Auro’s thread

[DaveV]

You're staying a lot calmer than I would in the face of the dogpile.

[Aurorarcher]

Yeah, well, I think I still have a very good chance to win. It also helps a lot that coldrain can’t attack with Mages really because of the mountain range. He just researched Sailing so maybe he has coastal cities on the other side. I need Optics though.

I can’t kill any of them yet but the plan is to cripple at least one of them. If I can raze two more core cities from xist I think I’m good. The one I’m actually really worried about is Bing. AC is rising, Blight will hit sooner or later… I really need Optics to hit Bing effectively. I’m sure he has some juicy coastal cities.

[Thoth]

Winning via reverse dogpile is very satisfying. :D

[Aurorarcher]

That’s true!

T112 xist moved his stack back to Evermore but Eaca still only has one defender. T113 will be interesting.

[Aurorarcher]

T113.

Dang, coldrain got me with his Divided Souls. The city was vulnerable from the start. He was able to reach the city with fireballs (with spell extension).



Totally didn't expect this, so well planned there! The city was worth a lot for me so not a small loss... I also forgot Drowns are bad against fireballs (-50% fire resistance).

I was able to kill all the remaining Divided Souls (4).



The last swords killed the units from boat and then used promotion to hide back to Galley to get out of fireballs range. Going to spam some more cities now as any new city immediately gives about 11 commerce.

The naval invasion to Eaca is cancelled unfortunately.



He somehow, maybe with floating eyes, found my Galleys and decided to reinforce Eaca with a lot of units. Shame.

Blight will hit next turn, which is very bad... let's see how bad it'll be. Building Granaries soon probably.

My main stack is sitting still waiting for action.



I'm thinking of attacking Cairo but am still unsure. I could move all my units 2SW of Paradera. I definitely can't go all in there or xist will attack me. Hemah has 14 xp so can take Earth III when I need. Cairo is the only one without Mages and I think I should act before he does. Hmm... a lot to think about once again. How to split my stack? How many I should leave home? Or should I just wait more?

I should say this game had been and still is really interesting, no matter how it'll end. For once we have a game that is at fairly late stage and there are plenty of dangerous units from each civilization. Also, it's still pretty much anyone's game although some of course have lower chance of winning.

At the moment I would estimate:
Me: 40%
Bing: 20%
coldrain: 15%
cairo: 15%
xist: 10%

[Aurorarcher]

Blight hit and wasn't that bad. Only one city starved others will survive now and the following turns.

I wonder if coldrain has a plan to create water walking Mages?



Time to attack cairo.





He has about 30 Centaurs (mos Centaur Chargers), three swords, three Paramanders, 6 cats and some adepts.

I'm not sure why Blight didn't damage his units? Or maybe it appears only next turn? Strange though as I see xist's units damaged but not his. Cairo is before them in turn order.

All my units have Regeneration so should heal once next turn comes.

In theory he could hit my stack with all his Centaurs but it shouldn't go too well for him. Earth Elemental will kill a lot of them for sure.

Why attack now? Well, I want to attack before he gets Mages.

I left some units behind to fight if these guys go forward:



I have some Maelstrom, Fireball and Sun II Mages if he wants to advance.

[Aurorarcher]

T115.

Razing Ant (Dave's capital) from boat. Promoting mobility after landing + Haste. First one fireball then Chariot goes in. This is important as it has Gold. Razing the city dropped Cairo's GNP by 29. Had to delete the Chariot. I moved the other units back to ship and sailed away.



Threw some Maelstrom + 4 fireballs at Eclipse in hopes of killing his Paramanders.



No luck this time. Most of the attacks were ~15% odds but the last one was 32%.

Next turn I should be able to take the city (this I will keep). His units got hit by Blight during his turn so there's the answer to my "questioning" last turn. I am little worried that coldrain could bring some Ghosts through Cairo's territory (I have no idea how easy that would be as I have no scouting info). At least they're not in the range of my floating eyes. I'm building some scouts to act as meat shields against potential Assassins (thanks for the tip from the last game, coldrain, heh!).

[Aurorarcher]

T116.

My floating eyes see a lonely Mage...







Cairo has Sorcery but doesn't have very many adepts.





Coldrain is moving a stack to help Cairo.





15 Ghosts and 9 Mages, also some adepts.

Definitely don't want those to get to my Mages. Most of them can be 4 movers with Haste, he has for sure saved some promotions. Hard to calculate how far they are at the moment but diagonally they're about 12 tiles away from me so let's assume ~16-20 tiles going through Cairo's territory. With roads that'll be 2-3 turns before they can reach me (if I stay still).

xist is coming with his stack.



He has 10 fireball Mages which is scary in the right hands... lucky for me he hasn't promoted any of them with Spell Extension. I retreated from Idul, I don't need the city anyway. He could press on forward more but then I can hit him from here:



3 more Mages + 4 Chariots + some swords will join the city next turn. I don't think he'll move forward more once he sees my units.

I took Eclipse with almost no losses (not counting summons).



I only lost one Chariot at 96.8%. The Elephant was left with 1 hp... but no complaints here, I had my share of luck this turn already.



I didn't notice at the start of the turn that the hill 1NE of Eclipse is also a desert so now the 3 movers that stood there couldn't move to Eclipse. Hemah is there so I left some units to guard it. Cairo shouldn't be able to hit it but just in case...

Still settling cities. This place feels like it's guarded quite well for my taste...



Teching Poisons now, some Assassins of my own would be nice here and there. I debated a bit if I should grab Stirrups first but decided to stick with Poisons.

[Aurorarcher]

T118.

I managed to kill Kithra and a lot of other xist’s units. No time to post pictures now.

On Cairo front I cannot make much more progress (for now). He has 4 Sun II Mages and coldrain’s army is arriving soon.

[Aurorarcher]

Pics from T118 and T119.

T118 xist had left Kithra in a weird spot. Only had 2 swords on the same tile.



Maelstrom + some swords and Drowns in before I managed to kill Kithra.





But then I got greedy... could I kill almost all his stack and immobilize the rest with Sun II?

10 about 90% odds attacks with Chariots went well.







xist had 10 mages out of which only 7 could move (or cast spells) + only couple swords/fawn that could move (not counting units in the fog). I had hopes that I could either make him run away with the remaining units or next turn I could destroy them.

Understimated how well xist could attack back next turn. The thing with Mages is that they're deadly when they can act... even when there aren't that many of them.





2nd big loss of mine in this game (1st one was coldrain sniping my big city). Well done there, xist... you must pay for this obviously! 

Lost like 20 units. I also forgot Life II can kill, very effective against my Drowns. 

xist can't really make progress still, I have almost 30 units in the border city. Some mages, 5 chariots, etc., he probably will keep throwing fireballs at it and hope to get lucky. 

On Cairo front things are not looking good either...



coldrain's stack is here. 





That's about 90-100 real units combined (not counting summons)  .

Means the plan to get Cairo to lose even one big city is not going to happen. It's not so easy for them to move forward together though. I decided to make it even harder by pillaging the roads between us, leaving the land like this:



I especially pillaged an roads that are 1 or 2 tile away from Cairo's border because coldrain could use Severed Souls to land on those tiles + it'll make it hard to move forward with his Mages. He could go very far with his Ghosts but without Mages they won't be that good.

I left my stack in Eclipse.