[SPOILERS] Tres Equis: Mardoc plays the Most Interesting Civ in the World

[flugauto]

The barbarian invasion was very entertaining.

[Mardoc]

The barbarian invasion was very entertaining.

I'd prefer to entertain you with risk applied to *other* players, thanks .

On that note: I'm really liking my choice of an early Fishing here. Already it's worth a sixth of my beakers, and it also let me keep working decent tiles during the latest invasion. I think it'll boost my economy even further when I get Green Tea settled and Mint all grown up. Something like Education, which will pay more ultimately, costs a lot more in both research time and worker turns; Fishing is helping the snowball now.

So what will I do with that early econ boost? Well:
Mining first. I need something other than farms for the capital to work. I want to know where copper is.

After that, probably:
Education, then Mysticism. I would really benefit from getting God King in a nice, big, capital, and cottages will be quite important as soon as I move on to city 4-5 or so. No benefit from Hunting just yet, or any other worker techs really.

Then? It'll be time to pick up something to boost the military.

One possibility is Bronze Working. Depends on the location of copper, of course. This would give me a shot at the Titan assuming barbs keep streaming in. Would make me fairly safe, in general, rather than relying on something in specific.
Another option is Philosophy, so I can build The White Hand while I'm in God King. Getting those Priests out early is less effective against barbs, but should be very effective against players. In both cases because the power is concentrated. Still effective against barbs, just not as good as bronze.

A third option is to go directly for KotE, and to start working on mages. Cha/Arc adepts gain XP surprisingly quickly, and both Ice I and Enchantment I are quite handy. Especially against barbs, but even against players.

I'm actually leaning toward KotE, I think, although I'll try to remain flexible as circumstances shift. But it's my main gameplan, best to start on it right away. Also, I think I may try for the Catacombs Libralus this time, it's looking like a fairly big map, on which I want lots of adepts produced from lots of cities.

[Mardoc]

Played last night before an early bedtime. Killed the goblin safely, taking my unpromoted warrior to 0.6 health and 4 XP. Think he's going to become Shock and specialize in hunting barb warriors. Have one of those inbound from the NE, who will hopefully suicide on a warrior in forest, otherwise I guess he suicides on Vanilla's garrison. Don't think the to-be-shock warrior can catch up to the barb, even if I skip healing, and I'm not really willing to take a 50% shot at him.

Thinking about my tech path some more, a couple things. First, I'm debating Drama. On the one hand, I need culture, and it's either Drama or Monuments. I dislike Monuments - but they're already unlocked, no further investment... Drama would be at least Festivals and probably Drama itself researched, a chance of free Sanitation as a result...and nothing beyond 30 hammers/city saved.

I'm actually seriously considering skipping most of the econ techs, at least for a while. I could use a Great Sage to bulb Sorcery (or most of it), Philo for the White Hand/Bone Palace/Slavery, and otherwise just research KotE and mana techs. How much do I really need beyond Mages, settlers/workers, and cities with Temples of the Hand? Cottage everything, throw down a couple mines, use the whip for hammers, and just skip the complicated stuff like Aristocracy, Sanitation, Construction, etc. It's not as strong as an Aristograrian/Sanitation econ in full swing - but, well, I'd be skipping a lot of techs, too. Maybe after Sorcery I can go back for Trade and Foreign Trade, but really, Mages should be enough to win this, and I'm not that far from them.

[Mardoc]

Had a couple more turns, but nothing interesting happened. Barb warrior suicided as hoped, giving my eastern warrior his first promo. I've got a bit of a lull, which should let me grow some more and heal my warriors.

Speaking of growth, my settler was born last turn, and so I should have city 3 in a couple turns. Need to make another worker or two (along ideally with some more warriors), so city 4 won't be quite as fast.

[Azarius]

Happy to see you made it through the barbarian crisis relatively unscathed, if that had turned out differently it could have really thrown a spanner in the works.

Getting city three down will be nice. It makes sense to delay #4 to improve the workforce and especially the military, I'm sure you'd rather not have a repeat of praying to the rng to keep a city.

How many mana nodes do you think you'll have by the time you hit mages, and what types do you anticipate turning them into?

[Mardoc]

Happy to see you made it through the barbarian crisis relatively unscathed, if that had turned out differently it could have really thrown a spanner in the works.

Getting city three down will be nice. It makes sense to delay #4 to improve the workforce and especially the military, I'm sure you'd rather not have a repeat of praying to the rng to keep a city.

Heh - is this a good time to mention that I'm seriously considering doing that next turn? My eastern warrior is now on the Green Tea site, at 2.2/3 health, with Combat I and a barb warrior just appeared next to him. I can push the settler in and plant a city underneath the warrior, giving him a ~70% odds battle if the barb attacks immediately or a 85% odds battle if it waits a turn like normal. Or I can retreat and delay founding the city by 3-4 turns. My warrior only has decent odds if he's got the city defense bonus (or a forest again, I guess), so he can't stay put unless I also gamble the city. I tend to think 85% is good enough to be worth saving ~4 turns of new city build time, but that assumes I understand the AI correctly .

How many mana nodes do you think you'll have by the time you hit mages, and what types do you anticipate turning them into?

Tough question. There's already one in my borders and 1 close outside, so 2 at minimum. I see one that is probably HK's, unless he expands in a different direction, and one to the south that is either mine or belongs to someone I haven't found yet. I've also still got a lot of nearby fog, there could be more in there. So at least 2, as many as I can.

Realistically, the answer on types is 1 Metamagic and the others variable. Just about every type has a useful spell at either the adept or mage level.

[Dp101]

What is your long-term strategy? Burn everything?

[Mardoc]

What is your long-term strategy? Burn everything?

Close! Freeze everything.

That is, conquer the world with Mages. Probably win via Domination/Concession. I'm now of the opinion that there isn't anything in the game that can stand up to a critical mass of summoner mages. And there definitely isn't anything that can resist Snowfall Archmages.

Hmm. Although I did just remember something that may call for a bit of non-arcane military. Suttree chose the Amurites, which means there will be a period where magic is worthless for anyone but him.

[Azarius]

You're a braver man then I. I may do that sort of gamble with a new city, taking the risk to be able to get it up several turns sooner, but I don't think I'd be able to bring myself to do it in a game that spans months .

I tend to agree with you in regards to summons, they really are extremely hard to stop once you get them set up. And as you said, summons with some strong magic collateral is . As far as Suttree, maybe fortune will favor you and he will have a tragic accident before his worldspell becomes a concern for you. Perhaps involving horses. Or some potw, if he ends up close and you haven't ruled out building them earlyish .

[Dp101]

What is your long-term strategy? Burn everything?

Close! Freeze everything.

That is, conquer the world with Mages. Probably win via Domination/Concession. I'm now of the opinion that there isn't anything in the game that can stand up to a critical mass of summoner mages. And there definitely isn't anything that can resist Snowfall Archmages.

Hmm. Although I did just remember something that may call for a bit of non-arcane military. Suttree chose the Amurites, which means there will be a period where magic is worthless for anyone but him.

As a compromise between our ideas, maybe you could freeze everything and then burn it?