By the way, I just realised that based on the screenshot, did you actually get Auric to attack the Airship? I had earlier assumed pb sent it to kill Auric and sent you a pic of it, but that has got to be a screenshot from your turn, since the sign is of the Illian colour.
So the game is finished, and has been for a while.
PB will eventually get you caught up on the final turns. I don't want to steal his thunder.
Anyone want to give me a breakdown of my play over the game? Places you think I did well/adequately/badly?
For my own part:
Strategy:
I think the tower plan was workable. I prioritized and grabbed mana nodes with my settling. Had deals set up to help me build the towers. It all fell apart a bit during the Bob-wars. I was gearing up to build the tower of the elements before it, and instead I got sidetracked into lots of other things.
Priest Rush I think I did well. A few niggles. I prioritized the priest rush above all. But maybe I should have been working those two corn and the plains river incense sooner... It would have slowed down the construction of the priests by a few turns, but probably improved my overall position.
Stasis, I think was at the absolutely right time. I got criticized by Cull, Bob, Sareln, PB and the lurkers for it, but despite that it almost got a lot of players killed. Leave it a little later, and everyone has a second warrior ready. And probably a worker who can be doing a little farming during the stasis. I popped it so that barbs would be forming by the end turns of it. And they were. And they attacked the capitals of PB, Cull and Sareln, which probably *should* have gotten a kill on at least one of them.
It also accomplished the goal of getting the Illians off to a good start in scouting. While everyone else was forced to stay home, I contacted everyone in the world.
Not to mention the primary goal in all this... giving me 14 turns of growth for the priests.
Diplomacy:
For the most part I did this quite well. PB says I should have pushed him for more concessions, and maybe I should have.
But for a large portion of the game, I wanted to build up some trade links with him to grease the wheels. Prevent him from thinking me too juicy a target so I could run a ragged defence on that flank.
Similarly, settlements like the blatant and annoying sugar steal don't matter so much. Peace at any price but stealing my mana.
It just about worked. Deals like the ones I gave him about Cull and Sareln were clearly not in my favour. Similarly the long term cotton trade we had going. But by giving him a tangible benefit and the promise of future trades, I could have a secure border. And that was worth quite a lot as I pushed on for the towers. Also, the Veez deals were partly because I was just entertained, which is worth a few in game concessions.
In reading the thread after, I was surprised by how close it seemed he was to pouncing on me. I'd pretty much been treating him as an ally since we had the discussion about me not rushing him. That was why I was helping him find good city sites!
The big point I screwed up on was the MDP. Ugh. I didn't expect PB to trounce Iskender so fully. I've said this before though.
What I really should have done, to potentially win the game, would have been to get longish (T220) NAP's with Bob and PB. Then just really gone nuts focussing on the economy and the towers. I suspect I could have gotten the NAP from PB, since looking back he was more worried about me not jumping on in a big war.
I'd do the Ice trade again, although probably for harsher terms. I don't think it was nearly as influential as the lurkers say.
[SPOILER]
In the situation where PB wiped out the stack, I had one mage within range.
Sub-zero. The Sun mage.
Now in the event, I didn't know where the stack was. I cast magic eye with him before moving my forces into position and talking to PB.
That meant that he didn't have the ability to cast again. If however, I'd moved the stack in and scouted with one of my adepts, then Sub-Zero would have been able to move in blind that stack.
Now, blind has a 30% resistance chance, so he would have only been able to immobilize about 70% of the stack. But if I'd had two or three mages in range? Almost complete immobilization, with a few units.
Blinded units can't move. They can't cast.
So first Bob's spectres vanish. Then he gets maelstrommed and attacked. The stack would be wiped out almost as easily using a spell that PB gets from his palace mana.
Bob shouldn't have had his forces in one massive stack within attack range of mages.
Snowfall also would have been a very bad weapon against my forces, with their innate cold resistance, cold immune summons, and bonus in ice terrain. Giving someone a super weapon that doesn't really do that much to you isn't that bad a tactic. Of course the centaurs, gunners, mithril troops and fireball slingers... are a different story. Not to mention airships.
