Q Bakes an Evil Doom Muffin

[Qgqqqqq]

Hum. It's definitely off in some of vanilla ffh - there's plenty of links on CFC talking about it - so I'm not sure how that happened.

[Ellimist]

I remember seeing it occasionally in FFH-20 as well.

I've had one battle in FFH-36 where the log appeared as well(when Rantine was killed.) (I don't think that's a spoiler since it showed up in the event log...)

[Qgqqqqq]

These are all of the places they can hit out of the fog. I moved some units out but I'm not sure if they'll go back into the city (we need to road for defense response). Horsemen/wolf riders don't get defense bonii, centaurs do. They don't have any xp civics available so they can't get above 4 move (haste/warcry) except on the singleton "Hunter" who will need to heal.

Stats are hard to come by, but I'd estimate 9 enemy horse-units, with the oldest being 6 (?) turns old.
Split is 4 wolf riders (46, 45, 43, 40), 3 horsemen (stable t41) (47, 45, 43), Centaurs (41, 45, 44). Tasunke horsemen should take at least 10t to reach either fronts (more like 15t, probably). Sheelba horsemen should take almost exactly 10t to reach the new front city from RH (I haven't been paying attention, but I'm pretty sure she's still on one city). Cardith takes 5t (assuming they save haste) from their front city, but I'm sure that one doesn't have the mfg to have a centaur out yet, so I'd estimate closer to 10t.

All of those stats are based on questionable graph reading.

Thus, we could theoretically be hit first on t51 by Sheelba in the north (we'll found the Lanun front city there before their t52). However, we've not seen anything with our jungle sentries, and I'd assume that they'd try to take potshots at those (there was a hole in the vision net - corrected this turn - which means they could have slipped past), so I'm hoping there's nothing nearby yet (are they sending wolf riders south as hoped?). Nontheless exercise caution. The cap can't be hit from the fog, and it's sufficiently unlikely that they'll sneak past to Lanun feeder-city for it not to be worth wasting defense on, but we need to be careful with units up there, especially the upcoming settler (who I've moved men to be in place to protect).
Once it's settled, we'll send a warrior up north to the sentry post indicated, crank out a few more AGG warriors, and then wait to see if someone comes prodding. As stated, I don't think they'll come this way, but I suppose we reassess in 5-6t. Regardless, no Lanun units will ever reach the southern front to reinforce, so the focus here is entirely on northern defense and, if they choose to ignore the north, economy.

Pics:







We have a even firmer estimate on the south. The way they finangled before killing the scout makes it almost certain that that was their first unit in the region. I believe that was their t45? They can reach our frontier with that unit in 5t, assuming no haste or healing - it's almost certain they'll hold off on haste until just outside our borders so that they can quickly deploy it for fast move, and I'm pretty sure he'll need to heal after that fight (shame I didn't take a closer look at the combat log... ). Thus, we return to this pic:




We have 8 str 4 warriors (once they pick it up next turn) in the region for the immediate future (more trundling down from Kwythellor). Where should we deploy them?


Vis a vis copper. Some delays in micromanagement means clan copper won't come in until t53. The plan is to stop producing Clan warriors only then, with them all 1 tile outside of Shazak (meaning they can do a quick turn around to Braduk if necessary). The turn copper is hooked, they move into Shazak, and start trundling South. We should have ~9-10 by then. That same turn, once they're equipped we hand the Clan copper to the Kuriotates. The Kurio copper is to be sent to the Lanun the turn they found their third city (t52) to equip the AGG warrior unit filling it.
That should suffice for our copper setup until we pick up the final one up by the Lanun.

As you may have been able to tell from the screenshots, we're going AH->HBR next. I umm'd and ahh'd a bit there (investing some turns into education) but the fact of the matter is that only one of our civs is SPI, so we won't be able to get a quick apprenticeship change (and the Clan will be building warrens for most of the immediate future), and the best promo is mobility, anyway. The plan is for the Clan to go warrens->some wolf riders; whilst the Kurios will be able to spurt out a few Centaurs. If all goes to plan, that will lock down the mobility issue sufficiently that our borders are secure and we can go back to economy.

These next 10t are going to be crucial, and probably decide the game.

[Qgqqqqq]

I'm cautiously optimistic about this game.

