Arise, Riders of Rohanna! Ride for Molach! [SPOILERS!]

[Ellimist]

Some questions for (ded)-lurkers.

I'm not a ded-lurker, but these questions are general enough that I doubt spoilers are a problem.

1. Have there been any papers published on the matter of carnival vs. monuments as a way of popping borders?

I'm not sure that I understand the question. If you're simply looking to pop borders, Carnivals aren't a great choice. They cost twice as much as a monument and their primary benefits are for happiness instead of culture. They don't add any culture of their own, but they do allow a bard specialist who could pop borders in two turns(potentially one turn if you're also in the religion civic).

In general, monuments or religions are preferred for getting the first border expansion. If you can capture animals, dancing bears are good for it too, but they tend to be in shorter supply. There are other ways to do it; it really depends on what's best for your situation and plans.

2. What will maintenance costs saving be by adopting god king? +10% distance, lose +25% for number of cities. I found gem city + bronzeville, taking me to 5 cities on a monarch toroidal map. 3 cities 4 tiles away, one 9 tiles off.

You're not likely to save very much. # of cities maintenance will be very low for a long time. The primary economic bonus of Godking will come from the +50% boost to capital gold generation, and from being able to build stuff faster.

3. How does one kill orcs? He rules early game, he gets a ton of huts and lairs because barbfriend, and warrens effectively doubles his stacks. "Call a friend" is the closest I get.

This one is very situational, but usually you'll want to try get some sort of advantage over him through tech and empire development. FFH has a lot of niche advantages that can be exploited to overcome a numbers disadvantage.

Lairs otoh, are unavailable to him until he loses or abandons barb peace.

[Molach]

1. Have there been any papers published on the matter of carnival vs. monuments as a way of popping borders?

I'm not sure that I understand the question. If you're simply looking to pop borders, Carnivals aren't a great choice. They cost twice as much as a monument and their primary benefits are for happiness instead of culture.

We, my larger cities, or soon-to-be-larger could of course use happiness too. So if my two options are monument and carnival, if I go for a carnival I am really paying 40 hammers for one happiness.

Lairs otoh, are unavailable to him until he loses or abandons barb peace.

Ah-hah! So that's why he has left them around still. Was wondering about that, it would have been a great way to harass us poor unbarbarians. Or 'civilized'.

[Molach]

Got a quick turn tonight, busy with wife so no decent report.
On the game, anyway.

Demos

A quick question; Is there any downside to overflowing on beakers when teching a non-prereq tech?
Next turn I'll finish ancient chants. Should I do it with minimum overflow, just enough to get by? Or do overflow beakers get the prereq-bonus later on so it doesn't really matter?

[Ichabod]

They get the overflow bonus anyway. I think there may be some rounding errors the other way around (prereq to non-prereq), but that is 1 beaker lost at most.

In your case, overflowing is not a problem.

[Molach]

Okay, good, so I don't need to worry about that.

Tentative tech path: (finish AC 1 t) - Myst - Edu (double revolt god king + apprenticeship). Myst before Edu, don't have workers available yet for cottages, and hardly citizens avaiable to live&work in the cottages either. So can wait easily wait 10 turns for this.

I'll run my gold into the ground, cuz after I get god king I can build up my emergency-event fund of gold with a bonus. Also capital can have market + run a merc with +50% bonus too, which means that some other city should run a sage if I feel the need for a quick academy. Probably Amon, it can build the EC quickly enough.

[Molach]

Turn 38

Was there any doubt? After getting killed by Qgqqqq in the cultist game (WW 24) I burnt the Thormen Mill to the ground.

11 gold is good. Takes me faster to god king (after then gold will be easier to come by, and looting might cease. Might. A city in this location are a lot of turns into the future

Very annoying result from a lair.

