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

[Cyneheard]

Since it's been over 48 hours since the last update (the Beltane Cycle IS NOT A TURN UPDATE, nice try), and in keeping with one of the other games going on in this thread...

Pocketbeetle wakes up on Tuesday, and decides to go for a walk down to the Kwythellar marketplace. Maybe they'll have some Reasonably Priced Cookies he can buy for the not-Evil lurkers; the lurkers have been good to him lately, yes? Not even forcing him to be explicit about his time zone or anything. That's definitely worth a cookie or three. After all, it's not like Veez hasn't been bringing in the extra gold recently. Those nighttime Ratmen raids into the old Calabim towns turn up so much extra gold, the frightened villagers know better than to cross good old Veez's friends, and gladly pay double what they are "required" to. Hoping to have a calm morning, without anything going wrong, Pocketbeetle continues his leisurely walk to the Market.

Suddenly, a Centaur Charger comes charging up to him. with grave news. Having not been granted the dignity of a name, Unnamed One tells Pocketbeetle what happened. Unnamed One says that when InsertNameHere, the Centaur Archer, failed to show up for guard duty this morning, with some soldiers, Unnamed one went to the various bars and less...chaste...forms of relaxation, to see if InsertNameHere had merely passed out from a night of (drunken?) debauchery. But, alas, Unnamed One found InsertNameHere dead in a dark alleyway. Having served as a Veteran/Barbarian Slayer/Recruit/InsertPreviousAmountOfCombatHere, InsertNameHere had been a loyal servant to the Kuriotate empire, and had truly been hung like a horse. Before he had been hung, though, his blood had been used to write a message:

We are here. We are watching. We are hungry. Feed us our update, or we will strike again. Signed, The Evil Lurkers.

OOC: For the first Centaur Archer, This Evil Lurker will leave the choice of filling in InsertNameHere to the first man to be told of the news of InsertNameHere's death, Pocketbeetle. However, be warned: [Voice="Darth Vader"] The next Evil Lurker is not as forgiving as I am. [/Voice]

[Tredje]

Haha, excellent!

[pocketbeetle]

Since it's been over 48 hours since the last update (the Beltane Cycle IS NOT A TURN UPDATE, nice try), and in keeping with one of the other games going on in this thread...

Pocketbeetle wakes up on Tuesday, and decides to go for a walk down to the Kwythellar marketplace. Maybe they'll have some Reasonably Priced Cookies he can buy for the not-Evil lurkers; the lurkers have been good to him lately, yes? Not even forcing him to be explicit about his time zone or anything. That's definitely worth a cookie or three. After all, it's not like Veez hasn't been bringing in the extra gold recently. Those nighttime Ratmen raids into the old Calabim towns turn up so much extra gold, the frightened villagers know better than to cross good old Veez's friends, and gladly pay double what they are "required" to. Hoping to have a calm morning, without anything going wrong, Pocketbeetle continues his leisurely walk to the Market.

Suddenly, a Centaur Charger comes charging up to him. with grave news. Having not been granted the dignity of a name, Unnamed One tells Pocketbeetle what happened. Unnamed One says that when InsertNameHere, the Centaur Archer, failed to show up for guard duty this morning, with some soldiers, Unnamed one went to the various bars and less...chaste...forms of relaxation, to see if InsertNameHere had merely passed out from a night of (drunken?) debauchery. But, alas, Unnamed One found InsertNameHere dead in a dark alleyway. Having served as a Veteran/Barbarian Slayer/Recruit/InsertPreviousAmountOfCombatHere, InsertNameHere had been a loyal servant to the Kuriotate empire, and had truly been hung like a horse. Before he had been hung, though, his blood had been used to write a message:

We are here. We are watching. We are hungry. Feed us our update, or we will strike again. Signed, The Evil Lurkers.

