[spoilers] coldrain is trapped within Hunter's Dream

[coldrain]

Turn 23
 
I was planning on updating tomorrow, but I had to bring in the good news immediately:


I struck copper vein on the plains hill mine that I just completed this turn! I don’t remember ever having an immediate resource pop up in a mine in civ 4, ever. This is a huge boon for my early game. Immediate effect is that the settler that I started will finish 1 turn earlier, and everything else after that will be available sooner. I haven’t had any other events of note so far, so this was very welcome news. I have gold in the bank now due to saving for a small event fund a turn earlier, but I didn't expect this kind of boon for free!

In other news, the reinforced hunter group is heading out again (2x warrior, 1 scout), in hopes to find animals of the easier variety. Also, I was first to size 7 capital, and hired a sage specialist to try and emulate the opening in my previous game to some degree. Looking at demos, I think someone (possibly Cairo?) founded their second city already, benefit of EXP most likely. Demos in spoiler:

[shallow_thought]

Dammit. I can't see your images because of this stupid Imgur / UK law business.

I imagine I can't get to my own Imguer account either. Sigh.

But, hey, immediate copper is nice.

[coldrain]

Recap of turns 25-35
 
Huh, did I really postpone updating this long? Well, the game is on turn 39, so let’s start by highlighting some noteworthy turns in between. My hunting party finds a Mr. Cairo scout in south on T26:


If he had ended his turn next to my warriors, I would have maybe attacked it for xp. Now we remain in peaceful terms. Cairo has only switched away from pacifism, no god-king or agrarianism for him yet. So he must have started with AH as free tech, otherwise he would have swapped into agri already?

Then couple of turns later I arrive to the watch tower, to see where I could find suitable targets for barbarian hunting:


Skeleton is approaching from the southern mountain range, hopefully it ends up walking on flatland where I can attack it. Two turns remaining on education tech. I went for a bit strange tech path for this game, the target is to go mining (done) -> education (ongoing) -> calendar and swap into nationhood, apprenticeship and agrarianism all at once, saving one turn of anarchy compared to my previous game opening. Demos of this turn in spoiler:

Next turn, the skeleton moves as I hoped and I attack it:




Won the coin flip, this is very good compensation for the lost battle against the earlier lion. Didn’t take picture of it, but settler for first expand is marching to the designated site and capital builds a third worker.

Jumping to turn 31, first expand of Cathedral Ward is founded:


Renamed capital to Central Yharnam as well. Workers had completed mines around capital to take full advantage of god-king, now they move to build road and farms for second city. Other potential city sites marked on the map. Cairo scout slipped by the western coast and will be trapped to the north once borders expand.

On turn 33 I attack a scorpion clan goblin with an unpromoted warrior and clean up with the experienced one:


Capital was in middle of building second settler, but slots in a quick warrior to replace the loss. And this is what the empire looks like on T34:


Demos:

 
Turns 36-38
 
Turn 36 Mr Cairo uses his world spell of Legends, popping the borders of his three mega cities to third ring:


He also swapped into god-king and agrarianism a turn earlier. Meanwhile, I just completed second settler and researched calendar, so I switch into apprenticeship, nationhood and agrarianism (plus keep in god-king). Settler is marching to spot “B”:


Workers complete road 1NW of Cathedral Ward, allowing the settler to found third city Altar of Despair on T38:


Two workers are building another grassland farm in forest, covered by a warrior. Third worker builds first cottage near capital, to be shared with Cathedral Ward for now. Hunting party hasn’t had any additional combats and is looking into marching towards east. Next research target is animal husbandry for the cows and later pigs. I hope that horses spawn on one of the empty tiles around second city.

Current plan is to trickle in apprenticeship promoted warriors while focusing mostly on expansion. There are a lot of great city sites nearby. I also need to be careful that the Kuriotates won’t steal Pyre of Seraphic or the luxury resources there with settlements, I would like to get my hands on those. Capital still has the sage specialist at work, great sage should spawn on T47. Demos:

[coldrain]

Turn 43
 
On T41 I got the refugee event:


The only option available was +1 pop in Cathedral Ward, so I took it. Not amazingly good at this stage of the game, but good to have some positive events. Haven’t seen the usually common “use this as an excuse to raise taxes” events, so I have to turn down research every now and then to save money.

Animal husbandry completes and next research target is fishing (I save gold on T42 to have a small event fund at hand). Horses appear at a very convenient location:


Cathedral Ward is now a very good city location. The original reason to found on this spot was to minimize wasted worker turns and allow sharing of tiles between cities (not so high happy cap until I find and connect more luxury resources), but the copper + horses will make it a decent production base.

Three workers are not enough to keep up with growth rate, especially since most of the land is covered in forest -> capital starts a fourth one. I think I have built enough agri-farms, so next step is to start cottage spam (improving resources is still priority #1 of course). Settler for city site “E” is in the second city and will reach the destination next turn. Side note: another reason I like settling the second city close to capital is to safely prebuild roads so that settlers will march to city sites #3 and #4 faster. Two warriors are headed to the rice area now, covering the worker that started the southern cow pasture.

