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

[Thoth]

Oh, and it looks like the Hippus decided to leave our "Mistform" alone.

[Thoth]

as entertaining as the Griffon's should prove to be in the East, it was in the West that every single hammer that we spent on scouts paid for it's self:

We may very well lose our griffon IBT, but if so it was worth it. We finished Currency this turn and that is our 3rd Island city. So it's worth around 30 commerce per turn in our mainland cities (TBH: I've lost track of exactly how many cities we have. It's around 30 right now I think.)

Without the griffon to cover we'd either have to risk losing the settler if the warrior lost vs the barb griffon or delaying the city by at least one turn.

Hopefully the Barb will seek other prey or we'll win the fight, but worst case the warrior survives unattacked and the settler lives and we get the last two ingredients we need to finish breaking Jonas. 3 offshore traderoutes per city and fast Markets thanks to grown cities/ga and some SoK transferred hammers.

In the SouthWest we're founding another city next turn:

Probably overkill on the units, but we're a bit light in the area and I want to discourage opportunistic attacks from local Wizzard forces. The border pop Thane will be a turn late and the garrison doesn't arrive until t108. The fast moving wolf riders let us cover this city and then move to help cover the northern city we'll found ~t109/110.


In the meantime, two Griffons are doing overwatch from Peak tiles.


(ignore most of the "r" signs in the above screenshot....that road net needs some tweaking yet )

[Mardoc]

Onna Hill. And they have GoM for last ditch defenders.

We don't have an attack capable military yet. We have a decent picket and sentry net (I'd say excellent except for the fact that we have a hole in the centre East of Zinfandel), but our actual fighting capacity is crap.

With concentrated forces we can overwhelm a unit or two in the field but we aren't taking any hilltop cities with our current forces.

Well, ok, so that's not easy. Still, every gold piece they spend on mercenaries is one they're not spending on mana techs...worth feinting even if we don't have a knockout punch ready.

Orcs queue up many Markets (and SoKs)

Should do our best to build them all via SoK. 15% bonus hammers means we save about five hammers per market; obviously we've got to put in the last 10 hammers with a local city, but I still think it's worth it. Even if it costs a turn per market, 3.9 gold for 5 hammers is a worthwhile trade.

Really should try to build most of our buildings via SoK as long as we're in a +military hammer civic.

Zinfandel won't be producing many cats in that timeframe as it does need to take a few turns out for infra (Temple at least, maybe bathhouse as well) so we'll only have 6 or so in theatre.

I think cats are really a defensive tool, at least outside the Lacuna. They can't be Hasted, so they'll slow down any stack we have - and Spectres seem perfectly adequate for doing the initial damage to save injuries. Let's not go overboard on their production.

but a Cr3/march Vampiric commando Moroi upgrades to a CR3/March/Mob 2/Flanking 3 Chariot with some cash and Feasting.

And that makes one hell of a nutcracker unit vs cities.

I'm glad I checked before correcting you - this looks perfectly possible. And would be an excellent alternative to making them all regular vampires.

[Thoth]

End of turn elohim demos:

That's a big and scary #1 GNP.


So we're going to try and grab the Drama bard.

Because that #1 GNP is the Calabim.

And we're positive gold empire wide with the Orcs at 100% cash and the Elohim and Calabim at 100% tech.

If we pull this off, we'll hit a Calabim GA t109. Hunting on Calabim Beakers t109, Archery on calabim beakers t110, Kote on Calabim (+ maybe Elohim) beakers t111 and Feud around t113/114. With 4 or 5 turns left on the Calabim GA to get us kickstarted on Vamp production.

In the meantime, the Orcs are going through a consolidation phase. Markets, TYs ect are going up over the next few turns to set us up for some serious military production. The Elohim are currently at 5 cities. We're founding new Elohim cities on t107, 108 (two cities), 109 and 111. Two of those cities will have 7f/3c wet corn available from their turn of founding.


So we've pretty much already broken this game economically. If we bag the bard, we'll blow it wide open. If we don't, the ability to build culture will still net us some turn advantage in new cities plus saving hammers on monuments/Thanes (ie more turn advantage). So the booby prize even if we lose the race (and I'm fairly certain at this point that there is no race) is quite useful right now and the ability to run the cultch slider will come in handy later.

Minor gamble, we'll hit Hunting/Arch/Kote/Feud a couple of turns later than we would if we skipped Drama.

