[Spoiler] Another collection of Sianic Games

[Mardoc]

By Sailing v Feudalism, do you mean that, given a lack of pressure, you'd rather expand from here than simply go for outright military dominance?

There is still a dramatic advantage to being on the defense. I don't think I can achieve outright military dominance anytime soon.

But it's not really that stark. I'm thinking along the lines of switching from 100% military to 80% military. 2-3 settlers, a galley, maybe a couple workers, mixed in with still a lot lot of Moroi and cats and such. Seeing those wines and gems (and ICTR), a small investment in expansion will pay big dividends.

Of course, the difference between 'enough units to wound everything in HK's stack' and 'enough units to mop up HK's stack' is pretty dramatic too . Which is why I haven't built those settlers yet.

How much of a gamechanger will vampires be for the current status quo?

Heh, you do like the tough questions, don't you? It depends. I could imagine 2-3 of them being enough to break Kragroth wide open, particularly if I catch him by surprise and ignore his front city. Could possibly kill 2-3 cities before he has a chance to react, which is like half his production. On the other hand, against HK, I need a lot of them to make a difference. Their immediate effect will be more for Haste and Regeneration; spectres won't have much effect until I get a critical mass.

The one thing I might be able to pull off with vamps is targetted PoW slaying. His stack has such a disparity of strength that it won't take much to make the PoW defend, and vamps could actually have a decent chance against Str. 7 with several Combat promos.

In the medium term, a handful of vamps, plus my current army, may suffice to drive HK back on the defensive. If I can hit him with cats, a few spectres, some warriorpults, and then vamps + Moroi, I can do a lot of damage to his stack. He'll see that possibility and withdraw preemptively, I'm pretty sure. Then...then spectres will be much more effective at pillaging than Moroi. I should be able to pillage from beyond counterattack range.

However, in the longer run - Vamps will let me transition from a military that is gutted by a battle, win or lose, to one that can pour on the hammer blows turn after turn. Part of the reason I stalled against HK was that I needed to pause to heal my Moroi and build replacements. Vamps will let me mostly sacrifice spectres, and use Regeneration, and keep moving. One success will lead to the next, instead of leading to a pause.

Edit: Oh and I'd be interested in feedback on cats. They don't see much use, lately, but to my mind that's largely because of a) the trend of military dominance by economic superpowers leading to a favor of later-game options, b) the swing towards chariots (which outpace cats) as the mid-game attack dog of choice - which is likely to change with recent versions and has yet to be corrected/adjusted for by players - and c) a general lack of experience/trend away from them for other options because of non-rational considerations - the sacrificial nature of their collateral, and the experience of playing in single-player.

Got to try them to see. But I'll keep this in mind.

My first thought is that 60h is an awful lot, though. I can have four bloodpets for that, which can accomplish a similar amount of stack damage, and can defend to boot. It'll really come down to how survivable the cats are, if that lets me use them more than once reliably. Even if they do survive, they'll have to spend time healing, which the other collateral options don't require.

Otoh, concerns of lack of speed do hold, so I am interested in your view - especially as the player with perhaps the most cross-culture experience in BTS/EitB MP, which each hold very different views on the place of what is, ultimately, pretty well the same unit.

Thoth is probably even more experienced.

But take a comparison of BtS vs. EitB
Cost: Bts: 1.5 axes; EitB: 2 axes + a share of the Siege Workshop
Str: BtS: 5; EitB: 4/3

[Aurorarcher]

In BtS cats usually die after doing collateral but in EitB cats have high withdraw chances. However, healing of cats is a pain, and this is usually done while in enemy territory... Dwarfs can repair which is handy here but for others cats are pretty useless and would be better off with using some other source of collateral.

I'd either make cats able to heal faster somehow or reduce their cost a bit.

[Mardoc]

Good point, Aurorarcher. It does seem that cats are likely to work better on defense than offense, precisely because they can be used more than once. I'm really hoping they can take the place of masses of warrior-pults, at least, and be more hammer-efficient.

Oh, also:

In BtS, it's straightforward to have a mixed rock-paper-scissors stack, that will win on the defense without collateral. On top, it's also easier to have good tile defense, particularly cities with culture, where you need cats for bombardment. FFH pushes you toward single-composition stacks. Hardly any units have any meaningful rock-paper-scissors aspect: Shock and horsemen anti-archer are just about all. On top, the building and tech requirements mean you'll get more bang for your buck sticking with a single composition, generally.

But when it's a simple Str. vs. Str. comparison, collateral doesn't matter nearly as much. You can have a similar effect by just outnumbering the foe by 50% or so.

And...BtS cats are immune to collateral, themselves, while FFH ones are not - in particular, they're no help against spells which damage the whole stack.

