A Very Perpy SG

[Mardoc]

pindicator:

Have you tried dumping kerosene on it?

[pindicator]

Still pressing onward, but my next segment is done.

Wow, I think I messed some things up here. Completely in over my head, and it is starting to really show.

To start off, I mostly saved cash, but decided that Engineering for +1 movement was a good tech to go after. So after I grabbed that I saved cash and bought a few buildings.

Strategically, we're at war. Originally I thought the best thing to do would be to go after Archeron and eliminate that threat. But maybe Archeron is better to keep around, so the AI can't rush through their lands. I did take out one of their named units outside of Shiny, Shiny.



Made some beasts, and discovered that those units cause 3 turns of anarchy. Well, at least we have some really strong units now.



Alric declared on us, and the battle shifted. I took out some invading Rhoanna units, and then Alric took back the town of Bad Santa. Or at least, the town labeled Bad Santa. So I took it back, splitting half my units off from Shiny, Shiny. I had 15 units in the field, and thought that this would be a sufficient number. They took the city with only 1 loss, and eliminated a lot of Alric's army. I was feeling good.



This is all that's left of our army. If you're struggling to see anything it's because there's nothing there. And hey, isn't that Orthus' axe I left behind? That can't be good.

[Bobchillingworth]

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when it occurred, but this game has shifted from being a fun "hah hah, what are we doing!" romp in the asylum to a life-or-death struggle in a dying world against terrible odds



It's really epic!



Lots of pictures for this round, due to all of the excessively intense combat going on for the first half of the turnset. I actually had to think about my moves For that same reasons, there wasn't as much placing of random signs or doing silly stuff just for the hell of it; given the armies I faced here, screwing up would have meant losing all of our war gains and military, at a minimum.


The turn began with my standard reviewing of the map & changing builds and readjusting units. I didn't bother reading the entire event log, too much stuff there. I'm looking forward to finding out how we killed Hyborem; since we don't have the Gela, I'm guessing it was an opportunistic attack on an ill-defended Dis.

Looking at the map, I see that our land is a disaster- almost no resources left, all hell terrain, and one of our southern cities (Freakwater) and nodes is cut off from the rest of the empire due to flames. The other guys have done a great job of spreading farms though, so our cities are actually still pretty decent sizes.

Our military is a bit larger than I had expected, so that's good. We'll need it, since we're at war with one of the top military powers in the game, and her angel buddy and Illian vassal.

I switched most of our cities to either ritualists or gambling houses; we badly need both. Our units on the Illian front only have a single ritualist for support, so I sent all but one of the priests scattered about the empire in that direction. I also drafted a couple mimics, but most cities first need to get a couple games of craps going before the people will ready to pick up their swords. Production is too low to build most units normally; Ritualists are pushing it as it is.


I also traded sorcery to a Friendly (?!) Cassiel for Fanaticism post-haste. Need to get those Eidolon online ASAP. I later traded maths and a bunch of gold to someone (I forget who) for stirrups by accident, clicked through his trade prompt too quickly. I didn't do any other trades, mainly because we're pretty dang behind everyone, to the point where we hardly have anything to trade (plus most of the AI hates us):





The twin main goals of my turnset were the related objectives to taking Tolero and avoiding suffering a grevious loss to the incoming Mercurian / Hippus super-stacks.



On my first turn, I marshaled what I thought was a decent, if small, strike force using whatever I had on hand:







Auric and Rhoanna both have a lot of troops nearby, but not only were most of Rohanna's boys wounded (apparently we suffered a nasty loss to them a turn or two ago), but I hit everything with a ring of fire and a maelstrom. I figured neither of them would attack.





Ouch. Well, that'll teach me to make assumptions. Lost a fair amount of my stack to counter-attacks, but on the plus side Warhorse (Rosier) and a couple of the other guys picked up quite a few defense kills on their own. And I didn't lose anything irreplaceable.





A dangerous group also emerged from the south, to threaten a city I wouldn't mind losing but decided to try to hold or recapture anyway.





At Tolero, I added more units to the stack (including some Beasts of Agares) while everyone healed, and at Shiny Rohanna the Braintrust decided to wander the local forests instead. For her trouble I hit her with three rings of fire, and then annihilated the stack using Madero and whatever else was on hand.








