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

[fire&ice]

so which centaur do we kill now

[Cyneheard]

Elated with the capture of the two Evil Lurkers, Pocketbeetle is traveling to the Lightly Scorched Lands to oversee their interrogation and execution. The journey is long, it seems that Men don't move nearly as fast as their Cenatur brethren. As the 208th Turn Of The Divine Rule of Cardith Lorda comes to a close, Pocketbeetle is nearing his destination, Prespur. Krill and Brian Shanahan are being held in the former Governor's Manor, but the lack of food in the city is causing trouble. Starving priests pelt him with gold pieces as he walks through the gates of Prespur, and one of the gp hits him on the head.

Elatus promptly pulls out his longbow, and puts an arrow through the eye of the offending priest, who falls dead, and then picks up the gp and pockets it, as the treasury can always use more gold. However, Pocketbeetle falls down from the hit, knocked out. A few hours later, Pocketbeetle comes to.

"What...what happened?" he asks.
"Milord, you were attacked by the citizens of the city. One of them hit you with this." Elatus pulls the beetle-sized gold piece out of his pocket. "I slew the offender myself."
"Ah, well, I guess that's the best we can do. Um, what time is it?"
"I think it is the 11th hour of the night? Although that was some time ago."
*Pocketbeetle curses a blue streak*

*The narrator intones from off-screen: For the sake of the children, the last minute of speech was censored. Please resume your normal activities.*

"The Update Spell! It will expire in a few minutes! We must hurry, for it hath a long casting time. To the temple!" Pocketbeetle dashes out the door as quickly as possible, looks left. And looks right. He freezes in place. "Which way is the temple?"

Elatus grimaces. "Left, sir." Pocketbeetle turns left, and runs to the temple. Elatus realizes that the priests may still be rioting, and would DEFINITELY not be happy to see Pocketbeetle himself showing up at their door, begging for assistance. He sounds the general alert, and gallops after Pocketbeetle.

Elatus, Dictys, Rhoetus, and Arktus come into the town square from all four directions, bows at the ready to keep the priests from causing any more trouble. Seeing four Centaur Archers, the priests sheepishly open the doors to their temple, and allow Pocketbeetle to enter and begin working on the Update Spell. However, the moment Pocketbeetle enters, he hears the town bell strike midnight. He is too late. The Update Spell has worn off, if only temporarily. As he hurries to re-activate the Update Spell, he hears an explosion. Someone had captured a keg of Blasting Powder, and had been waiting for the Aura of Update Protection to end.

A shadowy figure is seen on the other side of the square, hiding his bow behind his cloak, and disappearing into the darkness. Smoke can be seen wisping away from where an arrow stood not twenty seconds prior.

As Pocketbeetle works to reactivate the Update Spell, Elatus brings him the news:

"Rhoetus is dead. The explosion was mere feet from him. At least he did not suffer."

"Rhoetus, by Cardith's Hammer, by the suns of Erebus, You Shall Be Avenged! Elatus, go to the Manor at once. Execute those Evil Lurker scum!"

Elatus, slightly wounded by some shrapnel in his side, calls Dicktus and Arktus to him, and they disappear into the darkness, heading east towards the Manor.

*To Be Continued*

[fire&ice]

still no turn report so do we get to kill another or do we have to wait for 24 hours to pass

[Cyneheard]

Pocketbeetle has 4 hours and 26 minutes after the beep to post.

BEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pocketbeetle]

As Pocketbeetle works to reactivate the Update Spell, Elatus brings him the news:

"Rhoetus is dead. The explosion was mere feet from him. At least he did not suffer."

"Rhoetus, by Cardith's Hammer, by the suns of Erebus, You Shall Be Avenged!

Alas poor Rhoetus, we barely knew you.

Great as usual Cyneheard.
The only thing I can't work out is whether the misspelling of Dictys' name is accidental or a nod to Profane's "Biggus Dickus" preference?

(Rhoetus is currently part of Avelorn's garrison, so he'll take a little while to head South btw.)

Edit:

Typo fixed.

Gotcha, look out there's another one too.

[Cyneheard]

Typo fixed.

[pocketbeetle]

Sit-rep:

Okay, so what’s going on?

Currently I am the military and tech leader, while most of this continent has been covered by that masculine shade of light purple.
There are two rivals left, one of which is holding onto the precipice with two fingers, the other I’m under an MDP with until T220 and is already enquiring about further peaceful resolutions. The bulk of my army is currently located in the South, next to the Infernal territory.

Question: Why haven’t you killed the Infernals yet?
Answer: Because I’m waiting.
Question: What are you waiting for?
Answer: This.



The UC resolution.
I’m still miffed about missing out on the GSci from Arcane Lore. I’m hoping that DaveV will choose wisely and propose the ‘Secret Codes’ resolution for a free GSci to each of us. The UC leader vote was confirmed on T202, so hopefully the longest I’ll have to wait is until T212 to find out.
If I get that GSci, I’ll either use it on an academy in KK or as part of a 2 man GA.

Question: What happens if Hyborem chooses poorly?
Answer: I’ll kill him. Thanks to various roading efforts, Dis is within 1t’s reach of all 3-movers, and a little work by combat workers means even 2-movers like Buffy can strike in a single turn.
Question: What happens if Hyborem chooses correctly?
Answer: Erm. I’ll still kill him. Only he gets to live a couple of extra turns while I wait for the GSci to appear.
Question: Doesn’t that make you an evil sonofabitch?
Answer: No. Merely misunderstood.
Question: But haven’t dictators throughout the years used that very same excu-
Answer: Veez.
Question: *Cut-off strangled sound*

With Mithril weapons, Hemah, a ton of fireball mages and various other backup, I’ve little concern about the South.
While in the North, all newly produced CCs, champions and arquebusiers are being used to shore up the defenses around Caledor and Avelorn.
Which leads us onto the Illians.

