[SPOILERS] Dark Age of Capria

[Selrahc]

My guess: the code that's calculating the surplus for hammer conversion is not taking the two angry citizens into account. That would change the food situation from -3 to +1.

Yes. Angry citizens don't eat surplus food when you're working a foodhammer build.

[xenin]

Does anyone know how the mechanics of city gifting work?

In particular I'd like to know
-if the city loses all culture
-if AV gets stripped from a city gifted to basium
-if AV gets stripped, what happens to stigmata on the unborn?

[xenin]

So last turn on a whim I offered to trade maps with yell0w and cromagnumpi, since I don't really care who has my map but could use some holes filled in elsewhere, and at least one of them accepted. Got some idea of the extent of the hippus empire, and found one rather nasty surprise:



I really don't want to have to deal with snowfall hemah.

Anyway, onto the end of the malakim! Sent in a bunch of tigerpults which mostly failed to accomplish much, then the real guys went in. The city was on a hill and with 30% cultural defence, but the only defenders of any real strength were some promoted priests. Full combat log:




Mostly going according to odds; I lost 6 units including two in a row at 95% but no real horrible swing of luck against me.

My adept deals the final blow, giving him enough exp to promote to a mage when we get sorcery:



Hawking to the west reveals Saverous, who actually isn't as promoted as I expected, and a pretty big chunk of horse archers:



Over on the other side of the world, I saw the hell terrain and sent in a hawk:



Nabaxo got the best spawn possible really. Literally on top of the weakest player in the game, and marble to boot. Oh, and I just sent 20+ manes his way. That leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. I see three real possibilites of what to do:

Plan A: kill hyborem.
Pros - gela, maybe sheut stone if Your falls, don't have to worry about blight/killing hyborem later
Cons - probably requires a decent amount of troops, including diverting reinforcements away from the northern front.

Plan B: defend cromagnumpi:
Pros - can maybe hold off blight, keeps my fish trade going since I'm perma-warred with hyborem which is keeping a couple of cities out of unhealthiness
Cons - still requires a decent amount of troops, probably not sustainable long term once hyborem gets out some ritualists

Plan C: ignore hyborem conquering sheaim, live in splendid isolation
Pros - doesn't require me to risk troops, speeds up turn pace
Cons - blight almost a certainty, hyborem gets a great start and can probably tech to the MD slingshot, and could be problematic later.

Really annoying place for him to spawn honestly. If he'd spawned next to yell0w he might have got a fast start, but he'd have stopped a fast tower from that direction and yell0w has engineering so might be able to actually hold him off with gargoyles. Cromagumpi's best troops are pyre zombies, which are normally good against superior troops, but not when they're fire resistant. If he'd spawned in a corner next to me I'd have boxed him and squished him at convenience, since he wouldn't have the cities to tech to anything useful.

[xenin]

So it's finally been 5 turns since I adopted AV; my heroic epic city has churned out 4 one-turn ritualists, so it's time to ditch this crappy religion. I was actually planning to offer open borders to haphazard last turn and then if he accepted revolt to esus and esus-stab all those 99% withdrawal horse archers while they're in a city, but it turns out neither of us actually researched cartography so I can't offer open borders. Oh well. The combination of neutral land with roads between us + engineering + haste + mobility on my whole strike force gives me a pretty decent range; I can go from my city to the hill outside his in one turn. Since the esus plan was out I decided to consolidate troops and let the first ritualists move up instead of rushing things. I'll probably go in next turn.

No esus means the best option is...



and fixing the happiness problems means it's time to get this ball really rolling:



Interesting turn in the south. Looks like nabaxo didn't like the look of my stack, so tried to retreat back towards Dis. Unfortunately for him haste + engineering + access to cromagnumpi's road networks mean even my 0 exp (i.e. no mobility) demagogs can hit him. Two sacrificial tigers fail to do any damage, but two sacrificial demagogs weaken his two champions enough that the longbow defends. 60% odds victory leaves Hyborem (who only has drill I and no iron weapons) as the top defender. Time for my super champion:



Simple mop up after that. Full combat log:

[xenin]

I wondered if Mafro would blow his worldspell, which would have been like a 70%+ chance to kill hyborem. If that had happened I might have tried something fancy to get the hell terrain onto that marble just for the comedy value of building 40h 10 strength units everywhere, but I don't want to mess around and let him build the grimoire. Moved my stack onto the hill and hasted. Looks like dying counts as an action for Hyborem, so he wasn't healed much. Nabaxo had got 1 ritualist into the city but that wasn't really enough. Sacrificial tiger actually did 0.8 damage to the longbow, then sacrificial demagog miraculously won at 1% odds. Uber champion mops up:



Kept the city because burning a 28 population city will send the AC soaring. God knows what I'm going to do with it. The maintenance alone will be crippling, but I guess I'm spared that for the rofltastic 16 turns of anarchy:



Here's a fun GNP spike: sorcery at 100% science with all pre-reqs makes my GNP hilarious



Declared and moved my stack in on the Hippus; I didn't grab a screenshot but I can hit his first city next turn. He's moved most of his horse archers somewhere - I only had one hawk spare and couldn't see them anywhere. Need to keep an eye out for something sneaky going on.

[nabaxo]

GGs mate.

[Ellimist]

Kept the city because burning a 28 population city will send the AC soaring. God knows what I'm going to do with it. The maintenance alone will be crippling, but I guess I'm spared that for the rofltastic 16 turns of anarchy:

Razing an Ashen Veil city reduces the AC.

Also, check the trade routes in your other cities. Dis may be providing them with substantial TR benefits.

[xenin]

GGs mate.

GG

Razing an Ashen Veil city reduces the AC.

Also, check the trade routes in your other cities. Dis may be providing them with substantial TR benefits.

Huh. Good to know. I thought you'd get the -AC for one less AV city but still get the +AC from population dying.

[nabaxo]

Replay that turn and try it. You still have the save, right? :P

[xenin]

Replay that turn and try it. You still have the save, right? :P

Ellimist is right, looks like the game doesn't care about millions of people burning to death as long as they believe in AV

Looks like we're carrying on for a bit at least, which I'm glad about - going to get to play with the real shiny toys. Sorcery finished end of last turn so I've got access to regeneration as soon as I can upgrade my mage, and mithril working will finish in 6 turns via tower. Not really sure what to tech after that.