Fall with Fleme

[Fleme]

I did not specify earlier, but items are "bound" to heroes unless they are consumables; Meaning that when a hero receives an items, it is his and his alone unless otherwise specified. I had not said anything about this (I think?) but I'll restore the boots on Gryndane now.

On to the game:

Telyhohn:

Spoiler :

It is with great pride and joy that the Explorer Council grant Gryndane the rank of Guardian of the Austrin. With the rank comes great responsibility and command of the Austrin homeland defense.

The rank of Sergeant has been granted, and you are now able to lead an additional unit into combat. Furthermore, you now have a hunting Rock Raven to help you both explore and fight the perils that threaten the Austrin nation. New troubles are stirring as we speak, and we cannot be off guard, Champion.

Howling in the Night

Spoiler :

It would seem that the presumed Alpha Werewolf was simply a greater werewolf and not the source - or alternatively that it's offspring have gathered to avenge it but either way, the werewolf terror is escalating.

There is howling coming from the eastern hills and it is sightings of rabid werewolves and wolves have been made. Perhaps the emblem of the Lukos family on the Heart Amulet found on the Alpha bears some clue to what might be behind the terrors; Lukos was the governor of Foxford and his citadel overlooks the ruins. Further investigation is in order.

Furthermore, something needs to be done to the ruins of Foxford and the explorer council is offering various approaches to the subject:

Quest: You need to resolve what to do with the ruins of Foxford and you need to do it fast.

1: Bring Brother Tancred to visit and sanctify the ruins to let the spirits of the villagers rest. Furthermore, enlist Tancred's assistance in fighting the unholy beasts

2: Approach the keep and try to establish contact with whoever is in charge of the Werewolf and try to negotiate a treaty of mutual non-aggression.

3: Dispose of the unholy creatures with the only method that works with them, cold steel.

Rewards or results will be posted according to the approach you choose.

What will you do? There are sightings of werewolves roaming in the east and they will surely become more and more aggressive as the situation escalates and they grow stronger.

Fizziks:

Spoiler :

Zik Fizziks sent another clockwerk to bring a message to Telyhohn for whoever it may concern including the following text:

"Gryndane? I thought we were friends, was I mistaken? My clones left and I have not seen them since and I'm beginning to feel vulnerable here in the edge of the desert. You see, I almost had it all figured out but then you left me at the most inopportune moment - in my folly I did not find it in me to ask you for one more favor, you know?

Anyways, my situation is dire. I've lost contact with Underhome and to make things worse, Dark Iron Dwarves led by Garak Blightanvil have seized control of my only source of copper and I desperately need it back.

I've drawn a sketch that is attached to this message revealing the whereabouts of my mine; It's due west-northwest from my workshop along the mountains, in a valley. Garak's fort, Dun Karagh is nearby and he has posted strong guardsmen at my precious mine.

Now, it has come to my attention that you not only have become a full-fledged guardian but aligned yourself with a Tlacotl? That is fantastic! Surely a pair of powerful heroes like you can help a goblin out.

Q: Destroy the defenders guarding Fizziks' mine.

R: Fizziks' reveals a source of Copper in or near your lands which will be available to you come Bronze Working (your land does not have natural Copper) and you gain control of 2 Fizziks' Braziers guarding the pass. (Fireball defense)

Oh and before I forget; once those clones of mine have completed the road, have them stop by for some "enhancements", I figured how to make them more effective.

N'zesh:

Spoiler :

Hssssss..... Your honor bound you to assssissst me in my quessst againssst thossse falssse godsss and here we are while that vile forge sstill ssstandsss. I urge you, lend me a warrior of your people and let ussss go dessstroy that forge. If you refussse, I will make you regret the day you were born, warmblood.

Q: Dispatch N'zesh and a pillage-capable unit (warrior) to destroy the forge as soon as possible or face the consequences.

