Arendel Phaedra, the last blossom of Yggdrasil [SPOILERS]

[Ichabod]

Turn 36:

Calendar was teched:

And i realized how I'm not paying that much attention to the game. I settled my second city on a sugar tile, so as soon as I teched calendar, I got +1 happy in the empire! So, I was able to let Vallus grow this turn. In two turns time, Vallus will be at size 6, producing 11 surplus food, 6 hammers and 14 commerce! That's really good and means less then 10t settlers!

Look, Ravus, first in score! :neenernee

Demographics:

I'm really hoping to be the first or second (second to Lewwyn) to a third city and the first to a 4th city. That'd be really, really nice.

Someone had a second city with second ring borders a long time ago in the game. That's strange, since there wasn't enough time for a monument to be built... Maybe the GSci was used for an academy in a second city (since the capital has very bad potential) or maybe someone had a lucky event.

Anyway, creative will make a big deal in the long run, since popping borders is not easy in FfH.

[Ichabod]

BTW, Ravus, how'd you feel about playing Basium?

Since I'm going for Fanaticism anyway, it could be fun.

I'm still undecided about long term plans in this game. I need to choose soon between really gunning for victory or playing a more roleplay-entertaining game.

[Ravus Sol]

1st in score!!!

heh.

Things are looking very tasty for you in this. True the capital is very meh. But hopefully everyone is the same. Vallus on the other hand looks to be a game breaker. You should be able to rush a very worthwhile expansion with that city.

You certainly have enough good city spots.

-

On the Angels, sure I wouldn't mind playing them. I'd encourage you to go Empire building first and worry about the Angels as late game twist not build everything around them. You've got a deadly looking start and you should leverage while practising your manical laughter when you control the most land.

[Ichabod]

This is what you'll be facing if I decide that I want to win the game:

How to Culture win in FFH, by Mist:

The Basics are simple, you need 3 legendary cities. Legendary city is 25000 culture. The 'keep it simple principle' also states that to get there you need to stack as many cultural % bonuses as possible on the highest possible base input.

%ages are simple, there's

Liberalism - +100%
Temples - +20% each, you can have five of them
Pagan Temple - +10%
Carnival - +20%
Republic - +20%
Foreign Trade - +20%

For a grand total of +270%. If you're fussy, you can also throw the Lyre into one of the cities for another +100%

Base culture on the other hand is way more tricky.

There are wonders, but they are expensive in hammers, provide not more than 10 base and most of them pollutes your GPP pool. GPP pool is important and you want to keep it as pure on Artists as possible. Each Great Artist is worth around 2500 culture, and knocks 3% of overall goal.

There's commerce converted via culture slider.

And there are artist specialists.

Let's look at the last two. The biggest source of commerce are cottages. The most you can get from one of those is +4 ( base ) + 1 ( river ) + 1 ( taxation ) + 1 ( financial ) + 1 ( golden age ) for a grand total of 8. You can have at most 20 of those, assuming you cottaged every tile in the city's BFC and you have enough health to support the population of this size. Happy is usually not a problem, since 100% culture slider provides +10 from theaters. Note that working 20 cottages doesn't leave you any excess food for specialists, but that's not really required right?

Wrong, let's look at humble bard specialist. He starts at humble +4 culture. He gets +2 from Theater of Dreams. He gets +2 from Hall of Kings, so at this point he's as good as fully grown and boosted cottage. But this is not the end, because there's also Caste System that provides another +2 for a grand total of 10 culture per turn. And he also provides Great Artist points!

The conclusion is that bard specialist is strictly better than a cottage in all conditions. Therefore what needs to be optimized is the number of those that can be run concurrently.

First point of note is that Liberalism allows you to run unlimited bards. Therefore natural conclusion is to get highest possible food surplus to get use of that. Thus farming everything in sight is advisable, as is getting Sanitation. This also makes Agrarianism seem possibly a better choice than Foreign Trade.

But that's also a false dilemma and blind avenue, because you see, just going for highest possible surplus does not push the bard abuse far enough. What you really want to do is this :

Farm everything in sight of the three chosen cities and go into Sacrifice the Weak. Grow them as large as possible, even if they are vast, unhealthy pits of unhappiness. Once you hit the upper limit ( mid thirites usually, depends on how much health do you have at hand ) swap into Republic/Liberalism/Caste System/Foreign Trade and assign all population in these cities as bards. Don't work any tiles, screw food, let your city starve ( remember, they starve by one population point per turn, even if the get no food at all ). You suddenly get over 300 base culture per turn, which gets +260% bonus. You spawn a great artist every other turn. It takes about 10-12 turns to reach the goal.

