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

[Selrahc]

It's got to be something to do with retreating not giving XP - and to be fair, I can think of ways to exploit Loki with a friendly Balseraph nation for training purposes otherwise.

Killing puppets gives xp, that should be enough to supply most training deals.

[Mardoc]

Killing puppets gives xp, that should be enough to supply most training deals.

Then I guess the game must treat retreating as a victory for the successful retreater, and only checks to see if the retreating unit lives or dies after the combat is resolved.

Even in death, Loki's freakin' annoying

[Mardoc]

And...I'm discovering the problem with substituting for a European, especially now that several of the other civs are clearly going through the motions. The pace is quite slow. Part of that is that I can't hit Tredje's play window - that delays it enough that the game's clearly not a 1/day pace, so a couple more hours wouldn't hurt...and next thing you know it's to a 2/week pace.

Of course, the solution is obvious . Gotta kill enough of them off.

[Mardoc]

Bob threw another stack of Skeletons at us last turn, ultimately killing my last Archer, and one of Iskender's tigers. This would be a major concern, him whittling us down like this, except that he made the mistake of leaving his adepts where they were last turn. We moved toward them, and killed three adepts, then returned the uninjured elementals to guard the stack. Even better, there's no obvious place for them to run - Jubilee now has only skeletons and puppets - not a stack defender in the lot.

Bob did kill the Trireme. I'll have to build a couple to go finish reclaiming my waters at some point.

I also have some diplomacy from Square Leg that I'm debating what to do with.

[COLOR="SandyBrown"]Hey Mardoc,

Thanks for taking over for Tredje! I guess running around killing clowns isn't as much fun as it sounds, although, much more fun than running around killing Dwarf's I hasten to add.

I have been away for 2 weeks myself and am catching up on what has happened in that time myself. Yes - we have a NAP until T140 and a land settling agreement although - all of my city sites have already been settled and your 2nd site is impeded by a barb city currently. As part of that deal Tredje did agree to give me horses for an amount of time. They are located 2E of Sorodh on the river bend. No time frame was put on that and to be perfectly honest, I don't think that we should consider it binding. Otherwise I have always had good relations with Tredje and the Clan. I found that we openly chatted and at times talked about mutually beneficial deals, although, we didn't seem to actually sign any!

I'll be honest, there was much discussion about the Sons of the Inferno when they first came onto the scene and there was much talk about anti-clan movements. The result was that each player sought to defend themselves individually, but not together. Iskender seems to be defending himself by joining in with you, I went for Empyrean based units, Serdoa.... well - god knows and Bob had a CoE focus that appears to have failed. Having said that, by all accounts, puppet/skeleton spam seems to have worked quite well!

I don't expect that your game plan will change much from what Tredje had planned - world domination. However, if there is anything I can do for you to secure an extension to our NAP for example, let me know. Here are some suggestions:

- I currently have a deal of Silk - Cotton with the Clowns - I could cancel that to help slow their economy further.
- While I was away plako accepted a gift from Bob too... not sure what the crack was there - I'll have to find out. I seem to be getting 2 cotton?!?!
- I am currently sending the Clowns Earth Mana - this is due to finish very soon and will be cancelled.
- We do not have OB - Do you have spare foreign trade route slots - I would not benefit from the deal as mine are all filled up.
- Any mana deals you would be interested in?
- Gold? I don't have currency yet, but could get it to enable any gold based deals.

I think the Clan have this game wrapped up barring any unforeseen events but 2nd place would mean a lot to me. I would consider any duration of NAP extension, long or short.

I am happy to chat whenever and am online most weekdays GMT 0900 - 1800. I usually play the save 1900 - 2200 and so will be online a bit then, but not for very long.

All the best,
Square Leg[/COLOR]

[Mardoc]

Apparently Bob decided to make Jubilee the ground he dies on; he moved in all his adepts, along with 3 warriors (or maybe he trained them). I summoned one fireball to reduce the defenses, then 3 fire elementals to start in on his stack. Iskender believes his shock priests will preferentially target adepts, and have something like 96% odds, so we ought to kill a bunch of adepts next turn. And of course my elementals will target adepts ahead of puppets and skeletons too, due to their resistance to death damage.

The only real worry I have is that he throws the whole stack at us; Iskender used some of his tigers to raze Gaudium, and we've lost a bit the past couple times; after killing bob's warriors the elementals were slightly damaged. Assuming that doesn't happen, though, or that Fire Elementals + Sons + Priests, all on a hill, can survive that, we ought to be able kill off Bob's adepts in the near future, and then chew through his stack immediately afterward.

Therefore, aside from training Shamans, my whole empire is focused on economy . Well, I'm counting Rantine as economy, since he'll go converting barbarians rather than fighting, except in extremis. I'm hoping to get Warrens, markets, and elder councils put up everywhere. I ought to plan a couple few cities to settle, too - at the least I need to resettle the island Bob razed, but the area that had been no-mans-land between the Balseraphs and me is also calling for cities. If I build settlers

[Gaspar]

Sorry I've been quiet, I've really only had time to play my various turns the last few days - just ask the guys in the diplo game .

