HidingKneel horses around with Rhoanna [HAR! I mean, SPOILERS!]

[HidingKneel]

How spread is the veil?

It's in 12 of my cities (out of 36) so far. Brian's also running Veil, but I don't know how much he's spread it. And, of course, it's in both of Hyborem's cities.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, a few more turns in.

On the turn after mine, Ellimist got one of those events that brings the AC down by 10. So it was a good thing I didn't trigger last time: I wouldn't have blighted anyone but myself. Brought the AC up to 26 by building my fourth beast and this:



If I want it higher than that, I'll have to put some work in. Spreading AV or razing cities will do it. Or maybe Brian will start pumping some units in his Prophecy city.

On most recent turn, I got a surprising offer:



Looks like Tholal doesn't mind giving trade routes to the runaway. I accepted. It helps a little (though not much, since I've got plenty of island cities already), and I don't think it makes a big difference to him: he doesn't have Trade, so probably just one route per city. Also, it'll let me pass my Galley through his territory so that I can keep looking for the Sheaim.

I've started opening dungeons with my Beasts. Most recent one generated some barbs. I had an adept nearby, so I took a chancy battle:



Cool. Got two mage candidates now. I've teched all of the lesser arcane techs (finished Divination this turn), and I'll head for Sorcery next. After that, I'm thinking Feudalism -> Warhorses. By the time that's done, I'll have GotN and can turn science off to spam mounted mercenaries. Meanwhile, I'll use floating eyes to get a look at the Balseraph border, and start accumulating troops there. I noticed Dave building a road which can serve no peaceful purpose:



Demos at EOT (no tech selected, but I'm pretty sure #2 is Ellimist, who also has no tech selected):

[HidingKneel]

New turn in.

Finally located Ellimist for real:



He's far away, but not as far as I thought. My road-building team will reach his borders in 15 turns.

I think that's close enough that I can afford to delay, and far enough that I'll want to deal with Dave first.

Founded 3 new cities this turn, and got two passive AV spreads. A few more of those and Blight lands. Also made a stupid mistake and left a Galley (carrying a worker) where a giant turtle can eat it. No biggie... that's a tiny fraction of a turn's worth of production at this point.

Here are the demos while I'm researching Sorcery:

[HidingKneel]

New turn opened with an event:



Hmm... temporary happiness actually isn't such a bad deal. I've typically got a couple of cities unhappy at any given moment, waiting to be far enough past the happy cap that I'm willing to whip. So a +1 to the cap is probably worth 15 commerce per turn or thereabouts.

Also, we've finally got some action:



Of course, I will have to punish Ellimist for this. Not sure if I want to do so right away, though. I should probably be operating under the assumption that Dave and Ellimist are a team. And Dave's definitely the more immediate threat, with his proximity and his cultists. In fact, maybe it was a bad idea to punch through those goblin archers... they're a pretty good line of defense against the Illians while I'm dealing with the Balseraphs.

Anyway, too soon to decide. I teched Sorcery this turn. Next goal is to connect a Meta node and promote a bunch of adepts to Meta I. Once I know what kind of defenses Dave is sporting (and have an early warning system for the Illians), I'll be able to make a more informed decision.

Located Acheron this turn:



Hmm... no Sons of the Inferno. Which I think means his city doesn't have the Dragon's Hoard? Which means there's no point in bothering with that island.

Rosier is getting himself in a bit of trouble:



Hmm... I should be careful. If I lose my hero (with Great Commander attached!) on his joyride, I'll feel silly.

Up to 40 cities now. Here are a few build queues:



And the EOT demos:



Next turn I'll be ready to pop rush the Guild of Hammers, at which point the MFG should skyrocket.

Meanwhile... next tech. I could spend the next 4-5 turns on Warhorses. Another possibility is to grab Arcane Lore, mainly to deny Ellimist the Great Sage there. I could use one, myself... economy has reached the point where Undercouncil is definitely worth it just for the 10% gold boost, so I think another GA is in order. I've got another great person about to be born in my GP farm... maybe I'll wait to make sure that's not a sage.

[HidingKneel]

Ten more turns played.

Game is starting to get interesting.

First off, I decided to try to grab Arcane Lore, but Ellimist beat me to it. Left it half-researched for now (can finish it easily if necessary for a tower victory).

After that, I got back on track researching horsie-techs. Was one turn away from unlocking Warhorses, and then Ellimist fired a GA and teched Optics. This made me concerned that he was going to grab the Celestial Compass, which he could use to speed up Illian rituals and/or the Tower of Mastery. So I decided to try to beat him to that. Teched Optics after him, then beat him to Astronomy. Next turn I'll finish Warhorses, and then Smelting -> Iron Working -> Mithril Working.

