[EitB LVIII Spoilers] coldrain prolongs the Age of Fire

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Thanks - appreciate the updates.

[coldrain]

Turn 112 teaser trailer

I don’t have a good opportunity to write a full report now, but here’s a glimpse of what the end of turn 112 looks like:


After waiting for proper accumulation of experience and switching around the mana nodes for maximum promotions when upgrading mages, I finally pulled the trigger and invaded DaveV. I used a combination of haste, roading to neutral territory and upgrades to mobility promotion in order to neutralize two cities of Dave and eliminate the largest garrison I saw from him as of now (was in city of Bozo). I’ll update the previous turns and the exact order of operations for this first combat turn when I have a suitable moment. Now I hope he doesn’t have a surprise stack of high mobility units in the shadows for counter attack… I did see that he receives body mana form xist10, so I tried to plan my moves accounting for the possibility of hasted units too.

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Oh congratulations! Nice one.

[coldrain]

Turns 105-111

The game is on T116 and my turns are getting a lot more complicated to play. Now I usually spend at least 1-1,5 hours per turn to make sure I get full value from arcane and mobile units. Still some small mistakes slip in, which I will highlight as they come up. I’m enjoying these war turns a lot, but I keep having the feeling I’m missing some small optimizations in unit placements which cost me delays in the conquest effort. First step before that is to catch up reporting until the first turn of the war against DaveV. Returning where the previous full report left off at T105:


My mutated super hunter clears off another barbarian lizardman and earns enough xp to unlock Form of the Titan wonder (grants +2 xp to all units). I decided to not rush this wonder with a great engineer since I’m thinking of saving the last two ones for Tower of Divination and possibly Guild of Hammers or third golden age, depending how much my economy tanks when army size creeps up. Bing ended up building the wonder anyway a bit later. Alteration is done and I switch research to divination, to prepare for Tower of Divination or to unlock law magic (mages can summon hosts of Einhenjar). Tower of Elements is complete and I don’t need air or earth mana at this moment, so I switch both nodes to body mana:


This means that newly built adepts start with the ability to cast haste spell for free. Mobility is perhaps the most important ability in multiplayer warfare, so I will build or promote several casters with body magic. First set of blasting workshops are ready and construction of fireball throwing wood golems is underway. These golems will garrison the border areas where my elite mage stack can’t reach, and some will slowly march in wake of invasion army to garrison newly captured cities and act as a counter attack force if needed. Golem fireballs are slightly weaker since they can’t get empower promotions, but the Tower of Elements +1 strength bonus still applies. First set of metamagic adepts keep casting floating eye to monitor neighbours. At this point of the game I was scrying to determine if I want to invade Bing or DaveV first, and as you should know by now, I chose the latter. It was a tough decision, here’s a summary of the pros and cons I thought of when making the call:

Attack Bing first
Pros:

• If conquest goes well, resulting empire shape is “compact”, so it is easier to defend (no stretched shape or squeezed between hostile borders)
  
• No sailing for Bing, so I can stage mages on galleys or the island and act with impunity there
  
• No tech for magic casters, chariots or assassins
  
• Bing is less experienced with EitB, so an invasion could be a bit more easy to wrap up quick (assuming I don’t underestimate the opponent)
  

Cons:

• Bing has heavily promoted adventurers that could be difficult to knock down. Shouldn’t be an insurmountable obstacle with my own mages.
  
• Mana nodes in Bing lands are not immediately reachable with a single border pop, need to build settlers to incorporate those.
  
• Attacking Bing takes my best units further away from Aurorarcher, which is the next target I want to hit.
  

An additional thought I had when evaluating Bing’s position: his economy seems to struggle a bit, so it should take him a long time to achieve high threat offensive units, like priests, chariots or mages. Therefore I could leave him be while I take out the larger threats first.

Attack DaveV first
Pros:

• If conquest goes well, resulting land shape is decent and the mountain range in north adds some protection against flanking manoeuvres from Brian’s lands.
  
• DaveV has the best economy outside of me and Aurorarcher. Knocking down a rival who has good potential to become strong in the near future would be beneficial. Looking at tech situation, DaveV is closest to sorcery among the opponents -> now is the time to strike.
  
• Mana nodes in DaveV lands should be reachable with single missionary border pop, making it faster to have enough mana nodes for Tower of Divination.
  
• Assuming the invasion goes well, the main army will be very close to Aurorarcher, who I see as the greatest threat.
  

Cons:

• DaveV is a veteran player of EitB, so he will be tough to defeat fast or without losses.
  
