[MoM] Masters of Madness

[to_xp]Gekko

QCT junkie
Joined
Dec 16, 2005
Messages
7,950
Location
Seyda Neen, Vvardenfell
check the first thread ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=452910 ) for a description of all the features of the mod and some gameplay tips ;)

roster:

Gekko
Aline
MaxWar
esvath

settings:

Spoiler :


8 civs ( 3 evil, 3 good, 2 neutral )
Normal speed
Monarch difficulty
WorldOfErebus mapscript
Large size
Low sealevel
Medium Cohesion
Great Plains
X Wrap
Smart Climate: modify
Ancient Ruins: On

no Time Victory
no Cultural Victory

Double Events
No Tech Brokering



In this game we'll be playing as Perpentach: king of the twisted Balseraphs and most powerful mind magic archmage on Erebus, trained by none others than Kylorin himself.

Too much controlling and twisting others' minds eventually made him insane though, and his own mind is now overwhelmed by the thoughts of all those he met.

Ingame this is represented by the Insane trait, which means our traits will randomly change during the game. We'll have to adapt, should make for a fun game ;)









And here is our start:








Settling in place seems nice enough, but let's take a look around first... the tribal village pops a map showing us lots of good territory:








With the minimum 3 tiles between cities rule, settling in place would block too man good sites imho. I like the tile the worker is on now, allows for many other good cities later.


the scout goes north, since there's another tribal village to grab ;)










And for spellresearch I choose Mother Earth, a couple more hills near our capital wouldn't hurt.











Our scout stumbles upon the Cave of the Caerbannog and gets promoted to mobility, nice :goodjob:











For tech I got with Education first, then we'll need fishing and lumbermills.

Soon we meet Ethne, who steals our tribal village... She'll pay for this, unless Perpy changes his mind of course.









some turns later we get education, AND barter from a tribal village. nice :goodjob:









We adopt Self Sufficiency and Apprenticeship, this will boost our economy.


While our capital grows, our scout gets eaten by shadows ( how surprising ) , we research fishing and build a nice cottage+quarry combo ;)









Our local legend is born with resistance to poison and lightning, nice! he gets promoted to ambush and sent into the wilderness we still have to explore in the south. in the meanwhile we build a workboat to benefit from the nearby fish.



a tribal village gives us another warrior, kewl he'll be needed as backup for our LL ( who kills a goblin archer and a baby spider soon after ) ;)











Our Insane trait triggers, making us arcane+spiritual+creative. time to move to the next player :D
 

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Nice
BTW whos in the game now and in what order will we play the turns.
I probly cant play till later tonight.
 
So now we need to set a player roster.

I will not be available this afternoon but i could play tonight or tomorrow.

How soon should we get hunters? I always try to push a early hunter + hawk. I love the hawk :D
 
Who is playing right now? If nobody could, I can.

What are our objectives?

I think we have to :
1) build second city
2) tech OO
3) build Heron Throne in capital
 
The years have passed in calm relativity. Our Lord has managed to remain sane for several years. Marvelous indeed, because he used to change his personality (and his whims) in mere second. For him to be able to hold his sanity and personality for this long is a blessing. From which god, that will remain to see.

Our empire has flourished, and Our Lord agree that we should open a second city. I tried to hurry the preparation, just in case he changed his mind (again) in the middle of our preparation.
That would be typical for Perpentach, wouldn't it, to change his mind during an important stage in our progress? I wonder if his insanity is a ruse, since all of this so-called insanity is... well patterned. But that is blasphemy! I should not think like that.

With the blessing from Our Lord, I design a queue like this.
Spoiler :


At the same time, our sages ready to begin the next stage of research. Since Perpentach is in a good, religious mood, we take this as a good sign to beeline to a religion. Our sages agree to unravel the secrets behind the cryptic dreams haunting some of our "gifted".
(madmen and lunatics, if you asked me, but if Perpentach said they are gifted, then gifted are they... *sigh*)
We will beeline Mysticism, and then Message from the Deep to be able to dechiper the dreams.
Spoiler :


An unexpected offer came from a faction of Elohim empire. Unsatisfied with Ethne's leadership, these traitorous bastard offer the leadership of Elohim empire to Our Lord. As much as thrilled with the prospect of leading a society of monks under the disguise of a young lady (there is no chance that the Elohim will accept Perpentach's leadership without a little ruse and... camouflage...), he managed to turn the offer down. I was speechless. I was afraid that he will accept the offer, and left with a giddy laugh, already imagining himself in Ethne's robe. But, thank to Gods and angels! He is sane!
Spoiler :


