[SPOILERS] DaveV plays Furia: What, me worry?

[DaveV]

You mean +1 commerce from the event, no?
Secondly, I was under the (strong) impression that Hell Terrain spread in veil lands no matter what, is that wrong? It does mean that it can no longer spread in *your* land though.
If a lizardman attacks a animal with hidden nationality, does it capture it? Edit: stupid me, that would require the subdue promotion.

Yes, commerce not culture. And, you're partly right on the Hell Terrain. From the (not always reliable) manual:

[Hell Terrain] will always spread into Ashen Veil lands, but if the AC is over 25 it will also spread into unowned lands. If
the AC is over 50 it can spread into other Evil lands and if it is over 75 it can spread into Neutral lands. It can never spread
into the lands of Good players.

So, no spread into empty lands is probably a good thing for me right now.

[DaveV]

Turn 120. More bad news in the log:



I finished Message from the Deep last turn, and the Zealot popped in my southeast. Not a good city for OO spread, but only a few turns from my core.




In the north, I found Rosier and some HK borders.




Diplo:

Ugh. That sucks about nightmares and sheut. At least those won't affect my best longshot plan.

I discovered cartography this turn. Feel free to offer me a map trade and/or open borders on your turn. If we do both, I think that should be sufficient for us to get trade routes with each other.

I would ask that you not trade maps with HidingKneel, though, and I'm hoping to trade maps frequently with everyone other than him.

I also offered you pearls. If you don't have any need for your excess resources, they would be appreciated in Illian cities. Feel free to accept the pearls regardless, it won't be a fair trade for a little while anyway... I'm not very impressed with the resource distribution on this map.

I'm not a fan of NAPs in general, but I really don't see a chance of stopping HidingKneel unless everyone else basically teams up against him, and even then it's slim. If you want to have a defined agreement before we start relying on each other, I'll accept almost any proposal you'd like to offer.

Sorry for being blunt tonight... it's late...

Ellimist

Sorry about all the trade offers. I sent you a second map trade at the end of my turn since I found more Hippus borders to my north during my turn. I agree not to trade maps with HK.

More bad news this turn: HK scored the Grimoire. I guess we'll find out next turn what tech he takes.

I agree that the rest of us need to work together for there to be any chance of beating HK, and the chances look pretty bleak even then.

Are you in contact with Brian? Is he the one with Prophecy of Ragnarok? It seemed like the AC was rising pretty fast for a while there, but it's flattened out (I had an event last turn that gave -2, no option). Maybe the rise was just due to HK spreading the Veil and building Rosier (whom I encountered this turn). Maybe you could suggest to Brian that the Horsemen might slow HK down a bit? Or did HK (or you) put a stop to his "burn the world" strategy?

Dave

[DaveV]

Turn 121. Holiday weekend, playing is more important than reporting.

Turn 122. I found a hut that Ellimist missed. It was disappointing.



HK has a new city in the north, with a *lot* of worker support.




I spy a big red dragon.




No Dragon's Hoard, though.

HK is sending units through the wilderness to scout me.




Diplo to Ellimist:

I meant to offer a map trade at the end of my turn, but was playing in a hurry and forgot. Acheron is on an island in the middle of the sea between you, me, and HK. He has about 13 axemen, but no Hoard. HK asked me about him when we first met; he might be looking for the Hoard.

In the north, HK settled a new city in my direction, with seven workers in support, so he may be trying to take Hyborem's second city (and its Nightmares) before I can.

[DaveV]

Turn 123 opened with another diplo screen.



I accepted, and got a view of a good bit of the map. I didn't have time to do a stitch, so here's the minimap:



Loki retreated in the right direction this time.



At EoT, I gained control of the Nightmares by Hyborem's second city. Heh.

[DaveV]

Turn 124. No screenshots, I guess nothing interesting happened.

Turn 125. Nightmares will be hooked next turn.




This shot was taken after I ended turn.

Loki has located another barb city.




... and a pretty amazing city site with Wheat, Cows, and five silk (four of them riverside).

I had enough cash for five Freak->Chariot upgrades.



... which had virtually no impact on my demos.

[DaveV]

Turn 126. I'll show two turns' worth of log file:



So HK is pumping the AC and Ellimist is reducing it .

It seems to me the only chance at beating HK is some ridiculous long-shot strategy. The Horsemen certainly qualify as that. I tried to tell Ellimist, but . The AC would be right around 40 now if Ellimist had taken the +10 option instead of the -10.

Meanwhile, in the land of futility, Loki has found another barb city.




I decided to vent my frustration in an email to Ellimist:

Why, why, why did you take the -10 AC option on the Holy Child event? We'd be right at AC40 now if you'd gone plus instead of minus.

