The Kuriotates: A Tale of Centaurs, Hubris, and Unbridled Enthusiasm

[HidingKneel]

Wow... I just checked the logs. Earth elemental wasn't even involved. It was just maelstrom and spectres.

Also, I'm now thinking taking Thoth's offer is a bad idea. If we get expelled to the nearest unclaimed tile outside his culture, Plako will just kill us. Better to try to run north, I think.

[Mardoc]

Wow... I just checked the logs. Earth elemental wasn't even involved. It was just maelstrom and spectres.

Maybe. Or a renamed Earth Elemental.

Also, I'm now thinking taking Thoth's offer is a bad idea. If we get expelled to the nearest unclaimed tile outside his culture, Plako will just kill us. Better to try to run north, I think.

Run north, and offer Peace in Thoth's turn? Not sure if he's before or after plako.

[HidingKneel]

Alright... played the turn.

For lurkers who have been wondering what's going on: most of our vanguard has been wiped out. I wasn't nearly paranoid enough about Plako and his reach. We lost one of the Kuriotate paladins and some of our best centaurs, including Alan Wake. Fortunately, two of those will be serving the Mercurians in the afterlife, with 20 and 22 xp, respectively.

Thoth offered peace for the city, and I accepted it. It kicked my units out in a favorable direction. I ran two of the three surviving centaurs up to the former city of Uddrur. I don't think Plako can hit it (at least, he's not visible when I flew a hawk south of the city), but I no longer trust myself at all to be sure about these things. I'm gambling two workers on it, who are farming next to the city.

Another unit was left exposed: one of our two remaining confessors. I promoted him to C2 and ran him north. He's two tiles south of the city. Hopefully Plako won't be able to get at him (or at least get at him with enough to kill him... he'll defend at strength 9).

We also had a heroic centaur remaining, with 38 xp. I just want it to get killed as soon as possible. So I sprinted it across the battlefield in the direction of a barbarian warrior. That doubles as bait for Plako: maybe his eyes will light up when he sees an exposed, highly promoted, highly wounded unit, and it'll draw some of his firepower away.

Since we're now at peace with Thoth, and we've got a road connection, I ran this offer by him:



So... the question is, what now? I think Plako is extremely dangerous. Hemah will have twincast soon, at which point he'll be able to summon two earth elementals with a reach of six tiles. Not sure what to do about that, except hope that he gives us time to rebuild an army. His mages are soft if we can get to them. And we've got good mobility, just not quite as good as his.

But Mardoc's right... we've got to hit Bob. To get the AC down, to get access to nightmares, to claim that big fat city of Cauldron Lake, get ourselves the Gela. And I think Mardoc's plan is a good one, except for the following point:

We've only got one Mercurian worker right now. Unless Bob obliges us by building a road connection with his worker, we need to do one of the following things:
(a) Have the Mercurians build another worker (three turns in Junil's Justice)
(b) Have the Kuriorates build a road the turn before. This will lose us the element of surprise, and perhaps some workers (unless we send in some units to cover them).

I like plan (a) better, but it means Junil's won't be building any more units prior to the attack. We'll have to build Sphener in Amatheon's, therefore.

I'd also like to delay the attack one turn. I started building Chalid in Avelorn this turn, and can finish him in three turns without cash-rushing. He can't quite be in position by the original launch date (by one tile ). So I say we push it up a turn. Because if we're going to do this, it's absolutely imperative that hit hard enough to finish Bob off. That means that having a big stack of centaurs (as many as we can manage) ready to mop up anything the Mercurians don't kill, and firing crown of Brilliance will dramatically improve our odds there.

Right now we're sitting on a fair bit of cash (around 1000 total, I think), but not enough to rush all the things we might want to rush. So we need to prioritize. We definitely want Sphener ASAP, for improving our odds on Bob and avoiding blight (costs 300 and change). We definitely want another Mercurian paladin (costs 30). It seems the Kuriotates can promote a paladin without access to iron:



So add another 57 for that.

We also might want to consider promoting some of our centaurs to chargers. Or at least having the option to do so, to respond to emergencies.

Something that I don't think we should spend money on: rushing the Mercurian Tower of Divination. 200 gold for one turn saved (and one and a half axes worth of hammers) doesn't sound like a good deal to me. We won't have enough time to get Eurabatres out before hitting Bob (and he can't use roads anyway) and we can't hit Thoth with him for ten turns. So I think we can afford to wait a short while. We still might want to rush him when he's available, but that depends on what Plako and Ilios are up to.

