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

[Mardoc]

There are now 14 Skeletons and 14 Puppets in the city. You can also see that Bob has an Entropy Puppet that has begun rusting our Bronze Weapons. What do I decide to do? Attack. I figured I could kill all the Skeletons and maybe a few Puppets. And if I just sit outside the city all our Bronze Weapons will be Rusted (which will happen sooner or later anyway.) And I really want to get some xp on my Sons to enable Regeneration. Furthermore if all his Skeletons are killed he can't hit my stack on his following turn. I also realize that to win this war I will need more troops.

Yeah. There's very little chance of us making it to Forges, but you can at least the soldiers to a city and reequip them with new bronze weapons (they'll keep the Rusted, -10% promo, but go back to Str 4).

Also...here's another reason to get KoTE - enchanting all our weapons would at least cancel out the rusted debuff. I seem to recall reading that enchanted weapons are more resistant to Rust, too, but I don't remember where I saw that, so it could just be a theory.

I kill all the Skeletons except one and two Puppets and lose one Warrior (at about 90%.) My Son now has 64/65 xp and will get Regeneration. As I am writing this I just realize that I have lent Iskender my Body Mana. Cough... That wasn't very clever. Is it possible to cancel the deal on the next turn? It should be 5 turns since I offered it. I can then reoffer it to him after upgrading my Son.

Does he already have Haste? Upgrading to higher levels of a spell only requires the lower level spell, not current access to the mana. For that matter...if he doesn't have Haste, then he won't be able to train Regen on one promotion anyway.

And now, some comic relief:

It appears that Barnaxus has had a minor accident outside the barb city. Poor guy really doesn't catch a break in these PBEMs!

Ouch! I think Square Leg's definitely not going to be much of a threat, then.

[Mardoc]

So...have we killed anything but summons yet?

[Tredje]

So...have we killed anything but summons yet?

Ehm, no. Along with the turn Iskender sent me an overview of Balseraph lands:

Council of Esus has been founded, and the Nightwatch is in Ocells. We expect Bob to try and spread CoE to Jubilee and rush Gibbon. So me and Iskender decided it was best to try and intercept the Nightwatch on its way there. I moved my stack to the forested tile 1S of Coombe View:

I pillaged the Earth Mana and two farms outside the city. If I can reach the Nightwatch on the next turn I will kill it. Hopefully Davebob doesn't know what we are attempting. If not I might head for Bob's stack of mages or even Argenteria. Or I wait for Iskender and hit Coombe View. Right now I think it is most important to stop Bob from getting Gibbon, and I can't capture Coombe View anyway.

Also notice our increased GNP after Aristofarms are online. We are now third in GNP

I sent Square leg a mail asking if Barnaxus has had an "accident." Here is his reply. Spoilers for bad language:

For fucks sake.

What a useless hero.

[Mardoc]

I agree, if we can prevent CoE in the first place, that would greatly increase the odds of the war. Do we have any info on where the Holy City is? It's probably Ocells, right, since that's where the Nightwatch spawned? If we kill the Nightwatch and raze that city, I don't see any way of Bob getting Gibbon before he's dead. That said - I'm not sure that he needs CoE in the city he builds Gibbon, so long as his state religion is Esus, so we probably need to actually raze that city and anywhere else the Nightwatch touches.

Second priority is probably killing Bob's adepts. And third priority is actually attacking cities, although promos are certainly nice things to have. But if we kill his adepts, then he won't have any puppets or skeletons either .

[Tredje]

Turn 124:

Again the Sidar Luftwaffe has provided us with fresh intel:

As you can see Bob is moving the Nightwatch south, and it is protected by four Warriors blocking the road. However, if I move 2E of Coombe View I can summon a Fire Elemental and move across the hill. Which is what I do:'

The Nightwatch dies in the desert. (I'm not sure how big a loss this is for Bob, as I'm not sure if he can build Gibbon in any city or if he needs to have the CoE there. Iskender seems to believe the latter is true. I guess that shows how familiar I am with FFH2 ) I also capture three Workers, who get deleted immediately. I still have two Elementals. I pillage the road SE of Coombe View and kill a newly built Warrior in the city before returning them to protect the stack.

Iskender has now declared war on Bob and we will try to combine our stacks in two turns time. I am not sure if we can take Coombe View through sheer force or if we need to maneuver inbetween his cities. We will see.

You can also see what appears to be three Triremes in the screenshot Iskender sent me. I have started building a couple of Triremes of our own to combat Bob's naval threat, and I will put an extra garrison in our coastal cities.

