[EitB LVIII Spoilers] coldrain prolongs the Age of Fire

[coldrain]

Turn 74

I will also update T75, but for reasons that will become clear, I’ll first go through T74. This turn opened up with my second subdue animal hunter capturing a giant spider on defence:


I will retareat both the spider and hunter within the closest city to heal. Mutated hunter is healing up after capturing third bear, he will be sent to hunt for a scorpion I saw many turns ago between xist10 and Bing. My golden age ended and I used the last turn to finish BW with a lot of overflow to writing. Aurorarcher is still in his GA and completed the Great Library this turn. His research rate is miles ahead of competition, with me in second place (need to meet Dave to be absolutely sure about this).
Now for the reason why T74 warrants closer reporting:


Barbarian Pyre city sent a kill squad a turn earlier than I thought was possible. My first SoK would have reached Road of Sacrifice next turn, making it almost impossible for the barbarians to take it. But now I have one fortified unpromoted warrior and a combat 1 hunter defending against four C1 warriors. I also sent close by mud golem to the city, as it has a defensive strength of 2. If a barb warrior gets a lucky kill on the hunter, then the city is toast. I had to nervously wait for next turn to see the result…
 
Turn 75

Drumroll… And the city survives! With a single defender:


The hunter killed two barbarians, but the fortified warrior was taken out straight away, without inflicting casualties. That’s why the mud golem had to defend too and was destroyed. A new mud golem is roading towards the city, currently on the mana node. I promoted the first SoK to combat 1 and marched it to defend the city. Unless I get horribly unlucky, the city and remaining units should be safe (barbarian should get max 4% odds against the SoK). Lesson learned from this: Pay attention to when a barb city completes warriors and make better estimation when a raiding party will set forth. Also small incident of note: a barbarian goblin attacked the hunter at Halfway ruins, granting enough experience for a promotion there.


Writing completed and capital switched tiles to build first library in 1 turn. Heroic epic has produced three SoKs so far, more will follow after the library. Barbarian Pyre city should have two archers defending, so a minimum of four units is needed to capture it, more is better for back up in case of bad attack rolls. Second great engineer was born at the end of the GA, now sits in reserve at capital. I also want to build national epic here at a suitable moment, to get the next great person sooner.


Borders expanded at Church of Deep and fur camp is under construction. Third captured bear is on its way to east, to be used for culture generation for the Pyre city after conquest. Second bear already established at Halfway Ruins. I need more mud golems, especially when one was lost defending Road of Sacrifice (still kicking myself for miscalculating when barbs would be a threat there). Soon gems and furs will be connected, so the plan is to grow high food surplus cities while building libraries (only for commerce cities) or other infrastructure/missionaries/etc. Next round of settlers will be started somewhere within the next 5-8 turns.
Finally some foreign news: Adaptive leaders had their schedule trait change on T72ish. Bing changed IND to EXP, so settler spamming to be expected from him. Aurorarcher swapped PHI to SPI, a curious choice. I would have rated ARC, RAI or CHA much more likely for the Kuriotates than SPI. He’s still in Fellowship of Leaves to which he converted at the beginning of his GA. So is the plan to build a Priest of Leaves army? That doesn’t sound that powerful of a choice? Or is he planning on swapping religion to something else after he has grown enough ancient forest lumber mills to patch up his unit production potential?

Amount of cities per known player:

• 7 cities: xist10 and me
  
• 6 cities: Brian
  
• 5 cities: Bing and Aurorarcher (3 mega cities, 2 settlements)
  

Demos:

[coldrain]

Turn 79

On T78 xist10 proposed map trade which I accepted. Here’s what was revealed:






Based on a quick look it looks like xist10 was slightly unlucky in the land quality. His capital is great, but most of the best riverside grassland is buried in jungle, which takes BW and a lot of worker turns to improve. On the contrary, I had the best grassland quite open or covered in forest. I do think xist10 has a better capital with the wheat, gems and bananas, great synergy with agrarianism + God-king early game. If I had started in xist10 position, I would have probably founded second city directly on top of one of those jungle sugars, to share capital food and immediately gain +1 happiness with calendar. DaveV also has some of his land locked behind jungle, but not as much. On to turn 79:


Research of fishing complete and construction is next target. Started workboat in Halfway Ruins. Capital built library and more SoKs, now building 2-turn national epic. Libraries ongoing in High Wall and Undead Settle. Conquest task force is amassing near Road of Sacrifice, the highlighted tile contains the final wave of reinforcements, bringing the total to 6 SoKs and 1 hunter. One of the Soldiers of Kilmorph cleaned up previous wave of barbarian warriors and is now promoted to combat 2. The forces will combine and attack the barbarian Pyre city on T81.

DaveV made contact with me on this turn, not sure with which unit he did it. Now that all players have been met, here’s civics and other information:  




Graphs in spoiler:

[shallow_thought]

Interesting graphs. I hope you can outscale the limited number of megacities - and soon. Although there looks to be a lot of rough terrain between the two of you.

