Winter Wonderland: Selrahc's FFH 2 thread

[Selrahc]

Yeah, so even less of a chance for Orthus to succeed then.

[Selrahc]

Finish research on agriculture, and as soon as I have workers they'll actually have something to do.

Started researching mining, which is due in 16 turns.



I also realized that I've been being an idiot. Without a road network it would be another 8 turns after they were constructed before the Priests could make their presence felt on the front lines. Maybe 12 turns before I could reach the front line. Now a little bit of delay is necessary to give them time to get their first promotions, but 12 turns is way too long. With that in mind I'm getting my first worker into production. He should be able to road two or three tiles before the priests are built, shaving a few turns off the final attack time.

I wish I'd done it earlier. The whole Orthus situation distracted me a little, but basically it was foolishness.

On the other hand I definitely need the warriors I've built. At the moment there are three barbarian units closing in on Jingle Bells, with more probably en route. The three warriors I have defending the city are necessary for security at the moment.

[sunrise089]

Hey selrahc, I spotted a post by you from 2007 about "stupid overpowered comic book characters" on some tabletop gaming site. Truth be told I wasn't playing much attention since I was like google searching for some specific quote I found on wikipedia, but I noticed your name and that there was a hippo avatar. Pretty weird.

[Selrahc]

Yeah, that's me. I've been using the name and hippo avatars since 2004, although I think the forums I used to post on back then are now vanished into the ether.

If I'm talking about comic book characters in a negative fashion it's probably a hypothetical "Who Would Win" question(e.g Wolverine vs. Aragorn) where people tend to forget just how insane some of the things comic characters can do really are. Normally I'm a fairly big comic fan.

But yeah, comic book fan who hangs out on tabletop gaming sites arguing about which fictional character would win a fight? I couldn't really be painting a more geeky picture of myself. It's pretty much true, although most of my posts are the result of procrastination while in the middle of writing essays.

[Selrahc]

Productive diplomatic exchange with Pocketbeetle. I think it went well. I'm pretty sure I gave away more than I really gained in gameplay terms, but I think this is a good foundation for a long term stable alliance.

I'm going to annotate it with my thoughts.

pocketbeetle: Well, first off, can I just say thanks for not sending me an angry email about the lair opening stunt. Sareln was less happy, and made himself heard. :rolleyes:
me: I'd probably have been a bit more annoyed if a bunch of high level barbs had spawned
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]As it is, I'm fine with you getting some loot
Pretty nice loot too
If you can get it back to base[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: Yeah. It was a lucky outcome. The first one I was okay with - I told Kyan if Vanilla Ice was trapped (Lizardman South, bear North), he could open a lair. Vanilla Ice was on 4xp, so even if the outcome was a non event, he could have promoted and have a chance
But anyway, it worked out okay[/COLOR]

I was a little annoyed, but I judged it not worth the hassle of making an issue over.

me: I've been dealing with Orthus in the last few turns.. all my explorers died 3 turns back
pocketbeetle: Oh really? That's news, I was intending to start fishing about Orthus. Did you get his axe?
me: Yep. He went down really easy
pocketbeetle: Good job

Continuing the policy of giving fairly trivial information away for free. I was going to talk more on this and ask him if he had any news, but we got around to the main point of this chat pretty quickly while I was typing up a question.

pocketbeetle: K, I stated that in my thread at the start of this game that I intended to be blunt in diplomacy…so I might as well start as I mean to go on. [COLOR="DarkOrchid"]
Selrahc, are you going for a Priest of Winter rush? [/COLOR]
me: Yes
That's basically what I wanted to talk to you about
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: Thanks for being honest.
But the big question now is, am I the target? [/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] me: No.
Sareln is.
Mainly due to how close our civs are[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"] pocketbeetle: Glad to hear it
I’d hoped that would be the answer, especially when I found out that you’d settled towards Sareln, but I had to be sure.
Just to be clear: I think you’ve already guessed I pay some attention to the demographics. [/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] me: So you don't have any problems with that?
Yeah.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: When we started this PBEM, I stated that I thought you and Bob would probably be among the top players, and so when I found myself adjacent to you, I started paying a lot of attention to your graphs.
I know you beelined Philosophy and got it on T49 along with a hut tech (still haven’t figured out what that was).
I know you settled your second city on T38
In short, I’ve been keeping an eagle eye on you. [/COLOR]

Yeah, I might not be paying much attention to the demographics but PB clearly is. Spot on there, just as it has been every time he's told me what my soldier builds have been. Dark magic going on there, and it's pretty impressive

Of course I already knew he was good at this stuff from our previous diplo...

