[SPOILERS] Tres Equis: Mardoc plays the Most Interesting Civ in the World

[Mardoc]

As far as what to bulb or not bulb, how long would hand researching a mana tech take? Obviously the more beakers we can get with each bulb the better, but it may be better getting the beakers sooner depending.

Um. I'm guessing on the order of 25 turns, with my current rate. But I'll be adding Elder Councils and cottage growths and hopefully pillage/raze gold. So maybe 15, all said?

My bigger worry is that the 2nd sage will be a while with only 1/city. I don't care much about the mana techs, it's Sorcery that I want to achieve. Still only have the one node, and it's got to be made metamagic first.

It's nice to see how well you've been able to leverage slavery. You've been able to get infra builds into cities that I wouldn't be building this early in SP, let alone a MP game when you're at war with the power leader and about to start another .

Yeah, even in FFH it's a powerful civic. I'll definitely go this way again if I play any more FFH games. Not very good on the commerce front, but stellar for hammers. And FFH has ways to converting hammers into commerce all over the place.

ETA on the PoW invasion?

5 turns, I think. Might be able to shave one more with a road in neutral territory.

Got KotE this turn, and our first Temple of the Hand! May not be the strongest game I've had, but it's shaping up to be the most thematic.


Edit: Ok, so your questions were interesting enough for me to reopen the game.

Looks like only 4 more turns til war with the Amurites. Although that war may be started when they kill a worker/warrior building the road toward them, that would at least pull their stack onto flatland.

A mana tech is 613 beakers. My current breakeven is 27 bpt. Add in the prereq bonus and that works out to 20 turns. I do expect to be able to shave some time from that, I've got three more Elder Councils to erect, and my income is starting to recover from the overexpansion.

Molach's buildup continues, and it is indeed worrisome. If I weren't so paranoid about the Amurite worldspell, I'd definitely leave them alone to focus on him. I'm just hoping to stack up enough advantages and Power graph to keep him away long enough.

One nice bonus there:


He's got no contact with the Amurites. He may not notice that I'm at war with them, until their score starts to drop.

All three of Mint, Vanilla, and Green Tea will be at their happy cap next turn, with a Mage Guild in queue. Granted, those are 80 hammers, not the 60 I thought, but I still expect to have my first adept out about the same time as I start the Amurite war.

At Strawberry, I expect to finish the Monument in 2 turns, after which point I'll have warning and some city defense.

[Dp101]

Can we see what the map looks like now that you have gotten the temple?

[Mardoc]

Can we see what the map looks like now that you have gotten the temple?

Um...that screenshot was always there

Really

I wouldn't possibly take the screenshot and forget to insert it into the report.

Something else I intended to add but forgot: I'm Arcane! That means 40h Mage Guilds, not 80h - definitely only 2 whip cycles before I'm putting out adepts. Should have several in 6-8 turns.

[Mardoc]

Countdown to Amurite Smashing. Note that I intend to road tile 4, which should save a turn overall. Also if I can, I'll keep roading more to make the PoW return trip easier.


Here's what we're up against (that we know about). Note that they're all 1-move; should be pretty straightforward to just Slow them and then whittle them down. Perhaps whittle them while the PoW march southward, even.



In other news: adepts incoming! Plan is to whip all of the Mage Guilds next turn, and build adepts immediately after. Except maybe Vanilla's, because that would be just a 1-pop whip; I may handbuild the Guild and whip the adept, instead.

11 turns til first sage, at which point we'll be more than half-done with Alteration. Especially if I get enough cottage growths to turn science back on. Just going to save him for Sorcery, I think.

[Qgqqqqq]

Just the Priests?

[Mardoc]

Just the Priests?

I'll be adding the warrior they're stacked with, and the warrior who's keeping an eye on the Amurites, but it's essentially just the PoW. Sole purpose of those warriors is to absorb damage if Suttree hits the stack, or maybe to finish off gravely wounded targets if I run out of hitters. But I really think the PoW can get the job done if there's no worldspell cast, and I'm willing to trade them for the worldspell if he's got it unlocked. Not sure I'd make that bet against another opponent, but Suttree's riding at the bottom of the demos.

Honestly, I expect that I'll have my first mage before the PoW can return from this trip, even if it all goes swimmingly.

[Azarius]

I admit I'm nervous about sending the priests with not much of an escort to help them survive getting zerged, but given the Amurite power graph and what we can see of his units that's probably a baseless fear.

Very happy to hear mage guilds are so close, and that you think you'll have actual mages in a relatively short time. I keep forgetting that Auric is arcane in the mod so they will xp up so much faster.

[Azarius]

I thought I should qualify my last post. While I may worry somewhat about the PoW being in danger, as I said that's probably unfounded and just me being too cautious. I am definitely not advocating shuttling more warriors over there from the west. The priests can porobably take care of themselves, and given the vampire menace to the west you certainly don't want to leave that side of your empire understrength. He's certainly planning on doing something with the units he has to have that much power, and unless one of his other neighbors kicked his puppy or something, I'd imagine that the likely target is you.

[Mardoc]

Agreed that this is a significant risk. I'm actually more worried about needing the PoW to hold off Molach than I am about about Suttree being able to kill them.

I guess it comes down to death or glory . Take the risk now for the chance of actually winning later on.

[Mardoc]

So far, so good. Nothing new from Molach, three Mage Guilds completed and one more close; first adept in 3ish turns, after which a steady stream of adepts is expected. Arcane adepts, so they'll have Mobility and should make it to level 4 well before I make it to Sorcery.

Strawberry finished its Monument, so soon I'll have the benefit of culture there.

Suttree shuffled his stack a bit, the Soldiers of Kilmorph disappeared and a Paramander showed up instead. And he revolted into Arete. Um...that's be a great defense against someone with, say, Moroi, but it's still a 1-mover and it's still not going to be able to take out Str 7 Combat III units even if I do permit it to move. . I'd much rather he spends his GNP on Paramanders than on KotE, though! This might yet work.