[EitB PBEM LVI] coldrain emerges from the shadows

[coldrain]

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

My combat I + subdue animal hunter has 73% odds on an elephant. Against other animals I should fare better, as I can defend in forested or hill terrain. Elephants are passive and never attack other units. I could capture it at some point for a nice defensive unit, but at the moment I will send the hunters to explore south and west.

[coldrain]

Turn 51
Western hunter movement during turns 50 and 51:

 

I was worried that either Aurorarcher or Miguelito was closer to me than I thought. It turns out my suspicion was correct and I found Miguelito south of the recently spawned barbarian city. I’m surprised that it took so long (up to turn 45) for Miguelito and I to meet each other. Well, I got unlucky with my starting scout who was killed by a spectre on turn 8. This means that there could be limited amount of space to expand peacefully towards west or southwest. I need to think about producing more settlers from my capital soon (I was considering building elder council and Dereptus brewing house national wonder).

Southern border situation:

I’m sitting on “city site” with my experienced hunter. Settler is on the grassland hill, covered by a warrior and disciple of Leaves. Although this new city location is covered a bit too much by jungle for my liking, it will open door for further expansion to south. Additionally, it covers the mountain valley towards my holy city and will act as a good defensive position. I will immediately spread religion to it, so borders will expand to the wheat and sheep quite quickly. Removing jungle requires bronze working (400 beakers), but I have more pressing tech demands waiting.

Overall, I still have a couple of good city spots remaining on the coast that are all but guaranteed to me. Hopefully there is more space still in west and south for me to expand to. I really want to conquer the barbarian city. I forgot that oasis blocks line of sight, so I didn’t get a glimpse on the garrison yet. Best units that I can build for capturing cities at the moment are fawns (strength 4 and no city attack penalty, unlike hunters).

Research of calendar finishes at the end of turn. There are many competing interests in tech tree for me. Economy would benefit from markets (festivals) or work boats (fishing) or removing jungle (bronze working). As mentioned earlier, I would like to get PoLs relatively soon (philosophy + priesthood). If I run out of space to plant new cities, better offensive units like horsemen, axemen or heroes would be great. According to demographics and power graph I’m the leading military power for now, so I’m not worried too much about aggression from other players. And I have my world spell available, which should make neighbours think twice about attacking. I don’t have any definitive plans to invade anyone yet either, but I can envision a situation where I could keep some city sites open for me by patrolling threateningly with hunters/fawns.

Demos at the end of turn:

EDIT: Fixed a typo.

[coldrain]

Turn 52

When I loaded the turn, I was greeted with a cease fire offer from Miguelito. I refused and also got a trade offer from Q (more on this later). After dismissing the diplo messages, I saw that Miguelito had killed my western hunter (it was promoted to combat I and was standing on the plains hill between rice and gold:

Combat log informed me that the hunter killed a warrior and was finished off by a second. However, last turn there were no warriors of Miguelito in range to attack. There are a few possible explanations:
1)      Miguelito had mobility promoted warriors in the fog (requires horseback riding).
2)      He has some other 2-move units that he renamed “Warrior” before attacking (requires hunting or HBR or some other advanced tech).
3)      He has adepts and cast haste on his 1-moving warriors (requires knowledge of the ether).
4)      Some other explanation I can’t immediately think of.

Out of these options, I think adepts + haste is the most probable. If he has adepts, then he will also have floating eyes (comparable to BtS airship recon flight). This would explain him finding me on turn 45 without me seeing his exploring unit.

Now why did he kill my hunter? Maybe he was fearing I would threaten his worker or declare war and scout his lands? I was not planning on declaring war, the hunter was sent to explore the surroundings of the barbarian city (I also wanted to patrol that area to show my intention of capturing said barbarian city ). Of course Miguelito had no knowledge if my intentions and was either opportunistic or felt threatened. I sent back offer of cease fire for now. If he has haste spell, then I need to guard my western border more thoroughly (he could move a stack of 1-movers on a forest or hill, cast haste and be able to move again, effectively moving through rough terrain as fast as elves or dwarves). I’m sending my fresh hunter west, but this time I try to be more careful. Just to be safe, I’m also redirecting my well promoted warrior towards The Depths.

Trade offer from Q was like this:

I’m new to the AI-diplo scene, but here is my interpretation of the message: Q proposes to have a stable and peaceful border? Or he is warning/asking to not expand towards him? City of Diane Nguyen is the closest Q’s settlement near me in the east. Well I’m willing to have a peaceful border with Q if I have an avenue to expand south. This is the turn he will see my settler on the jungle hill spot next to the gems. I’m settling there regardless of Q’s diplo, so hopefully he does not see this as me making a land grab. I sent the same deal back to try convey peaceful intentions. No reason to start squabbling with both of my neighbours. I need to think how to react to Miguelito, I didn’t like the foul murder of my hunter, but I can also sort of understand if he felt threatened. Mind you that I had no vision of his borders or his worker before I moved the hunter on that plains hill, so I feel he could have given me the benefit of the doubt and let me show if I was peaceful or not (without leaving his worker in danger for this turn of course).

