[SPOILERS] Woof! Woof! Bad dog! No biscuit! Charadon of the Doviello

[Selrahc]

I haven't tested it because I didn't think the game would last long enough, but can icy floodplains be scorched?

Yes.

Can I summon him while evil?

Yes. As long as you aren't worshipping veil.

[Ellimist]

I haven't tested it because I didn't think the game would last long enough, but can icy floodplains be scorched?

Yes.

Great! And I have sun mana available nearby. I think I'll revise my next city spot to include the Mirror of Heaven in the BFC.

[Ellimist]

Okay, I'm still waiting on the save but I've been messing around with a sim.

According to Ichabod, he'll have 4 bloodpets this turn, one of them with shock and full fort bonus. 2 of the others have 5% fort bonus.

Facing that, I have a shock beastman, another beastman, a C3 3 strength wolf, and 3 lesser wolves. And a barbarian goblin attacks right before I do. And Lucian, a beastman, and a scout arriving in the not too distant future.

Ichabod wants to negotiate, and I'm not sure whether to. Anything I agree to with him would seal me into second place, and Mist into third. My other options are much riskier.

Right now, my best beastman is getting 21.9% odds in my sim against his best bloodpet at full strength. The goblin has 9.9% odds to win, but decent odds to do decent damage and inflict poison. The odds I have to win next turn are massively affected by how much damage the goblin does. If it hits the main defender hard enough, then I have a chance. It's pointless to run the sim more until I know that variable.

[Ellimist]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 24 Update[/SIZE][SIZE="6"](domestic)[/SIZE]
[SIZE="5"]Or "Where the Wild Men Live"[/SIZE]


So I opened the save and was greeted with the news that Innsmouth doesn't suck anymore! Well. It's still not too great, and it hurts me more than it helps me, but now it can work an improved tile! I currently have it set to Deruptus production because it can't produce anything better, and River Heights isn't (quite) touching the river.

Image of Innsmouth being not terrible for once:

Meanwhile River Heights isn't doing too badly itself. Losing 2 population at the same time I was hit with higher unit supply costs was definitely a setback, but I'm recovering quickly. A worker finishes next turn, with enough overflow to finish a scout(with even more overflow). I realize a scout isn't that great of an addition to my army, but I was holding a scout and a beastman in the queue and I finished the beastman first. That beastman is moving north with Lucian and the scout will be able to catch up and arrive at the same time. Meanwhile I should have the first plantation done next turn, and the other two finished quickly after that.

Image of River Heights under development:

[Ellimist]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 24 Update[/SIZE][SIZE="6"](foreign)[/SIZE]
[SIZE="5"]Vampires Under Siege[/SIZE]




So I opened the turn and saw:

Apparently the goblin from last turn didn't attack yet, and the odds were worse than my sim showed, so I didn't attack either. I realize that the fortification bonuses will just improve in the interim, but there was no chance of taking the city this turn. Other barbarians are also incoming and they might give me an opening soon. If I'm lucky all 4 barbarians will attack on the same turn.


So I moved my troops thusly:

I wanted to block him from working or camping the 2 hammer forest-hill. Next turn I may move more of my stack to it so I can have some defense bonuses as well. That also gives me better vision of his BFC in case there was something important I needed to see. I did lose sight of the tile SW SW of the city with the barbarian skeleton on it, but I may put a wolf on the hill S-S of the city to keep an eye on it. Lucian and my other beastman are still incoming, and a scout finishes soon and will arrive with them. I haven't given up hope of taking the city yet, but it will likely take some time. If I can kill his promoted unit and get my own units better promoted, then I think I can knock his bloodpets out one by one.

I didn't check demographics so I'm not exactly sure how fast he can produce bloodpets, but I'm hoping that if I can manage to kill his promoted unit(s) and get some more promoted units of my own, that I'll be able to tilt the odds in my favor. Promotions in FFH have such a big impact that I think they can decide this fight one way or the other.

[Ellimist]

Okay, I played T25 before I left the house earlier, but didn't have a chance to write it up so I'll do that when I get back(soon.) However T26 is now waiting for me so it will be 2 updates together. I'll give a quick T25 summary for now and then expand it with pictures/etc.

