[EitB PBEM LVI] coldrain emerges from the shadows

[coldrain]

Thanks for the reports!  What ended up happening with that graveyard and the lion?  Did you just move away and look elsewhere?  Or did the Scout hang around the area (or come back to it) for another look?

Great questions, sorry for not replying earlier. Haven't had that much time to write a long report, but will do so soon. The scout succesfully avoided the lion, popped the graveyard next turn and was sternly reminded by a spectre to not disturb the peace oif the Dead.

Quick update: I'm up to turn 23. Q and Aurorarcher scouts found my capital. Second worker was done before growing to size 5, now first settler is marching to the southern city site. Detailed report wil be posted later.

[coldrain]

Turn 35

Screenshot of turn 35:

 
It has been a while since my last proper update, there’s a lot to go through to catch up! I just founded my fourth city, The Depths. Undead Burg was my second city, Darkroot Garden was third. I followed the standard city placement of “best food tile in first ring” to avoid building monuments (they are more expensive in FFH2 than BtS). I have survived with only two workers until now (two more will complete end of turn) because I started with a free one and built a second before first settler. Also, sharing tiles with capital has given some flexibility and helped me to avoid working unimproved tiles for too long. Workers management was done so that they were always immediately ready to build the food improvements when cities were founded.

I just finished education tech, giving me the ability to build cottages and switch to apprenticeship civic when needed. Tech path has been as follows (completion turn in brackets):

Mining (16) -> animal husbandry (24) -> education (34) -> mysticism (ongoing) -> Way of the Forests (next)

I was originally thinking of skipping animal husbandry to get WotF faster, but I would seriously lack early food in that path. Extra workers are needed desperately now, as building a cottage on non-forest tile takes 3 turns, on forested tile 5 turns and later on ancient forest 9 turns. Forested cottages are a central part of the “elven economy”, where with Fellowship of Leaves religion forests grow into ancient forests. This turns a grassland forest cottage from a 2,1,1 tile into 3,1,1 tile. Base chance of a forest growing into ancient is somewhere between 1-3% depending on game speed. My plan for expansion and economy is to build cheap settlers (+100% hammer bonus with expansive), settle many cities and build cottages on every forest tile. Some cities will be production centres and will have mines instead of cottages.

I will change civics to God-king (+50% production and gold in capital), nationhood (+10% military unit production, -25% war weariness) and apprenticeship (-10% military unit production, +2 xp on all units) when I finish mysticism. Aurorarcher and Q have been in God-king and agrarianism for a while (more about other players a bit later). I will skip agrarianism (+1 food, -1 production on farms) as I plan to build cottages on forests and wait for them to grow into ancient forests. In demographics, I have been keeping up in production quite well and adequate in crop yield. Demos at end of turn 34:

 
Short recap of earlier turns:

Q scout found my capital on turn 9, and Aurorarcher found me on turn 22. I have not met others after this. My both starting scouts have been eaten: first by a spectre, second by a gorilla. Between turns 10-25 I was invaded by a “train” of barbarian skeletons from the south. I didn’t lose any units, but had to do a couple of suboptimal worker moves to be safe. Also my scout had to run away into the cover of my warriors. I got some xp on my warriors in return, so not the end of the world.

I haven’t received any interesting events, only a small pile of gold once. Someone generated a great sage (scientist) on turn 27. I guess this is either Miguelito or Bing, who started with mysticism and built an early elder council to work a sage specialist. Maybe the great sage was used to build an academy?

