I think Sciz got the short straw in this game: Malakim are squeezing him from the east and he will soon have Wolves on his door from the west.
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[SPOILERS] Lurkers Thread - Well someone has to do it
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Rowain Wrote:I think Sciz got the short straw in this game: Malakim are squeezing him from the east and he will soon have Wolves on his door from the west. On top of that, both Doviello and Ljosalfar moved towards him with the initial settler (the latter by quite a bit).
Amelia's second city location -
![[Image: civ4screenshot0018a.jpg]](http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/5568/civ4screenshot0018a.jpg) I can't help but think that a better use of her first settler would have been a more aggressive move out 3E 1S (where she does plan to put a city eventually). The new city would be able to work three pirate ports, rather than two, and also have access to seafood (2E 1S of the city location, not shown in screenshot). She would found Octopus Overlords in the new city for a very rapid border expansion, and thus secure her eastern border quickly. She would also be able to move her current city location one tile north, which gets her the northern peaks, and the corresponding visibility, inside her borders much sooner.
Maksim, I would agree on Amelia, except for one major consideration - hammers. The current site can get up to 7 hpt on land, most of them inside the first ring, plus has several forests that could be chopped (although no workers to chop them). The second site, which will be better long term, only has 4 hpt, only after the border pop (1 hpt before), and with a worse food situation as well, so it has to be bigger before it can work the hammer tiles. Meanwhile, Amelia needs 20 hammers per cove to get the cities started, and since this is a lakes script, she can't just have Radiata produce them for the new cities. Amelia currently has no means to turn either food or commerce into hammers, so she has to do it the hard way.
So the better site would take an extra 2-3 turns to found, and then probably 10+ more turns to get the coves going. This way, her intermediate city both launches faster, and can help build work boats for the 3rd city as well. No, Innsmouth won't ever be as strong as the new city, but it gets to its ultimate strength faster. I think it's worth it. On a different note, Mist Wrote:Which means in 12 turns I'll have 6 workers, 2 scouts and 2 warriors. Now the important bit is the short distance between our borders meaning most of the tiles are defoged and animal/barbarian spawn is highly unlikely. I will most likely take the shortest route to his borders with first target determined after I get recon data from Uberfish. And of course, this comes right as Sciz is deciding to ramp up for a war with Ilios. Anyone want to place bets on the outcome here? It seems to me that Sciz will fight - he ought to at least have Barnaxus, and quite possibly also his first wood golem by then; I don't know how intimidated I'd be by Str 4 axes when I have Str 6 golems either trained or training (and as recently discussed, the ability to give a Golden Hammer to one as well). The only saving grace I see for Mist is that Sciz's plans appear to be to first focus on getting up to 4 cities, then train up for the war, instead of launching now. Assuming that doesn't change, Mist might well catch him off guard with only warriors for defense.
Let's do some calculations.
Sciz is now considering skipping a fourth city before ramping up production, but Mist's attack is due in 15 turns. He just finished a settler and will be making a warrior then Barnaxus. Barnaxus can be made in about 8 turns at his current production rate; if he pops the worldspell after the third city is settled, that's about four turns from now. So that may shave off a turn from Barnaxus. Then 3-4 turns for a sculptor's studio, and the same for a wood golem. I'd say at most he has one wood golem when Mist comes knocking, with a second one in production. Cotton Valley is likely toast, I'd say. Let's also consider Mist's RoK plan. Ilios is researching RoK next, due in 10 turns at 100% at his current rate. He will run 1-2 turns of no research, so RoK will be done in at most 12 turns. Mist's BW will still have 6 turns left at that point; he would be 12-15 turns behind to get RoK. Ilios has currently expressed no interest in getting Arete, but it will be interesting to see if RoK's founding will deter Mist at all.
Civilization IV: 21 (Bismarck of Mali), 29 (Mao Zedong of Babylon), 38 (Isabella of China), 45 (Victoria of Sumeria), PB12 (Darius of Sumeria), 56 (Hammurabi of Sumeria), PB16 (Bismarck of Mali), 78 (Augustus of Byzantium), PB56 (Willem of China)
Hearthstone: ArenaDrafts Profile No longer playing Hearthstone. 
