[SPOILER] Yell0w - Rhoanna, Hippus

[Yell0w]

Lot's of stuff happening. I tried to report yesterday but Realms Beyond was down for me.

I took a lot of screen shots

So this one details what happened. I moved into Mafros territory and - again - I misscalculated, I scouted a little bit and didn't see anything so I thought I'd be fine. Obviously my stack (on the pigs tile with the redlined cats, bottom left on the screen shot) was diminished by Catapults and Moroi.

In the screen shot you can see the 4 stacks in play. My redlined stack is on the pigs tile. His Moroi stack with cats is 1 NW of the pigs tile. My MM stack with the workers is 1 SE of the pigs tile and his Blood Pet stack is in Gelidia

Losses are:
9 MM's
5 Warrior
1 Chariot
1 Catapult
1 Axeman

In defense I killed:
6 Moroi
2 Blood Pets

I decided to attack back instead of withdrawing:
The two cats get promoted to barrage and hit the Moroi stack, both withdrawing and doing 8 collateral in total. My first MM ofc dies at 88% odds to win. From that on I kill 7 Moroi and a Catapult at the loss of another warrior.

After the battle:

Empire overview:

Mardoc really doesn't like Ihara. He filled it with Ice Elementals (he's got mages), in which I suppose is a threatening posture. Also he requested the city from me, which I declined. He offered again turn 123 I declined again but offered him an Ale free of charge. Next turn I'll offer him something else should he decline. I'm trying to win time. Mauros is almost done, this war will be over in a couple of turns. I'm also in the process of fortifying Ihara but it takes time. The more turns we can "negotiate" the better. In case of war he'll take Ihara and we'd have to ride towards his mages directly killing them rather than the elementals. The problem is I don't have enough forces in the area to hire enough MM's. So as I said I'll try to offer him some tokens until I'm ready to defend, should he attack we'd need to stop finishing of Maruros and kill Mardoc - basically giving the game to HK.
I guess Mardocs Problem with this location (which is closer to my Capital than our nothern borders btw.) is the Mana Node, now that I saw this mass of Ice Elementals it's obvious he's going for the arcane line.

Again, after bloodying him, Mafro attacked again. I wiped his forces and took Gelidia, I also destroyed the city behind it.

[Mafro]

I assume you'll give our catapults Mobility I? That would allow them at least a chance of keeping up with the main force and help keep the stack on defensive terrain.

I'm not sure I share your optimism when it comes to ending the war against Molach. His catapults got away, which means he can destroy a stack with numerous weak units. Still, if we can take Gelidia and keep the bulk of our forces intact, then we might be able to cripple him over the next few turns. However, it seems like we're going to be having to put our wealth into replacement troops, which makes it hard to keep up tech-wise.

It might be worth recruiting a couple MMs in Ihara just to remind Mardoc what we've got going on. Also, did you notice Mardoc is trading HK Cows for Sheep? He's got trades with HK, peace with Suttree, and skyrocketing power. He's either got to use that on us or on Molach, and we're clearly the better target. I'm definitely concerned here...maybe an offer of Nature mana might keep the peace for a bit?

Also, did you see that HK has Hunting? That means he's got Hawks, or soon will.

[Mafro]

Looks like you were able to keep a good portion of our army intact - well done!

By my estimate that force should be all healed and ready to go in 3 turns. Shall we build a couple more catapults to soften up the next cities? Or shall we just accept the losses that will come without them? Part of me wonders whether we should've gotten the Pact of Nilhorn and used Hill Giants to bombard. The nice thing about that is the giants can be hasted as well. It's a bit late for that now, though.

I'm glad that Mardoc hasn't invaded from the south, and it appears he's decided to tone down his threatening stance (though those Ice Elementals remain ready to be called up at a moment's notice). Maybe he'll jump in the fray against HK...that'd be nice.

Interestingly, HidingKneel's score is plummeting. I can only think that might be due to whipping buildings or drafting troops. However, his power is also plummeting, which makes me think he's either badly losing his war with Suttree, such that even heavy drafting isn't offsetting his losses on the power graph, or he's whipping infrastructure. I'm guessing it's the latter, but I'm not sure what infrastructure could be that important...maybe defensive buildings? But if Suttree has Firebows, then defensive buildings won't be of much help...fireballs will bombard them to nothingness...so maybe it's something else...? Too much for my little brain....

Oh, and did you notice that Suttree lost a city to HK? It was the one that Molach gave to him, so it's no great loss. I wouldn't be surprised if he had abandoned it entirely and HK just squished it as a formality. Still, it gives hope to this being a bloody war that saps the strength of both sides.

