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

[pocketbeetle]

Does the 10% health bonus from fellowship of leave temples get counted before or after other buildings?

As Thoth said.

Does the mage have to keep casting the hope spell or is it a permanent addition to the city?

As Thoth said.

Can you do a quick run down of the mana nodes and sources you currently have and elucidate us on your plans for all the future mana nodes? Do you plan to promote any offensive mage spells or do you not have the spare mana to do it?

As Thoth sa... dammit he didn't answer this one.

I have four going on five mana nodes:

• Kwythellar node, currently farmed.
  
• Caledor node, currently farmed.
  
• Fuerte node, will be turned into an Enchantment node.
  
• Avelorn node, currently Life node.
  
• ATM node, will require some culture down there to be claimed.
  

I also have Earth (RoK shrine), Water/Spirit/Sun (palace), will soon get Entropy (AV shrine), and have deals in place to get Law/Ice x2/Mind from other players. I'm also looking to seal the Enchantment for Water loan with the Illians in the near future.

Current plan is to turn the farmed nodes into Enchantment, but that clashes a bit with Blight.

Do you plan to use the disciple in avelorn because it has the fewest religions?

I don't plan to use the FoL missionary in Avelorn although I wouldn't mind eventually getting a FoL temple there.
Current priority is insulating against Blight, for that I would like a FoL temple in Caledor, which is where it's going.

Does council of esus count as a religion for the lowered chance of a religion spreading?

CoE counts as a religion for chances of spreading yes.

Do I ask too many questions?

No.

Also Buffy is awesome.

Yes!

I realy think you should name some of the people you are using to slay vampires after the mythbusters: jamie, adam, Tory, Kari, and Grant.

I never really watched that program much, although I did catch a few episodes such as one where they proved you couldn't really shoot people underwater.

Somebody needs to update the fall from heaven wiki then. http://fallfromheaven.wikia.com/wiki/Temple_of_Leaves

Agree that part is wrong.
I think that some of it has been copied from the FFH1 wiki, meaning a few mistakes may have crept in.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 175:

Way of the Forests splashscreen at the start:



Turnlog tells me that the Khazad received a minor event.

There is evidence that one of our regiments has been torturing prisoners. They argue that they use the prisoners in their war games, to make it more exciting and more realistic for their men.

• Have the unit decommissioned.
  
  
• Reprimand the unit commander.
  
  
• So?
  
  
• Congratulate the unit commander for his ferocity.
  

I’ve only had that event a couple of times and my memory is hazy.
The last two options require something like an Evil alignment or being a nasty civ (Doviello?), so I think Cull only had a choice of the first two.
Given that the AC counter has decreased by 2 points to 36, I think he chose to decommission the unit.

That puts a slight crimp in my plans for starting Blight with the AV shrine, because when my two cultists finish their inquisition (can’t stop it), the AC will be at 34. However at the same time, it looks like another player may be thinking of raising the counter.
The Calabim have researched the AV religious tech, Corruption of Spirit.

OO temple founded in Orerve to gain access to the Crabs, I also cancelled the Fish for Corn deal with Selrahc.
The FoL missionary is travelling to Caledor, will reach there and try to spread next turn.



I also noticed that Bob has unfortunately picked up his own source of Wheat.
Since I can’t find the resource on the map, and it’s definitely not being given to him by anyone else, it must be in the black here, near a city called Pinadom:

Ending turn completed a hospital in Caledor, aqueduct in KK, two city borders expanded.



And of course the inevitable AV spread to Feiss Mabdon.


Blightwatch:

In Blight readiness news, I think I’m good to go as soon as the hospital is built in Kwythellar.
The hospitals in KK and Avelorn are both less essential and going to cost me a lot of gold to cashrush. I’m not sure if I should do that, but I probably will.

As an added incentive to cause Blight, I noticed that I was receiving an extra +1 to totalGoodBuildingHealth this turn.
All my previous tests were using the Malakim (don’t ask why), so I failed to notice that the Kuriotates palace with its ‘+1 health to all cities’ would get involved too:

No complaints here.
The Calabim capital Prespur is still above size 20, so Blight should hurt them a bit.
We’ll see how long it takes to get the last two hospitals in and whether Bob uses that free savant he just gained to increase the AC by another +1, taking me into AV shrine trigger range.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 176:

No splashscreens or wonder movies this turn, but the FoL missionary crossed over the river Kwy to infiltrate Caledor.



