Winter Wonderland: Selrahc's FFH 2 thread

[Selrahc]

Well operation Barrowburn was a a success. It was a success mainly based around early morning bleariness and not sticking to the plan, so I guess you can chalk it up to dumb luck really.



First things first, Great Commander from the lair, which is awesome.

Sleet attacked and easily killed the Spectre(upgraded from last turns skeleton) with 97% odds. The plan was to heal up until back on full health and then explore the lair. In my sleep addled state I looked at the healing potion and thought "I can explore the lair, then if something nasty comes out glug the healing potion and survive, saving time" forgetting that exploring a lair prevents you from casting spells or using items. If something nasty had come out I would have had no chance to survive it. Losing both Sleet and the Orthus axe.

Anyway: That didn't happen. Instead nice things happened. The great commander is really nice boon, and by giving both the commander and the axe to one of the priests I can take them all the way up to S9. There isn't much that can stand against that for another 100 turns.

I've also gotten rid of the barrow, easing the barbarian assault slightly and opening up a future city site.



And the first Illian worker rolls off the production line, ready to toil eternally for the glory of the empire.

[Rowain]

And the first Illian worker ... ready to toil eternally

The poor sod. What cruel crime has he done to deserve such punishment

[Adlain]

Must have dared to melt some ice for a cup of tea. The ice is holy you know

[Selrahc]

The big news this turn is the map trade with PB, which gives a great view of the land. We're also going to be doing some discussion over the map. I'll go look for some interesting findings and post them up later.

[Selrahc]

The map conversation.

Gets onto some general FFH discussion at times.

Sent at 10:28 PM on Monday
me: Looking at the maps.. I think we can do you a better third city site.
I'll send you the turn first
pocketbeetle: Ooh hey
That's great, was worried you'd left for the night
Sent at 10:34 PM on Monday
me: I'm thinking you can get sheep/pigs/rice/reagents/oasis
Albeit with a bit of mountain/desert
pocketbeetle: wow sounds nice
I know where the sheep and rice are, where are the pigs etc?
me: I've sent you the turn, I imagine you'll see it...
Basically a little south
I think Northwind may have just seen them before death
pocketbeetle: Okay, will load it up. Give me five
Sent at 10:38 PM on Monday
me: Reagents actually wouldn't be in radius of sheep...
Sent at 10:39 PM on Monday
pocketbeetle's new status message - I'm not here right now 10:43 PM
pocketbeetle: Sorry, my internet's been awful this evening. (It does that sometimes)
me: No worries
I was just waiting for you to do the turn.
pocketbeetle: Done now, winging it's way onto Cull
me: Any thoughts then?
pocketbeetle: Looking at the map. Well, if you didn't know about the coast at all, you do now!
Surprised at how close together bob and Archduke are
me: Bob pretty much refused to believe me.
pocketbeetle: lol
it's what, 2 cities at most?
me: Yeah.
They're both fairly isolated from everyone else though.
pocketbeetle: Just us in the North that are crowded
me: In theory that keeps the barbs down...
And when I was near bob it was a barbarian playground
pocketbeetle: as for around the sheep. I agree, there's definitely a spot for a decent city there. Rice is a bit weak, take a while to get irrigation down there, quite a few peaks, not many hills. But it could work
really? Ah true. It's been quite quiet around my town, still got that Combat III bear though lol
me: Be good to explore the blank tiles around that spot.
Good jo bears won't attack in cultural borders
And when legend pops, there'll be a lot of cultural border
pocketbeetle: That was part of the attraction yes. Less barbs, easy to get a road network between us going
me: Yeah.
A giant beacon of pink, lighting the fog to ward against barbarian aggression
Nice to have to the west
Rather than an empty wasteland
full of orcs
pocketbeetle:
So in theory, would you be okay if I were to plant a city in the region East of the rice. I'd have to count the tiles before deciding.
Current plan was to create a settlement around the sheep, and scout around a bit more. But I'm not sure I'll find much better to be honest.
me: If you want to keep with your current plan, that's fine.
Just thought I'd highlight an alternative
pocketbeetle: I appreciate it. I'd have to work it out, obviously slightly harder to defend 3 cities, than 2 cities + expendable settlement, but they both cost the same in hammers shrug
Surprising
I'm not seeing many Unique features
me: I think Bob has one in his bfc
Since his city was able to grow two beyond happy cap
without being unhappy
But yeah, not seeing most of them.
Makes me wonder if Darell has done something interesting.
Like an island site with Ygg, Dragon bones and remnanats
Be kind of hard to do fairly though.
pocketbeetle: Not sure. Agree it would be
me: Or maybe he just didn't enable all unique features
That's probably more likely
pocketbeetle: Again agree. Comments so far from him suggest he didn't edit the map loads
I kept on criticising my start for being riverless coastal, poor guy
me: I like my start.
pocketbeetle: I struggled a bit. I really wanted lots of river for enclaves. Wasn't to be though
me: Enclaves and their million year setup time.
They kind of work to paper over the cracks late game.
Economy wise.
pocketbeetle: Yeah. I know Aristograrian is much better most times. I still haven't completely decided which one I want to go with, but enclaves are flavoursome if nothing else
me: It depends what you're picking with adaptive
If you're picking financial, go aristograriansim
If not, it doesn't have enough oomph
for the long term anyway...
Short term it's still pretty nice
pocketbeetle: Really? Hmmm. I wonder what Bob will do for long term then. Since he's not financial
Or will he just try to avoid it reaching 'long term' I wonder?
Sent at 11:17 PM on Monday
me: Decius is basically the worst calabim leader... but calabim are generally good enough for it not to matter too much
Alexis can use philosophical to bulb along the tech tree to get to good units fast.
Flauros has one of the best economies in the game.
pocketbeetle: Decius...moves fast
me: Yeah.. good for Moroi.
Vampires can feast their way to commando anyway.
So not so useful for them.
pocketbeetle: That's what I thought. Didn't seem like a great combination
me: I had similar misgivings about not giving raiders to the Hippus
pocketbeetle: Maybe he was taking pity on us slightly by not choosing the most powerful
me: Perhaps.
pocketbeetle: lol. Tasunke. Would have been worrying
me: Yeah.
Raiders who can get anywhere in your empire in a turn.
*brr
Or shiver
(So it doesn't look like I was saying BRB)
pocketbeetle: Yu've got winterborn!
me: And defensive.
:P

