[FFH] - Erebus in the Balance

Well, aristocracy + conquest it's too unsinergetic, in my opinion. And I'm a big fan of cottages. I like to see them growing! Not a gameplay argument, but there you go.

Speaking of which, cottages are better in EitB, aren't they? But I guess we'd need to go to a branch of the tech tree that we probably won't be, to adopt the needed civics.

The city 1W of the lake isn't a killer site, but it's probably the best we can have, especially due to the strategic benefits. We'll have a gold city soon enough too, since there isn't much to build besides settlers, workers and warriors. BTW, I say we wait until building an Elder Council in the capital. There are better things to build, in my opinion (maybe we can use the overflow trick to make it a quick build, though).

About the cottage/farm fight, you need to take into account that farms take more time to build. So that's another plus for the cottages (not a big one, since the number of turns we need to turn those fp farms into cottages are going to be much more).
 
We will certainly leverage the Town boosting civic later this game, which is why I am agreeing with Ilios. Otherwise the tradeoffs reduce to the same ones in base FFH where the only civs that should consider Cottages are Kurio, Elves, and Bannor. For everyone else Aristofarms are the one right choice (this is even more true with a FIN leader. In fact, I'd say that fact is the #1 issue the mod should fix :).

Darrell
 
Interesting discussion guys. I sort of assumed we'd go for a Cottage Econ simply to showcase the differences in EitB. The cottage boosting civics aren't all that expensive anyway.

I'll play in a couple hours, swap to Exploration and see about the Perpy site. Am I playing 15 to get us to an even number and then 10 from here on out?
 
We will certainly leverage the Town boosting civic later this game, which is why I am agreeing with Ilios. Otherwise the tradeoffs reduce to the same ones in base FFH where the only civs that should consider Cottages are Kurio, Elves, and Bannor. For everyone else Aristofarms are the one right choice (this is even more true with a FIN leader. In fact, I'd say that fact is the #1 issue the mod should fix :).

Darrell

Pretty much agree regarding vanilla FfH. I'd only add the fact that a mostly plains start can benefit from a cottage opening to boost your commerce until you get sanitation for a 3/0/2 farm tile at aristocracy+agrarianism. After that, farms beat cottages too in newer cities.

And there's also the fact that aristocracy greatly reduces city maintenance...
 
darrell said:
We will certainly leverage the Town boosting civic later this game, which is why I am agreeing with Ilios. Otherwise the tradeoffs reduce to the same ones in base FFH where the only civs that should consider Cottages are Kurio, Elves, and Bannor. For everyone else Aristofarms are the one right choice (this is even more true with a FIN leader. In fact, I'd say that fact is the #1 issue the mod should fix .
Overall - I think there's a reason it's referred to as Agristocracy, or Aristograrianism, or any of the other awkward coinages. Aristocracy can be awesome, but it really needs at least one of Agrarianism or Sanitation to make it work. So the main reason it hurts for us is that we're planning a good long while in Conquest.

Interesting discussion guys.
Told you you'd like this one better :).

Am I playing 15 to get us to an even number and then 10 from here on out?
Sure, that works.

Although - once the wars get going, I might need to drop down to 5 turns in a set. Or even less. Magic is lots and lots of fun, but it does get time consuming.
 
If I'm seeing things right, the Balseraph capital is settled on a floodplain tile. It turns into a desert tile after the settling, right? So -25% while defending his capital, which is a nice little bonus to have, if we plan to go with warriors/axes.

Perpy settling on desert changes the equation a bit. Mining to know what the copper situation is would be nice. :)

But I prefer the Firebow option too. High level FfH AI spams unbearable amounts of units (I remember games where the AI turn took like 10 minutes with all the units attacking my stack), so summons and collateral (in this case, collateral summons) are a good way to go!

Firebows are awesome, but 1200 beakers is a lot to get at this point in the game. Can we actually get there in time to do any good?

(and yeah, I hear you about the size of AI stacks at high levels.....Pity we're not the Grigori. A high level Heroic Assasin with the Timor Mask does highly entertaining things to such a stack)
What are the good lvl 2 spells in EitB? Planning ahead on the Govannon + Firebows combination :lol:.

:) The usual assortment (assuming you're talking Govannon Firebows): Earth II, any summons (bearing in mind the Spectre Nerf), Blinding Light, Meta II, Air II, Body II, Enchantment II (though strictly speaking you want this from a Mage, but an FB can do in a pinch), Life II (if facing Vamps/Sheam)

Indeed. :nod:



Yup, we'll want at least one Adept when we move in - Floating Eye and Haste will be crucial.

