[spoilers] The Return of Summer

[xist10]

Okay, the "trade blocked" area remains there - and I see no good reason for Auro to remain with a ship there.

The area I found near Auros Islands also seemed to be remaining where I found it 2 turns ago ?

So some kind of graphical bug ?
I have neither the settler nor fishing/sailing to be able to test if the area really blocks trade.

In other news Auro killed my forwarded workers this turn- he simple forgot it last turn.
So I'm upset that I missed the opportunity to burn the northern 4 Pop city with a horseman last turn.

And when Auro tries to kill the forwards worker, I need to wait for a settler to move forward.
But Ancient Forest with Fort and direct fortify sounds quite good, or ?
The question is, if I move my Mages too and risk assassins (which should lose after Auro mages can deal a bit collateral damage) or if I hold back my Mages and risk a fight against the chariots.
With 200% I should win this, but it's a risk.

Maybe I also should wait till I get a missionary here, to expand the culture of the new city directly.

But I should be able to recruit Longbows next turn.
WIth 80p quite expensive, but 7 (or 9 with Iron from Cairo) defensive strenght, they are quite useful right now.

[xist10]

And the next truns in one update block.




And then there's engineering for +1 on roads for Auro.

I don't see much chances anymore.
If I still are in Idul, the situation would be changed, but so I don't think I will be able to move forwards to Idul and secure the city, aka raze a few roads in Auros culture.

The Horse Archers surprise me a little. Are mobile ‘defence units’ so important to Auro?
Defensively, the Horse Archers only have 1 more than the chariots.




Soldiers are a minor problem.




I should have a closer look at the religion victory.
I think it requires inattention from others, but it might be worth considering.

I can't convert Auro, but I can convert the rest, right? And that could be enough for 80%.




Since I've noticed that archers don't seem to get outdated when I unlock Bowyer's longbowmen, it might be worth buying the missing .
105 for 50 isn't particularly effective, but if I can't do anything better with anyway ?

Right now I have more or less 4 options.
Ironworking is not that important as long as I can get Iron from Cairo.
Commune with Nature needs quite a bit of time - and gives "only" 5 strong units ? Yvain and 4 druids, all 5 units with Nature affinity.
Poison gives options with Assassins, but they are also quite expensive.
Last I could try to get T3 mages, but Arcane Lore is also quite expansive (and more or less useless on it's own). And I should be able to secure enough Mana to build the Tower of Divination, but I think Commune with Nature is more useful for big stack defenders ?




Turning missionaries into priests should also be an option with 85 .
Priests are quite useful to grow the new forests, but after that they mostly provide more troops ?

_______




And after Letum Frigus, I receive the message for Prismarin Pass.

I have now also discovered their symbols in the fog in the south.




Research goes to Warfare to unlock city defence promotions.




Auro continues to reinforce. I urgently need more troops; 20 mages are no longer really enough to counter this.




Auro sends pirates through the area.
Incidentally, Auro razed one of Cairo's three major cities this turn.




And I'm currently founding more filler cities here.
One cottage, two mines and then a specialist should be useful in a few turns.

______




Auroarcher has started a .
Second place should be Bing, who currently sees his position ahead of me as a reason not to do anything against Auro.

Honestly, the 12 Möbius witches as city guards in Evermore would be helpful because of the threat they pose.

I also don't know what Bing is trying to achieve with his statement that he would build a fleet.
I'm relative sure, Auro dominates the ocean ?

Currently, Bing's best use would actually be to feed a few units to my griffin so that it can at least take Mobility 1.
4 would actually open up a few options.

Research is currently focused on Poison, so that I at least have the option of Assassins.

Auro continues to gather troops on my side. - Being in 5th place in the troop rankings is not ideal.

____




At least there will be a few elite units in the near future.
I wanted to do this against Incense first so that I could finish it off with razing my plantation, but this works too.




This is going to be difficult.




It remains unpleasant.




Otherwise, here's a look at my long shot to win this.
Currently, 16 missionaries would be needed to convert the rest of the ‘allies’.
To be honest, I have no idea how this would affect the percentages with foreign religions, but theoretically it should be possible ? Or would I need help from Bing/Cairo because they would need to purge Ashen Veil/Runes ?

There is also the problem that Auro didn't convert all of his cities, so there is the risk that Auro already has enough to block the 20%.


However, 16 missionaries would also be 640 .
That's actually ‘only’ 5 turns of my total production.

