The Black Sword's Tale: For the Kurious

[DaveV]

Another weird point btw; the Tower of Necromancy is supposed to increase my skeleton summoning limit, but my death adept still can't summon another. Is my understanding wrong here?

My recollection of the ToN effect is that it gives the Strong promotion to all your undead units (including summons).

[The Black Sword]

That's one effect, which is working, but it also says:

Increases amount of skeletons its empire can summon by 5

which doesn't seem to be true.

[The Black Sword]

A good start to the turn.


Not so good, free cover promo for all his moroi, my poor drafted LBs. My stacks are super varied though, partly so that they couldn't just take a single counter promotion against me.

Here's the cities, on my last turn of GA:


It looks to me that I could finish the ToM on T113, but it will be very tight. In fact, so tight, that fairly minimal spectre pillaging could push me back a turn. Of course, jalapeno doesn't know this, it might be he thinks he's only got T113 to raze Kwythellar and that he needs every single spectre for that attack. Still, I've got to plan like this game could continue to T114. Another option is to build Mokka's Cauldron next turn, delaying the ToM completion date until T115. I've kept this option open for next turn, I can make the decision upon seeing his final arrayed army. Doubling my army is certainly tempting, but again, I think it's possible that mass(need a lot more this time though) pillaging could push me back a turn to T116. That would give the dwarves a 1t attacking window, which I really don't want. Anyway, I'll be a bit better informed next turn to make this decision. I think building Mokka's Cauldron has style points too.



Seeing as the game will go on to T114 at least, it's worth my while to finish the Bazaar here. Well, a Centaur Archer is still better than a Mercenary, but that's hedged against the possibilty that the game might continue longer and I might get more.



In Naggarond, I didn't quite realise just how expensive Mary Morbus is. I just assumed that my heroic epic city in a golden age could 1t any military unit. So, I'm building up some overflow here and I'll get her out next turn. The important thing is that she's out T113, and I have a haste adept waiting by, so she should be able to get in plague range of the vampire stack after it attacks Kwythellar.

In military watch, I finally moved my adepts away from their mana nodes, and sent some floating eyes deeper into Calabim territory, after seeing this, I decided to stop making stupid and cocky 'questionable' moves:



Here's the summary of his forces:


A few of the bloodpets and Moroi won't be joining the attack, but I'm pretty sure all 31 vampires will. Still, if there's one glaring hole in his preparation, it's the lack of any collateral. Even if he revolts to the Veil next turn, he can't get any ritualists in time for the T113 attack.

Since he has no collateral, I see no reason to leave the confines of Kwythellar and its 105% defense bonus. Maelstroming his troops won't make that up IMO and there's potential for his units to just ignore all my attackers, maybe even hold them up with the rathas, and attack a less well defended Kwythellar.

So, mostly, I've piled everything I can into Kwythellar.


I should have renamed the mages to YOU WILL NOT PASS! They'll cast Maelstrom on my first strike turn T112 and retreat back to Kwythellar. I think most of the damage will be healed by Regeneration, but it might affect some of them.

Here's the only sizeable force I have outside Kwythellar:


The aim here is to take out 2 of his 4 mana nodes on my first strike turn. The Centaurs in the galley, and the 5 in Avelorn, can move to Kwythellar next turn instead of attacking if I want to call it off. Jalapeno has 3 Moroi and a catapult sitting on that southern mana node. I have my third Mage in range for possible maelstrom, 2 swords and a crusader who couldn't make it back to Kwythellar from their Settlements in time and the 5 possible attackers on the boat.

You can see his northern mana node at the top of the picture, which is currently undefended. Most of the units that can reach here can probably also reach Kwythellar, so it'll be interesting to see what he has there next turn. I have the 9 Centaurs in range(with a haste adept standing by) as possible attackers, though obviously the 4 on the boat can only do 1 or the other. One of the Centaurs, the guy who went to meet the elves, has mobility 1. Assuming the others can clear away the defenders, he has the enough MP to pillage the node.

