[SPOILERS] Iskender and the Sidar

[Iskender]

Turn 111:

Fleabite, the Divided Soul worthy of bearing name defeated 3rd bear (out of 4) and earned 3 more xp.



Hawked (well, ravened) Luchuirp East:



Apparently Square Leg is forced to found cities in really suboptimal locations (see Ponyo). Either that, or he really wants to have a coastal city for future colonization of some island.

A barb archer left the city only to come back EOT denying himself a full fortification bonus.


Disappointed with the Luchuirp-Balseraph trade deal I sent SL an invitation for future trade and also tried to make an impression that I'm not a Clan's lackey (cause I ain't).

[COLOR="Silver"]Hey

I just wanted to tell you that I offered Open Borders in-game. With Amurites' demise all my trade routes are with the Clan now, diversifying them a bit wouldn't hurt.

The ultigar attack squad is on its way, you should see them next turn. I plan to raze the city in 5-6 turns. I'm sending a couple of Priests of Leaves, that's why it takes so long, thanks for your patience. When the city is dead I'll send you a Priest to do blooms.

I hoped we could make a Silk-Cotton trade but it seems Bob has beaten me to it. I offer my goods for future trade deals. I'd like to avoid boosting both the Clan and the Balseraphs via trade, the Clan will probably claim former Amurite resources soon, and the Bals have already more then enough especially after getting Metamagic and Body mana from the dying Amurites. So, denying them our resources by trading them between ourselves seems a good idea. I still have Fire Mana from the Pyre and in about 15 turns I'll have double Furs.

Iskender[/COLOR]

And the highlight of the turn:



Not really. Bob just cast Inspiration in Coombe View. At first I thought he just built an adept in CV, 1 turn late, missing Sareln's mana gift, but then again if he had I would've seen the adept with my hawk last turn.


This might be a spoiler:

This is the fourth time i'm seeing Bob rush after Hyborem...

Can't unsee it now. This fits nicely with Bob's desire to spread AV to every corner of Erebus. But then again he's discovered Writing (i think. someone has, not sure if it's the Bals. and someone has Elementalism. I'd need to go back to previous saves and crossreference know tech bonus with score increases, it's so tedious ) and Writing is on the Gibbon path.

But wait, it now makes sense why Bob would want the Stigmata - it gives Entropy mana and units with Entropy promotions are converted to Manes when killed.


Does it apply to Puppets as well? Does he want to feed Hyborem with Entropy Puppets?

[Selrahc]

Does it apply to Puppets as well? Does he want to feed Hyborem with Entropy Puppets?

Puppets aren't living, so shouldn't become manes.

[Amelia]

Urgh, sorry about the spoiler =(

[Iskender]

Turn 112:

A suprise offer from the Balseraphs:



This came first, I refused not wanting to give Coombe View additional 10% commerce, and I'm below healthy cap anyway.

Then an Open Borders offer from Keelyn appeared. This one seemed beneficial enough. With OB I'll be able to 'feel out' locations Balseraph cities and even scout the cities themselves unnoticed by rebasing a hawk to the city and back in the same turn. Obviously the first visit is paid to Jubilee:



There's an adept and a warrior in the city and an adept north of it Good news: neither of the adepts has Meta and only one of them has Body. Where's the rest of Balseraph power graph though?


When feeling for Bals cities I noticed an interesting phenomenon - when in rebase mode, mousing over an uncovered tile with a unique feature reveals the name of that feature. Curious if there's something interesting on the western island I checked it out and there was. One tile revealed a name, it's first letter could be made out at some angles, but the jpeg compression killed it, so I recreated it here for you:



Begins with 'Y', wonder what that could be.


Fleabite attacked the Bear queen in her Den, but before that he relocated his soul into the friendly territory. After the successful attack he merged with the soul saving 3 moves. Fancy stuff, almost as fancy as this fancy arrow:



I relocated the hawk from Jubilee onto Fleabite to scout the 'Y' island next turn.

EOT: Discovered Bronze Working


Square Leg revealed the reason behind trading with Bob:

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey Iskender,

I have accepted OB in game. Assuming no one snipes it from me, I should be founding RoK next turn. Maybe here will be a free spread along the border? I'm to get a FoL one for sure!