Anyway, SL is Empy, yeah? Blinding Light could definitely put a crimp in things for us. I think the problem right now is figuring out what endgame is. We need a bit of focus for a post-Balseraph world. So let me throw out a few questions and perhaps we can refine a plan here...

1. How long are we NAP'd with Iskender after the war? Once Bob is out of the picture, he certainly is the clear leader, especially with a bunch of high xp units to wane. Also, I think we need to answer the question of the worldspell NAP. If the worldspell NAP is considered to be any unit gained by For The Horde, I don't know that we'll ever be able to beat him. I'm not sure how committed to Leaves he is, its a good Military religion now, but come T3 units, it falls behind. Anyway, the questions we have to answer re: Iskender are primarily if we can win without killing him, and if not, how do we generate enough strength to do so?

2. What's endgame? Is it Domination? Because we have to understand, especially with Sheelba instead of Jonas, the longer the game goes on, the better it is for everyone but us. We're never going to catch up in tech, so rather than going through the tree trying to improve this or that or the other thing, I sort of feel like we should have a military objective tech at which point we basically shut down the economy and go kill everyone. Right now, as I understand it, our biggest flaw is that the Sons are everything. So anyone with a lot of units is going to be able to hold out for a good long time. Without Iskender, I don't actually think we'd have enough units to beat Bob. Its unlikely we'll ever have another ally in a war, so that's something to consider.

3. Where's our collateral coming from? Are we going to rely solely on the Sons for this, or do we want another source. I doubt those Shamans are ever going to amount to much, but can we even afford to tech to say, Priesthood, so we can get Ritualists out to support our firepower. I suppose we could use Cats, but they're prohibitively expensive and super slow.

4. To what extent is it worth pretending we can work amicably with the others to avoid a dogpile? Our backlines are certainly vulnerable, though I don't know that anyone really can compete with us in terms of sheer ability to churn out crap to stop an attack. Bronze Warriors are nothing special, but they make a pretty nasty to crack defense when you're churning out 2/turn.

I don't have answers to much on that list, except that I'd say Ogres make a pretty fine answer to the "what is our tech endgame." A bunch of Iron Ogres being pumped out of Warrens is pretty much always Sheelba's endgame, and would probably be pretty unstoppable supported by the Sons. How long are we talking to get there, though? 50 turns? More? I guess I just think we need a bit of focus, and if we somehow didn't win this game I'd feel sort of like we should be quite embarassed.

[Mardoc]

You picked a good time to start thinking about post-Balseraph world. Bob hit our stack last turn with everything that could move, including the adepts. He's got 4 remaining. There's still a stack of 20ish skeletons in Jubilee, but it's definitely endgame for him now. Which makes it time to start our long term planning.

I'm leaving Jubilee for Iskender and my reinforcements stack, while the Sons head east to take out Guell and Hexam.

I'm thinking, especially since we'll have the Ashen Veil holy city, with shrine (thanks Bob :neenernee), that it's worth going as far as Ritualists, then back to Iron Ogres. I'm currently researching Currency, though, because I think the extra trade routes will get us there faster - if you can talk me out of it, I'll swap immediately to the AV line, though, of Philo/Priesthood/way of the wicked. And I'm building Warrens all over the place.

I agree it should be Ritualists - catapults aren't doubled, and I expect the Sons to actually not be enough. We might manage a Shaman or two with enough XP for a fireball, but realistically all I expect from them is Haste and Rust (and once Iskender gifts us Enchantment, enchanted Blades). We're up to a decent research rate, something like 90 beakers/turn, and can expect to add in a bunch from finishing markets/elder councils and the barb cities and the balseraph lands, so I think that research path isn't too much to shoot for. Also, at least at the moment, Square Leg is the only one significantly above our research rate, although Iskender will probably rebound when he adds in Wanes and gets out from under war weariness.

I think Iskender probably will stick in Leaves - he's mentioned planning to use the Axe with summons, and PoL are the best summoner he's got, at least to my knowledge. We're NAP'd with him until T150.

So, that's the tech situation. What about economy/expansion? And what about victory? Well, I think I may offer Square Leg an extension on the NAP, actually. It'll take a little while to turn the Clown cities into profits, especially if there are some off coast (and Iskender's latest recon shots imply that there must be, we can't see enough room for 5 remaining cities). Combine that delay with either an engineer-rushed Bone Palace or an engineer granted golden age, and we'll have a good opportunity to get infrastructure up and an army spammed out from Warrens.

