Miguelito gets tricked by magicians, but Bob isn't fooled. Kaiser rules from behind.

[Miguelito]

Apologies for no reports and contribution to the discussion. Blissful parenthood.

Big news this turn:


I panicked for a second, but we have that scout around who has killed a griffon on attack, gaining 5 XP, and should be able to intercept him in time wherever he might try to do any damage. Luckily he's no elf! We can also 1 turn a scout if ever necessary.

So, how are we comparing?








He's dwarfing us! (pun realized after I wrote it, in my defense)
Well, it's expected. We moved the settler, then had to move our slow elven worker 2 tiles to get to the wheat, then agai n2 tiles to improve a slow floodplains. Meanwhile he gets +25% hammers on the worker, who as a dwarf is 25% faster. The power I interprete as 2 units and 3 pop growths - yes, his capital is at size 6. At first I wanted to scorn naufragar for giving him calendar resources and us not, but then I realized that it's because 3 of our competitors have enchantment mana from the palace, granting them an extra happy face. Meanwhile our palace mana gives us +3% research and that's it. How very mean of the game.
In fact there's a further size 6 cap out there already:


We were not! last to size 5 at least, with one of them trailing.

There was an event:


I've understood that this can turn some tiles to desert? Well I did not see that happenin for any of our tiles, so . Is there a follow up event? I can't make sense of the EventTriggerInfos.xml, hence why I'm asking.

The scout in the NW killed another lion, got hit pretty hard, and is now healing for 2 more turns on a forested hill there.

I think this is neat:


You see, with the default Nationhood civic we get +10% hammers on military units. Turns out that's actually a malus for the early game, since it only has an impact when debonifying overflow, resulting in regularly losing a hammer there. So we want to finish our scouts without overflow. The current micro plan has us finishing the settler, then restarting the scout before following up with 2 workers. We can get out 10 base hammers in one turn (2 FPH + city tile + palace hammer + plains forest), turning nationhood into an actual bonus, and finishing the scout 16/16.
UGH I just realized that on quick speed hammer decay probably kicks in before 10 turns? So either we have to finish the scout now, delaying the settler a turn, or spend two turns on the scout later, in turn delaying the workers. - fake edit: tested it in the sandbox, decay starts after 7 turns. So gotta make that decision, damnit. And I had figured out such a nice plan for the workers...


Sorry, it's late again, will have to pick up the dotmap decision another time.

[Bobchillingworth]

The Burnt Wings event simply has a low chance to temporarily turn any tile into a "hotter" equivalent- ice to tundra, tundra and grassland to plains, plains to desert. The effect doesn't last very long and doesn't have an impact save to occasionally screw with micro plans. There's no follow-up event.

[Miguelito]

Thanks Bob. Btw, events never repeat, right?

[Bobchillingworth]

A small number can repeat, like the one where a volcano explodes or you discover mushrooms on a tile, but none of the significant ones you'd want to prepare for, such as by saving gold.

[Miguelito]

UGH I just realized that on quick speed hammer decay probably kicks in before 10 turns? So either we have to finish the scout now, delaying the settler a turn, or spend two turns on the scout later, in turn delaying the workers. - fake edit: tested it in the sandbox, decay starts after 7 turns. So gotta make that decision, damnit. And I had figured out such a nice plan for the workers...

This was feeling really bad. I had made a very nice and pretty plan, with the settler finishing t30 on the hammer, then the second one finishing t48 with just 2 overflow, having grown to size 7 with 1 food in the box. And with the hammer decay it all became a mess, with single breads or hammers missing at crucial points which I could not conjure up for the life of me... And then finally I found an error in the spreadsheet where I had produced some hammers out of thin air (dating back to the original plan), so the plan was trash anyways
So, the corrected plan has us just eating the hammer decay. The settlers finishing a turn later each, but otherwise it works out fine.

Where I'm still doubting myself though is whether we are stretched too thin with military before settling city number 2. Basically the 5 XP scout has to provide the whole cover. I'll try to send back the NW scout, which can come to help just in time if nothing happens to her. We have good visibility, but a random griffon could spoil the party pretty heavily (there is one up there right now). Auror pulled back his C1 warrior, but he could still appear in a bad position (I'd hope he just goes in so our scout can take shock and kill him, but if he did not on the first opportunity I don't really expect him to now). We could finish the queued scout now before the hammer decay kicks in, but that delays the second city by a turn, which is a significant loss. Otherwise the scout just finishes the turn after the settler with the overflow and 2h still remaining. So if the settler gets delayed a turn due to barbs, that scout can help, so mabye not that much of a difference. 2 or 3 turns left to decide.

Bob, how do you rate Auror as a player? I get that he's won some, lost some. Aggression level?

[Kaiser]

Good to know that he moved, how would our odds have looked if he would have fortified there?

Good then that you realized the missing hammer on time which led to the discovery of the spreadsheet error.
Can you provide a screenshot of how vision looks for the city tile (I assume we are talking about city2)?
Where you could see the Scouts to be to cover for the Settler?
Movement range of a griffon is 4 without any terrain malus, right? Where would it need to be to be able to snipe the Settler? Can it be over the Sea?
Do animals enter our borders? (Barbs seem less an issue due to lower movement, when do they spawn?) If no, we could consider a A1 settle above city 2 but I do not think that would be comparable city.

I think you want to learn more of the map so delaying a turn to cover the Settler with a newly build Scout sounds better to me than bringing the far out scout back. But I am not sure if you can manage with just one scout.

