[EitB LVIII Spoilers] coldrain prolongs the Age of Fire

[coldrain]

Going to have be a lot of dwarven blood to undo that power graph lead. But I imagine that everyone else is going to be keen to try to make that happen ...

Each turn, I'm more and more convinced that a full blown dog pile is just around the corner. Hopefully I can concentrate on one opponent at a time, but I completely understand if others want to jump in to force me to divide my attention.

Turn 125

Opening T125 marked the end of many golden ages (bodes well for the Luchuirp?):


This was also the turn when Eurabatres the Gold Dragon entered the world. I spot it at Rivendell:


Aurorarcher retreated again with his main force, this time dividing the troops into Edoras and his capital of Minas Tirith. Most of the units at Edoras have only 1 movement (mercenaries or deceased corpses) that can’t reach me if I keep my mage stack far enough away. Mud golem at the forward screening force builds a road to the neutral territory and I push forward on the hills:


Fireballs have low odds to damage the eidolon, so I use all that can reach to bombard the city defences. I stay on this forested hill, where only ritualists and assassins + Rosier the Fallen can attack me -> I should be fine since I have enough paramanders to defend and scouts to bait out the assassinations. Meanwhile at core lands, starvation is looming despite the change to agrarianism:


I swap the enchantment mana node to spirit node, and promote a mage at the main stack to spirit 1. I then cats courage spell to all of the units there, making them heal +10% per turn (stacks with regeneration bonus of +10% and medic 1 too) so that if I suffer damage from ritualist ring of fire, my units should heal to full health at the beginning of my turn. An added bonus of courage is immunity to fear, which the Dragon can use to scatter a stack that it attacks.
In a diplomatic initiative, I suggest these trades to Bing and xist:




Both proposed deals give more resources to them than I receive in return, but I have a specific reason to ask for these trades. First, I need happiness to counter war weariness (I switched away extra enchantment mana) and more importantly, borders will pop at former Dave lands, adding in a new death mana source. If either Bing or xist accepts the mana trade I proposed, I have just enough nodes to unlock tower of divination. Unfortunately I have only two dispel mages, so it takes a couple of turns to move around and swap all of the three nodes in my territory. An additional idea I had was to promote some law 1+2 mages, so I can have hosts of einherjars for additional stack defence or forward screening duty (str 5 angelic summon).
 
Turn 126
This turn was covered in a preview on post #73. To make it easier to follow my army movements in chronological order, I’ll copy the same writing here, with small edits and additional content that I didn’t have time to write in that preview.
 
Floating eyes reveal where the enemy armies are located and where the Dragon has flown to:




I have the mobility advantage in hilly terrain, so I estimated that I can strike at Edoras and afterwards position my forces so that they can’t be reached by anything that Aurorarcher has stationed in his capital. My whole main mage force marched within maelstrom range of Edoras:


First cast of maelstrom did maximum damage to most Kuriotate units in the garrison and a second cast was thrown in as a good measure. After this, I send all fireballs and managed to take out both of the eidolons there:


Finally, hasted mobility promoted chariots pillage the roads on the plains hills toward my army and I retreat with haste to a safer distance:


Two scouts ran out of movement and stayed closer to the city (they were a recent reinforcement wave to provide more targets for assassins). If Aurorarcher has haste adepts further back, he can send those ritualists and assassins in Edoras to attack my mage stack. I’m counting on that Aurorarcher has no haste adepts available, or if he does, then he shouldn’t have enough mobility promoted units to attack me, even if I get damaged by ring of flames. Gold Dragon sits in Kuriotate capital and is out of range to hit me directly.
At home, I keep tracking where Bing’s and Brian’s armies are stationed and if there are any suspicious movements of workers or military units:


That big Illian army has been standing in there for a while now. Borders expanded to the death mana and I promote an adept to summon skeletons (one allowed per death 1 promotion):


Forgot to mention that at the start of the turn I accepted counter proposals from both Bing and xist that were:

• sugar from Bing in exchange for three health resources (duplicates of mine that he lacks)
  
• law mana from xist in exchange for my only source of enchantment mana as of now (palace mana)
  

