Anyone up for an EitB SG?

[haphazard1]

Thanks, superjm! I usually play with Acheron off, so I had forgotten that aspcct of the hoard.

Good luck, Brian! This does look like a tricky set of turns.

[Brian Shanahan]

I've played another nine turns.  Tactically we're in a bit better of a position.  I took and burnt Vallus to try and get Sabathiel to peace out, but he still wants Grottiburg back.  We can hit another of his cities in a few turns the one South East of Grottiburg and burn that too, that'd probably be enough deep hurting to get him to see sense. I also got rid of our trireme problem by building two of our own and letting the Bannor ones suicide on them.  Worked a charm

In the West I took Gridmok, the idiot city near Frohlik that the dwarves plonked down (and from the looks of it what caused the war dec, too).  So up until last turn that looked ok too.

However stategically we're, well let's just show how we are:



That's a winning stack in the west, and Kandros the idiot still won't talk.  If Sabathiel would have taken a white peace, or if Kandros hadn't got bloodlusty we'd be ok but now, well...



Any chance we could mod Crow into the game?

In general empire terms, I built pyre zombies or mobius witches everywhere, moved my workers around improving tiles.  In the two or three turns before I saw the stack I started thinking of a few economic builds thinking we could get out of the Western war before getting boned, please review same.

Tech wise, we got Warfare and Iron Working is slowly wending it's way our direction (wow our costs are high!).

In diplomatic news the other civs like us (hell even Kandros is still not too pissed off, another few turns and he'd probably settle for his old city back), but not enough to do anything like attack an enemy. The bastards.

Ok that's enough blather from me, the save.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I got so absorbed in trying to improve the picture I neglected them.

[haphazard1]

Sounds like some good turns in a very tough situation, Brian. If we could get peace with one or the other of Kandros or Sabathiel, maybe we could handle the other one-vs-one. But this two-front war is just too much, splitting our forces.

Taking or burning a few cities is good, as that should increase our war success and make the AI more likely to agree to peace. (At least from my somewhat limited understanding of how that part of the AI works.)

It would hurt economically, but we could give Grottiburg back. I don't like giving it up, but our situation is pretty desperate.

[Mr. Cairo]

Got the save, playing now.

[Brian Shanahan]

It would hurt economically, but we could give Grottiburg back. I don't like giving it up, but our situation is pretty desperate.

The time to give Grottiburg back was about four turns ago, unfortunately. Now, all our freed units would be able to do is turn up and see the burned out husks of our former Western provinces.

[DaveV]

There's always the "break glass in case of emergency" worldspell, although it looks like it only damages units in foreign cities.

[haphazard1]

The armageddon counter is not very high yet, so I am not sure just how much effect our world spell would have.

[Mr. Cairo]

OK, turnset done. The big news is we're at peace, on both fronts. More details below.

So first things first, we were in a good position on the Eastern Front when I loaded the save, having just burned a city, although Sabathiel had already "replaced" it:

I also sent a scouting fireball to look at their cap, and it seemed pretty vulnerable.

Over on the Western Front, things were NOT quiet:

I started shifting units down to Timberling.

Auto-razed that city of Sabathiel's, but he had a replacement already on the way:

I ended up killing these units and capturing the settler with surprisingly few losses thanks to some nice die rolls. I also began to move towards their cap.

Things were looking grim in the west:

Yet another stack on the way. I had been doing what I can with magic to hurt them as they came in, and picking off some straggler Adepts and skellies with Spectres. I had upgraded those Witches without spells already to Death 1 and 2, since it was the only kind of mana we had. I had also built an Archery Range in Timberling, since it was the most cost-efficient way to get some more defensive bonuses (had to chop an ancient forest that was out of any cities bfc to do it).

However, at the end of that turn I noticed that Kandros would talk to us again, and he quite happily accepted peace in exchange for Gridmok, that crappy city of his Brian took earlier. I took the peace (he was immedealty "pleased" with us, got OB the next turn) and started to send units east. I kept building Pyre Zombies in the cities to the west. I want to keep a decent force on that border. Kandros may well like us now, but he liked us before and that didn't stop him. 

In the east, my advance on Sab's cap was stopped by the arrival of this lovely stack:

The presence of these units went a long way to explain the successes Tasunke had been having against Sab the last few turns. In any case I started to slow them down a bit with fireballs (I know it's free xp, but the AI will sit their entire stack still to heal just a few, and I needed to escape with that stack of Zombles). 

Those units I was sending over from the Western front saw this:

And since Sab's stack was being very slow indeed, I went for it.

Meanwhile there was a settler finishing in our cap, I assumed for the Iron, but I realized there was another opportunity for us with the loss of Sab's city in the north:



Next turn, thanks to a fortuitous tile flip, I took Caelestis:

And moved on, I was thinking of taking that other city of Sab's, then trading it back for peace. All those PZ's have mobility.

