Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Gaspar]

More good stuff, Mardoc. All the chatter I think is really helping us flesh out a gameplan. Not a lot to say that you haven't said. I do suspect we'll research CoL before Cartography, and we're likely to have a decent number of farms before Blooming is in full force, so I think Aristofarms will see their day in the Elvish sun. Eventually, City States will become an option if we can manage to expand fast enough, but I like you see Republic as the likely "end-game" Civic of choice. Theology really in mind only because key to an Altar rush late game, because I suspect the game will be decided long before Religious Law is in the pipeline.

Not much else to say here, though I do think this column has the same drawback it has for Spiritual in BTS. Basically your civ will get configured in one direction or another, and you'll be quite likely to want to just stay in the Civic that benefits you. The other columns have a lot more value to a Spiritual civ. If you look at, say, PB4, the spiritual Civs are basically changing Civics every 5 turns at this point. In this game, I doubt even when we have lots unlocked that we'll change every 10. We will however be able to utilize some things that aren't worth the cost for a non-Spiritual Civilization, but I'll not try and steal your thunder.

[Mardoc]

Yes, I agree - once we grow to use the Republic happiness, for instance, we won't want to switch away. The main thing Spiritual does for us with Governments is save us the 2-3 turns of anarchy that everyone else suffers as they go through the same Despotism -> God King -> Aristocracy path as we do, and gives us the option to switch at more optimal times, since we don't need a big benefit or a calm period to justify a switch. And you're right, the other columns provide much more interesting choices for us down the road - but that's a topic for another day. Don't want to get too bored with 'scouted another tile', after all .

[Man Behind the Mask]

You know, I don’t think the elves would actually approve of Jim Duggan. Look what he’s done to one of our trees! If somebody asks about our post count, you could link to that post and convince them it’s all spam… we aren’t taking this seriously at all.

I’ll comment quickly about the turn now, and then come back later with some other thoughts, including on Mardoc’s new series.

One thing that struck me is somebody’s soldier count jumping to 21k! I know there’s that dwarves vs. lizards event, but can’t think of many other (non-terrifying) reasons for a leap like that.

I don’t like the look of that coastline at all, unless maybe the barrow was handplaced to guard a choke point to the west? If there is a civ “trapped” to the south of us, I’m starting to feel a little uncomfortable about having no unit in the capital, as they’ve surely got to find us soon.

2. We should get MBTM access to the save. Makes it easier for the C&D type stuff, and you're certainly a full partner in my eyes.

Thanks, Gaspar. I’ll definitely take a look when I can – email would be the unimaginative rbmbtm (at) you-know-where.

I’m desperately trying to finish Adventure 3 before the deadline in any free moments I have for CIV. I’ve now got a Werewolf who could basically lay waste to Erebus on his own, but need to play whack-a-mole with the AI cities.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Mardoc’s post on the civics is greatly appreciated. I know I always struggle between God King, City States and Aristocracy, and admit that I’ll normally save and reload in SP games to test out the impacts. With the lack of commerce bonuses that we’ve found, I agree agristofarms will be handy to eke that little bit of extra cash out of our lands.

Sarein also did a pretty good rundown on civics, with an elfy theme, in his PBEM1 thread. Link to the Government post is here. It doesn’t really say anything different, but provides a slightly alternative perspective.

As an addendum to the last “Counting Trees”, but not really deserving its own article, I’ve had a further look at research rates in the other PBEM games. This time, I’ve actually taken what techs they discovered, rather than just the commerce (it needed some additional fiddling because of the difficulty level difference). It looks like 1000 beakers is close to the absolute maximum, so it must take a little longer for commerce to ramp up towards the T50 levels than I had allowed. Something close to 800 research looks a reasonable expectation, although in FFH there are all kinds of events and encounters that can swing the experience away from an average expectation.

