Winter Wonderland: Selrahc's FFH 2 thread

[Selrahc]

Sure, here you go.



Not quite a farmers gambit yet, but that force certainly isn't too credible if you ignore the Priests. Once I get a source of copper then I'll feel a lot better, because S4 copper warriors work decently well as a defence force.

[Selrahc]

Quick chat with Iskender. Making sure I'm not stepping on any toes with the expansion. Maybe kind of keeping him thinking in terms of Bob as an antagonist and me as a more friendly force in line with the grand diplomatic plan, such as exists.

Selrahc: Hey, you around?
[COLOR="Lime"] Iskender: yes
hi[/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: Ah, cool
Just got a few things to discuss in game.
Fairly minor stuff.[/COLOR]
Iskender: all right. i'm all ears
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]Selrahc: 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?[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Lime"] Iskender: i see
that's not a minor issue i'm afraid[/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: Alright, so I guess you've got plans in that area.
Well I'm open to discussion.[/COLOR]
Iskender: yes, not immediate. but it's pretty close to my lands as you know
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: Let me say first, I'm not attempting to grab the entire region.
1 source, sitting in the second ring was my plan,
because as you say, it is fairly close to you.
Does that do anything to allay your concerns?[/COLOR]
Iskender: all right, it's ok. i'd take the 2nd one
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: 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[/COLOR]
Iskender: nice job on expanding btw. it's really... snowballing
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: Heh
Yeah, slavery, city states, and festivals so that they pay for themselves.
Going to be city spamming for a little while yet.[/COLOR]
Iskender: me too, although i guess i have a lot less lebensraum
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]Selrahc: Thats the trouble with not having priests.
Hmm.. yeah, one of the other things I wanted to say.
Keeping an eye on the power graph?[/COLOR]
Iskender: yes
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: Because Bob's chart has been growing at a fairly heavy rate.
PB's too.[/COLOR][COLOR="Lime"]
[/COLOR] Iskender: PB's quite recently
Selrahc: I don't want you to get blindsided. Glad that you've got the situation under observation.
Iskender: so you're trying to say that Bob and PB are dogpiling on me?
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: I have no diplomatic basis for that.
Just that you'd probably be the logical target.
They might just be setting up an insurance policy against future aggression from me.[/COLOR]
Iskender: graphs are at 100k at the moment i think. it's far from what i'd consider threatening at this stage
Selrahc: Yeah. This is all pretty early.
[COLOR="Lime"] Iskender: 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[/COLOR]
Selrahc: Alright, no worries.
[COLOR="Lime"] Iskender: 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[/COLOR]
Selrahc: I'd be happy to set up a trade route as soon as possible.
[COLOR="Lime"]Iskender: 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[/COLOR]
Selrahc: Sounds interesting
Iskender: you'd have to wait for the details for few dozen turns
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: Okay, I can do that.
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.[/COLOR]
Iskender: cool, i'm not sure what i could offer in return
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: I was thinking possibly a disciple or two whenever you get a religion.
The passive bonuses can be quite nice.
Especially for Kilmorph.[/COLOR]
Iskender: indeed, but don't you have that already from PB?
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]Selrahc: We've discussed it, but never really gotten the opportunity to set up anything yet.
No particularly good deal idea for that.[/COLOR]
Iskender: do you know the details of this 'reduced chance to spread' thing?
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: Not the specifics.
But it is fairly severely reduced.[/COLOR]
Iskender: i hope it's not 95% reduced... doh
Selrahc: It might well be.
Iskender: agnostic is agnostic. you're Richard Dawkins of Erebus
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]Selrahc: Nah, that's Cassiel.
Auric is more like Doctor Doom.[/COLOR]
Iskender: oh, true
Selrahc: He's not going to bow to any god, because one day they'll be bowing to him.
Iskender: monognostic
Selrahc: I thought the term was autotheistic myself.
Iskender: nice
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"] Selrahc: Anyway.. that's basically the stuff I wanted to discuss.
Keep in contact, especially whenever you're ready to share that deepening idea.
Unless you can think of anything else we need to talk about at the moment?[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Lime"] Iskender: yes
no, i think that's it[/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]Selrahc: Alright, cool
I'll talk to you later then.
[/COLOR]

I'm very interested to hear about the super devastating Deepening. I have no idea what that could mean. Or indeed, why he'd want me to be bringing it about.

[Selrahc]

3 more settlers completed. Switching over to some different builds for a little while, while the population regrows. I'll give you all a full report in a few turns, when the new cities are up.

We're back in economic crisis at the moment though. This is entirely due to the fact that I've whipped away almost everybody who was working a commerce tile, and haven't finished putting the infrastructure buildings in place in the new cities. Short term thing that should be fixed in the next few turns.

Divination still hasn't been completed. Still 8 turns away thanks to all this economic turmoil.

