Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Man Behind the Mask]

Food for thought, if you guys are still interested.

Why wouldn’t we be? There’s nothing like undefeatable odds to hold my attention!

I’ve had a look at the save...

Well, itd be interesting to know what happened to those settlers. Still, it appears Hybie will be little more than a footnote here.

The three clown units in the top right of your screenshot include two workers with the Demon promotion. I think we found the settlers!

On that note, given that it looks like the war will hit our shores faster than we previously imagined, does it make more sense to use the Grimoire on military techs rather than a peaceful win condition we might never live long enough to see? I'm thinking the obvious Malevolent Designs push, obviously. Would Beasts, Mardero and Eidolons be enough of a factor in the battle? Can PoL upgrade to Eidolons? My only hesitation is to spend so many hammers on slow troops, but I also think as clearly that its going to take more than Ritualists and DC to hold him off. Of course, partly I'd like the still available sage at Arcane Lore for Stigmata on the Unborn - as much for the [strike]chaos[/strike]Entropy [correction] mana as the research boost.

All priests upgrade to Eidolons, and they would do a much better job of stopping Spectres in their tracks. We’d need Disciples of Leaves on hand to cure revolts from producing Beasts and we’d definitely be running into Blight, so that will harm our foodhammer production. Fanaticism is cheaper than Sorcery, so I think we could run an extra turn of gold before the Grimoire completes.

If Krill was bringing weapon promotions, or likely to need to heal in our lands, then I’d say the entropy mana would be handy, but I don’t think either of those apply. I’d be completely happy with going all military to drag things out for Rawking and Brian to have a chance. We’ve still got March of the Trees, although in Blight that would be potentially painful on our food.

Is it too late to cut a deal with Krill?

And a quick wash up of other thoughts:
- Why is our courage Adept creating a node for 3 turns while the other two hang out doing nothing?
- Have you got somebody on the way to the Dungeon? Sorcery for free would be handy!
- I don’t think you mentioned it, but Brian finally adopted Aristocracy!

[Mardoc]

I think Nicolae is going to crumble because we can't get there fast enough. And that means we're on the list. I think we can defend but his ability to replenish his troops pretty much non-stop is tough to match.

This is going to be key for us. We can't afford to let Krill own Nox Noctis territory on our doorstep; at the very least we have to take back or raze Nicolae's cities after he's gone.

On that note, given that it looks like the war will hit our shores faster than we previously imagined, does it make more sense to use the Grimoire on military techs rather than a peaceful win condition we might never live long enough to see? I'm thinking the obvious Malevolent Designs push, obviously. Would Beasts, Mardero and Eidolons be enough of a factor in the battle?

You know - they might very well be. And on reflection, you're right, we need something more if we're to have a prayer against 25 spectres a turn.

It won't be Eidolons, unless you've got a plan for Iron I'm not aware of, we can't train/upgrade them. PoL do upgrade to Eidolons, but Iron's a hard requirement.

What would be key, though, is Beasts and Mardero. They're all very strong Demon units, which means Spectres are Str 3 to them and Fear is irrelevant. Give them Shock, and Krill's mages are likely to defend his stack, too .

Spectres, meanwhile, only get 50% resistance to the Unholy damage the AV demons have, and we'd also have very good base strength. Mardero's an archmage, too, starting with Entropy on hand. So we'd be looking at strength ratios of 3:12 for Mardero, 3:13.5 for the Beasts, before any promos. And if we can't get XP on these guys, we're doing it wrong. .

Can PoL upgrade to Eidolons? My only hesitation is to spend so many hammers on slow troops, but I also think as clearly that its going to take more than Ritualists and DC to hold him off. Of course, partly I'd like the still available sage at Arcane Lore for Stigmata on the Unborn - as much for the Chaos mana as the research boost.

As long as we're thinking along the lines of 'hold him off', speed is going to be less important. What the Beasts can do is hold a strongpoint/city, to let us keep cultural control and hence mobility control.

It's the entropy mana we want, not the chaos. But frankly, it's not going to make much difference against Krill's army as we know it, spectres aren't exactly susceptible to Rust. Swords may be, but Ring of Flames + Tigers are good enough there. Similarly - I bet Beasts + Eidolons will defend us against RG in the post-Krill era, if there ever is such a thing, while we tech to the arcane techs the hard way. But given the speed Krill's going to be capable of, we can't afford the long term investment just now.

Finally, don't forget the disciple culture bomb trick to making the training of Beasts less painful.

[novice]

Threadjack:

Its not just my reading comprehension that sucks, I fail to comprehend all kinds of things . This, for example:



Care to explain that one novice :neenernee?