As it turned out, that wasn't necessary for peace:

I didn't accept immediately, I still had hopes of taking one more city before peacing out. But in the end Sabathiel moved that giant stack of his down towards that city, while the Hippus took another city in the far east. So the next turn I took the peace. Hopefully in the next 10 turns Sabathiel will use up that stack against the Hippus, and we can jump right back in.

So, with peace at last, I swapped builds over to infrastructure. Mostly Libraries, Planar Gates, and the buildings that we need for our Planar Gates (Carnivals, Mage Guilds, and Public Baths). I also renegotiated our trades with Tasunke, ending up with this:

We got back our Fire mana, and lost Horses and Ale, but the Ale is no great loss:

After this, I'd recommend a forge, we produce a lot of hammers here.

Our island city was proving it's value:

I have shipped a worker over here to chop+mine that forested hill (and I swapped over to it for the time being).

After that, I just moved units and workers around for the next couple of turns. Most workers are in the north, improving those tundra cities. A couple more are building a few roads across the desert in the south to speed up transit.

Here's where we stand at the end of my 10 turns:

We have a nice stack of units in Grottiburg, although it's short on Witches:



Here is our Rapid Reaction Force, centrally located. Any more Succubi we get should join them.



I sent a hunter up to the last remaining bear den:

Unfortunately, we'll only get one bear from here thanks to the Lanunatic.

Our latest conquest:

I've moved the Lyre here for now. 

Here's Tasunke's conquests:

I'm assuming that stack in Mabdon is going to Astrum, but we should keep an eye on it anyway. I've been summoning Spectres to scout throughout the Hippus lands (they last a couple of turns). 
One other magic tidbit I realized this turnset: Haste only effects living units, and therefore not Pyre Zombies


So, overall, I think we should focus on getting in a round or two of infra in our cities, before going back to war against Sabathiel. But, before we do, remember one thing:

Other than border tensions, the only reason Kandros has to dislike us is that we declared war on his freind (Sabathiel). 

So, be prepared to be attacked by the Dwarves if we attack Sabathiel again. And remember just how powerful Kandros is. 

Tech wise, we have a lot of cash atm, but our expenses are pretty high. Idk what the best target for tech is atm, after IW. We don't really need to get any more mana, with Fire and soon Sun available to us, and with Mobius Witches, Sorcery isn't much of a priority. Perhaps it might just be best to get IW, then go back to building up a war chest.

[haphazard1]

Lots of good news in that turnset, Mr. Cairo. We make some nice gains on land and off shore, and are back to peace for the moment. Given how dire things were looking, this is a much-needed reprieve.

Tasunke continuing to grow in land and power is going to be a problem, in that we have to somehow pass him in score to trigger the second switch. But at least our prospects of surviving to continue improving our position are looking a lot better. I am not sure what our best options for gains are now; attacking the Bannor again may just bring Kandros back into war against us, which is not a situation that works well for us. Having to divide our forces between east and west leaves us badly positioned to fight that kind of conflict.

Thessalonica is (or at least was, have not had a chance to check the latest save) pretty positively inclined towards us, and Taskunke is very powerul and has fast-moving raider units that our slower zombies do not match up well against. Falamar, maybe? I don't know.

[superjm]

I spent quite a bit of time looking at this save, trying to see where we can go from here. Even if we kill Sabathiel completely our score isn't gonna be nearly high enough to challenge the leaders, so we'll need to do more killing. Or maybe do... something else.

I have something of a plan. Maybe not a very good one, but it's a gambit that could pay off big time if we're able to follow through. Or it'll blow up in my face, who knows

First thing's first, economy. We have tons of money that we're not using and not much to do with said money right now, so let's get cranking on some techs. We've been working towards Iron Working for what seems like forever, so it'd be nice to finally get that going. Unfortunately, we don't actually have iron, since the latest settler was used for that nice island city to the NE. It'll be trivial to get another settler there of course, so I plan to queue one up in the cap after the carnival finishes.




Bear is killed and I move to pop this dungeon in two turns. Probably won't amount to much, but a great person could be just the ticket we need.

Oh, that tech path? Don't worry too much about that, we're fine.



(bottom right corner I accidentally captured another window so it's cropped out.)

Hook up our spare deer and manage to flip it for cotton. More happiness is always welcome. Now if only we could get healthiness anywhere...




A dungeon here that hasn't been popped by anyone? Well that needs to change.




Well it was a bad result, but nothing some good old exploits can't fix.




We get the treasure map event. It's pretty far away so I decide to send a galley on its merry way.




Visibility is important if we're going to go to war with Sabathiel again. We really should have gotten hawks sooner. I didn't notice any witches with Metamagic but if I missed it, sorry in advance.

Also the border pop gives us Silk, which is even more happiness for us!




