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

[pocketbeetle]

I've always thought is was 0xp for the defender and 1xp for the withdrawing attacker, but now I'm unsure too...

It is. The retreating unit gets 1xp, the other gets nothing.

Thanks for the correction.
I might have reconsidered if I'd known.

And if you want to start jacking up the price PB, remember there are people on this board who can find where you live and organise parties.

*Starts typing furiously*


Diplo:

Time to get that loldocument signed.

Subject: MDP - please bold any amendments or changes you make


We, the undersigned, do hereby declare:


That on this day, the 21st of the glorious season of the Centaur, the great nation of the Kuriotates and the almost as great nation of the Illians have entered into an agreement to provide mutual defense, protection and succour.

It follows that:

• Should either nation be threatened by the spectres of war, their combined militaries will act as one to repel invaders, with the inevitable crushing victory being followed by a campaign to lessen or remove the potential for future invasions.
  
• It is acknowledged that the primary aim of this pact is to combat the ever-spreading taint of the Calabim in the South, and any calls for defense by either party in this regard will be heeded and responded to in a sincere and expedient fashion.
  
• Although not within the scope of this contract, external threats originating from other parties will be considered on a case by case basis, with the option to provide assistance implied but not obligatory.
  
• Not merely limited to situations where one party is declared upon, this document will also encompass deployments where a declaration is felt necessary or timely to prevent or pre-empt first strikes.
  
• Given the Illian history of blatant and dastardly warmongering, the gentle Kuriotates have stipulated a clause here requiring a declaration on the Calabim or one of their vassals to be, at a minimum, discussed prior to taking said action.
  
  <<the text rolls on and on, clearly the author is enjoying himself>>
  
  
  
• It is considered a given of this accord that neither party will declare war on each other for the duration, nor provide assistance in any form to an outside faction with this aim.
  
• The duration of this Military Defense Pact shall be 50 turns inclusive, beginning sunrise on the 170th turning of the world, ending sunset on the 220th.
  
• Finally, it is to be noted that this agreement should be viewed as extraordinary in the histories of both parties.
  If by the end of it the threat is considered over, then allowing this covenant to lapse will not be viewed as a decrease in Kurio-Illian relations, particularly in light of their 170 turns of peaceful and paperless coexistence.
  With the grace and benevolence of our Boy-King and yes, I suppose Auric also, we will both be around to discuss any extension.
  

If the above is in accordance with your expectations, please sign your name in the space below.
If unable to read and write, a simple ‘X’ will suffice.

Supreme Boy-King of the Kuriotates:
[FONT=&quot]Pocketbeetle [/FONT]


Chief Advisor to Auric, Totalitarian Ruler of the Illians:
SELRAHC



(Please note for each day you delay signing this document, one slave shall be freed from the Jingle Bells mines.)

(Please note, the recent addition of earth adepts to mining operations has enabled us to dig deeper and further than any expedition before. The men who leave the mines are haunted haggard creatures, ranting about things man was not meant to know and infected with hideous diseases that have no remedy beyond death. As such we feel that liberated slaves from Jingle Bell mines would fit right in with the all new, all gibbering Kuriotate empire, and have in fact sent a delegation of the dozen worst of them to deliver this reply. Fnord.)

If you head hurts after reading all that, then it’s a case of job well done.

I thought I'd seriously screwed up after sending that to Selrahc - the last bulletpoint screams of evil intentions and shouldn't have been included.
But he signed it, so I got away with it. =)

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 168:

To keep you on your toes, in reverse order we have the founding of CoE, accompanied by a blast of Celtic music (not Enya according to the credits) and a mini-movie.



Then the Deception splashscreen, with the turnlog telling me that AV spread yet again.
That takes the AC counter to 39/134 = 29%.
At 41 (two more spreads), it’ll hit 30%.



Over in Calabimland, vampires are starting to stack up in the border cities.

I’d forgotten about royal guards, which is slightly annoying.
They’re 4/8 str, able to receive weapon promotions taking them to 5/9 with bronze weapons, and decent mobility to allow for quick defense.
On the brightside, Bob is only allowed to have four. On the downside, Cull is also in Aristocracy and with a few techs could also build four to defend him.
And I haven’t taken any Formation promotions yet.
Centaurpoo.



