[SPOILERS] DaveV: The vampire bites! Goodbye level 9.

[DaveV]

When Burning Blood Moroi join barbarians naturally: at the end of your turn or at the beginning? If at the end, then, I think, it is legitimate.

The Burning Blood check happens at the beginning of the Calabim turn.

[Mardoc]

You're welcome. I know well that lurkers are the only creatures more bloodthirsty than my vampires.

Well, I'm also a fan of your peace updates, but those are generally easier to produce in my experience.

I lean toward B, but I'd welcome input.

I'm with flugauto here. If there's a chance that what you describe will happen anyway, then forcing it isn't a problem. If it can't, then it's a bit cheesy. Since you say that check normally happens before you have a chance to move the Moroi yourself, I wouldn't do it.


Also, since you're uncertain, best to err on the extra cautious side.

[DaveV]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. It's easy for this thread to turn into an echo chamber, where I talk myself into bad ideas.

Turn 123 started with a very bad stroke of luck: the forest that I'd just roaded burst into flames (a 3% chance). That means I spent this turn building a bypass instead of advancing. So Thoth gets another turn to build units.




My drown plopped himself down on the mine to starve the city for hammers.



This is a nice city; I'd like to have it. You may have noticed in the first screenshot that I teched Priesthood with my multi-turn overflow. Now I can build a Cultist for some super coastal collateral. Borders indicate that there are more island or coastal cities to the east.

I can still tech Necromancy in two turns, which is the same amount of time it will take to build an adept. I'll start building a road on the nearby node next turn, so I should get my first +1 on my spectres for turn 127. Next tech is probably Sorcery, since it would be very handy to have some Floating Eyes. It's looking as though this game will drag on long enough for some adepts to upgrade.

[DaveV]

Turn 124: the dogpile begins.



I've done everything I could to be friendly to plako, but he'd rather trade with the guy who's running a close second in score and has no army. Sigh.

Ichabod has three trading partners, and I have none. It may be lonely at the top, but Stupendous Man is insanely popular.



Now that my roads are in place, it's time to go after Road Hockey, which opens the door to his back lines. I expect it to be bloody.






It actually wasn't as bad as I expected. I lost one of my Body II vampires at 80%, but won with one of the newbie vampires at 30%. The aftermath:




Note that I pillaged the road west of Dog Sled Racing to prevent a counterattack. If only he had mobility promotions instead of guerilla . He can rename Dog Sled Racing to Maginot Line; I'll deal with it later.

Griffon #1 has made it through the wilderness, and is checking out Ichabod's border city.



The drown checks the adjacent land; it's another island.



I didn't notice until after I moved that Thoth had brought reinforcements into Moose Lovin . Goodbye, drown. I hope you at least take the Pyre Zombie out with you (it should be pretty much a coin flip battle).



The power graph is showing a significant drop for Thoth now.



Demos:






After taking these two screenshots, I noticed that I had some spare happy citizens, so drafted three more Moroi.

[DaveV]

Turn 125. Thoth didn't kill my drown. Maybe he figured, "he couldn't be that stupid. It's a trap!" Or maybe he just messed up, like I did in leaving it there. I'm not going to give him a second chance.



On the battlefield, he threw some more low-mobility reinforcements into Zamboni. My griffon revealed that his capital was lightly defended, so I moved into position to fork the two cities. I think I'm close to breaking his back as long as plako holds off on his worldspell.




Further east, reinforcements are trickling in and Thoth is putting more guerilla units into Dog Sled Racing.




Note the injured spectre southwest of Road Hockey; one of my Moroi finally turned barbarian, and it took me one spectre to soften him up before the second one killed him. That's why I've been putting City Raider promotions on my Burning Blood Moroi, so they wouldn't be too hard to kill if they turn barbarian. I had two spectres left over, so I pillaged Dog Sled Racing's floodplains.

Ichabod is probing my defenses.



Demographics and city screens before I drafted a couple more Moroi. War weariness is starting to kick in.






Ichabod and his trade economy are now in first place, yet everyone is happy to keep trading with him. I sent a request to plako to close trade routes with Ichabod (I figured it was only fair after he closed them with me), but he ignored me. Once my golden age finishes, things will look really lopsided in Ichabod's favor, but I'm sure that won't stop people from trading with him .

Sigh. I guess I shouldn't complain as long as plako holds off on his troll worldspell.

[DaveV]

Turn 126. Ichabod got the torturing event, and Thoth attacked my vampire stack with a single pyre zombie.



I played the turn sloppily, but captured Zamboni. The log glitched on me (I've had this happen before, but can't tell you why it happens), so I don't have a record of the combat.



But the aftermath looks like this:




He's still piling warriors into Dog Sled Racing.



The drown moved onto the gems mine to cause some happiness problems.




City list:




Demos:



Power:



Ichabod is still farmering away. Doesn't he suspect that he's next on the hit list?

For now, every turn I open the save without plako having cast his worldspell is a good turn.

[DaveV]

Turn 127. The juggernaut rolls on. Thoth attacked out of his capital with a disposable skeleton. Probably a good idea; he had a chance to do some damage with a unit that could be replaced immediately. The only disadvantage would be if it gave me enough XP to promote.



Once again, the log doesn't show all of my combat, but I lost a few Moroi and spectres in taking the capital. Moving a spectre out to the west revealed the next city:



I pillaged some cottages, and here was the situation at the end of my turn:






I'll pillage out that last cottage in Zamboni's BFC next turn, then pop its borders with a Zealot.

In the south, Ichabod found a more open path to Skeleton Key.



If he were smart, he'd be pillaging the roads in the neutral territory formerly known as Thoth's.

The last turn of my golden age corresponds with my last great person.




A sage will bulb Sorcery; a prophet will build the shrine; a bard will be saved for a culture bomb; a commander will be attached to a unit; and a merchant will be settled.

Thoth moved his pyre zombie and galley into Northern Lights to chase away my drown. I pillaged the gems mine before leaving, although it left my drown exposed to his galley. He'll have a coin-flip attack; if he loses his ship, that will make my life easier later on when I want to capture the islands.



After ending turn, the great person appeared:



The high-odds possibility came through. I'll bulb sorcery, but still research Animal Handling, since hawks can't be disrupted by Arcane Lacuna.

Demos after ending my golden age. Ichabod, you're next on the hit list! Unless plako uses his world spell, in which case it's an all-out rage attack on him.

[Qgqqqqq]

Why do you want sorcery?

[DaveV]

Why do you want sorcery?

It's cheap with the sage bulb, gives me Floating Eyes right away and the possibility of some mages if the game drags on.

[DaveV]

Turn 128. Thoth killed my drown. Pillaging the gems was probably a stupid move.



Here's what he piled into Screech:



This time, I have the combat log. My only losses were summons.



After grabbing two cities, I got greedy and sent my CRIII Burning Blood Moroi after his capital.



Oops, I guess he won't be capturing that city. I had 1/2 move left and moved him further from the city, but he's probably dead.

Here's my troop positioning:




I decided not to pop borders on Zamboni; sandboxing indicated that it will be massively unhappy and probably starving. I need to finish off Thoth in a hurry before his cities start coming out of resistance.

Dog Sled Racing is still pumping (bronzeless) warriors, but is now starving. You have to admire Thoth's stubbornness.



He's down to six cities now, and I have vision on five of them. The sixth appears to be settled by the Remnants of Patria.



Ichabod doesn't have much of a garrison in his border cities:





My F1 screen. Production is reduced a bit now that I'm out of my golden age. War weariness is becoming a problem.