Thanks for the henchmen help guys. I ran some testing to see just what we need in order to see mistforms. Radiant guard, ratha, marksman, and floating eye were all able to see them. Vicars can't, but can cast revelation, which removes invisibility (and then anyone can see them). If the mistforms don't start suiciding soon, we might need to take an empryean detour. Pop GA, run empy for 5 turns to get some rathas out, then switch to AV and try to grab infernal pact super quick (in order to get sacrifice the weak - i don't think I could quite make it though). Rathas would be nice to have going forward too; it just delays building rosier.
The mistform(s) seemed determined to pillage me down
cottage that was lost was under the sign; I can't afford to lose the silk or ivory as those are my only sources.
In more positive news, Yell0w:
Sending single crusaders to take a look at my military pump = not so wise when I've got vampires running around. Unpromoted they've got a signicant chance, even on defensive terrain.
After a spectre does a ridiculous amount of damage
In honor of turn 100 (and the fact that Sian still has the save), here's a run down of the current cities
The core
Growing into unhappiness in anticipation of religion - and feasting.
2-turn command post will pay itself back in 11-12 turns of vamp building. hope it's worth it.
Note the newly finished adept - will start improving a death node next turn; I've got 3 nodes in my territory, and a 4th at the barb city by Agile (which I'll take as soon as the mistforms are taken care of). GP EOT 101.
Someday I'll grab archery.
Can't decide whether to keep pumping vamps (3 every 5 turns), or grab a CP.
Maturing cities
Mistform city
vampiric moroi -> chariot upgrades; will probably build some catapults for defense.
This'll be another unit (i.e. vampire) pump
TBS is about to settle 1E of the mana, so I need to pump culture here ASAP
Yell0w's aggressive border plant is looking quite nice in red
Glad this city didn't get razed in the kurio incursion; it was undefended the whole time, but because of his lack of scouting I don't think he even realized it existed.
The reborn
In this case, reborn from being a barb city. Now forms my border with HK (who's still spamming cities guarded by warriors, although he's got some chariots floating around now).
Demos
Long term things look pretty bleak. I'm confident I can hold TBS at bay for now and take out Yell0w, but more and more I'm expecting HK to ally with TBS against me. They've had open borders for a long time now, plus other deals like merchant trade missions. HK's been asking me about TBS' mana (worried about ToM), but that doesn't preclude him teaming up against me. Sian has some strength (plus his worldspell) but has never responded to my PM's. WK is super weak; his only defense right now is, "i'm too small to matter" (or that's essentially what he told me). TBS is taking advantage of that to plant settlements right on his border to claim mana.
Anyways, I think my best shot is to build up to try to raze one of TBS' megacities. I can 1-turn Avelorn, although the whole "first strike" clause in our NAP is annoying. He has sorcery now too, so I can expect floating eyes to catch out my forces. (any way to hide from them?). I can try to team up with HK against TBS, but really doubt that'll work.
I think you're right about empyrean
Once our spectres get decent we could try massing them on tiles we don't want to lose. Radiant Guards can be drafted fairly easily too.
I think out only chance versus TBS is to talk with HidingKneel, get him to the diplo table and underline our own weakness (mention the mistforms - they'll be particularly sympathetic to that) and how close TBS is to victory. Try to get an agreement to attack by x date either from either side or through our territory. Meanwhile keep expanding, building up strength, teching to Losha Valas and eating Yell0w. On the first turn of the war (and we should look at stats for how fast he can build the final tower) plan out exactly where he can hit and either defend the most important sites or make our move on the supercity super obvious - potentially even expose the stack - and force him to confront that attack, which hopefully is shielded by a swarm of high strength spectres (I doubt he can get enough life II mages by then). Hopefully we can mitigate the amount of damage he can do to us and force him to defend against us/HK.
