[Spoilers] A more civilized age - Arendel of the Ljosalfar (Uberfish)

[uberfish]

turn 20:

My worker is now out. He will start irrigating the corn next turn, so I put one turn into road-building NW of the capital along the way. No barbarians sighted yet.

Calabim diplo-dump follows. If they did get a great prophet from an event, they haven't settled it and are probably intending to use it to found a religion... I don't think Fellowship of Leaves offers the vampires enough to try to poach it from me though. I would go for Runes of Kilmorph in their place and try to build the Mines of Gal-dur for the Iron, saving 4200 beakers' worth of research on Smelting and Iron Working. Everyone else needs Iron Working anyway if they want to build Champions, but the Calabim need Feudalism for vampires which are their substitute.



Hi guys, had a pleasant chat with sunrise last night and just saw your scout in-game, congrats on somehow keeping it alive with the rather large number of animals around.

I appreciate we both view each others' civs as dangerous opponents, but mutual respect is probably the best foundation for a relationship in this game, as such I'd be open to exchanging some information. Of particular interest to me, of course, is the timing of when you plan to use your world spell. For my part I have no intention of using mine except as an emergency defensive card.

Yeah, your world spell is pretty much a (powerful) deterrent, no surprise there. In the interest of good relations we have no problem sharing the timing with you as long as you agree not to keep it confidential. At this point there is a bit of disagreement on what the best time to use it is, but I can say we aren't going to fire it in the immediate future. Are you looking for something along the lines of a 10 turn warning?

Do you want to start sharing info on the map, other players met, etc? We can't trade maps yet but we can give general descriptions, and perhaps share a theory or two :-).

Darrell

You meant keep it confidential instead of "not confidential" right? But yeah I was just hoping for a short term warning sort of thing, you're obviously free to use it any time you like.

I'm 99% certain as to what map script we're on, curious as to what your guess is though! Sunrise told me you guys had half jokingly discussed rushing me, I really wouldn't bother since hmm, shall we say, I have Doviello as a neighbour and more credible invasion threats to deter in the early game than unbonused bloodpets. Also, there are dwarves around who appear to have a good start since they got a free tech early (Agriculture) and have just revolted to Agrarianism (Calendar). So, the 3 civs with the scariest military units as neighbours. This should be all the assurance you need that I'm not going to attempt any silly rushes with my world spell.

So you kept your scout alive quite a while - I'd guess you've met one or two others by now?

Yeah, bad typo :-). Once we have a better team consensus on when to hit the shiny red button, we'll update you.

You've shared quite a bit with us, thanks for the trust. Sucks to be next to Mahala but with your world spell she'll probably go in another direction. That's bad news about the Dwarves. We popped four huts, two gave ~20 gold (which turned out to be huge as we lacked the cash to buy a free Great Prophet), and the other two gave experience, which got munched by a bear. Not so nice as a tech, eh? So far we have only met you, but our scouting has suffered a bit. Here is the settings info we found http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/7776/...ot0014.jpg. If you look at the map name, you see "rainshadow" which to me indicates the "perfect world" map script.

Just to be clear, sunrise089 discussed rushing *with* you, but he considered it an academic discussion :-). I prefer to cooperate with my nearest neighbor, my observation is that it just works out better.

Darrell

P.S. Hopefully your post in the PBEM1 lurker thread doesn't point to your PBEM2 game strategy!

Hmm I wasn't even aware of the existence of a "perfect world" map script, it looks like a perfect fit for Lakes as far as I can tell, although I haven't much sight to my west. I thought the "buy a prophet" event cost 50-60 gold, is it different on quick? In any case I have a free Lair specialist too (my starting position was subpar and everyone else seemed to be getting lucky so I gambled), and both Doviello and Luchuirp got free techs, so everything balances out I guess. How do you know I'm your nearest neighbour if you haven't met anyone else yet anyway? Is your capital just outside my fog radius or something?

About the post in the PBEM1 thread it's as academic as sunrise's discussion about rushing me I do have forests to slow invading units down and life mana for destroy undead, so mass spectres aren't as much of an issue for me as they would be to other civs.


Score updates:

Sciz 92: 4 pop 3 tech
Varn 92: 4 pop 3 tech

Bit of a sudden jump for the Malakim, they must have picked up a free tech somewhere.