Hmm, Mobility and Formation promotions on Deafula?
Penny for your thoughts Bob. ^^

Over in Hippusland, no huge changes between turns.



Warriors still being built wherever possible and receiving bronze weapons.
There’s a lone archer South of Feiss Mabdon with the Mobility promotion, clearly running to reach the city.

Starting in the West, Tails took out the warrior in Ihara (desert base tile) and kept the city (AC means I can’t raze cities anymore).
Beefy and Elatus charged into Murousbane:



Elatus is one of a couple of CAs being promoted up the Drill line, I’m also keen on picking up more Shock CAs (shocking I know).

Taking Murousbane meant Demoleon was free to walk ito Gaene and capture the two workers located SE of it.



Brought Ornius down to check out the odds on the Mobility archer, not very tempting.
Iskender probably wants to move it onto the hill N-NE next turn; so long as I close down that option I can pick it off whenever I want.

Down came Thaumas and a promotion/Sirona-healed Mimas.



Elatus moved to defend Gaene.
Feiss Mabdon has an archer, two warriors and a worker inside.

I then had to decide what to do with the Giants: either move them back North to defend Riedquat/Zaonce or South to bombard down the 30% defenses in Feiss Mabdon. Bombarding sounds good to me, which leaves the problem of HN units being unable to use neutral roads.
By my reckoning, HN units are becoming less useful at this stage of the game: most players are now split into clearly defined factions. I’m not going to attack Selrahc, Cull is too far away, and if I feel like attacking Bob I might as well do it under colours. That just leaves Sareln and his annoying hunters, but I’ll keep HN Jumbo around to deal with him.
The other use of HN is to pillage roads within your own territory, which the Nightwatch can do.

So nationality was declared, the Giants stomped South.
I got in a touch of pillaging also.



A bunch of CAs moved to ATM to heal up for the final push on Feiss Mabdon.
Moved two captured Hippus workers 1S of Radonnar along with a covering CA.



Note the red circled tile where a road used to be.
Iskender is in the Apprenticeship civic, enabling him to promote warriors built in Feiss Mabdon to Guerilla I straight away.
Strength 4, +40% promotion, on a hill (+25%) plus innate +25% city defense, all combine to make me uncomfortable.
So I took 5 minutes to figure out where the Calabim Copper was coming in, and cut it.
The result?

Success.

Ending turn completed the Guild of Hammers in Caledor, forges for everyone! (along with +1 unhealth )



Inserted an adept into Kwythellar’s queue.
I need a unit capable of casting Life I asap, my lone adept is at 13/17 xp with no free promotions, building it at Kwythellar is faster than a mage guild at KK.

Oh and WW is at +5.



I’ll insert a herbalist into Caledor next turn.


Demographics:

Not so pretty anymore, at least the Soldier Count is decent.

[Thoth]

Thanks for the correction.
I might have reconsidered if I'd known.

If you hadn't already made your descision, I'd have kept my mouth shut.

It's a *really* annoying mechanic when FFH's "defensive retreat" mechanic kicks in.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 169:

Elementalism splashscreen, Alteration up next.



Flicking through the diplo windows reveals Cull has suddenly come into a lot of cash, while the 580gp treasury Iskender was sitting on seems to have evaporated.

No big surprise, although I was half hoping Iskender would give it to Selrahc instead.
It’ll be interesting to see if Bob insists on that cash being given to him. Who knows, it might spark some resentment in Cull.
Imagine that boat has sailed however.

Down South in Hippus territory, not much is moving.



Iskender has deleted his remaining two workers around Feiss Mabdon, while the Mobility archer is running for safety.
Feiss Mabdon’s garrison is now an archer, two warriors and a scout, most of them guerilla promoted.

The two captured workers are ordered to quickly build a road, which Mimas then uses to canter down and engage the archer.
(I later realised this screenshot is a bit confusing - there was only one archer.)



