[Spoilers] What's Sheaim to do? Irgy controlling Tebryn

[Koenigsegg]

It's nice to have you around; no need for apologies I guess

Going down the arcane line is definitely the endgame strategy, no doubts about that. Though as I have mentioned earlier in my post, I believe the main concern now should be getting some form of defense by T170. If WK were to declare war on you, the game might just be over soon. Perhaps Heisenberg could check how far into the arcane line you could reach if you start teching from now till T170?

Maybe Irgy could also provide some sentiments on WK himself, whether he is a friend or a foe You guys are the ones who communicate with the other players directly

And yeah Planar Gates aren't reliable if AC < 50, esp when the pre-req buildings for the gate units aren't up.

Hemah is a huge bonus if you could get it though. Having a heroic archmage at arcane lore is priceless, as long as you don't lose the AV-only units.

So is Nyktorion back in game?

[Heisenberg]

Turn 144:

We have the following event:

Kinda late for my liking, but 2 health is 2 health. Our cities have not exactly hit happiness cap yet, save 1. Decided to take it... and managed to grab the 2 health roll.

You're not going to win the game by building the same units as everyone else (i.e. OO units) in a smaller empire.

Stygians are 8 strength, but 1 movement. They can't be hasted, so it's at most 2 with the mobility promotion, which you won't have immediate access to without making a sarifice elsewhere in civics. I cannot stress enough how important mobility is in this game, especially as the game goes on and more spells are available.

I'd agree with Stygians being weaker in movement, and the importance of mobility... However...

So, I'd highly recommend Necromancy->Sorcery, delayed at most by the suggestion to research most but not all of Infernal Pact to mitigate the risk of Thoth grabbing it opportunistically. Getting the Grimoire is as much about denying it to the runaway as getting it yourself at this stage.

As far as Hemah goes, I think you're very unlikely to get him. The only situation you might is if the bulbed Arcane Lore -> Grimoired Strength of Will slingshot comes off. And then you've got archmages anyway. Taking Arcane Lore from the Grimoire is a fairly desperate move, given that you should have two Great Sages to bulb it with in time to do so.

Going down the arcane line is definitely the endgame strategy, no doubts about that. Though as I have mentioned earlier in my post, I believe the main concern now should be getting some form of defense by T170. If WK were to declare war on you, the game might just be over soon. Perhaps Heisenberg could check how far into the arcane line you could reach if you start teching from now till T170?

At our current tech rate, Necromancy + Sorcery is going to take us 15 turns. Arcane Lore alone, 20 turns. The second (first bulbing) Sage could arrive... in 24 turns. The 3rd... would take much longer.

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Suppose I did Necro + Sorcery in 15, and start on Arcane lore, I'd only be able to get it out by turn 170, using the sage to bulb half of it. And that is where our NAP with WK would end.
In this scenario, I would only have access to: 5-6 mages, a few ritualists, a handful of adepts and a few PZs.

Mages can summon str 5 spectres and ice elementals, and given my mana range, I could use slow, dance of blades, and fireball.
Spectres and Skeletons are nice to spam out, but do remember that WK has access to the ability to build/upgrade Life 2 casting Priests straight out from Devouts. (and he has poisons and priesthood already) All he needs are 3-4 of those, and our entire summoned stack of spectres and skeletons are toast.
That's going to leave me with... just some AoE stack damage from Ritualists and 5-6 summoned Ice elementals.
That, is -certainly- not going to put up much resistance... and I do have to provide WK with Ice mana from a previous agreement... and that gives him Snowfall with Corlindale already out.

This is the worst case scenario if I try to save the Grimoire for Strength of Will, and not get it.
We have 2 main competitors for the Grimoire: Thoth, and the Infernal player.
Thoth would be able to swap to AV AND start teching pact, finishing it in 1-2 turns. If I try to hold the Pact at 1 turn till I see him go AV, he is already 1 turn from completion--meaning he might even be the one who summons Hyborem out before me. Then it is a straight rush for the Grimoire... and I certainly do not see him losing in production to me.
If I summon the Infernals ASAP, I would have to hold on to completing the Grimoire till ~25 turn's time. By then, there is no guarantee that the Infernals do not take it themselves.

