Get Rich or Die Tryin': HidingKneel and Mardoc tackle the Khazad (Spoilers!)

[HidingKneel]

I wouldn't say a good sense, but I have a moderate idea: I think he's generally mostly passive, likes to build a mid-late game stack of doom and then use it against an inferior enemy.

Well, here's what he had to say about Cassiel in the pitboss thread:

Adventurers can upgrade into pretty much everything, so they can go down any line except Disciple. They're best at arcane magic with Strength of Will giving archmages (Hero archmages = awesome) and Lunnotars (Magic Immune heroes, potentially awesome). Next best is probably heroic Knights, don't think much else is worth it.

Sounds good to me...

Of course, I would bet there's at least one more foe that distance from us. So WK's not the only one to worry about early.

The Kuriotates can't be too far off:

WarriorKnight,

I'm glad to hear that we are of a mind on this. War is bad for business!

We're not sure what direction the rat-man came from, but it seems to be headed west. Which suggests it did not arrive that way.

So, you've met the tree-huggers, eh? Do you know which side they approached you from?

Flintheart Glomgold, Founder and CFO of the Khazad Mining Corporation

Flintheart,

Logical deduction for the rat-man location, which I agree with. I don't remember exactly which way the elves came from, but I'd guess the W somewhere.

I'm guessing you haven't met anyone else yet though?

WK

Got a reply from the Kuriotates, too:

Greetings again, boy-king of the Kuriotates,

The Khazad are pleased to make your acquaintance, and hope that your intentions are as peaceful as ours. War is bad for business!

As a gesture of our goodwill, a warning: there's a crazed lizard on the loose, in the direction that your rat-man seems to be headed.

I see you've encountered the Grigori. Have you met anyone else?

Flintheart Glomgold, Founder and CFO of the Khazad Mining Corportation

Welcome to the emissaries of the Khazad corporation,

I hope your mining is going well. The Kuriotates are glad to meet such an enterprising and resourceful individual as Mr. Glomgold and look forward to a mutually profitable relationship. I agree that aggressive action is unlikely to benefit either party.

Our scout Splinter appreciates the warning but I'm afraid he has bigger worries at the minute. His last report had him hiding from a bear close by. We have noticed that the creatures of the wild becoming a lot more active recently and this may delay contact with other civilisations for a while. We've met no-one else besides the Khazad and the Grigori. Perhaps we could agree to notify each other if third(or fourth!) parties do show up?

TBS.

Except, of course, Dwarven 1-movers can move between in one turn, by moving cows ->hill (+1 move) -> city.

Wait... does double movement work like that?

I'm torn. I like sheep/rice better, in a vacuum, but if we wait WK may settle the dyes before we can. And our happy cap is a nasty limit at the moment, yes. If we take it, agreed on the eastern hill, as long as that doesn't hurt us diplomatically too much. May be worth negotiating a border split with WK that lets him have a dye, if you want something significant to talk about this early. Would have to tie that to a NAP, though.

I'm not super-worried about WK poaching the site, at least from the north. The terrain on our side of the jungle is pretty decent, but the terrain on his side looks like drek. I suppose there may be some good land there in the fog that we haven't seen, or that he might want to settle that jungle east of the cows (grabbing the corn, too). But it's a little out of his way, and he's got better land to his west.

As for the dyes, I'd rather grab them both and trade one to the Kuriotates for fine clothes. "It's better to ask forgiveness than to beg for permission."

Also - Construction is the same price as Bronze . Bronze warriors are good for 'don't be tempted' but Trebs are good for that too, and possibly also for 'hey, nice capital, hand it over please' Or, um - if you don't want two of these nice capital sites, pillage gold might fill our vaults nicely .

So...would you rather have a really nasty military, and no dyes, or a reasonable defense and dyes? Mostly depends on whether you're willing to consider a T50ish war, or if you'd rather expand peacefully for a while yet.

The second, I think. Though Construction comes with buildery-benefits of its own...

[Mardoc]

Wait... does double movement work like that?

I'm pretty sure it's +1 movement to units as soon as they move onto a hill (or a forest if they're elves). You've got a handy sandbox you can test in, though.

