Lewwyn Falls from Heaven, and Bounces Really High [SPOILERS]

[Lewwyn]

BTW anyone want to take a guess at the city naming scheme? You have El and Eld so far to point the way.

[Mist]

Diablo2 runes

[Lewwyn]

Diablo2 runes

yep

[Lewwyn]

Aight interesting turn. I've finalized my plan for the next... 10 ish turns?

First off the impetus for my new plan:



Dunno if this is a mistake or a joke considering Mist's hate of Floodplains. But... that's a hot tile. Let's settle towards it ASAP!



This is EOT. It shows most of the plan.

First Agriculture come it EOT. My worker landed on the wheat this turn so that went perfect. Next turn he will start the farm. Now instead of going calendar, which will take 9 turns, I'm going Exploration. I'll be able to build roads which will get me trade routes and such.

Still if you notice at the top it will take 6 turns to tech with the gold and.... DOH I just realize that it will only take 5 turns! While running the sage I will get +6 beakers, but I didn't count the +6 beakers for during the 1 turn of gold. Which means I only need 4 turns of 100% tech + the gold turn with 6 beakers. That will speed up the tech and all the roads and the farm start times I've written here by 1 turn. Yay for MicroManaging!

Aight. So I will build 2 warriors the next two turns. 1T warriors. Then start the 5t Settler. Settler completes and will travel down the newly connected roads that I was given. and settle at the end of the road. I was planning on settling more south BUT this is closer and better for defense as well as shares the pigs with Eld. I will have to build the monument (first build) to get the two luxury items in range, but at least the rice which I can farm and do not need AH or Calendar for, is in the first ring. Nice. I see no need for a second worker in the immediate future... Instead I'm settling to take advantage of the techs I have teched and will tech in the future.

The cap will build warriors/scouts after the settler until it grows to 6. When it hits pop six I will build another settler and settle this one south of Eld. I will be settling cities all around the spider. I am correct in thinking that the spider will NOT attack unless I have a unit next to it. Correct? I shouldn't need to have any workers next to it and hopefully I will be able to get hunting in a reasonable amount of time in order to get some Divided Souls to help with it. Or I might just stack a couple units on the forest and over the river from the spider and see if I can kill it.

In any case. City 3 by T34. City 4's settler will probably be done EOT39 + 3 turns to settle. City 4 by T42. Depending on how much I've cleared south of City 3 I may start another settler though I may need another worker by that point.

Now let's see if the barbs cooperate.

[Lewwyn]

After thinking about it. Addition to the plan:

GS will take 23 turns to pop in cap, starting next turn.

Monument will take ~22 turns to build in 3rd city, starting T34.

I will pop the GS run it to 3rd city, build Academy. Pop borders with Academy culture. That city has lots of river and 2 lux resources (incense and cotten in 2nd ring so its a good site for the Academy).

Instead in 3rd city I will start by building an Elder council. Running a sage and coucil is 6bpt + Academy is 9bpt + all the commerce into beakers. Nice.

Who has two thumbs and won't waste hammers on monuments? This guy.

[Lewwyn]

So no uprising from Mist. I assume that the grassFP is supposed to be there. In fact, this turn that became abundantly clear:



Wow. That's just insane. Food anyone?

Now I believe that is just part of what the center is all about. This lake is more West and North than the center. You can't see it in this pic, but the western peak range ends 2-3 tiles from the lake. I believe this lake is here for me and my Western neighbor to fight over. If I"m correct that means there are 2 more lakes split between the other 4 players in this center area. I'll know more once I have hawks. For now this warrior will be headed back to help defend my rapid farmer's gambit. Also more speculation on this later.

Everything else is going according to plan. I think. Oh man do you know when you feel like you've left the oven on, but you know for sure you've turned it off? I'm feeling that way about whether I started the wheat farm with my worker. Like it was matter of fact quickly done and Now I'm like "wtf did I tell it to start the farm?" Let's assume everything's going according to plan...

Demos. Let's do some C&D:



Opponent List:
DaveV - Alexis of Amurites (AGG, PHI)
Ichabod - Arendel of Bannor (SPI, CRE, Guardsmen)
Ilios - Dain of Svarts (Arcane, PHI, Sinister)
Tholal - Thessa of Kurios (EXP, Arcane, Sprawling)
Tasunke - Perpy of Sheaim (CRE, Arcane, Insane, Sundered)
Lewwyn - Falamar of Sidar (EXP/CHA)


I have 24 GNP atm but that does not include the sage yet it does include the Elder council. Before the Elder Council finished I was 3rd at 22. I'm also running gold this turn so I checked if I ran 90% gold and at 20 GNP I was 3rd as well. Thus with 27 as top rival and 18 as worst rival I get 60 points to spread between the final 3.

27
24
3 civs combined for 60
18

Since I was 3rd at 22 and 20 GNP At least one person has to have 24 or 23 GNP. 24 is possible because I'm winning tiebreakers on demos. This also means at least one of these 3 is at 18. Possible combinations are 24,18,18 or 23, 19, 18. In any case, I'm second when running gold.

MFG suggests that someone has a 2nd city like me but they are focused on production whereas in Crop yield you can see I'm focused on food.