The potential city site in question.







PB's capital and second city



And cull's city, which I haven't yet visited.


The northern triad really are pretty close. It'll feel even closer when PB lights up the legend beacon and Cull settles his second city.

[Selrahc]

One of the things I'm noticing on this map is that it's a little mana starved. At the moment I can only see two sources that I could easily grab, plus Frigus. Hopefully there'll be at least one more in Sareln's backyard for an easy acquisition.

Even then I'm going to need at least 4 dispellable nodes to keep my attempts to build the tower feasible, which means I'm going to have to stretch the empire about a bit to get a more distant one. If there isn't another one near Sareln then I'm going to have to stretch out in two directions. Which could get interesting...

I need 3 nodes to get the tower of Divination or Alteration due to the Illian palace mana. But realistically I want 4 so that I can get some Nodemasters up and running with metamagic mana. Elements and Necromancy are either going to need 4, or I'll have to organize a trade with someone else. Ice mana should make a good bargaining chip.

4 nodes is what I want, but if I can't get it I think I can just about make do with 3.

[Selrahc]

This trail is certified by the Illian magistry of Enchantment. Endless glory to the winter king citizen.

*music starts*
*trailer voice*
[SIZE="3"]Previously on: Winter Wonderland[/SIZE]

Action
where we see that being, big scary and having a nifty axe means nothing if you come up against an Illian with a bad attitude and a defensive position

*Images of Sleet killing the barbarian king Orthus at the gate to the capital.*

Exploration
as the Illian empire stumbles from major discovery to major discovery. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

*Images of Flothers walking the vast plateau of Letum Frigus*

Prosperity
as the labours of the Illians bear their first fruit

*Images of the city of Jingle Bells, focussing on the smiling faces, carefully avoiding the scowling town guards*

and Diplomacy
where we learn that not every scum eating ratman is a bad person

*Images of conference table diplomacy with various exotic looking beings*


But all this has been a prelude. The main event is about to start... the Illian empire is about to complete construction on


[SIZE="3"]The White Hand[/SIZE]

Coming soon to FFH thread near you: War, Death and Destruction a guarantee.

[Ilios]

Exciting!


What's a Flother?

[Rowain]

flother = snowflake

[Adlain]

And here was me thinking it was one of his warriors