[Spoilers] Defining the phrase "€˜Hung Like a Horse"€™: Pb & the Kuriotates

[HelloGoodSir]

Given your asking about the trade/war rules, you're going to get some mana someone owes you, and then attack them.

I can't remember if Sareln owes mana. His culture is giving your 'allies' some trouble, so he seems like the obvious choice. Use the mana for tower of Div, then kill him off quickly before Bob can try to intervene?

[pocketbeetle]

Time for another guess given by your final statement to Selrahc!

Attack the Minions? (i.e the vassals)

Your other guess was better! =)

Given your asking about the trade/war rules, you're going to get some mana someone owes you, and then attack them.

I can't remember if Sareln owes mana. His culture is giving your 'allies' some trouble, so he seems like the obvious choice. Use the mana for tower of Div, then kill him off quickly before Bob can try to intervene?

Hello HelloGoodsir, (had to be done )

Sareln does owe me mana, a 10t loan of mind mana, as well as a free FoL priest.
I'm doubtful how long Bob and I will remain at peace however, and whether Sareln will honour that deal once we (and presumably Sareln also) are at war.

The plan you've outlined is entirely possible, but the timeframe is too long for what I have in mind.
Also, don't forget Sareln has two cities on the other side of Bob's borders, which are a bit far for me to reach.

Let's shine some more light on the subject.


Diplo:

Iskender’s not very comforting reply:

Hi

It's odd that Cull would make such move. Looks like Bob's made the
last use of his obsolete Bloodpet/Moroi army before upgrading it. I
think that this vassalization might do more harm than good to the
Calabim - they get some happy faces but it could be outweighed by the
increased city maintenance.

This turn my 15-turn Gems deal with the Calabim expired. Next turn I'm
cancelling it and offering you the Gems as promised.

Iskender

Which I promptly note to Selrahc in a pm:

I pointed out Cull's vassalisation to Iskender.
Rather than being concerned about it, he said he thought it was 'odd', and that it probably didn't matter as the "extra happy faces would be balanced out by increased city maintenance".

That would the extra happy faces from vassalisation + Cull giving all his luxury resources, so that Bob now has pretty much every one on the map?
Oh dear.

My reply to Iskender:

Hey Iskender,

Gems offer accepted, thanks!

Remind me on Saturday to bring up the subject of Fine Clothes.
I now have 3 spares and with Cull's vassalisation, not many people to trade them to.

As for the Calabim, I'm not sure I'd call Str 5 vampirism Moroi obsolete yet.

Kind Regards,
Pb, Opal for Harmony Boy-King.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 164:

No splashscreens, just a Gems offer from the Hippus (previously we were trading Fine Clothes for Gems).



Note the Hippus “mountain of gold” trick starting up again.
I’m not going to sit and watch this time – assuming it’s still available I’m going straight to Deception to found CoE after Engineering.
It’ll only take me like 2t.

At Riedquat, Amycus promotes to C3 to heal a bit.
Courage promoted Stonewardens make damn good medics (35% heal rate), so Amycus will reach full health in one turn.
Strangely the other two poison victims have disappeared.



To the right of the screenshot above, you can see a Goblin has left the Eastern fort.
Unfortunately it’s still in Svartalfar land (that border expansion is proving very annoying) so that Goblin will probably be cleaned up by the Svart hunter nearby.
Instead, I moved Chromis in Zaonce 3S to kill the extra lizardman which hopefully will leave the ruins this turn.

The other Svart hunter moved 1E, Jumbo and Curly are in hot pursuit. ^^
(I expect it’ll escape next turn through the forest 1SE).

Hawk flyover revealed the first Vampire built in Morr’ta’nar this turn.



Over at Avelorn, Beefy sprouted a pair of hind legs for the minor cost of 133 gp.



Don’t ask me how it came about (witch’s potion?), but that gives me another CA with the Raider promotion.

