An excellent strategy discussion! And if I'm following it correctly, wouldn't losing a couple of heroes right before we jump be considered a good thing? Assuming we've got enough swords to take on Einon's cities ...
Lurker: I have been wondering how you'd approach sabotaging your own civ pre-switch, considering how tough the last switch was. For example, would you find deleting promoted or magic units before swapping an acceptable strategy. What other strategies are there?
Great stuff Jet. Well thought out and well played.
I've been wondering about the pre-switch tactics as well. I think it would be too cheesy to just delete our units but stretching the finances and army of the elves as much as possible while still at wear might do the trick.
Another excellent report, Jet! Looks like Valin certainly kept you busy. Rather interesting that Cardith vassalized. Makes me wonder if we won't be taking over a vassalized civ.
And I've no problem with sacrificing our hero in a heated battle. Especially to take out a stronger hero. Can't say that I'm too thrilled about the idea of deleting units, though ...
What with the Christmas festivities, it will be a couple of days before I would be able to play. I'm open to a swap, otherwise I'll grab the save once some of the Christmas cheer wears off.
Lurker comment: be careful about sabotaging on your way out the door. You don't want this civ to win, but you might want them as a useful ally of your next civ. Alternatively, starting wars is good, too...
Wow, what an interesting set to play. I saw a lot of FFH that I had not previously been exposed to. Things such as Werewolves, Priests, summoning Tigers, Maelstrom spells ... and probably a few other things that I'm overlooking. Not sure where to begin this report, but I should probably start by apologizing for the delay. What with the holidays and all, it has taken me a bit to play this. I decided to take Jet's recommendation to return to 20 turn sets, but I've been playing these 18 turns off and on for the last several days.
My set started off well enough with the capture of a couple of cities. I took Ahepetr from Cardiff and Achill from Einon. Both of the cities were behind our front lines and Deluoc (which was captured by Jet) offered a great chokepoint location.
Meanwhile, the bulk of our forces would be marching toward the heart of the Elohim empire. On the way, we would meet this friendly-looking chap:
The Hawk that Jet had queued up would be completed and give me some intel reports of Einon's defenses.
I can't recall ever seeing so many muskets in an FFH game. Einon certainly has quite a few of them running around. I also note that many of his units are endowed with extra holy strength, making them that much tougher. Not sure of the source of the extra strength, a wonder maybe?
Our forces would march on the city of Valentia, despite the "holyier than though" musketeers. On the way, they would encounter a lone Longbowman trying to reinforce the city. My civ4 experience has taught me to try and kill these dudes out in the open rather than waiting to let them get into a city. Unfortunately, my #@&$ RNG had other ideas! A couple of Maelstrom spells would do a slight amount of damage to the unit. And after suiciding the Tigers, I would lose unit after unit attacking this dude with zero success. We lost several highly promoted units, at good odds, attacking that LB. Not even a scratch! I eventually gave up and waited for reinforcements to arrive before continuing the march on to Valentia. Eventually the city would be taken, with the help of some fireballs:
I decided to raze the city. I thought the city was in a rather indefensible position at the time. In hindsight, I believe I should have kept it. But at the time I was concerned about all of those "holyier than though" musketeers making a counter-attack on our chokepoint city. A counter-attack that would never come ...
In the meantime, I would continue to march our forces into the teeth of the Elohim muskets. The next target was Spilan, a former barb city that Einon has liberated some turns earlier. By this time, I had accumulated enough Maelstrom-capable Mages to be in a position to take on the Elohim musketeers. But alas, there would be some complications ...
Now I can't claim to be a big fan of this Maelstrom spell. It is bad enough that the spell will wound your own units. You have to keep all of your forces together in a single stack. And it requires some forethought, lest you zap your own reinforcements as they arrive at the front lines. But then to have to declare on other civs in order to use the spell!?!?! Urgh! I decided to reposition our forces in an effort to avoid the Infernal troops in the area. The muskets were bad enough without having to worry about Hyborem. Unfortunately, the delay in assaulting the city would be fatal for our hero:
Eventually our Mages would be eligible for Fire II promotions and I could dispense with the Maelstrom in favor of my old friend, the Fireball! The Fireballs would do enough collateral damage to allow our forces to enter the former barb city ...
Meanwhile, relations would improve with Hyborem after I caved to his demand for a free (and worthless) tech. Afterwords, he (it?) would only be annoyed with us.
With the improved relations, he would later come calling and offer open borders. I would keep checking throughout the game to see if he would declare on Einon. Unfortunately, fighting isn't something he really wants to do.