I set off Blight a while back. This turn, Ellimist decided to one-up me:



In combination with Blight, that's quite painful, even while running StW. Some of my cities will lose a few sizes. I imagine everyone aside from me and Ellimist is in even worse shape.

War is imminent. Some turns back, Ellimist killed one of my chariots that I sent looking for him. I've been massing my forces on the edge of my border since then. Last turn, I sent out a token force of Horse Archers to go make trouble:



This may have been a bad idea. Dave's broken off our NAP (actually he violated the terms of our treaty by cancelling resource trades early, but I'm not going to press the point). I've got a huge edge, but neither of them is exactly defenseless. Dave's got Cultists and a huge empire, and Ellimist will probably have archmages soon (I haven't been able to look at his mana since he declared war, but I'd be shocked if he wasn't building a ToD to grab Strength of Will).

Hyborem wants in on the action, as well. He declared war on Dave a few turns ago. Looks like he's staging some kind of bizarre aimless naval offense:



Well, that's probably good for me; makes it a little more difficult for Dave to position his Cultists to attack me.
Now that I have Optics/Astronomy, I'm going to build myself a real navy. Queued up a bunch of Privateers,
and I'll probably add some Arcane Barges when I get Fire Mana connected in a few turns. Privateers should have good odds on cultists, and Ellimist seems to be planning some naval action as well that I'd like to respond to.

What about the other players? Tholal is actually a neighbor now:



I think that's a barb city he captured. Seems like a strange move. Either I'm totally wrong about where he is, or that city is costing him a fortune in distance maintenance.

Still haven't met Brian. But a few turns ago he built Elegy of the Sheaim. Not sure why he'd do that when he has the Prophecy. He can get the same effect a lot cheaper just by building five warriors. Plus, he'd have the warriors! But Stephanos will be arriving any turn now.

So, the Blight-Deepening combo has put a serious damper on my "pop-rush everything" economy. Fortunately, my regular economy is still going strong:



That's EOT demos with no tech selected. Also, both Ellimist and Dave are running GAs right now (Dave just fired his worldspell).

Unfortunately, I won't get my own GA for a while yet. Got a low-odds Great Commander recently, so now I'm sitting on two GCs and nothing else. Also, the Deepening means I need to fire some specialists if I don't want my GP farm city to starve.

[Qgqqqqq]

What's a-happening?

[HidingKneel]

What's a-happening?

Much excitement!

Turn 141. Opened with a new tech:



I've finished off the mounted line, and thought I'd grab me some metals. Surprisingly, there was only one source of Iron in my territory (given how much land we're talking about). Have a mine on it already, but it'll take a few turns to get a road connection. Going to put Iron Working on the back burner. Iron and Mithril will be pretty good boosts, but for the moment I need the gold to hire mercenaries.

My NAP with Dave expired this turn. Since he triggered the cooldown, I got first strike. Between turns, he took down Hyborem:



Hawk flyover reveals five cultists in the neighborhood. Four of them are mobility-promoted, and I wouldn't be surprised if the fifth is eligible for a promo next turn. They're in range of my island city of Lamistuis, which is my only source of Nightmares.

So, I've definitely not been playing optimally. I should have hit Dave much earlier, before he could coordinate anything with Ellimist. As it is, I've got my best units headed towards the Illians, who I haven't even started fighting yet. I had to back off with my medium-sized stack of Horse Archers: Ellimist's got a lot of mobile units, workers to build combat roads, and so forth.
Here's most of what I can see of his:



Lots of mages, lots of very mobile assassins (Illian assassins can Hide in the snow, which makes them super-dangerous; I'm keeping my mage safe within the Nox invisibility for the time being).

Looks like Ellimist didn't tech Astronomy as I feared. Not sure if that's because it wasn't his intention, or because he gave up on the Celestial Compass when he saw me grab Astronomy instead. Anyway, I'm still building that, which I suppose will shave some time off my Tower victory, to which I'm proceeding at a snail's pace. Next turn I'll finish a Tower of Alteration, and I've just recently started a Tower of Necromancy. Once I swap into Undercouncil, I'll be able to cash-rush the lesser towers with two or three turns of saving gold. But the limiting factor is really the time it'll take me to convert nodes. I only have two mages so far, my mana nodes are all over the place, and I'm keeping the mages on standby to help fight wars. Well.. it'll be more fun to win a conquest victory than a tower victory, anyhow.

So, on to the excitement! Dave put a griffon on the neutral territory between us. Figuring, I guess, that griffons get good odds against mounted units. Well, as it happens, some of my best units aren't mounted:



After finishing the tasty griffon-snack, it was time to seize that city I'd planned to plant so long ago, before ceding the land to Dave in our deal:



Got pretty unlucky in the battle. Killed the first defender at something like 25% odds (after softening up with a Ring of Fire), but then lost two mounted mercs in > 80% odds battles.

