You speak in whispers of the devils I have slain, Brian, Sareln & Ichabod of Elohim

[Brian Shanahan]

Ok so before I do the turn, last night Kyan informed me (as turn starter, didn't know that) that he saw no Orthus pop-up, so we're thinking end of turn or next one as regards him.

Also Acalostas confirmed in writing the agreement over city 3 site.


Ok so the turn, and turn fifty update.

First my cities:
Nicker:

With very little by way of farmable land this city is not going to ever be big. But there are a lot of hills to be mined so it'll work out as a decent production site. The Sage is 4 turns away and I'll probably make him into an academy, though long term Muff or the third city may be the stronger options for that. Back to settler next turn unless there's an Orthus incoming just outside the border. Poison Goblin on the hill showing no yields.

Muff:

This city is going to be an aristofarm/production hybrid. There are two food sources, the hill sheep & corn, though the horses will give a surplus too. There are four minable hills, and the silk and sheep hills along with the horses to give production hammers.

So overall at the moment I'm potentially heavy on hammers while week on food and commerce, so city 3 will probably be my best shot at a commerce site:

It's got gold, 6 (at construction, 2 immediately) grass farms, grass cow and horses, and finally 2 plains farms to work, along with sundry coast and ocean tiles (mostly unfogged), when I get this up and running it will be a massive site for me.

Second, what happened this turn:
Not much, IBT the goblin suicided so I named warrior in Muff, Diarmuid O'Duibhne most famous for the tale Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Gráinne, one of the most haunting tales in Irish mythology (incidentally Fionn McCumhaill the big baddie of this piece is one of the two major heroes in Irish mythology).
And my two workers start farming the corn, to be done in two turns (and I finally renamed the second "Arthur Wilson").

Third, demographics:

If one picture paints a thousand words five write a doctoral thesis. I think that Kyan is beginning to run away with this game, and only for him being so generous over the Grigori situation (he's basically ceded me all the land, I'm sure I'll have to repay the favour) I wouldn't be cooperating with him.

Now my game is not optimal (I'm not that good), but it is fairly solid, so I'm going to have to say that the map will have a big part in who wins. Sorry Amelia but I think you didn't balance this one properly to give a better chance of each player standing or falling on their merits.

Finally the plan.
Yeah I'm still intending on winning this one (or getting as close as I can). If I weren't I'd have gone to West Cork today for a bit of sunning and ignored the game.

Tech plan for the moment is:
Mining>Exploration>Fishing>HBR. After that it'll be a beeline to Order, hopefully quick enough to get Valin by t120.
The rationale behind this is a) get my capital up and running (mining fishing) and get horsemen running (exploration HBR). That way I'll be able to expand economically and get out a force for the showdown with the Grigori. Order and Valin would really help there too, but needs more economy.

Builds:
Nicker needs at least one more settler and probably two, so unless Orthus intrudes the capital will be going settler>worker>settler, which should see fishing in or nearly meaning workboat after that. Then of course comes the stable>horsemen push.

Muff is a bit more open as it'll take a while to get the full potential going. An elder council is next after the monument, followed by granary, and then workers to HBR, where it'll be Stable>horsemen.

"City 2", will get a monument, then worker then EC, after that getting granary and smokehouse. This will probably mop up on the specialist buildings over time (e.g. libraries etc. for science and money-changers etc. for commerce) as it will be food strong and while not weak in production it is better suited as a commerce/science city.

"City 3" is a land grab pure and simple. It is there to protect my core and gather some useful resources. The site will never have sufficient food to be a strong city in itself so don't expect much by way of improvements there. The point is to make this city the defensive fulcrum upon which the empire will remain secure and grow.

As regards the workers, it's food first, then commerce then hammers. I'll swing one back to Nicker after finishing off the corn to be ready to mine, while the second will be waiting to pasture the sheep and horse at Muff.