Alternately, we just head north immediately into dwarven lands while Iskender is still NAP'd. Realistically, between the Sons and a couple cities spamming Warrens troops, we ought to be able to hurt him pretty badly, pretty quickly, maybe even wrapping that up before Iskender's NAP expires. Golems, unlike skeletons, are expensive to train - but are still probably weaker than elementals. Blinding Light would hurt, but we could take Magic resistance on the Sons, and Blinding Light can't be chained, so we'd have an action every other turn. And, well, Golems are slow, while we have Haste and move 3 elementals - even with immobilizing us, we might still stay out of their grasp.

[Gaspar]

More to say on this later, but I wanted to get this out before you actually did any diplo...

Between us and Square Leg, who's more afraid of who?

So why do we want a NAP again? I swear to god, RB players have some weird NAP tic or something.

RB player: Hey, how's it going?
Other RB player: Not bad, you?
RB player: Goo---NAP, NAP, MUST SIGN NAP
Other RB player: But dude, I can't even attack you, there's like 4000 tiles between our Civs.
RB player: OK OK OK, HOW ABOUT A 100T NAP with a 37T COOLDOWN?
Other RB player: Seriously man, chill, we don't need a NAP.
RB player: HOW ABOUT IF I GIVE YOU ALL MY GOLD?! NAP THEN? I CAN HAZ NAP, PLZ?
Other RB player: No, really bud, its coo---NAP SIGNED!!!!!!!!

For the love of god, don't sign a NAP with SL unless you a) have a plan for what you're going to do with that time that you can't do unless you have a NAP and b) extract serious concessions for it and c) keep it of a short and determinate length. But really, there's absolutely no reason to sign this NAP. Better he stays on his toes and builds a bunch of crap for an attack that might not be coming .

Just my two cents.

[Mardoc]

But...what if we give him some mana loans, then he might sign, right?



Ok, ok, you've made your point. Really the only reason I might want an NAP with him would be to go after Serdoa or Iskender unmolested. But Square Leg is the most obvious target.

Either that, or indulge him in letting him be 2nd place, by insisting he pay tribute and join in an attack on Iskender.

[Mardoc]

Apparently Bob moved most of the garrison of Jubilee westward last turn, presumably to either hit my reinforcements or threaten Coombe View and force Iskender to come back unhidden. Iskender took advantage of that to take Jubilee himself. So rather than push too hard, I sent him a pair of elementals to cover his stacks. Guell is now down to one garrison unit, after the other pair of elementals.

Iskender says he should be able to eat away at the skelly stack with his tigers, and Coombe View won't really be at risk. I think Iskender + my reinforcements will probably be enough to handle that rogue stack of skeletons + adepts, probably hopefully. Iskender talked me out of bringing back the Sons stack to help deal with them, anyway. And Iskender will gift me Jubilee once it's safe. I wouldn't really gain much from owning it now, anyway, I might as well let him suppress the revolt for me.

Domestically, nothing happened. Maybe next turn will be more interesting.

And Square Leg tried to catch me for a chat as I was running out the door; I missed talking to him, but I did compose and send this e-mail to him:

[COLOR="Orange"]Square Leg,

I can't chat here at work, but I can still e-mail. Here's the general situation as I know it:

Despite Iskender joining me, Bob nearly won the war. 70 skeletons in one stack, every other turn, is a force to be reckoned with. We just barely managed to kill Bob's nightwatch - if it had spawned one turn earlier, or if CoE had appeared somewhere else, you'd likely have a southern border with Gibbon, 4 puppet-spawning Sons, and then another bunch as soon as Bob could sail Gibbon to Acheron's island and back. This has been a very fun war to fight, just because it was so touch-and-go for the duration.

Honestly, Iskender's decision to join in the war was based at least as much on fear of Bob as it was about the Clan, as demonstrated by Bob fighting us to a standstill despite the 2v1. Well, plus a bit of desire for XP farming for Shades; we couldn't get through Bob's skeleton/puppet stacks most of the time, but Iskender could always grab a kill for a couple more XP.

Still, at the moment I think we've made it to the endgame of this war. Last turn, out of either frustration or seeing a chance that the RNG took away from him, Bob threw his whole stack at our stack, including attacking with all his adepts and puppets. We won that battle, and with it, probably also the war - without a critical mass of adepts for skeleton spam, there's not much more Bob can do, although it'll still take a while for us to finish him, particularly if he's got island cities like I think he does. So if I were you, I'd prepare for the entrance of Hyborem into the world .

As for a NAP - well, 'stop helping Bob' isn't a particularly useful request anymore. My primary concern is that your GNP is significantly above mine; if I don't force you to at least pay maintenance on an army, you'll leave me in the dust. Which means that the only thing that really tempts me is the possibility of you paying tribute, a significant enough sum of gold per turn to allow me to keep up in tech with you. I'm not sure why you'd be willing to sign that deal, though.

That said, NAP expiration isn't necessarily a declaration of war, either. So far I've pretty much just been implementing the decisions that Tredje made, but I'm not committed to winning by conquest or domination. I am, however, committed to trying to win, so the question of peace will come down to what other possibilities I can see.

- Mardoc[/COLOR]