Around Thariss you can see Sareln has two stacks, one of 3-4 workers on the Corn, and a mixed bag of 4 hunters/warriors who have suddenly decided to show up.
Apparently one hunter is no longer sufficient garrison for Thariss?
Strange people.

Other stuff going on in no particular order:
Dyewatch is now at 50:49% Svart:Illian culture, while the newly built adept promotes Mobility and starts running for his nation’s life (dammit need haste).



Turnlog shows that for once freaking AV didn’t spread, and instead the depredations of the vampires have caused the good people of Acaia to turn to the earth for guidance.
<<Editor’s note: What is it with these people and stacking units on their borders?>>



The glowing ball you can see in Acaia is the visual effect for the Spirit II spell: Hope.
So long as the casting unit (royal guard) remains, the city receives +1 happy, +4 cpt and units built there are given the Courage promotion for free.

The formerly Hippus fort spawned a Goblin, which Jumbo munched for a measly 2 xp.



After which I engaged in a bit of pillaging (this is going to become a theme over the next couple of turns):



Said cash being used to rush the incomplete builds in Avelorn and KK (Cultist and CA).

Another way of slowing down the AC is to remove AV from cities via Inquisition:

There are no real requirements for the Inquisition spell, it can be taken by Disciple class units as a promotion at any point.
(I’m thinking of Selrahc’s cities of Silent Night and Deck the Halls, wondering if my units can remove AV from them.)

Which just left me to end turn, completing the Guild of the Nine in Kwythellar. :hat:



The settlements of Orrere and Diso expanded their borders thanks to OO.

Look good?
I thought so too when I took that screenshot, but then a second later this happened:



OMFG
I have four holy cities, one of them has a shrine built, it is not the AV shrine, yet every other spread seems to be this freaking religion.
I am seriously considering disconnecting Avelorn from the rest of the empire at this point.
One more spread of AV, one single city razed, and Blight arrives.

Run little adept, RUN.

[Ilios]

You could always burn that filthy AV Holy to the ground!

[pocketbeetle]

You could always burn that filthy AV Holy to the ground!

You jest, but I damn well looked into it!
The -AC from razing the AV holy city doesn't offset the +AC from pop loss, and would still cause Blight.

[uberfish]

It's not just bad luck, AV and Order have an inherently higher spread rate than other religions.

[BCAgamer]

Have you considered Purge the Unfaithful?

[pocketbeetle]

It's not just bad luck, AV and Order have an inherently higher spread rate than other religions.

Shhhhh!
I'm trying to build dramatic tension here!

Yes, I was aware that AV is assigned a higher spread rate, another example of the modmakers being evil and trying to introduce religious tension.
Although I must admit I thought that AV and Order spread was related to the AC counter, speeding up as it increased.
Turns out it's not, AV and Order just have higher fixed chances of spreading.

iSpreadFactors from CIV4ReligionInfos.xml:

• FoL: 100
  
• Order: 175
  
• OO: 75
  
• RoK: 100
  
• AV: 150
  
• Empyrean: 100
  
• CoE: 100
  

Certainly didn't know about OO, although it makes sense thinking back to previous games.
There's a good thread about it here.

Have you considered Purge the Unfaithful?

That's a very good idea and something I hadn't considered fully, mainly because of the hassle involved (losing RoK temples in main cities, RoK spreads in settlements, revolt chance etc).

The other problem is, I only have four cities/settlements with AV: Zaonce, Urgortheth, KK and the holy city Avelorn.
Looking up that particular ritual, gives this:

Purge the Unfaithful:

• Removes all non-state religions & religious Buildings from Empire
  
• Can cause if multiple religions removed
  
• Adds 3 to the AC
  

So in this case I would be building a ritual, taking all that hassle, only to end up with the same AC I started with.
But definitely good thinking nonetheless. =)

[BCAgamer]

Actually, since you have the AV holy city, if you use purge the unfaithful, the AC would be 29-(4+1+1+1-3), meaning that you would reduce the AC to 25. It wouldn't do much, but it would reduce the AC.
EDIT: I do, however, get your point about the hassle and revolts.
EDIT 2: Doing a test in Worldbuilder, I realized that the AV holy city does not get removed when PtU is built, so my point is moot. Never mind.