I'd like to remind you that N'zesh cannot enter the desert so if you want to use him for the quest Fizziks gave, you will have to look for alternate routes - they are there if you look hard enough. Additionally, I'll remind you again about your adaptive trait and whether or not you want to change Cha to something else - the swap is upcoming. As far as additional quests go, you have the explorer council mandate to make contact with foreign civs, explore the surrondings and also the Merchants of the Crescent Isles quest.

Jarrema just played
Old_Lion up
AntiTwelve on deck

Questions? Hopefully there's going to be at least some discussion about the quests!

 

[Jarrema]

I want to negotiate with the wolves
I also think we need to help Fizzik soon (this would be a job for Gryndane)
And, of course, let N'zesh and a warrior go and destroy this forge (maybe sent also a Wolfbane with them)

As for traits, I am not sure. For now, aggressive may be good one.

 

[uberfish]

Everyone seems to think THEIR personal quest is the most important and the idiotic explorer council doesn't understand the concept of the wilderness being actually full of, you know, wild creatures. Hmm. What about we get some of the quest people to help each other out. I vote we go pick up Tancred and let him help with the Fizziks and werewolf problems, while N'zesh does his pillaging and covers our 2nd city site. He might be interested in the other lizard sites there too.

 

[lymond]

Fleme - Please explain the Sergeant promo to me. I don't understand of the concept of being able to lead minions in the game. Does this allow him to summon an army?

Love the name of the Raven. I guess we will have to nickname him "Messy".

I say we upgrade Wolbane to Explorer next turn and have him join Gryndane in getting Tancred dealing with the Werewolves for Option #1, while N'zesh and a newly build warrior deal with the forge. Of course, we need to protect the Gretchins first in building the road so I guess getting Grydane to Fizziks first is best. Kinda works well going that path to lead the part to Tancred. We could even road to the Elohim after the gretchins get there enhancements.

I don't understand what a mutual non-aggression pack with the werewolves does for the Austrin.

 

[lymond]

Fleme - I think everything so far is pretty darn cool. Only thing I would ask is maybe to do your updates/quests in such away that each time you post a new update it is done as an amendment to the last update. In other words, the new "update" post includes prior info from the last update + new info (maybe in bold) + completed quests section + rewards info + status (status being the overall state of the Austrin Empire in terms of your RPG) Should be just a copy/paste job. I find I have to flip through the pages to find old info as I forget things pretty quickly which is a bit cumbersome. Having all in one place would make things much easier for us and might actually be easier for you. Also, you might add a spoiler section in the OP (too bad there was not a reserved 2nd post) that includes completed quests/current quest section, but summarized.


As for the Adaptive trait, I thought it was an added third trait. I could be wrong though as I never paid much attention to it. Also, are you just letting the Adaptive thing happen normally in the game?

Much suggestions are:

1) Philosophical - get out GS and other GPs faster and cheap Elder Councils in new cities
2) Creative - Free border pops in new cities. Very nice since it takes FOREVER to build things in new cities in this game
3) Spiritual - No Anarchy (shweet) and fast temples later.

 

[Fleme]

Sergeant (and other military-type promotions) in FF is a Bannor-only promo which allows the unit to act as a "mini-GC", meaning that he can now command an additional unit much like a Great Commander could. The benefit to the other unit is that it gains +20% experience from combat. These bonuses increase as the commanding unit gains rank and that is what will happen to Gryndane as well as he moves up the ranks. This simply means that Gryndane may be getting promotions which benefit the units he is commanding instead of himself at some point, thus making him a great asset even if his own strength plateaus.

He is in a way the personification of you, the players and in that way will represent your advancement as well as his own; Ultimately it is he who leads the hero party even if more powerful heroes should join the fray.

And sure, I can start adding previous quest info into the quest updates - makes sense.

As far as adaptive, I have no control over it. It is simply a trait which switches your secondary trait for something else at random points of the game and you have the choice of which one to take. Expansive is Deirdras permanent trait and Charismatic is subject to change.

Since you had a quest from Fizziks already, you do not technically have to visit him in order to do his quest but you are obviously free to stop by - he does appreciate the company.

