[SPOILERS] A threesome becomes a twosome

[plako]

I've been pondering long-term strategy, and I submit the following plan:

> after Mining, grab Masonry for the Luchuirp world spell. Fire off the WS with 3-4 cities. Should we use the hammer transfer* trick to move all hammers into a single city, to accelerate Great Engineer production? First GE should probably bulb Bronze Working.
> Festivals, for Markets and Freaks; Construction for Barney, Catapults, and Golems. Defend ourselves with Wood Golems, Catapults, and Swordsmen while we:
> Beeline Knowledge of the Ether. Crank out some adepts. Dwarven adepts should get Enchantment so they can cast Repair. Build Sun and Spirit nodes.
> Research Divination. Use Great Engineer to rush Tower of Divination, to grab Sorcery. Build Metamagic node.
> Research Elementalism, build Fire node. I'm wishing we'd gone with Sheaim instead of Illians so we could skip this step.
> Spam Blasting Workshops in Luchuirp cities, and crank out lots and lots of fireball throwing wood golems.
> Research Education, switch to Apprenticeship and Conquest.
> Research Horseback Riding for Chariots.

* A unit picks up the hammer, moves to another city, and commits suicide to drop the hammer.

Golems have the speed problem and I don't think we can succesfully go for offensive with them so we really don't need early Sorcery. However they make excellent city defenders so I suggest we focus on economy before heading to blasting workshops.

This would mean we try to claim religion i.e. RoK right after Masonry (maybe even before it, if we think we might lose it otherwise) and I would also consider researching CoL before KotE or at least right after it.

Concerning Great persons I suggest Keelyn tries to produce either Artist or Scientist running mixed pool somewhere ASAP to compete with my Engineer pool. Artist would be used for Drama and Scientist either Academy (very good when someone can run 100% all the time) or partial bulbing Sorcery (I think we could get something better with Tower of Divination in this case).

[plako]

I'll be travelling sunday-tuesday next week (15-17.7). If the turn comes in during that time frame feel free to play. I might be able to do it, but no guarantees.

[DaveV]

Economy first is the other strategy, and usually a good idea. Let me present some arguments for the beeline:

GP bulbing is severely nerfed by tech costs. I couldn't log into the game, but I think my sandbox is pretty accurate. It shows 1406 beakers for Drama, so two bards won't quite get the job done. Sorcery is 4690 beakers (!), so it will take four sages plus a little bit to knock that one off.

RoK has a lot of things going for it, and has great synergy with golems, but it doesn't provide any culture. Balseraphs are Creative, and Luchuirp can spam Sculptor's Studios, but the Illians would have to build monuments or just sit at first ring.

The natural tendency in FfH is to go in many different directions chasing all the cool stuff; I think it's more powerful to drive straight for an early advantage. I talked before the game about finding a single tech path that would benefit all the civs; I think KotE->Sorcery is it. All three civs are at least decent at magic, and the sooner we can start sending out Floating Eyes, the better.

[DaveV]

Are you guys going for a war based victory then?

Darrell

There is no other option. All the sissy victories are disabled:

[plako]

DaveV - Granted that route has some very powerful elements and you're right Tower of Divination is the way to get Sorcery instead of bulbing. I'm just questioning the timing. We need some kind of economy to support powerful army. We could ignore RoK, but I think we need at minimum CoL before we can seriously think advancing deep in magic line.

[DaveV]

Good point about an army costing an outrageous amount of money on these settings. Which is yet another argument for relying on summons.

Here's what I see as our problem: Team 1 can build Raider horsemen; Team 4 can build Sprinting Centaurs; Team 2 can build Raider horsemen with an extra move . We need some early way to deal with fast pillagers, or we're just going to turn into everyone's punching bag.

Cottage economy is probably hopeless; we might as well hang up a neon sign saying "pillage us". Aristofarms require a lot of techs (Conquest civic is very powerful, but Aristofarms then need Sanitation to be viable). Techs are really expensive (that's what I was shooting for in requesting Deity difficulty, forcing hard choices).

I think the best answer is to use City States to deal with city maintenance; it's cheaper to research than Aristocracy, and doesn't nerf food. For army support, pillage economy (puppets+spectres?), or city capture/raze money.

[plako]

I was #1 in power this turn so I guess threat of wolf rider is now gone.

I'll be away and probably can't play 1-2 next turns so feel free to take them if you can.

[DaveV]

I was #1 in power this turn so I guess threat of wolf rider is now gone.

I'll be away and probably can't play 1-2 next turns so feel free to take them if you can.

Do you have any directions for worker actions or warrior moves?

[plako]

I can only build roads and I'm making 1 towards you and 2nd towards SE to settle on riverside to claim corn or alternatively to S where there is another corn. To be frank neither of these options seem that great, but they're best currently visible.

I've 3 warriors and I'm building settler and no reason to build 4th warrior, but please change it, if there comes a reason.

[DaveV]

Graphs confirm that the Clan lost their wolf rider:



A griffon didn't like Kyan's master plan for flushing out the choking Elohim scout (see bottom right):



But plan B is in effect: while plako's away, I'm stealing one of his mud golems to build a couple 1-turn roads. On turn 24, I should be able to hit the scout with all three of the warriors that are sitting in my capital (50% odds of winning first combat, 95.71% on second, 99.81% on third).