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

[DaveV]

Turn 136. Time to throw down with Hyborem. After a couple Tsunamis, his Immortals don't look so tough.



Since I was still only getting about 80% odds with my Strong chariots, I sent in one of my Light retreat specialists first.




He retreated, then I killed the two defenders at 91% and 98% odds.




Curiously enough, the city kept its forge, even though I can't build them. Well, I won't complain.

During his turn, Hyborem built a second galley.




A ... less than optimal choice. If only I had some boarding parties; I could put those ships to good use. Hyborem still hasn't even pillaged my nets on the fish.

Correspondence:

I should finish the Deepening next turn(137.) Depending on the RNG, it may still be worthwhile for you to trigger Revelry soon, but I recommend waiting and seeing how the terrain is affected.

Tholal agreed not to trade maps with HK before I traded them with him, so hopefully that's not a problem. On the other hand, Hyborem has apparently traded maps with HK and was willing to sell them to me for 130 gold. I offered you a map trade in game too. I completed Smelting this turn, and FYI your best source of Iron is located 3S of Hate File.

HK is indeed building a road toward my cities, and I have spiders and floating eyes watching the area. A few turns ago, my HN spider managed to kill some workers, but he has usually been careful and covered them with Chariots and/or Mounted Mercenaries. He also sent a galley down near my city of Forty-Seven, but I was able to kill it with a buccaneer crewed galley. I'm not sure about his overall level of readiness, so I'm not sure how effective the defenses that I'm preparing will be.

Ellimist

Yeah, the Tholal map trade thing was just me being paranoid: I would have seen HK's cities if he'd traded maps. Thanks for the maps; he has an awful lot of coastal cities. I wish I had a couple dozen ships and cultists.

I took one of Hyborem's cities this turn, and am slowly bringing up reinforcements to take on the big devil himself (I'm having bad luck with passive XP, only one Mobility promotion so far).

I'm currently planning to initiate the 3-turn cooldown on my NAP with HK when I'm in position to attack Hyborem (3-4 turns, I estimate). Conditions aren't ideal for an attack, but they'll probably just get worse as time goes by. I'll most likely fire off Revelry at the same time.

Good luck

[DaveV]

Turn 137. The hammer falls.

Hey,

I wanted to give all of you guys an update. HK has advanced the following units into the vicinity of the barb city of Kalocly:

13 Horse Archers
2 Chariots
1 Mounted Mercenary
4 Beasts of Agares
2 Ritualists
1 Mardero
1 Mage (mobility+metamagic+body+shadow)
1 Adept (mobility+metamagic)
1 Zealot
6 Workers

I'm not sure what his planned timetable is for attacking, but I will do all I can to hold him off and destroy this army.

I completed The Deepening this turn, and it reduced HK's food from 1408 to 1124. This is probably "too little, too late", but hopefully Blight will start to also hurt him now instead of just the rest of us.

I don't really expect this game to go on for more than maybe 10-20 more turns, but we'll see how things go from here, I guess. Thanks for the assistance that each of you has provided so far.

Ellimist

My reply:

I've initiated my NAP cooldown with HK, so it's war in three turns. Good luck, that sounds like most of his strength.

Dave

To HK:

Mr. Very Bad Horse,

Now that hell has frozen over, I've cancelled our resource trades and am initiating our NAP cooldown.

Dave the "U mad bro"

To Tholal:

I'm asking again for you to cancel open borders with HK. I know you're benefiting from the trade routes, but think of it as you giving him a couple free Mounted Mercenaries each turn.

Dave

To Brian:

I just finished Cartography, so we can have open borders and trade routes now. Please propose Open Borders; if you forget, I'll propose it on my turn.

Dave

Frozen wasteland is pretty bad for food and production, as I expected. Here's my city list after a lot of whipping (double whipping in a few cases ).






And an overview of the future battleground.

[DaveV]

Turn 138. Here's my military screen, which is the best map overview I'm going to be able to give.




Here's the north. Hyborem moved his galleys over by HK's island, and didn't build any more units.

[DaveV]

Turn 139. I forgot to post HK's rather disturbing reply to my initiation of the cooldown:

Dave,

It wasn't always like this. Back before the horses took over, and the sacrifices started, this was a happy place. Some of us can still remember those days. Come quickly. You're the only hope for our liberation.

