[Spoilers] A Grand Ol' Adventure: Dain the Caswallawn of the Grigori

[Sciz]

Just posting here to mention that i am sick and won't be commenting on this stuff right now. Plus i'd like to see the save first before I decide

but thanks for the suggestions I have to keep reminding myself that I won't be able to place new cities of my own :P

[Sciz]

When I first loaded up the map, it seemed your suggestions were the best locations. But upon further examination, I noticed that I couldn't place city #1 on the plains hill on turn 1. This is because the forest and hill takes away all its remaining moves. I really want to place the city on the first turn, firstly because it saves us a turn, but also because I wanted the city to be the capital, and if I didn't place it on turn 1 i'd have place city #2 next turn as well, which would slow me down a bit.



So this is where I placed the capital. It loses the extra production and defence of the plains hill, but on the other hand it has less overlap with the barb city to the west. Not too much of a loss, and I don't like waiting for turn two to place cities.

I settled the second city where you recommended, as it seemed the best place to both minimize overlap and ocean tiles. Still got two though. After this I decided to take the hut in the south with a warrior, and got lucky!



Not the best tech, but it saves us a few turns in the future, and will allow us to hook up happy and health resources quicker!

I start research on agriculture, to get those flood plains going, it will be followed by mining or calendar, not sure yet. Depends if I need production or gold, I guess. Midgar the capital starts working on a warrior while growing, and city number two start working on a worker, which will take 10 turns, incidentally the same number of turns until agriculture is completed.

Overview:



Also in the south we can see another landmass, which houses the Letum Frigus:



Is this perhaps a clue that the Ilians are around there somewhere? Maybe the mapmaker placed the Letum Frigus somewhere close the Ilians. Only time will tell!

Of the other players, Varn Gosam also settled both cities on turn 1 I believe, and I think both Kandros and Ichabod only settled one city, but i'm not sure. Cassiel hasn't had his turn yet.

[DaveV]

So this is where I placed the capital. It loses the extra production and defence of the plains hill, but on the other hand it has less overlap with the barb city to the west.

...but two more tiles of overlap with Junon. Still, no argument here - the grass tile was my original choice (it picks up all 4 resources), but I talked myself into the plains hill instead. Waiting till turn two to settle both cities would be a sacrifice, but might pay off in the long term. Less overlap with the barb city that will eventually be yours is a good thing.

There was no elegant solution to the city settling problem, so flopping them down and getting to work is great.

[Sciz]

Yeah i'm aware of the double-standard of overlapping with Junon instead of the barb city, but it felt better this way for some reason

[Sciz]

No updates right now because the turns are going really slow and there's nothing at all happening. Just waiting for stuff to be built and research to be completed. Not much scouted yet either.

[Sciz]

blah I really wish I could've got Cassiel for this

I hate playing without financial. In BtS it's okay because everyone goes cottages anyways, but in FFH2 financial aristofarms are so good. Without financial it's... ugh. 3 commerce next to rivers is okay, 2 commerce without is awful. 2 commerce for the rest of the game! blah. And we don't have lots of rivers around.

One good thing however is that Mardoc has posted in the tech thread that he's staying spoiler-free in case anyone needs someone to take over a civ, so he could be a good person for mercurians.

[Sciz]

I still have nothing to say. Capital has grown to size 2, almost size 3, still working on its warrior. Worker in city#2 is done in 3 turns or so. No scouting to be done because the only direction I can go, west, is covered by two barb cities, a goblin fort, and a wandering hill giant. Plus I need defense in case something wanders my way.

However I did get a look at the bottom barb city, and it has only one barbarian warrior in it, which is held. I'm assuming the top is the same. Maybe if I get there fast enough I might be able to capture it with only 2-3 warriors. That'd be neat. I might try it soon.

[Sciz]

I just know everyone's dying for an update, so here's one!

Well you've already seen the overview pic and pretty much nothing has changed there, except Midgar has expanded its borders and grown to size 3. Here's how it looks inside of the city:



5 turns left until we get our first adventurer! There are two ways I can expand my great person producing speed. The adventurer's guild from currency gives +2 adventurer points a turn, and the grigori tavern at mercantilism gives another point. I could also build a national epic, but I won't contaminate my pure pool with great something (commander? bard?) filth. Maybe in one of my other cities after i've build an adventurer's guild. Maybe.

I'm wondering if maybe we all got one outcropping of land each. As you can see in the pics a few posts above this one, there is clearly land to the south, and also a bit of land can be seen to the north. So maybe we get one piece of land each. I must explore this, but I have to capture the northern barbarian city first, as it is the only coastal city nearby. I'm gonna aim to capture these cities asap. I wonder how fast these cities will get warriors as backup. Currently the south only has a warrior, and i'm guessing the north has that as well.

As for teching path, agriculture just finished, and I started on calendar, to get the incense hooked up asap for the commerce. I've also got a silks site to the west of Midgar, but it's covered by forest, so i'll need to get mining first, which I will get after calendar. Following that I believe I will go with ancient chants, then education and code of laws, for aristofarms naturally.

Long-term teching goal is a bit unclear. I have several seperate goals. The first is to get more adventurers faster, which I need currency for. Mercantilism is too far away to think about right now. Second goal is get some sort of army for myself. I think I will head up the melee line for that one, getting Dragon Slayers (replacement for champions) at some point. I also want to go up the magic line though, so I can get my Heroic Archmages. I have realized though that there is not a single mana node on my map so far. That is not good. Hopefully I will find more to the west.

Speaking of mana, I really want to expand to the island south of me to get that nice letum frigis ice mana, for heroic archmages casting snowfall. Or can only Ilians get the mana from the Letum Frigis? I forget. Hopefully I can get it. But then again maybe someone is on that island already, if that's the case it would be really hard to get the city. My third goal is to get to fanaticism to summon the Mercurians. I need Ancient Chants, Mysticism, Philosophy, Priesthood and finally Fanaticism for that. It's not a very long tech path actually, but I wonder what other techs I should prioritize first. Getting KotE definitely, that's only one tech away from the path. Currency for adventurer points should be obtainable first, as it's only one tech away from Code of Laws. I will probably have to skip most of the melee line tech path though. Maybe I can fit in bronze working before Fanaticism, but that's probably it. I don't want to be too late with the Mercurians after all. I should work out a proper tech path soon. It all depends how close the enemy is of course. I also need a decent city site for the Mercurian Gate. It should be close to the other players, no sense giving them a backline city when they'll do a lot of fighting. So somewhere to the west probably. We'll see as we scout more.

[Sciz]

Oh yeah I got an event that required me to have body mana, or else Midgar would lose 1 pop.

I don't have body mana. So Midgar is now down to 2 pop, yay

[Sciz]

So yeah i'm gonna lose my capital