[Spoilers] Defining the phrase "€˜Hung Like a Horse"€™: Pb & the Kuriotates

[K]

Awesome job! Something tells me Bob certainly didn't see that happening to his unstoppable vampire horde. Wonder if he'll reconsider his peace terms lol

[pocketbeetle]

I refer you to the delightful DM lord of the rings.
You need to stock up on those 1 rolls so you have some 20s coming your way!
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1223
The discussion in this darth and droids one is another gem.
http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0099.html

Finally got a chance to read these, liked them. ^^

Isn't a surprise army exactly what mercenaries are for? It's limited to the number of other units you can get to the city at least.
Most of that stuff in your extreme example you can do without haste anyway. Haste just turns the surprise defence into a surprise attack, which is no different to the original example really. On the other hand gifting cities with wonders back and forth is often considered exploitive, but that's a different issue.
So I'd say bendy yes, intended maybe not entirely, but exploit no. Everyone will have a different view on the line between bendy and exploitive, but, as I've already said in the lurker thread, it's not out of line with many other bendy things you can do with haste that aren't generally considered exploits.

Still, better to be wrong by not doing something you probably didn't need to do anyway than be wrong by finishing up accused of abusing an exploit. Just giving my 2c on the subject.

Emergency defense yes, but the limit of units you can get into the city isn't truthfully much of a limitation.
Workers, settlers, hawks, even summons that can relocate like floating eyes, can all recruit a merc.
I'm trying to think of other, equivalently bendy uses of Haste, but I'm drawing a blank. Most have been patched out now.
(Edit: post them in the lurker thread, I'll read them at the end.)

I completely understand where you're coming from, and agree with your last paragraph.
However if I were to start a new FFH2 PBEM, it would be one of the issues I'd bring up.

Pretty sure he's in the Chicago area right now.
Darrell

Took me a couple of seconds to pick this up: most of the recent weather news has been concentrated on Australia.
I take it there's some snow over in Chicago?
(Edit #2: yup.)

Well, we all knew post 1000 would be epic, and it didn't technically disappoint

:hat: for breaking 1000 posts!
Need a new goal, would 100k views be aiming too high?

Medic 1 for quicker healing?

Unfortunately not.
My cultists and Rocky (35% healing) > any minor missionary.

I'm getting the feeling someone should post this in Bobs' thread...

I was expecting "Trampled Underfoot". [FONT=&quot][/FONT]

Pb, I'm looking forward to the climax of the game now

Pretty sure that already happened. The rest of the game is figuring out how much pillow talk is necessary before you can leave.
Darrell

I thought that the taking/razing of the cities was the climax?

No, that's the cigarette.
Darrell

Innuendo ahoy!
I'd agree that we're definitely on the "sharing kisses and mapping out the quickest way to the front door" part.

Awesome job! Something tells me Bob certainly didn't see that happening to his unstoppable vampire horde. Wonder if he'll reconsider his peace terms lol

His actions next turn suggest he's going to be stubborn...



Diplo:

The Winter King’s Chief Advisor sounds a little bewildered.

So, with Bob's main army wiped out I'm kind of at a loss as to what you want me to do. Are we pushing on? Waiting for reinforcements? If you could maybe give me a rough 5 turn plan then I won't have to keep bothering you for this stuff. Sorry.

Hey Selrahc,

Don't be sorry, this is a time for celebration!
I haven't had a chance to check the power graph and see how much the Calabim have left, but assuming they've lost most of their forces I'm probably going to push on to the capital.

As for what to do: It's your call I think.
If you want to help push that's great, if you want to sit back and build up your army and/or take on Cull/Sareln, that's also fine.

In short, up to you!
Pb

I was more saying sorry for bugging you every turn, when you've clearly got it well in hand.

If it's not a problem then, I'd like to move my main force up to defend/counterattack Cull's forces and maybe avoid losing a city. But if you've got any use for Sun mages, Maelstrom casters or floating eyes I could detach some of my adepts/mages to join in with the march on Prespur.

