Winter Wonderland: Selrahc's FFH 2 thread

[Selrahc]

Couple of good points in this turn:

1. Free Deer Resource spawn up at Nutcracker Suite!

2. Completion of the Bone Palace. Now Auric has somewhere awesome to live. The free golden age was nice too. :hat:


I've left out a big report because we're getting close to T150. What do you guys want to see for that?

[Mardoc]

What do you guys want to see for that?

Well, I'll leave my wishlist Again, I'd rather have just part of this than have it overwhelm the time you have and get nothing.

1. State of the Empire - some info on cities, tech path (accomplished and planned), research rate. Maybe some emphasis on Illian-specifics - Temples of the Hand and how they're affecting you, land that you find useful that others wouldn't, rituals and unique units.

2. Foreign Policy - how relations are going with the other civs. What are your greatest threats and opportunities, both short and long term? Any particular offensive or defensive plans? Or contingency plans? I don't know if this section would work better going civ-by-civ, or as a unified whole.

3. Short term plans - when do you expect to be done expanding? Any civics changes or important buildings/techs in the works? That sort of thing.

4. Victory - how the Towers are coming along, and the research you need to get them. Tied into Foreign Policy - any signs that your opponents realize that's your goal?

On the flip side - what do you think your opponents' goals are, and what do you need to do to thwart them or outrace them? Anything connected to their civ in particular (is there a path that INSERT CIV HERE is particularly good at, or bad at)?

Basically, what I want to know is, what's going on in Erebus, and what do you want to have happening in Erebus, and what are you doing to change A into B? Or is everything hunky-dory and you just need to keep going straight ahead?

[Selrahc]

I might as well explain Somnium, since I'm attempting to set up a tournament of it for in game stakes.



Somnium is *the* past time on Erebus, the sport of kings, emperors and despots, with an audience of millions. It's a simple little card draw game, with a whole lot of in-universe meaning and symbology packed into it.

Within the mod, Somnium is a mini-game. It's generally a SP only thing, and you can ignore it there almost entirely if you choose. I really like it though, its a fun little game and it really helps add to the whole mood and theme of the mod. If you want to give it a go in Single Player, you can either play it for fun or for stakes. When playing for stakes winning will have a slight positive effect on your relationship with an AI, losing will have a negative one. This bonus is bigger for some, smaller for others. Hyborem for example is a really sore loser, and will hate you more if you win. It's one of the little things that builds up character of the AI. And hey.. sometimes, not often, but occasionally, that +1 bonus can be the difference between someone being willing to declare war and save you from that rampaging Bannor, or standing aside and letting you rot. And when that happens your entire game can be resting on the turn of the cards.



So how does the game actually work then? Somnium is a game that revolves around getting the most points. The Somnium deck is split into ten suits, each giving 1-7 points. High point cards are good. The game involves drawing from the deck until you decide to stop or until you draw two cards of the same suit, in which case you discard all drawn cards and score nothing. the art of the game is in gauging when to stop. Only the highest card you own for each suit counts towards the scoring, so its often a good idea to stop after only a few cards if they're 6's or 7's, whereas if you have a lot of 2 and 3's pushing your luck might be far more rewarding.... Aside from the normal cards there are 4 special cards, the 3 fools which let you steal an opponents card and death which causes an immediate end of turn.

In another little bit of back door characterization the various AI play the game in a style befitting their mannerisms, with Ethne the White playing incredibly cautiously while Perpentach plays with a sort of lunatic abandon. Other AI's place high value on certain suits or other criteria.

Somnium is an interesting part of the FFH experience, and I hope we do get a chance to show it off a little bit. And hopefully make T150 a bit more special than just the reports.

[Sciz]

I've played it a few times, but i'm always way too reckless

Or my opponent always manages to get like four different 7s in one turn. Cheaters!

[NobleHelium]

Interesting. Is there any comprehensive list on the effect of winning/losing on each leader's relations?

[Selrahc]

Or my opponent always manages to get like four different 7s in one turn. Cheaters!

That's when you just go all out looking for fools. Apparently the AI doesn't actually cheat, although it does have a perfect memory on the higher difficulties.

Interesting. Is there any comprehensive list on the effect of winning/losing on each leader's relations?

I don't think so. In almost every case though it is just +1/-1, the three exceptions that come immediately to mind are Basium(+0/-1), Hyborem(-1/+0) and I think Perpentach is (+2/-2). You can always see the effects before you play though.

And speaking of T150 update... I'm going to get to work on that now. Should be up in a few hours.

