FFH -- We don't betray or kill all of our allies

That extra prophet we missed would have been really nice.

I have no idea what Garrim plans with his fleet but it may very well be coming down on the west coast. I doubt that it is carrying 20 units but 10+ warrior it could be.

I think HBR to get some war elephants is a reasonable choice. We have 4 elephants now.

I have put blue markers where we could build cities. I think placing our nest city on the reagents to the west seems like a good idea. We will need to have a garrison there but we also need to get some coastal cities.

I think taking one hunter and run west to kill workers is a good idea to prevent them from cutting to much jungle. I also came aware of the project that makes animals stronger and spawn more. That could help us with the Menagerie.

But now it is up to you to take the fighting to Aurics lands.

Thanks for the TS, Folket. Nicely done. A really exciting situation
Will check out the save when I'm home.

I'd be against teching HBR as long as our elephants are L0 elephants (they need to be L1 to be upgraded to WEs, so they need to win a battle on defense, possibly two).

EDIT: We will definitely build Nature's Revolt later on but that will only generate animals out of babs (so if there are no more barbs on the map, it won't do anything). To my experience it will usually create heroic tigers / bears only, as it would convert archers and axes by then.

I do not think there is such a thing as L0. All units start on level 1.

Folket said:

I do not think there is such a thing as L0. All units start on level 1.

Click to expand...

You cannot promote normal elephants to WEs, at least not in the base game. They need at least one promo.

Long day at the office, barely got home. Will test out the elephants and look at the game.

Upgrading elephants seems to work in this mod even with unpromoted elephants, so that's a nice surprise (costs 187 though, )

PPP: I guess there's not much to say in advance except defend and maybe counter attack on both fronts... will try to capture some workers if possible, although Tholal's AI can actually deal pretty well with two-movers...

Tech: we can go HBR since the elephants will upgrade, although 187 is pretty steep so we won't tech anything afterwards for a long while...

I'm actually against settling a coastal city at this point. It will be much more vulnerable against Garrim than a landlocked one and we have neither Fishing nor Sailing and don't plan to tech either of them within the next 50 turns.

Does the AI have problems with naval assaults against cities one step into land? If not I prefer a coastal city. If they do we should settle one step in as it will allow us to concentrate more effort on Auric.

Folket said:

Does the AI have problems with naval assaults against cities one step into land? If not I prefer a coastal city. If they do we should settle one step in as it will allow us to concentrate more effort on Auric.

Click to expand...

Coastal cities can be surprise attacked from the sea. Of course we can install a hawk in the city and do regular checks but not settling a coastal spot on Garrim's coastline will save us a turn in defense. I think there's plenty of room for other coastal spots in our section. We can take the coastal barb city later, and Auric has some coastal sites too. Besides, settling on the Orthus' PH will give us an immediate production boost in the city plus it will net us the banana immediately so that we won't have to wait for a border pop. The city will also be able to grow on Thariss' farm and on some FPs. I think we will have to worry about our own continent first before we start building up a navy. Also, there is room for a fairly safe coastal spot on top of the city ruins.

I do like the coastal spot better but it is not important now. Go ahead and place it on the Orthus Shrine.

I think we are agreeing now. You may go ahead and play your turns.

Well, thank you

So, in total these 10 turns went really well, the total loss against two stacks is a baby spider plus a baby hunter...

We start off by slowly killing all of Auric's remaining stack, while we monitor Garrim's galleys...

T189 Garrim unloads a stack of rubbish on our banana, as we can see here. (To the South the last sorry remainders of Auric's glorious army. They died the turn after.)



Of course this means rebasing every capable fighter to Nameless Tower and adjust worker actions.

T192 A Great Prophet born somewhere.

T193 Garrim gets a Great Merchant Not much luck for him with the war though.

T194 After all of his warriors get eliminated Garrim suddenly sees reason (a pleasant surprise with the Tholal AI...):



There is not too much point in not taking it. We want some fresh air to initiate a counter attack on Auric, so I go ahead and sign. We are still his worst enemies though, so he might re-declare at some point.

T197 This is where we stand. Troops are back in Gereth Minar, fresh for the next fight which is due to come...



You should have no trouble killing them off. Btw Auric will now sign peace too, but he wants Gereth Minar, which of course is unnacceptable

My suggestions for the next TS:
As soon as HBR is in we should collect money for the upgrades. Orc Slayer plus the better warriors can become swords as soon as the Training Yard finishes in Gereth Minar (I completed the stupid Palisade which was a huge mistake). The elephants need tons of gold too.

Try to fit in Elder Councils in the rest of the cities. Also, Thariss doesn't have to complete the Brewing House right now, but we will need it soon to improve on our finances. Most of Auric's cities have minimal defense so we shouldn't have any problems taking his cities after his next stack is dead.