Well, they targeted the most populous cities; Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Kristiansand (nowadays the city of Stavanger to the NW of Kristiansand would have been a much more important target, being the petroleum capital, but they didn't discover oil in the north sea until the late 1960's.) The important resource of the time was Iron, for the german steel mills. That's why they targeted Narvik. The Iron mines were in Kiruna in the far north of neutral (cowardly) Sweden - but the only export port that wasn't iced over in winter was Narvik, connected by railroad to Kiruna. (The warm waters of the gulf stream keep the Norwegian coast ice free, but not the Gulf of Bothnia.) (Btw, the NAP between Norway and Sweden should have been spelled out more explicitly, since the swedes allowed german troops to reinforce the north of Norway using the swedish railroad network.)

The battle of and around Narvik lasted for weeks, with the allied forces already present (the allied forces had deployed mines in the fjord outside Narvik, technically an act of war against the technically neutral Norway). In fact, the germans didn't gain full control until Norway capitulated, due to the entire south of Norway having fallen quickly. The king and the government escaped (bravely) northwards ahead of the german invasion, ending up in Tromsø, north of Narvik, from where they evacuated (bravely) to London on an english destroyer. Vidkun Quisling was instituted as nazi leaderhead in Oslo, whereas the legitimate government (bravely) organized Norwegian resistance efforts from London.

I'm not sure about the paratroopers, possibly they targetted the hydroelectric heavy water plant at Rjukan, essential for the german nuclear research program.

So in civ terms: RoP rape, Sirian doctrine, blockades, railroads, iron, oil, capitulation, liberation.

[SIZE="1"]This threadjack was based freely of novice's vague recollections of high school history classes. The author shall not be held liable for any mistakes stemming from the attempt of explaining WW2 events in civilization terms.[/SIZE]

P.S: Ilios, how come all the arrows are just slicing through Belgium?
[SPOILER]

[/SPOILER]

[Mardoc]

Ok, so MBTM and I were thinking similar thoughts Which suggests that I, at least, need to try to bring something new to the table.

What are we doing in terms of mana? Good adept spells at the moment are Haste, Wall of Stone, and Courage. As long as we keep the meta adepts alive, we can swap to something more appropriate long term once we manage the whole survival thing.

And is there any chance of getting Engineering anytime soon? I think probably not, but I could be wrong. For that matter, if we don't currently have a good military road net, put it up now!

[Ilios]

P.S: Ilios, how come all the arrows are just slicing through Belgium?

Beer.

[NobleHelium]

Haha, that's what I'm talking about! Brilliant and ruthless! And a Killer's eye, don't forget the killer's eye:

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/01/14

Hello, there, by the way! Sorry to barge in the thread like that!

This surely seems like a crazy good read!

P.S.: I'm not dedlurking Brian anymore.

Out of curiosity, why couldn't any of the dedlurkers play for Brian during his long absence a while ago? If that isn't spoiler info, heh.

[Gaspar]

Out of curiosity, why couldn't any of the dedlurkers play for Brian during his long absence a while ago? If that isn't spoiler info, heh.

I don't recall a long Brian absence. Just Rawkking, who alienated all of his dedlurkers. I've only alienated half of mine.

No worries about the threadjacking, btw. Entertaining AND free posts = win.

[NobleHelium]

Oh I must have confused it up. It's been a while.

I'm still unspoiled and I skimmed some of the recent pages after randomly noticing the news about Gibbon dying, if you're interested.

[Man Behind the Mask]

Slightly disappointed to see the contrast between the two very similar posts from me and Mardoc. He provides valuable mechanics advice, I whinge about micromanagement.

Of course, partly I'd like the still available sage at Arcane Lore for Stigmata on the Unborn - as much for the Chaos mana as the research boost.

I forgot to properly check the tech sceen, but if RG has any sense then he is already on the way to Arcane Lore. He has the Frigus, so Snowfall-Hemah is easily available and will make a big difference, especially if he has sufficient units to hit the Clown Mages. If only he could see them, then the extra mobility from Warcry would help there.

Do we have any idea when Brian is likely to be able to join in? He mentioned a NAP after the conflict with the Grigori. I’m not sure we’ll actually hold out for very long, but it will be interesting to know when the cavalry might arrive.

[Gaspar]

By the by, if the save comes in during the next ~8 hours, feel free to grab either of you to keep it rolling. I've queued builds though I suppose its not hard to hit "Ritualist and/or Diseased Corpse" everywhere. Other than that use your judgement and lets get a mini-stack to the border soon as possible. I suspect you won't get the chance, I suspect Rawkking's window is small.

I could probably use the whinging about micro - this is the part of the game where I generally get lazy, so that you're still looking at the save and nagging is helpful.

Re: dogpile, as I said, been lazy about diplo, mostly because before the murder of Gibbon Goetia the game has not been especially exciting to the group. Another point - I do worry if there's a blessing and curse to Gibbon's death. No reason now for Krill not to pursue a more useful religion to support his armies. Anyway, this came in from Brian today (I've included the subject because it was clever.) :

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]We need to talk about Kevin (Rill)

First, see what I did there, clever hah?

But seriously, are we going to dogpile at some stage and if so what are our options?

