[SPOILERS]- Crazy Keelyn is trippin’ Balz: Bobchillingworth of the Balseraphs

[DaveV]

Lair exploration:



A good result, but a Leaf Disciple doesn't seem to fit into your plans. Maybe sell him to Iskender?

And it turns out the barbs think the island to your southwest is big enough for a city:



I suppose this could even be Acheron's lair...

[Bobchillingworth]

Hey Dave, I'm back & can start playing the saves again- thanks for looking after the game while I was away. Looks like not too many turns passed? Not sure it matters anyway, with four Sons this game is pretty much over regardless :P

[DaveV]

About 4 turns, I think. I had time to play turns over the weekend, but not time to post reports. Loki is coming back home through Square Leg's land - I sent him an email telling him I wasn't planning any shenanigans, and he sent back an acknowledgement.

[Bobchillingworth]

Finally got my hands on the turn. Everything looks pretty good, although it took me a while to figure out where I wanted all the various puppets and stuff to move. Science rate is rather good, sailing came in at EoT. I'm seriously considering chasing Drama next for the free great artist- it's only a 5-turn tech, and the free golden age via artist seems worth it. After Drama (or before, if I skip it), I can get corruption of the spirit & priesthood in a combined 16 turns for a ritualist & corpse-based invasion of Serdoa, or take an 8-turn detour toward military strategy for the Great Commander & ability to build the national epic and +100% troop production national wonders in jubilee.


I'm going to send the Discipline of the Leaves to SL, in return he'll give me a 10-turn loan of one of his manas. Life is the ideal, if I can't get rid of Serdoa without using mages, but Enchantment has some promise as well.



I asked for free metamagic and body mana from Sareln. Hopefully he'll hand them over; he isn't going to get much more use out of them at this point. Barb city at the Stones should fall within 8 turns or so, with my replacement town being planted almost immediately afterwards.

[Bobchillingworth]

Turns are moving petty slowly for this game. Kind of hard to maintain constant interest when Tredje's hyper murder squad stalks the land. It's like a vanilla Civ IV scenario I made a couple years ago, where everyone was on a large continent and the barbs started in the center with a single Modern Armor. You can build up a great empire, but once the doom unit shows up your game is ruined, even if it doesn't kill you outright. Blaugh :P



Been too long since I posted a picture, so here's one from the latest turn:




Ugh. I'm assembling an army to raze that city in just a few turns. It's right on my border, and like hell I'm going to allow Serdoa to take it.



Sent off this email in response:

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hello,


I see that you have a small squad of well-promoted PZ outside of a barb city on my borders. If you're there to kill the defenders for exp and burn the city, then that's cool. If you intend to keep it though, we have a problem. That city is significantly closer to my borders & capital than yours, and as such I consider the territory which it occupies mine. Indeed, I intend to burn it myself in a few turns, and then re-found 1S shortly afterwards. Please let me know what your intentions are.


Thanks,


-Bobchillingworth[/COLOR]

Who knows if he'll bother replying. It's odd to see him whine all over RB about how he has no friends and nobody trusts him, and then all he does in this game is ignore my constant overtures for cooperation.

If he takes the city, then it's war. Actually, Loki might be able to snipe a pair of his workers this turn- if he doesn't reply back to me favoribly, them I'm tempted to just get it over with. His army is only about four (very) well-promoted PZ, and I'm confident that my rust + haste (thanks to a loan of Body from Sareln) adepts combined with my much greater production and Orthus axe melee units can take him. Plus I have Corruption of the Spirit coming in shortly, and then Ritualists the tech after. I could also try an alpha-strike on his little PZ band after he takes the city, by cleverly roading to the spot and then killing them with the army I was going to use to capture the town for myself. We'll see.


The original version of the my email to Serdoa was a little bit more interesting, btw. I followed "let me know what your intentions are" with "before either of us does something you'll regret". Figured it was more prudent to keep any aggressive action on my part only implied rather than overt, though




Oh, and more lovely diplo:

[COLOR="Orange"]Hi Bob,

The Clan would like to inform the Balseraph nation that the NAP between our empires will enter its period of expiration on T110. As per our agreement the NAP will continue to hold effect for another 10 turns before finally ceasing to function.

Kind Regards,

Tredje (& Mardoc), Orc (& Goblin)[/COLOR]

Haha, end of the line I guess. Well, thanks for the advance warning anyway. I'll be sure to have a proper reception prepared for you should you ever desire a tour of my great cities.

I can inform you that Queen Sheelba is tired of bloodshed and destruction. All she now wants is time to rest and focus on things that are really important. Such as getting Silk and Dyes hooked up so that she can get those purple dresses made that will prove once and for all that she is the prettiest woman in all of Erebus.

