Frankly, if the AI was better at combinining stacks and actually attacking rather than wandering around randomly, we'd probably be dead. Also if I we're a bit less lucky - I took enough 85%+ shots with Satyrs that I should have lost one. But we're not! Not yet, anyway.
Headlines:
- We have Ritualists. Three in our main stack and one in another stack on the way to the front.
- We killed alot of Basium units (the fact that our mirrored Marksmen can see AoDs has been very useful). It's cost us a lot of tigers and a few actual units (the odd chariot and swordsman) though. I'm not great at this kind of high-intensity warfare. I just run over the AI with Chalid at Monarch, typically.
- I also lost a few units rushing to kill a Royal Guard he snuck into our backlines, having to do it without tiger or RoF support. I hate raider trait.
- I burnt a Basium city, so he only has Kingsport. We're parked outside, wearing his units down with flames. I don't know if we can do damage fast enough - one turn of RoF + War tigers certainly wasn't enough (he lacked Subdue Animal, at least).
- Our "economy" is a joke. I had to burn our GMerch on a trade mission to the elves to avoid a strike.
- We're in conquest but that was probably a bad idea. Whipping some extra happy and gold into cities might have worked better.
I am under the impression that if we kill Basium we lose the WW we have against him, while keeping the (much lower) amount against Hannah. If I'm wrong and it carries over, then I am an idiot, and we're crippled. But if we can kill him in the next couple of turns, I'm hoping we can turn a corner. Again, as I said, this is new territory for me ...
Oh, and if we can keep the Mercurian Gate, doesn't that also help with WW? I need to go look that up.
T350
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We can't change civics for 2 turns, and going Veil will drop us out of GoN, which I think will count as a change, putting us in Decentralization for 10t ... let's not risk that.
Basium's stacks are all covered by Subdue Animal units, so I can't use tigers to wear him down. Hmm. Maybe our mirror marksmen will be able to do something if he moves within range - one was in position to pick off an angel, so I do so - and of course it doesn't die, just hangs around being weak, and unkillable by our illusions. Marksman + illusionary is a frustrating combo to have on units.
I move weak units (adept, fawn) out of Slane so Hannah's marksman will target tigers, and decide to wait for an opportunity.
T351
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Hannah has a second marksman at Slane, so I use one of our illusions to weaken the first, then kill it with a chariot. This gets rid of a subdue animal unit there, at least.
There is a big stack of Repentant Angels and Ophaninim incoming at Riylod, with a subdue-animal Herald covering. Sigh.
I put our weapons on our adepts so that AoDs will hit something else, and then wait.
T352
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The AI wanders its stacks around in that endearing fashion that it has. Our marksmen (who seem to be living longer than I thought?) reveal that the AoDs have moved away. Well, three of them. There is an invisible unit west or Riylod.
We are now Veil worshiping, conquering, apprentice evil Elohim. This doesn't help our happiness any; I should plausibly have stayed in slavery and whipped more. The savants are upgraded, a Ritualist started in production and we shall see what we can do ...
We did, of course, have unfinished fawns in some queues. Dammit.
T353
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The AoDs attacked and killed some of our marksmen (I'm regretting killing that one of Hannah's, as the second one ran off, although it seems to have come back), but I can see them thanks to our last one, and hit them this turn. One isolated one dies to a Satyr. The other three are next to Riylod, so I weaken them with tigers (losing the tigers to subdue animal, but gaining demonic scout fodder), then clean up with satyrs, then tiger-on-tiger action.
T354
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Apparently, casting RoF in elven territory would be a bad thing (note from future self - there may have been an invisible elven unit around, as I didn't get the warning later in the set), so I have to ignore the stack Basium has there, for now, and try to deal with the stack attacking threatening Riylod. RoF, some demonic scouts with super-weapons, and then some tigers get me to 85% with our best Satyr (annoyingly, the stack is on a wooded hill). WIN! Then 70% with our next best... I decide to hold off and see about next turn.
T355
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Another round of RoF and war-equipped scouts get us a couple of 90% plus chances with satyrs (using weapons - as was the case last turn). That damn subdue animal herald dies. I have to take a 60% with a swordsman part-way down the stack, but don't actually lose anything except tigers (and thus WW ). That's one stack down ...