[Ravus Sol]

Well you are certainly looking to be one of the larger Civilizations in the world. Is Cull still not expanding much? How do you feel the others are doing compared to your massive City States?

I've played the Illian before and it just seems so wrong for them to still not have Ice everywhere. Will you be going for a Prophecy of Ragnarok Gambit seeing as hell terrain doesn't bother you end game?

[Selrahc]

Bigger update is coming soon, probably on Thursday.

[quote=Ravus Sol]Well you are certainly looking to be one of the larger Civilizations in the world. Is Cull still not expanding much? How do you feel the others are doing compared to your massive City States?[quote]

PB is clearly winning at the moment. Kuriotates are absolutely fantastic at setting up a good economy and setting it up fast, so that doesn't really surprise me. I'm hoping that my rapid expansion is going to let me catch up and overtake eventually. No matter how good 4 cities are they will never be able to defeat 30 or so in sheer output.

I think I'm a pretty clear second in the pack right now as far as the others go. I've got a lot of untapped potential output that will have a chance to show once I've finished the early improvements in my new cities. At the moment much of my empire is below size 4 in population, when I actually start to grow I should be much more competitive in the demographics.

Dave/Bob are in the next slot, and at the moment are edging me out in certain areas demographically. Once they have aristofarms everywhere they'll be in a very good position. Couple that with their elven vassal state and they are serious long term competition.

Iskender is a little way behind. Not too far.. but definitely fourth. I'm going to be setting up trade routes with him soon enough, which will hopefully be mutually beneficial. The Hippus had a rough start, being hit by Stasis, Rivers of Blood and some bad events, and as non economic civ it's hard to compensate for that. With the powerful financial trait though Iskender is going to be getting a good economy up and running soon.

Cull and Sareln both got shafted by the priests. They're running way behind the pack.

[quote]I've played the Illian before and it just seems so wrong for them to still not have Ice everywhere. Will you be going for a Prophecy of Ragnarok Gambit seeing as hell terrain doesn't bother you end game?[/quote]

The first ice temples are actually going into production now. In the early game though I find it's best to just take advantage of the tiles you have, and only start getting ice temples in play when you start running out of good tiles.

The exception to that is when you're crammed up against an opponents borders, when temples are a great screw you building that also gives all of your troops a hefty combat bonus for Ice Terrain.


I'm definitely not going for the prophecy of ragnarok. I'm not seeing much advantage in raising the AC. Hell terrain won't even be in the game unless someone brings in Hyborem.

[Selrahc]

I'm going to do this update in a few manageable chunks rather than spend hours doing it in one post. One for diplomacy, one for empire, and one for special projects.

First up, diplomacy.


You may be aware that the sugar site that I discussed with Iskender did not get settled by me. This is largely my fault. I mentioned that I was going to be settling near the sugar to PB, and he took the opportunity to hurry a settler to the location, neatly freezing me and Iskender from settling the area.
When it happened I was pretty annoyed, but I've been offered one of the sugar resources in order to placate me. I'm content with that, if not exactly ecstatic. The settler I sent in that direction was well en route, and now has a long slog towards a different location which is the biggest annoyance. Since then relations with PB have normalized, and there may be a possibility of borrowing his sun mana to build the tower of divination with.

Iskender and myself are working towards setting up a trade route. We're going to have to go through PB's sugar city, but Iskender is taking care of that. I've traded maps with him (which was more to his advantage than mine, but I'm fine with that), and now have a really good idea of the shape of the world, and how much land and land potential everyone has. I'll show it off in the empire section.

Bob came to me about extending our NAP, which has run out. I told him that in the absence of threat a NAP isn't all that necessary, and that I'd prefer to live without one wherever it could be avoided. I've got no aggressive intent in his direction, and I don't think he has them towards me. My refusal was also partly because of how my hands were tied in the the end of the priest of winter crisis, where Bob acted as a shield for Sareln.


In general I think things are proceeding diplomatically more or less as planned. Unless I'm drastically wrong I'm not seeing an upcoming military threat, in this my period of greatest vulnerability. I'm also getting good access to trade with my two neighbours. I'd have to call that a success.

[Maksim]

So, how is your empire doing? How many more cities remain to be planted in this settler-heavy time? Is your worker count sufficient? Has much more land been turned to snow since we last heard from you?

And what special projects do you have in mind?

[Selrahc]

[SIZE="3"]Empire[/SIZE]
So I've had a few attempts at doing a comprehensive review of all the stuff that's happened since I last updated the situation of the empire. It takes too long. So I'll give you a few overview screenshots.

Lots and lots of micromanagement of tiles leaves me dancing up and down in demographics. At the moment I'm sitting down fairly low in the GNP, but I'm doing pretty well in food and production. Population is still growing, and when I focus it I can take second in either food or production. I'm actually getting pretty close to PB in terms of food when I push it as the super cities start to lose their lustre. I predict I'll soon be meeting him in production too. GNP might be something of a lost cause, as I'll never be making all that much culture without religion and inside city states and eventually military state. Research wise I think I'm catching up there too though.