Land is easy to figure out. You have 2 CRE civs at 37000. Rival worst at 21000. now take 29200 multiply by 5 subtract 74000 for the cre civs and 21000 for the rival worst you get 51000. Now I'm getting the lead on tiebreaks so it's possible someone has 30000 land points like me. that leaves you with 21000. Thus someone (Tholal most likely as he's expansive) has a second city. Everyone else only has 1 city.

Life expectancy tells me that Tholal's 2nd city has more forests OR its on a river. Does it make sense for Tholal to be out on his second city given he's Kurio? I mean I would assume since he only gets 4 cities (large map) that he would be very careful about placing them. Though I suppose if he has something like my second city that wouldn't matter as much given all the great land.

I looked at the Top 5 city list and 1 city has 6 pop, 1 city has 5, and I'm at 5. The rest are at 4.

I could probably do more C&D with scores and techs but really I'm not all that into C&D other than how I rank in demos.

Damn I have to blitz more cities. The one good thing is that as EXP Kurios Tholal will probably not be spamming settlers the way that I will and I'll be able to out settle everyone. I need to get stronger faster and hopefully grab more than my share of the center.

[Lewwyn]

Next turn. One warrior completed EOT. I realized that with 3 warriors maybe that was enough for now. In fact, I think I will start the settler next turn so I can get it done and settle the 3rd city a turn early.

The warrior from the south is 4 tiles away from the 3rd city plant. He's on his way home, but as he comes home he explores a bit:



Jeez. Another 1 tile lake + more floodplains that aren't even on the river. I'm thinking a good site might be on that marsh north of the 1 tile lake with crab.

Also notice how close this lake is to the peak range. There's definitely other lakes with huge food bonanzas. Mist has devised the map to go from Ice on the outside to desert to plains to grasslands to grasslands with rivers to grass floodplains to lake food resources.

The only thing I'm wondering is if he balanced the lakes with all crab and clam resources or if some of the lakes are better with super fish.



I'm 3rd in GNP and I'm teching at 22 bpt so I will finish Exploration in 3 more turns. Pretty quick. The GS will pop in 23 turns. I may have a fourth city by that point.

At least I'm not last in soldier points anymore.

Also of note, El's culture popped EOT. I'm 1st in land area with that. The only other person to have 2 cities is non-CRE civ.

[Lewwyn]

So the last 3 turns have been uneventful except for this last turn. T26,27,28 I've simply been hitting enter and exploring with my south warrior at the end of the turn, though, I had a bit of a scare when a gryphon popped out and attacked my warrior:



You can see he escaped by the skin of his teeth. Without the crossing the river penalty I don't think my warrior would have survived. The gryphon flew up the road there from out of view. I'm going to take shock with the promo, I think, and race him back to my borders.

Also Exploration finished EOT. Worker is in place to road next turn. Settler is still building. Eld should grow end of next turn.

Ichabod's 2nd city popped borders this turn.

[Gaspar]

You can see he escaped by the skin of his teeth. Without the crossing the river penalty I don't think my warrior would have survived. The gryphon flew up the road there from out of view.

I don't believe flying units take the amphibious penalty, so really you just got some good old fashioned dumb luck.

[Lewwyn]

I don't believe flying units take the amphibious penalty, so really you just got some good old fashioned dumb luck.

I'll take it.


So the plan is working out nicely. Here's a quick look:



Settler will finish in 2 turns so actually it looks like it will settle on T34 after all. I think it took 6 turns to build because I had less overflow after building the warrior than I originally estimated.

Eld is turning into a nice city. It grew this turn and it finished a scout as well. Now its getting 4hpt and will finish a warrior in 4 turns. In 4 turns it also grows to pop 5 which is it's happy cap. At that point I'll have 7 hpt and will be able to finish a worker in... I have it closed how much does a worker cost? Well in any case I'll have 3 food surplus so 10hpt for workers. Maybe a 4-5 turn worker?

My plan then is to build a warrior and grow to 5, build a worker, then another worker or warrior depending on barbs. By that point I should have calendar and have +1 happy from the sugar. So I may build warriors until I grow to pop 6.

In El I'm considering building another settler after this one. I see no reason not to continue expanding, settling and generally snowballing all over my competition. Calendar will take 7 maybe 6 turns since I will need 1 turn of gold, but I'm not sure if that will make it take an extra turn due to the specialist beakers.

I am considering building an Elder council in Eld as well instead of the warrior>worker plan. If I did I would be able to run another sage and get an extra 6 beakers. In the early stages of this game I can tell these beakers will add up in a big way. If I want to expand as fast as I'm planning, I need to be able to keep my tech from crashing and what better way than with specialists? If each of my first 3 cities have Elder councils and run sages, + the academy in Tir (3rd city) that's 21 bpt no matter the tech rate.

If I seem at all concerned about tech rate, one reason is this turn someone got a Great Sage. I don't know how. Is there an early event that gives you a sage if you have enough money? Should I save money for a few turns just in case I get that opportunity too? I've seen the events for Great Prophets, but a Sage?? I mean free early academy? Isn't that a bit broken? I'm working really hard to pop a GS and the only event I got was a free +8 beakers! Did I get event screwed?