[SPOILERS] DaveV plays Furia: What, me worry?

[DaveV]

Turn 146. HK stomps another city.



His mounted mercs are wielding iron weapons now. This is just stupid.

[DaveV]

I sent another diplo email to Ellimist.

Ellimist,

Playing out this game is becoming increasingly pointless from my perspective. My city defenders are little more than free XP for HK's infinite numbers of strength-8 mercenaries.

Dave

Maybe I can talk him into concession. I feel as though I'm wasting my time on this game.

[DaveV]

Turn 147. In the most unsurprising news ever, HK captured Movie Outtakes.



Here's his stack after capturing the city. If not for the one nearly full-strength merc, I might have been able to kill a unit with my spider.




I meant to take a shot of DIY Newspaper to show his main stack, but I guess I didn't. He has lots of units, all better than any of mine, OK? Oh, and a sea serpent blocking my naval attack path .

[DaveV]

Turn 148. This game is still going after all. Not much in the log:



Celestial Compass? I had to look that one up (it accelerates rituals). HK has had the Tower of Alteration for a very long time; is he going to grunt out the other ones in a hurry?

It looks like HK had another bad roll with a ship. I might as well sink it.



In the north, our stacks stare each other down.

[DaveV]

Turn 149. Another long turn, part of which is my fault. HK has completed his second tower.





The log shows HK is starting to attack my cities amphibiously.



I'm setting up for one last attempt to do some damage before HK rolls over me.

[DaveV]

Turn 150. The log shows HK completed Ride of the Nine Kings in his capital. That's a long way from the front lines, but it will be annoying once the super-horsies start to pour in.



Also, Brian built Catacomb Libralis - going for Mobius Witches, maybe?

The stupid sea serpent moved back onto my invasion path. I don't want to leave my Cultists on boats any longer than I have to, and my window of opportunity is rapidly closing, so I loaded up a couple more cultists to pound the serpent.




Here's the log from the rest of the combat.






I picked up more than enough slaves to build the last section of road, so I was able to consolidate a pretty decent stack SE of DIY Newspaper. The city itself is only defended by a Puppet, a Skeleton and a Warrior. Since HK has enough money to buy 19 Mercs, he can tear me a new one now, but I don't think they can reach the front from his capital, so he'll have to do without his extra 10 XP.

I captured and deleted a bunch of HK's slaves and workers, just to be obnoxious.




The cursor is on his stack in Movie Outtakes, which is probably pretty much his entire force in this theater. Since he can whistle up Mercs from thin air, that's not really a problem for him.

[DaveV]

Turn 151. HK didn't kill as many units as I expected - the serpent-killing cultists and some pillagers. Stupid serpent.




Notice at the bottom that Tholal declared on Brian and took one of his cities.

Regarding my post in the tech thread: does this look like a game that's been decided?






Here's the north, after a *lot* of pillaging. I offered white peace to HK, because I'm tired of wasting time on this game.

[DaveV]

Turn 153. The bear den has been cranking out bears. I don't really need any dancing bears at this point, so let's do some XP farming.




Since I can't get the UI to display odds, I don't know just how lucky I was to win all four of those battles. The bears were damaged in the range of 0.8 - 2.4 HP, as I recall. My adepts now have 6/8, 6/8, 9/8 XP, so there's my second mage.

I saw lots of barb poison wolf riders in my south; after I ended turn, the barbs promoted a bunch of Scorpion Clan Chariots.




In the north, ridiculously large stacks face off:




That's 24 mercs in my former city.

In news that actually makes a difference in the game: HK completed his third tower.

[DaveV]

Turn 154. "I am coming for you," says HK.




If only I had a couple more Air II mages...

[DaveV]

Turn 155. HK isn't messing around. I can see his invisible trailing units thanks to AoE:




Oh look, he has a Phalanx .

I sent him this email:

I offered a peace treaty and my world map; I'll give you open borders if you want to attack the guys who insist on continuing to play out this farce instead of the guy who's ready to concede to you already. If you're so filled with rage at my attempts to regain the cities you wrested from my control that you feel the need to punish me, there's not much I can do to stop you.

Furia the not even mad any more