And with the turn:

Pulled my forces back, going to go and invade Cull. Looking at the charts.. you really shouldn't have much trouble fighting Bobs remaining military.

Feel free to grab that 200 gold you lent me. And if you want any of my specialist mages to join the fight, just say and they'll hightail it back to the vampire front.

Hi,

No probs, that sounds good.
Ordinarily I would have loved a Maelstrom mage to come along, the only problem is it'll be a bitch to try and avoid the splash damage, so you keeping them all together is probably for the best.

Don't forget to take your mana back, thankyou for the loan!
Pb, Crusading Boy-King.

More tomorrow!

[Profane]

I’ve got plenty of happy in Kwythellar, and like hell am I going to let them destroy my mage guild! (I know I know.)
I told the cranky citizens that there’s a war going on, so unless they want to be conscripted, they should be quiet…fast.
Turnlog tells me what I want to know, the Illians are with me.

Interestingly, it looks like I didn’t even get that temporary unhappy penalty:



I definitely chose the second option, as shown by the 3bpt mage guild.
Bug I guess. *shrugs*

Not a bug. You get +3 OH YEAH! from being Sprawling. The event for +1 beakers from the Guild gives a permanent -1 ARRRRGH! happiness penalty, so you only have a +2 OH YEAH! now.

Congratulations on wiping off the Vampire stack.

Need a new goal, would 100k views be aiming too high?

Does this mean it's time to write a quick and dirty macro to reach the goal before the game ends?

[pocketbeetle]

Not a bug. You get +3 OH YEAH! from being Sprawling. The event for +1 beakers from the Guild gives a permanent -1 ARRRRGH! happiness penalty, so you only have a +2 OH YEAH! now.

Well spotted!

Does this mean it's time to write a quick and dirty macro to reach the goal before the game ends?

Either that or spam some forums.
"PHREE MONEE IF U CLCIK DIS LINK"

[Krill]

I was expecting "Trampled Underfoot". :cute:

That was a close second, followed by the obvious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1Z2jaPN2dU#t=3m27s

And so the post isn't completely off topic, nice diplo

[Darkmantle]

I note with some disappointment that the shipwreck thing next to your capital remains unexplored TO THIS DAY! Such laxity should not be tolerated in such an enlightened society as the Kuriotates.

Mimas should of course heading up the drill line to make him even more stupidly powerful with Blitz! Also did Mimas gain 5 xp in that battle? I thought he would be only supposed to gain 4, unless he had a great general. Looking closer Demoleon did as well. Is that normal?

Are you pleased with Caledor's second Enclave?

What did you do after you finished snacking on the tasty Calabim stacks? Do you have any after victory rituals, such as cackling maniacly for several hours, while thunder raged outside?

Would you like to feed the lurker speculation in your thread by further hinting at your plans for revenge on the Calabim?

[pocketbeetle]

That was a close second, followed by the obvious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1Z2jaPN2dU#t=3m27s

No heaven for the Calabim in this game, I suspect.

I note with some disappointment that the shipwreck thing next to your capital remains unexplored TO THIS DAY! Such laxity should not be tolerated in such an enlightened society as the Kuriotates.

I agree that it would be a shame for the game to end without exploring it.
Boats are not looking necessary or on the tech path at the moment, so it'll have to be water-walking cultists.
Just need to build a sufficient amount...

Mimas should of course heading up the drill line to make him even more stupidly powerful with Blitz! Also did Mimas gain 5 xp in that battle? I thought he would be only supposed to gain 4, unless he had a great general. Looking closer Demoleon did as well. Is that normal

I like this thinking.
I do need to take Magic Resistance on him, because it would help a lot if I were to face say, a civ whose army is primarily based on arcane units and a lot of cold damage. Afterwards though, I think taking the Drill line over the Shock/Formation/(Cover) might be viable.