Sorry Thessalonica

Necromancy is for Entropy->Rust in the short term, but if we get our mana back from Tasunke we could possibly build the tower, which would make our specters and skeletons significantly more deadly. Sorcery is an option just to get Metamagic on a witch or two, but we can't get it now and I don't think it's worth it anyway. On a side note, I'm hoping we don't get the diplo malus from Entropy with neutral leaders. I don't think we ever got it for death so we should be safe.




Meanwhile, Sabathiel's superstack is still sitting in his cap. Not ideal, I really don't want that near us when we declare war again.




Tasunke has adepts with skeletons heading into Sabathiel's heartland. Hopefully he has more than that coming.




Yeah that's about what I was expecting.




Dang, I chose a bad time to move the hawk to my hunter. Seems like Sabathiel moved his super stack, presumably towards The adepts and skeletons. Or something else possibly.

I also return to building cash since there's nothing else worthwhile to finish soon. Skipping Iron Working is pretty brutal, but don't worry, there's a method to my madness.




Well that went as expected. I don't see any real stack of Tasunke's near Sabathiel, which is discouraging. Where is he hiding all that power?

Incidentally, Blight is about to become an issue. I'm queuing up granaries and smokehouses where needed in our bigger cities just so that when it happens we can regrow them sooner.




Anyway, our peace treaty is done, so it's time for some action.




Huh, well this seems like a weird line of attack. Sabathiel's stack is healing down south so it can't reach us this turn. I left a sizeable contingent in Grottiburg to protect it and our zone defense is around to provide additional support if needed. Also Kandros is still pleased with us (we got an extra religion modifier plus the liberation bonus) so hopefully he stays put this time.




Well that's a kick in the nuts.




Looks like Tasunke has SOME units nearby, but not nearly enough. I'm really curious as to what's going on.




Zone Defense stack takes the first city with fireballs and spectres. Sabathiel's gotta be careful, he could lose all his cities before his megastack has a chance to do anything.




The megastack is down there, so I decide to get a bit creative to see if I can't really mess him up.




First thing's first, goodbye copper. Probably should've done that from the start but eh.




Witches in position.




Blow up his road.

Dang, turns out hasting 0 movement units doesn't work. I thought it didn't but I was swinging for the fences

Nonetheless, no harm no foul.




One Charm Person and three Rusts later, Sabathiel's stack looks kinda like this I took a close look in F5 and besides catapults, only 26 of those units can attack next turn and only eleven of them are the chariots. A whopping 5 or so units kept their metal I put the zombies on the stack to protect it. They shouldn't be doing any major damage to it, or at least I hope so. Only one way to find out.




Well, the bad news, we lost about a dozen or so zombies from the stack attacking I guess those catapults made a huge difference in softening up the stack enough. The good news is that almost the entire stack is redlined to near death Only three fresh units remain to protect that entire stack. I wish more units had survived so we could counterattack more fully, but thankfully there are some reinforcements to save the day.

I played some of the turn before realizing that I should really just send it over to the next guy With that said, here's what I've been planning to do all along.




What is so important about this?




The plan is simple. We rust the units, hope for some good rolls, and then slam zombies into his face. We either then try to hold the city with mithril zombies or just grab the Hoard and run like hell. Sadly I lost the contingent of zombies I had sent to deal with the city being greedy trying to cripple Sabathiel's stack, but perhaps that was a blessing in disguise. I brought only a few witches with me with the zombies and I'm not entirely sure that would've been enough to take down Saverous even if he got rusted. I'm meeting up the rest of the zombies and witches for an assault on Sabathiel's capital. Taking care of his stack (keeping it locked in place with blinding light, keeping units charmed, etc.) and killing the units off will allow us to consolidate and prepare for one swift strike on Strattus. Sadly, since most of the zombies remaining don't have mobility I won't be able to one-turn the city like I planned, but using a hawk to perceive his lands shows that he doesn't have much in the way of reinforcements. I'll leave it to haphazard to decide how he wants to proceed, but having mithril zombies is a HUGE deal if we want to continue killing enough to reach a high score.

Just remember that Falamar has Lunatics running around literally everywhere, so have units in place to deal with them from all sides when they come in. Also he has Drowns, which can attack from the water, which is why I moved some of our zombies to the island city.

Oh, and one more thing.




Just a tiiiny little insurance policy in case things really go south The good part is that it only works on living units, so if we don't want any AC shenanigans we can still spam zombies with reckless abandon.

I'm not entirely happy with how I played against Sabathiel. As I said before I tend to be cavalier with my units and I fear I'm putting some of our precious witches in danger. Fortunately we got quite a few witches through the gates this turnset, so that's quite nice. Not a lot of good spells though. I also left our remaining nodes unimproved since I didn't want to commit to anything before later people played. Getting at least a death node will probably be worthwhile though, or I suppose just getting it back from Tasunke once we have the Hoard's gems.

Also our workers have had nothing to do, so I've had most of them building forts in our desert just in case. Might be worth sending them back soon to the east to improve Bannor lands once we get them.

EDIT - And I somehow completely forgot to mention that Tasunke summoned Basium. So that's something else