[Selrahc]

[SIZE="4"]T150 State of the Empire Update[/SIZE]
In contrast with the image drought that has been plighting my updates recently.. this one contains lots and lots of images. Thank god for spoilers, or this update would be really difficult to read.

1. General Empire
An overview of the domestic scene from a grand scale. Financial advisor, domestic advisor, military advisor and a big map view.

This is the entire shebang viewed culturally and with resource view. Quite surprised it fits into one screen. This will represent my southern and western borders, with the rest of my expansion being to fill in the north eastern lands.

I'm fairly well off for resources, and the only ones that remain to be settled are Fur and Fish. I'm currently trading for fish so it is low priority, and I'll be heading off to settle fur soon. Most of the resources that are inside my borders are connected, and I have worker teams working on the rest.

Mana situation is frankly excellent. I think I actually may have a monopoly on mana although I haven't counted. Two sources are in border but unrefined. One source is out of borders at the moment, but there are no threats to my settling. 3 sources have been connected up in order to build the tower of divination, as well as Letum Frigus. I'm also getting a law mana and an earth mana from Cull, and have temporarily gotten a sun mana from PB. When my newest adepts are created they'll start with law, sun and ice promotions.

I've also started the process of icing over the world. There is already a nice little valley of snow in the middle of the empire, and three further temples of the hand are due to be completed very soon, frosting up the northern border with PB, and the southern border with Sareln and Cull. The border with Iskender will remain unfrozen for the moment however, as sleigh ride is getting a lot of use out of its river and flood plains.



The domestic advisor screen, showing that my economy is fairly well reliant on my capital at the moment. That is set to change though as cities grow and cottages mature. By T200 I think it will be in full swing.



Financial screen. Unit costs are a lot less of a burden these days, but city costs and civic costs are a bit more expensive. This is despite the 10% city maintenance reduction from having 2 law nodes. Might even be time to start looking into courthouses, which I've been completely ignoring up until now. I think the quickest fix for my economy though will be trade routes.



Here is the military screen. Not much change there since last time I showed it off. Adepts are in production though with Jadis, Bobby Drake, Sub-Zero and Shiva already running around.

What has changed since the last time is that I have bronze working, and thus all those warriors are strength 4.

2. Cities
A look at every single city in the empire and a short explanation on its reason for being and future plans.

Our glorious capital is by far the best city in the empire. I was kind of expecting it would be as soon as I saw the magnificent 3 food+Incense start. It also highlights a big problem I have.

Look at that happy cap. Just 10. That is a pretty new addition too, since until 2 turns ago it was just 9, with every other city at 8 or less. At this time PB's cities are past size 20. Bob's are around size 20 too, although with some heavy anger. This the reason I'm willing to boost PB's GNP in return for happiness resources, and why slavery is pretty much a necessity. I can't beat them by maxing out my happiness, because I have such fewer options. That means I need to be using slavery and maxing out the productivity of my populace. I love Illian's, but they have some serious problems in trying to stay competitive economically.

Anyway, this city is pretty good. That's basically what I'm saying. It has a good mix of hammers and commerce and potential for future growth. I'll need to move a few workers over there soon to develop a few more cottages and mines once I get the influx of resources that will be coming in soon to give me a bit of breathing room for population.



Jingle Bells needs a little work. I've got two workers building a few cottages in the area and for now it will be tending a little towards the GNP side of the spectrum. It has some potential for production though, and I'll switch it about as fits the situation.

It's currently working on my fur settler. Could be doing it faster, but I need the merchant in place to remain fiscally solvent.



Twelve Days is the adept factory. It's role hasn't changed since it built its mage guild. I could squeeze a little more production out of the city by growing it to size 9 and working 4 ice lumbermills, and I'll get around to it eventually. For now though, I'm just cranking out the adepts as fast as possible. Laying the seeds for future mages.



Chestnut Roast is Sareln's ex capital, and is currently the second best city in the empire. It's working full pelt on the tower of divination, and doing it pretty well. It is my second best production city after the capital, but that was working full pelt on the Bone Palace, so secret project duty fell to it. It stopped working on Deruptus Brewing House while that was tantalisingly close to completion, but you all know how big a project the tower is. I put aside my dreams of an Illian domestic brewery for the time being.

This city has really been suffering from foreign cultural unhappiness. The problem has abated slightly over time as I put culture into it, but it remains an issue even now. It was one of the reasons I wanted to finish off Sareln.



Of course the other contender for "Second Best City" is Wonderful Time. I set out to have it be an uncomplicated backline commerce city and I think it's doing the job pretty well. The Temple of the Hand removes any question about terrain, and all I have to do is sit back and watch it work cottages.