Long-term, obviously we win if nothing shifts in the game-balance (which is always a reassuring thing to know - and why I'm finding this so much more comfortable to plan), so the focus has to be the short-term, and the military in particular.

Let's examine the facts of those for a second. Their army takes 10t minimum from most of their cities - substantially more for the Hippus, about half that for the new Kurio city. Ours aren't automatically there, but can all get there faster (7 from Braduk the Burning, 4 from Kwythellor, and substantially faster in the north) but also get the advantage of being on the defense - sure, it takes units from Kwythellor 4 turns to get there, but in that time they can divert east to cut off an encroaching horseman, they can defend any of the cities (meaning that even RAI horsemen getting on the road network is no disaster). In other words, our units are useful the second they get out the gate (Kurios/Lanun) or very shortly afterward (Clan) whereas theirs are dead weight until they get to the fight.

They're also losing out in MFG. The graphs are a little deceptive here, as we only appear a sight ahead of them, but therein lies the secret - we are working as much as we need to. All the caps are getting out a warrior a turn (with overflow) they don't need to go any faster. Whereas they have 10 units built over the last 8t, we've got significantly more (I haven't been counting, but we've got 19 warriors atm, and maybe 6 of those existed 8t ago?) and that's whilst fitting in two settlers and a worker, as well as other filler builds in lesser cities - we can and will do a lot better for the next 10t. This is because their units cost over twice as much (40h compared to 16h), none of them are in GK, and they (probably) still don't have mining.
In other words, we out-produce them significantly. We can afford to bury them in weight of numbers.

Not only that, but we can get exact ideas of how many units they have, whilst warriors have a deceptively small footprint and are hard to tell apart from the rest. They probably think they're doing really well there - and I'd put money on our 19 warriors over their 10 horseman straight-up, and the disparity is only going to rise - and in the meantime, they're neglecting food, growth, and GNP. I'm pretty sure they have, a max of maybe 7 cities (3 Kurio max - mainly for meta reasons of casting legends and score look, 1-2 for Clan, probably 2 from comparisons to Maui [but maybe not because of land-based score] and probably 2 Hippus) whereas we'll have 9 cities in a few turns, and despite a bit of suboptimal placings, all well-tuned for long-term success.

Moreover, if you look at the maps of territory posted over the last few turns, you'll see that the territory is quite favorable - largely by the conservative way we've planted, but also the actual territory. In the north we have a lake and mountain dominated border (once we found) which will allow us to effectively seal them off - they can scoot past, but road-following warriors can catch them, and a small sentry up north will let us see (and respond, once we have enough of a force) any incursions there. Other than that the Lanun cities are all buried behind culture and rivers.

In the south, the Legends bomb ensures vision virtually anywhere they go. There's hard terrain to mire down their charge. Moreover, because we've planted far-flung Kurio cities there, once they break through above the city then there's a vast wasteland without any cities to fork or threaten, with a network for our warriors to respond and trap them. High cultural modifiers also ensure that we'll win on defense - possibly even 1v1 against a warcry Horseman.


And did I mention that we have vision everywhere, whilst the enemy doesn't even know where (at least) half our cities are, let alone most of the road network (which has been planned and is conservative)?


BTW on Rantine - he's been considered, and found wanting. At the end of the day, he takes roughly 7 warriors...and I can't ever imagine preferring him to the 7 warriors. With their advantage being mobility, we need/want numbers to respond to that, not greater strength. There is merit to a single unbreakable hero garrisoning a city - but Rantine would take 14t to reach the southern front (patchy road network makes it hard to tell with the north), and that's too long. More units is the Clan strategy - and is so because it works.

[Qgqqqqq]

Any lurker (and/or player) requests for anything, btw? Pics, graphs, demos, plans?

[Kredom]

wow great report!!!

My thoughts:

i like the idea of education, i also would like to think about heading to religion and/or sorcery.
Sorcery: a good choice to get those horses and recon on an attack are fireballs and floating eyes..., perhaps a couple of skeletons (this would keep us ready in case with need rust).
Religion: RoK and mines of dal-gur for the iron, or empyrean for the rathas, or both :P.

i see the good things about going AHD-> Cavalry but i have a feeling fighting on their terms (horses vs horses) wont be a good think for us. i cant explain it, but i dont like fighting fire with fire when their flamethrower is better (we have better eco and we might be able to overrun them).
i prefer: if they come with horses, what is their weakness? they arent good defending... ok lets throw them something that doesnt stay there to receive their counterattack, something like fireballs, or skele walls.

