Q Bakes an Evil Doom Muffin

[Mardoc]

90% sure you have to be home to get weapons. That should be an easy worldbuilder test for you, if you want to make it 100%.

[Bobchillingworth]

You can upgrade units in an ally's city, but not weapons.

[Kredom]

Text to go with the pics to follow in more detail, but basically:

1. We know they're rushing for HBR. We've been umming and ahhing about which route to take (shitton of bronze warriors; our own centaurs/wolf riders). Route 1 is Mysticism (current tech)->Masonry (Warrens)->Bronze Working. Route 2 is Myst->AH->HBR. We have a few turns to decide. Thoughts? We'll get two copper relatively soon regardless.

As both routes take more or less the same time, and that there are only 2 inland paths on each side (north and south) here are my thoughts:
1) bronce route:
pros: we can use the bronce weapons as soon as we get the tech, ans swarm with 4str warriors.
con:all of them 1 movers, so if they manage to breach the line of defence, we will have a mayor headache.
2) HBR route:
pros: we will have good cavalry that will match the enemie.
cons: lanun will have to make the building to use the tech (and get horses)
cons: we will head to masonry (for warrens) anyway, but it will get later

those are my fast thoughts about it.

2. We killed their scout at low odds, made our own super-scout. (He wouldn't get enough xp to promote, we had units around to support/trap, would wound him regardless etc. Sucks that he's the one civ we can't promote up to a horseman...) Maybe it was too preliminary to go the full formation route, but I want him healed up to go sentry out SE ASAP.

we need to know info about our enemie asap. anyway i would seggest to place some sentries near the desert on the south.

3. The city spots are: Lanun founding soon, posted ages ago, mostly a economy boost. Clan, founding the western spot REM proposed a while back (for Kurios):
Won't have roads leading to it for a while, connected as soon as we pop Legends. Worker from Kwythellor will improve shared rice.
Next is either here, to get another Clan city with high MFG for warrens up ASAP:
Or the South eastern Kurio spot, basically just so we can pop Legends and get area control/vision. I'm leaning in favor of the Orc place, because we can live without a bit of commerce, but we need MFG established ASAP.

if we head to bronce, i would suggest the city place u suggested NE of your capital, in a few turns you would have bronce (if you build some culture :P)
i think kurios will have to build a couple of more workers, to improve fast the place, and make the necesary roads.

4. Fuck, I only just realised we should be getting a great person queued for the Kurios sometime soon. I was going to say early academy, but now that I think about it, Runes (with instant spread to all players) might be powerful enough. Thoughts?

we will see, if we can get runes from the great person, i think it will finish our economie, and we can head straight to boost the military machine.

5. Oh! I almost forgot - we got a trait change for Lanun!
AGG/ORG/EXP - one of the best setups there is. I hope we hold onto it for a while, too.

GREAT NEWS!!!

[The Black Sword]

How do you know they're going for HBR? I'd probably go for BW next to counter it, immediate upgrade to units rather than having to build the horses. Fit in Mysticism first if you can afford it, not sure if you need Masonry beforehand.

I'd also prefer going for the Kurio spot next over the clan. Getting Legends off would help get the cities underway quickly and give a lot of vision on that front. Have you considered putting the Kurio 1S of the marked spot btw? The spot is mildly better IMO, with the cows in the BFC, you'll still have the cotton in the culture for the happy and you leave open some land spots in the north on the coast for the other two to settle.

[Kredom]

How do you know they're going for HBR? I'd probably go for BW next to counter it, immediate upgrade to units rather than having to build the horses. Fit in Mysticism first if you can afford it, not sure if you need Masonry beforehand.

their 3 civs are really good with HBR (hippus cavalry, clans wolf riders and kurios centaurs), we think that their choice is to rush us with 2 movers. besides their eco is falling behind, as if they werent focusing on economic techs.

[Qgqqqqq]

90% sure you have to be home to get weapons. That should be an easy worldbuilder test for you, if you want to make it 100%.

Thanks. Damn, that's annoying.

if we head to bronce, i would suggest the city place u suggested NE of your capital, in a few turns you would have bronce (if you build some culture tongue)
i think kurios will have to build a couple of more workers, to improve fast the place, and make the necesary roads.

I don't know about the Lanun spot. I don't have pictures there, but IIRC it's not a spot I really want to do because it's not paying off quickly/we have a lot of cities we want to found soonish.
Agreed. I'll do a western roadmap next time.

How do you know they're going for HBR? I'd probably go for BW next to counter it, immediate upgrade to units rather than having to build the horses. Fit in Mysticism first if you can afford it, not sure if you need Masonry beforehand.

I'd also prefer going for the Kurio spot next over the clan. Getting Legends off would help get the cities underway quickly and give a lot of vision on that front. Have you considered putting the Kurio 1S of the marked spot btw? The spot is mildly better IMO, with the cows in the BFC, you'll still have the cotton in the culture for the happy and you leave open some land spots in the north on the coast for the other two to settle.

Basically, a combination of graph/score/power reading (techs fly really fast on this map, they haven't got one in ages), and knowing what their gameplan seems to be (as well as Kragroth's predeliction from previous games). Still a chance we're wrong, but if we are - we've got the economy to afford a bit of conservative play.

