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

[Thoth]

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

We've been adding a city a turn (or so) for the last ten turns. It's easy to miss one minor city.
Moonshine also gets the Wet Corn that Steeler was borrowing. So super fast early growth curve.

11g for 11b is ok, not great. But the beaker value of a new Elohim city will grow a lot faster than the maint increase as the city grows.

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.

Yuck. :vomit: :hurl: Non-Org CHs suck donkey balls.

We're not building *any* courthouses this game if we can help it.

We still have Summer and Winter Palaces for the Calabim and maybe Elohim.

Orcs will do fine with City States.

(note that in FFH XI which was Immy/Toroidal I build a total of I think 4 courthouses. In cities that were costing 20gpt )

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.

The chariots won't be much of a jump (we've only got two cities building them atm) but having a few around to help with zone defence will be handy.

I'd like to free up some gold so we can upgrade some of our Elite Warriors/BPs into real fighting units. (Not sure when....sooner would be better, but 10t from now would be easier cashflow wise)

I'd also like more cats on the board. 5 cats covering the south is a decent little group for the moment, but I'd like some for the north and West zones as well.

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.

Vamps and Ogres will be our mainline units for sure. Chariots and a few disposable WRs for range, workers for Raider Roads in enemy territory ofc, Shamans (mages eventually), Hunters (Calabim preferred for attack stack support, Mob 1/2 Raider Hunters can see a very long way up an enemy's kilt). Some form of collateral/stack damage is a must.

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

Something like that. We'll fine tune things as we go OFC.

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?

We need Hunting asap for the Happies (I've been timing orc growth rates on the assumption we'll have Hunting t109) and Archery is worth a ton of hammers in our new cities (all of which have forests that *need* to come down) and some hammers in our core cities. Plus it opens up cheap garrison Archers.

I agree with Ellimist that we *really* want Mil Strat soon. Philo would be handy to activate the Incense Happy for cities with PTs (KIPA, NBA and Tequilla I think).

Depends how fast we can knock them off I suppose.

I'd really like to bag the GC if we can (CP in Vodka means insta Mages with Elohim Conquest) and MS has value in it's own right (3x HE, CPs for the Calabim).

I think the Gnomes/Clowns are heading AV and Arcane so probably aren't heading there. Wizzards have *two* Org leaders in play so they may very well be heading to MS.

I think we clear out Drama, Hunting, Archery and then re-evaluate.

KotE soon would be huge (and given that we can 1t it, I think we go here before Feud).

Philo would be nice, MS would be very nice, GC would be awesome.

But getting 6 or so Vamps on the board with Calabim GA hammers would also be awesome.

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.

Engineering for road movement will be huge (it's also a pre-req for Mithril. 5300 or so beakers for Mithril vs 4700 or so for Sorc). If we can bag GoH that would be sweet, but I'm not counting on it

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.

AV we want for sure. Spi ritualists are awesome. StW requires Infernal Pact and that's a lot of beakers. Great civic for the Calabim, but we can get nice shinies by spending those beakers elsewhere. And Rel for Happy or Nat for Hammers and WW reduction aren't bad choices for the Calabim either.

I want PHood/Fanat soon, but after IW I think.

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.

Agreed, we don't have to decide yet. And agreed we want to start discussion now.

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.

We'll want the Mage path (esp with a CP in Vodka for insta Mages with Conq) but Sorc can wait a bit for us I think.

[Thoth]

Other things to consider:

GPP production.

We can produce one more Orc and one Calabim Gp in reasonable time. If we ignore the rubbish I posted earlier about bulb potential for the Clowns....the Secret Codes GS gives us 1/2 a ga in Calabimia and Orcdom if we can produce a non Sage GP for the Orcs (easy to do with a bit of attention) and a non GS gp for the Calabim (possible to do, but we have GS points accumulated)

So we need to do some thinking and some math on how/when we can do the Calabim/Orc gp.

[Thoth]

*cringe*

I really hope we don't have to redo t107.

*cringe*

[Mardoc]

Yuck. :vomit: :hurl: Non-Org CHs suck donkey balls.

We're not building *any* courthouses this game if we can help it.

