[Spoilers] What's Sheaim to do? Irgy controlling Tebryn

[Irgy]

Only other news is Mining finished when I clicked end-turn, revealing copper. Turns out I do have some, right on the spot where I was going to settle the gold/silk city directly north. Thought I took a screenshot but can't find it, so here's an old one of the area. The copper is on the scrubs 1W of the lake.

Overall it's not a terrible spot, since I wanted to settle a city in the area anyway, but I might not have made that city very high priority otherwise.


EDIT - switched the screenshot for an up to date one.

[Irgy]

Those freaking goblins, killed my new warrior on a forest hill. I killed them with the Galveholm garrison afterwards at least (they were on 0.1).


Finished mining the pigs, will put both workers on the same hill next turn to get it improved ASAP. After clicking end turn, Tephus the Mistwalker was created:

I fear not the ether! I tame it! Mold it! Nurture it! I advance the cause to save Erebus from stagnation!

He's an Amurite according to lore, but he'll fit in well here I expect. We don't even know about this "Ether" yet (although I'm sure Tebryn himself remembers a fair bit about it), but I'm sure the Academy he builds while guide us towards it in the not too distant future. I could probably bulb it with him too, but that's not likely the best move.

Lets see what the others think about a T37 great sage

[Irgy]

Well, it's been quiet here, but purely due to a lack of turns being played. All sorts of dramas and slow downs this week, and none of them due to me despite my second child being born on Monday morning!

Nonetheless, I bring you all a good micro puzzle.


Other information of note;
* The workers are both on the grass hill 1W of the city, ready to start mining it next turn (requiring 3 actions total, so two turns).
* Exploration will take 3 turns (with the scientist).
* Bronze Working will take 13 (with the scientist).
* My warriors consist of Dunrik stuck on the hill far away, Tom looking after the barrow, and a single city garrison in the capital.
* What's shown in the screenshot is what I worked this turn. It's a good combination for the roundings if nothing else.

The things I need to work out:
* Work a scientist or not? I'm no longer getting use of the gpp for a while to come. However I am still pacificstic, and getting to bronze working as quickly as possible is definately worthwhile.
* How many warriors? I need at least 1, preferably 2 for the new city. With two, as long as the goblins are quiet, I can risk exploring the graveyard for a possible free tech.
* Should I grow to size 5?
* Should I tech exploration or just beeline to bronze?
* Should I throw in a chop along the way?

I daresay no-one will bother figuring out their own answers independently, but I'll put my current plans in a spoiler just in case:

* I will squeeze in exploration, just because it's so few turns compared to bronze, although I'm not completely sure about this. I say this first though because it impacts everything else.
* Workers will mine, then farm the rice, then connect the rice to the capital, then do less important things (road to the new city, a mine for the new city, mine the other grass river hill). And obviously finish on the (same) gems for the turn bronze completes. No chop because I need the health!
* I will grow to 5, but only after the rice is improved for the extra food to grow faster and also so that it's connected for the health by the time I get there. I will do it in 4 turns, with three of those turns working rice, pigs, wine and mine for 4 food surplus, and one turn switching the mine to the grass forest for 5 food.
* I will build 2 warriors while growing. I'll work the grass forest on the third growth turn when I have overflow from the first warrior for better rounding.
* I will work the scientist most of the time, turning it off just for the growth spurt, and potentially off up to three other turns if I can get the settler a turn earlier by doing so (I think one will do it, but I'm not sure how overflow works with the 30% (god king - pacifism) bonus on the warriors).

Overall I believe this will be the sweet spot on the various production/commerce trade offs I'm making. I'd benefit from a test game to compare results, but it's just that one more step of extra effort to set it all up correctly.

[Irgy]

New turn, new capital screenshot:


I can't believe how many turns I've ended up working that unimproved grass river hill! But it seems right. After rounding, compared to a scientist it's +3 hammers for -3 beakers (and -4gpp, but they're discounted for being no use for a while to come), while compared to the grass forest it's +2 beakers for -1 hammer. My exchange-rate is somewhere between the two, so it appears to be the best choice again. Next turn I'll have a mine to work instead, and will probably go back to the scientist.

A report on what I think everyone else is doing to come soon.

[Irgy]

A response from Einion MonkKnight (as he now calls himself). Quoted below along with my reply. Yes I'm telling him a lot, but it's all either irrelevant or stuff he'll figure out for himself anyway soon enough.