To be honest, I’m getting a little tired of trampling Centaurs all over foreign soil. All that smoke from the pillaging irritates my lungs, while the loss of each worthy foe weighs heavy on my heart.
What can I say, maybe I’m just growing old? (I thought I found my first whisker on my chin yesterday, but it turned out to be a smudge on the mirror.)

Either way, if the Illians want to take me on in a peaceful contest, I’m amenable to it.
So which one?

• Domination is out, as I’m pretty sure I’ll need some Illian territory/cities for that to happen.
  
• Cultural - Bwahahaha! *sniffle* teehee *snort*. Excuse me while I move on.
  
• Religious is boooooooring.
  
• Time victory. Triple boring, and unlikely
  
• Tower of Mastery? Interesting and doable.
  I have a decent amount of mana nodes and Caledor in God-King can knock the basic towers out at an average of 3 turns a piece.
  Buuuuuut, I don’t feel like that.
  
• Which leaves the Altar of Luonnotar. To be truthful, this one has always been my backup plan.
  It’s why I set Avelorn up as a turbo-charged GP farm, it’s why I focussed on priest buildings early on (pagan/OO/RoK temple + Stigmata on the Unborn) and part of the reason why I went OO as the state religion (ToC).
  I may have to use a slightly exploitish trick in order to pull off such a victory, but as always, cross that bridge when we come to it.
  

Details of the Altar:

It’s a pretty hefty win condition.
Like the Ascension ritual for the Illians, you have to research all the way up to Omniscience but also need to pick up some religious techs including Righteousness, at 8k beakers.
You then need 6 GProphets to create the Altar building levels I to VI at which point the final VII level, unlocked by Omniscience, can be built.
I can’t remember the hammer requirement for the final level off the top of my head (just checked: 2.7k hammers on quick), but rest assured it’s something horrific, the same amount required for the final Tower of Mastery.
So to go about completing it, I need:

1. A strong GP farm and either the Theocracy civic or a serious amount of temples and shrines. [Check]
   
2. A sufficient techrate to tech up to Omniscience and Righteousness. [Achieved and working on it]
   
3. 6 GPros [1 so far in Caledor…]
   
4. An outstanding production centre and preferably a GEng or two hanging around also. [Caledor in God-King fits the bill here, one GEng is still available in the tech tree at Machinery]
   
5. And of course, a non-Evil alignment [Check!]
   

So whether I can get it or not is going to be very dependent on the next two GP pops from Caledor and Avelorn.
I’ll also need to speed up GP production with a switch to Pacifism and at least one GA soon. I can probably achieve the GA using any non-Prophet pop from Avelorn/Caledor combined with the free GMerchant from Mercantilism (will take me roughly 5 turns to complete the tech).


Any questions?
No?
Good.

Law mana was actually worth about 20gpt. Thanks.

Subject: War!

Dearest Selrahc, Chief Advisor to Auric, friend and long-standing ally to the Kuriotates,

Oh no no no.
There seems to have been a terrible misunderstanding!
Attack your capital? Of course I would never allow that to happen!

My advisors have simply been debating whether to extend our NAP further, to sign a new peace deal, or to allow it to lapse and continue our peaceful paperless coexistence. What possible reason could we have for attacking our mutual allies?
I’m truly disappointed you would even think such a thing. Shame on you Selrahc!

Fear not though, my Illian counterparty. I have already forgiven you and am happy to announce that the Kuriotates are willing to sign a peace agreement lasting until the end of time as we know it.

Would this be agreeable to you?

Kind Regards,
Pb, Peaceful Boy-King

[fire&ice]

I am glad to know PB knows about us lurkers and cares.

HOWEVER THAT IS NOT A TURN REPORT THE CLOCK IS TICKING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2mqqCMu-LM

[pocketbeetle]

I am glad to know PB knows about us lurkers and cares.

What on earth gave you that impression?

Turn 209:

Animal Handling splashscreen on loading the save, means rangers are now available.



Quick shot of the first arquebusier making his way up to Tionisla.



While not having any special properties, having base str 10 means arquebusiers can pack a nasty punch.
I wonder if I can use the Enchant II spell, Flaming Arrows, on them too? I may have to test that soon.

Selrahc’s stack has continued on their way peacefully:



As part of my tour of Prespur, I ordered the local Death node to be converted to Mind.
That means I now have two Mind nodes, so upgrading the 10xp adept in Caledor gives it a free Mind I: Inspiration.



Again, I’m just scrabbling for more beakers. That +2 gets trebled to +6 though, the ToD to be completed soon.

Down in the South again, the ATM Mithril mine was completed and the first CC outfitted with top tier weapons.



Most of the rest of the units will be automatically upgraded next turn if they’re in a city/settlement.

Which just left the question of what GP the RNG Gods are going to give me.
Here are the odds:



Ending turn gave… *drumroll*



A GMerchant.
Pretty much the one GP I didn’t want - it’s not a GPro nor can I use it with the free GMer from teching Mercantilism to start a GA.
That leaves me reliant on getting a non-GPro/non-GEng/non-GMer from somewhere else.
Comon Hyborem, make me a happy man.

Speaking of Hyborem, I’ve not seen him produce any new units for a while…

Avelorn’s next GP will pop in three turns.

[Sareln]

While not having any special properties, having base str 10 means arquebusiers can pack a nasty punch. I wonder if I can use the Enchant II spell, Flaming Arrows, on them too? I may have to test that soon.

If they are in the archery unit-class (which I believe they are) then yes, it'll work just fine.