There are a lot of great city locations left, and I haven’t scouted towards north at all, so there could be even more. I’m tempted to go for a full farmer’s gambit with fishing -> festivals -> hunting -> writing. The only concern is that Mr. Cairo has been building a lot more military than me, but looking at KTB + graphs, he should only have warriors and scouts, so nothing too scary. And I haven’t met other players yet, so I don’t know how close the next neighbour is either. In other foreign news, Fellowship of Leaves was founded this turn. Must be xist10, as he probably started with free hunting tech. Demos:

Almost forgot to mention: four turns remaining until the great sage in capital. Academy is the plan.

[coldrain]

Turn 49
 
My best warrior defeats a scorpion clan goblin on defence on T45:


Very close to next promotion now, which would unlock heroic epic (requires warfare tech). Hunting group keeps close to the cotton + Pyre area, to dissuade Cairo from trying to settle it. Settler is in position to found fourth city near the rice next turn.
 
Turn 47 I finally get my great sage and build academy at capital:


Newest city of Healing Church has been established too. Someone else birthed the first great sage of the game a turn earlier, not entirely sure who, but I strongly suspect the philosophical Kuriotates. Also, Octopus Overlords was founded in a distant land. Would bet money on that it was Aurorarcher who founded it (Lanun loves everything related to sea and coast). Demos after establishing the academy in spoiler:

Then couple of turns later, on the current turn the empire looks like this:



Warrior near Pyre defends against another scorpion clan goblin. A regular goblin approaches from the north, Cathedral Ward builds a fresh scout to try and attack it for enough xp to get subdue animal promotion. Worker #4 builds road 1NE of capital to allow the next settler to reach city site “D” a turn faster.

Fishing is done and Altar of Despair builds first workboat, with the help of a chop and the copper mine. Deep purple borders barely visible in the fog at northeast, so Bing must be there. Cairo is still the only player I have contact with. Checking KTB verifies that no threatening tech yet (HBR, BW…). Demos:

[coldrain]

Turn 53
 
On T51 that goblin ended up marching on open terrain where my fresh scout clears it out:


Got enough xp for subdue animal promotion. Warrior was in position to clean up if the scout had perished. Now I will save the scout to be upgraded to divided soul when hunting lodge has been built. On the same turn I found city #5 of Old Yharnam on the coastal grassland hill north of the capital. Building of Dereptus brewing house has been started. Turn 53 overview:


Old Yharnam has second ring fish which is not visible in the picture, but was one of the reasons to found on that location. Sharing the corn immediately boosts growth rate, so the city will become productive fast.
And to my surprise, no one pointed out my mix-up of directions in previous post. Bing borders are in the fog to the northwest, not east of course. Haven’t made contact yet. Oh, and the hunting party in south has been healing for a quite long time from the scorpion clan goblin combat. Not very close to shades yet (best warrior is at 9  xp).

[coldrain]

Turns 54-59
 
World tension is rising, at least if the diplo thread is to be believed. Before that, let’s go through key events from earlier turns. On T54 capital had just grown to size 8 and was immediately hit by disease:


Now it will take a longer time to regrow since I still want Old Yharnam to work the corn farm. Deruptus brewing house is about to be completed. Tracking KTB reveals that Mr. Cairo completed horseback riding, which unlocks centaurs for him. Then next turn, the leading warrior in hunter group kills another scorpion clan goblin:




This is the first lvl 4 unit, unlocking Heroic epic once I have military strategy (might take a while). Also I spot a combat 3 giant spider nearby, which presumably ambushed a Cairo unit:


I retreat the scout out of range. Demos of the turn in spoiler:

On turn 57 hunting is done and capital starts building hunting lodge for Divided souls (just finished a quick market). An alarming power spike form Cairo:


Looks like I will get Divided souls just in time if he has plans to invade me. Couple of workers are set to chop forests to get the lodge faster. Animal handling scout will also upgraded then. I save money for upgrading, poison tech selected as placeholder. Overview of the core and demos:




Turn 58 a bear kills Cairo scout to the north:


Out of nowhere, three skeletons approach from the same direction. This is actually good for me, since I can try to collect some xp with the soon to be completed/upgraded Divided souls. Spooked by the Kuriotate power build up, I slot in couple of new warriors for garrison duty.
 
T59 I upgrade the subdue animal scout:


Production overflow and chops allows capital to 1-turn a DS. Dave posted to the diplo thread about the rising soldier count, presumably referring to the Kuriotates. I’m a bit worried for my own safety, I desperately need better units.
 
