The Kuriotates: A Tale of Centaurs, Hubris, and Unbridled Enthusiasm

[Mardoc]

I was feeling a bit bored, so I counted up the relative tech situation.

Plako:

We have on him:
Animal Husbandry
Horseback Riding
Way of the Earthmother
Writing
Trade

1810 beakers

He has on us:
Knowledge of the Ether
Festivals
Philosophy
Warfare
Necromancy

1800 beakers

We're essentially neck and neck with plako. He's apparently been investing in the bone wall while we've focused on Centaurs. Writing and Trade ought to let us pull ahead. If we didn't have 3 other threats of higher priority, I'd like our odds putting Centaurs up against puppeteers.

Selrahc:

Won't count it up - he has Philosophy and Masonry on us, we have tons on him. Including just about every worker tech. He can research Education, as you noted, so that's a worry. But so long as the Horsemen don't kill us, he's hopelessly outclassed already.

Bob/Thoth:

Has on us:
Fishing
KotE
Philosophy
Corruption of Spirit
Infernal Pact

We have on Bob:
Agriculture
Animal Husbandry
Crafting
Mining
Education
Horseback Riding
Way of the Earthmother
Trade

We have on Thoth:
Same minus Agriculture, Calendar

This is a definite beeline! Thoth's apparently been backfilling worker techs since he took over. But I don't think pillage parties would do us much good at the moment, he hasn't had time to improve anything!

Thoth is currently looking quite vulnerable, 29000 power is, not counting any tech or population, no more than 9 warriors. In reality I expect him to have something more like 6 or 7 - plus Rosier soon. Although he doesn't have Sailing yet, so he's got to pick between Rosier on the mainland or Rosier built in his Heron Throne city. Again...if only we didn't have other higher priority targets...

Ilios:

We have on him:
Mysticism
Way of the Earthmother
Horseback Riding
Trade
Writing

1830 beakers

He has on us:
Bronze Working
Cartography
Festivals
Warfare

1100 beakers.

So we're well ahead of Ilios at the moment. Of course, with Carto/Bronze, he's clearly intending to REX.

[HidingKneel]

Ilios may be behind in tech, but the demos say he's surpassed us in food and MFG. Still looks fairly weak, though, so if we had the manpower to spare we could probably force him to blow his worldspell.

Plako I'm thinking isn't a soft enough target. When/if we finally get finished with Selrahc, we'll have the centaur swarm descend on Thoth.

Played turn 62. No screenshots this time. The highlights:

a) Selrahc built another two warriors. I killed two, pillaged his cotton, and put a centaur on his windmill. He can't work any more two-hammer tiles, so he can put out a maximum of six hammers per turn. Eventually he's got to run out of steam!

b) Bob sent his worker out to build a road. I swiped it with my centaur and deleted it.

c) Centaur finished healing in Kwythellar. I sent it to start exploring one of our dungeons. I figure we can respond pretty effectively now, if something nasty comes out.

d) Kwythellar finished a temple of Kilmorph, Naggarond finished a smokehouse. Next up: thanes in Kwythellar, library in Naggarond. I'm thinking I might give the first thane a mobility promotion and sent it up north to help our troops at the front. Should have done that with our original thane. I thought the war would be over by now!

AC is still oscillating between 34 and 38 (blight hits at 40). Breakeven science rate has increased to around 120 beakers per turn.

[Mardoc]

Well, if nothing else, we should come out of this with a very well-promoted swarm of centaurs!

AC is still oscillating between 34 and 38 (blight hits at 40). Breakeven science rate has increased to around 120 beakers per turn.

Just as a heads up - Rosier will be worth 4 more to the AC whenever he's built. Hopefully either we get Selrahc under control before that happens, or we get to see the Blight for thee but not for me effect again.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 63, and Rosier has arrived:



Built by the infernals, rather than the Lanun. Have a look:



Selrahc built two goblins this turn, rather than two warriors. Apparently he's finally hitting a lull in production. As Bob's post in the trash-talking thread indicates, the combination has pushed the AC up over 30%. That prompted me to take some more decisive action against Selrahc. I attacked his city with all the centaurs that got decent odds. Killed six warriors, but lost one centaur to a goblin . Here's what he's got left:



Unfortunately, I'm not in a great position to capitalize on it. Here's the bulk of our stack:



Even with promo-healing, it'll be a while before these guys are ready to attack again. But I've got another centaur from Avelorn heading up; if Selrahc keeps building goblins, I'll promote to CII rather that C1/S1 for better odds.

So, with Rosier on the loose, I decided it was time to start mass-producing centaurs again. Building them in all three cities until I have some idea of what Bob's plans are.

What else? Some of our workers are laying the groundwork for Commodore's grand entrance:



Also, our sage finally arrived in Avelorn:



Excellent! That should really speed up our access to the third ring... oh...



Very good. Avelorn can now work another Remnants, and there are silks and wines to improve for a commerce boost. We'll also have that academy built next turn.

Code of laws came in at end of turn. Next up: philosophy. Looks like it'll be a 1-turn tech.

[Mardoc]

Looks like some solid progress - especially in terms of knocking the AC back down. I suppose next turn we find out if Blight affects us or not.