But the reward is huge. A calabim GA is worth ~100 base bpt plus growth. Drama costs a base of 1171.67 beakers. So we recoup the base beakers and spend them on techs we have either known civ bonuses on and/or multiple pre-req bonuses on. And we come out ahead in beakers and way ahead on hammers and turn advantage.


the fly in the ointment is that the Gnomes have Divination and a GE in hand, so they can TOD Sorcery pretty much any time they want to.

Defensive plans are in the works.

[Thoth]

On the domestic side of things, we settled two Orc cities this turn:


our third island city:

note that the *city* is making a profit. Settling the city was also worth ~28 commerce per turn empire wide in extra trade route commerce.

and a front city in the far West:

Thanks to 3 IC trs and some pre-planned worker moves we're making a profit here as well. We improved the 4f farm instead of the Pigs as the farm could be done safely with the units onhand. The Pigs will be online as soon as local boots permit.


And the fun part of the turn:

We pillaged the Reagents Plantation (+26g for the good guys) and the road on that tile this turn.

Depending on barb and Clown/Gnome moves over the next couple of turns, we may very well be able to pillage Tia back into the stone age and cut off it's trade connection. We'll lose the 3 wrs in the process, but with the cover we have as backup we can afford that and still maintain map control in the NE so long as we don't take any silly risks making retal attacks.

We're not going to be able to *take* the city, but we should be able to *wreck* the city. And that's worth 3 Warrens built Wolf Riders.

[Thoth]

We're up.

I'm working on the econ side of things atm, but I'd like some team input on a couple of key military descisions.

Mostly the Elohim "Wolfrider". It's currently adjacent to an Illian Ice adept that just finished up a Spirit node on a flatland tile. We have 97.5% odds vs it and would have one mp in reserve to back off a tile.

We'd be at risk of having the Spider captured, but I think it's worth the risk. We have hard locates on two of the Pows, but there is still a third running around. If it's local and they have a scout near enough to spot the spider (and actually move it ) then they can kill/capture the spider.

I'm ok with trading the spider for an adept if they both die. Worst case scenario, they capture the spider and we get to deal with a Mob 2, c1 or c2 spider in 6-10t. (actually worst case is we crap out and loose at 97.5% odds. That would give them a crapton of exp even on defense).

If we actually manage to get away with the kill, then we'll have enough exp for C1 and a much nastier unit.


The other reason for doing it, is they have sent a fairly strong reaction force to cover Tia. 1 Pow (mv 2), a mob1 bronze chariot and Barnaxus (mv2, C4 Enchanted Blade) have moved into position to counter attack next turn.

I'm planning on using our Mob 2 WR to pillage the Wines and the road on the wines. Then disband it. I don't want to give Barny or a PoW free exp.

That delays their reinforcements for a turn, and should let us pull back towards our cities. We may lose another WR depending on if they retal out of Tia but so long as we keep our local forces relatively intact we should be able to discourage a counter raid. Especially considering the cost of the units they'd have to use. I'd like to further discourage them by "accidentally" showing a wolf rider off the Clowns Western border. It'll be in a jungle heading SE towards the Elohim "Wolf Rider". The tile is just visible from a hill in their borders.

I'd like them to be trying to respond to threats all over their empire rather than thinking about counter raiding in the north. We're actually a bit weak in that area.

[Thoth]

Mardoc and I finished up the t107 movements together.

1 dead illian Adept, 1 pillaged Corn farm, 1 pillaged Winery and 1 pillaged road for the good guys at the cost of a disbanded mob 2 wr and putting our Spidy and a mob 1 WR at possible risk on Plako/DaveV's turn.

Base image is from part way through the turn, so the north units are not actually where they appear to be.

Killing the road means they have a 1t delay in re-enforcing Tia and it means they can't strike at us with the chariot this turn. We had to disband the WR as leaving it on the board would have meant easy exp for either Barney or the PoW.

But we did manage to get some use out of our pillage gold, and rushed a WB in Red Cap so the Unhappy Calabim can have some Whales next turn (plus netted Whales are pretty cool to work in a GA )

And we seem to have drawn a strong response in the north.

So we killed an Adept near the Illian capital in the south/far east. And showed them a "hidden" WR heading towards the Illian cap along the Clown's Western borders.

And moved a Griffon into position to watch their border city near us.

In our Westlands, we're continuing to develop and not take easy shots at Wizzard workers:

Screenie is from after eot, but we could have combat roaded and killed those three workers. Mardoc and I discussed options, including sending a WR to a tile adjacent to the workers to send a "we could have killed your workers, but didn't" message. In the end, we decided not to and kept our units home covering our workers.