• He has the tech requirement for chariots, although floating eyes haven’t seen many yet.
  
• DaveV already has adepts, necromancy and a connected death node. He can summon skeletons as fodder and force me to chew through “a wall of bone” that slows down taking garrisoned cities.
  
• Xist has traded body mana, so Balseraph adepts have access to haste too.
  

In the end I saw the possibility to continue against Aurorarcher and knocking down the third best researcher of the game as the main incentives to go east with invasion force. Additionally, Bing looks like to be behind in economy and I deemed him more likely to not intervene and flank me while I’m advancing in other direction. Of course I will keep a good enough garrison force of fireball golems and a few other units just in case if Bing or someone else attempts to advance from that direction. If I remember correctly, somewhere on turn 108-109 I made the final decision to attack DaveV and started to shuffle around units accordingly for a big hit on first turn of invasion.
 
Jumping to turn 107 I dispel the nodes again (was body mana) and build air nodes:


I upgrade two adepts to maelstrom mages this turn and a third one later. With the help of SoC free promotion and free air promotion with the nodes, I can get combat 4 or 5 maelstrom mages straight away. Combat promotions increase the spell damage, so I need fewer air mages in total (maelstrom hits all units within 2 tile radius and has a damage cap of 30% of max health). Then next turn after third air mage upgrade I switch the nodes back to all fire:


Counting in Pyre fire mana means that upgrading adept to mage gives fire 1 + 2 for free -> this results in a fire mage with maximum combat promotions and spell extension, granting the ability to summon a movement 3 and strength 5 fireball, which has +50% strength with empower. I keep this mana configuration while waiting for enough adepts to have 10 xp for mage upgrade. Turn 109 I do all the upgrades I can:


A few more mages are in the west, some of these will join up the main force. Chariots, hunters and soon paramanders will be added in as well. Rd of Sacrifice builds a galley to ferry a small task force onto the south-eastern island when the hostilities begin. One important detail: A mud golem is building a cottage on border with DaveV, which will cut down the forest. This opens up the possibility to later come in and build a crucial road on that tile in one turn, giving minimal warning about my intentions. At this point my hope was that DaveV thinks I’m going to attack Bing or Brian and I tried to hide military units deeper in my lands to avoid detection. Also constructing a road too early would have made my intentions clear. I don’t know if any of this preparation mattered in the grand scheme of things, since I saw with floating eye that DaveV kept mostly garrison units in reach while keeping high value adepts or mobility promoted units further away from the border. And finally, let’s have a look on the final turn before war (T111):


While gathering the units, I kept the mana nodes as fire and upgraded as many fire mages as possible. I then moved the main stack in position this turn, to be ready for action on T112. Main force consists of a couple of paramanders for stack defence, 5 chariots (more underway), 4 SoKs, 2 hunters, 2 maelstrom mages, 1 regeneration/haste mage, 4 fireball mages and three adepts. Several mages have critical promotions as an additional back-up in case I suffer losses. Slower golems are marching forward too, including a couple which were loaded to the freshly built galley. More reinforcements of chariots, adepts and paramanders in production queue or marching to catch up. I have several mud golems in position to next turn build a road on the marked tile + on any neutral territory that is opened when I capture the closest Balseraph city. Meanwhile in the west I keep a sinlge maelstrom mage, some adepts and fireball golems near the newly founded Anor Londo border fortress city and on the galley that patrols around the northern island:




First turn of war coming in next update, hopefully within a couple of hours form now. I need a break now after playing the latest turn and writing this!

[coldrain]

Double post by me, so remember to check the previous report!

Turn 112

Before I forget to mention: DaveV started a golden age a turn or two before my attack.


As planned, I declare war and a mud golem builds the road 2E1S of Farron Keep. I cast floating eye to see if there are any threats further east. Before moving any units, I cast regeneration on the stack: this promotion heals living units even if they moved during the turn, and is removed when full hp is reached. The promotion stays on this turn, so I can cast it on full health units and it works if they suffer damage later. Next, I move a fire mage forward and send first fireball in action:


Fireball loses but inflicts good amount of direct and collateral damage. Chariot captures the DaveV worker blocking the shortest route and another chariot attacks the city of Grock:


I win the combat and another two chariots cleans up the garrison. Second mud golem builds a new road on the now neutral tile:


The whole stack marches on this tile and one of the adepts casts haste (applies to units with 0 movement remaining too):


A small garrison force is separated to defend Grock while the rest of the stack moves right up to city of Bozo:


