[EitB PBEM LVI] coldrain emerges from the shadows

[coldrain]

Turn 77

I might be in loads of trouble if Miguelito plays his cards right. Turn log stated that he used fireballs and Hosts of Einhenjar (str 5 holy summon) to kill two closest treants. This means he has wizards and the ability to use his world spell. I pressed on my counter attack with all available forces to try and buy more time to get to priesthood and build PoLs. I was unable to reach any of his units, but I positioned multiple stacks to march forward in the far west and midwest:

I can hit Darungstang next turn with two treants and a hunter, plus more units follow afterwards. I spread them out to avoid collateral damage from possible fireballs. In the middle, I brought almost all units that could reach on the plains hill NE of the gold. Two workers are there as well, to make a road next turn and allow the stragglers to join up. Miguelito has one wizard in Hogsmeade and two swordsmen + adept on gold tile. He has more wizards somewhere in the fog, as he used three summons/fireballs on his turn. Once my treants disappear (4 turns), I can’t fight against wizards effectively without magic or summons of my own. So the worst case scenario is that he blocks spell casting for many turns with world spell and prevents PoLs from summoning tigers, which is their main military benefit. The only other way to fight magic casters is to have an extremely mobile military force (promoted horsemen or horse archers) or assassins. I have neither. Right now, I have to get maximum pressure out of treants and hope that Mig doesn’t realise how poorly I’m equipped to deal with wizards if he blocks me from summoning expendable tigers when the first PoLs hit the field.

As I mentioned in the last post, I was anticipating that Mig would invade me when he gets wizards and uses his world spell to prevent me from using mine. Well now it seems that he did have his world spell available, but didn’t use it for some reason? This could cost him his copper city in the west, maybe also Hogsmeade if he doesn’t have enough fireballs or other summons to whittle down my treants. I’m franticly building military to replace any losses that are likely to occur in the next few turns. I think I have to start golden age soon, even if I can’t use it to immediately switch to the ideal civics.

In other news, Q researched sailing and thus enabled resource trading between our civs. I offered fish for fish deal to try avoid military tension in east while I’m fully committed to west.
MFNRM report:
- Total ancient forest deforestation. Sad times for elven economy.

[coldrain]

Turn 78
Great prophet was born and was used to bulb 95% of priesthood:

Another treant was killed by fireballs and summons. Took a 67% attack against a swordsman in Durmstrang and lost. I roaded the plains hill tile NE of gold and moved all possible units forward:

Two treants and hunters are threatening Durmstrang and the highlighted units plus a couple more treants are next to Hogsmeade. Miguelito is bringing a lot of reinforcements and has used fireballs to cause collateral damage. He has 5 visible wizards, so before next turn I’m getting bombarded again. Down in the south, my hunters are approaching an undefended city:

With haste spell, I think Mig can reinforce the city in time, but I’m hoping these units distract his forces. It’s a close call if I can actually take any cities, the constant fireball barrages heavily damage or kill my treants. I’m hoping that next turn I have enough units in good health to assault the cities. Better to advance while I can, no use in turning back now.

[coldrain]

Turn 79

Completed priesthood and started building first PoLs. Mig launched 8 fireballs against various targets and killed a hunter south of Durmstrang. I attacked this city with good odds.
Treant vs wounded guerrilla I swordsman at 84%: WIN
Treant (wounded) vs warrior at 84%: WIN

Remaining hunter had bad odds so didn’t attack. At Hogsmeade, I tried to do as much damage as possible with treants.
Treant (wounded) vs combat III polar bear at 74%: LOSS
Treant (wounded) vs combat I swordsman at 11%: LOSS
Treant (wounded) vs combat I swordsman at 11%: LOSS
Treant (wounded) vs combat I swordsman at 11%: LOSS
Treant (wounded) vs summoned Einhenjar at 13%: WIN
Treant (wounded) vs summoned Einhenjar at 13%: WIN
Treant (wounded) vs combat I swordsman at 9%: LOSS
Treant (wounded) vs combat I swordsman at 9%: LOSS

