Arendel Phaedra, the last blossom of Yggdrasil [SPOILERS]

[Ravus Sol]

You are quite right Chalid could kill everything with all that sun mana and all you need it one water mana and suddenly all of that area is liveable...

[Ichabod]

You are quite right Chalid could kill everything with all that sun mana and all you need it one water mana and suddenly all of that area is liveable...

The problem is no irrigation paths, so even if all that were plains, you still would only be able to work 2 gold in a city. Not bad, but nothing game breaking.

I think the idea of that middle area is to make the mana of the map be in a very disputed place. We already have metamagic mana, after all.

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 87-88:[/SIZE]

I revealed a lot about the map in the last two turns, since I have hawks now.

First, let's take a look at Ilios:

He's very close to my cities, way closer then I expected. A Priest of Leaves attack can be very effective against him, since I have 2 move priests and the tigers are 2-movers too. It'll be easier to integrate his cities into my empire too!

A closer look reveals why he's the current production leader: he's land is all covered with forests, including the resources. That's a big boost!

You can also see that he researched FoL too, I bet only a few turns behind me. That's good regarding shrine income, but means he already has hunters, hawks and will probably be able to make priests too soon. That's where my superior tech rate and food production will matter. My spiritual trait too (double speed on temples and better divine units).

I'll have priesthood sooner, I'll have better war civics and better units. But I won't be able to hide from his hawks... We'll see... Hopefully I can get him before he has time to make a significant defense.


Next, let's take a look at DaveV:

His land is more similar to mine than Ilios' land. He doesn't have BW yet and I realized that his power drop was probably an attack on the barb city that you can see there. And it seems that it failed... Maybe he attacked another barb city... I don't know.


And the land to my east:

Hello, gems, marble and Wilboman. Wilboman is not held, so some mind controlling ability could prove to be very useful! Not that I'll get some of it in the next turns, but it's a fact.

I'm planning to settle a city that can get to the marble in its 250 culture expansion. Yes, I know, it'll take a long time, but with creative, religion, a monument or artist specialist, I'll probably have it when I start to consider going for a wonder. Here's where I think the city will go:

All this exploration made me change my opinion about the map. First I thought it would be something like this:

Now I think it's something like this:

With toroidal world wrap, of course.


Octopus Overlords was founded last turn. I hope it wasn't Lewwyn. I rather see Ellimist getting it. Why? Because I think Lewwyn is way more likely to send some annoying Cultists to attack people through the small water gaps. Well, is not that problematic, since I plan on getting OO for myself too after priesthood.

In domestic news, I'm running specialists in Trinity right now. I let go of the culture victory idea. I'm running a scientist and a priest and I'll probably run an artist too. I may go for an academy, GA, my shrine, an altar part to get more xp to divine. I'm not sure yet. These are all interesting choices.

When I ended turn 88, I was gifted with yet another stroke of luck:

Natural spread to the city who needed it the most... That's very nice. Now Caelestis can grow to size 13 without problems and it'll soon have a FoL temple for yet more growing potential.

With conquest, both Caelestis and Trinity will get something like 3 turns PoL.

Then is on to Fanaticism for my special civic, Stygian Guards, my hero... Lots and lots of fun!

[Mist]

Hello, gems, marble and Wilboman. Wilboman is not held, so some mind controlling ability could prove to be very useful! Not that I'll get some of it in the next turns, but it's a fact.

It's also a fact that mind controlling abilities ( Domination etc. ) require the target to be alive. This particular one is not. Don't waste your time, this map is not about who can get to Gibbon and Mind 3 faster

[Ichabod]

It's also a fact that mind controlling abilities ( Domination etc. ) require the target to be alive. This particular one is not. Don't waste your time, this map is not about who can get to Gibbon and Mind 3 faster

haha, I haven't noticed (and didn't know about) that.

Anyway, I wasn't planning to do that. Even a strong unit can be easily taken down by summon or unit spam. It'd be a waste of beakers anyway (especially if I couldn't even convert the thing in the first place).

[Ravus Sol]

[SIZE="5"]It's a TRAP![/SIZE]

It's also a fact that mind controlling abilities ( Domination etc. ) require the target to be alive. This particular one is not. Don't waste your time, this map is not about who can get to Gibbon and Mind 3 faster

Oh damn someone else beat me to it.

But this does open up a amusing idea. With so many killer units in the ice people are obviously just not going to go there, or only move in with culture like you plan too. They are stuck their without hold because these elemental units can not pass over desert, If some cheeky adept was to walk around the circumference of the map and then upgrade to water I spring on the opposite side of the world... would all the barbarians then swarm to that springed opening?