The latter deal allows xist to cast enchanted blades to all of his melee units, including vampires and death summons. Now I hope that this doesn’t come back to bite me (blood sucker pun intended). On the other hand, I can now squeeze enough mana node swaps to unlock Tower of Divination, to slingshot me to archmages. As I mentioned, the setup for this will take a couple of turns. Perhaps greedily, I swap one of my nodes to law, so that I can upgrade couple of adepts with free promotions (temporary enchantment mana would have been better?):


Another dispel mage, accompanied by adepts, is marching to the recently acquired death mana node, to swap it into either sun or mind. The extra law node will be swapped too just before I intend to complete ToD. Barnaxus has been hunting barbarians that have been streaming in sporadically from west and south tundra, now he is almost at combat 5. I keep him at home to not risk losing his hard earned experience. Blight is still causing unhealthiness, which will fade away gradually. Unfortunately I will suffer some population loss, but agrarianism will help to mitigate the damage. Next turns are bound to have a lot of combat and action, reporting to follow!

[coldrain]

I have a question about spell resistances: Is there a base resistance chance to blinding light and charm spells? For example if I have a mage with potency (i.e. targets have -20% resist to spells) and I cast blinding light (+30% chance to resist by default), what is the final chance for a regular enemy unit to resist the spell? Only 10%, or is there a hidden base chance to resist added to this? Does added spell damage from combat promotions alter this? I have an important decision to make if my army is in good health at the start of next turn, and knowing how likely a cast of blinding light or charm actually has to succeed affects this... Now that I think of it, I will make a test game before playing next turn, just to be sure.

[coldrain]

I set up a test game to estimate the success rate of blinding light and charm spells. Results in spoiler:

 

I tried to setup the test with same game settings (except I allowed new random seed option on reload). I also roughly copied the garrison force at Kuriotate capital, most importantly the heroes and high level eidolons and priests + assassins. The shown garrison is not 100% accurate to the latest turn, I couldn’t bother to spend the time putting all correct units in place with their promotions.

I guess I owe an explanation for this testing: I’m still lagging behind in reporting (working on it!), and I have been planning to make a decisive move against Aurorarcher’s capital, but I have been worried that if I move in close and do an attack, too many Kuriotate assassins and ritualists are left alive to counter attack. Plus he has a bunch of deceased corpses and mercenaries too. And Eurabatres + Mardero. Looking at the pictures now, I forgot to add Rosier the Fallen, but he is the least dangerous of the merry band of heroes.

Results: One cast of sun 2 spell blinding light (boosted with meta 1) successfully traps about 30-50% of units, excluding the magic immune Dragon. One cast of charm applies the effect to about 30-45% of the units. A single unit can be affected by both effects, so I would expect to disable offensive capabilities of about 50% of the forces. Seems promising. Important note is that charm effect prevents attacking with a unit, but doesn’t block spell casting, so PoLs, ritualists and heroes could still use their abilities while charmed, but not when blinded. As of now, I have upgraded two charm mages (only one is in position with my main stack on current turn) and one blinding light mage, so it looks like I could risk moving in and hope that my earth elementals absorb potential attacks from the Dragon and heroes +surviving eidolons. Wait, am I so behind in reporting that I haven’t had the chance to show the archmages in action? I need to catch up…

[coldrain]

Turn 127

It turned out that Aurorarcher evacuated his valuable units from Edoras and left a bunch of slow moving garrison units there:


After maelstrom and a couple of fireballs later, my city attack SoK and chariots can go in:


I made sure to only use spell extension 1 fireballs against Edoras, so extension 2 ones can be sent against escaping high value targets at a safe distance later in the turn. I capture Edoras, which comes with a nice price of academy, temples and Hall of Kings:


Hall of Kings is very useful, I will use specialists to pop borders in conquered cities. Nine turns of revolt is a pain to sit through. Still, one of the Kuriotate super cities is now my control. Next, I send the extension 2 fireballs against escaping assassins, ritualists and war elephant on the ancient forest NW of Minas Tirith:


I manage to kill a ritualist and some other blocker units:


Last fireball could only kill a tiger (Auro can resummon easily), so instead it bombards the defences of Minas Tirith. I leave the main stack in striking distance of the capital:


