Horselover Fat's journal - Iskender and the Hippus

[Iskender]

Dave agreed to my peace + open borders proposal:

Hi,

[COLOR="Red"]Thanks for explaining the situation so thoroughly. I'm hoping we can establish a basis for trust by working together, so I'm perfectly willing to chop jungle outside your borders. Open borders and extra trade are just I was aiming for. One note: I think your worker will be ejected from my territory when we declare peace, and capturing the workers will no longer be an option. My worker will be trapped on the far side of your territory; I could move him back home via a route you specify, but it will take a while.

An archer escort for the worker sounds like a good idea.

Dave[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Lime"]All right then. Once you move to the 2nd gems feel free to offer peace. My worker should get ejected near enough to be able to go back on site in one turn, and your worker could return by road once we have open borders (it will take him 4 turns to reach your cultural borders).

Iskender[/COLOR]

Still, I remain sceptical, mostly because of this:



There must be a reason he's building so much military. I have 9 archers and will have the first catapult in 12-15 turns. I hope he's training those troops just because he ran out of buildings to build (yeah, dream on... ).

I defogged the trade route to Sareln and offered Sareln Ale for Cotton. He prefers Wine:

[COLOR="lime"]Hi there

I have defogged the last tiles of the Amazon between us and guess what - we've got our trade route back! So I went ahead and offered the same deal we had before.

Iskender
[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Silver"]Alright, I'm missing wines and it looks like you've got plenty, so
I'll offer the cotton for that. I don't mind if you say no, since I'm
not at happy-cap yet, but if it works for you that's great.
[/COLOR]


[COLOR="lime"]I've sealed the deal, but I'll be able to deliver wine for only 10-15 turns - I've already promised it to Pocketbeetle. Then I'll have only Ale left.

Iskender

PS Congratulations on the Sage [/COLOR]

Today's screenshot is sponsored by the 'F1' key:



BTW: I'm no longer TheArchduke in the game. It took me 50 turns to figure out that you can change leader's name and other stuff by pressing Alt+d

[Iskender]

So, Bob returned as a turnplayer and to make a good second impression he captured my worker. He offered the following explanation:

[COLOR="Red"]Hello,


I finally got FFH working on my laptop again, and so I played today's turn (134). Assuming there aren't any technical difficulties on Sareln's end when he tries to play the file I sent him, I'll probably be playing the Calabim turns again for the foreseeable future.


I apologize, but while I understand the basics of the worker deal you have with my civ, I wasn't sure what the exact steps I needed to follow were. I finished chopping the gems jungle for you, on the assumption that that was what you wanted. I also captured the worker you had in my land, on the grounds that I could probably maneuver him more efficiently and spare us both the headache of coordinating where you can build roads. Again, I sincerely apologize if that was a terrible mistake. I guess you can capture my guy whenever our arrangement is complete.


Btw, when does our NAP run out? Not trying to sound ominous, but I need to catch up on all my various arrangements with everyone. Actually, please let me know if we have any other trades or pacts I should be aware of.

-Bobchillingworth[/COLOR]

I wasn't sure what he tried to say so I ran the text through google translate and it said:

I am going to break the NAP and attack you. I have a nice stack of catapults and Moroi that I don't want you to see, so I snatched your worker.

Now it makes a lot more sense! My reply wasn't civil enough to send or post here, so I used google translate once again and came up with this:

Hi there
[COLOR="Lime"]The deal was removing two tiles of jungle in exchange for 15 turns of delivering gems. Your worker should move to the northern gems tile now. We agreed with Dave to sign peace and open borders as soon as your worker leaves my borders, and the workers would go back home on foot. Now, as it's no longer an option I'll just capture your worker when the second tile is cleared and then we can cease fire.

Our NAP expires in turn 200. We also agreed not to settle west of Acaia (you) and east of Feiss Mabdon (me).

Iskender[/COLOR]

Amazing what can technology do today, eh?

I've also switched tiles in the gems city from plains forest lumbermill to unfarmed rice to grow the city instead of building a monument ASAP. It'll delay getting the 2nd gems online (and giving them to Calabim) by 3 turns.

If there is indeed a stack I expect it to be next to Acaia (the blue arrow in the screenshot):



It wouldn't reach Feiss Mabdon at least until turn 138 unless he's willing to gamble on Buring Blood before reaching the city, or uses mounted units, or exposes the plan by moving two combat workers onto the forest. If he decides to go after Clan Marrachir (the red arrow) I'll probably abandon the city and focus the defense on Conrond Mor. It's one of the benefits of Expansive that you can afford to lose a new city in order to gain better strategic position, after all it's 72,5 hammers instead of 145 (and the market is only 20 hammers).

Notice there's no road NW of Clan Marrachir. It's a speed bump for enemy commando units. Still, not much of an obstacle if they bring workers. Damn, I hate Raiders. First thing I would've done vs a non-raiders civ would be a network of roads for shared defense between cities. Obviously, vs Raiders it's a suicide as they can use this network to fork your cities.