With luck we can also get a NAP with HK for the duration.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Ok, so I approached HK about an alliance, mentioning the mistforms and emphasizing how fast TBS is teching. We'll see what he says. My warning bells are tinkling though: HK's power is spiking (iron chariots) and he just built a sun node; I'm guessing he's about to grab Commune with Nature with the tower of divination (dwarven druids). Since he's building up already without talking to me...yeah. That plus TBS is working on an air node and actively working to get XP on his adepts (saw an injured/poisoned one this turn). Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not coming for me.
At least my power isn't standing still.
Finished an adept last turn so was able to immediately begin improving a death node this turn.
One down!
Judging from how spread out the carnage is, probably at least 2 more to go.
I pushed the AC up a little higher
I'd be ready to raze his capital pretty soon (assuming he doesn't stuff all his crusaders in there), but I'd actually like to keep it. It would provide a great feast.
A scouting hawk/hunter pair caught a peak at Yell0w's squishy backside.
Domestics - I just can't help building more infrastructure
Demos
Saving gold for a turn, then honor is a 3-turn tech. With the threat of an HK/TBS dogpile on me, I'm thinking I should be grabbing Rathas even if more of the mistforms suicide next turn. Nothing screws up military coordination like blinding light.
One other thought: should I be just going straight death with all my mana? Sucks to lose +1 strength on spectres, but an entropy node could make a huge difference as HK and TBS are using a lot of chariots. Rusting their iron weapons would be huge (although the dwarves have magic resist).
Hmmm...you may be right, but my instinct is death. However, I don't think we'll have much trouble killing them off on defence anyway (they're what, 5/7?) andgiven their high mobility I don't see us catching them very often anyway.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
(October 26th, 2013, 13:23)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Hmmm...you may be right, but my instinct is death. However, I don't think we'll have much trouble killing them off on defence anyway (they're what, 5/7?) and given their high mobility I don't see us catching them very often anyway.
Chariots are a base 5/3, going up to 7/5 with iron weapons, so removing weapons makes them super weak on defense. They can't get the rust promotion though since they aren't melee units. Running some tests with 10 unpromoted chariots shows that the listed resist chances are about right (maybe a bit low). First adept usually removed iron weapons from 7/10 normal chariots, and 5/10 dwarven magic resist chariots. 4 adepts casting rust always removed weapons from all normal chariots, but there were usually 1-2 dwarven ones who held on. I'm pretty sure that resist chances go up with increasing unit level (any lurkers wanna correct me on this?) While rusting chariots sounds fun, spectres will be key stack protectors (both HK & TBS behind me in turn order). I'm leaning towards all death. (damn you TBS for stealing AV with a dungeon popped savant! that was my entropy mana!)
I got a response back from HK already. My BS meter doesn't really work; Q, does this sound on the level to you?
HidingKneel Wrote:Jalapeno,
Needless to say, I'm not in a position to confirm or deny anything about present or future Khazad military capabilities. We share your concerns about the Kuriotates, however. Since we still lack for hawk intelligence, what can you tell us about their Arcane advancement? Have you seen any mages? We see they added a settlement recently; do you know if it claims a mana node?
Finally, what sort of timetable did you have in mind?
I can definitely play up TBS arcane ambitions, having seen 3 new/immediate settlements which grab mana, plus the injured/poisoned adept hanging around. For timetable I think we need at least 15 turns of buildup to be able to threaten TBS. That gives a force of ~25 vampires, rosier, with AV priests, ratha, and vampiric chariots for support. Going up against maelstorm mages, valin, and iron/blessed CAs, centaur chargers, and swordsmen (probably assorted summons too). It will be bloody.
That they're not being open about having/getting soon Druids is a bit worrying...try to start NAP discussions with them as well? (Both what if any NAP they have with TBS and if we can get a NAP off them)
I think TBS wins this in what, 20-30 turns?
Do we want to strike ASAP or more of a just in time approach? I think saying 15 might be a good way of keeping them on board and making sure they're ready with regard to NAPs. I forget, do they share a border with him?
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Turned it down; hammers are cheap and gold is precious for me right now.