An Adept *before* we move is even more desirable...that lets us pick the weakest target between the Clowns and the Stumpies.


Govannon only teaches Channeling 1, right? Can someone explain the mechanics?

Govy teaches Channeling 1 + all the level 1 spells that he knows. Double up on the mana nodes before you build him, then diversify for lots of exp on Adepts with CoA (if you've got the nodes). Much fun. :hammer:

Fun discussion:

:lol:

If you're not running Agrarianism, then Cottage vs Aristofarm comes down to:

Do we need vertical growth? If yes, work a non Aristofarm and skip CoL

Do we need commerce *right now*? If so work the Aristofarm (and skip GK)

Do we need more commerce later? Work a cottage. (with either or neither)



Well, aristocracy + conquest it's too unsinergetic, in my opinion. And I'm a big fan of cottages. I like to see them growing! Not a gameplay argument, but there you go.

Speaking of which, cottages are better in EitB, aren't they? But I guess we'd need to go to a branch of the tech tree that we probably won't be, to adopt the needed civics.

The city 1W of the lake isn't a killer site, but it's probably the best we can have, especially due to the strategic benefits. We'll have a gold city soon enough too, since there isn't much to build besides settlers, workers and warriors. BTW, I say we wait until building an Elder Council in the capital. There are better things to build, in my opinion (maybe we can use the overflow trick to make it a quick build, though).

About the cottage/farm fight, you need to take into account that farms take more time to build. So that's another plus for the cottages (not a big one, since the number of turns we need to turn those fp farms into cottages are going to be much more).

Cottages aren't strictly better in EitB. They get a growth boost from Foreign Trade and Towns get a very strong buff with Representation, but that does take some beakers to get to.

Cottages are a more viable alternative to Aristograrian Farms in EitB than in base, but Arisograrian Farms still have a place.

Conquest/Aristocracy can work very well, but you do need Sanitation first if you want to avoid stifling your growth.
 
T35: Take a look around, things look reasonably in order. Settler is due in 5t, as is exploration after the swap. Workers are going to be bored senseless and unfortunately can't really do anything to prep the second city site. This is going to be a boring turnset.

T36-38: Mash enter several times, nothing happens. Debate whether to build a plains farm because I can. NobleHelium would be having kittens over the wasted worker turns here. This is what happens when you only have one worker tech. Ultimately I decide to just sit on the Incense tile. I move the warriors near the city site. It suddenly occurs to me that Perpy is still CRE and that our poor city is going to be culturally crushed.

T39: Lizard inc. This could be unpleasant for the non-existent micro plan.



T40: Exploration in, decide to resume the Crafting - Mining path because we need to be able to chop all these damned forests. I dial up another Warrior in the capital because I decide to be a little reckless. That silly lizard only moved 1 move and landed on the Corn for reasons known only to its little lizard brain. That seems like a prescription for dogpiling it with warriorpults, no? Banzai... First one dies but knocks lizzie down to 1.2. Second one finishes flawlessly, picking up 2XP in the process. Go-go Amurite Clubs!



T41: That plan seemed better before a 2nd lizard showed up the next turn. :( Retreat!

Beeri has a settling party in motion. Wonder if this means that gold site isn't a secure as we'd hoped?



T42: Next turn brings up the harpy event. I regrettably decline as 5 Unhappy in our GK capital seems a bit silly. The lizard moves in such a fashion that I can't move the settler safely, so we have to hope for some luck with the warrior or retreat further. I knew I should have banged out another warrior before this settler.

T43: Woo, our C1 warrior kills the lizzie, so he only delayed settling by 1t. Huzzah.

T44: Udenaart founded. Going monument since culture will be an issue for sure.



After finishing a replacement warrior, decide on another worker before probably going warrior-warrior-Settler.

T45: Start farming corn. Lizard also incoming.

T46: Lizard kills warrior in cap flawlessly. Uh oh.

T47: Warrior in cap kills Lizard @0.8/3.0. Can 1t a replacement warrior. Decide to do so. How much would you guys have hated me if I got us killed there?

T48: Decide better get 2 more warrior done before starting the next settler. RoK founded in a distant land. Expect to see Beeri convert next turn.

T49: Beeri converts. :D

T50: Here's the state of the empire.



Mining is due in 3t. I pre-roaded a couple hills in anticipation. Also moving a worker over thataway, wasting many worker turns, but figure hooking gold sooner rather than later is a best practice. Building one more warrior before moving along to build the next Settler. Moving a warrior in place to cover the northern worker. Might want another though, your call. I circled barbs in view in red.

