Pâli-tubó

*"The Pâli-tub dwell along snaky shores in the tropical parts of the Square. They worship their miraculous trees, pillars of their unique habitat : The drangrove.*

*Although most tribes view them as savage remnants from the past, they are as sturdy as the forest they live in, and may very well have a few lessons to teach to younger, arrogant tribes"*

## Description

The **Pâli-tub** specialize in managing their very peculiar forests, between land and sea, although they would rather call it duty and fervor.

They start the game with a technology called **care**, that replaces **spiritualism** and enables both *grow forest* and *burn forest*. It should be noted that while burning the forest might seem a dubious way of caring about it, it actually is an essential part of the life cycle of this specific environment.

Although they admit that farms, ports and mines are efficient ways of feeding their folk, the Pâli-tub tend to view these as foreign and devious, and often favour growing and burning drangrove instead, like they always have.

They ride the very smart **dragins.** weird arboreal dolphins so well adapted to the drangrove that they now look more like pink fat snakes, and spend most of their time twirling their way around the branches and roots of the drangrove trees, applying thick, smelly mucus all over the place with their prehensile flippers.

The **drangrove** trees themselves are a kind of highly symmetrical dragontree with stilt-like roots matching the upper branches and keeping most of the tree above shallow waters and mud alike, creating one of the richest ecosystems of the Square. Their delicious fruits resemble dragonfruits, although they are as big as pineapples, as hard as pinecones, and float like coconuts.

The Pâli-tub wear **scary driftwood masks** adorned with red scales coming from those fruits. Clothes would be a pain to wear in this hot, salty place, and they rather smear their skin with the **pale green** clay that covers most of their barren fields, mixed with some dragin mucus for its moisturizing and protective properties. As a result, everyone but them thinks they stink. Them, the dragins... And the **venerable** walking trees they unleash when in trouble !

## Resources (abridged)

* + Water   (30%)
* +(+) Forest   (see below)
* - Crop
* - Mountain

## Drangrove and dreadgrove

Drangrove grow in about 60% of Pâli-tubó shallow water tiles ; 45% of their coastal tiles, 30% of the tiles located just farther from water, and 15% of the rest. Some will be **dreadgrove**, with a higher rate farther from the sea (all of the deep inland ones, almost none in the water).

Dreadgrove are a dormant, half mineral version of the thriving drangrove. They are the result of either *burnt or cleared drangrove* (a *burnt* one will be full of *fruits*), but also shifting shorelines and tropical hurricanes.

Both kinds can yield fruits, and fish when above water, but only drangrove is home of the dragins.

A sea-drangrove will always have some resource to harvest.

* *Growing* drangrove is possible both on shallow water and fields, but if the field is too far from the sea, it will not fully grow, and result in a dreadgrove.
* *Clearing* drangrove results in a dreadgrove, and yields (only) 1 star.
* *Burning* drangrove doesn't produce crops, but instead a dreadgrove with fruit.
* *Clearing* dreadgrove removes it for good, and (also) yields 1 star.
* **Any of those actions take a full turn**.
* Only forest temples, not lumber huts, can be built on a dreadgrove tile.
* Those count as regular drangrove for any other purpose (movement, defense, ...)

All of this is related to drangrove itself, not some Pâli-tub technique.

(Sidenote : If Polaris conquers a city with sea-drangrove, those are frozen but otherwise unchanged. They can be burnt, but the ice is then removed)

## Other special rules

### Special technologies

* **Care** (spiritualism) : Starting tech. Allows both *burn forest* and *grow forest*
* **Grovin'** (free spirit) : Unlocks *disband* as well as the **Grovin'** skill
* **Holy war** (chivalry) : Enables forest temples and **Draginiers**. Regular temples cannot be built

### Special units

* **Dragin riders** : *Riders* that have **Arboreal** and **Grovin'** skills, but only 1.5 moves. Meaning they can usually make two moves on fields and forests, but have a maximum of 3 when using roads.
* **Draginiers** : Similarly, they are *knights* whith **Arboreal** and **Grovin'** skills, but only 2 moves. Might cost only 8 stars
* **Venerables** : Super-Unit. They have 4 att and 5 def, 0.5 movement and 40 hp, as well as **Stilted**, **Cloning** and **Root** skills.