I'm actually glad we're sitting on the Great Bard. I think if we'd popped a golden age it would have put a big target right on us, and we're not ready for that. I'd like to see Suttree and HK incur some more losses before we unleash a golden age, and I'd prefer we use a Great Merchant instead of the Great Bard - unless you want to use the Great Merchant for Nox Noctis, which would also be cool. I'm guessing you are, as you've got Philosophy queued up next...otherwise, I'd want to see us get Alteration for Body Mana nodes.

Speaking of which, are you going to build a couple Mage Guilds? The way the game is going I wouldn't be surprised if it lasts long enough for us to field Mages, though even Adepts are quite useful with Body mana. The balance between the players has been totally impressive!

On the nitty-gritty side, we need a Bath House in Gaene. And I'd love to see us build Inns in cities that don't have more pressing builds lined up - the path to victory will require ongoing acceleration of our economy.

Anyway...keep it up!

[Mafro]

Wait a minute...I just sat down to look at our opponents' techs, now that we've got Trade...I must be missing something....

It says that Suttree can research Archery. If that's the case, then he doesn't have Firebows, because Archery is required to get Bowyers. Am I missing something???

Also, Molach is nowhere near vampires. That requires Feudalism, which requires Code of Laws and Trade. He has the former, but he doesn't have the latter, which means he hasn't started putting away the 1341 beakers required for Feudalism. And to get Trade he needs Writing...which he also doesn't have. So, he hasn't even started on the 430 beakers for Trade. At this point I think we can write Molach off as a threat in the next 20 turns or so...doesn't mean we shouldn't finish him off, but I think he's now low priority.

In looking at HK's techs, he has Animal Handling, which means he has Hawks. Suttree has Sorcery, which means he has Floating Eyes. So both of them have very good visibility relative to us. We need to make sure we at least get Hawks before going to war with either, in my opinion.

HK also has Priesthood, which means he has Monks and Confessors. Look for a switch to Octopus Overlords to get Cultists (curious that he researched it - maybe he's going after the Necronomicon for water mana?). If he does we'll have to make sure we keep our units away from water if/when we go to war with him.

It appears the war between HK and Suttree will be between the divine and the arcane. Their power is very similar...it will be interesting to see who is the victor....

[Yell0w]

And once more our forces were attacked by Mafro. I don't see another choice but to finish him off. His attacks are just costly for us and the sooner we get rid of him, the sooner we can focus our attention elsewhere.

[I finished the previous post]

[Yell0w]

Oh another big turn report has to come up here.
Puh I'll write this up as soon as I've got some time

[Yell0w]

I'm pretty busy this week. I don't know if I can find the time to write up a big report.

For now our units are healing, I'll move them again in two turns, I regret not being able to do it faster but since Mafro still has at least 4 catapults out there I want to attack in force.

I'll probably keep the cities I take now.

Tech wise we've got all our 1 turn techs done, hunting was researched EOT.
Now we've got over 1k bakers banked up, so it's decision time.

We can 1 turn Animal Handling and then 1 turn one of the mana techs and put one turn into Deception, then switch over to gold again for a while.

We can 1 turn Deception then put 1 turn into one of the mana techs, then switch over to gold again for a while.

We can 1 turn Animal Handling, and probably two turn Deception, though a 1 turn might be possible. Then put a turn into one of the mana techs and switch to gold for a while.

The switch to undercouncil doesn't matter right now since no one else is in there, so I'd do that when we are in our GA.

[Yell0w]

Suttree and Mardoc are ready to concede -> see tech thread <-

[Mafro]

Yeah, looks like everyone is ready to concede except for HidingKneel. Apparently his drop in power might actually be because he's losing the war with Suttree, based on his comments in the tech thread. HK doesn't strike me as the quitting type, but if he's really getting his head handed to him, then perhaps he will.

Personally, I'm amazed that if they felt that threatened by us they didn't just all declare war and go after us. Even without coordination they'd still be able to overwhelm us pretty easily, I think.

BTW, Yell0w, you do realize that for the past week or two you've been saying "Mafro" - me - when referring to Molach of the Calabim....

[Molach]

BTW, Yell0w, you do realize that for the past week or two you've been saying "Mafro" - me - when referring to Molach of the Calabim....

I read about the final war, and I noticed that same Freudian slip....

I felt a little bad about city gift to sutt a turn or two after the fact. Small hope you would go after him instead of me wasn't good enough reason. Sorry bout that.

I had tech off last 10 turns, upgraded bloodpets from my poorer cities into moroi with the cash. I was never gonna get anything that would matter in the fight.