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

[Mardoc]

Yes, I believe you're understanding elementals correctly. Of course if you hadn't renamed him, he could have just checked the combat log, but instead all he knows is 'something named Harry killed a warrior'.

On the subject of keeping a Son at home - well, honestly, if Sareln can't cast the Lacuna, then he shouldn't last very long. If he can cast it, then a Son at home won't do us much good anyway, as just a strong single unit. Plus, as we only have the one galley, we're likely to have a Son in transit through our homeland for a while anyway.

But the best thing we can do is to kill off Sareln before he can cast the spell, so we might as well go for hitting him as hard and fast as we can.

[darrelljs]

This reminds me a bit of the Deity SG where the guy gave himself some Modern Armor to start the game.

Darrell

[Tredje]

This reminds me a bit of the Deity SG where the guy gave himself some Modern Armor to start the game.

That is quite a good analogy. Only in this case the Modern Armor can summon another Modern Armor every turn, lol.

On turn 91 the barrage continues:

Billy walks up to Udenarat to find that the garrison is still the same that Harry left on the end of the last turn. Viewing that he has 98,8% chance of killing a Warrior, he braves those dangerous odds and vanquishes his hapless victim. Then, like Harry, he is promptly deleted. (I especially like the fact that Sareln is losing his promoted Warriors.)

Our second Son is now in the capital and will be in place to summon Fire Elementals in 3 turns. I have promoted him to Body I for Haste, and I intend to do so with the rest of the Sons. Do you think this is unnecessary? My reasoning is that this will get them quicker to the front and they may not always move as a group. An argument against it would be that we could rather spend a couple of turns moving in position and spending that promotion on something else. Although besides Combat V I don't know what they could need.

We have just finished mining the Gold, which gives us +1 happy cap and a boost in income. We went from 18 beakers and -2 gold to 21 beakers and +5 gold. So definitely a giant leap forwards economically. Both Hezic'kul and Sorodh grew to size 2, the cap to size 7. Our newly trained Workers I have sent to chop out a Monument in Dragon Bones city.

[Mardoc]

Maybe it would be worth leaving Haste off the last Son, so that he can get a Mobility promotion instead when we research Horseback Riding. IF we research Horseback Riding. If not, then speed is still the most important thing, I think.

Really, it depends on how much time they spend stacked up vs. how much they split up, since you only need one Haste/stack.

It might also be useful to promote one of them up to Nature III, in order to Vitalize our lands. Just probably not as useful as the direct promotion up the damage line, to go a killing.

[Gaspar]

Yeah, I'd say right now speed is always the issue. While it would be swell if we could move in a pack, the rigors involved with getting the Sons home mean they're necessarily going to have to move individually for a bit. Its more in the additional promotions that I would be more diverse. Definitely get Body II on at least one - eventually we'll have to attack/defend with an actual Son as opposed to a summon, and Regeneration will be quite useful. Mobility is nice, but I don't really see HBR happening anytime soon if ever, given the poor Clan tech rate.

Its a lot of fun to see this play out. Will be even more fun when all 4 are home and you can really start wreaking havoc.

[Tredje]

I received a mail from Sareln today:

Hey Tredje,

I can't compete with that Son of the Inferno you pulled. Is there a
way for me to peace out of this, or is the next 20 turns going to be:
"Summon, kill warrior" rinse-wash-repeat until I die to eventual
starvation?

If he can't compete with one Son, what is he going to say when more start pouring in? What surprises me is that he doesn't mention the Arcane Lacuna, which makes me wonder if he won't be able to cast it. As for his question, what would be acceptable to us? Given our decisive advantage anything besides an unconditional surrender would be charity, and the Clan is not charitable. The only argument supporting some kind of deal (which would effectively make him our vassal and out of contention for the win) is that it would free our Sons to attack Bob a bit sooner. What do you guys think?

[Tredje]

Turn 92:

After realizing what was happening to Udenarat Sareln decided to retreat most of his Warriors. Only two remain in the city:

Although Timmy was disappointed to discover that he would be fighting unpromoted Warriors, he did his duty and incinerated one of them. I can see that Sareln is trying to save his most promoted Warriors and avoiding collateral damage, but leaving only two Warriors in the city is a big risk. In two turns our second Son will be in position to summon Fire Elementals, and unless there is some rule that Elementals can't capture cities, Udenarat might fall.