His mission: to spread some leafy love.
The result…

The turnlog above says that Selrahc completed the Catacomb Libralus in Silent Night, whipping ~4 pop to finish it swiftly.
Almost makes me think he was worried about someone stealing it.
The wonder itself provides a free mage guild to every city and a minor science boost in the home city (+4 bpt, one extra hireable scientist spec).

Oh, and the Calabim converted to Ashen Veil.

Blood…it even makes a good fertiliser!

Iskender warned me about Bob going AV – forgot about that for a while. I also noticed the comments by DaveV over in the PBEM5 forum about Bob liking ritualists.
Ritualists are decent Disciple units (priests) who can cast Ring of Fire for strong collateral damage.
Makes sense really, catapults could never keep up with a Raider vampire army.
The free savant gained from the AV tech can be seen 1E of Acaia.

Meanwhile, time for me to do some more xp farming.
The two Cover CAs that attacked the Urgortheth fort have healed up again and are ready for the second round.



They’re successful and have both reached level 6 with a promotion in hand.
Two Goblin archers left in that fort.

Over at Zaonce, Chromis first cleaned up a spawned lizardman, then Mimas and Lycopes reduced the fort garrison down to a single archer.



That’s the advantage of the Zaonce fort over Urgortheth: no forest underneath.

Afterwards I retreated those units to heal and moved the HN Jumbo East towards the lizardman ruins.



It’s currently guarded by a single unit with 5% fortification
I can only send in Jumbo because of Sareln’s culture, but if:

1. the odds vs the lizardman are decent.
   
   • Didn’t notice the river N-S at the time, worst case scenario is 10% fortification and 40% river crossing means str 7.7 vs str 6.
     Taking C1 would mean str 9.1 vs 6
     
   
   
   
2. Jumbo doesn’t take too much dmg
   

…then I’ll explore that dungeon next turn.
Hopefully a bad outcome will spawn nasties on the uncultured tiles West, allowing the cavalry to charge in.
(Edit: Note to self, check HN units can actually explore dungeons.)

Ending turn completed an Adept in Kwythellar (building up overflow for the hospital, only need to work an extra 5h to complete it next turn), an aqueduct in Avelorn and a FoL temple in Caledor.
Most food boxes are nearly full now.



A bunch of borders also expanded, so I’ve included a shot of the South here.



AC remained unchanged this turn.


Demographics:

Haven’t had one of these for ages, Life Expectancy is nice and high, costs are dropping thanks to the Southern settlements wasting away.
Bob’s power is rising considerably, need to get back to building some military soon.
Annoyingly, the Calabim capital of Prespur dropped 3 pop this turn to 18.

[T-hawk]

Life Expectancy is nice and high

In a way, high life expectancy and approval rate can actually be bad indicators, because they signify that you have health and happy cap space that you aren't using.

[fire&ice]

but he is the Kuriotates that only means that he is using the settlements well because they count as well in the totaling of approval and life expentancy

[Ilios]

And with Blight around the corner...

[Darkmantle]

In a way, high life expectancy and approval rate can actually be bad indicators, because they signify that you have health and happy cap space that you aren't using.

The main point is that he wants to be high over the health cap because he is soon to trigger blight and give every city huge amounts of unhealthiness.

[Jkaen]

Hey, just finally registered having munched through this thread in the last few days. Had a couple of questions (one of which is now not really useful)

1. I failed to understand the raising of cities that went on, especially the one by the coast, as its my understanding the settlements cost you nothing, yet had the potential to add benefits.

Also if you kept the cities ont he border, surely that would give a bigger front against Bob. In a battle with 3/4 move against 1/2 move surely the longer the front the better?

2. You mentioned about 30 pages back that 2 tiles ont he jungle belt were not getting jungle, and that was due to hidden resources and the game not letting anything grow over it. You then have a tile next to the old capital that refuses to grow a forest, hence could this not be for the same reason (ie mithril or iron?)

[pocketbeetle]

In a way, high life expectancy and approval rate can actually be bad indicators, because they signify that you have health and happy cap space that you aren't using.