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Greetings Irgy Arbandi

Congratulations on building an Academy in in your glorious capital of Galvehome. The Elohim are trembling in fear from your increased cultural output.

Best wishes
Einion MonkKnight
Recently resurrected ancient leader of the Elohim[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]Thanks. Couldn't have got it much earlier : ) I'm sure Tephus himself would be happy to show you around the place if you ever visit. Of course for all that effort we're still only 3rd in GNP, but I suppose it's hard to compete with the financial coastlines and beefed up floodplains that I can only presume are topping out the list. I notice from your own God King status that you're aware of Mysticism yourselves so I can only imagine philosophical people like yourselves might found your own academy some time in the future.

And congratulations to you on the founding of Glens Killybegs. You've actually caught me right in the middle of my demographics analysis (give or take a series of interruptions since I started writing this), and in fact I've only just now noticed its existance. I'm curious as to where it is, but feel free to keep that to yourselves if you'd prefer.

I have to confess my our own plans for further settlement have been moving along quite slowly, between sages, workers and goblins defeating our warriors on forested hills.

All the best,
Irgy Arbandi[/COLOR]

[Irgy]

Ok, I admit it, I can't figure out what's happening in the scores at all. First, the demographics:


As I said to WarriorKnight, GNP is still only 3rd, and that includes the 4 culture from the Academy. But I guess +50% of not much is still not enough. The point is though it's still better than average, which is good considering I don't have any commerce advantages.

First in hammers, but that has to be considered in light of a shockingly low crop yield. Everyone else is converting that excess food to hammers building settlers and workers, so I'm actually behind them all not ahead at the moment.

Soldiers I'm now below average, which is sad, but I've had some bad luck with my units so far. Maybe I've been exploring too aggressively?

Population is quite easy to analyse. The 91000 is WarriorKnight with his pop 5 capital plus second city. The 54000 is the (only) other player with a pop 4 city, who also happens to have a 2 population second city already. From the average, everyone else is on 90000, meaning just their 5 population capital.

Finally, the 44000 land area is either this 4+2 civ or WarriorKnight. If it's the 4+2, the expansion must have had a border pop already, as everyone else except the Malakim settled on the coast and the Malakim are one of the few whose scores make sense at just 5 population. I don't expect they'd have managed a border pop already, so my guess is that WarriorKnight has settled somewhere with 2 coastal tiles. That's quite interesting really as I didn't know he was near any coastline. At least it means he hasn't settled at or even towards Letum Frigis


Overall, I'm not doing great, so it's worth a moment to reflect on why that is. Have I made mistakes? Was my opening flawed?

Personally, I don't think it was. I think the differences all come down to the capital's location. I'm behind a population, but that's by choice as I'm at the health cap. I'm at the health cap because of the jungle, but that's by choice because once I get the gems going it will absolutely be worth it.

While everyone else appears to be working improved food resources, I'm stuck with unirrigated rice and slow-to-tech-to pigs. Rice is worth a measly 1 food over a normal farm (and 1 commerce less than a grass river farm). With God King, improving the pigs won't even improve my yield from that tile, just move 3 hammers to 3 food. So I don't think I've done the wrong thing in leaving them unimproved.

God King itself is worth at least an extra 4 hammers at the moment, and more in the future, which is better than I'm getting out of any other tech until bronze working for the gems. Mysticism will also have completely paid for itself in beakers by the time I get to bronze working, thanks to the elder council, sage and academy. So I still think that was a good choice.

I've delayed the settler quite a bit, but I don't think anyone else has two workers, and I think I'll be getting more out of them than I'd have got out of an earlier settler. So again that's partly by choice.

GNP is good if not the best, and in fact in a few turns when I'm working the scientist again and researching a tech with a pre-requisite I'll be up to 39, which is ahead of everyone at least as of this turn. Can't complain about that. On the whole then, once I have two improved gems going through an academy I'll be in a good, maybe even the best GNP position. Not bad for someone with no commerce traits. The slower expansion will at least help the economy, and having two workers already I'll catch up a little in that regard. So I don't regret anything I've done so far.

The only thing I think I've done badly is looking after my warriors. The scout's griffon death was basically unavoidable, the recent warrior on a forest hill was just bad RNG, but maybe the spider-eaten warrior should have just been left at home.

Lurkers feel free to let me know if you disagree with any of that. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

[Irgy]

Oh and what I left out of last post: I don't mean to whinge about the capital. It's simply a capital that's weak in the early turns but strong later on. I kind of knew that settling it. I also don't think I settled the wrong location, there is nowhere I've seen at all still that would be any better.