Let it Snow! on the other hand is currently a bit rubbish. I need to task some workers over there to make a few cottages because at the moment it is at its useful tile potential and further population will go on specialists.



Deck the Halls: Living up to my plan of a decent hybrid city. Set up now, and joins Twelve Days in cranking out adepts for the rest of eternity. It needs to grow a little more first though and I have a worker over there building it another plains hill mine, to be followed by some cottages.




Sleigh Ride is commerce based, it has workers building cottages and it just needs some time to develop now that I've basically stopped whipping it.

Its border position means I have to keep a slightly closer eye on it than on sites like Deck the Halls or Wonderful Time, but I think it should be a fairly low impact commerce site until a potential war. It's quite well connected, with a route to both Jingle Bells and Chestnut Roast to funnel in reinforcements but as a border city without a hill plant and without any real production it's always going to be vulnerable if attacked.



Fairytale of NY is about to lay down a healthy cover of snow over the southern border. Still waiting for archery before I can really develop this one, but I would definitely mark it as one to watch.



And Nutcracker Suite(which I've just noticed is missing an R) has become a good site too, thanks to that deer pop. Backline hybrid city with a production bias cranking out adepts, still needs some setup but will be a lot more appealing after the deer is connected and the borders expand.


First Noel remains the weakest of the bunch. At least I can actually start improving it now that Bronze Working is in! It's also got a trade route so it isn't quite as much of an economic dead weight, and the fact that it connects me to Cull means it is actually worth the settle even before I get dye connected.

3.Foreign Data
A look at the demographics and graphs with some analysis of their meanings.

The obviously heavily golden age influenced demographics. Looking pretty healthy in general, but lets go over the categories.



I'm second in GNP, and without the golden age I think I'd still be in second. I'm never going to catch up to PB(which is partially my fault for feeding him resources to boost his GNP), but I'm competitive with the aristo farmers. Quite happy with that. Cottage economy isn't as far behind as I'd have thought.



Hooboy. Look at that food graph! Bob is clearly taking advantage of not caring about a happy cap, and PB is clearly just dominating for the moment.

I could boost mine a little higher by working the highest food tiles, but there isn't much point. I'd say I'm doing fairly well in food terms, when judged against any reasonable civ. I'm kind of using Iskender as the baseline for this thing, he is running aristograrianism but has no other special food bonuses.



Hey, the one area where I am king. I've been stalking PB's production advantage for a while and finally caught up. This should be one area where I can definitely compete and win against the big city small/empire model. It's obviously boosted by the golden age, but I was pretty close even before hand.



Not too much of import in the culture graph. If PB is going for culture then I'm not seeing it, since his culture is only a little higher than everyone else(as you'd expect for the chief pontiff of every major religion). Combined with his swap to raider trait and I think everyone but me is probably looking for military victory in the end.



I've basically been in stasis on the power graph for a long long time. No major military initiative since the priests. When they all summon an Ice Elemental though I'm still relatively competitive in soldier count. The priests continue to serve a good purpose.

The fact that my military is focussed into those three individuals has negative consequences though. If someone was to declare war on me I would have almost no defences other than slaving warriors until the priests managed to assemble. They're in a central location, 2t away from the western front, 3t-5t away from the eastern front(depending on whether you include First Noel. I think in a war I'd abandon that immediately.)

PB is currently in raiders. If he was to blitz into my territory then he could take my capital and Let it Snow! and possibly Wonderful Time before I could put up a good defence. Diplomacy is still key in making sure that nobody makes the attempt. If PB decided to take me out of the running.. I think he could. But I also think I could probably strike back hard enough to leave Bob or Iskender with a good chance of unseating him. The same applies to any other attacker, although I would be less vulnerable to the initial attack. Anyone who attacks me runs the risk of my priest based retaliation, and of my high production being turned to combat them.



The score graph is a little weird. Since I'm the only person doing any slaving I think my standing is a little hurt compared to Bob, who'll be boosting population to gain advantage of Governors Manors.

PB is definitely in the lead though. His crazy big cities, prodigious tech lead and strong army leave him in a very very good place. We're all playing catch up, and I just hope we'll be able to make it in time.

4. Miscellany
Various thoughts on the other civs, victory conditions and technology. No screenshots, but I might as well keep with the format.

Wellll.. I've been asked about victory conditions. Lets start there.

I think I'm the only one going for ToM. I think everyone else will be going for conquest. In fact I think both PB and Bob are gearing up for conquest over the next 50t, and the world might erupt into a fairly large scale and decisive war by T200.


If someone is trying to piece things together they could pretty clearly work out my plans for victory. PB probably has done, not sure about anyone else.