And that's how you win culture.

Btw, the best leader/civ combo for that is Cardith with Kurios.

I agree with this approach!!

Obviously, it's easier said then done. But all I need to defend myself as the Bannor is to get to Fanaticism, so I think we are in a perfect setup to do it.

I can get 3 uber cities in the lands I see. In fact, I only need 2 uber cities, since the third city can be swamped with culture coming from GArt bombs. I'll run a cottage/aristocracy economy until I get the needed techs: 3/4 religions, most likely AV - for defense - OO and FoL - culture - and RoK - if I really need that 20% culure from the temple; Drama; Fanaticism; Taxation and Mercantilism. Maybe some more, still don't know.

After the cottage and aristofarms gave me the needed commerce/science, I change my uber cities into all farms pits to follow the Mist strategy. Meanwhile the filler cities keep their cottages for an instant army if needed.

Cool, huh? Not so much... Gotta decide if I want to have fun or win, like I've said before...

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="2"]Turn 37-41:[/SIZE]


Here's how Vallus looked like when I finished the plantations (netting the hapiness needed to grow to size 6 that happened on the same turn):

The city is already at size 7, with two unimproved tiles (but I'll have a farm - 4/0/1 yield - ready next turn), building a settler now.


Maintenance and costs are starting to become pretty high. But I'm in a good shape to reach Mysticism (7-8 turns, I think - I dont know the effect of the 3rd city yet) and Education, which will provide everything I need to keep expanding. Third city will give 3 commerce from the get go (trade route, city center and corn tile), rapidly growing into 8 commerce (banana tile and improved cotton). It'll be costly, though.

If I can avoid going bankrupt before I reach education, everything should be alright! I'm a bit worried, though, since education is a costly tech...

Anyway, Ancient Chants finished and I started accumulating gold to go 100% research to Mysticism, 3 turn gold, 6 turn of 100% science will give me Mysticism. 2 turns of gold were already made. The binary research is to avoid wasting precious beakers!

The most interesting thing that happened on the last turns was the event that hit my scout, the one that gives the mutated promo:

Seeing as the scout was a pretty dispensable unit, I took my chances:

He got the Stoneskin promo. This was a kick ass result, since I could use it to kill one of the damn great spiders near my land. Since Rathi Phaedra was at 4/5 xp, it'd give me another promotion in case of a victory against the spider (which was likely). So I stationed the scout near the Great Spider and ended the turn:

So, the result:

Yeah!! I promoted the scout to subdue animal and decided to keep him fortified while healed. A scout won't have that good odds against animal to make easy captures, but, whatever comes is a profit!


In domestic news, the settler that was being built in the capital finished at EoT 41. I considered building a smokehouse on the capital, growing it to size 5, but it didn't sound like a good idea. Even though the unit maintenance is starting to hit, a worker is still a much better choice. So another worker will be ready in 4 turns.

Vallus is building a settler. I have enough warriors right now to protect the 4 cities, so I'm not worried about defense right now. No Orthus at turn 50 means my non copper warriors are enough!

So, any questions, lurkers?

I'll post demographics when I get the next save... I thought I've taken a picture of them, but it seems I was wrong. I'm top on food and middle of the pack in GNP (while building gold, it gets higher when doing science, due to the prereqs) and production.

I think Lewwyn is at 3 cities already, but I'm not sure. Again, there's no way I could beat an expansive civ with such a good player in such short notice, but I'm betting that my crazy second city and my most likely faster to be improved third city will pull me ahead!

[Ichabod]

Ilios founded his 3rd city on turn 43 (I've just played 44). Two turns before me, but I'm not worried. I'm leading by a good amount on food against him, I'll have 2 workers ready to improve a 7 food corn on the same turn I settle my 3rd city and I'll have 4 cities in 5/6 turns (and 4 workers).

After that, I'll keep pushing settlers with my powerful second city for a long time.

Lewwyn, on the other hand, has 4 cities already!!! And he had them since before Ilios (I calculated his pop to see the number of cities). He's only 4 pop points ahead of me and he has just a little food advantage. But he has to be suffering to get techs. GK won't get him far with maintenance of 4 cities on immortal. There's no way he has calendar, by the way, so no commerce worthy tiles.

I decided to gun for a cultural victory, since my 5th city spot (the 3rd culture city) can be coastal without getting attacked (it's a small sea surrounded by mountains, the only ports are in my lands. My tech will go Myst -> education -> Crafting -> Festivals or Code of Laws -> Drama. If someone beats me to Drama, then I'll go with another plan. If I get drama, not only do I get a GArt (3% of the objective completed), but I also make it uninteresting for everyone to tech it, so I get a bit of leeway to get Sylvains Perfect Lyre and Theatre of Dreams (it will make pretty obvious that I'm going for Culture after that, I guess).

