[SPOILERS]- Crazy Keelyn is trippin’ Balz: Bobchillingworth of the Balseraphs

[Bobchillingworth]

Just for you, Hes:






Obviously doing well. Researching at break-even (50%) at the moment, with a little over 100 gold saved up. Some diplo to update as well-


From Serdoa in response to my email about the barb city:

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]Bob,

I don't like the tone of your email, I understand your concerns though. Still I think a different approach would be more "helpful". I can agree that this territory is closer to you then to me, but on the other hand you have already settled much more territory and cities in the other direction, so it is not like you need even more of it. Additionally you know how bad my territory is (heck I am still searching for fresh water somewhere else then on the two tiles next to my cap...) so if I give that city up I need some kind of compensation.

Now, I got rid of the archers in the city this turn and would like to burn it next turn. I won't take it, I won't resettle it. What I would like to ask in return is to get 10 turns of a free mana loan (to be discussed what mana). Is that acceptable?

Kind regards,
Serdoa[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey,


Sure, that deal sounds acceptable.


Sorry about the tone; I was actually trying to be as simply straightforward is possible. It's funny that you mention it, actually- the first version of the email I almost sent you was substantially more aggressive, but then I revised it after I remembered that pointlessly being a prick didn't work too well for me in FFH PBEM 1either. Anyway, as always I remain happy to work with you in the future, etc. etc., but the real truth is that the game is getting to the stage where I need to know who my true allies are going to be, my enemies, and the simply unknowns, and right now you're in the last category. So if you do have plans for / thoughts about cooperation, now's the time that we should be discussing them. You need more & better land- I've got everyone's world map, and I completely agree that yours totally sucks. I'm concerned about the Clan's game-ending four Sons of the Inferno, and I'm interested in your Death Mana & Marble as well. So I'm sure that we have objectives which we can mutually assist each other with, but to get to that point we obviously need to actually discuss stuff. Perhaps a good starting point would be- when does your NAP with SL run out?


-Bobchillingworth[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]Hey Ben,

just to tell you the truth: I am somehow reluctant to attack SL. I have already attacked him once and even that this attack probably made sure that he won't have much saying in the final outcome of this game he remained not only calm but even friendly. So even without NAP I probably rather lose the game then attack him. That doesn't mean that I will defend him though - if you have plans so be it, I do not have a MDP or some such with him.

I also don't see that I have any prospects to win this game. Surely not via religion, also not via ToM (how many raw mana nodes does my land have again... 1?...) and neither Conquest nor Dominiation sound remotely viable. So, as of now I won't interfere with your plans and I am (again as of now) willing to help you with yours as long as those do not include having me attack SL.

Having said all that: We can surely trade for the Death Mana for an equally long mana loan by you. Marble as well, I just

- have to get it online and
- check if there is any wonder I would like to have and which I have a remote chance of getting (won't tell you not to compete for a wonder which you can already build when I need 30 more turns to even research the tech)

Sounds good? Makes you a little bit less nervous about me being in the "unknown" category? Btw: Are you sure the clan has only 4 Sons?[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey,



Haha, yeah that sounds good :P Uh, don't get the wrong impression about me & SL btw- I was actually only suggesting attacking him as something I figured that you might want to do, which I could help with as a favor. I get along with him pretty well, and I don't have any intention of attacking him on my own.


Concerning the Clan, last report from Sareln before he finally bit it was 4 Sons. I've visited Acheron's island, and there are no more Clan Sons left there (about 10 regular ones, though...). Four super-powered archmages are still going to be rather difficult to handle though. Plus the Clan now has double the land available to them of everyone else, although they're backwards enough that that may not matter so much.


We can talk later about resource trades once you have Marble hooked up. I don't need Death mana at the moment- just want to have it on tap in case the Clan attack, so that I can spam skeletons as a stop-gap defense.


-Bobchillingworth[/COLOR]

I guess that mini-almost-crisis resolved itself quite adequately then. True to his word, Serdoa razed the barb city this turn. His PZ were all heavily injured in doing so, so if we had indeed come to blows I could have wiped out his army fairly easily. I wonder if he realized that...


