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

[BCAgamer]

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.

Yeah, I'm glad I was able to delete my post about that in this thread before you saw it.

[pocketbeetle]

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

Good catch, thanks.

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

Interesting move.
I think it's more of a "trying out something new" than an attempt to win, but more power to him.
In terms of cleaning up the Calabim empire, it should make things easier, as the AI is far more likely to make simple mistakes.

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?

Will do.
I forgot this turn but will try and remember for next.


Diplo:

Nothing of interest going on in the diplo world.
Selrahc decides to make a bet he's always destined to lose.

Well, just slaughtered half of Culls army, and stunned the other half for slaughter next turn. Which was pretty much what I was expecting.

I'll race you. You go for Bob's capital, I'll go for Cull's. Winner gets 5 gold.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 191:

Turnlog says that Bob tried attacking the damaged stack outside Acaia with a “Wolf”.
Looking back at the previous turn, apparently that was a C2 Mobility Moroi, he’ll have used Burning Blood (+1 movement, +20% strength, %age chance to convert to a barbarian unit) in order to travel the necessary three tiles.



Needless to say, he was quickly seen off by Elatus, mouseover shows why. 4-8 first strikes? Down boy!

Flying hawks show that the royal guard in Morr’ta’nar has been moved down to Prespur, bloodpets and vampires are being spammed in every city.



The Fire node over at ATM was completed, the Dispel mage is already moving North to convert the other Enchantment nodes.

A hawk from Zaonce shows that Selrahc is busy fighting the Khazad, lots of Ice elementals all over the place.



A mercenary from Zaonce munched on the Goblin scout sallying forth, while over in the East we have a crisis!



Bob has clearly decided that one of his last actions will be to extinguish the life from poor Vanilla Ice’s furry body.
There’s no way I’m going to stand by and allow this to happen, so he’s sent scurrying North.

The Khazad have 5 warriors in range of Vanilla Ice, so if they really feel like killing him they can.
But it’ll take at least two or three warriors to do so - forested hills are our ratman’s natural terrain.
I’m counting on Cull having bigger problems in the form of the Illians.

Back to the Calabim front.



One Haste and Regeneration later (Regeneration = effective free March promotion) finds Hemah taking a stroll down to Prespur.
Hemah’s been complaining to me that all I do is tell him to cast Snowfall after Snowfall, apparently its aggravating his chillblains. He says that he’s an accredited multi-talented mage, and if I don’t start embracing diversity he’s going to contact his agent.

So I decided to try something different, gathering up a group of the most injured CAs and moving them and Hemah to a tile outside Prespur, before casting Hastur’s Razor.



The before is on the left, after on the right.
Not a bad outcome, several CAs healed to full health and most importantly the royal guard damaged down to 3.6/6.5 (5/9) health.

I then moved a C3 Formation CA down to check out the odds (Sirona’ing to full health).



81%... on the borderline, but odds that I’m prepared to risk in the right situation.

Checking through the other CAs, nothing could do better, so I was just about to send in Periquos when a little niggle of intuition stirred.
I’d much rather lose a fresh-off-the-factory-line 6 or 7xp CA than an 18xp one, so changing my mind, I sent in a 75% withdrawer…



…who promptly withdrew doing zero damage.
Probably a good call there, don’t think the RNG gave a very high number.
So I’m back to the start again, same odds, should I risk it?

Nah, let’s see what’s going on here.
In goes another withdrawer and feeling confident he would survive, I chose not to use a spare promotion on him.



Who dies.
For zero damage again.
Looks like the RNG has got it in for me this turn.

In goes another withdrawer and this time I decided to do it across the river, because seriously, I can’t lose another 70% fight can I?



Ohhhh yes.
It’s official: the RNG hates me.
My luck has run out, my die are all out of twenties.
Why the hell did I not just Snowfall the bastards? Damn agents.

Fortunately Ularius managed to do a whopping 0.6 dmg before expiring, which is enough to give Periquos decent odds. (But the RNG’s objections have been noted.)



After that it was just a case of mopping up the remaining Prespur garrison.



I sent in Lycopes at 82% odds, in part because I couldn’t find better odds, in part because the volunteer pool for withdrawal CAs seems to have suddenly dried up, and in part because screw it, I don’t take hints from the damn SorenRandomNumber function.

Prespur had a market so I kept it. Flying a hawk from the city (I remembered to keep one in reserve this time) gave me this view:



Sareln needs to be careful: his FoL holy city is defended by only one little warrior, an easy raze whenever I have the inclination.
Only WW and sticking to the principles of one opponent at a time are stopping me currently.
Beefy cleaned up a stray vampire.

Moving back to Morr’ta’nar, this battle was relatively straightforward, with the Rust adepts going in first.