As for the counter attack: please forget about the jungle cities! Our main targets are his big production sites that can build reinforcements quickly. So I'd say we go Sopor, Innsmouth, Dunwich, Garduk, the other cities in our immediate vicinity are no threats. (He has tons of cities though.) We can switch out of God King if the maintenance becomes too high.

If the war goes well we will also need Cartography for city states asap. We don't need Poisons ATM as we have several overpromoted units plus the WEs soon. They should be enough to eliminate Auric. We'll only have to build a few more hunters, swords and maybe some warriors for cannon fodder.

So I'd say after we have the upgrade money we need Cartography, Writing, and Maths with Philosophy teched in the meantime, as we see appropriate. (GP in Thariss is due in 35 turns, Philosophy could be in in 6 turns with 100% slider. We don't want it as long as we don't have the prophet though IMO.) Auric has Trade now so if the war goes really well we can get his techs too for 10 turns of peace (we still need to self tech Cartography, maybe even Writing IMO).

Well played.

This is my got it. Will post a PPP later today.

I guess we need to decide if we want to raze the three jungle cities to save some jungle.

Folket said:

Well played.

This is my got it. Will post a PPP later today.

I guess we need to decide if we want to raze the three jungle cities to save some jungle.

Click to expand...

Thanks

TBH I don't think there's enough jungle left for a gorilla to spawn. But we can raze those cities after we took the prod centers if you think it helps.

My plan will be to kill of the now invading army in the dessert. I will send one hunter towards Sopor and either divert Aurics forces or take the unprotected city.

Then I will go towards Gigno with the main forces.

For production.
Tharsis, I do not see that we need a brewery. I would produce hunters continuously.
Nameless Tower, hunter, elder council, hunter
Idris, warrior, elder council
Gereth Minar, training yard, settler. This city does not have any other good squares.

From Gigno, I'm in striking distance of Innsmouth and Dunwich. I will use a hawk to decide where I want to attack.

I will finish HBR and then save gold for upgrades. I will put the elder council research into philosophy.

Folket said:

My plan will be to kill of the now invading army in the dessert. I will send one hunter towards Sopor and either divert Aurics forces or take the unprotected city.

Then I will go towards Gigno with the main forces.

For production.
Tharsis, I do not see that we need a brewery. I would produce hunters continuously.
Nameless Tower, hunter, elder council, hunter
Idris, warrior, elder council
Gereth Minar, training yard, settler. This city does not have any other good squares.

From Gigno, I'm in striking distance of Innsmouth and Dunwich. I will use a hawk to decide where I want to attack.

I will finish HBR and then save gold for upgrades. I will put the elder council research into philosophy.

Click to expand...

We do need the Brewery sooner or later but it can wait. We may also need some warriors for cannon fodder. And as soon as we get to counter attack we will need disciples for culture bombs (as long as we could profit from the city instantly).
You can take Gigno if you want but it's no threat in itself. Better to move on towards Innsmouth. Sopor OTOH is much better.
Putting EC research into Phil is fine for starters. As soon as you see we can take some cities I'd switch research to Cartography though. God King is such a crap civic when it comes to managing more than four cities.

So I will play this TS tonight?

I will probably raze Gigno.

I would probably prefer to just raze everything that is not on the east coast. That will allow the army to be constantly moving and hitting weakly defended cities. My experience with Tholals More Naval AI is that they will not keep heavy garrisons in their cities. We could wreck his land while we build up a second army that will slowly advance, kill attacking stacks and fortify cities.

I would prefer not to raze cities in the east coast as Garrim will likely settle any spot that is available.

Shall we talk about where to settle more cities? I think we can fit two cities in the north on top of the barb city. Probably need at least one warrior each as garrisons. Then an hunter can be kept in range in case barbarians move out.

I prefer not to waste hammers on settlers as long as we can take cities from Auric. He has plenty. If Garrim settles some sites in the meantime, we can deal with him later.

I'd leave those jungle cities alone for now. The general way to deal with any civ 4 AI is to kill their stack (this we'll hopefully be able to do in the next few turns) and then take the sites they could build reinforcements in. Deal with all the other cities later. Do not waste precious turns on capturing / razing jungle spots. As you said, they are not heavily garrisoned and Auric will not be able to build too many units in there. This is why City States will be vital for us as soon as we can get on a roll.

What I mean is that if I start capturing cities I have the option of leaving it empty for him to take back or slow down my war. That is why I suggested that to run deep with the current army and start razing to not loose speed. While building a second army that can capture and hold cities.

You don't need more than 1-2 hunters to take care of whatever could crawl out of those jungle cities. He doesn't have fast units. Also, letting a hunter try and capture some workers from there would be nice. His workers would retreat south otherwise.