[SPOILERS] - Tredje and Mardoc are Sheelba of the Clan of Embers

[Tredje]

Hi guys.

I want to apologize for not bringing you any updates over easter. There were some personal issues that I don't wish to elaborate upon. I had to play my turns in a hurry, but I did take a few screenshots.

Let me begin by saying that I made a horrible, horrible mistake. You will remember that I in my last post stated that Sareln had built another Worker. Yet I kept our Wolf Rider on the northern Silk. Not once did it occur to me that he could road in one turn and attack across the river. Upon loading the next turn the Wolf Rider was dead. It took me a minute to understand what had happened, and I even suspected Iskender of attacking out of stealth before realizing what should have been obvious. Mentioning it makes me feel ashamed, because it is such a stupid mistake to make.

Since we now have no chance of attacking a solid force of Warriors in the field, I decided to withdraw our Archers across the river.

On turn 75 we had some news:

Someone has founded Ashen Veil (I don't know who), and there is a Balseraph carnival in the Amurite capital. I'm not sure what this means either.

On turn 76 we see that the Luchuirp have suffered a setback:

Barnaxus is dead (which seems to be a recurring theme in PBEM games, lol.)

[Mardoc]

Oh, wow, all kinds of excitement. I'll admit, I hadn't considered the workers from a military standpoint either, just as a target. But, the wolf did his job, forcing Sareln to an entirely military focus for the last umpteen turns. And, the important detail is Sailing (4)! . You've really done a good job boosting the economy to get that time down, given how poor the tools are for you to work with.

Since the Square Leg/Serdoa situation is sure to be both sides' only focus for a while, I suppose it's time to plan our campaign. I'm inclined to go for Sareln first, bringing the Sons in with an Archer escort, and hopefully raze or take Udenerat before he has a chance to cast the Lacuna. If we're lucky, even, take him all the way out. Then go after Bob. Meanwhile, our civ's main focus will be economy and growth, so that we can hopefully kill Iskender without having to resort to any unit we got from the World Spell. Seem reasonable, or do you have something else in mind?

The Balseraph carnival is an event, with options ranging from +happy temporarily to being able to buy a Carnival building, depending on your tech level and cash reserves. I'm guessing Sareln ended up on the cheap end of that.

[Sciz]

Barnaxus is dead (which seems to be a recurring theme in PBEM games, lol.)

[Tredje]

Since the Square Leg/Serdoa situation is sure to be both sides' only focus for a while, I suppose it's time to plan our campaign. I'm inclined to go for Sareln first, bringing the Sons in with an Archer escort, and hopefully raze or take Udenerat before he has a chance to cast the Lacuna. If we're lucky, even, take him all the way out. Then go after Bob. Meanwhile, our civ's main focus will be economy and growth, so that we can hopefully kill Iskender without having to resort to any unit we got from the World Spell. Seem reasonable, or do you have something else in mind?

That is mainly what I have been thinking as well. Except I am not so confident as you are in our ability to defeat one opponent after the other But we should be able to hurt Sareln at least. What do you think would be best though: To move in with 1 or 2 Sons, or wait for them all to arrive before marching off? And I should probably build some Warriors in the capital to have some dispensable troops to throw at the walls should we need them.

[Mardoc]

That is mainly what I have been thinking as well. Except I am not so confident as you are in our ability to defeat one opponent after the other But we should be able to hurt Sareln at least. What do you think would be best though: To move in with 1 or 2 Sons, or wait for them all to arrive before marching off? And I should probably build some Warriors in the capital to have some dispensable troops to throw at the walls should we need them.

Yeah, I suppose I'm a tad overconfident here. Sareln has demonstrated recently what a human's capable of, even against a tech advantage.

I'm not sure at all that Warriors will be needed as dispensable bodies - that's what summons like the Fire Elementals are for. They don't even provoke war weariness, I think. They could, however, be useful as scouts, garrisons, defenders in a stack, or for destroying units damaged by collateral - anything that keeps Sons from being able to be taken out like the Wolf Rider.

In terms of tactics...that's a tough question. Either way, we're racing against time; we need to kill or maim Sareln before he can fire off the Lacuna. I think, all in all, I would go for him when we have 1 or 2 Sons, and include at least one of the archers. We probably need to keep at least one Son in the core in case of dogpile. But he'll probably be going for adepts regardless of whether he knows about the Sons, so we might as well pile on right away and start working through his warrior stacks.

[Tredje]

Turn 77:

So the AC has reached 10:

Square Leg informed me that it was Bob who founded Ashen Veil, but he doesn't know in which city. And speaking of SL, take a look at the power ratings:

That is a massive drop in power right there. I spoke with SL and he told me his capital had only a Warrior with 0.1 health at the end of last turn, but that he held. He doesn't know if Serdoa has more units in the fog, so he is unsure how things will develop.

[Tredje]

So today I received an interesting mail from Iskender:

Hello there Orc and Goblin

You must have seen my southern city expand its borders several turns ago. I'm writing to assure you that I have no pretensions of expanding south. I've built a monument to claim the incense in the city's second ring and that's as far as my borders go in the south. I won't be founding any cities further south than this city. Instead, I'll by trying to achieve Greatness within the limits of my territory. If you are interested in helping me with that, ie. by providing experience, I'm willing to offer a lot in return.

Also, I'd like to renew my offer to cause grief to Balseraphs. I suspect they are in league with Sheaim and will jointly try to raise the Armageddon Counter for whatever purposes they have in mind. I still want to hit one of them with an invisible force, before they have a chance to build Hawks. If you are interested in aiding me in this effort let me know.

Iskender

Will post some thoughts concerning the content of the message when I have a bit more time.

[Mardoc]

That is interesting stuff, indeed. You know, we might be able to win without taking Iskender out, in fact, if we go for Domination. And if not, well, we should certainly encourage/support him in using up his world spell and taking Bob down a peg, regardless.

Certainly warrens-boosted warriors are a very cheap source of potential XP for Iskender. We could even focus on giving him the duplicate, non-promoted ones, while keeping the good ones for our own use. The interesting question is how to be compensated? I doubt he's made it to Currency yet, and can't trade techs or units, of course. Maybe resource/mana type deals? Or maybe buying workers from him - non Orcish workers have a better workrate, after all. 7.5 hammers/warrior converts to probably 2 XP for Iskender, maybe more. Although the tricky part there is how to be at war and gaining compensation simultaneously.

[Gaspar]

Could work out a compensation deal involving workers - say 1 worker for every 2 warrior kills, where your warrior captured the worker, and then he cleaned up the unit? I think making a decent relationship with Iskender is probably a good idea, as the Sons could cause a dogpile once they actually get involved in the action.

[Tredje]

Turn 80:

And we are greeted by this splashscreen:

The Clan is now a seafaring nation! I immediately start to work on a Galley in Shazak. It will be done in 3 turns. A pity we can only get 8 production, otherwise it would be done in two.

I am waiting to finish the Settler(s) in our capital until we are one turn away from finishing the Galley. I am trying to save as much upkeep as possible. Our scientists have been ordered to discover Calendar. On the diplomatic front I wrote Iskender an email saying that we would be interested in cooperating with the Sidar, but that we can't really spare any resources until we have settled things in the west. I am wondering if we should try to arrange a NAP of some sort with him before the news of our Sons spreads across the world.