[SPOILERS] OMFG! There's a Succubus in my Bathhouse! Thoth plays with Tebryn

[Thoth]

Turn 50 update:

Empire overview:

Cities:

Backbacon:

Zamboni:

Screech:

End of turn Demos (GNP is with no tech selected, it'll be around 38/39 t51 when I select a tech and hire a Sage in Zamboni):

Comments to follow once I've played my PBEM 50 turn.

[Thoth]

Overall, I like my position.

I've been ahead in MFG for most of the game (GK helps a lot here) and keeping up (mostly) in CY and GNP.

I'm first to 3 cities (DaveV, wtf have you been doing?) with a solid pile of gold in the kitty for events/teching/emergency upgrade (once I get enough tech to upgrade to something other than warriors).
I'm light on workers (2 for 3 cities is way low) but I've been getting away with only 2 thanks to GK boosting hammers and 2 Oasis tiles in the capital. As much as this has helped my early game, my dime is wearing a bit thin and I'll be wanting more workers asap (t52 from Backbacon, t55 and t60 from Zamboni).


Expansion plans from here include 2 cities to the East to get the lovely floodplains area into my empire (both on PHs) and a city SW on the Marble (3h city tile, 1st ring pigs, defensive buffer).

Techwise.....I'm not sure atm

Both Education (cotts, Apprenticeship, maybe Conquest for a bit) and Calendar (Agrarianism, Reagents plantation) have their appeals. Calendar/Festivals works well for some easy commerce from Reagents + Growth + markets. But I'm not sure I want to spend the beakers/hammers getting to Festivals/Markets just yet.

BW is also an option (Bronze warriors end my barb problems and well....PYRE ZOMBIES) but.....it does little to improve my tech/expansion rate other than giving me an easier time vs barbs.

[Thoth]

Once the copper mine finishes, I can produce 16 base hammers and +1 food in Backbacon.

With GodKing, that's 25 food/hammers per turn. AKA 6t non-Expansive settlers.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

No Pyre Zombie rush? Bah.

[Mardoc]

So far, it looks like the only Sheaim-specific thing you've done is using your starting tech to grab God King very early; and even there you went Ag first, so you'd have had the same Myst ETA with any Agriculture civ. Nice start, but it could have been anyone.

Well, except if you had an econ trait you might be further ahead by now.

Do you have any use for the other Sheaim specifics? Zombies? Mana? Planar Gates? Elegy?

Or are you going to kill everyone with chariots?

[Thoth]

No Pyre Zombie rush? Bah.

A straight bronze beeline would be a poor idea on this map. There is lots of excellent land to expand into and my opponents are all ~20 tiles from my capital. I'll need some economy techs and some buildery stuff before I start my military shenanigans.

So far, it looks like the only Sheaim-specific thing you've done is using your starting tech to grab God King very early; and even there you went Ag first, so you'd have had the same Myst ETA with any Agriculture civ. Nice start, but it could have been anyone.

Well, except if you had an econ trait you might be further ahead by now.

Starting tech order was mandated by the start. A 5/1 Wheat tile is too strong to ignore for long. With only two 3f tiles to grow on and no good 3rd tile a straight Myst out of the gate while growing comes out weaker than Ag/Myst.


With an Ag civ I'd have gone worker first instead of growing onto the second Oasis tile and teched either Calendar or Crafting as first tech. Techplan after that would depend on the leader/civ.

Expansive would be very strong on this map (but then again, it's very strong on any "builder" map).

Do you have any use for the other Sheaim specifics? Zombies? Mana? Planar Gates? Elegy?

Or are you going to kill everyone with chariots?

Not chariots. The Sheam don't benefit from the EITB Double Chariot buff as much as every other civ. PZ's can't upgrade to anything so the Warrior-->Axeman-->Chariot upgrade line is broken. I can still upgrade scouts or horsemen to Chariots, but my main mounted forces will be HM and HAs (eventually).

PZs and Adepts will be making up a large portion of my OOB, but PZ's perform poorly on their own vs magic resistan Dwarfs. On the plus side, they perform very well against Skelletons and Spectres (EITB v9 spectres are st3 + death affinity. PZs are undead and ignore Death damage).