I'm thinking once this game finishes, there needs to be a post in the EitB balance thread for making Courthouses and Basilicas cheaper. Or also better. Because Manors seem to be the only ones worth building

I'd like to free up some gold so we can upgrade some of our Elite Warriors/BPs into real fighting units. (Not sure when....sooner would be better, but 10t from now would be easier cashflow wise)

I say wait. Two reasons:

Numbere 1, there's not a lot of point in having some heroic units and no backup - which points toward waiting. I don't want to take a lvl 6 chariot and go pillage wines under the nose of a PoW - I want it either for cracking cities/stacks, or for defense. Cracking cities means wait for the rest of a stack to be built. Defense - we've got a good enough scout net that we'll have notice when we need defense; might as well wait til the unit is needed before upgrading. That said, it's probably worth building some replacements for the to be upgraded guys for barb smashing, and having them go to somewhere with a Siege Workshop to hang out until we're ready (assuming all go to chariot). Then they're almost as good on defense as if they were already chariots.

Number 2, at the moment, we're looking at some very valuable techs that pay back quickly. And, in particular, with first-to bonuses that I'd be surprised if other teams aren't also looking at. Wouldn't you feel rather embarassed if we had 4 upgraded chariots and lost out on one of the Bard or the General? Especially if the chariots just sat around for the next 10 turns, as every indication suggests?

I expect that we'll have an opportunity to convert cash back into hammers, but now's not the right time for that.

I'd also like more cats on the board. 5 cats covering the south is a decent little group for the moment, but I'd like some for the north and West zones as well.

Yeah, it's worth continuing to build them. If it weren't for AL, I'd say skip it and go for hitters instead, but AL is inevitable.

We need Hunting asap for the Happies (I've been timing orc growth rates on the assumption we'll have Hunting t109) and Archery is worth a ton of hammers in our new cities (all of which have forests that *need* to come down) and some hammers in our core cities. Plus it opens up cheap garrison Archers.

I agree with Ellimist that we *really* want Mil Strat soon. Philo would be handy to activate the Incense Happy for cities with PTs (KIPA, NBA and Tequilla I think).

Depends how fast we can knock them off I suppose.

I'd really like to bag the GC if we can (CP in Vodka means insta Mages with Elohim Conquest) and MS has value in it's own right (3x HE, CPs for the Calabim).

Hmm, ok. The main thing is, with our new teching speed, I think we've the chance to surprise someone. Unless they're already going to MilStrat themselves, we can beat people from a standing start.

But, it's also true that MilStrat has very little value on its own - it multiplies the value of whatever else we invest in military, not adds to it.

I think the Gnomes/Clowns are heading AV and Arcane so probably aren't heading there. Wizzards have *two* Org leaders in play so they may very well be heading to MS.

I still don't think AV makes sense for Team Clown. What's the point in a second source of collateral and summons, when they have all that arcane potential? About all that's really tempting for them is Infernal Pact, to hurry up the training of Conquest adepts and to have a fourth free tech by spending yet more hammers.

Course, they don't have an Org leader, either, so about all they'd gain is the GC.

I think we clear out Drama, Hunting, Archery and then re-evaluate.

Well, if we're already committed to these, then yeah, let's finish it off. One last burst of super high demand for workers.

Philo would be nice, MS would be very nice, GC would be awesome.

But getting 6 or so Vamps on the board with Calabim GA hammers would also be awesome.

And that's the fundamental debate, yeah. Vamps will give us a window of military superiority, but only if we get there early enough. There's hardly any techs that we don't want, it's just a question of what we want most.

Other things to consider:

GPP production.

We can produce one more Orc and one Calabim Gp in reasonable time. If we ignore the rubbish I posted earlier about bulb potential for the Clowns....the Secret Codes GS gives us 1/2 a ga in Calabimia and Orcdom if we can produce a non Sage GP for the Orcs (easy to do with a bit of attention) and a non GS gp for the Calabim (possible to do, but we have GS points accumulated)

So we need to do some thinking and some math on how/when we can do the Calabim/Orc gp.

GA's will be very nice, yes. Worth gimping a couple cities to generate, agreed.

Also, we've good odds of getting a Great Commander from Tequilla, which would ease the pain if we miss the one from MilStrat. Let's not push too hard that we lose out entirely on that.

[Thoth]

Took a quick look ingame:

The Chariot had a promo in hand and is now mob 2, positioned on the roaded Corn tile with an E4 WG covering. Unfortunately, that means they're out of range of the Moroi even with burning blood. So we regroup and redeploy. They've brought a pair of Mud Golems up to repair the damage. They'll road the wines on their next turn (1 WG turn I think?) and probably put 1t into the Winery with the other. Farms, Winerys and Plantations are all 3 WG turn improvements so they'll likely finish the Winery before moving to either the Corn or Regents.


