[Spoilers] A more civilized age - Arendel of the Ljosalfar (Uberfish)

[uberfish]

Academy built, second cottage built, hunting now due in 6 turns. I'm back up on top of GNP for now, although near the bottom of the heap on all other demographics. Looks like Ilios also got an academy done as his research took a jump upwards too. He's not my problem at this point though, more important is that I'm maintaining a lead on my immediate neighbours for now.



At this point I have the option to fire my sage specialist and work a 3/0/1 unimproved floodplain (speeding the settler by 1 turn but delaying hunting for 1 turn) Essentially this'd trade 2 research for 3 food. Normally a good deal as I don't need to keep generating sage GPP, but in case Mist gets tempted to attack me now that I have an academy to steal, it could be a close race to Way of the Forests. For safety I'm going to leave the sage in for a turn or two, he'll probably be swapped out to a cottage once one is available. Both my workers are still busy improving the area around my capital anyway, I move them into position to start the 3rd cottage on the Grass flatland forest. I'd prefer to save the hill forest for a mine later, so a 4th cottage might go on an open river plain in future.

Oh, the academy will push the 4th ring border expansion to turn 55 adding +10% cultural defence and higher visibility, which will help in case one of my neighbours does try rushing.


In other civ news:

- Calabim are replenishing their losses with warriors, not hunters. Guess they didn't want to invest in the hunting lodge

- Mist complained about high maintenance costs on this map; his second city apparently incurred 3 maintenance at distance 3. Most other players have second cities, the other slow expander in this game is Amelia.

[uberfish]

Uneventful turn. I note that somehow despite my original intent to leave the two warrior exploring party together, they've split up and one of them is off exploring the Antarctic on his own (looking for huts, might explore a dungeon) while the other escorted Groo back home and is now ready to secure the second city location. Surprisingly there are no wolves or other animals visible to the south, I'll be a bit annoyed if it turns out that most of the animals have suicided on other players.

Build plan is to finish the current settler then squeeze in a warrior or worker before Hunting finishes at which point I'll build a hunter's lodge and train something like 2 hunters and 1 hawk. This will probably be in the capital, while the new city starts on an Elder Council. Elder Councils and Markets are very efficient buildings in terms of giving quick return on investment. As a creative leader I don't have to waste time building monuments, either.

[uberfish]

Seriously all the animals appear to have randomly wandered off somewhere, the gorilla that was hanging around to the NE has disappeared and I haven't seen any griffons in ages. I'd provide a screenshot but a screenshot of "no animals" isn't the most exciting in the world. Hopefully the gorilla is still alive as it's the rarest animal type needed for the Grand Menagerie.

However there is at least some good news from nature: Natural forest growth at Evermore on a Grassland.

Settler finishes EOT and I have a city micromanagement decision to make next turn

[uberfish]

Settler and 3rd cottage complete, so I decide to fire my Sage now and work the cottage instead as I won't lose a turn on hunting anymore.

Revolt out of Pacifism into Nationhood. Nationhood's +10% military production bonus neatly cancels out Apprenticeships' -10%, so I might as well run it until I have religion and can switch to the Religion civic for extra happiness.

Capital shot showing the beginnings of the forest economy:



I need to build a lot of infrastructure so I went with the 3rd worker since it synchronized well. Hunting/worker will both be done in 3 turns with a bit of overflow into the Hunting Lodge. At that time I'll want to get the Ivory camp up for +1 happiness and grow to 6. Meanwhile, farms and cottages will be needed at the second city. If there's an incoming invasion stack, then I'll put lodge/hunters on hold to train 1 turn warriors which should be sufficient to deal with any pre-Bronze attacks.

I have a warrior and settler 1 tile away from the 2nd city location. They'll be able to use forestmove to move onto and settle the plains hill immediately next turn.