Meanwhile, there's another front in this war of which Dave might not be aware:



Bad Horse the Fallen has been ranging far from home, looking for the Sheaim. Haven't found them yet, but I did catch sight of a Balseraph city that must be pretty far from Dave's core. As you can see, it's very lightly defended. I didn't attack this turn (needed to kill a barb unit in order to move around safely), but I positioned myself two tiles SE where, if I understand correctly, I'll be outside Dave's vision. Next turn I'll swoop in and claim the city. Normally I'd raze a conquest like that (distance maintenance will be crazy), but since I have GotN I can instead use it to generate a huge army of mounted mercs that can start conquering the other end of Dave's empire.

Now, important tactical decisions to make. It took roughly half of my Balseraph-fighting stack to take the city of DIY Newspaper... what should I do with the other half? Of note: several of Dave's cultists are in range to hit the city with Tsunami, and he's also got a fair number of chariots that he just used on Hyborem in range. Also, there's a Balseraph Galley next to the city, and I'm guessing that Galley is there to do something bad to my invading stack between turns. Well, I had a little naval trick of my own planned, and now I think I need to rethink it.

Here's a Frigate with two mounted mercs on it. I was planning to send it here:



I haven't gotten vision on Year in Film, but I'd guess it's only got a token garrison and that I could take it in a surprise attack
(units can attack out from ships, right? I've never actually used a navy in this game before...) Let's call that Plan A.

But now I can think of some more pressing uses for that Frigate. Here's plan B:



Send the Frigate as backup to Lamistuis. I've actually got an Air I adept handy that can let the ship move one more tile than indicated... that's good enough to let it deposit two mounted mercs in the city. Those two mercs can hire two more mercs, the garrison warrior can hire a merc, the worker on the island can hire a merc... altogether, I can put enough units in the city that it's guaranteed to hold against five cultists. That's a fairly passive move, though... I'm paying through the nose for units that I'm virtually certain to lose.

On the other hand, getting my Frigate out there will help me establish naval superiority in the region. Though I teched Optics a while back, I've been a little too slow to get myself some naval units built (haven't been pop-rushing much due to the Blight/Deepening combo)... without that Frigate, I'll only have one ship onhand to counterattack against the cultists if they head that way.

Plan C is to do this instead:



Sink that Galley before it can do any damage to my invading stack, and deposit the mercs ashore so they can wreak havoc next turn. Decided to go with that... I'd rather be on offense than defense. I might lose Lamistuis (hence Nightmares) between turns, but I can easily rebuild the city (I've got lots of settlers to spare; new cities aren't so appealing when the world is an iceball) and there are several other sources of Nightmares in the territory that I'll be stealing from Dave. Also, it's quite possible that Lamistuis can hold on its own: I pop-rushed a warrior and hired two mounted mercs. So if Dave's slow cultist can't promote, all I need to do is win one battle out of four.

Still had four hasted horselord units to spare. I used two of them to grab another of Dave's cities (forgot to screenshot it). This left a little swath of land where there were roads with no Balseraph culture, so I sent another two mounted mercs on a suicide mission to try to take out one of Dave's cultists. That didn't work out for me (mounted merc managed to not even wound a freak against which it had 90% odds), except for the suicide part. But on the way they cut one of his roads, so that his chariots won't be able to reach my backline stack.

So, what's next? Well, I decided I needed to speed up the construction of a navy. Pop-rushed eight Privateers this turn in various places, which will hopefully arrive in time to prevent Dave from doing anything nasty to me with his Cultists. Also, our hero has arrived!



I've got Chaos mana right now (for the Tower of Necromancy), and Magnadine was born mutated. He's Immune to Disease, Fire-Resistant, Lightning-Resistant, and Regenerating, in addition to all his usual awesomeness. Cold resistance would be more useful, but I'm not going to complain.

Way back at the start of this thread, someone (can't remember who) was telling me I needed to get Guild of the Nine. I said then that I didn't really see the point: why build an expensive wonder just so you can pay a lot of gold for units? I was wrong, wrong, so very wrong. Guild of the Nine is an amazing wonder for the Hippus. Figuring 1 hammer = 2 gold, Mounted Mercs are cheaper than Horse Archers or Chariots (120 gold vs 80 hammers), and are better than either: better than HAs because they can use metals (post-IW, even better with Mithril), better than chariots because of their extra defensive strength. Even better: mounted mercs can receive defensive bonuses. Most important of all: I can instantly rush them in huge numbers wherever I need them (like, in cities I've just conquered). Running 100% gold, I can afford to hire about nine of them per turn. That's going to make this conquest pretty quick, I'm thinking.