View of south with experienced hunter guarding the settler:

Demos:

[coldrain]

Turn 53
Miguelito accepted the cease fire. Q sent a flurry of diplo messages to me. It was along the lines of (in order):
- All of my cities to Q
- Darkroot Garden and The Depths to Q
- The Depths to Q
- Diane Nguyen for The Depths

I have no idea what he is trying to tell me. Is he counting down to something with the way he asked number of cities as 3-2-1-equal trade? Also he moved one warrior in north and two warriors in south towards my borders. Maybe he is trying to convince me to not found the jungle city? I founded it anyway:

Note that I was a nice neighbour and left the spirit mana world feature outside of my BFC . One of his warriors was on the same tile with my hunter and settler, so it teleported to the mountain pass and is stuck between my borders. I expect Q to declare war and try to move the warrior away, or if he is frustrated with Blighttown he might try to threaten it. I left warrior, hunter and disciple of Leaves to defend it just in case. Experienced warrior is turning back to south. I tried to position all of my units in a way that Q has free passage to leave with his stuck warrior. Also if he uses his world spell (would be a waste this early in my opinion) there should not be any juicy targets in reach. After planting the city I was planning to send a diplo message of “Diane Nguyen for Blighttown” to try tell Q that I’m ok with the borders now and he can move his warrior away. Of course I forgot to send this message, let’s see how Q reacts next turn.

Q’s warrior in north is approaching:

Next turn I will have a new hunter to bring for defence if necessary. Replacement hunter in west is approaching barbarian city form north-east:

Demos:

[RefSteel]

Sounds like diplomacy is flying fast and furious - and with AI diplo, as ambiguous-sounding as ever! Thanks for reporting on current events! Also:

Note that I was a nice neighbour and left the spirit mana world feature outside of my BFC

Ha! Note it's not officially a world feature; just a "landmark" (visible-to-all unremovable sign) on the map.  I did write some flavor text about it to post for anyone who shows it or asks about it in their thread though:

Rumors are spreading about the site of a terrible battle between the living and the dead that took place soon after the glaciers receded from an ancient vault.  Many died and rose again to do battle against life, and the master of the undying army was only thrown down and destroyed when one who dared stand alone against it in the face of the deathless hordes transformed the power of the vault itself.  Tales vary with the tellers and the audience and with time, but it is said that Syraethe, the mysterious general who led the living army, ultimately gave her life to effect the transformation in a last and desperate stand.  Some say her courageous spirit still watches over the site where the vault once stood, but all agree that afterward, when the corpses were carried away - some perhaps still restless - and cairns or tombstones raised above them all, then whatever became of Syraethe's spirit, her body was never found.

[coldrain]

Ooh, thanks for the added lore RefSteel! So the spirit mana node was added with world builder and you placed the global sign? No wonder I didn't remember seeing this feature in single player games.

Hmm, does this mean that the spirit mana node can be dispelled like a regular mana node? No need to answer this question if it reveals too much information. I'll assume that the node can be dispelled, but it will be a while before this possibility becomes relevant. On the topic of mana nodes, these are the top mana types in my book:
 
1) Metamagic, for floating eye and dispel magic.
2) Body, for haste and regeneration.
3) Death, for skeletons and spectres (but usually need many nodes to stack the death affinity of spectres).
4) Entropy, for rust and pit beast.
5) Fire, for fireballs.
6) Enchantment, for happiness and enchanted blades. Flaming arrows is a nice extra.
7) Air, for maelstrom. Fair winds is useful in naval warfare.
 
For this particurlar game, metamagic mana seems extra valuable for the ability to dispel and swap mana node types. Usefulness of mana types also vary with game settings, map and civilization. Arcane leaders benefit more from mages with level two spells, as they can get them more easily. Elves for example can usually benefit more from nature mana as they are encoured to go for recon units (poisoned blade spell). 
I'm a bit jealous of Miguelito, with his top tier manas right from the palace... Mages are still some expensive techs away. Miguelito is still in pacifism if I remember correctly, maybe he is getting great sages to bulb quickly to sorcery.

[coldrain]

Turn 54
To my surprise, Q didn’t declare war and sent me the exact message I forgot to send last turn! I sent back the same deal to signal approval (so my understanding is that we now have established borders and no disputes). The trapped warrior will teleport when borders of Blighttown expand. Moved my worker towards the reagents:

Western hunter took a peek in the barbarian city:

Miguelito founded a new city close, by the rice and gold. I really want to capture the barbarian city, but those fortified archers are painful to deal with my current units. There is still a good city spot on the coastal ivory, my next settler is ready in 2 turns. Capital switched to production mode and is working the first ancient forest on plains hill mine tile:

So now I have:
- 2 improved ancient forests
- 0 unimproved ancient forests
- 10 improved forests
- quite many unimproved forests (didn’t count exact amount)

My food output will grow nicely as more ancient forests start to pop up. I’m behind in crop yield compared to Aurorarcher and Q, but they are in agrarianism and my ancient forests have just started to grow, so I should keep up decently as the game goes on.

