Gotta Catch 'Em All! Hiding Kneel plays the Svartalfar

[HidingKneel]

Couldn't even tech animal husbandry to see where the horses were before your scouts came actually.

Yeah, it doesn't look like you had any horses:



But I did not know that until quite late (animal husbandry came after WotF).

So, another turn in. This time, I remembered to screenshot the demos:



Yell0w has pulled ahead of me in GNP. Maybe he's settled some shades? I should probably look in to crashing that party soon.
The power rating... the 27k is the Elohim, running a farmer's gambit on the other side of the world. The Sidar are only a little bit higher, and that 165k is the Ljosalfar. Which puts the Sheaim somewhere around 100k. So, they're most likely holding their own in this war. Which is excellent news.

My flying toy finally healed up. Time to decide what to do with him!



I think I'm going to send it scouting to the south. Need to be careful, though. The Ljosalfar have hunters too.

Another possibility is to try to meet Mardoc, who almost surely does not have hunters. But maybe that's not such a good idea. If we make contact and he sees me with seven or eight cities, he might start thinking that he's fighting the wrong elves.

Finally, I did a little bit of scouting up north:



Looks like there's room for another city. Not for the time being, though... maintenance costs are already starting to eat me alive. Maybe I should even think about prioritizing cartography/warfare over priesthood.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, another turn played.

Yell0w is up to four cities now. He's definitely surpassed my GNP now (and the demos say GreyWolf is ahead as well, at least while I'm running 100% gold). I'm starting to wonder if attacking him is actually a good idea. I've got a much stronger military, but not enough to guarantee a decisive victory. He's probably got bronze working by now; a hill city that can 1-turn bronze warriors could probably hold me off indefinitely. So the main benefit to attacking would be to do some damage (maybe raze his newest city?) and to force him to start investing in military. But that could backfire in the long run, since that military would likely be used against me. Which would be bad, if the Ljosalfar finish off the Sheaim and turn on me around the same time.

Well, don't need to decide that yet. For the time being, I'm sharpening my claws on barbarians. Used a fawn to kill this warrior which was meandering toward the former Doviello capital:



And then got a look at the barb city:



I've got two super-hunters, three fawns, and a warrior in position to take it next turn. Should be good for a bit of gold, and some experience on my fawns. Not really that great a city, though... built on desert, it'll be extremely vulnerable if that's my border with the Sidar.

My griffon perched itself on the watchtower to get a view of the Svartalfar-Ljosalfar border. No sign of GreyWolf headed my way. And I don't want to do anything too risky with the griffon. But, I thought of a way he can make himself useful:



Two shipwrecks, off the coast of Gereth Minar. I can kill two birds with one stone: exploring the coastline, and unleashing a horde of Azers on myself.

So... thinking longer term, I'm put in mind of something I read in the lurker thread for FF XXI:

Reading the Kurio/Angel thread these days sounds like me when I play SP games. "Well, if we just get <insert every tech in the game>, we can build <insert every unit in the game>."

Sadly, a very accurate critique. But I'm tempted to take the same approach here. I think it's a better idea in this game, due to the civ choice: the Kuriotates get an early lead which fades over time because they're limited in the amount they can expand. But the Svartalfar get the elven economy, so they only get stronger as the game goes on. I've eliminated the Doviello, which gives me control over more territory than anyone else, and I ought to be able to make good use of that thanks to the expansive trait. So maybe building is the way to go. And, thanks to the lead that I've established, I've got a good shot at grabbing some of the early goodies. Some quick thoughts on those:

The Bone Palace: it's already half-built, so clearly I'm finishing it.

Form of the Titan: the other worthwhile early-game wonder. I'm going to swap out of apprenticeship soon, so this would do me a lot of good. The tech that enables it (warfare) is next on my list. And I've already met the xp requirement (in fact, I think all of my super-hunters will enable the wonder). I might start building it when warfare comes in. I don't think I'm going to prioritize it highly, though. (Bronze working would let me double my hammers on it, but I've got too many other techs I need first).

The great bard at Drama: Too much of a detour. I'll ignore it, unless another great bard happens to fall in my lap.

The great commander at Military Strategy: I'm pretty sure I've got a lock on this if I want it, due to my tech path and tech lead. I think I'll grab it right after warfare/cartography (postponing priesthood a bit). I've got marble hooked, so military strategy ought to enable me to build a super-fast heroic epic during the upcoming golden age. The four-turn tech delay ought to pay off quickly when my heroic epic/command post city starts turning out priests of leaves in 1 or 2 turns.