I'm glad you're liking it.

 

[uberfish]

About adaptive, financial is the strongest economic trait once we get aristocracy and would speed up the horribly slow Epic speed research. Staying charismatic for now to level up heroes is also a reasonable choice. I'd prefer one of these two options.

 

[Jarrema]

As far as I know adaptive is totally NOT random. it allows to choose one of traits at preset points of game - I do not remember those moments, I do remember that they are different for different game speeds.
For now, creative may be good - but we will be stuck with this trait for more than 100 turns (IIRC it is 100 turns at Normal speed). And IMHO it will loose its benefits much sooner.
I like to use disciples for border popping - in many cities one disciple used is good enough for entire game; in others - libraries and other buildings will come.
So, IMHO, creative is a bad choice. Spiritual - could be good if we go for a religion soon (and I believe we do); it gives us not only faster temples, but also disciples with mobility and with potency. Philosophical is one of the best, especially if we are NOT going for a lot of fight; if we ARE going for a lot of fight, aggressive might be better.

My vote will go for aggressive or spiritual (for now, I stay with aggressive), because I believe we will have a lot of fights, and both of this traits improves our units in some way

As for financial - it is rather a choice for the next step of game, not for now (my opinion)

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Finanicial is very strong in peace mode, but if we are going to war, especially a horse based one, raiders is the strongest for good warring, allowing us to fork over a greater area.

Philo will be stronger when we've set up a GP farm and need to get out a number of GPs quickly. Ind is not so effective.

 

[AntiTwelve]

Nice set, witcher. I'd place more discretion on using heroes with only 75% odds of victory though.

Quests:
Since we'll be founding a religion soon, we shouldn't neglect to build a settler for the survivor camp mission. FoL should be founded there, netting us a lot of commerce in this river-laden and luxurious land.

We shouldn't have a problem sending a warrior with N'zesh to deal with the forge. Gryn can then make his way to the wolves, make contact, than either head to pick up Tancred or deal with the mine, of which I prefer the latter of the two options.

Game:
Obviously keep course with researching heading into WotF and upgrade our units to explorers to deal with homefront situations. For our next build, however, I recommend building a pagan temple. On completion we can put a priest to work to speed up great person production. At best, we get our academy another ten turns early. At worst, we pick up a GP early (@between 10-15% odds).

As for the adaptive trait (the switch won't occur until 140-ish, iirc) I vote for Ind. to speed up Bone Palace (if we want it), GoH and/or FotT which all fall relatively early. Ind. also allows faster worker actions and quickly built artisan workshops (+15% production). Warrior traits are pointless right now along with philosophical, since we aren't in military build up mode and we have no GPP farm. The only other viable option is financial, which will work once we get that desert site and survivor camp up and cottaged. By the by, we stay charismatic until the end of time. Viable points are made about creative, but monuments can lead to special events that benefit our cities, so I don't much mind building them. Spiritual for quick temples isn't... alluring, and going that route for a few extra turns during revolt isn't as powerful on Epic speed. Not to mention after Civ III, a maximum three turns of anarchy is a GOD SEND.

Tally for adaptive switch (based on two most favored traits by players):

Philosophical: i (lymond)
Creative: ii (lymond, Jarrema)
Aggressive: i (Jarrema)
Industrious: i (AntiTwelve)
Financial: iii (uberfish, Brian Shanahan, AntiTwelve)

uberfish and Brian O'hanashan still have a vote a piece, but looks like financial has won out. Not to mention Old_Lion gets to voice his opinion. We can go into this in greater detail in the next couple of turn sets, but let's see how the game plays out before deciding.

EDIT: Two important thoughts-
1) Send our hawk to Elohim territory and search for other contacts. This is a critical move to open relations and gain techs early... unless tech trading is off.

