[Spoilers] Biggus Decius and the Sucking Vampires (Bobchillingworth / Calabim)

[DaveV]

Have you played the turn when blight actually hit? How bad is it?

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, I did last night. I think PBEM mechanics might be screwing it up. At the start of the turn my units took the blight damage, but the cities were untouched. Okay, it's normal for the game to not display how much they're really suffering until you enter and exit the city screen. So I did that, and several of them have -27 health or so and are starving, but not nearly as badly as I had assumed they'd be... Prespur was only losing 1 food a turn, even! I drafted the (conveniently) four cities which were going to lose a size at the end of turn if I did nothing, fed in most, and eventually ended turn.

Once I did, suddenly every city is losing enormous amounts of food, and most will lose population next turn! I have no idea what happened there, but I guess there's a lot more drafting and eating in my future. Size 9 seems to be the stability point, maybe 11 depending on how many granaries / smokehouses I completed. So, it's bad but I'm going to get a lot of troops out of it. Also strangely, Prespur suddenly got a gigantic happiness penalty too, but I haven't even drafted it once yet... no idea where that's coming from. I haven't lost any resource connections.



First two ritualists finished at the end of turn, and I have 29 vamps as of T180. Like six complete or get drafted next turn Just waiting for that death node to get up, now (I start constructing it t181).

[DaveV]

Just waiting for that death node to get up, now (I start constructing it t181).

Do you know about the haste trick to double node building speed? Build the node, haste the adept and wake him up, build it again.

[Bobchillingworth]

Haha, no that's news to me! Sweet, only two turns until it finishes, then.

[Bobchillingworth]

Grr. Make that turn 183 before I have the node up, my adept has had to cross more territory than I realized.


PB built Hemah this turn. And there's this:





I don't blame Selrahc for being a merchant of death, but I'm going to hurt him for it. I think after I burn a couple settlements I'll make PB a peace offer for all of Iskender's former land and a secret NAP, and if he actually accepts I'm going to go nuts on Selrahc. Of course PB will probably refuse, so I'm going to focus on the present war for right now.


I get hunting in two turns, so once I start advancing further into PB's territory I should have hunter / hawk coverage for my vamps to prevent a Hemah snowfall ambush.

PB also has three enchantment mana nodes up and is getting another from Selrahc. I don't think enchantment stacks with any units besides Dijinn for strength bonuses, so I guess he just really needs happiness. He does not have fanaticism yet, so apparently the Guard aren't in his plans.


Next turn I'll post my first battleplans!

[DaveV]

Yeah, watch out for snowfall. Lots of damage, big area of coverage (5x5 square). If he had two snow mana when he built Hemah, he only needs 5XP for snowfall. If you get a chance to kill Hemah, it would be worth sacrificing a bunch of good units.

He could also use snowfall to nuke some of your cities and go on the offensive.

[Bobchillingworth]

I'm looking forward to next turn! As promised, here is my battle plan:





Until this turn I've been hiding about half of my main host of vampires in Morrta'nar, out of sight from prying hawks (at least, I think they were :P). This turn I moved everyone into Acaia and finished the death node. Before moving I left a large number of specters in behind in Morr, so the city should hold if PB tries to dash in several centaur- Rosier, some bloodpets, and several other random units are also around to hold down the fort.

The plan is to move my vampires (not necessarily all at once) to the forest at the end of the red line. All of my vamps have at least Death II and Mobility, so they can get there without having to use Haste. Once on that tile, the vampires will summon specters, I'll throw them against Feiss, and ideally the garrison will be overwhelmed with no meaningful losses on my side. Should the specters fall short, I'll be able to simply engage in melee the following turn with new specters and the vamps themselves (plus chariots and a royal guard). Once the city has been razed, I'm going to shift my men up north, and take on the settlement nearest Sareln. Once both of those are gone, PB will have lost hawk coverage on my territory, and I can draw up a plan to clear out the remaining southern settlements while avoiding an icy death, in preparation for driving into PB's core.


How will PB respond in his turn before I strike? Hard to say, best move for him is to probably just give the settlement up for lost and save the CA for another day. I'm fairly certain that he can't attack me in any meaningful way on turn 183, since Sareln's hawk coverage has shown me that the bulk of PB's CA are spread between Feiss, the settlement near Sareln, and a fort in the middle of former Hippus territory.

[darrelljs]

I'm looking forward to next turn!

+1.

Darrell

[Bobchillingworth]

Got this from Selrahc:

[COLOR="LightBlue"]You've probably already noticed, but PB has called in some outstanding mana debts I owed him.

This has taken the enchantment mana out of play until T191. If you still want to do a trade after that I would be happy to go ahead. I know that we were going to do the trade on ~T188. If you want to pull out at this stage, I won't be offended. If you do want to go ahead, I'll remove the necessity to supply me with a luxury resource in the trade as an apology for the delays.[/COLOR]

Yup, I noticed. I had actually thought we were going to do the mana trade around turn 191 anyway, but apparently Selrahc has been keeping better track of this stuff than I. By that point I'll either be storming his empire or still fighting with PB, so if we're at peace I'll accept the deal then.


I also noticed once hunting came in that Selrahc now has the tech that leads to rangers. Rangers can be pretty nasty in the field, but I think he'd do better with something quicker and cheaper like chariots. Maybe he really needed to get some giant spider silk into play.

[Mardoc]

I'm looking forward to next turn!

Me three!