[coldrain]

Interesting graphs. I hope you can outscale the limited number of megacities - and soon. Although there looks to be a lot of rough terrain between the two of you.

Indeed, I have some concerns about the tech lead of Aurorarcher. Thankfully he doesn't seem to be going for mages, unless I'm missing something? Need to keep an eye on his tech path. I believe he now has priesthood (need to double check on next turn).

I will be in a good position if I get the Pyre city: I have earth mana from palace, potential fire mana from the Pyre and two mana nodes for air and/or water -> opens up Tower of Elements. I've evaluated this target for a while now, and now that Pyre city conquest is close, I need to commit to the research path of KotE into elementalism if I want adepts and elemental mana sources soon. I also want to eventually have metamagic mana node for floating eye and dispell mages and body mana for haste. So the way to achieve this without trades with other civs is to research all the way to sorcery, make metamagic node, promote a couple of dispel mages and then switch back the available nodes for whatever is needed at the moment. Not sure if I will have the time to do all this, or if I have to omit metamagic/body nodes in favour of earlier Tower of Elements (adds +1 strength to all elementals, including fireballs summoned by fire mages).

[coldrain]

Turns 81-85

I’m currently on T86, but let’s go through earlier turns to get e better picture of how things are going.


On turn 81 the assault force stormed barbarian Pyre city, Picture taken after the attack. I lost two SoKs at about 60% odds, leaving one barbarian warrior to defend. I had one hunter available to attack, but I didn’t want to risk losing a fight and leave my heavily wounded stack undefended against the barbarian lizardman to the north. So I decided to delay final attack wave to next turn. In hindsight this was maybe a risky move if the Brian hunter or some other unit was sitting in the fog ready to snipe and burn the city. Fortunately no one interfered and I finished the last defender:


Five turns of revolt in the city, but capturing is was well worth the effort. After the capture I will heal and reshuffle military units to where they are needed to defend against barbarians. Bear will be sent here to eventually pop borders. Meanwhile capital builds Barnaxus in one turn:


Five turns until next great person. Great sage would be the best option to bulb sorcery later, but other GP can be used for another golden age. Overview of T82:


I kept the mutated super hunter at home to deal with some invading barbarians and to capture the lingering elephants nearby (I had planned to send to hunting trip to find a scorpion in the west). Libraries at High Wall and Undead Settle are nearly done, I’m gathering a small reserve of coin to fund deficit research. On to T83:

I also have a “secret” plan for Barnaxus, maybe someone who has read some of the earlier EitB games before my arrival to the scene can find it out or remember what is so special about this golem hero.

The plan for Barnaxus I hinted at earlier is to commit insurance fraud: delete the hero, build national wonder Shrine of Champions and afterwards rebuild Barnaxus. So I do exactly this and start the national wonder at capital:


Research of Knowledge of the Ether completed, so I will build mage guild after this. Adepts will then start with +4 xp and a free promotion when built from capital. Sailing is next on the list, afterwards HBR and trade for chariots. Also another opportunity to capture a scorpion presents itself north of Halfway Ruins:


Super hunter will be heading in this direction. Except next turn I get an event with choice of destroying a pig tile, bribing a barbarian giant or facing him in battle. I chose the latter option:


I take out the giant without any issues, except the hunter needs to heal for several turns. Overview of T85, with sailing completed:


Pearls were revealed slightly out of reach in southeast and another source on western edge of the northern island. Plan is to build galley in Halfway Ruins and send next settler there. Second library completed at High Wall, Undead Settle is almost done too. I increase the research rate to keep finishing intermediate techs in two turns or so. Some highlights of important news from other empires:

• Brian built winter ritual which grants him three Priests of Winter, jumping him in military score
  
• Aurorarcher founded Octopus Overlords religion, but has stayed in Fellowship for now. Is he going for culture victory, or will he build tsunami casting priests at some point? He also switched to caste system civic (+1 gold and + 2 culture per specialist, requires feudalism). The only reasons I can think of for Kuriotates to get feudalism are to aim for culture victory with Hall of Kings wonder, or to go for warhorses technology later (Ride of Nine Kings wonder and centaur knights).
  
• DaveV golden age ended at some point, he had started it before we met. It looks like he has saved his world spell still, so he can start another GA at will. He also settled the southeast tundra island, which I never held as a high priority for myself. Need to look out for potential amphibious assaults against Rd of Sacrifice in the future.
  
• Now both xist10 and DaveV are in city-states civic. I might follow this path during my next GA. Kilmorph religion + temples and financial is still keeping my economy at a great spot, even when city upkeep has climbed.
  

 
Turn 86
Jumping back to current turn, overview of eastern and western part of my lands:




Pyre city (Utigar) is almost out of revolt. I forgot to rename it, will do so next turn. Eastern part of empire needs more worker help, soon the core cities in west can send their mud golems away. Construction tech allows windmills, two already constructed and more underway. I like that they get +1 production immediately, makes them more viable alternative to mines.