2) I forget whose world spell it is, but we can't use spells. Not only can we not use N'zesh optimally, but we can't use our Prepare Expedition ritual until the world spell wears off. Most likely one of our next builds will have to be a settler, which is actually more expensive to build now than the PE ritual (only by about 2 turns now, but later can be produced in 3-4 turns, even on epic). Just a fore warning.

 

[lymond]

I apologize if I'm missing something, but I'm having trouble seeing the value of Financial at this point in the game. Only tile that will benefit from this trait is the Ivory and cottages are going to take forever to build until we get the tech that speeds them up. As for the fast buildings from the trait, I'm not sure we are targeting those techs anytime soon.

Seems Philo will provide us with the quickest tech boost in the short terms as a) we will get our first GS for the academy much faster (we are in Pac too don't forget) and b) Elder Councils provide a nice boost and are often the first build in new cities.

Spiritual would be even better than Fin IMO as we can liberally change civics as needed and it will boost the religious aspect of the game.

However, if our plan is to cottage up big time and go for those techs then I guess I'm fine doing so, but I just want to make sure that is what we are planning. Otherwise, Fin seems of little value at the moment.

Antitwelve - On another note, when playing Deidre before, I found it odd that she as the fast settler trait yet the expeditions become faster in the long term. Someone didn't think that out to well

 

[Fleme]

The power of financial lies in the Agristocracy civic combo (Agrarianism+Aristocracy) which works as follows:

Agrarianism
+1 food per farm
-1 hammer per farm
+1 health in all cities
Medium Upkeep

Aristocracy
-1 food per farm
+2 commerce per farm
+1 from Archery Range
+2 from Jousting Tilt
Low Upkeep

Basically the innate weakness of Aristocracy is countered by Agrarianism, thus allowing farms to produce a pretty sweet amount of commerce; 3 for riverside farms and 2 for regular ones. This is obviously augmented by financial which makes these farms just gravy: 4 commerce for a riverside farm is the equivalent of a town for a long time. I'm not trying to influence your choices, but this is the strength of Agristocracy.

You have to give up God King to be in Aristocracy, though.

Few points on the game: I didn't specify this either but Messerschmitt is a personal companion to Gryndane and cannot leave his side in any case. If Gryndane should die, Messerschmitt relocates to Telyhohn.

Arcane Lacuna is the Amurite World Spell - better that than Stasis, right?

Let's wait until tomorrow and unless Old_Lion has picked the save up, you're up AntiTwelve.

 

[AntiTwelve]

I apologize if I'm missing something, but I'm having trouble seeing the value of Financial at this point in the game. Only tile that will benefit from this trait is the Ivory and cottages are going to take forever to build until we get the tech that speeds them up.

No need to apologize, no one sensible is offended by opinions. Unless you watch Fox news.

Remember, our switch comes in about 50 turns. By then we'll probably have built a settler and also prepared an expedition and founded by an explorer or Gryn. That hawk will have found us contacts to quickly back fill in tech, so cottage production will be quick. With financial, cottages will instantly produce +3 commerce on river tiles once built... pretty hefty.

As for the fast buildings from the trait, I'm not sure we are targeting those techs anytime soon.

If you are referring to Ind. trait, then that depends on what our team decides. Our needs may well not give us a chance to get these techs, but if we'd like to build those master buildings for unique items then GE point generation will become significant.

Seems Philo will provide us with the quickest tech boost in the short terms as a) we will get our first GS for the academy much faster (we are in Pac too don't forget) and b) Elder Councils provide a nice boost and are often the first build in new cities.

By the time we use our adaptive ability, we'll be well under way to our next GP. As Brian stated, GS lose their benefits after the early game. Elder councils are nice but they aren't game altering imho.

Spiritual would be even better than Fin IMO as we can liberally change civics as needed and it will boost the religious aspect of the game.

However, if our plan is to cottage up big time and go for those techs then I guess I'm fine doing so, but I just want to make sure that is what we are planning. Otherwise, Fin seems of little value at the moment.

Looks like we've corrupted lymond. Good.... good....

