OB07 - The First Shall Be Last

[Jet]

Played to 230, when we got Education. I only put one turn into Crafting, in case it kept the beakers from decaying. I revolted to Agrarianism on the first turn, because we'll gain more food than we may lose hammers from forest farms, and to Apprenticeship on the last turn.

Settled Brutti 3W of the capital for Corn/Dye/Dye. We're halfway through a second Worker and I set the capital to a third. The capital is one under happy cap, but it has no food yet and we have a lot of tiles to improve.

Killed a steady stream of barbs attacking the NW city. Hooked up the Dyes, grew Hyll. Built three Warriors, but lost two trying to farm XP from Goblins in the open. The remaining new one is by Brutti.

Rantine was created - Revelry was cast - Rhoanna adopted Apprenticeship - Beeri Bawl created Barnaxus on turn 228 about 8N4E of the barb city Tia'ran - Kilmorph was founded on turn 230 - and on turn 230 Burnt Wings moved into prominence, signaling a dry summer.

Rhoanna has two Horsemen on our southern borders. They appear to be just exploring, but she has double our food and triple our power and production. We can't tell whether she's in war prep, but I think we should research Archery and consider fortifying the choke point.

Conroe is up.

 

[Ozbenno]

Well done. Archery is a decent choice as it enables UU.

Conroe is UP.

 

[Conroe]

Got it ... doubt that I'll be able to play today, though ...

 

[Conroe]

I spent some time looking over the save. As Oz noted at the beginning of this game, we are only renting this land ... it is not ours to keep. We currently have 165 points and Rhoanna is showing at 241 points. This gives us an interim target to shoot for:

I'm not going to bother with a demographics screenshot, as we are in anarchy.

But we have a short term goal of accumulating 76 points. Growing our 4 cities to the happiness caps, plus border pops in our 2 new cities, will get us 29 of those points. Researching Archery and completing Crafting will net us another 23 points. That leaves us 24 points shy of Rhoanna's current score.

I'm thinking it would behoove us to research Way of the Forests, and found the Leaves religion, after the other two techs. It will net us 23 points and the opportunity for extra food from our forests. Thoughts?

Rhoanna has two Horsemen on our southern borders. They appear to be just exploring, but she has double our food and triple our power and production.

I could use some help from some of our resident FFH gurus on this one. Rhoanna is far enough away from us, such that she is not boxed in with no where to expand. Relations are currently at cautious. Normally I wouldn't be overly concerned. But for all I know, Rhoanna could be the FFH version of a Monty who doesn't need a reason to declare. Either way, I think it does behoove us to spend some time getting our power rating up ...

 

[Ozbenno]

Rhoanna is more like a Cathy, can be a good friend but will stab you if she decides it is worth it. We should get some archers and Silveric.

As for score, we have plenty of land to expand into so more settlers should help us out and taking the barb city.

Fellowship of Leaves would be good after Archery.

 

[Conroe]

Started the set of by pressing enter, as we were in anarchy. I then put 1 turn of research (at 0%) into each of Way of the Forest and Crafting in order to preserve the accumulated beakers. After that I set research to Archery, dialed the slider back up and burned through the cash that I raised. Archery has 8 turns remaining at 70% research.

I completed the two queued Workers and had them build a farm at our capital. Farms made more sense than cottages in our capital what with the 50% hammer bonus. And incidentally ... 15 turns to build a farm?!?!?

Things were progressing well, and then this happened:

Needless to say, our score has gone down during my set.

Rhoanna still has a Horseman lallygagging around our border. I really wasn't concerned until I saw this:

I queued up a couple more Warriors whilst waiting for the population to grow back and for Archery to come in. We definitely need to get our power rating up before someone comes a knocking on our door ...

Whacked a couple three barbs. The northern city of Myrean has seen a steady stream of them. Our Combat V Warrior had no problems beating them back, though. Played 20 turns, the save is attached:

 

[Conroe]

I saw in another thread that Oz is a mite busy these days. So I am going to take the liberty to post a ...

Roster
Ozbenno
Jet
Conroe - Just Played
Imhotep - UP
Quotey - MIA
Diamondeye - On Deck

 

[Ozbenno]

Thanks Conroe. I should be back with it from now.

River of Blood (Calabim world spell) is a pain but not that bad, the population will grow back quick enough. More land and people is the thing.

 

[·Imhotep·]

I see it, will play over the weekend if no one grabs it before me.

 

[·Imhotep·]

I played 20 turns. Not much worthy of mentioning. Archery came in, and I started Gilden Silveric and a Settler.

We're not exactly powerful.

And we got a horsehockey event.

FoL in 30 something, Settler and Gilden Silveric near to that...

Imhotep

 

[Ozbenno]

We should probably let Evemore grow a pop point or two before re-continuing the settler.

I'm assuming we've lost Quotey so Diamondeye is UP.