And the Spider lives


To strike again in a few turns.....somewhere else.


Told you the bare grass tile was the right move.

[Mardoc]

Hmm. So if we can't keep this city suppressed - does that mean keep doing what we're doing, on the theory that they're spending a lot more military than we are? Or does it mean that it's time to move to another target?

Also, are those Mud Golems covered? If not, I like the idea of getting in some Griffon XP - yes, even if it's only 87% odds. We can terrorize the city decently with only 1, but only if they see them as a real threat.

Huh. Actually - we've a BP and an Axe available, right? Is that enough to give Griffons odds on a wounded WG/chariot stack? Probably couldn't return to the nest this turn, but they could fly onward and return later, if we kill the mobile units in the area.

Oh, I'm probably going to have to look in game myself, maybe set up a combat calculator. I bet neither tactical suggestion really makes sense, but there's likely something worth doing.

In any event, I'm greatly pleased to see them spending their time reinforcing/repairing the northern border, instead of expanding. That'll make our front city creation in the area much safer. Also glad to see a whole bunch of non-adept units around here .


Spider lives . Um...I'm guessing we have a failure of imagination on their part. Hard to see why they wouldn't have scouts built otherwise.

To strike again in a few turns.....somewhere else.

Hmm...do we know of any unimproved mana nodes in their territory? I imagine they'll be wanting to put up a Metamagic node as soon as their ToD is done

[Thoth]

I'm thinking once this game finishes, there needs to be a post in the EitB balance thread for making Courthouses and Basilicas cheaper. Or also better. Because Manors seem to be the only ones worth building

I disagree on the CH issue. Org gets two econ perks: Cheap Civics (and this is very good in EitB if you like large Empires with Aristo/Agrarian) and Cheap Courthouses (and this is good in base and EitB).

Make non-Org CHs cheaper and you nerf Org in comparison to other traits.

I don't see a need for the nerf bat here. Plenty of other people think 80h non Org CHs are ok. They may be right.

Buffing CHs to 50% maint.....maybe.

But that buffs Aristocracy at the expense of City States (which is already iffy except in special cases).

So on balance, I think I'm ok with 80h/40% CHs in EitB. FT offers up alternative opportunities to Aristocracy (TRs and fast cottage growth) and is zero upkeep. It takes a bit of work and planning, but there are now useful alternatives to Aristo/Agrarianism. But part of that package is City State's city maintenance reduction. Make CHs cheaper or more effective and CS becomes less attractive.

I say wait. Two reasons:

Numbere 1, there's not a lot of point in having some heroic units and no backup - which points toward waiting. I don't want to take a lvl 6 chariot and go pillage wines under the nose of a PoW - I want it either for cracking cities/stacks, or for defense. Cracking cities means wait for the rest of a stack to be built. Defense - we've got a good enough scout net that we'll have notice when we need defense; might as well wait til the unit is needed before upgrading. That said, it's probably worth building some replacements for the to be upgraded guys for barb smashing, and having them go to somewhere with a Siege Workshop to hang out until we're ready (assuming all go to chariot). Then they're almost as good on defense as if they were already chariots.

Number 2, at the moment, we're looking at some very valuable techs that pay back quickly. And, in particular, with first-to bonuses that I'd be surprised if other teams aren't also looking at. Wouldn't you feel rather embarassed if we had 4 upgraded chariots and lost out on one of the Bard or the General? Especially if the chariots just sat around for the next 10 turns, as every indication suggests?

I fully agree that *right now* isn't the time.

Unless Warbaxia finish Drama on their turn, the Bard is ours.


But soonish would be good. We've got a few high exp crap units on the board. It would be nice to turn them into high xp units that can kill.

BTW: Hero would make a fine Ogre if we use his current promo for Mob 1.

We could upgrade him to axe on the cheap for 33g in the meantime.
that.

Yeah, it's worth continuing to build them. If it weren't for AL, I'd say skip it and go for hitters instead, but AL is inevitable.

Not just AL. ATM, cats are the only stack damagers we can build. TBH, I'd like 10 covering the Elohim East, 10 covering the Calabim South and 10-15 covering the Orc West. But that ain't gonna happen soon.

