Learning Capria FFH SG

[haphazard1]

IIRC, if you buy the orb, you get a free tech! But hard to know if you haven't peeked at the events list or encountered it before.

Too bad, I did not know.

And the angelic procession is an event that lowers the AC, and has an extra benefit for the Elohim.

I had wondered why the AC was down a bit. Good to know.

We probably want to build a command post with him in our Heroic Epic city. Until then, he can be attached to other units, giving them +1 STR and +1 EXP from every combat. With planning, he can be used by two units per turn, too.

Note that we actually have two great commanders, one in Bologna and one in St Andrews. I have used the one in St Andrews for a couple of barb combats, but he is currently unattached.

Great! Now we have a lock on Guild of Hammers!

Depending on tech paths taken by Jonas, we might have that anyway. But we can certainly pretty much guarantee any one wonder if we get to the tech first.

[kjn]

Some questions for the team, before I play:

Placement of National Epic? I proposed Wien, but are there any better options that you can see? My GP plan is probably to aim for a prophet from Praha first (for a shrine), and then get Wien fully up.

Placement of Heroic Epic? St Andrews is the logical candidate to me, but is there a better option?

I also think we should decide on how we want to win this game. I'm leaning towards Domination, but does anyone have any other preferences?

Order of Heaven or Empyrean as our end-game religion? Empyrean is a builder religion, and Radiant Guards and Rathas are excellent anti-stack units. Immobilise - Pillar of Fire - mop up.

Order, however, has excellent synergy with Crusade. The best stack-boosting priests, spreads fast, and Basilicas can be built instead of courthouses in conquered cities while in Crusade (if we use that civic).

We should also slot in Fellowship of Leaves (or trade for it) and switch to it for a while, so we can get a few PoLs. Bloom is a handy spell, and tigers are useful summons and can be caged for culture.

[haphazard1]

Some questions for the team, before I play:

Placement of National Epic? I proposed Wien, but are there any better options that you can see? My GP plan is probably to aim for a prophet from Praha first (for a shrine), and then get Wien fully up.

How would you configure Wien in this case? It has quite a number of good hammer tiles to work, so it would be a shame to have to strip them all to run specialists. Maybe Krakow? Lots of food, a bit of production to build the NE, but not nearly as many useful hammer tiles to lose as Wien so putting pop as specialists doesn't cost us as much.

Placement of Heroic Epic? St Andrews is the logical candidate to me, but is there a better option?

My big worry on St Andrews is that we could very easily lose it. It does have by far the best position to be our main unit pump, along with excellent hammer potential. It still has some growing and development to do to get to that point.

The alternative (to my noobish eyes, at least) is Bologna. With HE and maybe a command post, it could be cranking out 120-hammer units almost every turn. It would be complete overkill for anything cheaper, though, and we might prefer to use the city for other things. And the location is far from ideal for everyone but Amelanchier. But it is near full development already and could crank troops ASAP.

I also think we should decide on how we want to win this game. I'm leaning towards Domination, but does anyone have any other preferences?

The big challenge is obviously Jonas. Assuming our estimates of the last unknown AI are correct, everyone but the Clan and us are also rans. Do you think we can get Domination without fighting Jonas? Or if we do have to fight the Clan, do we crush the small fry first and take their land, then conquer as much of Jonas as we can until we hit the Dom limits? Or do we fight Jonas first and hope not to have to bother with the little civs?

I am assuming from his spiking power that we will have to fight Jonas at some point. And if we do that, conquest might be as easy as domination.

Order of Heaven or Empyrean as our end-game religion? Empyrean is a builder religion, and Radiant Guards and Rathas are excellent anti-stack units. Immobilise - Pillar of Fire - mop up.

Order, however, has excellent synergy with Crusade. The best stack-boosting priests, spreads fast, and Basilicas can be built instead of courthouses in conquered cities while in Crusade (if we use that civic).

I have almost no experience with Order or Empyrean, so I don't really have an opinion on this. We certainly need some kind of stack-busting capability, though, and since we are not developing anything along the arcane line maybe Empyrean could provide this?

We should also slot in Fellowship of Leaves (or trade for it) and switch to it for a while, so we can get a few PoLs. Bloom is a handy spell, and tigers are useful summons and can be caged for culture.

Going FoL for a while would certainly boost relations with Jonas. Might be enough to keep him off our backs for a while, if we feel we need that. I am not sure I understand the advantages of Bloom for a non-elf civ, other than some very situational uses. Tiger spam is useful.