If I'd been a bit more on the ball at the start of the turn, we could have sent a highly entertaining message by bracketing the Wizzard workers with a pair of WRs. (note that at the start of our turn we had 4 workers NE of WD and unmoved WRs in WD)

We might be settling up on the Wizzards, but we don't really want a fight here. So we're making sure they know (assuming they're running Floating Eye missions every turn) that we're ready for one.

[Mardoc]

Yeah, we had some fun with pillaging, but all things considered it was a fairly boring turn. No new city this turn, no new tech, just kept on plugging away at growth and tile improvements. At this rate, things will start getting really exciting about Jan 1st or so.

For the moment, it's just the necessary preparation to start generating those exciting moments later on. More population, more hammers, more techs. I presume everyone's basically in this phase, because we've spent maybe 10% of our hammers on military and we're now drawing level with team Golem on Power ratings - neither of the other teams is even close. Which is sooo tempting...if we feel light, and yet Team Wiz and Team Reddit are at half our power or less...imagine what we could do to them if we tried! But then we come back to earth, and the realization that Team Clown is racing full speed ahead for Summoner Puppeteer Ice Archmages, and that we can't afford to be distracted from trying to throw a spanner in their works.

The one thing that's fairly newsworthy from the last couple turns is that the Trade/Sailing/Currency trifecta has indeed paid off as intended. We've gone from maybe 250 base beakers a turn to about 700, as a result of all the effects of those techs. I expect our econ to continue to improve, but at a slower pace, as we put up Markets and grow cities and swap to Consumption and all the other nice things - but nothing's going to be quite as earthshattering as the last 10 turns.

[Thoth]

Yeah, we had some fun with pillaging, but all things considered it was a fairly boring turn. No new city this turn, no new tech, just kept on plugging away at growth and tile improvements. At this rate, things will start getting really exciting about Jan 1st or so.

Not quite....we did add the City of Moonshine to the Elohim this turn. Cost 11 gpt total, genarates 11bpt at size 1

We'll be adding two more Elohim cities t108, IIRC we don't found any cities t109, another Orc city t110 and new Calabim city t112. Plus a couple more settlers due from OSH circa t111.

For the moment, it's just the necessary preparation to start generating those exciting moments later on. More population, more hammers, more techs. I presume everyone's basically in this phase, because we've spent maybe 10% of our hammers on military and we're now drawing level with team Golem on Power ratings - neither of the other teams is even close. Which is sooo tempting...if we feel light, and yet Team Wiz and Team Reddit are at half our power or less...imagine what we could do to them if we tried! But then we come back to earth, and the realization that Team Clown is racing full speed ahead for Summoner Puppeteer Ice Archmages, and that we can't afford to be distracted from trying to throw a spanner in their works.

We are lighter on military per city than everyone else. Mostly because we have more cities than anyone else

We'll be drawing up war plans soon enough. With chariots coming off the line over the next couple of turns, Vampires just around the corner and cities rapidly reaching maturity our Military Production Machine will be hitting full stride soon.

The one thing that's fairly newsworthy from the last couple turns is that the Trade/Sailing/Currency trifecta has indeed paid off as intended. We've gone from maybe 250 base beakers a turn to about 700, as a result of all the effects of those techs. I expect our econ to continue to improve, but at a slower pace, as we put up Markets and grow cities and swap to Consumption and all the other nice things - but nothing's going to be quite as earthshattering as the last 10 turns.

Yeah, the Empire has completely transformed it's self. Our economy still has a lot of upside as well. With the upcoming swap into Consumption/FT the Orcs should gain another 100-120 gpt while in GA. Which is good because a) we're going to be losing about 120 gpt worth of income once the Orc GA ends.
b) we're going to be adding another 40-50 gpt in costs from the new Elohim cities.
c) Military support costs are going to be *huge*

We're building Markets in Orcdom and a few in Calabim cities to help offset the upcoming gold drains. We'll probably have to run the calabim at 10% cash post Orc GA, but that's ok. At least it'll be getting the 10% boost from Undercouncil

And those new Elohim cities are going to grow *fast* on 4d/2c farms (plus food specials. Rum gets settled t108. Growing on Wet Corn and pigs means we hit size 4 5 turns after founding

[Mardoc]

Not quite....we did add the City of Moonshine to the Elohim this turn. Cost 11 gpt total, genarates 11bpt at size 1

We'll be adding two more Elohim cities t108, IIRC we don't found any cities t109, another Orc city t110 and new Calabim city t112. Plus a couple more settlers due from OSH circa t111.