Both air mages cast maelstrom, inflicting a bit of friendly fire on captured worker and mud golem, but mainly doing massive damage to Bozo garrison. Next, I summon fireballs and attack with them:


Empower 5 fireball vs mutated sword at 35,5%: LOSS
Empower 5 fireball vs sword at 89,6%: WIN
Empower 5 fireball vs sword at 72,6%: WIN
And lastly, I promote some chariots with mobility 1 to finish the two remaining warriors and capture the city. This is how the situation looks like after all of the combat and movement:


I also move a hunter to the defence of Bozo. Not many DaveV units can counter attack, unless there are more where I can’t see them with floating eye. I forgot to take picture when playing, but I loaded the galley near Rd of Sacrifice with additional fireball wood golem and a SoK -> this turn the galley moved next to the southern island and unloaded a golem and SoK on the island itself. Two golem fireballs bombard the city defences there to 0%. A side note: Aurorarcher keeps switching around religions and founds Ashen Veil, to presumably build suitable priests as needed. Also temples help with culture, as Auro looks like to go for that victory route?
 
Turn 113

No counter attack from DaveV in between turns and a floating eye reveals a large gathering of adepts + other units in the south-east, in city of Clarabell:


He can summon puppets there, move the puppets to another city and summon skeletons. Skeeltons are strength 3 undead units that don’t disappear at the end of turn. So theoretically DaveV could summon a horde of skeletons in cities under threat, to force me to clear them out one by one, buying him time to transfer/build other forces. Those adepts are therefore a high value target to take out ASAP, but are unreachable this turn. Barely visible in the above picture is the island city of Oleg Popov, which I captured with a SoK and wood golem, supported by fireballs. In further north, DaveV has some swords and assorted units in his capital:


A group of chariots was revealed too, I marked them with a sign. I really want to eliminate those adepts in south, but first I need to clear out the closest city of Krusty (Did I mention that I like the naming scheme?). That city is defended by skeletons, warriors and a couple of freaks, clearly intended as a speed bump to buy time for reinforcements to arrive. I move my main stack on the watchtower hill and send first fireball:


I avoid using maelstrom this time, since it would do severe friendly fire against healing units in Bozo. I then cast haste:


And promote mobility chariots + send enough of them in to capture Krusty and return back to the safety of main force:


I left Krusty empty, since I didn’t want to advance further, to avoid getting hammered both by the southern swords and the northern chariots. Not sure if it would have been better to advance further with the whole stack, since now DaveV has a chance to recapture Krusty and stuff it full with skeletons again. And just as a reminder, I keep casting regeneration every turn for the main force, so I can keep healing and inching forward every turn. I also captured or destroyed three workers this turn, although at the cost of leaving one fireball mud golem in an exposed position. Then final bit of alarming news:


DaveV has poison tech for assassins. I need to add scouts to my mage stacks to act as assassin baits. Planning to add reports of turns 114-116 tomorrow, which will bring up some of my (smallish?) blunders so far.

[shallow_thought]

I'm loving the attention to detail here, with the mana swaps to get a balanced strike force. Fireballs don't get enough love in MP IMO - they're not individually powerful, but they don't have a damage cap and in enough quantity they will gun through anything. On top of a few rounds of Maelstrom - ouch.

And yeah, Haste + Regeneration is so nice. Miss them whenever I go back to vanilla Civ IV.

Good luck - really enjoying the reports.

[coldrain]

Good luck - really enjoying the reports.

Thanks! Exciting times ahead, as you will see in the upcoming turns.

Turn 114

Xist used his world spell, River of Blood, to remove two pop in all opponent cities and add two to his. This means he now has feudalism and soon vampires will be built. Hmm, I need to be careful about this. I still think Aurorarcher is the greater threat, but given enough time xist can feast his vampires to impressive amount of promotions. He still needs necromancy to unleash the full potential of the summoned spectres the vampires can gain access to.

Looks like I forgot to take a couple screenshots at the beginning of this turn while playing. Trying to remember in which order I did the actions, so here’s my best recollection of the opening moves: First, I summon floating eyes to understand unit locations and if I can risk a deep dive into either north or south. Looking at the forces, I saw an opportunity to try and clear out the adept stack in southern city of Clarabell. Also DaveV had sent a small delaying force of skeletons + warriors to recapture and temporarily hold Krusty. I send maybe one or two fireballs and then SoKs to capture it again:


As usual, I cast regeneration before moving any units. I then move the whole stack one tile forward, cast haste with adept and send the two maelstrom mages to cast their spells next to Clarabell:


