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

[Miguelito]

...and just as I was writing, the new turn came around.

The good news is that our warrior was not attacked by the orc, but attacked herself and won with 5 XP. That should be enough to take out the new orc that has appeared in the same area.

The bad news:


Both may well be dead next turn. That is the woodie 1 scout. We just had to meet this pair the one turn where we have no forest and just one move . Also, this griffon has 2 moves, while the one we killed earlier had just one. Has this to do with the mod, i.e. do they spawn with 2 moves after a certain turn number?

[Kaiser]

Thanks for the feedback, do you intend to scout further with the two or would you say it would be better to start claiming the land now and use them as a zone defense on that defensible spot?
The Scout gets 40% C2 + 40% ShockI + 30% Woodsman I + 50% FH + 40% River crossing for a whopping 200% increase, meaning even in Defense he goes to 6.
The Warrior gets 20% C1 + 50% FH + 40% River crossing so a good 110% increase for another defense of 6.3 in that tile.
The best part about it is the forewarning as we will have 4 turns before Aurors units get to #3. I just checked the new turn and it looks like we are last in MP again so Auror is doing something with his units.

Btw we are about half of max population and nearly half in territory compared to the leading player. Do you think that discrepancy is due to elven being slow starters or are there other factors influencing this (like start areas/quests).

[Miguelito]

Thanks for the feedback, do you intend to scout further with the two or would you say it would be better to start claiming the land now and use them as a zone defense on that defensible spot?
The Scout gets 40% C2 + 40% ShockI + 30% Woodsman I + 50% FH + 40% River crossing for a whopping 200% increase, meaning even in Defense he goes to 6.
The Warrior gets 20% C1 + 50% FH + 40% River crossing so a good 110% increase for another defense of 6.3 in that tile.
The best part about it is the forewarning as we will have 4 turns before Aurors units get to #3. I just checked the new turn and it looks like we are last in MP again so Auror is doing something with his units.

Btw we are about half of max population and nearly half in territory compared to the leading player. Do you think that discrepancy is due to elven being slow starters or are there other factors influencing this (like start areas/quests).

Apparently a crosspost
If our pair survives this next turn I'd still love to go further south and find Auror. But we really have to see how much is left of them when the save comes back. The spot is a bit suboptimal defensively as it does not get us vision nor movement (no forest), so Auror could still strike from the fog. The boni are nice, but the scout only has 2 base defense strength which takes away from it a lot.

On the power graph you see that auror built a single warrior, which is not concerning me yet. I'm not really expecting a mass upgrade with the mother lode gold any more, as he would do it right after casting the spell.

Rival best land increased a lot this turn, which is because Dave cast his worldspell, presumably after founding his third city. That gives him 3rd ring borders in all cities, and as Kurios he likely spaced them widely. The population tally increases nonlinearly with actual game pop (a size 1 city has 1k, size 2 6k, and so on), so I chalk this down mainly as due to the other guys having size 8 or 9 capitals. Which I would also like to have, but isn't terrible to lag behind in, and is just what it is with the luxuries we had around. We're 2nd in each of GNP*,  MfG and crop yield, which I think is pretty ok, also considering the slow start with elves.

*while saving gold admittedly. With 100% research (no GK bonus) we're 4th, but the difference is just 6 coins, so it means 2nd-4th are just pretty close to each other.

[Miguelito]

The warrior died on defense against the bear, but the scout defeated the griffon:


Quite tempting to catch that spider, but it has 75% defense bonus including fortify. So even with subdue animal and fully healed we'd get only 66%. I'd rather explore more in the south. the scout promoted C3 and moved S, then NE upon facing another bear. We can flee into the forest next.
Eventually I'll try to get the spider off its spot with a sacrificial warrior, then catch it. Meanwhile I'm sending the hunting party for that other spider in the east, as AH is due in 2 turns

[Miguelito]

Horse showed up to mess up the dotmap, just when I had reviewed the settling order and made a (trivial) plan for roads:



Probably makes sense to move 4 back to N of cow. Less defensive, but we should get a city on the landbridge anyways. Also delays the dyes, but we want to fasttrack hunting and FoL, so bronze working may come in around the time that city gets its 3rd ring (25 turns), or just wait until we found 9. With the new 8, 9 can be moved 1E as well to get both dyes.
6 is not shown here, but it's the pig/fish/cotton spot. The new order delays the FP valley, which for various reasons stated above is not that awesome for us. Maybe not that bad if it is delayed until we have the foreign trade civic for fast cottage grow, and the workers to get those cottages up in the desert.
There's a second horse 3N1E of 5, but I don't think it makes sense to move 5 for it giving up 2 food resources (although they're shared/jungled). It will get picked up eventually by the city on the NE tip which will make it less fillerish.