One scout checks the northern watch tower to see the surroundings. I still don’t have enough meta 1 adepts around to fully cover each direction, IIRC I built/promoted a couple more recently. The plan to build Tower of Divination is closing in, with a dispel mage and supporting adepts approaching the recently acquired death mana node in captured Dave lands:


Speaking of Dave, one of his chariots is now in striking range of my poorly defended border cities, so I place a scout on a strategic road tile to block him from taking a maybe 20-30% shot of razing or recapturing a city. Another plan of mine is taking shape with building a settler at Grock: this will be used to connect another mana source between me and Aurorarcher (second allotted node of Balseraphs) or alternatively a gold source deep within the mountain range north of Pyre city can be brought within the empire, as I need more happiness to counter the growing war weariness (city states civic not helping here, thankfully nationhood alleviates a bit).
 
Turn 128

[Some of this turn was previewed in an earlier post. Now full report with more details]

Just as I was doing calculations on advancing against the Kuriotate capital, I see that xist is marching towards me with a nicely promoted vampire force:


Up until now xist had kept most of his forces at Santaron or even further away -> this looks like he is preparing to open a second front against me, maybe prompted by my successful capture of Edoras? Makes sense from a strategic perspective. If I’m allowed to take out Aurorarcher in one-on-one fight, then I can afterwards pick my next target freely, assuming I actually win this engagement. Xist and I are still at peace, but this move looks highly suspicious (we don’t have fish-for-fish trade or other friendly diplo, except for open borders and the mana trade I mentioned earlier). Also, that Dave chariot killed the blocker scout and returned back, as seen in the picture.

Most importantly, the dispel mage and his entourage switched the death mana to sun mana (another dispel mage changed western node to mind). With the previously improved spirit mana node and the traded law mana, I can rush Tower of Divination at capital:


I arranged the tiles so that even with the blight induced starvation, production will be finished end of turn. At Kuriotate front, I send more extension fireballs to bombard the defences at Minas Tirith:


Then in preparation for getting strength of will next turn for archmage upgrades, I move the mage stack to Edoras:


Most of the hasted mobility 2 chariots go and pillage the indicated tile, both to gather money for upgrades and to destroy the road and therefore make Edoras harder to reach by hostile units. I manage to pillage that tile completely, netting me with about 150 gold and destroyed the road. I also pillage roads on the nearby hills, except leave a road connection SE of Edoras for my own movements. Floating eye checks if Brian is threatening Edoras or my mage force there:


Very minimal Illian forces in view. Pool of Tears is an interesting feature, where I could send an invasion force and heal afflictions if needed. I very much prefer the Illians to stay neutral as they have been, so I don’t intend to cause any agonizing actions. In south, I send a host of einherjar to take out the pesky Dave chariot:


I had upgraded the first law 2 mages in the previous turns, so I have einherjars as disposable defenders or blocker units. Finally, alarmed by the potential invasion of the vampires, I send reserve maelstrom mage and some paramanders towards east that had stayed in Undead Settle as an emergency defence force if Bing or Brian would attack my core lands:


Trailing reinforcements destined to go to Edoras are also halted and stay in the former capital of Balseraph (some paramanders, chariots, golems and the fresh law mages). Oh, and research of engineering completed previous turn, so now my units can move three tiles on roads per movement point, making it easier to react to any potential new war fronts or flanking moves. Next is priesthood for additional healing and shield of faith spell with Kilmorph priests, although first I need to save (and pillage) more money for the archmage upgrades.

EDIT: I still don't have any idea where Hyborem spawned in and I haven't seen any of his units either. Maybe I could make peace with him soon? Hmm, his world spell seizes control of the Ashen Veil holy city to him if I remember right, so I could lose Edoras that way? So maybe better to stay at war because of that possibility...

[coldrain]

Quick comment: My long term plan was to get necromancy -> death nodes -> convert new archmages to liches, but I didn’t notice this requirement until now (T135, just finished necromancy):


To unlock lichdom, I would need death 3 (was working on this) and malevolent designs, the latter of which needs about 10 turns of full 100% research and I need to first convert to either Octopus Overlords or Ashen Veil. Too many steps involved, would take too long to research and I would like to continue producing SoKs and paramanders too. Instead I’m now looking into possibly using this:


If I understand how domination spell works correctly, I could quite easily lose it if I cast it next to a stack of enemy units (only one enemy needs to resist to permanently lose the spell?). However, if I time the using of it well, then a single cast should be enough to break through a stubborn opponent…  I will do some testing to verify if this could work.

