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

[HidingKneel]

Just realized that Devouts can hide (must be an EitB change?). That's very, very scary, given the kind of garrisons we're running in our super-cities. What do we need in order to see them? I assume vicars will do it?

Hmm... actually they can't, it just says they can in the civopedia.
That's a relief.

[Mardoc]

Ah... I noticed Rosier had a Nightmare, but I thought that meant Bob had deleted and rebuilt him.

On the other hand... this makes me feel worse about losing our highly promoted units . Would have been awesome to get one for Alan Wake.

Incidentally, have we checked that nightmares benefit centaurs? The pedia just says "mounted units", but it's logical that centaurs would be an exception. But no worse than tigers using the axe of Orthus, I guess.

Worldbuilder says yes:



Incidentally, units can be riding Nightmares and Blessed at the same time, too .

[HidingKneel]

Hmm... sounds like Plako has strength of will.

I'm not sure what we should do. Depends on how many archmages he promotes and where they're positioned. Two maelstroms, two earth elementals, and two wraiths will probably be able to take out our Kuriotate paladins, even with a wall.

And for the maelstroms and wraiths... he doesn't even have to come any closer to hit us.

Need to build a big stack of iron chargers ASAP.

[HidingKneel]

What do you think about leaving Basium in Amatheon's for the move on Bob?
It'll make the conquest costlier: the top defender will be strength 18 at least (Rosier: unaffected by worldspell, but doesn't receive defensive bonuses). But I suspect Plako will be able to kill our top defenders if Basium leaves, even with the wall. And I think we can win against Bob without Basium. Maybe not on the Mercurian turn, but at least when we sweep in with Crown of Brilliance and a dozen odd centaurs on the Kuriotate turn.

[Mardoc]

It...mostly depends on how lucky we are with the WS. Basium can smash any Bob unit as long as it's slightly damaged, and Immortal means he can try even if the odds aren't super. But Hyborem and Mardero, in particular, if they're lucky enough to only be slightly damaged, can probably kill the first unit who attacks them. Even if it's Sphener.

On the other hand, we are the Angels. Which means losing units isn't the end of the world, so long as they're living or Valkyrie. We'll have lots of representatives of both on hand. The Valk, in particular, should be handy for any low odds battles we need fought, or we can always throw in an Axe. We're no longer at a point where we need to win every battle, so long as we can win most. And for that matter, even if we do take casualties, we've built all these cities and Training Yards and such for a reason.

So on balance, yeah, I'm fine with leaving Basium behind. I think we can do this without him, so put him where he's needed. That said, we definitely need to put our ingenuity toward dealing with plako, and soon. Ilios was dangerous enough with his horde of Tigers, but the prospect of 6 Earth elementals/turn is downright terrifying. Although a horde of Iron Nightmarish Blessed Chargers would be a valuable ingredient - I think what we need even more is a few more Rathas, and Hunters and workers. We have the power we need, if we can just slow the enemy down enough to apply it.

Oh, I guess there's one more downside. Leave Basium behind and we lose the chance to have an epic Basium vs. Hyborem battle for the fate of Erebus

[HidingKneel]

Well, looks like we might have a little extra time to think about what to do. If the turn hasn't come around, I might try running some sims tonight.

One observation: Saverous is a demon. Which means he could get hit hard by the Mercurian worldspell. We might kill him outright, or we might wound him enough that Hemah becomes the stack defender. I suspect that won't matter: with Basium in the city, Plako will probably be careful to keep his distance. But something to keep in mind.

I'll probably keep our ratha in Amatheon's, giving Plako extra incentive to keep his distance, and improving our odds of taking advantage if he doesn't. Building more sounds like a good idea. Avelorn should practically be able to 1-turn them when the heroic epic is built, but that's four turns away. I think we should try to make do with what we've got for the moment: Eurabatres and the heroic epic are too important to delay. (After military strategy, though, we might want to turn off science for a couple of turns, for upgrades. Conquest gold from Cauldron Lake should also help with that.)

[HidingKneel]

Hey, you know what would make us absolutely terrifying?

Astronomy. For another 3500 beakers (maybe the next five turns at breakeven science), we could unlock airships.

If we did that instead of present tech plan, we could still loan iron to the Kuriotates for a stack of blessed, nightmarish, iron chargers/rathas (strength 9 on the attack). With an enlarged hull promotion, we can load seven of those onto an airship, and have a strike force that can hit enemies from eight tiles away (nine if we give our units mobility promotions).

For extra fun, put Chalid and Eurabatres on the airship too. Unload them, fire Crown of Brilliance, Eurabatres roars or breathes fire. Then everyone attacks, a ratha fires blinding light, and everyone stacks up again underneath Eurabatres to absorb any counterattacks.

[Mardoc]

Y'know...I was racking my brain to figure out how to match plako's mobility, given that we could kill him with current tech units if we could only get the first strike...I like it. It's true, we don't need extra strength nearly so much as we need extra speed, at the present moment.

Of course, the main risk here is that if the ship is killed, so are the contents. Unless you're absolutely certain there's nothing can reach an Airship, I don't want to put all our heroes aboard. But we can do a lot even with that risk, sure. Especially against plako with his mage-heavy military.

Either that, or something simpler, like making a bunch of mobility II Ratha and following them around with the hitters.

But in either case: yes, let's do it. Simultaneously working on a plan to hit him with current tech, of course, but it'll be nice to have the backup plan (and nice to have Airships when it comes time to go for Ilios and Thoth).

I still think we ought to leave tech off for a couple turns and get that iron strikeforce actually built before we go for Airships. It'll be much easier to see a use for chargers without airships than airships without chargers. For instance, well...suppose Ilios invades again? With engineering roads, chargers move fast enough, but we need to have enough bodies to matter.

[HidingKneel]

Let's tech military strategy next anyway, to get a heroic epic in Avelorn.
Then save some gold, which we can use to either upgrade or sprint to another tech at 100% science (we'll see how the world looks in a couple of turns).

Who knows... maybe Plako will get bold when he sees the centaurs leave Amatheon's and put Hemah within Basium's present range.

[Mardoc]

Ok. After all - plako may end up not only bold, but lucky, and who knows what we'd have to do then!

I think I'm going to promote Basium Magic Resistant next time the turn comes around, and probably Lightning Resistant 2nd. He'll do a lot better job holding off earth elementals if I can make him un-Maelstromable.