere while staying safe from counter attack in a airship can force a empire to halt a war and reinforce back lines.

[SIZE="3"]Elite Units and Alternate Victory Push:[/SIZE]
Part 1 = Knowledge of the Ether > Divination > Sorcery
This should be simple to understand. It's just setting up the empire to do a Divination Tower Slingshot. You need Sorcery to get Dispel to make the mana nodes of the empire into Base Mana nodes again.

Other bonuses from this line include getting adepts running around which could help out either with springing or inspriing or just reseting nodes. The Alchemy Lab is yet another building that would help my tech heavy cities. Getting enough adepts in place means we could actually persue a tower victory as a alternate win strategy. My Capital has a high production power and we could fight wars to pillage and cause chaos merely to buy us time to get a tower victory.

Part 2 = Smelting > Iron Working > War Horses
War Horses is our big shiny button for war. It unlocks both our heroes and 4 Knights and 4 Shadow Riders each. That's a LOT of powerful units.

Smelthing lets me get Jewelers which increase my teching power a LOT in my cities, while the Forges can be useful to both of us. This tech is tricky as its so useful to my teching power we could grab it before going for some other part or line.

The Iron Working and Warhorses can be gotten via the Tower of Divination. Although seeing as only one of us can build it at a time (unless we find more nodes) then it could be more efficiant to tech Iron Working and just bulb the Warhorses tech. We could then use the Hippus Tower of Div to get Astronomey or the Later Magic Techs needed to build the Tower of Mastery.

[SIZE="3"]Other and one-of Techs:[/SIZE]
Military Strategy
Do we have experienced enough units to build the Heroic Epic?

Feudalism
If you switch back to Aristocracy you can get the Royal Guard Civic special units, which can act as mobile Defensive units for your attack squads or as units that can spread culture and happiness around the place.

Drama
Allows you to build culture in new cities saving production from expansive monuments.

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Dungeon Diving[/SIZE]

Nearly forgot about this.

Okay I have 3 Dungeons in my Empires culture and our planned expansion for the Hippus will get us 3 Skeleton Barrows as well. So I'm putting together a Dungeon team. It's late enough in the game that we can spare the troops. Each dungeon will be surrounded and then a scout/hunter sent in.

This trick should mean we don't get any big bad outcomes. It might be too late for any goodies to be too influential but I certainly wouldn't say no to a Great Engineer or an Adventurer at the moment.

The Squad is made up of primarly Centaurs and scouts/hunters. They will pop the Dungeon up at the Last City, circle around to the Shallow city and then head south to clear out to help clear out the Barrows near your land and pop them off too.

This is just to keep you up to date on what my units are doing, it's also so you can ponder if you want to be the one to pop of the barrows in your land yourself.

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]Update[/SIZE]

Treant has appeared in the south on the spot Ichabod was going to settle. Too risky to settle there now, especially with a potential second in that area. Instead Ichabod is sending his settler to the B spot and I will have to squeeze mine in elsewhere.

Unfortunately i'm now out of position. I don't have the forces to clear out the Barrows in the South ready yet. While I don't have the workers in the North to get a city up and running quickly. I think the E spot is probably best. I have a centaur or two close by, workers I can divert from my capital and Ichabod you can push your extra warriors from your Capital to guard it as your Capital will become a back line city once E is founded and need less protection.

As it will be a lone city and not a double push it might be better to settle on one of the hills instead of flat lands? The cottons NW or E could be worthwhile or the Broken Hill SE. At the moment i'm leaning towards the East Cotton. It loses the Regents and Base Mana node but we can just found another city to grab them.

Reading back on my messages I realise Ichabod also wanted to get Drama ASAP as well so that he doesn't have to waste hammers on monuments or wait for my CoE archer to circle round. So the amended short term tech path is;
Currency > Drama > Archery > Stirrups

[Ichabod]

We don't need to worry about maintenance in this map. Since it's huge, the cities get a very low maintenance, even with god king. I can keep it for now.

I like the E spot in the cotton 1E, like you suggested. Spot F is also pretty good (I'm sending my warriors to guard spot E).

We haven't met Thoth and Mr. Yellow team, which means they haven't adopted Undercouncil yet. So, how come we aren't getting the vote? That's certainly annoying...

Next turn, withdraw your centaur in the south near the treant, no point in risking leaving him there.

There's 2 huts west of Plains that you should try popping, if possible.

