[EitB PBEM LVI] coldrain emerges from the shadows

[coldrain]

Turn 84

Miguelito/Dave captured Valley of Drake on turn 82. I didn’t have enough units in range to recapture. On turn 83, The Depths was captured too. Both cities are guarded by expendable summons. Wizard stack looked like this on beginning of turn 84:

I sacrificed 2 tigers and recaptured Depths with a third:

I deleted the wounded tiger and summoned a new one in its place at capital (I can have as many tigers as I have PoLs). Military state civic allows drafting, so I conscripted a warrior in Depths. I did the same in previous turn to try and slow down the invasion force. Also visible in the picture is the fresh elven hero, Gilden Silveric. I’m mustering all forces to guard capital, and all 2-movers can reach The Depths from there, including summoned tigers. I get horrible odds on attack against Mig/Dave units on hills. Probably not much better on flatlands either. I’m saving money and contemplating of researching poisons instead of stirrups for assassins, not sure what the best option will be. It will still take a while to research either of those options.

In foreign news, I accepted peace from Q, there’s no way to sustain a two front war right now. Bing declared war on Q, let’s see how that conflict evolves. Heh, I just realized that we all are potentially playing right into the hands of Aurorarcher, as he is the only one not involved in a war. He has researched both construction and trade, so he has chariots now (movement 3, attack strength 6 with bronze weapons). I also saw metamagic adepts in Luchuirp territory and got some nice information from map trade:

Aurorarcher has both fire mana and sun mana available from map. If he is close to mages, I think this game is decided in his favour. He has best economy by far, completed FFH2 version of Taj Mahal and has received three great engineers with the after effect of his world spell. I guess if Miguelito is fast enough to conquer me, he can catch up to some degree and then use Amurite world spell to have “monopoly” on spell casting for a limited time and strike against the game leader. This of course is still speculation, I’ll have to wait and see how things unfold.

[coldrain]

Turn 85

This was the situation at the start of turn:

I checked the event log and Miguelito/Dave had attacked the capital with four fireballs, but Gilden Silveric won all combats. At what moment of turn order does healing of units occur? All but one of my units were at full health at the start of my turn, including Gilden. I thought my units would be in much weaker state after the fireball bombardment.

I was able to capture undefended Valley of Drake with a mobility promoted fawn from Demon Ruins. A fawn close by attacked Einhenjar summon in The Depths at 76% and lost. Another mobility promoted fawn won a 98% combat and recaptured the city. Finally, I attacked with tigers against the wizard stack:
Empower I tiger vs combat III + guerrilla I polar bear at 0,9%: LOSS
Empower I tiger vs guerrilla I swordsman at 1,3%: LOSS
Tiger vs guerrilla I swordsman at 1,1%: LOSS
Tiger vs combat III + guerrilla I polar bear (wounded) at 1,5%: WIN
Tiger vs combat I swordsman at 1,5%: LOSS

Got lucky with the polar bear kill. Moved a new PoL to capital and resummoned the tigers. Situation looks like this after troop movements:

I gave Gilden drill I promotion in addition to the earlier guerrilla I promotion. In FFH2, drill promotions add a chance to get a “defensive strike” before any combat rounds while defending. Archery units start with additional chance for the strike, so Gilden now has 40% chance to do 20% damage to any attacking unit. I’m hoping that he can withstand another round of fireballs without getting heavily damaged.

[xist10]

I'm not sure if it is a good idea to attack with only a few tiger - do they give XP ?
If yes, this should be bad, because FFH has more XP per combat and stronger promotions.

[coldrain]

I'm not sure if it is a good idea to attack with only a few tiger - do they give XP ?
If yes, this should be bad, because FFH has more XP per combat and stronger promotions.

Yes, tigers give xp. Although defending will give less (typically only 1). I wanted to use the tigers, as I can keep summoning them. Of course, feeding a lot of experience is not a good idea.