Worker #2 completed and helped finish the first plantation, bringing my 100% gold rate up considerably. They'll finish 2 more plantations in 4 more turns and that will help a LOT. At EOT the scout completed and he'll be able to arrive at Santa Monica on the same turn as Lucian. So far I've done a decent job of coordinating my units together, but it feels like an accident a lot of the time.

In the north, I stacked all the units on the forested hill NW of Santa Monica. I think I have to attack on T26, and I didn't want to be vulnerable to a counterattack if I have wounded units ready to promote. If I can't at least kill his shock bloodpet, I don't think I can win a drawn out campaign.

Meanwhile the barbarian goblin didn't manage to do any damage last turn, and three more barbarian units are SW of the city and will attack this turn. I'm hoping they at least manage to hurt Ichabod's defense and I can clean up. Worst case scenario is they keep feeding him xp without damage. The best I can figure, his best bloodpet has 3 or 4 xp. So 1-2 more battles won and my chances of victory will fall even further. If his shock bloodpet gets combat 2 or guerrilla 1, I won't have a chance. However, there will be a window for me where I can attack before his units promote.

Lucian(plus a beastman and a scout) may be strong enough to decide things in my favor if I can hold out that long, but if I can't start making some significant progress soon, I think I'll have to start negotiating. I am sure that Ichabod is building nonstop bloodpets, so my odds will steadily decline as this drags on. Even so, I can still hurt Ichabod even if I can't kill him, so I should be able to get some concessions.

[Ellimist]

Okay, here's the Calabim situation on turn 25:

There's nothing really unexpected here. You can see that he's working the 1F-1H-1C riverside plains tile (and the grassland forest in the top right corner,) so he's definitely emphasizing hammers.

When I opened the turn, my gpt had dropped to +0. After I switched to the newly finished plantation, it's up to +5. As soon as I can stop paying these unit upkeep costs, I should be able to get going at a good pace on tech. I haven't invested any beakers into exploration yet, and I don't really expect to at least while at war with Ichabod. I know that Mist has (at least) exploration and cartography, because map trades are possible with him. He probably doesn't have calendar yet(he's not in agrarianism), so I might be able to tech faster than him soon.

Now for turn 26...

[Ellimist]

[SIZE="7"]Escalating the Hostilities[/SIZE]


[SIZE="5"]Turn 26 Start[/SIZE]
I opened the save and had a few surprises waiting for me.
First, the barbarian stack did not attack last turn. Sometimes there's this weird tendency sometimes for them to rest for one turn before attacking, so the 3 barbarian units were still sitting there.
Second, the Calabim borders had expanded, increasing the city's cultural defense bonus. I should have realized this as my own borders had recently expanded, but I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it anyway.
Third, the Calabim workers were gone. They either moved out of the city or were deleted, I didn't try to find out.

So this is what things looked like:

If my best available unit was only getting 4.2% odds against the top Calabim defender, it seemed likely that the barbarian stack of inferior units would just be feeding it exp without having much impact.

I wasn't sure what the right move was here, but I ended up deciding that I had to roll the dice. I tried to use a sim to figure out my chances, but I built it a few turns ago and never could get the odds to match up, so I must have missed something. However, in the sim the shock defender would still defend against beastmen until it got VERY low on HP. I had 3 wolves I could use to weaken the top bloodpet, so I figured that it would be possible to get to at least 25-30% odds, which I feel would be worth taking a shot for. There's zero chance I can win the game unless I kill Ichabod, and there's zero chance I can kill Ichabod unless I manage to kill his shock bloodpet(before it gets guerrilla too.) So I decided to hit it with the wolves and then see if I could finish it with the shock beastman.

[SIZE="5"]Combat[/SIZE]
I sent in the first wolf:

His chances of winning outright were basically nil, but he did plenty of damage. (Somehow, losing a single wolf also saved me 3 gold a turn in unit upkeep!) I considered attacking with a second wolf, but realized that it wouldn't even attack the same bloodpet. 38.3% odds were as good as I was going to get, so I took the shot, and...