Good news on the Ultigar attack - I will be preparing a settler to found a replacement city once it is gone. The city will be 2E1S of ultigar so shouldn't bother you culturally in any way.

Let me explain my reasoning behind backing the Balseraph with the cotton-silk trade - The Clan have now given them their notice and they are going to be on he receiving end of the Sons of the Inferno in the not too distant future. It is in my interest to see that war go on into a stalemate for as long as possible.

I agree however that we should try and share our trades. Depending on how things go I will consider trading you the silks instead of Bob. After all - if he isn't losing cities to the clan, he doesn't need the extra happy!

btw - if you would like to station a hawk in any of my cities to scout - please feel free. my only request is that you send me a SS of what you see. I'd be particularly interested in the lands south of Valley of the Wind, and into the Sheaim's core.

Obviously, the Luchiurp aren't interested in being scouted forever more, so I'd ask that this right of way is only for the next 5t. Is that ok/of any interest to you?

Cheers,
SL
[/COLOR]

He's hoping for a stalemate in the Clan-Bals conflict. I hope this is a sign that my part in the conflict isn't widely known yet. SL also invites me to scout out Sheaim lands from Luchuirp cities in exchange for sharing the results. I still have only one hawk (second in two turns) and I'm not that interested in the Sheaim at the moment, so I asked SL for a little favor in return, that is, helping them get rid of a certain bear north of Earthsea.

[COLOR="Silver"]Hey

Congratulations on founding RoK, the gold coins shall flow indeed!

I'll hawk SE of Valley of the Wind next turn and send you the result. I'd like to scout the Sheaim core if it's within hawk's range of vision. You'd have to direct me though, as I'm not exactly sure if it's more towards east or south-east. There's a little favour I'd like to ask for in return - there's a bear north to Earthsea, I'd like to hit it with a Divided Soul (I'm working on getting the first Shade and still not quite there yet). My shade-wannabe DS has Subdue Animal, so I'd also get the Bear, but I'd not use it for a Dancing Bear in Oop Be Gone.

Iskender[/COLOR]

Finally, had a revealing chat with Bob.

Iskender: hey (it's me, Sandalphon). I accepted OB, but refused wheat-rice. i'm still below my healthy cap. i'll be

interested in that trade once i've built my own dereptus

Bobchillingworth: hey

sure, np

I'm actually below my happy cap too

err health

well, both, but meant health :P
21:37
Iskender: with your city sizes that's something

Bobchillingworth: hah. Well, balseraphs have some neat stuff

Iskender: i'm still at 9-10
21:38
Bobchillingworth: I saw your hawk, btw. Filling in the map?

Iskender: yeah. there seems to be a lot of islands around the continent

Bobchillingworth: yeah- I found the one with Acheron

10 sons of the inferno

26 barb warriors
21:39
Iskender: omg

Bobchillingworth: if the Clan hadn't blown the worldspell early, we'd all be very dead now

still might be!

Iskender: i thought 4 was a big number
21:40
Bobchillingworth: I guess we should have thought the game settings through better

sareln & I thought that patch O fixed the Sons so that the worldspell couldn't take them

apparently it only gave them loyalty, which doesn't work against worldspells
21:41
Iskender: it was meant to be. it's hardcoded that sareln always gets rushed so the game worked around loyalty

Bobchillingworth: hah
21:42
I think that the best defense against the Sons if for other players to be winning to jump in against the Clan

if they go after anyone, since they can only be in once place at a time obviously, and clan defenses everywhere

else suck
21:43
that said, I think there's probably 0 chance of dogpiling them

who wants to rush in against that kind of force?
21:44
Iskender: he's got haste so it's quite mobile

still, as the game progresses the SoI get less and less powerful, like PoW in pbem1
21:45
Bobchillingworth: yeah, and it's a small map. But a quick strike could still do damage, and then if he abandons

his front, then whoever they were attacking can move in

also agreed

it's just about surviving to that point

I think right now only you and I are contenders

Serdoa, SL- just too far behind to get to counters in a reasonable time frame
21:46
Iskender: SL is pretty close as well, has border with the clan

ah

well, with PZ serdoa can be as far behind as he wishes
21:47
Bobchillingworth: hah

until life II mages are out, anyway

which... is not going to be very long from now
21:48
Iskender: no?