Mist reported in a good news-bad news fashion that he just finished Mining and doesn't have any bronze, but did acquire a free Great Prophet. So everyone in the neighbourhood is doing quite well with the free stuff this game. Calabim have a 480b tech and free units. I have a free sage and adventurer. Mist has a free prophet and got a free hut tech earlier.

[NobleHelium]

Would you consider building Nature's Revolt if you can't find the needed animals for the Menagerie?

[uberfish]

Would you consider building Nature's Revolt if you can't find the needed animals for the Menagerie?

Nature's Revolt is actually not bad if I have lots of Priests of Leaves still around at the endgame since it improves the Tiger summons from strength 4 to 6. It's just quite deep in the tech tree so not worth rushing just for the Menagerie, I'll probably be in Guardian of Nature by the time I get the required tech so happiness won't be that much of an issue.

[uberfish]

And we have a second city with an appropriate name given its founding location:



This city adds 8 forests to the empire and has good production potential. It costs 2gpt in distance maintenance but creates two trade routes worth 1 commerce each, so it's essentially making a profit from turn 1. I'll start the elder council while it grows.

The 3rd city will either go on the desert hill with 4 floodplains or to the SW near the former sepulchre site, I don't have to decide yet as I'm looking at an investment of about 140h into hunting lodge and hunters first. Depends whether I tech for CoL/calendar or Crafting/mining next, as the floodplains want Aristocracy and the wines want Crafting. The northern sites require Bronze Working to clear the Rice/Gems/Sugar so I'll take them later.

It looks like I should found Fellowship of Leaves and enable my world spell at about t60 but that'll be confirmed next turn.

[Maksim]

With turn 50 approaching, it'd be interesting for the lurkers to compare the positions the players find themselves in. With that in mind, could you please give us an update for turn 50, with some screenshots?

1) The overall empire - what cities you have (F1 city list, perhaps, to see the food\production\research per city in a single screen)

2) What technologies have you got?

3) What luck you had with goodie huts this game?

And anything else you'd care to add, such as diplomatic situation from your point of view, expansion plans, any other random thoughts et al.

Thanks!

P.S. This is cross-posted in every player's thread.

[uberfish]

The intrepid Antarctic warrior explores the dungeon and finds a treasure map!



Ok, this is extremely silly. The chest is completely sealed off by ice and a mountain so only a terrain-ignoring unit can get there. So the only way I can get there in any sort of reasonable time is to capture a Griffon and send it on a long journey during which time it might be killed by barbarians or animals. And if it's a piece of equipment some other player might try to steal it on the way back - although it's possible to use a Hawk as a courier and that's what I'll probably do.

In the meantime the chest puts me over the supply cap and is costing me 1gpt in unit maintenance. If I can't find any Griffons to capture, I'll probably end up deleting the thing. We're on Wildlands so it might be ok.

One interesting thing about discovering this chest though is that the dimensions of the world map have been revealed on the mini-map. Looks like roughly 50x30 based on the dimensions of the visibility box and counting the width and height of the screen in tiles, which fits the Default Lakes script (52x32) theory.

Road constructed to the Ivory just in time for the camp to start next turn as Hunting comes in.


EOT: Hunting finishes and 3rd worker finishes (costing an additional 1gpt maintenance, annoyingly). Way of the Forests will indeed take a further 10 turns to research although I need to watch my Prophet event fund - I think the Good version of the event takes 60 gold, should check it.

State of the empire:

2 cities:



Techs: (Exploration), Agriculture, Ancient Chants, Mysticism, Education, Hunting

Huts: Map, 4x gold (total 99 gold)

Lairs explored: Pyre (Great Sage), Sepulchre (Adventurer), generic dungeon (treasure chest)

Events: Werewolves, Goblin waste dumping, Order golden age (x2), Bhall constellation. Total 5 events, impact on gameplay nil.

Diplomacy:

Doviello - Friendly (extensive information exchange). NAP to t150. Mist's stated plans are to upgrade-rush Luchuirp and found RoK with his prophet if it's still available after Bronze Working, which it may well not be.
Calabim - Peaceful (light information exchange). No formal NAP. Both sides have expressed a desire to avoid early war.
Luchuirp - Neutral (little communication).
Lanun, Malakim, Balseraph - No contact.