My scouting hunter/hawk gets a nice view of Evermore
Looks like Sian's planning to be using fire mages for his collateral...?
Most importantly, I heard back from HK:
HidingKneel Wrote:Jalapeno,
Fifteen turns is a long time. The Khazad Mining Corporation would prefer not to make any long-term committments at this time... so much can change over fifteen turns, especially at this stage of the game.
However, we may be amenable to your proposal a bit later (especially if we see TBS building towers).
Flintheart Glomgold, Founder and CFO of the Royal Khazad Mining Corporation
15 turns is "long-term"!?!? Either 1) he's planning to attack me with TBS or 2) he just wants to build up and doesn't want to deal with TBS until absolutely necessary. I'd go with a 50-50 chance either way. Thoughts Q? I'm thinking of going back with a NAP request, along with an attempt to set up some resource trades (I've got wines & furs which he doens't).
In other news, Empryean comes in 3 turns, and the GP for a GA popped EOT. Plan is to spread Empy to Networking (HE city), then pop the GA, switch to Empy, and build rathas while teching priesthood. I'm actually thinking of holding off on the switch to AV until towards the end of the GA. That means no sacrifice the weak (won't have time to grab infernal pact), but I can then switch to military state on the first turn of the GA, which saves ~30 gpt in unit costs and drastically speeds up military production. Should be able to produce most of two more GP's during the GA for a later GA.
Sounds good for a GA plan, we would've been cutting it fine on infernal pact anyway.
I don't think HK is taking the idea seriously - as a non-raiders he takes maybe 5t simply mobilizing to attack/wading through culture, so 15t is most certainly not long term. And if he's getting druids soon, then he's planning war...how's his power graph atm? Do we have any hawks looking at his territory?
I think we respond with a NAP request and mention that we can't plan anything until we have some security, and say that 15t isn't long to have to try and counter TBS. Oh and make sure the discussions are confidential.
We should definitely not initiate a count down with TBS if the two might be planning war (I know its a while away but still). That might be another sign if HK encourages us to hit TBS.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
I'll do my best to get him on board, or at the very least, keep him talking (which will make it easier to tell if he's a wolf - i.e. allied with TBS). I asked him to keep things between us, but not sure how to try to enforce that.
I've got a hawk on the border, which will catch any attack force at least a turn before he can strike at me. I'm hoping the hunter/hawk pair that's been peaking in at Sian & Yell0w can find a path to HK that'll give me good vision on his core. His power is spiking pretty strongly. I've only seen 1 chariot, but I think he's hiding them from me. At least if he and TBS are working together TBS will have to initiate the cooldown, giving 5t of warning.
After a quiet last turn, the mistforms strike again!
Managed to take out my fully-fortified moroi in Incentivize (the one that killed a mistform on T101). Sooo glad we're going empy to clear these guys out.
Got some more vision on dwarf lands
He's also got three chariots hanging around. The node N of Quack Quack is mind mana, so he's totally going to ToD something. I'm planning to run my hunter right up to his border next to the peak to get a better look at his core.
Here's the diplo I sent him: no response. He's usually super fast at responding, so obviously something's giving him pause. Could it be my straight up request to get a promise of confidentiality because he's already scheming with TBS? We shall see.
Jalepeno Wrote:Really? I was thinking 15 turns would be waiting too long! He's got multiple GPs hanging around for a GA, and averages 90 hammers/city right now. Anyways, I'd like to be proactive about the situation, but would need some sense of security between you and me before moving forward with any plans. Could you promise not to share our discussions on this subject with TBS?
I'm also interested in a NAP, perhaps along with some resource trades (I can have extra wines very soon, potentially furs too; any word on pearls?). Maybe a rolling NAP with a short (5t?) cooldown or something would be nice. Both of us have rapidly rising power, and it would be a shame to waste those troops on border garrisons.
Demos
#2 in nearly everything that matters! And yet my GNP is 1/3 that of TBS. I really can't understand HK's reluctance to team up.
