Fall from heaven SG - High to Low

[Jusos2108]

Big slice of luck with the spawn of order in the capital, I suppose there is no real chance to make hay with the general war in the North though?

Looking at the save, after engineering, Fanaticism then Righteousness for Donal and Sphener to spearhead any future wars for us.

Luck has nothing to do with it.

We can't really challenge the Ilians until we have some catapults and mages, but now that we have iron, we should get some champions too.

That research order sounds good to me!

Ooh rapid advancement after a quieter period. Thumbs up.

Golden age coming up in 6 turns, prophet for the Order shrine in 5. Things are lining up and soon we can start mopping up. Definitely want the Order/Crusade business to kick into full gear for RP purposes if nothing else! Can't wait!

Yep, it has been real quiet here recently, so lets get things moving again. Also I am all ready (and anxiously waiting) for the great WAR!

 

[Ichabod]

Woohoo!

Very nice turns, Jusos. Just a little bit more and we can unleash hell in Erebus (or unleash heaven, since we're the good guys ).

I'll play my set tonight, but it'll take a couple of hours until I get time to do it. So, comments/plans are welcome.

I think we should use the golden age to switch to all out war civics (crusade, military state, conquest). What do you think?

 

[Fleme]

Crusade means diplomacy=tech trading out the window for the rest of the game and also poops on the developed towns as it turns them to crusaders so I think that's something that should be done when the war is imminent and we have what we want. Perhaps use the beginning of the golden age for teching purposes and check back when there's 1 turn of GA left to see where we're at and contemplate on where we want to go next.

Those techs that we're lacking aren't cheap.

 

[Ichabod]

Forget what I said, we're spiritual...

We can change whenever we want to!

 

[Ichabod]

Sorry about the delay, guys...

I'll play later today after I finish some work!

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Not to worry, it only ensures I'm back for my set.

 

[Ichabod]

Played 20 turns.

Turn 440:

-Changed civics: military state -> caste system. The reasoning behind the chance was to reach friendly status with sandalphon so we could trade some techs with him. We got some unhapiness and a little extra maintenance, but it wasn't a big deal.

-Started building Heroic Epic in Astrum.

Turn 444:

-Demand from Perpentach:

Spoiler :

Denied him, since he already hates us.

-Astrum finished HE -> catapults.

Turn 445:

-Great Prophet was born in Torrolerial -> Order Shrine.

Spoiler :

Turn 446:

-Bone Palace completed - 15 turns Golden Age.

Turn 448:

-Sandalphon asks us to join the war against Perp. Perp is weak, far away and hates us, so, I gladly accept:

Spoiler :

This bumped Sandalphon to friendly, so:

Spoiler :

I wanted Divination so we could build the Tower of Divination.

-After I closed the trading screen with Sandalphon, the Malakin made a demand:

Spoiler :

I took some time to decide about this one, but decided it was best to accept it. The Malakin are very strong and getting positive diplo for just a ten turn switch is worth it.

-This turn, we also completed Engineering -> Started Fanaticism.

Turn 449:

-Made a trirreme to explore the Northwester Island (which is insanely huge, by the way). I sent two axemen. Popped a hut when landing, got gold:

Spoiler :

I already lost one of the axemen attacking the barb city with ~70% odds... It was a dumb move, so forgive me.

Turn 450:

-Switched back to Military State.

Turn 451:

-Auric sent a stack to attack the Elohim city north of us. We could see it with a hawk:

Spoiler :

-Trade with recently friendly Malakim:

Spoiler :

-Next player, when we get the chance to switch civics again, please adopt overcouncil.

Turn 452:

-Auric captures the Elohim city:

Spoiler :

Turn 453:

-Arendel demands that we change religion to FoL... Well, thanks for letting us switch before we legitimately could

Spoiler :

-Massive Malakim SoD heading north, probably to attack the Calabim. It includes Chalid:

Spoiler :

Turn 455:

-Fanaticism -> Sorcery. I think we should take Rightneousness with the tower of divination, so I went for the much cheaper Sorcery.