Aurorarcher founded Runes of Kilmorph (as I predicted!) and converted on turn 30. To my knowledge, he has not used his world spell yet. It should show in the event log as “a player has cast gifts of Nantosuelta”, and I’m expecting him to use it within the next 10 turns or so. Other world spells have not been used either, but many of them are more useful later anyway.
Finally, some random pictures from previous turns to show the extent of my exploration and location of nearest known neighbour (barely visible borders behind a mountain range):

[mackoti]

Great updates  ty. I see you play very strong economical game.  What i seen on many people doing is playing FFH like Bts and i think you do the same. I seen a scout with subdue animal already, you know you could in teory delay a third city which doesnt produce alot and workers were thin any way to get a hunting lodge , larger capitol and upgrade that dude. this way you can explore far more. Nothing gets odds on hunter with subdue on wildernes. Starting to get experience on good units fast personaly i think is a key development in FFH good games.

This wasnt meant like a critique but like an observation.

[coldrain]

Great updates  ty. I see you play very strong economical game.  What i seen on many people doing is playing FFH like Bts and i think you do the same. I seen a scout with subdue animal already, you know you could in teory delay a third city which doesnt produce alot and workers were thin any way to get a hunting lodge , larger capitol and upgrade that dude. this way you can explore far more. Nothing gets odds on hunter with subdue on wildernes. Starting to get experience on good units fast personaly i think is a key development in FFH good games.

This wasnt meant like a critique but like an observation.

Thanks for the feedback mackoti! I read some past FFH2 game threads, and I got the impression that you are very knowledgeable of this mod.

Yes, it would have been a good idea to save the subdue animal scout and upgrade it to a hunter. I felt pressed to scout more as both Aurorarcher and Q found my capital and and I haven't found either (except I see Q's border in the fog behind mountains). Having highly promoted units in FFH2 is very important indeed. I'm planning to build hunting lodge and hunters at the capital after I have switched to God-king and apprenticeship. My early expands were quite quick to start contibuting, as I was able to immediately improve the food tiles (pig, wheat) and second city has gems as well. The only drawback that I see is that I don't have anything extremely useful to build while growing (elder councils or markets would be great right now), but this was the trade off I'm willing to accept for cottages this early. I'm building granaries while growing (expansive production bonus) and soon elder councils.

All observations and comments are welcome!

[coldrain]

Oh, forgot to mention that I have been enjoying the game so far! Boosted start with basic worker techs and a free worker really accelerated the usually slow start in FFH2. In the beginning I also tried different openings with test games, that was fun as well. This has been proven to be very useful as I have never played with quick speed: planning worker moves and city growth is much more important than on normal/epic speed.

Map is looking interesting with the hilly terrain, river valleys and mountain ranges. Although I have explored very little due to poor luck or decisions with scout movement. I need to rectify this soon!

[coldrain]

Turn 39

Mysticism completed on end of turn 38. Research set to Way of the Forests. Capital completed another worker. Barbarian warrior approaches rom the south, but should not be an issue as I have two promoted warriors near Undead Burg. Switched to God-king, nationhood and apprenticeship, with 1 turn of anarchy. Demos after the end of turn:

Now that I get the +50% gold bonus to capital from God-king, I will save at least one turn of money to create an “event fund”. There are many events in FFH2 where having around 50-100 gold saved can either prevent a disastrous outcome or grant a significant bonus such as a free great person. Now that I get the gold modifier, it is more efficient to save for the fund. Saving for two turns means I can then research at 100% slider and still keep a good amount of gold in reserve.

When WotF completes (somewhere around turn 52-55), I have many options on what to research next. Possible tech paths and their benefits:

1) Calendar -> festivals for plantations (only a few available) and markets. Most buildings are not good investments in FFH2, but I see elder councils and markets as exceptions, as they are relatively cheap to build and provide raw beakers and gold respectively. They also give specialist slots to generate great people.
2) Fishing for work boats. I have some good coastal city spots nearby.
3) Philosophy -> priesthood. This unlocks Priests of Leaves (henceforth abbreviated as PoL). The priests can bloom new forests to most terrain types. New forests grow eventually into normal forests and later into ancient.
4) Philosophy -> warfare -> military strategy (free great commander). The free great person from military strategy is very nice to have, but only the first to discover it gains it. With this tech path, I could generate a great prophet with pagan temple and/or temple of Leaves, and bulb priesthood.
5) Hidden paths (after adopting FotL). This enables guardian of nature civic and the ability to build a good hero, Kithra Kyriel.