[Miguelito]

I came to this:


With shock 78%. Normally I would take those odds, but if we get the 1/5 loss it's game over, or at least 5 turns of spamming new scouts. I stopped myself, and just sat on the gems hill. On the new turn 27 he had disappeared again. I think he will try to either scout east, or circle around our cap. So I expect him to sit on the western dyes*. The latter could be messy for our second city plant. We might be able to catch him on flatland, where we'd get 96+%, 89.5% if forested. I would take the former, not sure about the latter. I'm moving the NW C2/woodie scout home so maybe we can double team him.


*See post 91

Good to know that he moved, how would our odds have looked if he would have fortified there?

Not worth taking for sure. But he also gains little from that. Luckily there are no forested hills within his reach in the capital BFC. The gems/gold hill complex is dangerous though.

Can you provide a screenshot of how vision looks for the city tile (I assume we are talking about city2)?

Don't have one on hand, but we see all land tiles until the rice tile and the hill N of it, but not the bare grassland south of it, so that is where a 2 mover could be dangerous.

Where you could see the Scouts to be to cover for the Settler?

I had not thought further than the plains hill where we want to plant, to be honest. Suggestions?

Movement range of a griffon is 4 without any terrain malus, right?

Thank Esus that it isn't. I thought it was 2, but the civpedia says 1, maybe an EitB change? This has me a lot more relaxed.

Can it be over the Sea?

pretty sure that yes, and that's the most worrisome vector for it.

Do animals enter our borders?

They should not. If you trap them in culture (by expanding borders), they stop moving.

(Barbs seem less an issue due to lower movement, when do they spawn?)

good question, no idea.

If no, we could consider a A1 settle above city 2 but I do not think that would be comparable city.

Nope. GOt to bring that corn and rice online, even if it costs.

I think you want to learn more of the map so delaying a turn to cover the Settler with a newly build Scout sounds better to me than bringing the far out scout back. But I am not sure if you can manage with just one scout.

The thing is the NW scout already has 2 promos, so she's a big asset for home defense. I don't think we need to urgently find out more about the map; Meeting people would be nice for KTB (is that a thing in EitB?). But otherwise we know the land where we'll plant the next 10 or so cities, so no hurry.



I'm progressing with the dotmaps, maybe we can take up the discussion tomorrow.

[Bobchillingworth]

Auro is an aggressive player, and won't hesitate to go all-in on a rush if he believes he can score an elimination out of it. You should also assume that none of your opponents are planning anything less than a conquest victory, though Tower wins aren't unheard of.


That said, Arturus is more of a builder-oriented leader, and the earliest Auro is likely to obtain a military advantage over you would be if he invests in a mass upgrade of Warriors to Axes, in which case your Hunters / Fawns will still win in the field, but likely be outnumbered.


If I was Auro I'd hold off attacking you any time soon, since non-Aggressive Khazad aren't a great match vs. Aggressive Svarts, and instead fight only after I've loaded up on production bonuses from full vaults and can potentially both out-produce and out-tech you. Then I'd attack with stacks which can shrug off Tigers and chew through at least Aggressive Warriors with copper weapons- maybe hordes of Axes backed by Paramanders with the march promotion, with Adept support. I'm typically more cautious than Auro though, so keep an eye on the power graphs 20 turns from now for indications of a mass upgrade.

[Miguelito]

Thanks, that sounds terrifying

I'm trying to imagine a way for us to match the axe waves that you described. The combination of him having ingenuity and being a dwarf coming over that southern hills seems like a near worst case (ok, Kandros with Agg would be worse). Sucks to not have collateral until mages. Necromancy for rust also has high priority, as it should spoil near anything that he may send to us (melee/chariots); I just fear that he can come before we're anywhere near that.

Upside is that as you said Agg/Cre is an unappetizing target for an early attack, so he might try another neighbour / at a later date. Also the map is huge and there is so much land to settle that a rush seems like a bad strategy. Mid/long term I just hope that we manage to get the elven economy running and gain enough strength from that.

[Kaiser]

Kaiser Wrote:Can you provide a screenshot of how vision looks for the city tile (I assume we are talking about city2)?

Don't have one on hand, but we see all land tiles until the rice tile and the hill N of it, but not the bare grassland south of it, so that is where a 2 mover could be dangerous.



Kaiser Wrote:Movement range of a griffon is 4 without any terrain malus, right?
Thank Esus that it isn't. I thought it was 2, but the civpedia says 1, maybe an EitB change? This has me a lot more relaxed.
Kaiser Wrote:Can it be over the Sea?
pretty sure that yes, and that's the most worrisome vector for it.

Weird I cannot quote properly ...


Did I understand you correctly in you not having vision on the grassland S of Rice?

That looks different on your screenshot.


So the only animal surprise vectors on the city/Settler (assuming max 2 movers) are:
- S of Rice (3-3)
- all of the eastern ocean tiles (8-9, 9-9)


Anywhere else we should have vision on before moving the Settler to the hill. I personally would likely approach this on the risky side, especially as I believe you can see the bare grassland S of Rice as well so the only two surprise tiles would be the two eastern Ocean tiles.


In any case the only place to really cover for the Settler is on the city tile itself, where the Scout can also directly double as defence against the Griffon or any other animal infringing on our settling timeline.
For that you could stage the scout which is currently running dwarf defence and the Settler NE or NE-NE of the capital and then go with the Settler on the hill, see if there is any animal and then move the Scout accordingly.


You could even risk getting the Settler in position to move on the hill and then move it without cover in case there is no animal on any visible tiles.