Builds this turn: herbalist in Naggarond (it will let us 1-turn centaurs in Naggarond, at least until blight lands), Chalid in Avelorn, centaur charger in Kwythellar. Tech set to engineering.

I'm not sure how good our chances are of surviving this. Finishing those towers has really painted a target on our backs, and this is a really bad time for that.

[Mardoc]

Something that I don't think we should spend money on: rushing the Mercurian Tower of Divination. 200 gold for one turn saved (and one and a half axes worth of hammers) doesn't sound like a good deal to me. We won't have enough time to get Eurabatres out before hitting Bob (and he can't use roads anyway) and we can't hit Thoth with him for ten turns. So I think we can afford to wait a short while. We still might want to rush him when he's available, but that depends on what Plako and Ilios are up to.

I'll look at this again when the turn comes around. But half the reason for suggesting it was to save a couple city sizes on Kilmorph's - we really need that aqueduct. Maybe I misinterpreted how fast our Blight recovery would be, though, and can find a way to survive without pulling the aqueduct earlier.

I'm not sure how good our chances are of surviving this. Finishing those towers has really painted a target on our backs, and this is a really bad time for that.

Well - keep in mind that we do still have some dramatic advantages. Eight Paladins, Iron, the best world GNP and approximately tied for best MFG, best tech situation by far, units who are reborn upon death. Most heroes in the game, too, or will be there anyway in 2-3 turns. We've hit Ilios hard enough that he went home to reevaluate, we did the same to Bob, now we just need to figure out how to back Plako off.

Ok, so he proved that if we totally ignore him, he can hurt us. And yes, we need to rebuild our armies. But it's not the end of the world just yet.

[HidingKneel]

I think you're going to lose another size regardless, and then you should stabilize if you switch from working the 1-food copper mine to the 6-food farm.

We're certainly not out yet. I'd give us odds on any of our opponents individually... just not all of them together.

[HidingKneel]

Alright. Another turn in. Looks like we're one turn too late to avoid blight... so time to hunker down.

Won't know the extent of the damage until next turn. But, on the bright side, the imminent blight makes an event like this almost helpful:



Well, okay, not actually helpful. But it barely hurts (even if it had pushed us over the happy cap, which it didn't.)

Thoth accepted my Kuriotate-stuff for Lanun-stuff proposal. Nice to have an ally, at least until it's time to feed him to our dragon. And that fish resource would be really helpful if we weren't about to get blighted (and it'll be helpful when the blight is under control, if we're not at war with Thoth by then).

We got to propose another overcouncil resolution. Forcing Ilios to declare on Bob was fun, but didn't last. Let's force him to declare on Plako:



Maybe Plako won't know what's going on, and it'll make him want to reposition himself.

Speaking of Plako, I strongly suspect he's going to come at us from the north:



I believe those mages can hit our work crew with Maelstrom and spectres next turn. Probably not enough to do any real damage, but that will change when Hemah shows up. I think we'll need some more stuff in Amatheon's if we want to hold it. Most of the Mercurian two-movers should be fighting Bob, but I promoted a new Kuriotate paladin (from the highly experienced stonewarden in Kilmorph's) and sent him in that direction. Might not be enough, though... Plako already killed one (wounded) paladin with maelstrom + summons. And that was in a hill city (albeit one with no cultural defense).

Maybe keep Basium there until one turn before the Bob invasion? Speaking of which, maybe we should start accumulating units on the tile they're going to be hitting from, so that Bob doesn't get nervous when they all move there the turn before.

Question: does hell terrain increase the amount of worker turns needed to build a road? (I'm assuming no, but it's important enough that we might want to check.)

I'm still trying to get this pre-Valkyrie killed:



Got a withdrawal. Man, that centaur has nine lives (soon to be replaced by infinity). Should never have given our religious centaurs flanking promotions .