Bobchillingworth: shrug. I mean, I'm keelyn.
21:49
but yeah, against the Sons PZ could be useful

fire resistance
21:50
I don't remember how much of a fire elemental's strength is made up of actual fire strength, though
21:52
Iskender: 6str +3 fire + affinity, just checked

but scratch that, if pz's collateral is fire based elementals are immune
21:53
Bobchillingworth: yeah, and with empower 5 base strength 6 is enough to pick off PZ

He saw my hawk! Has Floating Eye!

[Iskender]

Turn 113:


Hawk confirms there's Yggdrasil on the island and also Wine (occupied by an orc)




Fleabite (now at 18xp) once again severs his soul, this time to teleport to Same Here:



A question for the lurkers, dedicated and undedicated alike: why did I use Sever Soul to move Fleabite to the city?

Also in the picture - a dungeon that appeared around T105 via an event. That's quite the only interesting thing that happened in that decade.


The operation Milk the Spider unfolds. These three gentlemen shall summon Tigers in a manner I wouldn't want to enquire about until the city of Ultigar is captured and razed (or until its defenders get uber promoted on the tigers in case I screwed up).




Tredje agreed to my spoils division offer on the condition that we split the capture gold and if we do he'll trade Body for Enchantment.

[COLOR="Orange"]Hi Iskender,

I've been doing some thinking about your proposed plan for war spoils, and if I recall correctly this is what you desired in exchange for the Clan keeping Balseraph cities:

1. Orthus Axe.
2. To be allowed to kill wounded troops.
3. The gold from capturing cities.

You also expressed an interest in Body Mana.

The first two conditions I have no issue with. The third one is a bit harder to agree to since the Clan economy is not booming at the moment, and with the possible acquisition of Balseraph territory it might deteriorate even further (especially until we get CoL ). I also think that Body Mana is worth more than say Enchantment Mana or a luxury resource. My proposal is therefore as follows:

You get Orthus' Axe, you get to kill wounded troops and you get Body Mana in exchange for Enchantment Mana at some point. In addition we share the capture gold between us. Would this proposal, or a variation of it be acceptable to you?

Regards,
[/COLOR]

That's suits me very well.

[COLOR="Silver"]Hey

I also find Body mana more valuable than Enchantment mana, so I believe your offer is a fair one. I suggest a 50/50 division of capture gold, harmonized with the military situation (ie. no delaying capure if it would clearly affect the chance of our success).

Bad news for today: in a chat Bob suggested that he's seen my hawk. I can't think of any other way that he could've seen it than casting Floating Eye, so he's supposedly got Metamagic on some adepts. To keep a low profile for several turns I'll limit my scouting to relocating the hawk back and forth. I believe he still has no clue about the priests surprise.
[/COLOR]

To sum up - my contribution to the war is:

• 5-7 Priests of Winter, more later
  
• Divided Soul & Hawk
  

Possible gains:

• Experience points, difficult to estimate how many, from 0 (in case of defead) up to maybe 60 (defeating 20 units at 95%+ odds)
  
• Orthus Axe, a perfect weapon for the Aeron's Chosen. Also possible to dual-wield with the Nether Blade (cool factor).
  
• Half of the capture gold. If I got T-Hawk's formula right it should be at least 300gc for Jubilee alone.
  

Last but not least, a chat with Square Leg that will probably shape the future of PBEM5.

Square Leg: Hey Iskender, you busy?
15:36
Iskender: hey

no
15:37
shoot
15:38
Square Leg: Just wanted to say the bear is all yours.

Ca you see my city of Kobe?

Iskender: i can't, but i can rebase a hawk if i mouse over it
15:39
i guess it's somewhere east of Totoro

Square Leg: yeah let me find the exact spot......