There are a whole new bunch of T4 units in Bourne-the-gleaming though. Sigh.
T356
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We are now losing gold at 0% science. We may have to burn our Merchant on a trip to an elven city. Despite being in conquest, I start some economic buildings - gambling houses are expensive (and we can't get Undercouncil) but would help a lot in some cities that don't already have them.
I move to attack Bourne-the-gleaming. Wipe a bunch of T4 units at the cost of a lot of tigers and one monk,. but can't quite finish off the city.
I tackle another stack in Thessa's territory. This may have been a mistake, and I lose some chariots for only a couple of T4 kills - and the stack is still there.
T357
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Annoying event that loses us either a gambling house, or 3 turns of disorder ... or we lose 58 gold, and get +1gpt. Ugh. We don't have the cash to spare, but we'd lose more in the disturbance. We're going to have to burn our merchant ... 1100 gold from Hywl looks doable.
I kill off some more T4 units in BtG, and burn thr city. Of course, that means Basium gets more angels ... but I've already had to delay settling because of maintenance. Dammit, may still have been an error.
T358
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Our new ritualist helps us clean up Basium's stack in elven territory. I realise I've left our back lines vulnerable to raiders, and Basium has a lone Royal Guard heading there ...
I move our main stack up to Kingsport and start RoF. Even with haste we lack the moves to attack this turn, and another go with RoF will do no harm.
I burn the merchant: we're now 20-30t from strike rather than 2t.
T359
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RoF + tigers wears down Kingsport. Whether it's fast enough ... I guess we'll have to wait until later to find out.
Hunting down one blasted Royal Guard in our backlines costs me a warrior and three (unpromoted) swordsmen. I am not happy.
Oh, and what the F is Margalard? Looks like the Unseen University Librarian's bigger, even nastier cousin. He's just outside our borders near Riylod. Let's hope he likes the taste of angels.
T360
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Both Margalard and the Baron (don't even know who had him) die on the interturn.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
First thing I did was swap to slavery to whip away some of that unhappy into Gambling Houses.
I also started building some Savants in out single AV city to spread it to some of our core cities so we can build Ritualists faster.
Otherwise I was just continuing to gather our forces outside Kingsport until I had enough to take it. Then on turn 364 Thessa cast March of the Trees.
I guess to attack Arcturus, but they'll all disappear by the time they get to his cap, so...
Also this turn, Hannah turned up near Kingsport with this stack:
With the fourth Ritualist here and a lot more units, I thought now might be the best shot at taking out Basium. Before Hannah Maelstroms our stack to pieces. But, I was still not getting enough damage done with the Tigers, so I had to hope in the power of Medic, and it turned out that it was enough. Hannah moved up her Mages, dealt our stack a bunch of Lightning Damage, all of which was healed by the next turn (except for the Gargoyle).
Fortunately, Hannah then moved her stack out of Kingsport (from where she cast Maelstrom), so I could try kill it. Unfortunately, it had a Beastmaster, who was apparently immune to Fire damage from our Ritualists.
It took almost all of our Tigers to weaken it enough, which of course meant there were a lot of Tigers to clean up afterwards, but we did it, and all those Tigers were basically just free xp. Even after killing a bunch of her Mages and Sphener, Hannah still wasn't interested in peace.
And then, the next turn, more unwelcome news, as some Random Basium units appeared in the south:
I've some units I can divert to deal with this, and I can hope they'll badly hurt themselves killing Warriors. But still annoying. (In the end they ran around for a few turns, killed some Cauldron summons and Warriors, but nothing more.)
Then this stack appeared, I don't actually know if normal AI behavior rules apply in EitB. Will a normal AI plan a war on someone when they're already at war? Or is she just using our roads?
This turn, Basium sent some more units out, and it looks like Arcturus's days are numbered (Thessa was just using our roads):
But more interesting is that the units in Kingsport weren't healed up to full this turn, so perhaps five Ritualists are enough to keep them damaged? Or the AI moved their medic units out of the city (more likely I think). I also had a Catapult at last to deal with the cultural defenses a bit.