[GreyWolf]

Nice to see the Air 1 spell actually getting some use in a game.

[Qgqqqqq]

See PBEM XXV for just how good Air 1 can be - an extra MP for navy's can be devastating! We just don't see it much because in SP warfare is very different (because of how the AI defends backline cities) and most MP games don't have significant naval presence for balance reasons.

[HidingKneel]

Well, I haven't made use of my Air Adept yet (except fifty turns ago, when I was trying to speed up my colonization efforts).

Turn opened with an event:



I forget what this one does. I chose to hire the assassin, because that's how Bad Horse operates.

So, the war...

Between turns, Dave did three things:

1) As expected, he took out Lamistuis. Tsunami x 4 means my units didn't have a chance. No casualties on his end, city was razed.

2) Retook his city of Day-in-the-Life: he used his fifth cultist to hit it with Tsunami, then killed the three mercs I had inside (two of which were new hires), along with the horse archer next to the city. Probably should have seen that coming and just razed it.

3) He did what I was planning to do: stage a surprise naval assault on a poorly defended coastal city. This particular city was being defended by a single horseman, but I got lucky:



All in all, it was a bad day for Bad Horse. Collateral is the only real advantage Dave has over me in this war, but it's a good one.
I need to start neutralizing those cultists.

All right... my turn. First off, I sank his Galley near Innsmouth (with a Privateer I rushed last turn).
I had one ship onhand near Lamistuis, which I used to kill one of his cultists on the water. I also had a merc hired in the other city on that island, which I used to kill the cultist that razed the city.

Still two cultists on the water. But I'll have six ships in range next turn (mostly hidden by Noctis invisibility), so his cultists are dead unless they retreat to his territory.

As for the cultist by Day-in-the-Life, that's a little trickier:



It's stacked with two promoted chariots, behind that wolf rider. I've got enough mobility to head that far into Balseraph territory, but it's a suicide mission. Particularly bad because there's a blizzard on the road: units heading through that aren't going to have great odds on the offense. But dead mercs don't cause war weariness, and I really don't want to get hit by Tsunami again. Killed the wolf with a knight that had enough mobility to retreat, lost two mercs attacking the chariot stack, and then wiped it out with another three mercs. Those were redlined and far from home, so I deleted them rather than let Dave kill them.

So, the blow-by-blow so far:

HK Turn 141: I lose four mercenaries, Dave loses a griffon, swordsman, bear, two hunters, galley, and chariot.

Dave between turns: I lose two warriors, five mercenaries, and a horse archer. Dave loses two freaks.

HK Turn 142: I lose five mercenaries. Dave loses three cultists, three chariots, two wolf riders, and a galley.

If this was a remotely fair fight, I'd be worried about those numbers. But I see the situation more like this.

Anyway, with the Cultist dead, Dave had no collateral in range of DIY newspaper, so I moved my stack in there. Hired a bunch of new mercs to replace the dead ones. He's got six mounted units I can see that can hit the city next turn, including a well-promoted chariot carrying Hyborem's Gela. But without collateral, a unit like that will just bounce off of my Beasts of Agares.

Losing Lamistuis means that the new mercenaries are only strength 6. Think I need to delay a bit if I'm going to do this in a cost-effective manner. I've got a ship and settler ready to rebuild Lamistuis on turn 145. That's also the turn I'll connect my Iron. I turned science back on high enough to get IW by the end of turn 145. Time is on my side, here. Especially since I'll be popping a GA in a few turns.

What about my secret plan? Well, that didn't go quite right:



Last turn there was one freak in the city, this turn there are two. This means one of two things:

a) HidingKneel doesn't understand the visibility rules, and is not actually fooling anyone.

b) Dave just finished a freak in the city, and it's going to rush north to join the fray next turn.

I'm going to gamble on b), so I moved Rosier back to his hiding place three tiles SE of the city.
(It occurs to me now that my plan of hiring an army of mercs there isn't actually so great without a road connection to my territory: the new mercs will be strength 5 without metals and nightmares. So I should probably just raze the city instead.)

What about my other war? Still cold for the moment, but that might change in a moment:



That's a settler guarded by two Beasts and a handful of horse archers. If nothing happens to them between turns, I'll settle a city right on Ellimist's border. That'll let me put as many units as I like right next to him, safe within the Noctis invisibility.
Now, I'm in range of some of his units: he can get mages a tile from my stack to inflict collateral/summon ice elementals, and his assassins can reach the stack itself. But I don't think he has enough firepower to kill anything (combat II Beast of Agares on a jungle hill is around 30 strength), and there's a hefty number of HAs one tile back to retaliate if he tries anything.

Got my Tower of Alteration built this turn. So I guess I'll start converting nodes to Earth/Fire/Water next.