[SPOILERS] It's a treehugger, not a facehugger... honest! - Sareln/Ljos/Tessa

[Sareln]

[COLOR="Magenta"]Sareln,

I see that i have contact with you! However, i don't see a single unit of yours anywhere though. What happened?

Anyways, greetings from the magicians of yore! Do you need help contacting the vamps? Because they're rather near me...

Amelia[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]Hi Amelia!

Hunters with Hawks happened. I'm on the other side of your Eastern
Mountain Range.

I've got contact with Vampires, Orcs, Horsemen. I'm missing Bannor.
Have you seen them around?

My sympathies with the closeness of the vampires. Hopefully you've
managed to convince Mackoti to leave you alone? If that's not the case
it's going to be rough sailing since he's already got Aristocracy up
and is probably happily on his way to Vampires at this point.

I seem to be bereft of happiness resources in my local area. Have you
had any more luck in that regard?

-Sareln-[/COLOR]

[Sareln]

[COLOR="Magenta"]Sareln

I have plenty of cotton, and silks. And one happy wine i guess. So while i'm not swimming in happy resources, i'm not without them as well.

I have a nap with vamps until T120, which is hopefully enough for mages. He wanted T100, but that sounded like "let's have a NAP till i get vamps and own you".

Ah a hawk. I was actually worried about a Giant Spider, especially since you didn't introduce yourself first!

You're my third contact so far, but i have heard rumors that bannor is below me.

Anyways, I'm trying my damn hardest to catch up with my GNP monsters next door, but it's going to be hard. Hopefully my world spell will help me, but nothing's certain for now.

Good luck in Erebus!

(Also i hate your production graph, but then again i'm dead last in that).

Amelia[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]Ah, I have just the silk, maybe the ivory sometime in the next
century. It's a rough spot to be, especially with Vampires having at
*least* 2 golds that I can see here.

Good that you got that NAP signed. Hopefully it is enough for Mages.

No Giant Spiders yet, Mr. Yellow fed his early scouts to all the local
ones and they're all C3 or so. I've just been remiss in the diplo,
busy week. That and the fact that we're separated by impassable
mountains (and the vampires) near as I can tell and chatting wasn't
high up on the priority list.

World spell is just going to shut off magic and give all your arcane
units at +Num of Improved Mana Nodes including World Features XP. I
don't know if the Pyre/Mirror/Letum/Sepulcher are on this map,
otherwise it'd be good for a cool +4 right off the bat.

I'm in Golden Age right now, try to keep that in consideration. With
all the dry forests on this map, my Prod is basically doubled right
now. It'll drop back to normal shortly, don't worry.

-Sareln-[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Magenta"]Sareln

I'm more interested in shutting off the vampire's magic... don't really want a horde of spectres looking at me. Turning off vamp's magic will also shut off regen / haste, which is good.

Ah GA. How did that happen? Event or self made?

Amelia[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]The hard way, sacrificed the academy for the GA instead. Figured it'd
be worth it in the short term (<30 turns), which is what matters in
the snowball.

-Sareln-[/COLOR]

[Sareln]

[COLOR="Orange"]Sorry for the long wait on a reply. It's been very hectic for me recently.
I'll try to get everything together in one big go now while I have the time to spare.

On Mackoti, Language barriers and culture and slang barriers do make things hard.
He seems to have a good language grasp but uses it bluntly. But you may have succeeded
in doing 'something', for at this point I'm pretty sure 'something' has happened between
the Amurites and the Vampires. Just not sure of the specifics. I'm going to try another
attempt at sending Amelia something, another none-response will be at least tell me
he has either decided "I" am evil or has signed some sort of deal with the Vamps.

My own lack of exploration is coming up as Barbarian Cities have sprung up
in the south west. Spoiling some of my city plans. I'll propose a map trade
next time so you can spot it. I bring it up because it will be mildly annoying
for you too, the barbarians have allready got one warrior wandering through to your
land and untill I get my hero to take it over more will keep coming.