4E 1S
15:40
From there scout due East south East and you'll find the Sheaim core
15:41
Iskender: ok, i'll hawk it and send you the results
15:42
Square Leg: great
15:43
Iskender: what do you think about Bals getting Body and Meta from Sareln?

Square Leg: A nice boon for bob.

I didn't notice until he mentioned it
15:44
He only got 1 adept of each though
15:45
Iskender: well, there goes my Into the Mist... i can't even frighten him into researching hunting
15:46
that leaves serdoa as an invisible rush target, but please shhhhh

Square Leg: I won't tell him

and I wouldn't say bob is off the cards

Ibet he will be casting floating eye in the direction of the clan every turn....
15:47
they have cancelled their nap with him

sojust go through me...

Iskender: you mean broke?

Square Leg: nonot broke

it was due to end on t120 and they said they won't be extending it
15:48
Iskender: yeah, it figures

my nap is 10 turns longer

Square Leg: and mine a further 10t longer!
15:49
Iskender: ha

Square Leg: To be fair the best end game for us is that we plan for either a massive clan or massive Bals

I think the clan can be stopped but it will take a bit of time
15:50
If you can keep a secret then I'm willing to tell you my plan

Iskender: ok

but before that

how about we extend our nap?

Square Leg: ok

Iskender: say, T150?
15:51
Square Leg: ok - I'll have to check but we had agreed to a period of time after the razing of Ultigar hadn't we?

Iskender: i don't remember

Square Leg: lol

Iskender: thought it was T130

doh

Square Leg: meh - if we are extending it then it doesn' matter!


15:52
Iskender: right

i still have to do the blooms

Square Leg: T150 sounds good - I can agree to that

Now - do you have horse?

Iskender: ok, it's 150 then
15:53
i will if I bother to extend a road

Square Leg: coz the mapmaker didn't give me one and us luchuirp are quite the horsey type as everyone knows



Iskender: definitely

Square Leg: My plan to counter the Sons is blinding light
15:54
Iskender: i see, Rathas

Square Leg: yeah

Iskender: Rathas are awesome

Square Leg: followed by slow moving catapults and fists
15:55
They can't cast whilst being blinded and it last 2t

so potentially Rathas can rush in and blind his stack and then I will hopefully be able to pin it there and

pick it off.
15:56
Getting the tech and units is going to be tough though

Iskender: yes, somtimes i think they're broken. i managed to stop a calabim/luchuirp dogpile on me with rathas in a

local pbem
15:57
Square Leg: even mobility radient guard would be cool if i have mud golems to build roads

less hammers
15:58
Iskender: i still prefer rathas - they can hit and run

i mean blind and run

Square Leg: yeah - they are cool

180*0.67 hammers though so quite expensive
15:59
Bob may hold up ok against the sons since he can summon so many puppets a turn

Bob may hold up ok against the sons since he can summon so many puppets a turn -
16:00
Iskender: i was sure he would have had gibbon by now. he doesn't even have trade. he's really gone crazy with AV

with gibbon he could get domination puppets - dodge this SoI!

Square Leg: Don't they have Loyalty though?
16:01
Iskender: oh

Square Leg: he could get a shit load of air elementals

with twin casting

Iskender: so air elementals then

still better than whatever AV offers

Square Leg: I agree

why pick Keelyn and not use puppets???
16:02
Iskender: not that AV is particularly bad, it still gets dwarfed by gibbon+puppets+summoner

Square Leg: It will be interesting to see how that war fairs
16:03
hpefully it will drag on enough for me to get some rathas.

How close are you to that shade then?
16:04
Iskender: still 8xp

this sucks

i ran out of bears so had to bother that of yours
16:05
i guess barnaxus doesn't have great odds on it

Square Leg: I don't mind - can you settle him in my city?



nah only just over 50%

Iskender: is it even possible?

Square Leg: dunno
16:06
Iskender: i'll check that

Square Leg: be nice if it does but my gut feeling is that it won't
16:08
by the way - have you been tracking my techs still?