Flauros 77: 2 pop 3 tech
Perpentach 71: 3 pop 2 tech
Arendel 64: 2 pop 2 tech
Amelia 53: 2 pop 1 tech
Mahala 53: 2 pop 1 tech

[Maksim]

So, what next after Mysticism is done? Are you going to pick up Education\Calendar, or just go for Hunting -> Way of Forests straight away?

Are you planning on staying with one city until Way of Forests is researched so the capital benefits from the Holy City status, or will you expand before then?

Where is your first settler likely to go?

It's worth noting that although Aristofarms are indeed very good and commonly considered overpowered, they compete with other strong civic choices such as the +XP ones, and in particular for Elves, the Guardian of Nature civic which gives +1 happiness per forest and allows exceptionally large and productive cities late game. However, I don't want to start running that civic too early, since it doesn't actually enhance production, and once you're reliant on it it essentially locks out all the other religions and civic choices. It's something I will switch into later on once I have the full bloom Ancient Forests up.

I would argue that Guardian of Nature does increase production - by basically removing the happy cap (as elves, you will have forests on every tile except FP eventually) and going a long way to remove the health issues as well (again, forests). Since each new citizen goes to work on a forest, that's extra production right there.

[uberfish]

Clarification from Darrell: the Calabim got the prophet event, but weren't actually able to buy the prophet because they were a few gold short; also they're about 15 tiles to the west.

So, what next after Mysticism is done? Are you going to pick up Education\Calendar, or just go for Hunting -> Way of Forests straight away?

Probably education, although there may be subtle timing issues I haven't looked into yet. Calendar isn't worth the research effort yet as I don't have accessible plantation resources.

Are you planning on staying with one city until Way of Forests is researched so the capital benefits from the Holy City status, or will you expand before then?

I want to expand to a good production site as soon as safely possible. If Calabim are 15 west it means that I have a lot of land to settle, hopefully making up for the poor quality of the immediately visible area. Maybe the plains hill by the lake if I don't find a good location to the southwest.

I would argue that Guardian of Nature does increase production - by basically removing the happy cap (as elves, you will have forests on every tile except FP eventually) and going a long way to remove the health issues as well (again, forests). Since each new citizen goes to work on a forest, that's extra production right there.

Yeah it does, but it doesn't improve the per-tile productivity is what I really meant. The thing is I'm pretty sure I will want to use Conquest at some stage in the mid-game for the +2XP and food->hammer conversion, and there are lots of potentially useful religious units. Only the heroes and tier 4 high priests will leave you when you switch religion, so it's attractive for a spiritual civ to switch around a bit and grab a few units for their spells.

[uberfish]

turn 21:



This is a fairly common and annoying early event which gives a permanent -1 food penalty to the affected tile, in this case a floodplain. Nature mana fixes it though. (You don't actually have to have an Adept, just access to the mana type)

Evermore grows to size 3 EOT

Sciz' GNP increases to 22 off whatever resource he just connected - could be something like wine as his food output increased at the same time - and some confusing score jumps were observed this turn.

Varn 92 -> 116, not sure what this is
Mahala 53 -> 74
Perpentach 71 -> 85
Arendel 64 -> 72 (the 3rd population point being worth 8 instead of 7, some rounding issue I guess)

Since population points work out at 7 or 8, and early techs at 11, I'm not sure how to intepret these 24 and 21 point increases.


Also, here is my best guess as to the distribution of civs on the map.

[uberfish]

t22:

Some other score increases came in. Mist helpfully informed me of an obscure C&D mechanic: you only start getting land score points 20 turns after you settle. This, obviously, is rather obfuscating.

Let's look at my own score since I know what's going on with my own empire

85 total = 22 (3 pop) + 33 (3 techs) + 17 (1 wonder) + 13 land

The land breakdown shows 9/1384, I own 35 land tiles currently. There most certainly will not be 5000 land tiles on this map, it's way too large; so I assume that every individual tile only counts 20 turns after it's been claimed due to culture mechanics or whatever. So, most players should be getting these 13 points.

so:

Varn 92 -> 116: 4 pop 4 tech 13 landpoints
Sciz 92 -> 109: The 17 point gain doesn't quite add up with possible gains of 7 for a citizen, 11 for a tech and a "standard" 13 land points. I'd say 4 pop 4 tech and perhaps 10 land points because he founded next to water.
Perp 71-> 85 -> 103: Almost certainly, because they're creative and settled first turn their first border expansion kicked in early, and they have 3 pop, 2 tech and 32 land points.
Flauros 77 -> 102: Not really sure about this one, their GNP doesn't seem high enough to support 4 techs at this stage unless they got one for free which is possible.
Mist 85: That's easy, same breakdown as me.
Amelia 53->60: 3 pop 1 tech (she's another late settler and after me in the turn order so won't get land points yet.) But this is odd to say the least. She ought to have fishing by now, it's a 160 beaker tech and we're 22 turns in. It's possible that she spent a few turns building up gold in order to have an "event purse" since we are playing with double event frequency and many of the events cost money. I think having some money around is certainly a good thing, but delaying Fishing for Lanun is a mistake. As a neutral civ they can't get the buy-a-prophet event.

Mist complained he still hasn't gotten any events. I've had 3 but none of them actually did anything. I do have enough gold in the treasury from huts to take advantage of any event that might come along, a subtle advantage of the double-scout Elf start.

[uberfish]

Diplomacy

The other subtle advantage of the double-scout start is that I've established contact with 3 neighbours who have no contact with each other. This allows me to shape the relationships between my neighbours before they even talk to each other, as their only information about each other comes through me. Also, if they're looking for allies in any particular triangular relationship I'm the only one to negotiate with for now. (You can all have a good laugh about this comment later if Mist proceeds to backstab me.)

Mist's current line of thought is that he wants to raid Dwarves in order to extort concessions out of them because they're worth more alive than dead (free GPs, settling rights etc) and wants me to act as a third party treaty enforcer so he can turn around and hit other targets. Bold and creative, but I can see a few potential problems with this approach, notably that Sciz might just agree to whatever terms Mist offers to get him off his back, build defensive units, then break the treaty, and without access to Catapults I won't be able to crack a Slinger defended city until magic enters the game. Ultimately it's his call how he wants to play it.

[Mardoc]

Agreed, if the double scouts turns out to be the difference between Doviello marching away from you and marching toward you, that'll be worth having on its own!

On the subject of treaty-enforcer - do you have to be able to crack a city, necessarily? If the concessions are small enough, I could see you easily being able to do enough damage with archers pillaging that paying up would be preferable. And if you can't crack a city, he'd still have immense trouble cracking Ljosalfar archers.

Plus, if it's settling rights you're enforcing, it seems that archers would be even more effective.

[uberfish]

t23:

4th event with no effect occurs (Free golden age for Order followers... again)

In other news Mahala revolted to Agrarianism / Pacifism, Pacifism may seem an odd choice for the Doviello but they can upgrade workers to their Axeman equivalent, Sons of Asena and have the workers chop each other out in the meantime. I'm guessing Pacifism is aimed at grabbing a Great Merchant by running a specialist in a market at Festivals, in any case it confirms that no one is going to be imminently Warrior rushed. So it seems reasonable to go for Education and get a start on cottages. Mysticism finishes end of next turn and I have to decide then. Expected ETA on Way of the Forests would be in the region of 40 turns.


Both my score and Mahala's increased 85->102 from land (30 points)
Flauros 102 to 113 (3 pop, 4 tech, 30 land points)
Amelia 60 to 71 (3 pop 2 tech, Fishing finally done)

[uberfish]

t24

A warrior completes bringing the total to 3 warriors, this newly trained one will do a bit of cautious scouting to the SW, I'd like to find out if there are any promising city sites close by.

Mysticism completes and Evermore grows to size 4 EOT putting my score back into first place, for now.



Scores:

Arendel to 120 (4 pop 4 tech 30 land)
Sciz to 116 (5 pop 4 tech 10 land)
Varn on 116 (4 pop 4 tech 13 land)
Perp to 114 (3 pop 3 tech 32? land)
Flauros on 113 (as you can see this is getting ambiguous, the 11 point score gain would suggest another tech but this seems quite improbable - I'll call this 3 pop 4 tech 30 land by analogy with Mahala's score)
Mahala to 102 (3 pop 3 tech 30 land)
Amelia to 79 points (3 pop 2 tech 8 land points would be my guess)

[Dantski]

Ahh everyones scores are nicely sorted by alignment