I'm not super-worried about WK poaching the site, at least from the north. The terrain on our side of the jungle is pretty decent, but the terrain on his side looks like drek. I suppose there may be some good land there in the fog that we haven't seen, or that he might want to settle that jungle east of the cows (grabbing the corn, too). But it's a little out of his way, and he's got better land to his west.

As for the dyes, I'd rather grab them both and trade one to the Kuriotates for fine clothes. "It's better to ask forgiveness than to beg for permission."

Well, in that case, can we have the sheep/rice site first? I think we're likely to manage city #3 long before we manage bronze working. Especially if Mining reveals no copper within easy reach.

From a foodhammer perspective, sheep-rice is way ahead. I contend that gold + capital is sufficient commerce until Aristo comes in. I don't want to lose the dyes, we need that happiness, but if you're confident we'll get them regardless, I think they should wait.

But, of course, this planning suffers from the normal problem - lots of things could change between now and when we actually have our 2nd new settler available. Need more turns to go by before our plans have much meaning!

The second, I think. Though Construction comes with buildery-benefits of its own...

On further thought, this decision probably ought to wait until after Mining is in. It matters a great deal whether we have easily accessible copper or not. Likely it also matters what other people and barbs are doing - bronze takes effect immediately, while construction is no good until we spend the hammers for siege workshop and trebs + chariots.

Irrigation is handy, but I don't think it'll be important until we've gotten either some more happiness or Aristocracy - maybe both.

[Mardoc]

Wait... does double movement work like that?

I'm pretty sure it's +1 movement to units as soon as they move onto a hill (or a forest if they're elves). You've got a handy sandbox you can test in, though.

Err...which of course would mean that both sites are within one-turn one-mover range, with roads.

[Mattimeo]

Reasonably certain that giving something Dwarven 2 moves still only allows it to move over 2 hill tiles. So I'm not sure that roading would increase that either...

[HidingKneel]

Well, in that case, can we have the sheep/rice site first? I think we're likely to manage city #3 long before we manage bronze working. Especially if Mining reveals no copper within easy reach.

Well, I'm not -that- confident about what WK will do. He might be thinking the same thing we are: better grab that spot where he can, even if it's suboptimal.

Only, I'm not convinced it's suboptimal for us. Why do you like the rice/sheep spot better? Rice is strictly worse than farmed cow (same food, misses the commerce), and the sheep isn't worth anything until we research animal husbandry. Even afterward, it's only slightly better than a riverside farm. The northern spot will let us work 4 riverside farms (one with a cow on it) and/or two mined hills before bronzeworking even comes in.

Played around with the sandbox. Looks like the turn I spent working the deer hill won't hurt us any (all population growths still happen on schedule). It also doesn't get us a third warrior built before reaching the happy cap. I've been running my sims without barbarians, so they're probably overly optimistic (especially if that lizardman comes calling).

I contend that gold + capital is sufficient commerce until Aristo comes in.

We can never have too much commerce! It won't make or break us, sure. But we've probably got
180 (animal husbandry) + 180 (festivals) + 280 (education) + 320 (code of laws) = 960 beakers to fill after bronze working, before we're running aristocracy. That's a lot of teching to do, and the dyes should let us shave two or three turns off if we get them improved promptly, not even counting the benefit from increasing the happy cap.

Irrigation is handy, but I don't think it'll be important until we've gotten either some more happiness or Aristocracy - maybe both.

Agreed. It's worth a bit to have the ability to irrigate even before we want to work the farms, so our workers always have something useful to do, but 400 beakers is a bit steep for that.

Anyway, played the new turn. Nothing much to report. Put a turn into the farm, and we're one turn closer to calendar:

[HidingKneel]

Another turn!

Dewey is home (guarding our worker ATM). Completed our second farm, and Duckburg grew to size 3.



The Kuriotates revolted into agrarianism this turn. They got calendar 3 turns before us, thanks to starting with Agriculture. Since we have contact with them, that's an extra beaker per turn for us! Okay, maybe the "known tech" bonus wasn't worth getting excited about .