I have 10 archers - 1 built, 9 upgraded. I used 477gc for upgrades, but I wouldn't consider it a waste of gc under any circumstances. The gc/hammer ratio for warrior->archer upgrade is lower than 2 with 10% military production penalty that I have now, running Apprenticeship without Nationhood (the penalty is not included in the upgrade cost, so the ratio not just Upgrade Cost/Difference in Hammers, it depends on how many actual hammers would be wasted). So, a 3/0/3 agristo financial farm, of which now I have plenty, becomes a 3/1.5/0 tile and a Financial village is slightly better than a grassland mine. The real advantage though, comes not from the ratio, but from flexibility - hammers must be spent on current production, while gc can be used for, say, 100% research. (Did I say how much I like Ingenuity? Ingenuity + Raiders, that's a perfect FFH combo! Go go go Mist, Mahala FTW! )

Anyway, having said all that, I still have only 10 archers. Three of them, including Comillo the Adventurer, are still in the Warcry mood. I'm most proud of Comillo - with 6 def and combat IV he's not going to give any good attacking odds noone.

[Ilios]

Amazing what can technology do today, eh?

Hehe good one Iskender...

Also, Way of the Earthmother?

[darrelljs]

I want the original!

Darrell

[sunrise089]

I want the original!

Darrell

I bet it said...

drop dead

[Mardoc]

Hippus are not a rush civ. It is Tasunke who is a rush leader. Rushing with Rhoanna would be a waste of both of her traits (well, unless it's a settler rush).

I guess I was mostly thinking of Warcry in terms of rushing, since +1 str and movement counts a lot more when the base values are low, like warriors, horsemen, and the like. But you certainly have a point about the traits; Financial definitely only helps in the long term, it won't do a thing if your Google Translate of Bob is correct. And in retrospect, if I'd remembered your earlier posts, I'd have known better anyway - you've got as one of your first posts that you didn't intend to rush anyone and wouldn't be attacking until Horse Archers. Is that still the plan?

[Iskender]

Also, Way of the Earthmother?

It is my negative beaker sink. My beaker output on 0% sci is -1 because of markets, so I'm actually unresearching technologies (it can go negative). The tech I've chosen to unresearch is WotE as I'm not going to research it anytime soon. Could've changed it to Drama though now that Pb has grabbed the free Bard.

I guess I was mostly thinking of Warcry in terms of rushing, since +1 str and movement counts a lot more when the base values are low, like warriors, horsemen, and the like. But you certainly have a point about the traits; Financial definitely only helps in the long term, it won't do a thing if your Google Translate of Bob is correct.

You have a point with Warcry, I forgot about it. I guess it could make even Rhoanna a good early rusher. Unfortunately I missed that train by taking over around turn 70.

And in retrospect, if I'd remembered your earlier posts, I'd have known better anyway - you've got as one of your first posts that you didn't intend to rush anyone and wouldn't be attacking until Horse Archers. Is that still the plan?

Initially I wanted to go for Agristocracy + Festivals to get economy and then get horses to harass the Calabim. Their intervention around turn 110 and the subsequent NAP forced me to change the plan. I want to go aggressive with Beasts of Agares + Mardero + Diseased Corpses + HA, if Pb doesn't go AV, or with Rathas + HA + Catapults/Chalid if he does. Either way, I'm not going to initiate any in the next 50 turns. It is boring, I know but if I have even a slight chance to win this game (that is, to eventually pillage and raze 2/3 of Erebus) I'll take it instead of going out with a bang.

[Mardoc]

It is boring, I know but if I have even a slight chance to win this game (that is, to eventually pillage and raze 2/3 of Erebus) I'll take it instead of going out with a bang.

Oh, I think I'd find said campaign quite un-boring even if I have to wait a while before it's launched. Always better to make the other guy go out with the bang, after all!

And now that you've pointed out your traits will support such a course of action, and hence it's quite likely that we'll see the attempt eventually, I'll just have to be patient. It's not like Ashen Veil and Hyborem combined with a razing campaign will be boring to watch, after all .

[Iskender]

Calabim soldier graph has been steady over the last three turns and they've just founded their 8th city. It's not something you usually do the day before invading someone, so there might be no stack aimed at me after all. I've stopped upgrading warriors, but I'm going to keep hoarding cash for a few more turns just in case.

[Iskender]

The RNG hates me and, I must admit, the feeling is reciprocated.

I like to take chances with combat I warriors vs skeletons and poison goblins. The odds are 73% on flat terrain and the exp gained is most often enough to give the warrior another promotion. I hate the RNG because I've just lost such battle for the 3rd time in a row. Happens, but this time I also lost an archer doing the mopping-up at 93%. It's frustrating, even more so if you don't subscribe to the gambler's fallacy. The RNG taketh away and it may keep taking away in the future as well.

Good news is that it seems Google Translate was not 100% accurate. The Calabim just discovered Sanitation. It's also something you don't do on the eve of an invasion. Feeling more at peace I used two chops in the capital to complete a settler instead of training more warriors. City #8 should be founded in four turns.

Of course the Calabim getting Sanitation is bad news. They will be able to channel their awesome production into Public Baths and Aqueducts and grow like crazy (Have they cast the River of Blood already? World spells seem to disappear from the log). Initially I wanted Sacrifice the Weak to be my Sanitation, but there's still a long way to Infernal Pact and everyone seems to pump their economies, so I've decided to get Sanitation as well.