[FFH] - Miss Mahala and the Uncultured Boors

So, I open the save, have a look around, realise that not only has Darrell stolen a turn from me, but he's already played the turn after for me, leaving me to simply end the turn.

I micro the capital a bit, so it doesn't grow into unhappiness, and a turn later, I start getting a nagging feeling...

This doesn't feel right...

Wait a second...

Oh...

Yes...



Now, Darrell has already had a firm talking-to (especially since he was complaining our cities weren't growing fast enough ), but why haven't we revolted as soon as we got Calendar?

Do we not like food?

Are we nutrition-averse people?

Then I realized: this was all part of the master plan, right?

As in "We can win this thing without Agrarianism!"

Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more!

Anyway, I do some more micro stuff, shuffle around some units, have a change of heart and shuffle them back.

As I was contemplating which city should build the Pact of the Nilhorn:



They can't sit on your precious horses, you idiot, what are you going to get, elephants?! (Hmm, wasn't there a game with Mammoth-Riding Giants? Nevermind, I digress...)

But anyway, I continue playing the turn, move around some Workers, when finally, the trumpets of War resound through my excellent speakers!!!



Go Sheelba...

So I ramble on towards the end of my turnset, and prepare to hand over my short reign into Mardoc's capable hands.

Bronze Working is in, and we now face a choice. Either we keep expanding, or revolt to Conquest, and start building/upgrading an army to grind the little men to dust.

I'm building one Settler, but he can easily be cancelled and replaced by more units.

Our economy is sound, and by running a couple of Merchants, we should be able to research break even at 80% science.

More random screenies:





Enjoy!

PS I left you some stuff to do on the turn I'm giving you Mardoc.

Consider it a penalty for keeping Celo .

Darrell

Ilios said:

Now, Darrell has already had a firm talking-to (especially since he was complaining our cities weren't growing fast enough ), but why haven't we revolted as soon as we got Calendar?

Do we not like food?

Are we nutrition-averse people?

Then I realized: this was all part of the master plan, right?

As in "We can win this thing without Agrarianism!"

Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more!

Click to expand...

I *think* I can claim responsibility for that one . It was simple, really: why go to Agrarianism for just a few turns while we research Education? Surely we'll hop into Conquest and stay there forever? .

I was kinda overruled on that, but that was my thinking. Now...on the question of why no one else took that revolt, well,

Bronze Working is in, and we now face a choice. Either we keep expanding, or revolt to Conquest, and start building/upgrading an army to grind the little men to dust.

Click to expand...

Either? Can't we do both? If we don't have any medics, then obviously we'll need cities at the front for our healing .

PS I left you some stuff to do on the turn I'm giving you Mardoc.

Click to expand...

I should be able to get to it tonight. EDIT: make that tomorrow morning, have plans tonight. And have an army ready by the time I turn it over to Gaspar (that notorious warmonger who always follows through).

Bunch of haters the lot of you.

Ilios = .

Darrell

There was more land unclaimed than I realized...and I did want to build Elder Councils to go with those Markets - I had pretty much a builder turnset. There were a few highlights, though.

Ilios - didn't you tell the governor we were doing a variant when you made the game?

Um...if you're going to complain about a problem, you really ought to fix it, too. I heave a sigh, and swap us into Conquest.

We've got a veteran army, copper, and Conquest - I think we can withstand another try at this:

I run into a well-fed bear with my settler escort, and decide to upgrade to stay on the safe side. As a side note - our calculations were way off, man! 13 gold to upgrade to a Son! That's less than 1 gold/hammer! Cottages everywhere, they're better than mines!

I think the mess-up is that this appears to be a spell, not the normal upgrade. So it therefore doesn't use the normal formula. But dang! 13 gold!


Now, I know we're not yet at war with Sabby, but I feel we need a road to his lands anyway:


Ok, I knew trying the Well would eventually pay off...but what the heck are we supposed to do with this guy? There are literally no wonders that we can build at the present time.

Finally, a little saga I like to call Contamination:



Gaspar, you're up! I suppose you have a choice - train a million Beastmen, and upgrade them en route to the dwarves (for 13 gold/each!), or grab us a couple more cities in the south, some Elder Councils, and some more tech (like HBR, Fishing, Runes, Hunting).

The Save

Mines of Gal-Dur ftw!

Looking good Mardoc.

Ilios said:

Mines of Gal-Dur ftw!

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I like that idea! I want to go for Kilmorph anyway, to get our hands on that extra gold; Arete's not that much further away. Bambur goes well with Sons, and we'll do well to get some Priest-healing going (and maybe some more bonuses to the Sons).

Also - for collateral, I think Fireballing Shamans are probably the way to go. We'll want to build a lot of them for Haste in any event, and starting off with 5 XP, and the new Quick XP-gain rates means that I think it's likely we have a number of mage candidates. Who can keep up with Hasted Sons, unlike Catapults.

If we were cool we'd build the lyre and equip it.

Darrell

I'll probably grab this tonight if anyone has any thoughts they'd like to share. Instinctively I think I'll tech HBR while building Beastmen and Shamans then assess from there. Probably get a force ready to hit Arturus either towards the end of my set or for Ichabod.