Morr’ta’nar had a Veil temple and a Monument, so I had to keep that. ^^

And yes, that is a lunatic dying at 91% odds.
The RNG is really biting my ass at the moment.

Full combat log:

At which point I unsurprisingly decided to call it a turn.
Most of my CAs are knackered anyway, here’s the end distribution:



Two main groups in Morr’ta’nar and Prespur, some clumps where the first attackers ran out of movement and I’m trying to defend them. The only group in any danger is the one 1S of Prespur and it’s pretty slight.
Buffy is in Acaia, the two movement and lack of ‘Hasteability’ is unfortunately making him a bit of a no-show.

Ending turn completed two units and a GPro was born in Avelorn.



I also switched to 100% research to complete Smelting, Caledor should construct the CoA next turn.


Demographics:

The type of power graph I like to see:

The type of war weariness I don’t like to see:



Losing those units this turn hurt.
As usual, better make it fast!

[Darkmantle]

So because you felt like being creative you damaged Hemah and proceeded to lose more units on a lightly defended city than you did for destroying Bob's entire stack.

I'm sure your population will be perfectly happy to be both unhealthy and unhappy. Afterall there is always a need for luckless fools to be experimented on!

My luck has run out, my die are all out of twenties.

Gold

FFH2 with raiders just seems so utterly unforgiving in its stack combat. That powerdrop is probably the biggest I have ever seen in any game of civ and you didn't even have a blip of yours going down. Having units that do collateral damage over and over again without ever having a risk of dying makes it inconceivably easy to take out stacks.

Oh and your WW is probably mainly due to your city captures. Should get pretty fun as you continue your campaign

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 192:

Tech splashscreen on loading the save!
Feels like ages since I had one of these.



Smelting means two things to me.
I care not about the forges, because I already have forges in every city, nor do I care about the piffling bonus to workshops.
Smelting gives me Jewellers (read: +20% raw commerce and more happy) and reveals Iron.

So let’s go on an Iron hunt shall we? (spoilered for size)

First off, Jkaen wants to know if he’s won a cookie.
Iron?

No Iron, no cookie.

Surely Zaonce then.
Iron??

No Iron.

How about around Caledor?
Lots of hills around Caledor, must be a lock.
Iron???

No Iron.

But wait a second! What’s this?
IRON!

Illian Iron.

Stay positive though, I can see another Iron!

Khazad Iron.

Hold on. There’s another!

Equidistant Svartalfar-Illian-Khazad-Calabim Iron.

Losing the will to live here.

Maybe the Blasted Lands have some? *hopeful*

No…

But just as I was tightening that final knot in my tie, preparing to kick away the chair, a shining nimbus appeared on the horizon!

IRON!

Conveniently placed right next to my capital in case my civ’s survival ever hinged upon it, KK now has a source of Iron.
I won’t be able to equip my mercenaries with iron weapons (str 7) until I’ve researched Iron Working, but for now the extra hammers and knowledge I’ve got a source is good enough for me.
Research switched to Religious Law: it furthers a short-term objective.

And so ended the “Great Kuriotates Quest for Iron™”.

Now to address another hidden item that appeared this turn: Hyborem.
(The keen eyed will notice the former Calabim leader left me another message before vacating his palace.)



I’m still uncertain whether Bob took over control of our darling Hybby this turn or the next.
The standard AI greeting message to the right suggests not, but it surprises me that the AI would choose to promote most of its units to Mobility (seems a smarter, more human thing to do). In addition, the civics that the Infernals adopted this turn were Aristocracy/Sacrifice the Weak/Military State/Conquest/Undercouncil (& AV religion of course), which means Hyborem’s preferred civic of Apprenticeship was ignored.
So I think Bob was in control this turn, which means he deliberately chose to settle there, next to the pre-existing road to Murousbane, which may mean he’s having bad thoughts.
Better get a garrison down there asap, the Hyborem hero unit alone presents a threat (str 13 plus Immortal, so can be reborn once).



A few shuffling mercenaries, a Haste spell (had to change the Life node around Avelorn into a Body node to accomplish that, but it was worth it), some recruiting and a Wall of Stone later; suddenly I feel a lot safer about any sneak attack. City defense is 35%, plus 40% from the river.
The Radonnor castle has been virtually evacuated except for a str 7 Nightwatch, but that’s okay. The cultist (renamed to Old Man of the Lake so the implications are clear) should be sufficient to dissuade Bob from moving units North.

I would hope that Bob has written some stuff about what the switch to Infernals means, but here’s a quick screenshot to cover the basics.

• They get a free sage council, training yard, mage guild, obsidian gate and forge.
  
• They completely ignore food mechanics, and can only grow their cities through Manes.
  
• Up to two manes are generated every time a unit dies which had the personal religion of AV/CoE/OO or had the Death 1/Entropy 1 promotion.
  