These are my initial thoughts on what to research next, but I’m not entirely sure yet what to go for. I could tech to adepts, but I feel it is too early for those. In my test games, the faster I got to PoL, the faster my economy started to skyrocket, so maybe this takes the priority. The priests can also summon strength 4 tigers as an expendable military force, so priesthood doubles as both economic and military development. It would be easy to pick some of the cheaper techs (fishing, festivals) before going for the expensive techs.

[coldrain]

Turn 42

Screenshot of turn 42:

Barbarian warrior was dealt with near Undead Burg. Now a goblin is approaching. It should provide some easy experience for my warrior. A fresh warrior from Darkroot Garden is exploring the coast towards east. Hunting lodge is about half done in the capital and hunters will be built afterwards. All cities are growing and finishing their granaries. Now that I have the ability to build elder councils, I’m not sure if new cities will bother with granaries at all (granaries in FFH2 provide only 20% food bonus after growth). I’m still saving gold and will switch to 100% research slider next turn.

I somehow didn’t notice untill now that Aurorarcher used his world spell on turn 37:

I think it is possible to determine how many golden hammers he received by looking into power graph. I might try to look into this if I have spare time at some point. Predictably, Aurorarcher is using the golden hammers to gain engineer specialists, presumably to his capital. His production graph has climbed up:

Other world spells remain unused. Demos after hitting end turn:

[coldrain]

Turn 45

Overview of the core:

Hunting lodge finished in capital and first hunter is being produced. Economy has improved since previous report due to cities growing, working new tiles, elder council finishing and existing cottages turning into hamlets. Way of the Forests will finish on end of turn 49. Firelink Shrine and Darkroot Garden have been swapping tiles to maximise growth. Here is an example from this turn, where Firelink is able to grow a turn faster by taking back the deer tile:

I scouted a Q settler party on the eastern coast, behind the mountain range:

That’s a very nice spot. I suspect this is closer to my than Q’s capital, but that’s what I get for letting the scouts get eaten and not building replacements. I still should have good land for expansion in the south and west. I will send hunters to these directions asap.

In other foreign news, someone (who am I fooling, it must be Aurorarcher) generated a great engineer on turn 43. Miguelito found me on this turn, however I didn’t see any of his units near my borders. Interestingly I have now met three players, but according to foreign advisor none of them have contact with each other. Am I situated somewhat in the middle and others have been unlucky to not meet their other neighbours? No use in speculating too much at this point, once I get hunters exploring I should find out more.

Demographics at the end of turn:

Miguelito has the most military power despite having pacifism civic (+50% gp generation, -20% military unit production). See the graphs below to compare. Some units in FFH2 have disproportionally high power rating (religious missionaries, maybe adepts as well) so that could explain it.
Graph dump:

[coldrain]

Turn 49
Overview:

Finished researching Way of the Forests on end of turn 48. Fellowship was founded in Undead Burg. First hunter headed south and killed a barbarian goblin, earning enough experience to get subdue animal promotion. I will convert to Fellowship next tunr, when the settler finishes in Darkroot Garden. Second hunter is heading west and saw barbarian borders appearing at the wines location:

Research is set to calendar. Possibly festivals or fishing after that. Octopus Overlords was founded on turn 47 in a far away land. Looking at the culture graph it could be Q. After ending the turn I got a free spread of Fellowship to Darkroot Garden, this was a very welcome development. Pretty much all of my expands will benefit from religion spreads for border pops and the ability to build temples and fawns. Once I convert, forests will have the change to grow into ancient forests (finally!).

Demos:

[Jabah]

What would be the odd from hunter against the elephant now (or against any other animal if there are any visible) ?