Apart from that, I have a crusader and a warrior falling back from the southern settlement of Caledor, and another crusader, swordsman and warrior retreating from Lothern and Karond Kar who can join the garrisons of Naggarond and Avelorn next turn. Everything else will be stacked in Kwythellar:




Next turn we can recruit 6 Mercenaries and do a bit of upgrading with the gold. Unfortunately, I can't research Precision in time for the GC to be of any use without incurring a lot of unhappiness. It seems the mercs are a better use of resources.

No big number of one troop type there, but I count 68 defenders in Kwythellar next turn, with another possible 10 in range.

Finally, here's some pretty pics of my cities, before they all get burned to the ground. I bet no-one can get all the buildings .

[The Black Sword]

Turn's in and it's looking quite good.

First I deforested Kwythellar, then Maelstrom time:


Instead of the second Maelstrom, I cast dispel to get rid of regeneration. Here's what his stack looks like:


In the south, he had 7 units defending the Death Node:


I had 8 attackers, but all it would take is one lost combat and I couldn't pillage the node. Casualties on either side are meaningless down there, it will all be decided in the north. So, I unloaded the boat back in Avelorn and retreated the 3 foot units to the hill west of Har Ganeth, out of range of his catapult.

The northern mana node was a lot more vulneruble though, just 1 moroi and 3 bloodpets. So, I sent in the Centaurs:


Two Chargers and an Archer won at high odds before the quick Centaur pillaged the node. So, 4 units sacrificed from the defense of Kwythellar, for -1S on his presumably 32 spectres. Not sure about that tbh, because I doubt his S7 spectres would get much odds either.

Anyway, then I retreated everything in Kwythellar, upgraded Karai to a Longbow, the scout to a hunter, 2 warriors to archers, recruited 6 Mercs and cast my spells: poisoned weapons, Bless, Shield of Faith, Heal and Enchanted weapons. The one thing I regret is upgrading that adept to Death 1 instead of Earth 1, Wall of Stone would be handy. Still, I don't see how he can break through this:


And because I don't think he can break through, I decided to skip Mokka's Cauldron. You can also see that he converted to the Veil, there is 1 ritualist in the Calabim capital, but that's not in range this turn.

The cities after EOT:


It needs all 171h to complete the ToM next turn, which seems rather unlikely, though I still have the deer's forest to chop, that might make up the difference.


Naggarond worked enough hammers to complete Mary, and not starve, and then max gold.


Similarly, Avelorn had to work all the mines to get the Centaur Archer out.

Both cities can be hit by the full round of spectres, which would presumably be enough to raze the city. I rather hope that doesn't happen out of spite, because I really can't see them breaking through the Kwythellar stack.

EDIT: Oh, and the Khazad are amassing quite an army, if it could get here in time.

[The Black Sword]

I opened the save to a very nasty scene:


My beautiful city .

The event log was full of Blinding light effects and pillages, here's the interesting part with the combat:



In the south, Har Ganeth fell and the catapult evidently still had a promo to take Mobility 1. I thought I'd see the blue sparks if that were the case but it doesn't matter really. My crusader and 2 swords brought 2 Moroi down with them.

In the East, 1 Centaur charger remained:


So, I killed 2 Moroi, 2 bloodpets, 1 Hunter and caused another Moroi to go barb crazy at the cost of 2 expensive Centaurs and 1 cheap one. Guess I came out slightly ahead there in the end. Unfortunately, I couldn't spare a floating eye to check the area for adepts, my own Meta 1 adept being blocked by Blinding Light. So, it's possible that he could improve that mana node for his attack next turn.

On to the main event, here's the assembled forces I can see:


The main stack sitting on the deer's forest hill:


I've made a couple of sloppy mistakes over these last few turns, but the biggest has to be not chopping that forest. I had the worker turns, instead I used them to workshop a tile I worked for 1 entire turn before it got pillaged. Now he has a nice 50% defence tile to sit on.

The ritualist, on the grass hill 2SW of Best Practices:


The very curiously positioned stack of skeletons:


These are 1N of that 1 tile lake and aren't in range of anything. I checked to see if maybe he had somehow gotten Engineering but no. Thinking back on it, this probably means he doesn't plan on attacking next turn. Which makes sense, because with only 1 ritualist, he's still doomed to fail. Unfortunately, he's out of time as the ToM completes next turn, despite the pillaging.

