[SPOILERS] Mardoc's Magical Mystery Tour

[Mardoc]

Argh. The warrior who moved in, up north, has another right behind him. I have to pick between attacking out and risking death on the barb turn, or defensive low-XP fight for the city. I've got a replacement warrior coming in, but he's slightly too far back to cover my wanable.

Well. Maybe if I stand pat, the barbs will do that pause 1 turn thing and I can have my cake and eat it too.

Meanwhile the warrior in the south won his battle perfectly: no scratches and now 15 XP. It's not obvious where his target will come from for the last 2, but it's looking like that'll happen soon.

And...our settler is 1 turn away from completion and I still don't really dare let him leave our borders. Five warriors, when I intend to retire two of them any turn now, is just not really enough. Well...I'll figure something out. Free Great Sages at the mere cost of a turn's delay to build a replacement warrior is a pretty good problem to have.

[Qgqqqqq]

Before reading the rest:

The bonuses from wanes are passive inasmuch as they don't require much city-based investment in the short-term. We have to keep up warrior production, but nothing else. So, we should focus on pouring resources into expansion.

And the second bit was referring to settling one as a GM to make up for the cost of expanding.

[Qgqqqqq]

When thinking about OO, focus should be on what tiles we add by revolting. Given that it won't be landing in the cap, and zealot(s) will go to new cities, I question how much worth there is in adding what will probably just be a grass forest/farm in the north. Sure, tile shuffling is great, and I'm sure we'll get the northern mine/pasture done at some stage, but still. At the very least you'll want to make sure a settler is moving at the same time, but I kinda doubt it will be very efficient.

I could see Drama GA into Conquest/Apprenticeship/OO/NH/Pacifism (or some combination thereof ). How many beakers is Sanitation in this game?



Barbs normally do pause. Maybe try to chop one in in the north? It's a shame to delay a settler for anything


Also, any thoughts on the balance of 17xp wanes?

[Mardoc]

. Given that it won't be landing in the cap, and zealot(s) will go to new cities, I question how much worth there is in adding what will probably just be a grass forest/farm in the north.

Ah, good point. I was thinking of it as +1 happy everywhere, but it's really not - not yet, anyway.

I could see Drama GA into Conquest/Apprenticeship/OO/NH/Pacifism (or some combination thereof ). How many beakers is Sanitation in this game?

668. Which translates to 550 or so base beakers. Nowish that would be about 13 turns, but by the time we get to Drama (and have our wanes) it'll be more like 7 turns of research. Not nothing, but GA is probably better. Especially if we delay our revolts.

Barbs normally do pause. Maybe try to chop one in in the north? It's a shame to delay a settler for anything

It's pretty much just that our military is too small if we're not able to cover the east and the south with the same units. I really should have built a couple more sooner, and already pushed out to our borders; instead I've been keeping my troops by the cap.

Also, any thoughts on the balance of 17xp wanes?

Probably fine. This is darn near the best case for them: big map, Raging Barbs, high difficulty, free Academy - and I still am not sure about whether they'll be enough to push me to a win.

Maybe ask again in thirty turns.

[Mardoc]

Wanable #1:


Unfortunately the barb did attack him for only 1 XP, so the second barb was overkill. On the other hand, he did protect the city, we didn't really have a good backup warrior in place anyway (I forgot to cast Enchanted Blade on the reinforcement so he's turned around to get it), and it's not like barbs are in short supply.







Yep, that's five incoming barbs at the moment. We currently have six warriors, one of whom I would like to retire next turn, and another who is on the edge of retirement.

Our settler is out, and I think I'll be sending him east because that's the direction I have a little more under control at the moment. Since we chopped this turn, we'll have a lot of overflow in Bananas which will probably go toward another settler, then I'll pause it for 3-4 more 1-turn warriors. Riding the very edge of 'enough military' is frustrating. I might delay waning one of my wanables in order to have enough barb control to get the cities planted - in which case he's going to aim for the 26 XP mark to unlock FotT.

Neither Message from the Deep nor Drama seem to have fallen yet.

