[SPOILERS] - Tredje and Mardoc are Sheelba of the Clan of Embers

[Tredje]

Turn 87:

Our freshly recruited Goblins spot the Spider infesting our Gems mine:

I threw a Goblin at it and brought it down to 3.6 health. I didn't want to risk losing a Warrior, and if we lost our second Goblin we wouldn't be able to see it anymore, so I dropped our Son off on the tile 1N of the Spider. I summoned a Fireball that destroyed the Spider. I then deleted our remaining Goblin. 1 gold saved.

There have also been some civic switches over the last couple of turns. Here is a screenshot of them as well as of our Incense city:

As can be seen by this graph, Bob has taken a commanding lead in GNP:

Our Son will, if my calculations are correct, be in position to summon Fire Elementals against Sareln in 3 turns. I have also retreated our Archers to a safer position, because I was worried Sareln might do another combat road -> Warrior suicide attack.

This is my new attack plan. I figure our units will be safe behind the jungle/forest, and our Fire Elementals can raech both the Copper and Udenarat. Let me know if you see any faults with this strategy. I don't want to have another Wolf Rider-incident

You can also see that Calendar will finish this turn. I am thinking we should hold off on switching civics, as we have only one city that will benefit from increased food production atm. From our previous discussion I think we agreed on heading for CoL next. Do you still support this course? The only other option I can think of is BW, but I don't think we need it just yet.

And finally:

Here's an important question:
Will the Sons of Inferno get their own individual names?

I think it would be inexcusable to not give them individual names, but I haven't given the matter any thought yet. Hmm... Perhaps we could do famous occultists? They could be named Crowley, Blavatsky, Levi, Osman Spare etc.

[Mardoc]

Our freshly recruited Goblins spot the Spider infesting our Gems mine:

Nicely done. I think I'd have used a Fire Elemental instead of a fireball, but whatever works.

This is my new attack plan. I figure our units will be safe behind the jungle/forest, and our Fire Elementals can raech both the Copper and Udenarat. Let me know if you see any faults with this strategy. I don't want to have another Wolf Rider-incident

Looks good to me. It shouldn't be a permanent position, we should be able to move in eventually, but it's good until we get the numbers more on our side.

You can also see that Calendar will finish this turn. I am thinking we should hold off on switching civics, as we have only one city that will benefit from increased food production atm. From our previous discussion I think we agreed on heading for CoL next. Do you still support this course? The only other option I can think of is BW, but I don't think we need it just yet.

I think I agree on waiting to revolt, since our limit right now is happiness, not food or health. And we probably don't want to settler-spam either until we get some semblance of an economy running.

Yes, head to Code of Laws, we absolutely need to get cottages and aristofarms running. That's the only thing that will change our limping tech pace into at least a walking tech pace .

I think it would be inexcusable to not give them individual names, but I haven't given the matter any thought yet. Hmm... Perhaps we could do famous occultists? They could be named Crowley, Blavatsky, Levi, Osman Spare etc.

Well, with only four of them, maybe we ought to consider famous groups of four? Or does that give too much info away to our enemies for free?

[Mardoc]

Hmm, or we could name them something fire-related. Guy Montag? House, Wild, Bon, Camp?

[Tredje]

I got a mail from Iskender today:

Rawr!

Congratulations on founding 4th and 5th city. This looks like a good use of a Warrens.

Now that we have an NAP and a CA we could discuss some issues openly. First, the possible attack on the Balseraphs. My plan was to raid them with invisible Priests of Leaves plus Tigers as cannon fodder. I'll be able to build Priests around turn 100. Now that Bals research rate has increased drastically the chances of sending a big enough force before they discover Hunting are getting slim. We might consider organizing a conventional dogpile, but as history teaches us those have had 0% success rate so far. I still want to send the invisible Priests somewhere at least to force people to research Hunting and also get Priests some exp getting them closer to Waning. I'll gladly hear your opinions on that matter.

In about ten turns I'll be roading the Incense tile south of my southern city, if you extended a road north from Renegate Hill we could establish a trade connection. A word of warning regarding my city: because of the monument the city will expand its borders into 3rd ring stealing a tile from your BFC. I'm sure it's not a big issue, but it could get worse if FoL gets founded in the city. I hope it won't, but there's roughly a 1 in 3 chance for that. I don't intend to build a Shrine, at least not in the next 50 turns.

It seems that the Amurites are making a slow but steady progress despite the choke. Because I maintain peaceful relations with both the Clan and the Amurites, I would like to offer my assistance in bringing this conflict to a peaceful conclusion.

