Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Man Behind the Mask]

Excellent! I can get back to actually preparing a training presentation rather than spamming refresh

I can’t think of many ways that exchange could have worked out better. Maybe you should have asked for T150? If they want to ignore a PZ rush and go straight for AV and mages, then they might be better off in the long run, but at least we’re not dead.

It’s a shame Cheech is about to bite the dust, as knowing how much backline they have would be very useful in the inevitable border discussions. Creative could come in handy there, but I’m not sure whether we can afford to keep on being too aggressive.

Good work, Gaspar!

[Mardoc]

Awesome, score one for being willing to go all in. Now as long as the Hippus aren't our other neighbor, we can afford to consider going straight for Leaves . I look forward after the game to seeing Selrahc's reaction, though. And in about 20-30 turns, we should probably reopen the T10 save and find out if we were bluffing with a royal flush or a pair of 2's .

You might point Nicolae to this definition of Azer: http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Azer

Um, what else comes to mind. Probably should discuss settling rights, ideally so that we get the Pyre (I think it was included in Nicolae's no-popping caveat, right)? Nicolae already has Fire mana from his palace, so it's clearly worth more to us than to him. The Ivory, likewise, because we'll be getting Hunting way before he will. And for that matter, now that we've got peace, work to tie him into it with resource trades, mana trades, open borders...anything that will make him think twice about declaring war on us. Of course, I don't object if you want to declare war T100, but ideally we'll keep the initiative.

[Mardoc]

And, since things are happening quicklier in game than I had expected, onto Civics Part III



[SIZE="4"]Labor:[/SIZE]

We start off in almost the most boring civic of all: Tribalism:


We'll be switching out of this one, I'm sure.

The first civic we'll have available, Apprenticeship, is actually a pretty good place to be. Yes, there's a -10% production, which is cancelled out by the +10% from Nationhood - but starting our units with a promotion is extremely handy with FFH's juiced up promotions. A great place to be, along with Nationhood, while training units. If we don't combine it with Nationhood, it hurts more, because -10%, when interacting with rounding, often ends up meaning -a lot more, since it's minimum 1 hammer.

Considerably deeper into the tree - after Priesthood, in fact, is Slavery:

Almost identical to BtS slavery, but other changes make it not nearly as powerful. First, it comes considerably later, so your cities will be grown up, working improved tiles, and with a larger food box. Second, instead of one, cheap, Granary for 50% food savings, we've instead got two more expensive buildings, the Granary and Smokehouse, that only add up to 40% food savings. On the third hand, food is generally easier to come by in FFH, between boosted farms, Ancient Forests, and the like - and here's a handy dandy method to do something other than 'Avoid Growth' with it. Of course, in the early game, we'll usually be applying that food surplus to settlers and workers instead, so Slavery being later doesn't hurt *as* bad.

Finally, in order to keep slaves, you have to be no longer Good. As a Spiritual race, that's easy - just convert to OO or AV for a time, and don't convert to Order afterwards.

The other bonuses while nice, are usually pretty negligible. How many quarries are you going to have, really? And Slaves are half-speed workers, but frankly if we're short on workers, the solution isn't to go to war for them, not against a human opponent. They can also be cashed in for 6 hammers toward a building, so don't delete them if we get them, but there are nicer things in the world.

Finally, of course, as a Spiritual bunch of elves, we can afford to grow, swap temporarily into Slavery, whip out a bunch of nice stuff, then swap away again . If we use Slavery, that's probably the best method.

Next up, another mid-game civic, Military State:


This one's a grab bag of a variety of military bonuses - upkeep bonus, +15% production, the draft (although this is the melee line, not our strongest spot), and a general bonus - can cash rush. It becomes available at Warfare in the mid game. In the right circumstances, it can be worth running economically just for the unit upkeep. This is a civic that I expect to be in and out of a bunch, honestly, depending on what we're building.

Now, onto the Labor civics that we probably don't have to worry about for a while.


Arete's nice. All bonuses, no maluses. But...it does require Runes of Kilmorph. And to have researched Arete, which means running Runes while we research another tech, then continuing to run Runes to use Arete. Which isn't terribly likely to be our state religion, not when we could be running Leaves. Secondly - with all our forests, we're also not terribly likely to build many mines. Cash rushing is nice - but we can get that from Military State much more easily. It's vaguely possible the stars will align and we'll run Arete for a brief period, but I won't be holding my breath.

Late game, we get access to two more:

Taxation isn't the end of the econ tree, but it's still pretty far in. On the other hand - look at the nice synergy with Scholarship! And Elven workers not being the slowest in the game anymore! And Taxation is a tech that boosts villages/towns, which we will have oodles of, so we're bound to come here sooner or later.



Finally, Guilds. This is another very tempting late game option, preventing us from having to run Citizens in our size 30 cities, instead letting us focus whereever we want to be. Guilds is literally at the end of the econ tree, though, so it's a very late game choice.

So, in summary?

