I'm a naturally cautious, buildery player, and my initial impression is that we're not going to make progress until we've built more cats and got some Pol's. If we can somehow squeeze out enough commerce to get to Fanaticism in a sane amount of time (45t at the moment after 8t to Priesthood) Corlindale could solve our collateral issues - until he dies to an assassin, of course .
I'm tempted to use the settler and disciple that we're building to found the new island city. Once it's popped borders, so long as it has some workboat support it will grow like a weed even without a lighthouse, and we can then work those coast tiles (and the pearls) for more much-needed commerce. Going to be a nasty maintenance hit for 10t though.
How stupid would it be to trade spirit mana for ale+rice with Hannah? I don't see that we're getting much value out of it right now, and the happy would free up one more citizen at the capital.
We're going to need to keep building units, but I think we need to squeeze out a few workboats. I was thinking of a harbour at Glens but the payback is too slow - if we need the commerce that urgently it can work the furs.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
(March 28th, 2020, 09:19)shallow_thought Wrote: How stupid would it be to trade spirit mana for ale+rice with Hannah? I don't see that we're getting much value out of it right now, and the happy would free up one more citizen at the capital.
Not stupid at all, IMO. We would lose +5% on GPP, but happiness and health would be worth it.
Don't we already have Ale? I traded for someone for it.
I personally feel like we can defend WP with a bit more forward thinking - send disposable warriors to pillage the tiles to give us more warning. And absolutely agree about cats. (Also, remember that we have good international TR, so it's not giving us that.)
I think Corlindale is a bit too much of a beeline for now. Once we have PoL and cats in sufficient numbers I don't think we'll need him - I'd rather fill out the economy with a lot of missing techs.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
I would urge us to consider Ritualists for medium-to-long term collateral; the Veil won't take too long to acquire after we get PoL, and we'll pick up Adepts along the way, which we'll eventually want for Haste if nothing else.
As for where we settle, I'd go with either our remaining island or a random iceball to our immediate north. All have at least one seafood, which makes them worthwhile for going market -> elder council and then running a couple specialists, if nothing else.
The problem with Ashen Veil in an AI game is that the AIs love to build the Mercurian Gate, and running Veil is pretty much a guaranteed DoW by Basium and his ally. Ritualists are a great unit, but they come with serious diplomatic consequences.
(March 29th, 2020, 09:22)DaveV Wrote: The problem with Ashen Veil in an AI game is that the AIs love to build the Mercurian Gate, and running Veil is pretty much a guaranteed DoW by Basium and his ally. Ritualists are a great unit, but they come with serious diplomatic consequences.
Guess who turned up during my turnset ?
Anyway, fairly quiet. Headlines:
Hannah summoned Basium and they declared on Cardith.
Arturus made peace with Furia ; he then formed a Defensive Pact with Decius.
Furia is wandering a stack around somewhere near Hexham, but I've not been able to get eyes on it the last two turns.
We've got an extra cat, a couple of fawns and two PoLs on top of what we had at the start of the turnset. Oh, and another bear.
Thessa would declare on Furia, but we can't afford a big enough present.
We're in slavery because I'd rather have more military hammers than more XP now that we are mostly building SPI priests, and losing 10% production because of civics is better than 20%. And hopefully our cats will withdraw and gain XP that way.
We're teching HBR for mobility (and I would have gone Trade next). We have two sources of horses; three if you include the ones we're getting from Sandalphon (just to keep him friendly).
I've dumped negative beakers in WotE, as I can't see us going Kilmorph any time soon.
EDIT We have a Great Merchant to play with. Trade mission, bulb, GA are all options.
Details in spoilers.
T240
Made trade for ale + rice (if we had a trade earlier it's not there now).
T241
Building a hunting lodge in cap - we get happy + health + more unit options.
T 242
Saytr fails to mesmerise a bear, but does so from within safety of own borders.
A lot of WHEOOHRN from people who hate Furia (Thessa, Decius) but no action.
T243
Thessa continues to tease with her stack on the Clowns' border.
We have another bear. We may be able to use it to raze a Kuriatotes settlement. Or not. The defending disciple has been blessed and gets 90% odds.
T244
Hannah summons Basium. I sell him a spare clam for 1gpt. We should renegotiate once he's richer.
We settle the island. Get the food going we'll make something of it.
Priesthood is in, I start on AH, with the intention of heading for HBR to put mobility on cats, maybe make use of those horses we're trading for. Also, pre-req for Trade.