Bradeline's & Vault
The sites are safe from foreign inteference so I'll wait until I have sufficient horsemen out to pop these. I don't want to sidetrack with warrior builds, except for if Orthus shows, so they'll keep. I'll need five for Bradeline's, and the full nine for the vault. Fingers crossed I get epic good results from both, hero units would be nice.

Edit: I forgot to show you the extent of my visible world as well. I've done no more exploring, but some resources have popped up:

[Brian Shanahan]

Ok the save, not much happened today, I built the third warrior (and it turns out Orthus is off over at the Sheaim, popped right outside their borders, so we've got Blitz pyre zombies this game). There is a goblin camped outside the capital too. And the two workers have built their corn farm over at Muff, so they'll be split next turn for mining/pasturing duties.

And at the end of the turn I got a brilliant idea to take one of the warriors out and pull him over to Oisín, where the two of them together can wear down the sellingtons and pop the bower without fear of spectres, etc. Unfortunately I pulled out the warrior with the XP and so he loses out on gaining a promotion next turn

[Brian Shanahan]

Not much happened this turn either. My two workers split up and are moving to their assigned positions, and I sent the warrior on his (6 turn) journey to meet Oisín over by the bower. I made a change in citizen tile allocation in Nicker, I moved him from the cotton (a singularly useless tile, 2 hammers 3 commerce) to a plains hill to get the settler out three turns quicker (10 instead of 13), while keeping mining at 4 turns.

Demographics are mucht the same, I'm still solidly behind the curve in nearly everything, and there's not much I can do short term:

[Ichabod]

Should I play the next save, Brian?

[Brian Shanahan]

Frankly it depends on when I get it. If normal services run then I should have time tomorrow as it'll come around noon, but then this game is not very punctual sometimes.

So my plan is that I'll post tomorrow at 12:30 my time (BST) if I don't get the save for play. I'll definitely be around next Tuesday, and the one after that, and probably the Mondays too, and I should be back fairly permanently on Thursday week (unless I can beat up enough money out of my brother for a few more days off).

As regards plans, use my turn 50 update, except to ignore the Orthus stuff, as he's off molesting the Sheaim (or dead, I forgot to check). Of course if something comes up which is unexpected then use your best judgement (while avoiding the world spell if possible)

As regards micromanagement, that is wholly at your discretion. You can decide what is best for my workers to do.

And if you get rid of that skellington barrow quickly, send one of my warriors directly east by the Northern Gap (i.e. past city 5). Kyan has told me that Rawwking of the Hippus lies that way (north of himself), and I'd like to keep in contact with him.

And if you can, please update the thread, I'll have internet access, just not game access (using my parents' computers, they're not fond of games on them). I'll try and keep diplo open but it may be a bit of a bother, especially if I don't know what is going on.

Anyway, best of luck, and I expect at least two of my opponents dead by the time I'm back.

[Brian Shanahan]

Sorry for not posting earlier, Ichabod, I am playing the turn now, and you can start tomorrow.

Edit the save is played, got the Order golden age message, but couldn't pop it (the game is laughing at me I tell you). Nothing else happened.

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="2"]Turns 54-57:[/SIZE]

Well, let's see what I have been doing in Brian's lands in the last couple of turns. First, Muff finished a monument and I started on an Elder Council. A little micro changed the city to 4t to growth and 4t to the EC.

There was a goblin with 2.9 strenght and combat 3 outside of the capital, which was defended by a not yet fully fortified warrior. That freaked me out, so I ordered a one turn warrior in the capital - I had to starve it a little and delay the settler, but I ouldn't afford to have a ~40% of losing the capital.

The event log showed why the damn goblin had C3. It probably won against a fortified warrior at very low odds:

And the capital micro to pump the 1t warrior:

In the good news department, the Great Scientist was born and I used him to build an academy in Nicker. It was the best short term option and we got to think short term right now.

Turn 55 revealed that the goblin didn't attack. He decided to go to the corn tile. I didn't want the damn goblin ruining our micro and worker plans, so I attacked him with one warrior from Muff. He died at ~10% odds, but the goblin was left with 0.1 strenght, so I killed him with another warrior.