It should be noted that Selrach’s PoW rush, which ignored worker techs completely and had a fairly heavily forested start, saw him tech about 500 beakers in 50 turns. It should further be noted that Selrach has a guiding hand on the Sheaim in this game.

Moving on from that last observation, I did have an additional thought about our rush defence that we haven’t considered. We could take a page out of PB’s playbook and go for Pact of the Nilhorn (his pros and cons post is here). The three stooges cost about the equivalent of a stable and seven horseman (not allowing for civics) for our fastest attacking opponent, but are only one tech away. They’d also potentially hang around and be useful later given our lack of catapults for city bombardment. I’m inclined to say that teching the otherwise useless cartography and burning a lot of hammers on three units is probably inferior to other options, but wanted to throw it out there.

[Gaspar]

Some more conversation worthy stuff above. I don't think Pact of the Nilhorn is a realistic option, and PZ's/Horse rush are probably more counterable than a PoW rush, but it might be a reasonable "Oh Crap, We're not ready" option that can be teched to quickly. Right now, I'm leaning heavily towards to getting Agri/AC/Education and then basically beelining copper warriors. But I'm open to being talked out of it, especially since I really would like AH before the metals techs. But discretion beats annihilation. I open the turn and...



%&*$&()+_&)#^$@!$@#%^^%$^&$####*

*kicks some things*


K. Back to your regularly scheduled turn report. Grigori grabbed another 11 points, that strongly suggests they got a tech from a hut earlier. No other score increases to report. Here are the results of scouting:

In the south:



Will strongly consider exploring that dungeon next turn. I'd strongly suppose its closer to another civs capital than ours, so why not roll the dice? I moved SE because the barrow spawned a 2nd skeleton, so I didn't want to end turn next to one.

In the north:



Another mana node. Very light on food in the north, especially seafood, as we've seen very only 1 fish resource despite all the coast we've revealed. Going to be challenging to dotmap that area, but I'd like to secure a northern flank so we only have to worry about barbs on 2 fronts. Very odd shaped map thus far, highly likely not a "normal" distribution of:

x--x--x
-------
x--x--x

as was most common in my testing. We'll need to defog more, of course.

Here's the demos:



I would love to get a read on those soldier points. I'm thinking Lizards/Dwarves, but dunno.

[uberfish]

Stoners, Keebler Elves and Wrestling. Not to mention non-stop shoddy analysis from a noob player. What's better than the Ljosalfar thread in PBEM VII?

The one in PBEM II obviously

Too bad you guys apparently got screwed on commerce specials too.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I’m happy for you to pop that dungeon. With skeletons and bears on the prowl already, we might as well start taking chances with the scouts before the locals start taking bites. It would be a horrific stroke of bad luck if we popped a nasty AND it headed straight for our distant capital.

I agree about the dotmapping challenge, and I am completely with uberfish about the lack of commerce/happy resources. If they are all in the jungle, then a beeline to bronze working might become our best economic option after all. We’d have a brilliant starting position if peaks were a good tile!

The 6mfg has dropped from the demos. Maybe somebody went hammer heavy to get a warrior out quickly, and has now switched to growing.

**

Mardoc, I accepted the forwarding request from the tracker, but sadly no save arrived. I can click the link again if you like, but wanted to check in case you can find something has gone wrong? I actually pulled the save from the tracker site, but I do still need the password….

[Mardoc]

I’m happy for you to pop that dungeon. With skeletons and bears on the prowl already, we might as well start taking chances with the scouts before the locals start taking bites. It would be a horrific stroke of bad luck if we popped a nasty AND it headed straight for our distant capital.

I agree. It's a gamble, but at least it's a gamble with a spoiling asset in a good spot. And who knows? Maybe it'll be a Disciple of Leaves and we can let our forests start to upgrade! Now that we've lost out on the event, it's more likely! ([SIZE="1"]Not actually more likely. Dice don't have memories. Regardless of what Rowain believes[/SIZE])

I don't like that proposed tech path - but perhaps a better way to say it is that I don't like the necessity for that proposed tech path. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed you find something while scouting that obviates the need for it. In any case, we do want to head straight for Education now, so we still have time before we need to commit.