Spoiler :

-Einion demands way of the wicked.... I accepted it just because of the contradiction

Spoiler :

Turn 456:

-Nice event = free beakers:

Spoiler :

Turn 458:

-Adept finished a mind node. We only need sun mana to be able to build the tower of Divination, which gives one free tech, but we don't have another node in our territory. There's one in one border pop distance from a city, but the city will take ages to get it... Maybe settle another city near one...

Spoiler :

Turn 459:

-Auric completed The Deepening, which turned part of our terrain to tundra...

Spoiler :

Turn 460:

-Sorcery in -> Placeholder tech chosen for now...

-Founded gem city.



Commentaries:

-I think getting Righteousness with the Tower of Divination is the way to go... It'll take ages to tech manually.

-We have a stack of axemen + catapults + 2 adepts near Auric border city. Upgrading axeman is very expensive, so i'm building some champions where it's possible.

-We should keep spreading order until we have it in all cities -> there are two cities taking care of it right now.

-Establishing a foothold in the northern island is something I recommend. There's a trirreme loaded with a champion and a axeman going to the nearer barb city (it has an archer and an axeman, but it's on a hill...). There's also a hurt axeman healing there.

After we conquer the city, use the hawk to scout the interior of the island.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Well the save is mine so I'll throw a few thoughts into the mix:

1) Go after Sliktor with our stack two moves away. There is significantish Einion and Varn stacks in the area that we could safely sneak it if they don't take it themselves (by the way did Chalid die? Can't see him)
2) I'd consider Donal going into Barb land for a bit of xp farming. Quicker he's at C5 etc. the better.
3) We need Sun mana for the Tower, and the only free node is just outside Ventry's culture. I'd run a theatre there next (even rush buying it) and running an artist after that if we want to "Oracle" Righteousness. Between that and the 22 turn build time in our best city, straight researching it is actually quicker (@27 turns, which can be shaved). So personally I'd research the tech ourselves and then take something more juicy with the Tower.
4) On top of what we have now, we need Champions and Confessors, as well as at least replacement level of Catas. So if we're going military build-up I'd pick Evermore (as soon as we return to Order) as Confessor central (first few can be used for spreads) and keep Corona as primary Champion pump.

I think apart from robbing cities off barbs and an odd opportunistic strike, my set would be best used by building up an army and trying to max out the beakers where possible.

 

[Ichabod]

I don't know where Chalid is... The Malakim stack got scattered in the last turns (there are a lot of inured units too), but I don't know what killed them. They are at war with the Calabim, but I wouldn't expect them to have something to kill Chalid with.

Ah, you can explore the dungeons in out land with Donal. Heroes get better results from lairs, but we could end up losing him, which would be a very bad thing... There's a trick you can use to avoid bad results: just put a unit in each tile adjacent to the dungeon. If you get a bad result that creates barb units, they won't have a tile to spawn in, so nothing happens.

Edit: Ah, and you're right about Righteousness. We can use the tower to get another tech (maybe Mithril working) and tech Righteousness ourselves. We are still very far from being able to build the tower (Ventry's borders will take a while to expand), so it's better to tech it the normal way.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

I think levelling up units also helps with the exploration. I'll check the manual and come back.

Edit: From looking at the python it seems that the level of the unit is added to the RNG number rolled. So a level 10 unit rolling an 84 will get the BigGood result, and if the same unit rolls 34 then the result is from Bad to Neutral.