[Mardoc]

Again, I can't see what Sareln could possibly have to offer that is as good as everything he has. Besides, I doubt he's had that enjoyable of a game so far - maybe what we need to do is put him (and everyone else) out of their misery, so that FFH 8 can begin. Which means being absolutely ruthless.

Fact is, both Udenerat and his capital are excellent sites, so long as you don't have orcs and wolves preventing you from improving any tiles. Besides, with the way you've set up our NAP's, there's no one else we can hit in the next 18 turns, anyway. I doubt he has 18 warriors trained or trainable, let alone 36 (once we add Son #2). Really, as long as he doesn't cast the Lacuna, we ought to finish him off in plenty of time to turn our attention to Bob.

If Udenerat falls, can we hold it? And, do we need to? We'd be able to put in one somewhat damaged fire elemental as garrison - who would last until our turn, but it's still not a lot of force. On the other hand - Udenerat won't raze, so who cares if it flips ownership a few times as long as we're whittling down Sareln's army in the process? The only real risk I see is that it might end up in the hands of the barbarians, in which case it'll be a long while before we can claim it from them.

Plus, now that Sareln's warriors have left, they won't be getting fortification bonuses. Although - that does make me think he's probably organizing a Son-hunting party (or a city razing attempt), while he still has enough force to have a shot at that. You might keep an eye out for that - maybe split off the warrior to go scouting

[Mardoc]

Something else that came to mind - at the moment, the most effective thing Bob could do against us in war is to use Loki to capture our cities. Monuments may not just be a utility building, they could also be a defensive building.

[Tredje]

Bob called me up on google chat today. He went straight to the point:

So! Hey, let's extend our NAP
sure seems mutually beneficial and all.
And it ends in, what, 20 turns?

We don't really want a NAP, but I prefer to be abit elusive when it comes to diplomacy. I also wanted to see if he would divulge what he knows. This was my answer:

Yes, the one we have goes until T110 if i recall correctly.
I'm actually going to have to think about extending our NAP.

Bob didn't disappoint, and stated the matter exactly as he sees it:

Mmm, I bet
Cause' you've got them staggered with all of your neighbors who you aren't in the process of murdering
and you have those nice Son(s) of the Inferno
I can see the writing on the wall. It's just good play.
So I guess the question is then, is it Final War time, or is there any way for us to cooperate?

I replied:

You definitely make it sound very black/white. I'm not sure us not having a NAP necessitates war.

Bob:

ah, well. Forgive me, but I do find it a little bit difficult to believe that you'll be content to sit out your laurels for long
Economically, you're at a severe disadvantage.
And your super weapon won't be so super soon enough.
I'd be willing, happy even to work closely with you, collaborate in some mutually beneficial relationship through mana lending, religion spreads, whatever. But otherwise, I'm the next one up on the block, with your current NAPs
and I have no intention of rolling over. So, if we don't extend our NAP and come to some understand, I'm going to operate under the assumption that we're headed for a bloodbath.

In an attempt to avoid a definite answer, I prepared this reply:

Message received. I will still have to consider your offer before giving you a reply. I am not sure I see things as black/white as you do, and that not signing a NAP equals an imminent bloodbath. Please remember that you are leading GNP by a fair margin, and my hesitance could have something to do with forcing you to play "honest," as I think Serdoa once put it.

And I think Bob relaxed a little, (but only a little.)

Certainly. My GNP contains a lot of culture, but I understand your point regardless. But for the same reason, I'm going to be on edge. Trying to keep someone "honest" hardly works if you aren't prepared to capitalize on your latent & implied threat, of course. So take your time in reaching a decision if you need to, but don't be surprised if I build a lot of military in the meantime

I end with a small joke:

Hehe, I understand that you want to take precautions. Just make sure not to bankrupt yourself. That can be very painful.

So, what have we learned from this? Bob knows about our Sons (but so does everyone I would guess.) He also has information about our NAPs with SL and Iskender. And since his NAP expires first, it is easy to understand that he is worried. My goal in diplomacy is to not let him force me into saying anything to conclusive, in the hopes of him not building too much military. Yet, whatever we do he will probably be training units when he knows there will be no extension of our NAP.