[SPOILERS] Mardoc's Magical Mystery Tour

[Mardoc]

Definitely workers first. Warriors just wandering the fog will a) fogbust barbs away and b) be vulnerable to spiders/griffons. Active defense is good enough, and no reason to set it up and delay workers.

Ah, my worry is that the barbs will start also coming from the east and SE before I'm prepared for them. That said, I don't see any yet, while I do see tiles that need roads and mines and farms. So you're right, don't throw away the bird in the hand for the potential bird in the bush. A few turns delay on barb-hunting is only a quarter or a third of a wane, and a worker probably pays as much as a wane, anyway. At least an early worker, while I've already got the citizens waiting on their improvements.

No other first-tos come to mind, unless you've a reason to want a shrine, or Hyborem.

A shrine would be nice, but hardly mandatory. Gold is only half the benefit: the other real prize is the free spreads, saving hammers and time. I'm thinking I may try for OO, but I'm going to make it a low priority.

Not going to go for Hyborem. I think in retrospect this might have been a pretty good setup for him, but I'm not on the right path to get there.

And the next turn is here already
It starts off well:


And was otherwise fairly uneventful. The barb moved south as predicted; next turn we have a 73% shot available, and a 58% with the wounded warrior - but if he's needed, presumably the barb will have been already wounded and improve his odds.

The best news of the turn was the completion of the Elder Council and hiring of its elder. That boosted our GNP as expected, and also dropped the time to next GSage dramatically. If the adept ever makes it to level 5, I think we can spare him now - although I would miss the Enchanted Blade to start off my warriors XP-hunt.




Demos are mixed news. We're well ahead on GNP now, although that will only last until either someone joins us with an Elder Council or gets into aristo or cottage manufacture. Behind in foodhammers, although not by a lot - presumably Mining will help us there. Crafting is due in 2; Mining should be 5 more, just enough time to knock out a couple workers. They'll have to build roads at first but can swap to mines soon enough.



All in all, it's a pretty solid start. We just need the barbs to continue to cooperate, and to get a few more settlers out.

[Mardoc]

Behind in foodhammers, although not by a lot - presumably Mining will help us there.

So long as the same person isn't the leader in both, of course. I'm...pretty sure I can bet on that. But i don't see much to do about it except keep on keeping on - and aim for techs that boost my productivity.


Today's turn was straightforward. We won the warrior-fight, 73% for 5XP. The victor is very wounded but two promos should fix that right up. Which is a good thing, because three barbs became visible at EOT. The lion showed up 1NW of the warriors, another warrior showed up in the west, and a goblin to the east. I'm torn - I want to kill the lion, but probably I ought to instead race home to beat the warrior. Losing our second city would really, really, suck, and delaying a worker to get out an emergency warrior isn't a whole lot better.

I guess, as a consolation, even with the lion out there, we do appear to be getting barbs at a pretty good clip. The slight optimization by eliminating his defogging ability would be overkill.

[Mardoc]

Today's turn

By which, of course, I meant 'today's first turn'

Finished Crafting, Mining is due in 4. After which...well, we'll have options. I'm not used to having the basics done this early. It's weird, honestly - normally about now in the tech tree I would want to pick up something military, to feel better about my clashing borders. We've got two cities...invasions just don't make sense yet.

Could simply go for Bronze. Depends a lot on copper location, but more efficient warriors means we need fewer of them. Nice to also chop away our jungles.

Could go for Hunting and/or KotE, and get some Divided Souls going.

Could make a break for Drama. It's not really that much of a diversion at this point, not turn-wise anyway. We could use non-Sage specialists.

Could go for Writing and the Great Library - boost our sages to 5 beakers, base, unlock +25%/1 Sage slot half-price libraries.

Could go for religion now. I'm 90% sure no one else is going that way just yet.

Fundamentally, I think I need to go for something that gives its benefits without requiring I spend hammers. Because those hammers need to be going into settlers and warriors and workers. So I think it'll probably be either Bronze or Drama (or both, with a side of Sanitation). I'm tempted to divert to OO...but, well, I think Drama is more valuable just now. GLib will be nice, but no one else is likely to want it as badly as we do. And we can't afford the hammers for it just yet regardless.

[Qgqqqqq]

Do you think Lanun will head Drama early? If so, go for that. If not, go for OO - culture is probably more useful than food, IMO.

[Mardoc]

Do you think Lanun will head Drama early? If so, go for that. If not, go for OO - culture is probably more useful than food, IMO.

I'm not sure about Lanun. He does need *something* cultural if he wants 2 coves/city instead of one. But 2nd place GNP is actually Aurorarcher, and I'm pretty sure he enjoys the Drama play.

Drama has other benefits besides the GBard - although he's not minor. There's build culture. There's also an alternate specialist slot. That's important, because, well, I see myself working a lot of Sages. 4 bpt isn't awesome, but it's still up there with a pair of aristofarms - and equally importantly, it's early. As Phi - that means I've got to figure out a useful thing to do with a bunch of Great Sages. The first one should probably be settled in the capital - 10 bpt after Academy is likely to be a greater reward than a Golden Age, at least that early (~20 more turns). The second can be a golden age. After that, though - we either need supplementary GP to make more golden ages, or we'll have to come up with something worth bulbing.

I guess a reasonable alternative is to push for Great Prophets instead. Which would certainly argue for OO - temples and shrine for slots, instead of carnival. And hmm - that would give us water mana, without having to research all the way to Elementalism. Bob was careful to give us tiles that benefit from water mana. Some gpt, extra hammers, culture source, happiness...it does start to add up, doesn't it? OO is a greater benefit the earlier founded, because that gives more time for free spreads, too. And, heh - although there will be places I don't mind working an artist, I *would* usually rather have the priest's yield.