As for the second question, xp gain is tuned up a bit in FFH2, in part because there are more promotions.
It's not unusual to gain 5xp in a fight, indeed if you look at Echeclus (compare with the army position summary screenshot) you'll see he gained 6xp from a 91% battle.
I find 93% is a nice sweetspot between minimal risk of losing a unit, while at the same time gaining a decent amount of xp.

Are you pleased with Caledor's second Enclave?

I'll be even more pleased when the others all upgrade too.
There's another 3-4 coming soon.

What did you do after you finished snacking on the tasty Calabim stacks? Do you have any after victory rituals, such as cackling maniacly for several hours, while thunder raged outside?

No victory rituals yet!
The enemy is not dead until they're...well...dead.

But now that you mention it, it has been a little stormy outside recently.

Would you like to feed the lurker speculation in your thread by further hinting at your plans for revenge on the Calabim?

How about the next turn?

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 190:

Turn 190 opens with an event.



I’ve now received an event for the last three turns, all of which have been interlinked. Looking it up earlier led to this post on CFC (scroll to the end of the spoilered text).
Gaelan is a hero mage who starts with Chaos I, obviously way better than a magic resistance ranger. Chaos I allows Dance of Blades, and I’ll be able to take Chaos II for Mutation very soon.

Do I feel like playing the Mutation lottery with my CAs/mercenaries? I might just do…

If you look back to the first screenshot, you’ll also notice that Bob has a special message for me.

Okey dokey, so will I.
First off, workers complete a section of road SE towards Acaia, followed up by an adept casting Haste on all those units.



That gives Hemah & Co three movement, which is enough to do this:



One Snowfall and two Rusts later, that garrison is looking pretty beaten up, so in go the CAs.



I won’t bore you with all the rest of the 95%+ combats, suffice it to say a lot of Calabim units died for zero losses.



I was intending to raze Acaia, but…

ARGGG! “Tempt me not foul specialist buildings!”
Oh go on then.

Around this time, I found myself wishing I’d saved a hawk to scout out Prespur.
I tried to be clever by using an adept near Caledor to summon a Floating Eye, then relocating it.



Sadly that didn’t work.

I’ve been holding off from upgrading my adepts to mages (eg Roland the Meek) while I wait to get 3 Fire nodes up.
However, I decided to skip that for one adept, in order to get <<Edit: Body>> II - Regeneration up asap. Using it should help me sustain the advance.



Ending turn completed two CAs and a courthouse in Kwythellar.



The final distribution of units around Acaia:



I made another mistake here: I meant to recruit some mercenaries in Acaia, but forgot and hit end turn too early.
Depending on the number of units in Prespur and how suicidal Bob is feeling, he could easily take out most of those CAs in Acaia, they have zero fortification bonus - effectively on flat ground.
Not good, don’t get careless!


One last thing to point out:

Avelorn is starting to put some hammers into the ToC, and next turn will pop a GP.
If you're keen eyed, you'll notice that the breakdown has Avelorn at +42 gppt, yet the value in the yellow bar (actual) is +43 gppt.
That's the Spirit mana from the palace kicking in, its passive is something like +3% gppt. Nothing worth getting excited about really. :/

In terms of my prefence: I’ll happily take either the GPro or GEng.

.

[Darkmantle]

Ha, I knew it! You will surely enjoy reading the lurker thread when you are done. Especially the speculation on whether informing you about the random event should be done or not done.

I guess you sure are sad you threw away Pixiefoot when she could be sending those hawks around right about now!

Acaia also contains both Kilmorph and Ashen Veil so razing it would cost you valuable shrine usage!

We can all hope that a moment of carelessness by you makes this game even more interesting

If you were feeling like it could we also get a run down of the stupid number of adepts you currently have rattling around the place and what they have been upto in their magical studies?

[HelloGoodSir]

You meant Body II, not Life II, right? Isn't Life II Destroy Undead?

Also what are your thoughts on the coming of Hyborem (from the Tech thread)?