Demos:

[RefSteel]

Ooh, thanks for the added lore RefSteel! So the spirit mana node was added with world builder and you placed the global sign? No wonder I didn't remember seeing this feature in single player games.

Hmm, does this mean that the spirit mana node can be dispelled like a regular mana node?

Yes, it's in every respect a regular Spirit Mana Node (except that you can't put a sign on it or delete the existing one) - exactly as if it had been a raw mana resource and someone with Divination used the necessary adept-turns to turn it into a Spirit node. I just wanted to give it a little extra flavor.

Neat to see the Ancient Forests popping up! Looking at the screenshots, it looks like the other is a grass hill hamlet at Undead Burg? (Or of course there may be more by now...)

I'm curious about your naming theme, too: Are you choosing city names on the basis of their locations, or just (favorite?) places from Dark Souls in no particular order? (If the former, I'm guessing Blighttown is because of all the jungle surrounding it?)

[coldrain]

Yes, it's in every respect a regular Spirit Mana Node (except that you can't put a sign on it or delete the existing one) - exactly as if it had been a raw mana resource and someone with Divination used the necessary adept-turns to turn it into a Spirit node.  I just wanted to give it a little extra flavor.

Neat to see the Ancient Forests popping up!  Looking at the screenshots, it looks like the other is a grass hill hamlet at Undead Burg?  (Or of course there may be more by now...)

I'm curious about your naming theme, too:  Are you choosing city names on the basis of their locations, or just (favorite?) places from Dark Souls in no particular order?  (If the former, I'm guessing Blighttown is because of all the jungle surrounding it?)

Thanks for confirming. I was 90% sure that the spirit mana was dispellable.

About ancient forests: Yes, one grew at the capital and another next to Undead Burg, seen in one of the screenshots. More information to follow in next proper report.

You guessed very close about the naming theme! I never mentioned it at all when I started the thread. I decided to use Dark Souls locations in the order that I either explored them or cleared the area boss during my first playthrough (but skipped the tutorial area, to keep Firelink Shrine as the capital). Blighttown just happened to end up in the jungle by chance, I didn't plan that directly. Next up is Valley of Drakes if I remember correctly that I actually unlocked the shortcut from Blighttown before entering Quelaag's domain and Demon Ruins.

[coldrain]

Turn 59

Q founded new border city east of Blighttown on turn 56:

Also met Bing on the same turn. I’m now the only player who has met all others. Interestingly both Miguelito and Bing are still in pacifism, and based on culture graph it looks like Bing has founded an academy with great sage. Spotted a Bing Divided Soul (hunter replacement), good that he didn’t go for Fellowship of Leaves before me, though I’m not sure if he is/was going for it.

Recently a great sage (turn 54) and a great engineer (turn 57) were born. Engineer most likely belongs to Aurorarcher, and he has now earned two of them. No wonders have been built yet. First hero of the game, Barnaxus, was built by Auro on this turn.
Overview of core lands:

Founded city Valley of Drake in the west, on top of ivory tile. City count:
- 6 cities: Me and Q
- 5 cities: Aurorarcher and Miguelito
- 4 cities: Bing

View of southern hunter and borders of Bing:

Western exploration:

I ended up researching festivals on T55 and fishing on T58. I’ve been gradually investing beakers into philosophy when saving gold (elder councils provide free beakers). This turn I wanted to do some investigation on known-tech-bonuses. This is how much I get GNP in the demographics screen at 100% research slider after selecting a tech:

Hidden paths – 80 (I know for sure that no one has researched this tech, I use this as comparison).
Philosophy – 80
KotE – 85
HBR – 85
Bronzeworking – 96
Sailing – 80
Cartography – 80
Code of law – 80
Masonry - 85
Warfare – 80
Writing - 80

All of the listed technologies have one “arrow” pointing to them, so no additional bonuses to take into account. As expected, masonry has been researched by one player (Aurorarcher to get his world spell and construction). Neither warfare nor philosophy have been researched, so I could have a chance to get the free commander from Military strategy. Someone has horseback riding and this worries me. If it is Q, he could build an army of horsemen and use his world spell to gain strength 5 movement 5 + blitz mounted units to invade a neighbour (me or Bing). Hunters and Fawns might not be enough to stop that kind of a threat. For now, no one is too much ahead in military power.

Ministry of Forestry and Natural Resource Management (MFNRM) reports that I have:
- 4 improved and 1 unimproved ancient forests.
- 12 improved and 12 unimproved forests within city BFCs.
- 0 new forests (need PoLs to create).

Only 1 citizen is working an unimproved tile in the whole empire. City views:

 

Graphs (all players now visible):