I got BigGood. Which means I can't gripe about my lair luck any more....
Kidding aside, how best to use this intrepid adventurer? Walking him home now (or rather, towards bronzeville which will soon be a part of my lands). Surefire way to get a mage if I wanna go there.

gtAngel goes defensive. Hope Sidar can tech something useful to break the siege (assuming there is one) and bleed some Orc. If siege is not too far away, that is one way to break up enemy troop concentrations.

I tried to take an overview shot of cities, units and workers but it didn't catch for some reason. So tomorrow's report then. Settler completed EOT, move to marked spot on map next turn, found after that. Turn 60. Banana plantation will almost be ready then. And when city grows to size 2, I think gem mine will almost be ready by then too.

Demos:

Posting this in clear, as some people have complained that they are too lazy to click the 'spoiler' and want some easy-to-see demos every now and then.
First thing is the last-in-GNP-bit. Sorry for that. No tech selected, and since I just finished Ancient Chants, last-of-techs-without-prereqs, I think for the rest of the game I can safely add 20% now. And steps to increase my output...I'll get some markets up, in 1, 2 and 3 turns. And a dye riverside plantation in 3 turns. And gems in 4-5 turns. I will found another city in 3 turns, which will eat up all this, though.

Rest isn't so bad, my power is high, even though it is strictly not offensive yet...just barb-suppression. When will they start attacking, is all I'm wondering. Haven't seen anything but what I've dug out of lairs and animals yet. I think Serdoa got his 4th city a turn ago, and his economy is exploding. I'm sending warriors out to try to find clowns so we can talk a bit about how we want the game to develop from here.

[spellman]

Posting this in clear, as some people have complained that they are too lazy to click the 'spoiler' and want some easy-to-see demos every now and then.

Click efficiency is nice. But really guys? =p

[Ichabod]

Big Good! Big Good!

I think you should use the adventurer to something useful right now/on the next turns. Mages will take a billion years to be avaiable, I think. It isn't worth to save the adventurer until there.

Don't worry about GNP. Your land is full of commerce resources, you'll be working them soon enough. You just need workers to hook those and Settlers to settle those. The rest will get fixed by itself. That lead in crop yield is way more promising.

I recommend building loads of food units right now. You'll increase your happy cap by a lot in the next few turns with all the resources getting online. Leave hammer builds to the periods where you need to grow.

[Molach]

Yeah, some people.

By the way, my ded-lurkers are AWOL! I take this to mean either:
* I am not making as much sense as I did.
* I am making far too much sense, and too little fun
* I am playing great, just great, and they just can't think of anything to improve my elite game just now. They are dumbfounded. Speechless! Awed to silence! By my stunning emergence as the ultimate runner-up civilization.
* I am a bit opposite of last point, and they can't even think of where to start advicing me without reducing me to a quivering lump of spineless disheartened jelly.
* I am doing okay. Boooring. Seen it before. Boo
* The lurker lounge has already declared that one player is a clear runaway and are just waiting for me to realize this and call the game so we can start the next one, thank you very much.

(Above was written before Ichabod replied, obviously, thanks for that pat on the back)

For the astute reader, there is a clue here in those demos (that were posted in the clear) that one civ is not long for this world. 13000 soldiers in worst civ. Some of those are from city size and techs. It was 20000 2 turns ago, 19000 last turn...and while I did not realize it yesterday when posting it, I did realize it today. Even before I got this mail from Serdoa.

Hey Molach,

I thought you'd maybe like an update on the war. As it stands we should have one turn left as four. At least if nothing unexpected happens.

How is it going for you? I guess you have spotted the Barb-city to your south already?

Kind regards,
Serdoa

Hah! Have I spotted the barb city. Suuure. Long ago. (Good thing he didn't ask about anything else, as that is about the only thing I have spotted) I'll reply in a bit, but thats for tomorrows report. And I know that Orcs have a unit that can charm such barbarian cities. Rantine. After bronze is hooked up, I can equip a few crack suicide squads

with bronze weapons to be ready to clear those barbs. Even though a catapult or flanking horse-thingies could be a more painless way to bring it down. Heeey, or a catapult to throw flanking horse-thingies.