Hall of Kings requires feudalism, so I'll need to get that later too.

The though thing about this map will be production. So going AV as the main religion is the best idea: I'll get Slavery for production, Sacrifice of the weak (for the growth part of the plan, later I revolt to Liberty for the starvation part), KotE will give adepts with floating eye, I'll get culture from the temples and a good set of powerful units. Spiritual will definetely help!

My first GP will be a scientist to make an academy. After that, GBards and GBards.


BTW, plan B is getting altar pieces and going savant -> mage upgrade, coupled with an army of demagogs!

[Ichabod]

Just to show where I currently stand in the game: 3 cities, 3 workers at turn 49. 4 workers at EoT 49 and 4th city settled on turn 50, with a worker ready to start improving the rice (city has rice, pig, dye, silk and horse - decent production and commerce -> need more workers).

Screenshots:

Revolting to God king, finally:

Tech path until now:

(Exploration) -> Ancient Chants (partial) -> Agriculture -> AH -> Calendar -> AC (finished) -> Mysticism.

Next techs:

Education -> Crafting -> Festivals -> Code of Laws -> Drama.


Demographics at EoT:

Good lead on food, close enough on production. And that's without my 4th city! GNP is low, but decent. When my 3rd and 4th city grow into the commerce tiles and the capital finish the Elder Council and work a scientist, it'll get better.


Scouting:

Rathi Phaedra has a decent shot at capturing the lion, but I won't do it. I wasnt to meet my neighboors and the Lion would be only upkeep for now. Hopefully the combat 1, animal capturing scout can last a while to find whoever is up north.


Overview:

This is before I pressed enter. Second city will grow to size 9 while building an elder council. Capital will grow to size 5 (3 turns) and finish an EC (3 turns), then building more workers and running a scientist specialist. Gotta choose a commerce capital for the academy + Brewing house.

3rd city will grow, grow, grow into the grassfloodplains (5/0/1 tile).

The EC builds are because I'm already paying unit cost maintenance. I have 6 warriors to 4 cities and one partially built too.

[Ravus Sol]

Why am I only just noticing that this was updated?

Why am I only just noticing the strange grassland floodplains?

REX MAN! REX!!

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="2"]Turn 53:[/SIZE]

I think we are starting to reap the benefits of our growth oriented start. I'm at 4 cities, one size 9, one size 5 (capital), one size 6 (it has so much surplus food that it grows every turn) and another at size 2 (it's being developed and will start shining soon). 4 workers currently, 2 more in three turns. Then it's time for more settlers!

The expenses are very high, due to the high maintenance of the map. But it's worth it.

Capital finished the Elder Council, it's working a scientist specialist and it'll build another worker. I'll add some cottages here after it starts growing again, but this is a weak city overall.

Rathi Phaedra found a ancient tower going north (Ilios is likely to be my southern neighboor and I already met him). I got a good luck at the ice part of the map and its defenders (sorry for the messy graphics, its a computer problem):

Demographics after ending turn:

I'm pretty happy: first in population (can be misleading, I think Lewwyn has more pop then I do), land area, soldiers and a big lead on crop yield. GNP and production are good too and they'll certainly improve soon (really need some more workers).

I have two cities on the top 5, which is very nice:

I'm teching education at 100% after accumulating some gold. The high costs are making research slow. I decided to go Education -> Crafting -> Code of Laws, leaving Festivals to be teched after that. The 4th city has some good calendar resources for commerce and after I get cottages, things will get better. I'll cottage the plain tiles (maybe some grasslands before aristocracy is in) and farm the grasslands. After I get aristocracy, expansion can keep on without needing to look back.

The other players need to focus more to reach me and Lewwyn. I think we are ahead of the pack right now. I expect Ilios to maybe found his 5th city before me, but it'll probably lack the work turns and the maintenance will be brutal. I'll get 6 workers before getting my 5th city (1.5 per city, since the capital won't br needing much improvements in the future).

Creative is helping me a lot. Founding cities is very easy for me and the guys who have to build monuments with this production starved map are surely suffering. I think I got the best leader in the game.

Any questions?

[Ichabod]

Why am I only just noticing that this was updated?

Why am I only just noticing the strange grassland floodplains?

REX MAN! REX!!

I'm trying to, but I need more workers and to reach some key techs (i.e. code of laws).

I really hope no one is going for drama... I'm liking the idea of a cultural victory in this map!