Arise, Riders of Rohanna! Ride for Molach! [SPOILERS!]

[Molach]

No turn today.

Thanks for input.
Settler in 10 turns, yes, 4 turns before, then grow a bit on warriors, then finish it. Workers are gonna be idle unless I grab roads. About getting roads - need 3 road segments to link up with 'better city', so that will at least ensure my workers won't idle. And those roads both give trade route and easier defense, especially from enemy players but also if I get one of those 4-barb stacks incoming. Will delay mining by some turns, but perhaps not as bad as I think - I can build more workers to be ready for the great mining-settler spam I'll embark on.

Perhaps time to run some tests.

I'm thinking of getting dereptus brewing house along the southern (elvish) river - either 1W of Sian's capital or 4E of 'better city'. Not sure how fast I should grab it though. Both cities get some hills for production so perhaps won't take too long. Workers and warriors priority, but might be possible to grow while building that instead of warriors, maybe. I'm looking at some nice +happy if I can peacefully build for a while now. 3 calender, 2 mining (1 after BW) - then beer before long.

Perhaps I should throw out a dotmap too, whats best way to do that? How far to zoom out and such?

---
@Ichabod
Yeah makes perhaps sense. Do you think Serdoa didn't do it because he is more experienced with FFH/Civ in general and knows the harpy event to be ..crippling? (Perhaps opinions differ, I would say it is, at this point in the game)

But perhaps the clown did it, hoping to escape worst problems by building settler at pop 2. But I think he lost charismatic before the Approval-rating drop in Demographics.

[Molach]

Turn 14

Pictures from turn 14, for completeness:
Demo:


Map:



Turn 15

Greeted by discovery of my first tech:



And I revolt. Get these demographics:



And just like that, my 'lead' is gone, My worker is about 4-5 turns behind others, just gonna get worse from now on. If the others are cramped, or have happiness issues I'll pull ahead later on, but for now it's catch-up time.

My warrior moved onto the 'better city' hill to my SW, saw nothing, no barbs. Scout moved onto forested hill to the north and revealed some terrain. After I ended turn, a lion also came into view:



+2 str promotions, and poisoned. So he must have et one of Serdoa's Worldspell goblins. Good job! I tested odds, so I am gonna take this slight detour and destroy the lion while my scout still is a horselord. Dunno how much exp I'll gain, hopefully +3 so I get second promo unlocked.

And more water mana lying around. Game is trying to trick me into going for elementalism just to spring my deserts.

Now, do I dare build settler for 3 turns while farm finishes before going warrior? I'll sleep on it...

[Molach]

First off, took a shot of settings for the game, if anyone wants to look over them, and see what I've missed....


Wildlands - means a str 3 scout with combat promos is gonna be useful...
Human basium& hyborem...basium could be a ded-lurker of summoning player I guess, but hyborem needs to be a unspoilt extra player.

This turn I told my warriors Belegtad (Mighty II) to hold fast, and prepare for barbarian incursions on the forested hill which will most likely be my next city. They bravely reported that no enemies were in sight, but that they were ready anyway. I really want to push out settlers/workers and not build more warriors than I need, with two warriors lost against the elves I'm a bit behind sentry-net wise (but gaining worker was extremely lucky so no complaints). In SP I might move this warriors around but now I'm gonna have him fortify here and gain exp by having enemies suicide into him.

Up north my scout saw a lion moving into range last turn, this turn I moved NE - NE (to flank him) then wheeled 135 degrees and attacked the lion from behind. 95.6% odds. I attacked because I feared that this lion left alive to heal up, lose poisoned would be a menace to fresh warriors or 2-str scouts. And because I like to kill stuff.



Won 3xp, at 2(3) health now. I'm gonna promote him combat ** to heal and to become even more of a animal-slayer. As long as warcry promotion is up, he will take out most of the wildlife around here.

Capital - went with warrior build for 1 turn. Maybe I'll be more reckless tomorrow and can continue settler then.

Demos. Perhaps I should spoiler these from now on, unless I want to talk about them?

So two are at size 3, one still at 1. Perp got score this turn too.
And 9 crop yield with a size 1 city is decent.

[Ichabod]

The 9 food at size 1 is likely a agrarianism irrigated corn. Scout also found a hut! Let us hope for some goodies. It's better to pop the hut before promoting the scout, because if you get AH, you can promote him to "Animal Capture" (or whatever is the promo name). I don't think that was changed in EitB.