Spoiler :

def spellExploreLair(caster):
	pPlot = caster.plot()
	iRnd = CyGame().getSorenRandNum(100, "Explore Lair") + caster.getLevel()
	iDestroyLair = 0
	if iRnd < 14:
		iDestroyLair = cf.exploreLairBigBad(caster)
	if iRnd >= 14 and iRnd < 44:
		iDestroyLair = cf.exploreLairBad(caster)
	if iRnd >= 44 and iRnd < 74:
		iDestroyLair = cf.exploreLairNeutral(caster)
	if iRnd >= 74 and iRnd < 94:
		iDestroyLair = cf.exploreLairGood(caster)
	if iRnd >= 94:
		iDestroyLair = cf.exploreLairBigGood(caster)
	if iDestroyLair > CyGame().getSorenRandNum(100, "Explore Lair"):
		CyInterface().addMessage(caster.getOwner(),True,25,CyTranslator().getText("TXT_KEY_MESSAGE_LAIR_DESTROYED", ()),'AS2D_POSITIVE_DINK',1,'Art/Interface/Buttons/Spells/Explore Lair.dds',ColorTypes(8),pPlot.getX(),pPlot.getY(),True,True)
		pPlot.setImprovementType(-1)
	caster.finishMoves()
	caster.changeExperience(1, -1, false, false, false)

 

[Fleme]

Looks good. That northern island interests me although it probably doesn't mean anything as far as our win is concerned. Still, considering how rare Mithril is we might be settling a city there just to grab that. It's also very likely to boast a whole variety of resources we don't have but then again we don't need any other resource at this point than Mithril so those are irrelevant in the long run.

All in all the progress is good and I tend to agree with Brian on the oracling. As it seems, for once time is not of the essence and we can milk our position a little longer and then just unleash heaven on everyone... in a very Orderly fashion.

That island up north is bound to boast a bajillion barbarians and we should send a party there to clear parts of it for experience. I personally like to level an adept by having them take combat promotions and clean up the weakest barbarians - easy mages and archmages but it obviously works just as well with regular units.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

I was personally thinking of levelling Donal first (100 turns is just such a bore). But we can send up a few adepts as well, Donal, 2 adepts and what's there (2 axes, 1 champ) for stack defence should be good for a raiding party.

I'll play later this evening, a bit bushed right now.

 

[Jusos2108]

Things seem to be moving on nicely.

BTW, there is only 40 turns left until we reach turn 500...

 

[Ichabod]

Don't forget we are playing epic speed.

 

[Jusos2108]

I am taking about the war that could start on turn 500..

 

[Ichabod]

War?? Care to enlighten me...

Is there some kind of fixed war declaration on turn 500?

Dumb me! I really don't know what you are refering to.

 

[Jusos2108]

Check your own post 237.

 

[Ichabod]

HAHAHA!

Yeah, I forgot about it...

Well, I agreed to do it, so no turning back now

 

[Brian Shanahan]

I've played 18 turns, and I've taken Sliktor and Kabhlag off Auric. Donal and 3 adepts are being slowly levelled up on barb island but haven't captured a city (mainly due to Donals odds on the first town being 65% only @C4).
On religion we're 4 cities short of having everything with Order (needed troops sorry). I built mainly units in the core, and either science or money in the former Llosfar lands and the capital. I'm building Catas out of Astrum, until now where I built Temple of Order and started a Harbour (for health).
I'm half wat through righteousness (forgot about the GAge drop, but it is still quicker than popping Ventry and Oracling). I'm stopping here because I think it may be time to switch religion and civics (i.e. take up Order and Crusade). There will be diplo hits, especially on religion, but with Auric being so far ahead in power (see below) we kind of need to magic up some units if we want to beat him.

I'll post up a full report in the morning, but I'm too tired now to write for a half-hour. So for now I'll leave some end of set screenies and the save.

Land first:

Spoiler :

Relations and civics:

Spoiler :

Trade possibilities:

Spoiler :

For some strange reason noone wants reagents, even with the power of Herbalists

And finally Power:

Spoiler :

I marked out us (black circle) and Ulric (red one)

And just to show you how tired I am, I first posted this as an edit back on post #30 where the save is attached still. Please take it from there

 

[Fleme]

I'm up next? I'd like to get my bearings straight before I make any decisions on my own, The path you've laid looks nice and I appreciate having Donal and the adepts training on the barbarian island - those guys, if anyone, will be our archmages one day.

Do we still want to oracle something with the tower? If so, what? I suppose our crusade goes north first and we disregard the eastern fellows?