Anyway, I'm glad that I finally got to have a "heart-to-heart" with him and get my concerns out of the way, plus get a mostly positive response back. I still want to destroy his empire, but I'm not in any rush when I've got other stuff to build.




I also sent this back to Tredje:

[COLOR="yellow"]Hah, alright- fair enough


Has Queen Sheelba considered wearing Fish? We've got quite a few of them over here if you want to trade for some, and I hear that they make great gloves or sticks or whatever. Keelyn has lately taken to wearing Gold chains, leather gloves, and lizardman-skin boots (and little else), putting her so far out on the cutting-edge of fashion that she's a lethal weapon.


I suppose that it's a good thing that you cast your Worldspell a little bit early. There's like 15 Sons at Mulcarn's Folly, it's stupid (plus around 30 warriors / archers). The game would be truly over if you had an army like that. Really we should have just banned Acheron, or Uberfish should have at least stuck him on an island reachable only with Optics, but what's done is done.

As it stands right now, I think all of the others are hoping that you'll attack the #1 demographics guy (me, obviously), get bogged down in Puppet Summon Spam Land (our greatest attraction!) and in doing so neuter yourself into irrelevancy and "slow" me down. We should, like, prove them all wrong (uh, about the fighting part, not the "irrelevancy". Yeah.) :P If you're trying to win by Conquest I guess we will have to eventually fight it out, but I don't think killing each other is necessarily necessary for any of the others. Personally I'm probably going to try for a basic Tower win or whatever. Killing everyone is just too much work :P I'm doing pretty well demographically I'll admit, but I'm starting to plateau now that most of my cities are already working every decent tile improvement and I have few expansion spots left. But "Tall Ppppy" being what it is, I doubt anyone really cares (or even necessarily believes me).


Well, enjoy the smoking ruins of poor Sareln's empire. I'm around if you want to trade or conspire evilly about stuff or whatever, blah blah etc.




-Bobchillingworth [/COLOR]

No response yet, but I don't really expect one, since I didn't leave any open questions for him to answer. I was pretty honest with that email; I want to be friendly with him so that he doesn't do what he probably should and attack me, and I also want to make it clear to him that even if he does attack, it's going to be a completely futile effort.


Interestingly, my lone Metamagic I adept (was able to promote a single adept for metamagic and body each before Sareln finally died) used his floating eye to find a Sidar Hawk based in the Clan's capital. Clearly the Sidar are working closely with the Clan... I'm not sure what I can do about it, though. I'm not pleased that he's busy reporting on my defenses, for sure, but I'd try to buddy up with the Clan if I was in his position too. Doesn't mean I'm going to let him off the hook if I can help it, though :P

[Bobchillingworth]

Opps!





City only has one warrior defending, but I'm not worried. He has CI, Dance of Blades, full fortification, copper weapons, and I also have two puppets in the town, ensuring that it won't fall even if the warrior manages to lose.



Of course I immediately cued up another workboat to replace the one I expect to lose on the Barb's turn

[Bobchillingworth]

Okay, ran more tests and I have a definitive plan to win the game. I'm going to stick with it, so I'll live or die by how well it works out =)



Some new discoveries regarding capturing the Sons-


* Acheron does not always defend against a domination attempt, but he does have to be heavily wounded first. I'm not entirely sure what the threshold is, but it looks like he as to be at least under 7 health.

* I don't even need to use Dispell on the Sons- I can capture them with domination attempts even if they still have their Loyalty promotions.

* Because Sons who are dominated from a puppet on a boat are automatically loaded on to said boat once captured, they will never be in danger of being lost to their "brothers". I will need a lot of cargo space, though.



Okay, so the basic plan: Get an archmage ASAP, several Expanded Hull Triremes, set sail for Mulcarn's Folly, and start capturing sons. The archmage will need to have Mind III for domination, and some sort of combat summon. Of my options, Earth elementals have the highest strength, and due to having the Standing Stones, two (eventually three) nodes which I can convert to Earth due to my free Elementalism tech, and a free loan of Earth from SL once I send him the Discipline of the Leaves, I can boost them to strength 16. Having so many earth nodes also means that my archmage will start with Earth III for free, allowing him to pick up some combat promos for bonus strength after taking Mind III.