A great morning! While our sages and workers do whatever they do to meet Our Lord's order, the fishermen were able to secure a good fishing spot. Jubilee will have supply of fresh fish.
(I also managed to slip a note under parchments of rubbish documents, and made Perpentach signed the order to build a Heron Throne. This wonder will help Jubilee in production and culture, so I prioritize this after we finish the production of settler. A great morning indeed!)
Spoiler :



Our sages have finished researching Mysticism. Our Lord decided that it is a good time to change our government. He put his favor to the shamans, gifting them with abundance gold, prestige and gifts. The shamans grab at this rare opportunity by making themselves useful. They share their herbal knowledge and increase health rate in Jubilee.
(I was afraid that Perpentach's gifts to the shamans will drain our coffer and bankrupting the state. But it seems that our economy is still stable.)
Spoiler :



And my nightmare has arrived! Not in religious sense, the study of the Overlords has just begun, but Perpentach has showed his sign of madness! He started to sing and speak in rhymes, and all of sudden, his personality has changed! He became aggressive, demanding the resources spent into military. At the same time, he demanded me to build a courthouse.
(What is a courthouse? We have enough house already!)
Fortunately, I managed to distract him with introducing several young ladies from the nobles. He let me go and dallied with them for several days.
(I must noted the noble families which performed this great sacrifice. Some rewards will ease their pains for sacrificing their daughters to Perpentach.)
Spoiler :



Finally, during this weeks of lusts and madness, we managed to finish our settlement preparation. I have charted the perfect spot for our second city. It will have access to many resources. I can even drown some of the land to gain access to the sea.
Spoiler :

 

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Here is the save. I played until turn 50 (confirming that we get the Heron Throne :lol:), but I think it is fair for me to end at turn 44, with the establishment of the second city ending my turn.

Perpentach is now Aggressive, Organized and Charismatic. Nothing too extreme :rolleyes:

There were few battles involving our Local Legend and several warriors, but no casualties. I think we should keep the Local Legend. The water node in Coombe View provide mana enough for his upkeep.

PS : Should I shrink the screen shot? How can I do that? Using external graphic modification program such as gimp?

EDIT : there are two warriors in Coombe View with good promotions (one with Combat III, Mountaineering, and Amphibious, one with whatever starting promotion which grant extra str in forest). I think we should not garrisoned these two.
 

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Now if youd give me the save file ill go next. ^^
*edit* damn ninjas...

*edit2* use the spoiler tag
 
This is the tale of a bizarre nation, a nation where one persons life might be worth little more than a dead fly, a nation where people starve to death while the privileged dine in comfort.
A nation where massive monuments are worth more then the wellbeing of an entire nation, where everything is but a show, a sharade to please its insane leader, a cruel dictator who, drunk on absolute power, has little else in mind than his own plesure.
And yet everyone smiles, they couldent be more happy to live in that nation, after all they have little choice, smile and praise the leader or face a fate that might be worse than death itself.
The name of this nation?

North Korea!


btw i love those cake jokes!


Oh wait wrong topic......

This is the tale of a bizarre nation, a nation where one persons life might be worth little more than a dead fly, a nation where people starve to death while the privileged dine in comfort.
A nation where massive monuments are worth more then the wellbeing of an entire nation, where everything is but a show, a sharade to please its insane leader, a cruel dictator who, drunk on absolute power, has little else in mind than his own plesure.
And yet everyone smiles, they couldent be more happy to live in that nation, after all they have little choice, smile and praise the leader or face a fate that might be worse than death itself.

The name of this nation?

The empire of the Balseraph!


Anyways, our new settlement gets visited by the local wildlife, but the guardsman take care of that bothersome spider quickly, it is a smal one after all.

Spoiler :


Now we do not need any obscure devil worshipers around, if the world gets destroyed, who would we entertain?
Also our local legend whants to retire, but we make him stay anyways, this will turn out to be a rather stupid idea.....(spoilers: yes i got him killed :s)
Oh and some guy wrote a book about the most powerfull nations, we are doing fine i guess.

Spoiler :





And now a moment of silence for our local legend who died at 94% odds. :(
Spoiler :


Better news!
We now have a throne that alows us to fish hammers out of the ocean.... it makes sense!
Also we have mail, a message from the deep so to say... ok that one was lame....

Spoiler :




Stuff happens, i guess....
Oh by the way, haveing five people fight for their lifes is far more fun than just one.

Spoiler :




We do pick up exploration and calendar, need some festivals here.
Also we get mother earth(not the Within Temptation album)
Spoiler :





Now i whant festivals for some freaks also i switched the spellreserch to charm but it happend the very same turn i saved so no harm in switching it if you whant something else first.

View attachment Team MoM AD-0064.CivBeyondSwordSave
 
I wonder who the strongest nation is... Hopefully it is not the Bannor. Bannor+Clerics+Evil Balseraphs = bad combo for us >___<

EDIT : Gekko and Aline, did you use external service for uploading screenshot?
 
