OB08 - Tall Poppy Syndrome

[Lobsterboy]

Unfortunately, I'm still screenshot-less, so you'll have to use your imaginations.

Turn 218 Inherited turn
After looking to see what techs are available, I decide to switch to Cartography, for a run at Moe, Larry and Curly. Because we can't build Catapults, they'll be useful for bombarding city defenses, saving us some military build-up. If we can promote them with City Raider, so much the better.

The economy's in pretty good shape, although we will run out of cash in a turn or two.

Turn 220
Fellowship of Leaves spreads to Evermore. Will start building Fawns in Evermore.
Yonna (FoL Holy City) expands to size 2.

Turn 221
Evermore finishes: Warrior --> Fawn

Turn 222
We're out of cash, so drop Research to 70% (+4 GP/turn). Cartography still in 7.

Turn 224
Hyll finishes: Warrior --> Monument
Every little bit of culture will help, and we have enough Warriors. Cue up a Hunting Lodge next. A few Hunter/Hawk combos. for recon. will be useful.

Turn 225
Event: Governor of Hyll reports that crime has dropped in his city -2 to the crime rate. Nice, but

Turn 226
We meet the Dain and the Amurites coming from the SE. They are in 2nd, just ahead of us. Bummer.

Turn 227
A Lizardman comes out of the West to attack a Warrior who I moved out of Yonna a few turns ago to defend our Copper mine:
Lizardman DEFEATS Warrior (Lizardman @ 3.3/4).
Rats! I move another Warrior out from Yonna, and fortify him on a forested hill in the hopes of distracting the L-man from pillaging our Copper mine.

Turn 228
Evermore finishes: Fawn --> Fawn
My ruse works! The L-man attacks our fortified Warrior. Unfortunately, it goes badly for us:
Lizardman DEFEATS Warrior (Lizardman @ 1.2/4)
The peckerhead had received *TWO* promotions for defeating our first Warrior!
Our newly-minted Fawn is sent to deal with the L-man, but is one tile to short, so the last defender in Yonna moves out to attack (91% odds in our favor):
Warrior DEFEATS Lizardman (Warrior @ 0.8/3) E-gad! That was a little too close!

Turn 229
Tech learned: Cartography Begin Animal Husbandry (for growth). Due in 9.
Evermore can finish the Pact of the Nilhorn in 36, so I go for it. I had intended to build it in Yonna, but Yonna will take 125 (although that would drop as the city growns.) Still, the sooner, the better, so Evermore it is! True, we won't be able to build another Settler for a while, but I don't know that we want to anyway, because we'll probably take an economic hit.

I choose *not* to revolt to City States because I don't want to lose the 50% production in Evermore from God King.

Yonna finishes: Elder Council --> Fawn
An exploring Warrior in the East captures a Goblin Worker from a Barb. city.

Turn 230
Decius asks for Open Borders, and I agree. Might as well get a look at his territory.

Turn 231
Yonna finishes: Elder Council --> Fawn
Gold is discovered near Evermore!*BONUS!* Research is now in the GREEN @ 80%! Although we lose a hammer from the mine, so PotN drops to 41
Yonna (FoL Holy City) expands to size 3.
The Khazad capture and destroy the Barb. city Stratus that was to our SW near the Sepulcher. Have to keep an eye on the Dwaves expansion down there.

Turn 233
Bruti finishes: Elder Council --> Monument
Hyll finishes: Monument --> Hunting Lodge

Turn 235
Yonna's (FoL Holy City) borders expand.
While exploring Decius's territory, we meet Auric. *HE* is #1!

Turn 237
Tech learned: Animal Husbandry Begin Archery (for Gilden Sylveric). Due in 10.
Unfortunately, no Horsies in Elven lands. The nearest are to our East.

Turn 238
Fellowship of Leaves spreads to Bruti. Nice! Can start building Fawns there.

Turn 239
Evermore expands to size 8. PotN now due in 21!
Yonna (FoL Holy City) expands to size 4.

I played 22 turns (to turn 240) to get us to an even number. We are pretty exposed militarily, so we should start cranking out some Fawns and Archers for defense. Bronze Working can be had in 15, so feel fee to change Archery to BW. I just figured if we wanted Gilden, the sooner we get him up, the better.