[Mardoc]

The Nightwatch dies in the desert. (I'm not sure how big a loss this is for Bob, as I'm not sure if he can build Gibbon in any city or if he needs to have the CoE there. Iskender seems to believe the latter is true. I guess that shows how familiar I am with FFH2 ) I also capture three Workers, who get deleted immediately. I still have two Elementals. I pillage the road SE of Coombe View and kill a newly built Warrior in the city before returning them to protect the stack.

Hooray! I think Bob's behavior probably answers that question - if he could build Gibbon outside Ocells, I can't imagine him working so hard to get the Nightwatch elsewhere. That said, if you want to be completely safe, work on razing Ocells. Or, um, taking it for ourselves, that might work too, and then we could eventually build Nox Noctis, the most overpowered Shrine in the game.

Iskender has now declared war on Bob and we will try to combine our stacks in two turns time. I am not sure if we can take Coombe View through sheer force or if we need to maneuver inbetween his cities. We will see.

You can also see what appears to be three Triremes in the screenshot Iskender sent me. I have started building a couple of Triremes of our own to combat Bob's naval threat, and I will put an extra garrison in our coastal cities.

We might manage a city through sheer force, now that we've forced him to split up. The elegant way to do this is to kill off his adepts - that makes the Puppets go away without being killed, and at least prevents the Skeletons from multiplying (I'm not sure what happens when you have more permanent summons than eligible casters, whether the excess are disbanded or you just can't summon more.).

Plus, of course, if you happen to get his Body and/or Metamagic casters, that'll greatly reduce his mobility and information, in addition to reducing his defenses.

[Ravus Sol]

This is certainly heating up. Your economy seems to be improving slightly as well.

On the adepts. The Skeletons will stick around. If you have a Skeleton & Adept and the Adept dies it merely lowers the amount that can be "re-summoned" it doesn't affect any summons allready in play. At least that's what I remember, unless anyone can remember differently or WB checks it?

[Mardoc]

This is certainly heating up. Your economy seems to be improving slightly as well.

Yes, I'm very pleased at the effect of aristocracy - it's taken us from last place to the middle of the pack. We're still behind, of course, but quantity of cities ought to start changing that, especially as Tredje manages to slip in Courthouses and we take down the leader.

On the adepts. The Skeletons will stick around. If you have a Skeleton & Adept and the Adept dies it merely lowers the amount that can be "re-summoned" it doesn't affect any summons allready in play. At least that's what I remember, unless anyone can remember differently or WB checks it?

Well, darn. Still, it's been demonstrated that our stack can carve through Skeletons like a hot knife through butter, if they're not being replenished. If we kill the adepts, we can always repeat the trick for some extra XP.

[Mardoc]

Also...here's another reason to get KoTE - enchanting all our weapons would at least cancel out the rusted debuff. I seem to recall reading that enchanted weapons are more resistant to Rust, too, but I don't remember where I saw that, so it could just be a theory.

I figured this one out, I believe. Enchanted weapons still have the same risk of being rusted in the first place, but casting Enchant Blade on a unit removes the Rusted debuff. So a Shaman with Enchantment I and a city is all we need to bring those warriors back up to strength (and they'd get that +20%, too ).

That said, if any lurker knows I'm wrong, please correct me!

[Mardoc]

Something else that occurs to me, in general about the game. I'm no longer convinced that Iskender's making a mistake by helping us take down Bob. I was underestimating the Balseraph position.

Fact is, we needed his help - without his Hawks, we'd be seeing Gibbon in a couple turns, and a Puppet-spawning, Dominate/Earth elemental/Spellstaff etc Gibbon, at that. Without his Priests, it's quite likely that we'd be stalled in Balseraph lands until Gibbon was ready to fight, too.

Frankly, Gibbon in the hands of the Balseraphs is just about as dangerous as 4 Sons in our hands - only Bob also had the ability to produce 20 skeletons/turn, the best econ in the game, the best tech position....it all adds up to supporting the lesser evil, which sadly is us. Sure, Iskender still has to figure out how to handle us at some point, and our threat is increasing as we keep growing and teching, but Bob was already terrifying. And, depending on how Dominate interacts with Loyalty, perhaps Iskender would have had to worry about Puppet-spawning Sons in addition to everything else. That would have truly been the end for everyone on Erebus, taking our trump card from us and adding all the supports that we've been only able to add with difficulty.