[Spoilers] Biggus Decius and the Sucking Vampires (Bobchillingworth / Calabim)

[DaveV]

I was thinking Feudalism -> HBR (no dire need for mobility before I even have vamps)

Actually, you need either HBR or sailing for Trade, which is a prereq for Feudalism. Sailing doesn't make much sense given your current land.

What about Festivals? It's a relatively cheap tech, and my usual queue for newly-built cities is monument, governor's manor, market. Of course, I'm used to playing a financial leader, so the market is really cheap, but it is still pretty cheap even for Decius. You need a lot of beakers to make your way to Feudalism, and having a few markets can help.

The Azer, the charming Mr. Oozefoul, finally appeared. Even in the field my combat III shock bloodpet in the city had over 50% odds, so I should be fine on the defense. I have three other backup bloodpets should the first somehow manage to lose.

I wish you had moved one of your bloodpets out of the city, since I think they'll all be damaged by the Azer's attack. With a bad defensive roll, you could be stuck having to attack the Azer with damaged units . Anyway, it's a good thing your shock promotion works against the Azer. I didn't know that!

Is that a Sareln city in the top right of your screenshot?

[Bobchillingworth]

I wish you had moved one of your bloodpets out of the city, since I think they'll all be damaged by the Azer's attack. With a bad defensive roll, you could be stuck having to attack the Azer with damaged units . Anyway, it's a good thing your shock promotion works against the Azer. I didn't know that!

Is that a Sareln city in the top right of your screenshot?

I guess Festivals might be worthwhile, I'm more interested in building breeding pits, granaries, and smokehouses before markets or carnivals though, so it's probably not an immediate need.

Wasn't aware that I needed HBR riding first- obviously that's after AH then.


Well, I *do* have a bloodpet who can run into the city as a fresh full-health garrison, if I should need an emergency defender. The azer only hurts units when he dies- he's like really fast and slightly stronger pyre zombie. So if he attacks and wins, the other bloodpets won't be damaged, since the azer doesn't explode upon wining combat.

I'm not sure whether my bloodpet had odds (about 55%) because of shock, or just because he has Combat III, a free first strike chance from Commando, and because the Azer is wounded. Either way, I should be safe, given that I have an additional 50% bonus from fortification and innate city defense.


Yeah, that's sareln's city to my north- he's already drawing some of the Lizardman heat away from me

[Bobchillingworth]

No images from this turn because nothing much happened. Oozefoul the Awesome is going through the whole "building up courage before striking" routine, and so hasn't moved. Shock does indeed work against azers, interestingly enough.


Cull's power has taken a rather severe fall. He hasn't sent out any SOS emails, but Sareln hit him up for a chat and apparently Selrahc attacked him and got "lucky" in several fights. I'm personally amazed that selrahc would even attack Cull- Cull's guys all can/should have combat II, fortification bonuses, 50% defense from the city square thanks to culture / a palisade / the Khazad bonus, plus the innate +25% warrior city defense bonus. His warriors defend at about 7 strength, which for me would be far to high to justify feeding his warriors more exp by suiciding ice elementals against the garrison or risking a Priest of Winter at anything under 95% odds. It seems that Selrahc doesn't mind taking risks in combat, something to keep in mind for later I think.

[DaveV]

I'm more interested in building breeding pits, granaries, and smokehouses before markets or carnivals

In my role as devil's advocate: why? It's 80 hammers for each of those three buildings, and I don't see them giving you much benefit, since your cities are at (or beyond) the happy cap already. Unless someone really starts cranking the AC, health is the least of your worries: an unhealthy costs you 1 production if you're building a worker or settler, and costs you nothing when building anything else. A market is only 40 hammers, and will help keep your economy afloat. Carnivals are not such a great deal (unless you have FoL and therefore an unlimited supply of tigers).

Yeah, that's sareln's city to my north- he's already drawing some of the Lizardman heat away from me

Are you still planning to gift him a city in the deep south? Is he planning to expand into Cull's territory, or steal your city sites to the east?

Cull's power has taken a rather severe fall. He hasn't sent out any SOS emails, but Sareln hit him up for a chat and apparently Selrahc attacked him and got "lucky" in several fights. I'm personally amazed that selrahc would even attack Cull- Cull's guys all can/should have combat II, fortification bonuses, 50% defense from the city square thanks to culture / a palisade / the Khazad bonus, plus the innate +25% warrior city defense bonus. His warriors defend at about 7 strength, which for me would be far to high to justify feeding his warriors more exp by suiciding ice elementals against the garrison or risking a Priest of Winter at anything under 95% odds. It seems that Selrahc doesn't mind taking risks in combat, something to keep in mind for later I think.

Hmmm. Pretty much exactly my thinking on attacking the city. But in your earlier screenshot it looked like two of them had won combats. [strike]Of course, once they win, they can be promoted and healed quickly by the priests[/strike] Edit: or, they could if they weren't temporary summons! Selrahc gets three free elementals per turn, so if he can whittle down the number of warriors he'll start looking pretty smart.

OK, I thought I've used strikeout tags before, but I've struck out after numerous tries .