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Scenario 2:

Pact > Grimoire now. Using Grimoire to bulb Arcane Lore.

This path pretty much guarantees us the Grimoire, assuming Thoth would not start once he see's my Pact done. Even if he did, I would have had a 1-2 turn headstart.
This could be done in ~20 turns, for Pact > Necro > Sorcery.

This puts us at pretty much the same strength militarily as before, giving us an extra sage headstart into Strength of Will, and 10 turns of tech running into it.

Overall, this might be slower than a perfect Grimoire bulb of S.o.Will, but it has a much better chance of success.

Still, it leaves us vulnerable at t170.

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Scenario 3:

Swapping to OO.

We would take 5 turns to tech into Fanaticism.
Cities with the Temple of the Veil already up can produce ~5 ritualists in approxiamately 12 turns.
We tech OO, Necro > Sorcery after Fanaticism. This would be completed by t170.

After we produce a few ritualists, we can swap to OO, to produce Temples > Stygians/Cultists.

This gives us about 15 turns to work on those... and we should be able to churn some out before the NAP ends, together with the ability to keep producing more.
At Sorcery, we can also upgrade the same amount of mages as before.

Compared to the previous development paths, we are stronger militarily... not by much, but at least we are able to steadily produce strength 8 units.
The sage could go into bulbing Arcane Lore as planned, but at Arcane Lore, we would get access to Hemah.
However, we lose the ability to run S.t.Weak.
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I guess all 3 paths really depend on how the situation with the rest pans out. The others indicated an intention to dogpile Thoth, but have yet to provide any concrete affirmations. Whether WK's hands are tied by the situation would dictate how much time I would have to peacefully rush down the Arcane line.

[Koenigsegg]

Seems like Hyborem has entered. Managed to get your turn in to update us on his location etc?

[Heisenberg]

Nope, trying to fit in the Infernal player first.

Nyktorion noticed him immediately, so I'm guessing he might have appeared next to the elves

[Irgy]

Somewhat delayed response re: your plans a few posts up. I'm just going to pare it down to the key points then leave it up to you how to take it all.

• WarriorKnight is not the player you should be worrying about. Ok, maybe the close relationship we had is partly reset by the change of player, but I'm quite confident he is not interested in attacking. If he wanted to attack, T140 was the time to do it, with no substantial defence, Thoth distracting us, the NAP run out without discussion and the entire civ in disarray with the changeover. Instead, he is easily talked into a T170 NAP. On T170 he'll be in the thick of a war with Thoth. If you can't get the NAP extended past T170 at close to that time (T160 is when to discuss it) I'll eat my hat. Forget WarriorKnight, concentrate on how you're going to get some of the spoils of the Thoth dogpile.
  
• You should have two great sages on the way a lot sooner than 24 turns. One at about 90% from Grottiburg that should be ready a lot sooner than 24 turns so long as you continue to work the 3 sages available there. The other from the "Secret Codes" undercouncil resolution, which should come up soon. If you're first to Arcane Lore you don't need to burn a sage building the AV shrine, as you'll get another sage cheaply from winning the race to the tech itself.
  
• There's not a lot great sages can usefully bulb other than Arcane Lore, at least for a good while, as all the mana sphere techs (Alteration, Elementalism, Necromancy, Divination) come higher up on the list. Strength of Will in particular is behind Pass Through the Ether (with the same pre-requisite), so don't make plans to bulb it. The spell spheres could however speed up Sorcery research with their pre-requisite bonus, which could be worthwhile if you want to get there quickly and Grimoire Arcane Lore.
  
• Hammer for hammer, I'd honestly prefer pyre zombies to stygians, even running OO. Strength isn't that useful when you can reduce it or suffer its reduction with magic.
  
• Ritualists are also, in my opinion, better than cultists. 40% damage is enough, the extra damage cultists can do is usually overkill, and ritualists work inland. I know you have a lot of coast, but inland is where you should be fighting as much as you can.
  