None amusing idea, has the person who just grabbed the OO religion already thought of this?

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="5"]It's a TRAP![/SIZE]



Oh damn someone else beat me to it.

But this does open up a amusing idea. With so many killer units in the ice people are obviously just not going to go there, or only move in with culture like you plan too. They are stuck their without hold because these elemental units can not pass over desert, If some cheeky adept was to walk around the circumference of the map and then upgrade to water I spring on the opposite side of the world... would all the barbarians then swarm to that springed opening?

None amusing idea, has the person who just grabbed the OO religion already thought of this?

Seriously, that would be massively funny. It seems that there are more then 1 Wilbomen in the ice, so seeing someone being crushed by the Ice Barbs would be very funny. Unfortunately, I don't plan on getting water mana soon...

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 89-101:[/SIZE]

Oh, man, a long time without an update. Not much happened to, though. These turns were used as a setup for more interesting times to come in the next turns. Anyway, let's see what happened.

Foreign News:

*Form of the Titan was built in a foreign land. Lewwyn, most likely, since he should value it while playing the Sidar. Maybe it was Ilios, though, since I know he went for the needed techs.

*OO founded and Necromonicon built by Tasunke. A shrine this early seems a waste to me.

*Ilios entered a Golden Age and got some skyrocketing demos. I'll post the graphics later, so you can see. It's over now, though.

His golden age GNP passed mine and he reached 300 GNP in some parts of it. He's also the MFG production leader even without a GA, so it skyrocketed too. The MFG lead is due to a lot (and I mean a lot) of preplaced forests in his land, even on top of resources. Maybe this was done because the lurkers considered the svartalfar the worst pick, but it's a bit unfair to do so in such a production poor map. I have like 5 hills and 4 plains forests in my entire territory, leading to a pityful production. Ilios has forested pigs, forested cows, forested wine, forested windmill, forests, forests, forests... Maybe there's something I'm not seeing, though.

Anyway, I was planning on attacking Ilios, but after the GA, it would be difficult. I think he can get priesthood soon (if he dodn't have it yet) and field some Priests of Leaves too. He also has copper warriors and a big production. Besides, Ilios is a fierce guy, who would do everything he could to slow me down.

So I decided to attack DaveV, who is way more backwards (doesn't even have mining yet). I was afraid Ilios would use his Great Commander (he got the Military strategy GCommander) to get a 2 GP GA and use it to build the Bone Palace for 3 consecutive GAs. It's still a possibility, but I think he may have settled the GCom for a Command Post. Ilios is also closer and with more developed (and cottaged) land. Conquering him would have been great. But I don't think that's feasible without investing too much right now...

BTW, elven GAs are scary...

*DaveV founded AV in (soon to be mine ) Baltic:

*Met Lewwyn (huge food numbers, very high power but low GNP/MFG) and Tholal.

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="3"]Technology Path:[/SIZE]

What did I tech during these turns?

1. Priesthood

Priest of Leaves can increase my happy cap (tigers), increase my production and health (bloom) and will be the main attack force to conquer DaveV (I'm thinking of a 12 PoL initial force + reinfocements - should be enough with the summon spam).

2. Bronze Working -> Warfare

Better warlike civics (especially conquest). I need to build an army somehow. The Great Commander was stolen by Ilios, though... So no Military Strategy for me!

3. Cartography

For City States. Aristocracy + Conquest is bad (2 food grass farms without sanitation - I'm surprised Ilios is using this civic combination... I think he overlooked the food loss from Agrarianism, I've seen him building cottages over his farms in the last few turns) and God King in this map means a crushing Maintenance.

Want to know something interesting? My tech rate is better with City States than it's with Aristocracy, due to the massive discounts in maintenance meaning a better slider position. But the Military State free upkeep of units helped too, so I think Aristocracy + City States are about even right now.

4. Masonry (on the way to construction + Sanitation)

I wanted sanitation, because +1 food in farms is a killer bonus. So, ehy not get the prerequisites of Masonry and Construction? Masonry will enable the improvement of marble (still a long way before my borders reach it, but alas) and Construction enables the spreading of irrigation (which some of my cities need).

Besides, with Priesthood I'm in no urge to get military techs.

After Sanitation, I don't know... Maybe I'll go for Fanaticism... I'll put some more thought into this.

