Emulating Sir Robin: How to run away on Horseback

[Iskender]

Turn 1large sized map

You can tell exactly how many land tiles there are on the map by mousing over your score. On standard pangea it's around 800, I'm not sure about large ones.

I'd recommend revealing more tiles around the capital before making a final choice between God King and Aristocracy. Early Aristocracy can be severely hampered by lack of farmable riverside grasslands.

Another beeline to consider:

1. Festivals
   
2. Market + Merchant Specialist
   
3. Animal Husbandry
   
4. Great Merchant -> trade mission for 600g
   
5. Horseback Riding
   
6. Upgrade a dozen Scouts to Horsemen
   
7. Pillage Erebus back to the Ice Age
   

[Rawkking Goodguy]

Yep, I've certainly been pleased to have such fearsome potential offensive power with such builder-mode traits . The only rush strategy I'm particularly afraid of this game is a pyre zombie rush, but I can probably tech to bronze working before Nicolae could get PZs to my border and have superior numbers of STR 5 2 move warcried copper warriors to stop them in their tracks. Not to mention Nicolae will be well aware of this and probably look for a juicier neighbor, assuming he even is my neighbor.

I'll be running some more sims come the weekend as I'm in the last couple days of finals. Obviously we've still got plenty of turns till Calendar is done.

Two other notes
1. I'm not too sure I really want to plan on using that wheat anytime in the very early game. 5 food is nice but with it being 3 tiles from the lizard ruins I will probably be getting most of my food from the cows in whatever form we end up improving them and river grasslands farms. It will certainly it will be worth improving when I get some warriors up to a forested hill by the ruins, but until then a 4f 1c agrarian grassland farm is almost as good.

2. Amusingly what free tech(s), if any, we get from the hut and graveyard could drastically influence our early tech plans in this scenario with so many options looking tempting.

Edit:

You can tell exactly how many land tiles there are on the map by mousing over your score. On standard pangea it's around 800, I'm not sure about large ones.

Indeed, this is exactly how I determined we were on a large sized map. I included the score mouseover in my first image post

1266 land tiles is definitely in the range of the various large pangaea maps I generated. Helpful to know that that's the exact number of land tiles present, as I wasn't entirely sure about that.

And that is probably the most amusing yet viable tech path yet, though trying to run a successful trade mission versus an unwilling opponent is a bit terrifying. They can use enemy roads, right?

Early festivals with a goal of a settled great merchant might be nice after agristocracy if we end up skipping early mysticism. Good synergy with financial's market bonus.

Edit edit: I'm fairly optimistic about early agristocracy with the number of nearby rivers we've revealed, but you're right that they could be harboring plains or hills, and settling in the tundra rivers is to be avoided until at least sanitation.

[Rawkking Goodguy]

Turn 2

The lizardman fortified to 5%. Moved my units as indicated, the scout will be able to grab the hut next turn. Everyone has settled by now.

EoT pops borders at Dream, revealing some new tiles.

I am jumping the gun at finding a second city site (probably not all that bad for an expansive leader), I put together a possible dotmap based on tile bleed to the east.

Access to the reagents and likely two farmable riverside grasslands (not entirely positive about the top one). One more with mining and a yet another at construction. The problem with this dotmap is that so far I don't even have a farmable grassland or any other fairly nice tile confirmed in the first ring. It also isn't expanding towards where my competitors are likely to be, but that's not something you really care about for your first city.

Settling 1SW of the dot is an option to pick up the reagents and a riverside grasslands in the first ring in exchange for some tiles wasted on coast and being more vulnerable to OO cultists later in the game, or 1S for just the grasslands.

The river to the south also might be a good place to place a second city, and definitely a place to scout. Culture revealed some more of that area as well, nothing that promising yet.

EoT empire overview and demographics (I'll make sure resource markers are on next time)

Not trying any C&D until after finals, but noting that the rival best approval rate is probably from the Grigori's palace enchantment mana and it seems that someone (not the sheaim or clowns) has a water tile in their first ring.

[Jkaen]

If you believe most opponenets to be to the west, is it not a good idea to settle that way first to grab land, and then backfill later?

[Heisenberg]

It may be worth skipping God King with this start. You'll be getting +100% boost to hammers when building settlers from your expansive trait anyway so the marginal increase is fairly minor. Skipping Myst in favour of an early run to Education and Code of Laws for Aristo farms is something to consider.

I'm actually leaning towards this suggestion as well... Thoth has kindly did the number-crunching for us and the effects of GK is a lil' on the marginal side. The other possibility is to use Mysticism to finish up an Elder Council to try to get a G.Sage out fast. But with your expansionist trait you might want to be getting the settlers out earlier instead.