Hidingkneel of the Free Bipeds

Now, this turn:

Hey Dave,

Just to clarify: does our "cooldown" include the next turn, or not? I'm afraid our lawyers didn't look into this carefully enough...

Bad Horse

My intent was for the aggrieved party to have three full turns of preparation, followed by first strike opportunity. So, yes, the cooldown would include next turn by that interpretation. As your attorneys rightly point out, the language was imprecise; if they have a different interpretation that would be more favorable to your plans, you are welcome to take that path.

Dave

To Ellimist:

I know you have your own problems, but I would really appreciate a body mana loan. I see you don't have any right now; is there a chance of it reappearing sometime in the future? I only have Necromancy for node improvement, figuring I should concentrate on summons.

Dave

In the game, I got the spiders in a mine event.



The log shows HK capturing Kalocly. Someone got Aeron's Chosen; I hope it's Ellimist.



Here's a composite shot of the north.




You can see my hunter under Hyborem's Diseased Corpse in the list; the spider is to the SW of that, under the Imps. The hunter took a lot more damage than I'd hoped, and is poisoned, so he won't be any use for a while.

Oh, and yay Stephanos. Too little, too late, most likely. Insert standard grumble about the counter being twenty points lower than it should be .

[DaveV]

Turn 140. Time for Hyborem to go.

The turn opens with a map trade screen from Ellimist (see below), then comes the flavor text for Stephanos:



After five Tsunamis, Hyborem and his minions didn't present a huge challenge. Hyborem was reborn with something like 4 HP, so it wasn't too hard to kill him twice. And it meant two units got a big XP boost from killing a hero. I was very lucky not to have more Fear effects, though - in some of my sims, I had four or five straight attacks fail because the unit was too afraid to attack.




Here's the situation after my turn. My units are very vulnerable to amphibious attack, but I thought it would have been even worse for HK to have a friendly port where he could unload and then have full movement.




Diplo messages:

Dave,

Another turn of peace it is...

Bad Horse

My mages (who can dispel) are all tied up on my northern border, so I won't be able to change over any of my nodes for at least the next few turns. I have a 3 adepts I'm sending to you though. They can arrive just outside the borders of Academy Awards on turn 144, and can improve the nearest mana node on turn 146/147.I'm not sure how many workers you have available in the area, but they may be able to arrive sooner if you build some additional roads.

I offered you a map trade to make sure we both know where all the roads are. I have two adepts 1W of Fifty-Three, and the third is two spaces behind them. They can all move a maximum of three spaces each turn. Once they're near your territory, just tell me where to put them and I'll build any nodes that you want.From the position of his forces, I expect HK to attack my city of Forty-Seven on turn 142. I'm not completely sure how I will react next turn, but I may or may not have an opportunity to attack his units.

Ellimist

Thanks, I appreciate the help. Watch out for barbs: there are several lizardmen moving in your direction. I was running late and didn't note where they moved after I ended turn, but I can double check next turn.

Dave

[DaveV]

Turn 141. The hammer falls. Pretty hard.



First, I made the attack on his Nightmares city. He had two warriors and two Mounted Mercenaries defending, but my attacks were all at >99% after three Tsunamis.



I also recaptured A Day in the Life and did some pillaging.




I switched from Agrarianism to Conquest, because I need the XP on my units. Only two cities are starving after round 1 of whipping:






Finally, HK missed one of my galleys that had a couple Withered freaks on board. I took a low-odds shot in hopes of catching a Privateer in port, and:



Too bad I didn't have one more guy.

Diplo messages:

Thanks for the warning, I forgot about that lizard possibility.I'm not sure how well my adepts will fare, considering that I can give them Combat promotions but don't have any other units available to escort them.

HK seems to be holding position just to the north of me. He now has a Galleon, a Privateer, and 31 combat units visible. It also looks like he's moving against some of your territory, hopefully it's not too difficult for you to handle.

Good Luck!

Ellimist

It looks like HK is going to be taking several cities per turn from me until I'm gone. He has a couple Beasts, a Knight, and a bunch of mounted mercenaries on my front, and took two cities last turn. I recaptured one city, razed his Nightmares city, and cut some roads, but my situation is hopeless long term. He has Galleons and Privateers against my Galleys, a big advantage in mobility, and enough income to hire eight more mercenaries per turn.. He hasn't even felt the need to fire off his worldspell.