We've already started Myst (and we want that revolt out of the way so Kurios can get out of pacifism, and so on), but the masonry thought is more centred around leaving it till the last minute - we could leave it out, of course.

The spot S of the east one, so that it falls in the neck of the river? I could get behind that.

we think that their choice is to rush us with 2 movers.

Just to clarify: Horsemen are 3-movers.


Inter-team resource deals have a 10turn minimum, right?

[The Black Sword]

Basically, a combination of graph/score/power reading (techs fly really fast on this map, they haven't got one in ages), and knowing what their gameplan seems to be (as well as Kragroth's predeliction from previous games). Still a chance we're wrong, but if we are - we've got the economy to afford a bit of conservative play.

I see they already have AH anyway. I agree on the conservative play part. I find those graphs hard to read but by score at least you guys have a bit of a lead. That's part of why I'd be thinking of skipping Masonry until after BW. The other reason of course is that warrens are pretty expensive compared to Exp settlers and the tech does nothing for the other two.

I'm pretty sure the deals are min 10 turns.

[Qgqqqqq]

Chapter 16

Back at the Axis of Evil:

Hannah: Hi, I'm Maui of the Mauri
Jonas rolls his eyes
Jonas: Really?!
Hannah: What?
Dark Cardith flicks his dagger in the air a bit, bored
Dark Cardith: So what's tomorrow gonna be? Nina of the Narnians?
Hannah: What do you mean? I'm Maui! I've always been Maui and will always be Maui!
Jonas: What about Hannah?
Hannah: Who's Hannah?
Jonas and Dark Cardith facepalm in unison

That's...not at all offensive to Mauri culture. I mean, I don't care particularly, but it isn't something I've made up, and I have some friends that would be pretty pissed off at someone trivializing it like that.

Not to mention that I changed my naming scheme like 10-15 turns ago.

[Qgqqqqq]

Fake-edit: This is as far as I got before I started chatting to Ellimist about mod-balance and got distracted making a big list of proposed changes. I'll return to this and add text and/or repost with text in the morning.
Edit again: now with text!


So...y'all deserve an update! Bob told me we hadn't done a full empire one, so I went and did one for the auspcious occasion of t41.

Firstly, we have the Clan cities:




Braduk is building our final city before crunch-time (the horsemen/horde), and also probably the last unwarrened settler of the game. This one is for the Clan copper just west of the capital. After this the capital will pretty well just spam warriors for a good long time.





Shazak is working on a worker because it doesn't have enough hammers to do anything better. Probably make a 5-6t warrior after that.




This is the site of the next Clan city, which will be Renegade Hill IIRC. Founded basically solely for the copper, it will be able to work the sheep once it's borders expand, but until then will probably spam warriors for the cause. Settler founds in 7t time, all roads to should be made by then, giving us a second copper in 10t.




This is the southern border area. Once we fire legends, both of those hills will be in our culture. No, we still haven't decided betweem those three locations, but if you leave it up to me, I'll just veto for my favorite
Settler founds in 5t (t46), pop legends on the same turn, bringing the already-connected copper into our borders and hooking up the Kurios. This city won't be connected immediately, but we'll work to do that ASAP, basically just so we can get copper for the lads down here. I want to keep a couple of workers around so we can build roads quickly to wherever the enemy appears.




Just showing how far away he is.




Our Lanun super-scout finds the Kuriotates borders. Far out they settled super-close - and if my power-reading is correct, they already have a centaur out. In the age of 4str 3-move units, this scout is pretty useless, so we'll basically just sacrifice it to learning as much about the enemy as possible. That said, with defensive terrain this buddy might have odds, so let's keep him to it.




Lanun city, at end of turn (so stuff isn't reassigned yet). We have a grassmine coming on next turn, to help speed this along. Plan is (probably) to just keep spamming warriors and keeping them in cap until someone else can send Lanun copper.




Second city, will go on warriors after this. Not sure whether to send exploring into the middle or just to plant at cap. Probably plant at cap.
This city was quite likely a strategic mistake, actually. Lovely bpt output, but very little in the ways of fpt or hpt.




Overview shot of the Lanun.




If we choose to, we may end up building another Lanun city here before the fighting dies down, as it's a very good chokepoint to draw the towards. That decision will need to be made soonish.




Revolting to GK, which we forgot to do earlier :/




Kurio cap. Pumping warriors, to stop when legends is fired and they all get bronze weapons (whereupon we send them south).




Kurio second city. Also pushing warriors, cause we're uninteresting. Very happy with this placement, very useful city - props to REM for suggesting it!




This worker will finish the road to it's W (the rice one is done) and then build another mine. (Those roads will be enough to connect Sorodh when Legends hits).




The road route. I've chosen to go on the hill instead, because it's a useful tactical position to have if they break past.

Super-overview. I love this map, Bob, it's a real piece

As I've complained many times on chat, I'm not quite sure what our position is right now. We're either a runaway that's gonna shut down their attack when it comes and then explode into economic awesomeness, or we're neglecting military enough that we're all about to die. I'm honestly not sure which it is, and this is IMO the most interesting game on the fora atm.

Any comments, questions, requests? Whilst I still pay attention to demographics and everything, I've stopped posting them because they're too hard to follow.

[Qgqqqqq]

Edited.