Our GSage is due in 4 turns, and I'm still waffling between settling him and golden age. We could easily make it to Edu during a golden age and get revolted into both OO and Apprenticeship/Conquest while it's going on. It's still pretty darn early for a GA, though. Two turns of 40 bpt, plus nine turns of (generously) an extra 10 bpt) breaks even with settlement in 17 turns? I guess we'd get some extra GPP, too, which is definitely worth something.

Of course, it's worth more if we get the Wane(s) settled before the hypothetical lost revolt turns. And getting into XP-granting civics early is worth partial wanes. And we'd get a good deal of hammers, too. And with two wanes about to be born, and probably a second wave of them due in 15 turns, beakers do not appear to be our weak point.

Well, if I'm waffling, that means the two options are close. At this point I think I will probably go for the Golden Age because frontloaded = snowball/first-to bonuses, which in turn are worth quite a bit. But check back tomorrow for a strong argument in the other direction!

[Mardoc]

Decided not to keep my wanables around. I have a few turns while the barbs walk in, which ought to be enough time to rebuild my military. Can't resist the beautiful cash.




Killed one warrior in the east, which makes my next warrior wanable too (or will be, once he promotes). I can't attack the last barb warrior directly; only ~33% odds. If my wanable happens to have good odds after he takes his last promo, I might take the shot, but realistically I will probably let this particular barb come up to the city and attack. Or else put together a stack of two warriors and plan to lose the first...that could work too.

My settler is out, and headed south. Mostly because I have more control of the barb situation in the south at the moment, and it's easier terrain to fight in . Next settler would be six turns if not for the need to spit out a few warriors first, but the fourth city isn't far away in any event. I don't think I need more workers just yet. September is over-improved, really, and the cap is almost fully improved as well. The main limit at the moment is just the terrain control to let the workers do their jobs in peace.

Only one new barb showed up this turn, and he's a goblin, in the south. I killed two barbs, so the situation is relatively calmer. Just need to keep maneuvering and get my wanes settled, and things will look happy!

Also I misremembered, the GSage is due in 5. Since I ought to have a third city definitely out and a fourth close, plus September will have grown, that tilts things even more toward the golden age. So I think that's what I will do with him.

[Mardoc]

I'm moderately confused. I killed one barb, in the south...and most of the rest declined to engage. The new goblin in the south moved back into the fog, the warrior on the copper to the east stayed put. The only one who did what I expected is the northern warrior, who moved in, to the sheep tile. I guess there must be two different scripts, one for attacking cities and one for just harassing explorers. Which would seem to suggest if I push even *more* units out to the fog, I can improve my XP-collecting rate. 3XP/turn is nice, but maybe I can make wanes at an even better rate

Well, we've got a wane and a wanable both heading home to the capital, so the barbs giving us a little time to make that shift change is actually good news for us. Give me a few turns to get replacement warriors built, blades enchanted, and walk out to the frontiers, and I'll take that gladly.

One of them is definitely going to be a Merchant. We ran out of cash this turn, which delays OO by a turn as well - unit maintenance cost is starting to bite already. We'll be able to use all the cash he generates for maintenance, pretty much, which should give us more flexibility on anything but a cash-burning sprint to a tech.

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Remember that they can't turn into wanes and settle in the same turn.

Will add more thoughts later.

[Mardoc]

Remember that they can't turn into wanes and settle in the same turn.

Yeah. They can't turn into a wane and move in the same turn, either. Haven't figured out if a wane can move and then settle, or if the river will cost me yet another turn of profit.

The eastern waneable is only not yet a wane because I thought there was a chance he'd have to fight a barb

Will add more thoughts later.

Cool. I was planning to make a nicely detailed report today, but the turn actually got stuck. First >24 hr turn here! (or at least the first one that's not my fault).

[Qgqqqqq]

Can't they move and then go wane? I thought they could...


I agree with the dilemma of what to do about the GP, and would also be leaning GA, as much as it pains me. On the plus side, if we get the Bard we can use him in a two-way.

Like the idea of going Merchant.

How many workers do you have?

Oh, and what are the graphs like on the two players you've met?