I don't have further thoughts at the moment, but perhaps I will once I finish waking up. I should probably continue the civics discussion, if nothing else.

Mardoc, I accepted the forwarding request from the tracker, but sadly no save arrived. I can click the link again if you like, but wanted to check in case you can find something has gone wrong? I actually pulled the save from the tracker site, but I do still need the password….

Ah, my apologies for not making the situation clear. It's a two-step process - send forwarding request, wait for reply, set up forwarding. I only managed to find the time for setting up the forwarding after the most recent save had arrived. You should be receiving saves from the next one. And, since I could, you're also in place to be able to play a save and send it to the tracker yourself, as a Gaspar substitute.

I forwarded you the password via e-mail.

[Mardoc]

You know, as I think about it, maybe Bronze Working isn't so bad as an econ tech after all. It would let us be aggressive in settling the jungle, and get us such prizes as, well, Gold. Gold is always nice, would just about double our current GNP...and who knows what other treasures are lurking in the jungle for us?

Fact is, as long as we do have a means of defense, the directions we want to expand first are west, away from the forest, and south, into the jungle, since we can always backfill the forest corner later. The only exception is if we have a reason to fear a neighbor, or for a truly awesome site that helps us expand faster.

Anyway, back to Civics class:


Next up, Cultural Values. As a departure from Beyond the Sword, we already have three of these available from the word go.

First up, Religion. In the very early game, Religion is quite useless - a minor + to culture, when there's virtually no chance of a culture war anyway. As the game progresses, though, it gets to be a very nice civic. +1 happy in a city for the state religion, and +1 for each temple you build, state religion or not. That's a total possible +6 happy (AV and Order don't coexist well in cities, and Esus doesn't have temples) from one civic. Of course, it requires a lot of work to get there - spreading all the religions and building their temples; but the payoff is nice. As a Spiritual race, who intends to date a lot of religions instead of marrying one, this could pay off nicely in the medium to long term.

Religion also has the advantage of no drawbacks - it doesn't penalize anything. Unlike the next contender:


Pacifism is good for one thing only - getting Great People. The malus to military units, combined with rounding, means we're unlikely to want to be here any time we're training troops, which will be fairly often. There will, however, be times where we're not at war, not training troops, so why not go Pacifist for a while? As a Spiritual bunch of elves, that could get us a few free GPP points with no cost (as long as we're careful to swap back out in a timely fashion). What will we switch to? Well, at least early, probably Nationhood

A handy +10% on our military production, no other penalties. Training Yards are out of the early period, with Bronze Working to enable Swordsmen, and more importantly, we probably won't build a lot of them since our swords are no better than anyone else's (and if they are useful anyway, we can focus on 1-2 cities to build them, most likely). Still, no malus, minor bonus, Nationhood can work out. This is where most civs park themselves in the early game - none of the bonuses are significant enough to be worth anarchy, so they go with Nationhood as most often useful. We should be switching around .

FFH gives you the first three for free, but it really makes you work at the remainder. First up, potentially, is Consumption, at Currency, probably halfway through the econ side of the tree


+ Gold is good, although not earthshaking. It does have the signature bonus of giving happiness to buildings you'll want everywhere anyway (well, at least the Market and Theatre). And for both Theatre and Tavern, giving the bonus to happiness buildings, to make them straight up more effective at what you want them for.

Does this outshadow Nationhood? Usually. Religion or Pacifism - that depends on the situation. Still, it's another tool in the Spiritual toolbox.

Next up, even further down the tree:


Scholarship requires Arcane Lore to unlock, nearly the end of the Magic branch of the tree. Definitely a late-game civic. It works well with the Elves, though, since we're bound to have a lot of Sages - and particularly well if we've also got the Great Library; a total of 5 beakers/turn for a Sage instead of the normal 3, and +10%, can be a nice boost to your tech rate. We're unlikely to care for the longest time, though.