Ending turn completed two more CAs, Caledor will finish the PoC next turn.
The Shrine of Sirona was built at Kwythellar (let’s have another just to drive the point home).



Also received an AV spread to Zaonce , why couldn’t it be a useful religion like OO or RoK?
The RoK shrine is supposed to improve spread chance yet all I’m getting is yucky AV!


Demographics:

Just throwing them out for effect.
Selrahc and I are still in GAs, but Bob is storming the Crop Yield and according to Iskender, probably the Mfg Goods also.
Meanwhile the Power graph of yours truly is going vertical, and so it should.

[fire&ice]

thought of one

Air transfer mission

Question
Does ATM have to do with your settlement naming sceme?

[BCAgamer]

Second guess: ATM = Altheriol-ta-Mealthiel?

[fire&ice]

from somone who has never played the mod can your units turn into ghosts or die from poison damage?

[darrelljs]

from somone who has never played the mod can your units turn into ghosts or die from poison damage?

Poison slows down the rate of healing, but it doesn't continue causing damage.

You cannot turn your units into ghosts (well, the Sidar kind of do this but not like you mean).

Darrell

[pocketbeetle]

Curiosity about Military State: What units are draftable in FFH that you can build? That could be the issue.

I figured this out btw Cyneheard.
Sorry I was tired and not thinking straight earlier.

I can't actually build swordsmen because I don't have the required building, a training yard.
I would guess for that reason I can't draft them either.
Not a big deal.

Question
Does ATM have to do with your settlement naming sceme?

Nope, it has to do with someone else's settlement naming scheme!

Second guess: ATM = Altheriol-ta-Mealthiel?

Let's run through the thought processes.
Krill got the ball rolling by figuring out ATM was an acronym.

Arseraping the mother****er?

Profane pointed out that cash withdrawing needs a target:

Does Operation ATM involve hordes of Centaurs 'withdrawing cash' from foreign-owned Towns, Villages, Hamlets and Cottages?

While Ilios noted the Calabim don't have much cash lying around.

Unfortunately, the Calabim don't have cottages...

TT had the closest guess for most of the time:

Attack the Mercenary?

Until BCA came along.

So what is Operation Altheriol-Ta-Mealthiel?

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 165:

Turnlog shows Selrahc’s GA has ended (maybe hooray, less so if he does sign a MDP with me), while AV has spread yet again .



I bet it’s those damn Vampires, they’re doing blood sacrifices or something aren’t they? *kicks the useless RoK shrine*

Screenshot shows that Sareln chose not to take out the Goblin and instead is sitting on a hill waiting for it to attack and so gain 1xp?
Also, First Noel’s borders expanded and the Illian culture on the Dyes tile jumped to 75:25. :hat:
Come to daddy my precious bluey purple things!

Chromis cleaned up the stray lizardman, taking no damage, for 4xp, before heading back North to Zaonce.



As expected, Sareln’s hunter escaped through the forest into Calabim lands.
Curly and Jumbo turn sadly around.

Amycus in Riedquat is now full health.
It’s worth noting that despite my previous comments (and having put 3 turns into plantationing), the worker on the Sugar is now chopping jungle to clear it next turn.



Selrahc’s Stonewarden was renamed Temple Fugit (:rolleyes before heading off to sample the wonders of Silent Night.

The two poisoned and missing CAs have joined a Centaur Archer convention at KK.
I thought that promoting one to Combat II then using the Shrine of Sirona would heal it fully.
Sadly that’s not the case.

I guess 5.9 health is better than 4, but it means the -10% str from poison stays.
I’ll *probably* use Sirona on Echeclus next turn.
Depends what happens.

Talking of CA conventions, here’s a shot of Dumbo upgrading and Rocky the Stonewarden making sure everyone has SoF.



The non-Raider CAs then moved 1SE.

Over in the East, it’s pretty much a bunch of workers and not much else.
I so wish Vanilla Ice had the Raider promotion to go on a deleting rampage.