There are also 2 spectres who pillaged the road to Naggarond:


Here's my own units, you can see a fair number of them have been stopped by the Ratha, but I still have a lot active, I'm guessing the Tower of Alteration had a good effect here.


Looking at the situation, I had two options. One was to try take out the ritualist stack, the other to do as much damage to the main stack as possible. I decided to leave the ritualist alone for a couple of reasons. First, any units attacking that stack cannot return to Kwythellar and only units with base 2 moves can attack, such as Centaurs and Hunters. I can't Maelstrom both the ritualist stack and the main stack. Also, Mary is going to cast contagion(-60% strength) to his main stack. That is easily healed by a Priest, but he only has one. So, he has to choose between healing the main stack or Ring of Fire. 15% damage to my units is not going to be enough to switch the tables, when I'm sitting behind my cultural defences and his units are all plagued.

Unfortunately, Mary's cast is a suicide mission, if I had kept a few workers around I could have completed the necessary roads to bring here into Kwythellar but oh well. This is essentially the last turn of the game, it doesn't matter too much if she dies.

So, first, I cleared out those two spectres with the Sword and the LB. Then the my 3 Mages, Mary, and Arthendain stepped up. Dispel(which doesn't seem to be resistable), double Maelstrom, Contagion and destroy undead left his main stack looking like this:



(Actually I forgot this picture, I went back and did it again, so this is approximate).

At this stage, the smart thing to do is probably just to stand in Kwythellar, the few units in range from Naggarond and Kwythellar can hit the stack. But, my units in Kwythellar can hit the stack and retreat back in and I'm pretty sure just the units that can't move in Kwythellar are enough to defend it anyway. My odds are quite good now, and I rationalised to myself that every vampire I kill is another spectre who can't attack next turn. Plus I really wanted to kill some stuff after he pillaged me to kingdom come.

So, I attacked with pretty much everything I had. His first few defenders were strong enough, one or two with odds in the 60s. Most of the time it was high 80s though, with a couple of 70s and 90s. The defender formula was a bit weird sometimes, I could sometimes use weak units like disciples or tigers to take out his spectres or stuff, to keep my strong units for his vampires. Some of his spectres were apparently too injured to defend the stack, so luckily I didn't need to wade through all of them at the start. Anyway, here's some pictures at various stages:






And it finished:



Not bad at all, I retreated back into Kwythellar:


Event log:




I then made a very stupid move, putting Mary on the hill 2S of his stack and backed by some LBs from Avelorn. I thought that at least she could pay dearly for her life. Of course, that tile is in range of his 30 something skeletons. Nice of me to give them something to do.

Anyway, here's the final shot of Kwythellar scraping together the remaining hammers for the Tower of Mastery, if you remember, I needed 171h to finish it, so next turn should be easy.

[The Black Sword]

You can see the Armageddon counter is at 30 last turn so sure enough blight hit this turn. Seems appropriate given the situation. I've been thinking I probably should have triggered it for a while now with my savant. My cities are starving anyway, I think it'd disrupt the other 2 more.



I did forget that the blight did Death damage though. Second thing I did upon opening the save was go search for Arthendain to heal my units, I searched and I searched but I couldn't find him. Then it dawned on me, he was only at about 1.5 health after killing a vamp last turn.



The healer died to the Blight

First thing I did of course was check that Kwythellar was still standing, so here it is finishing the game:



I cleaned up a couple of Calabim units around the place(including his ritualist) and the Khazad showed up with an impressive army on my doorstep. Here's an overview of our respective militaries:

Jalapeno:



HK:



Me:


and a supporting WK stack:


I have rather large doubts about my ability to handle that Khazad army if the game were to continue. I can't remember how much damage Crush can do, but I'm pretty sure it's enough that he wins if he attacks. So I'd need to hit him first, for which I'd need workers to make sure I have the roads at least. I'm not sure Contagion or Wither would be that important though tbh. Chariots aren't great defensively and I don't think it'd effect his Earth Elementals. It would have been an interesting fight if I hadn't been trying to rush out the Tower instead.

[Molach]

Congrats on the win, and with well-written reports.

Very exciting end too - tower completed in the nick of time, it seems.