Forces at the end of turn 217. Now would be a good time to mention that I had mutated Warhorse's stack at the start of my round, and he got the best possible combo for a mounted hero, light (for an extra blitz move) and cannibal (for constant healing during a blitz) He proved to be a one-man army this set (I gave him the Orthus axe for blitzing, to save a promo).





Good thing I kept some cash on hand (I had some left over, from having spend most of our treasury raising money to rush that exact gambling house )





I had wanted to begin killing the defenders at Tolero at this point, but now all of our opponents decided to concentrate their forces for their own assault.









Congregating large, vulnerable armies in striking range of several collateral-dealing units is typically a poor strategy in FFH, as I myself have had the privileged to experience first-hand before


All of Basium's boys died, and most of Rhoanna's stack was wiped out. I did lose a nice mimic at good attack odds, which was obnoxious- I had nasty string of bad luck this round, losing our best mimics, a Beast, and maybe an Eidolon all at 90% or higher odds. One of the mimics even had like light, bliz, mobility, and city raiders I-III. I'd have reloaded that battle in a normal sp game


I also lost Alderan (former Auric city next to Tolero) for a turn to a lucky hippus HA who killed the defending mimic, but that was of little real consequence.





A neat event I can't remember ever having received before. Even the "worst" option gives us four free spreads in our own land for free =)





Augh. And this is why you do not spread the Veil and Order to the same cities, synergistic as they might seem.










Some dead-ender Ice Elementals attacked me every turn from Auric, but halfway through my set I had finally wiped out the enemy armies in the field and was quickly tearing through [strike]Toledo's[/strike] Tolero's defenders.





Sheaim worldspell


None of our units died though, no idea if we lost any infra.





The final battle to take Tolero was where I lost our best mimic, but this guy *almost* makes up for it






Upon taking the city I promptly culture-bombed it to give us tactical C & C over the surrounding area. This in turn allowed me to immediately draft a freak which I used for a Freak Show.


Bubsy the Friendly Horseman spawned about this time, but I have no idea where. Maybe over the ocean, no one lost any cities to the barbs that I saw, and the AC didn't rise steadily like it generally does when he has a lot of targets to kill.



The rest of my turns were very quiet. I killed a few raiders from Rhoanna and a Repentant Angel, but nothing significant. Mostly spend the time gathering troops for the big push & rushing infra elsewhere.



As is tradition, my hand-over turn has Dave facing an invading stack:





This one he should be able to handle easily, however. Mostly just free exp.


He should be able to push on into Rhoanna's core during his round, although I doubt she can be wiped until the end of Selrahc's round (if not later). And we've still got a lot of fighting to do ahead of us after that- the Calabim are enormous



It should be a great ride ahead! I hope the save name for Dave's turn proves prescient

[DaveV]

The turnsets are taking a long time for me to play. Any chance that we could cut back to 5 turns, or would that be too schizophrenic?

I opened the save to find a Hippus megastack next to one of my cities, but there are more than enough clowns in the area to deal with those animal husbandry guys (see the horizontal list at the bottom). After the combat, I upgraded the best three Ritualists to Eidolons.



I'm assuming Bob made the billboards for Rosier, since he's expressed fanboy admiration before. My reply: not till he gets blitz, Bob!

The game is going fairly well, although someone got my heroic mimic killed. Heads will roll. On the positive side, we've captured one of the priests of winter, apparently thanks to the Command I promotion. During my turnset, I captured a Phalanx and a Knight. Not bad.

I spent time fighting off invading Hippus and Mercurian units (Basium is really annoying with his Raider trait), and finally captured one Hippus city (11 turns of revolt if I hadn't pumped in a Zealot). Basium's city is untouchable without siege (+105% culture defense), and I need a fireproof adept to build a fire node in the flaming desert. Ironic.

The Pyre is near the captured city, that would be my goal if I were to keep playing.

Midway through my turnset, someone gave a nice kick to the AC, and:



Stephanos apparently walked clear through Grigori lands to harass my eastern cities. He's afraid to attack my Phalanxes in cities, but they have about 2% odds against him. Need life mana or a captured paladin or something.

[Bobchillingworth]

My set took a while to play too, but I enjoyed it and wouldn't want to play less than 10. That said, I don't see any reason why someone who wants to do less can't play just five or whatever.

[Selrahc]

Not the save yet...

Huff.