Oh. Um...not sure how I overlooked that. Maybe because Moonshine 'only' grabs deer and lake and a good defensive position.

Our expenses are getting rather high. High enough that Courthouses are almost worth considering - 80 hammers for ~5 gpt savings is almost as good a deal as markets. If we weren't planning City States soon in Orcdom, I'd suggest we put some Courthouses in queue, but CS ought to solve our maintenance problems regardless. At least to get them to a point where Courthouses are no longer efficient.

We are lighter on military per city than everyone else. Mostly because we have more cities than anyone else

We'll be drawing up war plans soon enough. With chariots coming off the line over the next couple of turns, Vampires just around the corner and cities rapidly reaching maturity our Military Production Machine will be hitting full stride soon.

Yeah, yeah, we're awesome .

I don't expect the chariots to be a jump, so much as easing us into a better position. They'll certainly make me feel better about potential Priests of Winter invading, and for that matter, chariots are good for zone defense in general. But we're not building enough of them to really call it a 'Military Production Machine,' and I don't really want to. I want enough chariots to be insurance against invasion, or a part of a well rounded military. Or maybe...maybe an Arcane Lacuna opportunity taker, too.

Ok, so that calls for a lot of chariots, regardless, to fill all those roles.

Still, I expect our main stack to be somewhat slower, and be primarily vampires. Chariots, shamans, Ogres, workers, Hunters/Hawks are all useful, but the core will be a big stack of well promoted vampires.


In other plans, tech. I believe the current plan is:
T108: Calabim finish Drama, Elo start Hunting
T109: Calabim finish Hunting, Elo...start Feud? Start Archery?
T110: Calabim finish Archery, Elo...continue Feud, or start KotE
T111: Calabim finish KotE, Elo either help or put beakers into Feudalism

After that, Feudalism 100% with both. Then? I would argue for Animal Mastery if we've got a Hunting Lodge or two built, Iron Working if we don't. Follow it up with the other, then what?

At some point we should finally go to Military Strategy. I know Ellimist would have had us already there. Command Posts are very nice, and it would be handy to stick one in the Elohim HE city too to enable insta-mages later. For that matter, it would be handy to actually be able to build Heroic Epics . I can see an argument for slipping it in before Feudalism - that's when Calabim hammers are available, for one thing, and that Great Commander won't be there forever either (I'm shocked it's lasted this long, in fact). And if it's before Feud, maybe it should also be before Hunting/Archery? Like, say, next turn?

Edit: Yes, I know Philosophy is also required for MilStrat. So it would probably be a 2 turn diversion. Quite likely worth doing, though - the extra hammers would shorten the time from Feudalism acquisition to a useable force, wouldn't it?

My gut says after that pile is a good time to head for Engineering. We want the Guild of Hammers badly with an empire this big - and we want three-move roads badly for the same reason. We'll hopefully be getting Raider vamps onto enemy roads by then as well; if we manage that, then we're talking a striking range of 15 tiles (instead of 10, which is still quite good). I believe we've got to pick up Math to get to Engineering, which enables Gambling Houses for blowing the roof off Orc happy caps.

The other option that I find very tempting is Ashen Veil. It would fill in a lot of gaps for us: magic collateral, useful religious heroes, Sacrifice the Weak for perfect Feasting cities everywhere, and probably an Infernal Grimoire as well. And Beasts. And heroes. This is really a package of techs: philo, Corruption of Spirit, Priesthood, and Infernal Pact. It also sets us up right next to Fanaticism, which would give us Corlindale and Losha and Eidolons or Paladins.

I realize we don't have to decide quite yet, except about MilStrat, but I'd like to start the discussion anyway. Either path has a bunch of first-to bonuses that we'd really like to get, and both military and economic bonuses.


For completeness, we'd also have the option of going for the magical path: Divination for Towers, mana techs as appropriate to help out the shamans, then Sorcery etc. I'd rate this as low priority, though; we won't have the infrastructure to make mages en masse for a while yet; better to knock out a bunch of Shamans and come back later for Sorcery. Especially when Vamps can basically fill that role for us. That said, there may be techs on our list best gotten via Tower. And eventually Sorcery will pay.