Mr Yellow's offer to go after the vampires is nice... but did he bring up the idea of
riding through your lands? Because i'm pretty sure he could just go around
you if he actually wanted too. The fact that he offered is helpful. Maybe he wants
to be bought off to go after the vamps? He must know that attacking you while
you have hunters and a worldspell isn't going to end well. Mr Yellow does seem to
be playing mercenary to a tilt. Wanting to get paid to attack someone was his opening
diplomatic offer to me. which as he had only met you, me and the Bannor... well
the opening was telling in it's ruthlessness.

Currently Isengard is in financial distress. Due to what 'could' be seen as a lucky event
we finished philosophy a turn early. This meant that the Great Prophet couldn't
bulb runes while we tech priests. Instead we've now had to bulb nearly to priests and are
limping to Runes. Overall I have only lost a few turns if I do enough damage control,
but the next few turns are going to be painful, especially as I had fully set up a mass
expansion. The next two cities will get founded in the next 1-2 turns. But the next two
settlers, which finish in 4 turns, will have to hold of settling untill Runes comes in.

Map information is easy enough to pass along. I know you have quite a lot of copper
nearby. The only others I can see apart from those near you is one inside Hippus
territory or the one in mine.
But for exact details;
Copper 1 - Inside your borders
This Copper is 3E 1S of Galadhon on a plains river tile,
Copper 2 - Near your borders
This copper is 5E 2N of Rivendell on a plains hill tile next to a lake and deer
Copper 3 - Disputed claim
This copper is 2S of the Pool of Tears to the East of your border.

The First two are easily yours and the third could be too. But that one doesn't need to
be rushed, unless you get proof that by claiming it you could deny either the vamps or
the Amurites.

On map topics though, I'd like to bring up the idea of you flying your hawks from my
own cities. After all with our map trade deal I would also benifit from the extra map
information and I find myself wondering what other surprises lie in that direction. I
certainly have nothing to hide within my own borders, at the moment, but i'll understand
if you want to say no.

Ravus - The Red Wizard[/COLOR]

1. Mackoti & Amelia, something is going down
   
2. Barb Cities
   
3. Mercenary Mr. Yellow
   
4. Orc Tech Plan
   
5. Copper Locations
   
6. Wants Hawk Flights
   

[Sareln]

[COLOR="Green"]Hi Ravus,

Mackoti and Amelia are locked into an NAP until T120 (both have
independently told me this), but I think Mackoti has been convinced of
the danger of letting the Amurites tech and build up in peace with no
resistance. If we're fortunate, the timing will be such that
Mackoti's first round of vampires are spent in a bloody conflict with
Amelia's magi. As you can see on the map, there's not a lot of very
interesting land between Mackoti and I, quite a barren wasteland
though it will look quite nice with lots of forests.

I don't mind training on Barbs, so take the time you need to grab your
hero, there's no rush from my end.

Mr. Yellow floated the idea, but he was definitely waiting for me to
offer something concrete. Looking at the map, there is no way for him
to get to Mackoti except through me. I don't think I need to fight
him, since there's plenty of land to expand into between us, but I
don't trust him at all. That's the problem with playing mercenary of
course, no-one trusts you and I don't feel like I need to pay him off.

Do you know if he made a similar offer to the Bannor?

Tough break on the teching problems. My sympathies. I think I'm
going to tech crafting -> mining now so that I can actually start
improving my cities production. After that, straight to priests or
perhaps detour to archery to get Gilden up. I dumped most all of my
golden age production into settlers, so now is the time to sit back
and consolidate. This also means I should be able to start flying
hawk missions out of your cities in the next few turns at the latest,
since my two largest cities will have hunting lodges up and running.
The service will be free, since hawks are so cheap.

Thanks for the update on the copper sites. My hunter/hawk combo that
I sent towards the Vampires and Amurites has reached the southern
coast. As you can see, the land tails off. I'm going to see if I can
convince Amelia to let me through to the Bannor.