We are still in 3rd, just ahead of Dain, and 100+ points behind Auric and Cardith. We've a long row to hoe yet!

Good luck!

 

[Lone Wolf]

While exploring Decius's territory, we meet Auric. *HE* is #1!

Whoa. An at least nominally strong AI Illians is a rare sight.

Got it.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Played 22 turns, to the completion of the Pact of Nilhorn. Pics are in the attachements. Save us in the next post.

Beginning: Our militiary is definitely too thin. I usually keep 3-4 warriors per city.

Turn 241: The Goblin Archer in the fort moves towards our Gold. (On a side note, Goblin Archers are too strong, methinks. Making them 2/4 +1 Poison might be better).

Turn 243: I am too afraid to try to defend that Gold with a Warrior, because our militiary situation is way too thin. So the bastards pillage our gold.

Turn 245: The Goblins prove the rumours of their stupidity by suiciding the goblin on a lately recruited unit of Fawns.

Meanwhile, our workers are building cotages and stuff.

Turn 246: Decius converts to RoK. I hope Alexis will not convert to RoK, RoK lovefest is the thing that sucks most in unmodded FfH. At least Auric is always Evil, and he and his cold, winter-worshiping people look like a force to be reckoned with in that game.

Turn 247. Cardith asks for OB. I agree and send a Warrior to scout out his land, since I'm leaning towards the option of invading him. We research Archery.

Turn 252. Gold next to Evermore is connected again.

Tuns 252-258. Some dances with the Lizardmen, who again decimated our unit of warriors guarding the Lizardmen Pass next to Hyll. With the help of scouting Kuriotate unit of Warriors and some good luck (On a side note, FfH definitely lacks a RNGod amond its pantheon. Maybe one of the modmods can design a Randomian civ who worships the RNGod, with additional created in its cities each time the player wins a <20% odds fight and created in them when a player loses >80% odds fight) we avioded losing any more warriors and improvements.

Turn 262. Pact of the Nilhorn completed in Evermore.

I am conviced that we should attack the Kurios. They are nearer to us then Decius, they have larger cities, there is less danger of switching and taking their place on the scorechart due to their higher score, their militiary isn't exactly mighty so far (3 Archers in Kwythellar, a Warrior and a Scout in Naggarond).

Yonna is in the process of training Gliden Silveric.

But then I realized that attacking the Good Kurios won't be consistent with the gentle personality of Arendel. But all my roleplaying fears were ended when I realized that it's actually Faeryl disguised as Arendel who leads the Ljosafar:

(If the Svartalfar are actually in the game, things would get intresting. But then again, the only thing better then a backstabbing dark Elven lass with boobies is a backstabbing dark Elven lass with boobies and a multiple personality disorder).

 

[Lone Wolf]

And here's the save:

 

[ssmage]

Good set, Lone Wolf.
Svalfartar Trickery knows no bounds!!



Roster
PaulusIII
Lobsterboy
Lone Wolf - Just Played
Xenoborg - Up
Ozbenno - On Deck
ssmage

 

[Ozbenno]

I think we hack Cardith as well.

We can build Gilden now as well as having the three stooges, hopefully he is stuck at warriors. Can teh stooges attack cities?

Still a long way to go.

 

[PaulusIII]

Lone Wolf: You have been playing scenarios

And once the switch is coming (not that we are there now ) we should not forget to fire off Arendel's worldspell. Just to screw the Elves over when we leave them

 

[Xenoborg]

