[Spoilers]Auro is prepared: You shall not pass!

[Qgqqqqq]

Congratulations! Big milestone. Not quite the first dragon, however, I know of one previous (in a Kuriotates + Mercurians end-game, on the map which was covered with plains resource tiles and had no irrigation - can't recall what the number was).

Non-living units do not need courage to overcome fear.

[Aurorarcher]

Good move delaying StW till blight hits, as otherwise the -health increases the blight.

Very interesting. What's your medium term plan? Do you wish to return to culture at some point?

Also, I'd be interested in your views on the cost of late game techs. Over the past few years I've increasingly felt that the cost reductions in EitB went too far, but interested in your multiplayer experience.

Medium term plan is to survive and basically not lose any of 3 cities. If I can do that I wish to come back to the culture plan for sure. Not too optimistic about that because in order to do that I shouldn't have over dozen Mages on my doorstep. So for the culture plan I need peace with coldrain (highly unlikely) or xist to fight against coldrain also. Blight is helping me a lot right now but once it goes away (about 20ish turns?) coldrain can start fully to use his empire's huge production power against me.

About the tech costs are you talking about some specific late game techs? Or even Sorcery etc. ? I don't really remember how expensive they originally were and how much the cost of certain techs was reduced? I do remember some techs being a lot more expensive in base FFH but I used to play that with normal speed so can't really compare.

[Aurorarcher]

T126.

coldrain threw in some fireballs first at 0.0% odds and got some hits in, also did some collateral damage. Afrer that he reduced the defense to 20%.



Good thing for me is that the Eidolons healed to full hp already. I also was able to promote my 2nd Eidolon to Guerilla.

I got most of the gold from players, xist refused (I think) for some odd reason.

This is what I put in Edoras. I bought in a lot of Mercanaries.



35 units. 2 amazing defenders, ~20 okay defenders and rest a lot weaker. Will he go in and is the city going to be lost? It's so had to predict, Maelstrom is so powerful spell that all my units will go down to 70 hp quickly. He has 3 Mages with Maelstrom, all C5 so they're going to do a lot of damage. Maybe even bring all my units to 70 hp? After that Fireballs in and then Chariots. Or will he wait for one more turn? If so I can bring my Dragon to help.

His stack position is quite annoying. He could also hit my capital by fireballs and chariots moving everything diagonally towards my cap so I have to keep my 2nd stack there. I brought my Dragon to cap as well. Notice coldrain has Courage already so he was prepared for my Dragon, nice play there man.

[Aurorarcher]

T127.

coldrain attacked a little bit, didn't go all in but did far more damage than I had expected.



My two Eidolons were only able to defeat 5 Fireballs...

Combat log(s). Even at 0.1% odds coldrain's firbeballs were able to get too many hits in . Some got even 3-4 hits in.





Lost first Eidolon at about ~10% odds .



The 2nd Eidolon was lost at ~29% odds. He also killed my top Diseased Corpses at ~85% odds.

So Edoras is definitely lost now unfortunately, he also smartly pillaged my Iron. So I can't build or upgrade Eidolons any more. I have another on the island (hard to connect) and one in the north but too far away. Takes at least 10 turns to connect and requires a settler.

I left these units in Edoras (highlighted is coldrain's stack).



He can reach my capital still going diagonally to NE. I was debating whether or not I should bring my Dragon into Edoras and defend with it, it's immune to Maelstrom as far as I can tell (says +50% resistance but in my tests it never got damaged by the spell as it has 100% resist spell?). But I decided not to, he could simply throw fireballs at it and probably kill the poor Beast. If I could upgrade priests to Eidolons the plan could've worked I guess.

I have a small stack trying to escape. He can kill them all if he holds on taking Edoras I think.



So it feels like an end already... but I'll try to fight back as well as I can and gather units in the capital. It amazes me once again just unstoppable Mages are. Learning opportunity for me is that I should've invested a little into magic, at least adepts to cast Haste or Rust. And I should've revolted to Empyrean earlier (before I went AV) to get myself couple Rathas (can cast Blight which can make enemy units immobile for 2 turns).

End of turn I got very low odd GE and also built Mardero. If I can get that one to Entropy III (requires 5 xp) it can cast Wither (coldrain doesn't have Priests). We'll see if I ever get to use that spell.



I wonder which building should I hurry with this GE. Bazaar of Mammon for +100% gold seems like a decent choice. Or Soul Forge? It adds any dead living unit (your own or opponent's) within 1 tile to city's production. Probably not worth it and I have no idea how much production it gives.

[RefSteel]

Wow, thanks for keeping the reporting going even when things start sliding out of control! Mages are indeed terrifying, especially with movement specials and what sounds like a well-executed plan! I'd love to see the Dragon shine, but don't know what's in the cards....