We are the first to size 3! Except for the Calabim, but they're cheaters.



And we are rocking the demos, thanks to our awesome dwarvenness:

[Mardoc]

Well, I'm not -that- confident about what WK will do. He might be thinking the same thing we are: better grab that spot where he can, even if it's suboptimal.

Only, I'm not convinced it's suboptimal for us. Why do you like the rice/sheep spot better? Rice is strictly worse than farmed cow (same food, misses the commerce), and the sheep isn't worth anything until we research animal husbandry. Even afterward, it's only slightly better than a riverside farm. The northern spot will let us work 4 riverside farms (one with a cow on it) and/or two mined hills before bronzeworking even comes in.

Well, mainly, I was assuming the relevant timeframe for city 3 and not yet city 4 was after AH and before Bronze - which is also kinda assuming something about the tech path that you don't seem to be . I also wanted the option to delay Bronze further; once we've got the dyes in our borders, it's pretty much required. But I think both sites are good, and if we're pushing settlers as hard as I think you intend, it won't matter much which we grab first, because they'll both come quickly.

Something low priority, but worth starting to think about: Dereptus? We ideally want to build it in a commerce rich future Heroic Epic super-hammer site . But seriously, we'll want Dereptus earlier than usual, I think. Commerce boost, Happiness boost (and we're very happiness constrained), and bonus XP doesn't hurt anything either.

I think we're less dependent on XP than most civs - usually you want XP for your mage candidates. So I would think commerce is more important for Dereptus than hammers...which tends to make me think the capital's actually a pretty decent site for it. Industrious/God King should let it be built without too much pain, and then there's a lot of commerce to multiply.

[HidingKneel]

Well, mainly, I was assuming the relevant timeframe for city 3 and not yet city 4 was after AH and before Bronze - which is also kinda assuming something about the tech path that you don't seem to be . I also wanted the option to delay Bronze further; once we've got the dyes in our borders, it's pretty much required. But I think both sites are good, and if we're pushing settlers as hard as I think you intend, it won't matter much which we grab first, because they'll both come quickly.

Yeah, I'm thinking the capital should (after reaching happy cap) do worker -> settler -> worker -> settler -> settler
(while the second city pushes out another two warriors and a worker). Which would mean cities #3 and #4 get planted seven turns apart (6 turns to produce a settler, one turn from Kilmorph anarchy). Not sure if that'll be enough warriors, though: we'll have to see how active the barbs are.

I think we're less dependent on XP than most civs - usually you want XP for your mage candidates. So I would think commerce is more important for Dereptus than hammers...which tends to make me think the capital's actually a pretty decent site for it.

Agreed; the capital's almost surely going to be our best commerce city. And there's a fair number of hills to mine, so production should be not-too-shabby. Especially with bonuses from Ind and God King, assuming we build it soon. Not until we've got the rest of our empire on its feet, though.

[Mardoc]

I've been thinking about wonders, and I've one to suggest for the medium term - maybe T50 or so:



We've access to marble (and want to take Masonry fairly early en route to Construction), and Industrious, making this about 67 base hammers.

I would probably put it here:


We could borrow the corn from the capital long enough to grow up, but then work all coast tiles. It'd give us a bunch of commerce, medium hammers, and some health we won't otherwise get.

[HidingKneel]

I've been thinking about wonders, and I've one to suggest for the medium term - maybe T50 or so:

I like it. I think T50 is too soon, though. We'll only get our fourth city on T47 (assuming no trouble with barbarians), at which point I think we should let the capital grow a bit before resuming. And there's a lot of land to grab. Also, might as well wait until we have that marble connected. Which should probably be our first tech after Code of Laws? (I'm guessing we'll get there around T70?)

On turn 12, Louie saw a little more of our surroundings:



We have easy access to corn, rice, and wheat. Deruptus looks very appealing. I think we should sink hammers into that in the capital when we grow to the happy cap (unless we need warriors).

Moved Louie SW. I want to take a gander (har!) from the plains hill E of the wheat, and figure out how best to claim that site.
After that, heading back to the capital to join the garrison.