[Spoilers] The Golem Factory: Beeri Bawl of the Luchuirp

[Sciz]

Also i think my biggest mistake in this game that has lead me to the position i'm in now is not my refusal to accept mist's terms for an ilios attack, but the fact that I never tried to get contact with him. If I had got contact with him I should've been able to either see the attack coming, or maybe even have him not attack me through early diplo. He probably found my borders early on but not close enough to get contact and kept it that way so he could surprise me. Really dumb of me to try to avoid him. Oh well.

[Sciz]

Mist moves his stack to my NW farm. I move six warriors through hills NE towards Tia'ran. If Mist chooses to go back towards Mutanbo, I can have them back there in one turn, if he chooses to go towards Tia'ran they'll be there as well.

[Sciz]

here is how mist moves his army:



Now, I have a bunch of units on one tile, and some other bunch of units on another fucking tile

I decided to stay put with my warriors on the forested hill.

I am predicting that Mist will move his stack SE to the mined plains hill. If he moves NE I can just reinforce Tia'ran, and yeah. If he moves SE I'm gonna attack the stack with all that I got, since all units in the north are in range. something like 11 warriors (one with the remaining hammer) and 2 WGs.

Only problem is that Mist might want me to do that, because his power has been spiking a bit. Not much, but still a bit, so he might want me to waste most of my army taking care of this stack, and then he moves in with another when most of my bronze warriors are gone, since the copper went back to Ilios a few turns ago.

[Square Leg]

really you wanted your units on the tile that mist is... they can get back to both cities from there using the hill bonus.

[Sciz]

yeah you're right

[Selrahc]

Only problem is that Mist might want me to do that, because his power has been spiking a bit. Not much, but still a bit

The old mass upgrade trick that he pulled at the start of the war?
The only way he is going to pull himself back into the game is by taking us down... so leveraging ingenuity the way he has been doing is pretty necessary.

[Sciz]

Here's the north right now:



Mist moved his stack back a bit, and I sacrificed a 3-str warrior to add the final hammer to Mutanbo, great engineer due in 2t.

However, the big thing right now is this:



What's wrong with this picture?

Hint: It's not the hill giant that's gonna kill my western warrior next turn

It's the fact that I still haven't found Barnaxus and haven't gotten word from any of my neighbors about him. This leads me to one conclusion: someone must be lying. And that someone is either Ilios or Uberfish. My two warriors have scouted out the entire area south of my borders, between Uberfish and Ilios and Amelia. The wolf with the pieces has gone somewhere I can't see. It can't be near Amelia because she doesn't have contact with Mist, i've checked it in the foreign diplomacy screen.

The only places I haven't scouted yet is the way western part of this area, but that is right next to Uberfish's border, who promised me he'd tell me if he saw the wolf anywhere. The same with Ilios, incidentally. So one of them must be lying, I can't see any other way for this to be possible. I've scouted everything down here. Don't know what to do about it though. Messaging them won't help because whoever it is won't just tell me. Though actually the only way Ilios can be lying is if he has open borders with Mist, because otherwise my warriors would have seen the wolf, since i've scouted right next to his borders, while Uberfish doesn't need open borders with Mist to be lying since I haven't scouted down near Uberfish's southern-most borders.

[Selrahc]

Without Barnaxus the Golems are pretty much nullified as a long term threat. Golems without promotions are barely better at combat than other factions units. Either of our neighbours has a good motive for wanting him removed from the equation.

Have you checked if Mist has been involved in any short wars? Could be Barnaxus has changed hands and we've got a firm indication of where.


High risk proposition: Call one of them out on it. If they admit it, good. Maybe we can make some progress. If they deny it, mention that "someone" has informed you of the truth. That will probably make them think of Mist. Hopefully you can feel out if they're lying or not by their reaction. Maybe you can make them distrust Mist.

If they end up distrusting you... well one of them is already secretly working with the enemy to your disadvantage.

If we get a frank admission and need to negotiate terms it might be a good idea to pick a reasonable sum in advance.

[Sciz]

Yeah I dunno who I should try first or if it's even worth it though. I'm leaning towards the culprit being uberfish though, because Ilios does not have open borders with Mist and so I don't think it's possible for the wolf to be near Ilios in that case, because I should've seen it if it was still outside of Ilios's territory.

Uberfish has open borders with Mist, but it was only for Mist to move through a lone sons of asena way back when and I'm pretty sure he told me directly that he wouldn't let the wolf with the pieces of barnaxus to go through, so if he has actually let Mist do that, i'm gonna be a bit angry. The wolf could still be hiding right next to Uberfish lands though, so im gonna let my remaining southern warrior go down there and see for myself.

[Sciz]

Started throwing up siege workshops in Ithralia and Mutanbo, when I get catapults maybe I can delete some warriors since I need to cut back on the upkeep i'm paying.