New EitB succession game

[BING_XI_LAO]

Bit of a sloppy set from me, lost some units on land and sea. Conquered most of the Luichirp then made peace because of their frigate being annoying and their good cities already having fallen. The first Beast of Agares killed two of their heroes and is now gigachad city raider III.

Also I rushed a whole bunch of forges with slavery. And we have 23 slaves. And I gave a city to the Infernals because I think it looks cool that way.

[DaveV]

Also I rushed a whole bunch of forges with slavery.

Guild of Hammers completes next turn, so

Got it, I expect to spend a few days playing.

[DaveV]

A question for the team: do we have a consensus on how we want to win (winning itself seems not to be in doubt)? Checking the F8 screen, we've already hit the domination threshold in population, but are 32/62 in land area. We're 30/80 on religious victory, no towers, no luonnotars, 6 rivals still alive and two of those overseas (although we do have a beachhead on the other continent). We're a *very* long way from cultural victory.

I'm guessing conquering our continent and settling the two sizeable islands in the south would be enough to push us over the top in land area, and that seems to me like the path of least resistance.

Thematically, a religious victory would probably fit our civ and leader. Spreading the Veil worldwide would probably mean having to deal with at least one of the Horsemen.

[shallow_thought]

A question for the team: do we have a consensus on how we want to win (winning itself seems not to be in doubt)? 

I'd be happy to just go for domination. Grab unclaimed land, push culture a little, throw more troops at a likely target if we need to / are bored.

If the team wants to conquer the world through religion (isn't this easy for the AI to block through Theo and inquisition?), we do have the option of running the Elohim ritual to keep the AC down. It would be strange to do that while also spreading Veil, but possible. Not sure it would avoid all the horsemen, but might keep things under control.

Also, could we kill Hyborem easily? Would help both with domination and the AC.

[Brian Shanahan]

A question for the team: do we have a consensus on how we want to win (winning itself seems not to be in doubt)? Checking the F8 screen, we've already hit the domination threshold in population, but are 32/62 in land area. We're 30/80 on religious victory, no towers, no luonnotars, 6 rivals still alive and two of those overseas (although we do have a beachhead on the other continent). We're a *very* long way from cultural victory.

I'm guessing conquering our continent and settling the two sizeable islands in the south would be enough to push us over the top in land area, and that seems to me like the path of least resistance.

Thematically, a religious victory would probably fit our civ and leader. Spreading the Veil worldwide would probably mean having to deal with at least one of the Horsemen.

Quickest out is probably best. This was a pretty vanilla set up so no need to plan to a specific victory.

[DaveV]

Sorry, guys, I think I need a skip this turn. The week is turning out to be much busier than I anticipated.

[Brian Shanahan]

Sorry, guys, I think I need a skip this turn. The week is turning out to be much busier than I anticipated.

Well that puts me out too, because I'm going straight up home after work tomorrow night to start of two weeks holidays. I'll probably be back Saturday week to my computer but am definitely out until then.

We could maybe pause up for a few days if Shallow Thought doesn't want to jump back in straight away.

[shallow_thought]

Sorry, guys, I think I need a skip this turn. The week is turning out to be much busier than I anticipated.

Well that puts me out too, because I'm going straight up home after work tomorrow night to start of two weeks holidays.  I'll probably be back Saturday week to my computer but am definitely out until then.

We could maybe pause up for a few days if Shallow Thought doesn't want to jump back in straight away.

I can probably play a set at the weekend; pause after that if things are still problematic?

[shallow_thought]

I'm good with Dave's suggestion of "conquer the mainland and settle the islands". Grabbing some territory from Os-Gabella or Decius once we've dealt with the Orcs and Lanun is also a possibility.

Rather than sit around for 10t of enforced peace with the Luichirp, I backstabbed Hyborem. I fired off a GA and switched civics.




I also fired off our Worldspell. The intention was to keep Hyborem's stack from capturing our new (ex-Luichirp) cities while being free to move our stack against his (it also protected our city to the NE of the Luichirp that we couldn't actually reach. In fact, it worked even better than that - his stack was caught and immobilised inside our borders when they expanded as the cities came out of anarchy.

Didn't take long to finish off Big Red, although slogging through the hills in Dis culture was a pain.




We have Drama (for culture pops at new cities), Optics and Astro for a real navy and Theology for Profane, as can be seen in this stack, ready to hit the Luichirp (we can probably afford to split it). I was then pushing Arcane Lore -> Pass through the Ether for the Nexus to allow fast troop movement to the front. Mithril could also be good.




Notes:
- I don't see much value in spamming Veil any more. We're not short on beakers or cities to build Veil units if needed.
- Pretty much every half-decent city is going Command Post -> units (or Shipyard -> ships).
- Arquebuses are the current unit of choice; most are unpromoted, intended for city garrisons, but some could have mobility become part of the strike forces (or just to get to the front faster)
- I've been building Iron Golems in Luichirp cities, partly just for fun, partly because they can have fireballs and make good garrisons. Given the limited mobility I wouldn't suggest overdoing it.
- I've done a round of Spring Adepts to clean-up post-hell floodplains (now just desert) and smokes up north.
- I'm trying to move Elven workers north to add improvements to forests, and non-Elf workers south and east.
- Corlindale is learning Ice for Snowfall
- We have a bear in Luichirp territory heading NE to form a culture building. It needs to get there before we declare (or at least close so it teleports safely)
- Sanctuary still has 19-20t turns to run.
- A bunch of Arqs are on their way south to the "Settling parties" rally point, to meet up with some workers and (eventually) Settlers. We'll also need a Devout or two I think (the near island is hell terrain). A Queen of the Line or two are on their way, one with some Arqs already on board, and we should have Men-O-War around for escorts / frigate killers.




I don't know if we want to pause here or if someone wants to pick this up again straight away. I'd actually be happy to play some more myself now that I've finally had the chance to unleash the armies on my turns.

[BING_XI_LAO]

Can I give Shallow Thought my turn for this round? I had forgotten about this game
Would happily play in a far future of the game though...