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

[Mardoc]

Thanks Mardoc, I really appreciate it. And if it wasn't for your participation in this thread I would have grown tired of this game much earlier. Both your and Gaspar's presence has been very welcome. If you'd like me to I could still hang around and offer any input I can.

As long as you're having fun, I'd certainly appreciate your presence. I don't want to tie you to this if it's not enjoyable.

In any case I think there are a couple of things I should mention. Bob first attacked me with three Triremes, but in chat he said that he had another one on the way. (He also told me why he had built all those Triremes. His plan was to go to Acheron and capture the remaining Sons ) So far we have seen one beefed up Swordsman and one lowly Warrior. If that's all the units he has our coastal cities should be safe. If he has reinforcements (max 3 more units I think) it might be necessary to reinforce cities like Shazzak and possibly Cevedes.

For Triremes, I'm pretty sure he can only bring 2 passengers. Although I suppose he could have one left onboard the original stack. We have a Trireme ready, I'm planning to swap it to Buccaneer, and use the promo it has (I'm guessing Combat I makes the most sense) and try to start cleaning up these intruders. Or at least make them be cautious.

And...man, I thought Gibbon alone would have been enough for Bob to match us. Imagining him with another what, 6+ Sons, all with Puppets for at least 12 Fire Elementals/turn...brr!

And I can't help but look back on past me with disdain - I argued to Bob and Selrahc and others at the start of PBEM3 that summons were a waste of an Archmage caliber unit . That archmages should be game-changers, and one summon/turn wouldn't change anything.

I was building Adepts in Braduk to get two more sources of Haste. The plan was to move one to the east and join up with our stack, while the other could stay in the west and make it easier to react to any coastal threat.

Those look very useful, especially freeing up a Son for Elemental duty. I'm tempted to train some more for starting some eventual fireball mages, getting Enchanted Blades distributed, etc. The real problem is simple - there's lots of things I'm tempted to do right now, and of course we can't do them all. We'll need to figure out the right balance between military production to finish off Bob ASAP, Warrens for future everything production, econ buildings...fortunately the Sons and the Warrens ought to mean most of the civ can mostly stay focused on econ, I think.

Shazzak has put quite a lot of hammers into Rantine. I think there should be less than 10 turns left.

That's very good to know. Hopefully there's been no decay, either - but it'll have to switch to finishing him soon. Aside from having him in the area if we need him against that super-swordsman, I'm not planning to fight with him at all, at least until most of the barb cities have been brought onside. Which ought to give him time to get a full head of steam on promotions, too .

Our NAP with SL expires on T140, while the NAP with Iskender has just been extended to T150. Iskender owes us Enchantment Mana at some point.

So far Iskender has done most of the planning when it comes to our military operations. He goes first and usually sends me a mail with his proposed moves. I think the plan now is to move east of Jubilee and threaten the stack of Adepts as well as Bob's eastern cities. If you decide to do so it might be necessary to put a couple of units in Coombe to avoid Bob sending a detachment over and recapturing it.

This will be interesting, trying to coordinate schedules with Iskender. And, for that matter, trying to find a way to kill Bob's adepts - otherwise we'll be stuck battering against his last, fortress city, while everyone else wins. And also interesting to see if we can finish off Bob with time remaining on the SL NAP.

Remind me, what exactly was the wording of that worldspell NAP we signed with Iskender?

I see he's sending us map info every turn - do you think he'd be willing to trade world maps?

[uberfish]

And I can't help but look back on past me with disdain - I argued to Bob and Selrahc and others at the start of PBEM3 that summons were a waste of an Archmage caliber unit . That archmages should be game-changers, and one summon/turn wouldn't change anything.

Well, it depends on when you get the archmages, obviously Elementals are really good against warriors... I do think they ought to have a level 3 stack/city buster above RoF/maelstrom level that is available to everyone (IE: not Ice mana dependent), because you're right that 1 more level 3 summon at t180 doesn't really make that much difference when you're already running around with a bunch of level 2 summons.

[spellman]

Don't forget some of the lv3 summons though have Mana Affinity, making them quite the beatstick if you have a bunch of mana. Not to mention their other advantages, like Water ones splitting.

Still, if you were up against say a Berserker army or mass Radiant Guard, yeah the expendable summons would be nice but buffing your own stack of 20 high-tier units or using spells that affect their whole stack would be stronger.

It's the lovely period where you're the only one with Archmages though that you can really put the hurt on with summons.

[Mardoc]

Didn't actually do much this turn, just moved to stay stacked with Iskender, block off Balseraph options, and killed one Balseraph trireme (luckily, no damage). Will probably promote it again, take Buccaneer back off, and go hunting.

[Gaspar]

Fascinating stuff.

I'll take a longer look at the next turn and see if I can come up with anything to add. One longer term thought - if we capture the Veil holy city, we could throw a Warrens in there and see about pushing the AC a bit. Anything that keeps opponents struggling like we are is advantageous.

[NobleHelium]

What's going on here? Gaspar is helping you play now?

[Mardoc]

What's going on here? Gaspar is helping you play now?

He's been here all along, just is stepping up to a somewhat more active role.

[Mardoc]

Festivals came in, and I decided to start on Hunting, so we have a shot at Hunters and Hawks of our own after the Balseraph war ends. I'm not sure this was the best choice, maybe currency or heading toward trade would have been stronger moves. I also need to think about what makes sense longer term - maybe we should go up the priestly line for AV? Or maybe to Sanitation, at least?