My beastman won without taking any hits at all! I don't know what the odds of this were, but he'll be able to promote twice next turn and attack right away. Hopefully the barbarian stack will have enough of an impact and next turn will be enough to end it. If I have to, I can wait for the Lucian mini-stack to arrive and I think that will definitely be enough, even if Ichabod produces more units. Lucian currently gets 74.9% odds against the next bloodpet. And... wow, what a bunch of Brigit.

River Heights:

When the next beastman finishes, I'll be keeping it at home so that the city can grow to size 5. I haven't been worried about a Mortius style fate because I've been constantly holding enough hammers in the queue and/or overflow to finish a unit very quickly. If a unit had appeared on the border, I could have finished a defender before it reached me.

[SIZE="5"]Summary[/SIZE]
Overall this was a very good turn for me. I successfully removed the top defender from Santa Monica, at the cost of only one (lesser) wolf. Losing that unit and working a plantation has boosted my economy (at 100% gold) up to 8 GPT, from 2 GPT just two turns ago. This will get even better next turn when plantation #2 completes and the city grows to work it. If nothing else changes, when the city reaches size five in a few turns, my 100% gold gpt will be +20. Any units I lose will just improve this further.

I have been worried that my economy will fall so far behind during this war that Mist wins easily even if I defeat Ichabod. This may not be so likely, top 5 cities tells me that Evermore, Mist's capital, is still size 2. The demographics tell me that my rival GNPs are 27 and 15. Mist is obviously the top one with the settled great artist(the culture graphs confirm this). IIRC, settled great artists give +3 gold and +12 culture per turn. His "true" GNP, as it would compare to the rest of us, is only 12. If I subtract out palace culture, that leaves 10 commerce per turn for Mist, 13 for Ichabod, and 8 for me. These numbers actually seem pretty good, especially because they're only going to get better in the short term, whether I win or lose at Santa Monica.

[Ellimist]

[SIZE="7"]Fortune Favors the Doviello[/SIZE]

[SIZE="5"]Turn 27 Update[/SIZE]
So this was either a good omen, or the FFH gods think my people are hungry. First I got the mushrooms event at Innsmouth, and now River Heights gets a boost.
Image:

[SIZE="5"]Santa Monica[/SIZE]
Only one of Ichabod's bloodpets was damaged (2.6 and poisoned) by the (now gone) barbarian stack. He's also managed to produce a fresh one.
This means that either:
(a) The first bloodpet killed all three of the attackers.
(b) The first bloodpet killed two attackers and then the second bloodpet killed one without taking any hits.
© The first bloodpet killed one attacker and was damaged, and then the second bloodpet killed the rest without taking any hits.
All 3 of these possibilities indicate that one of the defenders will be promoting again next turn. The ideal situation for me is ©, because the damaged one wouldn't get to promote and I may be able to kill the current top defender before he can promote. None of the Calabim defenders have a full fortification bonus yet, so their relative defense strengths will continue to increase over time.

I promoted my beastman from last turn, and had to decide whether to attack this turn:

I ended up deciding to go for it. 68.3% odds is better than last turn, and losing this fight wouldn't be a catastrophe. Lucian and his friends can attack on turn 32.
On the other hand, a victory would allow a shock II promotion. Shock II + C3 should be more than enough to win here. Sometimes you have to take some risks, and this was an appropriate time to take (another) one.

Here is the result:

Another excellent combat. Next turn I'll get shock II, rename the beastman to Hugh Jackman, and probably heal. The odds have tipped in my favor enough that some of the urgency from earlier is gone. If I have to wait for Lucian, the war won't be lost by the time he arrives.

I ended up slightly repositioning my troops. I moved a wolf 1S so that it can get to the goblin's hill next turn. I'd like to see if I can find the Calabim workers, while still being in range to strike the city. If Ichabod attacks the wolf, he'll probably win but I could either counterattack and kill his unit on flat ground or attack the city while it's absent.
Image:

[SIZE="5"]Domestic Considerations[/SIZE]
Image of T27 River Heights:

The main things to note is the improved food yield of the western farm and the second plantation.
Top 5 cities:

I may not even try to finish the brew house at Innsmouth, Santa Monica might be a better location anyway. I don't have anything better to build besides settlers/workers and I want it to grow to size 3 first(turn 32).

[Sareln]

Remember that you pay for units in enemy territory, hence why that one wolf was worth more GPT than you thought.