Iskender: bear doesn't seem to work. odd, considering it's possible to found temples
16:09
not really. i know someone has elementalism, i was wondering if that was you

Square Leg: noe not me

might be bob

Iskender: that's interesting
16:10
Square Leg: how do you know it is elementalism?

Iskender: well

check out my pbem1 thread

Square Leg: ok
16:11
Iskender: i started using the method there

somewhere in the middle of the thread

Square Leg: sounds too painstaking for me already!

Iskender: hey, i had to figure it out - that was painstaking!
16:12
Square Leg: lol

Why would bob have elementalism???

I don't understand

Iskender: i wanted to ask the same

tower of the elements?

Square Leg: if he is going for sorcery surely he would go through necromancy or something?
16:13
Iskender: or divination

Square Leg: for the div tower

i was thinking death mana and a lot of skeletons

maybe it was popped from a hut or a wreck?
16:14
Iskender: maybe he wants to play with AV for a bit and then switch to gibbon and strong air elementals

Square Leg: there is an island to the south of serdoa and east of bob

Iskender: could be

Square Leg: maybe he got a unit there somehow
16:15
Well - it is a pretty good tech to pop if that is the case - lucky boy

I got some gold and that was it from my exploring...
16:16
Iskender: he also got a free tech at the very beginning

he said it was calendar

Square Leg: Serdoa has been lucky too - he got a GM and a GC.
16:17
Iskender: yeah, MY GM

the best i got was gold from hut or a graveyard
16:18
Square Leg: grrr - I almost popped the dungeon that he got the GC from too but left it thinking it was too close to

his borders and I didn't want to piss him off
16:19
then he PZ rushed me using a GM he got on your borders!

oh the irony

Iskender: serdoa tends to be lucky, but it doesn't serve him well in the end

Square Leg: ha ha
16:20
the traits in pbem 2 were lucky!

case in point

Iskender: i'm wondering what he's up to. his power graph has been steady
16:21
enough PZ would counter SoI with no problem

Square Leg: he has built a few new cities but other than that... ?

the trouble is getting close enough to the SOI

apparently 1 has haste

so they are all 2 move
16:22
they have spell extension so the FE's are 3 move

Iskender: clan has body mana so haste is not an issue for them

so range 5 in total. you're right. SoI could just keep moving away from PZ and bombard them with elementals
16:23
Square Leg: exactly

hence why I want to immobilise them
16:24
Would you be interested in hitting the clan at around the t150 mark?

assuming there aren't any major changes in the make up of the super powers by then?
16:25
Iskender: i'm not sure i'd be ready by then. it all depends how bals-clan war goes

Square Leg: absolutely

I'm hoping it drags on but the clan win it
16:26
maybe thats a conversation for the future some time

Iskender: yeah. i'm still bound by the confidentiality thing

but that doesn't interfere with speculating about the future
16:27
Square Leg: We will be able to see how the war is going soon enough
16:28
have you noticed all the inspirations in bobs lands?

lighting up the south...

Iskender: yes, i wish i had some myself
16:29
i have visibility on coombe view only though
16:30
the guy who killed the lion

that your dude escaped from

he found balseraphs

but got eaten by a spider soon after
16:31
Square Leg: oh blimey - that was a while ago!

do you want to do a map trade?

I have a pretty good map

Iskender: can't right now - the CA with the clan

btw. speaking about the future

Square Leg: get rid of that damn thing!
16:32


Iskender: it'll expire soon

i'll probably have 2 out of 4 mana for the tower of div

i have spirit from the palace and should have sun
16:33
we might make joint towers somewhere in the future
16:34
Square Leg: law shadow spirit sun

I got none!
16:35
i could node up

Iskender: mind instead of shadow

Square Leg: oh yeah sorry

how many nodes do you have access to? 2?
16:36
or more now that sareln isn't there?