[coldrain]

Turn 86

I was greeted by a peace treaty offer from Miguelito:

I decided to check in game first before accepting (heard that this is acceptable if I don’t do anything else while in game). Fireballs and Einhenjars had killed two fawns and Gilden Silveric at capital, but I still held Valley of Drake and The Depths. My remaining units get poor odds on attack, so I accepted the peace offer. It’s sad to lose the western cities, but my military is too weak at the moment to do anything else than sit in my capital.

Now that I have peace treaties with Q (7 turns) and Miguelito (10 turns), the plan is this:
- Bloom new forests with PoLs. Already started this with most available priests.
- Move tigers and other units towards the barbarian city, in case Mig/Dave doesn’t capture it for some reason.
- Build more PoLs in cities with temples. Other cities build stables to train horsemen and a bit later Fyrdwells. Capital builds heroic epic.
- Research stirrups in about 5 turns (may take longer, if ending of golden age decreases commerce too much).
- Prepare an invasion force of Fyrdwells/PoLs/fawns.

I’m not too optimistic about the prospects of launching an attack against Mig in 10 turns. Even with Fyrdwells, wizards are still painful to deal with. Empire overview:

Good news is that ancient forests are starting to grow again. Demos and military power graph:

[coldrain]

Forgot to mention that while I was dealing with the wizard invasion, Aurorarcher and Q settled the middle of the map:

I have to think a way to catch up, especially compared to Luchuirp. This game is heading towards a rematch between me and Miguelito, but that only gives a better opening for Aurorarcher to tech away in peace or swoop in for conquest. Bing and Q are still in war, but no cities have been captured to my knowledge.

[xist10]

I'm not sure about the rules in sequential, but in normal PB, the modus is in most cases take a look and resend the offer.

- Maybe take a look with F1 or something else - you can access most advisors in a diplo screen.


Do you still have victory ambitions ?

[coldrain]

It is quite unlikely for me to win this game. To achieve that, there needs to be a combined dog-pile to knock down Aurorarcher from the leading position. I suspect that he also has mages, so it won't be easy. But at the same time, I would need to outpace other competition. Having lost two cities in the recent war, plus wasted production on units that are now dead, I'm quite behind in developement compared to Q (and maybe Mig and Bing too). To actually have a chance, I need mages. And those are quite far away still.

Addiitonally, (at least for now) I'm reluctant to trust the peace with Miguelito after the treaty expires. Looking back now, his actions were very hostile from the moment we met. But I don't want to be a "king-maker" for Aurorarcher by bogging down Miguelito without a real chance of winning. So I have 9 turns to think of a way to either actually win against Miguelito in a second war, or try to reorientate the diplomatic situation into a dog-pile against Aurorarcher, hoping that others get hit the hardest in the ensuing chaos.

[xist10]

I don’t like the thinking “I don’t want to kingmaker”.
Especially if it’s an argument why you shouldn’t attack a player.

[coldrain]

I don’t like the thinking “I don’t want to kingmaker”.
Especially if it’s an argument why you shouldn’t attack a player.

True, I shouldn't avoid war for this reason. I'm just trying to figure out if there is any scenario where I can win the game from this position while Aurorarcher seems to have a significant lead. So 'm trying to balance these objectives:
1. Survive a possible continuation of war against Mig. I won't have mages available once the peace treaty expires, so I'm expecting to be on the back foot if hostilities resume.
2. Catch up to others in important research. 
3. Regain lost territories to improve production output.
4. Damage the leading player directly (war) or indirectly (stay neutral while others do the heavy lifitng of war) before he has built an unbeatable economy/army.
5. Devise a plan to victory.

Based on the previous game threads, the most likely path to victory is a concession to the player who assembles the scariest army and manages to conquer another player. I could be wrong, but based on graphs and demos, Aurorarcher is ways ahead of rest of the competition. By this way of thinking, any inconclusive war between the trailing players would only increase the lead Aurorarcher holds.