EDIT: Based on a quick test: Bleh, domination only converts one unit at a time and seems to target the mercenaries first. Could still be useful if I could select which targets to convert. Back to the drawing board I guess... Next plan is enchantment 3 for spellstaff?

[coldrain]

Another quick update (planning to catch up reporting in the coming days, my vacation started!): Game is on T140 and I had shifted my focus from trying to capture Auro's capital to trying to eliminate xist as a threat while I waited for important mage upgrades (xp and mana swaps). While moving the elite army towards south-east, I finally found Dave's last city and razed it, bringing the end to the Balseraph. GG Dave, your delaying actions might have saved Aurorarcher's capital, at least until now. Things are looking very good for me, even if every player jumped on me right now. Still, a lot of work is needed to bring the game to a close.

[coldrain]

(double post)

Turn 129
 
I had thought that xist would declare war against me during his turn, but evidently not. He advanced a moderate force of vampires/morois/adepts towards Krusty and Clarabell to the south, accompanied by a pair of workers:


Even if no war has been declared yet, the only direction here is to attack my flank. I have very light defences in the closest cities in south, but I had halted a reinforcement wave to the former capital of Balseraph, which can spare some units as a response. Another small army sits on the doorstep of Emmet Kelly and Loonette:


Golem fireball reveals more adepts, skeletons and other units within the vampire lands. Before making any moves here, I first swap couple of the mana nodes to earth type (were mind and sun to open Tower of Divination):




Together with palace earth mana, the first archmage upgrade can be promoted directly to earth 3, to summon earth elementals:


Earth elementals have the advantage of dealing physical damage, so they will ignore the elemental resistances of some powerful units, namely Eurabatres the Gold dragon, and demonic Eidolons fire resistance. And they have high base strength with earth mana affinity:


Elementals are themselves immune to fear and death + poison damage, very handy against demonic or undead summons. I will use the earth elementals to crack through tough defenders, or to defend my stack from powerful heroes/summons. I did consider fire or air elementals too, but I don’t need the collateral from the former (maelstrom and fireballs are enough) nor the high mobility of the latter (again, spell extension fireballs should be fine). Each lvl 6 mage -> archmage upgrade costs 165 gold, so I send hasted chariots on a pillage run, burning down the juicy Kuriotate enclaves:


I pillage one tile completely and another one partially, earning enough cash for two more archmage upgrades. I wanted to only upgrade two more now, leaving one slot open for later (only 4 archmages allowed per player). I had planned to later upgrade death 3 archmage and immediately convert it to a lich, allowing me to effectively have 8 powerful caster units albeit four of them being immune to regen or haste. As I mentioned in the earlier quick update, I had not realized the requirement to adopt an evil religion and then research malevolent designs to unlock lichdom. Better to stick to the tools allowed for good civs anyway, right?
 
Scanning around with floating eyes (and from event log), I see that Aurorarcher completed the Veil hero Mardero:


He has the channeling 3 promo, effectively making him a hero archmage. Could be quite dangerous with proper promotions. The most dangerous spell he can get by only waiting for enough xp is the entropy 3 spell of wither: -20% healing, up to 40% death damage and -1 defensive strength to all enemy units within 1 range (can be resisted). It will take a while for him to have enough xp for that, so this made me even more willing to take out Auro faster than I have been trying so far. However, now that xist is looking like on the verge of invading me in the east or southeast, I can’t afford to push my main force too far away, or I will leave the conquered lands without proper cover. I decided to try and force a peace treaty between me and xist, by declaring war and first eliminating the moroi that had been trailing my mage stack:


First fireball made no dent, but follow up ones clear that out. Then I send in golem fireballs against the closest moroi/vampire stack:


In total a few morois die and rest of the units suffer collateral damage (vampires + adepts all still alive). I concentrate forces to Ronald McDonald and position other units so that only Emmett Kelly and/or Clarabell should fall if the vampires advance:


An added advantage for me is the fact that golems are immune to death damage, meaning no damage from the recent plague and the most likely summons of the Calabim (skeletons and spectres) will have poor odds against them. In the north, I hasted the upgraded archmages and moved the main force here:


Earth elementals guard Edoras, the mage stack and block the closest hostile road. Finally, I send a peace proposal to xist, hoping that an enforced peace will give enough time for me to break through Minas Tirith. If my peace proposal is rejected, I have maelstrom mage and other units arriving to provide support for next turn. And I have a good amount of fireball wood golems available too. Engineering makes the movement of reinforcements much easier here.
 
Turn 130
 
Xist rejected the peace proposal and keeps pressure both in east and south:




Emmett Kelly was captured (I left only a disposable summon to defend) and one or two exposed wood golems were cleared out. Also, A SoK died defending Krusty against spectres, but the city holds. Clarabell was weakly defended, but survives too. I check the Kuriotate front with floating eye (more on that later) and decide that I need to first take out those vampires if I can. Some movement + tile distance counting later, I move in the reserve maelstrom mage to hit that bigger vampire force near Krusty:


First fireball has low odds against Flauros (mutated, renamed vampire). I throw in a couple more and get the kill at 81,6% odds.


More blasting workshop wood golems march on and summon their fireballs:


A couple of summoned einherjars join in, one of which kills an empowered spectre at 39% odds. After all of the summons have done their job, chariots + paramanders + any other units that can reach move on the tile and a haste adept does his magic:


In the end, I have just enough units to wipe out the invaders:


I lost a couple of SoKs/warriors/etc to finish of the vampires, with a captured bear taking the final kill. I left a paramander available on purpose, to be sent to defend Clarabell (one vampire is sneaking close via the southern tundra). Back in the Kuriotate front, Aurorarcher had sent in a ritualist to cast ring of flames, from which my units had completely healed at the beginning of my turn (regen spell, courage, medic 1). That ritualist was covered by a fawn and some tigers, I maelstrom and then fireball them:


Since Aurorarcher is hunkering down in his capital, I can afford to temporarily send the main force back south, to deal with the other Calabim force near Emmett Kelly:


I recapture Emmett Kelly, mage fireballs hit the vampire/moroi stack and golem fireballs weaken that smaller skeleton screening party. Some of the golems and chariots eliminate the skeletons, while the rest attack the morois:


And finally, earth golems move in against the trailing vampire:


Those elementals will be great roadblocks to prevent possible counter attacks. The main force returns towards north, to put the pressure back on the Kuriotates:


Dispel mages in homelands shifted the nodes to earth mana, to boost the strength of earth elementals:


Great engineer rushes Guild of Hammers in capital:


There will be no rivals to match the production of the mighty magic Dwarves! Unhealthiness from plague is slowly fading away, but not before it caused population loss in my best cities. All in all, xist lost about 9 highly promoted vampires and 5 adepts this turn, plus some morois and a lot of skeletons (can be resummoned). This should buy me time to make a move against Minas Tirith in the near future. And between the mana swaps, I keep upgrading adepts to mages when convenient (enough xp, available money and good enough mana node configuration).

[DaveV]

GG Dave, your delaying actions might have saved Aurorarcher's capital, at least until now.

I was torn about building the refugee city; there's a trollish element to plunking down a terrible city in the wasteland just to make your invader suffer war weariness. It's a tough balancing act to be fair to the other players and also to the guy who just wiped me out. No hard feelings, I hope you can continue on to a win; it's well deserved after what was unquestionably a well-played game. Good luck dealing with the stress of fighting the rest of the world.

[coldrain]

I was torn about building the refugee city; there's a trollish element to plunking down a terrible city in the wasteland just to make your invader suffer war weariness. It's a tough balancing act to be fair to the other players and also to the guy who just wiped me out. No hard feelings, I hope you can continue on to a win; it's well deserved after what was unquestionably a well-played game. Good luck dealing with the stress of fighting the rest of the world.

Thanks! I think that the refugee city was a smart play, I didn't see it as unfair or anything like that. The war weariness definitely slowed me down, but not detrimentally so.