Hmm, ok. The main thing is, with our new teching speed, I think we've the chance to surprise someone. Unless they're already going to MilStrat themselves, we can beat people from a standing start.

But, it's also true that MilStrat has very little value on its own - it multiplies the value of whatever else we invest in military, not adds to it.

+20% h on military and +3 xp for 80h is an excellent ROI. So are three Marble boosted HE's (we should settle the Western Marble soon I think )

The main value to grabbing it before Feud is the GC. Drama/Hunt/Arch are pretty much set in stone. We'll be done all three by eot 10 at the latest (maybe eot109 if we bag the Bard....but figure eot 110 with a bit of overflow beakers). Philo is 702 b (+35% boost to our beakers thanks to known tech and known civs bonus), Mil Strat is 1100 (and change) with 20% known tech. KotE is 860 ish with a 42.5% known stuff bonus.

So we can probably bag the GC t111. Kote t112. and Feud t116.

That means we have our first Vamps on the board circa t118/119. + Feasting time (Vamp time shorter if we turn off tech for a turn or two for upgrades).

Skipping Philo/MS would shave 2/3 turns of that timetable, but we'd be building Vamps instead of Command Posts/HEs.

Vamps earlier is greater security sooner. We won't have the forces for an offensive vs the Gnomes or Clowns for awhile yet but 6 semi feasted Vamps make for great local force multipliers.

And I'd like to show a pair to the Wizzards ASAP. We've been putting on a pretty good show of "we're prepared and covering our workers" out here. We've kept our Griffons back in defensive positions rather than trying to fuck with them. We've withheld from killing a three worker stack (which may very well have been bait or a "what are your intentions" move on WKs part.). Showing a couple of Vamps while we get our defenses prepared in the West will help reduce the chance we actually *need* said defenses in the near future.

I still don't think AV makes sense for Team Clown. What's the point in a second source of collateral and summons, when they have all that arcane potential? About all that's really tempting for them is Infernal Pact, to hurry up the training of Conquest adepts and to have a fourth free tech by spending yet more hammers.

Course, they don't have an Org leader, either, so about all they'd gain is the GC.

GC means GA for them. Also HEs. But I don't think they're gunning for it.

Team Clown is running cash in Illian territory and tech in Gnome (Financial) territory since they got Div. Ellimist figures it makes sense if they are gunning for a religion and I agree. They could be going for Esus or Order but getting the AV holy city means Entropy mana and unhappies for people who want Ritualists (like us fe. ) And Ritualists get them spammable 60% damage cap units to soften up targets before Snowfall. Plus DCs for the Gnomes.

It's a solid choice for them.

Well, if we're already committed to these, then yeah, let's finish it off. One last burst of super high demand for workers.

Any non 1t island Orc cities we settle will have a very high initial worker turn demand. We could use another 10 workers on the board. But I *really* don't want to spend the hammers right now.

GA's will be very nice, yes. Worth gimping a couple cities to generate, agreed.

Also, we've good odds of getting a Great Commander from Tequilla, which would ease the pain if we miss the one from MilStrat. Let's not push too hard that we lose out entirely on that.

We won't have great odds on the Tequilla GC if we want it in reasonable time. We'll have to boost GPP production in order to beat Whiskey's GL GPP production.

But the main thing with the Elohim is to not produce another GP until we have the Orc and Calabim GPs for the second GA's.


Ignore the rubbish I posted earlier about "double bulbing AL super early" for the Clowns. After our ingame conversation on Sunday and actually looking up the 8600b cost of AL....they ain't bulbing it effectively. And we can get great use out of a Calabim/Orc Golden age circa t120 or so.

So one non GS Calabim GP and one Orc GP are in order ASAP.

[Thoth]

Hmm. So if we can't keep this city suppressed - does that mean keep doing what we're doing, on the theory that they're spending a lot more military than we are? Or does it mean that it's time to move to another target?

We're expanding into that area and our forces are mostly light, fast units. If we build another pair of WRs in NBA either t108 (delaying the Market 1t) or t109 (delaying the boots by 1t) we might be able to get away with trying to slip the current pair of WRs north and east around Tia. But that 5 move chariot that ignores hills is going to be a PITA.

I'd like to kill it, but I don't think we have the forces in range to do it with any kind of reasonable odds.