### Special skills

* **Arboreal**  : Can move through forest tiles as if it was open land.
* **Grovin'** : Can move on sea-drangrove tiles.
* **Stilted** : Can move on shallow water tiles. Doesn't automatically turn into a boat, you have to choose it at the begining of a turn.
* **Cloning** : Whenever that unit takes damage, it grows a drangrove or dreadgrove forest where it stands, or on a random, eligible, adjacent tile.
* **Root** : When activated, that unit cannot move (or be moved) but heals faster : 5hp per turn outside your territory, 10hp otherwise. It takes a full turn to *root* or *unroot*. It also grows a drangrove or dreadgrove on fields and shallow water.

## Strategy

Drangrove.. is great : It allows infinite growth, shelters your cities from fast moving enemy units while not slowing yours (except ships), and also can act as bridges.

You will, however, have to chose, to some extent, between them and more lucrative ports.The infinite growth cycle is also quite expensive (10 stars for 1 population), and takes 4 turns to be completed.

Stars may be an issue actually. Because of the port vs drangrove dilemma, but also because clearing your forest will often be counterproductive, and because the intricate Pâli-tub coasts [possibly] don't make for as many whales as the Kickoo or Aquarion.

As for your inland territory... it's worthless ! It only hosts some fruits, 1-star yielding dreadgrove, poor amounts of metal and farms, and you can't grow farms nor infinite-fruit-producing drangrove on them.

Your starting tech is an extremely useful tier 3 one, but will not help you much in the very first turns.

Dragin riders and knights are more versatile than their usual counterparts, but also slower.

The huge venerables are clearly not as good as giants for attacking, but will really be of help when defending your cities. They can also move on shallow water tiles, and their cloning ability may actually be a decent way of harvesting stars (against bots, at least). Their extreme defense stat, along with their higher regeneration, can make them a *very* anoying neighbor. They also are the only way of spreading drangrove in non Pâli-tub territory.

## Misc

Drangrove trees are the colour of bone with a slight pink edge to it. It is unclear if it comes from their blood-red sap, native algae, dragin mucus, or all of those.

The easiest way to get a new dragrove tree is actually to cut it in the middle and make the upper half rest on its flat crown. But any branch can grow a full tree, if fallen in the right place. This is by far their most common reproduction method.

Dreadgrove are half-fossilized stumps, with clay, salt, potentially ash, all mixing and drying together on the roots and lower trunks of dead drangrove trees. They make nice habitats for fish, and also actually for the Pâli-tub ! Hard to get out of the clay, but pretty neat as a building material. The usual Pâli-tub house consists of one of those used as stilts, a wooden platform in the middle, and another put on top of it. Their light weigth and robustness is perfect for adding layers as needed.

The fruits have light but sturdy scales that shelter them from fire and make them float, but detatch after a few days spent in water. Once the yellow flesh inside is revealed, birds, then fish, feast upon them, and the tiny seeds it contains are scattered all around Pâli-tubó.

Although tasty and nutritious in any case, they only mature entirely when they are subject to fire. They also become addictively delicious in the process.

Drangrove tends, after some time, to be packed with clones, badly vulnerable to diseases and other threats as they all share the same genome. When a patch of drangrove burns, it takes some time to (naturally) grow back amidst the hardened stumps, but then has an enhanced genetic diversity, thanks to seeds coming from hundreds of tiles away, making it resilient once again.

Pâli-tub "mountains" are more like huge rocks emerging from the bleak clay "fields".

## Other Tribes

If you liked this one, go take a look at the others here : Gradokko