Turn 131
 
Floating eye reveals that xist gathered remaining vampires on a more defensive position:


I assume these were a reinforcement wave that were marching to catch up with the rest of the forces that now have been destroyed. In the Kuriotate front, I send in a spell extension fireball to destroy a few workers that improved a mine on the island (iron resource? I don’t have smelting yet).


Dispel mages switches two nodes to mind mana:


Allowing me to upgrade two adepts into mages with mind 1 + 2 for charm spell. Earlier I had promoted a mage to sun 2 (blinding light), the plan is to have enough casters with charm/blind so at a suitable moment I can jump next to Minas Tirith, do damage with maelstrom and summons, and reduce the amount of counter attack units with the aforementioned spells.
No other interesting actions on this turn, I sent earth elementals to defend Edoras and also to Loonette near vampire front. I keep the main stack with archmages here, so they can react to movements of both Aurorarcher and/or xist:


 
Turn 132

Waiting for the newly upgraded mind mages to move into position, hasted chariots go for another pillage run:


As many mobile units go in and back as possible, netting a neat sum of money. Importantly, more roads are pillaged too, to make my advance to the hills safer. Earth elementals and einherjars are sent afterwards to block the approach:


Mind nodes are swapped back into earth for maximum elemental strength:


First blasting workshop gargoyles are marching towards the eastern front, as seen in the above picture. Some gargoyles will stay in the core lands to bolster defences against Bing/Brian or any sneak attacks through their lands. I adjust tech rate to finish priesthood in one turn. Demos after Guild of Hammers has been completed:


 
Turn 133
 
Armageddon counter hit 40 for a moment, and event log verified that Stephanos spawned in:


I didn’t see him near my lands. Again floating eye sees that xist kept his vampire force on that same hill, this time sending a small spectre screening force a bit forward.


Now for more action -> Aurorarcher had moved his assassins to Rivendell:


Perhaps he noticed my blinding light and charm mages and wanted to make sure that the assassins would be in good health and available to attack next turn if I moved against Minas Tirith? I decide to go for the attack anyway. The whole stack moves on the hills and I cast maelstrom twice for maximum damage:


Then I clear out a blocker spectre and pit beast 1S of the capital with chariot and einherjar. Time to roll the dice:


I take a 17% shot with an earth elemental to take out the Gold Dragon. Drumroll… And I fail to kill it. The Dragon goes down to about 7 strength. More earth elementals go in, this time against highly promoted eidolons:


I kill one eidolon and slightly wound another. Then I send in highly promoted chariots to take out the lone nightwatch (recruited by under council decision?). Unfortunately, one or two eidolons remain at high health and they block further attempts of doing damage (I lose a couple fresh chariots trying to get a low odd win or withdrawal). No more earth elementals available to attack and fireballs + chariots get low odds, I halt the assault. Remaining chariots pillage some of the enclaves/towns, and leave enough movement to return to the safety of the paramanders. I could have tried to disable Minas Tirith garrison with blinding light and charm, but that would have left my stack right next to the city, vulnerable to ring of flames and assassin counter attack. Before deciding the final position to move my main stack, I briefly take a look on my reinforcement units and other directions:


Brian has moved his PoW and axeman force closer, warranting some reshuffling of my garrison units. Also note the filled up treasury from the pillaging done near Minas Tirith. I gather defenders here if xist decides to move in closer (Emmett Kelly is defended only by a single skeleton):


I use the pillage gold to upgrade several mages, including the first ones with life 2 spell of destroy undead. This should be devastating against the vampiric summons of spectres and skeletons. Since I still have extra earth manas connected, many of the new mages receive the ability to cast stoneskin for free, and I cast when convenient. Finally, I pull back the main force further back, to avoid ring of flames and such:


At this point it looked like maelstrom and earth elementals + fireballs are not enough to break through Minas Tirith, so I started simulating other potential spells to use later (made test game to see effect of rust, wither, domination, wonder spells).

EDIT: I also founded a new city, Profane Capital, north of Farron keep to connect the only close source of gold. I need to keep the better cities happy. Guild of Hammers helps with this too (free forges, which gain extra happy from gold).

[Qgqqqqq]

Thanks for all the updates!