[kjn]

How would you configure Wien [as a National Epic city]? It has quite a number of good hammer tiles to work, so it would be a shame to have to strip them all to run specialists. Maybe Krakow? Lots of food, a bit of production to build the NE, but not nearly as many useful hammer tiles to lose as Wien so putting pop as specialists doesn't cost us as much.

It'd look pretty much as it does right now, but maybe putting farms on some of the cottages. A good GP farm needs quite a bit of production (absent slavery), since it will need to build lots of GP-enabling buildings, and health and happiness providers.

Say 175 hammers for the NE, and 120 for the Library (2 scientists). We can probably get the forge via the Guild of Hammers, and can probably use temples (240 hammers) to provide most GP slots (and happiness), but it'd still be quite an investment. Then 360 for health (granary, smokehouse, harbour).

Yes, Krakow can run one more specialist than Wien by my count (10 versus 9), but Wien can get started earlier, get the enabling buildings much faster, and can take larger advantage of its large size by adding the trade routes quicker. Health is also a consideration: Wien has fresh water; Krakow doesn't.

My big worry on St Andrews is that we could very easily lose it. It does have by far the best position to be our main unit pump, along with excellent hammer potential. It still has some growing and development to do to get to that point.

Correct. On the other hand, I don't propose we build the HE and NE right now. They will need enabling buildings first (library, granary, smokehouse et c for the NE; unit-training buildings for HE).

The alternative (to my noobish eyes, at least) is Bologna. With HE and maybe a command post, it could be cranking out 120-hammer units almost every turn. It would be complete overkill for anything cheaper, though, and we might prefer to use the city for other things. And the location is far from ideal for everyone but Amelanchier. But it is near full development already and could crank troops ASAP.

Yes, but if we need uber-production in Bologna all we need to do is switch to God King for ten turns.

The big challenge is obviously Jonas. Assuming our estimates of the last unknown AI are correct, everyone but the Clan and us are also rans. Do you think we can get Domination without fighting Jonas? Or if we do have to fight the Clan, do we crush the small fry first and take their land, then conquer as much of Jonas as we can until we hit the Dom limits? Or do we fight Jonas first and hope not to have to bother with the little civs?

Have to count land tiles for that. Colonising the south should get us a decent chunk of land, and conquering Auric's land would probably put us at almost 50% or so. Amelanchier might add a little more.

I am assuming from his spiking power that we will have to fight Jonas at some point. And if we do that, conquest might be as easy as domination.

Oh, yes. We will have to fight Jonas no matter which victory we shoot for (except possibly culture). Better to do it at a time of our choosing. I'm pretty sure the south, our present land, Auric's land, and a large chunk of Jonas's land would put us over domination.

I have almost no experience with Order or Empyrean, so I don't really have an opinion on this. We certainly need some kind of stack-busting capability, though, and since we are not developing anything along the arcane line maybe Empyrean could provide this?

Empyrean has three anti-stack mechanisms:

Blinding Light (blinds units and holds them in place for a turn) - we can get a good number of Radiant Guards (which are one-pop draftable!) or Rathas while in Empyrean and keep them.

Crown of Brilliance, on the high priests (4 units max, plus Chalid).

Chalid Astrakein, with Pillar of Fire.

Order doesn't really give that, but in a way, if there is one civ that can go toe-to-toe and exceed the Clan in building huge stacks, it's the Bannor. Our unique requires us to be in Crusade (which brings huge decrease in unit support costs or war weariness), and doesn't look like much. A STR 5 melee unit? But it costs 60 hammers, requires ZERO maintenance, and can use all weapons. And we can get oodles of them with our world spell.

Ie, our anti-stack counter would be two just as big stacks. And our other unique is another stack buffing unit, and the Order has even more stack buffers. The Order is also very well suited to a large empire, with the Basilica we can get city maintenance to zero.

Going FoL for a while would certainly boost relations with Jonas. Might be enough to keep him off our backs for a while, if we feel we need that. I am not sure I understand the advantages of Bloom for a non-elf civ, other than some very situational uses. Tiger spam is useful.

Bloom is quite useful for tiles that can't get another improvement that you still might want to use (like Patria or Yggdrasil).

[haphazard1]

Correct. On the other hand, I don't propose we build the HE and NE right now. They will need enabling buildings first (library, granary, smokehouse et c for the NE; unit-training buildings for HE).

OK, I was thinking you meant building them very soon. Given the additional prep needed, Wien and St Andrews should have time and production to develop fully.

Yes, but if we need uber-production in Bologna all we need to do is switch to God King for ten turns.