Iskender

I think this email serves as a good starting point for a discussion of the game in general and our position. In terms of their empires I think the players can be divided into three categories:

• 1: Bob
  
• 2: Iskender
  
• 3: The rest
  

Bob and Iskender have been allowed to expand in peace, while the rest of the civs have been involved in wars that have hampered their economic development. Bob has probably done a better job than Iskender, as indicated by his high GNP. To put the matter in another fashion, Bob will probably run away with the game unless he is impeded in any way. And is anyone in position to threaten Bob? I would think that should Iskender and ourselves march against him we would have a shot at hurting him. If other civs participated the chances would be even better. But will Square Leg or Serdoa be interested in this after concluding thier bloody war? Unlikely in my opinion.

What are our short- and long-term goals? I know we talk about getting our economy back on track, and that is important, but I would say that our focus should be on bringing others down to our level. We should benefit from as many conflicts as we can create/participate in. And what are our objectives on the Amurite front? Complete conquest? I would say that we want to at least try to capture Udenarat. And if that city falls, could Sareln have anything to stop us from capturing his capital? But what if he casts Arcane Lacuna? Do we simply wait 14 turns and build more troops, or do we want to use the Sons against someone else, i.e. Bob, before he gets adequate defense in place? One possibility is to negotiate a peace treaty with Sareln and turn our attention to Bob.

As you can see, I don't have answers to all of these questions. What I have is something of a dream scenario. In this scenario we manage to conquer Sareln, and then we combine forces with Iskender to hit Bob. But we need to hit Bob as soon as possible if we want to be able to hurt him. This brings me back to the starting point of this post. The way I see it, we could take Sareln down much faster if Iskender was willing to assist us. Then we could strike Bob reasonably early (T110 maybe?). But would Iskendeer agree to this? I think that there is no way he would agree to it, unless he thinks that refusing to do so would allow Bob to run away with the game. Do you think that it is worth even suggesting this to Iskender, or should we just assume that he won't agree to it?

Right now so much hinges on how things turn out in the west, and it is really difficult to make any kind of plans. I'm not even sure I managed to touch upon every issue I wanted in this post. Still we should try to get a basic plan in place, I think, if only to aid us in our diplomatic endeavours.

I also think we should agree to OB. Foreign trade routes would be nice.

[Mardoc]

Um. Well, the first thing is, Arcane Lacuna will prevent us from casting any spells, even if they're targeted at Bob. So once it goes off, I figure we have 14 turns of doing nothing regardless, unless we're willing to risk the Sons as Str 8 cannon fodder.

We're in a weird position - aside from the Sons, we have darn near 0 military. Including the Sons, we have the best military in the game. There's just nothing that can stand up to Str 10 Empower V Elementals, and as long as we're careful, not enough production yet to swarm them under; after all, no matter what happens to an elemental, we get a new replacement every single turn. Their ability to also do collateral means that even a large stack of decent units will fall to them given time.

It might be worth coming out to Iskender about them, since we do have an NAP and confidentiality agreement, and more seriously, that we also have 3 turns until Sareln knows about them, and presumably he'd share that knowledge anyway. Then we can discuss a true plan, something like 'kill Sareln alone or with help, then we're happy to take on Bob with him and we expect to win.'

Honestly, I'm not thinking we need a long term plan. A short term plan is probably enough. Kill Sareln, kill Bob, kill Serdoa, then decide if we're willing to take on Iskender and/or Square Leg, or if we want to try a more peaceful victory approach. I don't really think we need help from anyone, so long as we can restrict our fighting to one front at a time, but of course it wouldn't hurt to get some help.

I want the income as much to be able to support an empire of 4 peoples' land and prevent a strike as for any particular tech plan we might have.

I think it's likely that one result of this game will be Acheron permanently turned off for any future games, or at least forbidden to exist when Clan also exists, but we ought to aim to win decisively enough that this approach is recognized as broken.

It's vaguely possible that I'm wrong, that the free creation of 4 Str 15 equivalent, collateral performing units every turn at this stage in the game isn't enough to win. I wouldn't bet on it, though.

The only other option I see is to make peace with Sareln now, before the Lacuna (and with a no-Lacuna condition on the deal), and acknowledge that it will be a very long term peace.

[Thoth]

I think it's likely that one result of this game will be Acheron permanently turned off for any future games

There were some very good reasons as to why I lobbied to have Acheron turned off in FFH PBEM III

Thanks for making my point.


Now go kick some serious arse!

[Tredje]

Had a chat with Iskender. These are the main points.

• 1: We agree that we want to hit Bob. He will get FoL and start building priests. He says he can be ready around ~T115-T120.
  
• 2: I say we want to deal with Sareln before hitting Bob. Iskender proposes to negotiate some form of agreement. I'm not sure what agreement we could agree to that doesn't completely crush Sareln. Iskender doesn't want to attack Sareln. For now I say that we will continue to attack Sareln, and that if he blows Arcane Lacuna, we will be delayed a bit. This might force our attack on Bob to be postponed to somewhere around T130.
  