Start turn
Sent one fawn to re garrison the lizardman pass
Moved the giants around to see if I can get them some xp while we build an army
1 N to lizardman pass to see if he can get some barbs
1 S to cows near goblin fort, can't attack the fort, but can pick off those who leave and cover a worker while he pastures the cows
1 E to try and pick off a Decius warrior in our lands
Move workers from evermore to the less developed outer cities.
264
Bronze working comes in; pick Warfare next for civics + city raider, due in 12
Larry takes out that warrior for 4xp
Hyll and evermore have 1 turn left on their builds, swap to other military, do this repeatedly to get the most benefit when we switch to apprenticeship
267
I discover that lizardmen get a 50% bonus against hill giants even though they are beasts and not animals. So I have the fawn kill the lizardman at the pass instead of curly.
268
Find 3rd Kurio city, 1 warrior 1 archer.
271
Gilden out, going to kill the lizardman/ruins on our west border
Alexis converts to runes
Convert to Apprenticeship so units come out with 1 promotion
272
Hawk is built and scouts some peaks while his hunter finishes.
273
Somewhere Tebryn is killed off
An unknown city builds the heron throne.
4th Kurio city found, 3 archers
Capture barb city on the small peninsula to the north, eventually decide to keep it for score

Spoiler :

275
Using hawks get a full view of Kurio lands, each of his 4 cities have 2 archers, 2 have an extra sword with bronze, 1 has a third archer.
Spot Auric south of Kurio
276
River of Blood cast
Warfare in, chose fishing for trade routes and possibly whales at barb town later. Bowyers was at almost 200
277
Scout Decius, 2 cities each with 4 non bronze axemen
Note the pack of 3 are making a mine with only X number of turns left, micro one off next turn.
281
The new city of Decius is captured by the Balseraphs who we haven’t yet met. I decide to stop here so we can discuss what to do. I didn’t end my last turn so you can still see Kurio's land/defenses. The screenshots attached of Decius were from 4 turns ago.
The bulk of our army is in/near Yonna and consists of: Gilden, 3 giants, 4 swords, 1 hunter, 4 fawns, and 2 warriors. More warriors could be pulled from defense, and more swords will complete soon.
Score order remains much the same

618 Auric
481 Kurio
432 Us
350 Dain
348 Alexis
319 Khazad
220 Decius

Spoiler :

 

[Ozbenno]

OK, got it to start an attack. Won't be able to play for a couple of days though.

I'm assuming that we want to start an attack as well. Speak now if you think we should hold off!

 

[Lobsterboy]

Go, Go, GO!

 

[PaulusIII]

It's killing time!

 

[Ozbenno]

Excellent.

Look forward to some killing (hopefully not us though) in the next 18 hours or so

 

[Ozbenno]

Forums were down last night, so will be tonight.

 

[Ozbenno]

I move the army out towards Kuriorate kands.

Fishing is replaced by Calendar as we have two calendar resourceas.

And war is declared.



The settlement is razed with no losses.

I decide to throw the dice and explore a lair and get an acolyte. We can found Order if we want.



Played until Calendar.



If we're going for cheap techs, then Festivals seems best but no beakers invested.

Nice prize obtained at teh end as well.



Puts us above Cardith but we lost 1 sword.

Settler in 3 turns, can be used to grab more land in our south, east or west. Maybe where Cardith's razed settlement was. Still miles behind but we should be able to grab Cardith's remaining cities here. Then move straight onto Auric, or even just grab 1/2 more and move on.

Roster
PaulusIII - On Deck
Lobsterboy
Lone Wolf - Just Played
Xenoborg
Ozbenno
ssmage - UP

 

[Lobsterboy]

Nice set, Oz.

Yeah, I think we grab Cardith's city to the SE, plant another one near the site of his razed settlement, and then concentrate on Auric, razing every city of his that we can until we reach overtake him. No need to weaken Cardith so severely that we assume his throne after the first switch!

 

[ssmage]

I'll Have to skip. Got infected with a nasty piece of malware (i can't login to my civ4 comp)

 

[Ozbenno]

Bummer. That puts PaulusIII up.

Roster
PaulusIII - UP
Lobsterboy - On Deck
Lone Wolf
Xenoborg
Ozbenno - Just Played
ssmage - malaffected

 

[Lone Wolf]

Why Faeryl was renamed back?!

 

[ssmage]

I'm back and can retake. Turns out it was a bad regirsty file, not malware. Fixed it.
(after about 7 hours of freaking out.) ((The problem are the same caused by a known trojan))

 

[Lone Wolf]

And Alexis is already neutral. Thanks, Kandros.Good thing we have Auric here to combat the RoK lovefest.