Anyone up for an EitB SG?

[Brian Shanahan]

Ok I've looked at the save, first job kill the tigers, we go from -26gpt to 63gpt or thereabouts, that's a ninety gold swing.

Then look to take the barb city, and maybe plant on the three one tile islands (in base BtS they'd be a no-brainer with trade routes and slavery, not 100% sure here), but with 69 gpt we can run 10% science or go binary after about ten turns or so. Thessa made a mess of the land financially I must say, though.

On war with Kandros, use your best judgement, as you'll know what you're doing.

[haphazard1]

OK have played five turns -- was busier than I expected so had less time available. And figuring out everything that was going on took a while -- the game is pretty busy at this point.

Main items:

- I decided against war with Kandros, at least for now. Instead I made some resource deals, trading him some of our extras for copper, horses, and a couple other resources we did not have. Our axemen have nice shiny bronze weapons now.
- Tigers were deleted for now. Our cities with carnivals already have tiiger cages; the AI understands that concept, at least.
- No research was done; I just banked some cash. Our economic situation is still pretty weak.
- That off shore barb city -- the AI is not so stupid after all. It can not be reached. At least one tile of ocean blocking the path. We might be able to cross via culture in the future after another border pop, but that is a long ways off if ever.
- I did found a city on the southern islands with the pearls. Not as good a site, but still worthwhile for trade route income. Our net cash flow jumped by 10 gold/turn, and once we pop the borders and get the pearls hooked up it will be even more profitable. We should mine the one tile hill island in the BFC for hammers once the border pops.
- We have a spot along the coast where we could plant another city to work some unused tiles; I have marked it with a sign but do not have a settler ready yet. I think it would be well worth having, longer term.
- Tebryn is continuing to assault Kandros, and is also threatening our southern colony cities. I have moved a force down there to support Kandros and try to defend if Tebryn attacks; we are still at war and he refuses to talk so far. Lots of Mobius Witches, stacks of death summons and pit beasts, etc. Not good.
- I have been building some devouts as anti-undead, but without XP they are more of a possible future option than something we can use right now. Anyway, they take time to build, as they are fairly expensive.
- Blight is still affecting our cities, but the worst starvation phase has passed. Still a lot of unhealthiness, so we probably want to keep Guardian of Nature a bit longer. I am not sure just what our happiness would look like without it, but we have a fair bit of spare happy almost everywhere.
- I set one raw node as a Body node for Haste and eventually Regeneration. The other two raw nodes are still unset; I marked the safer one as possibly for metamagic in the future, but whatever seems useful can be done.
- We have a force in Glens of Killybegs, plus the expeditionary force down south near our colony.
- I popped the two dungeons that were in our territory. Got an enraged lizardman from one, who was defeated and is now our slave. Got a free worker from the other. So more workers, basically. Meh.
- Falamar has created Mary Morbus.

I am likely to be busy for the next ouple days, so I will hand off here to DaveV. Sorry for the short set, I thought I would have more time today.

[DaveV]

OK, got it. I should have some time to play today and tomorrow.

[haphazard1]

Apologies for the short set. There is a ton going on in the game right now, and I just did not have enough time for a full set.

Our former selves (Tebryn, rather than our former-former selves the Hippus ) are moving a lot of units around near our southern colonies. Kandros had a fair number of units in the area, but did not seem to be doing very well against all the death summons, pit beasts, etc. The chances of us being next on the target list seem pretty high.

Good luck!

[Mr. Cairo]

I had a look at the save. That army heading down to confront the Sheim doesn't look too bad, lots of Priests with Destroy Undead. But we don't have any Life mana right now, so that should certainly be a goal. (Not sure how the AI managed to promote them all up the Life route without Life mana

Also, we do have 2 emergency buttons we can press. One being our world spell, and other being from Seven Pines, which lies within our territory.
Actually, make that 3 buttons, since we have Corindale, although that one should not be used lightly. Perhaps only if we have a unit with Life 3 and a graveyard nearby so we can resurrect him.

I do question whether the AI now in charge of all those Mobius Witches can really continue conquering. He's already lost Boulder Falls, one of the cities we captured with Summons. It seems likely they'll just sit their witches in Namp'o sending out summons over and over again, at least until they bring up some other units to garrison the city and cover the Witches. Or they'll march out with the Witches alone and we can swarm it with Tigers and Priests.

Edit: we have the Exalted Altar of the Luonnotar. That seems to be an easier route to victory than the Tower of Mastery, at least we don't have to go out conquering to get enough mana nodes to do so.

[DaveV]

Not sure how the AI managed to promote them all up the Life route without Life mana

Upgraded Devouts, I'm guessing. Not a bad strategy if we can acquire a pile of cash, actually: the Devouts don't get passive XP, while priests do.

[superjm]

I didn't even realize we had the Altar so developed. Guess the AI was good for something after all.

If we want to pursue that then we need to secure Kandros's Sun node and get mind and law going so we can start the tower, maybe get smelting for the forge and workshop hammers and get Commune With Nature or Rage. We would need piles of cash to get the research needed so conquering Kandros and getting all his land seems like the best way to do that. Oh and of course rebuild the Palace in the Altar city so we can max it out with God King.

Also, rather than mining the hill on our island city, I'm pretty sure we can just plop another city there, no?

[DaveV]

Although the Altar is probably the most thematic way to win the game, we need Divine Essence to build it, and that's a *long* way off.

I played ten turns, mostly consisting of destroy undead, throw in lots of tigers until the priests get >95% odds, mop up, rinse and repeat. It hasn't been good for our war weariness, but it's a very good way to kill spectres, skeletons, zombies, and their handlers.

Here's where Tebryn's big stack of witches used to live:



And I kept going, because why not:



Here's what Tebryn offers for peace. He still has a lot of cities and several big stacks of zombies. Maybe it's better to let him wear himself out against one of the other AIs?

[DaveV]

More notes: I pillaged the fur camps in the northwest so I could Bloom them. Then I forgot how it works, camped them before Bloom finished, and had to start over. Apparently, you have to wait the full two turns, until the new forest appears. Then you can move in with the workers.

Sacking the Sheaim cities has given us some cash, which could be used to rush some improvements (like the reliquary on our island city).

I have several settlers being built, to fill in the gaps. We have several Spring adepts, and could turn some of those deserts into decent land for cities. Also, I agree with superjm on building a second island city instead of a mine.

We have three hawks in former Sheaim cities. Tebryn has lots of zombies and summons running around, so I've been keeping a careful eye on the horizon.

We're starting to have unhappy cities because of the war.

[Mr. Cairo]

Good set of turns, always funny in one of these games to swap and immediately start beating up on your former self.

I'm in favour of peace with the Sheaim, but leaving them Gridmok. We want them and the dwarves to have a decent sized border to fight over. If we can attack Kandros while the bulk of his army is up in mountainous tundra to the north, then all the better. Will they give any other city away? Maybe a former Hippus one?

One other thing, just checked the tech tree in-game and the final Altar only requires Divine Essence, not Omni. So it's no farther away, and would require a lot less set up, than Tower of Mastery.
Edit: you fixed that