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

[Gaspar]

Before we sign, please find out when SL intends to research Currency, and lock that into the deal. And don't let him say any further than 7-8T out, gold now is always worth more than gold in the future.

I wouldn't normally be such a lawyer, but as we are the world's big baddie, so teams will naturally be less inclined to want to help us.

[Mardoc]

Thanks for looking it over for me. As it happens, I'm researching currency myself at the moment, and it'll finish EOT 143, so I put hard numbers into the deal instead of '3 turns after'. With currently open borders, and 14 cities (a third in revolt, but still) I figured getting extra trade routes would quickly pay for the tech. And a bit of extortion on the side won't hurt either

I played the turn yesterday, but the only things of note were Rantine getting us our first (and maybe last ) barb city. I found what Bob's been up to - he razed one of the 2 SW barb cities. I also killed his eastern trireme with fireballs from the sons, as I migrate support troops over to the Sheaim border. Presumably he'll attack Coombe View this turn before turning over to AI, and then cease to be a threat.

I might need the Sons for one more turn to kill anything that survives out of Bob's stack, but then I'll work on assembling a Sheaim kill team. I want to wait for my hawks, but I think that's probably too much of a delay, so I'll just play it cautiously for the beginning.

I think I will settle something between 4-6 cities eventually - ex-balseraph lands will be profitable, with villages already in place. The Gold island city will probably be profitable, due to a combination of intercontinental routes and, well, Gold. Aside from that, hardly anything's going to be worth claiming, and these are only probably worth it.

And, I think next I start research on Philosophy, with the aim of Corruption of Spirit + Bone Palace (if the engineer is enough). I tested, and he's enough to hurry the Catacombs Liberalus, which costs only 67 hammers less. After that...maybe Warfare so I can free revolt

On the other hand, Iskender has marble and I know he has philo, so I might get beat to the Bone Palace, in which case Mr. Engineer becomes Mr. Golden Age directly. I'll have to check next turn what the wonder situation is.

Finally...we're hovering right at 29 AC, and Square Leg says he plans to rare the barb city between us (at Tredje's request, a while back) next turn, so maybe we'll just have to drop everything and deal with Blight. Which would be a good time to do an invasion with summons, true, as Serdoa would have trouble building anything new to counter me, and cities in revolt aren't starving.

[Mardoc]

Alright, we signed the deal with Square Leg. If he's got an obscene army in 30 turns that slaughters us, you can tell me you told me so .

[COLOR="Silver"]Hey


I should defend Coombe View w/o losses. I don't mind handing the Bals over to AI, they're done anyway. Does it affect the prospects of recovering the Axe? I mentioned that I find it valuable because of its synergy with summons so before we talk of compensation let's make sure whether it can or cannot be recovered.


I'd like to hit the Sheaim, merely for the opportunity to test invisible warfare, but i think swallowing another player could make the Clan maybe too powerful, so I'll pass. Nonetheless I want to send a couple of hidden tigers to zombieland just for fun.


Iskender[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]I'm not sure anymore on the Axe question. The unit who had been
carrying it is now out of my sight, and I'm not sure how the AI will
prioritize disbands, or if Bob will disband units before turning the
Balseraphs over. Having to fight an AI instead of Bob should make
recovering it easier, once I actually find it. As long as Bob hasn't
stuck the axe in the tundra or disbanded it, I should catch up to it
eventually.

I do believe I've lived up to all the other provisions of the deal?
You have something like 6 Shadable priests now, and I think you
captured about half the cities the Balseraphs lost.

I'm glad to hear about Coombe View. I think once that defense is
over, the war will be definitely just a matter of mopping up.

I've been discussing the game situation, and I'm still debating
between a pause for infrastructure and moving right on to hitting
someone. If you don't want to ally to do so, which makes sense to me
(there's no remaining existential threat, except maybe the Clan after
T150), then I suppose you'll find out who when I declare .

If you do pull some fun shenanigans with Into the Mist, please
document them in your lurker thread; I'll be curious to know
eventually what you can do with it.

- Mardoc[/COLOR]

This all happened last night, but was lower priority for me to post. I can't decide if Iskender's fishing for info, trying to goad me into attacking the Sheaim, trying to prevent me from attacking the Sheaim, or what. As you can see, I sent back basically 'message received', and I think I'll mostly ignore him and attack the Sheaim anyway. The only way this might work at all is the combination of running Aristocracy, conquering improved land, and having two trade routes, with a side bonus from being Organized. Aka - sheaim land is unlikely to be a profitable conquest, but I expect it to be approximate revenue neutral, and in any case it'll be a step toward victory.