Now, on to my score problems.


A spoiler for the dirty details of my previous analysis and the turn by turn breakdown:

First let me revise my previous values

T22:
H 113 = 60 + 3x11 + 20land)
V 109 = 53 + 2x11 + 34(land)
S 103 = 53 + 2x11 + 22(land)
I 98 = 53 + 1x11 + 34(land)
W 89 = 53 + 2x11 + 14(land)
T 88 = 47 + 2x11 + 19(land)

Sir Yellow just didn't add up, and it appears that I should have guessed 59 points for 5 pop not 60. I thought for a while Sir Yellow was missing 6 population score, but the demographics screen at the time showed only one player had reached pop 5. So I finally realised he simply had a lot more land points than I thought. Must be settled on a narrow bay or a lake. So, the revised values:

T23:
H 113 = 59 + 3x11 + 19land)
V 109 = 53 + 2x11 + 34(land)
W 109 = 53 + 2x11 + 34(land)
S 103 = 53 + 2x11 + 28(land)
I 98 = 53 + 1x11 + 34(land)
T 88 = 47 + 2x11 + 19(land)

Turn by turn score changes since then:
24: W+17 (11+6)
25: V+6, I+11
26: V+11
28/29: H+11, T+11
31: V+27 (land)
32/33: T+6
34/35: W+11, H+12 (?) I+11, T+6
36/37: H+5 (? 11 - 6?)
38/39: V+11, W+7, I+11, T+7, S+6, H+6

Final result (I've broken it down properly now, before I'd folded the palace and a tech into the population score):
V: 164 = 17 (palace) + 31 (5 pop) + 5x11 (techs) + 61 (land)
H: 147 = ??
W: 144 = 17 + 38 (5 + 1 pop) + 5x11 + 34
I: 131 = 17 + 25 (4 pop) + 5x11 + 34
T: 118 = 17 + 38 (4 + 2 pop) + 4x11 + 19
S: 109 = 17 + 31 (5 pop) + 3x11 + 28

The question though is what on earth is going on with Hannah?

She has:
17 + 31 (5 pop) + techsx11 + 21 + mystery = 147
So, techsx11 + mystery = 78
Techs appears to be 5, as she had 4 previously and got one 11 point increase since. That leaves 23 mystery points, made up of a +12, +5 and +6 all two turns apart.

My current theory has two parts. First, I'm going to guess that those crazy pirate ports are actually worth (population) points. Why do I think that? Just because it's something that's special about the Lanun that would kind of explain it. The second guess is that the +5 is made up of +11 for a tech, but -6 for having an expansion razed by barbarians! If so, this is great news

Both of these theories I can check if I get the time.

[Irgy]

This screenshot sums up the current turn pretty well:


Rice improved. Finally working 4 improved tiles It says 5 turns to grow but it will only really be 4 once I switch a tile for a turn. The worker on the hill is preparing to connect the rice to the capital. I should have moved it NE not SE, as I've decided I really should work the second grass-hill-river mine in preference to the sage, which means I ought to get on with building it.

The prophet could in theory be from a mysticism beeline like mine but with a temple instead of an elder council, but I expect it's really from that event. The existance of the message does point out the gaping hole in my earlier theory that the Malakim had popped a prophet though. I hate to think how their GNP was so high though otherwise. Maybe they were building cash in God King? I'll have to check whether that was possible at the time, I have a feeling it was too early.

Speaking of GNP though, despite no sage I've reached (tied) #1 at 34 I'm now researching a tech with a pre-requisite, and I can only assume that someone else now is not.

[Irgy]

Here's a puzzle for people; What's the significance of the following numbers?
1, 6, 5, 6, 7, 4, 5, 6, 5, 10

Don't think too hard, you'll never get it until I give a hint, but I'll just leave it there mysteriously for now.

[Irgy]

So, Dunrik is finally on the move again!



Pursued by skeletons, but that's ok. He's found a hut, hidden away behind the mountains. I'm not going to bother waiting for a scout to pick this one up. Lets hope it's something good!

The capital moves along according to plan. Grew to size 5 when I clicked end turn and completed another warrior. The workers are moving different directions, one to road the way to the new city, the other to mine the other grass river hill.

Oh and I left off an event:


It raises the AC. Good for me I guess But just as good if someone else got it, so I'd still rather a prophet (obviously).