Alright, so here's what the rival civilizations look like at turn 50:
Amelia of Lanun Research - +39 rpt at 100% (-3 gpt, 22 gold in bank) Capital - pop 5, 10 hammers Other cities - one more city, pop 1 Notable random events\lairs - Great Commander from a barrow Techs, 1st tier - Agriculture, Ancient Chants, Exploration, Seafaring Techs, 2nd tier - Mysticism,Fishing Techs, 3rd tier - Message from the Deep Overall position - as expected, Lanun are strong in economy. The 'poor in production' bit is not really evident, interestingly enough: with two pirate ports in play and God King, Amelia capital's hammer output is on par with other civilizations, if not higher. Securing a religion is a solid move, and she is planning to pick up the usual worker techs next. I'd prioritize Mining (to reveal Copper) higher, but is not too relevant, as the techs will come in faster than the workers anyway. Medium-term, she'd be best served by getting a few Drown with Mobility and bronze weapons for defense, and perhaps Saverous as the big gun to deter external threats (he'd definitely be on par with the Three Stooges, should someone build them). She has plans for two more settlements to the east, a settlement to the north of the capital would be appropriate for the third city, and her copper is actually south of the capital, in the frozen wasteland (unfortunately, if she settles there, this will be a very poor fishing village, not being able to pick up a pirate port of its own), so expansion is the order of the day, with the likely tech path being to fill out the necessary worker techs. Ilios of Malakim Research - +37 rpt at 100% (-8 gpt, 65 gold in bank) Capital - pop 7, 9 hammers Other cities - one with pop 5, one with pop 1 Notable random events\lairs - some gold? Techs, 1st tier - Ancient Chants, Agriculture, Crafting, Exploration Techs, 2nd tier - Mysticism, Calendar, Mining (in one turn) Techs, 3rd tier - none Overall position - very rapid expansion plan backed by Creative culture (soon to run out), with three cities founded, and a fourth one coming soon. Unless someone gets a GP, he is likely to land Runes of Kilmorph, and leverage it into more gold, further fuelling his expansion. The switch from Creative to Financial will further improve matters for Malakim, especialy once he picks up Festivals, and builds a few markets. Their expansion to the west has riled Luchuirp's feathers, but with Doviello about to attack the dwarves, depending on the outcome, they may not be able to do much about this. Furthermore, Ra (the northern city) has a good defensive position (across the river, no nearby hills for enemies to park on), whilst En-Kai (the southern city) will likely have a chance to expand borders once more before any attack comes. On the other hand, what is he going to defend himself with, if the golems and catapults come a-calling? He needs to get copper soon. Copper-equipped warriors in cities (str 4 + 25% defense) can probably stand up to golems, though with a highly-promoted Barnaxus (to grant all golems Empower promotions) and 3-4 adepts casting Repair after each attack to heal up the golems, the dwarves will still take him out. Uberfish of the Ljosalfar Research - +37 rpt at 100% (-3 gpt, 96 gold in bank) Capital - pop 5, 10 hammers Other cities - one with pop 1 Notable random events\lairs - Great Sage and Adventurer from lairs, 99 gold from huts Techs, 1st tier - Agriculture, Ancient Chants, Exploration Techs, 2nd tier - Mysticism, Education, Hunting Overall position - although a relatively poor starting position forced him to move the capital towards the centre of the map and lose a couple of turns in process, finding a Great Sage in the first few turns more than made up for it. The elves take a while to get going, so any bonus to research they get in the early game is a godsend. Uberfish already had his first native-born GS as well, used for an Academy in capital. I'd expect him to gain Way of Forests around the time that Malakim pick up RoK, thus making for a neat distribution of early religions. One weakness of the current approach is reliance on warriors for defense for a while yet. Still, the threat of the world spell may be sufficient to deter enemies, and warriors with Combat I promotion from Apprenticeship can handle themselves perfectly adequately against barbarians for a while yet. One option to consider is a dedicated rush to Priesthood straight after Way of Forests, with a switch to City States to cut down on expansion's expenses. The quicker uberfish settles new cities, the faster their borders expand, the more chances there are for forests in the BFC to turn Ancient. Similiarly, the faster he gets to Priests and starts putting down forests, the faster the forests turn ancient. Besides Bloom, Priests of Leaves will be solid defenders for uberfish's cities - with Potency they will get extra mobility, and accrue XP faster; using that XP on Combat line of promotions will result in more powerful Tiger summons. ---- Mist of the Doviello Research - +15 rpt at 100% (+2 gpt, 91 gold in bank) Capital - pop 5, 3 hammers (food-based economy, producing workers for later upgrades) Other cities - one, pop 4 (9 hammers!) Techs, 1st tier - Agriculture, Crafting Techs, 2nd tier - Calendar, Festivals, Mining Techs, 3rd tier - none Notable random events\lairs - tech from a hut, Great Prophet from event Overall position - An unorthodox opening, with a lot riding on the success or failure of the dwarven war to come. Teching slowly to Bronze Working, as he did not find copper (I think it's one or two tiles out in the fog, but not in a particularly convenient position). His worst-case scenario is upgrading the workers to axemen near the dwarves, and going in only to discover that the dwarves are prepared (depending on the path he takes, the dwarves may have several turns' warning), and not willing to negotiate, or at least won't give away sufficient benefits to pay off for the rush. With his slow tech rate, and several axemen stuck out in the middle of nowhere, what can he do? He doesn't have any other neighbours to threaten, and unit supply costs will take their toll, so he'll rapidly fall back behind. His best-case scenario, on the other hand, is to negotiate with the dwarves before converting the workers to warriors - in that case, he's committing fewer unrecoverable resources. He may be able