Picture shows the full garrison in that city, after maelstrom damage. Also note the workers building a road towards xist10 lands. They share open borders and DaveV has stationed three chariots in safety of the vampire borders (I lack open border treaties). 
Now let’s set the stage for my first miscalculation of the war: In the above picture, you can see two enemy units 2S2E of Clarabell. Both of those are recently upgraded taskmasters (assassin replacement for Balseraphs). I thought that I could capture Clarabell and then attack these taskmasters with a couple of 3-movement fireballs to either kill or damage them and thereby eliminate them as a threat. So with this plan in mind, I send chariots to attack the city:


I get great odds after maelstrom damage and I send all high mobility chariots and hunter to attack. However, some of the units I had combined with my main stack had joined up from behind and after moving the units next to Clarabell I realized I lacked the movement to finish off the last 3-4 defenders. And my fire mages are out of movement points, so even the 3-movement fireballs are just out of range of the taskmasters. So finally I decide to send everything (including fireballs) against Clarabell garrison and then hunker down in the cover of my paramanders until next turn. This is what the situation looks like after all attacks and movements:


Two adepts and a scout remains in the city. Both of the taskmasters are in full health and can attack me during Dave’s turn. Also those chariots in north-east are in range too to do damage. Adding another point to my miscalculation: one of my floating eye/haste adepts was also in a trailing reinforcement wave and ran out of movement points one tile behind my main force. I really should have calculated the moves more carefully this turn. I sent captured workers as potential distractions and bait to lure in counter attack units to roadless tiles, where I can pick them off with fireballs or my own chariots. I have enough mud golems following around to build road connections if any are pillaged. Here’s a view of what the homelands look like while the battles are ongoing:


Demos:


 
Turn 115

Eagerly waiting to know how much damage I suffered because of the movement miscalculation, I opened T115 to this:


There was a third taskmaster somewhere, so a total of three attacked my mage stack, killing a wounded chariot and a dispel/fire mage. Third taskmaster died attacking my regen/fire mage (combat promotions helped, but I think Dave got unlucky here?). He cleared out my trailing adept with a chariot and recaptured the bait worker south of Krusty. One of his surviving taskmasters remains in Clarabell, while the other is running to the hills in the east. Overall, I lost some valuable units, but it could have been worse. Losing the mage was the main set back here. I take care of the remaining garrison and capture the city:
 


I haste the stack and move a couple of fire mages few tiles south-east and back to send fireballs against the escaping units. I manage to destroy the taskmaster and a slave (captured earlier by defeating my unit). A fireball eliminates the lone enemy chariot too. My hasted chariots pillage the road towards xist’s city, so the remaining chariots there can’t retake Clarabell. Two adepts of Dave managed to escape to east, I don’t want send units to chase them down now. I position the main force, including all mages, to the tile south of Krusty so that next turn I have the option to advance towards the capital. Overview after all unit movements:


Dave’s capital shows the highlighted units. Aurorarcher is bringing centaurs for support, although he is not at war with me yet. I added signs to most of the tiles containing units. My first proper reinforcement wave is in the coastal city of Bozo. It contains the taskforce that was responsible of capturing the southern island, plus a few more SoKs, chariot and mage + haste adept. I moved two blasting workshop wood golems forward, so next turn they can move one tile NE and their fireballs can reach the capital if needed. Then finally, I have another couple of freshly upgraded mages and paramanders marching between Farron Keep and Grock, plus the mutated super hunter that I had kept in reserve until now. Slower golems made in core lands keep moving, to free SoKs to join the invasion stack. Alarmingly, Dave is no longer the only person with assassins:


If I remember correctly, by this time I had built a couple of scouts in Farron Keep to tag along mage armies and hopefully sacrifice themselves to any assassin ambushes. Of course, I would prefer to catch assassins with a deep dive attack, but the scouts can be counted as a sort of an insurance policy to reduce the chances of losing mages again. One of the floating eyes spot an escaping settler of Dave within xist lands (I took the picture after ending turn):


Before ending turn I sent open border deal to xist, in case I can spare some units to chase the escapees down a bit later. He could decline the deal, so no guarantees on that.
 