Oh, and Arturus makes peace with Furia. Ugh. I really don't want to have to burn Sanctuary. She still won't make peace, and no-one will declare on her.
T245
I switch to slavery. In the short term we're building cats, and promos aren't necessary, and PoLs, who will catch up in XP soon enough. We gain a few hammers and we may actually want to whip the seafood rich cities or the cap.
T246
I kill a wandering lunatic. I start dumping negative beakers in WotE. I don't think we'll ever have enough beakers / time to go Kilmorph. Alternative was MftD, and if we do capture enough Balseraph cities we might just want that.
We have a couple of horses to pasture.
T247
We have trade routes back with the Khazad, and they will trade dye for pearls. I cancel our pearls-horse deal with Sandalphon to get one net happy (plus, we're about to have our own horses). We'll have another pearls soon at the new city if we want to trade again.
Of course, all this means that the two unhappy faces I whipped away at the cap would have been happy, productive specialists by now.
Decius founded Empyrean.
T248
Sandalphon came straight back with horse-incense. I accept purely for the diplo benefits.
Urgh. That is not a nice stack.
T249
Decius signs a Defensive Pact with Arturus.
Hannah/Basium declare on Cardith. given that his power is lower than ours I do not expect this to go well for the brat. I send a tiger to look for that stack, but it can't see it (nor can we see into Hexam.)
BTW - the windmill on the "Iron Filler" hill is a pure brain fart. At least it wasn't actually a waste of worker turns, as we have so little for them to do.
We have a great merchant. Maybe he can bulb Trade once HBR is in? I don't know the bulbs well enough to be sure. Or we could send him off to visit someone, either by ship or via Kurio territory.
Thessa will now declare on Furia if we can provide her with something shinty enough. Our 261 gold is not enough, as far as I can tell. Or we can trigger a GA.
Still no sign of the stack.
This is our newest city. At least it is a net contributor.
Bob ON DECK
Brian
Me
DaveV
Shallow_thought
Cairo UP
EDIT - the reason the new city is building a market, not a lighthouse, is at least partly because I'd forgotten that the latter adds a trade route in EitB. Might need a rethink .
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Oh, we probably need that +2 exp if we're building cats; they can take mobility in EitB. Otherwise, good set, we kill that Furia stack on defense and we can march on Hexam.
(March 29th, 2020, 10:48)Bobchillingworth Wrote: Oh, we probably need that +2 exp if we're building cats; they can take mobility in EitB. Otherwise, good set, we kill that Furia stack on defense and we can march on Hexam.
I did know about the mobility, and ummed-and-ahed. I felt we could afford a low-xp cat or two while we're on the defense. I also used slavery to whip the unhappy out of the capital, and we should be able to use it to get some infra up in the new island city before switching back (it's good to be SPI). In practice, with the new trade routes opening up in the aftermath of Arturus making peace (hmm - does this imply he got a city in the deal? I didn't check the trade screens), I ended up undershooting the happy cap. So yeah, a marginal decision with some questionable execution, but a deliberate one .
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Looks a good turnset. We're stabilising economically and I'd say we're pretty safe from being pushed out of the game as it stands.
Tho only thing is where do we go from here in terms of teching up to an offensive army. I like Bob's idea of going towards the Veil and drowning everybody who's not us in fire, but do we want anything else with that or is there a better plan closer to home?
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
RE: the Veil, Dave is right that it'll cause Basium and likely future runaway AI Hannah to declare on us as soon as we adopt it. Doesn't mean we shouldn't, since we're almost certainly going to have to fight them anyway, but we should make sure we've built up a much more substantial power and economic base first, prior to initiating what will likely be our "Final War".
UNLESS we can use Corlindale to force peace and then maybe Basium won't auto-declare as soon as the enforced duration is up? I'm not certain how persistent the predetermined AI war triggers are. We could get Ritualists online earlier if that's the case, especially if we could control the Seven Pines for two enforced peace options (not sure where it's located). Otherwise we should at least scoop up Trade, Alteration, Fanaticism (which we'd want for Ediolon anyway), and probably Iron Working first.
One other note for way down the line when we do fight the Mercurians; Basium will probably deploy an endless stream of Repentant Angels- thankfully, PoL are the natural counter. Just throw Tigers at them; either a Tiger gets very lucky and wins, or the Angel wins and is rewarded with a permanent -1 reduction in strength.
Oh also, don't forget to build carnivals so we can start integrating Tigers for culture and +1 happy.
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; he then formed a Defensive Pact with Decius.
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