Kithra Kithriel: In EitB, he's available at Hidden Paths. That's a tech I want anyway, for the GoN civic and the ability to upgrade fawns. But I think that should wait until after priesthood. Unfortunately, I'm not the only FoL fish in the pond... if the Ljosalfar prioritize him, they might beat me to it.

Aeron's Chosen: Well, maybe we're not talking early-game anymore, but I'm eventually going to want to tech Poisons for Alazkan, and it would nice to be able to promote one of my super-hunters to a super-duper assassin at the same time. My competition for this is Yell0w, who also gets his hero at Poisons. And the denial aspect is pretty important: I don't want to have to deal with a Sidar super-assassin, with hiding and teleportation abilities. I don't imagine going down this road for a long while, though.

So, tech path? For the time being, I'm thinking

Warfare -> Cartography (revolt in GA) -> military strategy -> priesthood -> hidden paths

Of course, a lot depends on how this turns out:



I'm getting a great person next turn. Most likely, that will be a sage. In which case I'll build an academy in the capital, turn the slider to 100% science, and start burning through those techs I listed. There's a decent chance of a prophet, though, which I could use to bulb priesthood. And a slight chance of a great bard. In that case, I guess I'll make a detour to festivals, use the bard to bulb drama, and use the drama bard to build the Song of Autumn.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, turn 73.

First off, I conquered that barbarian city:



Lost a fawn in an unlucky battle with an archer, but another fawn got enough xp for a satyr upgrade. Soon enough, soon enough.

Not sure this conquest was worthwhile. Doesn't look like the city will amount to much, and it's touching Yell0w's border. I definitely needed to take it out, to prevent him from farming barbarians for xp (= shades). But I suspect I will regret keeping it.

In other news, I flew my griffon down and parked it on a peak near the Ljosalfar. Got a little look at their northern land, but no sign of Ljosalfar units. That griffon has a promotion free, which I think will be visible to GreyWolf next turn. So he'll know that the griffon isn't controlled by the AI, and he'll probably figure that it's mine.

My scout is exploring the northern extent of the Doviello lands. Spotted some exotic sea life:



And I got a little surprise at EOT:



Wasn't expecting that. But to be honest, it's the outcome I was hoping for the most. Probably not as much use as a sage or a prophet, but it will let me do some fun things. And drama will actually be pretty handy, since I've got several cities with no culture right now.

So, science on next turn. Tech path: festivals (bulb drama) -> warfare -> cartography (revolt) -> military strategy -> reevaluate.

[Commodore]

So what does the FoL shrine do? I assume that's what the drama bard makes?

[HidingKneel]

So what does the FoL shrine do? I assume that's what the drama bard makes?

Lots of little things:

+1 gold per city with FoL. Which is better than usual, since my main rival is also running FoL and therefore will be feeding me income.

A little bit of extra culture (which actually might be handy, given the placement of the city; another ring of culture could give me an extra turn of warning if the Ljosalfar are starting to head my way).

A few bard GPPs, and adds a slot for priest and bard specialists (making the city a possible candidate for specializing in specialists later on).

Increases the chance of free FoL spreads (not sure what the math is on this).

1 free nature mana, letting my adepts start with Nature I for free. Probably useless unless I get to sorcery (for poison blade) or commune with nature (Yvain and druids have affinity for nature mana).

Altogether it's probably not as useful as getting an academy in the capital, but much more flavorful.

I suppose I should also consider some other things I could do with the second bard.

1) Bulb writing. But writing is a fairly cheap tech, which I'm not ready to make use of anyway (I need to be building workers, not libraries).

2) Fire a golden age. But I'd prefer to hold off on this; I can use my next GP for a golden age, once I've got more cities settled/cottages built/civics that need swapping.

3) Hit Yell0w with a culture bomb. I've never actually done this against the AI, so I don't have a good idea of how effective it would be. Maybe that's a question that a general lurker could answer? Assuming his city is four tiles west, two tiles north of Ahepetr, how badly would that hurt him?

[Merovech]

It depends on how many turns he has had control over the tile and how much culture he is outputting. Each turn the culture is "additively deposited" onto the tile, with a large bonus for first ring tiles and a moderate bonus for second ring tiles (1 of the bonuses is 10 additional deposited culture per turn, but I forget which one). This is why culture bombs are much more effective early in the game and why tiles will remain partially under the control of an older ruler until long after the land changes hands.

[HidingKneel]

It depends on how many turns he has had control over the tile and how much culture he is outputting. Each turn the culture is "additively deposited" onto the tile, with a large bonus for first ring tiles and a moderate bonus for second ring tiles (1 of the bonuses is 10 additional deposited culture per turn, but I forget which one). This is why culture bombs are much more effective early in the game and why tiles will remain partially under the control of an older ruler until long after the land changes hands.