I suggest Flanking promos on some of the better Centaurs, so that we can use them without fear. In particular, if we put Flanking on them, we can throw them at Hyborem or Rosier without losing all the XP you worked so hard to build up. On that note - I hope you had one healthy Centaur left to cover our stack .

[HidingKneel]

On that note - I hope you had one healthy Centaur left to cover our stack .

There's two centaurs left on the dragon bones, each at around 3.0.
The badly wounded centaurs are out of Selrahc's reach. I'm thinking of maybe running them down to Killswitch to heal up (maybe I'll turn out a thane in Kwythellar to speed that along, and can use it to pop the borders in Killswitch when finished; depends on whether Bob starts moving or not).

[HidingKneel]

Alright. Let's see what turn 64 has for us.

First, I took a peek at Bob:



This one had me confused for a while, until I saw the trash-talking thread. Looks like Rosier took some damage from blight. So that'll be healed next turn. Anyway, Bob hasn't started marching yet, so I have more time to concentrate on Selrahc.

So, it looks like Selrahc whipped himself up another pair of warriors, bringing
Slime Pits down to size three. Which means he can manage at best five hammers per turn, so long as I'm camping on the dragon bones. So, if I'm understanding the mechanics right, he can produce another pair of warriors with overflow, then a pair of goblins, and then he'll be out of overflow?
Anyways, I killed the top defender (which was the goblin who killed our centaur in the previous turn, which Selrahc promoted to C2). Here's what he's got left:



(Heh... just noticed that he's got a centaur slave in that city. We must liberate him!)

Unfortunately, I don't have the horsepower to do much more at the moment. I'm sending some reinforcements up, and sending our wounded stack to heal in Killswitch. Produced a thane in Kwythellar this turn which I'll send there as a medic. It occurs to me that roading north of Killswitch would have been a very good use of worker turns . Well, I'll try to get some more workers over there soon.

What else? Produced centaurs in Avelorn and Naggarond. Those will probably go to fight Selrahc, or maybe Bob if he's on the march. Philosophy came in at end of turn:



Next turn, we get a dungeon result, and our exploring centaur can take a promotion and sprint up to fight Selrahc. I really shouldn't have dawdled so long; we need a decisive victory so we can focus on other opponents.

Next up: Priesthood. Looks like it will take five or six turns, so it'll be in just in time for our adaptive switch to spiritual.

[Mardoc]

As long as Bob stays put, we're happy. I'm certain we can outbuild and outresearch him, if we have the time.

Don't beat yourself up over the missing road - you would have had to leave a centaur or two behind to protect the workers if you did that, potentially slowing the orcish deathblow anyway. And having a preimproved capital for Commodore will be very handy

Next up: Priesthood. Looks like it will take five or six turns, so it'll be in just in time for our adaptive switch to spiritual.

Somewhere in there, it'd be really nice to build our last Philosophical library in Naggarond. Assuming Bob stays docile, of course.

[HidingKneel]

Somewhere in there, it'd be really nice to build our last Philosophical library in Naggarond. Assuming Bob stays docile, of course.

Agreed. It's a 3-turn build, so we've got a little bit of time. On a similar note, you might have noticed that Kwythellar is starving: that's because I'm running five specialists, trying to rack up as many GPP as possible before the switch.

[HidingKneel]

Another turn played. First, we got a dungeon result:



Was pretty tired when I played last night, and I misread that for the "do you want to explore deeper" that lets you roll an epic lair result. Anyway, the answer was an obvious "yes" and I ended up far away:



Well, not that far away, apparently. On the other end of Bob though. I decided to send that centaur towards Selrahc going the other way around the map, to pick up a little bit more intel.

What else? Well, Selrahc built another pair of marked warriors, and I attacked in twice. Killed one warrior, but lost a C2S1 centaur . We've got reinforcements on the way, but a little bit of bad luck in the next two turns could mean we get blight after all.

But there's a bright spot on all this:



Looks like Ilios is joining the campaign against Selrahc. No idea when he'll be arriving, though. Hopefully that declaration means he's got forces in Selrahc's culture, but I haven't seen them yet.

Also, somebody (Plako or Ilios) has military strategy now.

Bob's still fortified in Cauldron lake:



Got himself a great sage and a diseased corpse. That means he isn't building the grimoire, which is good (grimoire -> malevolent designs -> beasts of agares would make Bob a lot scarier). Hopefully he's planning to build for a while.

But it's possible he stacks up Mr. Scratch, Rosier, and a longbow and sets out for Kwythellar again. That would be pretty dangerous to us right now. We were able to handle his first stack (with heavy losses) because it was all melee units and Mr. Scratch wasn't very highly promoted. With a mix of units, drill-promoted Hyborem, and mobile Rosier for forking/pillaging, he'd be able to do a lot more damage this time. Plus we have almost nothing to fight him with right now... all our centaurs need to go up to fight Selrahc if we want to avoid blight. Anyway, hopefully I inflicted enough psychological damage by wiping the first stack that he decides to turtle for a while.

What else? Noticed a library was a 1-turn build in Naggarond so I went ahead and built one, allowing Naggarond to grow a size. That growth actually hurts our production capacity, though, since Naggarond was already unhealthy. Want to think about hooking up that sheep sometime soon.