to negotiate a favorable land partition, long-term NAP and perhaps a Golden Hammer or two (though I doubt it - Sciz may want to see Mist convert the workers to axemen before giving up those). Where does he go from there? Well, there's nothing stopping him from pursuing economic goals, or trying to repeat the rush onto someone else (perhaps Balseraphs, once he goes around the sea), with bronze weapons-equipped axemen, perhaps. Of course, the chances of that succeeding would be correspondingly lower. sunrise089 and darrelljs of the Calabim Research - +25 rpt at 90% (-1 gpt, 55 gold in bank) Capital - pop 6, 7 hammers Other cities - one, pop 2 Techs, 1st tier - Agriculture, Crafting, Ancient Chants Techs, 2nd tier - Calendar, Education Techs, 3rd tier - none Notable random events\lairs - ? Overall position - The vampires are off to a slow start compared to the tech leaders, but beelining Code of Laws will do wonders for them once the Agristocracy kicks in. They also haven't had a border conflict yet - to the north, they've already grabbed a good city site, to the west, there is a natural border with Amelia (though settling on the coast opens them to a OO cultist backstab later). The land to their east has not yet been settled by any civilizations, so it'll be interesting to see who gets there first. Overall, they have solid land and might be able to keep under the other civilizations' radar long enough to reach vampires, although there's always a risk their northern city becomes a tempting target for Loki, or that they overreach to the east, and present a good target for Doviello's rush. Sciz of Luchuirp Research - +32 rpt at 100% (-4 gpt, 16 gold in bank) Capital - pop 7, 14 hammers (w/o God King!) Other cities - one at pop 3, (settler ready) Techs, 1st tier - Agriculture, Crafting Techs, 2nd tier - Calendar, Mining, Masonry Techs, 3rd tier - Construction Notable random events\lairs - Agriculture from a hut, some gold Overall position - Pretty reasonable. He's got two cities with good commerce, rather than one mega-city, so an early Academy won't boost research so much. He's pushing production now, to get Barnaxus + golems + catapults in play soon. Tech-wise, he's climbing the Ancient Chants -> Education -> Code of Laws line, which will take a while yet. Most importantly, though, note his defenses - three dwarves per city each. Sure, a couple of these will go to defend city number three, but he's not running a paper-thin defense here, and will not be so easily intimidated when Mist comes calling with six strength-4 axemen. His primary weakness is lack of roads, meaning that reinforcements from the capital won't be able to counter-strike Mist easily, or help his cotton valley city if Mist diverts his forces there. I'm betting on a peaceful settlement with Mist here, with dwarves getting off relatively lightly - giving up land to their west, perhaps, but not Golden Hammers. Sciz of the Balseraphs Data not provided, and they haven't posted any recent screenshots, so we'll leave them as unknowns for now. They may have low research rate, but decent production, and expanding reasonably well, placing them in the second tier, but this is just conjecture. Research Speed Unlike FFH PBEM1's first fifty turns, this game has several civilizations in close proximity of each other. Lanun, Malakim and Ljosalfar are all in the lead at the moment (37-39 rpt), and are likely to maintain that - Lanun have another three coves to place, Malakim have gold coming online soon, whilst Ljosalfar should be putting down cottages like no tomorrow around the capital. One tier down, we have Luchuirp at 32 rpt, who are about to run out money, and will have to lower their tech rate accordingly. Calabim are at 25 rpt, despite working the incense at their second city - lacking elder councils leads to a slower start for them. Still, with Code of Laws not far away, vampires can be expected to slowly push ahead, whilst Luchuirp have a target painted on their back. Finally, trailing the pack are the Doviello with 15 rpt, slowly teching Bronze Working - a tech with no obvious economic benefit (well, you can chop jungle, but they have plenty of city sites to settle without going into jungle). Even if their rush succeeds, they'll likely be behind everyone else in technology. Situation in General The big event to look out for is the impending war between Luchuirp and Doviello - how prepared both sides are, whether the war can be averted and at what cost, if so. If Luchuirp are standing and not too bloodied afterwards, they may well try to move onto the Malakim before turn 100. If Doviello retain their fighting force, they may look to attack their western neighbours - either Balseraphs or Calabim; they will likely not succeed in an outright attack, but force their target to either spend resources on defense, or negotiate with them. Furthermore, we should soon start seeing borders being established. For example, Malakim and Balseraphs have a natural geographical border in the north, but may have disputes in the area to the west of Dragon Bones. Depending on whether Balseraphs place their southern city, they may have disagreements with Calabim.
Look and behold the dangers of beeing overly secretive
uberfish Wrote:I think Sciz would have been in a much better position diplomatically if he'd let me know about Ilios' greedy settling behaviour earlier and declared an intention to do something about it. Simply because if he lets himself be pushed in my direction by aggressive settlements, I have no incentive to help him... Krill Wrote:I'm no longer dedlurking Serdoa, but I was wondering what others opinions of the Clowns land was? Starting spot probably in competition to be the worst one (BFC contains sea, lakes, desert, animal-based food resources instead of grains, gems are jungled, no river). In the map creation thread I mentioned that in their position I'd be moving north-west to pick up the river and floodplains for the capital. Expansion potential is reasonable, on the other hand - Dragon Bones for the second city, riverside city to the north-west, room to expand north-east (having a sea there instead of an angry neighbour helps), possibility to expand south (though less now that the vampires have a city in that area). Mostly I'm still wondering how the Balseraphs have three cities already (unless I misunderstand something?). |