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: So when I realised you were probably going for the Priests, I started worrying, and had to figure out what to do.
Care to guess my solution? [/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]me: Hmm...
Not sure[/COLOR]
pocketbeetle: I’ll give you a hint, in a couple of turns I’ll finish researching Cartography.
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]me: Ah. Larry, Curly and Moe
That'd work[/COLOR]
pocketbeetle: Exactly

I'm not sure the giants are a cast iron counter(AFAIK they don't get defensive bonuses, so a few ice elemental summons will shred them), but they're certainly a good one.

pocketbeetle: I’ve done the numbers, I think you’re about halfway through the White Hand ritual, and taking into account travelling time, I’m pretty certain I’d be able to get the Hill Giants in time, making it pretty much a stalemate.
Now that you’ve told me you’re not heading for me, I feel a bit more relaxed, but I’ll still be building them. It makes no sense to research something like Cartography and not take the first-past-the-post bonus.

And it's very good news that Sareln or possible future conquests won't have a chance at them.

pocketbeetle: So what exactly were you intending to talk to me about regarding the Priests then?
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]me: I was pretty sure you'd be able to see them coming.
So I was hoping to ask you not to give Sareln prior warning.
Because I'm pretty sure he isn't paying nearly as close attention to the demographics[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: Interesting
And I'd agree, I don't think he is either
Is that the main interest?
I thought you’d also be looking to secure your borders, eliminate the chance of getting involved in a two front war, that sort of thing? [/COLOR]
me: Well I was hoping to bring the discussion that way, yeah.
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: Okay…
Well I’ll be honest with you.
I think you and I have started off really well, and I would much prefer to deal with you than Sareln.
But you have to see it from my point of view here
If you take out Sareln, (and it’s very likely, those Priests are hugely powerful), you’d be gaining a ton of land to the East, plus gaining your hammer investment back in cities. PoW ritual = 290ish hammer, settler = 150 hammers, you’d only have to capture two cities to be making hammers.
In short, you’d have the best of both worlds: eliminating one neighbour while the other spends a huge amount of production on a pretty useless ritual that costs more hammers (330), with no return on investment.
I’m afraid the greed factor comes into play here. What am I getting out of it?
What are you bringing to the table?
Sent at 6:15 PM on Saturday
pocketbeetle: (Apart from the obvious, a long term ally)[/COLOR]
me: At the moment there isn't too much to trade in terms of land, but if you're getting cartography in a few turns that opens up some possibilities
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: Which is no small thing in itself
true[/COLOR][COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]
me: I can give you my maps, which should show you the location of the civs you haven't met yet.[/COLOR][COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]
And we could talk about sites that you would want to settle in the future.
I've seen some pretty good land to the west.[/COLOR]
pocketbeetle: Sounds interesting yeah
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]Don't get caught up thinking there's nothing to deal with in a no tech trading game
there’s lots of things we can deal with
City gifts, Great People to build unique buildings, Trade, Gold, Settling rights, Tech/Wonder exclusivity agreements etc.
I'll level with you though
What I'm most interested in is settling rights[/COLOR]
me: Getting the big cities in good places?[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]
pocketbeetle: I wish.
Truth is, Darrell has been a little stingy with my land
And I'm looking at what may happen, and noticing that you'd be getting a ton of land to your East
What happened to North Wind btw?[/COLOR]
me: Scorpion clan goblin
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: I've been expecting him to show up any time now
really?
ouch[/COLOR]
me: Yeah.
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: Okay, well to be clear, I'm around 18 tiles East of you. And I'm struggling to find city locations
I'd like to ask for the land to the West of your capital.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] me: I've seen at least one location I thought could be good for kuriotates
Hmm...[/COLOR]
pocketbeetle: And to be clear, before you say no outright, this is not some audacious landgrab[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]
me: And that would be the basis of stable long term borders?[/COLOR]
pocketbeetle: That would. I think you know enough to know about the Kuriotates to know we don't need that much land due to limited cities. The fact I'm struggling to even find those sites should give you an idea
me: Yeah.
pocketbeetle: I would also be willing to trade you maps as soon as I get Carto, on the basis we work soemthing out, so you could be sure I'm not outright lying[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]
me: Sounds good.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]I'd quite like to have 1 city west of my capital, but I'm pretty much willing to cede the rest of the land.
It's not a super site, more for a buffer in case things break down later(which they hopefully wouldn't)
The only resource is sheep.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: I understand, but is that site around the sheep tile? Because that's what I'm really interested in?
heh[/COLOR]
me: Ah...
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: Let me explain a bit more
Is that site you're thinking about the sheep/wheat/deer location on the river?
(The nice Kuriotate spot)[/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] me: Ah, no. Different sheep.
I think.
Let me just check a screenshot[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"] pocketbeetle: Nono. There's two sheep. One in the above site, the other is south of the dungeon close to the river
The sheep/wheat/deer site, I 'll have a settler reaching it in around 6 turns[/COLOR]
me: Oh, yeah, the dungeon river one is what I was talking about
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: What I'm hoping to secure here, is the other sheep. I think I may have to found my third city around there. I really am lacking other options
I don't want to get into a settling race, because although I will probably win it (EXP), it'll create bad feeling[/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]me: No, this is good.
If you need to put one of your super cities there then I'll cede the site.
Is that fair?[/COLOR]
Sent at 6:29 PM on Saturday[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]
me: There is a furs/sheep/whales/deer site somewhere in the north that I thought would look promising for you.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: That's very fair, and I probably will need to. Full disclosure: my current working plan is to found a settlement not too far away and use my worldspell to bring it under cultural control
In the end, you’re going to be getting a shedload of land to your East, including Letum Frigus and a strong capital site. I’m hoping that’s enough
That will clash with the other site. Also I'm not looking for coastal sites preferably. Land > sea obviously[/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] me: Right. Fair enough.
I'm happy with the deal as it currently stands then.
If you need that site for your big three then it's obviously a lot more important to you than it is to me
And none of the other land to my west was planned for settling in any realistic timeframe.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: That's great
Okay, so to be clear: I don’t warn Sareln, I don’t help in any way (I’d even be willing to help you if necessary). In return I get settlign rights to the West of your capital, specifically the sheep site, but you will discuss any sites you settle West of your cap in the short/midterm? [/COLOR]
me: Yes, that sounds like a deal.
pocketbeetle: Additional stuff: we'll trade maps and you get to call it off in the extreme case that I've completely misled you and I have tons of room

