ROTQM13: Rolling Over The Quintet's Magic

[King Bulrush]

We already have warfare and masonry. The only question here was wether to also get construction now or try to rush poisons. (Looks like the overall opinion is for construction).

 

[Ozbenno]

Construction should only take a few turns as it is a relatively cheap tech, then Poisons might be an idea.

 

[Tinadafish]

You need military strategy for blitz, I said warfare (which unlocks city raider) earlier because that's a prerequisite we didn't even have at the time

 

[pholkhero]

[note: i sometimes can't read my handwriting for the city names; in civ, it's pretty easy to figure out as they're real names, but my apologies)

371: Astrum: Elders>Library
lost a bear @Ventry

372: Cleared out the Perp and FV stacks minus a cultist (this would later lose us a chariot before we killed it unfortunately). I also moved a ministack out in the east as the two enemy stacks were not moving at all.

373: Tonty: Warrior>Lighthouse

374: War on Hybrorem; new civ
Vallus: Market>Carnival mainly as there's nothing else all that useful to build and we could use the happy down the line for specialists if we want to work all the food tiles we can

375: Tent: Axe>crusader
Cael: War>Temple
Prophercy of Ragnarok FIADL

376: Torr: Heroic Epic is done! start on a crusader there

377: Our GProphet was born. I left him alone for now; he'll bulb 1689 towards Religious Law.

378: Draget: Chouse>Market was q'd up
And a nice event:

379: Peace was we finally clear the stack out in the east, one unit at a time.

380: Techs:

and back to Poisons.
Torr: Crusader>Siege Workshop

all in all, not as full of action as i thought it would be. The AI seems to have just stopped in the east, not moving anywhere so there's still a small stack out that way to be disposed of. We need a bit stronger units and maybe clearing some of the brush out there. Two workers are bringing a new road in higher than the last so hopefully it won't get pillaged as easily.

if the lull holds, we should think about settling two cities forward on each side and build up and invasion force in each. We have a fair force in teh south, split btwn the three southernmost cities. Coiuld be split into two and be the beginnings of a SOD.

 

[pholkhero]

sorry, we cleared one stack in the east, but there's another one about 2 tiles S of the city.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

We should use the prophet to build the religious wonder. That should be our #1 priority right now.
As for the east if we can garrison those 4 points I marked and build castles on them they should be pretty much impenetrable.

 

[King Bulrush]

I second that. Please don't bulb anything with our precious great prophet. We need the shrine for the money it will genereate. (and then build a lot of income generating buildings in the same city - make it the financial hub of our empire)

 

[Ozbenno]

Third the call for a shrine with the GP. Will help the economy no end (and we can add Currency to the list of techs that would be helpful).

 

[Ozbenno]

Roster:

Ozbenno
King Bulrush
pholkhero >> just played
Tinadafish >> UP NOW
PPQ Purple >> On Deck

 

[pholkhero]

garrison those 4 points I marked and build castles on them they should be pretty much impenetrable.

garrisoning four points seems excessive. at the least, we could build a fort on that forest 1 SW of the city, and we'd have a wall w it and the city, at least for the short-term.

Roster:

Ozbenno
King Bulrush
pholkhero >> just played
Tinadafish >> UP NOW
PPQ Purple >> On Deck

sorry

 

[PPQ_Purple]

garrisoning four points seems excessive. at the least, we could build a fort on that forest 1 SW of the city, and we'd have a wall w it and the city, at least for the short-term.

Actually it's the bare minimum if you look at the total field situation. Realistically we need more than that to cover all our bases. But we can get away with less because I assume we want to actually start an offensive and not just turtle.

To elaborate a bit on that. Look at our current strategic situation. Going clockwise from the north we have:

• The North and presumably North-East seem to be completely safe unless our enemies learn to fly or swim.
  
• The North-Western route has been covered neatly by taking that barbarian city there.
• The southern route, just south of B1 is directly between us and the clowns. Worse yet is is a clear and open route into our hinterland for both the clowns and the swats as was proven just a few turns ago. So it needs closing off as soon as possible. Luckily there is a mountain range with two chokepoints which we can garrison to completely cut off the that route. I would prioritize this one.
  
• Finally there is the Eastern route that branches off into the northern passage, the southern passage and the western passage.
  • The Northern pass can be blocked off by a single garrisoned fort right at its base.
  • The Western pass has two chokepoints marked on the map.
  • The southern route has one good chokepoint and one that can unfortunately be bypassed.
    

Personally if it was just me playing I would close off the southern route and wall off the Eastern routes North and East regions and than build up a field army to march south and kill the clowns or elves, which ever is closest to the South-Eastern passage.