[Bobchillingworth]

In my role as devil's advocate: why? It's 80 hammers for each of those three buildings, and I don't see them giving you much benefit, since your cities are at (or beyond) the happy cap already. Unless someone really starts cranking the AC, health is the least of your worries: an unhealthy costs you 1 production if you're building a worker or settler, and costs you nothing when building anything else. A market is only 40 hammers, and will help keep your economy afloat. Carnivals are not such a great deal (unless you have FoL and therefore an unlimited supply of tigers).



Are you still planning to gift him a city in the deep south? Is he planning to expand into Cull's territory, or steal your city sites to the east?



Hmmm. Pretty much exactly my thinking on attacking the city. But in your earlier screenshot it looked like two of them had won combats. [strike]Of course, once they win, they can be promoted and healed quickly by the priests[\strike] Edit: or, they could if they weren't temporary summons!. Selrahc gets three free elementals per turn, so if he can whittle down the number of warriors he'll start looking pretty smart.

Well, the point of those three buildings isn't health (the breeding pit detracts from health anyway), but growth- I want my cities to be as large as possible once I get vampires, so that I can immediately begin feeding them. Most growth will occur once I get sanitation of course, but no reason why I can't get as much of the size and infrastructure completed now as possible. Also the quicker I can get a vampire up to level 15, the more quickly I can obtain Bridget, the immortal angelic nuke hero. Also also, I don't really care if I grow over the happy cap now that I have manors- that just gives me more hammers from the "it's too crowded!" angry faces. At least, I think it does. Let me know if my thinking is flawed before I turn off the "no city growth" button in Prespur!


Yeah I'm still gonna give Sareln a city in the south, as his northern city is quite good (corn and 2X cotton) but very exposed. He's going to be essentially my vassal, and knows not to take my claimed spots to the east. At least, that's how it should work. I could always crush him if I needed to, with my superior military powered by my far better economy. Or just make him gift me an offending city.


I had thought the two wounded elemental in the picture had retreated thanks to the 10% chance from homeland, thus both having the exact same heath, but perhaps that was the lucky combat result Cull was talking about.

[Adlain]

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[DaveV]

I had thought the two wounded elemental in the picture had retreated thanks to the 10% chance from homeland, thus both having the exact same heath, but perhaps that was the lucky combat result Cull was talking about.

I don't think the elementals get the homeland promotion, and my experience is that a retreating unit will only have 0.1 health left.

With respect to health buildings:

1) More cities = good.
2) Get more cities by building settlers, workers, and bloodpets.
3) Profit!

Health buildings and faster growth aren't *bad*, but also aren't as important as spamming settlers. You have plenty of food and your cities will grow pretty fast. You can't whip, so the growth buildings aren't as essential as in regular Civ. I usually add the growth buildings while my city is growing back from its first or second round of feasting, and after I've built my royal guards.

Growing into unhappiness is good for any city not producing settlers/workers (trading 2 food, 3 if unhealthy, for 1 hammer).

On feasting: it's worth feasting one vampire up to level 15, but I think the best thing for your first bunch of vampires is to get them out into the field. I usually feast them up to 10 XP, giving them Mobility, Death II, and Combat I. Their summons can beat on barbs and animals, and the vamps (or animal hunters, if you have them) can adminster the killing blow. Later on, when my cities are bigger, I like to shoot for 50 XP, which lets them add four more Combat promotions (max strength summons - yay!).

[Bobchillingworth]

On feasting: it's worth feasting one vampire up to level 15, but I think the best thing for your first bunch of vampires is to get them out into the field. I usually feast them up to 10 XP, giving them Mobility, Death II, and Combat I. Their summons can beat on barbs and animals, and the vamps (or animal hunters, if you have them) can adminster the killing blow. Later on, when my cities are bigger, I like to shoot for 50 XP, which lets them add four more Combat promotions (max strength summons - yay!).

Hmm, your vampire strategy is a little different from mine. I usually have a vampire stationed in every reasonably large city, who feeds every other turn or so until they have quite a few promotions and it's time for another round of vampires to be built to take over feeding. Once I have enough vampires elite vampires stationed in my cities to take on whoever my target it, I gather them all together as an army and march, regrow while building another wave of neophyte vamps, and repeat the cycle. Vampires are actually weaker than just regular champions, and specters are pretty weak without a least a few death mana, and so I try to make up for it by getting obscene amounts of promos on them.

[Bobchillingworth]

Got a cool event:





I chose the middle option, paid 11 gold and got a minimal inflation decrease which I guess might eventually pay off by the time the game ends.


The first option was free and increased inflation costs by 3%, but gave 10 culture to every city- interesting, but I already had monuments in two of them and a monument completing in the third, so it wasn't worth it.


The third option, available only to the Balseraphs, gave free 20 culture for each town, with no additional costs or advantages.

[DaveV]

The first option was free and increased inflation costs by 3%, but gave 10 culture to every city- interesting, but I already had monuments in two of them and a monument completing in the third, so it wasn't worth it.

Well, it would have popped your borders over the copper, and you could have it mined and roaded that much more quickly (instead of waiting for the monument to complete, then waiting for it to accumulate culture).

Did the Azer attack yet?