OOC: For the first Centaur Archer, This Evil Lurker will leave the choice of filling in InsertNameHere to the first man to be told of the news of InsertNameHere's death, Pocketbeetle. However, be warned: [Voice="Darth Vader"] The next Evil Lurker is not as forgiving as I am. [/Voice]

Very good.
Definitely worth half a moon-cookie or three:

And yeah I failed yet again.
Knew it would happen.

I accept my punishment and will go through the enlistment records to determine the poor Centaur that met his maker yesterday. It'll be one in the middle; not too new as to make him irrelevant but sufficiently promoted to be noticeable.

I'll also set an investigative squad of Ratmen to determine whether the perpetrators were indeed the mysterious "Evil lurkers", or werewolves in the employ of the Illians. I suspect it's the latter, further evidence of treachery by our once-friends!
Clearly plans need to be made...

But let's get back to killing those Elvesies for the time being.

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 198:

Starting off with a shot of the enclaves, future enclaves, citadel at Caledor and a Dispel mage heading off to the Enchantment node at Kwythellar.
What more could a Kuriotates [strike]dictator[/strike] benevolent leader ask for?



Turn log says that the Khazad finally cast their worldspell: Mother Lode.
Better late than never, eh Cull?

Mother Lode gives the Dwarves 25 gold per mine owned and converts a %age of culturally owned tiles to hills.
That can result in improvements and resources not normally found on hills suddenly finding themselves several hundred metres in the air, as these tiles show:



The effect can be a double-edged sword however, sometimes helpfully adding production, sometimes starving your core cities of food.
I’d hazard a guess that Cull used the worldspell hoping to get a hill under Shadowed Vale for increased defense vs the Illian horde.
If so, it didn’t work.

Additional fun this turn came in the surprise package of both my two surviving Lunatics going…well…loony.



They’re heading off heaven-knows-where, looks like beelining the Dwarves.
I’d been deliberately keeping the Eastern one garrisoned in Pina’dom, ie close to the SE barb city, but no joy there.

Oh and as a last little note before the inevitable battle screenshots, I happened to notice this: ^^

Aaaanyway. :rolleyes:
First off, Mimas munched on the FoL holy city warrior.



I kept the city, but I’m so glad I no longer have to try and spell its name anymore (from now on to be referred to as “that heathen pile of wood”.
Next up Nameless Tower.

The Ice Elemental melted away between turns, but the worker pair was left unmolested to go build a road, a bunch of units were Hasted.



In went Hemah.



I didn’t break the spellstaff and cast Snowfall twice, the collateral from one was enough, no point wasting xp.

Elatus followed, taking no damage.



I’ve quite a few stored promotions on him now.
Maybe it was the wrong decision, but I figured what the hell, let’s have some more fun with him.



Mobility I and II later, two more dead units and another 8xp, for a total of 24xp.
Brigit is starting to look within my grasp…

The only other combat worth noting at Nameless Tower was the gain of 4xp on an adept to take him to 10xp, ie mage promotion territory.
Triton captured the city, seizing another academy for the Kurio empire’s further scholarly glory.



Leaving just Thariss (v2) left.
After Dance of Blades (from Gaelan), some Fireballs and Rust spells to soften up the defense, Buffy went in.



He gained 4xp for a pretty easy fight, in part because the top defender was quite well promoted (C3 + Animal Capture hunter).
Thaumas is now in Blitz promotion range, while Rocky the Stonewarden also got involved.



The one interesting decision I had to make however, was whether to send in the mage above on a 77% battle vs the final swordsman.
Doing so almost certainly would have taken him over the 17xp for another promotion, but on the flipside, why waste an already decently promoted (C2 Fireball + Haste) mage?

So I erred on the side of caution (boo hiss) and sent in a final CA.



Combat log:

Ending turn completed a bunch of stuff, (put off the money changer to build an inn at Caledor - easy 6 raw commerce from extra trade route + improved existing ones) plus received a free OO spread to a settlement for a border expansion within a couple of turns.



