[SPOILERS] PB1- Mardoc buys a can of paint for Thoth and Ellimist

[Qgqqqqq]

Updates for starving lurkers?

[Mardoc]

Updates for starving lurkers?

Haven't actually had a turn since Ellimist's last update. I'll try to find time this weekend for a picture report again, but I find my list of things to do better once I have time is pretty long.

[Ellimist]

I took two images for turn 92 but didn't end up posting them:

Our army of animal-capturing scouts:




The scout that captured griffon #2 ended up in range of (potential) griffon #3:




The turn rolled at about 2 am, but I hadn't gone to bed yet and took a quick look at T93. That scout did win his battle and we now have 3 Elohim griffons, but they're a wounded and will need some time to recover.

Also, I'm thinking our best move with regard to writing is to burn through the Elohim gold reserves to get it asap. After we get it, we'll replace the gold while building the libraries, and then go back to breakeven after that. This may be worth doing with the Calabim as well.

[Thoth]

Also, I'm thinking our best move with regard to writing is to burn through the Elohim gold reserves to get it asap. After we get it, we'll replace the gold while building the libraries, and then go back to breakeven after that. This may be worth doing with the Calabim as well.

Agreed. Spend what we have to get to writing faster then stockpile gold for 3t in Elohimia and 4t in Calabimia. That'll let us turn the stored gold into beakers with an extra multiplier.


Also, we have a roughly 40% chance of spawning a prophet in 2t.....if we get a Sage, Academy for Riesling is obvious but what do we do with a GP?

We could build the 1st two tiers of the Altar for some Spiritual Mages later on. But the first two tiers are junk effects wise (T3 is a bit more interesting....+1 happy in all cities. Does this apply to all of the team or just the Orcs?)

It's a bit early for an Elohim GA (not enough tiles in play yet) but the Orcs might just be about ripe for a GA?

Or we could hang on to them both for a Religion bulb or later GAs.


Hopefully we'll get our GS and we won't have to worry about it, but if we do draw a GP it would be nice to maximize the value we can get for it.


I'm probably heading for an early night so go ahead and play the turn whenever you guys are ready.

[Ellimist]

Now for some additional pictures!

First of all, a quick overview of where we stand in comparison to the rest of the civs:

Notice the sanitation "bump" on the food graph:



Also... Manors rock:



I was going to post the GNP graph, but it's an incomprehensible mess of zigzag lines. I stared at it for 2 minutes and couldn't figure out what it meant.

Units!



We have 3 griffons now, and a bunch of scouts out looking for more. We also have 6 settlers and 3 more settler pairs in production. Hmm.

Our new orcish port city isn't that impressive yet, but give it time.



Great person coming soon:



This is just insane:



One turn worker:



27 hammers per turn:



And our daring wolf rider wants to join the circus:



I'm not sure it's a good idea to try and pester them here. Assuming he survives, I'd rather continue exploring and get an idea of where the borders extend.

[Ellimist]

Also, I'm thinking our best move with regard to writing is to burn through the Elohim gold reserves to get it asap. After we get it, we'll replace the gold while building the libraries, and then go back to breakeven after that. This may be worth doing with the Calabim as well.

Agreed. Spend what we have to get to writing faster then stockpile gold for 3t in Elohimia and 4t in Calabimia. That'll let us turn the stored gold into beakers with an extra multiplier.

Sounds good. It looks like we'll finish writing next turn after all three civs have ended turn, but the Elohim can run a low slider and start collecting gold.

Also, we have a roughly 40% chance of spawning a prophet in 2t.....if we get a Sage, Academy for Riesling is obvious but what do we do with a GP?

We could build the 1st two tiers of the Altar for some Spiritual Mages later on. But the first two tiers are junk effects wise (T3 is a bit more interesting....+1 happy in all cities. Does this apply to all of the team or just the Orcs?)

