[SPOILERS]"Look at my horse, my horse is amazing"

[Mr. Yellow]

So as the ruler of Hippus, my aim is to do what any great ruler have strived for in the past. Conquer vast tracts of land, meaning more people to tax and thus obtain an ENORMOUS amount of wealth and power, so that history one day will acknowledge my importance!

And like any ruler worth his salt I will make sure my legacy lives on! My name will be engraved in every object of matter, eternal monuments shall be raised to mark my grand achievements and most importantly, this thread shall contain looooooaaaads of yellow to celebrate the greatness that is ME!!

This world calls for my name to usher it in a new era of greatness.
A NEW ERA OF YELLOW!



[SIZE="4"]BWAHAHAHAHAHA![/SIZE]

[Bobchillingworth]

I'm going to be eagerly lurking this game- I'd offer to dedilurk, but I'm already doing that for too many FFH PBEMs. Also I want to see if Sareln gets rushed again


But I'm playing the Hippus in a personal PBEM between me, Sareln, and Selrahc, so I'll have a certain soft-spot for your thread. And yeah, Sareln got rushed in that game, too :D


About this:

Hmm, sadly there are no unit you can upgrade to that will provide 100% withdrawal rate.

However, this brings up another point; How to break the withdrawal limit.
Well as the Hippus, you can get 95%!

Horsemens are among the few units of the Hippus that can get Flanking III, since the higher withdrawelers have a too high base % to get it.
Upgrade that unit with flanking III to a horse archers and we get 95%.
Suddenly you're able to survive every 19 battles out of 20, pretty broken indeed.
Hell, that makes me want Stirrups even more!

I was the one who discovered the hard-coded retreat limit, as part of the aforementioned private PBEM. However, I think that you *can* break 100%- get a unit to 95% using the method you describe above (which I have tested and indeed does work), and then mutate it and pray for "light", which gives another 10% withdraw

[Mr. Yellow]

Here's the status so far:



I'm doing worker first again. Might not be a good idea considering we're playing on Immortal and stronger barbs, but i'm taking that chance.

I've decided to ditch Crafting for now and focus on getting Education and Mysticism done. Having the wines improved earlier hardly does me any good, considering it's not near a river and i won't have roads for some time. Besides if i get cottages earlier it'll make up for the early commerce boost the wines give me.
And it's pretty much cottages that can get me some good money right now, the only other option would be fishing, which is a big detour from my other goals; get some decent production up and adopt Apprenticeship.

Now getting to Education is gonna take some time (over 25 turns) so the worker will be left only making farms for now, but i find the wheat crucial enough to get it improved as quickly as possible, especially considering the amount of plains tiles around that will constitute the majority of my early production.

Looking at the area in whole, it's certainly not a great one for the pioneers of the Yellow era, but i'll live through.

Now about those revealed islands.
I was right about each housing one of the big 3 features, though a little dissapointed that there wasn't something more interresting. At least there's lots of food resources accompanying them.



The one to the north is the closest to me, which i'll likely grab.

And the other 2:



I do wonder if the fish, corn and banana are exclusive resources.

[Mr. Yellow]

I'm going to be eagerly lurking this game- I'd offer to dedilurk, but I'm already doing that for too many FFH PBEMs. Also I want to see if Sareln gets rushed again

Well i won't shy away from that option (assuming Mardoc is cruel enough to place Sareln next to me or the clan for that matter), but there are certainly more juicy targets.

YUMMY!:
Bannor
Amurites

I'll take it:
Ljosalfar
Calabim

BLEEGH!:
Clan of Embers

Both the Bannors and the Amurites are vulnerable targets to pick on early game. However i'm considering holding off raiding the Bannors since they will commit to a cottage economy. More villages/towns means more loot after all.
Have to watch for when they get Fanaticism though.

The Ljosalfar are a bit more tricky. Their vulnerability depends on the amount of forests around, which will make it hard to attempt hit & run. Not to mention their world spell that makes the woods even more threatening. Still they are quite vulnerable early on as well.

Then there's the Calabim. Aristofarms aren't as juicy as cottages and there's the threat of a heavily juiced up vampire stack. River of Blood is also a nifty card during early game diplomacy.
On the other hand, having a powerful vampire player in action isn't a very attractive alternative. If i'm gonna initiate an assault against them, it won't be simple raid, but a serious attempt to stall them.

And the clan is more pain than it's worth, with the amount of troops they can quickly amass. I'd much rather have them as an ally.

I'll go in closer detail when i meet them.

[Mr. Yellow]

Other than this:



Hardly anything else to talk about.

So lets take a peak at the demographics:



It's apparant that none starts with high yield commerce tiles. One is working a 2 commerce tile, another none while the rest of us are working near a river.

Current MFG is 4,4,2,2,2,2. If you're working 4 now you'll have to either be on a plains hill or work a tile which in total gives you 3 crop yield, but none has 3.
I believe the other player that is working 4 hammers, also works no extra commerce, so it must be a grassland forest.

Speaking of crop yield, 2 players have 5 food. Either both is working a food grassland river resource or one of them works an oasis.

Earlier peeks in land area showed that one player had 7 land tiles in his/her first ring. Coastal city?
Else it looks like 2 players have full amount of land around, while one got 4 water tiles.

Or at least that's what i see from the demos. Bah, i'd love to have a ded. lurker to assist me in these occations.



Looks like Mardoc decided to not include Orthus this time. Else the rest looks pretty standard.

[uberfish]

And like any ruler worth his salt I will make sure my legacy lives on! My name will be engraved in every object of matter, eternal monuments shall be raised to mark my grand achievements and most importantly, this thread shall contain looooooaaaads of yellow to celebrate the greatness that is ME!!

This world calls for my name to usher it in a new era of greatness.
A NEW ERA OF YELLOW!

LOL

Too bad your civ is green!

[Mr. Yellow]

LOL

Too bad your civ is green!

Nonsense! This here is perfectly Yellow. You just don't see the details of what true yellowness means!

[Mr. Yellow]

And the rest of the world must see the light. See that the future is yellow!

So i've sent a scout southwards to look for potential vict..err, believers.



Humm, plains everywhere, not a grass tile to see. Ah well, can live with that.
Also GOLD!!
...wait, last time i discovered those they started closer to other players and i got a lesson in the consequences of aggressive expasnion last time so hmm, gonna wait and see if the (possibly) nearby player want to negotiate about..oh hang on, forgot i'm playing Tasunke.
NEVER MIND!

EDIT:

Also, messed around with the hotkeys a few days ago and managed to remove those nifty details from the city bar, such as number of turns till pop, production finished and hammer, coin etc. showing which city that makes the most of that. Looked through a hotkey guide and couldn't find the keys to get it back again.

So, do you know which ones it is?

[Xenoborg]

I don't know about a hotkey, but there should be a check box for detailed city Info under the Graphics menu under Options.

[uberfish]

Humm, plains everywhere, not a grass tile to see. Ah well, can live with that.

You should prefer plains anyway since they're yellow right?