Finally, I attacked in south with a hunter.
Combat II Hunter vs warrior at 65%: LOSS

War front looks like this after reinforcements arrived:

I started golden age with the commander and switched to total war civics:

First PoL is ready in two turns. I’m researching HBR to enable mobility promotions and horsemen if necessary. Overview of core, now in golden age:

Demos:

[Jabah]

Are you also trying to capture the barbarian city (Deluoc) with passing-by treants (or are they all busy elsewhere) ?

[coldrain]

Are you also trying to capture the barbarian city (Deluoc) with passing-by treants (or are they all busy elsewhere) ?

Yes, two treants killed the barbarian archers. Only warriors remain there now. Should be easy to conquer with tigers, if Miguelito doesn't block spell casting with his world spell.

[coldrain]

Turn 80

Miguelito continued to clean up treants and cause a lot of collateral damage with fireballs. On turn 80, I made the final attacks with heavily damaged treants, managed to kill a couple of swordsmen and warriors. Crucially, I wasn’t able to capture any cities or destroy valuable targets like adepts or wizards. I retreated as treants despawn on beginning of turn 81. I deleted treants that were stranded and likely to die to avoid feeding free xp on Mig’s units. Aurorarcher completed Great library, which boosts sages by +1 beaker. He has at least one more engineer and I saw a great bard (from researching drama first) with my griffon. Auro is also moving settler parties into the middle, while I’m stuck in full military production. Overall, not looking good for me. If I manage to stop Miguelitos expected invasion part II: Fireball Boogaloo, I will still be behind in economy and expansion compared to Auro and Q.

Turn 81

Treants are gone, but Miguelito hasn’t moved in yet. I did wound a lot of his frontline units, so maybe he is healing them first. First PoL was completed and was immediately used to build a temple and spread Fellowship to capital: It can now 1-turn more PoLs. View of core:

Finished HBR. Basically, my choices for combatting wizards are these:
1. Get my own mages: too slow. I don’t have great sages to bulb to sorcery. Interestingly I noticed in single player test game that EitB has changed some bulbing priorities. Now it is possible to bulb sorcery directly after one arcane tech (alteration, divination, necromancy or other). I think this is how Mig was able to get wizards so fast. I was expecting him to slow research sorcery, but it looks like he was able to bulb it, at least partially.
2. Get assassins. This is a viable option and only needs poisons (about 9 turn research). -50% combat penalty in cities hurts though. 
3. Get horse archers (Fyrdwell for Ljosalfar). I like this option the most, as horchers are base movement 3 and don’t suffer from city combat penalty. Requires about 10 turns of research.

I started researching archery -> stirrup for the Fyrdwells. Let’s see if I can survive until then without major losses. I also get my hero with archery, so that’s a nice bonus. Oh, and game decided that Auro could use some help and gave him the "gain two unhappiness in a city for a free great sage" event. Good for him.
Demos:

[coldrain]

Turn 82

“Where was the elven army, when Blighttown fell?”

Q declared war and attacked against Blighttown:
Horseman vs Giant spider: WITHDRAW
Horseman vs Giant spider: WITHDRAW
Horseman vs combat I warrior: LOSS
Horseman vs combat I warrior: LOSS
Horseman vs combat I warrior: WITHDRAW
Horseman vs combat I warrior: WIN
Horseman vs Giant spider: WIN
Horseman vs combat I warrior: WIN

I lost Blighttown and a worker nearby. It seems like I should have used my western treants to attack Q, instead of playing nice. He didn’t return my fish for fish deal, so I should have seen this coming.