Elegy isn't worth the hammers. Nice effect, just too bloody expensive vs the alternatives (ie spend the hammers on PZs, Adepts, other war toy stuff).

Planar gates aren't worth 201 hammers unless the AC is already high and you already have some of the requisite infra. And maybe not even then.

PZs.....oh yeah. I'll be building lots of these. Plus the threat of PZs tends to make people a bit nervous.

Palace Mana.....oh yeah. Death/Chaos + Arcane/Summoner means fast leveling Adepts who can summon C1 skellies with a first strike. Fire means I get to set fire to shit, which is always fun.


In the meantime, ST 7 PZs and HAs/Hawks/Mages are going to take a few beakers and hammers to get online....so buildery stuff for the moment.

Then

[Thoth]

t51 is played.

I'm aiming for Calendar next, then either Festivals or Edu.

I'm running 100% cash t51 and 52. Calendar will finish up EOT 56 allowing me to start plantationing the Reagents t57 (the earliest I can have a worker available to start). I'll need 1-2 more turns of gold after that to do Edu or 0 turns cash for Festivals.

I'll need some form of additional commerce to fund expansion/teching past 4 cities, so either turning hammers into gold via markets (good on this hammer rich map) or education for some cotts (early cotts good for commerce, but bad for expansion). Edu also comes with Apprenticeship and Conquest.

If I head to Festivals after Calendar, then I'll revolt to Agrarianism on t58 after Screech pops it's borders. If I head to Edu after Calendar then I'll delay the swap until Edu is finished and make a triple swap to Nationhood/Apprenticeship/Agrarianism (or maybe Conquest )

Eot Demos at 100% cash with Calendar selected:

Ichabod's second in MFG and GNP. He's still in his starting civics.

DaveV is 1st in Food but trailing in MFG and is killing his GNP with unit upkeep. He revolted to Apprenticeship in the mid/late t40s. He's settled his third city now, but he lost a pop point in his second city a couple of turns ago. The only explanations I can think of are either he got hit with the Wasting Disease event or he starved it to get a couple more hammers/beakers.

Serdoa revolted to GK/Agrarianism this turn, so I'm thinking the Lanun position isn't quite as hopeless as Yell0w and Serdoa have made out. They're lagging in demos pre-revolt, but I expect Serdoa can do some catching up with solid civics in place.

I still haven't made contact with Kyan, but he's sitting with a size 5 capital for some unknown reason.

[Thoth]

I'm thinking Festivals after Calendar. Festivals should finish eot 60.

The timing works out well for Backbacon (finish worker eot 52, finish settler eot 59, warrior or scout eot 60, Market eot 62, settler eot 68, Deruptus eot 74).

Zamboni finishes worker eot 56, warrior eot 57, scout eot 59, 1t into warrior t60, market eot 64, warrior done eot 65, worker done ~eot 69 or 70. GSage done eot 73. Academy in capital on t75.

Screech finishes Monument (with the help of a chop) eot 56. So borders eot 59. Mine on PH completes on t59 or road on PH completes t58, + 1 spare worker turn. 2nd warrior completes eot 61. I need to run the worker turn/growth curve math to see when the market will complete. Circa t67?

Current costs are 7gpt. Each additional unit will cost 1gpt. I'm looking at adding at least 9 units over the next 15-20 turns. 3 Markets will add 10gpt at max tech, 10 or 11gpt at max tax.

Yep, Festivals is looking good.

Not so sure on the Ag swap though. Might be waiting on edu for that swap.

[Thoth]

Heh.

So much for micro plans.

I can get Zamboni's worker done a turn faster than planned, so I'm gunning full bore for Calendar. I'm getting enough slipstream beakers to do Calendar eot 54. I'll run max cash again t55 to keep the slush fund topped up

[Thoth]

Wow.

I really shouldn't do arithmetic before my morning coffee.

(154-54)/45 != 2

So Calendar will be eot 55 with a bunch of extra cash or overflow beakers.