Auro’s thread

[Aurorarcher]

So the question is what now?

Ideas I need to still mull around with:

1. Can I punish coldrain now that his best units are "stuck" in the south?
2. ToD for Archmages? I have enough mana nodes to do it. Takes about 15 turns without cash rushing.
3. Relevant to the #2: Get 3rd GP, hopefully a GE. Then I could rush ToD. If not GE then I could use it for a GA. I have Great Sage and Great Prophet already. I need 3 different Great Persons for GA IIRC. Can someone confirm me that for example 2 Great Sages + Great Prophet wouldn't work?
4. Warhorses? Requires a stupid Feudalism tech I don't need unfortunately...
5. Math -> Engineering -> Mithril Working? A lot of beakers...
6. I need to deal with WW penalty somehow...

[Qgqqqqq]

Yes, they need to be different types if you have already used your two person GA.

Thanks for the reporting.

How bad is WW?

[Aurorarcher]

+3 WW unhappy in biggest cities. Total amount of WW is 232 so not that big (yet). I'm trying to settle some more cities, got Ivory this turn and Furs will be connected shortly.

Here's some happenings from T120-T122.

coldrain moved his stack closer T120.



But it went back on T121, sitting in Avelorn.



It almost feels like coldrain wishes Cairo did something with his stack. Combined they have a massive stack of units but it's very difficult to work together it seems. Reading from diplo thread it seems that cairo is unwilling to do much to attack me.

Sniping a lonely Mage is always fun.



xist decided to retreat from Idul.



More Mage sniping.



I had to delete the Assassin afterwards. I lost 80h but he lost a way more expensive Mage. Worth it for sure.

I don't remember how Chanelling II affects being the least likely defender but apparently this Mage defended over Adepts that have lower defensive strength (2 vs 3).

This actually is an important thing for me as I have built some scouts to act as meat shields against coldrain's Ghosts. But they might not even defend over them anymore now that Mages are 4/3 instead of 4 like last game... need to check this later. I can deliberately hurt my scouts with Maelstrom or something if they don't act as meat shields.

Foolishly I thought I could dispel this Sun mana into Law but these unique terrain features cannot be changed.



Capital as of T122.



22% for GE. With Forge I'll add engineer so the odds will go up. I don't want to spoil this with any Prophet/Sage points because if it's Merchant or Commander I'll do a GA and probably build ToD.

Demos.



Looks like the situation with cairo/coldrain has started to feel like not much is going to happen there. Slowly but surely I'll try to add and move some more units towards xist.

[DaveV]

I recall reading somewhere that each Channeling promotion makes the unit 50% less likely to defend; so adepts are effectively 50% base strength when calculating stack defender, and mages and priests are 25% strength (and 12.5% for archmages and high priests). This can of course be skewed by promotions, extra strength vs. attacking unit, etc.

I also recall concluding that the defender is assigned based on its probability of winning *per round*, rather than winning the combat overall. This can cause an unexpected unit to defend when units are injured.

[Aurorarcher]

T123 - T125.

Hyborem was born like you probably saw from Bing's thread. Bing for sure is building Infernal Grimoire for free tech (Malevolent Designs most likely). That's scary but there's nothing I can do about that. Hyborem spawned in a bad spot, right next to Cairo's and coldrain's stack and was eliminated quickly. Good thing is that AC had lowered a bit. Well, even better was that Hyborem was kind enough to share a map with for 50 gold (and my map). This was very nice because now I see areas like this:



You know what a pirate sees in this picture? Oh yeah... Optics next  ...

Capturing barb cities for some gold, this one gave me a decent amount.

xist pulled a nice move and build Tower of Elements.

Now there's a powerful Air Elemental (which can't move) defending Evermore. 

I don't think xist will move forward now or even in the near future. I have a pretty big stack (over 30 units) over here if he does. He has Priesthood now so probably building some PoLs, he needs better stack defenders so this should help. I'm not going to attack xist anymore, I like how my thoughts change every other turn   . The plan is to hold and do some sniping here and there if an opportunity comes. 

The downside of coldrain killing Hyborem can be seen here.

coldrain now has 6 workers  . This could be a problem. I might need to pillage a road or two in critical spots. I think he could try to road toward me through Ivory and Cow (shame I didn't Scorch them earlier). Forgot to do the pillaging this turn but will do next turn.

Settling next cities in a range of Ghosts could be bad but I'll try to get this mana.

Zooming out shows there's probably something interesting south of xist.

Letum Frigus, that should be Icea mana. 

coldrain could research Deception for CoE now.

I had a heart attack for a moment when I realized what he could do. First resrarch Decepton, revolt to CoE and build Gibbon Goetia. Gibbon Goetia can do Impersonate Leader which allows him to take control of other players civilization for a few turns (as pedia says, to my test it's 10 turns!). He could in theory take a control of my civ for 10 turns. But then I saw, can only be cast in cities. So the only chance to use it is to get into my city but if we're in war there's no chance to do it, right? Gibbon cannot enter even an empty city because he will simply take it. But... there's at least one way to force a peace and first one that comes to mind is:

To my eye there's no Seven Pines in the game but is there other options to force a peace? I don't remember at least. Any lurker have an idea? I believe it's fine to answer such question like this. If not, let me know and I'll try to figure it on my own.