I already have 3 missionaries, which were actually supposed to be used as a culture bomb for the planned city on the front against Auro.
The GA should bomb Idul, if I get the chance. - Or start the next GA in ~16 turns, when I get my next GP.

But I also have about 8 priest, which also can spread the religion.
In theire case maybe in Bings cities ?




So I could win in ~20 turns ?
I think, I will abort the plan with the culture bomb to the 2nd culture expansion and start the long shot to victory.
It's the only chance where I see a realistic chance to work (Tower victory needs the Archmage tech and active help from the others).
For religion I hope I only need passive help - open borders.
And I still need to defend against Auro.

[xist10]

Look, a horseman of the apocalypse.

I didn't really notice in the game that Auroarcher threw a few fireballs at Eaca.
It didn't do anything. 4 with a maximum bonus of 50% hit 6 with a bonus of over 100%.

Still a small problem when I want to grow forests on the coast.




So Plan Religion is starting now.
Since my idea that the % is divided when there is more than one religion in a city is wrong.




Otherwise, I forgot that there is still the spell with +1 for archers.
My longbows will then have 10 defence, plus ~150% bonus?
That should be enough to defeat a horseman of the apocalypse.

[xist10]

And directly the next turn.




We all expect the Tower of Divination at Auroarcher, and now MrCairo has inserted one.

Otherwise, bad news: Auroarcher has 27% of the world's population, so to win via religion, I have to hope for further natural spread at Auro.
There is a chance: Idul has my religion and Auro has some large cities without religion. That should add up to 7%.

Still, it's not necessarily what I want to see.
Anyway, I'll keep going.
It's the only chance I see where I don't need active help from others.

Luonnator is out of the question, I don't have the tech or the option to get enough .
Tower of Mastery requires active assistance, but the tech problem is actually a little smaller here; I could get the last tech with the Tower of Divination.


Unfortunately, Auro is currently attacking Bing's (large) coastal cities by ship, as we are indirectly increasing Auro's population share again.

Ships are the next point where I would like to have a look at the balancing.
Here the problem that you have a huge problem if you lose the fight over naval supremacy - or you can ignore it halfway, when you don't have coastal cities.
In BtS, you can try to defend coastal cities.
It's not easy, because later one ship can attack 3 or even 4 cities on the same coast, but you have all advantages from defending - and collateral is no option, even if you have loaded carriers to perform ranged attacks. - You also have at least option of counterplay against planes.

In FFH, you still have the problem that you need to defend 3 or 4 cities against one ship (this is already a bit worse in comparison, because you don't have railways in FFH), but you lose the defender advantage, because Spells allow the attacker to inflict collateral damage from ships.
The option for counterplay in EitB are also theoretical bit better (you can at least sink ships from land using fireballs), but this is still not enough.
With 8 movement, the ships can move in, attack with melee units and move out of fireball range again. - This ignores the option to have fireball casting mages on the ships and we enter the situation, where you don't even know from where the attacks come, because 8 tiles ship be outside of spotting range of landbased eyeballs.

[xist10]

And you are up to date with this post.




Auro has a few ships here to demolish Bing's coastal cities.

To be honest, my southern territories are also somewhat at risk, but at least Auroarcher cannot easily attack them directly from the ships.




In the west, on the other hand, I have my newest toy.

These Longbows should cause Auro some minor problems.
Unfortunately, only minor ones, as I don't have enough of them.




Auro has gathered over 60 units here at the border – I don't even have 50.
I do have more mages, but that only helps to a limited extent.




Because Auro has researched war horses this round and unlocked the turtles.
My best weapons against 19 are actually my longbows with 9 – unfortunately, I don't have any Fawns that I can upgrade to Satyrs with 10 thanks to Poison Blade.




In Bolans, there is the Oracle – or, as the national wonder version in FFH is called, the Tower of Divination.
This means that up to 4 archmages are possible with Auro in the next round, and thus up to 5 earth elementals with 14 , if I have Auro's changeable mana types correctly in my head.
At the latest, the stone skin promotion for archmages unlocked with Earth2 should actually be enough to stop my assassins, which I still have to build.

I'm already thinking that my mages have a good chance against assassins.

[Qgqqqqq]

I really respect your determination and thinking outside the box, xist.

[xist10]

What is outside of the box ?
The desperate try to win a religious victory ?