Antitwelve - On another note, when playing Deidre before, I found it odd that she as the fast settler trait yet the expeditions become faster in the long term. Someone didn't think that out to well

Such goofy programmers. That is meant to A) throw people off and B) add rpg depth. Hahahaha, I don't really know but those are my guesses. Expeditions are absurdly overpowered. After playing two games with this civ I can only conclude they are the Roman Empire equivalent to FFH in expansion, versatility and industry. You can literally war across the continent and fill in an entire landmass with cities by queued up Expeditions before completing half the settlers usually required for the task. As stated before; serious business.

The power of financial lies in the Agristocracy civic combo

Beat me to it.

You have to give up God King to be in Aristocracy, though.

Our capital is absurdly good. We can switch now and it would stay the major production center for the rest of the game.

Few points on the game: I didn't specify this either but Messerschmitt is a personal companion to Gryndane and cannot leave his side in any case. If Gryndane should die, Messerschmitt relocates to Telyhohn.

You bastard. OK, we need to build a hawk ASAP.

Arcane Lacuna is the Amurite World Spell - better that than Stasis, right?

So help me, if the Illians are on this map...

 

[Fleme]

I figured the Frostling ritual kind of gave that one away.

 

[AntiTwelve]

I figured the Frostling ritual kind of gave that one away.

I was in denial. And I forgot.

 

[lymond]

.....

No need to apologize, no one sensible is offended by opinions. Unless you watch Fox news.

As to the buildings, I was referring to the FIN trait - market/money changer. Anyway, I think I was basing my logic on the Adaptive change arriving much sooner than 50 turns, in which case we would be a long way from mass cottage production. The civic combo that Chairman Mao mentioned though is interesting. I've honestly not used civics well in FFH. I originally played FFH before actually trying to be good at Civ so I just jacked around. I'm still learning a lot about the best way to play this mod.

Where in Virginia? I just noticed that...

 

[AntiTwelve]

.....






As to the buildings, I was referring to the FIN trait - market/money changer. Anyway, I think I was basing my logic on the Adaptive change arriving much sooner than 50 turns, in which case we would be a long way from mass cottage production. The civic combo that Chairman Mao mentioned though is interesting. I've honestly not used civics well in FFH. I originally played FFH before actually trying to be good at Civ so I just jacked around. I'm still learning a lot about the best way to play this mod.

Where in Virginia? I just noticed that...

I'll forgive equating my quote to being Limbaugh. I'm true blue and some how living literally right outside of hypocraDC. If you throw an orange from the Washington monument, I'll probably catch it and thank you for the vitamins.

 

[lymond]

I figure you were which is why I used the misquote I'm blue as well

You must be in Arlington/Rosslyn then

 

[Jarrema]

I want to make some clarification.
I would NEVER vote for creative...
I will vote ether for agressive or spiritual.
After thinking about it, I want to change my vote and:
vote for spiritual
Quick temples are good, but disciples with mobility AND potency are awesome - we just have to build few, before changing to another trait.
And turns without anarchy are also nice, but not essential
I strongly believe, that it is too early for financial (it would be good trait for next pick)

 

[lymond]

Ha...AT's vote tally appears to be a little off although I'm not sure if anyone had really voted actually so it was confusing. I guess my #1 vote up to that AT tally was Philo.

Creative seems to be more powerful in the base game. However, before a religion border pops are brutally slow without slavery. Still, I can see this being a weak trait in the long run in FFH.

I strongly believe, that it is too early for financial (it would be good trait for next pick)

Jarrema, this is my exact thinking at well. FIN could be strong in the next round. However, I'm not sure when the Adaptive switcheroo actually takes place. Is it a few turns from now or 50 turns.

I guess my vote is still Philo since I still think it provides our biggest tech boost in the "short-term", but I'd be happy with Spiritual as well.

Cottages are still going to take forever to build and as nice as the Aristocratic/Agrarian civic combo may be for FIN, aren't we still a ways off from being able to access those civics.

So really what I'm asking is what civic does the most for us NoW?