[SPOILERS]- Crazy Keelyn is trippin’ Balz: Bobchillingworth of the Balseraphs

[Bobchillingworth]

Opened the second hut:






A pittance of gold. Not the best result possible, but I'll take what I can get. A few more turns of 100% research are always welcome, after all.


In three more turns I explore both the grave and Well, assuming my warriors don't get eaten first. It's exciting, and a little bit unnerving, having quite possibly my entire game resting on turn 8 of the game. But that of course is much of FFH's unique charm =)


The body of water with the ship is a freshwater lake, btw.

[Bobchillingworth]

My first event:





What poor, confused people. One shudders to think of what lands they fled to have to seek sanctuary with me. Perhaps they're from the huts my warriors just dynamited.



The first option is the best and gives you a free settler, but costs 100 gold.


The next four options all cost about 60 gold each and give you a free unit (the "press into service in the military" one gives you a swordsman). They also require you to already have to tech that enables the unit they give you, so they're largely wastes of gold.


The only option available to me simply gives +1 population, which means that my worker will now take 7 turns to build instead of 8, and I have an extra gold per turn from working another river tile. I'll also be able to work more hammers if I need to build emergency warriors should exploring the Well go terribly wrong.


The final option is Calabim-exclusive and gives you 60 free gold, no caveats.


Operation: Exploration occurs in two turns! I think we'll get in at least one more turn today, so likely I'll either know if I'm doomed or blessed late tonight if we can get three in, or at the start of the blitz tomorrow.

[Selrahc]

What poor, confused people. One shudders to think of what lands they fled to have to seek sanctuary with me. Perhaps they're from the huts my warriors just dynamited.

I'd say the more likely explanation is that they're runaways here to join the circus.

[Amelia]

Dave, even if i had the misfortune of someone popping mistforms near me, i'll sill say no to the "no exploration rule". It's part of FFH2, that's like saying no rush or no wonders or something.

[Bobchillingworth]

Got a pre-blitz turn in this afternoon, and I was in position to open both the grave and Well. First up was the grave:







Dang. At least it only spawned one. I moved my warrior to a jungle so that he'll have odds should the specter attack.



Next was the main event, Bradeline's Well. Would my results fair any better?







Sadly, no. Almost the same, in fact. This is a pretty minor "big bad" result, but my poor warrior is toast. Hopefully he'll take down either the axe or magic immune specter with him. I'm keeping Jubilee on a worker for now, but I may have to switch to a 2-turn emergency warrior depending on how things turn out. After the worker I'm going to be tempted to get a scout out soon since one can reach the well in only three turns, and I want to explore it again before I risk it producing anything really nasty.

[Bobchillingworth]

The blitz session was a total success, and we got in about 14 turns.


A few pictures:







The session started off well as only the specters attacked my warriors, and both lost. The axe apparently decided to advance on Jubilee, sparing my unit. Both warriors had enough exp to promote to Combat I, which I did.





I was feeling brave and decided to explore the Well again, and I received my reward- the Timor Mask! One of the weakest good results I could have gotten, but I'm not going to complain. The Mask causes the fear effect in tiles where the unit wearing it attacks, causing any inhabiting enemy units to scatter to random tiles. Could be useful for breaking up a dangerous stack, but forcing the enemy to unpredictably move to other tiles could be hazardous too. I rarely receive or make much use of the Mask in SP, so I'm unsure if it works vs. stacks in cities- it would certainly be much more useful if this is the case. Anyway, the Well is thankfully history, and a spooky mask seems like the sort of equipment the Balseraphs would really dig.



The barb axe advanced again on my warrior, so I retreated him to the mana hill, where the axe would have to attack across a river onto high ground. He eventually did, after pausing long enough for my guy to completely heal, and I won the fight, taking Combat II and moving back to Jubilee to get the Mask to safety and rejoin the garrison there. Sadly my northern warrior was killed by a poison goblin, despite my solider being combat I and fortified in a jungle.




The rest of the turns were fairly uneventful. The victorious goblin promoted to combat III and slowly advanced to my capital, where he's currently camped outside doing nothing of importance. Crafting came in, and AH completes in a few turns, to be followed by ancient chants -> myst. Jubilee finished the worker, who built a winery and is now farming my rice. The following builds were three more warriors, leaving me with a total garrison of four.



The situation from the final turn of the blitz:





After I finish the scout (I need to map more city locations), I'm going to start on a settler who will found on the double cotton site. After that I think I'll need another worker, possibly two more.


Tentative research path is Ancient Chants -> Myst (for Godking and elder councils) -> wheel -> fishing (for my second city) -> mining -> festivals -> education -> code of laws -> straight to Gibbon with a possible stop at BW. I may place festivals after CoL, actually- depends on whether I feel I need the markets & carnivals or aristofarm boosts more urgently.


Two periods of anarchy are planned- I'll revolt to Agrarianism and Godking once myst is in, and then Aristocracy and Apprenticeship following CoL.



In foreign news, no new contacts, but the Luchiurp have deployed their worldspell, which is I think the correct play. They'll have a great engineer soon as a result, will be interesting whether they settle him or hold off for a wonder. Also Serdoa worried in the blitz chatroom that barbs might eliminate him, but apparently he barely managed to pull through. I'm glad he did- I don't want to fight PZ any more than the other players, but it would be a real shame to lose a player so early in the game.


Overall things seem to be going pretty well- I've got some decent land to expand into, a neat artifact, and a leg up on the competition thanks to the free Calendar and extra pop. Main concerns right now are keeping pace in tech and continuing exploration.

[Selrahc]

I'm unsure if it works vs. stacks in cities

It does not.

[icewolf34]

Grats on disposing of the well!

[DaveV]

The session started off well as only the specters attacked my warriors, and both lost.

Yay! If one of those spectres had won at long odds and promoted to a wraith, it would have been game over.

After I finish the scout (I need to map more city locations), I'm going to start on a settler who will found on the double cotton site. After that I think I'll need another worker, possibly two more.

Double cotton? That's a crummy city that will never be a big contributor. It's in your back lines so you can settle it any time. Sure, it increases your happy cap, but so does *Festivals* which should have been a very early tech choice. Get your Freak on.

Definitely two more workers - you need roads for trade connections, and don't want to work unimproved tiles.

Tentative research path is Ancient Chants -> Myst (for Godking and elder councils) -> wheel -> fishing (for my second city) -> mining -> festivals -> education -> code of laws -> straight to Gibbon with a possible stop at BW. I may place festivals after CoL, actually- depends on whether I feel I need the markets & carnivals or aristofarm boosts more urgently.

I would research Festivals as your very next tech; it unlocks a lot of Balseraph goodness and boosts your economy with Markets. You don't really need the culture from Freak Shows, but expanding your borders is almost always helpful. But +1 happy for 40 hammers is a pretty good deal, especially since you can spend the hammers in your capital.

[Hesmyrr]

I'm glad that rolls for the battle compensated for the bad ones you got from poor lair exploration (I never got barb spawn from graveyard in any games I played, which caused me to believe their probability for bad result was relatively low). Would definitely hate to be eliminated by barbs in PBEM like this. I'm sure your heart was beating feverishly with adrenalin as you slowly, ever so slowly, clicked the exploration button!

...Or maybe not, I wouldn't know. Heh.