So, I thought I'd see if the Tigers could actually do some more damage to the top defenders this time, and they did.
At this point, I decided to take the risk and go all in. I figured even if I don't take the city this turn, I should be able to kill a bunch of the best defenders and take it the next turn. So I went in the the Swordsmen, and 2 of them actually managed to kill enemy units, one with only 10% odds. Unfortunately, that meant that War and Orthus' Axe were no longer available, since I didn't want to delete the victorious Swordsmen. That may have been a mistake, but in the end, it didn't matter, as I managed to finally break through and kill Basium:
I lost a couple Chariots and Monks, but none of the Satyrs or PoL. Although I did take a coin flip with a Satyr against Basium himself, and managed to win it, which was very lucky indeed.
But, we can't have something good happening without something bad happening:
I really hope we can peace out Hannah soon. I have been building more units in our core, but not a whole lot. Fortunately, Thessa's main stack is still heading towards Arcturus' capital.
So, as of turn 370 here's the situation:
By Kingsport, there's a bunch of Hannah units around, I used the Ritualists this turn to kill a small stack by that one lone Tiger, so we can't deal with that stack north of Kingsport this turn. But a decision has to be made about trying to keep Kingsport versus abandoning it to deal with Thessa.
Here's the inside of Kingsport:
Nox Noctis is of course very useful, although Thessa does have Metamagic for her Mages, so we can't rely on it.
We also now have 2 Body mana nodes, there's one adept in Glencar that can change one of those nodes into another Enchantment for more happy, since I imagine WW will start to become a problem again.
Thessa's stack is quite scary:
I'm building plenty of units at home, but to actually kill this will require more than Swords, Chariots and a handful of Ritualists (which is what is being built at home). We no longer have to worry about WW, except in the capital, which is just at the happy cap. I whipped/built a lot of buildings in our core cities this set, Gambling Houses, Inns (idk if Inns are any good, but I wanted something to help with the economy while the cities grew to recover from whipping the Gambling Houses) also built a few more Siege Workshops. But now they're all making units, so it could be a good idea to swap into Mil State, to really pump out the troops, and let us emergency draft if needed. But I leave that to the next player.
Good luck.
Bob UP
Brian ON DECK
Qgqqqqq
DaveV
Shallow_thoughts
Cairo JUST PLAYED
Cairo has left things in a great position; I’ll need to figure out whether I want to spend my five turns damaging Hannah or trying to wipe Thessa’s stack.
I start off by killing a small stack Hannah has outside Kingsport (no losses), and revolting to Mil State. I also culture-bomb Kingsport, to get the shrine income online. Civics change + culture bomb bring up back up to a positive income of about +40 gpt.
IBT Stephanos shows up outside a Lanun city near Kingsport and Yershina spawns somewhere (not near us as best I can tell, and I didn’t notice a prompt).
T370:
Thessa has thrown her stack into Arturus and taken significant losses, but it also looks like she’ll eliminate him in 1-2 turns. That seals it- I need to retreat our army before hers is freed up. I evacuate Kingsport, leaving behind our illusions and some trash to hold it.
Or, well, that’s what I was GOING to do, when I had an idea. So instead I advanced our main stack on Hannah’s city of Phaedra, performed the standard actions (blur using our new Shadow mana, haste, RoF, etc.), sacrificed most of our Tigers and a particularly unlucky Swordsman, and captured the city:
As anticipated, this is enough to convince Hannah to sue for peace. Unexpectedly…
We get a little extra out of it. Why yes Hannah, I think I’ll accept your most generous offer.
Dunwhich is an incredibly good city with a haul of buildings and wonders so large I can’t grab it in one screencapture (Edit: especially given that said screencapture is somehow a mix of Dunwhich and Phaedra; seems I took it during a transition state).
Unfortunately, I made a miscalculation here as well- our main stack is teleported into Phaedra, where we’re stuck, because Hannah won’t sign OB! Hmm. I’ll have to wait until next turn to see if there’s a way I can get around it.
IBT: Thessa eliminates the Khazad and kills a Chariot of ours I got too aggressive with popping a random Frydwell.
