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

[T-hawk]

This is correct. Arrows are considered "OR" gates by the game, while the pictures are "AND" gates, and only "OR" gates give the 20% (BtS, unsure if it's changed for FFH) bonus.

Right. The confusing part is when there is only one "OR" gate to a tech, so the only one "optional" prerequisite is de facto required and not optional. But it still counts as "optional" for the research bonus.

[uberfish]

- The lizard moved NW deciding to bypass my borders. On the one hand, being ignored by the barbarians certainly makes it easier to set up a cottage economy. On the other hand you don't get early promoted units to start building a core army. Overall I'm ok with that because:
- With 4 turns to Way of the Forests I'm approaching the point of safety where my world spell prevents a Calabim/Doviello backstab
- A griffon is flying around to the SE, good news for the treasure chest retrieval plan
- cottage #4 is done, hunting lodge done EOT

[uberfish]

The lizard moved back to its original spot on the forest, just to be even more annoying. I'd just ignore the stupid thing if not for the fact that I need to scout in that direction and I want to found a city in that area. So I need to fight it in a relatively safe fashion, while still getting recon on Sciz quickly. If I had two hunters it'd be safe but a 1v1 is risky. However waiting for two hunters would delay all the scouting by 3 turns or so. Since the cottage just north of Evermore is complete, I'm moving the warrior that was guarding its construction eastwards. There are probably animals in the area as well as barbarians.

So the theme for this turn is microing around River of Blood (it'll hit the players with 3 cities harder, and serve them right) I asked sunrise if he had an update on when his team was going to use it, but apparently they have a lizard lurking their 3rd city site too so I couldn't get an exact answer. Fair enough.



Evermore: size 6, happy cap 6 (7 after religion)

I'm running it on +1 food surplus (trading 5/0/0 farm for 0/3/0 forest hill), once religion is spread I can grow the city if I like. The difference between a 6->4 and a 7->5 size hit is only a few food in the city food box - as shown in the screenshots a size 6 city has a 21 size food box and a size 2 city has a 16 size box at quick speed. So there's no need to artificially keep the population low unless I know the exact timing of the Calabim spell.



Hyll: size 2, happy cap 5 (6)

Since the farm finished this turn I'll delay the elder council by one turn to get some food in the box. I'll then start a settler, and after river of blood is cast I'll delay the settler for one turn to tick the city over to size 3 and work a cottage.

As a size 2 city it'll be immune to River of Blood - the spell reduces cities' size by 2 and as far as I remember size 2 doesn't get reduced to 1.



The completion of the hunting lodge increased my power on the chart by about 4000 soldier equivalents. Sciz is building warriors. Mist has built two scouts to escort his worker stack.

[NobleHelium]

So you're planning to plop your third city down in the northeast then? Next to the fire node?

[uberfish]

So you're planning to plop your third city down in the northeast then? Next to the fire node?

yeah city #3 and #4 will go down close to the same time, but I'm leaning towards the fire node site first because I can prebuild the Reagent plantation (a 4/0/4 tile)

[uberfish]

The annoying lizard finally decided to invade my territory



I decided to defend both of the forest hills with one 0xp warrior each so that the lizard wouldn't be able to get a good defensive bonus next turn in any case. If it doesn't attack one of the warriors and instead moves to the cottage or next to Evermore, then next turn I can hit it with one of the 0xp warriors to weaken followed by hunter (which just completed end of turn) and hopefully clean it up that way.

Calabim revolted to Aristocracy + Apprenticeship this turn:



taking over #1 on the GNP chart (boo, hiss). The relative GNP situation is likely to get worse before it gets better with all these financial civs around.

[uberfish]

Lizard moved back out of my teritory again, the barbarian AI is doing a good job of being as irritating as possible.

Hunter is out and I moved him to the desert hill 3E of Evermore stacked with a warrior, I can try and bait a fight in the forest next turn if the lizard stays put.

