Freezing the World below Absolute Zero - Illians Succession Game

[DaveV]

A city 4N of Gostai could steal a river farm from Gostai and work seafood (and put cultural pressure on the barbs) after a border pop.

[Molach]

It does not block big good.
It does not really block the result bigbad either...you get the result but no units can spawn. You get 1xp for exploring still, even

[jalepeno]

Turn 140 save

With Samhain completing I was a bit concerned about hordes of frostlings invading our borders. Fortunately though, the announcement regarding Mokka is as close as we got to a frostling. Not to say we didn't see other barbs of course...this curtailed my planned exploration of the north.


completing TotT is killing our economy, so I've put up a couple elder councils, and started running a sage here. No real GP plans, although we can run two here.


Clear out the lair (lost a high promo warrior ), but got nothing.


Overview shot: Looking decidedly whiter! Started the brewery in Tolero, figuring it has the most cottages. Only one turn in, and open to focusing on expansion. But man, our economy blows right now. Gostai shouldn't need to build a temple, since most of our land has been frozen already.


I think we should settle here next, and take the 10 turn(!) detour to fishing to feed it. That will also allow us to hook the clams. 2x health would be really helpful right now, as would some easy 2 (or 3) commerce tiles. We can probably get away with not building a temple here, for awhile at least. I haven't counted tiles though.



For tech after Philo, I'm thinking fishing-sailing-writing-trade (with carto if expenses get too much) in order to boost our economy. Also, since we're not Auric, we can actually research a religion. Do we want to do that, or not since it's not really thematic? If we got an OO spread, converting would help keep mahala happy with us.

[jalepeno]

Also, I've discovered that ice does NOT kill the +1 coin you get on orthogonal riverside tiles. Makes them much better than mines, even before taking into account the health benefits.

[Mardoc]

Oof, I didn't expect the Temples to hurt our tech rate *that* badly. Of course, with cottages, just waiting will help counteract that somewhat

Glad to see all the ice!

I would prefer no religion - we worship the dead god, not his usurpers!

That tech path makes sense to me, at least for now. Two foods to unlock and not super expensive. Foreign Trade would be a *very* nice civic with all our cottages and hamlets.

Looks like my set will be mostly consolidation - growing up the new cities, working on tech, and starting on the PoW. I'll play in a couple hours, so if others have feedback, hurry up! .

[DaveV]

Also, I've discovered that ice does NOT kill the +1 coin you get on orthogonal [lumbermilled] riverside tiles. Makes them much better than mines, even before taking into account the health benefits.

Those fools at the academy said I was mad to build lumbermills! Mad, I tell you!

[Mardoc]

So there I am, tooling along, merrily philosphising. I look down the hill, and see a large congregation of possible students!



I wonder what they're here for? Maybe the Introduction to Temperature class? I'd better get some of those proctors from the lair exploration practical down this way to help organize the influx.




Ah. Or it could be that these students desire not the wealth of knowledge, but merely the wealth of wealth.

However, they seem quite confused. I close the gates to one lecture hall, and they wander to the next. Close those gates, and they return to the first hall.

Years go by, and these uncouth youngsters have learned naught and accomplished nothing! Merely exercised themselves, looking for an easier path. They have been terribly disruptive to our studies; we haven't gotten any serious research done in ages, with all the racket they're making. Why won't they just go home?





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That could have been really bad. We got to Philosophy just in time - I swapped us to Slavery and whipped away an unfortunately high amount of population. Between losing cottage citizens, swapping to mines, and increasing our unit supply costs, our economy has really gone in the tank. But by shoving a lot of spearchuckers in front of Mahala's stack, she's really wasted a lot of time wandering back and forth.

We still have a dozen turns to the Priests of Winter, so I'm not sure what makes sense. Maybe we should bring Sopor's garrison 1NE, to let us hit Mahala's stack wherever she goes next? Maybe just keep stacking javelins while we wait for the PoW to build? Mahala *could* charge straight for our capital and cause a world of pain, but she's displayed no sign of tactical acumen so far.

I guess I lean toward attempting to clear this stack now (that is, once she moves off the forested hill). Mahala is Raiders, and if she gets on our road network could cause us tons of pain. Hasn't yet, but might blunder into something clever. Plus we can't really afford to keep an army this big. Better to trade down, and buy time for the PoW to come and save the day.

The Save

[jalepeno]

Yikes! I'm actually pleasantly surprised her stack isn't bigger. Trading down sounds good to me. Some highly promoted javelins would make a nice PoW escort for a return visit to doviello homelands.

[DaveV]

We still have a dozen turns to the Priests of Winter...

Or, from my quick check of the save, two turns if we're willing to whip it? That's definitely my vote: whip out the Priests, then start crashing ice elementals into the stack until we get decent odds.

Never mind, we can't hurry a ritual . But we really need the Priests to make any headway here.

And here I'd been hoping that we could get some foreign trade routes with Mahala once Fishing came in. She is probably our worst possible opponent, since she shares our Winterborn trait, but we need to:
1) beat her up until she's willing to take peace and go back to fighting the Ljos (and maybe jump onto the dogpile), or
2) ally with the Ljos against her and try to take away her stuff (especially her copper).

[Mardoc]

Yikes! I'm actually pleasantly surprised her stack isn't bigger.

I'm sure she has more army somewhere. Her overall power is still about 3x ours. Heck, that first stack I spotted didn't all come into our land, some of the units turned around.

I have no idea what she's doing with it all, but it is entirely possible she shows up with a 2nd or 3rd stack just like the one we're already facing. Of course, once we have the PoW, attrition will be on our side, not hers Just need to make it through Qgqqqq's set and things will be looking up.