Which is the only reason I might go for settler spamming, to push further toward Domination. I should really check the victory screen at some point to see how close I am, if Domination is feasible or I should simply aim for Conquest.

[Mardoc]

Well, I am waiting to get killed by either Clan, Sidar or Dwarfs so I don't really care if you retire Bob or what you guys agree on being gimmicky or not. Just finish me off as well and fight it out between you then.

Boy, I *wonder* if Serdoa will put up much of a fight when I come for him ...that suggests I really ought to emphasize starting ASAP more than having the perfect army, so that Sheaim cities will have plenty of time to recover and contribute to the rest of my game. Now that I've gotten Body adepts to the Sons, that essentially adds an extra elemental to my firepower; if I start the various garrison/stack protection forces headed east immediately, I ought to be able to start in a turn or two.

[Mardoc]

I decided I was delaying enough on starting the Sheaim war, and moved in this turn with the Sons + 1 Shaman + 1 Warrior. I figured I'd play defensely, making sure to have my elementals block paths to the stack, cover the Sons, and see what damage I could do while waiting on the rest of the support troops to catch up.

That turned out to be an *excellent* idea. I killed two PZ's, captured two workers, and the current situation looks like this:


Yeah, I knew from the Power graph Serdoa was running a bit on the light side - but I still didn't expect him to be this light! He's only got 6 cities total, and I'm already trying to decide if I can take three of them next turn, or if that's too greedy and I should settle for less, to make sure the Sons remain safe. I'll probably blitz through his land faster than I can get garrison troops in place, unless he's got a bunch of PZ's still hidden in the fog. Assuming this is true, I'll probably also finish him before my NAP with Iskender expires, let alone the one with Square Leg

At this rate, the Sheaim may fall before I have naval superiority, even, and I can use the Sons to finish off the island paradise rather than needing to keep them mainland.

I'll need to figure out precisely what I'm doing on the Iskender front; I don't want to go head to head with those Priests just yet, but it'd be nice to keep him paranoid enough to not Wane them. I think I may be able to outresearch him between the influx of Sheaim gold, Balseraphs working hard, and Luchiurp tribute, but maybe I should look to attack sooner anyway.

In other news, well, here's an example of why I think I can keep conquering profitably:


And here's my current thinking on resettlement of Balseraph lands (starting cities with farms and villages ought to make them profitable, I think).



Finally, cities that may or may not be worth settling:




Why, yes, Keelyn is bombarding Dirage with that Trireme. Here's the other half of why I'm not scared of Balseraphs when they're not guided by Bob.

Iskender's built the Bone Palace, so the Great Engineer will simply become a golden age as soon as I think I've got enough cities out of revolt to justify it. I think I need to research Warfare by then, so I can revolt into Military State for free (debating Conquest, but currently thinking that'll be a 'no' - drafting soldiers will probably be enough food to hammers, but giving up Agrarianism will really hurt). For the moment it's full speed ahead on Ashen Veil; I would like to use Warrens Ritualist spam to build temples everywhere for the happiness, beakers, and AV units. And of course having the Ritualists around will make me feel much more secure vs Iskender anyway. Yes, I know the screen says Animal Husbandry - I changed my mind mid-turn, Mobility can wait, better to unlock the actual units first. I might yet come back here just for the animal healthiness, though.

In other news - well, I'm mostly constructing Warrens all over the place, with a side helping of Courthouses/markets/Elder Councils. I don't expect to need to spam troops for the Sheaim, and I've got a little time before I need to do so for the Sidar or Luchiurp - I'd rather build a Warrens before spamming troops since I can.

[Gaspar]

Couple things:

1. It seemed in the tech thread that the players were okay with you suing for peace with Keelyn, as you had earned it. Why not do that, since there's really no need to go after those island cities right now?

2. We absolutely hope he wanes those priests. Keep an eye on the power graph, priests are huge there, if you see a big dip, that means we don't have to deal with his top troops.

3. If Serdoa goes down like a ton of bricks, we could hit Iskender next, unless you're feeling like we can't use the Sons against him. In which case we're probably like 40T from being able to hit him and you'll really regret that SL NAP.

