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

[pocketbeetle]

PocketBeetle, your thread is a real page-turner.

A slow page turner at the moment!

I have to agree. This is always the thread I check first at realms beyond!

Operation ATM smashing success. Will be interesting to see what Iskender was thinking when the game is over.
Doesn't look like this conflict will take too long then onto the main event.

are we not getting any updates because your geting destroyed by the hippus
What we arn't allowed to poke fun?

Quite the opposite I'd imagine. PB is having so many problems integrating his new acquisitions into the glorious Rat Empire he's too busy to chat.

Fair enough, but my popcorn is getting cold while I wait for an update.
The lurkers demand screenshots of mayhem!

If you don't want to tell the lurkers you can email me the updates. But whatever you do, tell me what is happening please, I'm getting bored.
And no, Christmas is not an excuse.

Thanks for the nice comments, and I'm sorry I've dropped behind. (I blame it on the Christmas shopping)

I've got all the screenshots and will be catching up over the next week.
I've also suggested a break in the tech thread, because I genuinely will be unable to play the save.

[Enoch]

Have a good christmas, for quality updates us lurkers can wait a while.

[Darkmantle]

Lurkers who have been on a cruise for the last 10 days without any PBcrack in the middle of a huge war become less patient however...

[novice]

PBcrack

The first post is free.

[pocketbeetle]

Have a good christmas, for quality updates us lurkers can wait a while.

Thankyou, I hope you did too.

Lurkers who have been on a cruise for the last 10 days without any PBcrack in the middle of a huge war become less patient however...

Hold on a second, what about poor Pb who hasn't been on a cruise at all?!?

The first post is free.

Hmmm, charging for access...
I shall meditate on this thought.


Time to get the show back on the road I think.


Diplo:

Couple of things.

1. The Illians finally have their own domestic breweries. The project was near completion when work started on the great towers, and as the tower is completed, it seemed a fitting time to brew up celebratory self chilling drinks for the whole nation.
Accordingly, I'd like to cancel the long standing import of Silk and Ale for Cotton. If you can suggest an alternate trade I'd be happy to discuss it.

2. Did a quick check of my own which supported your findings on the Great Scientist issue. I decided not to waste time checking in game and just to send him off for an academy. The Silent Hill "Academy of Frost Dynamics" will be joined by the Wonderful Time "Ether Research Institute" in making sure that Illian science continues to remain the envy of the world.

3. Thanks for the shield of faith spell on my little minions. They were already shielded by their faith in the benevolence of Auric, but for some reason that didn't give them a 10% bonus in combat.

4. Some of my magical theorists are intrigued by the idea of making Ice Elementals stronger by improving the quality of the water they're made from. I'm thinking about building tower of the elements to test those theories (And give the Ice Elementals the strong promotion). Might be willing to trade for your water mana to expedite that.

5. Mage readiness is only marginal right now. A few of the adepts I thought would be ready are sitting at 7xp (If I didn't need them so much they'd be sent to labour in the Ice Mines for insubordination and laziness). I'll only have two mages ready for action immediately. Bear that in mind. It sucks that you and Iskender have had to go to war. I would really have thought he would have been ready to accept that NAP. With the mage situation as it is, I'm really hoping that this conflict doesn't escalate to include vampires too soon. I'd like to do a little bit more build up before everything breaks loose.

After playing the next turn, I replied:

Hey Selrahc,

Congrats on finishing the brewery!
Also thankyou for not cancelling the Ales trade straight away, I appreciate that.

Looking at the happiness situation, I’m already trading you Fine Clothes (btw feel free to demand the Fine Clothes on your next turn, irrespective of whether you have the Dyes back under your control or not) and I lack another multiple luxury resource to offer you other than Silks.
I do however have a second Gems just outside one of my settlement borders. I switched to OO last turn and hope to pick it up within a reasonable timeframe.

Would you be interested in changing our Cotton for Ales+Silks to Cotton for Gems+Silks?
I’ve also offered Sugar this turn.

Going through the other stuff:

2) Regarding the GSci, not a problem, glad to hear it. The Illian research rate is certainly no longer glacial.

3) I suspect the +10% combat modifier from “Auric’s Benevolence” may have been cancelled out by the -10% “Gibbering in Fear at Auric’s Wrath” modifier, but I’m merely speculating here!

4) Good idea about the Strong promotion on Elementals.
Ordinarily, my answer would been that I wasn’t desperate for any more mana, but losing that Cotton for even a couple of turns could be annoying.
So if you’re amenable to the Cotton vs Silks+Gems deal outlined above(?), and you’re willing to keep supplying me with Cotton for Silks in the intermediary time between claiming the spare Gems, then I’d be open to a straight 10t mana swap for Water. (Not sure what I’d ask for, maybe Enchantment?)