I'd recommend revealing more tiles around the capital before making a final choice between God King and Aristocracy. Early Aristocracy can be severely hampered by lack of farmable riverside grasslands.

The capital has a decent number of farmable riverside tiles, and if the 2nd city spot is alongside a river, I'd certainly propose Aristofarms over GK. Furthermore Rhoanna is Financial--and that gives the critical bonus commerce on riverside Aristofarms.

Another beeline to consider:

Festivals
Market + Merchant Specialist
Animal Husbandry
Great Merchant -> trade mission for 600g
Horseback Riding
Upgrade a dozen Scouts to Horsemen
Pillage Erebus back to the Ice Age

I guess I'm the oddball here... I don't really think Animal Husbandry is that important a tech compared to Mining. Sure, it reveals Horses, but so does Mining reveal copper--except that you already have horses. Mining lets you chop-rush production, and though the pastured cow is nice, having an agrarian farm on the cow isn't that shabby either...

As for Horsemen... Frankly, I'm never really a fan of them. The Hippus does get the Horselord bonus on them, but as an offensive unit, you can pillage, but its not really a unit that you would storm a city with. HBR is too expensive a tech early on rush down... especially when you don't have your key economic techs up yet.
Furthermore, as Rhoanna, the effectiveness of Horsemen decreases a lot due to the lack of the Raider trait--you no longer can zip around your enemies territory pillaging every unoccupied tile with a road.
Horselord really shines with the higher tier Mounted units of Chariots (5/3)+weapons, and Horse Archers (35% withdrawal base).

If going for an early war, Axemen with copper might do a much better job. Though actually, Massed Copper warriors with warcry gives the best "bang for buck" hammerwise and in strength.




But since we are tossing about possible routes to consider... allow me to add one to the list
(this one is gonna be unorthodox, and its applicability really depends on your start... and debatably more efficient on Tasunke, though Rhoanna with Financial would probably reach the "start line" first.)

Tech Mysticism to build a Pagan Temple, start running a Prophet ASAP. Run GK+Pacifism.
Tech Mining > Runes of Kilmorph to get the Holy City.
Use the G.Prophet to build the Tablets of Bambur.
Run Engineer on the Tablets. Tablets is the ONLY early source of a G.Engineer outside of the G.Engineer event.
Tech Arete. Rush the Mines of Gal-dur with the G.Engineer for Iron.
Rush for Currency. Build the Guild of Nine. This allows you to buy Mounted IRON Mercs which would totally outclass anything your opponent can field this early.
Turn your slider to 100% Gold... and its make or break. There is absolutely nothing else you need to tech. The next "upgrade" to your unit comes and Iron Working which is a gazillion turns from where you are at now.
Pillage and burn every city you take... to buy more Mercs.

Naturally this strat scales worse with larger maps and quicker turns, but its terribly difficult to stop Iron Mercs with warcry this early on.

[Square Leg]

I guess I'm the oddball here... I don't really think Animal Husbandry is that important a tech compared to Mining. Sure, it reveals Horses, but so does Mining reveal copper--except that you already have horses. Mining lets you chop-rush production, and though the pastured cow is nice, having an agrarian farm on the cow isn't that shabby either...

As for Horsemen... Frankly, I'm never really a fan of them. The Hippus does get the Horselord bonus on them, but as an offensive unit, you can pillage, but its not really a unit that you would storm a city with. HBR is too expensive a tech early on rush down... especially when you don't have your key economic techs up yet.
Furthermore, as Rhoanna, the effectiveness of Horsemen decreases a lot due to the lack of the Raider trait--you no longer can zip around your enemies territory pillaging every unoccupied tile with a road.
Horselord really shines with the higher tier Mounted units of Chariots (5/3)+weapons, and Horse Archers (35% withdrawal base).

In SP I have always found horsemen to be marginal at best. Their lower strength makes cities hard to crack but in MP they are a completely different kettle of fish.

Horselord horsemen have 4 moves. With Warcry that goes up to 5 moves. Simply amazing. You move a lot faster than your enemies in their own territory. Players in MP do not tend to leave large garrisons in every city - they tend to bunch them into to zonal stacks either at a choke point or in a front line city. Horsemen are all about circumventing that stack and razing cities in the backlines. Yes Raiders is nice to have - but how many roads are there built in the early game - not a lot... Especially if you rush to horsemen.


I like you 2nd option though - very clever - would need testing to see if it is possible though.

[Rawkking Goodguy]

Turn 3

So it's about time we had a fairly boring "move scout and click enter" turn, right?

(Un)fortunately, there's never a dull moment in the hippus empire.