Gaspar~ said:

I'll probably grab this tonight if anyone has any thoughts they'd like to share. Instinctively I think I'll tech HBR while building Beastmen and Shamans then assess from there. Probably get a force ready to hit Arturus either towards the end of my set or for Ichabod.

Click to expand...

Please found the pigs/hills city I have set up for you, unless you'd rather move it and make it pigs/rice instead . And, if the Lanun haven't stolen it, there's a banana/gems site in the south worth grabbing. Aside from that, the only good land is on the other side of the Celo Sea, or occupied, so I'm happy with a war.

Oh, and it'd be nice to send a unit or two out to take advantage of our open borders with everyone and make maps.

*There's an unimproved silk in Rules while our workers are doing less important stuff.

*What about bulbing smelting with the GEng? It's 720 beakers to the needed ~850. If we could get another GP for a GA or even a GM for a trade mission, we could fund our way to Iron Working pretty early (that'd be good game, unfortunately, if the upgrade costs are as low as they appear to be). No point in using the beakers to get Arete when we can just etch IW (remember that it's significantly cheaper in EitB).

*If we get fire mana for fireballs, send a shaman to burn the jungle in the south.

*There's a fortified beastman to the west of Hearts that doesn't have bronze weapons. He's combat 2, so he can be part of our invading stack.

Mardoc said:

Oh, and it'd be nice to send a unit or two out to take advantage of our open borders with everyone and make maps.

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Agree. Maybe we should build a stable once HR is in and build 2/3 horsemen and send them exploring. With 5 starting xp we can promote them to mobility 2.

Ichabod said:

*There's an unimproved silk in Rules while our workers are doing less important stuff.

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Gah! Maybe I need to have my eyesight checked - I must have spent more time at Rules debating what to have the workers do than anywhere else...somehow I just assumed it was already plantationed, I guess.

Okay, so doing that which I said I would do.

T91: Television founded as my damned TV still isn't fixed.



T92: Sundry micro, HBR due in @EOT.

T93: Set research to Hunting, though I highly doubt we'll be seeing that anytime soon.

T94: Upgrade several Sons.

T95: Get this event. Decide cash will do more for us than anything else.




Upgrade more Beasts > Sons.

T96: Third verse, same as the first... Up to 17 SoA right now. Start a couple Stables just so a few cities can grow a bit.

T97: Decide to attack Artie-baby-boo-boo with this:




3 Warrior garrison in Riylod is underwhelming. We could have done this 20t ago probably.

Forgot to take a SS of razing the city, but it netted 110 gold at a cost of one SoA.

T98: Positioning

T99: More positioning. Might have entered Letum Frigus at some point in there.

T100: Take Hallowell. Lost a couple Sons in the process. Liberate 126 gold.



There's your stack for Sabathiel. Might need some reinforcements for the Khazad when you get to the capital, not sure. 13g upgrade basically means we really don't need to do anything else for the next 40-50t other than spam out cheap Conquest Beastmen and upgrade them to axes. Unfortunately, we probably waited too long to "prove" Conquest at Education is broken, but I personally believe it has to move. Nonetheless, the game's not won yet... but it will be soon.



I may have done some weedy stuff with the city management, I got lazy when I realized the degree to which this would be trivial.


Enjoy, Ichabod.

Well, I'll play tomorrow... It's too late today.

And what's with the annoyingly easy variants? I think we'll have to try something way more harder next time... I have some ideas already!

Took a quick post turn look around...

• No reason you shouldn't be able to raze another Khazad city next turn. Looks like their city is 3N1NW from where I left the stack. You can hit that with mobility, so you can take Dance of Blades instead of Haste next turn for greater certainty if you want.
• Also see no reason not to go invade the Bannor next turn, you can hit Vallus next turn with Haste.
• Smelting is 6t @100% slider. If we have Smelting does the GEng bulb IW? If so, that might be the better way to go since IW is a good bit more expensive and razing/pillaging should fund 100% for a good while, even with occasionally stopping to upgrade. Doesn't matter one bit, really.
• I have Hearts on a Settler for former Khazad lands. Might want to get a few more in production, just so Barbs don't settle all their stuff. Naturally, pillage like crazy once the Khazad capital falls.

That's all I got.

Ichabod said:

Well, I'll play tomorrow... It's too late today.

And what's with the annoyingly easy variants? I think we'll have to try something way more harder next time... I have some ideas already!

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Well I think this one has more to do with Conquest + Rush Civ than the variant itself. In fairness, I think if we skipped IW we'd bog down a bit as we got further out, though Sons of Asena are definitely enough to take down the Khazad, Bannor and likely the Hippus. Maybe Falamar too.

Much as I hate to say it, while we're by no means the world's greatest FFH players, we might just have to stick to Deity to have any sort of real challenge no matter the variant, even if the challenge is only in how long it takes the turns.

you could apply EitB to Tholal's mod once that's out of beta, AI there is pretty damn good

[to_xp]Gekko;11238443 said:

you could apply EitB to Tholal's mod once that's out of beta, AI there is pretty damn good

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Actually, Sareln's already taken Tholal's mod (More Naval AI, I think it's called?) and incorporated it.

On the main subject - yeah, probably we should have been more aggressive earlier. But well done, Gaspar, to take advantage of what we have. Ichabod...have fun

Edit: Of course I meant Ichabod. I always meant Ichabod