Tholal hasn't lost any cities yet, so presumably he's at least managing to stall Buboes. I'm pretty sure I won't be bothered from that direction.
I founded a few more crappy border cities, bringing me to 48. I haven't even bothered to rename them, mostly because I'm running out of ES deities.
Holding off HidingKneel could be tough. The core issue will be to get past his worldspell. What's the best way to minimize losses while stalling 200 treants? Wall of Bone! I have 60 shamans. Operation Keelyn is in full swing.
The biggest strategic news is that Ichabod has shifted his mounted units to the east. He had been keeping them in two stacks, one in his capital and one in an eastern city, but now he's moved the capital stack to join the other. It is still possible that he's planning to attack south, but the 40-50 defenders I have down there may end up being available for an offensive...
On the other hand... I'm not sure if I have enough units at Sithis and Zenithar to handle 100% of Ichabod's army, especially if HidingKneel and/or Tholal give Ichabod gold to hire more mercs.
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FFH-20: Jonas Endain of the Clan of Embers
EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
Remote floating eye recon showed that Ichabod did send everything east:
My units to Ichabod's south seem to be relatively unopposed. It looks like I'll be able to advance approximately 90 units: 50 melee, 25 mounted, and 15 spellcasters.
Hippus eastern units:
He has his units SE of his city of Ahepetr. Here's the corridor they'll have to pass through to reach my Noctis city of Sithis:
Art of War Wrote:15. Country in which there are precipitous cliffs with torrents running between, deep natural hollows, confined places, tangled thickets, quagmires and crevasses, should be left with all possible speed and not approached.
16. While we keep away from such places, we should get the enemy to approach them; while we face them, we should let the enemy have them on his rear.
The screenshot shows how I've prepared the path for him. It was already a forested chokepoint, but now it's also scorched. I'm not sure how many movement points a forested desert hill costs, or even a forested desert, but it will give me a turn or two to hit his units with spells. Once they've been weakened, there's no way he's getting past my defenders. I ought to be able to trap his units on the forest until they can be eliminated.
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FFH-20: Jonas Endain of the Clan of Embers
EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
Okay, the tactical situation is being finalized at this point. I'm expecting to have three major areas of conflict and potentially two minor ones. Two of the major areas are defensive, one is offensive.
The offense against the Hippus will begin on turn 142. I'll be bringing 104 units. (28 wolf riders, 52 axemen, 4 ogres, 2 assassins, 1 stonewarden, 8 ritualists, 7 shamans, 2 mages)
Here's the plan:
My units will wait at the red X, and my workers will build a road on the yellow line. On turn 142, my wolf riders will take both Semirachye and Conrond Mor. This will push back the culture to the green line and allow mobility promoted wolf riders to reach the capital.
I regret not building more mounted units over here. The melee units will mostly be too slow to make much difference.
The plan for dealing with the main Hippus army is basically the same as it was last turn. I'll trap his units, hit them with magic, and grind them down over the next few turns. The main variable that remains is whether he steps completely into the ambush or not.
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FFH-20: Jonas Endain of the Clan of Embers
EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
He apparently upgraded all of his disciples of leaves into rangers this past turn. You can see the jump on the power graph:
I wonder how high the worldspell treants will boost him?
So down to HK's south, it looks like treants are the only thing to deal with. Some shamans are working on a wall of bone down there. To his north, it's a lot more complicated.
His main attack is most likely to come at my city of Vivec. He'll send treants from Mazenshire, and everything else from Gon Gatha. I'm not sure exactly how I'll situate my forces, but most of them will be in the three cities, and most of those in Vivec itself. I'll also use 35-40 skeletons for terrain purposes or as cannon fodder. I'll post more about this area in two turns.
HidingKneel may send some units up the other side of the water. Just in case, I'll stack skeletons in the tiles outlined in white:
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FFH-20: Jonas Endain of the Clan of Embers
EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
I'll definitely lose Arak, the city I settled west of Sithis. Ichabod probably won't threaten any other cities.
It's unlikely, but I may also lose a city or two south of HK. They're going to mostly rely on skeletons.
If he diverts some rangers toward Dagoth Ur and Morwha, he can probably get through them. If he does send more than treants that direction, I'll probably focus on defending Mephala and Sheogorath at the choke.
HK's main attack could cost me Vivec and Meridia, but I'm going to try and avoid it. A lot will be decided by the timing of his worldspell.
After that, it will come down to how we maneuver and whether he can effectively use his support units, especially the druids and ratha.
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FFH-20: Jonas Endain of the Clan of Embers
EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
First off... managing 48 cities and 557 units takes up a LOT of time. Wow.
As expected, Ichabod's main attack advanced two spaces. Everything is ready on my end to welcome his units when they do arrive.
I'm not sure what's going on with Tholal and Buboes. Buboes is pretty much trashing his army, but Tholal seems to be leading him west toward HidingKneel.
Buboes is such a jerk. I waited a few turns to build the AV shrine at the right time(which released him.) If he'd ended up near me I would have had (barely) enough time to deal with him before the HK/Ichabod war started. Of course if he landed near somebody else, it was just in time to disrupt their war against me.
(HidingKneel related stuff coming in the next post.)
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FFH-20: Jonas Endain of the Clan of Embers
EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
HidingKneel cast his worldspell this turn. I did not actually expect him to use it so early, but am somewhat glad that he did because it will be over sooner.
Art of War Wrote:1. Sun Tzu said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
2. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
3. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.
The key thing to remember is that my primary goal on this border is to protect Malacath. Malacath has the Heroic Epic, Guild of Hammers, and Form of the Titan. The other cities are all secondary.
To protect Malacath, I need to focus on incapacitating and/or killing his units. The opportunities for this will ultimately be provided by HidingKneel, but also by stalling his advance until the worldspell expires.
(Yes, I put signs on all of them because I'm weird like that.)
As per our agreement, this turn I had the privilege of first strike. HidingKneel was a more clever than I expected, and he actually put the stack pretty far behind the border for protection.
I almost decided to attack his city of Gon Gatha, which he had defended with 12 tigers, 2 treants, and 2 balors. I decided against it because it's not the best way to accomplish my current goals. Instead, I put 35 (revealed) skeletons on his best path, then hit the tigers with ring of fire and blinding light.
He might attack the skeletons, or he may blind them with Ratha and advance over the icy hill. Either way, he's basically held off for a turn and he ends up in range of my units. Or maybe he holds off and waits for more treants, which is fine with me too.
To the east, toward Tivix, I just put up twenty skeletons in two groups. It's weak, but he's not getting through it unless he diverts part of his main stack. Either way is fine with me.
On the west side of Vivec, HK only two small groups of treants. I put some skeletons in front of one of them, and hopefully can divert them toward my (invisible) lizard.
The treant situation at HidingKneel's southern city was predictable. I put two ritualists on the hill SW of the city and burned a bunch of Treants, then killed three of them with paramanders at 97% odds. I'm pretty sure I can stop the treants in this region from being a problem.
The biggest danger for this next turn is probably his Ratha. Even then, the worst case scenarios don't put Malacath in danger for at least a couple more turns, and the units can't be blinded two turns in a row.
I did take a risk this turn by waiting to promote the units in Vivec, but it's unlikely that he'll attack the city this turn. I'm not sure his full stack could take the city, and this turn he wouldn't be able to use most of it.
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FFH-20: Jonas Endain of the Clan of Embers
EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