(Note: Flanking horse has been painted in cowmouflage for dramatic purposes.)

Memo to self: Remember to...
rename gold river to glorduin Done! Sadly a new city is getting founded next turn, lets see how long to name that.
check balseraph attributes Done! He is creative and financial and aggressive now.
check event log to see if a hero comes along...with the strength to carry away barbarian cities. (did last turn, not today)

Well, a turn report for Turn 59 is up.
Making this a big one, might be shorter on time tomorrow and thursday.

First, warning against diplomacy.

Right. We shall talk with steel, and arrows, and flanking flying horses instead.

Scouting mission South-East:

Well it was a scouting mission - but scouting will wait while I plunder some more - if I make it to that hamlet alive.
Not, it is a good tile to work. Like an elven cottage without the slow start. But I'll plunder it. 50 gold on average from hamlet + cottage plunder. I can later on chop forest (or, you never know, found a city on the tile to fit with dotmap) for hammers and rebuild a cottage there. Its a riverside tile, so I get +1 commerce and -1 hammer. Not a terrible trade. And that city's gotta be a good number of turns into the future. So I'll take the money. Also because this plunder gold doesn't show up on GnP, 'hidden gold' so perhaps people will think I'm doing even worse techwise than I am.

Western scout discovered percious stones

A lot of 'em. Also we see gtAngels borders NW in this shot. I can continue up there, or go the more southern route and head SW from here. Or back on the road, even though I hate going back.

A spare warrior has also been released for scouting duty

I wasn't aware I had spares, though. He will hang out on this peninsula, spawnbust there. If he dies to invading barbs he'll buy time for a proper archer defender to be built.

Demon warriors escorting Kimble the Quick (fugitive from a prison lair nearby....)

(Note: Picture has been taken from NE for dramatic purposes. They are headed straigth north)
He is bravely following behind these stout warriors. The warriors plowed straigth on to this forested hill next to a lion pack. He asked if they should not take the wider, scenic route and avoid the wildlife to preserve his precious person, but what little he read from their blank, vacant stares he read as 'no'.

And some men at work.

Due to skillful worker managment, the GLH mine finishes just as Glorduin grows a size. Market will be sped up. And next growth could be contained by that citizen doing time as a merchant while we wait on more improved tiles.
I really think Amon Harad build worker-settler. Or perhaps worker-culture building-settler. Or two workers then culture. Idea is to get luxury resource into culture, and improve it for commerce and +empire-wide happiness.

Bronzeville needs a road, but can actually contribute without any additional workers for a while - copper mine can build market+monument while the tiles get improved. A bit overrun by bears, but my archer has moved onto a hill next to one, which means one less bear if it decides to attack. So not worried about army down here. Perhaps I should get a settler before too long, luxury here too. Stupid decicion-forcing game.

EOT:
Demons killed the lions without losses.

The Northeast has a nosy bear, no doubt drawn by the smell of fresh settler with warrior juice, but he will be frustated by new borders magically appearing soon.

Not great MM here, it will work a 3/0/0 tile for one useless turn, then 5/0/0 to grow, then probably a 2/1/0 until gems are up. Not the end of the world.

Demos and graphs:

gtAngel has 10000 soldiers now. And I forgot to take power graph, but I don't think this attack cost the Orcs much as their soldier count has been rising all through. Best GNP is Balseraphs. Turning creative had a bit to do with it, as did the likely founding of RoK.

[Molach]

Sent a little message to the Sidar:

To: gtAngel, speaker for hte Sidar.
Topic: Into the Mist

Hey, I've been reading the demographics lately, and I take it the Orcs' attack was successful on your stronghold city as well.

Tough luck, Serdoa really played a strong game and had the perfect civ & luck with huts I suppose for such an early attack. I am merely fortunate I am opposite the world from him.

Thanks for playing.

-Molach, head mourner for the Hippus empire.