EOT hawk completes (only need one for now), should be followed by a second hunter two turns after that. Hyll's Elder Council is done, the Corn and Wheat are connected, and I'm adding another cottage on the river plains tile 1NW of Evermore where forest can't grow naturally anyway because of the road.

Update on Doviello plans:[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]

Let's see... I'm due BW on turn 65. That's pretty much set in stone
now. GM is due on 59, so I'll have enough cash for upgrades. I'm short
two workers and a warrior to get the stack I want for invasion and
should get this by turn 63. Considering necessary relocation I'd say
it's turn 66 on dwarven border.

I'll be taking southern route to the city 7E,4S from my capital.
Terrain and visibility are more in my favor there and I don't expect
him to shift any Wood Golems down from the capital in time, which
makes it a much softer target. Also all of these tiles should be
fogbusted by our combined borders which makes for less bears around.
This moves area to be scouted/debeared much closer to your borders and
should make whole operation easier to manage.

I will give him an opportunity to negotiate. To be completely honest
pace at which Ilios grows makes me nervous. I'd rather get stuff for
free from Dwarves and burn some Malakim cities than spend my forces on
Sciz and leave those pesky nomads alone. Especialy considering they'll
switch to financial soon.

And vamp aristocracy before t60 is rather fast. Makes taking a stake
to this enterprise a bit more urgent [/COLOR]

I tend to think this plan is overly complicated, but it's his invasion and his call. The Doviello great merchant was indeed spawned and Sciz just finished Barnaxus. It's also true that the Malakim score lead is somewhat worrying.

[uberfish]

Bad news:

Now there's not just one lizard being annoying, but two.

Runes of Kilmorph was FIADL - I have a suspicion it's Ilios which is unfortunate since he's doing so well and doesn't need more cash.

A wolf was within range of the "lizard ambush forest" so went for another plan to bait one of the two lizards with a warrior on a plains (it'll probably die if attacked by the lizard but I don't mind losing one warrior to get the hunter quick XP.) Because of the problematic terrain I can't get a warrior to back the hunter up if I move to the forest either. And I would like to keep the wolf alive for later capture.

Started the settler in Hyll.


Good news:

All animal types needed for the Grand Menagerie are present (bear, wolf, gorilla, lion) except for a tiger which can be summoned by Priest of Leaves later.

Fellowship of Leaves founded EOT - splash screen next turn!

[uberfish]

Queen Arendel decrees that we celebrate with a picture heavy update!



The citizens are happy!



(crime rate doesn't really do anything, it's just flavour that affects where criminal type events can occur)

The lizards are still not taking the bait! I'm going to wait for the 2nd hunter to move out, and in the meantime I send the hawk to reveal some of the northwest area.



A hawk reveals a 5x5 area, combined with the scouting mission radius it can give vision out to 8 tiles horizontally or vertically, 7 on the diagonal. Unfortunately there aren't any more resources near the Pool of Tears. (This also means that I'll be able to get vision into Sciz's capital from as near as the desert hill 2 tiles NE of Evermore.)

The sheep marks the midpoint between myself and Calabim. Both our civs have agreed not to settle past the longitude of this sheep. The northern river more or less marks the settling boundary with Mist. I note that in the long term Mist will need to move troops past this area to attack other civs if our alliance holds, I don't really want a road connecting my cities to a Raider neighbour when we can get trade connection via a river so I have to handle this situation and city placement carefully.



Demo screen. I've taken over the #1 power rating with my Hunters but fallen behind in economic measurements as expected. The next tech will probably be calendar - if I unexpectedly get a lot of experience on my hunters quickly, I might swap it to animal husbandry next turn.

The tech plan is to backfill the basic economic techs: calendar, animal husbandry, crafting, mining, festivals in some order. ETA 20+ turns to get them all. I might ask Mist to clear jungle for me in return for FoL spread - he was interested in getting it for the health and culture if he couldn't bulb Ashen Veil with the prophet he still has sitting around.

[fire&ice]

as a curiosity it the death node you wanted to keep from the vampires on your side of the sheep or theirs