Horselover Fat's journal - Iskender and the Hippus

[Iskender]

This is the area (the black star is the tile I'd like to settle on):

http://www.dabbleboard.com/draw?b=Guest4...66f86cd741

Still no horsies I've just discovered Masonry and started researching Construction (surprisingly, nobody has discovered it yet). I'm not sure what to research after that. This concept of domesticating wild animals looks cool, but I'd like to get Bronze Working to de-jungle gems and sugar in the north or Hunting to finally do some serious scouting, or start the journey towards Ashen Veil (the optimistic scenario is summoning Hyborem around turn 170).

[Iskender]

Good news! Dave agreed to let me settle the site in exchange for the barrow on the condition that I don't bomb culture with a great artist in the new city. I promptly sealed the deal before he changes his mind.

Also, I've opened borders with Pocketbeetle for trade purposes, no rights of passage. We'll try to establish a trade route via road (smoke alert! what if he takes Raiders in turn 145? )

[Maksim]

Why do you worry about lacking horses? You already get the Horse resource from the Palace, so you'll be able to build your horsemen with no problems, and the yield from the tile is decent but not exceptional.

Am I missing something here?

[Ilios]

He meant the technology, Horseback Riding

[Iskender]

Yes, I meant the technology, thanks for the clarification Ilios. Animal Husbandry will reveal whether there is a horse resource or not within my teritorry. I think there is, otherwise the map sucks.

The crying face was meant to be somewhat ironic. I've missed my opportunity to wreak havoc with horsemen by beelining Code of Laws after the takeover. It's possible that my very first mounted unit will be Rosier

[Mist]

The room's sole occupant was four-legged, golden-maned and had a rather blank look in its eyes. It was currently chewing on a bale of hay. Rowanna looked up its name in the old books (her being one of a few dozen people who knew how to read) - the creature was known as a horse.

- Right. What is it, and what is it doing here?
- Well, Your Majesty, you see... When we built our palace according to ancient traditions, we set up three chambers to channel the magical energy of the universe. In one chamber, we have been granted the mana of Air, in another - the mana of Nature.
- And in this one someone decided to house a pet?
- We are not quite sure, Your Majesty. Your predecessors had... ah... eccentric tastes.
- Well, can we use it for anything? Can it fight?

The elders huddle among themselves, trying to remember.

- Your Majesty, it kicked the page once, but we believe it was unintentional.
- Well, what if we put a man on it? Can our warriors learn to ride it? Can it help us when we go to war?

The elders huddle once more, then the most senior expert on military matters comes up, speaking with a voice of authority:

- Nah, that would never work.

And thus Great Prophet Maksim has spoken the truth. All hail Maksim!

Granted, I did not see a lot of FFH MP games, but this must be the first one with no Hippus horse in sight

[Iskender]

I refuse to conform to the stereotype!

[Iskender]

Had a chat with Selrahc. Key points:

- he wants to settle next to one of two sugars which are 6 tiles northeast to my capital. We agreed that each of us will take one sugar
- he warned me about Bob and PB's power rising. I'm not sure what he was trying to communicate. My NAP with Bob seems solid and PB has little to gain by invading me. In any case I'll have archers in 3 turns and be able to build catapults in several
- I hinted that I'll be able to make the Deepening more devastating if he decides to delay it a few dozen turns. Here's what I had in mind: at the same time Selrahc completes the Deepening I'd push the AC to 30 causing Blight. That would hurt, eh?

I didn't give him full disclosure on this as I don't want anyone to know that soon that I'm going AV. Here's the full conversation:

19:27
selrahctheeternal: Hey, you around?
19:30
ja: yes

hi

selrahctheeternal: Ah, cool

Just got a few things to discuss in game.

Fairly minor stuff.
19:31
ja: all right. i'm all ears

selrahctheeternal: Okay.. first up I'm planning to settle a site to grab some sugar within the next 15 turns.

Is that stepping on your toes at all?

ja: i see

that's not a minor issue i'm afraid
19:32
selrahctheeternal: Alright, so I guess you've got plans in that area.

Well I'm open to discussion.

ja: yes, not immediate. but it's pretty close to my lands as you know

selrahctheeternal: Let me say first, I'm not attempting to grab the entire region.

1 source, sitting in the second ring was my plan,
19:33
because as you say, it is fairly close to you.

Does that do anything to allway your concerns?