5) Please feel free to send any talented and skilled adepts to your mines!
The current crop of rescued slaves have been mostly labourers and farmers, great for improving the land around my capital, bad for combatting vampires. ^^

Regarding that subject, rest assured that the peacenik Kuriotates, although not quite as peacenik anymore (as represented by the religion change), are still very peacenik!
I have no intention in trying to take on the Calabim while the Hippus remain, and the only thing that could force my hand would be the Hippus vassalising.
To try and avoid that situation, I’ve made a deliberate effort to take out cities closest to the Calabim border, hopefully dissuading Bob from getting involved due to distance.
I hope that reassures you a bit.

Finally, I keep meaning to bring this up and forgetting.
You’re still supplying me with Marble although our deal ended a little while ago - I’ve tried cancelling it, but it seems I can’t do it from my end.
Please feel free to reclaim it at anytime, with the Kurio’s thanks.

Kind Regards,
Pb, Overlord Boy-King

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 167:

Way of the Wicked splashscreen on loading the save.



Also, an event:



Remember that Rod of Winds, which some CA is currently and quite pointlessly running around with?
Well the Scorched Staff is the Fire mana equivalent of that item, something I would have gladly paid for.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any sources of Enchantment mana, so a small gold boost is the only available option.

Turnlog also shows that OO spread to an Illian city (hooray), AV spread to Prespur (booo), Selrahc’s GSci was born in Silent Night and the Goblin in the Hippus fort attacked out, losing.

As per diplo, Selrahc has also built a Deruptus Brewery, in Chestnut Roast?

Slight mistake being made here. For some reason he’s not stacking multiplier buildings in one city, but spreading them out.
It makes no sense not to have that +30% commerce brewery in an Academy-equipped city, either Silent Night which is a great cottage capital, or Wonderful Time (icy cottage city) where apparently he intends to use his second Gsci.
Don’t get me wrong, Chestnut Roast is a nice city, but it looks to be more of a production focussed city than commerce central.

In the meantime the Stonewarden to be gifted to the Illians continued heading to Silent Night, stopping at Jingle Bells to SoF again.
I had to think twice about it however, because one the Priests was in Jingle Bells.

120-130% bonus strength, not to be sniffed at, particularly if you factor in the Axe and GC too.

Getting back to the important matter at hand: the Hippus.



Iskender has:

• Rushed a warrior in most cities.
  
  
• Promoted the archer in Kaselorne to Mobility and sent it South towards Ihara.
  
  
• Moved an archer out of Conrond Mor towards Clar Marrachir, positioning a worker on the road to try and block any followup attack if the Empyrean holy city falls.
  
  
• Something that particularly impressed me: he’s used his sole remaining horseman to pillage the hilltop plantation & road South of Radonnar.
  I like that move, it stops me threatening the SE city of Feiss Mabdon this turn, forcing me to go through the two Northern cities, plus probably earned Iskender a little bit of cash in the process.
  
  
• Something I don’t like: he moved the only radiant guard unit he owns out of Conrond Mor to cover the 1 move archer, yet gave it the Mobility promotion?
  I think he may have underestimated how far I can reach here.
  

Oh, and worth noting:
Someone seems to be supplying Iskender with Copper, making all his warriors strength 4.
I wonder who that could be, hmmm?

First off, let’s deal with Kaselorne.



It held no value to me, and picked up no resources, so it was razed.

Next up was Conrond Mor.
Now, I’d been telling myself for the previous five turns to check whether or not Hill Giants could bombard after using their movement.
I was pretty sure they could, but wanted to make absolutely certain before doing anything ingame.
Unfortunately other matters got in the way, so deciding to just go for it, I moved Moe and Curly onto the hill 1N of Conrond Mor



…and failed miserably.

Turns out Hill Giants need a remaining movement point to bombard, so I wasted a turn moving them pointlessly, and not only that, I can’t even use them next turn to bombard Clar Marrachir.

Nevermind, send in the (non-Raider) cannon fodder!
Dexamenus, with a 50% chance of withdrawing and a 10% chance of winning outright, died tragically - I quite liked that one.
Next up was Priapus, who put in a much better performance,



Both CAs managed to significantly damage the defending archers.

Bringing down Jumbo to remove the worker (automatically deleted due to HN) freed up Amycus to stroll in at 97% odds.



Arktus, Ixion, Mimas and Agrius finished off the job.



I didn’t bother checking the buildings for Conrond Mor, this one was always going to be a raze.



It’s poor defensively, located on flat ground inbetween two hills and is also the Empyrean holy city.
A settlement holy city is worth little to me, but has high recapture value to Bob or Iskender.
So it burned.

Echeclus and Rhipeus then picked off the archer and radiant guard stuck in no-man’s land.