Once (or as) the Earth nodes are set up, it's time to fight Acheron. I may want to bring along a warrior with the Timor Mask equipped to attack (and die against) Acheron, to remove his Stoneskin without having to waste a puppet or elemental. I can have up to three Earth elementals out at once due to puppetry, although one will have to make an amphibious attack. In my tests, three heavily boosted elementals were enough to either seriously injure or kill Acheron. Once Acheron is no longer the top defender, I'll either switch to Domination attempts or be forced to slowly grind away the probably 30+ warriors until only Sons are left to defend. Killing Acheron will alert everyone else that something serious is up, so I'll be on a very close timer. Having some combat Triremes around to cover in case the Clan decide to put an end to my fun could be critical.



Now the question is, which Archmage to use? If I had just stuck to my Gibbon beeline ironically I'd be about set. As it is, to get him I need writing -> trade -> Deception. Iskender may still be competing for him, so that's something else I have to keep in mind. Drama comes in with today's turn, and assuming I'm not beaten to it I'll have a 9-turn golden age from the free artist, potentially followed by my worldspell for a combined 27 turns of golden age (which may then get another 9 turns if I can get two different specialists produced during that period, which is pretty likely). Should take about 16 turns of research, less with a golden age.


Alternatively, I can take the slower but somewhat more useful path to Hemah. For this, I'd need writing -> sorcery -> Corruption of the Spirit -> Infernal Pact (take Arcane Lore with the free Grimoire tech) -> OO. Maybe 35 turns of research, again less with a golden age.


Given that an attack from Tredje may be imminent, and I'm not sure how long I could survive with puppet spam, the Gibbon path seems clearly superior. I'll need to check the trade screen to see if Iskender has gotten Trade yet, though- if he has, I may need to see if there's a deal I can make with him to secure Gibbon for myself.




Should all of this actually come together and I pull off a successful operation, the game should be about won. Ten or so Sons (with puppets!) is a game-winning force at any era, and Mulcarn's Folly also happens to hold the Frigus, meaning that I could potentially have 22 or so snow-falling puppets at a time. Nothing will ever be able to survive that.



Well, it's a long-shot, but it does feel good to finally have a real plan at least, and one which actually involves using my Summoner trait, no less

[Selrahc]

Okay, so the basic plan: Get an archmage ASAP, several Expanded Hull Triremes, set sail for Mulcarn's Folly, and start capturing sons. The archmage will need to have Mind III for domination, and some sort of combat summon. Of my options, Earth elementals have the highest strength, and due to having the Standing Stones, two (eventually three) nodes which I can convert to Earth due to my free Elementalism tech, and a free loan of Earth from SL once I send him the Discipline of the Leaves, I can boost them to strength 16. Having so many earth nodes also means that my archmage will start with Earth III for free, allowing him to pick up some combat promos for bonus strength after taking Mind III.

If you're getting Earth 3 for free, why not just get Twincast?

[Bobchillingworth]

Instead of the Combat promos? You need Combat V to take twincast

[Selrahc]

Instead of Mind 1-3. Or rather, instead of this whole plan.

[Bobchillingworth]

Ah, right. Because I would rather have a spectacular army of super-charged Sons of the Inferno than Gibbon launching some sort of one-archmage army Rambo assault against the Clan. Way too much riding on one unit with that option. And, honestly, I think the Sons plan is just cooler. This was what a questing island was supposed to be all about, requiring a player to fight an epic battle to gain a very significant reward, and I'm determined to make this map play the way it was intended to =)



That said, if I totally screw up vs. Acheron and end up feeding him combat promos and it's clear that I can't go through with my plan, then yes just fighting with Gibbon alone may be the best course of action.



Also with Mind III Gibbon could capture some of the Clan's Sons himself, unlikely as that is to actually occur!

[Bobchillingworth]

Alternative, honest answer- because I am channeling Amelia and am obsessed with a cumbersome, possibly suicidal course of action because I think it would be fun

[Nicolae Carpathia]

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Bogging down the forces of evil with a balls to the walls defence as your hero goes off on a million-to-one journey? I love it, it's pure monomyth.

[Ilios]

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Bogging down the forces of evil with a balls to the walls defence as your hero goes off on a million-to-one journey? I love it, it's pure monomyth.

+1