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="3"]Not very chronological report:[/SIZE]


I think Ilios will be my main opponent in this game, even though Lewwyn is in front of him in score. His golden age helped him a lot, he went from less cities than I had to 11 cities (while I had 9, now I have 10 with number 11 coming soon - keep in mind that I stopped expanding for a while because I needed to do more important things - both these new cities are rather lackluster, with almost no resources). Elven economy also gets better as time goes by. If he chains the golden ages like I expected, he'll become pretty powerful. But I'll have twice the amount of land in something like 15 turns...

Despite all this, I can't understand some of Ilios choices. He hasn't expanded to get the hunting resources and the grass floodplains soon enough (he already has hunting), but he had time to found cities like this one:

Seriously, that city doesn't have a thing going on... Anyway, maybe I'll be surprised later.

By the way, I tried to open borders with Ilios while building a road towards him, so we could engage in trade. But he didn't seem to understand my message or, more likely, he thinks I'll attack him. I wanted the trade routes...

---

I conformed my map theory with my hunter:

My hunters are now exploring near Ilios and DaveV. Both have Hawks, so I can see a lot of what my opponents are doing. I also met Lewwyn and Tholal. Just so you know my exploring advantage, I have contact with Lewwyn, Tholal, DaveV and Ilios.

DaveV knows Lewwyn and Tholal. Tholal knows Ilios and DaveV. Lewwyn knows DaveV. Ilios knows Tholal.

What's the importance of this? Well, Ilios won't know that I'm fighting DaveV, for example. He'll probably think that my troops are hiding or something (I can't be sure, but he won't be sure either). Not that big of an advantage, but it's one. Besides, there's also the known tech bonus (minor thing due to the way the FfH tech tree works).

Hunters also have other bonuses:

Strange place for a Great Spider to hide. I have a feeling that the spider might have been from one of the other players. If that's the case . By the way, the hunter lived and has 3xp now.

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This is one of the reasons why I'm currently in a good position:

My cities are way bigger then the ones from my opponents. From those 3, only Caelestis is unhappy (Trinity can grow to size 18 with its current happy cap, for instance) and I'm solving it pretty soon!

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I built the Brewing House in Vallus, speeding things up with chops:

I also used nearby cities to grow some cottages. The city is producing 50 beakers and 20 gold all by itself in turn 101. Taking into account the map, I think it's a great position.

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When I saw this, I had a shiver:

Scary GNP! I think Ilios accumulated some gold and went full research during the golden age... I'm glad it's over. By the way, I have a GP coming for a Golden Age of my own. I could make it faster, but I think it'd help me if I fired the GA when I already have DaveV's cities, so I'm in no rush.

By the way:

Holy! It went even higher... You can see why the thought of a triple consecutive GA made me panic. Fortunately, with the way FfH works, consecutive GAs aren't much of a victory guarantee. The tech tree is too ramificated, it's not continuous like BTS. So it matters less (and the benefits you can get by going deep into the tech tree are not that huge).

This is a picture of Ilios land during the GA:

You can notice that he moved his capital to the middle of the land and that he's running aristocracy without agrarianism (those 2/0/4 farms - remember the golden age). Forests everywhere means almost every tile get the +1h from a GA, which is bad (for me, at least). My GA will have a scary GNP, but not so much of a scary MFG, in comparasion.

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My first Priests of Leaves! I only have 2 right now, with 4 or 5 more in production. But more cities will start pumping them soon enough (and faster).

Why more cities and why faster?

Because of my new civics. You can see that I valued faster production over more xp from the get go. Potency priests get xp quick enough and my summons will do most of the fighting. I'm sure I'll defeat DaveV due to my better troops, so I want it to be as fast as possible!

As you can see from the unmined copper, DaveV still lacks mining. Maybe he's gunning for Ritualists (since he has AV and, therefore, he's close to priesthood). But he can't produce them quick enough (he needs temples and the units are expensive hammer wise) and they'll be scattered all over the place.

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I think I'll try to generate a GBard or a Great Prophet during my Golden Age for the FoL shrine. With my cities + DaveV's cities + Ilios cities, the shrine can be worth 20 gold per turn! That's a lot! Here's the current religious screen:

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My new city:

Don't worry, I have't gone crazy yet. The monument build is because I want the city to pump a lot of culture to get acess to marble.

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[SIZE="2"]Picture Dump:[/SIZE]

Cities:

Demographics:

I thought I had picturesof the graphs, but I can't find them. So I'll just have to post them in another update.