We just watch. And Judge. FFH PBEM III Lurker Thread.

[Sareln]

I don't think we should be writing Thoth off just yet... This is still very early in the fighting.

In multiplayer games one of the most important skills or characteristics a player can have is the fortitude to carry on after an unexpected dramatic upset of their plans. If Thoth has that fiber, I think he should be able to marshal enough of his production to make a fight of it (since Nyk doesn't have a ton of strong collateral; eidolons and beasts at 70 HP still have odds against most of what he can field, Thoth isn't going to get rolled).

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Plus, didn't Nyk just lose a good amount of food/city, from uprooting those ancient forests? I'd imagine Thoth could still fight this into a stalemate in a 1-on-1, just hard to tell how he'd do if Mardoc joined in.

[uberfish]

Nyktorion is too far behind in tech and production to win this 1v1 (and unfortunately seems to have walked into a couple of ambushes with the weird shipboard cultists and adept->mage casting upgrades)

[Rawkking Goodguy]

Yeah, Nyk is definitely going to lose if Mardoc doesn't help soon. Even then Thoth may be able to hold the two of them off for Warriorknight to take out the Sheaim and then start hitting his other neighbors.

Edit: Of course after checking his lurker thread it seems like Mardoc is very likely to just withdraw from the dogpile once he learns WK has withdrawn, in which case Thoth will probably win pretty handily :P

[Brian Shanahan]

So what does everyone think of Mardocs recently published plan to attack Thoth in ~10 turns. It's firstly a naval attack with a follow up through the centre in the deserts. It's seems a bit involved and I don't know if he has near enough units to get it done.

But the biggest problem I see is that it could very easily be too late by the time he attacks. He needs Nyk to be in a strong position, i.e. be holding most of Thoth's army in place with his own units, and with the imminent loss of the Treants and (from the mouth of Thoth) the recent wiping of his stack of the face of Erebus, I don't think the Thothv. Nyk war will be anything else other than mop-up by turn 170. And if that is the case Thoth can easily refocus the most of his power back onto the Lanun and regain any lost positions before going on to conquer cities himself.

So my reading is: for Mardoc's plan to work, he needs to act now before Nyk is gassed (thus breaking a NAP) and go in guns blazing. And even then he may not have enough to do it.

[Selrahc]

He doesn;t have many forces right now. He'll need to use his entire NAP time in non-stop cash assisted military build up, and still struggle to get enough forces to carry out his entire plan.

And again, suddenly Nyk is gone? A few turns ago he was a lock to stomp Thoth near single handed. Let's see him at least lose a city before we write him off, huh?

[Brian Shanahan]

He doesn;t have many forces right now. He'll need to use his entire NAP time in non-stop cash assisted military build up, and still struggle to get enough forces to carry out his entire plan.

And again, suddenly Nyk is gone? A few turns ago he was a lock to stomp Thoth near single handed. Let's see him at least lose a city before we write him off, huh?

I'm only going by what I can see as regards Nyk, Thoth, says that he killed off the stack and rescued the Axe (a detail which does indicate that is true). Coupled with the limited lifespan of the treants that means that Nyktorion's offensive capacity is now zero. True, he can make city captures hard by whipping and fortifying and Teladrassil is basically unassailable unless Thoth gets a navy, but if he's truly lost the capacity to attack it is essentially mop-up.

[Selrahc]

Well, if Nyk can keep his cities safe then he might be able to reenter the war after Mardoc has performed his alpha strike. Or at least keep a good degree of Thoths forces pinned down in the north.

If Nyk gets blitzed out of the war over the next half dozen turns though, Thoth will be free to focus on Mardoc alone with everything he has.

[Gaspar]

I don't understand Mardoc's most recent post at all. I'm posting here because I desperately want to post in his thread to slap him upside the head and I know I can't. But let's review:

• He suddenly decides after 10T of suspicion that WK doesn't have a NAP with Thoth and can be counted on to join the fighting.
  
• He suddenly wants an AV battalion and StW. He's already build Saverous and I thought was building Hemah. If he switches to AV he loses both AND can't build AV heroes because Rosy's already dead and he doesn't have the tech for Mardero.
  
• He spends way too much time thinking about a post-Thoth world. I would say the likelihood of the Coalition completely eliminating Thoth if they had stayed together at 10%. I'd say the likelihood of him and Nyk eliminating Thoth is 0.
  

Just a complete lack of focus, and a lot of believing what he wants to believe, IMO. I don't see anyway he's going to make real gains in Malakim lands.

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, all these post-Thoth posts are going to look very silly if Thoth runs over Nyktorion in the next five turns or so.