Played the first turn, with a fantastically fun attack on the Mercurians, wiping them out. Then the game crashed on ending turn.

Since that turn took me about an hour to play, I'm going to play it after grabbing some food on the net attempt. And possibly do some in turn saves so I don't lose progress on a crash.

Grab bag of thoughts:
We didn't get Divine Essence
Somebody is upgrading Ritualists into Eidolons which is stupid. Taking a -25% malus on strength is awful for a high base strength unit. Upgrade them from Mimics darn it.
They also seem to be flat building Phalanxes. I never do that. A phalanx is an upgrade opportunity for your best Champions. Also: Eidolons are at Fanatacism now? Weird!
We seem to have barely any mimics in battle. Somebody has wiped out all my elite units.
Stephanos is a scary C5 monstrosity attacking our backlines. I'm sorry for mocking you in the VIII lurker thread Stephy! Please don't hurt me.
The general game situation is interesting. Good vs. Evil conflicts in two spheres, with the Angel Horses vs. Demon Clowns and Apocalypse Vampires vs. Godless and Desertfolk.
Through this turnset I'm going to get Beastmasters and Werewolves and start towards Mary Morbius.

[Selrahc]

So after numerous attempts, I am forced to conclude that I can't get from one turn to the next. Sorry guys.

I've played one (very eventful) turn, saved at the end of it and appended that save here.

Also a report:

At the start of the turn, I assess tech priorities. Hm. Let's get some interesting toys. I push for Animal Mastery, a quick tech that gives a decent national unit as well as WEREWOLVES. Werewolves are awesome. I also resolve that Mary Morbius will be ours if I have anything to do with it. I use what looks like our secondary stack full of Beasts of Agares to eat some Hippus, and see if there much I can do against nasty old Stephanos. There doesn't seem to be. I also see if I can do much diplomatically and again, doesn't seem like there is much wiggle room, with all the AI being locked into wars.

Dave left me a rather nice primary army, much as I had some quibbles with its composition. It was pointed at the throat of a well defended Mercurian capital. Far be it from me to disagree...

And thus began the meat of the turn. The battle of Conrond Mor.
[SPOILER]
Basium had attending him his War Council.

A paladin adviser from Hippus lands, the only one of the Horselords judged worthy to set foot on angelic demesnes. Ser Coreh was a former priest of Leaves and one of the most pious and holy men to ever walk the earth. Even he found the monomanical devotion of the angels to be overbearing at times. He was often to be found walking the hills around the city with his pet, the ferocious tiger Tiny.

The great repentant angel known as the Mourner, a twenty foot tall monstrosity who wept for each man he killed and had engraved their life story on his flesh with tongs of molten bronze. The four silent angels of Death, whose feet did not touch the ground and who made no sound at all. They communicated through pictures in the air.

And from the Underhome came the Dwarven representative. The Dwarves had not claimed land above ground in some time, but they were no fonder of the demon clowns than the other mortal races. Their financial backing was one of the key lengtheners of the war. Arthenedain as a devout servant of Kilmorph was sent to safeguard their interests with the Angels.

And all throughout the silver city, the Angels flocked. The hosts of heaven were ready for war, with more arriving every day. The Infernals may have been rebuffed, but the mortals who had done it were every bit as bad. Their souls were forfeit to Agares, and their every move across Erebus was as the footfall of a capricious god. Seemingly utterly random, and with no regard for what happened. They must be halted before they strengthened Hell overmuch.

Truly, the city of Conrond Mor was undefeatable. It was just a pity nobody had told the clowns.

In the hills and forests surrounding Conrond Mor, they flocked. With a speed that seemed unnatural, the war group known as the "Demonic Carnival". Demonspawn, Mirrormen and Corpses shambled into battle alongside Tumblers, Jugglers, Magicians and Fools, in a column of battle that looked more like a feast day parade. This would be a battle that would shake the world. And at its head was the Horse. The Bad Horse. It was rumoured that he had once been the mount of a mortal champion of darkness and had sold his master in return for power. Or the steed of one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, lost to Perpentach over the course of a drunken game of Somnium. Some said he was a horse that had been bitten by a radioactive spider. With this thoroughbred of sin in command, nothing could go wrong. Provided they could tell whether "Neigh" was a a command to attack, or seek cover.

