[SPOILERS] DaveV is not clowning around. Well, maybe a little bit...

[DaveV]

Aurorarcher is pope of the undercouncil, and proposed the nightwatch resolution (which is way down on my list in single player, but I'm usually winning the game handily at that point). In a moment of greed, I didn't declare nationality on the nightwatch, with visions of hidden nationality shenanigans in my head. Then Hyborem killed it on his way by, presumably to attack coldrain.

[Qgqqqqq]

Lmao

[DaveV]

It looks like Stephanos is coming for me. I moved all my skeletons into my city so I'd have a few Fearless units, although their strength is so low that I'll need a lot more of them.

[DaveV]

xist killed Stepahnos, apparently.

Post mortem time, since it seems as though the game is almost over:

As I said earlier, I'd forgotten how *slow* it is to gain XP on adepts without the Arcane trait. I could have sacrificed half my adepts in the arena to get some XP, but I never researched Sorcery anyway, due to my priorities changing after coldrain's invasion.

Puppets are apparently deleted at the end of my turn? I was hoping to be able to use them as some more bodies for city defense, but that never happened; nor did they defend against the barbs.

I think the Balseraphs were hit much too hard with the nerf bat. Between the disappearing puppets, and puppets not counting toward the number of summonable skeletons, some of the features I was hoping to use were just not available.

[Qgqqqqq]

I don't think puppets are deleted? Would need to test. They do have very low str though.

I'm not so sure. The balseraph economy is what has boosted them in the past. Perhaps Keelyn specifically is too weak.

[xist10]

Even with str 3, the puppets would still show up in the turn log, if the defend.
I think DaveV lost enough cities that he had a chance to test it.

And I know you wrote in my thread, that the mod took care to exclude puppert from SUM.
Maybe to used the fireball code for that ?

[coldrain]

Puppets are apparently deleted at the end of my turn? I was hoping to be able to use them as some more bodies for city defense, but that never happened; nor did they defend against the barbs.

I think the Balseraphs were hit much too hard with the nerf bat. Between the disappearing puppets, and puppets not counting toward the number of summonable skeletons, some of the features I was hoping to use were just not available.

Indeed, I never saw any puppets during the game. Given enough time, you would have been the scariest arcane competitor of this game, with 2 turn duration spectres and such. How was your economy going, could you have finished sorcery if I had attacked Bing first, as I was contepleting between you and him when choosing the first target for invasion?

[DaveV]

could you have finished sorcery if I had attacked Bing first, as I was contepleting between you and him when choosing the first target for invasion?

Very likely. I was estimating 5-10 turns for Sorcery at the time you attacked. I didn't have any adepts who were particularly close to 10XP though; see my earlier remarks about running an arcane strategy without the Arcane trait.

I also would have had a chance to upgrade a bunch of scouts to Taskmasters, which might have given you a bit more trouble. I only managed to create a few, but did manage to kill a couple of your good units with them. Dwarven resistance to poison increased your odds here, too.

[DaveV]

Revisiting my predictions:

1. DaveV as Keelyn - Predicted finish: 4th; actual finish: 6th. Not much to say here that hasn't already been said. Attacking me first was a good decision by coldrain; I could have put up better resistance in 10 more turns.

2. BING_XI_LAO as Cassiel - Predicted finish: 6th; actual finish: 4th. A solid performance by Bing.

3. xist10 as Alexis - Predicted finish: 2nd; actual finish: 5th. It seemed like he had some economy issues early, and then had trouble against coldrain's high defense stacks.

4. Aurorarcher as Cardith Lorda - Predicted finish: 1st; actual finish: 2nd. Well played as usual.

5. coldrain as Garrim Gyr - Predicted finish: 3rd; actual finish: 1st. Masterfully played, congratulations.

6. Brian Shanahan as Auric Ulvin - Predicted finish: 5th; actual finish: 4th. Another solid performance.