Iskender: sareln had none i saw

i have one near borders
16:37
Square Leg: you have another one in the far west
16:38
Iskender: yeah, but that's not settling priority

Square Leg: ah - just checked my thread - sareln had one in the south

Iskender: a funny node actually, forested
16:39
Square Leg: really

ha ha

Ihave 2 within easy reach

Iskender: i don't see the sareln's but it goes to clan

i'd rather deny them the tower
16:40
Square Leg: yeah - it is south of Udernat (SP)
16:41
Iskender: can you see any Balseraph nodes? i see one S of coombe view
16:42
Square Leg: jt a sec

Iskender: he'd need 3 for the tower of the elements and even that i think it'd be a waste of nodes

Square Leg: I can see their lands but I don't have a picture uploaded in my thread of them
16:43
I can check tonight when i get home
16:45
Iskender: alright, i'm off

cheers

Summary:

• We extended our NAP to T150
  
• SL believes the Clan will defeat the Clowns and wants to use Rathas to defend against SoI. I think there's no better counter to SoI available. In fact Rathas are so good I'm already starting to fret that they'll prove too useful against ME.
  
• In the future we might cooperate to bring down the Clan.
  
• It's probably the Balseraphs who researched (or popped) Elementalism
  
• Fleabite can hit the Bear north of Earthsea
  

Square Leg also seems to see both my and Balseraph lands. With only me and the Amurites having Cartography the only way he got it was if Sareln exchanged maps with Bob and with Square Leg. Seems that Sareln has been really generous with his farewell presents. Bob got two best mana sources and a map for essentially nothing. Now he can reveal invisible units with Floating Eyes, so I can't even use Into the Mist to put a pressure on him to research Hunting. The more I think about this mana injection the more cheesy it seems.

[Selrahc]

The more I think about this mana injection the more cheesy it seems.

You did a similar thing with me in PBEM 1, throwing me a last second Air Mana. Although that was a lot less influential to the game than haste/floating eye.

Just remember if you ever befriend a doomed player, try and cash in at the last second.

[Iskender]

Turn 114:

began with an event:



Alas, no gold for the Academy. Free sage (the 4-beaker one, not the super sage) at the cost of permanent 1 unhappy is not that good, I'd rather grow a citizen and use him as a sage if needed, so I took 15 turns of happy, more then enough to connect both Furs.


Hawked the Sheaim for Square Leg.



Looks underdefended. A pack of invisible Priests could threaten all 3 cities at once.


Another chat with Bob, even more revealing than the previous one (my comments in bold):

Bobchillingworth: heya iskender

quick question for you

are you still thinking of getting Gibbon?

18:10
Iskender: yes i am
Eventually at least...

Bobchillingworth: Hmm, are you teching for him right now? I realize that I'm prying for info, but I'm headed

for him as well.
18:46
I made a pit stop at Knowledge of the Ether, but I've got most of his techs done

Iskender: not at the moment. the birds are humming that the clan has targeted you with

his SoI so i reckoned I'll have a little less pressure from yourselves

18:47
you don't have Trade

Bobchillingworth: yeah. Trade is up next, and it's kind of useless if I'm going to get beat to him, which is

partially why I wanted to know what your plans were :P
18:48
Gibbon a great Sons counter for me
Indeed he is, so why the AV detour?

main reason I want him
18:49
Iskender: well I don't have Trade either. so you're beelining gibbon now? in that case

i might

not get there first, but i thought you'll get some military techs first to defend against clan
18:50
Bobchillingworth: I think I have most of what I'll need.

keelyns adepts can produce two skeletons and two puppets each
Aha! So that's the idea. I like it, it could actually work, four disposable summons (five actually as far as the limit is concerned - 2 puppets and 3 skeletons for 3 Death I units) for the cost of one adept. Several adepts and the Clan will find themselves unable to grind through all the cannon fodder. At least until the priests and the big cats join the fun. For me this is perfect news, the priests will have a hell of a training and if everything goes well I might be able to Wane every one of them.


I can spam defenses like mad. But I can't actually kill the Sons
18:51
hence, Gibbon. Alternatives take a long time.

Iskender: you think you could get him in time? you still need to build the bloke and

get him xp
18:52
Bobchillingworth: shrug. It'll be a race, I guess. Have the clan actually told you a definite date for when

they're going to attack me?

Iskender: i talked with square leg

he says clan didn't agree for a nap extension

that expires as far as i know at T120

Bobchillingworth: yeah. Yours ends 130, I think?