Ouchie. That would be a very, very expensive 10 turns! Losing the Aristocracy commerce on farms, plus shifting from reduced maintenance costs to God King's increased maintenance.... That would likely be very painful economically. I think it would need to be a pretty serious emergency before we would want to do that.

Have to count land tiles for that. Colonising the south should get us a decent chunk of land, and conquering Auric's land would probably put us at almost 50% or so. Amelanchier might add a little more.

Oh, yes. We will have to fight Jonas no matter which victory we shoot for (except possibly culture). Better to do it at a time of our choosing. I'm pretty sure the south, our present land, Auric's land, and a large chunk of Jonas's land would put us over domination.

The south is a nice chunk of land, and Auric has a fair bit as well. Most of that is absolute junk, but for domination land is land. Amelanchier doesn't really have all that much, but every little bit helps. Too bad Jonas has been snapping up the remaining land south of St Andrews, but I guess it was never realistic for us to get most of that. I would like to conquer Domir (the barb city by Letum Frigus) if we can find the troops. Ice mana would give us something decent for arcane without needing Sorcery, and keeping it out of Jonas' hands with his legions of arcane units would be a very good thing.

I think we would still need a fair bit of Jonas' land to reach domination, like maybe 1/3 of Clan territory. But I may be wrong. I wonder if there are any sizable islands out in the oceans somewhere?

Empyrean has three anti-stack mechanisms:

Blinding Light (blinds units and holds them in place for a turn) - we can get a good number of Radiant Guards (which are one-pop draftable!) or Rathas while in Empyrean and keep them.

Crown of Brilliance, on the high priests (4 units max, plus Chalid).

Chalid Astrakein, with Pillar of Fire.

Radiant Guards and Rathas would definitely be useful. Jonas has got stacks of shaman with haste, and that is one spell the AI gets at least decent value from even if not as much as a human can squeeze out of it.

High priests are a fair chunk of tech away, but Spiritual does help with getting priests with enough XP for the upgrade. And of course there is Chalid whom I have never used but that I see mentioned as a game changer in many places. Might be fun to see what all the fuss is about.

Order doesn't really give that, but in a way, if there is one civ that can go toe-to-toe and exceed the Clan in building huge stacks, it's the Bannor. Our unique requires us to be in Crusade (which brings huge decrease in unit support costs or war weariness), and doesn't look like much. A STR 5 melee unit? But it costs 60 hammers, requires ZERO maintenance, and can use all weapons. And we can get oodles of them with our world spell.

Ie, our anti-stack counter would be two just as big stacks. And our other unique is another stack buffing unit, and the Order has even more stack buffers. The Order is also very well suited to a large empire, with the Basilica we can get city maintenance to zero.

One worry here is speed, with Jonas having all those hasters. But it would not be too difficult for us to tech KotE and Alteration and use one of our nodes for Body mana. Then we can have big, fast stacks of our own. And maybe some ice-wielding adepts could help as well.

Strength 5 unit costing 60 hammers sounds pretty good indeed, and being able to get tons of them would certainly help against the Clan's warren-fueled armies. No maintenance also sounds really nice -- I have been hoping that Jonas' expanding army will be hurting his bottom line, but I am not sure just what kind of costs the AI faces at this difficulty level.

Bloom is quite useful for tiles that can't get another improvement that you still might want to use (like Patria or Yggdrasil).

Or maybe for improving tundra? Auric certainly has tons of that if we take his land, assuming he doesn't turn it all to ice with his temples.

[kjn]

Ouchie. That [switch to God King for emergency production]would be a very, very expensive 10 turns!

Agreed. But there's also a point in using a good production city for the HE, but not the very best. You want it to churn units, not be distracted with wonders or settlers or workers.

The south is a nice chunk of land, and Auric has a fair bit as well. Most of that is absolute junk, but for domination land is land. Amelanchier doesn't really have all that much, but every little bit helps. Too bad Jonas has been snapping up the remaining land south of St Andrews, but I guess it was never realistic for us to get most of that. I would like to conquer Domir (the barb city by Letum Frigus) if we can find the troops. Ice mana would give us something decent for arcane without needing Sorcery, and keeping it out of Jonas' hands with his legions of arcane units would be a very good thing.

A check of the VCs show:

Domination: we have 31% of world population, and 17.5% of land. Jonas is at 30% and 22%. Domination requires 770 land tiles, and we have 211 right now. Jonas has 266. The south will add another 98 (including peaks), and the island 11. Auric has a bit more than 50.