*allay
19:34
ja: all right, it's ok. i'd take the 2nd one

selrahctheeternal: Oh, I can also say that that city would basically be the extent of my territorial ambitions in your direction.

After that I'm basically focussing on expanding to the east
19:35
ja: nice job on expanding btw. it's really... snowballing

selrahctheeternal: Heh

Yeah, slavery, city states, and festivals so that they pay for themselves.
19:36
Going to be city spamming for a little while yet.

ja: me too, although i guess i have a lot less lebensraum

selrahctheeternal: Thats the trouble with not having priests.
19:37
Hmm.. yeah, one of the other things I wanted to say.

Keeping an eye on the power graph?

ja: yes

selrahctheeternal: Because Bob's chart has been growing at a fairly heavy rate.

PB's too.

ja: PB's quite recently
19:38
selrahctheeternal: I don't want you to get blindsided. Glad that you've got the situation under observation.

ja: so you're trying to say that Bob and PB are dogpiling on me?

selrahctheeternal: I have no diplomatic basis for that.
19:39
Just that you'd probably be the logical target.
19:40
They might just be setting up an insurance policy against future aggression from me.
19:41
ja: graphs are at 100k at the moment i think. it's far from what i'd consider threatening at this stage

selrahctheeternal: Yeah. This is all pretty early.

ja: fortunately, now i have means to increase my graph drastically over a few turns in case of emergency

so i'm not really worried, but thanks for the heads up

selrahctheeternal: Alright, no worries.
19:42
ja: once we're neighbours we should work out our relations more precisely

if they're going to be peaceful i don't mind havin a trade route for example

selrahctheeternal: I'd be happy to set up a trade route as soon as possible.
19:43
ja: and I have one idea to discuss

if the Deepening is not a part your immediate plans I have an idea to make it a lot more devastating
19:44
selrahctheeternal: Sounds interesting

ja: you'd have to wait for the details for few dozen turns

selrahctheeternal: Okay, I can do that.
19:45
The final thing I wanted to discuss then..

I'm getting some adepts together in the next few turns.

If you want access to loyalty or enchanted blade buffs I'd be willing to work out some sort of deal.
19:46
ja: cool, i'm not sure what i could offer in return

selrahctheeternal: I was thinking possibly a disciple or two whenever you get a religion.
19:47
The passive bonuses can be quite nice.

Especially for Kilmorph.

ja: indeed, but don't you have that already from PB?
19:48
selrahctheeternal: We've discussed it, but never really gotten the opportunity to set up anything yet.

No particularly good deal idea for that.
19:49
ja: do you know the details of this 'reduced chance to spread' thing?

selrahctheeternal: Not the specifics.

But it is fairly severely reduced.

ja: i hope it's not 95% reduced... doh

selrahctheeternal: It might well be.
19:50
ja: agnostic is agnostic. you're Richard Dawkins of Erebus

selrahctheeternal: Nah, that's Cassiel.

Auric is more like Doctor Doom.

ja: oh, true

selrahctheeternal: He's not going to bow to any god, because one day he'll be more powerful than them.

ja: monognostic
19:51
selrahctheeternal: I thought the term was autotheistic myself.

ja: nice

selrahctheeternal: Anyway.. that's basically the stuff I wanted to discuss.
19:52
Keep in contact, especially whenever you're ready to share that deepening idea.
19:53
Unless you can think of anything else we need to talk about at the moment?

ja: yes

no, i think that's it

selrahctheeternal: Alright, cool
19:54
I'll talk to you later then.

ja: ok, cheers

[Iskender]

So, Dave explored the barrow with the worst possible outcome - nothing. He doesn't even get the free Wine. Well, at least he's got Golden Age from the Azer dungeon (i guess).

One of my warriors that still has Warcry (only 4 left) wandered north and discovered PB's borders bleeding over.

Here's the screenshot of the north, on the left you can see PB's sentry giant and on the right the two sugars that I'll split with Selrahc:

[Iskender]

Hi. I'm Iskender and I'm a weed r.

What started as a simple trade offer ended in a deal that Dave will chop the jungle that covers two gems tiles north of my capital in exchange for 15 turns of free Gems. Here's the diplo (in colour!):

[COLOR="red"]It took two tries, but I cleared the barrow, with no ill effects to my units. It tried to spawn spectres and skeletons, but there was nowhere to place them, so nothing happened.
[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Lime"]Well, at least you got that Golden Age couple of turns ago. Let me know if you're still interested in trading Gold for Wine.
[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Red"]The barb city I just captured has both wine and gold in the first ring, so I should bring both of those on line at about the same time. Here's another idea for the gold: I give you gold, in exchange for you researching Cartography and signing open borders with me. This would give both of us a boost in trade.
[/COLOR]

[COLOR="lime"]Wine and gold, a nice spot!