Turn 56 saw mining being teched. I started to chop a grassland forest in the capital to farm it later. We need more food to grow, after that I can build some mines. Next tech is Exploration, like Brian told me to do:

In foreign news, Kyan already has 5 cities. This is very bad and shows how imbalanced this map was. It's impossible to have 5 cities at turn 56 with our starting terrain, no matter how good the player who tries to do it is. I don't think we'll be able to win this game through tech or strenght. I'd try to go for a cultural win, trying to take advantage of the philosophical trait to get great artists. We'd need to rely on Kyan's protection to do it - try to deceive him in a NAP that doesn't let him attack us until the end of the game.

This strategy would require that we be the first to Drama, but that's likely impossible with the Balseraphs in play. It's not my duty to go on about startegical plans, but that's what I think anyway.

A damn skeleton decided to attack from the north in Turn 57. That's really annoying, since he was threatening the worker. I have 2 warriors covering the worker now (the capital is undefended, though) to avoid any tragedies. I'll probably have to get another warrior before the settler, because our military is pretty thin right now. The perfect outcome is the skeleton attacking the warriors and dying, but that's not very likely (the tile in which they are is unforested right now, so no bonuses except from the defender trait one). We can hope...

Demographics:

Sorry for the rushed report, Brian, but I don't have much time to spare, unfortunately. I messed up the defense against the skeleton, I could have a warrior fortified on a hill/forest tile to avoid him getting near the capital, but I didn't realize it. Hope the skeleton suicides so that it don't affect your game too much.

[Ichabod]

Hey Brian,

Acalostas offered open borders in game, saying that he sent you an email about it. I answered through the in game chat that I'm just a stand-in and I don't have the power to go about diplomatic agreements.

So, should I accept the deal or not?

[Brian Shanahan]

First sorry for not really being around, was way too busy the last week sheparding my Yankee cousins around Ireland, and cutting grass and trees (well I wasn't cutting trees just getting rid of branches).

Second, on the open borders, I'd suggest yes but no scouting agreement. I'll send an email to that effect later. Don't accept anything before my say-so though.

Third, could I impose on you until Saturday (including Saturday), my holidays got extended by fiat (more relatives visiting, this time Irish), and I won't be down to my Civ computer until then.

Not to worry on the skellington, these things happen and you want to be cautious on the worker (as he's paramount importance right now). And the rest of your turns were strong too. Good call on the Sage as well. I know I was indicating Muff but we need the best boost now, and we can easily pop a second one with the Philosophical.

On the map, this game is really badly unbalanced. The land available to us is definitely of a number of orders worse than Acalostas, even if he is cramped by Archeron (Kyan told me by g-talk before my holiday), and lots of room to expand into, I've got a 2 city back lines, and lots of mountain tundra. If this were SP I'd run to some serious units and crush the world but that is not an option. Cultural may be the only (slight) option, I can keep Kyan online most of the game (unless he's a lot more devious than I'm giving credit, if so hat's of boy), and taking out the Grigori and gaining a second capital c. turn 140 would also set me up strong. But my biggest problem is that I've no idea about a FfH culture win. Not even how to start.

[Ichabod]

Ok, I'll wait for the open borders.

I'll update again tomorrow. Things are starting to improve, in my opinion.

Well, cultural win will depend on specialists and the culture slider, because there's not much raw culture generating buildings (most of them are percentage based). We'll need the Sylvan's Lyre, which is a movable Hermitage (+100% culture on the city), the Theater of dreams (+culture per bard) and the Caste System civic (+1 beaker, +2 culture per specialist).

Then, running a lot of artists would be necessary. Fortunately, FFH have a lot of easy food and we are philosophical for a lot of GArtists.

Getting a lot of religions is also good. It's nice that you can have all the religions in FFH, because you'll always get the disciple, even if you are not the first to get the tech.