DaveV talks like a pirate, me hearties!

[Mardoc]

The northern sea is safe by turn 60 correct, but if there are still unfogged tiles (or worse, cities) in the south, it could become hazardous. I find normally barb galleys are a headache well into the game unless I put up an early trireme net, but for the Lanun they can be a nightmare.

So that's not something I've paid close attention to. Do they need to spawn in a lair? In a barb city? Or can they just appear? What level of control do we need over a sea to make it safe? Would much rather build a galley or two (or workboat) and defog, than have to fight sea battles.

Dave, medium to long term how do you see your army composition going? If OO the best route may be attack from the sea with Priests and Drowns (or their upgrades), with ships for support, and axes at home. Otherwise what do you envisage?

Here's my 2 cents:

We'll likely want to go to Iron Working anyway for Shipyards, and have built our harbor replacement anyway for the commerce. Similarly, we'll want to go up to Trade anyway for its own sake, and Construction (either its own sake, or Sanitation). That means mean we ought to have access to Boarding Parties, Chariots, Catapults, Axes, all as byproducts of things we're doing anyway. So that's a default military. What's left as a real decision is what to supplement that with.

Drowns: The biggest handicap of Undead is all the spells you can't apply to them (especially haste), and the second biggest is coming up with the OO Temples to drown warriors at. I vaguely think they're not allowed to use Mithril, either, but I'm not sure on that. But I'm also certain they're cheaper than Boarding Parties and almost as good. So whether to use them mostly depends on whether we're getting mages and/or mithril before we fight.

If by sea, Boarding Parties are surprisingly useful - amphibious applies to attacks off boats. The capture ships ability is rarely useful, but you can get BP to the point where they'll win against any ship opponent much easier than either winning with Galleys or maneuvering super-slow Triremes - plus that adds one movement range. They're expensive for their strength, but can be upgraded from axes which lets us apply commerce instead of hammers to the problem.

Priests vs. Mages is harder. In EitB 16, I used Mages because they're more versatile, but Falamar was adaptive then so I could build them with Command Posts and not have to wait for adepts to collect XP. Both routes involve serious research off the economic path, as well.

Same thing on whether Mithril is worthwhile or not. It really depends on when we're fighting, against whom, whether the battles will be mostly somewhere that collateral can hit first or deep strikes with chariots, etc and so on.

I don't see how we can decide that yet, not until we know more about the map and any likely targets. Maybe we have the space to expand all the way to mithril mages before fighting, maybe we want to fight sooner. Maybe the seas peter out and we end up fighting on a land border, or maybe we can have fun with a romp through coastal lands.

[DaveV]

Finally finished fishing, which puts me comfortably in the score lead again.




Here's the top five cities list. Only three other players have grown beyond size 1.




Here are the demographics, before and after ending turn.







The GNP increase is a lot better than it looks, since I was getting almost a 30% discount on Fishing. I expect to be in or near the lead in GNP for the rest of the game if I play competently.

@Brian: barb galleys are a real concern. My ideal means of dealing with them would be to use boarding parties. That's pretty far in the future, but I think at least half the players have to research Sailing before barb galleys start spawning.

@Mardoc: Drowns can use Mithril (not that it probably will matter), and they represent another good way to turn commerce into hammers. Inability to be hasted is a significant drawback, but water walking is a very useful ability (allows extra long range attacks from boats with no amphibious penalty).

I'm leaning toward Priests over Adepts. The wait for adepts to gain enough XP to upgrade is painfully long for a non-Arcane civ. Cultists are also extremely useful in naval combat: after a few Tsunamis, the combat changes from a coin flip to an easy win.

[Mardoc]

@Mardoc: Drowns can use Mithril (not that it probably will matter), and they represent another good way to turn commerce into hammers. Inability to be hasted is a significant drawback, but water walking is a very useful ability (allows extra long range attacks from boats with no amphibious penalty).

I'm leaning toward Priests over Adepts. The wait for adepts to gain enough XP to upgrade is painfully long for a non-Arcane civ. Cultists are also extremely useful in naval combat: after a few Tsunamis, the combat changes from a coin flip to an easy win.

I probably agree with you here. The one possible exception is if we end up fighting not at sea - suppose our tastiest neighbor builds all their cities inland. But the way the map is looking, that doesn't seem likely. Or, well, if we end up fighting late enough to have both. Cha does help with Mages...

[DaveV]

I found this in my inbox:

Well Met!

We've met in-game. Starts look to be mirrored. My scout is outside your city, I won't kill workers, but will be leaving soon anyway.

Not much to say. Though feel free to bitch at me about the mod now.

Say hi to Mardoc for me.

Q, Elohim.

I don't think we ever really settled what sort of diplo we're allowing, but I figured it would be rude not to reply:

I won't have any workers for a while, but thanks for the gesture. I also won't have any settlers for a while, so my warriors have nothing better to do than assume a defensive posture. I won't attack outside my borders to kill your scout, but would view any incursions into my territory most unfavorably.

There's a griffon somewhere to my south that killed my scout on turn 8, I think.

Pirate King DaveV

Here's the aforementioned defensive posture:




I'm working the hills to pump out the workboat as quickly as possible, so my GNP is in the tank:




Graphs dump:

He's slightly ahead in culture because of Religion civic:







Hebrew alphabet naming theme?

[Mardoc]

Looking solid. I see Q managed to talk a lot without actually saying anything. No idea which way to look for him, where the edge of the mirror is, if the mirror includes just the screenshot or the seas as well, how far apart we are, etc.

Still glad to see him as presumably one of our neighbors, much rather have him than Ellimist.

I obviously didn't get around to simming on the weekend, maybe this week sometime I will manage. I assume the workboat is going to the Fish first, and coves will be workboats 2 and 3?

[Brian Shanahan]

Put the reply in pirate speak, you've warned the other players you would with your thread title.

[DaveV]

I assume the workboat is going to the Fish first, and coves will be workboats 2 and 3?

That's the plan, Stan.

Put the reply in pirate speak, you've warned the other players you would with your thread title.

Pirates aren't known for keeping their word. I considered the talk like a pirate route, but decided it would be too much work for me and too annoying for my correspondents.

Here's another sim, taking Old Harry's advice on the first city placement:




6 workers, 7 warriors, 1 work boat about to become a cove by Seroe Vakas, 5 coves, 2 nets.

It turns out to be very useful to have a port on the southern sea to crank out workboats. The plains forests are pretty helpful for hammers, although I know I'll be mocked for working unimproved forest tiles.

Unlike the first sim, I don't have Calendar Cartography, but more cities are almost always better.

[DaveV]

Q is dancing around my borders. He probably came from the Northwest, since he probably would have seen these tiles if he came from the south.




Everyone has grown beyond size 1 and discovered a tech now.

[DaveV]

Q's scout is still in sight, with a griffon threatening him from the east (this after the barbs' move, so he has a chance to move away).




My hammer emphasis is really hurting my demographics.

[Mardoc]

My hammer emphasis is really hurting my demographics.

I promise it's temporary!