Battle started with a slew of magic. Rust, Ring of Flame and Dance of Blades.
From there though, it looked like I may be in a bad situation. None of my units were getting good odds on the top defender. A Repentant Angel.
Fortunately, I brought along a solution to the problem of repentant angels. Every living unit they slay reduces their strength. I promptly threw freaks at the problem until it ceased to matter.

When I ran out of freaks, the next roadblocks were the Angels of Death. These units I chose to take on with my big guns. The Phalanxes and Knights. With 50% or worse battles for success, I surprisingly won all of them. Wow.

That brought me to the next roadblock. Basium himself had chosen to take the field. And none of my units were getting good odds at all... Time to sacrifice more units! First up, I threw a Diseased Corpse at him. Decent Damage. Next up, an Ice Elemental. Not much success. Hmm. I sent in an Eidolon at 20% odds and lost him, doing some damage. Ooh. Rosier is getting 81% odds now? well I just read some signs that loudly proclaimed his excellence. Let's test their veracity.

He won without taking any damage. Nice work Rosier! Rosier promptly annihilated another Angel of Death, the weakened Repentant Angel, the Paladin and 2 angels. Rosier is awesome. He killed 6 units and barely injured himself at all.

After that it was all cleanup. Eidolons and Mimics ripped the remaining angels and Arthenedain(Free life 2 spell on a mimic) to shreds. The last two battles consisted of a mimic stealing Basiums hero promotion, and one grabbing the Orthus axe and winning the last battle against a lovely little Hippus tiger that was defending the city.

Angels eliminated. Total Balseraph casualties consisted of two freaks, a diseased corpse and an Eidolon. Their city contains the Guild of the Nine(Mercenaries!) and the Mercurian Gate(Less war weariness!). Decent enough. Let's try and hold it.

And without their Angelic protectors, the Hippus are suddenly seeing that the war might not be going so well. I let them bow out of the war for a hefty price. I'm sure one of my successors will finish the job later. The bounty from her peace offer was immense, bringing us back up to tech parity with the AI.

For now, we have two very nice targets to occupy us over the next few turns...

Auric and Acheron. We be coming for ya. Insane Clown Posse yo.

To finish my turnset off I upgrade my Heroic Basium Slayer to an Eidolon, Draft in a round of Mimics and hire mercenaries to defend against Stephanos.

It was a hell of a turn. I'm glad I got the chance to play it and I'm sorry I couldn't continue my set.
[/SPOILER]

[nabaxo]

This SG has been immensely entertaining to follow. Keep it up guys! :D

[Dantski]

Some turns were played! (if this is too spoilerish I apologize!)

Turn 1 – Ok I see exactly why Selrahc only played one turn, turn times are long + the loading at end of turn takes a minimum of 5 minutes. Anyway we’re only at war with Illians (one city) and we have one HotA (horseman) on our eastern doorstep. Goal is obviously to eliminate both. I also switch from Animal Mastery research to Arcane Lore.

Turn 2 – Horsemen took a Freak and is now running towards Cassiel’s cities instead. Around 8 units are heading to the final Illian city to try and finish the job.

Turn 3 – Tebryn breaks his ties with Alexis. Stephanos does an about turn and tries to kill Harley Quinn (I don’t know the reference to the name btw). Guess I’ll have ot deal with him after all.

Turn 4 – New traits! We are now…



Creative/Financial/Charismatic and still Insane! I also trade for Varn Gosam’s Life mana so its slightly easier to deal with Stephanos.

Turn 5 – Goal #1 complete



Mimic stole a hero promotion from Wilbomen as well pretty nice. No problems finishing them off, I promoted Rosier (I mean Warhorse) to blitz and he doubled up with a Mimic to take out 8 defenders.

Turn 6 – Well actually I’ll play a nice round 6 turns, Stephanos is still sitting around in our land not doing much. Got Arcane lore this turn so I’ll et the next person decide what tech they want.

[Bobchillingworth]

I guess you're up then, Pin!



Play 10 or 5 or something in-between, your choice.


Since Selrahc's wussy computer () can't handle the raw blooming charisma of Perpentarch, I'd be okay with us adopting another player. Said player would need to have a solid appetite for constant epic combat involving world-sundering armies. Probably. Our empire might also be bunnies and lollipops.


Anyway... Thoth? (or Nic, if you can get the Modmod working now!)



Or we could continue with four players- that's perfectly fine as well!