It's a bit early for an Elohim GA (not enough tiles in play yet) but the Orcs might just be about ripe for a GA?

Or we could hang on to them both for a Religion bulb or later GAs.

Hopefully we'll get our GS and we won't have to worry about it, but if we do draw a GP it would be nice to maximize the value we can get for it.

If I'm doing the math right, a religion bulb would only give something like 750 beakers. That's pretty weak when we can already get 250-300 per turn at breakeven.

I'm not sure if the Altar benefits apply to the whole team. I suspect that it does not, but it still may be worth considering.

I prefer to use the Orc prophet for a golden age, but not quite yet. Let's at least get into consumption and undercouncil first. Ideally we can produce enough great people for the Clan to have two golden ages and the Calabim to have at least one. I don't know what to do with the Elohim but they won't have enough population to justify one any time soon.

So... yeah. Maybe we go for a shrine if we get an Elohim prophet?

[Ellimist]

Last turn we baited two dangerous animals with scouts so that we could capture them after those scouts died.

Things did not go according to plan. Our "sacrificial" units survived and captured a griffon and spider, bringing our total to four griffons and two spiders. That also puts us at 5 "surviving" scouts with at least 7 exp, and 9 "green" scouts still at 4 exp.

So... this turn we'll try the same tactic against two additional griffons. (Each has two scouts ready to capture it.)


We finished writing this turn and the Elohim started building their libraries. They'll finish in two more turns and run 0% science until then. The Calabim will run 0% science next turn, and maybe a bit longer if the Elohim GP is a sage.

Thoth handled the diplomacy for the turn by pillaging the Balseraph rice farm shown in my last screenshot. So far, their emissaries have not been seen approaching our lands.

I need to go to bed... sorry no pictures tonight.

[Mardoc]

Last turn we baited two dangerous animals with scouts so that we could capture them after those scouts died.

Things did not go according to plan. Our "sacrificial" units survived and captured a griffon and spider, bringing our total to four griffons and two spiders. That also puts us at 5 "surviving" scouts with at least 7 exp, and 9 "green" scouts still at 4 exp.

So... this turn we'll try the same tactic against two additional griffons. (Each has two scouts ready to capture it.)

Uh...why were we so insistent on those Reliquaries first?



Thoth, I've got to admit, Subdue Animal scouts was a brilliant idea. Bootstrapping 16 hammers/scout into this menagerie has been quite a good exchange rate, even if the scouts didn't keep mostly winning their battles. 170 hammers for four griffs and two spiders would be worthwhile...but we're by no means done accumulating :D

I need to go to bed... sorry no pictures tonight.

Can do, Captain!

Here's the area we've been collecting animals from most heavily. It's toward the center of the map, a natural direction for the Calabim to expand. Which is excellent, because all these floodplains is prime Aristograrian + Manors territory . We've just got to establish control of the area so our settlers can walk in peace, and of course supply the workers and garrisons.



Here's what we believe to be an island, in the fog just off the coast. If we're right, settling it will upgrade one trade route in every single city, worth at least 20 gpt across our civs. Our port city will be spitting out a galley or two pronto, to confirm that this is an island and/or bring it a settler. Given that Trade and Currency are on the horizon, we're hoping to actually find an archipelago out this way, so we can have three intercontinental trade routes/city.

We've currently got 10 Clan, 6 Calabim, and 3 Elohim cities. 2 settlers in place to found cities next turn, 4 more en route, and 2 more in production. We've slowed production a bit to slip in Thanes and workers - as much as we want the new cities, they'll be a heck of a lot more useful with religion and improved tiles That'll be a total of at least 25 cities to benefit from Trade and intercontinental routes, and hopefully even more to benefit by the time we get to Currency.

