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

[DaveV]

Turn 134. Ichabod piled pretty much everything into his capital.




Most of my attacks against the capital would have been across the river, so I spent another turn on setup. I also picked off a few of his scatterlings.




I'm hoping he didn't notice how easily I killed those units (although I won a 30% battle against his Titan unit). I should have something like 70% odds against his top defender if he leaves everything in his capital. And if plako gives me one. More. Turn.



He's finally unblocked Sorcery. That's my progress, not his, but I know he has at least one Great Sage waiting around. He grabbed one more city from Serdoa; I know exactly where this one was:




Earning him some more war weariness:



Thoth is trying to run his workers through the back door.



Obligatory shot of Thoth's defenders:

[DaveV]

Turn 135 came flying back, so I didn't have to wait long for this key turn. I checked the log file: no worldspells. When I checked Khazak, I had a captured worker giving me vision on it. I had seen one of Ichabod's workers building on the road west of the city last turn, so the captured guy finished it. That meant I could attack the city from the right side of the river with my whole super stack. Here's what he had:



I started sending in the spectres; I was a little overly optimistic about the >50% odds in my last post. I had a lot of ~30% attacks before I cleared the warriors and axes, then my vampires were attacking with odds in the high 90s. I probably won more than my fair share of those 30% attacks. Good thing, too, since I didn't have a lot of units left to claim the city:




It would have been smart to move some of my spectres in there instead of pillaging.

I sent the turn on to Ichabod with this quote from The Godfather:

Tessio: [to Hagen] Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him.

It kind of bends the no diplo rules, but this has to be a pretty grim save for Ichabod to open.

Thoth apparently deleted his workers.



plako captured Serdoa's other coastal city. I did some pillaging, being careful to stay out of range of fireballs. But a careless move left one of my galleys exposed to a turtle.




Now that Ichabod's army is eliminated, it's time to put some pressure on plako. I want to force him to use his worldspell now, before he's all set up to attack me, and I think I still might be able to raze some of his cities even without spells.



These guys miss out on iron weapons, but speed is of the essence.

Meanwhile, poor Thoth is still pressing Enter.



I burned some of my gold to speed up production in a few cities.

[DaveV]

Turn 136. The log brings mostly bad news.



Thoth is building archers in Dog Sled Racing now. You can see it in the city, although it's hiding under the interface on the list.



I consider this a race between my units attacking plako's cities and him building defenders. So, I'm trying to bypass Ichabod's cities.




Stay out of the way, and you won't get run over.

In the western part of plako's empires, defenders are pretty scarce:




I didn't capture them in a screenie, but I have 3 catapults, two workers, a couple vampires, a moroi, and a bloodpet just north of Nimarail, IIRC. There are a bunch more units trickling in.

In the east, he has a good stack of warriors.




At EoT, I built lots of units (most cities are 1-turning moroi or bloodpets; the ones that aren't mostly got some rush-buy help). Also:



Yay! An OO spread! Haven't had one of those in a while.

[DaveV]

Turn 137. Lots of bad news in the log:




Ichabod recaptured his capital; plako wiped out my eastern stack. He killed some of my guys who were set up to attack Nimarail, but not all of them, and not the workers.

Just like last turn, my screenshots aren't up to my usual standards due to playing fast.

In the east, a hawk flight showed an exposed firebow; I hit it with a vampire at 95% odds. At this point, trading a vampire for a firebow is a good deal for me.




At Nimrael, I was short one hitter to capture the city (I could have taken a 15% zealot vs warrior attack, but no), but I killed two firebows. I have two injured vampires sitting on desert, and two redlined catapults exposed.




I'm sending my galleys back to load up with units and wreak some havoc on Serdoa's former lands.




At Ichabod's capital, his redlined trebuchets were guarded by a bunch of injured units.




I detached a few units to kill them; I don't want those trebuchets coming back to annoy me further.



The rest of my megastack continued towards plakoland.



I imagine the entry of this stack into his territory will be his cue to fire off Seven Pines. I'm not sure why the mapmaker thought the guy with the troll worldspell needed the troll unique feature.

Thoth's former capital came out of unrest, and the citizens are not happy.



City list:






Selected graphs:



Ichabod has bounced back nicely.

[DaveV]

Turn 138. plako burned the Seven Pines a turn earlier than predicted. He killed off my exposed units, but left another firebow exposed. He's down to five firebows that I can see now.



That means I can move in without fear of being bounced.




In the center, he can only hit my stack with one fireball, but lots of units. The fireball will only do collateral damage against 4 units max, so I should have several units at high enough strength that I expect him to lose a few units if he goes for an all-out attack.




A little north of Nimarail, my next stack is on its way.



At EoT, another OO spread.

[DaveV]

Turn 139. Lots more carnage in the log.




Ichabod killed off my trailing stack. Stupid trebuchets.




plako upgraded a bunch of warriors that had a promotion available to firebows. Nice play, and his expanded roster of firebows and shiny new Rust spell mean it's time to go on the defensive (after razing three of his cities).

I had good luck attacking Glorairine across the river, winning two ~70% attacks against the archer and the shock warrior. Ten more turns of no spells. Sigh.










Thoth is adding archers to Dog Sled Racing. I offered him peace, but I expect his reply will be a youtube video of someone busting a gut laughing.

[DaveV]

Turn 140. A diplo window from Thoth.




That was the other possible reply. I declined.

He's still piling up archers in Dog Sled Racing.



The log shows more of my guys dying.



I played this turn in a real hurry, so I don't have many screenshots. I reloaded to get a shot of plako's units at the start of the turn.




I've marked the units I killed. I debated whether to delete my vampires that killed the units in his stack west of Kalocly. I ended up not deleting them; I'm willing to give him some more XP in exchange for slowing his attack a little more.

In the east, I attacked ampibiously with four bloodpets against Bathsheba, and barely won.




Everybody hates me. War weariness is mounting.

[DaveV]

Turn 141. The turn starts with an Armageddon warning.



Ichabod has produced an impressive stack of rock-hurling doom.




plako is gathering his own stack of regenerating, fireball-chucking doom.




Last turn I upgraded a bunch of Moroi to chariots, so I'd have a mobile reaction force.




In the east, I razed another former Serdoan city (75% amphibious attack with a vampire vs. an archer).

[DaveV]

Turn 142. The log reveals plako had some firebows available to take revenge for his razed cities.



My moroi went looking for them:



He killed one at ~85%, then I deleted him rather than give up more free XP. If some moron hadn't loaded a 1XP bloodpet onto a boat I could have taken a 60% shot, which probably would have reduced him to the point where I could have bum-rushed hem.

I sent a hawk over to look at his remaining coastal city.



Defensive stance. In the south, he's moved pretty much everything to his capital.




Ichabod's stack is still sitting.




Have I mentioned how much I loathe Arcane Lacuna? People moan about Stasis, but AL is just as bad. I'm losing interest in this game as I look at eight more turns of sitzkrieg.

[DaveV]

More non-player posts in the other players' threads. The whole tenor of this game has been deeply frustrating. It seems as though it's been me against the world for most of the game. The other players are getting lots of help from (dedicated?) lurkers, even though they're probably better players than I am even without the help. Now I have to sit idle waiting for the Lacuna timer to expire while the other guys research their way to ICBMs.