[Kaiser]

Great, I am full aligned with the revised settling plan. I was entertaining the idea of settling 4 N-N of cow so we can fill in a city SE of cow, but I think both will be worse than N of cow and 12.

I will check later to see some scouting results in the S

[Bobchillingworth]

Something to keep in mind- having some animals on hand will boost your power demo substantially, and may make Auro reluctant to commit to an attack. Also, captured Gryphons with their hidden nationality intact are wonderful units for parking on mountains or lakes in enemy territory and forcing your opponents to waste manpower escorting their Workers, though they'll be annoyed at you for doing it.

[Miguelito]

Something to keep in mind- having some animals on hand will boost your power demo substantially, and may make Auro reluctant to commit to an attack.  Also, captured Gryphons with their hidden nationality intact are wonderful units for parking on mountains or lakes in enemy territory and forcing your opponents to waste manpower escorting their Workers, though they'll be annoyed at you for doing it.

Funny that you mention it, here's our first catch :


I'm unsure whether I should declare nationality. Doing so lets it heal twice as fast (7 turns instead of whopping 14). If I do so it can sit there and try to eat barbs for XP, and eventually Auror units if they pass by. If it stays with hidden nationality it should be able to enter borders, to scout and possibly ambush a worker. This is extra relevant because:


(the close up shot didn't take. We have the mobility scout and a promoted warrior around. Auror should not see us yet from his culture.)
So the landbridge is confirmed, and that way Auror is actually a lot closer than over the west. I think from the shape of the borders that this is his capital (he is at 3 cities now, 3 turns after us).
What is good about that is that the bridge is all covered in forest with a bit of jungle, and mostly flatland, so that terrain favours us. Different from the west, there is no evident excellent border city. The spot marked as 13 is the last hill in that direction, so it will likely have to do. Also that inner sea may give all sorts of opportunities, or pains, in the future.

I also sent out a warrior and scout to catch that elephant, but apparently it has little enthusiasm for that:


Can the game kill animals automatically? (like in BTS where they get replaced with human barbs afaik)

We finished the first EC and started right away with the GS (23 turns ).
The game approves of that move:


Nice. I took the gold. The other options were culture (not needed) and +1 beakers which seemed worse (I did not check the XML for follow up events).
Meanwhile, elsewhere things are happening as well:


If Dave feels a need to get himself some giants that can't be bad. Auror getting Runes was of course expected, although maybe not that early. We're outteched there, as we can only possibly have AH on him which costs a lot less. Also RoK requiring mining but FoL hunting seems a bit silly. On the upside he likely does not have BW yet, so if he comes knocking with axes we should have hunters around. Mid term he'll likely get the mines wonder for early iron. So, extra point for Bob's rust suggestion.
That scientist can only be Dave's who is Phi, right? Still seems quite early, well done I suppose.  

Had to do this to finish Deruptus. Needs are needs. 


It's making 7-8 cpt, which is very good, although of course it cost as much as a settler.
Speaking of, I'm building two:


Nameless tower is 2turning units, some of which will be needed to cover those plants (ie relieve experienced city guards).  What I do not have quite figured out yet is how to manage both the support for the new cities and building the first cottages after finishing Edu. The eastern spot 5 does not need a worker for its first 3 turns, besides the road. At least Gereth should pump an extra warrior before growing.

[Kaiser]

I like the way we are heading, I am on vacation with my in-laws which means my gaming time is quite reduced. Some thoughts nevertheless.

I think you should leave the spider without known nationality, the benefit of roaming his lands in an unfortunate moment is just to good to pass up for a quicker healing. What are the chances he believes it is an animal guarding his back if you leave it where it is and move it mostly "naturally" in its behaviour?
Do you think he found it before (he should have lost a unit to it in that case I believe)?
It will at least be a good scout down there and can run away in case Auror should avance that way. Its current position gives a 5 t warning for any dwarfs advancing on 4.

Do we have a spare scout coming from nameless tower to scout the W and NW areas some more?

The Warrior for the barb is then planned as MP for 6 or will it turn around to 4/5?

[Miguelito]

I did leave the spider with HN while approaching Auror's territory, and will try to scout Auror with it. But he got the spider event, so he probably does have at least one, meaning it would likely be a kamikaze mission. Still worth it to uncover his capital? Or just sit on the borders, hoping to eat a settler eventually?
The spider was full health and 0 XP fwiw, so I suppose it had not seen combat.

I'm sending the warrior and scout which were meant to catch the elephant but did not find it into the desert, in hopes of finidng a scorpion. Will also get scouting info that way of course.

The warrior at the cap will have to keep on playing zone defense.

If you see a strange tile assignment at the capital where I interrupted the settler there was a good micro reason for it, but I did not take into account that the cows will come online and with that it's just stupid. In Pitboss you often have time to correct this, but I guess sending Dave a save with better micro would be no good look. , so that settler is just delayed a turn .