[/SPOILER]
Economy:
Maybe I should have just bitten the bullet and gone for aristograrian? I've done that before many a time. But Ice Aristo-farms are just 4 food, 2 commerce tiles. I don't think you can really build an empire on 2 commerce tiles. By the end of the game I had a lot of mature towns, and the population to both use them and run a lot of sages, things were in general, going pretty swimmingly. Although I'd mixed in sanitation and a good few farms to run specialists by then.
Conquest. Conquest was a mistake. It barely added much production. It came immediately before blight, and it totally halted a lot of recovery.
Getting out from under it saw immediate and massive improvement. I started growing cities again.
I was running pretty light on workers for a lot of the game. Bit of a cock up. Most of the time I was working improved tiles in most of my cities though. A couple of cities though... in particular First Noel. The worker labour in that area was going towards the rather intensive task of bringing Fairytale up to code as a lumbermill area leaving poor First Noel rather languishing. In general, I should have gone for a few more worker builds.
I made a pretty fundamental misjudgement of PB in the early game as well. I was thinking we were on a standard sized map. This would have really affected his final economic power level, as he would have had only 3 super cities. The decision of who to priest rush was based upon that information, and might well have changed if I'd thought it through.
All in all, the Kurios were a civ for this set-up. Large map for four super cities. Toroidal and high difficulty, so everyone else is paying through the nose in maintenance. I was getting very diluted effects for most of the game, due to having city states and two law nodes. In the late game though, I first lost both of my law mana, and then took over 8 cities very far away from my capital. I was paying out 18gpt on a lot of those cities, and it completely crippled me just at the time I was gearing up to grab Strength of Will, and upgrade dozens of mages. The fact that I still hadn't regrown my population after the blight didn't help. A summer palace, a dozen turns of population increase, and a lot of courthouses later and I was back on track, but by then we'd agreed to a peaceful resolution.
PB also crippled me very neatly for the late game tech push by getting the Great Library and the Crown of Akharien. Scholarship would have been a lot more effective if my specialist pump had been getting another few hundred beakers. Kudos for that.
Military
Ugh.
Now, I'll point out I was intentionally running pretty light on military for a chunk of the game, and hoping I could settle things diplomatically. That kind of worked. But things totally failed to come together in the timeframes I had available.
Nothing fundamentally wrong with running a mage based Illian military. Once I got the funds in place, I had over 50 adepts ready for upgrade, with a diverse selection of spells.
The trouble was, I didn't get it together fast enough. I needed to be running Apprenticeship/Conquest and have gotten Form of the Titan (Which I'd just gotten started building, when PB grabbed it. Another fairly crippling wonder steal). That way the adepts would have matured nice and quick.
So.. when I needed it for the Bobwars, it didn't have the XP. When I needed it for the T220nap end, I was out of money.
The Baron came too late to matter, and was in general a bit of a waste of hammers and research. But hey, he was responsible for me starting up the werewolf trend, so I'd say good for him.
I think Rangers were a good decision, considering I was after a tough and mobile defence force. I'd happily defend them from criticism.
I'd be grateful for any feedback, whether about my play or whatever else.
I hope you enjoyed the thread, and the game in general. Enjoy PB's endings when he gets around to them. :neenernee
Quote:Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We're happy tonight.
Walking in a winter wonderland.
Be warned first that this is from a person who saw the game mostly through the eyes of PB, and second a not very experienced FfHer.
I think you did well in general and I feel the diplomacy was strong for most of the game. Where I think you fell down was in the following:
1) Not leveraging your PoWs. You should really have gotten a full kill off them IMO and didn't push them hard enough when they were uber.
2) Not throwing in with Bob when PB went after him (though I was hoping at the time you wouldn't welsh on that one). I think if you'd thrown in with Bob or stayed neutral there you would have been able to counter Bob. But by that stage if PB won the game was over IMO.
3) Economy. Blight really hurt you, and as you said you were in the wrong civics when it hit. You also ran light on workers for a long period in the game.