IMPORTANT: Let's go to Stirrups before drama (I can hold a bit with first ring borders only). I think I'll hold on building horsemen. Better to wait until I can build horse archers. It'll cost a lot to upgrade them. Let's get stirrups, then I'll pump out a lot of horses.

Starting next turn, I'll start gifting you gold!

EDIT: I'm building a hunting lodge in my capital to take over hawk/hunter duty.

[Ravus Sol]

We don't need to worry about maintenance in this map. Since it's huge, the cities get a very low maintenance, even with god king. I can keep it for now.

I like the E spot in the cotton 1E, like you suggested. Spot F is also pretty good (I'm sending my warriors to guard spot E).

Right i'll send the new Settler to the Cotton, It should work well enough for now. Production is what we need now. We've pushed expansion so that we are back in league but there are so many things to build now. I will need to try and squeeze out another worker now that some of mine are helping you. I'll grab a scout, upgrade to a hunter and another Hawk as well I think. I'm trying to be sparing with my none-eco boosting choices.

We haven't met Thoth and Mr. Yellow team, which means they haven't adopted Undercouncil yet. So, how come we aren't getting the vote? That's certainly annoying...

Do we know for certain that adopting Undercouncil will let us meet? Will it happen instantly or when a vote comes up?

Next turn, withdraw your centaur in the south near the treant, no point in risking leaving him there.

There's 2 huts west of Plains that you should try popping, if possible.

If you are pulling out of that Area I will too. I'll try to build a Second hawk to keep an eye on the growing Treant threat. They are Slow but powerful.

I'll send a Unit West, Porbably a hunter with a hawk to scout out the land there as well as pop them off.

IMPORTANT: Let's go to Stirrups before drama (I can hold a bit with first ring borders only). I think I'll hold on building horsemen. Better to wait until I can build horse archers. It'll cost a lot to upgrade them. Let's get stirrups, then I'll pump out a lot of horses.

Alright Stirrups first is good. It might not have taken much longer but I will feel safer if those Treants start appearing in greater numbers. I assume Drama afterwards is still good?

Starting next turn, I'll start gifting you gold!

EDIT: I'm building a hunting lodge in my capital to take over hawk/hunter duty.

Awesome. How much Gold do you get going 100% Gold? I have a -52 Gold Deficit at 100% Tech Rate.

Your Hunters will be much better then mine and will be able to get Animal Husbandry so do you want me to leave all the Animals for you to Capture? There is a Griffin and Lion up north that could be useful for scouting and happiness.

[Ichabod]

Alright Stirrups first is good. It might not have taken much longer but I will feel safer if those Treants start appearing in greater numbers. I assume Drama afterwards is still good?

Awesome. How much Gold do you get going 100% Gold? I have a -52 Gold Deficit at 100% Tech Rate.

Your Hunters will be much better then mine and will be able to get Animal Husbandry so do you want me to leave all the Animals for you to Capture? There is a Griffin and Lion up north that could be useful for scouting and happiness.

Drama sounds good.

I think I make 47 gold at 100% gold. Maybe I can improve it a bit in the next turns.

Yeah, you can leave the animals for me, if they aren't bottering you much.

[Ravus Sol]

The Treant sniped my Centaur! Get out of there while you can. I'll pull my dungeon squad south to help deal with this new threat. After Stirrups I will run 100% money for a bit to upgrade any Centaurs in the area to help defend. Damn Barbarians.

My new 100% tech rate has less of deficit. Most likely due to losing troops and some being back in my borders. I'm currently at -48 or so. Plus your Gold will go up as we help you expand. I've decided to grab Gibbon myself. Mainly for denial, but he will be useful as a terraformer. If you could pass along your nature mana at some point I can get him up to nature 3 so that he can just wander around upgrading things. Although would Nature 3 be needed? Can you spot any plains that could do with upgrading into grassland? I could just get Water 1 and Sun 1 instead.

[Ravus Sol]

ALERT! Dwarves have cast Mother Lode world spell and researched Smelting. Now Maybe I'm being paranoid but seeing as they can get Iron via Mines of Galdur the only reason I can see to grab Smelting is to get Iron Working. Mother Lode Means he probably gets all his bonuses from his vaults and can run 100% tech rate.

Combined with the Vampires being close to running... well vampires and the Wizard Pirates seeming to be doing well teching wise, I'm thinking If we want a chance to do a Raid we need to do it NOW.

