Winter Wonderland: Selrahc's FFH 2 thread

[Selrahc]

Permanent NAP with PB.
Very good thing. He has so many powerful technologies now. Mithril, blasting powder, strength of will... It's basically just crazy. If someone gave me 10000 gold to fuel deficit research(running on 100% tech rate I'm pulling in just under 700 beakers, which is pretty good for the Illians at this stage) and mage upgrades (I've got around 40 odd adepts ready for the mage upgrade now), I'd give it a shot. As it is, I'd not be at all good.

One too few mana nodes to build the Alteration and Necromancy towers simultaneously. This makes me very very sad.

I knew it was going to happen. I wanted to get either Dave or Sareln as vassals to provide me with the last mana, but I *really* didn't want to piss off PB, and providing sanctuary to his foes probably wouldn't be the way to do that.

If I had the last node, I'd be in a position to start work on the tower of Mastery at around T235, with the last tower being finished at about the time for a leisurely completion of Strength of Will, stockpiling maybe a thousand gold along the way, looking for a completion of the tower of mastery at around T270-T290, depending on just how fast I can scrape together the cash to rush the tower.

As it is, I've got 3 of the 4 nodes needed for the tower of necromancy. I need to wait for the Tower of Alteration to finish before starting work on the Tower of Necromancy. Tower of Alteration will finish on around T235. It will take about 15-20 turns to build the Tower of Necromancy. I'm currently thinking it might be a good idea to stockpile gold to shave 5 turns or so from the completion time of the tower of Alteration. I'll probably not be done before T300... Which just isn't quick enough.

I don't know what victory condition PB is going for. He isn't in the right civics for cultural... and one of his cities is lagging way behind. All of his nodes are configured towards fire mana so it doesn't look like he is going tower of mastery... And domination is off the table since I've got a population veto. I expect it to become clear in a few turns though. Maybe he's been working towards Altar of the Luonottar all this time? If so I never caught on at all.


I suppose I could ask PB for a loan of his entropy mana. I'd doubt he would go for that though...

Baron Duin Halfmorn is on a barb killing tour. He was disappointed I brought him back from the underworld just before I signed up to eternal peace. I'm going to feed him some orcs as an apology.

[Sciz]

You gonna complete the tower of mastery the normal way or try to rush it?

[Selrahc]

You gonna complete the tower of mastery the normal way or try to rush it?

At the moment I'm just focussed on building the little towers. But yeah, I'll be rushing the Tower of Mastery as much as I'm able to. Not that that means much. My ability to generate gold is pretty poor. Foreign trade means less gold, and I'm only generating 170 at max gold.

My ability to generate beakers on the other hand, is going from strength to strength. I can now get over 1000 beakers/turn with a -288 loss if running on full burn(without starvation. If I set my entire populace to sage specialists then I end up with well over 1500/turn). And I'm getting over 200/turn without any tech investment at all.

Trouble is that all my gold is currently being saved up to rush the tower of Alteration, which I'll do within the next few turns. So... I'm not taking advantage of it at all.

I think the Scholarship/Foreign Trade option was a good idea though. Overall my economy is actually doing decently now. I've killed off production everywhere but my capital.


The Baron is now one xp point from combat 4. Pretty nice. Killing barbs has predictably not been much of a challenge for him, but I've run out of domestic sources. Might be time to head into the southern wastelands beyond PB's domain to hunt for orc bandits. I've got a rabid wolf running around somewhere as well. I should probably save some maintenance and delete it, but I'm inclined to just let him run around for a bit. I've called him Howly.

[Selrahc]

The Plan
Current turn: 231.
I'm setting myself a deadline of T240 to finish up preparations for the Tower of Mastery. This gives me:
9 turns to finish up research on Strength of Will. (Which can easily be done in 6 at a sustainable rate, 12 at minimum science, 3 turns at max science)
9 turns to finish up the Tower of Necromancy, which will take 15 turns at normal building speed, so will need to be hurried for quite a lot of gold.

That's going to stretch my resources if I'm going to get it completed.

So the aim is to get to T240 with no money in the bank, but with the two tasks completed.