St Augustine would show up with some interesting news ...
One of the last things Jet did before ending his set, was to queue up the Baron Duin Halfmorn after completing Feral Bond. I was rather looking forward to playing with them Werewolves. But alas ... no ...
Jet also proposed that we save our latest Great Scientist in the hopes of popping a different great person for a second golden age. Given the Great Library, the odds were against such a proposition. But I left the city specialists unchanged ... and lo and behold ... a Great Prophet is born ...
but not on Christmas day Is a second golden age still in the cards?
All throughout my set, I had been keeping tabs on our score. Towards the end, I had come to the conclusion that we were about one, maybe two, cities away from our final jump. There is a 20 turn delay for land being included in the score. The cities that Jet captured would be kicking in soon and hopefully propel us over the top ... assuming we could lower Einon's score enough.
Things were certainly going well, as our forces congregated outside the gates of Rosguill. A couple of Fireballs would drop the city defenses to rubble. A couple of Maelstrom's would put the hurt on the city defenders. And our final Mage would cast Treetop Defense to fortify our units as we waited one (hopefully) last turn for our Tiger's to regain movement ...
And then ...
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
I'm sorry, but hasn't this already happened before?!?!? The city defenders don't stand a chance against her forces. Maybe if we had left Gilden down here it would be a different story. But Rhoanna had no trouble retaking her city.
Meanwhile, back at Rosguill ...
I'd been trying to keep an open mind about that Maelstrom spell. So I called up a couple of storms. Even though I managed to not damage any of my own units this time, I still think I prefer the Fireballs. Anyway, between the Maelstroms and a couple of well placed Fireballs ...
An earlier fly-over by one of our three Hawks had revealed that a certain Baron was sniffing around. Thus, I held back our 15 Tigers from the battle of Rosguill. I suicided all of our Tigers against the Baron and his ravenous blooded Werewolves. Yikes that was a battle! Actually one of the Tigers survived, but unfortunately, so did the Baron. After that, it was time to bring in some Swordsmen and a few Priests. And eventually ...
... it seems I have exceeded the number of images allowed in a single post, so this will have to be continued ...
I've never played with those Great Commanders. I've seen them in the civilopedia, but I've never been fortunate enough to land one for myself. I wonder if we'll be seeing it on our southern borders?
The scorecard shows us at 57 points behind Einon. That should equate to taking one more city and some border pops coming on line. That is assuming that we can hold Rhoanna back in the meantime. Which I'm not at all certain that we will accomplish that feat. So close ... yet still ...
Although, as I write this report, it occurs to me that some tech trading might also do the trick. A couple of classical era techs should net us 46 points, and throw in an ancient era tech and all of a sudden we're a new civ. Assuming the trades are available. Its a bit late here, so I'll leave that exercise to someone else ...
FYI, the Elohim units have extra strength because Order priests have the "Bless" spell, giving +1 holy. However, this only lasts for 1 combat so a suicide fireball can eliminate it.
FYI, the Elohim units have extra strength because Order priests have the "Bless" spell, giving +1 holy. However, this only lasts for 1 combat so a suicide fireball can eliminate it.
Thanks, The only BBcodes are Bold, Italics, Underlined and Scratched out.
... I definately think the tech trading would be best, better to avoid risks with the Hippus, they are fast.
It looks as though we will be playing the Infernals if I am not mistaken. In this case we should not try to weaken Thessa any further. Einon will kill us off as soon as he is done with her...
Opened the save back up this morning. Unfortunately, the trades aren't there. That's the problem with being at war with almost everyone. Sandalphon will trade Stirrups (23 points) for Sorcery, which I think we should take. Hyborem doesn't like us well enough to trade anything. Einon and Cardiff each want a city returned for peace, let alone give us a tech. And, of course, it is still too early for Rhoanna to talk. My guess is she will want a city for peace. If only she'd waited a couple of turns to declare ... So close ...
There's a 57 point gap. We can get 23 from the Stirrups trade and another 23 by using the prophet to bulb most of Corruption of the Spirit, then researching for one turn. 11 points left.
In theory we might get more techs from Hyborem if we warm him up by giving him all our techs. We should, anyway, if we're going to take him over. If we make it there, it will be very interesting. He only gains pop by settling or from deaths of evil/OO/Esus (and Death or Entropy) units, but the only evil civ on the map is isolated, as far as we can tell. But about trading, realistically I think Hyborem is probably already as warmed up as he's going to get. (Get it, warmed up?) I mean, he's a badass snarling red demon. He'll probably just be like, "yeah, thanks for tripling my tech level."