With that turn, the Svartalfar followed the Calabim into history.
Just the Illians and Infernals left.

[Birdman]

Since it's been over 48 hours since the last update (the Beltane Cycle IS NOT A TURN UPDATE, nice try), and in keeping with one of the other games going on in this thread...

Pocketbeetle wakes up on Tuesday, and decides to go for a walk down to the Kwythellar marketplace. Maybe they'll have some Reasonably Priced Cookies he can buy for the not-Evil lurkers; the lurkers have been good to him lately, yes? Not even forcing him to be explicit about his time zone or anything. That's definitely worth a cookie or three. After all, it's not like Veez hasn't been bringing in the extra gold recently. Those nighttime Ratmen raids into the old Calabim towns turn up so much extra gold, the frightened villagers know better than to cross good old Veez's friends, and gladly pay double what they are "required" to. Hoping to have a calm morning, without anything going wrong, Pocketbeetle continues his leisurely walk to the Market.

Suddenly, a Centaur Charger comes charging up to him. with grave news. Having not been granted the dignity of a name, Unnamed One tells Pocketbeetle what happened. Unnamed One says that when InsertNameHere, the Centaur Archer, failed to show up for guard duty this morning, with some soldiers, Unnamed one went to the various bars and less...chaste...forms of relaxation, to see if InsertNameHere had merely passed out from a night of (drunken?) debauchery. But, alas, Unnamed One found InsertNameHere dead in a dark alleyway. Having served as a Veteran/Barbarian Slayer/Recruit/InsertPreviousAmountOfCombatHere, InsertNameHere had been a loyal servant to the Kuriotate empire, and had truly been hung like a horse. Before he had been hung, though, his blood had been used to write a message:

We are here. We are watching. We are hungry. Feed us our update, or we will strike again. Signed, The Evil Lurkers.

OOC: For the first Centaur Archer, This Evil Lurker will leave the choice of filling in InsertNameHere to the first man to be told of the news of InsertNameHere's death, Pocketbeetle. However, be warned: [Voice="Darth Vader"] The next Evil Lurker is not as forgiving as I am. [/Voice]

Bravo

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 199:

Turnlog says that Cull lost another city, GMer born in Hyboremland.



Dispel mage reverts Kwythellar’s Enchantment node, starts converting it to Law.



The 1st CED have split up since their last failed outing, most of them will disband to found missionary churches in settlements on the Illian border.
Like Lave.



Lunatics are still going potty, not sure where they’re heading now.



A quick screenshot to show the stupidly high tile yield of a Gold mine, sans-financial. Even in a settlement it has an effect.



Ending turn completed a cultist, CC and a tax office in Caledor (+25% gold, +1 unhappy, cheaper hammerwise than a money changer and so could be completed in 1t).



Caledor grew last turn, Avelorn this turn.
Getting close to the point where I could rush the ToC without too much pain (~1500 gold).

Cash went up by over 500 gp thanks to some pillagin’. Arrrr.

[Cyneheard]

[Evil Lurker Comment]

The Evil Lurkers have been scheming, and realized that in order to know which Centaur Archer should be next on their hostage list, they need to know who their targets are.

The more detail, the better, of course (at a minimum some sense of XP levels and names). Otherwise, the named targets will be the ones that have been discussed more recently and prominently...

[/Evil Lurker Comment]

[NobleHelium]

Brigit is definitely not going to be within your grasp if you miss any more turn updates. :neenernee

[Krill]

I am waiting PB, and I only know the names of those high level CAs.

[fire&ice]

I am waiting PB, and I only know the names of those high level CAs.

ya mean theses guys

Mimas
Elatus
Thaurmus
Buffy
Hemmah
Roland the meek
Melanchantes
Triton
Glaukus
Myles “tails” prowler
Areus
Phipeus
Lycopes
Dryalus
Chiron

not all are centaurs but all are involved in the main war front as of last two turns

I made my suggestions ovious
bold, underlined, and italizied