We want to switch out of Tribalism ASAP, and we'll probably switch to Apprenticeship. After that, our next big choices will be Slavery and/or Military State, depending on if we want to whip, build military, or something else. I expect this to be one of the most often civic categories to swap, depending on the situation and the 10 turn plan. Arete's there as a curiosity. Finally, late game, we would want to end up in Caste System or Guilds to make full use of our size 30 cities.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I’m still pondering Mardoc’s plan to just play nice, and my initial leanings were very much that way. Arbandi can go all in with a PZ rush while they are impossible to counter, but then there is a quite a long lull before the Veil/mages/gates start to give them another big edge. There is an argument to say we should hit them in that lull. The alternative is to stay hand-in-hand until we’ve got something overpowering of our own or we’re the only two civs that are relevant .

Whatever happens, you need to start getting the conversation flowing to help us get over the rather dramatic introduction. There is a chance Nicolae will regret the decision to NAP up, and we need to sway him to think affectionately in the short term, no matter our longer term intentions.

Our two life nodes pretty much guarantee our safety against zombies, AV corpses and death magic summons once we have mages. If we’re not best of friends, then we might need to push the magic line up our list of tech priorities. Ahh… tech priorities… the never ending discussion!

Mardoc’s now putting me to shame on the big posts, so I’ll try to come up with something soon. The labor civics are where Spiritual starts to shine, because you can use them to support whatever you’re most interested in at that point in time, but there aren’t many negative impacts elsewhere.

One final small aside: we’ve managed more posts in 24 hours than the lurker thread has managed in total! Poor Ravus must be so lonely

[Ravus Sol]

One final small aside: we’ve managed more posts in 24 hours than the lurker thread has managed in total! Poor Ravus must be so lonely

:zzz:

At least the threads themselves are interesting.

[Gaspar]

Well, that was a rush. The timing and bravado were quite fortuitous. Of course, as you said, we now need to make Nicolae not regret that choice to the point of breaking the NAP. There are players willing to do that after all. I think MBTM's point that the midgame is the time to hit Sheaim, after PZ's are be all end all but before the full undead army has risen. Honestly though, by the time T150 rolls around, we should be far ahead of them based on our economic advantages. Regardless, 2 factors are evident. 1. KotE won't be able to be ignored, as Life mages are key to an anti-Sheaim strategy and 2. Any time is a better time to fight the Sheaim than T60 or so. Perhaps MBTM is right, and I should have gambled for longer, but the important thing is we don't have to change our preferred opening anymore. Well, again, unless we find the Hippus to the east. I find it hard to believe our eastern neighbor will be quite so close, however.

I sent this off to Nicolae:

Hey Nicolae,

No worries about the clever RP - I struggle with that when I'm trying to talk turkey. Its fine for breezy and meaningless greetings, though. Anyway, consider the NAP signed to T100 inclusive, and hopefully we can find enough good reasons to work together that it won't be a D-day for either of us. I'm also quite happy with a contact agreement - right now you are the first neighbor we've encountered. I did not explore the dungeon, by the by, I decided to hold the turn a bit as I'd have felt pretty shady about dropping a mistform or some such on your doorstep without at least giving you time to respond.

A couple of things we may want to discuss in the near future. Our capitals... are quite close. Now I haven't explored all of the area close to your capital, and I firmly expect that my opportunities to do as such are going to be eliminated for the near future once I receive the turn back and angry lizardman has his way, but it certainly seems most of the area between us is jungle, and as such won't be very good for settling in the near term. Perhaps we could come to a gentleman's agreement to discuss any settlements directly toward the other we make before they are made? I'm not sure how much land you have to your south or west, of course. Just hoping to strike a conversation on the topic.

Perhaps we can also discuss some potential resource trades? I can't speak for Sheaim lands, but the area surrounding my capital is quite light on happiness sources. Though with all the jungle around, perhaps some health trades will have some value. The only resource I can pretty well guarantee we'll have available to trade soonish is corn. Anything useful in duplicates down there? Obviously, plenty of opportunity for mana trades down the road as well, though probably early enough we don't need to worry too much about that.

Mardoc apparently knew what an Azer was: http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Azer That made one of us.

Kind Regards,
Gaspar

[Mardoc]

I’m still pondering Mardoc’s plan to just play nice, and my initial leanings were very much that way. Arbandi can go all in with a PZ rush while they are impossible to counter, but then there is a quite a long lull before the Veil/mages/gates start to give them another big edge. There is an argument to say we should hit them in that lull. The alternative is to stay hand-in-hand until we’ve got something overpowering of our own or we’re the only two civs that are relevant .

Yeah - even if we end up back at war in that period, we want it to be *our* decision, not Nicolae's. So there's no reason not to play nice until then. Besides - if there does turn out to be Hippus on the other side of us, and we can point a Pyre Zombie rush in that direction, it's pure win . For that matter, I'm strongly tempted to try to point a Pyre Zombie rush at whoever it is, Hippus or not - they're almost certain to be too far away for Nicolae to be able to lay claim to the land profitably, so naturally we'd tend to acquire some of it ourselves. And any time/effort/money that he's spending on interrupted cremation is time he's not spending on keeping up with us.