And thus I agree to not settle anywhere west of my capital in exchange for PB not going a mile out of his way to screw me over.

I think I was pretty generous with my offer, and I'm hoping there'll be some wiggle room later. Once the super cities are placed then land becomes much less valuable to the Kuriotates, so he'd probably be willing to give me a few sites in his agreed area of influence.

If not /shrug. The eastern land is looking juicier right now. The only planned city site I've ceded was one I'm pretty sure he would have beaten me to in a race.

pocketbeetle: Would you be interested in getting trading going soon/Open Borders? Might as well make use of Cartography
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]me: No point in not doing so really.
We'll need to get a trade route connected before it really means anything though[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: True, it shouldn't take too long though, firing off my worldspell will make it a lot easier, meaning workers don't have to worry
But thankyou Selrahc, I'm glad we could work something out [/COLOR]
me: Me too.
pocketbeetle: And goodluck with the conquest ^^
me: Yeah, kind of all riding on that.
By the way, feel free to take Kyan on as a full dedicated lurker now.
pocketbeetle: Ahh, were you trying to talk to me about that before I left?
me: Yeah.
But I think it was more productive at this point.
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]pocketbeetle: lol. Doh!
true
To celebrate our agreement, here's a freebie also. Something I posted earlier in my thread
Sareln:
Last turn that he researched a tech: T47 -> Assigned Mysticism
Next turn he researched a tech: T54
Therefore gap = 7 turns
GNP during period: 14 ie research 12.
7 turns x 12 = 84b

Allowing for a small overflow, it’s clearly the level 1 tech Exploration at 85b.
Sareln has: Agri, AH, Anc Chants, Mysticism, Exploration.

Sareln is playing a reasonably solid game, he got food up first via Agri and AH, then improved GNP via Mysticism and possibly a SC/Sci spec soon.
I’m surprised he’s not now going Crafting/Mining for production however.
He 100% does not need the roads from Exploration, he’s virtually in the middle of a forest, so it must be as a prereq for something else.
Fishing is a no, Cartography is a possible, but Hunting makes a lot more sense both for the Hunter unit and as a prereq for the FoL religion.
Might help [/COLOR]
me: Ah, thank you. That is useful
pocketbeetle: Cya
me: Yeah, thanks!

I definitely agree that he'll have gone for hunting. Elves love FoL, Svarts love recon units and hunting is a must for both. Hunters in numbers would be annoying, but I think he'll barely have time to build a hunting lodge before I'm on him.





Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how things worked out there. =)

[Adlain]

[COLOR="Magenta"]pocketbeetle: So when I realised you were probably going for the Priests, I started worrying, and had to figure out what to do.
Care to guess my solution?[/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]Selrahc: Hmm...
Not sure[/COLOR]
pocketbeetle: I’ll give you a hint, in a couple of turns I’ll finish researching Cartography.
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]Selrahc: Ah. Larry, Curly and Moe
That'd work[/COLOR]
pocketbeetle: Exactly

I'm not sure the giants are a cast iron counter(AFAIK they don't get defensive bonuses, so a few ice elemental summons will shred them), but they're certainly a good one.

So what are your long term (aka after rolling Sarlin over with PoW) Plans regarding Pocketbeetle??

[Selrahc]

So what are your long term (aka after rolling Sarlin over with PoW) Plans regarding Pocketbeetle??

I'm really hoping that this deal leads to cooperation in the long term. I'm not planning on fighting him until the late game.

Mid-Late game is a mixed bag for the Kurio's. On the one hand, their super city setup becomes lacklustre, compared to a normal city but on the other hand centaurs are really good late game units, that can fill the role of recon, offensive or defensive troops.

The late game plan is still based around magic. In late game combat I'm hoping I can pin down his ultra mobile centaurs with spells and take them out with summons.



Mytenative midgame expansion plan is to make friends with at least one other civilization. At the moment I'm thinking Bob. Then between us split a neighbour civilization down the middle. Hopefully at least one of my allies will stay with me in a final showdown. The early diplo contact has been helpful in laying the groundwork.

Also, good idea on colour coding. I'll edit that in to make it clearer.

[Selrahc]

Two turns today. Nothing worth screenshotting. I'm waiting for the barrow busters to reach their destination, as well as checking demographics for nasty surprises. I'll probably do a quick report of my rudimentary findings tomorrow.

[Selrahc]

First things first: The sheep site I agreed to give up.



I thought it had potential as a nice little commerce site that wouldn't require snow, but nothing I'll be tearing my hair out about losing.



Next up, the big news of the last turn was that Sareln has founded his second city, the second player to do so.(Unless Bob managed one I guess. Forgot to check.)

That is pretty much awesome news. Go ahead and build new cities Sareln, they'll be Illian soon enough...

It prompted this email chain.

I think I mentioned it earlier, but I've planted the most western city
I have planned for our northern border this last turn (58). I aim to
have another city down before I found a religion, so hopefully the
holy city will not land on our shared border (and put your own city
under cultural pressure). I don't view this as an aggressive plant,
and it should not interfere with your stated desire to control Letum
Frigus.

-Sareln-

Yeah, I saw it. Don't worry, I'm not going to get all offended over the location. Looks perfectly in line with our discussions to this point.

I guess you're going for leaves fairly soon then?

Relatively soon yes. You're agnostic, so I'm glad I'm not in a race
with a 13 turn lag!

Well I'm pretty sure if I had been going for a religion it wouldn't have been leaves. I leaf that tree hugging to you elves.

Really, that news just couldn't be better unless he said that he'd disbanded his units and was planning on building workers galore for the next dozen turns.

Confirms Pocketbeetle's intel(and my vague suspicions, just like I'm vaguely thinking the Dwarves are going for Kilmorph and the vampires are going for Feudalism) that he is beelining towards Leaves on the tech tree, which doesn't really help him militarily. It also shows that he is still going for max expansion, so hasn't twigged to my plan yet, and might be in a position to give me three cities when this is all done.



And the graphs support the email. Looks like there is no trickiness. Production has drastically dipped for Sareln as he stops working tiles to get the settler out.

[Selrahc]

Epic skeleton vs. warrior combat was in the cards for this turn as operation Barrowburn comes to a head. I took some risks... The results were partly favourable.

Of course since I've disabled combat animations and FFH doesn't give a combat log you'll just have to settle for the combat odds and me telling you the results.

The immediate bad news was that another skeleton spawned on the interturn. I'd thought I would only have one skeleton to deal with and found two there instead. Damn.


Sleet killed a skeleton on the way here, so got to the base slightly wounded. I judged it worth an attempt at a 96% battle. And it was a complete success. He killed the skeleton and left no more wounded than he entered. This also took him up to 19/20xp.



So I threw Orthus's axe over to Hawfrost, the rookie drafted in as backup. One of the most useful aspects of items is the way in which you can pass them around a stack, giving their bonuses to multiple combatants.

He had an 89.6% chance of success. And failed. Not only failed, but did no damage whatsoever to the skeleton. Ugh.

Anyway, Sleet picked the axe back up and has a 99.7% chance to kill the Skeleton next turn. But losing the backup was irritating. I'm going to go ahead and explore the barrow in the next few turns anyway(after healing up) and hope nothing bad happens.


In empire news, my first worker will be completed next turn. His first job is roadbuilding, but afterwards he has a fair few locations to farm.