Up next was Clar Marrachir, which despite only having two archers as garrison, turned out to be a tough nut to crack.
It’s on a hill, and those archers are well promoted and well fortified.
Once again, the withdrawers were sent in, these ones being Raider-promoted with 75% withdrawal chance.



Both survived, but because they were already hurt (Melaneus almost half health), the damage dealt wasn’t great.
As can be seen with the odds for Nessus in the centre (which I most definitely did not send in), a full health C1 Cover CA was still not getting anywhere.

I kind of realised at this point that I was potentially pushing things a little too far.
Clar Marrachir could definitely still fall this turn, but in forcing the issue I might end up taking more losses than strictly necessary.
In addition, I still had the Hippus horseman and that archer in the South running free.
So I broke off to deal with loose ends, needing to know how many of the CAs in ATM could be brought to bear on Clar Marrachir.

Dictys took out the fleeing archer, Demoleon munched on the horseman.



Ornius picked off the top warrior defender in Ihara before sprinting to cover Demoleon. Promoting the latter to C2 healed half the unit’s health.



At this point Iskender was pretty much down to only warriors: one in Ihara, three in Murousbane, and an archer/warrior pair in Feiss Mabdon.
I’d say the Southern Hippus cities are now pretty much contained and can be dealt with next turn.
A nasty part of me was wondering if I should leave those cities to spawn more warriors - easy xp.


Back at Clar Marrachir I had a decision to make: to go for it, or wait a turn and heal up?
If I hadn’t sent those two earlier CAs in, I might have waited.
Problem is, I was unsure (still am) about how much xp a defender receives vs a unit that successfully withdraws from the fight. It’s either 1xp or a full dose, and the one thing I couldn’t risk was Iskender picking up another promotion on those archers.
So forward the light brigade charged.

Glaukus, another 75% half-health withdrawer was brought over from ATM and sent into the fray.
He survived, the next CA didn’t. RIP Helops.



Checking with Nessus again, 80% odds was within limits, in he went.
Crenaeus finished the job off.



With a free market and monument, I shed a tear when razing this city.
Even on a hill, it’s utterly undefendable vs any Calabim attack out of Acaia.
All Bob would have to do is plop a stack equidistant from Riedquat, Zaonce and Clar Marrachir and one of them would have to be abandoned, and almost certainly it would be the Hippus city.

The remaining CAs were shuffled around to cover the various stacks, Thaumas captured a worker, a couple stayed in ATM to heal etc.
Combat log:

Which just left the day-to-day errands to be completed.
Chromis snacked on a rogue Goblin, promoting to C2 after to keep Sareln from getting any crazy ideas.



As an aside, check out the health on that Svart hunter in the East.
Maybe he was right to defend on a hill vs the Goblin instead of taking it out!
Going to take a while to heal, for sure.

Overview shot of the remaining Hippus lands, mouseover shows the Feiss Mabdon garrison.



At which point I think it’s time to have a little chat about the Armageddon Counter (AC).

We have a problem.
Or more specifically, I have a problem.

Up until now, I’ve been quite nonchalant about the AC, happily founding OO, AV, building the Pillar of Chains etc.
However with the razing of three cities this turn, the AC counter has gone from 18 to 28, and at 30, Blight will strike.
I fully admit to being caught off-guard this turn, I expected a rise sure, but not a 10 point increase.
Conrond Mor had to go imo, but if I could do it again I might have kept Kaselorne, and maybe tried to starve Clar Marrachir down a bit first before engineering a razing.
Because that’s the problem: population.
Razing a size 1 city isn’t a big deal, but the other two were big, 10+ pop things.


Blight:

As already touched on in this thread, Blight adds serious amounts of unhealth to every city on the map, with big cities getting hit the hardest as they are often at or over the health cap.
Functionally this is achieved by piggy-backing on the poison water espionage mission, according to the following code in CvRandomEventInterface.py (Assets/python/entrypoints):

Code:

def doArmageddonBlight(argsList):
              kTriggeredData = argsList[0]
              iPlayer = argsList[1]
              pPlayer = gc.getPlayer(iPlayer)
              py = PyPlayer(iPlayer)
              if pPlayer.getCivilizationType() != gc.getInfoTypeForString('CIVILIZATION_INFERNAL'):
                          for pyCity in py.getCityList():
                                      pCity = pyCity.GetCy()
                                      i = CyGame().getSorenRandNum(15, "Blight")
                                      i = 10
                                      i += pCity.getPopulation()
                                      i -= pCity.totalGoodBuildingHealth()
                                      if i > 0:
                                                  pCity.changeEspionageHealthCounter(i)
              for pUnit in py.getUnitList():
                          if pUnit.isAlive():
                                      pUnit.doDamageNoCaster(25, 100, gc.getInfoTypeForString('DAMAGE_DEATH'), false)