Pretty mundane set, wish I could say I set us up for something exciting, but I didn't.

Enjoy.
 
"Non existant worker micro plan" ??

I figured it would be pretty much the same as usual for this point in the game:

1) Run away from barbs

2) Run away from barbs

3) Squeeze in a farm/road/mine cottage when we're not Running away from barbs.

:D
 
I see it...will play in about 8 hours. Any input before then would be most welcome :). I think ten turns from here on out is perfect.

Darrell
 
Only 1 warrior defending the gold mining worker might be too much reckless. A lizard can spawn and attack in the interturn and we won't have that good odds, I'm afraid. Maybe taking a second warrior from capital next turn can help.

Both our rivals have mining already. Let's hope Perpentach, mad that he didn't get RoK, goes for OO and wastes a lot of important beakers.

A city to the south of our capital, maybe in the plains hill 2E of the grassland cotton could work to get us another quick happy cap boost. But the terrain there is too awful. Plains, plains, plains... If there's a food resource in the hidden tiles, it could be decent.

We are currently at turn 50. Assuming Perp's capital is doing a constant 4 culture points, we have 13 turns until his next border expansion, which could be problematic. C'mon stupid high priced monument, get built already...
 
NH, we had agreed to found the "in your face" city first.

Gah, don't you just hate it when the AI sends out a Settler party 8 tiles away from their capital?

With RoK landing in that new city, we need to move the Gold spot. As I see it, there are two options:

Option A: We found south of the Ivory.

Pro: Nice and tight empire
Con: lots of overlap with existing cities

Option B: We found on the desert tile 2E from the gold tile

Pro: can borrow two improved floodplains from the capital. basically cuts the dwarven empire in half
Con: culturally crushed from both the Luchuirp Holy city and capital, pisses off another neighbour.

Tech path, I suppose we can go Education next, then see whether the RNG has decided to give us a source of Copper.
 
We're already pushing things with the Clowns, without the military to back it up. I'd rather not antagonize the dwarfs too, just yet. They can get mad when fireballs start crossing our mutual border, but not until.

Tech path, I suppose we can go Education next, then see whether the RNG has decided to give us a source of Copper.

We should know that in three turns when Mining comes in. I agree with Edu next, we need commerce badly!
 
Man Ilios nice start you rolled us. My initial reaction was to disband all our units and declare war on the AI so we could roll a new start sooner rather than later, but it passed :mischief:.

50 - Ichabod's idea made sense, as we had three Warriors in the capital, so I covered the Worker although he's likely quite safe. Speaking of which, we have six Warriors right now so I made a swap at the capital, hope you don't mind Gaspar :):



We had Mining coming along soon and Education as the likely next tech, so I thought a fourth Worker was of more value than another Warrior or two. The one silver lining to having two AIs settle in our face is less barbarian activity to worry about.

51 - Retreat one Worker into the city in case a Barbarian gets insanely lucky, and frankly its not like he had anything to do:



52 - Goblin moves onto Corn so I decide to retreat both Warriors into the city.

53 - Umm...



54 - Whew.



Oh, we had one source of Copper in the south (no food) and one to our NW:



We need that.

55 - Good call on the Monument man...we certainly will need it:



It was very difficult finding efficient Worker micro for some reason.



What I did here was have the two western Workers gang build the Mine, then gang farm the roaded Forest (very necessary after Perp's border pop cost us the Corn and put us in starvation). I decided to split the northern workers. First, they roaded the two tiles north of the capital, then one went to mine the Gold while the other went to road the city tile for #3 so we can settle one turn faster.

56 - Beeri killed the Lizard for us :goodjob:. Also the Monument finally came in at Ud-, selected an Elder Council next.

57 - Farm comes in Ud-, and the city stops starving.

58 - More Worker micro:



Okay, so the Farm double team splits, one goes to chop the tile to the north while the other goes to mine the grassland hill at our capital. Meanwhile left fork road boy goes to mine the grassland hill at Ud- (incidentally, this was the only way I could find to get to that tile without wasting any movement points). Right fork boy goes to chop the forest north of capital. BTW, I did consider gang chopping the soon to be city tile, but decided someting else was better...

59 - The Skeleton moves to threaten our gold mine, so I move to defend it. He'd wander into Beeri lands the following turn.