One morning, Perpentach woke up in a foul mood. Upon meeting with his court the first thing he said was:
"This kingdom is boring! I need more cake! " :mad:

Of course we all know that cakes do not grow in the forest, they are made in cities, hence we thought it was purely logical that we built more cities. Perpentach ordered the training of more workers to prepare the terrain.

It is with the general idea of settling that Perpentach sent his latest puppy, Loki, to take a stroll through the northern mountains.

Loki had the double mission of scouting potential city sites as well as paying a visit to that northern neighbor, lady Ethne..., in order to provide her with some "entertainment" . Perpentach also wanted to send some warriors to keep an eye on loki but they were all glued in the capital. So Loki went alone.

Upon climbing the nearest hill, Loki was greeted with ... Oh, Scary lions! :eek:
Spoiler :


Petting attempts failed miserably so Loki summoned a puppet and fed it to the lions while he bailed out and came back to the city.

In the meantime a list of potential city spots had been made, but upon further scouting it was revealed that a vast assortment of wild and hostile beings prevented the immediate settling of all the said city spots...

Spoiler :



The presence of wild beasts in the forest angered Perpentach no end. Those things had no business being outside a circus!

The answer to this problem was obviously to be found in city festivals! The art of making proper festivals had become Perpentach's latest obsession. Circus folks would be a proper match to wild forest dwellers!!

In preparation for the incoming festivities, our friend loki was sentenced to a few decades of entertaining the public in Jubilee. In the meantime, a warrior and a harbor was built in jubilee, not strictly because they rhyme together but this aspect pleased Perpentach none the less.

Soon After a splendid Unicorn was sighted outside Jubilee!!! Someone at the court was heard whispering "Shiny bits FTW." But in the end Perpentach decided to use the Unicorn as a water filter.

Spoiler :


While the festivals were being prepared, a deforestation campaign was ordered near Coombe View, because obviously all this forest was obscuring the view... The Elder council, even though it was not finished building yet, highly approved of the decision.
A mine and some worshop were to be buit instead of this opaque forest.

Spoiler :


Perpentach wanted some warriors to be scouting and guarding hills outside the borders but this came with some perils. While some of our warriors bravely fended off attacks and killed wolves and a bunch of angry stags, one other group was not so lucky and got eaten by more wolves, despite favorable odds!

Spoiler :


But lets not be saddened by this news because it is now time for the Festival!! :D
Spoiler :


Now something more also had to be done about all this pesky wildlife, in a swing of lucidity Perpentach ordered that a mean of hunting should be researched. Furthermore, this would also provide some beasts to further entertain our people. Perpentach Danced, then started chasing after a parrot.

*Sorry, no screeny of the dancing :( *

Just before the carnival started being built in Jubilee, Perpentach wanted to explore the sea, as he tought the forest was not a really nice place. So he built a boat.

The boat left and started a nice voyage to explore the lands of that neighbor, Lady Ethne.... It was believed that the proximity of "civilization" would make the surrounding waters rather safe for our boat but no such luck...

Right after getting near the other city our boat got sunk by a rabid lizard... ( that should teach me about building this worthless crappy explorer boat. )
Spoiler :


Now the Carnival is almost ready and hunting is halfway done!
This should allow us the mean to tame those wild things blocking us from settling.
I marked my "expected" city spots. I would expect to settle the northern one first, as only some baby spiders are there. Our warrior killed some but there are at least one more.

Spoiler :



Edit: Oh, forgot to write about the Harbor i built in the capital (added a small bit) . And heres the save:
 

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So, now is Gekko's turn, right?

I agree that the third city in the north of Coombe View, by the river. We have cows there. Cows are great for Food, Production and Gold from Tannery.

For lurkers :
Master of Mana introduced many buildings which give benefits (gold, spell research, faith...) for each resources you have. For example, Tannery will give +2 gold if you have Cows or Bisons. It also give +1 gold for each Cows or Bisons you have. So, by having 1 Cows, a Tannery will provide +3 gold (+2 initial bonus, +1 cows). If we have one more cows, the Tannery will provide +4 gold (+2 initial bonus, +1 (x2) cows), etc.
 
Yes, Gekko's turn.

Only problem with this spot is that there is a Goblin fort right on it :p I really wanted to expand during my turn set but we are surrounded by critters.

I was not sure about researching Festival before hunting but i felt like festival would be better for the Balseraph as it unlocks freaks, and it is what Aline recommended also :p
 
Festivals is very useful, economically speaking, since it unlock Carnival, which +2 happy by itself, and can go up to +4 happy by dens (Tiger, Gorilla, Lion, Bear), and another +4 for Balseraphs (Dwarven Cage, Elven Cage, Orcish Cage, Human Cage).
 
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