T371:
Finding ourselves suddenly flush with cash and a large positive income, I set research to 80% and a 4t Infernal Pact, so that we can Grimoire ourselves some T4 units.
Thessa’s stack is still very dangerous, but also a lot smaller.
I was hoping I could RoF one of Hannah’s units to break peace and free our stack, but nothing is in range. Time for Plan B, then: I gift Phaedra (actually spelled differently, but I can’t be bothered to get these stupid names correct) to Cardith, teleporting us back into our territory. I haste our stack in Thessa’s direction.
At this point I also notice that War appears to have vanished. No idea whatsoever what happened to it, I think it was on a random Fawn or something, but now nobody has it. Maybe it was laying on the ground and got deleted when I gifted the city? No idea.
T372:
Our stack arrives at Khazak, where the remnants of Thessa’s army are holed up (she’s also down about a dozen Frydwell that I’ve been picking off with random Warriors, Skeletons, etc. every turn); I lose a couple random Fawns to Mary Mobius while attempting to get exp, but inevitably:
The city falls, and with it most of Thessa’s army.
T373:
I kill Arthendain with a random Tiger who gets like 50 exp out of the deal.
T372 Redux:
At this point the lousy game crashed. Well, I had been saving (almost) every turn just in case this happened, but unfortunately here the closest was an autosave from the start of the prior turn. I recapture Khazak, but can’t remember what order all of the combats occurred, so this time we don’t lose the Fawns at odds which were frankly bullshit anyway. I think that’s fair recompense for having to replay everything.
T373 Redux:
Arthendain dies again, this time to our heroic super chariot.
Thessa continues to obnoxiously found cities next to our borders in the middle of a combat zone.
I kill several random Assassins and a Flurry, no real units die (someone call the Anti-Tiger Defamation League!)
A little stack I assembled in our north captures Eaca, which is kept, culture-bombed, and drafted.
T374:
Eodd captured, auto-razed.
Main stack advances into Thessa’s territory; secondary stack in Eaca consolidates.
EOT thoughts-
• This was likely my last set; we’re winning and victory looks nearly assured, though there’s a lot of killing left to go. For that reason I’ve switched some of our safest cities to infrastructure.
• Have fun summoning Satan!
• Hannah somehow hasn’t captured Phaedra from Cardith, despite him not actually being able to build units there. Holy shit.
• I still have no idea where War went, sorry. I think the game deleted it. Unfortunate to lose it, but then again, we don’t really need it and we’re starting to get close to Armageddon, which will kind of suck given that 99% of our units are living.
• It’s probably worth noting what an absolutely sorry state the world is in, thanks to Basium’s raze-happy Angels and the Horsemen; Thessa has six cities (an extremely temporary state of affairs), Cardith has three plus two settlements, Hannah has three, and Sandy only has one. The entire map is covered in city ruins. The AI tends to fall into panic mode once most of its empire had been burned and will subsequently turtle until death, so I think the era of us playing defense is just about over.
So much death ... mostly other peoples' (and tigers') .
Can we actually afford to summon Hyborem? I don't normally get the AC this high unless deliberately playing for it (Sheaim, the Big Red One himself), but with us being Evil isn't Hell going to spread like a plague? I'm not 100% clear what happens when it climbs even higher - half our units go mad or something? Also, won't he grab one of our best cities with his Worldspell?
Would be fun to get Fanaticism in though, at last.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
We're doing well enough we can easily afford even the worst impacts of Aramgeddon, though they'll be a logistical annoyance. Bear in mind that they effect the non-Infernal AI as much as us, and we have like 6x the cities of our competitors. As for Hell terrain, most of our cities are kind of small from whipping, drafting, and conquest unit production, so it won't matter much.
Yes, feel free to do 5t. Also, don't feel pressured to turn around quickly - I have a test on Monday, and I'm unsure if I'll be ready to take a set before then.
Nice job everyone! The Baron was Hannah's, btw.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
(April 22nd, 2020, 23:17)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Yes, feel free to do 5t. Also, don't feel pressured to turn around quickly - I have a test on Monday, and I'm unsure if I'll be ready to take a set before then.
Nice job everyone! The Baron was Hannah's, btw.
No problem.
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
). That's one stack down ...
.