One thing that's very much in our favor here, though, is that we should have a lot more econ potential than he will; Arcane Summoner is good in war, but outside war Creative lets us skip monuments and get half price Carnivals, Spiritual lets us skip anarchy and should add up over time to the various civic bonuses as well, plus half priced Temples, and of course we get to have cottaged ancient forests while he'll probably be running Aristograrianism. We ought to be able to manage to outgrow him in peace, so long as we have peace, and that makes our later options much nicer to contemplate.

Edit: ok, good, Gaspar was already thinking along these lines and has even made diplomatic inroads already

[Man Behind the Mask]

Agree with everything both of you have said.

So, to make sure we continue to bring the goods for Ravus, it must be time for more



I’ve been looking at getting the most out of our land for the next little while. We have a pretty painful situation, in that there is very little we can do to squeeze much commerce out of our location. In the long term, we have a great spot, but with only 8 tiles that generate any commerce (5 being hills), we really need something that will up those yields. That something is obviously Education for cottages, but Education is a pretty painfully expensive tech without some boost to push you along the way.

[Get ready for some overly detailed planning that’s based on calculations rather than in-game testing. I really am that fat guy who offers advice on dieting. Everything should be a pretty good approximation (setting aside barbs or events).]

I think our current path will land us Education at about Turn 35. In the meantime, we can grow to size 6 and build four warriors. Our first worker will be twiddling his thumbs (because we can’t possibly need more than four farms), and we can get a second worker timed pretty well with the need to throw down more improvements. Tech path and builds (maybe settler?) from this point are still a little up in the air.

An alternative, which was actually Gaspar’s first inclination, is to go Mysticism first. We’ll complete it 5 turns earlier, and then working max hammers (in God King) will get us an Elder Council in 4 turns. The Elder Council and a sage specialist will immediately bump our science return by a hefty five beakers per turn. It will obviously be a while before a cottage or two pays off to that degree. That marked increase should get us Education around Turn 44, and will net us some GPP towards a sage.

It would obviously be good if one of us can find time to run a proper test. The downsides of Mysticism first are that you lose out on cottage growth in the long term and we’ll have a very bored worker. However, because we have such low yield tiles, the bpt from the Council and the specialist give us a massive jump in output. If we’re going to want Mysticism anyway in the relatively short term (for Leaves) then it actually might make sense to go there first.

I’ve come over all peacenik in my planning already! I hope that this is more food for thought, rather than overload, and I suspect Mardoc might disagree. It would be good to talk through the rationale, as this strikes me as a pretty fundamental query at the start of every FFH game (even where your choice is Mysticism vs Calendar for a resource).


Good luck against that lizardman, Cheech!

[Gaspar]

Best. Dedlurkers. Ever.

On topic, I think as uberfish pointed out up thread, the lack of any sort of commerce bonuses in our start is rather damning. It makes me wonder if we shouldn't make our way up the coast and settle the fish site just so we're working a commerce tile somewhere in our empire. That and the cotton are quite literally all there is until Bronze Working, and even then we add only a gold tile (granted a great tile.) There's just nothing here. Silks, Dyes, Dragon Bones. Anything would be useful. If someone started close to DB or Yggdrassil or has a double sugar tile or something, they're going to be just completely owning us in tech rate. It does make a compelling argument to go Mysticism before Education. It doesn't help that we need to spend the next 5 turns researching a basically worthless pre-req tech at 9BPT that does nothing for us before the Corn comes online. Then we get to finish the same worthless tech at 10 BPT.

Ultimately, I think we almost have to just beeline Education and be done with it. But I think we might just need to go Warrior -> Warrior -> Warrior -> Settler and take the risk associated with that to get something useful out of these bored worker turns. At least they can be roading to a new city site.

My current tech path inclination is AC -> Education -> AH -> Hunting. At least at that point we can work most of the nearby bonuses. With barbs as they are, we'll only be able to get one city out in that time, realistically, and as much as I want the RoP site, I don't know we can afford to rush it, given we need commerce more than production right now.

[Mardoc]

Hmm. That's actually a very interesting question, MBTM, not a kneejerk answer at all. Education first made sense when we were going to have to pick between the two and not get the other for a very long time, since it could continue to scale up while Mysticism really can't. But if we're going to be able to get them back to back...that changes things a bit. And of course God King is more valuable than average since we're Spiritual.

The worker can be doing other useful stuff, like roads where we don't yet have forests; with only Grigori possibly being Raiders, it's not as great a security risk as it might otherwise be. And if we're going to want Slavery down the road (which I think we will, at least as an option), then we can use some of those extra hammers to build ourselves a Granary. Edit: or some more escorts and part of a settler

I think, from a theory perspective, that I agree with your proposal. I would like to be able to put some numbers on it, but I'm not really sure how to compare a beaker today with an extra turn of Cottage growth, or with a GPP or a hammer.

For Gaspar's comments - well, one bonus to the Remnants site is that Fishing would, I believe, give us an instant trade route from Fishing, and also help block off Nicolae from the rest of the world . And a size 8+ city can produce a good bit of commerce, even at only 1/tile, with all those rivers.