Our brave scouting hippus troops "gallop" southwest towards a peasant village on top of some desert mesas. After repressing the local peasantry with the violence inherent in the medieval system they attempt to extract what they can. Not a technology or another scout/warrior like I hoped, or even just some gold. The only thing of value these peasants have is a map.

And what a map it is. I'll let the screenshot do the talking (forgot to turn resources on again and apparently you can't take screenshots after ending turn, boo).

The illustrious hippus empire have their first chances ever to be complete and total dickwads towards our first discovered neighbor. Yes, our capitals are a mere 10 tiles from each other. (Ravus, were you aware of that mountain pass when making the map? :P) Note that the map didn't actually give us contact with the Balseraphs, just knowledge of their location. We can potentially piss off our neighbors in that regard while feigning innocence (see the wonderful fuchsia dot).

So I turn to you all with some urgent questions.

1. Should we explore the dungeon? Dungeons don't spawn monsters naturally. However, when you attempt to explore them they have (IIRC) a higher than normal chance of spawning particularly nasty beasts than ruins and barrows, but not as high as epic dungeons. It is five tiles from both our capital and jubilee, but there's only one immediate path into hippus territory and with all the mountains in the way any monsters might go visit our clown friends instead?

2. Should we plan to settle fuchsia dot (the one six tiles from our capital)? It almost certainly will make us gamelong enemies of the clowns, but that is some nice land with four flood plains and three visible resources. I almost think that settling fuchsia would just be a prelude to us choking and eventually (hopefully) eliminating the clowns before they can get their summons out. I don't see settling the rose dot anytime soon, but I threw it out there as another settling location. (remember as expansive we get +3 health/city, fresh water is less important)

3. What's next for our scout? After we do or don't explore the dungeon I think that heading towards that hut is a good idea, maybe doubling back on the western side of the mountain range to see what's there.


Less important stuff

Based on score and demographics, the elves have found a tech in a hut or managed to complete a technology awfully early. Nobody is past 1 pop yet so it has to be a tech at this point.

The Clowns are settled on a plains hill if it isn't clear from the screenshot.

Finally, a victory conditions screenshot and demographics screenshot. Apparently the map is a standard size, so Erebus Continents is a bit larger than Pangaea in general.

[Thoth]

As far as popping the dungeon goes,

DO IT!

Anything nasty that pops will head in their direction. Anything good that pops will head in your direction. (note that you do NOT need any movement points remaining in order to pop a dungeon/lair)

As far as "Pink Dot" goes.....You'll need enough military to defend the site if you want to settle aggressively against the Clowns. It's not necessarily a bad idea, but if you're going to get in your neighbour's face like that you really need to be able to back it up with some boots on the ground.

[Heisenberg]

Anything nasty that pops will head in their direction. Anything good that pops will head in your direction. (note that you do NOT need any movement points remaining in order to pop a dungeon/lair)

I certainly hope so... its equidistant from both capitals...

As far as "Pink Dot" goes.....You'll need enough military to defend the site if you want to settle aggressively against the Clowns. It's not necessarily a bad idea, but if you're going to get in your neighbour's face like that you really need to be able to back it up with some boots on the ground.

I agree with Thoth on this. It -is- a nice spot... but you'd definitely run into trouble with the Balseraphs. Bals do have a nice defensive spot for their capital though, ringed on the two nearer sides by rivers, and on top of a hill.

And actually, if you decide not to settle, go ahead and pop the Dungeon--you might just leave something nasty in the vicinity making it harder for Bals to settle.

[Rawkking Goodguy]

If you believe most opponenets to be to the west, is it not a good idea to settle that way first to grab land, and then backfill later?

Indeed, though what I care about most for my second city is a good location. Settling towards opponents is desirable of course.

Now with our "pink dot" a mere 5 tiles from their capital things may be undesirable in another way with diplomatic penalties. They did move their settler, and they probably moved it north, but still.

Also, if I pop the lair, do I want to traverse the floodplains (which will force contact with the clowns) or avoid making contact by heading north/northwest? I can't exactly claim ignorance of their capital's location if my scout gains visibility of Kyan's borders, so an aggressive settlement on pink dot will be what it is in Kyan's eyes, no claims of ignorance on my part :P

This is all assuming that I don't run into one of Kyan's units in the next few turns, which is rather likely.

Even if I do avoid contact, by the time I settle clowns will have their third ring of culture which a settler on the pink dot hill will see even before founding. But hey, I already moved the settler, right? :P

And actually, if you decide not to settle, go ahead and pop the Dungeon--you might just leave something nasty in the vicinity making it harder for Bals to settle.

I think I should doubly pop the dungeon if I choose to settle. The clowns will pop it when the see the pink dot city come up, at least if they know what they're doing.