[Spoilers] Biggus Decius and the Sucking Vampires (Bobchillingworth / Calabim)

[Bobchillingworth]

Any living unit that uses death or entropy mana becomes a mane upon death, which includes Vampires. Infernals can be a real pain for the Calabim to fight, as every vampire that dies can be immediately resurrected as an axe / champion / whatever, assuming the Infernal have enough cash handy. The AI is pretty awful at capitalizing on that fact, but a human player could really screw me over.


As for airships, your suggested strategy makes sense. I think the best counter will be air elementals- I'm under the impression that airships are only like strength 5 or so, which means they should be relatively easy to pick off.


PB seems to be a ways off from Iron (no Arete and not even smelting yet), so I'm not sure of how realistic Iskender's fears are. Also this map doesn't even have enough mountains for PB to constantly jump between them, so I could always just slaughter his ships when they pause on flat ground.

[DaveV]

OK, I didn't know that about evil mana - I always try to keep Hyborem out of my SP games.

Airships are 3/9, so not good attackers but moderately hard to kill. If he moves one into the water, you couldn't touch it, but maybe a helpful sea monster would take care of it for you.

And my "surround with weak stacks" strategy falls apart if his centaur archers have blitz.

[Bobchillingworth]

To have blitz he'd need four drill promos first. I think that's hopefully pretty unlikely.

[Bobchillingworth]

Hmm, I just realized that my "summon air elementals" plan won't work- Gibbon is an illusionist. What a jerk hero. That also means that any mistforms I have him summon will be of minimal use. Can summoned mistforms at least pillage?



Here's a shot of my empire, showing my upcoming vampires:





Four turns per vampire probably isn't terrible, but it does make me wonder whether I ought to seriously consider just drafting them later on.



As promised, here is a rare picture of Cull's empire:





All of his warriors have copper, thanks to my gifting him a source. All of the units in his cities are warriors; everything wandering around his territory is a worker. He has a ton of workers. Most of his cities have a monument, market, and elder's council. His three oldest have walls. I think one has a training yard.



Finally, here's the latest power graph:





PB has been on a constant and very disturbing rise. This turn he also adopted Conquest and Military State. The amount of naked aggression coming from his empire is ludicrous. Selrahc thought that PB has been building up just as a precaution / deterrent- but then what's with the raider's trait? Aggressive would work far better for him in that situation.

[Bobchillingworth]

And this just in from Sareln, recon of PB's troops in his settlement zone:


















The hidden nationality war elephant is a nice touch. I suppose it's a Hippus deterrent. Or maybe it's there to kill royal guards.


Looks like he's also killing off those goblins Iskender wanted to grind some exp from. Promoting to cover seems like a waste, though.


Edit: Haha, he also gave one the Rod of the Winds! I wonder if he'll actually bother with building any wind nodes for it.

[DaveV]

Four turns per vampire probably isn't terrible, but it does make me wonder whether I ought to seriously consider just drafting them later on.

It's actually not bad to have some time in between vampires, so you can feast one while the next one is building (now is finally the time when I advise building the health/growth boosters). Nice to have the option of drafting in an emergency, though.

[Cull] has a ton of workers.

And what's he doing with them? Is that an unimproved floodplain by his capital, or just a riverside desert?

PB has been on a constant and very disturbing [powergraph] rise. This turn he also adopted Conquest and Military State.

Economic warfare sounds better and better: if you pillage/disconnect his cities into starvation, they can't regain their population without a change of civics. He also has to have some pretty hefty support costs, which would be hard to bear without all of his enclaves and trade routes.

Unfortunately, it looks like you missed a real opportunity at Zaonce, with three injured, fatigued, and poisoned CAs protected by a single CA (and a chance to kill off two hawks, too). Once you have an offensive stack or two, you can make him pay for mistakes like that. I think you should build up a couple stacks to annoy his settlements and keep his army tied down, then make the real thrust into his heartland (are there any road connections between PB and Iskender?), with some insane pillaging. He has a lot more mobility and can threaten more of your cities, but if you can seize the initiative I think it would be better for you.

[Bobchillingworth]

It's a river desert tile. Cull seems to be mostly building cottages / mines for his new towns. I guess he got tired of making farms that none of his cities can work :P



As for battle plans, it's going to be a while until I'm ready to attack in force (and possibly even longer if I want / need to wait up for Iskender), so it's impossible to say for certain what my opposition will be. But my basic plan right now is that I'll smash his main host at his forward settlements near Sareln (that's where he's keeping the bulk of his army now, and I assume it'll still be there in 20-something turns). Then I'll send my main military to attack his core, probably entering in tandem with Iskender through the Hippus lands, and build a secondary force to pillage and harass his settlements everywhere else.

[Bobchillingworth]

Well, looks like war is imminent. Sareln sent screen shots showing that PB is advancing on my eastern territory with a Hidden Nationality war elephant, hill giant, and a single CA. Meanwhile all of his other CA that were holed up in his settlements have disappeared to... somewhere. He also just built the Shrine of Shirona, and his power is easily twice mine.


Meanwhile, I have four vampires, two chariots, 6 catapults, and a whole lot of random Moroi and Bloodpets. Since PB emptied his settlement closest to me, I'm going to see about sending over a chariot to raze it.


I will be very interested to know after the game concludes why PB decided to go berserk.


Esus in three turns. I already have the GM for the Shrine.

[DaveV]

Good luck! Here's hoping you can squeeze in Nox Noctis and a few more vampires. A few Royal Guards might be a good build, too.

[Bobchillingworth]

PB hasn't declared yet. He did build the pillar of chains, though.


He has been scouting my Eastern territories with a hunter and hawk for a while now, and I'm getting really sick of it. I'm tempted to give him an ultimatum to leave, but if he doesn't I'll be forced to either declare, which I don't want to do yet, or look weak, which could be even worse. I suspect that he might try a sea-based invasion of my East coast, so I'm turning one of the cities over there into a chariot pump for rapid response, and I'll keep a couple royal gaurds and vampires around.