Turn 163 finally arrived.
No action (other than the usual hail of free-xp fireballs) on Nyktorion's turn.
After the usual Floating eyes, hawk flights, Blur, Haste and Shadowalk I moved on F Destination this turn. Nyktorion still has his Ents on the board this turn, but they disappear at the start of his next turn (if I'm wrong about that then I'll have made a mistake that will probably cost me the game in the long run). I sent my assassins up against his mages and Killed 2 + an adept. I managed to loose two assassins at 90 and 95% odds. grrr. The adept that won at 5% odds will likely have gotten enough exp from that fight to level up to mage next turn.
Nyktorion is buying Entropy mana from Heisenberg (trading two of his own mana in exchange) and has a Rust adept in F Destination. Since most of my stack power comes from my Eidolons (plus RoF) I'm not worried about the effects of Rust on my combat capabilities. Rust only affects metal using units and Eidolons don't use metal weapons. If he doesn't abandon F Destination on turn 164 I should be able to take it plus the FoL holy city on turn 165.
After some careful thought I decided to cash in my GP and GSci and joined the Golden Age club.
I'm currently running 50% cash, 30% science and 20% culture. The GA lets me finish up Religious Law on time while maintaining a profit of ~450gpt. The culture slider does two things for me: 1) it keeps a couple of extra people working in the cities that haven't got Gambling Houses yet and 2) it puts a big chunk of culture into some sensitive border tiles on the Lanun front that I'm in danger of loosing cultural control over.
I'll be finishing off my last couple of GHs over the next two/three turns and I'll ditch the culture at that point. Once RL is in I'll build the Temple of Temporance in GLT (should be a 1 turn build with overflow) for an extra happy. WW is already bad and will get worse once I start capturing Elf cities. However I should be able to grab Cotton and Furs before WW really cripples me.
Looking over the trade screen I noticed that WarriorKnight no longer had his Palace Spirit mana. He wasn't trading it to anyone...WTF?
OH!
WAIT A MOMENT.
He's tolerant. He went and built the Infernal Palace in Dis. That explains his sudden power jump. DOH.
(The Infernal Palace gives -100% WW in all cities, + 50% production in the city it is present in and +1g/+1b from religious buildings. It also provides 1 Iron, Fire Mana and Entropy mana)
Mardoc now has Stirrups + Iron Working (no Iron hooked up yet). Still no sign of any increase in his power rating (Does Nox Noctis invisibility prevent units from showing up on the power graph?)
He's got enough time to tech to Warhorses before our NAP expires at EOT 170 so War Turtles are a possibility. Alternatively he could tech Gunpowder for some Muskeers (if he has access to the Gunpowder resource). I don't think he has the beakers to do both and still upgrade any significant force. He could whip up a pile of HA's on the last couple of turns before our NAP ends or he could draft a bunch of Muskets (he'll need to tech to Warfare and swap into Military State before his GA ends in order to do that but he has the BPT to do so). That would enable him to 3 pop draft 3 st 10 (11 with flaming arrows) Muskets per turn.
Next turn will either see the elimination of my stack (if I'm wrong about when the Ents disapear) or the beginning of the end for Elfdom. I'm continuing to draft out Radiant Guards both for the Eastern front and to help beef up my Western defenses. Other than that it will be mage/disposable summons spam backed up by Beasts of Agares/Mardero in the West (plus a small surprise package). I would like to redeploy at least one of my Eidolons but I'd rather ensure a quickish end to the Elf war. Taking Nyktorion's Island cities won't be difficult but it will take a few turns and tie up water walking units.
The AC is currently at 20 and I'll be raising it by at least 8 points (4 for Mardero and +1 for each Beast). In order to trigger Blight I'll need to either raze a couple of cities or spread AV to a few more of my cities.