PS. Does anyone else think it's cool how we are all sitting around the table discussing strategy like a bunch of old generals?

 

[King Bulrush]

One more suggestion from my side would be to send a hunter + bird to the north-east to see what is there.

Also, we do need to discuss our overall strategy and reach a consensus on when/where to attack. Personally, I would suggest turtling for a little bit more (at least until we summor the Mercurians, maybe even longer) without major offensives. Just reconnaisance in force (small armies with aerial recon to map out our enemy's terittory). But we should better pick one strategy that is supported by the majority and stick to it.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

My concern with turtling for too long is that the AI is going to use tech trading to advance far ahead of us and steamroll us. But I agree that we need to reach a joined decision. So I suppose this means we summon a council of war!

 

[Ozbenno]

PS. Does anyone else think it's cool how we are all sitting around the table discussing strategy like a bunch of old generals?

Sir! Yes, sir!

Do we know enough about the lay of the land to establish if going on the offensive will capture us enough lands (and I'm mainly thinking of the Svarltalfar) to make us safer (ie reduce the amount of incursion points the AI have? That would make a difference. If there isn't I reckon turtling a bit (getting Brigit and Sphener and maybe Dain) and then heading out would be a good idea.

 

[Tinadafish]

Picked up the save, will play soon. I think we're in a good spot to wipe out particularly the svartalfar and the balseraphs, we just need to make sure our southern cities are properly secure without relying on Valin to save the day, tech wise I definitely think it's a good idea to work on currency and taxation, and tbh I'm not sure why we've been so focused on setting up the mercurians, vassals are kind of janky but I suppose it will effectively give all our units two lives. We haven't seen any mages yet I don't think but I'm sure the amurites and sheim probably have a few somewhere, they had unbound skeletons from somewhere.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Picked up the save, will play soon. I think we're in a good spot to wipe out particularly the svartalfar and the balseraphs, we just need to make sure our southern cities are properly secure without relying on Valin to save the day, tech wise I definitely think it's a good idea to work on currency and taxation, and tbh I'm not sure why we've been so focused on setting up the mercurians, vassals are kind of janky but I suppose it will effectively give all our units two lives. We haven't seen any mages yet I don't think but I'm sure the amurites and sheim probably have a few somewhere, they had unbound skeletons from somewhere.

I think they are a priority simply because in my experience the AI tends to found them early and often. And we need all the help we can get.

 

[Tinadafish]

Lot of fighting in this reign. I decided to send the army in the west to explore the ruins south of the city, after our confessor got poisoned we sent another unit down and found some dwarves fighting lizards. We helped the dwarves obviously, pretty sure lizardmen are demons in disguise.

I looked at the way the empire was being run and decided that maybe we didn't need to be so pacifist considering we're beset on all sides by evil conjurers, concubines and clowns, the bannor city states are now under military government and I think it's for the best for the time being.

Spoiler :

I moved our great prophet up to the holiest of holy cities and perfected Junil's Code there, the economy has never been better, we get great engineer points for some reason too.
Our spies heard some pretty disturbing rumours from the lands of the sheaim about mass sacrifice and a dark grimoire being written in the blood of the innocent, next thing I know there's some big angry red goat looking guy in our diplomacy (Ha!) screen

Spoiler :

We were also approached by what must have been either the most delusional or accomplished peacemaker in human history, to offer to make peace with the sheiam, but I thought that might break the whole world apart so I turned him down.

Spoiler :

Besides all this exciting foreign policy in an always war game I pretty much moved every single unit we had to either be upgraded in the capital or sent to the front lines, we don't need 3 or 4 archers guarding cities that are 30 tiles deep into our empire, Valin's army destroyed the remains of the balersaph force that was pressuring deluc before moving off east, and the ruin exploring army in the west conquered sludehome which I decided to keep. Donal's force moved south and I think we should conquer and raze the barbarian city to our south for a cash infusion and experience before combining it with some new crusaders and catapults being trained and taking out the balseraphs down there.
Our spies also reported something about a crazy ranting archmage being heard in the dark elflands but I'm sure it's nothing and our next leader will only continue to expand our empire and defeat our enemies with no trouble.

 

[pholkhero]

initial thoughts:

Spoiler Operation Scourge :

edit to add: theoretically, if we continue west with blue and then east with green, they could meet somewhere in the middle

 

[Ozbenno]

Roster:
Ozbenno >> On Deck
King Bulrush
pholkhero
Tinadafish >> just played
PPQ Purple >> UP NOW

 

[Ozbenno]

That first Svartalfar city looks like it is in a great blocking location. If we had that city we could expand to fill in the gaps behind.