[Qgqqqqq]

Another two by the look of things, is it worth taking them over given distances?

[DaveV]

I showed Zbolub in my turn 125 report. I'll probably grab both barb cities, since I plan on founding the 5 silks city pretty soon.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I got an AV spread in my specialist city.

[Qgqqqqq]

So you did, sorry. Grab them both immediately or wait for worker support?

[DaveV]

Turn 127. Ellimist spent a lot of time composing a rational reply to my aggravated message.

Sorry to disappoint you with that event decision. We obviously need to work together to have any chance at success, so I shouldn't be keeping you in the dark about my conclusions and plans.

So far, the only person who has demonstrated control over the AC has been HK himself, and he's been continually increasing it. At a minimum, this indicates that he doesn't mind if the AC rises, and it's very likely that he actually wants it to rise.

Given StW and his current demographics, I expect that Blight will affect him less than the rest of us. I haven't seen any evidence that we can force the AC up to 50 to summon Buboes, and Stephanos isn't especially difficult to handle for anyone. Even if we could summon Buboes or Ars, HK is probably able to handle them better than the rest of us due to having Nightmares. (Plus if HK were to get his hands on either War, Athamé, or the Crown of Command, he would have yet another powerful advantage we'd have to figure out how to overcome.)

HK has probably come to these same conclusions, or else he wouldn't be boosting the AC as much as he has.

To use a poker analogy, I won't pretend that I have any aces up my sleeve, but we do have a shot at hitting an inside straight. I believe that delaying the inevitable a bit longer(especially Blight) actually gives a better chance of hitting the right "outs," instead of just pursuing the Armageddon events because they have the potential to shake things up.

There are 3-5 main components to my plans to defeat HK:

• The most conventional bit is an arcane game plan. Both you and I can put this into practice and try to achieve a critical mass of summoners. I'll try to provide any mana you ask for, including Ice. I can also pick up Arcane Lore relatively soon using Great Sage bulbs.
  
• One of my cities is about halfway through building the Deepening ritual, which will hopefully provide an effect similar in magnitude to blight to both food and hammer production. Triggering this at some point shortly after Blight is probably the best way to be sure that it hurts HK more than the rest of us(because our cities will have already been reduced in size.)
  
• Illian assassins are capable of becoming invisible to almost everything. Assuming that HK doesn't start building Ratha and Radiant Guards, I may have a shot at slipping a dozen or so invisible and fast moving units past his defenses and razing some very important targets. Backline cities are likely to be lightly defended, particularly if hostilities are occurring elsewhere. I prefer that you do not share this particular plan with Brian or Tholal(or HK obviously,) since it relies on secrecy.
  
• HK may be at risk for naval warfare. I need more map data to adequately assess this.
  
• The same is true for commando units. Depending on the terrain and his road network, Furia's reach and your potential mobility could be devastating.

These are the plans I've been working toward, and I think they represent our best chance to turn things around. HK's position right now isn't so different from my own as Jonas in FFH-20, so I'm keeping in mind the sort of things that actually would have had an impact in that game. I think that razing a half dozen of his best cities will hurt him enough that he is vulnerable to Armageddon events, at the same time that it raises the AC significantly.

Ellimist

My reply:

Thanks for your message; I agree with a lot of it (including the relative wimpiness of Stephanos). I don't get the impression that HK is making any real effort to pump the AC, but that it's more of an incidental consequence of his other actions.

As you said, high mobility and multiple attacks are our only chance. I'm planning to build a bunch of Cultists, since it looks as though he has a lot of coastline. His only current source of Nightmares is on an island, right on my borders.

Do you have a trade connection to HK? I can see all of his resources, and he has Life, Enchantment, Shadow, and Body mana in addition to Air and Nature from his palace and Shadow and Entropy from his shrines. He's up to ~35 cities and still spamming them out, so razing a handful of cities won't slow him down a whole lot. With respect to razing cities to increase the AC: razing Veil cities actually lowers the AC, as I understand it.

I have my own Nightmares now, thanks to a successful culture push against the Infernals. HK has open borders with Hyborem, but he may well decide to wipe out the second Infernal city before I'm in a position to do so, and take away my Nightmares.

And your secrets are safe with me. I don't even have contact with the other two players, although I'm trying to contact Brian (I already have a trade connection with him and could use a little more commerce).

Dave

In the game, my northern hunter is trying to escape before HK's culture pens him in. This was a dumb move, though, because I'll be stuck in heavy terrain for a while. The stupid elephant has been in my way for a while.




In the east, the hunter ended up next to a lion. The lion ran away on his turn.




Hyborem's lands and incoming chariots. I may need some collateral: the Light chariots get less than 1% odds when attacking Despero.




City screen, because I haven't shown it for a while.