Hmm... something is fishy here, since I can't get the figures to line up.

And good job spotting that land in the far northeast and marking it! I just noted that the map continued a far bit to the east, and thought there might be more islands out there.

I think we would still need a fair bit of Jonas' land to reach domination, like maybe 1/3 of Clan territory. But I may be wrong. I wonder if there are any sizable islands out in the oceans somewhere?

Apparently yes. Our continent is starting to fill up nicely. If my figures can be counted upon, then 749 land tiles are settled already, and we have about 100 in our south, and maybe 50 in the desert, and another 100-150 north and nortwest of Domir. Total 1000-1050 tiles. That leaves more than 100 tiles for islands, I think.

Radiant Guards and Rathas would definitely be useful. Jonas has got stacks of shaman with haste, and that is one spell the AI gets at least decent value from even if not as much as a human can squeeze out of it.

Radiant Guard is probably the best religious unit, since it's draftable and has a good effect. As long as you get Mobility 1 on it after drafting, you're golden.

High priests are a fair chunk of tech away, but Spiritual does help with getting priests with enough XP for the upgrade. And of course there is Chalid whom I have never used but that I see mentioned as a game changer in many places. Might be fun to see what all the fuss is about.

Chalid is one of the "I win" buttons in FfH. I used him quite extensively when I played Into the Desert, and frankly, I found it to be a bit boring after a while. Yes, he's that powerful.

One worry here is speed, with Jonas having all those hasters. But it would not be too difficult for us to tech KotE and Alteration and use one of our nodes for Body mana. Then we can have big, fast stacks of our own. And maybe some ice-wielding adepts could help as well.

Yes. Ice is an excellent anti-stack adept spell.

Strength 5 unit costing 60 hammers sounds pretty good indeed, and being able to get tons of them would certainly help against the Clan's warren-fueled armies. No maintenance also sounds really nice -- I have been hoping that Jonas' expanding army will be hurting his bottom line, but I am not sure just what kind of costs the AI faces at this difficulty level.

Very reduced, but still has to pay a bit.

Or maybe for improving tundra? Auric certainly has tons of that if we take his land, assuming he doesn't turn it all to ice with his temples.

Well, tundra isn't that good even with a forest. It'd be great if forests could clear up marsh terrain...

[Brian Shanahan]

Sorry for being away from the thread the last few days. Was feeling a bit *ahem* annoyed, and well staying away was a much better alternative than flying into a totally irrational and unjustified Hulk rage (I've a bit of a temper, yes).

I'm busy today, so I'll catch up tonight and see if I can add anything.

[kjn]

Sorry for being away from the thread the last few days. Was feeling a bit *ahem* annoyed, and well staying away was a much better alternative than flying into a totally irrational and unjustified Hulk rage (I've a bit of a temper, yes).

I'm busy today, so I'll catch up tonight and see if I can add anything.

No worries - I tend to come across as quite abrasive and acerbic that sort of reaction quite often. I'm better now than when I was younger, but it still happens.

I'm currently playing the turn, and will probably have the report finished tomorrow, so it's not like you've delayed the game.

[kjn]

Turn played up to turn 229, and I'll put up the save with a report tomorrow, probably on the afternoon.

Some points of note:

Optics and Currency just researched. I think the next tech should be Honor, so we can get an Empyrean temple (and the priest slots) in Praha next.

Order founded in Heidelberg, but our free acolyte wasn't succesful in Bologna . We also got a free Order spread, but without the bonus Acolyte . You can probably pull a civics+religion switch once we get Order into the city and the two Stonewardens finished in Praha and Coimbra (Shield of Faith is a permanent buff, so we only need a few Stonewardens).

We have an assault group just outside Domir, but there is a workboat in the city which probably will link up the fish in two turns, so we might want to wait until that is connected.

We also have a settler just outside Praha, and an unnamed worker outside St Andrews. Haphazard settled Brown, and I've settled Yellow, so we need to decide on a final dotmap for the southwest now.

[kjn]

Ok, dotmapping the south. Lets start with some references:

Hart's first dotmaps

My proposed dotmap after the entire peninsula was scouted

(These are the signs in-game.)

Since Haphazard settled Brown 1E, it makes sense to push Red 1SW (onto Hart's lime dot). We lose a grassland and get more marsh in the BFC, but can work the banana.

But how to dotmap Cyan and Green White is in the only sensible spot, I think, what with all the marshland. I think my Green and Cyan are the best spots, and the most defensible against sea assault, but for some reason I can't feel quite comfortable with it.