[Spoilers] The Golem Factory: Beeri Bawl of the Luchuirp

[Sciz]

Yeah i'm definitely going to keep at least two warriors in the capital. Would prolly work if I created two more warriors, giving me 4, then a settler, and then when it's finished another warrior just in case, since we both have the ruins and the barrow.

[Sciz]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 24[/SIZE]

Clay completed the second flood plain farm and moved up for another. Three turns until mining.

Interesting find in the east:



Ilios is very close to me! That kinda sucks, it will be hard for me to get that good spot with the wines near the ruins that we spoke about. His capital has had his second cultural expansion, while mine only has one, so we should be pretty much equally far away from the ruins, I guess. I would really like that spot, but i dunno. Cotton city is first still, and the big problem is the ruins there. When I gt wood golems I should be able to clear it out pretty easily, which I should get relatively soon, only masonry and then construction after mining is done.

[Sciz]

Nothing of interest this turn, but I did send a message to Uberfish, telling him about Ilios being to my east, since I had promised to tell him if I found someone there, I just remembered that.

As thanks, Uberfish revealed that the Vampires are west of him.

So we have got something like this it seems so far:

-----Doviello-----Sciz-----Malakim
---------------------------------
Calabim-----Ljosalfar-------------

or something

[Selrahc]

How well do you think you can work with Ilios? It's probably best to decide whether you want to poach the land between you out from under him, and risk him doing the same to you which could potentially lead to further conflict. Or find a diplomatic solution. Those are some good resources and city sites, and it is well worth securing them for our team. It's up to your assessment whether the best idea is to go about doing that with sneakiness and speed, or diplomacy (and speed, but maybe a little less).

[Sciz]

Yeah I will have to figure out how to take care of this situation. I can see myself having good relations with Ilios, but I'm not willing to give up that spot just to get good relations. We'll see. First I'll have to settle the cotton city, then I can think about that site. I don't think he'll be able to settle there soon anyways either, because of the ruins.

This turn my 3rd warrior was born, named Tullio Lombardo after this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullio_Lombardo

One more warrior, due in 3 turns, before work starts on the settler, which this turn needed 13 turns to create, a bit less in 3 turns since i'll have another pop to work, and a few mines hopefully. Mining comes in next turn.

Also I get this event:



The other option was to get a free great bard, but also 5 unhappiness for a while in the capital. And even though a free great bard would be sweet, there was no way I could choose that. I tried choosing the great bard once in a game when I only had my capital, and it stunted its growth for ages, and my game was pretty much destroyed. Maybe there's a way to choose the bard and not get shat on, but I'd be over my happy limit for a loooong time if I had chosen it, so I took the option giving me nothing. Hope it wasnt a terrible choice!

[Square Leg]

I got that same event in a game where i had just built a settler and he was en-route to a great site near an opponent. I took the Great Bard, stunting my capital at low size for a long time but the new site got a settled GB that flipped two cities! Was it worth it?

Most likely in the long run but it was completely situational!!!

[Selrahc]

The other option was to get a free great bard, but also 5 unhappiness for a while in the capital. And even though a free great bard would be sweet, there was no way I could choose that. I tried choosing the great bard once in a game when I only had my capital, and it stunted its growth for ages, and my game was pretty much destroyed. Maybe there's a way to choose the bard and not get shat on, but I'd be over my happy limit for a loooong time if I had chosen it, so I took the option giving me nothing. Hope it wasnt a terrible choice!

No. It's the right choice. It would have been worth thinking about if we had a settler ready to roll*, but with just the one city it isn't even an option really. We don't have much of a happy cap to screw around with, and 30 turns of unhappiness is not a good thing.

And just as a side note, that event used to be one of the easiest decisions in the game. It used to give the city turns of revolt rather than happy faces. And since creating a great work ends revolt it was basically saying "Do you want 4000 free culture? Y/N". I'm glad they changed that, even if it means less free goodies for us.

*If we did have a second city I would really have loved the idea of settling right into someone's face and culture crushing them to death with a settled great artist. It might even have been worth a crippled capital. High risk strategy even then however.

[Sciz]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 27[/SIZE]

Mining acquired!



Research starts on Masonry, a 7-turn tech. Clay finishes building a farm and heads on over to a nearby plains hill so he can start building a mine next turn.

Down in the south east, things aren't looking good for Donatello:



Ends up in dye country, which is nice, but next to a giant spider, which is bad. It appears the name Donatello is cursed, and that I can probably start saying good bye to our brave explorer. And he does get killed by the spider when I hand over the save.

But what is the Tom- thing in the bottom right corner of that picture? Why it must be a unique terrain feature thing! Very probably the "Tomb of Sucellus":



It's not great, but it's decent enough. It gives an extra happiness in nearby cities, and i'm not sure what nearby means in this case, but I guess it's the BFC? It also counts as a life node, which is pretty neat, but we already have one from our palace. More is better though I guess. Not really sure what the +25% heal rate means, if it's just for units on that tile, or for all units belonging to the civ controlling the Tomb, or what. Doesn't really matter I guess, as Ilios will probably get it.

[Brian Shanahan]

Manual says you're right about the happiness being if in BFC (says "i.e. on a workable tile") and the healing being solely on the tomb tile.

[Sciz]

Thanks

That makes it pretty useless tbh. I mean a free life mana node is something I guess (it gives +1 health to all cities at least, plus together with my own palace mana it gives a free upgrade to life 1 for all adepts or whatever) but there are many better unique features.