Myself, I'll just lay all my cards out on the table right now. I'm in Order religion with Valin (unfortunately crazed, but nothing I'm at war with can reliably kill him) and 17 horsemen that I can now upgrade to HAs (some of whom are seriously promoted, eg C2 Shock withdraw 3). I also have Sanctuary left for a thirty turn rush on him with the kitchen sink. For the future I'm taking priesthood (for monks and priests) and eventually getting my magic in gear by going for sorcery (kind of late but had to sacrifice some goodies).

I have a strong industrial base allowing me to pump units nearly every turn (and if they are foot units multiples), and now have a decent financial base to properly back it up as well.

Negatively I have a fifteen turn NAP at the end of war with Acalostas, so from next turn (139) I'll be out of comission for an attack. However Sanctuary does allow me to wing it alone for a short while if ye are unavailable. I am willing to stand toe to toe with Krill if I get firm commitments from Gaspar and Rawkking (Nicolae is excepted for obvious reasons) to come in as soon as either of you are free. As regards Balseraph lands I have little visibility (tech again no money to get huntin either) and am not sure on placements but have open borders (and as I let Krill scout around my lands during the war I'll scout his after).

As regards a dog-pile though we need to work on something. It does not have to be super fancy (like coordinating every unit move) but informing each other of where we're hitting and when and if there are any Area Effect spells needing caution would improve our chances. My main involvement will be mobile horses backed up by priests and monks (not quite as mobile but stronger defenders), so I can plan hit and runs and probably tie up forces and work pillage details to hit him in sore spots.

Hoping to hear from you all about what you think and (hopefully) what you can do.[/COLOR]

My reply:

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]Nice subject.

I only have a minute but Nicolae, Rawkking and I are working relatively together. Nicolae is obviously already at war. I have no NAP and intend to declare as soon as I have some troops in position to do something, hopefully before Nicolae goes down. Rawkking will get involved when his NAP is up.

I'll be more specific later.

Gaspar[/COLOR]

Rawkking's reply:

[COLOR="Lime"]My NAP is up on T161, I think I have told you all this at this point
but just in case.

But yeah, this is the NAP I had to sign way back in T20 or something
when he got lizards, I have no intention whatsoever of extending it.

I've been indirectly supporting Nicolae with resource gifts for quite
a while now, and will be supporting them with gold and courage adepts
(courtesy of your and acolostas's spirit mana loans) to buff their
non-fear immune troops, given the number of spectre summons Krill has
access to.[/COLOR]

And a relatively interesting exchange we had at the murder, since I've been terrible about updating the diplo:

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]Oh hai I started the party early.

Krill left Gibbon exposed, and I murdered him.

RG I'm hitting you up for Acal's cash because I'll be striking soon. I have a couple more mage candidates as well.

Cheers,
Nic[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]The stack Krill summoned is ridiculous. Innumerable Water Elementals and Spectres. I went to full on military civics this turn and should have a pretty reasonable force of Ritualists/PoL/Diseased Corpses in 5-10 turns, but I'm not sure how much help I can be before then. How long do you think you can hold out/how much help do you need for it to actually help?

Here's the picture from outside Austin:

Holy Puppets Batman

The screen cuts off for me, so even with cutting off the top, you don't actually lose any info. I hate that FFH doesn't mouseover stacks properly.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass it along.

Gaspar[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Lime"]Does Krill have archmages besides gibbon (who is now dead)? If he
doesn't we shouldn't be seeing water elementals once his gibbon
puppets die.

I'm going to launch off a golden age and swap to consumption/military
state. I think providing you both with lots of gold to upgrade units
is going to be the best chance for victory we have considering how
late I'll be entering the war, though I'll have a lot of cultists,
assassins and horse archers/stygians as well by T160.

Nicolae, I've got an adept heading into your territory to grant
courage to your units, just about through elven lands with him.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]He can't have any archmages, he doesn't have Arcane Lore, let alone Strength of Will. Hes got too many units, both you and I are outresearching him now. Downside to the huge military. Upside is he has more than our combined power. Like I told Nic, I thought I had a few more turns so I'm not really ready yet, but I should at least have enough that between the two of us we can stop the conquest assuming he takes it slow and safe. I think you have enough with him not having anything better than Spectres that we can turn it into a slog. Probably not long enough for Rawkking to get involved, but maybe long enough that he'll have to expose his mages eventually. Doesn't matter, since he gets enough xp to insta-mage though. We need to hit his core to stop the war - Al Koholic in particular has to be razed as fast as possible. I'm wondering if its possible for you to plant a city to get your borders a little closer to it, Rawkking. Not sure if you put RoP in your NAP, but if you didn't I could maybe get an alpha strike force behind the lines to hit it. Without Nox Noctis, we can win if we can drag it out long enough.

Anyway, nothing but Ritualists and DCs for the forseeable future, hope I can help in time, Nic.

Gaspar[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Lime"]RoP = right of passage?

Nah, you guys can invade him through my lands.[/COLOR]