Augh. Well, at least my NAP extension bought me 10 more turns, which might be all I need. Do I trust Tredje's reply, that he has no aggressive intentions? I don't know. I've got a ridiculously brutal but possibly quite workable defense plan, anyway. Five or so death I adepts in Coombe, constantly summoning puppets and skeletons. SHould be able to easily fill the city with more crap than Tredje could kill, even with all four Sons + support. And if he wants to get in closer, then I could hit him with ritualists + diseased corpses. Of course a war with Serdoa is going to complicate that, but so it goes. If worse comes to worse, I'll just jump ship to Hyborem again =)

[Selrahc]

If worse comes to worse, I'll just jump ship to Hyborem again =)

Because that worked so well last time. :neenernee

[Bobchillingworth]

Bah! Well, it's mostly because I find presiding over the slow downfall of an empire I built up myself to be incredibly dispiriting. But because everyone else on this map is so far behind, Hyborem could actually maybe do some damage this time around, too. In fact, I'd have switching to him as my main plan, if I wasn't crushing everyone at everything so badly at the moment.

[Hesmyrr]

Well, I am sure everyone is keenly interested in seeing excellent comeback (okay, maybe EVIL LURKERS from the horseland are eagerly anticipating your utter distruction but hey, I'm ded. lurker ). I hope your plans work.

And speaking of all the agonizing over Hyborem, can I see your demographics?

[Bobchillingworth]

I'll post demos when I get the turn next. Suffice it to say, I'm leading all of them



Here's a different pic for you though:






Welcome to Acheron Island, AKA "Mulcarn's Folly". Obviously his "folly" was in not playing as the Clan. Conveniently located a mere dozen or so tiles from the Clan capital, this island presently boasts about ten Sons of the Inferno and a generous compliment of 26 warriors. Easy access via galley.



Dammit Uberfish, WTF? I know that us players are to blame for the stupid settings we chose for this map, but you couldn't have at least required Tredje to have Optics before he could boat some Sons back? If he hadn't wasted his worldspell early we'd all be completely utterly dead right now- and everyone still may very well be doomed regardless. Ugh.




Okay, so I spent some time in worldbuilder trying to see how I could possibly turn this debacle to my advantage. If I could grab the remaining Sons for myself, I'll have won the game. Tests showed that I was indeed able to load some triremes up with an archmage and successfully cast spells and summon puppets from them. And a single cast of Metamagic II (while still offshore) was all that I needed to dispel Loyalty from the Sons, leaving them open to Domination. But then I ran into an issue- I never got the chance to Dominate any of them, because Acheron always defended against my attempts, and he's fully magic immune & thus will always block it.

So... how to seperate the Sons from Acheron. I could just try killing him outright, but I'm not going to have anything strong enough for a long while, and once I do I might not even need the Sons at that point. Fear would work, and I have the Timor mask, except it doesn't have any effect when attacking a city. If only I could somehow convince the barbs to "voluntarily" leave the city themselves... but the Sons will never leave on their own. They're too calm, cool (figuratively speaking!) and collected. I'd need to get them angry, maybe... taunt them?



Yup. Taunt. Harlequins. A tech diversion which I never intended to make, but if they work it means winning the game. The results of my worldbuilder tests with them were mixed, though. If you use Taunt from a boat, the Sons will actually (somehow) attack the boat itself. Obviously that's not an optimal result, since the Son will either get killed or even if he wins the combat he'll remain inside the city. Used on land, Taunt either worked perfectly (Harlequin died, Son exposed) or it crashed my game. There's a few problems even with the Sons attacking me on land, though. First, it leaves them exposed to attack from their former friends, since I don't think that I'll be able to get them onto my boats immediately (might be able to using Haste, haven't tested that yet). There's also the problem that I have no control over which units Taunt affects, so I could be using up a lot of Harlequins to clear out random warriors. And like I said before, it's a big tech diversion to get them.


But I think that might be the only chance I do have of grabbing them, and if it will win me the game... Any thoughts on the matter, Dave / Hes ? Perhaps there's some other way of exposing the Sons to Domination which I've overlooked? Right now I'm thinking that I should continue teching to Hemah (bulb sorcery, grimoire Arcane Whatever), and then if the situation is ripe head for Harlequins and try to grab some Sons. Who knows if I'll even survive to that point, honestly.

[Hesmyrr]

Sorry, I thought about it but I don't see any other way. That you managed to plan this far is surprise to me actually. I don't like the plan itself however- seems too much of a gamble & diversion.