Roster:
Ozbenno - On Deck
Jet
Conroe
Imhotep - Just Played
Diamondeye - UP

 

[Diamondeye]

The Save

Invalid Attachment specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

Would love to post a got it, but no...

 

[Ozbenno]

I get the same message.

Maybe you could attach the save instead of using easy upload Immy.

 

[·Imhotep·]

I should have known that something was wrong . Save is attached in the report post.

 

[Conroe]

Agree with Oz on putting the Settler on hold whilst we regrow. I also think we ought to finish Crafting before we get any beaker decay.

 

[Diamondeye]

Regrew capital one size, by building a scout (13 turns split in 2 periods to avoid decay), some minor other events, most noticable is this:

And later the scout robbed the graveyard north of our border, only to find a barb skeleton (that killed istelf against a city). Please keep the camp/lairs for the scouts, I'm excited about what they might contain.

On my 21st turn, after some rough spending and rearranging tiles:

Save attached

 

[Ozbenno]

OK got it. Will have this played sometime over the next couple of days. Rhoanna seems to be powering ahead of us. I wonder if she is taking the beatdown to someone else?

 

[Ozbenno]

We can get open borders with Rhoanna but I decline for the moment.

The spread of Fellowship allows us to grow a bit as I revolt into it and we get an extra happy.

Gilden is born and I decide to send him north to the barb city as we need the growth quickly.

I put Hyll onto building a Mages Guild as a couple of mages might be good.

Fishing comes in and I choose Festivals for markets and cash.

Tia'ran is ours.

We should think about taking over the dwarves to boost our score, have to make sure we don't hit first in score before we do though.

First casualty of the game and its nothing to do with us.

We explore the barrow for a most excellent result.

A good event.

I played until the settler is built. We can send him south (for jumbos and wheat) for a buffer city with Rhoanna or north to grab silk and towards the rest of our territory. South might be the better idea with a good garrison.

Gilden has found another nice city up north. We can get him some cheap XP here while we wait for some warriors to join him and decide whether we want to attack the Luchirup.

I think we should. Some markets will compensate for the maintenance headaches and remember we don't care how perilious the finances of Thessa are when we finish with her. We should be able to do it woth Gilden and 3-4 warriors I would imagine, especially if we feed him up with the barb XP first.


Festivals in 4, build markets everywhere and Mining might be a good next choice.

We're 110 behind Rhoanna, I reckon a quick war againt Beeri and grow our cities should see us ahead of her, whether that is to 1st remains to be seen.

GS due in a couple of turns, we should be able to buld Elementalism or Alteration I think

Roster
Ozbenno
Jet - UP
Conroe - On Deck
Imhotep
Diamondeye

 

[Jet]

I think the farm event canceled out an earlier event that gave -1 food in that tile.

20 turns was enough to finish Festivals, then Sailing for trade routes and religion spread. Now that we have a connection to Rhoanna, we might want to reconsider OB with her. I set research arbitrarily to Hidden Paths, nothing invested.

Settled Yonna to the south, since that land was contested with Rhoanna, and it had roads and garrison units already in place. Settled not on a hill in order to access two farmable forests, and for an immediate trade connection.

Built a couple Warriors and Workers, and started a couple Markets while growing. Bruti and Myrean have large food surpluses for more Workers and Settlers.

Ancient forests spread at a satisfactory rate. Good thing they're not ridiculously overpowered or anything. Oh, wait.

The anticipated Great Scientist popped in Hyll and lightbulbed Alteration for 1980 beakers, bumping our score 33 points. I then revolted from Pacifism to Religion because the military unit cost was beginning to outweigh the GPP bonus. With 750 GPPs for the next great person, a 2000 beaker bulb would make each GPP worth 2000 / 750 = 8/3 beakers. Adding a Market to run 2 specialists in one city, the bonus from Pacifism would be 3 GPP or 8 beakers per turn. But Pacifism was costing 8 GPT for 8 units, times 130% inflation.

Traded world maps with Beeri Bawl. He's turtling on a peninsula with three cities. We might want to eliminate him in a way that ensures that we don't have to take him over. Of course some other civ could be in yet worse shape. Personally, I'm wondering if the AI will make such an egregious foul-up of the civ we started with that we revert to playing that one again.

Our hero is laying down the smack in the other orc city while Beeri Bawl utterly, utterly fails to bring it. His lines of non-attack are shown below.

Demographics crept upwards.
Land: 8th -> 6th
GPP: 4th -> 3rd
Pop: 8th -> 6th
Food : 8th -> 5th
Production: 8th -> 7th

 

[Conroe]

Looks like we're making some progress!

Got it ...



Haven't looked at the save yet ... but if we do decide to attack Beeri, we better make sure that we get it done before we jump. Otherwise he'll be our next civ. Actually, even if we don't attack him, there is a good probability that he could be our next civ anyway. I can't imagine that there would be another AI stuck on a peninsula with 3 cities.