• Razing evil and neutral cities can also generate manes.
  (Apparently two for a neutral and only one mane for an evil city? I would have thought it would be the other way around and based on population?).
  
• Therefore, each time I kill a vampire (Death I) or any Calabim unit with a personal religion of AV, or even when I lose a unit with the OO religion, I’m generating manes (and therefore hammers/population/power) for Bob.
  

Better keep an eye on him.


But enough worrying about the future, we have a campaign to complete. First up is the city of San’ta’ron.
Best odds I can obtain are 80% with a C4 Shock CA, so clearly this calls for Hemah.



Yadda yadda yadda. Lots of 93% battles, lots of units died (none of them wearing that exceptionally masculine light purple livery), city captured and kept.



No point razing cities if it’s just going to give Hybby more manes, I’ll keep em from now on. Particularly this one as it has a nice mana node.
On a separate note I really like the graphics for Calabim Death nodes:



Aaaaaanyway.
Kes flew to the East, more cities sighted, more cities fell.



Returning to the centre of the Lightly Scorched lands, Nubia is still holding out, which frankly will never do.

The Rust adepts were called in, sadly they missed Casting Class:101 and so failed to hit the top defender. That put me in a bit of a pickle - short of promoting Mimas to Shock, nothing could get acceptable odds.
But seeing as no units have been lost <<Editor’s note: *yet*>> this turn, the volunteer withdrawal CA corps managed to peer-pressure one visibly shaking Centaur Archer into riding bravely forth.



Against all the odds, Priapus actually won and gained a whopping 8xp from the fight.
That was only one defender though, still plenty more in Nubia, which leads us to the tale of Elatus.

Elatus is the Drill IV CA that we saw last turn handing a smackdown to a particularly adventurous Moroi.
I happily sent him in at 93% odds against a bloodpet, but after he won I noticed that he can now take the Blitz promotion, plus he has 2 movement left…



Sent in a different CA to squish another bloodpet, then promoted Elatus to Blitz and used Sirona to take him back to 5.2 health.
That gave him 86% odds on the next bloodpet.
Would you do it? ()


How can I say this?
I don’t know if this is common knowledge or utterly wrong, but in my opinion the game doesn’t properly calculate the combat odds when dealing with units with a high number of first strikes. Damage dealt during civ combat is based on a unit’s current health, so in a battle, a unit which takes several hits is always going to be dealing less damage (on each of its attacks) than it was at the start of the battle.
So in Elatus’ case, you not only have to take into account that a lucky roll giving the full 8 first strikes could win the battle outright, but also that even getting the minimum 4 first strikes almost certainly means the enemy unit will have taken some damage and will be dealing less damage when it returns fire.
Feel free to discuss/ correct me.


Long story short, I have lower standards (cough) when it comes to Drill IV units, and was proved right in this case because Elatus won without taking any damage at all.
Which means I get to throw him in again!



Crenaeus took out the stronger vampire, Elatus captured and kept the city. Total xp gained by Elatus this turn: 22xp.
The Kurios now have access to Gold again too, yay.

More cities sighted, more cities captured, combat log on the left.



I decided to call an end to the turn at this point.
Regeneration was cast on as many CAs as could be stacked on one tile.
No units lost, four Calabim cities remaining, the natural order has nearly been restored.


In foreign news, the hapless Dwarves appear content to turtle in their mountain strongholds and wish away the frost magics of the Illians.
The success of such a grand strategy may be up for debate, but it’s fine by me because it allows a certain ratman to skip on his way through the war zone!



Ending turn completed the CoA, Avelorn grew in pop.



I pillaged the road between Sareln’s Nameless Tower and Morr’ta’nar to prevent the Svartalfar from getting any nasty thoughts, Buffy is also standing guard there.

Want to see some fun war weariness?

Blight is still contributing +15 or more unhealth to each of my megacities, which isn’t amazing either.
I’m currently building cultists in Kwythellar in preparation for exploring that shipwreck.

Finally, let’s play a game of “Spot the Difference”:



Hmmm.
Tough one there.

[fire&amp;ice]

pb gets crown of akharien

or the pile of manes but that seemed too ovious

[Sciz]

It's the increased amount of Manes of course, it was supposed to be obvious :P

[Mist]

On a separate note I really like the graphics for Calabim Death nodes

Isn't the look of the node determined by religion?

[pocketbeetle]

pb gets crown of akharien

or the pile of manes but that seemed too ovious

It's the increased amount of Manes of course, it was supposed to be obvious :P

You're right, it's meant to be obvious.
...but it's not just the increased number of manes.

Check the pop too.

Isn't the look of the node determined by religion?

No idea.
Sounds about right though.

[fire&amp;ice]

how did its gain 10 pop during your turn??

The screen shots were all from the same turn right??