It looks like the lizardmen moved to the north and west, but don't worry about improving my nodes: I don't expect to last long enough for it to make much of a difference. I will do everything I can to make conquest expensive for him, but he's just too far ahead in tech.

Dave

Done.

-Mahala Tholal

Referring to my earlier request for him to close borders with HK, I guess. Too little, too late department.

HK is attacking me with two Beasts of Agares, a Knight, and a bunch of Mounted Mercenaries. He'll be able to take several cities per turn until I'm gone. If you are able to attack him, now would be the ideal time while he has the bulk of his strength fighting Ellimist and me.

Dave

I sent a similar message to Brian:

If you're ever planning on attacking HK, now would be the time. He's in a hot war with me, and his mounted mercenaries are going to run through me like the proverbial hot knife. It sounds like most of the rest of his strength is on the front with Ellimist.

Dave

[DaveV]

Turn 142. HK killed a handful of units, but his main stack seems to be healing. And sending out Floating Eyes.

[DaveV]

Turn 143. Ellimist sent the following with the save:

I had a chance to knock out the bottom half of the stack facing me:



That leaves him with three chariots, ten horse archers, one mounted mercenary, and two beasts of agares on this front. If he doesn't retreat next turn, his beasts of agares can probably kill two axemen or ice elementals and I can wipe out the rest of these units next turn.

In the water he has two ships that I can see, I'm working getting privateers to remove those.

Good luck with your half of it.

Ellimist

The actual turn starts with an event:



The sad part is, it doesn't even help.

HK made a mistake on my front: my two surviving Cultists from the razing of his nighmare city could move over a road and two ocean tiles to get next to his stack in DIY Newspaper. Here's the log:




Reading from the bottom up, as usual, you can see a few attacks of opportunity by HK, Ellimist killing Mardero and spawning Wilboman, then my attacks.

Here's the situation at the end of my turn:




I gave some thought to the game. There's a decent possibility that the tide is starting to turn against HK. Nothing against Ellimist, but I think HK is more deserving of the win if I have to play kingmaker. So, I sent this to HK:

Not a good turn for you; Ellimist says he killed a bunch of units in your southern strike force, and your eastern force was in range for a couple Cultists. I killed your knight, and had two unlucky retreats against your Beasts (60% and 90% odds to win; you should light a couple sticks of incense on your RNG altar).

Time to talk turkey. You've played a great game, and I think you deserve the win more than Ellimist, much as I admire his diplo manipulation skills (on full display now). I'm pretty much out of this game after losing most of my population and switching to bad civics, but I might still be in position to be kingmaker; if so, you would be my preferred choice. I've been telling the other players that I wanted to make you work for your victory, but I'd hate to see Ellimist steal it away.

My offer: you retreat from DIY Newspaper, leave Despero uncaptured, stop harrassing me with Rosier, and we return to the status quo ante. If you prefer to fight on, I don't think I can stop you in the long term but I'll do my best to make it expensive for you.

Dave

[DaveV]

Turn 144. HK replied to my message:

Dave,

It was indeed a painful turn... not sure how I failed to notice your cultists could reach the city. And leaving my soft units in a city vulnerable to Illian assassins, rather than safe inside Noctis invisibility, was a huge blunder.

As for your offer: well, as you'll be able to see for yourself, I haven't taken you up on it.That said, I don't think I can really afford to put pressure on you right now, and I think you'll probably make DIY Newspaper too expensive to hold. If I fall back, we can have a truce of sorts, unless you want to try your luck at invading into Noctis invisibility.

HK

I expected that message meant I'd be looking at some dead units. And:



A few small victories: I won a couple battles, and Rosier made the mistake of attacking a diseased unit.

In the north, he pillaged away most of my roads. His stack looks as healthy as ever.

[DaveV]

Turn 144.

Every turn now I open the save expecting to see that HK has killed a bunch of my units. This turn wasn't so bad:






He left his privateers exposed to Cultist attack. Maybe he doesn't know that my lucky galley can pick up the Cultists after they attack?



Small triumphs. Now that he has a zillion Mercs and has rebuilt his Nightmare city, the hammer is probably due to fall.