Rhoanna can get her units next to our next city in 2 turns, so she should attack in 3+ turns depending how long she stops to bombard. She is walking over ancient forests, so she could get a Treant roadbump.
We might be able to take Kalocky before she has a chance to attack us. That should be more than 11 points; in the last turnset Einon lost 130 points and we gained 80.
Turn 510 Our units that can move on to the castle tile NNE of Kalocky, do so. Others in the main stack move 2S, with the Elf bonus. The 2-move units from Spilan join in, replaced by 1-move units from the main stack.
Turn 510 IBT Rhoanna moves NN
Turn 511 The rest of our stack moves onto the Castle, we summon any spare Tigers, and we Fireball and/or Maelstrom.
Turn 511 IBT she moves NW
Turn 512 We Fireball and/or Maelstrom again, then move up and attack with our 2-move units. It would be Tigers and an injured Fawn and Ranger vs. injured Muskets.
Turn 512 IBT she bombards and maybe attacks or not
Turn 513 our 1-move units can attack Kalocky
Turn 513 IBT otherwise she attacks now
Some things that could go wrong:
* on 512 IBT Rhoanna could get her turn before the switch is calculated, attack immediately, and take our city
* Kalocky could get blocked or reinforced
* another new city could get counterattacked
With a 20 turn delay like Conroe said, I don't think we'll get any points from land in the next couple turns. Basically I think Oriel came out of revolt on turn 495, and Delouc on 496, so that we might get credit for the city tiles alone, but we wouldn't get credit for the first ring until turns 515 and 516. (We might also temporarily lose score on 511, but then regain it on 512, reflecting losing and retaking Elendiwe.)
The choices I can think of are:
* try to snatch Kalocky for a quick score turnover
* draft defenders in the south - might suffice, might not, if so just barely and would require prolonged drafting
Either way, rush buy defenders in the south.
I guess we could do both, but since we'd lose score from drafting, I would not count on a quick turnaround then.
If we wanted to double down on the Kalocky thing and count on it narrowing the gap by at least 34 points (fairly likely I think, if it worked), we could still pop the GA instead of bulbing Corruption of Spirit.
A trick that would open is to rush buy few or no defenders, but turn research to 100%, research Messages From the Deep in 2 turns, and switch to OO with no anarchy on turn 512, in order to farm Manes after the switch. (Switching out of Guardian of Nature might cause us to lose pop in the IBT, but I'd guess not much.)
There's a 57 point gap. We can get 23 from the Stirrups trade and another 23 by using the prophet to bulb most of Corruption of the Spirit, then researching for one turn. 11 points left.
I feel so much better about our chances after reading the above two posts. As Jet notes, 23 points from the trade and another 23 from the 'bulb leaves us just 11 points shy. Following Ozbenno's suggestion, if we emphasize food in our cities, we can grow 6 pop over the next several turns for a total of 12 points and a new civ! Jet's suggestion of taking Kalocky provides some insurance in case Einon grows or learns a tech. It should work, as long as we can hold off Rhoanna. In our favor is the fact that our city of Yonna has 65% cultural defense and almost all of the Hippus mounted units are still wounded from the last battle. That should delay her taking Yonna for a few turns.
Of course, all of this assumes that Einon is indeed the first place player.
but turn research to 100%, research Messages From the Deep in 2 turns, and switch to OO with no anarchy on turn 512, in order to farm Manes after the switch.
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Just a nice christmas gift for our crew and the lurkers, taking down Valin and capturing some cities... 
And if I'm following it correctly, wouldn't losing a couple of heroes right before we jump be considered a good thing? Assuming we've got enough swords to take on Einon's cities ...
Einon certainly has quite a few of them running around. I also note that many of his units are endowed with extra holy strength, making them that much tougher. Not sure of the source of the extra strength, a wonder maybe? 
But at the time I was concerned about all of those "holyier than though" musketeers making a counter-attack on our chokepoint city. A counter-attack that would never come ...
Is a second golden age still in the cards?
Which I'm not at all certain that we will accomplish that feat. So close ... yet still ...
Although, as I write this report, it occurs to me that some tech trading might also do the trick. A couple of classical era techs should net us 46 points, and throw in an ancient era tech and all of a sudden we're a new civ. Assuming the trades are available. 
If only she'd waited a couple of turns to declare ... So close ...
The set for DMI XIII was tough...
The city defenders don't stand a chance against her forces. Maybe if we had left Gilden down here it would be a different story. 