Hmm... too many unknowns, sounds like. No idea whether that city is his most recent (a few turns old) or he's had it for a while. It might even be the Kilmorph holy city... though I think it only has two rings, and a holy city would surely have more than that by now. I'll just stick to the Song of Autumn plan.

So, another turn in.

The event log reveals that Greywolf revolted into aristocracy and conquest. Aristocracy seems like a strange choice for the elves (even if it is Arendel's favorite civic); has he been building farms instead of cottages? Also strange to abandon God King when he still only has four cities, one of which is the largest city in the world.

Conquest... well, that was worrisome. Until I looked at the demographics (screenshot from EOT):



His power has dropped quite a bit since last turn, and it doesn't look like there's a corresponding drop from the Sheaim. Which means two things:

1) The Sheaim and Ljosalfar are definitely fighting (I was worried that they might make peace now that the Ljosalfar are under new leadership, but it would appear not).
2) Mardoc is holding his own. Very good. Let them take out their aggression on each other, while I build my way into an unsurmountable lead.

So, what else is going on? My main army is gathering in Ahepetr to heal:



Right now that's three well-promoted hunters, two fawns, a disciple of leaves, and two warriors. Also, noticed an elephant next to the city. My unwounded hunter has subdue animal; I'll capture it next turn and use it to guard the city.

Meanwhile, here's a new fawn that I trained last turn:



I decided to send it south, rather than rendezvous with my main forces in Ahepetr. This is almost surely unwise.
The best way for me to lose the game at this point is to convince Mardoc and Greywolf that they ought to be fighting me instead of each other. And the best way to do that is to show Mardoc that I have eight cities, and to let him see my graphs.
Still... I'm curious about what's down there, and want to see if it would be worth staking a claim to some land south of Svartalfheim.

And my griffon is heading for trouble:



Meanwhile, I turned tech on; festivals due at the end of next turn.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, turn 75 in. The only real news is that my fawn has sighted the Sheaim border:



No contact yet. I'm thinking I'll hold off on that, for reasons I mentioned earlier.

The spot that the fawn is on now looks like a good site for a city. I'm guessing I'll be able to claim it, since Mardoc's probably got his hands full at the moment. I've got two other sites marked in the former Doviello territory, and I think that's about all the expansion I can do at the present time. Any other cities will require either conquering neighbors, teching BW (to clear jungle), or teching sailing (to settle islands). So... three settlers. I'll try to build those while in the golden age. Golden ages are good times to build things that are doubled.

What else? Festivals came in at EOT. Next up: warfare (2 turns).

[HidingKneel]

Alright, two more turns played. The most recent was quite eventful .

First off, we got a tech:



Semi-useful; we'll be queuing up some markets in the near future. Of course, the real reason for researching festivals was so I could do this:





That bought me another bard, which was useful for this:



Song of Autumn is good for 6gp per turn right now. Five of those are from my cities. Which means GreyWolf only has FoL in one of his cities. Which I suppose makes sense; he doesn't have any chance of free spreads, and doesn't need the religion for culture. Still, it was a bit disappointing to learn.

Also queued up culture in some cities that needed it. Got two border pops at end of turn.

Got a little event:



Which was good for 10gp. Can't exactly retire on that, but I'll take it.

Griffon finally reached its destination:



So maybe I'll get something awesome in a few turns. Or maybe it'll get eaten by a sea monster while I'm waiting.

My fawn that was scouting Mardoc made an interesting discovery:



Mirror of Heaven. Stepping on it will surely make contact with Mardoc, but it'll also do a lot of my scouting for me.

Finally, the big news. You may recall that I was hunting elephant. And when I caught one, my hunter discovered this:



Three bronze warriors, dangled in front of me like little bite-sized chunks of xp. I was re-thinking my plan to attack Yell0w, since I don't think I have the muscle to finish him off unless I go whole-hog on the war effort. But if he's going to make it this easy for me, I pretty much can't turn it down. I declared war and killed his warriors. Earned enough xp for a second satyr promotion. Ended turn a little bit spread out, but I don't think he has the mobility to counterattack. Next turn I'll get a look at his nearest city.

And the other big piece of news was the end of the latest turn, when my Bone Palace plan finally came to fruition:



Here's the "before":



And the "after":



Leading in everything now. Though GreyWolf probably still has the bigger army (power rating counts population, right?), and less territory to defend.

Finished Warfare at EOT. Next up is cartography (1 turn) and then some civic swaps, which ought to make the GNP lead even more dramatic (giving Yell0w a scare should help with that, too).

[Tasunke]

in the bag. "swoosh"