Oh, and speaking of Valkyries: that highly experienced Mercurian angel out on safari is just asking to get killed by the Elohim. Ilios can hit it with at least two horsemen next turn, possibly more. I sprinted a centaur out to cover it (didn't have any other units that can reach):



We might not have avoided blight, but we should still get Sphener on board ASAP. For that, the Mercurians will need a little cash infusion:



Builds this turn: centaurs in Kwythellar and Naggarond, Avelorn continued working on Chalid (one turn left). Need to crank out a new army before blight cripples us. We should have a few turns for that (won't even feel the blight for the first five or six turns, since we'll just stop working our food tiles), but best to plan ahead.

Speaking of which, we should talk about tech path again. Two more turns until we finish engineering. I still like the military strategy -> iron working -> mithril working plan. Mithril equipped centaur chargers produced with nightmares and a bless spell will be strength 11 on the offense, right out of the box. If produced under conquest, they can take a mobility promotion right away, and sprinting will give them a reach of five tiles. Seems like our best bet at countering Plako's mobility right now.

But Mardoc's point about making axemen obsolete is a good one. Still...
30 hammers for an iron axe (strength 6) that becomes a strength 7 angel... versus 53 hammers for a mithril crusader (strength 9) tha becomes a strength 9 angel. I propose this: after teching military strategy, let's go to binary research and wait until we've saved enough to push through
iron working /mithril working at 100%. That'll let us milk the cheap axemen for a little longer.

[Mardoc]

We might not have avoided blight, but we should still get Sphener on board ASAP. For that, the Mercurians will need a little cash infusion:

Huh. I thought I'd counted it and was fine, 300 gold for Sphener, 30 for the Paladin, 350 in bank. Still, better safe than sorry.

But Mardoc's point about making axemen obsolete is a good one. Still...
30 hammers for an iron axe (strength 6) that becomes a strength 7 angel... versus 53 hammers for a mithril crusader (strength 9) tha becomes a strength 9 angel. I propose this: after teching military strategy, let's go to binary research and wait until we've saved enough to push through
iron working /mithril working at 100%. That'll let us milk the cheap axemen for a little longer.

Yeah, if it were axemen or Champions at 80h, it would be a harder choice. Or if you weren't building an army of Chargers. As it is, with the Crusader option and all the prebuilding - I say go for it. Your binary plan makes sense, mind.

Something I recently noticed, but don't see a good way to take advantage of: the Angel Berserker replacement gets Fire I and Channelling II/III - so can eventually do fireballs and elementals. But it's still 7K beakers away, and requires dipping into that still tiny supply of well-promoted Angels. So probably that knowledge will remain academic.

Finally, a last note. Keep firmly in mind that there's no difference between starving by 30 food and by 1 food. If you can keep the food box above zero, it's worth working farms etc. But as soon as starvation is inevitable, swap the cities to get the most hammers/commerce you can.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, new turn is in.

The bad news is that we're blighted. But the good news is that blight didn't hit nearly as hard as I thought it would. Dave's formula of city size + 10 + 1-15 doesn't seem to be right; I think Mardoc was right with just the city size +10. At least, all three of our cities got extra unhealth of city size + 8. I assume 8 = 10 - 1/herbalist - 1/Kuriotate palace bonus.

So, that hurts. But it's not going to hurt too bad. It looks like Kwythellar will drop from size 22 to size 16, Avelorn will drop from 25 to 19, and Naggarond will drop from 25 to 20. Those figures assume: we get our sheep/life mana back from the Mercurians, we keep the fish (either by staying friendly with Thoth, or by conquering him), we switch to agrarianism on turn 122, and we build aqueducts before that.

In the meanwhile, our production/commerce won't feel a thing until we need to start working food tiles again (it'll actually go up a little bit for the next few turns). It's turn 122 (when we stop shrinking) where we'll actually start to feel it.

What else is going on? Well, as I predicted, Plako's brought his mage stack to menace Amatheon's. Forgot a screenshot, but my count was this: two mages who can cast maelstrom, two who can summon spectres, one who can cast rust (annoying!), and Hemah (who can now summon two earth elementals per turn). The stack is defended by Saverous, and a bunch of weak units.

(Also: Plako sniped two more of my workers this turn. I think by Danalin's. Didn't see exactly where from... but we should keep some units in there.)

Anyways, I suspect that's pretty much the best Plako's got. It's pretty good, but it'll go down easily to a stack of iron equipped centaur chargers, if we can get in range. Which we don't have yet, but hopefully we will have soon!