• Hemah is good, but only if you can't get Strength of Will. However, if you do want Hemah, you'll need to be first to Arcane Lore. Because otherwise it's highly likely that whoever beats you to it will build him themselves. If you muck around getting Fanaticism, you probably won't be first to it.
  
• You called spectres St 5. They should be base st 10, and effectively 15 with modifiers by the time you're using them in anger. And did I mention 4 movement?
  
• Keep building as many adepts as possible, they are (at least eventually) far and away the best units you're ever going to get.
  
• Sacrifice the Weak is worth switching to immediately, even if you plan to later switch to OO. Although I also think it's good enough reason not to switch.
  
• Especially once Sacrifice the Weak is in, if you're not whipping every 6 turns in every city you're wasting unhappiness recovery.
  

Congrats by the way on finishing Infernal Pact Hopefully the Infernals will have better things to do than worry about the Grimoire. The good thing is they have nothing decent to grab with it, and won't for a while at their slow starting tech rate.

[Heisenberg]

Turn 145

The Pact has been sealed.

Hyborem has spawned near us:

As you can tell, he had declared on WarriorKnight the first turn, forcing him to burn Sanctuary off... and also to demand the Ice trade I owed him.

Now... this could be problematic.

Other than sit around for another 20 turns (cant remember how Sanctuary scales on Quick, gotta check), we are, unfortunately, the next obvious target.

Gonna try some fancy Diplo to try to deflect the impending attack... something along the lines of... "try sailing NE and you'd find Nyktorion's undefended island with Yggdrasil..." (cmon' at least I tried.)

I might have to fold the outermost city--its hard to defend if the Infernals really declare. It'll take them 3 turns to attack, and I'll see how many adepts and skeletons I could rush in... wait... strength 3 vs str 13? not... good.
Ritualists are on their way... but won't make it in time.

On the Civics side:

We have revolted to Sac. the Weak. Time to break out the whip!~

Seriously considering Fanat > Manevolent sling with the Grimoire in the current situation, just for Mardero and Beasts. Its either that, or Arcane bulb for Hemah. I need something immediate to deal with Hyborem if he marches in.

I'm actually just crossing my fingers right now hoping that WK would beat Hyborem to submission with Snowfall. I could just remind him that he gets... Iron if he manages to vassalize Hyborem. :neenernee

There's another way out though: should Hyborem come knocking on the door, I could gift the city to WK to hide under his worldspell to buy me those turns to get my military up and running, and to ensure that it becomes an Infernal vs Elohim war.

[Selrahc]

(cant remember how Sanctuary scales on Quick, gotta check)

Sanctuary does not scale by game length, and is 30 turns long.

[Heisenberg]

Yep, just ran a SP game to check. Looks like I'd be gifting that city over to the Elohim soon...

[Irgy]

Wow, that's an... interesting... starting location for Hyborem

It's also exceptionally good news if you ask me. WK has blown his Sanctuary! While you still have 25 turns of NAP with him as well! That's the best news I've heard all game.

My suggestion: Do your best to get WK's help. Donating him a border city, like you suggested, sounds like an excellent way to do it for a few reasons. The obvious one being that it puts a break in the way of Hyborem that he'll struggle to cross. Also though, it's a city WK will really value. Since he can build his own pyre zombies and gate there. So, make sure you get something for it.

Whatever happens, good diplo with WK is definately in order.

My second suggestion: Don't panic. Hyborem starts with some good units, but he also starts with very little production. His starting units are one shot wonders (well, two for Hyborem himself, but you get the point). I'd highly recommend an urgent whipping of military units and redeployment of forces, but I'd also recommend not changing your long term plans to react to this. In the time it would take you to do a malevolent designs slingshot this whole situation should be well and truely resolved. I'm not saying the MD slingshot is such a bad idea, but don't just do it as a panic reaction is all I'm saying.

Best of luck

[Heisenberg]

Very interesting Diplo updates to come.
@work now, will fill up this space with some... unexpected developments