I want to stay out of a big war as much as possible and continue peacefully building towers. In the event that I can't, I'm really going to be trusting in mages to keep me competitive. Mages will be my only T3 unit. I'm not planning on developing champions, longbowmen rangers or any of the other staples. It will be mages and mages almost alone that determine whether I can hold my empire together.

For that reason then it is fairly vital to get them up and running as soon as possible. I'm definitely on track to have them in play by T165, and from current projections I should have two or even three adepts ready for the upgrade by then. 3 mages+3 priests is a decent interim defence force, but from there the snowball starts rolling properly. I'll be bringing in more and more adept production centres, and more and more adepts will be reaching the right point. By T200 I hope to have at least 30 mages operational with a variety of different spell spheres ready for use.

Technology wise I'm obviously playing catch up to PB. I'm 12 techs or more behind him,although thankfully most of them are ones I can crank out in a turn or two. Writing, archery, warfare, fishing, drama and the like. I hope that by focussing on the arcane line I won't be a pushover. I think I'm a little behind Bob technologically too, if the score is anything to judge by. Still.. must struggle on. I do appear to be the only person focussing heavily on the arcane line which is a good thing. I'd prefer to remain unique in my military ventures.


As far as general attitudes go...

Iskender: Friendly. I hope he isn't PB's target for military destruction. I think we can work together pretty well in the future, with an alliance between horses and mages. His land is almost bereft of resources though, and he is pretty much stuck in 4th place, while also being a tempting target of aggression for both PB and Bob. It would take a good play to win from his situation and I'll be interested to see what happens.

Sareln: While he is clearly a catspaw for Bob, I think we're doing okay. He agreed to not contest my claim to the northern lands, and he is going to be a help in building the tower. We've got open borders and should move to develop trade soon. Obviously has no hope of winning the game.

Cull: We've actually finally managed a bit of diplomacy now, with the opening of trade, but he remains annoyingly hard to pin down into a conversation. I've had some ideas for furthering our alliance that I've tried to discuss only for him to vanish. I think Cull also has little chance to win, and may end up conquered by Bob. the dwarven steamroller is struggling to start up, but it just hasn't managed it yet and I think it is running out of time. The harsh winter frosted up its works.

Bob: Still coming into his own as a power, but I think and hope that he will eventually serve as the great military rival and distraction to PB. I'm actually really happy I didn't go for him with the priests at this point, since I think that without Bob alive and strong as a future threat, PB would be eyeing me in order to eliminate his biggest remaining rival. It was a risky move I made back then though. I think I have a broadly friendly relationship with Bob, and would be among the last on the list of potential victims once he gets the vampires in play. I think we've had a pretty fair diplomatic accord over the game, but I hope my delusions of grand statesmanship in leaving the Calabim counterbalance alive and strong don't come back to bite me, as it were.

And finally
PB: Clearly the biggest power in the world. Perhaps leaving his economic prime, but by far the biggest dog in the pack. We've had a great relationship up to now, which has been mutually beneficial. I'm starting to feel like maybe he is starting to get ready to make some big moves though. We have a lot of treaties in place, so I'm doubting that first move will be at me but I am sensing something big is coming... By T200 I expect to know just what that is. I'm hoping we don't end up on opposite sides of the fence though, because we have been good allies so far.

And that wraps up this T150 spectacular. I hope it covers everything that needs to be covered, but if you can think of anything I left out then please just ask!

[Sciz]

Great post!

Also what tech are you planning to take with the Tower of Divination?

[Selrahc]

Sorcery. It's the key tech to my continued plans. Mainly because of mages, but also because it unlocks the metamagic node which will let me think about constructing the next towers.

I need some new names for adepts/mages actually. I've been basing it around offensive users of frost magic/powers, but it isn't a concept that is all that widely explored.
So far I've used
Jadis (The White Witch from Narnia)
Sub-Zero (Mortal Kombat)
Shiva (Final Fantasy)
Bobby Drake (Iceman from the X-men)

and I've thought up
Utgard Loki (Norse Myth)
Skadi (Norse Myth)
Articuno (Pokemon)
Killer Frost (Flash villain)
Snow Queen (fairytale)

and then I dry up. Anyone think of any more? I'm sure there are more than 9 at least!

[Sciz]

the first that spring to mind are Mia and Piers (and possibly Alex) from the Golden Sun games, though they aren't 100% frost/ice mages, they're a mix of water and ice, so they may not count. On the plus side all magic users in that series are called Adepts, so it fits in that aspect anyways

otherwise in the Malazan series there's a race of sentient beings called Jaghut who all control ice. There are a few central characters from that race in the series, the most prominent probably being Gothos.