So I guess I find myself agreeing with you, after thinking it out. Although ideally we could have both.

I need to think if there's anything more urgent than Fishing -> OO. It might well be worth picking up Animal Husbandry - one city can already benefit, and the eastern city would like it as well. Bronze depends entirely on copper's location, but I think it can wait. Enchanted Blade seems to be giving us enough benefit against the barbs so far, and the barbs + distance will give us protection against other players. For now. So tentatively I'm going to go with AH -> Fishing -> Message from the Deep, and judge the situation again when we get there. Maybe we can get both!

I actually don't really understand what Jalepeno is doing at all, to be honest. I thought he'd be leading in GNP by a lot by now. Instead, he's first place in score, but not in GNP. Maybe he's expanding fast, but hasn't caught up with coves yet? We're already up to 4 gpt maintenance ourselves, with one city at minimum distance. I'm sure coves would bail him out eventually, but they do take time to build and grow. Especially if his 2nd (or 3rd?) city is on a different ocean than his capital. If he weren't Falamar, I'd consider a 3rd city impossible, but he might have managed by now. It would explain why the barbs showed up before me, DaveV, and (I think) Auror had established our second cities.

[Mardoc]

Turn yesterday was fairly uneventful. No combats, just positioning. The barb wandered somewhere out of vision, instead of beelining for my city. I was surprised, but I guess he must have a different AI script. Meanwhile the lion keeps taunting me by being close and visible - up until this turn I thought I was racing the barb warrior and couldn't spare any time for the lion. Hopefully I can kill both of them and get warriors who will beeline our territory to spawn in their place. Going to be tricky tactics, though - lots of defensive terrain thataway and I don't want to wander too far from our borders. Well, first things first: heal the warriors and keep watching. Situation may change again.

Finished our worker and will probably go straight into another. Mining is due in 3, and we have at least four tiles I want to mine, plus lots of choppable forests, plus need to prepare for city 3 (probably going east). Three workers may be enough, but two certainly won't be.

Then we'll have to pick between a couple more warriors and settler #3. On the one hand, we have enough warriors for the barbs we currently see. A warrior who is not active is a waste. On the other hand, we'll be stretching out our borders, and at some point I expect barbs to come from multiple directions at once. We have three warriors; at some point we'll lose a battle. If we don't, then in three more fights our 8 XP warrior should be ready to retire to wanedom. In either case we'll need replacements.

I think I will probably split the difference, and build one warrior, then go for settler. We are on the verge of being able to one-turn warriors in the capital (need two mines, I think, to hit the 16 hpt mark), so I'm comfortable leaving it defended by just the third ring borders and ability to crash-build warriors. Our 3rd city probably needs a pair of warriors, though, with only first ring borders for warning. We currently have three, so one more gets us a pair for the north and a pair for the east.

The most interesting bit: after selecting Mining and getting our prereq bonus, our GNP went all the way up to 50, while the Rival Best is currently 32. I really hope we're not painting a target on our back. That said, I'm not going to handicap myself - we're going to ride this to as many first-to's as we can grab, and I won't hesitate to settle wanes or our next GSage. Our second city is still going to build its Elder Council as first building, and third city will likely do the same. About the only thing I'm willing to do to drop the GNP is to work mines instead of farms, and to keep settling cities - those aren't exactly sacrifices .

[Mardoc]

Situation may change again.

Heh, that didn't take long.


I think my best course of action is to retreat into the city, and then counterattack next turn. Both warriors have yet to heal for the turn, and I promoted one Shock - so I should have something like 90 and 95% odds. Probably both win, but even if they don't, the second most likely outcome is one survivor, facing one very wounded barb. If we get the 1% chance of both dying...well, then we're in trouble, but you can't base your game around the 1%.

[Mardoc]

I had 60 and 70% odds on the barb warriors after healing, and I figured a 42% chance of complete victory was a bit small. Retreated into the city, and one warrior followed onto the sheep, the other went back in the fog. So what must have happened is a city attack barb met up with a wandering barb. I still want to find a time to go kill the wandering barb and lion...but next turn we'll kill the invading barb, anyway. Probably need some extra warriors if I'm going to send out expeditionary forces; I'm not sure what level of priority that deserves. Worth delaying the third city? Hard to claim - but then it's probably worth some portion of a wane, too. Well, for the time being I'll keep with the EC and worker. I'm confident those investments will pay back well.

Goblin also advanced, we have 90% odds on him next turn. Not as good, but I'm still planning to take the shot.

Also, Aurorarcher's 32 GNP turn was just one turn. Maybe he finished a tech and simultaneously paused working his dyes for an emergency warrior or something along those lines. He's back to basically our level. Which is good for foreign relations and bad for the possibility of killing him before Wizards .

[Mardoc]

Killed the barbs. My best warrior's up to 11 XP and 0.6/3 health. The wandering warrior showed back up on the forested hill, and I probably can't do anything about him. Maybe, if I gave the warrior Shock, and it healed him enough, he'd have ok odds - but I could just be patient and take two 95+ battles and get him to Wanable instead.

Mining is in. Going to wish we had more workers, but I think I will go for the expansion path instead. Three workers should catch up by the time I have the ability to expand, and I don't want them to be bored in ten turns just waiting on a settler.

We'll see how the pace does this weekend, it could be a good one, but I've got a lot of chores to catch up on around the house, so I won't be upset if it's slow.

[Mardoc]

Not often that revealing copper makes no difference in your plans!


Well, except it makes the gold city relatively better, since that city was hurting for tiles. Gotta decide if it makes enough difference to head south first instead of east.