Let me put forward a different offer: there are two jungle/gems tiles within my teritorry that need some serious machete work. In exchange for the job I can offer free Ale or Gems for a reasonable period of time. The tiles are 4 worker-moves(about 8 tiles) away from the grassland hill I want to settle on.
[/COLOR]

[COLOR="red"]By "within your territory", you mean inside your borders? I'm pretty sure we'd need to be at a state of war for me to be able to chop jungle inside your borders.

If that's the case, how about this proposal: I move two workers into your territory to chop the jungle; you move two workers into my territory to build roads where I tell you to. Once the chopping is done, we can move the workers back or just capture them and declare peace.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="lime"]That's pretty much what I had in mind. Although I have only one worker to spare, so I'd like to make it 1 vs 1. In three turns I will be able to deliver Ale for, say, 15 turns, or Gems for 15 turns once both gems tiles are online (I'd build mines over them ASAP).
[/COLOR]

[I'm already trading the other Ale with Sareln in exchange for cotton. After this message I asked Sareln if he would let me swap Ale for Wine in three turns (when I have 2nd Wine online) and continue the deal. He agreed.]

[COLOR="red"]I started building my own source of Ale when you said yours was not available, so Gems are the only resource I'd be interested in.

I'll have a worker available in two turns (my turn 124). Do we need to renogiate our treaty if someone is going to declare war, or just keep to the spirit? Maybe "no uninvited units in the other player's territory"?

I think I'm going to research Cartography next so I can get open borders and some trade routes. Would you be willing to sign open borders once we're back at peace?[/COLOR]

[COLOR="lime"]All right, Gems it is then. I think if we just stick to the spirit of the NAP it'll be enough to avoid any misunderstandings. I'll send my worker next turn or the turn after, depending on a nearby lizardman.

I'm in for Open Borders.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="red"]One more thing: we should agree on what we tell the other players if they ask why we're at war.

a) the truth
b) a border skirmish involving a worker steal (not too far from the truth)
c) We hates you forever (kind of hard to explain open borders later)
[/COLOR]

[COLOR="lime"]There's a good chance that PB will see your worker (he's got a giant wandering nearby) so I prefer a) with revealing as little information as possible.
[/COLOR]

[COLOR="red"]My concern is that if I tell people I'm chopping jungle for you, it's not much of a leap for them to conclude that you don't have bronze working. Or is that common knowledge already?
[/COLOR]

[I wanted to reply that in fact they are the only civ to have Bronze Working (not including Cull, who researched it 3 turns ago), but I bit my tongue]

[COLOR="lime"]Not a problem. I'm sure they know that the Hippus are not the kind of civ that would prioritize BW anyway.
[/COLOR]

So where's the smoke? After sending the last message I realized that war with the Calabim will cut off my trade route with Sareln, which means I lose Cotton and the capital becomes unhappy All because this bloody jungle had to spread over to the gems, what's the chance for this? Well, I need to give Sareln a heads up.

EDIT: sent this to Sareln:

Hi

I've made a mistake. This swapping Wine for Ale was a part of the deal with Dave (i wanted to offer him Ale, as he'll have Wine soon) which involves him moving a worker into my land and clearing some jungle tiles. It's only possible if we're at war. After finalizing the deal I've realized that war with the Calabim will sever our trade route and it's too late for me to back out or try to establish another one. I guess we'll have to wait through these turns and I'll be happy to continue our exchange once the trade route is back.

The war will last only as long as it's necessary to remove two tiles of jungle. It should begin in 1 or 2 turns and end in about 14 turns.

Iskender

Other than the above nothing interesting happened in the land of the Hippus, which cannot be said about the rest of Erebus. Selrahc keeps spamming cities as if he was playing Alpha Centauri and Pocketbeetle's GNP skyrockets.

Drama and Construction were discovered last turn with Dave and PB being the culprits. It makes most sense if I assume that Dave researched Construction to spread agristocracy farms (a wise move sir! ) and PB got Drama for the free Bard. But what would he do with the Bard? I hope it's not the kind of Bard (Gurney Halleck!) that bombs culture in a new settlement so PB can walk into my capital in one turn.