TBH: I'd like another pair of WRs built to help cover this area. We'll have some chariots soon but I'd rather bait with Warrens built WRs than 80h Chariots.

Also, are those Mud Golems covered? If not, I like the idea of getting in some Griffon XP - yes, even if it's only 87% odds. We can terrorize the city decently with only 1, but only if they see them as a real threat.

1 Pow, 1 Ice Ele and some junk IIRC. So no easy exp for the griffs.

I'd need to do some tile counting in game to see if we can hit the corn and still make it to defensive cover with the North Griffon. If so that would be 4 units to hit the WG/chariot. Need to run a WB sim or two first before we commit. I'd want very, very good odds on a double kill before we risk all of our units in the area. I don't want to give up map control in this area.

Huh. Actually - we've a BP and an Axe available, right? Is that enough to give Griffons odds on a wounded WG/chariot stack? Probably couldn't return to the nest this turn, but they could fly onward and return later, if we kill the mobile units in the area.

c2/mob 1 BP and a Mob 1 Axe, plus a Mob 1 WR. We have an out of position Moroi in the area and another WR inbound.

Oh, I'm probably going to have to look in game myself, maybe set up a combat calculator. I bet neither tactical suggestion really makes sense, but there's likely something worth doing.

Agreed. Plako played two civs fairly quickly this turn. I'm suspecting he's feeling a bit frustrated right now and is buying the "we can throw away hammers whenever we want to in order to sting you" ruse. I'd really like to build/chop an Elohim Wolf Rider ASAP to show him somewhere.

In any event, I'm greatly pleased to see them spending their time reinforcing/repairing the northern border, instead of expanding. That'll make our front city creation in the area much safer. Also glad to see a whole bunch of non-adept units around here .

There are a few adepts in the area, so we can probably expect some mages in the near future.

We want some more boots moving northwards.

Spider lives . Um...I'm guessing we have a failure of imagination on their part. Hard to see why they wouldn't have scouts built otherwise.

Look at the area again....

The most likely tile for a scout in Clown City to check is the Horse. And the best lowland defensive tiles are the forests adjacent to the Horse. So most likely they move onto the horse with the scout and back into the city having seen nothing. In the meantime, we went without the defensive bonus on the theory that the spider can be overwhelmed once spotted and the best defense for a Submarine is not being spotted.

They may or may not have a scout in the area, but from what we've seen so far they are at least putting on a token show of covering border cities with scouts.

Again, I'd really like to show them an actual Elohim WolfRider ASAP.

Hmm...do we know of any unimproved mana nodes in their territory? I imagine they'll be wanting to put up a Metamagic node as soon as their ToD is done

I haven't looked too closely at mana nodes ingame tbh. (It was only after looking at screenshots that I realized that WD grabbed a mana node in addition to it's defensive position. )

I'd like to snoop South and East around the Illian borders though.

Illian borders are due North of our planned HT city. And we've been focusing their attention in their Westlands (mostly )

I'd like some scouting info on the intervening terrain with an eye to a kill strike on the Illians. Damfino if it's doable, but if we can do it, denying them Pows, Ice mana on future Adepts and Arcane/Cha Archmages would be worth quite a lot.

[Mardoc]

I'd like some scouting info on the intervening terrain with an eye to a kill strike on the Illians. Damfino if it's doable, but if we can do it, denying them Pows, Ice mana on future Adepts and Arcane/Cha Archmages would be worth quite a lot.

Hmm, I like it. Presuming our stack is at least a 3-mover (vamps with Haste), it might not really be that long between leaving and showing up at their doorstep - and Illians are their littlest civ anyway.

[Thoth]

We're engaged in some subterfuge in the South West of the Clowns:

We DN'd the griffon this turn and "accidentally" showed the Orc WR heading SE. (the WR is visible from the tiles marked with the Yellow arrows, but on first glance looks to be trying to hide while heading SE for some raiding).

As much as possible, we want them off balance and moving forces around to counter our apparent threats.

We've struck twice in this area with an Elohim "Wolf Rider" that has apparently been disbanded after the attack. Plako/DaveV may or may not believe we're hitting with Elohim WRs.....but we'd like them to keep thinking "Wolf Riders" and not "mob 2 Spiders" for at least a few more turns yet. Another Adept or Worker would be a fine target (just so long as we reposition the Spider first )