Let me know if you need anything beyond the hawk flights.

-Sareln-[/COLOR]

[Sareln]

[COLOR="Green"]Hey Amelia,

The Bannor are on the other side of you from me. I was wondering if
you'd be okay with signing open borders and letting my hunter-hawk
pair through? You could follow my scout to Bannor lands and get
contact with him as well.

I don't think Mr. Yellow has any scouts nearby you right now, so I
can't point him your way. He appears to be running a strictly
mercenary diplo-game, for sale to the highest bidder. I don't think
anyone is buying right now though.

-Sareln-[/COLOR]

[Sareln]

Did some crunching to make my final civic choice between God King, City States, and Aristocracy. Aristocracy makes up for the commerce loss against City States with just a handful of farms, but I think that I need the extra food more than the commerce. Well, really, I need more workers. I only have 7 for what what will soon be 8 cities and am having trouble keeping up, but I really wanted to multiply those golden age hammers through Expansive and just couldn't resist!



Ignore the cities in Red, they're not founded yet and aren't counted in the formula. I found max_plot_distance for this map by leaving it as a free variable and tweaking it until I predicted maintenance and actual maintenance on T85 matched exactly.

[Sareln]

A Tour of the Kingdom

Capital of the Kingdom, Rivendell has a moderately high hammer output and was running in God King for most of the Golden age producing 3 settlers over 10 turns. Every tile worked except for the Wet Corn has at least one hammer. The side effect of this has been to retard Rivendell's growth, and it remains the same size it was at the beginning of the golden age, 6, my old Happy-Cap before the spreading of FoL.



Caras Galadon has been a decent source of commerce and is now the holy city for the fellowship of leaves. It used the GA to build a Carnival and most of a Hunting Lodge in preparation for building Hawks, Hunters, and Workers. It has a high food output, and so will always be competing with the capital for the title of largest city.



Gondolin is another commerce city, but used the 2nd half of the golden age to produce a settler. It is happy-capp'd until I either get more happy resources or spread FoL to the city.



Moria is the treaty-city between Ravus and I. It has decent hammer potential, but will not really begin to shine until Priesthood and foresting operations begin in earnest.



Tirion is founded to take advantage of the deer and plentiful forests near the capital. I hope to eventually make this a commerce city. Ravus tells me that there is copper nearby, in the first ring, so Tirion should be able to build it's infrastructure quickly and then focus on commerce for the indeterminate future.



Eglarest is my newest city. For the longest time I did not have vision of my north, and thought that the Horselords were in this direction. With my recon deal with Ravus concluded, I see that I am free to expand north without fear of antagonizing the Hippus. With two animal-based food resources and access to incense, I expect Eglarest to contribute rather quickly.

[Sareln]

T90 Scouting Report

I currently have two hunters pushing back the fog. The first is at the confluence of the Vampires and Wizards. He is accompanied by a hawk, but has no XP and is so avoiding animals for now.



The other hunter was attacked by a Griffon south of Hippus lands and is currently healing. He will be equipped with a hawk and tasked with keeping an eye on the untrustworthy Hippus.

[Sareln]

Haven't seen the Hippus on chat for a while. Let's see if I can get him to open up a touch.

[COLOR="Green"]Hey Mr. Yellow,

Haven't seen you on chat recently. Everything going alright in the land of the horselords? Barbarian cities are starting to pop up and cause problems, as their kill teams walk through Ravus' land to mine. Beyond that trouble, a lot of the recent turns have just been "press-enter" sort of turns for me recently.

I did manage to get contact with both Vampires and Amurites. They are rather close together and seem likely to come to blow in the future, perhaps in as little as ~30 turns since it seems like Mackoti is going to have teched vampires by then.

I'm still casting about looking for the Bannor. There aren't all that may places left for them to be.

Sincerely,

Sareln

[/COLOR]

[uberfish]

Nice city count, I think it's about double what I had at this stage in PBEM2.