[SPOILERS] They're cOMing to taKe mE AWAy! Haha! Hoho.

[Mardoc]

Sorry missed these past two.

Don't worry about it .

Awesome about the creative staying - just two more turns before we don't care.

Yeah, most likely. We're getting close to benefitting from Arcane, too, if it sticks around.

What is it after festivals?
Hunting or bronze working?

I'm thinking Bronze. I'm building a bunch of warriors, it'll be nice to make them instantly stronger. Although both Hunting and Knowledge of the Ether are tempting (and actually cheaper than Bronze!). And at some point we'll need to pick up Education and Animal Husbandry, and Fishing/Sailing.

Festivals is in this turn (played yesterday morning), so I don't have long to think about it, but I think Bronze will give us the most, fastest, benefit, from our options. We're #4/4 in military and #1 in other demos - that can't last. And we're also definitely losing a lot of worker efficiency to the barbs, so it sorta counts as economic, too, as does jungle chopping. Probably Knowledge of the Ether after that, then circle back to the remaining worker techs of Education, Animal Husbandry, and Hunting in some order (depends on how fast I can grow cities to want cottages, pastures, and camps). After that...I'm not sure. Maybe some mana techs, maybe some econ techs, maybe some civic unlocks. Could even be worth picking up Drama for the free bard, and bulbing Sanitation with him.

And what religion were you going for eventually (I honestly can't remember...)?

Probably because I haven't really decided . I think I'm leaning Esus, at least as long as we're not Spiritual. Temples just aren't really worth building at 80 hammers, we're going to get collateral from Mages - that leaves heroes and shrines as reasons to go for a religion. Both Gibbon and Nox are very strong, and maybe we can get a benefit from Sareln's pay-spell additions.

Although, we probably do need something to cure Plagued, Diseased, etc in our Freaks, which is probably a Priest of some religion.

Kilmorph probably comes closest to a profitable religion - 120 hammers for a thane + temple = +3 happy (state religion, religion civic, gems) and +3 gpt. But that's still expensive compared to most other options, even ignoring the beaker cost of the religion.

Or, if we end up mana constrained, maybe OO for water mana makes sense.

I dunno. At the least, I'm convinced it's not urgent. HK will go Leaves and the rest of us prefer the arcane path. And aside from Freak-cures, there's nothing Religion can give us that other techs and hammer investments can't. At least without a Spiritual trait swap - and if we keep boosting our beaker rate, then we can react to becoming Spiritual after the fact.

I find it weird no ones expanded more then you - (someone's expansive right?), have they had barb troubles or is it creative causing the difference.

I'm pretty shocked, really. Not only is someone expansive - but that someone is HidingKneel's elves. With a fairly high-forest start location. And I know from the diplo screen that he's still at 2 cities. Meanwhile, we also have the largest city in the world, so it's not like we've been sacrificing the capital to push our growth.

Only thing I can think of is maybe they've not built enough workers. Or had even worse barb troubles. Because we certainly didn't have any luck that should translate into cities - free Academy and gold will help a lot in other directions, but I can't see them helping get the settlers out.

Edit: have you met your neighbours?

Met Selrahc, and then his civ was killed. Also met HidingKneel, but he's on the far side of Selrahc's land, so it's hard to really call him a neighbor just yet. Haven't met Ellimist or gtAngel.

Anyway...have a turn report. Without pictures, this time, but there aren't any changes worth showing.

A lizardman and new orc warrior have arrived on our borders. Shouldn't be any trouble as long as we actually win the good odds fights this time. But just in case, I have backup warriors ready.

I finally wised up and stole the Oasis from Trapeze to give to High Wire; Trapeze is working the new riverside mine instead. Will slow its growth, but this way overall I'm working better tiles.

The main downside to High Wire's location is that all the good tiles are second ring, so workers can't do much until the borders pop. They've had enough to do between running from barbs and tiles for Trapeze, but I probably could have managed them better and had them waiting around for the border pop now. Need to build a couple more workers, though, since High Wire will want a lot of worker turns, and so will city 4, whereever it goes, and we need to get the bronze hooked up as well. And get better at keeping the barbs suppressed!

That tile shifting means that Loki is ~5 turns out - will slow down once I pick up the new farm, but not by much. I'm planning initially to have him stay home and Inspire - I know I said he's too expensive for that to be worth it, but beakers seem to be the limiting factor at the moment. He won't be home all that very long, since Knowledge of the Ether is a high priority tech, and we definitely want to start building our adepts right away. Should have an adept in 20 turns or less.

Once they take over the Inspirations, I'm debating having Loki go scout ex-Selrahc land, and hopefully pick up a Mistform (then go north to HK), or going to find the other two. It's basically a tradeoff. Would I rather have the scouting info to the west and the potential tech discounts, or would I rather get rid of the Mistform threat (and maybe the HK threat)? And is contacting the other two really good for us, given that we're the one with the scary graphs?

Ringmaster built an Elder Council last turn, and started working a Sage this turn. I don't need the Great Sage urgently, but might as well start accumulating regardless while we've no improved tile to work. He can either settle for 9 bpt, become a second Academy (gold + incense might be worth it) or start the chain of golden ages. Or maybe just be GPP toward an eventual bard or something.

Ringmaster knocked out one more warrior this turn, but I think it's about time to switch to Freaks when we want military - and build them in growing cities, not Ringmaster. Maybe one more warrior each, since Freaks are only useful as military after upgrade, and so we need Bronze or Hunting and a building, first. Ringmaster will build workers - probably 2 more, and then a third settler. Depending on timing and tech, it'll either go east to the deer/cotton site shown earlier, or it'll go up by the cow/bronze to economize on worker turns.