[Aurorarcher]

Thanks Ref, it has been a very enjoyable game even though things aren't going my way right now. So better to enjoy even these difficult times! That's what I've learned in general to be a good attitude in life as well. If you focus too much on the "bad things" in your life you won't see all the "good things". 

T128.

coldrain did take Edoras with almost no losses, he also killed 2 Ritualists and one Tiger from my escape group.

My hope of getting Iron relies on Hyborem.



He needs to build one more road to get TR with him, then hopefully I can somehow get Iron from him by gifting him something.

This is where we stand. I have pretty much all my units in capital.



The Dragon won't be top defender (unfortunately) even though it has very good odds against fireballs due to +50% fire resistance. It cannot be damaged by Maelstrom either. I don't know how much "negative strength" does Hero promotion give? I mean, I would like to calculate when my Dragon is top defender. For sure it should defend over my PoLs? If not then that really sucks.

coldrain won't attack next turn I think. He will just put the city defense to 0% and throw few fireballs in after that. Hopefully no more 10% losses for me...

I also left my Meteor (which Dragon can summon) 1SW of the capital. I think it should be there when coldrain opens his turn as the turn won't roll yet.

When the turn opened I got this "message" from xist.



Attacking in 2 turns against coldrain? Anything helps but hopefully it's not too late. coldrain has a huge empire and for sure it has many soft spots while his best units are fighting me. So xist definitely could use this opportunity. It's a shame that Blight has hit him VERY bad so he can't really even feast. Sorry about that but there was no way for me to avoid it while grabbing the Dragon...

Oh, and I also rushed Bazaar of Mammon. Capital can get a lot of gold per turn.

[Aurorarcher]

T130.

Good news of the turn, xist declared war against coldrain and took a city (Emmett Kelly).



Bad news of the turn, coldrain got ToD and has Archmages. I saw this already on T129 but I didn't know what promotions he was going for (I assumed Fire III for Fire Elemental) but he chose Earth III which is amazing , they get +1 str per Earth Mana and apparently coldrain has 3 of them right now. At the moment they are 15 strength    add to that Empover V it'll be 22.5 str like this...



Surviving seems unlikely. His best Archmages seem to have 13 promotions (not counting free Mobility etc.).

I did however kill this one for a reason I'm telling you later. 3 RoF and sucided Tiger in. I had 3 more waiting + Meteor if needed. Didn't need them. After first Tiger Mardero had over 99% odds to kill it. It gained enough xp to use Wither next turn.

Why did I kill it in the first place? Well, I have to try to slow coldrain down if I can. If I can survive 1 more turn I can connect my Iron on the island. So I threw in one Ritualist to die because I was able to damage his whole stack. Some chariots lost 30% hp which is nice. I put Fawn on the hill as well and some Tigers to the hill next to it. He has to kill them or at least one of the tiles before moving in towards capital. This will make him waste at least some fireballs hopefully. 






My units in the capital.



Building Archers, not pretty but it's the best defensive unit I can build right now and they're cheap. Using all my gold on Mercenaries. Asked more gold from Brian/Dave for gpt.

[RefSteel]

Thanks Ref, it has been a very enjoyable game even though things aren't going my way right now. So better to enjoy even these difficult times! That's what I've learned in general to be a good attitude in life as well. If you focus too much on the "bad things" in your life you won't see all the "good things".

That's a really good point that I could stand to remember more often. Even if you've lost one of your only three real cities, not only do you get to play, you managed to build a literal dragon!

In current news, Archmages against Not-Even-Adepts (if I'm reading correctly) does sound rough; I'm curious to see how your forces do! Good luck with the ongoing battles and tactical puzzles!

[Aurorarcher]

T139.

Still alive!

Managed to tech Bowyers and get my Iron back. Coldrain pushed couple turns against my capital but lost some Chariots on his way while my Dragon gained some more xp. He has since moved towards xist. I gave my Iron to xist for free so his Vampires get a bit better. Still no chance against Earth Elementals and dozen fireballs. My units in capital now look like this. Notice I finally have some adepts. Got free Body and Enchantment from xist and Bing.



The plan is to take Edoras back later. The problem is that even though coldrain moved his units pretty far (picture below) as he has Engineering and can reach the "Iron" tile (2SE of Edoras) with all of his units. From there he can summon his Earth Elementals and fireballs.



So how can I even attempt to take my city back? Well, first I'll try to cut the road.



If coldrain doesn't pay attention here while he is busy with xist I could take Edoras back. As coldrain gave me time I am trying to build Blood of the Phoenix (2 turns left). The ritual will give all my current units Immortal promotion which means that if the unit die it'll "teleport" back to capital at full health (assumed). But are the promotions lost, I know the Immortal promotion is lost but what about combat promotions? Anyone know? Too lazy to test right now.

[Qgqqqqq]

No, the unit is identical. I'm not sure how much health they come back with though.