• 3: He asked us if we wanted a spread of FoL. I said we'd think about it. (I haven't really thought about religions yet.)
  
• 4: When Iskender gets Cartography we will sign OB and construct a road connection.
  
• 5: Iskender and Bob have been discussing building Gibbon. Apparently they both want him. Iskender thinks Bob might beeline Gibbon and neglect Hunting.
  
• 6: Iskender says Sareln will have an Adept (and AL) very soon.
  
• 7: I told Iskender that we have one or more Sons. I didn't reveal the correct number.
  

So it appears that Sareln will be able to cast AL soon. If he does, we will have 14 turns of waiting before we can attack him with our Sons. This will delay our joint strike on Bob probably. The question is: Is it worth it to negotiate peace with Sareln (that includes a no AL clause while we fight Bob) to hit Bob as early as possible? I'm thinking no. If he fires AL as soon as he becomes aware of our Sons, it should be over by T105. We will then have time to finish off Sareln before turning against Bob. If this delays our attack by ~10 turns, so be it.

[Mardoc]

Had a chat with Iskender. These are the main points.

• 1: We agree that we want to hit Bob. He will get FoL and start building priests. He says he can be ready around ~T115-T120.
  
• 2: I say we want to deal with Sareln before hitting Bob. Iskender proposes to negotiate some form of agreement. I'm not sure what agreement we could agree to that doesn't completely crush Sareln. Iskender doesn't want to attack Sareln. For now I say that we will continue to attack Sareln, and that if he blows Arcane Lacuna, we will be delayed a bit. This might force our attack on Bob to be postponed to somewhere around T130.
  
• 3: He asked us if we wanted a spread of FoL. I said we'd think about it. (I haven't really thought about religions yet.)
  
• 4: When Iskender gets Cartography we will sign OB and construct a road connection.
  
• 5: Iskender and Bob have been discussing building Gibbon. Apparently they both want him. Iskender thinks Bob might beeline Gibbon and neglect Hunting.
  
• 6: Iskender says Sareln will have an Adept (and AL) very soon.
  
• 7: I told Iskender that we have one or more Sons. I didn't reveal the correct number.
  

So it appears that Sareln will be able to cast AL soon. If he does, we will have 14 turns of waiting before we can attack him with our Sons. This will delay our joint strike on Bob probably. The question is: Is it worth it to negotiate peace with Sareln (that includes a no AL clause while we fight Bob) to hit Bob as early as possible? I'm thinking no. If he fires AL as soon as he becomes aware of our Sons, it should be over by T105. We will then have time to finish off Sareln before turning against Bob. If this delays our attack by ~10 turns, so be it.

Yeah, I think I agree, even if we have to deal with AL, we'd best deal with it soon and move on. I don't see Sareln being a good neighbor - at best we'd have peace until he's strong enough for revenge. After all, that's what I'd do in his shoes! And if the AL hurts now, imagine how it would hurt when he's actually got an offensive army built!

The best thing about getting a religion is that it would give us nice culture. A monument is 40 hammers. A Warrens-doubled Priest is 80 hammers for two, and we get two temples out of the deal too. A warrens-doubled Disciple is 40 hammers for two. And you can do that production where you have it instead of needing each city to stand on its own. Of course, that would require us to tech to Way of the Forest to build them, but I don't see a downside to having the religion and hence the option available.

[Gaspar]

<waves>

Haven't had much to say, but just a pair of quick thoughts:

1. I generally think RoK is the best religion for the Clan. Anything that can economically support the army = win. Options are always good, though, if he wants to spread FoL can't hurt.

2. I agree that I highly doubt you can extort anything worthwhile for peace with Sareln at this point. I think its just a matter of waiting. If he's building an adept in his current situation, however, he must know about the Sons. There's no reasonable explanation for building them in his current situation otherwise.

[Tredje]

2. I agree that I highly doubt you can extort anything worthwhile for peace with Sareln at this point. I think its just a matter of waiting. If he's building an adept in his current situation, however, he must know about the Sons. There's no reasonable explanation for building them in his current situation otherwise.

Yes, I'm assuming he won't agree to handing over all his cities to us As for the question of Adepts, I'm thinking he either expected us to come with Sons, or he thought the choke would end early and he could start preparing for the late game. If he casts AL it will be a nuisance to us, but it won't save him.

I have played turn 88:

I was greeted by the Calendar splashscreen. Our next tech will be Ancient Chants, due in 5 turns. Our Worker will finish a farm (3 more turns) and then build a Plantation on the Incense. Our other Worker has reached the Gold and it will be mined in 3 turns as well. That should give us a significant boost in GNP. Also note that Bob has adopted Ashen Veil.