Meanwhile, the primary focus of our building is to get Elder Councils up everywhere, which will probably be followed by Markets. Rantine's resumed production, he's 7 turns from completion.

Speaking of war, we and Iskender are moving deeper into Balseraph lands, and this turn I spent some fireballs shrinking the defenses at Jubilee. We're hoping to draw Bob's adepts into Jubilee, and then through a combination of Elementals and shock-promoted Priests, be able to target them ahead of the skeletons.

Loki's poking around Coombe View; we drove him into a corner this turn, and if he stays more or less stationary, reinforcements headed east can take a break for some Loki-smashing. Meanwhile, I'm preparing to attack Bob's triremes in the west; I think mine is out of view but within range. It's promoted Longshore now, for move 3, Str 7, combat II; that's enough to get me good odds on Bob's cargo-promoted triremes. If we can strand his sword and axe on the island, or even delay them, things will be good.

[Mardoc]

I got a little too aggressive last turn, and used all my spells on Fireballs to reduce Jubilee. Bob made me pay - I lost 3 warriors and an archer from the main stack - fortunately no Sons died, but even they were injured. He also killed Iskender's Divided Soul and Hawk, and a Priest, along with apparently some Tigers, although those of course are replaceable.

This turn, we're probably swinging to the other extreme, but the stack is now Regenerated, with 3 Elementals covering it, and nearby tiles pillaged of their roads. I used some backlogged promotions on the Sons, too, for healing - boosting one toward Nature III, in the unlikely event I'm at peace for any part of the remainder of this game.

The good news is, it looks like he had to clear out his local Freak supply to do it. We're not sure where Bob's Adepts are, with no Hawk in the area, but ~30 new Skeletons in Jubilee mean they can't be too far away. It'll take one more turn to join up our reinforcements to the stack, then we're hopefully going to be able to go Adept hunting. If not...well, we might at least manage to drive his adepts away from Jubilee and take it for ourselves. Eventually Bob ought to run out of cities to hide behind.

In other news, I killed another Balseraph Trireme this turn near Shazak, going down to 68 hp, but also gaining XP sufficient for another promo next turn. There are two more in the area, but only one can hit my trireme, and I have something like 98% odds on the defense due to the Clown cargo promotion and my two Combat promos. Depending on what Bob does, I may be able to kill one more next turn, too, or I may withdraw temporarily for healing. Regardless, this front is going well.


And there seems to be no rhyme or reason toward where Loki runs when he's attacked. I'm trying to get him into a corner and give my en route reinforcements a chance to go Loki-hunting for practice, but I think I need a solid line if I want to drive him in any particular direction. I'm debating just how much force is justified to remove him from the game .

Hunting's due in 3 turns, which ought to get us Dragon Bonish Ivory, in addition to a guaranteed friendly source of Hawks. We'll probably go Animal Husbandry after that, to use the Pigs and Cows we have lying around. Cevedes and Udenerat both finished their Elder Councils and started on Markets. I will probably go for Warrens here next.

Any questions?

[Mardoc]

This turn was mostly fought on secondary fronts, as the main stack used the turn just to regroup and heal some more. I covered the stack with 2 elementals, and used one Son to fireball-bombard Jubilee some more.

Iskender found Bob's adept stack but we were unable to hit it this turn, not when that would have meant leaving our whole wounded stack next to Jubilee. Next turn we should be able to, though, so long as Bob doesn't withdraw too far - we'll have added our reinforcements to the party (3 Priests, their Tigers, and a Goblin archer, and the 4th Son). He deleted the Tiger who found Bob, so hopefully Bob thinks we're in the dark



So, about those secondary fronts...well, first we've got the Trireme battle.


We promoted to Combat III, and went looking for the Trireme Bob had here last turn, where the northern one is now. Since it only had 2 moves, I figured it had to be either where I found it or 1 W. I honestly think Bob would have done better to stack them together, but I guess he disagreed.

We won, but are down to 3.8 Str. We'll see how aggressive Bob is feeling - I think he's got odds on us now (and won't next turn after I take another promotion), so he *should* attack, but he might not want to risk his only transportation in the area. In any event, Shazak will probably go straight from Rantine onto a pair of Triremes, so I can guarantee ruling the area, and ideally even resettle the island.

Still, this makes three dead Clown Triremes for only one left vulnerable. At the very least, I've delayed Bob long enough that Rantine ought to be in the area. And who knows? My trireme is Combat III, in coastal waters; it's got a chance, anyway.

In our tertiary front, more good news. It started out with Loki standing 1 NE of this spot, where my warrior's now:


I didn't like that location, he could potentially go bother my copper mining worker. So I gambled, and attacked him with my nearby Warrior. He ended up where you see. This was very fortunate - next to the coast, and more importantly, near to Braduk, who had just completed a pair of Shamans. A little bit of manuevering, and I got this:

Cast Haste with one Shaman, and the final result is just beautiful:


Unfortunately, it appears the Shaman who killed Loki, a Hero, gets no XP for doing so. It's got to be something to do with retreating not giving XP - and to be fair, I can think of ways to exploit Loki with a friendly Balseraph nation for training purposes otherwise.

So, all in all, a good turn . If we're lucky, next turn we get to build on this by killing as many adepts as we have summons for. Meanwhile, I'll probably gather together the Loki-killing stack and head them toward Jubilee, Hasted, so that they're present if needed for skeleton-reduction duties.