The two sites ready for settlement T95 are:


An Elohim site chosen primarily for hammer production. Idea here is to be able to slap in a Tolerated Warrens, and use this city for all sorts of useful things - training Shamans in the Charismatic civ, or training settlers for non-Tolerated Elohim cities, or maybe just to train us a whole passel more of Subdue Animal scouts. This city is exhibit A for why we want Hunting soonish. It'll be quite useful...just perhaps not as useful as Trade and Sailing and Currency and...

But one of these days we'll find the time to slip in Hunting for the deer and Ivory and Furs, and possibly also Animal Handling for Hawks.

The other next-turn site is here:


A Calabim site useful mainly as a filler. Not much in the way of resources, but a lot of grassland (that's now, post-Construction, farmable), and enough forest hammers to bootstrap in a Manor. To the east of this site you see a much more awesome site, the corn/pigs, which will be easier to justify grabbing once we've expanded out that way naturally.

Finally, a site that won't be ours for quite some time:


When settlers cost us basically 35 hammers each, it's real hard to justify fighting archers fortified in a hill city, even if it does look like a pretty decent site. We'll likely take this post-Vampires, when we can use Spectres to do the dirty work.

Any questions?

[Ellimist]

Thanks Mardoc.

We've currently got 10 Clan, 6 Calabim, and 3 Elohim cities. 2 settlers in place to found cities next turn, 4 more en route, and 2 more in production. We've slowed production a bit to slip in Thanes and workers - as much as we want the new cities, they'll be a heck of a lot more useful with religion and improved tiles

One thing to add to this is that the Clan gained access to Ale this turn. Our cities can't grow to take advantage of this if they're producing a settler.

Uh...why were we so insistent on those Reliquaries first?

I'm not sure if we've had any spirit guide units die yet, so the reliquaries have mostly just provided culture. It actually would be better for us if we were losing more scouts in these defensive battles.
First, of course, there is the spirit guide promotion so that their starting exp would be passed on. That's not really an advantage, but it does mitigate the loss.
Second, the animals would gain experience, which we could use for mobility or other promotions, as well as speeding up the post-capture healing. There's a huge difference between a 1-move, 2-move, and 3-move spider.

As far as our prospective island to the west, I'd like to have two settlers and two axes ready to depart as soon as the galley is completed. It's also possible that we'll want those island cities to belong to the Calabim, especially if they're hammer-starved.

[Thoth]

Thanks Mardoc.

We've currently got 10 Clan, 6 Calabim, and 3 Elohim cities. 2 settlers in place to found cities next turn, 4 more en route, and 2 more in production. We've slowed production a bit to slip in Thanes and workers - as much as we want the new cities, they'll be a heck of a lot more useful with religion and improved tiles

One thing to add to this is that the Clan gained access to Ale this turn. Our cities can't grow to take advantage of this if they're producing a settler.

True, but we need to come up with +2 happy for the Orcs to make up for the happy hit when we swap from Religion into Consumption. 1 Happy can be covered by markets but we'll need something to make up for the other point.

Getting the ivory improved fits the bill nicely.

Post Currency we should be able to knock off Festivals/Hunting/Archery in around 4 maybe 5 turns total. Then grab Feud/Kote/Philo/Warfare/Smelting/IW?

As far as our prospective island to the west, I'd like to have two settlers and two axes ready to depart as soon as the galley is completed. It's also possible that we'll want those island cities to belong to the Calabim, especially if they're hammer-starved.

Agreed that the Island colonies should be Calabim. They set up cheaper (cheap GMs and cheap Lighthouses) and will be more productive than Orc or Elohim cities would be.

Shouldn't be too tough to arrange for a pair of axes and settlers to be ready for the Galley and another pair of each ready for wehn the galley returns (or we cah rush another).


Also civics:

Once Trade is in it's swapping time. :hat:

Orcs pick up Undercouncil and maybe Conquest?

Vamps pick up Undercouncil and Military State.

Elohim pick up Overcouncil, Military state and maybe Conquest?

9t after Trade we'll have currency and the happy in place for the Orcs to pick up Consumption instead of Religion.