Turn 116

Xist did in fact accept the open borders, but this turn I can’t make any use of it yet. Floating eyes reveal that Ronald McDonald has been heavily reinforced by Dave and Aurorarcher:


I spent quite a bit of time to count how many fireballs and mobility promoted units can reach that city this turn with the help of haste. I calculated that I should have enough attackers to destroy all units, including Aurorarcher’s, if most of my fireballs manage to get full kills. By this time I have 8 mobility promoted chariots within reach and more arriving as reinforcements later. I decide to proceed with full attack: First I move the main stack to Krusty and cast haste there. I have another adept further west that can haste the reinforcement stack in Bozo. I send both maelstrom mages to the forested hill 1SW of the city and cast their spells. For some reason these spells didn’t trigger automatic war declaration against Aurorarcher, but dealt damage to his units anyway. I want to clear them out so I manually declare war against him.


After this, I move the two golems forward and summon their fireballs. I checked the odds with these but they were quite low to achieve a kill (around 20-30%). To compare possibilities, I send a proper fire mage and check the odds, as shown in above picture. I leave the golem fireballs to wait for better odds and attack with the empowered mage fireball instead. It loses (unless I remember wrong, note to self: I need to write down full list of attacks to not forget when I write reports). Next mage comes in and his fireball has now much better chances:


After mage fireball attacks (one lost, the rest achieved kills) the chariots come in:


All of them have odds above 95% and don’t lose any combats. All of the chariots within reach follow up like this. After chariots the two golem fireballs have much better odds and kill a sword + Aurorarcher tiger:


Now only three skeletons remain at Ronald McDonald, another mobility promoted unit comes in and takes out one. It at this point I realize my second miscalculation of the war: That last mobility unit was supposed to wait to attack after the fire mages from reinforcement wave had sent their fireballs in. I scan around my available units and realize that only fireballs can reach the city, and they can’t capture it. So Dave’s capital will survive another turn. I do bring in the final two fire mages of the reinforcement column:




The final two empowered fireballs clear out those two remaining skeletons, leaving the city empty:


My super hunter is just out of reach, and no other mobility promoted units have attacks left.


I consolidate all but one of the chariots (ran out of movement) to the hill tile and send paramanders to defend units left in the open. Secondary force of mages sits in the open plain between Grock and Bozo, but has two paramanders for defence. One scout is added to both mage stacks to absorb assassin hits if some are in range (I don’t see any with floating eyes). Meanwhile in the south a barbarian invasion is approaching:


I spotted it with a hunter that captured nearby bear. Two SoKs are diverted to defend Clarabell, in addition to the hunter and a mud golem. Scanning around, I spot a cultist approaching my northern “pond”:


I moved the galley with two blasting workshop golems to summon fireballs, only to realize I need to declare war on Bing to attack the priest. I decide not to start a third war, and wait for the cultist to move out of the Grigori borders. I might need to shuffle more units to defend the island, as Bing also has sailing now. I mostly continue with military builds, with a few exceptions of pushing for regrowth after River of Blood (conquest civic blocks growth while building military):


I also convert one of the fire nodes back to metamagic, since I need more floating eye adepts to cover all of the angles cultists or mobile centaurs could emerge from. Aurorarcher builds Perfect Lyre, so culture game is looking good for him. Forgot to mention earlier that he also completed Guild of the Nine, so he can now purchase mercenaries with cash. Power graph for good measure:


Now that I’m war with both Dave and Aurorarcher, maybe others want to jump in to prevent me from taking opponents out one by one? Or maybe I shouldn’t count the chickens before they hatch… Dave still has fighting capability left and Aurorarcher might have some highly promoted cultists or ritualists at the ready, plus possibly assassins now too.

[Qgqqqqq]

Thanks for the updates! Magic war turns in FFH2 are very challenging, there's endless degrees of optimisation to make.

[coldrain]

Turn 119 trailer

I will write proper report at a more suitable moment, but to not keep you waiting too long, here’s another quick look of where the game is going. I’m still at war with Dave and Aurorarcher, and I opened my turn to this handsome fellow:


I’m also at war with him now (he had declared war instantly). I have been capturing Dave’s cities and clearing his garrison units while trying to avoid too risky moves. After conquering another city this turn I catch a sight of this with floating eye:


Kuriotate assassins and ritualists approaching. I destroy as many of the workers as I can with fireballs and consolidated my army here:


I counted the tiles and I should be out of range of hasted ritualists, even if Dave manages to build enough roads that are missing between our positions (unlikely). Hasted assassins could reach me if they promote to mobility, but I have scouts and mud golem as “easier” targets to hopefully draw out the attacks instead of mages. Dave managed to found a refugee city somewhere, possibly east or NE of xist, so I have to send units to hunt it down. I’m hoping that Aurorarcher pushes that bigger force too far south on his turn, so I can hit it with everything I got next turn.

[Qgqqqqq]

Hyborem declares war on everyone his summoner is at war with when he is summoned.