Well all this is being said to you by someone who you'd probably wipe the floor with in a game, so don't take it too much to heart. And finally, thanks for the game, it was fun to lurk.
Selrahc Wrote:Loads of stuff going on. I'm sure PB's told you all about it.
Long story short, I sure didn't expect Auric to get killed by that Airship.
Auric Descended
Thought I might write you a story, but don't expect too much.
The Book of Oghma Wrote:Prenidus stood silently at the bow of the ship, staring into the blizzard. He shivered, but not from the cold. The last time he had seen a blizzard like this, he had been a young lad in the Age of Ice. He stared at the mountains as the ship passed over them, lost in thought.
“Sir, the fleet is reporting that many of the ships are beginning to freeze.” Prenidus turned to the young crewman. He was a boy that appeared to be barely fifteen. Prenidus hoped that the boy would survive this mission.
“Then he is near…” Prenidus muttered to himself, and the blade at his side throbbed in response. “Men! To battle stations!”
The crew reacted to his orders, and a surge of activity begun.
He turned to the ship’s resident mage. “Send the order to the other vessels.” The mage nodded and closed her eyes.
Prenidus returned to staring at the snow covered mountains of Stelvio Pass. He had a bad feeling…
“Ah, more victims.”
Auric’s sight was beyond mortal ken, he could see through the blizzard as if it were a perfect summer day. No, he could see better! He’d had no idea of the unimaginable power a God had! None could stop him now!
He drifted towards the Kuriotates fleet…
Prenidus watched as the advance guard of airships were struck down by the power of the errant God. “Return fire!”
The ships’ cannons had no effect on the God of Ice.
Auric made a gesture, and a ring of frost spread out from around him freezing all in its path.
The mage on Prenidus’s ship yelled “Snowfall!”
Prenidus’s eyes widened, and he took stance on the airship’s dragon figurehead and readied his blade.
The God’s power reached them, and Prenidus tightened his grip on the blade, then swung it in a uppercut with tremendous force…
…and the ring of frost parted, leaving the Prenidus’s ship unharmed. The rest of the fleet was not so fortunate, as lifelike ice sculptures tumbled to the ground.
Auric frowned, how could that airship have survived? How could that ship resist the power of a God? It was impossible… unless… NO!
Prenidus adjusted his grip on the Godslayer, and leapt towards Auric. Auric franticly unleashed all of his power in a beam of pure Ice energy. Prenidus struggled onward, the Godslayer guiding him. Two great powers locked in a struggle, neither willing to give. But even a struggle such as this must end. The Godslayer finally penetrated the Ice energy, plunging itself into Auric’s breast. Once again, the God of Ice was slain, and once again the Illian’s dreams were sundered. But of Prenidus there was no sign… no sign but an incredibly lifelike ice sculpture in Stelvio Pass, which would forever stand as a monument to his sacrifice. And the Godslayer would rest there in Stelvio Pass for a thousand years…
…until the Age of Fire thawed the glacial ice covering Stelvio Pass…
Yeah, I think you definitely did too much horizontal expansion without proper worker support. Switching out of Conquest as soon as Blight hit probably would have been good, but reports from that time are scarce so I don't even know what happened really.
I don't think the MDP was a bad move. PB may or may not have been happy with a NAP, and he was definitely seriously considering attacking you at several points. And Bob was definitely going to attack you during your most vulnerable phase before you got a decent number of mages, if he hadn't gotten embroiled in a war with PB. Had you only had a NAP and not an MDP, PB may not have intervened until you had lost significant territory and Bob's supply lines became too long to do a quick retreat.
You were definitely very vulnerable to attack from PB for the majority of the game, without any buffer cities for your capital. That I think was definitely a mistake - garnering goodwill was good, but allowing such aggressive settling up to your capital locked you into further appeasement to avoid devastation by PB.
![[Image: snowflake1.jpg]](http://questgarden.com/47/13/9/070516135658/images/snowflake1.jpg)
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0094-1-1-1.jpg?t=1301336209]](http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g276/SelrahctheEternal/Civ4ScreenShot0094-1-1-1.jpg?t=1301336209)