10 turns left on the creation of the Bone Palace from Silent Night. When that comes in I'll be doing very well in GNP and production. I could shave 2 turns off that construction by tanking my GNP.. lets hope that won't matter.

The 3 latest cities are down. I'm 3 cities in the lead of Bob, and 4 ahead of Iskender, which means my pause for infrastructure is at worst going to see them catch up in numbers. I think the remaining land I have to settle is pretty secure, and can hold another 7 or so decent cities.

The newest cities are a little... rubbish.. right now. Here are the screenshots of them.

First Noel in particular is in a sorry state. Surrounded by jungle, which I can't chop down. I haven't even got workers over there, because at the moment they can't do much. It's working overtime on a Temple of the Hand though, to turn that jungle into nice productive forest. Eventually it should be a good commerce site, with multiple dye and a rice to give it some quick growth. It also gives another of those all important sources of mana. This city is also the border city with Sareln and Cull, so should be important for trade. I'll get a worker over there soon to connect it to the grid. I've sent out diplomatic messages to both Cull and Sareln about opening trade. Sareln is on board, but Cull has predictably not responded yet.

Of course I say nice productive forest.. Fairytale of NY is surrounded by the stuff. Eventually it'll be a very nice production centre. But to do that I'll need to research archery and get some lumbermills up. I do have high hopes for this one though. 2/2/0 tiles aren't all that good, but I'll be working a lot of them. It also needs a temple of the hand to convert some second ring jungle. This city is my only source of bananas, but that won't matter for a while. I'm not anticipating health problems for a long time. What's more important is that this place is my future heroic epic site, and hopefully it's well placed at the border of Bob/Sareln's lands, settled on a hill. Being surrounded by forests might not be that helpful in any potential war situation though...

Nutcracker Suite yet again needs a Temple of the Hand. That is some awful terrain around there... The purpose of the city is probably pretty clear. It grabs copper. I'll wring whatever other use of it that I can, and I think once the temple is up it can be an okay hybrid city, with an emphasis on production. It also works as a stepping stone towards settling further up the north coast, towards Fur.


So there are some plans in place for the new cities, but right now they're nothing but crappy economic drains, even under City States. The Empire as a whole is going pretty well. Lots of growth and infrastructure going on. I'm running into some happiness problems however, and the overall happy cap is only 8 right now. Not too great.

Technology wise I'm clearing up some omissions right now. Archery, Hunting and Bronze Working should all be snapped up right now, especially with an actual application for all of them in the near future. Writing also obviously is a big priority.

[SIZE="3"]Secret Projects [/SIZE]
/doesn't really deserve its own post. I'll cover it here.

I've got a deal in place to trade for Sun Mana with PB, in return for Ice Mana and Marble in the future. I think this is well worth it, since it is saving me around ten turns from constructing the tower. I was actually expecting to start construction this turn for a finish at around T165, but I stupidly forgot that desert increases the time it takes to build improvements so I'm running into a short delay. Still, considering my original T175 goal I should be well in hand for that.

In more general magic based matters.. I have 2 adepts at the moment. A 3rd one should be completed in the next 5 turns. I'll be looking to get an additional training facility in place soon as well. I don't think I'll be able to upgrade anyone to a mage immediately as sorcery rolls in, but we'll see. T165 is a ways away, and with luck you can gain xp quickly on a channelling unit. I think by 165 my first 2 adepts (Jadis and Sub-Zero) really should have gained enough xp to become mages though.


The priests have been on secret mission Operation: Crocodile Tears to destroy a lizard ruin, hence my previous talk about being incredibly vulnerable. It was successful, and they have gained a level up on 2 priests and a supply unit from the destruction of the ruins. They arrived back into an Illian city this turn, to much rejoicing. I'm feeling a little more secure now.

EDIT: Spoiler tags!

[Maksim]

Interesting, thanks for the update.

You are right - the GNP is a poor approximation of research rate, as it gets interfered with by culture and maintenance\gold issues. How many research points does your empire generate per turn these days?

Also, how long does it take your Adept city to build each adept?

[Selrahc]

You are right - the GNP is a poor approximation of research rate, as it gets interfered with by culture and maintenance\gold issues. How many research points does your empire generate per turn these days?

Well the three most recent cities hit me pretty hard there. A few turns ago I was running at around 76/turn at a 50% rate. Right now it's down to around 48/turn at a 30%, and with a few key developed commerce tiles having been reassigned to production.

Also, how long does it take your Adept city to build each adept?

It isn't all that good at production, so it takes 16 turns of construction, generally slaved out after about half that(As soon as I can do it for two population points). In general I'm basically building an adept every ten turns right now.