After those two things are completed, I have a few things to do.

1. Convert all mana nodes into Law mana. Currently all non-necromancy nodes are already law. When the 4 nodes dedicated to the necromantic arts are freed up, I already have teams in place to convert them over to law nodes as soon as the tower of necromancy is completed.
That will give me 7 law nodes. With the extra palaces and the courthouses I've got in place, coupled with City states I'm already paying a pittance for city costs. (88 gold across my several dozen cities) But I need to be generating as much money as possible! I've already disbanded enough military to eliminate unit costs.

2. Research mathematics. I want to be able to build wealth across my empire. It's currently a 1 turn tech at max science, so this shouldn't be an issue. Hopefully I can squeeze it in before my self imposed 9 turn deadline.

3. Switch from scholarship to consumption. This will cost me a turn of anarchy, but I need that +20% gold production, and swapping from a high upkeep to a medium upkeep civic is also handy. I also need to evaluate if Foreign Trade is a net gain or loss. It's getting me a lot of trade routes, but it is costing me 10% gold. At the moment, I'm thinking it's a bad thing when I switch over to a pure gold generating economy. Most of those bonus trade routes are internal, and are only giving me 1 commerce.



With all these measures in mind, I might be ready to cash rush the Tower of Mastery on T275. 34 turns of cash generation, with all cities working wealth, with the best civic settings I can do for cash generation, with very little expenses...

That isn't good enough is it?
I've a feeling PB can generate a lot more gold than me, and has a much better hammer city than me*, and will be starting work on his Final Altar before me.

*For those curious, the hammer city is the capital. It gets 40 base hammers/turn and has a population of 14. I have no forge.



I'll also be working on "the Draw" at the same time with my second best production city, and putting the paltry sums of my final turns research into the omniscience line. If I lose the game by a turn because one of my cities was working on a ritual instead of wealth... well I'll just have to live with it. Like I said though, it isn't that close of a game.

[Square Leg]

Hey Selrahc,

Great to see that you are still giving this your best shot. I can't comment on whether you have a chance or not of course! Nice idea regarding the law node. Would 7 enchantment nodes put all your cities into "We love the Yeti day" (meaning no maintenance)

[Selrahc]

Would 7 enchantment nodes put all your cities into "We love the Yeti day" (meaning no maintenance)

What exactly are the requirements for that? I'm not massively under my happy cap so I'd doubt it. But I'm getting the occasional WLTKD popping up anyway.

I think I'll just stick to the law node idea though.

[Square Leg]

Maybe th emass law nodes will be better actually (unless mass Spirit gives you a chance of another GE)

I think the criteria is that your city has to be size 7+ and have no unhappy citizens, no food lost due to unhealthiness and even then it appears to be some sort of coin flip... I can't find anyhting on Civfanatics that explains it very well to be honest.

[Selrahc]

(unless mass Spirit gives you a chance of another GE)

As far as that goes, I've massively corrupted my entire pool of GP points with sages empire wide. The next few great people are going to 80%+ be a sage, with a slight chance of a merchant instead.

[Selrahc]

And right on schedule, it's T238 I'll be completing the Tower of Necromancy and Strength of Will on T239.

T240 will see me start the tower, convert all the necromancy nodes, and begin research on mathematics.

T241 will see me finish mathematics, and swap civics from scholarship to consumption.

T242 will see me swap all cities from research to wealth production.

After that, I think the game will be on autopilot. I've actually run out stuff for workers to do at this point. They're running around improving tiles I don't plan to work now. Building roads to nowhere. I'd delete them, but they aren't costing me anything.

[Selrahc]

T240 actually let me complete mathematics in a single turn. 100% research with almost all cities building research was getting me 1290 beakers at a loss of just under 300 gold.

I don't think that's all that bad research for late game Illians. Obviously the focus on economy sorted things out quite well.

Hmm... something else happening on T240? Can't think of anything. The Baron is running through endless fields of Kuriotate land where I'd expected to see a little more wilderness. Guess the entire world is settled now.

Can't think of anything else.

EDIT: Checked the figures, and corrected them.