60 - Okay, plan coming together. Settler finishes, and is able to found this turn. Step two, I have two chops come in, and ensure they come into the capital. Step three...eh, I don't have a step three. Here are our cities:

Capital:



With the two chops under God King and massive food surplus we can crank a one turn Elder Council while growing to the happy cap. I'd suggest we do this than immediately start a Settler to claim Perp's copper :hammer:.

Ud-:



I would suggest we run a sage here when the Elder Council finishes for our Academy here. The capital should focus on working Cottages, which we need to start build on the non-overlapping floodplain tiles as soon as Education is in.

Nim-:



Eh...not much to say really. Another Farm would be a good idea here I reckon. After that Cottages. There are a few Warriors left to move as I wasn't sure how you wanted to defend. The SE Warrior was going to hug the coast and either find a good spot to bust fog or come home.

Ichabod you are up!

Darrell
 

Attachments

  • RB-EitB-SG1 AD-0060.CivBeyondSwordSave
    138.6 KB · Views: 49
We should know that in three turns when Mining comes in.

I think I misinterpreted you, Ilios. You know that Mining reveals copper, your point is using its presence or absence to decide between Bronze Working or not. Which makes sense to me. And since we do in fact have it, we might as well go that route to unlock archery. I don't think there's anything more urgent than being able to remove these annoying neighbors.


Solid work, darrell. :goodjob: So we need a city for copper + floodplains, and a city for gold + :confused:, and to keep trucking toward firebows. Looks like we'll be expanding to the north almost exclusively - aren't you guys glad we decided to move? :lol:

The more I think on the best spot for the gold city, the more I think the site 1 south of the sign is what makes sense. We can probably abuse Beeri a bit, and would benefit from spreading out a tad more. But I still don't want to plant a city center on desert :). Plus - that river will be very useful, we want to keep it in the BFC. If you don't think we can hold it vs culture, then - suppose we plant on the elephant? Hunting isn't in our near future, and elephants aren't real good tiles to work anyway.

The main competition for settlers workers and warriors in my mind is Cave of Ancestors. Each one will be worth 2 happiness! And a minor amount of culture.
 
Take a closer look at my last screenshot...I settled the gold city on my turn :mischief:.

Edit: I considered on the Ivory, but it was crucial IMO we overlapped with a farmed floodplain.

Darrell
 
I think I misinterpreted you, Ilios. You know that Mining reveals copper, your point is using its presence or absence to decide between Bronze Working or not. Which makes sense to me. And since we do in fact have it, we might as well go that route to unlock archery. I don't think there's anything more urgent than being able to remove these annoying neighbors.

We'll be facing Deity adversaries soon, so I don't know if Bronze Axemen will be enough to crack those cities. Maybe it's just because I hate Loki, and all things Balseraph in general, I'd prefer taking them out (first). :mad:

If we manage to get a trade route with Beery, we should be able to get him to friendly if we get lucky with a free RoK spread.

Solid work, darrell. :goodjob:

Surprisingly, yes. ;)

The more I think on the best spot for the gold city, the more I think the site 1 south of the sign is what makes sense.

You do realise Darrell already founded south of the Ivory tile? :)

One south of the sign would have been impossible, as it would be only 2 tiles removed, diagonally, from Beery's Rok holy city.

The main competition for settlers workers and warriors in my mind is Cave of Ancestors. Each one will be worth 2 happiness! And a minor amount of culture.

The Cave will be worth only one happy until we get Philosophy.

I agree with a Settler immediately after the Elder Council in the capital.
 
Ichabod, could you get a screenshot from what the Warrior has uncovered in the South (and specifically, the Copper tile)?

Thanks!
 
You do realise Darrell already founded south of the Ivory tile? :)
Err, yes, of course I realized that :crazyeye: Even better than I thought, Darrell. :).
We'll be facing Deity adversaries soon, so I don't know if Bronze Axemen will be enough to crack those cities. Maybe it's just because I hate Loki, and all things Balseraph in general, I'd prefer taking them out (first).
I don't think bronze axes will be enough, but copper warriors can keep us safe as border tensions mount. I might be misremembering the tech tree, but we've got to go via either Bronze or Hunting to get to Archery, right? And via Archery to Bowyers for Firebows.
The Cave will be worth only one happy until we get Philosophy.
Oh, right, the Incense doesn't actually exist until then. This is not my morning for intelligent comment :(

I agree with a Settler immediately after the Elder Council in the capital.

If the cave isn't worth much, then yeah, might as well keep growing horizontally. I like the plains hill north of the copper, assuming we beat Perp there.
 
Top Bottom