Finally, among the free choice civics, we've got one unlocked literally at the end of the econ branch


Liberty is, well, good for one thing primarily - winning the Culture victory. Unlimited Bards, free Bards, +100% culture - it all adds up to getting above that number ASAP. Gaspar, you said you don't want a Culture victory. So really, there's very little point in going here, and very little chance that we'll have the option.

Next up, we have two civics that require you be running their appropriate religion:


Ah, Sacrifice the Weak. So you've summoned Hyborem, turned the world into Hell, but still want to have population? Here's your answer. Halving the food requirement, even with the Unhealth, means you'll be able to grow your cities immensely, if you can keep them happy. Or you'll be able, with later to be discussed civics, to convert all your huge food surplus into production.

The trouble, for us, of course, is that Ashen Veil requirement. We don't intend to worship demons forever, and if you thought it was hard to quit a civic that gives happiness, try quitting one that gives food! Still, in the right circumstances, it could be worth running for a while - if we're in AV anyway for some reason, might as well juice up the cities while we're there.

The converse to this one is Social Order:


Lots of happiness potential by building MP's. Cheap to run. No maluses. On the other hand, again, it requires you be in religion, in this case Order, and it takes away the bonuses when you leave. I would be surprised if we run Social Order for any length of time.

Finally, for completeness, the last one in the category we're actually unable to ever run, and neither can our enemies:

Crusade is obviously the war civic of choice for the Bannor. It actually has more bonuses than listed here - it also has a significant chance per turn of spawning a free Demagog unit from any Town, and demoting that to a village, and a new malus - most peaceful units and buildings are illegal to build while Crusading.

So, in summary? We'll likely switch among Religion, Pacifism, and Nationhood a lot in the early game. Mid game, we might add Consumption to that list, or we might settle down with Religion. Sacrifice the Weak might be worth running if we're in Ashen Veil anyway, but probably not worth doing otherwise. Late game, we might end up in Scholarship, but that's so far away that we don't need to worry about it for quite some time.

[Gaspar]

Thanks for another fine Civics class, Mardoc. I'd like to chat a bit about some of the above conversation shortly, but first, what you've all been waiting for...

...another boring turn report.

I'm greeted by the fact that we have now discovered Agriculture AND our first worker is trained. Woo, stuff to do! Elohim discovered a tech last turn, the benefit of their warrior first open, which allowed them to grow. Research set to Ancient Chants, as I believe we all agree AC -> Education are the next two techs. The Chronic set to build a warrior, and lazy elven worker set to build a 5T corn farm.

So the drama here is in the south. Here's Cheech at the beginning of turn:



You can see the second spawned skeleton has moved off the barrow, and headed NE. Hopefully he'll head towards the capital where we can pick him off with a warrior rather than track Cheech around and get him killed, except, when I move SE onto the mana node, an interesting thing happens:



At this point, we have reached contact with the Sheaim. Since we can't see them, they must be able to see us, I would assume through a peak tile at their borders. So we're quite close to the Sheaim capital. This has several ramifications.

1. We know the Sheaim have gone worker first - we can see that from their score, they'd have grown a pop by now if they went warrior first.

2. That dungeon is extremely close to their capital. If I pop it, I'm basically declaring hostile intentions.

3. If we move SE rather than N, we're more likely to get a view on their capital, and what our... options are.

I've not played this out yet, as I feel we need to decide what we want to do here. My immediate inclination is to try and raze their cap with our scout, moving SE instead of popping the dungeon. I think if we decide to be peaceful, I should skip popping the dungeon anyway, since y'know, I might as well declare on them if I was thinking about pissing them off like that.

So... if anyone who can is around, can I get a few thoughts before I finish this up?