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

[DaveV]

I took a quick look at the save.

The orcs got smarter, so whoever plays the next few turns is not going to look as good as I did when they were hammering away at the mass skeletons. The main thing I was trying to do was protect my adepts and cities from the fire elementals. He has a 4-tile range with four summoned elementals, and a 5-tile range with three elementals (casting haste rather than summoning an elemental with one of the Sons). So you need >4 units in a city within 4 tiles of his stack, and >3 units in a city within 5 tiles. I was able to use haste and road movement to move in, summon puppets, and move away, staying at a 4 tile range. If he had found the stack of adepts, he could kill 4 of them, but it doesn't look like he brought any scouting units.

He pillaged the earth node near Coombe View, which will be hard to replace. Best move might be to summon your skellies in Argenteria this turn. Summon the puppets two tiles away, move them in and mass summon. Move the warriors out if you can, they're useless against the fire elementals. Stack them with the adepts and cast haste on the whole stack if possible, leaving skeletons and puppets to take the pounding. Coombe View should be able to add a bunch of skeletons and have enough units to hold out if he attacks again. If he pillages enough roads, it will become pretty hard to hold Coombe View, although an earth elemental or two in that city would make it pretty invulnerable. Since the city is starving anyway, it might be worth whipping Gibbon there. Note that you only have 3 earth mana nodes, so you'd have to take earth 3 as an initial promotion.

If he gets aggressive with his fire elementals, leaving his stack uncovered, I was ready to consider throwing everything at his stack. If you can kill off the Sons, the Orcs will fall. I haven't run the numbers; it might just give him a bunch of experience, but worth considering.

[Bobchillingworth]

Okay, played the turn after mulling it over for like forever. Adepts should be safe, but idk what the Clan will do. Praying that I didn't miscalculate, and that I'll be able to get the nightwatch into Jubilee safely- apparently Gibbon won't appear in any city that doesn't have Esus spread (converted this turn). Research set to Warfare, which will arrive in two turns- just in time for a conversion to Conquest for the extra exp on Gibbon. Losing the Earth node really sucks, but what can you do? (nothing.) All of the Clan warriors have been rusted, but several stubbornly cling to their bronzed weapons. Lots of them are wounded, and they'll heal slowly thanks to my entropy mana.




A few random thoughts-


* Keelyn is insane. I have like 40 skeletons. This is with a handful of adepts only. Broken doesn't even begin to cover what she can pull off with archmages or especially heroic archmages. If the Sons weren't involved, I think I could take on several nations at once. Probably best leader / civ pair in a non-restricted game, if she can live long enough.


* Iskender is stupid. Well, Iskender might be a genius IRL, but he's acting like a moron in this game. Tredje his throwing his entire army at me, you simpering dumbass, and you're going to join him? The win-by-conquest civ? The guy who is only going to get much stronger if you follow him, but who you could seriously hurt once your NAP runs out? Ugh, I can't even work up a good rage about this, it's so dumb. Hopefully he has a good reason & I'll get to look like a jackass once he reads this post after Tredje eliminates him.


* Dave is awesome. Holy crap, the empire is hurting but you've done an incredible job keeping it standing. Absolutely immense. IMHO you're the best FFH player on RB. Many, many thanks

[DaveV]

IMHO you're the best FFH player on RB.

Hardly, but thanks for the compliment. Good luck with the game; it's a pretty tense situation.

[Bobchillingworth]

Apologies for anyone who wants an incredibly detailed strategy update. The turns are taking forever for me to play, and the situation is definitively hopeless. I lost the Nightwatch, so I've got no chance now of getting Gibbon unless I get an incredibly lucky free spread, which isn't going to happen. Esus spread mechanics suck > I lost the unit by moving him into elemental range (stupidly forgot they have 3 moves due to Spell Extension), but he would have died next turn anyway, since he was trapped in the Standing Stones city. Why couldn't Esus have spawned in my larger, eastern no-religion town?! Siiiigh.



Anyway, I do have some pics showing what's up.



As expected:





Despite that I think I'd be entirely justified going into a frothing rage over this, I just can't bring myself to care. This chat with Iskender explains his thinking somewhat:

me: well, I'm not going to bother raging at you about it. I'll save that for my thread, if I can bother working up the energy to care about it, but do you even have a reason?

please tell me you have a really, really good one

Telesfor: i have
6:01 PM
me: because I'm actually holding them off, albeit with a good degree of incompetence

so unless you have some incredible scheme to pull a win out of this

Telesfor: you had a good idea with those skeletons

me: so, you are still playing to win?
6:02 PM
Telesfor: of course

me: okay.

I might still abuse the hell out of you in my thread, but don't take it too personally once you're finally able to read it :D
6:03 PM
Telesfor: np

me: I persume you've got some religious plan worked out, but I understand if you can't share any details

since I'm not exactly dead yet :P
6:04 PM
Telesfor: the plan is quite secular actually

one of the reasons is that the clan is the lesser of the two evils
6:05 PM
with you being the greater, i think that's a compliment
6:06 PM
me: taken

too bad about the sons

I was going to stomp everyone with gibbon

so close, too!
6:07 PM
Telesfor: why the AV then?

it must've slowed you down

me: savant from a hut

all spreads natural

I don't have corruption of the spirit

(dungeon, not hut)

Telesfor: i know, but the stigmata?

me: oh that

had a scientist coming anyway
6:08 PM
figured the entropy mana would be worth it

seems to have been

clan warriors in his stack are almost all rusted

and his healing sucks

although I mostly wanted it as an anti-PZ measure
6:09 PM
Telesfor: rust anti-PZ?

me: yeah

rusted strength 4 PZ are a lot easier to take down with cheap bronze units / summon spam
6:10 PM
Telesfor: true enough

me: oh btw keelyn is so totally broken
6:11 PM
besides the silly spam stuff

Telesfor: with Gibbon?

me: well, more like balz in general are

yeah, but even beyond that

apparently you can sacrifice skeletons in arenas

Telesfor: wow

me: I haven't tested it because I sort of need them for other stuff atm, but yeah

infinite happiness!