I'm not going to plan any more Elder Councils or Markets anywhere, except maybe a Market in Ringmaster to take advantage of God King. I'd generally rather save those builds for a trait flip, assuming one ever happens, and they're generally not highest priority at the moment regardless. We can profit more from workers and settler and garrisons. Especially given our current supply of happiness resources (gems, silk, soon gold/incense, and furs whenever we pick up Hunting) - that's a lot of potential tiles worked. If we have excess hammers - well, we could use some non-Loki scouts, or pretty soon an Arena, Hunting Lodge, and a bunch of Mage Guilds (and adepts). And we'd benefit from putting up the Slavery infrastructure, too. And Freak Shows.

So, that's the current state of the civ. Still focused on REX, still leading the demos, but we're going to start emphasizing military a bit more so that hopefully no one can stop us.

[Mardoc]

This is a surprise - no save this morning, but it came through anyway. Normally if the save isn't waiting for me when I wake, I've got to wait another day.

First up:

We got our required border pop! Now I just need to flood the area with workers and give it a little time, then High Wire's going to be an excellent city.



I killed the warrior; we'll have to let the lizardman suicide.


Looking at the map, it's crystal clear that city 4 should go east, not west. The bronze site has a lot of very good tiles....once we have Hunting, Fishing/Sailing, and Animal Husbandry. And probably Education as well. Before that point - it's gonna have a couple non-river farms, a bronze mine, and an unimproved cow. Not exactly the stuff of legends. I'm still going to build a road and a bronze mine, of course, since we can use that in 8 turns, but it's not worth using a settler over here until we get those techs sorted out.

I'm thinking that it makes sense to move city4 from my currently signed spot, though (that's the c2 sign). It's a little greedy, but 1 NW puts it on a hill for defense, still picks up the same tiles or better, and doesn't have much downside. It needs a border pop for the best tiles, but can still be perfectly adequate with its first ring and the next border pop from Trapeze, which is due in 2 turns. The only thing we give up if Creative leaves us, is the forested plains hill (but we can mine, so that's minor) and the mana (which we can't use yet, we have time to get a Freak in here if necessary).

Main downside, besides the non-Cre risk, is that

Finally...the demos are awesome, and bewildering. The last few turns have been fairly bad for us - the barbs have really been slowing my workers and I've been working more non-food tiles than food tiles. Yet...

[Qgqqqqq]

I like c2, and it should shield from barbarians too

[Mardoc]

Main downside, besides the non-Cre risk, is that

Oh, dear, I was pretty tired last night, but I didn't realize I failed to even finish my sentences. Main downside of the new location is less overlap with Trapeze, which would mean more worker turns required, and tougher zone defense. It may also steal good tiles from the next ring of cities - but that's either neutral or good, because they'd be in use sooner. Even at our breakneck pace, it's going to be a while before we're settling the far side of this site.

I think I'm decided that it's worth moving to the 1NE spot, though - hill defense is important, and it seems in general a stronger site.

Anyway, we had a turn this morning, that was boring in a good way. Very little unexpected or off plan. We finished the second farm for Trapeze, reducing its growth time to 2 turns. Maybe that delays Loki - we lose two turns of working the grass mine for the farm - but it's not likely, and growth is important. Another turn into Bronze, one road toward the copper finished, another turn toward city growth. And our fifth worker built - yes, five workers for three cities is a good idea, and I'm probably going to go for #6. After all, at the moment that's just 3 workers to catch High Wire up, one for bronze, one for preparing city4's site.

The only downside is the appearance of a barb warrior over by the copper. Depending on which direction he goes, I may have to run the worker away and finish the mine with a new worker. And possibly also build another warrior from Ringmaster to doubleteam him. Bronze can't come soon enough for me!

[Mardoc]

Q - I'm afraid I'm being a bit selfish in wanting to keep the upcoming turns to myself, despite my vacation. I suspect you'd be willing to sub, but... we're getting into the really fun part of the game. I don't want to share!

[Mardoc]

Another boring/good turn. One more barb on the horizon. One more turn toward all our goals.

[Qgqqqqq]

Q - I'm afraid I'm being a bit selfish in wanting to keep the upcoming turns to myself, despite my vacation. I suspect you'd be willing to sub, but... we're getting into the really fun part of the game. I don't want to share!

Nah its fine - probably couldn't cover then anyway.
Wouldn't mind seeing a turn though...

Settler after worker in capital?

[Mardoc]

Nah its fine - probably couldn't cover then anyway.
Wouldn't mind seeing a turn though...

Remind me of your e-mail address and I'll forward one.

Settler after worker in capital?

I think so. I'm afraid I may have to build a couple more warriors or Freaks first, but realistically I think the other two ought to be able to manage that.

Another slow turn, only excitement is the appearance of a lizardman up by High Wire. If I had bronze already, I could have the workers improve a hill or something with covering warrior; as it is, I have to just keep away . I suppose the bright side is that warriors are getting easier to handle now that we have some XP on a number of units.

[Qgqqqqq]

hawk2370@gmail.com

Easy to handle...until you lose at 90% odds and get a wraith.

[Mardoc]

Well, this turn was interesting, but I don't have time to really report it properly. Although I did forward it to you, Q. Lurkers, if you want pics, you know who to bug!

- 2 Lizardmen in our territory, #3 on the border
- 2 barb Warriors at start of turn, 1 at EOT, killer's up to 17XP
- Loki born, agonized, decided best use is Inspiration for sooner bronze, even though puppet-pult is tempting
- Unit upkeep is painful, but not as bad as barbs. Want bronze! For the moment we're just going for the 'please suicide' strat. Only 4 of 6 workers did anything and it wasn't highest priority stuff either.