I don't know if it would even be worth it (if he could do it) as he loses control of his own civ. No idea how that would even work in multiplayer either... would I play with Sidar then? Anyway, Gibbon is still an Archmage and definitely not a nice one. He is Illusionist which means that his summons are also Illusion. Illusion units heal 100% after combat so he could use them as stack defenders. They can't kill on attack (or heal after an attack) but the unit they hurt can be finished with his Ghosts. Interesting. It'll be a while before he gets it but certainly something to be aware of.

[DaveV]

[]To my eye there's no Seven Pines in the game but is there other options to force a peace? I don't remember at least. Any lurker have an idea? I believe it's fine to answer such question like this. If not, let me know and I'll try to figure it on my own.

Corlindale (Elohim hero) can cast the Peace spell, which forces peace with the player. I recalled there being council resolutions to force peace, but the manual says you can only force war declaration. I believe council resolutions can be ignored anyway, at the cost of some unhappiness.

I think I heard that the forced peace doesn't come with the usual 10 turn countdown, so your opponent could just declare war again next turn.

[Thoth]

I'm 95% certain that Impersonate Leader doesn't work in MP.

[Aurorarcher]

Really hard to find time to update but here's some from T126 - T131.

Lost Urslo (and one Mage) because I miscounted how far Ghosts can reach. Not a big deal but annoying still.



coldrain's best Ghosts has Commando, only noticed this for now.



I think it would've been more useful for him to save the promotion and not reveal it to me.

T129 I saw coldrain coming.



I left these Summons in the city. The Earth Elemental would be tough nut to crack.



Counterattack swordstack. My main stack (Mages + Chariots) are sitting in Eclipse.



I've built some Forts near Eclipse, the act as cities so are perfect against Ghosts.

Bat was razed T130.



Earth Elemental killed 3 fireballs flawlessly but the 4th got so many hits in that it was over.



coldrain moved his Ghosts and Mages back to safety but I was able to snipe the workers with 5 move scout. He cannot really push forward without risking his Mages.

I went for a pillage mission from boat.



Chariots in the boat, land, use haste, promote to mobility II -> pillage -> back to ship -> sail away. Gained about 180 gold.

xist has so many workers.



For comparison I've only built 7 workers all game. Yeah I can use a lot of water tiles but still.

First Pirates are now in the sea.



ToD plan has been activated.



I decided to build it normally. I could also cash rush it if I saved gold for 2-3 more turns but decided to burn my gold on Engineering. +1 road movement is so good and also I plan to go after Mithril Working. I don't need Archmages that fast anyway. Workers are building w-shops at the moment and it'll help to finish ToD 1t faster (compared to current rate).

I will soon get the 3rd GP. I have changed my mind from using GE for ToD (like I said before). GA will be very good for me as it'll boost everything in my huge empire and so I can tech faster to Military Working and Warhorses.



T131 coldrain is now sitting in Avelorn, some workers (Cairo's) could road towards me but as I play before coldrain it's not going to help much.



xist front things could get dicey, they are planning to ruin my ToD idea by getting to my manas. It's very difficult to get to any of the other manas than the one that is close to Idul (Syratethe's Stand, which is now Mind).



xist has about 20 Mages in the stack (all with Fire II) which of course is really scary if he pushed forward with full force. The problem for him is that it's very difficult to move forward as he doesn't have very good stack defenders. He has 10 Fawns and few PoLs but that's it pretty much. Also couple Swords and some Horsemen.

He could move to this tile in theory...



... and throw 20 fireballs at Seroe Vakas but I don't think he would kill that many units. If he moved close enough I can hit his stack with a lot of units. He can of course take Idul (which I have left empty), I scorched one tile to desert in case he foolishly leaves some units there. I also noticed that he has Great Bard in his stack. Is he really planning on taking Idul and using Great Bard for a culture bomb? That would be awesome move (but annoying). I have no idea how much of my culture it eats but that could be something. Even with the Bard he can't reach my city with any Fawns for example.

But he certainly would take the Syraethe's Stand away from my culture and thus ruin ToD plan for a moment at least. Will he do it?

My prediction is that he'll go in, put all his units in Idul. Culture bomb and throw 20 fireballs at me from safety. Not a bad idea (thinking from his side). If the culture bomb takes enough space I can't attack back immediately.

[Qgqqqqq]

What's your win condition?

[Aurorarcher]

Conquest

To be fair I don't think it's going to happen but we'll see. I could also go for tower victory.

T132.

xist didn't move forward so I sniped two of his workers with fireballs. He cannot road towards me next turn. I also didn't pay attention well enough last turn, it was impossible to go in with the Bard as it was 5 tiles away from Idul. Great Bard cannot be hasted as far as I know?

It's also quiet on cairo/coldrain front.

I found the Ice mana land.



It would be fun to settle this area but I need Astronomy to connect the city to main land so not going to happen any soon unfortunately.

My two Pirates are sailing fast, in two or three turns I could attack Cairo's coast. Trying to hide as well as possible. He has floating eyes which could ruin the surprise but I don't think he has any idea this is coming. 

Bing doesn't have floating eyes (as far as I know) but his cities have Pyre Zombies which are very annoying to attack against. Need to check how well his other cities are defended once I get closer.