All that said: I do think there's a good chance that cats make a noticeable difference for me, even as they are. And if they don't, it'll be because I didn't get enough of them early enough.

That might just be the nature of this particular game, where there have been more turns at war than at peace, and everyone's tech pace is suppressed, and there are a lot of hammers dumped into military making the cost of additional training buildings amortize over more units. Or...it's always possible that the meta is wrong, and cats are generally worthwhile but just unpopular. I'm pretty sure it took a while for their value in BtS to be widely recognized, and that game had a lot more players working on the meta. If they work out well enough for me, and for HK, I can assure you we'll be demonstrating their use in games to come .

[Qgqqqqq]

Good points, both of you. Whilst I was thinking about healing implicitly I hadn't even considered the cost - which probably says a lot about how much I've used them...

So a couple of ideas, though whether they're needed depends a bit on what comes out:
30h cats
Cats have 100% withdrawal rate

[Mardoc]

So a couple of ideas, though whether they're needed depends a bit on what comes out:
30h cats

Gotta wait and see how good they are. Given that everything else at their tier level got a price cut, they're probably due for something, anyway. Although if you go this route, you might share the cost reduction with the Siege Workshop. And/or alter chariots, maybe require both SW and stables for them if SW get cheap enough.

Cats have 100% withdrawal rate

I suspect that would break things in odd ways. Stick 20 no-health cats in a city, move them back in after the opponent forces them to retreat every turn. Or be the easiest way ever to unlock Form of the Titan/Brigit. Loki's weird enough, and he can't even attack.

If you're going to do something like that - give them a spell instead. Maybe they can summon a Weak Fireball, with a 2-turn casting time?

[Qgqqqqq]

I'm pretty sure cats don't have defensive withdrawals. Idk, I'd have to look at it, but that was my impression.

(Also, you can't withdraw from a city.)

[Aurorarcher]

Yeah, cats don't have withdrawals on defense. At least I've never seen such happen.

I'd go with 30h cats rather than 100% withdrawal rate. This way their cost is so low that the hammer investment could be actually worth it before other sources of collateral. Needs a testing obviously.

[Mardoc]

Had one more turn. No time for a detailed report.

Elf front: Kragroth sent in another Hunter to kill the Moroi on the desert mana tile. I killed it, of course, and was able to withdraw my bloodpet afterward. Although, in retrospect, maybe I should have left it there; trading units is in my favor when I have such the hammer advantage. He also somehow ended up with a Satyr killing the Moroi 1W of Brakkah - might maybe have started the turn as a Fawn? Didn't check the log, but I killed that too. Brakkah hasn't been reinforced.

HK front: His stack has not advanced. On the other hand, it's been reinforced with a bunch of warriors and an adept who cast enchanted blade. And...with also a number of 1-move units. I can't decide what this means. It might be that he's thinking of the stack as forward/zone defense, rather than as counterattack material. I chose to go with that interpretation for now, and swapped cities back to Siege Workshops. If I'm right, then I'd much rather get cats up and running than some more bloodpet fodder. He can't really know that now is a good time to counterattack.

I now have one cat at the front. Next turn, another completes, along with three more Siege Workshops. About three turns after that, I ought to have four more. Six catapults is enough to make me feel secure against his current stack, maybe even enough to consider pushing the pace and hitting his stack. If I could take out four potential summoners and a lot of his bodies, that would give me some breathing room.

That said...I'm not sure HK is the highest priority. My skirmishing with Kragroth makes me think I may be able to accomplish a lot more with less investment on the elf front. He seems to be consistently underestimating what I can do and giving me opportunities. He's also the closest to me in demos, so most in need of pruning. I might maybe be able to get my hands on some elf forest towns if I have enough of a breather in the east to accumulate a middle sized stack (~10 Moroi?). Or if not, I could maybe at least cripple him and be able to ignore him for a while.

Given the pace, I ought to have plenty of time to think on the subject. The next couple turns are pretty much on rails anyway: cats to the HK front, build more Moroi and send them where I'm most nervous. I have started Feudalism, ETA 15 turns. I guess unit costs hurt me more than I expected. But I still will go this way, I think, because I don't have any spare hammers to take advantage of other techs anyway.

[Qgqqqqq]

I forget, do you have HBR for 2-move cats?

Reading and enjoying

[Mardoc]

Yes, HBR was a very early pickup. Originally for 3-move Moroi: there was a period where my units could move faster through HK's territory than he could.

I'm toying with the idea of knocking out a few chariots, too. Moroi are just about as good, but some variety might help against Shock promos, or something to hit four moves away instead of three. But it probably won't happen. First I need cats, and by the time I can afford to stop building those - I ought to be able to make vamps instead. Sure, they're still Shock vulnerable, but they're better in most every other way. And even Shock isn't the be-all and end-all if I can spare some pop to accumulate a bunch of my own promos.