Now, why do u want kurio to trade cities with clan?

(now dont take my word, iam really rusty on FFH, and not really lucky as you can see on my other games).

[Qgqqqqq]

The thing is, we're not fighting fire with fire. The defense is still largely warrior-based, going HBR will give us a few units fast enough to hunt down anyone they've slipped past the defenses.

Sorcery and the like...isn't really an option, because it's just too far away. It (and RoK) are something we'll go for, but not for a while.

Kurio aren't trading cities with Clan, their trading resources.

[The Black Sword]

Are you building any axemen btw? Sounds like warriors are the right choice for now, but when you feel safe Axeman are a lot easier on the unit costs.

[Qgqqqqq]

Not yet...I've been considering putting up a TY in Kwythellor - or just dumping the overflow into one, but it just always feels like we want more soon over better later. The new Kurio city (Pain?) has been putting 1hpt into one for a few turns, but tbh I'll probably switch that to a warrior when the chop comes in next turn.

Axemen are definitely easier on unit costs, and probably the unit of choice...the issue is the upfront cost of the Yard when we want units ASAP.

Some pics from this turn:




Red lines are roads we need to make, green circles are tiles they can get to that we can't hit from the city once those roads are in place. We'll need units placed outside the city, of course, but that's still quite reassuring.




Reconfiguring the sentry net to the North led to use stumbling across these bad boys...we'll lose that warrior next turn, probably.

[Qgqqqqq]

Another turn come and gone. I had to speed through the final (Kurio) turn, where I normally take most pictures to get out the door (and I'm making this post from my phone), so I'll try to get/post some photos in the morning.

Sheelba killed our warrior, as expected. Unit left on .2 hp, though he'll promo heal next turn (and probably kill another warrior).

Lanun took another break to fit in a workboat (overflow cascade works better), and settler moved forward. Also borrowed Dye from Kurios to give another size of growth for Aotearoa.

Kurios hooked a third wine, finished AH at eot.

And, in typical last minute fashion, I'm starting to reconsider HBR. I mean, very useful for the Clan...but they'll be building warrens for a good while now. And the Kurios probably prefer Education for the combined NH/Apprenticeship swap and the cottage-builds (Kwythellor is pushing max growth without anywhere to really go - no more commerce improvements, we haven't been building fh unit and nor can we, and we're already producing more hammers each turn than is necessary for the warriors.

Oh and rough next few techs, after HBR, are I think Education->Sailing->RoK. Education has been discussed up-thread. Sailing gives pearls and the possibility of overseas exploration and settlement (which is sure to be powerful, even with the small amount we've seen thus far). RoK gives religion for all 3 civs (plus the holy city, if we get it) and is a good option for culture. Also gives Bambur.

After that, idk. KotE wants an early research for Shamans. Festivals-Drama may be worthwhile for the culture build and GA (which could go into Sanitation or into a bulb in the north), and we can certainly reach it before the enemy. Writing-FT will be needed sometime for the civic, as will Cartography (all of our civs synergize well with a cottage push - ports benefit from FT as do all those coastal cities, Clan want a spam-everywhere approach so City States is inevitable, and Kurios want cottages because duh).

BTW, we also need to look into fitting in Dereptus. I'm pretty sure Kwythellor is on a river, so probably its task once warrior production can ease. Speaking of which, what Kurio multipliers do we need? I know it's:
- Pearls, Gems and Gold @ Smelting and
- Rice, Corn and Wheat @ Dereptus
But I always forget the tailor. Is it Cotton, Silk and Dye, perhaps?

All of which makes me realize that doing Dereptus is silly, as the Tailor is almost certainly faster, and we can access all of its resources so basically identical.

....at some point here one has a moment of clarity and realises that posting stream of consciousness at 12:15 has incredibly diminishing returns, and forcibly cuts off this diversion before I detoriare into the scattered mumblings of an Overlords cultist.