Telesfor: does it stack??

me: it should
6:12 PM
I believe it does for regular units

Telesfor: if it does then wow

keanu reeves style wow

me: yeah. I'll test eventually if it does stack

Telesfor: anyway, twincast gibbon is broken enough
6:13 PM
me: yup

Telesfor: illusionist doesn't make big difference if you've got regular units to mop up

me: illusionist doesn't factor in with the balz

puppets aren't illusionists

his summons can kill through the,
6:14 PM
them*

Telesfor: really? damn

me: and the puppets give them all +1 move range

maybe +2 moves, I forget if puppets can get mobility via spell extension
6:16 PM
Telesfor: so you see why i'd rather tolerate 4 SoI
6:20 PM
me: to an extent, yes. But not necessarily why you'd outright aid them

Telesfor: touche

see my thread when it's over

me: will do!
6:21 PM
anyway didn't mean to harrangue you :P
6:22 PM
just wanted to be sure that there was a strategic reason for the war dec

No formatting, but I doubt I'll be posting many more chats here anyway, so anyone reading can surely handle this 70-line behemoth as-is


I get that he's worried about me becoming too strong- he should be. But the best thing for him IMO would be to build up his own power attacking the Clan, who already are incredibly dangerous but are presently occupied, than helping them get stronger by killing the guy who potentially will become a threat. Well, whatever. What is done is done. Either he'll lose to the Clan and look like an idiot and I'll be vindicated, or he'll pull off a victory somehow and will prove his brilliance.



Strategic view pics:






The big box full of skeletons is Coombe's garrison. I'll probably throw them all at Iskender's boys next turn, better than slowly getting my skeletons killed off without being able to replenish them.


There's some random puppets / warriors running around, but everything important has been noted.



And here's the Clan's main stack, along with my movement annotations:





Pretty banged up, almost all thanks to the entropy mana rusting thing and screwing up healing. This is why Iskender is playing very poorly. Those Priests of the Leaves could be chewing up the Clan's 1-warrior garrison backlines cities while I stall this stack, but nope, they're going to help the Clan capture my well-developed cities instead. Sigh.


Military advisor, showing just how much crap 15 adepts can spam with Keelyn:





Expanded here because, what the hell why not:






Probably going to regret that city once I've lost the mainland and want out of the game, heh. Maybe I'll gift it to Serdoa, as a thanks for the mana loans and apology for culture-stealing his land and not being able to repay him.



And finally, more evidence that the Balz are broken- I reloaded the turn after playing it and sent all of Coombe's skeletons into the Arena. The result:





Yeah.



Anyone have questions about stuff?

[Krill]

Why didn't you see the fact that the nightwatch was vulnerable, and any unit built in Ocells can spread Esus for gold.

[Bobchillingworth]

Like I said, I forgot that his elementals had 3 moves, and so thought that the hill would stop them. I also lost 3 workers who were going to build a road for the nightwatch. I couldn't move the watchman to the backlines through the north, because I don't have the tech to get OB with Serdoa (although I probably could have 1-turn researched it).


Good point about any unit being able to spread Esus, although to the best of my knowledge those are only ones who have Esus as their faith, and it isn't guaranteed that every unit produced in the city will have it. I could build a scout, but the town is in elemental range and will almost certainly be destroyed on the Clan's turn (four warriors defending vs. four elementals = wipeout). Esus was only founded like two turns ago, so even if I had started a scout ASAP last turn, it wouldn't have mattered in all likelihood.

[Selrahc]

Oh. Hey, that's interesting... All those skeletons are puppets. Destroy Undead wouldn't work. That's a pretty solid edge in spectre spam strategies as well. Although on the other hand -20% strength and losing out on some useful immunities, especially for angels demons and elementals. And no strong promotion from Tower of Necromancy.

The skeleton arena thing is a neat little trick.. but it's not all that crazy. +1 happiness in every city with an arena. Fair enough. If it properly stacked, giving limitless happiness that would be something else.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, the issue with the arena trick in my mind is mostly that it's totally free. There's supposed to be a downside for the mechanic, but the skeletons subvert it, giving the Balz yet another source of extra happy- one which can't be denied in any way, too.

[DaveV]

The other broken part about sending skeletons into the arena is that it's free experience if you don't need every skeleton you have because you're on the short end of a gang bang .

Bummer about Iskender stabbing you. That probably does make your position hopeless, but you might as well make it as hard as possible for them.

Giving away cities is probably going to get you pilloried in the lurker thread.

[Bobchillingworth]

I am sure that the lurkers have already expressed their doubtlessly well-reasoned opinions of my game many times over already



"well obviously bob should have eliminated everyone fifty turns ago given how powerful teh Balz were in a sp game I once had in ideal conditions"


"how did bob not have the perfect foresight to predict every move all of his opponents made, 30 turns in advance. what a noob"


"is it just me or is bob playing really terribly this entire game also why hasn't he won yet he's doing so well"



Yeah so basically if any lurker has a problem with what I do, they can invent a time machine, travel back to when they were typing up their criticism, and then go fuck themselves. Gifting a small island city isn't going to be the end of the world- that would be the four Sons of the Inferno.