Hi T-Hawk,
Completely agree, but as others have noted above, this is one the time it needs to be as high as possible.
When Blight hits my megacities will starve, and the person on 52 health (ie right on the borderline) will have a very hard time indeed.

Hey, just finally registered having munched through this thread in the last few days. Had a couple of questions (one of which is now not really useful)

Hey there Jkaen and welcome, =)

1. I failed to understand the raising of cities that went on, especially the one by the coast, as its my understanding the settlements cost you nothing, yet had the potential to add benefits.

I don't disagree.
When I started off vs the Hippus, the plan was to raze the cities starting with ATM both to prevent Iskender retaking them and Bob from seeing a target of opportunity worth getting involved over.
That changed when the Hippus war went well and the AC jumped so quickly.

I think I've actually said at one point that I partly regret razing Kaselorne on the coast, it was useless yes, but it wasn't a hindrance either.

Also if you kept the cities ont he border, surely that would give a bigger front against Bob. In a battle with 3/4 move against 1/2 move surely the longer the front the better?

Not so much.
I acknowledge my mobility far outstrips the Calabim, but I'm going to stick with conventional military tactics here which say: the smaller the front, the better.
I regard the entire Hippus South as expendable, the only thing I have any sentimental attachment to is the mana node between ATM and Radonnor.

2. You mentioned about 30 pages back that 2 tiles ont he jungle belt were not getting jungle, and that was due to hidden resources and the game not letting anything grow over it. You then have a tile next to the old capital that refuses to grow a forest, hence could this not be for the same reason (ie mithril or iron?)

I like this, +1 for positive thinking! :hat:
You made me go back and find it here. <<Editor's note: Damn this guy spouts a lot of crap>>

Certain resources can only naturally spawn on specific tiles.
At the time of writing I was eyeing up one of those unforested hills for a potential Iron and the flat grassland for a Mithril. Since then, the treeless grassland hill has received a spread, but the flatland remains bare. I *thought* that Iron can only spawn on hills (like Gunpowder) and therefore couldn't be on flatland plains, but checking the xml, it looks like it can.
In addition, you could also be right in that a resource could've been manually added by the mapmaker, although he still professes to this day that the map is 'au naturel'. ^^
However, there's a difference between a tile being surrounded by jungle/forest and staying bare, and a tile having forest on two adjacent tiles (can forest spread diagonally?) and not sprouting branches.

I'm quietly optimistic though that there will be an Iron somewhere near me - hence my future tech path.
After finishing off Arcane Lore and the OO second religious tech, I'll be going Smelting to reveal any Iron on the map (and you get a cookie if there is Iron there), followed up by Iron working for Champions. I'll then have a decision: whether to get Mithril Working or Warhorses, with the former being a slight gamble on Mithril being somewhere under my control. (Shouldn't be too risky, I do control a good third of the map).

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 177:

Quick turn this one, will put the next one up later today.

Turnlog shows that the Calabim spread AV to Acaia, the AC is now at the required value of 36 (so + 5 = 41 = 30%) even after the two Inquisitions.
Selrahc also switched civics as he said he would.



More importantly, a small group of vampires can be seen NW of Nameless Tower.
Counting the promotions, it looks like “Dracula” is at level 14, possibly with a promotion in hand?

Two possibilities: either the Calabim are reacting to my HN Jumbo in the area and want to gank him at the lizardman ruins, or they’re heading North to the Ring of Carcer.

The Ring of Carcer is a unique feature in Illian lands that provide a free Immortal unit (Brigit the Shining) to the first player to move a level 15 unit there.
Playing it safe, I moved Jumbo 2S this turn, and clearly I need to have a chat with Selrahc about the permeability of his borders.



Around Feiss Mabdon, I'm growing a little alarmed about how many workers are congregating in the area; from the worker squatting on the forest tile E of Acaia to the four around Maron.



Fortunately he can’t reach me in a single turn with that stack in Acaia unless he roads one of the desert or forest tiles near the spectre.
I should be able to see that coming, but even so, I moved a couple of CAs back to the Radonnor fort.
I don’t regard Feiss Mabdon as defensible and will be glad when it starves down to 1 pop.

Visible Calabim military:

Ending turn completed a hospital in Kwythellar.