Iskender: yes
18:53
phew

Bobchillingworth: lol

Iskender: haha

Bobchillingworth: well if you don't renew yours you might be able to threaten them if they really do throw

everything at me (and if they want to chop through the mess of summons I'm going to have, they'll need a lot of

units)

18:54
Your hero would be really nice, but poisons is a luxury I know
18:55
Iskender: i'm still far away from poisons

Bobchillingworth: too bad we haven't seen any games yet with assassins being used. Great units, but poisons

costs a lot for a dead-end tech

Iskender: i should have some eventually

i thought you dropped the idea of gibbon altogether and went for some crazy AV scheme

Bobchillingworth: haha

that's plan B!
But where does the Stigmata fit in this? And what's with Elementalism?

18:56
thankfully a lot of the techs for both plans are shared

so I've been teching stuff like Way of the Wicked

oh and Drama

free artist :|

couldn't resist

Iskender: doh

Bobchillingworth: if I got beat to it this turn, I'm going to be mad

Iskender: i guess you won't
18:57
Bobchillingworth: were you reseraching it as well?

Iskender: fortunately not, but i hoped for the GA
18:58
i'd use him for GA

Bobchillingworth: yeah. I don't know if it was a good play or not

fairly quick tech

9 turns of golden age

eh, probably

also saves me a turn because I get a free revolt to slavery

and start whipping Adepts. Ouch. They'll have enough skeletons to pretend they're playing HoM&M. I hope that 20 attacks/turn (6 priests and 4 SoI + their summons) will be enough.

Iskender: you should get a lot of military asap if you ask me

An insider's tip

18:59
Bobchillingworth: yeah

most cities are on adepts

I can build swords and stuff, but those don't make any difference vs. elementals

Iskender: slavery... whipping is good

Bobchillingworth: yup
19:00
oh although SL got Earthmother last turn, I think he wants Empyrean for his main faith
Good read on Square Leg here, or Bob shared something he wasn't supposed to. Could be that SL expressed in Bals Horse and Bob guessed the rest.

so if you want Chalid or something as your long-term hero, might need to work it out with him
19:01
Iskender: you know what, if you built gibbon and then abandoned him later, i could

still get him
19:02
Bobchillingworth: oh hey

that works

I don't intend to use him for the entire game

Iskender: then i could wane him

and either settle or keep

Bobchillingworth: sounds like a plan to me
19:03
you'll have to wait a little while, but I'm sure you have other things to work on in the meantime anyway

Iskender: well, my gnp is not what it used to be, so i'm less inclined to make demands
All too true.

19:04
Bobchillingworth: haha.

Iskender: to tell the truth i don't have a single shade yet

which is a pity. one guy lost at 97%

Bobchillingworth: barbs breeding too slowly to farm?
19:05
Iskender: i butchered most of them already

Bobchillingworth: Too bad we don't live closer and I'm under the threat of war. I'd let you whack an endless

stream of dispossable summoned crap for the right compensation.

Whacking an endless stream of crap summons - sounds good, but hey, that's exactly what I'm about to do!

19:06
haha actually you could murder Barnaxus endlessly

does he give hero exp for dying?

Iskender: hey, a good idea. i'll ask SL about that

Bobchillingworth: might be difficult convincing SL to give up trade route and all the exp on his hero though :P

Iskender: i guess not. he doesn't have Hero promotion
19:07
Bobchillingworth: lucian does though

(give the exp)

Iskender: and there'd be hassle with pieces

Bobchillingworth: might be based on World Unit status instead of hero promo

not sure

Iskender: oh. serdoa would know. he killed him already
19:09
Bobchillingworth: might be worth looking in to. Like I said before, I don't think that the non-clan civs are

going to actually dogpile them, because that's a great way of getting all of our pathetic armies burnt to

crisps, and it doesn't really even make strategic sense for someone like Serdoa. But if we can cooperate in

slight but significant ways which make us all stronger, I'm all for it.
19:11
Iskender: well, I have a spare Cotton for trade
19:12
i'm below healthy cap but not happy cap!