Capital is aboput to grow, complete the Shrine of Champions and spawn a great person. I still have a great engineer saved, so a sage or commander would be great to get. Mage guild and adepts next, to start accumulating xp for mage upgrades. Also adepts are needed to improve the raw mana nodes into something more useful with the proper arcane techs.


High Wall built library + missionary and now started siege workshop for chariots. Mud golem is improving the last riverside grassland tile. One or two workshops will be built too, commerce is starting to be in good spot (although Kuriotate is still in clear lead).


Undead Settle built the final library needed and switches to settler production. Here also workshops will be added. All those cottage tiles are a beautiful sight. Animal capturing hunter is here on standby, ready to capture the close by elephants soon with the support of the super hunter.


Pit of Hollows has been building mud golems for a while and now builds the first sculptor studio. It grants a small amount of culture for border pop and allows military golems to be constructed. Wood golems are cheap way of getting decent garrison defenders, although they are weak against fireball mages. Much cheaper to build than SoKs or paramanders (need Arete), so they should suffice for static defence. Mud golem is building windmills here, probably workshops and farms afterwards.


Rd of Sacrifice is focusing on growth, maybe slot in mud golems or some culture building in the near future. No cottages planned for this city, just food and production.


Church of Deep had more immediate help from couple of mud golems and has been faster to develop than Rd of Sacrifice. Another candidate for farms and workshops for growth and production. Missionary is marching here to spread religion.


Halfway Ruins will have windmills on all of the grassland hills. Galley is in queue to colonize the northern island. This city will be focused purely on production, need to decide which military unit to unlock here. Also need to connect the ivory for happiness. Demos:


Graphs in spoiler:

EDIT: fixed some links to pictures.

[Qgqqqqq]

Heh, I didn't know you could rebuild Barnaxus post SoC, nicely played.

[Hitru]

For those of us not familoar with the mod, why would you want to delete and then rebuild? I assume he gets better, but how?

[Jabah]

You need a dear hero to be able to build the schrine.

[coldrain]

Exactly as Jabah said, Shrine of Champions is unlocked after your own civilizations national hero has died. Other heroes, such as from religions, don't count. Barnaxus on the other hand is not a usual type of hero: he doesn't get free xp over time. Instead he literally falls into pieces when killed, and if I bring the parts back to my city, I can rebuild him (other civs can capture the parts but can't do anything with them). So this allows me to build SoC without actually sacrificing my hero.

[coldrain]

Turns 87-95
 
I keep pushing back reporting due to other time constrains, sorry to keep you waiting! The game is on T96 now, let’s recap the earlier turns quickly. Overview on T88:


HBR was finished and Shrine of Champion completed at capital. Research path is trade -> sanitation -> elementalism -> cartography. Hunters are in position to capture the elephants trapped between coast and my borders. Adepts will be pumped out from capital for the foreseeable future (reminder: they start at +4 xp and additional free promotion thanks to SoC, and arcane trait gives free mobility and potency promotions). I don’t remember if it was this or earlier turn, but Aurorarcher switched to Octopus religion and Bing swapped into city-states and apprenticeship. Turn 89 I rebuild Barnaxus and send him to hunt barbarians for experience:


The only settler under production is half way done at Undead Settle, rest of the cities focus on growing, building infrastructure or military/mud golems. Turn 92 DaveV founds a new border city in west and Brian brings his Priests of Winter to clear the goblin fort and dungeon to the north:


I reposition some military units just in case the Priests want to continue advancing to my territory, but they eventually turn back. Research of sanitation gives all farms +1 food, jumping me in crop yield. First naval unit completes T93 and I drop a hunter on the northern island next turn. On T95 I uncover the whole island, there’s enough space for two good cities:


I also robbed a graveyard (skeleton rose to avenge my digging) and captured a gorilla on the southern part of the island. Galley heads back and loads up the freshly trained settler and a mud golem, and later will pick up a garrison unit and missionary too. Overview of core lands on T95:


Capital slotted in a temple of Kilmorph, since I plan to switch away from God-king on next golden age (I wanted to use the final turns with +50% production on useful infrastructure and then afterwards build only military with the help of Heroic epic bonus).  A great person spawns end of turn:


Next target for research is the long waited sorcery. I will launch golden age on turn 96, switch civics and wrap up final infrastructure builds in core cities while starting full military build-up. I’ll go through the GA plan in next update. I also have a detailed plan for how to manage the two available mana nodes effectively, for maximum variety of promotions for adepts/mages in the long run. City count per player on this turn:

• 11 cities: Bing (nice use of EXP after adaptive trait change)
  
• 10 cities: xist10
  
• 9 cities: DaveV
  
• 8 cities: me
  
• 7 cities: Auro, Brian
  

Demos from T94 in spoilers (notice the jump in crop yield):