I'm also thinking our chances of winning are tending towards building the tower of Mastery while running hit and runs on anyone that is a threat.

[Ravus Sol]

Woops our Rivals were hinting at a big turn 100 update and we missed it... Oh well. We can try to do a turn 102 update instead

Anyway, Stirrups is in. It costs 85 gold to upgrade a Centaur to a Centaur Archer. I think we need to do some of this just because of the amount of fighting we are doing while simply trying to expand!

Things that need killing

• Barbarians in the South West
  
• Skeletons in the South East
  
• Treants in the South
  
• Jkaen's Hunter in the South East (Ichabod Look for a sign)
  

I'm going to run a turn of 100% Gold to upgrade 2-3 Centaurs Straight away. Then I'll grab drama then Finalize a new tech path. I'm thinking Economy then magic then set up a slingshot into Knights. We're going to need the Muscle and more and more I see the Tower of Mastery as our way to win.

Stagnation
I'm out of Happy! My Capital is now maxed out at size 22. Not a good enough size for the Kuriotates. So I'm going to push a Settler while grabbing Smelting. Smelting will let me build jewelers (+1 happy for gold and gems and Jewel resource with +1 Happy) and a Forge (+1 happy for gold). Thus when we get Ichabods second Gold up and running I can trade it off him for a total of 5 extra happy. That will get me to size 27 And hopefully a Carnival and some animals will get me to size 30.

Also once I get a second Jewellery Resource I can give it to you.

Blight Attack
With all our Economy based out of my super cities I'm now nervous of a Blight push from the Pirate-Wizards. They seem to be the most defensive orientated team and they have the Ashen Veil Religion. It could be a nice idea to Grab Order. It spreads stupidly fast and lowers the AC. If Ichabod is still on course for getting a Great Prophet it could be doubly useful for gold and mana from a Shrine.

Expansion
With Jkaens Hunter down to the south should we take this as confirmation that that team is down there? Although the Hunter himself could have caught the Griffin and sent it north.

Either way getting a real defensive line in that direction would help and would close off all of the East making it safe from barbarians. We don't have to worry about Treants in this direction either. I'm going to send some Centaur Archers to deal with skeletons and then try to run down that Hunter if he's still there. Both Capital Grassland and Desert will pump settlers to do another double city expansion like I previously wanted to do.

This expansion push will happen in around 10 turns. It takes longer for the Settlers to run to their spots then it does to build them. Soon we are going to reach critical mass on Ichabod running God-King. So it's probably best If you get as much production as you can out of it before you switch out into city states or Aristocracy. With you building Markets everywhere Consumption could be useful too.

Attack Squads
I was thinking I could head West and you South. But as my Dungeon Squad is heading South anyway I can just upgrade them all. Kill the Skeletons. Snipe the Hunter and then continue South. Or they could swing around and help out with the Barbs and the Treants before continueing West... What do you think Ichabod? Play it by ear?

[Ichabod]

ALERT! Dwarves have cast Mother Lode world spell and researched Smelting. Now Maybe I'm being paranoid but seeing as they can get Iron via Mines of Galdur the only reason I can see to grab Smelting is to get Iron Working. Mother Lode Means he probably gets all his bonuses from his vaults and can run 100% tech rate.

There's also dwarven forges, which get +40% production bonus with copper and iron, avaiable at smelting.



Did you see the two treants west of my capital, near the proposed site of my city? I don't it's safe to settle there anymore, unfortunately...

I'm building Horse Archers from my capital non-stop now. I think I'll manage 1 per two turns, which is a decent rate. I think you don't need to bring your south squad back, we can handle it without them, especially with my soon to be ready HAs.


Anyway, I think we need to hold onto settling the new city due to the treants. Can you fly a hawk over that region again next turn? Then we can reevaluate, if the treants fled or something like that.


I'm just back from holyday + weekend away from home and I have to say I'm a little lost with this game (sorry!). I'll try to catch up on everything during the weekend. I asked for more time in the tech thread so we can discuss the issue of the treants to the west of my capital. But I'll play soon enough, just wanted a little of your input on the matter.


So we shouold head for smelting, is that right?


BTW, Hippus can use their Hero Magnadine to recruit Mercenaries. It's an option if we happen not to land the Guild of the Nine (especially since my mercenaries are very good, since they are mounted).