Anyway, next turn.
It shapes up to become the deciding battle.




coldrain sends Entropy mana for one turn.
That's nice, so I can rust away a few more things – which unfortunately doesn't help much either, but gives at least options to exploit errors from Auroarcher.




After counting again, I evacuated all the mages from the front.

Looking back, I probably made a mistake here.
I should have evacuated all units.

Auro's mages are relatively weak at the moment - most have only access to ine T2 spell - but the stack is still within range of fireballs (3 + 2-4 range) and Maelstrom (3 +2 range).
Even if only 3-4 spells hit (with 13 mages), this should be enough for the chariots to cause relatively effective damage.

Let's see how this shakes out. I've made my move now.
If Auor attacks, I should then be able to catch the dammed units with a lot of in the counterattack, so this is about even ?

Otherwise, you can see the possible movement range with costs here.
Auro has a total of 4 workers here.
2 on 1 from Idul, 2 in Seroe Vakas. They roads they can build are already included in the costs.




Many chariots should reach 6 , at least one theoretically even 7 with Light equipment - That chariot has only Mobility1 right now, but I don't know how many promotions that chariot has open.
Auro has 2 promotions for all units.

[Qgqqqqq]

Yeah, I don't believe I've seen a religious victory in MP.

[xist10]

I also don't think you will see at victory here, but that is my only hope to win this here.

Even if Auro doesn't win the expected showdown, I think Auro has enough cities to block this.
So my only hope is "mismanagement" by Auro and random religion spread.

[xist10]

And the first turtle.
19 could be a problem.




At least Auro's workers are all in Seroe Vakas now?
That means I can advance on the fort again and his assassins can't reach me – I also overlooked the fact that the assassins have -50% city strength, so I think I can withstand a first strike from them in my fortress?
That leaves me with ~250% for my mages ? I'm not sure how the -50% are counted for the defender. Are they a +100% ?
This would mean 10,5 against 6 ?

But I fear still not enough when I need to factor in 30% damage from Maelstrom and maybe collateral damage from a few fireballs.




I think this event for Auro can create a Great Prophet.

Code:

<EventInfo>
            <Type>EVENT_HOLY_CHILD_4</Type>
            [...]
            <UnitClass>UNITCLASS_PROPHET</UnitClass>
            <iNumFreeUnits>1</iNumFreeUnits>
            [...]
        </EventInfo>

The fact that Auro unlocks a religion/shrine immediately afterwards also supports this. Although I must admit that I can imagine that Auro might wanted to change religions before and currently has enough cultists. The Ratha with a free Sun2 spell are not bad.
The shrine would give SunMana, which with Sun3 would unlock the only unit with Affinity2.

I would have to test the interaction of Aurealis with fireballs.
I believe that immunities/weaknesses are not taken into account when calculating defenders, which means that my fireballs with fire immunity would still attack against the Aurealis with (up to) 6 + 10 fire from 5 Sunmana for 16 .
And then it would be 5 against 6 because the fireballs are immun against fire.
That's winnable.
Okay, the turtles are still a problem, because they should defend before the Aurealis.




Otherwise, I'm wondering why Auor seems hell-bent on breaking through my defences – I can't explain the turtles or the 70 units any other way.
The 20 chariots, 10 assassins and 4 mages or so are enough to deter me.

DaveV 2 mana sources here should fall into Auro's hands in the medium term.




This would give Auro the 4 freely usable sources to build the Tower of Alteration.
Elementalism and Necromancy are already possible, as the Lanun Palace provides 2 elemental mana (Water/Air) and 1 necromancy mana (Chaos).

And we couldn't really prevent the Tower of Divination, so I also don't think we can prevent the other 3 Towers which needs mana.


I am actually considering whether I should suggest to Auro that he offer an Alternation mana against OG.
And then quickly send my priests to the large Lanun cities to spread my religion.

But on a second look, I don't think Auro would take this.
The remain 4 Towers need about 3k . In addition to that, Auro needs to build this in one city, because he can't build 2 towers at the same time now.
With about ~50 he had for the ToD, this would mean further 60 turns. That would be more than enough for me to convert all remaining allied cities - and with peace (and OB) enough cities from Auros to secure the win for me.

If Auro had an GE in the near future, I think he would need about 10 turns per tower for 30 turns, I think. And I think Auro could secure a GE from Tech in that timeframe.
30 turns are still enough for me to snatch up the win, but a bit more realistic.