In the east, I lost 2 hunters and 2 fawns against Mig’s fireballs (ouch). He also keeps causing collateral damage to any stacks in range. I summoned my first tigers, but looking at it now maybe I left them too far forward. Should have summoned them in capital maybe. Left warriors to defend Valley of Drake and expect to see it fall by next turn. I’m trying to keep fawns and hunters in range for counter attack, but then they are exposed to fireballs. His forces:

The highlighted stack includes 6 wizards, which I can’t effectively deal with for now. Full military build-up is continuing. I have three PoLs and a couple more completing EOT. I think I could stop Q with tigers and fawns, but only if Mig is not pressuring me at the same time. Overall, the situation is looking extremely bleak. It is increasingly possible that I’m just delaying my inevitable fall, but I’m trying to make it as expensive as possible for the invaders. To those who don't play much FFH2, this is the breakdown of why I'm having so much trouble against Miguelito:
- Fireball is movement 2 (flying), strength 4 unit that causes collateral damage on attack and can kill units, unlike siege weapons. And they do not cause war weariness for the user, but dissapear at the end of turn. A mage can summon one fireball per turn.
- With the spell extension promotion, mage/wizard can increase range of fireball to 3.
- With metamagic mana, adept get floating eye unit (comparable to BtS airship recon mission).
- With body mana, adept can cast haste to gove +1 movement. Applies to living units (not fireballs), even after moving into rough terrain.
-> Combine all of these and Miguelito can first use recon flight to see where my units are. He can then move the wizard stack to an optimal position and launch fireballs. Fireballs cause collateral damage or outright kill units. Finally, he can use haste to retreat the stack from reach of counter attack, or if opposotion is already weak, he can use haste before launching fireballs to push his stack even deeper into enemy territory and start cleaning up with swordsmen. I got to admit, Mig has been using this tactic very effectively. He just doesn't provide an opening to me to get to those wizards. So either I retreat out of range, but leave cities exposed, or I bring units in range for counter attack, but they get fireballed to death. I need horse archers to stand a chance, but I'm about 9 turns away from completing stirrups. Summoned tigers alone aren't enough, as they are immobile the turn they are summoned, thus vulnerable to the fireball barrage.

Anyway, what was my goal for this game? Oh, I remember: to reach mages without dying. Not looking great on that front…
“Almighty mapmaker and creator RefSteel, I never pray to you, but grant me my request: Grant me revenge! And if you don’t listen, then to hell with you!”

[RefSteel]

“Almighty mapmaker and creator RefSteel, I never pray to you, but grant me my request: Grant me revenge! And if you don’t listen, then to hell with you!”

Eh? Almighty, you say? Must be some other RefSteel. I'm not even strictly speaking the creator of the map - as mentioned in the tech thread, I used a script and then edited it from there. And man, I'm glad you never pray to me; what kind of megalomaniacal freak would want that? (Wait, don't answer that.) As for granting you revenge though, I only know one person who might be able to: The one presently leading the embattled elves in this game! I hope you're having a good time even in the present apparently-dire straits!

[coldrain]

Heh, I was just fooling around with some movie quotes to cheer mysellf up a bit in the face of troubling times in game.

Yes, I'm still enjoying playing my turns, even if Miguelito has completely outplayed me and now I'm facing a two-front war. If I had unlocked PoLs just 5-6 turns earlier, I'd be in a much better situation. I can see now that maybe I was a bit too focused on building my long term economy and expanding with the cheaper settlers. And I must admit, playing quick speed is still very unfamiliar territory for me: I'm used to epic speed single player games in immortal/deity difficulty, which means that the game changing units (heroes, mages, some priests) arrive a lot later in those types of games.

[RefSteel]

Yeah, that was how I read it too - I was just trying to riff on it a bit (though without the movie quotes; I recognized yours as take-offs on quotes but not where they were from). Glad to hear you're still having fun here, and learning things from the game! It's indeed a big adjustment from slower-speed higher-difficulty SP to quick-speed MP in any version of civ, and FfH's potential unit speed can make the transition especially stark.