What we do have is a lot of units in that city right now. Assorted axemen/angels. Mardoc brought Basium up in his turn, and built Sphener there. I brought a paladin in (the new one, who doesn't have metal weapons yet), along with all the centaurs within range (around 10 or so). None of those are chargers, and most of them are wounded by death damage. Also brought our ratha, who has a mobility promotion.

If Plako wants to hit us with earth elementals, he'll have to bring Hemah within three tiles. This will let us hit Hemah, or whoever is defending Hemah, with Basium, Sphener, and a bunch of centaurs. Along with potentially blinding that stack with our ratha. Not sure if most of this is worth it... I don't think we have enough firepower to wipe that stack out right now (with most of the centaurs wounded and poorly promoted). But just the threat of it might keep him back.

I say, keep Sphener and Basium in there next turn. I'm moving my paladins up: will have another one (with iron!) there next turn, and a third the turn after. Those should be able to hold the line while Basium and Sphener lead the charge on Bob.

Ilios defied the overcouncil resolution to declare on Plako. Shouldn't he get kicked out or something?

Another selling point of mithril working. Ingenuity to fuel phalanx upgrades for the Mercurians! Super-strong, semi-disposable units. And the Kuriotates can build some too.

Only took one screenshot this turn:



Just in time for divine essence, which will be officially in at the start of the next Mercurian turn. Do I remember right that angel upgrades only cost 5gp?
Anyway, let me know if you need some more; I'm still sitting on a fair chunk.

Builds: centaur in Kwythellar, centaur in Naggarond. Finished Chalid in Avelorn, right after Basium finished Sphener. I'm sure the other players will enjoy the event log

[Mardoc]

I'm not particularly worried about holding Amatheon's. I'm not particularly worried about killing off Bob. But I don't see how we can do both simultaneously - I really need Basium and Sphener to participate in the assault to kill whichever Beast/hero rolls lucky on the WS, but I don't have any other units I believe can outright kill an elemental. If I keep them in Amatheon's, that must delay the Bob assault.

Previous plan was stage this upcoming turn, you finish Engineering, and hit Bob immediately.

Maybe what we really need is to set up Amatheon's as a trap. Abandon it except for Axemen/Crusaders - units that will turn into angels. But position the Ratha somewhere close enough to be able to catch plako's stack afterward. I'd have to have the save in front of me to see where exactly we could do that, though. Maybe it'd be enough to appear to be ignoring plako, just stacking in units that are killable.

On plako - if he sniped by Danalin's - I think I'm going to rush a scout there. With all his mages south and Loki dead, I wonder if maybe he has a spider. Now that I've thought about the mage thing - the only way he could snipe with a Spectre and stay hidden, is if he deleted the mage afterward, which doesn't seem a good deal.

Except, waitasec, I'm the Angels. Not allowed to build scouts. Could you knock out a 1-turn recon unit from Naggarond, a Hunter or a scout depending?

Another selling point of mithril working. Ingenuity to fuel phalanx upgrades for the Mercurians! Super-strong, semi-disposable units. And the Kuriotates can build some too.

Wait, there's a T4 unit that *doesn't* require I have experienced Angels for? Sign me up!

Yes, I believe the Angel upgrades are all very cheap, cash-wise. I will certainly create a Valkyrie next turn, and hopefully have the opportunity to get the last couple XP on the other two close candidates. Haven't yet figured out how to train a fourth...almost think it'd be worth suiciding Valin for.

[Mardoc]

Previous plan was stage this upcoming turn, you finish Engineering, and hit Bob immediately.

Ok, I just realized I timed the worker production poorly, we've got to wait a turn regardless. Which will hopefully give time to redeploy Kurios to plako's new spot.

Anyway, we're fortunate in one respect: his army is extremely difficult to replace. He's got the handful of mages, and Hemah, and that's pretty much it. If we can just figure out a way to kill them, we'll have defanged plako for quite some time. Not like Bob's Beasts that he can almost 1-turn - plako's dependent on the RNG for XP for his mages.

Also, he was working on a Spirit Node. Think he might have Strength of Will in mind?

Edit: So as a consequence - if we get an opportunity to trade pretty much anything but a hero for plako's stack, it's probably worth it. And there are even some heroes I wouldn't mind sacrificing if need be. The trick, of course, is figuring out how to trade for the kill rather than simply die trying.