[Ranamar]

Nothing to add that Ichabod didn't say... just try to save some exp for animal capturing.
I also sometimes give Woodsman I to my scouts because it's a bit better when they're in the woods which, well, sometimes that's often. I'm not sure it's worth it this time.

Actually, one more thing! That looks like a mine 1N of the metamagic node. I bet you're close to another player there.

[Molach]

Turn rolled at 3.a.m, so I played turn very quick before going to work.
Scout opened hut, found a map:


I meant to promote him combat 2 (so he doesn't die to a griffon in the fog) but can't recall if I did. Reason being, with combat 2 he should be able to get odds on barb warriors when fortified in good terrain, so he can get more exp for next promo from them too. Either way, a live sentry is really needed atm.

Capital:


Back on settler...next turn farm shall be finished so gonna grow and build one warrior...or two? We shall see.I'll soon free the held warrior, scout is still alive...so we shall see. I'm actually leaning towards rushing the settler, and let the new city build warriors. Also gives elven worker something to do.

[Molach]

Whats that word...eerie. I've got an eerie feeling. I guess the other clowns and orcs and ghosts have all met and are having a nice diplomacy going, while I'm still in the middle of elsewhere. No contacts. My scout stopped to heal a turn, they still have horselord promotion on. Or 'warcry' is perhaps the correct term. My warriors are still bravely defending the forested hill from nothing. Such selfless devotion to the cause; I must see about establishing a medal of some sort to commemorate this undaunted ready-to-defend-ness they are showing. I'll award them the 'order of Maginot' to keep their spirits up.

No barbs in sight anywhere except an old elephant trugding around just north of my capital.

Speaking about capital:



Decided to grow in 2, finishing warrior turn after with 2 hammer overflow and then settler out. This warrior will stay home while settler is built. (Where's the 'chicken' emoticon?)

Lazy elves finally finished farming the corn, almost propelling me into the crop yield lead again.



My rivals are size 4, 3, 2. Yohoo, I'm mediocre!

[Molach]

Seems like I played a turn at 04:17 last night. Don't quite remember what I did, luckily I took two shots.

Scout was at 2.8 (3) last turn (EOT) but it seems like I moved him instead of healing a turn. He is combat II, so I think I'll take my chance and move him to the hill next to warrior, free him turn after that.



I see a fire raging here, too bad we can't bring a burning branch to my jungle and burn that down too.
My scout can free the demon warrior soon.

Also got some demos.

At capital, unless I messed about with the tiles, it should grow to size 4, warrior will finish next turn then I'll rush to settler.

[Molach]

New turn, at last, and a dry summer it will be. Yay.

But I got cold feet. Again. If I pump settler out - start up a new city faster. It will generate +2 food and +2 hammers at start (2 commerce will be eaten up by upkeep). But no worker for the farms it needs. Pump worker out next - plantation #2 finishes sooner and next city gets a flying start. I think it's worth a 3-turn delay on new city. I'll be running low defense vs. barbs, but hopefully my hill cities can withstand some barbs.
Homeland defense warrior finished EOT, so next build will probably be the worker. I think. Maybe.

I'm last in score, demos not so bad. One rival is better all around, two others not that scary yet. I think this means the others have more techs than me. Presumably from huts.

Up north, scout will chat up the demon warrior next turn, see who they are, why there is hellish terrain to the west of their position, why they are bearing the prophecy mark and what curse made them into demon race. And when they can start work for me. Further north again I see some ice and a graveyard.

Down south the Griffon made his appearance again. My warrior will be fortified +25%, on a 50% tile. So it will be 4 vs. 5.25 if the griffon attacks. Around 80% for me, would hurt to lose.

[Ranamar]

Did you stop to get Exploration? Based on your screenshots, it seems like you didn't... If you have exploration, you'll have plenty to do even before you get Mining. In any event, I'd say that, if you can still get the settler done around when you finish with the plantations so you don't have idle workers waiting for the settler to get there, the worker could be worth it, but, otherwise, I'd probably go for getting the new city growing.

As a side thought, once you get Mining, you might want to consider pausing research for a few turns to build up a cash buffer of 100 gold, in case you get one of the events that lets you buy a useful unit. (There's one where you can get a settler for 100g, and there's another one that can give you a Great Engineer for 75g...)