[SPOILERS] Alignment unknown

[plako]

T20

Played a turn in a hurry earlier. Examined the "Statue" where Lizard come out. Got experience. After getting couple of additional warriors in the region I'll kill the skeleton and pop the Barrow. Dungeon feels too dangerous to pop so I'll leave that a bit later. There is some serious amount of Barbs running around. The scout in the Mirror did see half a dozen barb units close by.

[plako]

T21

Couple of barb warrios approaching so I decided to postpone capturing the skeleton nest and retreat the warriors to home defense. I also switched the capital to build fast warrior before continuing settler.

[plako]

T22

Barbs are approaching. I've been running test games and I'm not that happy about the results so far. I can survive with puppets and skeletons, but it is just survival. I won't have enough power to really kill those strong barbs. I'll probably make some tests with Octopus overlords approach next.



My last scouting unit is soon ending his journey

[NobleHelium]

How are you doing these AC tests anyway? Hotseat and then drive the AC up yourself?

[plako]

Play normal SP and raise the AC myself. My tests are just rough estimates.

After Ragnarok it is easy to skyrocket the AC even without warrens, so it is safe to say I need something and I need it fast.

After tests I think Death mages might work especially if I can get Arcane back at crucial time, but it still requires a huge number of Adepts and Mages. They will be expensive to maintain and I seem to lose lot of Adepts/Mages at the last stages of Armageddon that might make me too weak to face barbs.

Also if AC raise delays Bob, Hyborem might still be doable. The main problem is that I need to really go all in on Hyborem rush to make it viable. I need at minimum 3 Prophets for bulbing and getting Scientists would be bad (probably no Inspiration from mind adepts then) and I need to avoid Education. Also in this option I would need to rely mostly on puppets to keep me safe on crucial times before I land Hyborem. Corpses will be helpful at later stages. This is very risky. I'll be pillaged down, if I get more than 1 strong barb running around on my land.

OO does not seem to be good enough, maybe if there would be even small lakes around, but without them their Priests are pretty useless. Main benefit is that I get undead Drowns to build, but they're just too expensive and weak. Stygian Guards + Sphener (in case I adopt Order - tkaes a long time to get there) might work (not sure, but in paper they look strong), but there is no way for me to build Tower of Divination to land Malevolent Designs because of lack of Mana nodes.

[plako]

T23

Played the turn yesterday. Scout survived so he continued towards east. Barb warriors ended up in flat land and I attacked both of them losing 1 warrior in the process.

[plako]

As you might have noticed from theEitB Bug thread. I've noticed that the effects of Armageddon are totally devastating and way higher than I though they would be. Basically AC100 kills 90% of your living units and decreases your cities to size 1. There really is no way to fight against strong barbs after that with any means that I could reasonably reach. So what does that leave to us - Hyborem rush or rushing Selrahc.

Before noticing this I was starting to be pretty happy for the Sorcery rush. I think I could have collected enough of Adepts and Mages to stay alive and even start killing the horsemen, but when you lose 90% of those units and almost all of your population there really is nothing one can do but pray. Losing 50% as promised would be manageable, but 90% fatality rate is just too high.

[plako]

T24

Barb invasion continues. I had to dial up yet another warrior from Jubilee to be on the safe side. That Spectre is the most worrisome creature.


Well now that scout is so dead

[plako]

T25

Bad turn. As expected Scout did die to Griffon. Spectre did come on range so I attacked. As expected lost the 1st warrior attacking, but won with the second. Then tried to kill 2 Goblins and lost the other battle with 97% odds. At least I had a another warrior to finish the Goblin.

[plako]

T29

There is constant Barb influx. Yet again I need warriors more than new city so settler is still postponed.