Bobchillingworth: hah, sadly I have three already. Or two, I think I'm sending one to SL

actually, I will have two dye... eventually
19:13
could trade one of those, once it's hooked up.

Iskender: i'll have Furs, but in about dozen turns when they're in my culture
19:15
Bobchillingworth: considering that that's about when I'll have the second dye, works out well enough

I have to settle an island city with the pristine pass to get my second source

and I have slightly better priorities at the moment than letting gargoyles eat warriors
19:16
but it's a very nice city, so if I can spare the effort, I do want to grab it.

[Iskender]

You did a similar thing with me in PBEM 1, throwing me a last second Air Mana. Although that was a lot less influential to the game than haste/floating eye.

Just remember if you ever befriend a doomed player, try and cash in at the last second.

The impact on the game in makes all the difference IMO. With Air Mana you had access to Maelstrom several turns earlier, which resulted in Bob's secondary stack suffering more losses than it would otherwise. Gifting the Balseraphs Metamagic Mana made them immune to Into the Mist, affecting the outcome of the incoming war. For me that's the scale of influence comparable to gifting away cities.

[Sareln]

The impact on the game in makes all the difference IMO. With Air Mana you had access to Maelstrom several turns earlier, which resulted in Bob's secondary stack suffering more losses than it would otherwise. Gifting the Balseraphs Metamagic Mana made them immune to Into the Mist, affecting the outcome of the incoming war. For me that's the scale of influence comparable to gifting away cities.

Comment made in the lurker thread. You can go look at it after the game is over. Sorry that you feel that way.

[Iskender]

Turn 115:


Afterthought, city number 6 founded. See if you can find it in the picture:



The city is embarassingly working a plains/forest tile, but only for 4 turns, until Dancing Bear expands its culture to 2nd ring.

Peekaboo finished Mage Guild and will have an Adept ready on turn 119, then another one on T123 and yet another around T125.


Siege of Ultigar begins. I've got three PoL a warrior and a Divided Soul on site. The first move was to weaken the Spider. It has Combat 3, so at least 10 experience points and needs 7xp more to get Combat 4. I'm making an assumption that the Spider is closer to 10xp than to 17, so even if he's earning 1xp with each failed tiger attack, he might not get enough xp for grabbing C4 between turns, but still can be damaged badly enough not to heal completely for the next turn wave. First tiger gets spiders health down to 4.3, another one does no damage and the third one leaves the spider at 3 health swiching the designated defender to one of the Archers. I'm leaving the Archers alone for now - a failed attack is likely to earn them a promotion.



In the barb turn the Spider heals up to 4.1 and stays at Combat III, so the plan more or less worked.

Relocated a Hawk to what I believed was Hexam, but turned out to be Argenteria. A city remarkable only for house-size horses walking its streets.


Tredje warned me that there's 12 experience points disguised as 4 barbarian warriors heading my way from the former Amurite city of Udenarat(sp?).

I updated him on the Balseraph situation and on the estimated timeframe of my attack.

[COLOR="Silver"]Hey

Thanks for the heads-up. My underground agents will deal with them shortly.

Bob says that he'll be using Adepts summoning Puppets summoning Skeletons for defence while teching for Gibbon.

Here's my schedule:
T118: 6th Priest trained.
T119:Adept trained. On this turn I'd like to get Body Mana to instantly give him Haste.
T120:Priests appear in your borders in 2 groups, near Renegade Hill and Sorodh
T123:Priests enter Balseraph lands. T122 if there are no complications in my attempt to raze Ultigar

I considered sending some priests earlier, but decided against it since w/o Haste they would reach the Bals bordes only 1 turn ahead of the hasted stack.

The hawk uncovered Argenteria. Its garrison is a warrior and a puppet. If brute force won't do all three cities can be nicely forked by Elementals and hasted Tigers from a forested tile (see the attached picture extracted from a raven's retina)
[/COLOR]

Comment made in the lurker thread. You can go look at it after the game is over. Sorry that you feel that way.

OK, I will. I'll also stop paying any more attention to it in order to minimize the risk of having another "OMG I'M SWITCHING SIDES" moment