4. Do we really see drafting as a big part of our offense? Seems like with Warrens, we're better off actually producing troops.

[Mardoc]

1. It seemed in the tech thread that the players were okay with you suing for peace with Keelyn, as you had earned it. Why not do that, since there's really no need to go after those island cities right now?

I suppose I could do that. The palace war weariness protection, combined with the fact that most of our fighting was with disposable summons, means WW isn't hurting right now, though; only 'yearn to join the Motherland' is any significant happiness penalty. I think Braduk has now one unhappy face.

And I do want to recover the Axe, and I don't think it'll be 10 turns anymore before we're ready to finish Keelyn off. But maybe it'd be worth signing peace anyway for a bit to let WW die down and AI Keelyn not build troops. What do I need to do to make sure it's the breakable peace, not unbreakable?

2. We absolutely hope he wanes those priests. Keep an eye on the power graph, priests are huge there, if you see a big dip, that means we don't have to deal with his top troops.

Yes, I want him to wane them, just hopefully waste a couple turns of income first. Although the declaration on the Sheaim might soothe him enough to wane them now.

I will shortly be building a Hunting Lodge in one of the Warrens cities, so we ought to be able to survey directly for the Priests, although of course I'll watch the Power graph too.

3. If Serdoa goes down like a ton of bricks, we could hit Iskender next, unless you're feeling like we can't use the Sons against him. In which case we're probably like 40T from being able to hit him and you'll really regret that SL NAP.

I know Tredje didn't consider the worldspell NAP binding anymore, at least as regards the Sons. He never gave quite enough info to make me feel comfortable with that decision, though.

I really don't want to hit Iskender with the Sons, if I can come up with any other method. I'm hoping the influx of money makes it easier to come up with said method. Still, you might turn out to be right on leaving SL alive. Which is why I'm rushing to AV and then to Iron, so that I can prove you wrong here .

Honestly, given how long first Sareln and then Bob held out against the Sons, I didn't expect Serdoa to fold this quickly. And maybe he still won't. But I thought I'd be tied up with Serdoa for 15-20 turns, making an NAP worthwhile to keep the dogpile away.

4. Do we really see drafting as a big part of our offense? Seems like with Warrens, we're better off actually producing troops.

I haven't tested, but there's a chance drafting gives two units too from a Warrens city. Since we're looking to fight with Axemen/Ogres, drafted units are definitely mainline, anyway, so drafting would be useful to benefit from new cities that don't have warrens built yet. Since we're Aristrograrian, there's not a lot of hammers in our empire, either.

But the main reason to go to Military State is for the bonus maintenance, in my opinion; drafting would just be a nice boost. At the moment we're spending 16/turn on unit upkeep, MilState would add 19 maintenance to our free limit. I fully expect to max out our maintenance any turn now. And subtracting 19/turn from our maintenance ought to speed up our research considerably, no?

The downside is the loss of that initial 2 XP that could go into Mobility or Shock, and I still haven't figured out the best way to get it back. Maybe we go Sacrifice the Weak/Conquest on top of MilState, if our research rate picks up enough that we can afford to divert to Infernal Pact. We've still not lost peace with the Barbs, so Hyborem would be only a headache for our foes.

Edit: I don't know what I was thinking, Hyborem isn't a barb. It's the Horsemen that would be all kinds of fun for the foes . But running AV might be enough to soothe the savage demon anyway.

[NobleHelium]

And I do want to recover the Axe, and I don't think it'll be 10 turns anymore before we're ready to finish Keelyn off. But maybe it'd be worth signing peace anyway for a bit to let WW die down and AI Keelyn not build troops. What do I need to do to make sure it's the breakable peace, not unbreakable?

Make sure it says "Cease Fire" in the screen before accepting it. That means you can't extort any concessions, of course.

[Mardoc]

Ah, thank you NobleHelium.

I will probably go ahead and sign a ceasefire with Keelyn, then, for a few turns while we get forces in position to finish her off.

[Ravus Sol]

Are you definatly confident that the orcish economy will survive another push? It was certainly teetering not that long ago.

Hope you can get a hunter hawk combo out to support the Sheaim invasion soon. Hawks are so brokenly good against human players.

Ummmm just as a clarification question... Does anyone know EXACTLY what the Sheaim worldspell does? It does apocalypsy stuff, does it also raise the AC etc?

EDIT: it looks like you are having a lot of fun with the sons! keep it up!