Turn 60
 
DS from capital attacks the closing in skeleton at 76% odds:




Subdue animal DS was in range to finish it off if the attack had failed. Very nice combat results on the past 10 turns or so, can’t complain after the initial bad luck. Another skeleton is besieging Altar of Despair, which has two warriors for garrison:


Also hired a sage and merchant to start working on next great person. Concerned about the military build-up, the hunting group near Pyre turns back:


This is what the most recent power graph looks like:


Initially I wasn’t too worried, since Cairo still doesn’t have apprenticeship, so all of his units will start at 0 xp. I on the other hand have some well promoted warriors and now Divided Souls. However, the graph keeps on climbing, which is a worrying sight. But as you can read in the public diplo thread, Dave’s comments make me believe that I might not be the intended target of the centaurs. I’m still going to continue bolstering my military, and attacking barbarians for more promotions will be an important component in this. Now I’m debating if I want poisons ASAP, which would take about ten turns at 100% research. Next turn I should have enough cash saved to fund the research if needed. Alternatively knowledge of the ether would be useful too for the sever soul ability. And if I was feeling desperate, I would go for bronze working to get better defenders. Demos:

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Are centaurs basically the mod's version of a horse archer rush?

[coldrain]

Are centaurs basically the mod's version of a horse archer rush?

FFH2 actually has a horse archer unit, but it is available a bit later with stirrups tech. The first mounted unit of the game is horseman, unlocked at HBR, so can be reached relatively fast. Horsemen are only strengh 4, but have 3 movement and can gain up to +2 more with promotions, so they are perfect for surprise attacks and raiding. And they also have a 25% base chance to withdraw from defeat, both on attack and defence.

Centaurs are one of the special units of Kuriotates, that replaces the basic horseman. Centaurs are otherwise the same, but they gain defensive bonuses (like Immortals in BtS) and don't need any stables to build (Centaurs are people, not animals confined to demeaning pens!). And they can use a special ability of sprint to gain temporary +1 movement at the cost of getting tired (-10% strength). The rest of the mounted units of Kuriotates are centaurs as well, sharing similar bonuses.

I might be wrong, but horseman/centaur rushes should be difficult to pull off, since just a basic warrior is strength 3 with +25% city defence and benefits from forification bonuses. An unpromoted horseman therefore will statistically lose against a fully fortified warrior in a city, while it costs almost three times more in production. Mass pillaging of course remains a credible threat, even if cities would be difficult to capture. However, I think trying for a centaur rush as Kuriotates can only bring very limited gains, since they can own just three mega cities, all other settles or conquests are turned into settlements, which provide minimal benefits aside from cultural control of land and connecting resources. Kuriotates, in my opinion, should use their concentrated economic power to get important wonders or unlock powerful spell casters faster than anyone else (mages, certain priest units, heroes...). Let's see how the situation developes. And who knows, maybe Cairo has spotted an opportunity to try something different and will prove my assessment wrong?

[coldrain]

(double post)

Turn 61
 
Skeleton near Altar of Despair dies attacking the garrison warrior. Divided soul that won the combat last turn returns to capital to heal, while the subdue animal DS heads south. Warrior group keeps marching home:


Research is set to poisons, now takes nine turns. It will unlock my second unique unit of Ghost (replaces assassin) and national hero Rathus Denmora. As long as I have enough overflow, capital keeps building divided souls every turn. Probably will chop some forests to keep it going. Demos before ending turn:

Borders expand at Altar of Despair after ending turn, making contact with Bing warrior to the north:


Also visible are a collection barbarian skeletons and warriors about to invade. Bing is BAR leader, so non-animal barbs are friendly to him, making me the closest target. Again, this can be a boon for me with more “free” targets to gather experience from. However, my military could be needed elsewhere, as couple of hours after sending my turn forward Dave posted this in the diplo thread:

DaveV wrote:
No point in being coy any more: the dubious rush strategy is from Mr. Cairo. He's throwing everything at me, and can't have anything left at home.

My best units as of now are Divided souls, which have a -20% city attack malus, so would be difficult to capture anything, but putting pressure against Cairo might be necessary, for the following reason: My military power is about 79000 now and rival best (assuming Cairo) has 161000. So if I got it right and horsemen/centaurs are 8000 power each, Cairo has about 10 centaurs more than I have total military right now. For reference, I have 10 warriors, 1 scout and 3 DS. Maybe Cairo has enough to completely eliminate Dave, and I might be the next target after that? So it would be in my interest to distract and force him to defend the homelands instead of committing fully against the dark elves.
 
I don’t see this early Kuriotate rush making much sense, unless Cairo is preparing to attack each neighbour one by one to knock down competition before the “normal” empires (with no restrictions to amount of cities) start to out scale the limited amount of super cities? On the other hand, I would like to sit tight until poison tech and concentrate on gathering experience from the barbs… I’ll think about the plan until next turn at least. Hmm, maybe if I decide to stay put, I could still apply pressure by alluding to possible intervention in the diplo thread? Dave has my sympathies anyway, it must be frustrating to be the first target of invasion two games in a row.