<<Interestingly, this appears to be a recent unmentioned change, as the latest post by Kael on Blight was this one which is clearly different.
There have also been problems in the past with player 0 in a game (typically the human) getting hit by a double strength Blight due to event trigger miscounting.>>

The above means that when Blight strikes, every city on the map receives 10 + city population in unhealthiness, minus a small amount based on any healthy buildings in the city (totalGoodBuildingHealth).
TotalGoodBuildingHealth covers any and all buildings that naturally provide health (herbalist +1, aqueduct +2, hospital +3 etc) but does not include bonus resource health from buildings like smokehouses or granaries.
So size 28 Kwythellar, would at this time receive 38 extra unhealth (no healthy buildings), stacking on the already present -4.
No longer in Agrarianism, I can probably manage a +10 food surplus, which still means I’d be losing food at a rate of -30 to -40 per turn.
Not good.

As with the espionage mission, the bonus unhealthiness decreases at a rate of one per turn, but in the meantime I’ll almost certainly lose 10 to 15 population.
Damage to other civs will be less severe, the Khazad and Illians don’t have many cities over size 10, although the Khazad will certainly struggle due to lacking many health resources.
The Svartalfar will sail through serenely unaffected, the Calabim are a less clear-cut case.
On the one hand, they have extremely large cities (considering that Bob is working with the normal size BFC), on the other, the feasting mechanic would allow him to decrease those city sizes very rapidly.
If unprepared, I think the huge additional unhealth could depress the Calabim cities for a number of turns, but I think it’s patently obvious that I’ll suffer the most.

Piling on the fun, at AC values of 40 and greater, Pestilence can strike randomly at a city, causing roughly quarter the effect of Blight.

Code:

def doArmageddonPestilence(argsList):
              kTriggeredData = argsList[0]
              iPlayer = kTriggeredData.ePlayer
              pPlayer = gc.getPlayer(iPlayer)
              if pPlayer.getCivilizationType() != gc.getInfoTypeForString('CIVILIZATION_INFERNAL'):
                          for pyCity in PyPlayer(iPlayer).getCityList() :
                                      pCity = pyCity.GetCy()
                                      i = CyGame().getSorenRandNum(9, "Pestilence")
                                      i += (pCity.getPopulation() / 4)
                                      i -= pCity.totalGoodBuildingHealth()
                                      pCity.changeEspionageHealthCounter(i)
              py = PyPlayer(iPlayer)
              for pUnit in py.getUnitList():
                          if pUnit.isAlive():
                                      pUnit.doDamageNoCaster(25, 100, gc.getInfoTypeForString('DAMAGE_DEATH'), false)

Add it all up, and you get this:



A Kuriotates adept running (sprinting if he could) to build a Life node.
Life nodes provide +1 health (stackable) and the level 1 spell: Sanctify.
Sanctify can be cast on city ruins to lower the AC by one point.

I’m going to rush an adept over to the Hippus lands to sanctify those ruins, and also will look into Inquisitioning AV out of any settlements that it has spread to.
It won’t decrease the AC very much at all, but I need any and all time I can get to prepare.
If I could go back and ‘unraze’ Clar Marrachir, I would.


Religion:

I’ve been in RoK for 100+ turns now.
In that time I’ve founded the RoK shrine, and spread the religion a little bit (nowhere near as much as I’d like).
I own only two Stonewardens, one of which is going to Selrahc as part of an agreement.
Sounds like I’m fully prepared and ready to switch out doesn’t it?
No, not really.

Unfortunately, this is the last turn of the GA, during which I can change religion without penalty.
I don’t know when my next GA will be, Hemah is coming soon, Saverous would be useful, plus I’m quite keen on getting some culture into certain border settlements (Zaonce, Riedquat).
So without further ado:

The Kuriotates empire turns a distinct shade of blue, while my alignment switches to Neutral to better represent the masses of innocent Hippies killed.



Ending turn completes the Deception tech and founds CoE in Kwythellar; there are no missionaries for this religion – the free unit is a HN nightwatch.

Oh, and losing two CAs means War Weariness is now at +4 in all cities. ^^

Did I say already that I need to end this quick?
Make that on-the-double-super-quick.

[novice]

Problem is, I was unsure (still am) about how much xp a defender receives vs a unit that successfully withdraws from the fight. It’s either 1xp or a full dose

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

[Krill]

Hmm, 4 turns behind and 4-5 days of slow movement. On each day of Christmas, PB gives us a turn update?

And thank you for giving the junkies what they want. 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 pitchfork parties.

[BCAgamer]

And they say the Hippus are the fast ones. Pff, feh!

[Thoth]

Thanks for the update PB.

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.