Ending turn completed the PoC :hat: and another CA for the convention in KK.



Kwythellar threw 173 hammers (/335) at the GotN, Avelorn completed a smokehouse.
Engineering researched giving the ability to build the world wonder Guild of Hammers and +1 road movement.

Caledor will now focus on quickly building the Guild of Hammers and Bazaar of Mammon in that order.
It won’t take long.




Other stuff:

The Calabim researched Way of the Wicked this turn:

…and they still have their GMer sitting around in Acaia doing nothing.



If he founds CoE, then he could use that GMer to build the shrine (Nox Noctis) asap.
Needless to say, we don’t want that happening, it’s just another reason in a growing mountain of reasons to go for Deception next.
Two techs needed, ETA two turns.
If it was possible to research two techs in one turn, I could do it in one.


Miscellaneous minor stuff:

The next turn will come on a Saturday, which by happy coincidence is when Iskender and I will be having a little ‘chat’.
If he says no to an alliance vs the Calabim (given all his recent excuses I’m pretty much resigned to him not getting involved) then I’m going to offer him a NAP with the stringent condition that we remain at peace until the Calabim are eliminated.

If he says yes to the NAP, happy days! I’m hopefully free to take on the Calabim and their assembled vassals.
If he says no to a NAP also…

…well, there could be some lamenting women being driven forth.

One way or another, the Hippus issue gets settled tomorrow.


Tactical map:



Count 'em!
One-Two-Three-Four-Five-Six-Seven-Eight-Nine tiles.

Military advisor screen:

As you can see, I’d be committing pretty much everything to this.
If ever Selrahc was going to stab me in the back, now is the time.

Fortunately, hawk flyovers in Illian territory have revealed nothing alarming, while on the diplo front, things are looking very promising.

.

[pocketbeetle]

Diplo:

Thanks for the reply.

Based on that I'm certainly willing to commit to a 50t defence pact. We should obviously discuss the details, and a chat on the weekend sounds good to me. I've got a few ideas on the integrated defence front that I'd like to bring up.

While I've got you, I've had another little idea. I'm getting a great scientist in a few turns. You've got the Ashen Veil holy city. If you'd be willing to give me primary "custody" of the entropy mana resulting from it, I'd be willing to use him to make the shrine, unless you've got plans to build it yourself soon. Entropy mana would be a brilliant addition to both of our magical arsenals as for my money rust is the second or third best adept castable spell in the game, after slow and haste. And I'm sure the shrine beakers couldn't hurt either. You interested?

A free GSci in return for a mana, hell yes!

Only one problem…

Hey Selrahc,

Great minds think alike.

I'm currently running a mixed bag of scientists and priests, aiming to pop a GPro/GSci to found the AV shrine next.
And yes, my main aim for doing so was the Entropy I/ Rust spell. Bob doesn't have Smelting for forges, so losing bronze weapons and -10% str would be highly effective.
Unfortunately that next GP won't be along for a while yet, so I'm definitely interested in what you've outlined.

However, before we even start considering such a proposal, are you sure that it's possible for a GSci/GPro to build a shrine in a foreign city?
I just threw up a quick wbtest and the results didn't look good. Let me know if you're getting a different outcome.

Kind Regards,
Pb, Enshrined Boy-King

If so, it’s a shame, but there's other options like Undercouncil resolutions.
It would also allay my GP fears Re: Cull vassalisation, although the GMer trade mission + gold gift is still an option.


On a separate note, I noticed that Cull’s thread received several posts yesterday.

If he hasn’t already, please try and get him to explain why he vassalised.
I would be interested in reading that at the end of the game.

I already know part of the reason: he told me a while ago that he felt he didn’t have a chance at winning and at best might be able to manage third or fourth.
But how he came to the reasoning that vassalising was the best means of achieving that (ignoring my repeated offers, reminders and demonstrated past intent that I was willing to help him), is beyond me.