Expansion/tech plans: Read the thread

Current priorities: FoL + World spell. Economy. Economy. Economy. Capture animals. Contact all civs. Get to Priesthood in reasonable time. Don't get killed.

[uberfish]

Orthus spawned this turn. No idea where, as only the last person in the rotation can see his radar mark in MP. I view him as a free axe and I expect the rest of the players in this game will too. Groo can upgrade to Warrior for 35g if I need one in a hurry (he'll have 10 xp before anything can show up)

Also natural forest growth occurred at Hyll. Ivory camp started with the two workers (2t), in time for city growth in 3 turns. 3rd worker heading down to improve the Wheat at Hyll.

A bear accosts my Antarctic explorer who retreats. Hyll's borders expanded EOT so he should be able to get home easily and quickly:



Also revealing a skeleton sitting on top of the barrow, might be able to farm it for some XP.



The power chart is somewhat concerning, Calabim are building up a significant number of warriors, more it seems than are needed to defend. Sunrise wouldn't say what they're up to except that he isn't attacking me and he wouldn't lie about it because he has a history of being an honest player. A large tech was also researched recently by vamps, quite possibly Bronze Working. It's presumably not Code of Laws as we didn't see a revolt to Aristocracy. So it's possible that a bronze rush might be on the way either to myself or another player

My world spell will be enabled on t61 in case of any invasion, but this is why every turn is critical at this point.

Also some diplomacy from Sciz which is the longest piece of communication I've received from him so far:

[COLOR="Sienna"]Hey, how's it going in the burgeoning elven empire? I saw you founded
your second city, congrats!

I think I found your borders to the southwest of me (partially
obscured by unexplored blackness, so i'm not completely sure if it's
your borders or not), so there is a question I've gotta ask. If they
are indeed your borders, you should have some weird fire mana to the
northeast of you. Any idea how that came to be? You normally don't see
specific element nodes on the map, at least not without unique feature
stuff. Anyways, that's not the point, the main point is me asking you
if you have any problems with me settling near that spot? Two tiles
east of the fire node I was thinking, if you indeed can see the fire
node at all. Just wanted to ask because I want to have good relations
with you, and not cause any potential disputes Don't want to end up
like Ilios who has settled TWO cities aggressively towards me without
asking at all and it seems like he is trying to box me in, i'm not
liking that at all. Hopefully we can be more open about city
placements and not go behind each other's backs like he is doing to
me.

In other news, i'm pretty sure I know where all the civs are now.
Perpentach is east of Ilios, and the Lanun are south/southeast of
Ilios, so somewhere a bit to the east of you if you haven't found them
yet. Just thought you wanted to know

Cheers,
Sciz, CEO of Global Golems Inc.[/COLOR]

That city site is critical to me and I responded as follows:

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]
Hi Sciz,

The fire mana? That used to be a world feature (pyre of the seraphic), I explored it. It's also 4 tiles away from my capital, so I actually consider it part of my natural territory and was planning to settle around that area myself. I don't have much vision north of the equator so I don't know what's up there, but there's a valuable cluster of Calendar resources S/SE of your capital including the Standing Stones world feature and Gold to your E too, whereas the Gems around there represent the best tile visible to me for quite a long way. So I think my claim to the site is a reasonable one. I really appreciate you being upfront about your settling plans to avoid conflict, though. Hopefully we can work something out that doesn't step on each others' toes. To be honest, if Ilios or someone else settled not just 1 but 2 cities aggressively towards me with no communication I would be inclined towards just attacking them personally...

Also I can confirm that your analysis of civ locations matches up with what I've heard from other players.[/COLOR]

If we don't reach an agreement, and he settles there anyway (and Doviello don't invade him), I'm quite prepared to fight over the site. It's too close and the resources are too important to me to pass up.